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dreamrecorder · 3 years

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Until then, we will find each other again. <||>

fluff & angst drabble, reincarnation au, modern au

| Xiao x Reader | Diluc x Reader |

Note: I'm sorry that I can't put the cut thingy bcos im writing in mobile. Once I get ahold of my laptop I'll put the cut thingy. Happy reading^^ i swear these were supposed to be short but welp

Xiao

Notes: Immortal companion* - Just think of someone immortal from the game. This is also a different take from Venti's and Zhongli's because I honestly think Xiao is so done with immortality and its consequences.

Suicide implicitly mentioned.**

Xiao is mourning for the passing of his immortal companion*, making him the last immortal to walk the world. Now, it is he, who last remains from a time of gods and monsters. Each passing of a mutual, he witnessed. They deemed it was their time to move on, for humanity has succeeded to bring fate into their own two hands. The world no longer needed them.

Xiao has already suffered loss way before the Archon War. Yet, he never expressed the emotion of grief for he needed to be strong lest the world will eat him alive. However, this passing made his heart of glass, chip a little, then shattering the whole thing altogether. Or perhaps, it was already chipped away and too fragile because of the losses that has culminated in his immortal life.

Now, he lays on the roof of a building of what used to be Wangshu Inn. He was trying hard not to break down again. By doing so, he merely cursed fate over and over again. Yet, to no avail, the man exploded in tears once more, too tired from all the pain and loss suffered from millenias.

Then... there's you. You who uttered the words, "Until then, we will find each other again."

With all sincerity he can muster, he wanted to believe those words. He wanted to believe in you. That's why he stayed. Yet... the pain he feels heavily overweighs his faith in you.

He just wants to... end it all.

"I just want to disappear..."

No one heard him utter those words, only the wind. And the wind- just as once the Anemo Archon had said, carries the words one thinks no one can hear.

It came like a whisper, yet loud and clear. Then all of a sudden, the memories of your previous life flashed before your eyes. You dropped the book you were holding and held your temples at the incoming migraine.

"Are you alright?" You friends asked in worry, looking for any visible signs of pain aside from your clenched eyes and your frowning expression.

You could only groan as a reply and your friends waited for you to take your time to recollect yourself.

Who... Whose voice? You knew this voice... But who?

You finally removed your hands and opened your eyes.

"I- I have to go... Go without me." Was all you said before leaving your friends in the dust who looked at your way with confusion.

Who? Many questions riddled your mind. And with all these unanswered, worry and anxiety grew in your heart. Tears began to swell in your eyes, worsening your headache.

This is not about you! You have to look for... something! Someone! Just-

"Dear gods, please please don't you dare fucking take him..."

You sprinted around the area, following and listening to that now faint whisper under the night. The whispers only became clearer and louder when you approached a building which used to be an inn.

The moment you stepped foot within the building, the lone whisper became mixed with more words which did not lift your heart.

Fuck.

With pure adrenaline, you opted to use the stairs instead of the damn elevator. You have finally reached the door leading to the rooftop, and at that point, the whispers became screams. However, when your hand grasped the handle, the voice in the wind stopped. You opened the door at full to be met by the back of the man who stands at the railing.

Xiao...?

Xiao..

Xiao.

"Xiao!"

At the call of his name by a familiar voice, his head whipped to its direction. But he shall not be fooled.

"You... you're not real."

The words along with lifeless eyes stabbed you.

"It's me, Xiao! Y/n! Don't do this! I'm sorry I took so long! But I'm here now! Just as I had promised!"

Your heart was beating against your ribcage. You had to prove you were real. But how?

"You're just an illusion made by my heart."

"Xiao, please! Fuck I'm really sorry! But please you don't have to do this... I... I remember everything, Xiao... All those times we battled in the war. Those times we shared almond tofu. The times we smiled, cried, laughed, and fought...

I remember everything..."

For each word you uttered, you grew confident in your memories. For each word, you took a step closer. For each word, you saw life coming back to the man you love.

"So please... Come back..."

At the final word, you released all your sincerity, genuity, and adoration for him. And finally, your hands took purchase in his (while trying so hard not to shed any tear for his sake).

"It's me."

...

"Y/n...?"

You beamed at him and finally, Xiao's eyes were now shining in clarity, and of course, life and love.

Diluc has been reincarnated many times, yet still has not found you. Through his reincarnated forms, he alternated between travelling and staying in Mondstadt. The former done in order to find you. The latter done in the chance you would find him there.

Diluc

For the first time in his many lifetimes, his current form surprised him. When he reached 'sixteen', his memories resurfaced and the realization sank in. His appearance ended just as how he looked in his first ever lifetime. The only difference was the length of his hair. He even ended up being reincarnated in the Ragnvindr Family along with inheriting the winery business.

To put it bluntly, walking within the old yet maintained Ragnvindr Mansion was a memory lane. However, the moment of reminiscence only gave him a heavy heart, for within these halls used to be filled with your laughter.

In this very same spot where he currently stands, is where you uttered your last words.

"Until then, we will find each other again."

Walking aimlessly around the mansion, he thinks about those long, long years without you. Must be fate so cruel? Making him search far and wide, when in the end fate does not want you to return to him? The man clenched his fists, and in anger, punched the nearby wall.

He expected a bursting kind of pain to come, yet what came was a dull throb on his knuckles. Yet this is not only what he had not expected. He did not expect for the wall to respond with a resounding hollowness.

A hidden corridor? Room? When had the family installed this?

Curiosity held him and began kicking the hollow wall without hesitation. What secrets does it hide from all these years, he shall know. Once the wall opened up for him to fit, he entered with a lit phone in hand at extreme brightness.

Again, what he saw, he had not expected. What he saw both filled and emptied his heart simultaneously. What he saw was a painting of you and him, together in a moment of shared happiness.

"Dilu-" His mother called which snapped out of his trance. His head snapped at her direction and saw her eyes fill with solemness.

"I didn't mean to-"

His mother hushed him with a gentle smile and entered the room to stand alongside him.

"You know," his mother began, "I always believed in the fantasy that had been once in our world. Lord Barbatos, the other Archons, the Twins that saved our world, Visions, and... reincarnation. I always believed in them.

The moment I saw your features when you were born, I knew you were the reincarnation of the Uncrowned King of Mondstadt... So I named you after him because I knew your memories would resurface someday. I knew the day would come when my son will no longer be my son. Because when that day comes, all I would see in your eyes is a long unspoken wisdom and pain that will replace your innocence free from battles and war."

Diluc was surprised, yet kept his emotions to himself. He understood what his mother was pointing at. "Is... Is this why this picture is hidden?"

His mother nodded solemnly. "Perhaps, I was afraid and scared about when the day I spoke of will take place. That's why I ordered this painting be hidden. I knew this painting of you and Lady Y/n will unlock your memories sooner, but I didn't want that."

For once in his lifetimes, his heart softened with love. The kind of love that assures you that someone cares for you. Never in his reincarnated lifetimes, had he experienced this feeling. All those years, he was just... lost in the feelings and thoughts of not being with you.

The man stepped towards his mother with hesitation to which he instantly erased. He hugged his mother with a soft spoken voice saying these words.

"I will always be your son and you will always be my mother. That will never change. I may be 'older' than you, but please do remember that I would not have grown to who am I today without your guidance. For that, I deeply thank you for taking care of me...

I love you, Mom."

With his words, his mother burst into light tears accompanied by a smile. "Don't make me cry, I'm going to wrinkle." Diluc laughed at the comment. After a loving moment, the two separated yet his mother still held onto his arms.

"You've grown so much... I guess little birds do leave the nest someday."

"It wouldn't be possible without you."

His mother looked at him with a proud gaze, "Go. Find her. If memory serves right, I might have seen someone like her dwell everyday in the local library."

The man released his breath he never knew he was holding. Diluc hugged his mom again with a peck on her cheek. He then let go and began to exit the room with haste.

"Once I come home, I will tell you everything. Venti, Morax, the Twin Travelers, the Archons, and Visions. I will tell you everything."

With a rush, Diluc was now out of sight. Yet, the Madam Ragnvindr was not saddened. Her heart swelled for her son whose eyes are finally, once more lit with happiness. However, who's Venti?

A/n: welp truth be told diluc's story took an unexpected turn lol. It's either I'm going to leave this like that or continue it. Take your pick by commenting because I'm actually fine with either options haha happy reading <3

#genshin impact #genshin impact x reader #diluc genshin impact #diluc #diluc ragnvindr #xiao genshin impact #xiao #diluc x reader #xiao x reader #genshin imagines

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heliads · 3 years

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Top Initiate

As an Amity transfer, you’ll have to work pretty hard to survive the initiation process into Dauntless. Good thing you’re more than prepared, especially as you grow closer to Eric Coulter.

masterlist

You had always had a fiery temper for an Amity. You weren’t sure how long you’d had this heated frustration, but it had simmered behind your mind every time you were forced to put on a smile, pretend the world was happy, and grin like everyone had your back.

It frustrated you to no end that every Amity was so naïve, so trusting. They would let anyone walk all over them, believing every lie without having to be a Candor. They were just so placid, so lacking in genuine character, so- pretentious, maybe.

You suppose it wasn’t a surprise that you found yourself in the middle of the Choosing Ceremony, unflinchingly slicing open your palm and casting your blood onto the smoldering rocks of Dauntless. When you look back up at the crowd, you can barely see the disappointed looks on the faces of your family, too focused instead on the black-clad arms welcoming you into your new faction. This is where it all begins.

As you take your place among the other Dauntless trainees, you can hear whispers behind you. It’s rare that an Amity would transfer to Dauntless, even rarer than the odd Abnegation that somehow makes the same decision you did, so you’ve already managed to garner a fair amount of attention. Before you know it, the Choosing Ceremony is over, and you’re running free with the Dauntless towards the trains. Sprinting out of the darkness of the building into the bright glow of daylight, hearing the whooping and hollering of the Dauntless around you, everything culminates in this amazing feeling bursting out of your chest that tells you that you made the right choice for your faction.

Your first test comes after everyone has made their way to the rusting train tracks and you’re told that you’ll have to jump onto the train. The wind blows your hair back from your face, and your feet are pounding as you try desperately to keep pace with the quickly departing train. A split-second decision, and you throw yourself onto the train, grabbing gratefully onto an outstretched hand and pulling yourself inside. You give yourself a few quick breaths to calm down, then turn around in a slow semicircle to get your bearings.

The rest of the initiates are clustered around you on the train, all in the same state of ruckus and disheveled chaos as you. Slowly, you feel more and more eyes on you, taking in your bright yellow garb and status as a former Amity. So you’re not exactly blending into the crowd, fine, but at least you’re here. That’s a start.

You’re distracted from thoughts on factions when someone shouts out from a distant corner of the train car that you’ll be heading out once more. You watch as some of the other Dauntless jump from the train, landing in a controlled roll on the gravel-carpeted roof. Before you can psych yourself out, you leap from the train, reveling in the moment of free fall as you hang suspended in the air. Your heart feels like a bird caged in your chest, let out only when you hit the ground in a stumbling run.

As the rest of the initiates start to jump out of the train as well, you all shuffle into a circle around the Dauntless leaders. One of them, an arrogantly confident man with tattoos slicing up his neck, begins to speak. “I’m Eric, one of the leaders. You wanted to join Dauntless? This is the way in.” He gestures to chasm behind him, an empty pit spanning the gulf between the rooftops. From what you can see below, there’s nothing there save a broken hole at the bottom.

Eric turns back to the group. “So, who’s first?” Around you comes the sound of nervous muttering, and no one steps forward. A thought comes to you- this is the way to prove yourself. Everyone’s already singled you out as the weak one because you’re Amity, right? Let’s change their minds.

If people weren’t already staring at you, they are now, as you make your way to the rooftop edge. Eric raises an eyebrow at you, but says nothing. You climb onto the ledge of the roof, forcing yourself to stand tall despite the gaping distance below you.

From behind you comes the mocking voice of some gangly Candor boy. “You scared, Amity? I don’t think telling the ground you love it will stop you from breaking your neck.” You turn around, facing him and the rest of the group. “Trust me, I’m not scared.” With that, you spread your arms and fall backwards. The last sight you see are the shocked faces of the initiates rushing away from you, Eric being the only one to look intrigued.

Your journey to the bottom is over far faster than you expected, your fall being broken by the squeak of springs on a massive net. You’re helped out by a tall, brown-haired boy, and shakily give your name when he asks. His voice echoes around the hall. “First jumper- Y/N.”

By the time the other initiates arrive one by one off of the ledge, you’ve had plenty of time to take in your surroundings. Dark rooms, high ceilings, dozens of other Dauntless pretending to look busy but stopping by to see the fresh blood.

You and the rest of the trainees are directed into a series of rooms, and you’re all too happy to switch out your faded yellow for some Dauntless black. From there, it’s time to start your training.

You’re actually better at this than you thought. After the first few days, you pick up fighting really easily. Maybe it’s because everyone expects you to be terrible (you were Amity, after all), or maybe because you finally stop holding yourself back, allowing yourself to beat the other kids into a bloody unconsciousness. You were first jumper, and so you had the privilege of taking part in the first fight. It goes very well for you- barely a few minutes in, you had already won. The girl on the ground in front of you had to limp away muttering excuses to her friends, and you got to enjoy your victory.

Before long, you had quickly risen through the ranks to become one of the highest on the rankings. You win fight after fight, always walking away with bloodied knuckles and surprisingly, a few words of advice from Eric later.

You’re not sure why, but the Dauntless leader had taken an interest in you. He almost never spoke to initiates except to criticize their form, but for you, he almost seemed agreeable. Maybe it’s just because you beat up everyone in front of you, but he still seemed to treat you like one of the only initiates worth mentioning.

The days at training go by faster than you’d like, and you find yourself in the dining hall only a few days away before Stage One of training ends. The last few fights will take place over the next couple of days, but your ranking is high enough that you have nothing to fear.

A few seats down from you, though, is a boy who definitely has a lot to lose. You’ve done the math, and he should be the last person you’ll fight in Stage One. He keeps looking over at you, nervous, and is in the middle of a hushed but frantic conversation with his other friends. You suppose he’s right to be afraid- if he loses this fight (and it’s almost certain that he will), his ranking will go down enough that he’ll probably be under the line and get cut.

After dinner, you swing by training to get in some last minute practice. It’s late when you finish, and the halls are empty by the time you start heading back to the living quarters. You’re surprised when you hear a noise behind you, almost like the footsteps of someone trying hard not to make a sound. You turn around to see what’s there, but you’re just a few seconds too late.

When the first hit lands, you’re flung to the ground. Distantly, you can make out the figures of multiple Dauntless initiates. You exchange blows, fighting as hard as you can, but it’s no use. No matter how good you are, there are too many and they caught you by surprise. Your hits come slower and slower, and everything around you seems almost unreal, too blurry to focus.

From a hallway in front of you comes a distant shout. The initiates look up, suddenly afraid, and take off running. You try to get up, but you can’t move or do anything except lie there. The owner of the mysterious voice comes up to you, and slowly, you realize it’s Eric. He’s saying something, but you can’t quite make it out. There’s a ringing in your ears, and Eric looks worried, far more worried than you’ve ever seen him before. You don’t have much time to think about that, though, because the world is starting to fade into nothingness.

When your eyes finally blink open, you’re surprised to find yourself in the medical wing. Dazed, you start to sit up and instantly regret it as your head starts pounding. As you lay back down, you look at yourself and are stunned to see your arms covered in bandages. There’s a faintly metallic taste in your mouth, and it takes a moment for you to realize it’s blood.

A woman comes up to you once she realizes you’re awake. “Oh, good, you’re up. We were hoping you’d be conscious soon.” You blink up at her, succeeding at sitting up this time. “How long was I out?” The woman clucks her tongue in annoyance. “Two days. I’m so angry with whoever attacked you, Eric said it was too many on one. Completely out of line.”

You raise your eyebrows. “Eric?” The woman grins as she checks your bandages. “You’re healing nicely, that’s good. Yes, Eric’s been here more than a couple of times. I think he’s here now, actually. I’ll tell him you’re up. I haven’t seen him this concerned about an initiate in a while.” With that, she walks briskly towards a far corner of the room, leaving you feeling confused. Why has Eric been so worried?

By the time you’re starting to stand up, Eric has found you. “Good to see you’re up, initiate. You had me worried for a second.” You can’t help a grin. “I heard about that. Didn’t know you were so involved in the affairs of a trainee.” He rolls his eyes, but then a sudden thought occurs to you. “Wait, what happened to my ranking? The nurse said I’d been out for a few days!”

Eric laughs. “You’re unconscious for several days, and the first thing you ask about is your ranking? You’re a Dauntless for sure.” At your fixed stare, he sighs in mock exasperation. “Yes, your ranking is fine. You’re not going anywhere, that’s for sure.” You nod determinedly. “Good, because I’ve got a few scores to settle.”

By the time you’ve been deemed healthy enough to fight once more, you’ve built up enough wrathful energy to strut confidently to the training room. Last fights are just wrapping up, and Eric nods at you in greeting from across the room. After the last match is finished, you walk onto the ring. “Logan. Let’s fight.”

Logan, the boy you were supposed to fight in the last round a few days ago, reluctantly joins you in the ring after receiving a pointed stare from Eric. As he stands before you, arms raised in preparation, another memory of his face flashes before you- that night a few days ago, when he had attacked you to save his spot in the rankings.

The fight is over quickly, with him lying unconscious and beaten on the ground in front of you. You simply move his body to the side and speak once more. “Jordan.” The process is repeated- same attacker from earlier, same fate. “Shawn.” “Nathan.”

Finally, the four boys are on the ground in front of you, blinking dazedly after being soundly beaten. Finally, you speak to them, voice loud enough to carry throughout the entire training room.

“You know why I wanted to pull this little stunt? Three days ago, you tried to ambush me after practice because you knew the only way you could survive in Dauntless was to avoid a fight with me. You thought trying to kill me was the only way you’d live, so let me tell you this- Dauntless is no place for you. Not today. Not after this. When you’re out living with the factionless, think of me. I’ll be here, doing far better than you could have ever dreamed.” With that, you leave the fighting ring, leaving a few other initiates to drag their bodies to the medical wing.

You stand at the side of the room, watching a few cowed initiates begin their own fights. Eric strides over to you, mouth twitching like he’s trying to hold back a laugh. “You here to reprimand me for beating up your trainees?” Eric just smirks. “They’re not my top initiate. You are. And besides, I think that was the best thing I’ve seen here in a while.”

You look over at him, grinning. “You sure that’s due to the fights, or because it’s me?” Eric raises his eyebrows, intrigued. “What are you trying to say?” You return his gaze. “I was told that you checked in on me all the time while I was unconscious. Got an explanation for that?”

Eric chuckles, folding his arms over his chest and looking back out over the training room. “I had to make sure you were going to be alright. Suppose you’re important to me.” You look back at him, and can’t help a smile. Life in Dauntless is going pretty well.

#divergent #eric coulter #eric coulter imagine #eric coulter x reader #eric coulter imagines #divergent eric coulter #divergent eric imagine #dauntless #dauntless imagine #dauntless x reader #divergent imagine #divergent x reader

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quillandink333 · 3 years

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Scarlet Carnations ~ Epilogue

BotW Link X Zelda ~ Detective AU

Rating: T

Word Count: 1.7k

WARNINGS: death, murder, loss, trauma, blood and gore, terrorism, organized crime, self-harm

Summary: Inspector Zelda Hyrule, assisted by the faithful Constable Link Fyori, is infamous for cracking the most confounding of cases in a town dominated by crime. Her latest assignment is to solve the murder of her own godmother, Impa Sheikah, the late CEO of Sheikah Tech. Incorporated, while staying under the radar of the dreaded Yiga organization.

Part I • Part II • Part III • Part IV • Part V • Part VI • Part VII • Epilogue • Masterlist

The first couple of weeks following the incident that had taken my long-lost mother from me was misery in its purest form. Link and I didn’t speak, not even by phone, during that whole stretch of time. In fact, I could rarely bring myself to answer the phone at all. The memory was still too vivid, the wounds still too fresh.

He’d gotten off scot-free in the end as he’d been deemed to have acted in the defence of others—namely, of me. It wasn’t long before I learned of his plea, that if I hadn’t come along quietly, I would have suffered the same fate that he’d brought upon her, and they had believed him. How I felt about this was still something I was struggling to wrap my endlessly pounding head around.

As dark and deep as this seemingly bottomless pit of despair that I’d found myself plummeting down was, however, someone did eventually toss a rope down for me. The time I spent apart from Link gave me the opportunity to properly reconcile with those whom I myself had wronged: Auntie Purah and Paya. The former and I found comfort in our mutual grieving, and even as Paya had never really known my mother well enough to mourn her loss (though, arguably, it seemed no one had ever truly known her), she was more gracious and understanding than I or anyone else would have been, which only made me regret even more deeply my past transgressions toward her.

One day, during one of our continual conversations, she shifted to the topic of the Yiga leader’s executioner. How she could even think of him at a time like this was beyond me, but I digressed. I told her everything from start to finish. It was the first time I’d allowed myself to talk to anyone about it at length. As I spoke, she listened calmly and carefully. Despite what I’d have liked to believe, she had always been the more levelheaded one out of the two of us, save for when it came to discussing things about herself.

By the time I finished, I’d begun bouncing my still healing ankle back and forth, which I’d crossed over my other leg to keep it from touching the ground. I didn’t stop even after I noticed what I was doing.

“It’s painfully clear to see how conflicted you are about all this.” Coming to sit beside me on the sofa in the Sheikahs’ sitting room, Paya placed an affectionate palm on my thigh, bringing its restless jittering to a halt. “I understand how hard this must be for you. But the way I see it, there’s only one question you need ask yourself at the end of the day.”

Whatever she was about to say, it wouldn’t be an easy pill to swallow, would it? I straightened my posture. “And what would that be?”

“Between the two of them, who do you think was the better person?”

She was looking me dead in the eyes, her hand still resting upon my leg. I uncrossed them.

I’d never thought to compare the two before. What reason would I have had to do so? But now that she’d mentioned it, I hadn’t realized how few memories I even had left of my mother, and the ones that remained were blurry and vague beyond any hope of being recovered. If only she hadn’t left me with the Sheikahs all those years ago, maybe I could have remembered more clearly what kind of person she had been.

On the other hand, Link had always been there for me. Even during the times when circumstances had driven us apart, the thought of him was what had kept my flame burning strong and hot throughout each arctic day, and what had protected me from myself, keeping me from doing the irreparable. He had stayed by my side to the bitter end.

No matter how I’d reflected back on that day previously, the sight of his steely, focused stare and the sound of his crazed breaths, short and sharp, had been ever dominant. But now, I recalled the way those eyes had then glazed over with unadulterated horror. How his arms had shivered as they’d clung to my broken form and how they’d continue to cling for what would feel like millennia until the rest of his unit would finally stumble upon the scene.

My stepsister-of-sorts gave my leg a soft squeeze as I looked back at her with a tremor in my lip. “He s...saved me,” I whimpered. “Didn’t he?”

After a month apart, I made plans with Link for a night out on the pier, where we would celebrate the end of the Organization. The ice cream I’d promised him was at the top of my list of priorities for the evening. Tonight was a dessert-first night anyway, I’d decided. From there, we went and found ourselves a bite to eat at a seafood restaurant within walking distance. I’d hoped eating with him would feel like old times, but he hardly spoke a word throughout the whole meal. I tried lightening the mood with some banter, but this proved ineffective when he brushed off everything I said with mere one or two-word replies.

It wasn’t until I’d gotten us both a bit of something to drink that he finally broke the silence. “Have you...” he started, but lost the confidence to continue.

I perked up at the sound of his voice, wanting to hear more of it. “Have I...?”

“A-Ah...” His fingers poked at the copious amount of chips piled onto his plate next to the practically untouched fillet of fried fish. “I was just wondering if you’ve thought about what you’re going to do now, since...you know...you’re not a detective anymore.”

“Ah, right. That.” I took another sip of my drink, its contents long having fled my memory. “Actually, my auntie talked about it with me and she said she’d consider letting me inherit the company once I’ve acquired the proper education. So to answer your question, I’m thinking about going to school for engineering.”

His brows rose. “Oh! My, that’s—” He cleared his throat. “That’s brilliant. I’m happy for you.”

I thanked him with a hesitant grin, then asked, “How about you? Do you plan to stay on with the force, or...?”

“Ahh, well...” What little there’d been of an upward turn in his lips vanished. “I’m not sure, to tell you the truth. It’s something I’ve been mulling over for a while now. Whether to stay on and honour my father’s work, or...whatever other options are available, I suppose.”

“Do you want to hear what I think?” He raised his head. “I think you should do whatever you think would make you happiest. That’s what you’re father would have wanted, I’m sure.”

This finally, finally, got a real, unsubdued smile out of him. And I intended to milk that smile for all it was worth.

After dinner, I dragged him back down to the arcade on the pier, where I managed to ring a few laughs out of him while we were still a bit tipsy. We steered clear of the toy gun target-type games, favouring other stands like the ring toss where he won me a plush frog that I could only just get my arms all the way around. His aim was spectacular, especially for someone who wasn’t entirely sober. Not only that, but I could never have imagined how sweet and charming he would be like this. For a fleeting moment, it felt as though we’d gone back in time again. That, or the light from the setting sun was playing tricks on me.

But by the end of the evening, he’d reverted back to that quiet, reclusive version of himself that I’d quickly grown to detest. We were out on the docks now, facing the sea. The breeze carried a mist of saltwater within its bows. I breathed it in, soaking up the feeling of it hitting me softly and coolly in the face. A hint of pink in my partner’s cheeks caught my eye, and I wondered whether it was the cocktails or my arms, which were currently wound about his waist from behind.

“Beautiful sunset,” I tried, hoping I could get him to spare me a glance at least. “Isn’t it?” But to no avail. He only continued to gaze westward at the rippling flames reflected in the water. “Hey...” Before I knew what I was doing, my palm had found the warmth of his cheek, and there was hardly an inch or two of distance between the tips of our noses. Without giving myself time to think, I tilted my head, leaned in, and started to close my eyes.

But when I realized he wasn’t doing the same, I halted. On the contrary, he’d been leaning back and away from my advances, his back so rigid and shoulders so stiff it were as though he would sprout wings and bolt were I to make any sudden moves.

“What’s wrong?”

A harsh, jagged exhale. “Zelda, I just can’t—” He grabbed both my wrists and wrenched my arms off of him. “I’m sorry. We can’t do this.” He was bent over the railing, arms folded in on each other. “Not now,” he said, dwindling, “after I’ve gone and...murdered your only family.” A weary chuckle shook him by the shoulders before he raked his hands through his wind-tousled hair.

I fell into quiet thought for a moment. Then, taking a long, thorough breath, I placed a feather-light set of fingertips atop his own. “That woman was never my family.” I’d made up my mind. Figuratively or otherwise, my real mother had moved on a long time ago. And it was time I did the same.

Link must have seen the resolve in my eyes or heard it in my voice, because now he was looking back at me openly, his body turned to face me. Though there was still an air of uncertainty lingering about him as he ran the crease of his cuff between his fingers again and again. But when I brought my arms around him and held him close, he sank into my lips, returning my embrace at long last. A lone pair of tears fell from my eyes the moment they fluttered closed—a culmination of all past ordeals—and as they fell, I couldn’t help but smile.

#my writing #fanfic #botw #zelink #botw zelink #zelink botw #link x zelda #zelda x link #botw link x zelda #botw zelda x link #zelda pov #detective au

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ramonadecember · 2 years

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Hmmm it was hard to just pick these for Ivan BUT 🐺

1, 2, 4, 5, 11, 15? 20, 21, 22, 38, 44

look i'm still going through these slowly lmao.

my little wolf boy, my little pup. we love a childhood friend to war criminal to to friend to lover story.

1. Does your character have siblings or family members in their age group? Which one are they closest with?

Unfortunately Ivan does not. Not only is he an only child, but he’s the only child of an only child, and with his father not in the picture, it leaves very little in the way of family at all, let alone anyone in his age bracket. There is/is maybe some more extended family out there, or perhaps even… half siblings or something of that nature (he tries not to put much thought into his father or what he might be up to or if he’s even alive…). So as far as Ivan is concerned, it’s just him.

2. What is/was your character’s relationship with their mother like?

Ivan is a bit of a mama’s boy lmao. A lot of that stems from the fact that like, she’s his only family. He sometimes… questions some of the decisions his mother has made, but ultimately he knows that everything she’s done, she’s done out of love, and that she’s just doing the best she can/knows how. Ivan also knows that HE has done some questionable things, but for the most part it hadn’t mattered as long as he made her proud in the end.

4. Has your character ever witnessed something that fundamentally changed them? If so, does anyone else know?

The thing that I can think of (and the thing I think YOU are thinking of lol) is more like… the final tipping point in fundamentally changing Ivan. A culmination of many things witnessed instead of just one moment. And that’d be Ivan seeing the extensive scarring Sasha has. Bit by bit Ivan was starting to realize that he was uh, on the wrong side of the war (thanks to—short version of the story—some elaborate lying on Bannan’s part that that saw Ivan being healed by/living amongst the people he up until then was fighting against/considered his enemy), but seeing the horrors of what his (now former) side had done written into the skin of someone he’d grown to care for dearly really shook him up, and realizing that HE was actually the one who caused that damage (Sasha CAN’T know) was really the final straw in realizing he needed to… stop being the way he was, do better. He got a little bit sidetracked for a bit with guilt and thinking any sort of ‘redemption’ was futile, but he got there.

5. On an average day, what can be found in your character’s pockets?

Not much, he travels pretty light (see: his pants are too tight for much lmao). Couple of coins, small trinket/token likely from Bannan or Sasha, other little things he’s snitched over the course of the day when no one was looking.

11. In what situation was your character the most afraid they’ve ever been?

Near dying probably takes the cake for that one. Ivan spent a lot of time being real cavalier about his life, under the impression that it didn’t much matter to him whether he lived or died. Then came the time that he got absolutely wrecked on a job gone wrong. Ivan learned in an instant that he did in fact want to live, but by that point he didn’t know if he’d be able to get himself to any sort of help in time, and he was terrified. Lucky for him, he knows a good doctor. (A close second is probably having to be the one to free a captured Cullen, but even you don’t know that bit of story yet lol).

15. Is your character preoccupied with money or material possession? Why or why not?

Nah, not really Ivan’s concern. He’s never really had a plethora of wealth or possessions. When he was young and his mom was still working at the palace, they did well enough and Ivan never felt like he was lacking anything, but when fighting broke out and she decided the best/safest bet was not on the side of the Crown/that her allegiances lay elsewhere, she left her position there and whisked Ivan away (without him so much as getting to say goodbye to Bannan). They had to make do on lesser means after that. Most of what Ivan has is more sentimental than anything of actual value. And he gets real flustered over receiving any type of gift.

20. In what ways does your character compare themselves to others? Do they do this for the sake of self-validation, or self-criticism?

Ivan compares himself to just about everyone he meets. His mind starts turning with all the ways he’s not as good as everyone else, even/especially the people he’s closest to. Always thinking about how kind and compassionate Sasha manages to be even though they’ve both been through similar levels of awful shit, and how Cullen is the strongest person he’s met both physically and mentally/emotionally, and the fact that Bannan is like… a literal Prince Charming. Ivan thinks he falls so short in comparison to the three of them and doesn’t have a clue what they see in him.

21. If something tragic or negative happens to your character, do they believe they may have caused or deserved it, or are they quick to blame others?

He’s pretty quick to blame others for his misfortune, or at least he used to be. It was more of like, a ‘blaming a higher power’ type of blaming other people than directing it at an individual. But now that he has reevaluated some life choices and left the ~bad guys~ to instead align himself with the Crown, the main thing he used to blame for all his woes, it’s not so easy to do that. He’s had to start taking more responsibility for the things that happen in his life. Post-switching sides, Ivan definitely went through a phase where he thought he deserved the bad things that have happened to him because of all the bad that he’s done, but having the people around him acknowledge the bad and be willing to move on from it makes it so that blame is not usually kept to only his mopier moments.

22. What does your character like in other people?

Straight-forwardness, because he doesn’t like to beat around the bush and doesn’t like others wasting his time by doing it either. The ability to say sorry, because it’s something he’s working on being better at too. Self-sufficiency, because he’s not one to coddle.

38. Is your character more likely to remove a problem/threat, or remove themselves from a problem/threat?

Remove himself! Ivan prefers to slip in, do what needs to be done, and get out. The less people who are even aware of his presence the better. So if he has the option to remove himself, he will. But if that’s NOT an option, Ivan has a tendency to act akin to a cornered animal. He’s a snarly little thing.

44. How easy or difficult is it for your character to say “I love you?” Can they say it without meaning it?

When he really feels it? It comes out pretty easily, feels only natural to say it. But I think it can take him a while to actually get there, to know what he’s feeling is in fact love. And I doubt he’d say it if he doesn’t mean it, not necessarily because of some heavy meaningful weight he puts on the word, but because he’s not the type of person to just tell people what they wanna hear (not that that’s gotten him into trouble before or anything… lmao).

#3 of 4 of the /oc/ oc's #from this particular story lmao #oc: ivan #oc tag #ask memes #oc memes

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minipliny · 3 years

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Sometimes writing a letter works!

It’s that time of the year again, and by that I mean THE most important winter holiday: Amnesty International’s Write for Rights campaign.

I have been a member since high school, which is how I threw the least fun and least attended human rights themed teen party in the world. One of the maths teachers turned up, but only because he thought we had thrown him a surprise birthday party and I didn’t have the heart to tell him no. The barbed wire decorated balloons we had spent hours blowing up jostled in a sad mass around our feet.

But - especially if you are feeling isolated and powerless right now - writing a letter (or email, or Tweet) can be powerful and can change things, and in my life it’s been my go-to when I don’t have the time or energy to do any more. I’ll never forget writing a card and posting it to a political prisoner and then getting a reply back from them in prison - realising I’d touched someone’s life directly and let them know that they weren’t forgotten, and that that pile of letters and cards could mean better treatment for them.

Anyway, this has been an awful year, there are a thousand and one things to get to solving, but I just wanted to link to Write for Rights with Amnesty USA and Write for Rights with Amnesty International, where you can take about 5 minutes to stand with Indigenous land defenders, the women who campaigned for the right to drive in Saudi Arabia and remain in prison as a result, a human rights campaigner jailed for 32 years in Burundi, Turkish LGBT rights activist, a Black teenager in Chicago shot at a gas station, and families detained by ICE.

And I also wanted to share some of the good news stories from Amnesty, because it’s really easy to feel like nothing you do makes a difference:

“I am very honored to be among the cases that you have selected for your Write for Rights campaign. I am honored to know people like you who denounce the injustices committed by the authorities and governments. You have brought joy into my heart. Thank you.” - Mahadine, Write for Rights 2017

Mahadine, an online activist in Chad, was released on April 5th, 2018 after spending more than 18 months in prison on fabricated charges. He had been facing a life sentence for a Facebook post critical of the government.

“Receiving your letters really comforted me when I was in prison. Thank you!” - Muhammad Bekzhanov, Write for Rights 2015

Muhammad Bekzhanov, a journalist in Uzbekistan, languished in jail for 17 long years until his release in 2017. His prison sentence was handed down after an unfair trial and severe torture, and arbitrarily extended by the authorities for Bekzhanov’s political activism. At the time of his release, Bekzhanov was one of the world’s longest prison-held journalists.

“Thank you very much each and every one of you. Not just for campaigning for my release, but for helping to keep our hope and our beliefs alive.” - Phyoe Phyoe Aung, Write for Rights 2015

Phyoe Phyoe Aung is a human rights defender and Secretary General of one of Myanmar’s largest student unions. On March 10, 2015, she and 50 other students were arrested by police for their peaceful protests against an education law that limits freedom of education. She was freed in April 2016.

“I am happy to finally be free after more than 17 months of imprisonment. I thank Amnesty International and all those who fought in one way or another for my release. I look forward to seeing my family and friends to continue the fight for democracy and freedom in my country.” - Fred Bauma, Write for Rights 2015

Fred Bauma and Yves Makwambala are human rights defenders in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They were imprisoned for their peaceful human rights activism and were considered prisoners of conscience. They were freed on August 30, 2016

“I feel joy, and so much emotion. To everyone who has stood by me, I give my heartfelt thanks. Without this support, my freedom would have been almost impossible.” - Yecenia Armenta Graciano, Write for Rights 2015

In July 2012, Yecenia Armenta was taken into police custody in Mexico and brutally tortured. The police beat her for hours, raped her and threatened to kill her children. In spite of medical evidence that torture took place, the ‘confession’ was used to charge Yecenia. She was released in 2016.

“I am alive today, after 33 arrests (it's now far more), because members of Amnesty International spoke out for me." - Jenni Williams, Write for Rights 2011

Activist Jenni Williams, is a founder of the social justice movement Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA), who has endured dozens of arrests and beatings for leading peaceful protests. In 2003, Williams co-founded WOZA with the late Sheba Dube to demand social and political reforms in Zimbabwe under the brutal rule of Robert Mugabe.

"Thank you to Amnesty International’s supporters! Your campaign has been successful, as my release shows. We can achieve the most success when we all work together.” - Yorm Bopha, Write for Rights 2013

Yorm Bopha is a Cambodian housing rights activist, previously imprisoned for defending her community’s rights at the former Boeung Kak Lake in the capital Phnom Penh, where thousands of people had been forcibly evicted since 2007. She was released in 2013.

"I’d like to thank our friends at Amnesty International and Amnesty USA for their remarkable support these last years, culminating just recently in the Write for Rights Campaign." - Albert Woodfox, Write for Rights 2015

On his 69th birthday, February 19, 2016, he walked free – 44 years after he was first put into solitary confinement in Louisiana. He was the USA’s longest serving prisoner held in isolation. For the first time in more than four decades, Albert Woodfox was able to walk outside and look up into the sky in 2016.

#current affairs #amnesty international #a rare serious post from me

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talesmaniac89 · 4 years

Text

Choices - You Chose Dean

New to Choices? Start Here

Pairing: Dean x Reader

Summary: Choices is an interactive Supernatural choose your own adventure story where your choices determine the outcome and whether it’s a Dean x Reader or Sam x Reader. Go to the intro to start your story now!

Triggers: None really, some mention of Dean putting himself in harm’s way.

Choice: [You chose Dean Winchester]

Y/N = Your Name

—

“Right… So, to make sure we’re ready…” Dean said with a sigh, eyeing the signs as they passed by. The tense tone and hard voice of a soldier enough for you to tell you were quickly closing in on the farmhouse in question.

“There’s supposed to be five demons in there. We’ll have to take ‘em all out fast. Try to catch them off guard,” Dean spoke over the music, echoing the earlier plan and case details. Though you didn’t mind. It was better to be prepared. Know the case inside out. Especially when you were dealing with those slimy black-eyed bastards. They tended to try and wiggle their way free if you left them even the slightest bit of breathing room.

According to the briefing, the five demons had made themselves a cosy little home in the middle of farm town USA. Happily living their best evil little lives and causing havoc wherever they went. But they weren’t big shots. So, the fight shouldn’t be too hard for three experienced hunters. In, out, find a motel for a snooze if necessary and home in time for lunch tomorrow.

“We’ll have to split up. (Y/N), I think…” Dean started, those infuriatingly striking green eyes glancing up at you through the rear-view mirror and nearly leaving you tongue-tied. Damn him and his… Gorgeous fucking bastard. You couldn’t even think straight. Dean Winchester did things to your mind; filthy, explicit, breathless things. Leaving you mentally winded and unable to string two words together with just a flash of green or a blinding smile.

Yet you somehow still managed to get the protest out before he finished his sentence. The stubbornness of a hunter tackling the wanton daydreamer in you to the floor and wrestling the not-so-innocent devil on your shoulder into submission for long enough to let you find your voice again.

“I’m not sitting this one out Winchester,” You snapped back. Allowing your annoyance to mask the way the hunter always left you winded as you shot down Dean’s attempt to keep you out of harm's way. Like he did every hunt. Disguised as you either taking on the research-, backup- or otherwise removed from action roles.

Though he always failed. You were just as unwilling to see him hurt as he was to see anyone hurt. There was no way in hell you’d be able to sit a fight out and risk the man you loved (oh so very secretly and silently mind you) get hurt because of it.

“Alright… But you’re staying behind me,” Dean sighed after a moment. Clearly sensing the fight brewing as he backed off quite easily. Plus, even the infuriatingly protective hunter had to agree that 3 against 5 were still better odds than 2 against 5. No matter how much he wanted to go in, guns blazing, alone to keep his little brother and you out of harm’s way.

“Ok, so… We’ll head in the front, while Sammy goes around back?” You clarified; happy he’d dropped the fight for once. And doubly happy since you’d be right there by his side. Able to protect him and the heart you’d silently slipped him without him noticing.

“Yeah, after, we paint some Devil’s Traps outside. Give ‘em nowhere to run,” Dean’s voice was all business again as he revved the engine, green eyes hard as you sped down the old country roads. Straightening in your own seat, you felt the adrenaline start coursing through you. It was show time, and you were planning on kicking some serious demon ass.

---

“Nice place they’ve got here…” Raising an eyebrow, you kept your eyes on the dilapidated farmhouse through the trees as you stepped out of the car, hidden just out of view from the demon hideout. Unable to stop the disgusted shudder that crawled up your spine as snapshots from some of the goriest movies you knew flashed in front of your eyes.

It looked like something from a classic horror movie. You could nearly hear the Deliverance banjo music in the background as your eyes scanned the rickety porch and rotting wood. It was the kind of place you’d normally scream at the characters on the screen to run away from. Not in fear, but in pure exasperation. After all, nothing good was ever found in old abandoned farmhouses. The demons in the one in front of you just helped prove your point.

Following Dean to the back of the car, you kept your angel blade by your side as you busied yourself stocking up on holy water and enough iron to make Tony Stark jealous. Taking extra care to ensure everything was safely strapped to your body, and that none of the ‘pointier’ weapons would end up turning on you if you took a tumble. Though you knew you’d most likely just end up sticking to good ol’ reliable and angelic in your hand. The silver white blade thumping against your thigh matched your heartbeat. Adrenaline already coursing pleasurably through your veins from the thought of the upcoming fight.

You needed action, and you needed it fast. The nearly uncomfortable buzz in your body seemed to be reacting violently to the evil in the air, culminating in an itch in your bones that nothing but gunpowder and steel could scratch. So, as you finished building your wearable arsenal of guns, knives and all things pain-inducing, you glanced over at Dean, lips parted to get the show on the road. However, Dean wasn’t moving next to you.

The gun he’d picked up first still heavy in his palm as he stood frozen, watching you. Worry making the green summer days in his eyes cloud over like a sudden midday storm. The barely hidden pain in them squeezing at your heart as you readied yourself for words you knew would come.

“You don’t have to…”

“Yes, I do Dean,” You sighed, unwilling to even let him finish his usual attempt at making you sit the hunt out. The same frustrating song and dance as always, yet you couldn’t help the way your heart followed the rhythm of it. The kind, protective streak that made the hunter ask you that same question every time you set out to fight another monster was, after all, part of why you loved him.

Always so willing to carry every burden on his own shoulders, yet hiding that small, fragile part of himself that showed how everyone’s burdens were taking their toll. Keeping his own pain, his own burdens, hidden until he was alone in the bunker. Or at least, until he thought he was alone. You’d caught him more than once. Tired green eyes squeezed shut as he rested his head in his hands, gasping for breath through the onslaught of guilt and hurt. Strong shoulders shaking with unshed tears and the weight of the blame he placed on them.

He wanted to keep you safe. Not just you, but the whole god damned world. Still, he was just one man. One soldier in a war that had been raging since the beginning of time itself and he never put down his weapon. Always ready to jump back into the fray. Even as his armour cracked, and his blade dulled. Even as he collapsed under the weight of it all.

The family business; his life since childhood had forced him to hide away his fears as weaknesses. Shaping himself into a shield instead, as he readily threw himself into harm’s way if he believed it could save someone else. Dean Winchester lived like he had a death wish, even though he feared the unknown darkness that was waiting on the other side. Always a little too ready to sacrifice himself for the greater good.

Never seeing that he was greater than the sum of his sins. That he was good.

Never willing to believe that the world was a better place with him in it. Though to you it was. Hell… Without him in it, the world would just be a black and white imitation of its formerly vibrant self.

Because you knew the truth that he spent every waking moment trying to hide from the greedy world that just kept demanding more of its one-man army. That behind the soldier, there was a man with a big heart and a need to be loved. A young boy who was denied a childhood. A broken big brother that always blamed himself for pulling Sammy back into the life. A friend willing to sacrifice anything just to see you smile. And, a beautiful soul, who hurt and mourned deeper than anyone else whenever you failed to save someone.

Dean Winchester was a complex man.

He wasn’t just a hunter, brother, friend or secret keeper of your heart. Dean was a heartrendingly beautiful story with untold depths, a full unexplored universe. With all the nuances and colours that painted a picture of his painful history in scars, heartbreaks and timid smiles that he felt guilty for letting slip.

A story made up of all the stifled emotions and locked in screams, that easily brought those who knew him to tears. Peppered with small verses of agonisingly fragile hope and the long forgotten innocence of a childhood he never got to have. Hidden and hard to decipher among the many self-deprecating jokes and harsh rejections, yet not lost to you as it was to many others who saw the man as unfeeling and cold. Dean just had to grow up a little faster than most, it didn’t make him a monster, it didn’t make him any less human.

And you didn’t want to add new bruised and battered sentences to that story. You never wanted to be the reason for him to ever get hurt. So, as always, you told him the same thing you’d repeated for an immeasurable number of former hunts. Speaking into the quiet air around you as you grabbed one of the spray cans from the trunk.

“We’re in this together Dean. I’ve got your back, you’ve got mine. Forever,”

---

Straightening back up with a stifled groan you admired your work.

If all else failed and hunting didn’t work out, maybe you could turn to street art. The Devil’s Trap was expertly painted, if you’d say so yourself. Which you did. Albeit silently and in your own head, as to not alert the demons in the farmhouse to the right of you.

The trap you’d been assigned was the closest to the Impala, another attempt from Dean at keeping you safe. Yet, it was also the most likely escape route if the demons turned cowards and tried to run for the hills.

The sliding door just a few steps away to your right was not a planned entry point. So, they’d be most likely to try and use it to scutter away like the scared little black-eyed rats they were if it came down to that. So, your work had to be perfect. Allowing yourself just one more careful look over the symbols, you stepped back. Turning on light feet to carefully, and silently, re-join Dean by the front door.

The worry in green eyes had once more been replaced by steely determination once you made it back to the front of the farmhouse. Squaring his jaw, he watched you quietly jog up to him before just as soundlessly signalling for Sam to start moving towards the back door with a raised hand and to fingers pointed down the path around the house. His own eyes moving to lock onto the front door, weapon at the ready while he relayed the wordless orders. Missing the small nod from Sam as the younger hunter stayed crouched and quiet, moving before Dean’s hand even had time to straighten out and silently relay his next orders.

Lifting his hand to you, you frowned at the straight palm facing you. He was asking you to wait outside for his signal. To let him walk in through the front door first and act like your shield in case something went wrong.

Looking at him you gritted your teeth to keep the angry whisper at bay. Gripping your angel blade a little harder, you chose to instead just silently shake your head at him in protest. Catching his eye as he glanced away from the door to make sure you caught the order you tried to silently plead with him. But this time he wasn’t backing down.

His own wordless reply was just a repeat of the single hand gesture that was supposed to be your command and role in the coming battle. Green eyes leaving yours to cut off every silent argument you had as he kept his shoulders tense and jaw squared.

Your stubborn hunter wasn’t going to let you argue this time as he slowly but surely started moving forward, towards the door. Leaving you standing in the gravel, fuming silently.

—

Make your choice below to move the story along:

What do you do?

[Follow him in] or [Wait outside]

—

Confused or New to Choices? Start Here Choices is an interactive Supernatural choose your own adventure story where you pick your Winchester brother and go on a hunt for one of 8 different endings in total. Four for Sam and four for Dean (2 happy and 2 bad endings per brother). Go to the intro to start your story!

—

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yaboylevi · 4 years

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Does Eren's question mean that he has a cruch on Mikasa?

Mmm, I’ll try to explain how I read the scene.

Short answer: No, I do not believe Eren has a crush on Mikasa and the scene, albeit presented in a romantic light from Mikasa’s pov, it was not on Eren’s part. Same as usual, I’d argue.

I will expand on this under the cut, but I just want to reiterate that this is just my interpretation, as one of the anons said, and I am aware everyone is free to have their own, even if they might puzzle me. You are free to disagree, but please don’t send me hate messages.

Upon reading the chapter the first time, I didn’t feel romantic vibes. It was actually quite tragic and disappointing for me to see one of my favorite characters (Mikasa) completely misunderstand my favorite character (Eren), in spite of how close they are supposed to be. I was so depressed and disturbed by the whole chapter, that even if I read it at 5 AM and I could’ve slept another 2 hours before having to actually wake up, I just laid in bed restlessly, absolutely depressed. I even tweeted about it lol.

Anyway, I was pretty busy that week, and only later I found out most people interpreted the scene as Eren being in love with Mikasa. It was a shock for me. It was literally the opposite of what I personally understood.

- Eren’s headspace

Let’s first talk about Eren and where his mind is in this chapter.

I felt discomfort and anxiety throughout the whole chapter. I am a pretty empathetic person, so I realized why I was feeling like that only later, after rationalizing chapter 123: Eren’s memories (which we know are horrible and gruesome and depressing) were being triggered the whole time he was in Marley and it was disturbing to watch.

He looks distressed and uncomfortable. His gaze is often unfocused (or, well, not focused on the present) and he is constantly spacing out - Armin notices but doesn’t seem to care or understand why. Honestly, it is cringe-worthy seeing Eren’s friends’ behavior. They should know what memories Eren has of this place. I do not know if anyone reading right now is familiar with triggers and what they do to a mind affected by PTSD. It’s enough to know that you feel like suffocating because you are fundamentally battling a panic attack and you ideally would want to get away from the source that is triggering you. So, imagine being in a situation you can’t escape from and everything is triggering your worst nightmares. Literally.

Even here, I’m ashamed no one in canon (and almost even in the fandom?) realizes or bothers to be understanding and careful, even when Eren makes a disturbing comment about it. Mikasa admits to it when it's all too late.

The ice-cream scene, just like the one I’m supposed to analyze in this post, is rose-tinted through Mikasa’s glasses, until we are faced with reality and are asked to reflect on Eren’s emotional state, again and again.

Reality is not a happy trip in a foreign country. Reality is a crowd of grown men wanting to hang a child because he’s different. Reality is people wanting to kill them all. Reality is Eren being triggered by ice-cream. Imagine being unable to look at a certain food because it reminds you of people being abused and brutally killed, something that you have actual memories of.

It’s just really frustrating seeing Mikasa looking at Eren, with this dumbfounded look on her face, every time Eren’s eyes seem to scream “help”.

The strain he is put under for the whole time culminates in him crying while looking at the war victims’ homes. Here at this moment, Mikasa enters the scene.

- The “eremika” scene

At this point, Eren’s reminiscing about an awful part of his past, and has a pretty clear idea of what will happen in Marley in a close future. We can be certain of this because he voices both of these topics out loud.

Eren is visibly distressed. Honestly, I’m pretty sure his voice in this scene will be quite telling of his emotional state in the anime. The direction his thoughts go, when expressed out loud, and the expression on his face are self-explanatory. Or should be, at least.

It doesn’t matter that Mikasa hasn’t seen him cry, she saw Eren wipe his face and noticed that there is, again, something wrong, but she doesn’t even ask him if he’s alright. She either doesn’t comprehend the depth of Eren’s pain, yet again, or she isn’t brave enough to ask. I believe it’s the former.

The whole chapter revolves around Mikasa’s inability to see Eren’s true feelings. Chapter 123 opens with this concept. And it is also quite clear that everything is retold from her point of view, so we shouldn’t complacently accept a surface reading of it; we are instead invited to have a deeper look into the events, both by Mikasa’s initial lines as well as the not at all subtle visual storytelling. So yeah, she has a perspective on Eren that is wrong. I think we should keep this in mind.

That’s why the moment she thinks ice-cream can make Eren happy, she is wrong. The moment she thinks Eren’s question has romantic implications, she is wrong. The moment she wonders if a different answer could’ve prevented Eren from choosing this path, she is also wrong...

Let’s go back to the scene.

Eren opens up on his own, even if Mikasa didn’t ask. He’s always been open throughout the time-skip (and even before), but I believe at this moment he has reached the breaking point since landing in Marley. He is at the most vulnerable. Like a dam finally breaking, his walls, that he had tried to keep up until that moment, fall and his feelings/thoughts spill out, after being mostly silent all day.

His short monologue is a direct continuation, or out loud repetition, of what he had been thinking about only moments before and that had caused him to cry. I believe the future he has decided upon also plays a part in it, but he doesn’t voice it, just offhandedly acknowledge its existence with that “Not yet.” comment.

Seeing a family living in poor conditions because of a war they didn’t even have any say in, has triggered Eren’s memories of the past. His and Mikasa’s and Armin’s past. They only had each other, as family, because the adults weren’t there anymore, unjustly killed, like many others. They had experienced first hand what it meant to lose your loved ones, to live a life without enough food, enough rest, enough protection. Without freedom.

Mikasa doesn’t say anything to this. She doesn’t know how to reply, and, thanks to the chapters dedicated to the time-skip, we know this has been going on for years. It’s honestly…disappointing.

And even before the time-skip, we know that she sometimes projected her insecurities and wishes on Eren, misinterpreting him really badly, to the point of making situations romantic when it really weren't.

The scene in chapter 123 is no different, especially because, as I said, it is explicitly a chapter told from Mikasa’s point of view where she also explicitly says she hasn’t been seeing Eren correctly.

There have been a lot of parallels with past chapters in this recent arc, and even 123 wasn’t lacking in this department: if the ice-cream scene parallels the ocean scene, with everyone having fun, while Eren is in emotional pain and discomfort; This other scene parallels chapter 50. At the ocean, Eren’s words gave pause to everyone, but in chapter 123 nobody, quite frankly, gives a damn about Eren to the point that they forget about him. Similarly, in chapter 50 Mikasa had managed to express her feelings for Eren’s existence (gratitude, acceptance and unconditional love - not necessarily romantic), and managed to surprisingly help him because she understood his needs on a basic level. In chapter 123, she doesn’t understand Eren’s pain and so she doesn’t say the right thing (that, btw, wouldn’t have changed Eren’s mind about his future actions, imo).

Just like in chapter 50, Eren is in an emotionally fragile moment, and what he needs, unconsciously, is the reassurance that he is loved, that someone cares about him for who he is, even if he feels undeserving of it.

I believe he is feeling despair on both occasions.

Of course, we can only guess about what made Eren cry in this new chapter, because we don’t have access to his mind this time around, but I’m sure it’s a mixture of things: knowing how ineluctable their future seems, and whatever it entails is upsetting for Eren as well; empathy for someone else’s painful condition because he’s been there before; probably also sadness, because he knows what he himself will cause to happen (as implied by that “not yet”) as well as that his time with his found family and friends is about to end; the bonds he will have to break, something that breaks Eren in return.

So it’s honestly not that surprising that he searches for comfort. I guess he’s been struggling with what he has seen in his future because he would have never thought himself able to kill innocents. His mindset used to be about protecting himself and his loved ones and innocents from being robbed of their freedom, yet he knows he is about to become someone who takes away that freedom, along with lives. For him, life equals freedom, because when you are born you are intrinsically free. So his future actions must have been weighing heavy on his mind and heart.

I find it fitting and incredibly sad that he asks Mikasa what she thinks of him now, after talking about families being robbed of their freedom and how much pain this causes.

Mikasa has always been family to him. So has been Armin, but Mikasa is somehow different. She has lived with him, he has directly invited her to be part of his family, he admitted he childishly rejected her familial care because he was jealous but after this admittance, he embraces it. Opening Grisha’s book together was an important moment exactly because they are family, and that was their home.

They are constantly compared to family. It doesn’t matter, in my opinion, that Mikasa holds also romantic feelings for Eren. She primarily sees him as family, too.

They are what is left of the Yeager household, and the story has highlighted this.

So I believe that in his pain in 123, Eren seeks something, a word of comfort, an assurance that he is not just a killer or a failure, and that he is Eren, someone who has been trying to do the right thing since forever, someone who has done the right thing often, someone who is deserving of the care of the girl he once saved (even if the question clearly implies he doesn’t think he deserves it). In chapter 50, Eren invokes his mother. I am sure he is searching for the same kind of warmth here too. The warmth of his family.

The scene, to me, felt a lot more about Eren’s feelings of self-hatred and Mikasa missing the point.

The entirety of the chapter is meant to show how Mikasa didn’t understand Eren: both by ignoring some signs and misunderstanding others.

He is suffering, but she thinks he is asking her about her romantic feelings.

She blushes, yet Eren has just finished crying and becomes teary-eyed once again.

He is distressed and looks haunted, during both of the rose-colored scenes with Mikasa.

His questions are almost needy. Yet, she fails to understand what Eren was in need of: comfort, understanding, an “I care about you because it’s YOU”. Something that she implied later in chapter 112, when it was indeed too late.

- The two choices were possibly both wrong

Eren presented two options and I think they were both partially correct but at the same time incomplete, because Mikasa’s care for Eren is comprised of many facets. We don’t know what he thinks of Mikasa's answer because we don’t see his reaction to it. However, he seems at peace, later on, falling asleep next to the closest members of his found family, meaning he is content with and values the way their relationship is.

Eren surely doesn’t regret saving Mikasa. He also surely considers Mikasa his family, as I stated before. But there are certain kinds of expectations in being family and in being someone’s savior. You will always care about someone who literally saved your life. You will always care about family because they are…well, family. No matter how messed up they may be, they will always have a small place in your heart, whether it’s bad or good.

“You’re my savior” might imply a dependance or sticking to someone just to repay them. “Family” might have the meaning of “it’s my duty to look after you because it’s simply what family members do”. Both also imply that Mikasa will be hurt even worse by what Eren is about to do.

These weren’t the answers Eren needed, perhaps.

As I said already, I believe that what he searched for, was a different answer. If Mikasa had told him she cared about him as a person, as Eren himself, Eren would have felt reassured - because he would be loved for the neutral quality of simply existing. That’s also what made him feel better, when hearing Carla’s words at the end of Uprising. That he was loved, cared for, and worthy of existing just for being born. No expectations, no burdens. An “I stick with you because I love you (romantically)” could have held the same meaning, potentially, because love is love, but in no way this means Eren wanted a romantic answer or that he feels the same way. Besides, that’s not the reason Mikasa cares about Eren, that’s just a side effect, imo.

And I don’t believe Mikasa, at the question “what am I to you?”, believes she should have responded with “you are the love of my life”. That would’ve been so out of place, because Eren is not the love of her life. He is more. I think family well describes it, but her half-assed, panicked answer wasn’t truthful or as powerful as her words were in chapter 50, so they had no real effect and felt unsatisfying for everyone, honestly.

I always stated that if Eren fell in love with someone else, their love for one another wouldn’t change, because the strongest feeling Mikasa feels for Eren isn’t romantic love, and romantic love is something that has never been in Eren’s mind when it came to Mikasa, as shown countless times (or rather, the lack of romantic undertones on his part re:Mikasa should be proof enough, imo).

Anyway, I could be wrong, but I can’t see it any other way. I think it’s a very complex scene to analyze and there is way more than meets the eye, especially because we aren’t granted access to Eren.

I am a great fan of Mikasa, but this scene and chapter made me reconsider her a lot, unfortunately. I strongly believed she had resolved and understood her complicated feelings for Eren in chapter 50, so she had reached a less biased view, but there has been a regression. The same happened with Armin, his character arc was about him growing confident in himself, and learning to always pay close attention to his own realistic reading of the world, but he has just become unsure of what he has to do and lost his cynical edge.

And finally, I want to quickly address another two points so I don't have to talk about this scene anymore until new information is revealed:

The “perfect timing” comment: I interpreted it as Eren knowing what was about to happen and being depressed but used to his memories being correct. Proof, for me, is Mikasa being confused at Eren’s comment, just like she was at the “not yet” one. Besides, they had already been interrupted by the old man and he didn’t seem to mind, so this “perfect timing” has nothing to do with their friends “ruining” the moment. He willingly invites them to join in and finally, he is content and relaxed, when he is with all of them. He loves them all.

Mikasa’s comment about “if only I had said something different”: I think she may have realized that it wasn’t a romantic situation - because clearly, her romantic inclinations have clouded her judgment. That she had failed to understand Eren’s feelings and his reason for bringing up Mikasa’s care for him. I don’t sense a “I should’ve told him I loved him”. Because honestly, familial love IS love. Platonic love IS love, too. If Eren wasn’t “saved” by the purest form of love, I don’t see how any other type of love could’ve changed anything. That panel, revisited by the current Mikasa, focuses even more on Eren’s tears. Eren’s deep sadness clashes with Mikasa’s initial frivolous reading of the moment. So stating that she believes she should’ve confessed, means going against what the chapter has stated to be…not right.

Thank you for reading all of this, if anyone has managed to! :)

#mikasa ackerman #eren yeager #snk 123 #snk spoilers #snk meta #snk #Anonymous

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ucflibrary · 3 years

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Each December, the UCF Libraries’ Featured Bookshelf celebrates the favorite books of employees of the UCF Libraries. And you know a major thing about librarians and library staff? They love talking about their favorite books. The books listed below are some of the favorite books we read in 2020.

Click on the link below to see the full list, descriptions, and catalog links for our favorite 2020 titles. These 20 books plus favorites from previous years are also on display in the 4th floor Reading Room of the John C. Hitt Library.

And if you find someone has checked the one you’re interested in out before you had a chance, did you know you can place an interlibrary loan and have another copy sent here for you? Click here for instructions on placing an interlibrary loan.

A Furious Sky: the five-hundred-year history of America's hurricanes by Eric Jay Dolin From the moment European colonists laid violent claim to this land, hurricanes have had a profound and visceral impact on American history-yet, no one has attempted to write the definitive account of America's entanglement with these meteorological behemoths. Eric Jay Dolin presents the five-hundred-year story of American hurricanes, from the nameless storms that threatened Columbus' New World voyages, to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico and the escalation of hurricane season as a result of global warming. Populating his narrative with unlikely heroes such as Benito Vines, the nineteenth-century Jesuit priest whose revelatory methods for predicting hurricanes saved countless lives, and journalist Dan Rather, whose coverage of a 1961 hurricane would change broadcasting history, Dolin uncovers the often surprising ways we respond to natural crises. Suggested by Megan Haught, Student Learning & Engagement/Research & Information Services

Children of the Land by Marcelo Hernandez Castillo With beauty, grace, and honesty, Castillo recounts his and his family’s encounters with a system that treats them as criminals for seeking safe, ordinary lives. He writes of the Sunday afternoon when he opened the door to an ICE officer who had one hand on his holster, of the hours he spent making a fake social security card so that he could work to support his family, of his father’s deportation and the decade that he spent waiting to return to his wife and children only to be denied reentry Suggested by Sara Duff, Acquisitions & Collections

Dark Matter: a novel by Blake Crouch A mind-bending, relentlessly paced science-fiction thriller, in which an ordinary man is kidnapped, knocked unconscious--and awakens in a world inexplicably different from the reality he thought he knew. "Are you happy with your life?" Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious. He awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits. Before him, a man Jason's never met smiles down at him and says, "Welcome back, my friend." In this world he's woken up to, Jason's life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college physics professor but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible. Suggested by Katy Miller, Student Learning & Engagement

Do Nothing: how to break away from overworking, overdoing, and underliving by Celeste Headlee We work feverishly to make ourselves happy. So why are we so miserable? Despite our constant search for new ways to "hack" our bodies and minds for peak performance, human beings are working more instead of less, living harder not smarter, and becoming more lonely and anxious. This manifesto helps us break free of our unhealthy devotion to efficiency and shows us how to reclaim our time and humanity with a little more leisure Suggested by Katy Miller, Student Learning & Engagement

Eleanor Roosevelt by Blanche Wiesen Cook A study of the complex and political figure of Eleanor Roosevelt begins with her harrowing childhood, describes the difficulties of her marriage, and explains how she persuaded Franklin to make the reforms that would make him famous. Suggested by Richard Harrison, Research & Information Services

From Here to Eternity: traveling the world to find the good death by Caitlin Doughty Fascinated by our pervasive fear of dead bodies, mortician Caitlin Doughty set out to discover how other cultures care for the dead. In rural Indonesia, she watches a man clean and dress his grandfather's mummified body, which has resided in the family home for two years. In La Paz, she meets Bolivian natitas (cigarette-smoking, wish-granting human skulls), and in Tokyo she encounters the Japanese kotsuage ceremony, in which relatives use chopsticks to pluck their loved-ones' bones from cremation ashes. She introduces deathcare innovators researching body composting and green burial, and examines how varied traditions, from Mexico's Dias de los Muertos to Zoroastrian sky burial help us see our own death customs in a new light. She argues that our expensive, impersonal system fosters a corrosive fear of death that hinders our ability to cope and mourn. By comparing customs, she demonstrates that mourners everywhere respond best when they help care for the deceased and have space to participate in the process. Suggested by Katy Miller, Student Learning & Engagement

Indelicacy by Amina Cain A cleaning woman at a museum of art nurtures aspirations to do more than simply dust the paintings around her. She dreams of having the liberty to explore them in writing, and so must find a way to win herself the time and security to use her mind. She escapes her lot by marrying a rich man, but having gained a husband, a house, high society, and a maid, she finds that her new life of privilege is no less constrained. Not only has she taken up different forms of time-consuming labor - social and erotic - but she is now, however passively, forcing other women to clean up after her. Perhaps another and more drastic solution is necessary Suggested by Sara Duff, Acquisitions & Collections

Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu Every day Willis Wu leaves his tiny room in a Chinatown SRO and enters the Golden Palace restaurant, where Black and White, a procedural cop show, is in perpetual production. He's a bit player here too, but he dreams of being Kung Fu Guy-- and he sees his life as a script. After stumbling into the spotlight, Willis finds himself launched into a wider world than he has ever known, discovering not only the secret history of Chinatown, but the buried legacy of his own family, and what that means for him in today's America. Suggested by Sara Duff, Acquisitions & Collections

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon Scottish Highlands, 1945. Claire Randall, a former British combat nurse, is just back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach—an “outlander”—in a Scotland torn by war and raiding clans in the year of Our Lord . . . 1743. Claire is catapulted into the intrigues of a world that threatens her life, and may shatter her heart. Marooned amid danger, passion, and violence, Claire learns her only chance of safety lies in Jamie Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior. What begins in compulsion becomes urgent need, and Claire finds herself torn between two very different men, in two irreconcilable lives. Suggested by Katie Kirwan, Acquisitions & Collections

Paradise Lost: a life of F. Scott Fitzgerald by David S. Brown In this comprehensive biography, Brown reexamines Fitzgerald’s childhood, first loves, and difficult marriage to Zelda Sayre. He looks at Fitzgerald’s friendship with Hemingway, the golden years that culminated with Gatsby, and his increasing alcohol abuse and declining fortunes which coincided with Zelda’s institutionalization and the nation’s economic collapse. Suggested by Andrew Hackler, Circulation

Recursion by Blake Crouch Reality is broken. At first, it looks like a disease. An epidemic that spreads through no known means, driving its victims mad with memories of a life they never lived. But the force that’s sweeping the world is no pathogen. It’s just the first shock wave, unleashed by a stunning discovery—and what’s in jeopardy is not our minds but the very fabric of time itself. Suggested by Mary Rubin, Special Collections & University Archives

Solutions and Other Problems by Allie Brosh Brosh’s second book includes humorous stories from her childhood; the adventures of her very bad animals; merciless dissection of her own character flaws; incisive essays on grief, loneliness, and powerlessness; as well as reflections on the absurdity of modern life. Suggested by Sara Duff, Acquisitions & Collections

Spillover: animal infections and the next human pandemic by David Quammen This work examines the emergence and causes of new diseases all over the world, describing a process called "spillover" where illness originates in wild animals before being passed to humans and discusses the potential for the next huge pandemic. The emergence of strange new diseases is a frightening problem that seems to be getting worse. In this age of speedy travel, it threatens a worldwide pandemic. We hear news reports of Ebola, SARS, AIDS, and something called Hendra killing horses and people in Australia; but those reports miss the big truth that such phenomena are part of a single pattern. The bugs that transmit these diseases share one thing: they originate in wild animals and pass to humans by a process called spillover. As globalization spreads and as we destroy the ancient ecosystems, penetrating ever deeper into the furthest reaches of the planet, we encounter strange and dangerous infections that originate in animals but can be transmitted to humans. The author tracks this subject around the world. He recounts adventures in the field, netting bats in China, trapping monkeys in Bangladesh, stalking gorillas in the Congo, with the world's leading disease scientists. He takes the reader along on this quest to learn how, where from, and why these diseases emerge, and he asks the terrifying question: What might the next big one be? Suggested by Megan Haught, Student Learning & Engagement/Research & Information Services

Squeeze Me by Carl Hiaasen It's the height of the Palm Beach charity ball season: for every disease or cause, there's a reason for the local luminaries to eat (minimally), drink (maximally), and be seen. But when a prominent high-society dowager suddenly vanishes during a swank gala, and is later found dead in a concrete grave, panic and chaos erupt. Kiki Pew was notable not just for her wealth and her jewels--she was an ardent fan of the Winter White House resident just down the road, and a founding member of the POTUSSIES, a group of women dedicated to supporting their President. Never one to miss an opportunity to play to his base, the President immediately declares that Kiki was the victim of rampaging immigrant hordes. This, it turns out, is far from the truth. Suggested by Richard Harrison, Research & Information Services

The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee A year after a whirlwind grand tour with her brother Monty, Felicity Montague has returned to England with two goals in mind: avoid the marriage proposal of a lovestruck suitor from Edinburgh and enroll in medical school. But the administrators see men as the sole guardians of science. When a doctor she idolizes marries a friend of hers in Germany, Felicity believes he could change her future. A mysterious young woman will pay Felicity's way, if Felicity will let her travel along-- as her maid. Soon they're on a perilous quest that leads them across the promenades of Zurich to secrets lurking beneath the Atlantic. Suggested by Megan Haught, Student Learning & Engagement/Research & Information Services

The Power of Now: a guide to spiritual enlightenment by Eckhart Tolle Much more than simple principles and platitudes, this book takes readers on an inspiring spiritual journey to find their true and deepest self and reach the ultimate in personal growth and spirituality: the discovery of truth and light. In the first chapter, Tolle introduces readers to enlightenment and its natural enemy, the mind. He awakens readers to their role as a creator of pain and shows them how to have a pain-free identity by living fully in the present. The journey is thrilling, and along the way, the author shows how to connect to the indestructible essence of our Being. Suggested by Sandy Avila, Research & Information Services

The Scarlet Sisters: sex, suffrage, and scandal in the gilded age by Myra MacPherson A fresh look at the life and times of Victoria Woodhull and Tennie Claflin, two sisters whose radical views on sex, love, politics, and business threatened the white male power structure of the nineteenth century and shocked the world. Here award-winning author Myra MacPherson deconstructs and lays bare the manners and mores of Victorian America, remarkably illuminating the struggle for equality that women are still fighting today. Suggested by Dawn Tripp, Research & Information Services

The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick: selected literary and philosophical writings by Philip K. Dick Philip K. Dick has established himself as a major figure in American literature. The landscape of his imagination features a wealth of concepts and fictional worlds: Nazi-rule in a postwar nightmare; androids and the unification of man and machine; and an existence that no longer follows the logic of reality. This first-time collection assembles his nonfiction writings essays, journals, speeches, and interviews. In these writings he explores issues ranging from the merging of physics and metaphysics to the potential influences of "virtual" reality and its consequences to a plot-scenario for a potential episode of "Mission: Impossible," to the challenge that fundamental "human" values face in the age of technology and spiritual decline.". Suggested by Sandy Avila, Research & Information Services

The Wild Heart of Florida: Florida writers on Florida's wildlands selected and edited by Jeff Ripple and Susan Cerulean Coming from a variety of backgrounds--fiction, journalism, poetry, and environmental writing--the writers turn their talent to one thing they have in common--a love for Florida’s natural beauty and a commitment to preserve it. Their essays--some old favorites, most appearing here for the first time--are both a celebration and a pointed reminder of what we stand to lose. Suggested by Rebecca Hawk, Circulation

There Will Come a Darkness by Katy Rose Pool The Age of Darkness approaches. Who will stop it... or unleash it? For generations, the Seven Prophets guided humanity. Using their visions of the future, they ended wars and united nations-- until they disappeared a hundred years ago. All they left behind was one final prophecy, foretelling an Age of Darkness and the birth of a new Prophet who could be the world's salvation-- or the cause of its destruction. Will it be a prince exiled from his kingdom? A ruthless killer known as the Pale Hand? A once-faithful leader torn between his duty and his heart? A reckless gambler with the power to find anything or anyone? Or a dying girl on the verge of giving up? Suggested by Pam Jaggernauth, Curriculum Materials Center

#featured bookshelf #ucf library #ucf #suggested reading #staff favorites #booklr

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katie-dub · 4 years

Text

A Special Day of Mourning

Fleabag Fic

Summary: Last time a wedding brought us together, this time it's a funeral. Still the tragic loss of Godmother in a freak accident involving a falling wall of plaster of paris penises has got to be good for something, right?

AO3

Yes, I’m back with more Fleabag x the Priest fic. Thank you as ever to the delightful @eirabach for reading this for me, when she doesn’t even go here! I love you darling.

15 Years Later

So last time you saw me, I was sending my sister off to go get the hot Finn who was crazy about her after my almost boyfriend the actual Priest delivered a terrifying homily about love at Dad’s wedding to the ever repellent Godmother. The Priest broke my heart when he chose God over me and exited pursued by a fox.

Since then I found love, tried the whole marriage thing, had a child, realised I was surprisingly good at motherhood but less so at being married and am now amicably divorced. I still touch myself thinking about that one night with the Hot Priest who was the first man I ever loved, unless of course you count Leonardo DiCaprio, which I don’t.

Claire and Klare have three terrifyingly beautiful children and she actually smiles constantly now. It was disconcerting at first, but after all this time, I think I’m used to it.

Dad’s still alive and kicking, at 88 years of age. Godmother, however, is not. She passed away in a freak accident involving a falling wall of plaster of paris penises at her sexhibition two weeks ago. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer person.

Before The Funeral

I walk up to Dad’s house with my Daughter in tow. She’s 11 and has already entered her awkward teenage years a whole two years early. Fucking overachiever.

That’s not to say that she isn’t the light of my life, the apple of my eye and all other appropriate cliches. It’s just that I can finally appreciate how really fucking annoying teenage girls can be. And she hasn’t even started her period yet.

We ring the doorbell and I hum “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead” very softly under my voice. If there’s a hell, I’m almost certainly heading there.

Claire answers the door. “Hello, are you ready for this sad, sad, sad day?”

“I’ve brought the champagne!” I reply, lifting the bottle I bought especially. Just to toast to our dearly departed Godmother in the manner she would have wanted, of course.

“You look absolutely gorgeous,” Claire says, eyeing me suspiciously.

“You know grief does wonders for my complexion, I can’t help it!” And if there’s an extra spring in my step at the thought of finally being free of Godmother, well you can hardly blame me.

I deliberately take a moment to compose myself. I do feel for Dad, burying his second wife has got to be monumentally shit, even if he is better off without her.

“Wait,” Claire tugs on my arm urgently, bringing me to a halt.

“Is everything OK?”

“Your Priest is in there,” Claire murmurs in an undertone, her lips barely moving.

I’m struggling to follow her meaning. “What?”

“You know, your Priest, the one you - you know?” Oh. Oh! “He’s in there with Dad, comforting him, he’s conducting the funeral. I just thought you might need some warning.”

I wonder if he’s still hot. “Is he still hot?”

“Painfully hot,” she says with a grim nod and a tone that implies catastrophe. “He’s also still a man of god, so just don’t fuck him again ok?”

“I do have some restraint! That said, he was really fucking good at it. I’m single again, why not hey?”

Claire’s jaw is tight. It’s fun to know that I can still wind her up like this at the age of nearly 50. “I mean it,” she pleads sincerely, “I know I wasn’t around much last time with Finland and everything, but I could tell how much that hurt you then and I don’t want to have to kick a Priest’s arse for hurting my little sister.”

There’s a steely glint in her eye that makes it clear she means it, and I find myself deeply touched. I swallow down a lump in my throat and shrug, an “if you say so” gesture. “Didn’t know you cared.”

She nods. “Right. Oh also, Godmother is in there.”

“Wait, Godmother? Like her body?”

“Yes, it’s a whole art thing apparently.” Claire says “art thing” like it’s an infectious disease. “Transparent coffin. It’s horrendous.”

We walk into the living room, Dad is sat on the sofa, head in his hands, the Priest is beside him, an arm around his shoulder. His neck is still beautiful.

And right where the coffee table should be, a transparent coffin, with Godmother inside, wrapped in some kind of hot pink monstrosity.

“Oh holy fuck,” I shout, stopping abruptly at the sight.

Claire somehow avoids crashing into me and steps around me muttering “I did warn you” under her voice.

I shake myself, forcing my feet to take me further into the room. I drag my eyes away from Godmother, seeking out Dad to comfort him, and I’m greeted by the sight of my Priest’s warm smile turned on me.

He has more wrinkles and his once dark hair is now salt and pepper, but age hasn’t changed one fundamental fact: he is deeply, unfairly hot. Lucky bastard.

And he looks pleased to see me, which I’ll admit does good things to my ego, I may be a divorcee fast approaching 50, but maybe I’m not completely unfuckable yet. Or maybe this is just a genuine friendly smile for a former lover. Either way, it’s a happy surprise.

“Hello,” he says, “I’m sorry to leave just as you’re getting here -” his eyes suggest that this comment is sincere “- but I need to be on my way to the church.” He grips my arm briefly as he moves past me, a small gesture of comfort that nonetheless sends a little shiver of anticipation through me. I’m surprised that even after all this time he can affect me like this. “I’m sorry for your loss, but it is lovely to see you.”

“You too,” I agree, “I’ll see you at the church.” He nods and heads out of the door.

Oh fuck, the church.

The last time I was in that church I was trying to wrestle him out of his clothes. I’ve never been back. Not inside it at least, although I may have dawdled outside it on more than one occasion. And now I have to sit through Godmother’s funeral there, all the time thinking about the way he ordered me to “kneel” in the confessional. Maybe about when he repeated that command in my house and I sucked him off.

I try to distract myself with other thoughts, but the only thing to look at is the coffin. It really is hideous, and not so much because it's a dead body, but that pink is a bit much and the embroidery on it looks suspiciously like - "is that funeral shroud really covered in fornicating skeletons?" I ask, looking to Claire in the hopes of hearing a sensible "no".

"It is," she confirms, her mouth a hard-set line of disapproval.

"Well fuck me."

The Funeral Procession

We didn’t do a funeral procession for Mum when it was her funeral. It was too over the top and showy for her. So of course Godmother insisted.

I’m packed into a car with Dad and Daughter driven by the Shepherd of the Deceased, as the man insisted on being called (I can see why Godmother liked him, but what's wrong with just calling yourself a funeral director?). Claire and her family are in the car behind us. We inch down the roads painfully slowly, surely pissing off half of London as we follow the hearse to the church.

My heart pounds at the sight of the church, a feeling that quickly gives way to confusion as we continue to drive past it. “Where the fuck are we going?”

“Language,” tuts my Daughter, and I’m tempted to stick my tongue out at her. I promise, I really am a good mum. Usually.

“No seriously, haven’t we just gone past the church?”

“Hmmm? Er, wh-what’s that dear?” asks Dad distracted and distraught and I’m beyond bewildered.

We pull up outside an entirely unfamiliar church, and it occurs to me that my Priest must have been moved to a new parish. All this time avoiding his church and he doesn’t even work there now.

I get out of the car and help Dad to do the same. I walk to the front door and that’s when I see the sign: St Jude’s Anglican Church.

Anglican?

What. The. Fuck?

The Funeral

There’s no chance for me to confront the Priest about his conversion before the service, so I sit by Dad’s side during it and stew on this startling revelation.

Anglican. He’s Anglican now, and so, apparently, no longer celibate. Not that he did all that well at the whole celibacy thing while I was around.

Does this mean he’s available? Or did he leave the Catholic Church for someone else, someone who he loved enough to really be with, someone who he is still with now?

I realise this sounds like I spent the past 15 years and all of my marriage pining for an unavailable man, when honestly, I haven’t. But it’s still something of a head fuck to discover that he is no longer forbidden fruit. The possibility of that is delicious, while also giving me doubts about what we ever had.

Like I said, a head fuck.

I can’t help but think, looking at his outfit with its minimalist design, that he must miss the robes from Catholicism. You can say what you like about their beliefs, but those Catholics have got style.

"Sometimes I worry that I'm only in it for the outfits," he'd said that night in the church, the alcohol and desire for me driving him to doubt himself. Well, he proved that wrong, didn't he?

A cameraman zooms in on my face and I find myself looking to camera, startled, before realising that I should probably focus on looking rather more distraught at Godmother’s death and rather less intrigued by the possibility of fucking the Priest again.

Trust Godmother to hire a camera crew to film her own fucking funeral.

The Wake

"I'm very interested in the conflict of my mortality, the desire to cheat death expressed in my pursuit of sexual pleasure with its promise of rebirth," Godmother narrates in her death video. "My custom-made burial shroud is a culmination of these desires, the fabric interwoven with fungal spores such that in my passing, new life springs anew."

I feel a presence beside me and assuming it's Claire, start to talk over Godmother's incessant monologue. "Is she calling death an STI? I think that's almost profound."

"Fucked if I know," a decidedly male Irish brogue replies. I turn to look at the Priest. "Sounds like a load of wank to me."

"That's Godmother in a nutshell," I agree and he laughs appreciatively.

"I'm not sure how those fungi will survive inside a sealed perspex coffin. Don't they need air?"

"Fucked if I know," I echo him with a shrug. "Still prefer funerals to weddings?"

"Generally, yes. You know I believe that we're going somewhere wonderful in the next life. This funeral has given me pause though."

"It's a bit much, isn't it?" I'm not quite sure what to say next, the thing I desperately want to say feels wildly inappropriate.

"I'm not Catholic anymore." I’m surprised by how direct he's been. "I just thought I'd put it out there. Although that now sounds like an awful chat up line, which it's not - "

"Well fuck you then," I say, trying to brush off the hurt of that decisive shutting down of my half-formed hopes.

"If you insist." There's a twinkle in his eye now. Maybe I've misread things.

"Are you propositioning me, Father?"

"You know, I think I might be."

"Mum! Mu-um!"

Of course, of fucking course, kids are the ultimate cock block. The Priest looks awkward, I probably do too. I swear he's trying to surreptitiously look at my ring finger so I use my hands in a way that probably resembles a muppet to show off how attached I'm not.

"Everything OK, darling?"

"Dad's here to take me to his place, says he's not comfortable leaving without speaking to you first." Daughter rolls her eyes. I wish I could do the same.

My ex is so considerate. What a prick.

"Sorry, Father, I have to go talk to my Ex." Had to get in that confirmation of my relationship status, just so he has all the facts. "We'll talk when I get back?"

"I'll be waiting," he says with a smile.

It takes longer than I'm totally happy with to wrap things up with my Ex. Unfortunately he's busy being concerned about my dad and asking practical questions about homework and after school clubs and I can't exactly tell him that I'm a bit busy seducing a Priest to talk.

It takes me a while to track him down when I finally escape, but I find him hiding and having a fag in the same secret corner where we once shared stolen kisses. Honestly I can't decide if it's romantic or a little pathetic that we're back here and history's potentially going to repeat itself.

Hopefully not to the same bitter conclusion.

I pull out my own fag and the Priest offers me a light. Leaning close to his hands I feel the same rush of anticipation I did back then, my heart fluttering at his presence like no time has passed at all.

"So," he starts, then breaks off.

"So," I agree with a nod. "I'm a mum - a single mum, and you're a hopefully single, no longer celibate man."

"I am."

There's a long silence that's almost deafening with its intensity.

"So what made you -" "I'm sorry I didn't -"

We both start speaking at once, stop and stare at each other for a minute then I gesture for him to speak.

"I'm sorry I didn't leave for you," he says, then looks me right in the eye. "I hope you know that it's not that I didn't love you, I just, I needed time to figure things out."

"I know. I knew that then too. So what did make you convert in the end?"

"The sex. I was really, really gagging for it," he deadpans. I snort with laughter, he waits for me to calm down before he carries on. "Honestly it did start with meeting you -”

“Me and my blasphemous tits.”

“Yeah.” He smirks at me, then looks a little sad. “I felt lost after we stopped - after I ended things.” He shakes his head and looks at me, swallowing a lump in his throat. “I was so lonely when we met and you came into my life and we just connected so deeply and I fell so hard for you.”

Oh fuck, I am not prepared for this conversation.

“No, don’t disappear, not now.” He takes my hand and waits for me to focus on him, so I try my best to fight against how overwhelmed I feel and to stay in the moment with him.

“I know that you don’t believe what I do, but I really do believe that God is love. 'Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.' That's what the Bible says. It just didn’t make sense to me that I could be so full of love and that that was a bad thing, something to be ashamed of. Isn’t love meant to be a wonderful gift from God?”

I can feel the tightness in my jaw, a prickle of tears, I seem to have forgotten how to breathe.

“As time went on the intensity of my love for you faded, but that seed of doubt was planted. Not in God, not in Him, but in the word of the Catholic church. A different denomination of Christianity would allow me to marry you, to celebrate our love, there’s nothing in the bible to say that we shouldn’t.”

These words hang heavy between us and there’s a long pause, while he takes a long drag on his cigarette and lets the smoke slowly drift out of his parted lips.

“Over time I noticed more and more of these inconsistencies and one day a teenage boy asked me for forgiveness for falling in love with his male best friend and I just couldn’t … I couldn’t understand why he needed it. I couldn’t in all good faith follow the teachings of the Catholic church and stay true to what I believe.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.��

“You wanted to marry me? It'll take more than that to make an honest woman of me."

He chuckles. “I don’t know. If we could've dated and my feelings stayed as they were? Maybe. I wanted the option.”

"When did you leave?"

"Four years ago."

"Did you -" oh wow, it's so hard to ask this, but I need to know. "Did you ever think of telling me?"

"No."

Fuck me that hurts. I drop my cigarette to the floor, study it as I stomp down on it to make sure that the fire is out. It’s my way of deflecting from the sudden urge to cry. He gently lifts my chin with his finger, bringing my face up to look at his.

"I knew you were married. Your stepmum said."

"Was she a dick about it?"

"Of course. Still, you were unavailable. What good would telling you have done?" He's right. I was still married when he converted, it was for the best.

"I saw you once with him. Or I think it was him."

"Am I detecting a smidge of jealousy there, Father?"

"Oh fuck off.” He didn’t deny it. “A parishioner had died and I just, I really needed a friend and I thought of you. You just got me so well, you know? I went to Hillarys and you were there in the arms of this man and you looked so happy that I just couldn't ruin that for you. I shouldn't have gone. Not when I didn't know if I could trust myself around you."

"And what about now?"

"Well I'm allowed to kiss you now, I don't need to worry about trusting myself."

"That's true. So do you want to come over to my place for a friendly game of strip poker?" He laughs at me, shaking his head while smirking. "Spin the bottle?" That devilish gleam appears in his eyes. "Seven minutes in heaven - or is that considered blasphe -"

He cuts me off with his lips on mine.

It’s everything I remembered and so much more. Intense, passionate, devastating kisses that drive me to cliches straight out of a romance novel. Pushed up against that wall my heart races, my chest heaves, and, yes, my knickers get fucking wet.

It feels just like it did 15 years ago. It feels like love. And that’s insane, we had barely even started when things ended between us and I’ve lived and loved so much since then. But this thing between us? It just feels right.

My body is on fire, I’m pretty sure it’s in the good, aroused way and not because God’s smiting me for defiling a priest. He’s a tad late to the punishment, if that was His plan. But I’ll happily let this fire consume me because it feels so good. After all this time, I never want what we’re sharing to end. But the need to breathe becomes too strong and we break apart, noses nuzzling and foreheads resting together.

“Can I take you to dinner tonight?” he asks but I’m so staggered by our kisses I barely hear what he’s said.

“What?” I breathe out in between pants.

“Let me take you to dinner tonight,” he says, stroking my cheek before leaning in for another dizzying kiss.

"Oh, I don't know," I pretend to be thinking hard. "Sounds a bit tame, I did have plans with a rabbi for a good hard fuck."

He barks out a laugh. "Oh really?"

"Yeah and tomorrow's my night getting spanked by an imam."

He raises his eyebrows holding back a laugh at what I'm saying and playing along. "What about Friday?"

"Threesome with a pujari and a Buddhist monk."

"What if I upgraded my offer to dinner and if you're really good you get dessert?" He ran his tongue along his lips.

"And what if I'm really bad?"

"You'll have to get on your knees and pray for forgiveness."

It's ridiculous how easily this man can turn me on. Although I have kneeled for him before, I remember the effect.

"I could be tempted to agree," I say, affecting disinterest.

"But you'll have to dump your harem of religious leaders," he all but growls.

"Oh I don't -"

He slams his mouth into mine, pushing me back against the wall, cutting me off with a fierce kiss. He trails his lips along my jaw to my ear. "Please," he murmurs, then kisses down my neck and pushes my collar to one side to suck and lick where it meets my shoulder. That fire starts up inside me again, his mouth almost painfully good against me, driving me to the brink of madness until I'm half tempted to push his trousers down and fuck him against the wall where anyone could see.

“OK,” I pant. "I - I guess I can do that."

"Good girl," he growls into my ear, then pulls away, righting my collar as he does, to hide the bruise he's surely worked into my skin. “We should probably get back before they start looking for us.”

And he steps back from me, innocent smirk on his face.

"I'm going to make you pay for that," I say, trying to sound commanding, although I'm so breathless that the effect is lost.

"Oh please do," he says with a grin.

We head back towards the party and one important thing occurs to me. “If you’re Anglican now, why did you do Godmother’s funeral? Isn't she Catholic?”

“You may find this hard to believe, but I don’t think she was really all that interested in the religious side of being a Catholic.”

“Oh yes, she wanted one of those religion-free faiths.”

“Exactly. She may have intimated to me that she would very much like for me to conduct her funeral when her time came because her funeral should be a thing of beauty.”

I snort with laughter. “I didn’t realise it was possible to be vain from beyond the grave, but if anyone was going to find a way it was her.”

“You won’t hear me complaining - she brought me back to you.”

“She finally did right by me, she’ll be so disappointed.”

#fleabag #fleabag x the priest #fleabag fanfic #katie dub writes #I don't know guys #my brain works in strange ways #but it's a very on brand death for godmother #so I went with it

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fatalezr · 3 years

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A form of justice - Epilogue

“Detective Constable Rebecca Davidson”

The crowd applauded as Rebecca stepped on to the stage in dress uniform and walked to the Commissioner. She smiled at Rebecca, who beamed and felt on top of the world. They shook hands and Rebecca joined the other new recruits to the Metropolitan Police in formation on the stage.

“Well done” whispered her classmate Adil, as she joined him by his side. He looked fine in his dress uniform with his turban celebrating his Sikh heritage.

“Thanks, you too” she whispered back, and they joined in the applause as more new recruits were introduced to the room, all filing into position at the side of the stage. Rebecca looked out into the crowd. She saw her parents sitting proudly in the middle, with Kate and DCI Sullivan sat by their sides.

The Comissioner finished introducing the recruits and gave a short address on the need for understanding in officers, understanding of situation, culture, belief and circumstance. She finished her remarks and the room stood to applause. A photographer moved in front of the group of recruits and took photographs. Rebecca imagined her fellow classmates were all having one of the best days of their lives, the culmination of a rigorous training and interview process. Her mind briefly flashed to her own interview with Assistant Commissioner Locke. She frowned as she remembered the feeling of betrayal when she had seen him in Mulvaney’s brothel. She remembered standing over him, pistol raised.

She broke from her memories as the photographer finished and the group broke up, recruits going to their family and friends in the room. Her mother ran up to her as best as she could in the heels she was wearing for the first time, wearing a crisp cream skirt suit. She beamed and embraced Rebecca tightly.

“Oh darling, we’re so proud of you” she said, pulling Rebecca close to her, “you look, oh, you look so happy”. She had tears in her eyes.

“Thanks Mum” Rebecca told her and broke from her hug to be embraced by her father. He kissed her on the cheek.

“Well done” he told her. He was not a man of many words, but she appreciated that today was a proud day for him too. He had even put on a tie for the occasion.

“Michael wanted to be here too” her mum said, “but Nina’s been sick and Emma couldn’t get the time off work”. Rebecca assured her mother that it was fine. Her brother had already video called her and it had been nice to see her 6-month old niece, even if she was feeling under the weather.

“Alright, Rook” a familiar voice said, and Rebecca turned to Kate who had joined the group, back in her familiar leather jacket and jeans look.

“I’m the rookie now?” Rebecca asked her.

“Damn straight” Kate told her, “and I’m expecting a decent coffee on my desk first thing every morning Rook”. She winked at her and they both chuckled.

“Oi, leave her alone” said DCI Sullivan, who walked to join the group. He wore his full dress uniform “Congratulations Detective Constable” he said, and they shook hands warmly.

“Thank you sir” Rebecca replied, “I couldn’t have done it without you”.

“You could and you would” he assured her. “Look, I can’t stay” he said sadly, “plenty of meetings to attend as you can imagine but I can leave you DS Belmont for the day. It was lovely to have met you” he turned to Rebecca’s parents politely.

“Thank you sir” she said, “I’ll see you tomorrow”. Sullivan smiled and left. He looked healthier, Rebecca thought. The Mulvaney case was stressful but was now in its final stages. The man himself was dead, his assets were in the hands of the Met and they had been able to bring comfort to many of the victims of his organisation. The remaining senior members of the gang were now being rounded up and those that could had already fled the city. Sullivan had been widely praised at the Met for helping to break the organisation down. There was still a lot of speculation both in the force and the media about what had transpired on Mulvaneys last day. Had one of his own turned on him? Was there another gang trying to take control of his network? Sullivan and his team had concluded it must be the former, but it was still hard to be sure. The guns that had shot Mulvaney were in the hands of two men who were also dead. Had they all died in a shootout together? Rebecca and Kate had stayed silent as theories were bandied across the rooms and with the team as they drank together.

“The bastard is dead” Kate had finally declared to Afidi over a pint, “that’s the main thing. How he got there doesn’t really matter to me”.

Rebecca took her mother’s arm and they walked from Scotland Yard to a nearby restaurant with her father and Kate. September was being typically warm and sunny, and they sat outside and chatted. Kate probed Rebecca’s parents for all the embarrassing stories about when she was a child, and her mother gladly regaled tales of when she was young and in school plays or when she had won a medal at sports day. Her parents were proud and Rebecca allowed herself to soak in and enjoy the day - she had worked hard and it was nice to receive the rewards alongside the people she loved.

“Decent job, good friends, now all we need is a decent man for you Rebecca” her mother finally said.

Rebecca rolled her eyes. “Mum, please, I’m happy, that’s the main thing”.

“Don’t worry Mrs Davidson, I’m doing my best to help her out” Kate said mischievously. She winked at Rebecca, who just shook her head.

“Cheers Kate, and shall we talk around anyone you’re dating at the moment?” she shot back.

“I’m doing ok for myself” Kate said, grinning at her.

“Well who knows?” Rebecca’s mother said, “maybe next time we visit there will be a nice gentleman to introduce me too! Matthew, we’d best get the bill. Don’t want to be late for the train”. Her father duly flagged down a waiter and paid for the meal and Rebecca hugged both her parents as they all said goodbye at Charing Cross station. She waved at them as they headed to their train.

“And now time for celebration part two!” Kate declared, taking her arm and leading her through Trafalgar Square towards Piccadilly. She took her to a rooftop bar and they sipped on a glass of wine together. “I hope you don’t mind” Kate said, “but I might have invited a couple of friends”. She waved at someone behind Rebecca and she turned to see Marcus and Sunita striding towards them. They all embraced together and wished Rebecca many congratulations before pouring some more wine into glasses.

Marcus sat next to Rebecca and took advantage of Kate and Sunita arguing to speak softly to her. “You’ve done amazing Bec” he told her, “real amazing”.

Rebecca smiled, happy to be in his company. She had bought him the drink she promised after Mulvaney was killed and the two had been on a few dates together in recent weeks. She kissed him and felt safe in his arms where they sat.

“Oi you two, still other people here” Sunita chided them. She downed the rest of her wine. “Come on Kate, let’s leave them to it”.

“Just don’t do anything I wouldn’t do” Kate told them, getting up and putting on her jacket.

“What on earth wouldn’t you do?” Rebecca asked her.

Kate thought for a second. “Probably a fair point” she said. “I’ll see you tomorrow Bec”. Her and Sunita left Marcus and Rebecca together and walked off, still debating whatever subject they had landed on.

“So how about a nice dinner on me?” offered Marcus.

“Well i’d prefer to eat it off a plate but other than that, sure” said Rebecca, chuckling. She kissed him again. “You’re pretty awesome Marcus”

“Nowhere near as much as you” he replied tenderly. “Seriously, I even cleaned my house this morning”.

“Oh, bit presumptuous maybe?” she teased him. “You’re gambling a lot on dinner”.

They laughed together. Rebecca was distracted as a waiter brought over a bottle of champagne. “A bottle from a gentleman, Madam” he said, presenting it to her. It was a fine Moet Chandon.

“Oh Marcus, you shouldn’t have” she told him.

“Erm...I didn’t” he replied.

Rebecca looked at the waiter puzzled. “No Madam, a gentleman in the corner”. He indicated towards a corner where a tall armchair had its back to her. “Shall I serve?”

“Please” she said, “I’ll be back in a bit Marcus” she kissed him on the cheek and walked over to the armchair to get a view of the stranger who had bought them a drink. She was not surprised to see a tall man wearing a pinstriped suit and reading the Daily Telegraph whilst sipping a whiskey. “Hello George” she said, sitting in the chair opposite Mr Digby-Wright. “Thank you for the drink”

“It is my pleasure, Rebecca, my utter pleasure” he said, putting his paper down, “many congratulations on becoming a new Detective Constable”.

“Thank you” she said. “We hadn’t heard from you in recent weeks”

“Since the death of Mr Mulvaney, no” he said, “what a sad occasion that must have been” he said sarcastically and saluting her with his glass. “A most fortunate turn of events, one thinks. I had the pleasure of telling Mr Hanlon and he was not....displeased with the results”

“What happens to him now?”

“Why, he is a free man of leisure of course!” George replied merrily. “All debts are settled, the piper has been paid, the world continues turning as it always does”.

“Well, thank you again” Rebecca said, making to get up from the chair.

“Now Rebecca” he said, and she stopped. “I must say I have been very impressed with your work in recent weeks. To show judgement as you have is commendable, as is the willingness to walk into danger when it is not required of you. Such talents have naturally caught the attention of me and others within her majesty’s secret service”. He sipped some more of his drink and leaned forward towards her. “Tell me...if you were to see more injustice, would you be interested in taking similar steps to correct it?”

Rebecca said nothing and pondered his words. The killings in recent weeks had not traumatised her. She still felt justified and pleased with her actions. Could she do so again? What was George thinking? “It....could...be of interest” she said.

“Her Majesty’s servants may have need for you Rebecca. This would not be for a case. This would be for your country....and a healthy compensation” he added, smiling at her. “One might find that certain finer things in life can always be acquired”

Rebecca nodded and looked him in the eye. She saw Marcus looking at her. “I’ve got to go” she told George, “thank you again for the drink” she stood up. “I guess you know where to find me?” she asked him.

“Always, Rebecca” he said. He picked up his glass and saluted her again as she walked back to Marcus. “Until next time”

#aformofjustice #story #femme fatale #hitwoman #female assassin

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nikkoliferous · 5 years

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Ragnarok Makes No Damn Sense (Part 1)

Having now laid out who Loki has always been and why there was an open agenda to demean and debase him, we come to why Thor: Ragnarok is antithetical to his character. Buckle your damn seatbelt. We've got a lot to unpack.

Off the bat, we're supposed to be appalled/annoyed/something that Loki has usurped the throne from Odin. Yet when last we left our heroes, Thor had abdicated his role as King of Asgard, knowing full well that Odin's health was failing, he was emotionally unfit to rule, and there was no other heir to fill his role. Oops! And for all that we're meant to believe in Loki's selfish ambitions for a throne, let us not forget that Loki-as-Odin at the end of The Dark World offered Thor this kingship. It was Thor who refused. What was it he said at the time? Oh, yes.

"For all his grave imbalance, Loki understood rule as I know I never will."

Now Ragnarok wants us to forget all that. It doesn't suit the narrative Taika Waititi wishes to spin. He wants us to believe that Loki is a terrible, lazy ruler who cares only about glorifying himself. But wait, is Loki a terrible ruler? The Hero™ tells us he is, so it must be so. And yet all we really know of Loki's reign is that he had a non-interventionist foreign policy, improved public infrastructure, and supported the arts. Wow, yeah, what a dick.

We will soon go on to meet Doctor Strange, a character who in comparison to Loki is a novice at magic yet somehow repeatedly manages to get the drop on the trickster. This is necessary in order to minimize Loki's power and competence in the eyes of the viewer. Let me also explain why the "I have been falling for 30 minutes" scene is not charming.

Does anyone think perhaps Loki may have a touch of PTSD related to the sensation of falling? No? Then perhaps we should instead analyze the deleted scene in which Loki is locked in a portapotty while men repeatedly urinate on him until Thor arrives to let him out. The fact that this was an idea someone had to begin with is gross. The fact that they came close enough to using it that it was actually filmed is downright shameful. Every single person at Marvel involved in approving this trash should commit seppuku in penance.

Ignoring the sexual assault implications here... I mean, this is literally toilet humour. Literally. What are we, five years old? Who the hell actually finds this funny?

"I keep a watch list of individuals and beings from other realms that may be a threat to this world." - Doctor Strange, Thor: Ragnarok

So how did you miss the huge, purple nutsack wreaking havoc across the cosmos? I mean, no offense. I'm just saying.

Now we have the culmination of Odin's A+ parenting. He's at the end of his life just because he feels like it, I guess, so now it's time to pretend he gives a damn about Loki for a few seconds again. One "I love you" without even looking at him is supposed to make a millennium of emotional abuse and neglect all better or something. Even in his death, Odin can't seem to stop screwing with Loki's mind. What a charming man, I'll sure miss him.

Oh, but before he's on his way, he has a teensy weensy confession to make. Remember when he lied to you about your entire existence, Loki? LOL! He lied to Thor about being the firstborn too! And now the evil sister neither of you knew you had is coming to destroy everything and he's given you no time to plan how to stop her! Don't you feel much better now?

It's been about five minutes since we were reminded that Loki is a coward and an idiot or something, so contrary to Tom Hiddleston's own words that

"The thing with Loki is that, if he’s afraid, he won’t show it. He’s been highly trained, through the experience of his slightly traumatic life, to shield his fears."

it became necessary for Loki to immediately panic and lead Hela straight to the one place he knows she'll be most powerful. Whoops!

The Warriors 3 are quickly dispatched by Hela because it's important we remember that the first two Thor movies were trash and nothing that ever happened in them has any meaning. By the way, Heimdall is Thor's new BFF now and Thor will never mention his former friends ever again. Ever. Like, even in passing. Like they never existed. Those people who committed literal treason for him both before and after he was banished in Thor (2011). And then again in The Dark World. Those friends.

Meanwhile, Thor and Loki have both landed on a planet called Sakaar. It's a giant trash heap and that about sums up how I feel about this whole damn movie, so credit to TW for the symbolism, I suppose. Here's possibly the most cringeworthy moment in the whole debacle—and that's a very high bar. Or low, I guess, depending on how you look at life.

He's a Norse god... screaming, "oh my god!" I don't have enough hands for all the facepalming I feel like doing right now.

Anyhow, Loki and Thor have arrived on Sakaar separately and Thor has just noticed Loki sitting across the room, casually joking about his own suicide attempt. Because there's nothing funnier than suicide, amirite?! Especially when you still haven't sorted through any of the complex issues that led you to become suicidal to begin with. Who cares? We're just here for the lulz, yeah?

"Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Korg, I'm the director's annoying self-insert, and I'll be pissing on every poignant moment from here on out because reflection is for nerds. You just need to smile more."

Hey, remember that time in The Dark World where Loki was stuck in solitary confinement for a year and Thor didn't come to visit him even once? Now Thor is the one locked up and Loki has come to visit him almost immediately. To offer his help. To try to relate. Maybe mourn the loss of... everything together. But Thor's not interested in relating. He's interested in scapegoating Loki, because that's what this family does.

"What would you like me to say? You faked your own death, you stole the throne, stripped Odin of his power, stranded him on Earth to die, releasing the Goddess of Death.” - Thor, Thor: Ragnarok

To borrow a phrase from the late Luke Skywalker, "Amazing. Every word of what you just said is wrong."

► Loki has never faked his death. What he did is fail to die on Svartalfheim, through no fault of his own. It seems a little insane I have to defend Loki's right to not die, but here we are, I guess.

"We planned to have Loki have a redemptive death[...]We think he's wounded, but it wasn't a death blow." - Kevin Feige, The Dark World DVD extras

"Loki probably in his heart wants to be worthy, and the way he achieves his redemption—his salvation—is to ultimately sacrifice himself, for Thor and for Jane. I hope it’s a very cathartic and moving moment, by saving his brother’s life and avenging his mother’s death." - Tom Hiddleston, The Dark World DVD extras

The worst that can be said of Loki's "betrayal" of Thor at the end of The Dark World is that he failed to inform him that he had survived. And Loki had very good reasons to do so. What had Thor offered him in exchange for his help with the Dark Elves? He would return him to his cell to live out the rest of his days in complete isolation—a fate that I will just reiterate is classified as a form of psychological torture.

► Loki didn't steal the throne. As mentioned above, he offered Thor the throne. Thor said no.

► There is zero evidence beyond Thor's own assumptions that Loki stripped Odin of his powers. We are meant to believe this only because we are told that it is so. On the contrary: "It took me some time to break free of your spell," Odin tells Loki before his death. But if Odin had been stripped of his power, how then did he eventually break free? Upon examination, Thor's logic fails.

► Loki did not "strand Odin on Earth to die". He left him in a freaking retirement home where he had every expectation that Odin would be well-cared for. An argument can certainly be made that after everything Odin has done to Loki in the past, Loki was downright merciful not to kill the old man in his sleep and be done with it.

► Loki had no way of even knowing Hela existed. How is her release his fault and not, say, Odin's for dealing with all his problem children by tossing them out and throwing away the key? Or for not preparing his sons for the day they would be forced to face her?

Oh well. Now it's time for Loki Is A Coward™, Part Deux, because as I may have mentioned previously:

"The thing with Loki is that, if he’s afraid, he won’t show it. He’s been highly trained, through the experience of his slightly traumatic life, to shield his fears." - Tom Hiddleston

MINOR ENDGAME SPOILER:

Reminder also that this was Loki's reaction to the Hulk in Endgame, only minutes after being beaten to a pulp by him

Doesn't seem particularly frightened, but what do I know?

Hey, remember back in Thor (2011) when this happened? If the Valkyrie were already legend, why did Sif need to prove herself as a female warrior?

Shhh. You were supposed to forget about that minor detail. Now back to the butt jokes.

Now let’s take a short intermission, shall we? Because this movie blows so hard that if I put all my criticisms in one post, it’ll probably break Tumblr.

↩️ back to the compendium

#the big damn ragnarok sucks compendium #ragnarok cinematic universe #taika waititi is a piece of shit ask me how #loki #thor #odin's a+ parenting #loki meta #thor meta #not my thor #mcu

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pug-bitch · 4 years

Text

That’s not why I’m staying (4)

Messes, and a small fire

Book: The Royal Romance, Book 2

Pairing: Drake Walker x Amara Suarez

Rating: some foul language, some extremely suggestive, and a VERY steamy scene, right at the beginning (I guess I now start every chapter with some people getting it on :D). This is absolutely NOT appropriate for people under 18.

Word count: about 3,700 (Sorry for the absence of a Keep Reading option - I’m on mobile!)

Notes: This picks up where we left off, during Liv and Rashad’s date (pre-boeuf bourguignon), starting with Olivia’s POV. This chapter is slightly shorter than my usual ones, but I needed to have a shorter one to get myself back in the spirit of writing for pleasure. I’m sorry I’ve been MIA for a couple of weeks, my job is taking over, and writing is a big part of it, so opening a Word doc has been quite the scary experience. But I’m doing my best, and I intend to keep writing this series, because it makes me happy :) Thank you for sticking with me!!!

*****

Olivia’s lips find Rashad’s and capture them seamlessly. She feels him lean into her kiss, as he closes his eyes and lets out a quiet moan. Fuck, he’s sexy, she thinks. How had she never noticed before? Now she can’t get enough of him.

‘Fuck, Nevrakis,’ he sighs. ‘You’re so hot.’

She smirks and kisses him again, all the while unbuttoning his shirt. Rashad’s hands run down her spine, giving her chills as they do. They grab her ass firmly, and press her further against him. She can very clearly feel his hard cock under his pants. The mere thought of it makes her wet.

She can’t wait anymore. They had multiple makeout sessions, endless flirting, and a lukewarm sex session. She needs the real him, now, or else…

She grinds him more and more intensely, until they both can’t take it any longer. His right hand leaves her ass to find the spot under her dress, between her thighs, and he gently pulls her already wet panties onto the side. Breathlessly, she follows suit and unzips his pants, and quickly pulls down his boxers, finally freeing his big cock. He moans harder onto her kiss.

She can’t wait anymore. He teases her entrance with the tip of his cock, but she wants more, now.

Once he’s completely inside her, they both let out a low groan.

Finally, she thinks. That’s what she’s talking about.

*****

Liam can’t stop his eyelid from twitching. The collar of his white shirt is hurting his neck, suffocating him. He wishes he could just run away and never look back.

His encounter with Drake this afternoon did him a world of good. Finally someone listened to him, not in a fake way like Madeleine used to, when she was trying to seduce him with her pretend compassion.

He has his best friend back. They can count on each other again.

Madeleine is wearing a pre-bridal outfit — white everything. She looks so angelic, Liam himself has trouble believing that she really is a schemer, just from looking at her. But when he thinks back of their awkward, forced interactions… He shudders. No more thinking.

Leo pats him on the back. The two brothers smile at each other. They had a heart-to-heart earlier, and Leo perfectly understood that Liam can’t ask him to be best man, with the history that he and Madeleine share. It felt good to be supported, even by just two people.

Madeleine holds out her hand for Liam to take. Together, they walk onto the platform, surrounded by reporters and various representatives of the Cordonian press. King Constantine is already on the platform, and Liam can’t help but think that he hasn’t really seen his father in motion for a very, very long time. Can he even walk anymore? In any case, he’s good at concealing. If that’s what being a King means, well, Liam won’t be any good. He can feel the beads of sweat dangling over his brow.

His father gives him a curt nod. It’s time.

He clears his throat. ‘People of Cordonia. It is with great pleasure that I officially announce my engagement to Countess Madeleine of Fydelia.’ He turns to Madeleine and they offer each other their fakest smile. ‘We couldn’t be happier about the news, and we look forward to the upcoming festivities. In four days, this Friday, we will depart for our engagement tour, which will stop in Rome, then Paris, then London, finally culminating in a trip to New York City. With us, we will have the pleasure to welcome our wedding parties. Please, Lady Madeleine,’ he says as he turns to her.

She smiles and says, ‘My maid of honor will be Lady Kiara of Castelsarreillan. In my wedding party, I will be delighted to count my fellow former contestants Lady Penelope of Portavira, Duchess Olivia Nevrakis of Lythikos, Lady Hana Lee, and—‘ she pauses and Liam could swear she let a slight smirk show. ‘Lady Amara Suarez.’

The crowd lets out a slight gasp. Liam hurries with his list. ‘And my best man will be my longtime friend Drake Walker. In my wedding party, I am welcoming my brother, former Prince Leo, Duke Bertrand Beaumont of Ramsford, Lord Maxwell Beaumont of Ramsford, and Lord Rashad Domvallier.’ He takes a long breath. ‘Thank you, dear people of Cordonia, for your well wishes. We both wish you all the happiness we are experiencing ourselves, and to all a good night.’

*****

‘Well, I guess it’s official,’ Drake says as he turns off the TV. ‘We gotta do this thing.’

Hana nods as she takes a sip of her wine. ‘Yep. Just the thought of pretending to be helpful to that bitch is giving me hives.’

Drake has to chuckle at Hana’s swearing - he might never get used to it. ‘And I have to be Liam’s freaking best man. Which, like… it’s fine, of course I want to be there for him, but—‘ He trails off. Amara meets his eye.

‘You’re nervous about being in the spotlight,’ she finishes his sentence. He nods. She continues, rubbing Drake’s hand in support. ‘I know, me too, babe. But think about it. It’s for the best. We’ll be on the frontline, ready to pounce if Madeleine shows her hand in the slightest.’

Maxwell nods. ‘Exactly. We’ll be there for each other, too. Oh and, after these drinks, let’s all write our acknowledgements to Liam and Madeleine. That way, tomorrow, we can go to the cabin without a care in the world.’

Drake smiles earnestly. ‘I can’t wait. We all need it. You’ll see, Mike, it’s as calm as what we’ve seen of the coast today, but even more remote.’

Michael smiles excitedly. ‘I’m excited! I’ll take loads of pictures for Callie, she’s been asking about where we are. She’ll love that.’

Drake looks to Amara, who is smiling quietly, a sneaky tear in her eye. Without saying a word, Drake takes her hand again, and squeezes it. He knows how much she’s missed her niece. How badly she wants to be a part of her life again. Drake can’t help but imagine Amara’s family visiting Cordonia, coming to the cabin, having long dinners on the patio, overlooking nature… He may not have much of a family —it’s broken, it spans over two continents and three countries, it’s riddled with lies and unspoken things— but Amara makes him want to fix things. With her folks, with his… He wants their ducks to be in a row.

‘Guys,’ Maxwell whispers dramatically, ‘has anyone heard from Liv?’

This takes Amara out of her daydream, and she replies, ‘Oh, not at all. Let’s hope she’s too busy to text.’ She performs a theatrical wiggling of her eyebrows.

Hana joins in, ‘Maybe she’s just too tied up at the moment.’

Michael nods, a cheeky smile on his face, ‘Maybe she needs to remain on top of things.’

Maxwell, a proud look on his face, chimes in: ‘Maybe she can’t talk because her mouth is full.’

Everyone looks on in horror, until a collective roaring laughter takes over the silence.

‘Holy shit Max,’ Amara says, crying with laughter, ‘too far, honey!’

Michael wipes off a tear, ‘Jeez Maxwell, we were trying to be subtle over here!’

Maxwell shrugs. ‘I just wanted to be a part of it, guys.’

*****

‘Please Michael, go to bed,’ Maxwell waves him off. ‘You don’t need to do all this.’

Michael continues to carry plates from the living room to the sink. ‘No, I want to help! Drake cooked, Amara made the after-dinner drinks, I want to do my part.’ He pauses and makes a charming face at Maxwell. ‘Please.’

Max sighs. Why must they always meet like this, in the kitchen? All Maxwell has ever done in here is messes, and a small fire once —Bertrand still won’t let him use the oven—, but these days, he finds himself drawn to this space. This is where he puts plates together for his friends. Even though he can’t cook, he loves to entertain, and while he happily leaves the roasting and chopping to Drake, Maxwell loves preparing snacks and apéritif trays.

Not to mention the late-night cleanups. Which Michael always joins in on.

He chuckles and busies himself with the dishes. He told everyone else to go to bed, that he’s got it. Truth is, he was kinda hoping this would happen. People going upstairs to pack for tomorrow’s trip, and, if we’re being realistic, Drake and Amara probably going upstairs to get it on. Bertrand went to bed a while ago, as soon as he came home, and that leaves him here, now.

Dammit, he thinks. Why did the girls have to put these ideas in his head?

Well, once again, if we’re being honest, the ideas were already in there, but Maxwell was simply burying them under piles and piles of insecurity, laced with unwavering friendliness.

Maxwell had never been the one in charge before —no one trusts him with anything usually, see the kitchen fire anecdote—, but ever since Michael turned up, it had been Max’s pleasure to show him around, make sure he’s okay, and, most importantly, help him and Amara fix their relationship.

He knows Amara trusts him, and considers him like a brother, which is of course reciprocal. From the moment he told her about Savannah, and instead of judging him for keeping that secret from Drake, she helped him come clean, he’s known that she is a true friend.

So, if she herself is telling him that she sees something between him and Michael, could there be some truth to it?

‘Hey Max,’ Michael says softly, interrupting his incessant internal questions. ‘Is your brother ok?’

Maxwell smiles. ‘Yeah, Bertrand’s fine. He’s just stressed out. He found out that he’s part of the wedding party and needs to come on the Tour, and he’s like Drake in a way. He doesn’t like the spotlight.’

Michael nods. ‘I see. It’s crazy how different you guys are.’ He pauses. ‘I don’t mean that you love the spotlight or anything, but you’re just more...comfortable. In any situation. It’s really admirable, actually.’

Maxwell chuckles and turns back to his dishwashing so Michael can’t see that he’s blushing. ‘Oh, thanks, but it’s nothing, really.’ He bites his lip, annoyed at himself for not finding the right words. It used to be so effortless between them, why did the girls have to fill his head with stupid fantasies?

But Michael doesn’t seem to mind. He sits at the kitchen island and starts putting cookies back in their tins, slowly, one by one, as if he wanted to drag this moment for longer. ‘I’m serious,’ he adds. ‘It takes a lot of guts, and a lot of adaptability, to be able to navigate any social situation without too much anxiety.’

Maxwell turns around to grab another dirty dish. He meets Michael’s eye. ‘Well thank you, but I don’t think I navigate that well. Plus, I was born into it, I guess, so I have no merit. Amara, on the other hand…’

Michael laughs. ‘Yeah, Amara has always been good with people. She’s analytic, too, you know. She figures people out really quickly.’ He pauses and absentmindedly plays with a cookie. ‘Like with Drake. You said he was basically the broody type, right?’

Max smiles. ‘Yeah. Not much of a social butterfly, our Drake.’

Michael chuckles. ‘Right. But I don’t know, around her, he seems to light up. Around us too, actually, when I went on the tour with him this afternoon, he was all friendly and talkative.’

Max puts down the last dish and put the kettle on, without even thinking about it. ‘Yeah. He and I have known each other forever. His sister is one of my closest friends. But before Amara showed up, I don’t know, he didn’t really open up. His dad died ten years ago and he really closed off afterwards.’ Maxwell stops himself. Shit, he thinks. That was a really sensitive topic to tackle, why did he have to talk about death right now?

Michael gets up and sets up two teacups on the island. Maxwell joins him while the kettle does its thing. ‘Well, Amara had closed off, too, as you know,’ Michael responds. ‘Just punished herself. Became a different person. Look, it’s really simple, I hadn’t seen my Amara for two years. But the minute I came here and saw her with you guys, with Drake, I knew. She’s back.’

Maxwell smiles brightly. ‘That’s really beautiful. I like that idea —they found each other and allowed each other to be open again.’

‘Right. But not just the two of them. Amara loves you, and Hana, and Olivia, and Bertrand, too. This isn’t just about Drake and Amara’s love, although that’s the obvious part. It’s more than that, it’s a group effort. You all support each other in ways I didn’t know were possible for people who’ve only been friends for a few months. It’s quite beautiful.’

Maxwell lets the silence wrap them both up, until the aggressive sound of the kettle draws them from their rêverie.

*****

‘Guys, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!’ Drake yells out from the front door. He’s been ready to go for a while, but Amara is carefully reviewing her bags to make sure she didn’t forget anything. They woke up very early and had a nice breakfast all together—Hana made a frittata—, and now Drake is loading up his Jeep.

‘One second babe,’ Amara responds, ‘Maxwell and Hana are still upstairs.’

Bertrand comes out of his study, and unsnaps his reading glasses. ‘Well, Amara, I wish you a pleasant stay, and I shall see you on Thursday.’

Amara wonders how someone who is under 35 years old has reading glasses that snap in the front. And are tied by a string that goes around his neck. Even her dad wouldn’t wear that. ‘Bertrand,’ she says as she pats his shoulder, ‘are you sure you don’t want to come? We can take two cars, we’d love to have you come with us.’

He blushes. ‘No no, thank you very much for the invitation, Drake insisted too, but I shall get my affairs in order before the tour commences on Thursday. I didn’t expect to be a part of it, you see.’

Amara smiles. ‘If you’re sure. But please, if you change your mind, call us and join us, ok?’

He nods. ‘Will do. Enjoy yourself, please.’

She squeezes his shoulder and heads outside. ‘Drake, relax,’ she says as she rolls her eyes, ‘they’ll be right out.’ She smiles upon seeing Michael outside, already loading his duffle bag into Drake’s Jeep. ‘Well someone else is eager,’ she teases.

Michael smiles, his blue eyes sparkling. ‘I gotta say, this is super exciting. Living in the city doesn’t give you too many opportunities like this one.’ He hops into the backseat.

Amara throws her luggage in the back and settles into the front seat. ‘You know,’ she says to Michael, looking at him in the rearview mirror, ‘you don’t HAVE to live in the city. From what Dad tells me, you have plenty of offers in Philly, you could comfortably live in the suburbs.’

Michael’s smile falters a bit as he nods along. ‘Yeah. I know Callie would love to get closer to Grampie and Grammie. But--’ he interrupts himself and shakes his head. ‘I can’t bring myself to sell the apartment before I find a place that I can really feel at home in. That’s the only home Callie has ever known. I can’t uproot her unless I’m sure.’

Amara nods and stretches her hand towards the backseat, reaching Michael’s knee. ‘You’re right. Sorry. You know best, it’s not my place.’

He grabs her hand. ‘It’s ok. I know it sounds silly, but nothing has clicked yet. Jorge and I visited this beautiful townhouse in Bryn Mawr, which is perfect on paper. I don’t know, it just didn’t work for me, for some reason.’

‘Listen to yourself. To your gut,’ she says. ‘It’ll happen.’

‘Wooooo here we come!’ Maxwell yells out from the front door. ‘Hana, give me your bag!’

He throws both bags in the back and opens the door for Hana, who makes quick eye contact with Amara before saying ‘Oh Max, would you mind getting in the middle? If I’m not near a window I’m gonna get nauseous.’

Amara has to fight the urge to roll her eyes and giggle. Maxwell isn’t wrong --acting must be the one thing Hana sucks at.

‘Sure thing babe,’ Max responds. He gets in right next to Michael, who smiles at him softly.

‘Alright guys,’ Drake says excitedly. ‘Let’s gooooooo!’

*****

‘Father, is everything alright?’ Liam asks, his fingers still rattling the door to ask for permission to enter.

He is met with a faint sound, emanating from his father, who is lying down on his bed, eyes half closed.

He gets closer, his hands shaky. He’s never seen him like this. He knew he had gotten worse, he knew his cancer was terminal, but he didn’t know just how bad it was.

‘Father?’ he asks hesitantly.

‘Li--Liam, you shouldn’t be here, I asked for no one to disturb me today.’ He swallows, but it’s obvious that he’s in pain. ‘Please go.’

Liam gets closer to his father. He feels like crying, but he can’t. Firstly, because it would make his father feel badly. Secondly, because Constantine has never been one to encourage displays of emotion.

‘Father,’ he whispers without making eye contact. ‘Bastien sent for me. He said you told your nurse to leave, and that you refused to take your medicine. Leo and I are concerned. Tell me what happened.’

Constantine rolls his eyes and sits up with tremendous effort. ‘Liam, this is none of your business. If you must know, this medicine is not helping, my pain is unmanageable. Please keep this to yourself, we’re not here for a pity party. The monarchy is strong, don’t let anyone think otherwise.’ He looks his son up and down. ‘How are things with your betrothed?’

Liam feels a pang in his heart. That’s the only thing his father cares about, visibly, and he’s not about to make the situation worse by opening up. ‘Things are fine. I’m hesitant to go on the tour, though, and to leave you alone here.’

Constantine lets a rare smile show on his face. ‘Don’t stay here on my behalf. Go, do your duty. You will come back here after London and attend the Engagement Ball. I’ll be here.’ He nods decisively.

Liam lets out a long sigh. ‘Alright, Father, as you wish.’

*****

‘Welcome, everyone!’ Drake yells out with a smile, as he opens the front door.

Michael takes in the gorgeousness of the scenery, before grabbing his bag from the Jeep. He shouldn’t feel so relaxed and happy without his daughter around, right? But something feels right around here. No stress, obviously, since he has zero responsibilities, and loving, supportive people surrounding him.

A pang of guilt goes through his chest. He should call Callie. Ever since Sergio passed, it’s been the two of them, always together, getting each other through life. Of course, his parents and in-laws are awesome and always around, but at the end of the day, it’s the two of them, the Hansen-Suarezes.

Drake distributes the rooms. Amara stays with him in his original bedroom, Max and Hana share Drake’s younger sister’s, and Michael is allotted the master bedroom.

‘Make yourself at home, Mike,’ Drake says to him softly. ‘I’ll let you get situated, if you need anything, let me know.’

‘Thank you so much,’ Michael replies gratefully. ‘This is amazing. I’ll be down soon, I wanna check in with my daughter really quickly.’

Drake nods. ‘Of course. Amara and I will be downstairs preparing drinks and snacks.’

Michael puts his bag down and opens it. Most of the clothes inside are too formal, too lawyery, but he notices that Maxwell snuck a couple of outfits in there for him. A note is pinned to a pair of jeans.

They suit you better than they suit me. All yours! :)

Michael smiles warmly. Maxwell never ceases to be thoughtful. He’d have to remember to buy him something as a thank you. Drake could help him sneak out and pick something.

He picks up his phone and dials Jorge’s number. His father-in-law’s warm voice picks up.

‘Hi sweetheart. Is everything ok?’

‘Hi Jorge, I’m doing great, how are you?’

‘Great,’ he says, ‘we’re in the countryside at Drake’s cabin for a couple of days.’

‘Wonderful, dear, is Amara ok too?’

Michael smiles. ‘Doing great, Jorge. You can rest assured, she is very happy here.’

Jorge’s voice lights up. ‘That’s so good to hear.’ He pauses. ‘Callie, sweetie, it’s your daddy. Come chat with him for a bit.’

Michael feels himself regenerate as he talks to his daughter. The conversation is short, it basically revolves around how much she loved going to Dilworth Park with Grampie and Grammy, and how fun it was playing in the fountain. Michael hangs up with a light heart.

He was silly to feel like a bad dad, just because he felt relaxed without her. Ever since Callie was born, he has been a reliable and loving father, who managed to maintain as stable a life for Callie as he could, after Sergio’s death. He juggled all the grueling paperwork, the grief, and the parenting duties, making sure she had enough love, hugs, support, tenderness in her life.

If anyone was good at being a widower, it was Michael. It fucking ruined his life, but he handled it like a champ. Stable in the face of adversity. Always even, only letting his feelings overflow when it came to his sister-in-law, whose grief he could not handle too well.

He had been stable. But not happy.

Of course, Callie makes him happy. She’s the light of his life, and always will be.

But he’d been on autopilot.

Seeing Amara actually thrive as her life got ridiculous and out of control had been eye opening. Maybe he needed that, too. Just for a while.

*****

Taglist:

@drakeandcamilleofvaltoria @andy-loves-corgis , @jovialyouthmusic , @mariahschoices , @drakesensworld , @thequeenofcronuts , @notoriouscs , @drakewalkerisreal , @nikkis1983 , @simsvetements , @alesana45 @iplaydrake @emceesynonymroll @lily1999love @silviasutton1989 @dcbbw @texaskitten30 @furiousherringoperatortoad @hollygirl1269 @sirbeepsalot @ladyangel70 @thisperfectmemory @of-course-i-went-to-hartfeld @i-bloody-love-drake-walker @mrsmairstanley @addictedtodrakefanfic @msjpuddleduck @kimmiedoo5 @furryperfectionlover @princessleac1

Thank you for your encouragements, everyone! Let me know if you want to be added to the taglist :)

#that's not why i'm staying #drake walker x amara suarez #dramara #drake walker x mc #drake walker #trr fanfic #trr drake #drake x mc #drake walker trr #drake x amara #amara suarez

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nellynee · 4 years

Text

FowlPlayAU (aka Miraculous Peacock Marinette AU)

Literally no one asked but I don’t care. An AU in which Marinette holds the Peacock Miraculous

This actually developed from a few different threads that I tugged on over the course of a few months.

I guess the starting point for this was probably the season 1 episode “Simon Says” with the very short but profound moment of understanding between Gabriel and Ladybug over the pedestal they both placed Adrien on and the subsequent really, really heavy handed comparisons everyone kept making towards everyone else about who resembled Emilie the most

Basically I thought this episode was the heaviest seed in the narrative of the parallels between Gabriel and Marinette, both fashion career focused workaholics who take way to much responsibility on their own shoulders and get obsessive to the point of destructiveness over their respective, similar love interests, and using those parallels as a point of interest in showing both Marinette's growth as she moves beyond that destructive mentality and towards regarding Adrien as a person and how Gabriel’s “love conquers all” mentality isn’t an inherently positive thing but no. *sigh* no, they needed more screen time for one time characters. It fleshes out the world,yes, but not the characters. LOTS of interesting long term threads were dropped in favor of broadening the cast to try and shoehorn that “kid superhero group” into the show that was originally tossed. Basically I’m saying that I do think Gabriel and Marinette have enough in common to surprise some people, including each other, and I’m a sucker for intergenerational friendships

The second main factor was the small subplot at the time of Gabriel suspecting Adrien of being Cat Noir. I got really interested after “Gorizilla” about what might actually happen if Gabriel did figure out that Adrien was Cat Noir at that point in the series (I have words��about Cat Blanc, trust me. No those words aren’t “throw the whole mess out the window” because I actually love it. But many, many words) Going off the heavy handed implications that Emilie was the former Peacock, I thought it would be interesting, and in character, for Gabriel desperately analyze his son’s behavior as Cat Noir, trying to figure out WTF Adrien thinks he’s doing, only to realize that Cat Noir has some pretty obvious affections for Ladybug. This is unacceptable of course, but understandable in a “he’s a hormone ridden, teenage boy, and Gabriel was once too the same sort of boy in love with the same sort of heroin” sort of way. The obvious answer to getting rid of what is the only possible obstacle for his son’s cooperation (I was going off the pilot with the potential of Cat Noir as a Hawkmoth agent because of their familial connections) is to get rid of his affections, and since it has to be shallow, he’s too young and also Gabriel controls his whole life so it can’t be love, then all he has to do is shift his son’s affections. Cue an uncomfortable number of episodes in which Gabriel subtly inserts a B plot into his Akumatized villains by trying to push various girl together with his son in carefully controlled circumstances. Because this is before Kasumi, and again, those nice parallels between Marinette and Gabriel himself, he eventually after trial and error settles on Marinette as the perfect candidate. Thus, we get a series of hilarious situations in which Marinette and Adrien are pushed more and more into high pressure uncomfortable and intimate situations, losing time and ability to turn into their superhero personas as a natural deterrent to power creep and justifying the use of other Miraculous users a lot more.

I saw someone comment in one of their author’s notes on a fic a long time ago that they hated the trope of Marinette being an emotional Atlas and my instantaneous internal response that that kinda WAS Marinette's character early series, especially the origin episode, and that a lot of the most prevalent fics were written in that time period, and that really intense response from me really stuck.

Peacock aesthetic. yup, that alone gets an equal piece of the pie

So yeah, if any of that interests you, keeping in mind that on top of potential sympathy and understanding of his actions, Gabriel is still absolutly a shitty person, then the actual (canon divergent) AU is under the cut.

The actual thing diverts during Stone Heart, in which the moment Marinette decided to become Ladybug for realsies rather than try to faust it off Alya doesn’t happen. Rather than deciding to put on the earings, Marinette distracts the monster enough they can get away. Alya finds the earings, and takes up the Mantle of Ladybug.

This decidedly marks a regression in Marinette. Where as Ladybug, and with Tiki’s constant assurances and influence, Marinette learns to work past her urges to take responsibility for everyone’s emotions, Marinette has now lost that constant companion, and has to deal to with her new best friend’s time being diverted

Cut forward to “Stormy Weather” and Marinette has fallen into a vicious cycle of guilt. The little creature had told her it was her destiny to be Ladybug. And while we know that the situation with Hawkmoth is not much different than it is in canon, Marinette is totally convinced that the only reason Hawkmoth is still around hurting people is because she rejected the call. That guilt has built into a feeling of impotent inadequacy that convinces her that she’s no longer deserving of the Ladybug roll, and so she’s both unable to do anything, and responsible for Hawkmoth still being around.

The most prevalent of episode changes is Lady Wifi. It’s Marinette who’s akumatized, not Alya, and it’s a fairly traumatizing, but empowering experience for Marinette.

The ultimate culmination of this is this universe’ “Volpina” episode, where, in the background of main battle events, Marinette gains an understanding of the suspicions that Gabriel might be Hawkmoth, and in the climax of the battle, believing Adrien in danger, she confronts him, confirming his alter ego.

In a scene I have no time to actually extrapolate on, if your curious, just ask, Gabriel and Marinette come to a tentative understanding. He’ll give her the powers to protect his son, and she’ll actually have some sort of control in her life again. This akumatization takes the form of a faux Peacock Miraculous.

This marks the first half of her partnership as an antihero with Hawkmoth. (and yes, I do have the mechanics of how he can akumatized more than one person at a time without Catalyst, which will be extrapolated upon request, but this is long enough already)

Again, I wanna draw attention to those Sweet, Sweet Marinette and Gabriel parallels. Gabriel, through half truths and carefully peppered moments of emotional manipulation and practiced vulnerability, attempts to B plot Marinette into stealing the Miraculouses. Believing herself to be at least somewhat in his thrall, Marinette allows herself to empathize with his plight, and they build a surprising, if strained, raport.

After discovering that she is not, in fact, under Hawkmoth’s control Marinette rebels just long enough to have Hawkmoth take back his Akuma, and Marinette caves the next time Adrien is in Genuine Danger, stealing the real Peacock Miraculous and using it.

This marks the second half of their partnership, and Hawkmoth reveals that the miraculous is broken, and Marinette is now dying from it’s use, and that her only choice of survival is to help him make his wish. This evens out the power balance, at they both now have the same goals and powers independent of each other, but also ups ante.

That’s the most tldr general of overview, with other more specific highlights like

Ladybug!Alya having to reach her own emotional maturity, her earlier stint as a hero leaving her with a much bigger ego in terms of how she perceives her impact of the morale of the city and where her priorities lie in trying to boost that morale vs her personal needs. Ladybug!Alya tries too hard to take notes from already established heroes and public images. She still runs the Ladyblog, Spiderman style.

After quickly realizing (after some confusion) that the Ladybug he fought Stoneheart with the last time is not the same as the one he fought the first time with, Adrien gets a big old case of the pining sighs

Early series Adrien and Alya are both not the type to value secret identities, and so yes, they do reveal said identities to each other fairly early.

They also can both keep a fucking secret, so it works. They are secret BFFs

After the first time Adrien is rescued by the mysterious Peacock Holder, he figures out that whoever she is, she’s the original Ladybug, and more and more ends up distracted and drawn away from fights by her, the perfect reason for Alya to have to bring in other miraculous users. (the interactions tend to take place on moonlit balconies. There’s heavy Pilot influences here)

Marinette does this thing where she spreads her fan when she’s startled and hides her face. Mostly because Cat Noir wont stay out of it. The miraculous’ memory means she tends to fan speak a lot. Symbolism

Speaking of symbolism, the character designs are rife with them. I know exactly what Peacock Marinette looks like and there’s a reason for everything.

The subplot where (inspired by the pilot) Cat Noir finds out that there used to be a curse on the ring that could only be lifted by a kiss from Ladybug (thanks to her creation/retcon powers). Cat Noir convinces (inaccurately) himself that his destruction powers can totally do something similar with Hawkmoth’s mind control now all he needs is to kiss the Peacock user and she’ll be free! She’s totes not a bad guy!

Yes, Marinette does get a different miraculous ala being an episode helper, and her emotions are complicated about it

And other fun tidbits. This got way to long but I’m more than willing to extrapolate on anything more specific that anyone is curious about

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous au #peacock miraculous #mlb #peacock marinette #FowlPlayAU

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lostgirlrewatch · 4 years

Text

1x08 - Vexed

Original Air Date: November 7, 2010

Written by: Michelle Lovretta

Directed by: John Fawcett

Okay, so. Vexed.

This is the original pilot. I don’t think they necessarily presented it as the first episode chronologically—more like, this is what you can expect from our show. Showcase picked it up and it went to series. Vexed became episode 1x08. You can find more info about it in this interview with Michelle Lovretta and Jay Firestone.

Anyway, this episode was shot earlier than the rest, and you can tell. Makeup and styling is different, and they hadn’t quite settled on the tone they eventually went with. As such, this episode is a bit grittier than normal. I find it interesting both for its different tone and for the fact that many of the decisions they made for the episode were made in the interest of selling the concept to Showcase.

This fucking article is great and is a much better review of this episode and why it’s so god damn good than my shit below. It also provides an extremely detailed look into...exactly what I just described above. All of the behind-the-scenes production stuff. Check it out.

The premise: Bo finds a lead on someone who might know about her mother--a falsely accused death row inmate named Lou Ann. Bo vows to prove her innocence in exchange for answers, but her quest leads her into contact with a vicious Dark Fae named Vex.

I do wonder if they wrote this episode without really knowing where it was going to fit into the first season, assuming they had an outline. It works as a standalone and in some ways it feels a little disjointed from what came before in episode 1x07, right from the beginning. Dyson coming right out and saying something so blunt as, “She’s never gonna love you,” feels a bit off to me. But then again, all the characters in this episode are a bit “off,” which is understandable. This episode is like…the prototype. The beta.

“No offense to my own kind, but humans are a little pedestrian now.” *awkwardly laughs* Right... “your kind”…haha you’re enslaved. Lauren are you okay.

“Once you go Fae you never go back, huh?”

“So I hear.”

Me:

Bo feels a little bit more aggressive to me in this episode, like when Siegfried mentions her mother and she wigs out. It’s her normal desperation plus a bit of added homicidal urges. She’s a slightly grittier Bo.

As we can observe from the opening sex scene between Bo and Dyson, this episode is a bit more sexually explicit than we’re used to. This, I am not super a fan of on a personal level. However, the episode is also more violent than usual and incorporates horror elements. This, I am super a fan of because that’s kind of my shit, and it’s something I wish they would have leaned a little bit more into in the rest of the series.

There is nothing I don’t love about this scene. The creepy opera music that sets the stage, the gourmet meal prep (those gourmet meals always end in murder).

(Am I the only one who loves this random little detail they plopped into the background?)

Vex’s entrance—not overly dramatic, just, boop, there he is.

The tense build-up as we’re drawn to the knife, not sure where it’s gonna go—

--oh, oop, there it goes.

We know what’s going to happen now, but we build up to it, agonizingly, anyway. Surely we’re not actually going to sit here and watch as he shoves his hand into the disposal and then keep watching as he turns it on and it grinds his hand up. Oh, but we are.

Some scenes have a way of sticking with ya.

So I guess even the Lost Girl universe isn’t all camp and games. People are still people. Especially when they’re ancient as fuck and have all that time to stew in the cesspool of their fucked up emotional and psychological issues. So divorced are they from the concept of mortality, growing up and growing old, that their maturity level laps itself and becomes immaturity—they tend to to behave like children.

Not all Dark Fae are curmudgeonly, innocuous old grandpas who own restaurants or absolute Queens like the Morrigan. Some of them are like Vex. And just like, fuckin murder people—and each other. Vex’s world is different than Bo’s world. Vex lives in a world where violence is mundane. Empathy is nonexistent and pointless anyhow. Sometimes I wonder if immortal characters are drawn to violence and death because it’s as close as they can get to experiencing a sort of vicarious mortality.

I love Vex’s character throughout the series—up to a certain point—but I love him best in this, his original episode. In later episodes, Vex is portrayed as a sort of morally ambiguous anti-hero, or anti-villain, whichever you prefer. I have mixed feelings on how well the transition from villain to anti-hero is handled. The farther along you get in the series, the more he becomes reduced to a shell of his former self, purely comic relief, and just…sucks.

But in 1x08, Vex is a villain. Straight up. The things that he does are horrifying and the show does not bother trying to get you to empathize with him. And to be clear, this does not mean that he is not a multi-dimensional character, that he isn’t worthy of empathy, or that he is pure evil. What it does mean is the show does something I wish more shows would do. It creates a genuinely threatening and reprehensible villain that is both worthy of your analysis, even your stanning (I stan), and yet whose actions are still inexcusable.

In that interest, let’s talk about him. At this point, his most defining characteristic, the simplest way we can begin to understand his motives, is that he utterly lacks empathy. Vex is the kind of person who would puppeteer a woman and force her to drown her own children.

He is ordered to kill this woman’s family as punishment for betraying the Dark Fae’s rules. And in this episode, Vex is shown to be someone who rigidly follows the Dark Fae’s orders without question, and without any particular investment in them either. But he doesn’t just kill the kids—he uses his powers to force the mother to do it. To drown them. For no real reason other than his own amusement. That’s another level of sadistic. For a less intense example, in his introduction scene, he gruesomely tortures Siegfried before killing him. Just for funsies. (Well, okay, and to get information.) Vex lacks empathy, clearly, and may scan as a sociopath, but he’s not a stoic one. He gets enjoyment out of tormenting his victims.

Is this the kind of guy the writers are going to try to later convince us is a harmless comic relief mascot? Surely n—

Yes. Yes he is.

I am not at all opposed to the idea of Vex slowly becoming a morally ambiguous anti-villain, even a member of the gang. In fact, I think that premise is interesting as hell. But what I feel like happens later is that the show kind of forgets that Vex did all this horrible shit in the past. Kinda brushes it under the rug. Not only does this make it a lot harder for me to get behind him becoming one of the gang, it also does the character himself a great disservice. I’ll probably get into this more once Vex starts showing up more frequently, and why I feel the writers mishandle him.

To be clear, in spite of how sadistic he is, Vex is not a malicious person. He doesn’t have any enmity for the people he’s ordered to kill. He’s not angry, not hateful, not spiteful. He just doesn’t really care. He’s almost a kind of nihilist. None of it really matters. Somebody who thinks like that would have a fairly breezy time killing people.

Because I like when in-universe politics make things complicated, I like that the in-universe politics of the Light and Dark Fae makes things complicated. Bo wants to free Lou Ann, and she wants the Light Fae’s help, but they can’t help her because it would mean basically declaring war on the Dark Fae. MAJOR no-no. Likewise, they can’t go after Vex because all of his actions are sanctioned by the Dark Fae’s government. Bo’s unalignment gives her freedom, but it’s not without its downsides. She has no influence and no resources when things get too big for her to handle.

“Smells like fried bitch.” An icon. If I remember correctly from one of the behind-the-scenes features, they brainstormed and tested out a bunch of different one-liners to use for this moment, until Ksenia Solo ad-libbed this.

Lol. Kenzi is just so done with Bo and Dyson’s drama.

Lou Ann, the Fae woman who is on death row for killing her kids, obviously strikes a nerve with Bo.

It’s kinda weird, because when we first meet her, Bo’s main motivation is that she wants to be able to live her life without being forced to kill others and stay on the run to do so. Those problems kinda get solved in the first episode.

Since then, her motivation has been to live her life without these big mysterious Fae governments telling her what to do. In the first episode, Bo, like Lou Ann, says that she chooses humans. Bo was raised human and wants a normal human life, or as normal as she can get. At the same time, most of the other characters on the show, including her friends, spend a lot of time trying to convince her to embrace her Fae identity and a Fae lifestyle, because it’s “who she is” and she has no choice but to embrace that. “Choice” is a keyword that gets thrown around a lot in this show. But what is the show really trying to say about it? There’s some kind of nature vs. nurture conflict going on here, and I don’t feel like either Bo or the show itself has really decided on which side of the line they fall. On another note, this show has huge Fuck the System vibes. Which I appreciate. We stan an icon who chooses to reject a static, repressive, harmful system even at great personal cost.

A few episodes ago, Bo and Lauren went on a mission together and cemented their bond of trust. In this scene, Lauren breaks that trust.

She sleeps with Bo to distract her from going after Vex, under the pretense that it is simply the culmination of them both being attracted to one another. The next morning, it doesn’t take long for Bo to figure this out. She is appropriately hurt. She has feelings for Lauren, there was an intimacy there, and she trusted her in a way that she doesn’t normally trust other people, because of her past. Lauren took advantage of her feelings and used her. Whether Lauren wanted to do it or not, whether she had any way of refusing, isn’t relevant in this moment; it was cruel regardless.

But what does Lauren say?

“I haven’t done anything wrong.”

Oop. There it is. There’s the Lauren I remember.

She hasn’t done anything wrong, y’all. Well, I’ll be damned. Lauren never did anything wrong ever in her life. *Lauren did nothing wrong meme*

The way Lauren says this line, with so much conviction, makes me feel like she genuinely believes it. She believes that she did nothing wrong. She is legitimately deluded about what just happened.

This is only the first in what I remember to be a very long string of instances where Lauren pushes blame onto others and denies any culpability in her shitty actions. At least, in this case, Bo isn’t buying it.

Waiting for Bo in the most extra-ass, goth, flamboyant setup possible is exactly the kind of quality villainy I expect from Vex.

It’s criminal that Bo never gets to use this awesome sword.

And…I love that Vex just gets to walk out of there, laughing. Because the system. And he’s not even really evil. He’s just a sadistic asshole. With a job. It’s. *chef’s kiss*

#lost girl #bo dennis #kenzi malikov #lauren lewis #vex #doccubus #dybo #dyson #1x08

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