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#it hit to hard when i was a child how y’all think i will survive now
sol1056 · 11 months
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still dead, though
so this is potentially an unpopular opinion, given the love I’ve seen across my dashboard. but I finally (it took like four months, y’all) got to the top of the wait list at my local library to read Gideon the Ninth.
which was a great book (for the most part), don’t get me wrong. Gideon’s voice just sparkles, and even the assorted memes littering scattered through the story didn’t detract (too much). and yes, a baby dyke who glories in attractive women and never once feels compelled to either a) justify her attraction or b) put men down or even c) put other women down (at least not without reason), yeah. totally deserves the kudos. and after starting solidly and undeniably enemies, it’s a believable shift to almost-lovers.
although technically all you actually get is an i-love-you exchange.
that’s it. a paragraph later (not even a whole page!) we get hit with Bury Your Gays (plus some Vasquez Always Dies if we’re counting). 
it somehow just does not help my reaction that the second book is “all about a [queer] character grieving painfully to the point of disassociation.” I’ve read this book, seen this movie, got the t-shirt, lost it all in the lawsuit, and somehow lived to tell the tale. A now-solo lesbian character whose mental state is now so shredded by grief that they’ve effectively gone insane? fuck, you could not write to the letter of the trope harder if you goddamn tried.
I went digging anywhere I could think, to find spoilers. does the dead lesbian come back? was it all a fake-out? she does come back, right? far as I can tell, there are vague-slash-ambiguous comments from the author that the character “is still around!” or words to that effect. and from reader reviews, it appears the character’s “still around” is that her ghost lives on in the survivor’s mind. she apparently makes a ghostly cameo in the 2nd book, and the third book is about a completely different character? idk. I saw no “she’s back!” celebration. what I saw read a lot like when fans are clinging to a few passages and hoping that means eventually it’ll all pay off for them, if they just keep believing.
so. great story, still dead.
oh yes, I’m sure you want to tell me that it works this way for the story! my sweet summer child, it has always “worked this way for the story.” the defense has never been “the author killed off yet another queer”. it’s always been “that’s what the story required” as if the story is some sentient creature that eats dictionaries and spits out cruelty.
don’t waste my time hiding behind passive voice. when an author takes it all the way to the i-love-you then kills the queer, and follows by making the surviving queer go insane, they’re not avoiding the trope, they’ve actively hunted it down and forced it to go to prom with them.
at least have the fucking decency to be honest about that.
and I understand that in a world where there’s just uncounted multitudes of stories with queer characters and the happy endings far outweigh the grieving/insane lesbians mourning their dead, we could possibly, eventually, have a story that honestly explores grief and loss and not have it slam down hard on the big red button of sixty-plus years of literary trauma.
but we don’t yet live in that world, and I am sick to death of authors playing the trope word-for-word but batting their eyelashes like they’re special enough to be exempt. how could anyone be mad at them, their intentions are good, they’re friends with their fans, y’know, now you’re just overreacting.
look, I get you didn’t wake up this morning planning to run over a pedestrian, but you still hit me, and all your good intentions don’t make it not hurt.
le sigh.
I really wish I’d been spoiled before I’d started, so I would’ve known to skip. these stories are never enough to offset the suckerpunch at the end.
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ijustwishyouwould · 3 years
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i am not and i mean NOT N. O. T. ready for the re-recordign of never grow up. Honey no. I’ve bawled my eyes out to that song since i was a literal child ACHILD. And now im 21 and still wish i never fuckign grew up and life keeps getting worse every minute every minute i get older it goes down hill. And you expect me, to just live through a new release of that song. N. O. I will pass away respectfully Thank you very much. I will fall into the deepest DARKEST place in my life wishign i could hold on to my childhood. I knew as a child my childhood was on the way out the door and i no longer know Where i am going with this all i know is i wish a was a child with no thoughts in my head.
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aminiatureworld · 3 years
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Needled Words
Characters: Childe, fm!reader
Word Count: 1,691
Warnings: Swearing
Premise: When does a joke go too far, when is a jab more than just friendly? Where does the line blur and where does it stop?
In which Childe’s teasing becomes too much for the reader
Author’s Note: For some reason this prompt made me think of Nancy Mitford, mostly because she was known also for being a slightly mean-spirited teaser. Ah Childe, my beloved. Communication in a relationship is key y’all.
Childe
You knew that Childe was only joking. After all, didn’t he read his letters to you? Brimming with little asides and jokes.
“Dear Tonia, I would say I was happy to get your letter, if only it was sopping wet. Did you leave it out in the snow again? I swear, if you were in the illustrious Tsaritsa’s army, you’d probably end up attacking your own regiment, and then I’d be forced to execute you for treason!” No one could mistake such an opening for anything except a slightly barbed bit of teasing.
Nor were the younger one’s exempt. Teucer’s antics had resulted in quite a bit of teasing. “Teucer, I think the Mr. Cyclopses have better survival instincts” and “I didn’t take you for someone who spent other people’s money!” This latter statement was made after Teucer spied the hand-crafted, very expensive, fireworks that were sold in Liyue. Of course, Childe had bought him the fireworks, and of course he never begrudged doing things for you when he teased you either. Still, you somehow felt as if things were different when directed at you.
Not that they really were. It wasn’t so much that you were picking up a different tone, it was more that, unlike Childe’s siblings and other friends, such as Zhongli, who was subjected to endless old man jokes, you couldn’t seem to take them well. When he joked about how many times you ran into the countertop you began to wonder if you truly had something wrong with your hand-eye coordination; when he said you were the laziest person, he’d ever met you wondered if you weren’t sleeping in too late; when he teased that he had to be your personal babysitter you wondered if you were truly good enough to be an adventurer. It wasn’t Childe’s fault, it really wasn’t, but that didn’t mean it hurt any less.
Of course, you could tell him, could finally let it all out and stop pretending that it wasn’t painful to try and keep all your emotion sunder wraps. But you couldn’t help but feel as if that would in some ways disappoint him. He was a Harbinger, tough, aloof. No words could ever hurt Childe, of that, you were sure. So how would he take it, the knowledge that his part was all too liable to shatter at every poke and prod? You couldn’t blame him if he turned out to be ashamed.
So, you kept it to yourself, smiled through all the jabs and teases. It didn’t matter, it really didn’t. You were fine! Or if you, weren’t it wasn’t worth it trying to change anything. You didn’t want to lose Childe, didn’t want to see the change when he went to say something before stopping, looking at you’re with barely concealed disappointment. Childe lived with his emotions to the forefront after all. And you wouldn’t ask him to change something you ultimately loved about him.
Thus, the days continued on, as did the teasing and the feigned smiles. Some days it was worth it, some days you were left with nothing but happiness bubbling up inside, the love that humans reserved for a very few number of friends and lovers. Yet those days were often days with minimal teasing, and you couldn’t help but notice the layer of anxiety that pressed on your love the days that were filled with Childe’s jabs. Lying in bed, limbs tangled with his, you stared up at the ceiling, wondering what you should do. You felt trapped, by your emotions, by your pride, by Childe’s words. They were all encircling you, and you could do nothing to defend yourself. You tried to keep the tears to a minimum; after all your partner slept so little already.
You didn’t know when the subtle shift happened, when it all became too much to handle. Maybe it was after Childe’s recent trip to Snezhnaya, where, surrounded by Harbingers who saw their coworkers as enemies rather than allies, he had sharpened his wit even more so than before. If his earlier teasing was unfocused, general quips, then his current ones struck quite closer to home.
“Wow my dear I didn’t peg you for a Treasure Hoarder, I don’t think that arrow could hit anyone if it tried!”
“I think you truly have the makings of someone who gets scammed by a Mondstadtian duke, or perhaps a Fontaine prince who has lost all his mora in a flood. Remind me to never go shopping with you.”
“Honestly, I think if you ran into the Electro Archon, she’d think your vision was fake. It’d be an easy way out.”
The whiplash of Childe’s proclamations of “princess” mingled with sentences that, had they been geared at anyone else, would surely be insults was shocking, and you found yourself less and less able to keep these two aspects of your partner compatible in your mind. Even less did you find the ability to simply brush it off.
You didn’t know why it was a comment about your socks that finally caused you to break. Really, it was too juvenile.
Laundry in your shared apartment was often seen as a punishment, the chore that each of you pushed onto the other. As such there was often a pile of laundry in the laundry basket, and incredibly slim pickings in your drawers. That being the case you often found yourself wearing mismatched socks. Perhaps it was a little odd, or a little childish, but it was certainly preferrable to spending all day at the river scrubbing your hands red. Who cared anyways? No one would notice such a small thing, especially once you had put your boots on.
However, nothing could get past Childe’s wicked sense of humor, and apparently your clothing choices were prime fodder for him.
“Nice socks.”
“Oh, thanks,” you replied, already having a sense of where it was going. The smirk that played across your partner’s face was full of mischief, and usually that only led to one place.
“I think that you’ll be quite the icon among toddlers all throughout Liyue. People will be asking you if you’re lost all day, or maybe they’ll ask you how it feels like to be nine.”
It was really a silly comment to get so upset over, such a small, insignificant thing to cry over. Yet there you were, standing in the kitchen, frozen in horror as your vision became fuzzy with tears. Unsure about any other course of action you buried your face in your hands and prayed Childe wouldn’t think about what you were doing.
“What’s wrong? Are you alright?”
You could hear the panic and concern mingling in Childe’s voice. Almost immediately a warm hand was on your shoulder, and you were suddenly flooded with the presence of the person you loved so much, the person you were now crying about. You could tell Childe was saying something, was whispering soft words of comfort, but in the moment your thoughts felt all too loud. Overwhelmed by the situation you turned into your partner’s shoulder and let yourself cry.
Eventually sensing you had lost all your tears Childe drew back slightly.
“Would you like a glass of water?”
“Yes please,” you replied, voice still small. Nodding Childe moved towards the kitchen. Within a few moments he was back, glass in hand.
“Was it the teasing?” He asked as you drank. Whatever you had to say about your partner, he certainly wasn’t stupid.
“Yes,” you mumbled, nodding for affect.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I had gone too far. I promise I’ll be more careful from now on.”
“But Childe, it, it’s not just this time.”
“What do you mean?” Childe asked, voice flooding through with concern once more.
“It’s, I’m sorry, it’s just that, it’s all the time. Not all the time, every time you tease me. It’s not your fault! Of course, it’s not, it’s my fault. I don’t know, I just, it really hurts sometimes, all the time? I don’t know. I just, I’m sorry.”
Childe’s expression was one of abject horror. Taking your hand, he rubbed small circles on the top with his thumb. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize how much it was affecting you. I should have been more careful.”
“But I don’t want you to feel like you have to, I don’t know, I know you tease everyone, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
“You aren’t making me uncomfortable.” Childe’s voice seemed just as hurried as yours. “It makes me more uncomfortable to think that you’ve been burying this the whole time. You’re damn good at hiding things you know. But this isn’t a war or something, you don’t have to hide what you’re feeling, for whatever reason. Better if you tell me, y’know?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. Doesn’t look good on you, or sound good. I’d rather hear you happy.” Childe leaned in to press a soft kiss against your forehead. “I love you, okay? You mean more to me than a little bit of teasing.”
“You don’t think I’m being weak?” You managed to make out as your anxiety lessened its grip on you.
“Weak? Girlie you’re one of the strongest people I know! Weak my ass. If you wanted to rule the world you could give me a run for my money. Of course, I’d win though. I mean, I would be there right with you.”
“I know you would,” you smiled, despite yourself.
You knew that Childe probably would still retain the odd sense of humor and levity he already had. Old habits die hard and all that. Still, you had managed to say what had been haunting you all this time and, more than that, you had been assured that you were good enough, strong enough. Those few words, no matter how short, meant the world to you.
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artsybookworms · 3 years
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A pointless thread in which I rate the original PJO book covers:
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10/10: Every time I see TLT original cover, I feel all warm and my chest ACHES with nostalgia. It’s a 10000/10 in my heart. I promise I’m trying not to be blinded by sentimentality, but I really can’t think of a single thing I would change about it. The smoggy, sleepy color scheme really captures the atmosphere of the first book. The composition is great, and it really emphasizes how young Percy is. He looks like a child heading into a situation he’s wholly unprepared for, which is something we forget when reading the books!! This boy is 12!! Freaking twelve years old!! I—
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10/10: I love this one so much. It’s eye catching and the color scheme fits the book so well and I just,, Once again, the composition does a great job at showing how small they are in this world of gods and monsters that is so vast and dangerous and scary. They’re just three seemingly signifiant halfbloods, barely even teens, trying to survive and also having to deal with all the crap normal 13 years olds go through at the same time.
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10/10: Y’all,,,, I promise I’m not just going to give all the covers a perfect score, it’s just that the first three hit SO HARD. If the first book didn’t hold such a special place in my heart, this would be my favorite cover out of the series, and yes it’s because of the freaking color scheme yet again. But it’s just so striking and gorgeous and dramatic!! The mist and the shadows and the sun in the distance!! Perfection!!
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6/10: Ngl, I’ve never cared for this cover very much. I really can’t put my finger on it, but it just doesn’t do anything for me. Now that I’m looking at it a bit more closely, I can appreciate the littler details like the monuments in the labyrinth, but it seems disconnected from Percy? Maybe that’s it—the book seems to be split between the top half and bottom half, whereas the other covers had a cohesion and unity that worked really well. Idk.
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7/10: I like this one more than BOTL, but still not as much as any of the first three books. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still beautiful, but I think the problem is that it feels less emotional than the others? Idk if that makes sense. Like, there was a clear atmosphere in the first three covers but this one is kinda just,, heroic,, and generic almost? Maybe it’s just me.
I know I gave one of the covers a 6, but I really do love all of them. The original covers will always be my favorite because they remind me of the years when I would bring a book with me everywhere I went, sneaking a chapter or two in the car or walking to class or in the lunchroom.
Let me know if you want me to make more threads like this! Maybe rating the new PJO covers or HOO?
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meloswifeyyy · 3 years
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Relationship Alphabet
A - Attitude
Who often has the worst Attitude ?
Well, you obviously. Most of the time because you are hungry or you and Melo just got out of an argument. Melo usually fucks the attitude out of you anywhere, anytime tho.
B - Baby
Who wants Babies the most - first ?
Melo. He often jokes about having kids or when you are having sex he would whisper in your ear  “You trynna have my babies?” or  “You boutta have my babies ” when he nuts in you. He says that he wants 3 or more. You only want 2. You arent rushing into it.
C - Crying 
Who Cries the most in the relationship ?
You. You often cry alone when you miss Melo when he is at away games for so long. Or when your BP triggers, Melo would comfort you. When watching sad movies, or when someone you love dies. Tears of joys appear here and there. Or when you get into arguments and Melo says something wrong or disrespectful out of madness.
D - Dates 
Who has the best Date spots ?
Melo. He would often take you to fancy restaurants in L.A or Miami, or wherever you guys went. Or take you shopping at an expensive place. He would do dates at home like watching movies, have you cook dinner because he cant cook for shit, or he would have a bath waiting on you. 
E - Eat 
Who Eats the most ?   
You. You know damn well you cant survive without food. Its the 2nd best thing that has ever happened to you besides life and Melo. Cant even survive a night. If you would wake up in the middle of the night and get hungry and go to kitchen and try to sneak some food without waking Melo up, he would hear it and go to the kitchen and scare you, picking you up over his shoulder with one arm, and with the other putting the food away carrying you back to the bed because its a little to early in the morning to be eating. 
F - Freak 
Who is the Freakiest ?  
Both of you. You being the only girl that can fuck Melo like you do, and being the only girl Melo is sexually, physically, and mentally attracted to no other girl can do it like you.10/10 in bed. Now Melo on the other hand is a demon in bed. His strokes, hitting your G - Spot constantly with you feeling it in your guts. His 9 inch is almost  always on hard when he is around you. And his tongue is crazy, going in and out and on the pearl AT THE SAME TIME. Crazy right. Spelling his name out on you. He loves when you scratch his back up or give him hickeys everywhere. 10000/10. Makeup sex is the best. 
G - Games 
Who wins the most games ?  
Melo. He would always dare you to a game of Call of Duty or Fortnite to see who would win first. And he would always win. When you would play a game of Uno you would often win and he would be mad the rest of the day due to his competitiveness. But any other game he would win.
H - Happy
Who is the Happiest in the relationship ?  
Both of you. You are always happy when you guys are around each other. Even when you guys just got done arguing you are still happy that he is in your presence. Melo on the other hand is always happy with you around him, he loves to cuddle with you. Its one of his favorite thing to do. He just loves that you are in his presence. You are his other half.
I - Irreplaceable
Who is the most Irreplaceable ?  
You would say Melo but Melo would say you. Melo knows how to deal with you more than anyone else does. He knows all your spots and what you like and dont like. He notices all of your flaws and sees the good and beautiful in them. He knows your body, mind, and soul. No man has a better or brighter or bigger smile than him. He always brightens the mood. You on the other hand are different. A big beautiful smile. You know how to deal with Melo when he is sad, looses a game. You can tell when he is lying or telling the truth just by looking through his eyes. You know how to make him happy. You are the best he has ever had.
J - Jaded 
Who gets the most Jaded after doing something ?
Melo. He usually gets really bored after sitting in the house all day. He really wants to leave the house and do something fun but usually its night time and you would be taking a nap or would be sleep. 
K - Kisses
Who gives the most kisses?
Melo. He is always so clingy and that comes with all the kisses in the world. He kisses you all over your face in your sleep, even when you are sleep he gives you kisses. He loves to kiss all over your body.
L - Love
Who fell in love the fastest?
Melo. He had always had a crush on you and everyone knew you were the one for him. You just didn’t know it until you two started dating. He’s always making sure you are good. He loves your hugs. He was the first one to say “I love you”. He want kids you to have all 10 of his kids.
M - Motivation
Who gives the most motivation?
You. When melo is going to a game and is not having a good feeling about it you motivate him to push through it and win for you. 9/10 he will win or get a lot of points for you.
N - Night Owl
Who is more of a Night Owl?
Both of you. Sometimes when his ADHD is on 10 you guys stay up and listen to music, play games, go on ig live, or just fuck for 7 hours straight. Sometimes you have to tell him to got to sleep or put him to sleep (😏) because he has a game tomorrow and needs all the rest and energy he can get. It also the same for you.
O - Oral Sex
Who gives Oral Sex the most?
Melo. Trust me, you give him head a lot and it’s amazing, 10/10. But melo loves giving you head. He loves to spell his name out on you. Loves to see the faces to make you scream and shout. Loves sharing your cream with you (🥲). He loves to climb under the blanket while you are sleep for some breakfast in bed. Maybe even dinner. His lips make it even better. So glad he don’t got them white genes in his lips (😋😭).
P - Perfect
Whos perfect?
Obviously, no ones perfect but God (🙏🏾). But in your eyes no one else is better for you except melo. You couldnt imagine living life without him. Cant imagine what anyones elses kids would look like with you but. No relationship is perfect. Melo sees you as perfect. Your body. Your style. Your personality. He absolutely loves your touch. He loves touch but for you loving your touch is an understatement. He couldnt imagine his kids with anyone else but you. Cant imagine getting married with anyone else. When you guys get into arguments and sleep in seperate rooms. You barely get sleep because all you can think about is each other. How perfect you guys are for one another.
Q - Q? (Cant find a word, Tell me one and ill edit it.)
R - Relate
What traits do you guys have a like each other?
A lot. Both of your favorite food is Chicken tacos. You both love a good game of Uno. You both love sex. Duhh. Both of you guy’s love language is touch. Love playing fortnite together. Love listening to music and taking drives together. Both love lil uzi (we pretending yall💀). Just in general you guys are very alike.
S - Sex
(No question for this one lol. Y’all already know how we is round hea nahhmeannn😭)
The sex. Omgggg. The first time you and melo had sex was. So amazing. Can’t ever forget that moment. Melo is always so horny. Morning sex is the best. Sometimes a little top at the red light can turn into a few rounds in back of the McDonalds parking lot. Lucky enough all his windows tinted as hell. Or in the Victoria’s Secret fitting rooms. You guys could be listening to Chris Brown and he would really take you down, fuck you back to sleep, switch up the tempo, or make you wet the bed (i’m laughing hard ash). The hickeys. The high sex. Drunk sex (drunnnnkkk in lovvveee). Car sex. Balcony sex. All over the house sex ( i got bars.) Mad sex and Make up sex. I could go on. Sex with me so amazinggggg. (i was listening to this song while writing this one💀😫😫😫)
T - Trips
Who likes taking trips internationally?
Melo. He love to take you and a yearly or even monthly vacay. Just you and him. Turks and Caicos. Bora Bora. Jamaica. Iceland. Japan. Africa. Anywhere where you can get away from the world. The different places. The hotels. Being able to fuck anywhere and everywhere. The pools. The different air. (united states ait is so boring). The new food. The animals. You guys love the new places. He loves to see you happy and with a smile on your face.
U - U (Cant find a word, Tell me one and ill edit it.)
V - V (Cant find a word, Tell me one and ill edit it again.)
W - Right the Wrongs
Who rights their wrongs after an argument?
Usually it would be you first. If you said something that was out of pocket or melo didnt like you woukd quickly apologize. He would forgive you and still cuddle and kiss you and stuff because thats what he does. Tease you. But he would ignore you until he actually forgave you in his head. Melo would apologize and give you some bomb ass d for and apology. Or make that cute face that you can’t resist.
X - (Can’t find a word for X. Give me a suggestion and i will edit it)
Y - Young
Who acts like a Young ass child?
Both of you actually. That’s what makes you love each other the most. The laughs and jokes, the tv shows, everything you could think of. It’s nothing wrong with it at all. Y’all are always gonna bust a joke out at the right time. Maybe sometimes even the wrong time. (damn, double homicide). You guys love laughing with each other.
Z - ZZZ
Who has the worst sleeping habits?
Probably Melo. If you scooted over him even a little bit, he would probably scoot back closer to you or pull you back over to him. And the only con of that is he snores a lot. (Why this nigga snore with his mouth open?🤨💀). Sometimes if he was awake and you werent he would kiss all over you. He loves to lay on your 🍒.
Y’all welcome. I haven’t pose the one of these in a minute. This took me a whole month and a half. I’m tired as hell. 💀
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genshin-pals · 3 years
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Corruption......part TWO!!!
Part one is here!! 
At this rate we’ll just do all the genshin characters because GOD I love this trope and y’all apparently do as well.
Characters: Venti, Lisa, Razor, Hu Tao, Qiqi, Rosaria
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He hates Dragonspine. The snowy mountain only brings him sadness and pain. It serves as a reminder of a horrific battle that would end with his dear friend in pain and susceptible to suggestions of the abyss.
Anxiety consumed him when you told him you were off to the mountain, but he smiled and waved you off anyway. He regrets that.
There was a pain in his chest, fingers hovering above the strings of his harp as he stops in the middle of a song. 
Without another word he started running, running to the mountain he hated. 
It was up at the top of the mountain he found you. Kneeled down in the snow, clutching your head as something dark pulsed through your body. Tears fell. You were hurting.
Without his Gnosis, Venti’s power is limited. But he’ll be damned to leave you in this state. Taking a step forward, you turn at the crunch in the snow. Frantic like a cornered animal.
Kneeling before you, hands raise to gently cup your cheeks. He sees the pain on your expression. You’re frightened, much like Dvalin was when you first arrived in Monstadt.
“With the last of my divine strength, let me share in this curse...” 
The tips of his braids started glowing, and the boy’s form changed. Wings grew, and he was now dressed in white. However, all of that soon vanished, crumbling away as the darkness that haunted you moved over to the former archon.
Thoughts started becoming clearer, and recognition returned to your eyes. Venti...what was he doing?
Winds dying down, you stared at the other as he breathed heavily, still holding your face so gently as he panted.
“You, who have traveled the stars, also have your limits...” He forced out. Lifting his head, he smiled, despite the purple crack crawling across his face. “...but perhaps in a smaller dose, this hatred can be healed by your spirit...”
With the cursed blood split between the two of you, Venti helped you down the mountain. Windrise would help cleanse the last bits of corruption from you both.
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How curious Lisa was. She wanted to know the truth of this world, but once she saw the madness that quest for knowledge cursed those around her, she gave up.
If the price of knowledge is the well being of others, it is best to remain ignorant.
Now, she’d use all her knowledge and power to save you. The witch was quite knowledgeable of legends of Monstadt, and the curse of Durin was no different.
That hatred radiating off of you was familiar. When you brought that corrupted tear drop crystal, that felt the same as you do now.
“Looks like I’ll have to play rough...”
Spell circles appeared at both her and your feet. The snowy clouds turned dark and pitch black. Lightning flashed, crashing down where you stood.
Identifying the woman as the source, you charged towards her.
But you couldn’t even get close. Thunder roared, and the air itself seemed to be filled with electro. 
This type of powers was almost unimaginable. Lisa may have forsaken the title of “grand mage”, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t still qualified for it.
With all of her magic, a bolt of lightning finally struck it’s might upon your form.
The scream you let out pained the woman’s heart, but the fight was over. Rushing to your side, she kneeled down, lifting your head to rest on her lap. Gently, her hand stroked your hair.
Lisa hated work, but she’ll work as hard as she needs to in order to heal you.
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He doesn’t understand what’s happening.
Razor followed you to the mountain, met a mysterious blond boy, and you got some weird sword. The more you battled, the more you changed. 
He was scared, but couldn’t find the words to express his concern. You assured him you were alright, but he never believed it.
One night, a blizzard raged across the mountain. The two of you rushed into a cave for shelter. Strangely, the cave seemed to radiate warmth. Razor looked at the white hail outside, calling your name. When you didn’t answer, he turned around.
You started at a large red...thing, in the back of the cave. Razor didn’t like it. If it wasn’t for the blizzard he would suggest leaving. But then something else happened.
You lunged at the wolf boy, slashing the cursed sword towards him. He gasped, quickly dodging.
“Please, calm!” He shouts. “Why attack?!” 
You weren’t listening, charging once again.
This was so bad. Survival came first, that’s what his head told him. But you were his lupical, and you were in pain... He could see it in your eyes, and the unnatural cracks in your skin.
Razor wanted to protect his lupical. So he had to think. This started when you entered the cave. No...before that. When you got the sword.
Static pricked on his skin, his sword clashing against your own. With a growl, electro burst forth from his blade. 
You were slammed into the wall of the cave. Razor was fast, roaring as he drove his weapon into Festering Desire. The piercing gaze of the gem cracked, and you let out a gasp.
Slumping down, you were out cold. Nothing Razor did would wake you up.
Positioning you on his back, he would run down to the city. Through the storm and over the hills, he needed you to be okay.
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Dragonspine was a good source of business for Hu Tao. Foolish adventurers who believed they could conquer nature often lead to their own downfall.
Sometimes, she goes out there herself, knowing that there are bound to be bodies and spirits that have been lost for years. The pyro spirit that followed her kept her warm as well as helped to locate the corpses. But this time, it found something else.
Something else caught her attention. A disgusting energy. But it was you.
You rushed to slash at the girl, and Hu Tao dodged. This was unlike you and she knew it.
“Trying to send me off, hm?” She called to no response. Any sense of teasing was lost. This was serious. “I see...” Eyes drifted down to the weapon you held.
Twirling her spear, Hu Tao prepared herself for a fight. “Sorry, y/n. No discounts today.” She would take you back alive.
As the fight went on, the cold was starting to get to her. How long have you both been out on the mountain? This needed to end, and soon.
Summoning her blazing spirit, she swung it around and hit you. It burned, and you stumbled backwards. 
Hu Tao was running at you, before vanishing for a moment. In that single moment, the blazing spirit appeared from nowhere, screeching into your face. 
Something grabbed your wrist, turning, you saw the girl you were fighting.
“Boo~” She said with a grin, knocking the sword from your hand and holding you down.
Vision began to blur, and all you remember is a calm, forgiving warmth...
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Someone who made Qiqi not mind the warmth was now so cold.
The energy created from the sword you were given wasn’t good. She didn’t like it, and yet Qiqi was unable to tell you.
You were hurt, attacking everything in sight. Somehow, that felt familiar, as if sparking a memory.
Qiqi didn’t want you to be sealed. So she would help you now.
With her orders received, she jumped into action. 
Even when you were marked with her talisman, the battle was difficult. The strength radiating off of you was almost overwhelming. But Qiqi felt if she didn’t save you now, you would be destroyed.
It was dangerous, but Qiqi unleashed the adeptal powers within her. Snow and ice raged around you two, and the small child rushed forward once again. She slashed at your hand, the evil sword sent flying.
You gasped, turning to retrieve your weapon when someone stopped you.
Small arms wrapped around your legs. They were cold, but shockingly strong.
“Qiqi loves you the most.” The girl spoke quietly. Those were the words used to cancel her orders. Typically spoken by Baizhu with no sincerity. But now? Qiqi means those words with all of her heart.
The adepti power helped to clear your mind, and soon your eyes fell heavy, along with your body. Now passed out, Qiqi would drag you down the mountain. 
Qiqi doesn’t ask for much, but she would demand Baizhu help you once returning to Liyue harbor. She would stay by your side until you woke.
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Albedo is a dead man. She doesn’t know how, but she knew this was his fault.
It can wait, though. But for now, she focused on you and you alone. If you became a threat to Monstadt, she would end you. That is what she told herself. And yet, looking at you now, she wishes to save you instead.
Rosaria was making more work for herself, it seemed.
With a tired sigh, the sister darted forward. Blades clashed against one another, and Rosaria wasn’t above underhanded tactics.
Kicking up snow into your eyes, Rosaria moved to your back, slashing hard and fast. Blood dripped onto the white snow. You were injured, so that should slow you down.
It should have, but the power possessing you didn’t care what your physical state was. You fought regardless of the blood loss. Swearing under her breath, Rosaria noted how the darkness seemed to originate from your sword.
You ran to pierce her chest, but Rosaria’s spear parried your attack, sending Festering Desire into the air. Before anything else could happen, the woman tackles you to the ground, holding the handle of her spear to your throat.
You couldn’t get up with her sitting on top of you, and the bar above your neck made it hard to breath. Senses returning, your eyes fluttered close.
With a sigh, Rosaria stood, pulling you up and onto her back.
She would head back to the city, hoping Barbra would be able to heal you properly...
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serene-victory-77 · 3 years
Text
Why The Crows Being Teenagers Is Actually Perfectly Realistic
There’s a TL;DR are the end because wow I like to rant.
I lightly discuss the general situations they’re all in to explore how they are frighteningly mature and competent, but it’s not particularly depressing or descriptive, it’s definitely lighter than the books
I thought about this post with a joke first: “People who think that Six of Crows is unrealistic because they’re so young clearly have not spent much time with traumatized honors students.”
It’s a bit of an exaggeration, but the point stands.
But I decided that, hm, actually, I could make a point about this. I totally agree with the aging up of the characters in the Shadow and Bone show, but when people straight up say that the books are wrong or unrealistic for having a young crew, I get annoyed, and here’s why (other than me reading the books for the first time when I was 13 and thinking ‘Huh okay, I see it’ and now being lowkey offended when people say they ignore it for being unrealistic):
On Inej
- At first I thought Inej’s wisdom and general demeanor was one of the most unrealistic things in the book
- When I thought about it longer, I was like “Actually, she’s 16, right? I’ve sent some of the most lyrical philosophy trying to help my friends while in high school. My friends have done the same. It’s valid.”
- Frankly, teenagers love hard-hitting philosophical truths. They love repeating what they’ve read or heard in movies and in books and from family stories. They love sharing little bits of wisdom they have come up with
- Inej’s ability to hear and understand philosophy and wisdom that she was surrounded by for 14 straight years and then sit on it and elaborate it for her friends to understand, or even just to piss them off in Kaz’s case? 
- Teenagers have that. They do it. So, Inej’s Wisdom passes, to me. It’s valid. 
As for her being calm
- You know how everyone jokes that Kaz seems calm on the outside but when you get to his POV he’s like “What the fuck” at the Van Eck house or just straight up “Huh, is this revenge for making tree jokes” at the Djel River thingy in the Ice Court?
- Inej is like that, too. And she gets angry, and she gets confused, or exhausted.
- AKA every quiet kid ever. Like, are you kidding? Have you ever been in a situation in which it’s literally chaos all around you, people are screaming and things are being destroyed (think middle school classroom with bitchy long term substitute and even worse students), and you’re just, calm? You pick up your things, you do what you need to do?
- That’s Inej. Like, what else is she gonna do? She’s smart enough to know that panicking won’t help anyone, and so she just rides it out. Internally she might be like “Why is this happening” but frankly, her being quiet and controlled in most situations is probably a coping mechanism and I respect that
- Pretty sure this is also based on the fact that the Suli have no land for their own and constantly have to keep moving. It might align with generational trauma, I’m sure someone could explain it better than me, but being able to keep your cool while constantly having to change and adapt to new situations, in, say, a country with hellfire politics and no land to call your own? Seems like a hereditary trait that could be useful in Ketterdam, although it’s sad.
On Inej’s abilities
- Simone Biles started training when she was 6 and went to the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships when she was 16, where she qualified in all the events. 
- There are videos of people walking over tightropes as young as three years old. We know Inej didn’t start that young, but not only was she naturally talented at it, but she spent a lot of time practicing. I think it’s valid. Plus, some of her family members do some pretty crazy things in her flashbacks, because that’s the whole point of what they do. 
- Youngest person to beat American Ninja Warrior was 16 year old Vance Walker
- Inej has a variety of of tools that help her wall climb, and while it’s true that she started young and got good really fast, she already had a history of physical work that would help her, and from what we can gleam from the book, a surprising amount of free time in which she was actively encouraged to learn everything she could. 
So that’s Inej! I think her skills are perfectly possible for someone with her history and situation. It’s true that she’s naturally skilled, but that’s not actually all that unusual. And her demeanor and wisdom do fit in with what a lot of teenagers are like and the circumstances she was brought up in
Onto Kaz!
- One thing I hear about is that Kaz is too smart for not having gone to school and also too young to know all that he does
- Do you all KNOW how many self-taught people there have been in this world? The word for people who are self-taught is autodidacts, and honestly a huge amount of famous people apply. Like many, many other people in history (there’s a whole list of them in Wikipedia), he had an vested interest in a field and he learned all he could. Sure, those fields were magic tricks and math, but still.
- Suddenly I have a lot of thoughts
- Okay, think, hyperfixations. That’s essentially what Kaz’s thing with magic tricks was, right? Have any of you ever spent time with an eight year old that clearly really, really loves dinosaurs? Those kids can spout names and facts and identify them by their skeletons and frankly know more than I ever will. Kaz’s was magic tricks. All kids are special.
- Kaz continued working on magic tricks and practicing them for years, so, I think that gets a pass. 
- As for the math! Look, a Fact Of Life is that some kids are just Like That, whether it be possibly from neurodivergence or other factors:
- Flo and Kay Lyman are twins with Autism who basically have the calendar of EVER memorized. Kaz memorizing card decks is sensible, and these ladies don’t need to look up anything to figure it out, so Kaz doing sums inside his head seems plausible. His “photographic memory’ isn’t impossible, although the term itself might be incorrect.
- Katherine Johnson who worked at NASA (yes, the lady from Hidden Figures), was so good at math that she was in high school by age 10 and went to college at age 15. It’s true that she had some teaching, but 1. There’s no evidence Kaz had absolutely no schooling, even if it was just at home with books and 2. Kaz was 9 when he came to Ketterdam, and after Jordie died, when he wasn’t surviving, he was learning. 
- Human calculator is a term that is applied to children a lot and there’s definitely plenty of videos showing how smart these kids are and them doing mental math easily, which he does in the books
- He had a LOT of pressure on him to figure out all he could, and if he wanted to move forward, he was going to have to learn a lot. He spent hours practicing magic tricks, for all we know he spent hours practicing math too. We know Jordie was a bit of a bookworm too, so Kaz from a young age probably already had a reason to learn. Personally, a lot of my love for books was inspired by my older sibling when I was younger
- Young people are adaptable. Kaz is incredibly adaptable. The term prodigy exists because of people like him through history. 
- As for him being rational, there’s no other way to survive. Some of the greatest soldiers in history have been very, very young, and very, very smart. It’s true tacticians are generally considered to be older, but that doesn’t mean there haven’t been very young ones. 
- A lot of the generals I found were like, 19 years old, but Kaz is 1. not a general and 2. in a place where young people take up the mantle really, really quickly, and frankly it’s been like that for a long time. I still think this passes. This isn’t relevant but William the Conqueror was apparently called “The Bastard”?
- Frankly, underground communities of thieves probably don’t go around publishing their escapades so to me it makes sense that I can’t just look up “famous young thieves” and get anything that makes sense, but I did try
- Y’all I tried to do research on youngest escape artists since I think Kaz qualifies and I found myself in what I think is a magicians forum? It’s from 2002-ish and I feel like I’ve just found a relic. I can’t definitely prove they’re all saying the truth, but some of the people there talk about 10-11 year olds at magic camps, so, it’s not impossible for this to be a skill Kaz learned really young, particularly when he made a habit of following around magicians
- I think he passes the realism check overall
For the other Crows:
- Nina being so proficiently multilingual makes sense to me, because she’s been in the Little Palace almost her entire life with all the best teachers they could afford at her disposal. Some people just click with languages. One such would be Timothy Doner, who spoke 23 languages at 16. 
- Nina is a child soldier. She of course can handle the battlefield, although I imagine there’s a degree of trauma that she has to deal with (although it’s true that most of her work was always meant to angle her towards being a spy).
- Jesper was taught to shoot from a young age by Aditi, who was likely incredibly proficient. Plus, there’s mentions of him and his father being on some sort of frontier at one point in the books, so, it’s likely that Jesper got his fair share of ‘being a child soldier” since he would’ve been 15 or younger. Plus, with being a Fabrikator, he gets a leg up
- Jesper’s smart y’all, he just also likes to have fun
- I am a little terrified by the fact that I looked up ‘youngest sharpshooter’ and found out about a 9 year old girl (Addysson “Addy” Soltau) who can indeed shoot guns, but uh, it does prove my point
- Matthias... I haven’t heard anyone really argue about Matthias. He’s the oldest at 18 and again, he’s essentially a religious child soldier. Of course he would be built af and know how to handle himself in a fight, and in a flashback about meeting Trassel, we’re told that he was actually distanced from the other boys and was the biggest and strongest/smartest of the group. Perhaps not compared to Kaz, but still
- We know how Wylan ended up how he is, so I don’t think i have to defend how he’s both a musical prodigy, good at math, and good at chemistry. Plenty of kids who can’t do one thing will immediately gravitate to a different field (think AP math students who can’t write essays, or those kids who could analyse a book and it’s metaphors in class but didn’t understand geometry).
- Granted he took it far but it’s kinda implied that  his father ignored him eventually and what else was Wylan going to do
- I don’t really know how he did chemistry while not being able to read the symbols and stuff, but that’s likely because I’ve never had to learn the way he did and also I really suck at Chemistry, but I refuse to believe that it invalidates his capabilities
Final Thoughts:
- They’re Traumatized Honors Students
- People might say that “it’s unrealistic that all the smart ones somehow ended up together” but again they’re traumatized honors students and those gravitate to each other
- Of course the smart ones ended up together, they’re the ones in those crazy situations precisely because they are prodigies. Nina wouldn’t have met Matthias if she wasn’t skilled and a spy, Kaz wouldn’t have known Inej if she hadn’t been skilled at silence (I can’t explain that one but uh ninjas did/do exist and it IS still a fantasy world). Kaz would have never been a leader of the Dregs in a position to find Jesper if he hadn’t been so determined to rise to the top, and Jesper wouldn’t have been in Ketterdam if his father hadn’t thought that Jesper was smart enough to get that chance.
- You know how those fringe revolutionary artists for new eras end up knowing all knowing each other and even hanging out? That’s them.
- I have decided there is a strong basis for Autistic Kaz, someone who is more studied than me should feel free to explore this.
- I read this book a few years ago, A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah. It’s about this guy’s experiences as a boy soldier and it’s a painful read so I’m not sure I recommend it as a casual read, but he talked about these young kids being able to actually make competent military strategies and handle warfare. It’s an extreme example of what I’m trying to explain when it comes to them being able to handle the brutality of their situation, but it’s true, essentially
- They are definitely serious, but if you think they’re not teenagers I just, disagree so much. They have moments of lighthearted banter, they make light of their situation, they try to support each other Nina covers it so well in her farewell at the end of Crooked Kingdom: The little rescues of laughing at each others jokes or eating together and just supporting each other, is not only a very human thing, but a very teenager thing. 
- Scary experiences that shape us happen all the time, and although for most it’s not the things that the Crows experience, picking each other up is a big part of why they do read as teenagers to me. I’ve seen kids be able to seriously converse about things like being questioned by the police, or being left to their own devices for days at a time, or the general impending doom they all feel, and it’s dark, but they’re also going to joke about silly puns 20 minutes later. 
- Teenagers aren’t exempt from terrifying maturity and competence
- Finally: Despite all I said, it’s a fantasy story and doesn’t have to be realistic
In the end, everyone can believe what they want to believe, but this is my case for my opinion.
TL;DR The Crows are all prodigies and a lot of their achievements and capabilities are based in reality and there are real people who actually achieved things like what they’ve done. Messed up prodigies gravitate to messed up prodigies, hence how they all end up together. When it comes to their mental state, most of them have been brought up their entire lives in situations that required for them to problem solve and keep their cool even when things are going to hell.
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plaidbooks · 3 years
Text
SFW Alphabet - Mike Dodds
A/N: Hey y’all! This was requested by @caracalwithchips​! I forgot how fun these are--I know Mike a little better now than when I did the NSFW version, so a lot of these headcanons I’ve had in my brain. Hope you all enjoy <3
Holy fuck, how did I never notice that none of these have an S?? It took Tumblr breaking this post for me to realize.... Oh my god?!
Taglist: @witches-unruly-heart​  @beccabarba​ @thatesqcrush​ @itsjustmyfantasyroom​ @permanentlydizzy​  @ben-c-group-therapy​ @infiniteoddball​ @glowingmess​ @whimsicallymad​ @lv7867​  @storiesofsvu​ @cycat4077​ @alwaysachorusgirl​ @glimmerglittergirl​ @joanofarkansass​ @redlipstickandblacktea @caracalwithchips​ @berniesilvas​​  @averyhotchner​ @qvid-pro-qvo​
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A = Affection (How affectionate are they? How do they show affection?) While out in public, Mike will stand close enough that he’s brushing against you. Depending on what’s determined “okay” in social situations, he may have his hand on your arm or around your waist (like at a gala). When he can’t touch you, though, he’s giving you long, emotionally charged looks.When you’re both home, however, Mike is all over you. He has you pulled against him on the couch, holding you to his chest, fingers playing in your hair. Or he positions you so that he can gently massage your neck. He makes up for all the time he couldn’t touch you in public.
B = Best friend (What would they be like as a best friend? How would the friendship start?) You probably met at work, or in the gym (or on a jog). Mike is incredibly kind and will listen to you rant about something stupid happening in your life. But he will crack jokes about it until your problems seem so much smaller than you first thought they were. He’s also one to take you out to go do something fun after a rough day, if you need it.
C = Cuddles (Do they like to cuddle? How would they cuddle?)Boy does he! That broad chest and big arms are made to cuddle! His favorite position is on his back, with you curled against his side, head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. But after rough days, he needs something—or someone—to hold onto. Days like that, he’ll be on his side, snuggling into you, his face pressed against you (whether your back or chest).
D = Domestic (Do they want to settle down? How are they at cooking and cleaning?) Mike wants to settle down, but with someone he chose, not his father (but he also needs his father to at least like you). He’s on a self-made diet, and will cook things low in fat and high on protein. Thankfully, he has a way to season it, so it tastes good. He’s a relatively clean guy, but he’ll do things like vacuum and dishes on the weekends/days off.
E = Ending (If they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?) In person for sure. He’ll come to your place—out in public is too…public. He doesn’t want to embarrass you (or hurt his family’s reputation). He’ll tell you why it’s not working out and be civil about it.
F = Fiance(e) (How do they feel about commitment? How quick would they want to get married?) Mike’s in no hurry to get married. He wants to know that you’re the one for him before he’ll even entertain the thought of proposing. You need to be able to not only deal with his work and his workout regiment, but also with his family—especially his father. He knows that William will make snide comments directed at you, and while Mike will do his best to defend you, he also can’t go against his father.
G = Gentle (How gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?) Mike is a teddy bear! He’s incredibly gentle, sometimes too much so. He has a big, strong body, and he’s accidentally hurt too many people in his life, especially in childhood. When you first get together, his touch is feather-light. At first, you thought it was something about you, that he was treating you like a china doll. But after talking to him about it, you learned that he thinks light and easy is better than accidentally hurting someone he cares about.
H = Hugs (Do they like hugs? How often do they do it? What are their hugs like?) Outside of emergency reasons (hostage situations or long stints out of the city), then Mike doesn’t really hug in public. You may get a side hug or something if you’re far in your relationship, and maybe a quick peck. Once home, though, he gives you massive bear hugs (he won’t squeeze tight, not unless you give him the okay).
I = I love you (How fast do they say the L-word?) Definitely not on the first date. Probably a few months into a relationship. He’s not afraid of love or anything, but he’s a busy man and he wants to be sure you’re sticking around before he’ll drop the word.
J = Jealousy (How jealous do they get? What do they do when they’re jealous?) Mike isn’t a jealous type. But, like most SVU detectives, he’s wary of other men. He’s protective to a point—he’s not possessive and he trusts you completely—and will definitely stick around you if he notices too many eyes in your direction. He also teaches you basic self-defense, just in case he’s not there.
K = Kisses (What are their kisses like? Where do they like to kiss you? Where do they like to be kissed?) Again, out in public, it’s a quick peck on the lips or cheek—maybe a kiss to the back of your hand. Behind closed doors, however, Mike loves kissing you. He’s the master of slow, deep kisses, memorizing each other’s mouths while your lungs burn for air. Outside of your lips, he likes kissing your forehead or the top of your head; it’s intimate and sweet. But he loves loves loves when you kiss his jaw down to his chest. Any marks you leave, he can blame on sparring.
L = Little ones (How are they around children?) Mike’s super sweet around kids! You know that Big Brother program—where only children get to hang out with an “older sibling” (usually volunteer college students)? Mike is that kinda guy! He knows how to connect with children, especially little boys. And they love him!
M = Morning (How are mornings spent with them?) Mike’s up early taking a jog and hitting the gym. You usually catch him after he comes home (unless you join him). By the time he’s out of the shower, you have a protein shake for him and one of the breakfasts he showed you how to make (the shake is for the day, the breakfast for now). You usually get an hour to chat and catch up before he’s giving you a kiss and heading out the door.
N = Night (How are nights spent with them?) He usually comes home late—he is second in command (first, once he’s transferred from SVU). If you’re still awake, you’ll catch up on the day, chatting into the night. You know once he’s in bed, he’ll be out like a light, so you sit on the couch and talk. But he’ll eventually get that glazed look in his eyes, and you’ll have to convince him to go to bed, no matter how much he insists on wanting to talk to you.
O = Open (When would they start revealing things about themselves? Do they say everything all at once or wait a while to reveal things slowly?) It’s not that he reveals things about himself on purpose, but you’ll start to notice little things (like how soft his touch is). When asked about these things, he’ll sit you down and tell you…if he knows the answer, that is. Somethings, he doesn’t know why he does them; it was just something to survive as a kid that he never really thought about.
P = Patience (How easily angered are they?) Angered isn’t the correct word; Mike gets frustrated. It mostly is things about work, but you learn that he has a shorter fuse every now and again. He’ll never admit that it’s stress from his father, instead blaming the cases he’s working on. But you know the signs.
Q = Quizzes (How much would they remember about you? Do they remember every little detail you mention in passing, or do they kind of forget everything?) Depends on when you tell him. If he has a lot on his plate, his mind turning, he’s more likely to forget something. He knows the basics (birthday, allergies, favorite color), but things like an ongoing issue at work, you may have to remind him of the details.
R = Remember (What is their favorite moment in your relationship?) It was before you moved in together; the first night he stayed at your place. A little girl had been kidnapped, and the squad found her body the next day. Mike was on the scene, and it hit him hard; it was the first child case he had in SVU. He was really broken up about it and he asked if he could come over. You, of course, accepted, and Mike flew to your place. It was a) the first time he told you details about his job and b) the first time you saw him cry. You calmed him down and hugged him throughout the night, running your fingers through his hair as he slept, his head on your chest. He thanked you for that, but he never told you just how much he appreciated it.
T = Try (How much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, everyday tasks?) Mike’s afraid that he’s not around enough. As such, his dates are incredible. He’s also the type to leave you little trinkets; either something useful, or something that reminded him of you. And if you’ve been cleaning and doing all the chores, then he’ll wake up super early on his day off and do everything before you get a chance to. He’ll call it a spa day for you, and while he’s waiting for something (laundry or food or what have you), he’ll massage you or rub lotion into your skin for you.
U = Ugly (What would be some bad habits of theirs?) Hopefully you like chores, because Mike doesn’t do them often. He works so much and is on call on his days off. It’s not like he doesn’t want to help around the house, but if you had a dollar for every time Mike got called away while he was halfway done with something, you could afford a bigger house.He also will do anything his father asks, whether it’s in Mike’s best interest or not.
V = Vanity (How concerned are they with their looks?) Very concerned—he has a reputation to keep. Even on his days off, he’s in nice slacks and a nice shirt. The only time you see him “off” is when he announces he’s not leaving the house. He’ll be in sweats and a tight shirt on the couch (unless he’s called in, and he has to quickly change).
W = Whole (Would they feel incomplete without you?) Once you own his heart, he can’t imagine life without you. Sure, he can remain polite at galas you couldn’t make it to, but inside, he’s missing you. It’s just not the same without you by his side, to make fun of all the pompous people around you. He definitely has a well-worn picture of you in his wallet that he’ll look at if he’s stuck at work super late.
X = Xtra (A random headcanon for them.) Mike knows his father is overbearing, but he doesn’t know what William does to him. He grew up with his father’s expectations weighing down on him, so it’s all “normal” in his mind. You’ve tried talking to him before about it, but Mike will brush it off as “that’s just dad being dad.” It kind of makes meeting up with William weird, because you want to tell him off. You can see how he berates Mike, and you now understand why Mike likes to be praised so much; he obviously didn’t get it as a child.
Y = Yuck (What are some things they wouldn’t like, either in general or in a partner?) Anyone that can embarrass him/his family. You need to be able to fit into the high social circles (whether you’re in them or not). You need to be eloquent and polite, ready to bite your tongue when someone says something incredibly sexist at an event (at least until you learn how to clapback without drawing attention to yourself).
Z = Zzz (What is a sleep habit of theirs?) Ever since he was in the Army, Mike normally sleeps on his back. The only time he doesn’t is if one or both of you need the cuddles. It took you a while to get used to laying on his chest—it’s much higher than your old pillow, and it takes some adjusting. Otherwise, Mike is quick to sleep, his arm around you.
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queenxxxsupreme · 3 years
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Heyo! 💖I just wanted to say that I completely ADORE your works and I was wondering if you could maybe give us some dad!Witcher reactions to when the reader goes into labor? Totally up to you, only if you want to and if your comfortable with this!☺️ again, I love your work so much and I really love seeing the boys being included in amazing fics and hcs💕
A/N: This has also been sitting in my box for a while, and many people have asked about this, so I’m glad it’s finally done. You can all thank @pressedinthepages for helping me out with Geralt cause he’s the reason y’all haven’t gotten this sooner. Thank you again baby!!!
Warnings: mentions of pregnancy, labor, pregnant lady going into labor but not the actual birth part, just labor pains and water breaking :)
***
Lambert 
You sucked in a sharp breath, your hand coming to hold your side. 
“What’s wrong, Y/N?” Lambert sat up in his chair, brows drawing together as he looked across the table at you.
“I-I’m okay.” You told him, rubbing your ribcage. “The baby just kicked me.”
“Doesn’t seem like they’ve stopped moving at all today.” Ciri commented. She sat next to you, talking to you about different names for your unborn child. 
“They haven’t. I think they’ve gotten too big. There isn’t enough room in there for the little thing.” You rubbed the side of your stomach. “Anytime they stretch, they bruise one of my organs.”
You started to stand up, needing to stretch your legs. 
“Where are you going?” Lambert followed you with his gaze. 
“Just for a little walk.”
“Thought you couldn’t walk too far ‘cause your ankles hurt.”
“They do, but sitting hasn’t helped my back at all. It's making my legs hurt even more.”
Lambert stood to his feet, a mug of ale in one hand, and moved to your side. 
“The baby needs room to move. They can’t do that if I’m sitting down.”
He placed his free hand on the small of your back, offering what little support he could. 
“They need to get a move on and get here soon.” Lambert thought out loud. He used his shoulder to push open a door that would take you out to the courtyard. 
“Can’t rush a pregnancy, love.” You sighed gently, though you agreed with him.
“Just don’t like seeing you hurting knowing I can’t do anything to make it better.”
“I’ll be okay.” You looked over to him to meet his gaze, offering him a little smile. 
“But what if you aren't?” He stopped, his hand slipping from your back to your hand. “What if…. What if you don't make it through this? Through having the baby? What if…. I-I’ve heard stories-,”
“Lambert, I’m giving birth to our child here at Kaer Morhen with Yennefer and Triss. Should anything happen, I trust them to do what's needed to save both myself and the baby. So stop with all that nonsense.” 
Lambert nodded, knowing what you said was true. The safest place you could possibly be was Kaer Morhen where some of the best mages in the world were. 
“I just can't help worrying.” The witcher muttered shyly, putting his hand on your back once more to lead you through the courtyard. 
“I know.” You smiled softly. It was a rare sight to see the young witcher look so anxious and worrisome. “You’ve been worrying a lot recently.”
“‘Cause I know you're getting closer to having the baby. We’re…. I'm gonna be a father.” He shook his head like the mere thought was too good to be true. “Don't want to turn out like my old man. Damn bastard wasn't worth shit.”
“You'd never be like him, Lambert.” You assured him, looking over to admire his side profile. “You're too kind of a man.”
He scoffed. 
“Don't hurt my feelings like that, bug.” 
You grinned. 
“Besides, if you need to be put in your place, Eskel and Geralt would gladly kick your ass. Though I know it will never be needed.”
“What about us kicking Lambert’s ass?” Geralt asked as he and Eskel moved towards you two. 
“Y/N said she doesn't think you two could beat me.”
You elbowed Lambert in the side. 
“How are you feeling today, Y/N?” Eskel asked you. 
“Not too great, if I'm honest. Though today it doesn't feel like a rib has been kicked out of place.”
The three boys began to chat about something Vesemir was asking them to work on together. It was a fallen wall on the west side of the keep. 
You weren't paying too much attention, shifting your weight from one foot to the other every now and again. You slipped your arm around Lambert’s holding the inside of his elbow. You didn't want to just excuse yourself and walk away. Lambert would follow you and not even finish talking to Eskel and Geralt. You figured you could endure standing just a little longer. 
But then the pain between your hips sharpened and took your breath away. Your grip on Lambert tightened. There was a wetness between your legs that made you furrow your brows.
“Oh gods.” You whispered. 
“What?” Eskel asked you. Lambert was in the middle of taking a sip of his ale and hadn't had the chance to ask first. 
“I think the baby’s coming.”
The father-to-be choked on his ale, coughing and sputtering. He hit his fist against his chest, struggling to speak. 
“What?!”
“I’m going into labor, Lambert.” 
“The fuck you are.” His voice nearly cracked. 
“Eskel, give me a hand, please.” You weren't too sure how Lambert would react so you needed someone you knew wouldn't freak out. 
Eskel moved to your side, holding his arm out to allow you to use him for support. Lambert remained on the other side of you, one hand on your lower back and the other on your arm. His ale had been discarded, no longer important to the witcher. 
“How-How do you-I mean, how do you know they’re coming?” Lambert stumbled over his words worse than you'd ever seen. 
“I do believe my water just broke, love.” You met his gaze, smiling softly. Though you wanted to scream and curse at the gods for the pain you were feeling, you needed to stay calm for him. 
With Eskel’s help, Lambert’s rambling promises that everything would be okay, and Geralt’s moral support from right behind you, you were able to make it to the room designated for this very occasion. You knew it would be wise to have a room on the main level just in case you weren't up in your room when the time came to deliver. 
Geralt went to gather Yennefer and Triss while you carefully sat down on the edge of the bed. Eskel went to stand just outside of the doorway so that he was far enough away to give you both some privacy but close enough that if you needed anything, he'd be there. 
“Should-Should you lay back?” Lambert asked you, brushing your hair back out of your face. 
“No, love. I’m fine. I’m-I’m fine.” Your voice cracked as you softly shook your head, tears filling your eyes and blurring your vision. 
“Why are you crying? Are-Are you okay? Is the baby okay? Is something wro-,”
“Lambert, I love you but please breathe.” 
“I am breathing! Are you breathing?”
Your head fell forward, hands gripping your knees as the tears left your eyes. A surge of pain tore through your pelvis. 
Lambert saw the way your strong facade was crumbling. He needed to be strong for you. He needed to swallow his fears and be there for you. You were doing all of the hard work. He was just there to watch and encourage you. He had no right to freak out. 
It took the witcher a few minutes to gather himself, to tell himself over and over that you would be okay. Then he was able to elevate his heartbeat and focus on you. 
“Hey, hey, bug.” His tone softened. He turned your head to him, his thumb stroking your flushed cheek. “I'm right here, okay?”
“Lambert, it-it hurts.” You whispered, turning your head to bury your face in his neck. 
“I know, bug. ‘M sorry.” He rubbed your back, pressing kisses to the side of your head the best he could. “But you know what?” 
He pulled back and you had no choice but to pull your head away from him. 
“If there is anyone here in this keep that could do this, that could go through this, it's you.”
“That's-That’s not true.” You shook your head. “You-You’re strong. You survived the trials. You're a witcher for crying out loud!”
“And he's the biggest cry baby you’ll ever see.” Geralt spoke from the doorway. You smiled a little, wiping your cheeks. 
“That’s debatable.” Lambert muttered. 
Triss and Yennefer entered the room. Yennefer stayed off to the side while Triss came to you. Yenn was there for backup if Triss needed it. 
“You ready for this, bug?” Lambert asked you, rubbing your knee. 
You bit your bottom lip, nodding your head. 
Eskel 
You slammed one of the cabinets in the kitchen shut and turned to gather the rest of the clean dishes from the woven basket on the table. 
“Y/N, you really should let someone else take care of that.” Eskel said. 
“No one else knows how to put them away the right way.” You told him. There was no kindness in your voice, no peaceful tone to your words. You sounded bitter and angry. 
“I don’t think there’s really any wrong way to put away dishes.” Lambert thought out loud. 
“And that’s exactly why I’m putting them away.” 
“Y/N, let me help-,”
“No!” You cut Eskel off, turning to face him. “Just let me do this! Let me put these away so they are done right.”
Eskel stopped walking towards you, brows drawn together. 
“Eskel.” Geralt said his brother’s name and beckoned for Eskel to join him and Lambert at the table. 
Eskel looked back at you once more before going to his brothers. He sat down next to Geralt, arms resting on the table.
“What is up her ass?” Lambert whispered low enough so you couldn’t hear. 
“I don’t know.” Eskel shook his head, eyes finding you. “She’s been like this since she woke up.”
“Yeah, I know. She’s made the whole keep feel like hell today.”
“Is something wrong with her?” Geralt asked. 
“She won’t tell me if anything is wrong. She’s just been an entirely different person all day.”
The witchers fell silent as Jaskier entered the room. 
“Good evening, Y/N!” The bard chirped. 
You were reaching a shelf that was probably a little too high up for you, so he decided to offer a hand. 
“Let me help you, darling-,”
“Fuck off, bard!” You snapped at him, placing the plate down on the counter with enough force to nearly break it. “Just-Just leave me alone! What is with you men not understanding a gods damned word coming out of my mouth today?”
You stormed across the room, jaw locked and eyes set on the door you wanted to leave through. Well, to say you stormed through was a little bit of an exaggeration. With your enormous pregnant belly, the most you could do was angrily waddle.
The witchers and the bard watched you leave the room, the door slamming shut behind you.
“That was absolutely terrifying.” Jaskier put his hand over his heart. “What did I say to make her so explosive?”
“It’s not you, Jaskier.” Eskel shook his head, pushing himself to his feet. “I’m sorry about that. She’s…. She’s never like this.”
“I’ve faced bloodthirsty alps and I can honestly say I’d rather deal with them than an angry Y/N.” Lambert shook his head. “Good luck, brother.”
Eskel felt as though he’d need more than luck to deal with you. 
He found you in the courtyard, resting on a stool by the goats’ enclosure. Your legs were parted and you braced your hands on your knees. Your eyes were closed tightly. 
“Are you okay, doll?” 
You didn’t answer him. This worried the witcher. He moved to kneel down in front of you. His hand slipped around your stomach, holding you tenderly.
“Y/N, my love, please answer me.” He begged quietly, brows drawn together. 
Your eyes opened, glossy and red. You shook your head gently. You knew that if you spoke, you’d lose what control you had over the situation. 
“Please, Y/N. Just-Just tell me what’s wrong.” Eskel reached up to brush a few pieces of hair out of your eyes. 
“Nothing.” You shook your head, pulling his hand away from your face. You rubbed your face and tried to stand up but he wouldn’t let you. 
“It’s obviously not nothing. You’ve been acting weird all morning. Is everything okay with you? With the baby?”
“I’m fine, Eskel.” You spoke through your teeth as a surge of pain drove through your hips. You removed his hand from your stomach, his touch burning in a way that made the pain worse. 
“No, you aren’t. You’ve been avoiding me all day, Y/N, and-and you’ve been mad at everyone who talks to you.” He placed his hands on his thighs, feeling hurt that you’d push his hand off of you. So many thoughts ran through his mind and his stomach churned. Why had you pushed him away? Why were you avoiding him? Why were you angry at him and at everyone else?
“Did I do something?” His voice was weak and timid.
“No, Eskel.” You shook your head, rubbing your eyes once more.
“Then please, Y/N.” He begged, heart racing in his chest. “Please just tell me what is wrong so I can make it better. I-I-I feel so helpless. You’re angry and you’ve been harsh with everyone. You’ve never raised your voice at me, let alone the others. Something is wrong, Y/N, and I-I can’t leave you alone until you tell me what it is.”
Your head hung and your eyes squeezed shut tightly. He could hear how furiously your heart was pounding. Tears fell from your eyes as you brought your hands up to cover your face. You shook your head.
“I-I can’t- Eskel, I can’t do this. Everything hurts so bad.” You cried, finally leaning forward to rest your head on his shoulder.
“What hurts, my love?” He pressed kisses to the side of your head, one hand coming up to embrace you in a careful hug while the other rubbed the outside of your thigh. 
“I’m so scared, Eskel. I-I can’t-I can’t do this. I can’t.” Your tears dampened his neck but he didn’t mind. Your breath was hot and your fingers dug into him so tightly he thought for sure he’d have bruises. 
“You have to explain to me what is hurting, doll.” He pulled away just enough to cup your face and brush his thumbs over your flushed cheeks. “If I don’t know what’s wrong, I can’t help you.”
“I-I’m-I’m sorry I’ve been so angry and so mean.” You leaned into his touch. “The baby- It’s coming.”
Eskel’s brows drew together and he looked down at your stomach for a moment.
“What?”
“My-My water broke this morning.” You shook your head. “But I-I-I can’t do this, Eskel! I can’t do this! I’m-I’m so scared! I can’t!”
“Y/N, look at me.” He held your face between his large hands, tilting your head up so you had no choice but to look at him. “Why didn’t you let me know when it happened? You’ve been moving around so much today. You should’ve been sitting down and resting until the baby comes.”
“I can’t do it, Eskel.”
“Yes, you can.” 
Even though you were freaking out and crying, he was calm. He took your hand in his and tucked your hand underneath the neck of his shirt. He placed your hand directly over his heart and applied a little pressure, wanting you to feel his heart beating steadily.
“You need to calm down, doll.” His voice was gentle and tender, matching his eyes and his touch. “Everything will be okay. I know you’re hurting right now but it will be over soon. Okay?”
You nodded. He leaned forward to press a kiss to your lips and then your forehead. 
“Let’s get you inside and to a bed.” He stood to his feet and held his arm out for you.
Geralt
You shivered a little, pulling one of the numerous cloaks you wore tighter around your body. 
“Are you cold, dove?” He asked, his hand immediately finding the small of your back. 
“Just my nose.” You explained. “The wind is terrible today.”
You had wanted to go on a walk around the grounds of the keep, feeling the need to stretch your legs. You walked alongside him, your arms weaved together. 
“Do you need my cloak?” Geralt asked, starting to take his off. 
“No, no, Geralt.” You shook your head, almost laughing at him. “I’ve got plenty of layers on. I don’t need anymore.”
The White Wolf had made sure you were wearing at least six layers before you both ventured outside. You were sure you had on one of his cloaks and maybe even Lambert’s or Eskel’s. You didn’t mind though. The cloaks were nice and cozy, and they smelled like Geralt, all musk and fire and steel.
Geralt’s arm slipped out of yours so he could go down the steps first. He held his hand out for you, eyes carefully watching your footing to make sure you wouldn’t fall down the four stone steps. 
“Why thank you, good sir.” You grinned just a little, placing your hand in his. 
“My pleasure.” His grin was a little less prominent than yours, but it still warmed your heart. 
You began to lead the way to the little area the goats were kept. You wanted to check on them and make sure they’d be warm enough for the evening.
Before you could reach the goat enclosure, a sudden wave of heat came over you. You stopped walking and started desperately tearing at the cloaks in an attempt to take them off. 
“Y/N?” Geralt furrowed his brows together. “What are you doing?”
“I’m-I’m just too hot.” You handed him the top cloak and then the next one. 
“It’s far too cold for you to be in such little-,”
“Geralt, I am too hot for all those layers.” You told him firmly. Your heart started racing and a thin layer of sweat covered your skin. With the wind, this chilled you but at the same time, you felt like you were on fire. 
You were down to your last cloak when you finally felt a little comfortable. The wind shifted and suddenly Geralt knew what was happening. He could sense the changes in your body, the chemical ones no one else would have been able to detect. 
“Are you hurting?” He asked, furrowing his brows together. 
Before you had a chance to answer him, you sucked in a sharp breath and put your hand on the side of your stomach. It was as if your body had waited for the perfect moment to start having contractions. 
“We need to get you to the bedroom.” Geralt spoke mostly to himself. He handed you the cloaks and then, before you could object, he very carefully picked you up bridal style. 
***
Geralt placed you carefully down on the bed. 
You stayed sitting up, one leg hanging off while the other was bent. Your head hung as you tried to focus on your breathing, to listen to what your body was telling you. 
The pressure between your hips didn’t seem to be growing, but it was there and it was bothersome. 
You looked up to see where your dear husband had gone. 
He was moving around the room almost frantically. He checked the windows to make sure there wasn’t a draft coming in. He checked all of the candles lit around the room for when the sun went down. He didn’t want them to run out and leave him in the dark with you in labor. He could see just fine without light, but you wouldn’t be able to see. He checked the chest at the foot of the bed to make sure clean blankets and linens were there should they be needed. 
As he was moving across the room to check the fire in the hearth, you called his name. He stopped in his tracks and turned to face you. 
Your eyes were squeezed shut and you were leaning forward, one hand on the bed in front of you and the other on your stomach. 
“Y/N?” He wanted to move towards you but his boots seemed stuck to the wooden floor beneath him. 
You didn’t realize until then that his eyes were glossy and he was fighting back tears. 
“Why are you crying, my love?”
He looked away from you for a moment, trying to gain control of his emotions. 
“I don’t like seeing you in pain.” He explained, clearing his throat. “I-I’m the reason why you’re hurting and there isn’t a damned thing I can do about it.”
Your heart melted hearing him sound so upset and concerned. 
“Oh, Geralt.” You murmured his name. “Come here. Come sit with me. Please.”
Geralt didn’t hesitate to move to your side. Before getting on to the bed, he leaned down and kissed the top of your head. The mattress dipped beneath his weight behind you. 
“Lean on me, dove.” He kissed the side of your head, his hands slipping around your sides. 
You sunk back against him, eyes fluttering shut as the pain seemed to ease up. The new position didn’t put so much pressure on your back. 
His hands, large and warm, rubbed the sides of your stomach. He tucked his nose into your hair, eyes closing as he breathed in and out, listening to your heartbeat and the one inside of you. 
Whenever a contraction came around, you’d tense up and he’d rub your stomach. He’d whisper in your ear how strong you were, how much he loved you, and how happy he was. 
After a few minutes of sitting in silence, you spoke. 
“Geralt? Tell me a story.” You rubbed his hand that rested on your stomach. 
“What kind of story?”
“Of your time with Jaskier before I met you. I miss him, Geralt.”
“I know.” Geralt kept his lips against the side of your head. “He’ll be here soon.”
Geralt began to tell you of one of the many times Jaskier was the reason they were run out of town. He’d pause for a moment when a contraction came, hesitating to make sure you were okay. 
It killed him that there wasn’t anything he could do to stop the pain or lessen it. This had to happen. Yes, it wasn’t fun and yes, he felt so useless, but soon, his child would be in his arms with you at his side. 
Taglist: @pressedinthepages @mishafaye @whitewolfandthefox @wolfyland07 @belalugosisdead @persephonehemingway @keira-hulmaster @dinonuggs69 @greatestauthorofmygeneration @shadow-hunters-lover @dancingwith-thesunflowers @tedi-fach-las @thecomfortofoldstorries @raspberrydreamclouds @natkowaa @disasteren @weathervanes-my-oneandlonely @onlyhenrys @wackylurker @criminaly-supernatural @magpie343 @permanently-exhausted-witcher @hina-chans-stuff @the-space-between-heartbeats @havenoffandoms @carriebee1 @ger-bearofrivia @naominami @writingawaymylife @reaganjenelle @theawkwardpedestrian @scarlettwitcher @badassspaceprincess @just-a-sad-donut @summersong69 @an–actual–human–disaster @rubyqueen819 @omgkatinka @c-a-v-a-l-r-y @vonxcon @mazakeen @bravelittlesunflower @thereagles @awkward-turtles-world @menalliha @cotton_mo @maan24 @thefirelordm @monkeymo @krenee1drful @nympha-door-a @unadulteratedtreecrusade @Aquarius-pisces-rose @mentallyscreamingsincebirth @fl0ating @sometimesiwrite @crazybutconfidentaf @runawayolives @she-wolfoftheinquisition @onlygeraltofrivia  
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in-tua-deep · 4 years
Note
13, 14 and 15 for Five!
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man y’all are feral for these ones let me see what they are...
13. What gets them flustered
HMMM well flustered means to make (someone) agitated or confused.
Which means... calling or insinuating that Five is either a child (tagging a ‘little’ onto brother, young man, etc.) or incapable - unfortunately he can perceive several different things as calling him incapable/weak such as... insinuating that he needs sleep or to take a break
Anyone expressing any kind of soft emotions or that they care about him makes him... a little confused to say the least. He’s spent a really long time alone, and while he has some vague success at having heart to hearts where he’s the one talking (telling Klaus about Dolores, talking to Luther, etc.) as soon as the tables turn and they try and express any kind of appreciation or concern for him he has to brush it off, or jump away into a cab, or get defensive and yell (he is not an addict, Klaus)
He doesn’t know how to handle anything soft or considerate. Nothing like that was really present during his childhood - he was never especially close with Grace, not like Diego was at least. Certainly there wasn’t room to be soft in the apocalypse, except on occasion with Dolores, but his focus was primarily on the duel purpose of survival and saving his siblings. And certainly not at the Commission. 
So it does make him agitated and confused and flustered when people care about him. He’s not used to it. He’s used to being the one caring. Even Dolores - she was a reflection of himself and there’s a reason in the comics she was more than a little mean to him at times. There’s a reason why the Handler liked to try and unsettle him by caressing him face and complimenting him so sweetly.
14. Ingrained habits/forces of habit
oh I think Five has a LOT of ingrained habits left over from the apocalypse and fending for himself since he was a small child
Food hoarding and resource guarding would be big ones tbh, he’s had food insecurity for a long time and in season one I never saw him eat so he might just generally be uncomfortable eating in front of other people - a strong sense of this is mine and protectiveness that comes from having very very little
Most of that protectiveness is centered around his family tbh but if his siblings tried to make him give up... his old battered copy of Vanya’s book, for example, I doubt it would go very well. Luther threatening Dolores was not taken very well to say the least, and Luther was only saved by the fact that Five loves Luther and would rather die than hurt him
(though threatening a bit is possible, which I think is what happened with Vanya at the end as well - Five couldn’t bring himself to follow through on hurting her otherwise his jumping would have been so much more precise at the end, he was demonstrably very deadly )
Five is used to going at things alone, so leaving his siblings behind isn’t even him being an asshole or trying to protect them by leaving them behind... he literally just forgets that he has backup but also forgets that like... his siblings talk back to him? So he’ll just say his piece and then exit out of the conversation 
His siblings find it inconsiderate and rude but sometimes it’s literally just Five forgetting that people can have input to conversations and that they aren’t just one-sided things, and since Five is... kind of sensitive about his lack of social skills he just lets them think he’s rude rather than admit that his social skills are really just that bad
There are plenty of other things I think might result from his years of isolation. Five’s habit of talking to himself, because for a long time there was really no one else to talk to (even if he addresses those thoughts to Dolores absently, despite the fact that he’s returned her to the store). An inability to relax because there’s an inexplicable feeling of guilt that occurs whenever he tries to.
Issues sleeping because he’s used to basically total silence. Can you imagine going from no sound at all to living in a house with other people, in a city where there are cars and sirens and people walking down the street? Being generally jumpy around other people
Five has a lot of social issues that his siblings probably put down to him being rude and unsociable but are actually just a result of Five genuinely not knowing how to interact with people, even when he’s really actually trying his best
and part of that is that they’re used to Five being terrifyingly competent, they remember him being praised by their father for being adaptable and good at what he did, even when he caused trouble. They’re used to Five being above it all, and so they don’t perceive it as Five having difficulty so much as they perceive it as Five purposefully being an asshole
If Five was trying he wouldn’t fail, because they do actually perceive Five as being exceptionally capable, which means that Five’s actual struggles... kind of go unnoticed or are criticized as him not trying hard enough
and of course Five hides how he feels and lets them go on thinking that, because it’s an ingrained habit to hide weaknesses - both thanks to Reggie who pit the kids against one another and used their weaknesses against them and because of the Handler who can scent weakness in the water like a shark with blood oof
15. What it takes to make them cry
I think I have a post somewhere about how the Hargreeves are very good at digging right into each others weaknesses and twisting the knife. It happens with all of them tbh. Diego hurls Allison’s failures as a mother in his face, Allison snaps at Vanya that she’s the last person she would ask for advice, even Ben snipes at Klaus. It’s ingrained. It’s common. They’re used to hurting each other with words, used to finding each others softest parts and using those weaknesses against each other
but Five hasn’t really experienced that since he was thirteen. And the Handler, brilliant as she is, is no match for the siblings in their ability to locate and use each others weaknesses.
So I think there’s going to come a day when Five pisses one of them off, and they lash out in the way they know how. The ‘acceptable’ way, with words instead of fists. They’re going to find Five’s softest parts and dig right in
Words like ‘abandon’ and ‘run away’ and ‘should have stayed away’ and ‘fault’
And Five knows how to defend himself, physically. But he’s so very out of practice against verbal attacks, he’s out of practice when he can’t attack back physically and shut someone up. And he loves his siblings. He couldn’t even bring himself to hurt Luther when Luther was threatening the one person who kept him sane, someone that he loved. He couldn’t bring himself to hurt Vanya when she was about to end the world. 
So Five can’t attack physically, has to just stand there and listen. Has to take those words, and take them into his heart, and stand there bleeding from wounds that no one can see
and he’s Five. So none of them would expect it when their words actually hurt him, actually make him stagger back as if hit by a physical blow, none of them expect their venomous barbs to actually make their brother cry
but them not expecting it just makes it easier to hide. He can jump out of a conversation and just be considered rude and inconsiderate and he can hide away while he shakes apart at the seams and has to rebuild his walls from scratch
(what a useful power, right? what a useful escape)
i think there might eventually be frustrated tears, brought about by accusation that Five... doesn’t care about them and everything piles up and just - 
the idea that his siblings don’t know, can’t know, about everything he’s sacrificed for them. Every time he sees them dead behind his eyelids when he goes to sleep. Every second he thought about them, every moment he tried to get back to them. Five is shit at expressing how much he cares about his siblings to his siblings, but don’t actions speak louder than words? Hasn’t he shown them how much he loves them? How much it would kill him if he had to go through losing them ever again?
I imagine at some point there’s a breakdown, Five howling about how he thought about them every single day, that he worked tirelessly to get back to them, to save them. Fuck the world. He was never interested in saving the world. His entire world is his family, and he shaking and shuddering and yelling at them because they don’t understand
he probably doesn’t even realize he’s crying until someone points it out, honestly
tbh five kind of deserves his breakdown, and his siblings deserve to witness how much he actually does care about them and maybe then he’ll finally get the hug he deserves
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badnamjams · 3 years
Text
Omnipotent Deity: The Legend Of The Tiger
Tiger!yoongi x Villager!reader    mature 18+
Summary: The village you live in is small and poor. When your family starts getting sick from malnourishment, you’d do anything to help your family from facing death. Hearing about the legends of the almighty tiger who has immense power that can grant wishes, you think it’s your only way. That is, if he deems your worthy. 
Word count: 6.9k words
Warnings: myths, smut, yoongi is a god, and a tiger
--
“I’m afraid that your mother does not have much time to live, young Y/N.”
“A-are you sure?” you look up at the shaman that stands before your sickly mother. 
“Her body can’t adjust to the lifestyle that has been brought upon us,” the shaman sighs, “the never-ending drought has been with us for two years now.” 
“Is there anything I can do? Any villages close by that can help?” you ask desperately.  
“Villages nearby have been facing the same issues as us, there’s nothing I can do, young Y/N,” the shaman bends down to touch mother’s forehead. 
Two years have gone by since the start of the drought. Two years since the crops and livestock have gone down significantly. Crops are hard to harvest, and the livestock have been getting eaten by the tigers that live in the mountains. It felt like there was no way out. 
Life without mother was something unimaginable to you. Not only did she teach you everything you knew, but she brought warmth with her wherever she went. She was generous to the village. Being married to a head elder, she was a mother to the village. People came to her when times were rough, and mother would help them. 
“Thank you for coming by,” you walk the village shaman to the entrance of your wooded home. The blazing sun hits the both of you. 
She turns around to face you, “Young Y/N, there’s something I must tell you-”
“Y/N! There you are!” Your father, one of the head elders of the village, comes your way. 
“I’ve been looking for you, Y/N,” you father approaches you and bows his head to the shaman, “good afternoon, Ms. Chiyo, how is my wife’s condition?”
“Not good, my son,” she says, “the illness is taking her little by little.” 
The shaman grabs a hold of father’s hands, patting them, “with the little resources we have, there’s not much we can do, and the rituals that I have done was not effective.” 
“We need to pray to the spirits that she goes back to good health.” 
“Thank you for checking on her, Ms. Chiyo, if we need anything else, then we’ll reach out to you.” Father bows to her once again.
“Oh, and Y/N, I want you to come join the head elders meeting with me,” he states, “I think we need more insight from others than just the head elders.” Father gives you a pat on your back. 
“I’m not so sure, father,” you look down, “mother is very ill right now, and I’d like to stay with her for now.”
You were scared, to be quite frank. 
“Young Y/N go with your father to the meeting,” the shaman puts her hand on your shoulder. “One day, when both your parents are old, you have to take your place as one of the head elders.” 
The village shaman starts heading down the dirt road, “we shall talk again another time.” 
The first thing you do before leaving with your father, is pray.
--
The purpose of the meeting was to address the main problem: livestock being snatched and eaten. Being in front of the other elders was nothing you weren’t used to, but the fact that this is your first ever meeting, the tension was like none other. 
“Mr.Y/L/N, I just want to point out that nothing we have done so far is improving. My crops are still not growing, and my chickens are disappearing one by one,” An elder starts speaking. 
“I understand, Mrs. Yang, but even the crops that we have gathered from our neighboring village aren’t growing,” your father tries to mediate. It’s not going well, since the entire village is facing the same problems. 
“Them damn tigers left the cow carcass outside our farmland!” Another elder shouts. 
“We should send some people to kill those damn evil-incarnates! I only have one pig left!”
And like that, shouts are coming from every direction. 
“You’re not sending my family back out there again! I lost my eldest grandson thanks to the impulsive decision to attack the tigers!” 
“Yeah! Who will protect us when we send out fighters?!” 
What do you say? Their words are jumbling up in your head that you can’t formulate a straight answer to any of these problems. This was out of your league. No way are you going to measure up to your dad as a head elder. 
“I want everyone to calm down!” Fathers low voice booms through the ground, “we are weak not only in numbers, but in strength as well.” he starts.
“Tigers do not attack us unless provoked or if we trespass their territory,” he informs “they may be solitary animals, but not when they have their cubs, and god knows that a mother will always protect their cubs.” 
A mother will always protect their cubs. You personally understood what that meant. Mother treated the village like her own cub. We were one big family. We must protect one another to survive. And that’s what we have been doing for centuries. The fire in your heart ignites. The need to protect your family sits inside you. One day, it will be up to you to protect everyone in this village. 
But is there any solution to our problem? We have tried everything we could come up with. 
“Y’all might as well pray to the spirits that the Tiger God grants our wishes!” A random voice says from behind the group. Everyone turns to look at the owner of the voice. The voice belonged to a man by the name of crazy uncle Chan. The one that spews nonsense every day, every hour, every minute. The one that was attacked by a tiger and lived. He bears a deep scar on his face as a trophy. He’s got a total of three teeth, smokes opium every 5 minutes, and always has jokes up his sleeve. The elders may not take him seriously, but the young ones love to be around him.
Crazy Chan cackles and slaps his knee, “the legend of the Tiger God! He’s our only hope!” 
“Chan, stop,” Father intervenes, “that’s just a childhood story.” 
“Oh, if only you knew.”
The Tiger God? You knew nothing about the Tiger God. Nor have been told stories as a child. He grants wishes? Multiple questions pop up in your head. Curious to know about the myth that crazy Chan speaks about. The shaman did say that we should pray to the spirits. Could this Tiger God be real? 
The sun has reached the horizon when the meeting ends. You never spoke once, but you listened to each problem that the village was facing. Maybe if you think more on it, you’ll come up with a solution. But as of right now, you wanted to find crazy Chan. 
As everyone leaves back to their homes, you find crazy Chan sitting on a rock smoking out of his pipe, “Hey Mr. Chan! Can I ask you something?” You approach the crazy man. 
“Ah, Y/N! How are ya this fine evening? Care for a smoke?” He offers his pipe. 
“Uh, no, thank you, I don’t smoke,” you push his pipe away, “I was wondering if you could tell me about the Tiger God?” you ask hopefully. You take a seat on the dry grass next to him. 
“The legend of Yoongi! The Tiger God!” Crazy Chan flails around. 
“Yes, the Tiger God,” you hesitantly start, “what is the myth?”
“Oh, young one, it is no myth,” He shakes his head, “no, no, no.” 
“The legend is real,” he grabs both of your shoulders and shakes you. 
Crazy Chan lets go of you and starts the story with a hushed tone, “the legend goes that if you bring him three specific items, he’ll do an evaluation, and if he deems you worthy, he shall grant you one wish.” Chan’s eyes bulge out of his head as he comes close to your face. 
“In a hundred years, no one has had the privilege of ever seeing him,” he turns and stares off into the plain field, “except for one man.” He extends out his arm and pokes your forehead with his pointer finger. 
That night, you barely slept. Curious about the story and the legend of the Tiger God. You look over to your parents, with the moon shining down on the both of them. Why haven’t they told you about the story? Maybe you don’t remember it as a child. Father did say it was a children’s story. 
The story that crazy Chan told you was stuck in your head. A young man, by the name of Jungkook, was a poor son living in poverty and famine. People had gone to see the Tiger God often, but all of them were not worthy enough to get their wishes granted. Everyone was turned down, except for one man. Legend says that the tiger was referred as a God, because of the immense power he possessed. Jungkook was the only one who the Tiger God deemed worthy; therefore he got his wish granted. 
The idea that pops up into your head is a crazy one, but at this point, you're desperate for anything.
--
You find crazy Chan once again, smoking his pipe on the rock he always sits on, with children littering the area around him. The sun is beaming down, hotter than normal today. You go to join the kids on the grass, in hopes of getting more information out of crazy Chan. 
“Mr. Chan! Could you tell me more about the Tiger God?” You ask. 
“Ah! Young Y/N, why the sudden interest?” He inquires. 
“Mr. Chan! Tell us about the Tiger God!” The children speak out. 
“You guys too? Oh man, I tell you guys the story almost every day!” He shrieks. 
“Tells us! Tell us! Tell us!” The kids chant. 
“Oh, alright,” he succumbs to their chants, “what would you like to know?”
“How powerful is he?!”
“Is he really big?”
“Is he a prince?”
“Is he a tiger or a human?”
“Can he fly?!”
The children gobble crazy Chan with questions. You can’t help but admire the children and their youthful thinking. The curiosity in their eyes, all the wonder and enthusiasm. 
“Really powerful, maybe, no, both, and maybe.” Crazy Chan answers all the questions in one go. You smile in amusement at how blunt his answers were. 
“Is there a way to meet the Tiger God?” You finally ask after everyone had their turn. 
“My, my, my!” He puts his hand on his hips, while having the pipe rest in his mouth, “young Y/N, are you interested in finding him and make a wish? Cause if you are...then you might be crazier than me! Hah!” He slaps his knees and cackles, which makes all the other kids laugh and fall to the ground. 
That was the only thing you got out of him the entire day. Every question you threw at him, he would turn it around and make it into a joke to make the kids laugh.
Maybe your suspicions of the Tiger God was wrong. The possibility of it being real was something you were clinging on to in hopes that it would save mother. The rest of the day, you cursed at yourself repeatedly. What made you believe in a children’s fairytale? Granting wishes? Immense power? Of course, no such thing would exist. The fire inside you was dimming. 
--
The next morning, everyone heard the cries. One of the elder’s granddaughter had died. At only six years old, she had died from the same illness mother was facing. The whole village gathered around her burial. The aura was filled with sorrow. The wind was calm, and the air was deathly silent. But you heard the cries, heard the sniffles. Death was not unknown, but the occurrence was minimum. The village prayed, while the shaman did her ritual. 
Majority of the villagers left the burial. Even the little girl’s family. Father had brought mother for the funeral but were the first ones to leave when it ended. You understood. Mother was better off resting. The only one who stayed behind was you, and crazy Mr. Chan. The sight of him was unusual. Something never seen. He was void of emotions. Staring off into the grassy field. His pipe was in his hand, but since the beginning of the funeral, he has not taken a hit. 
You walked and stood next to him, keeping silent the whole time. You assume he would want silence. There was nothing you could say to him. Mr. Chan was the one person every kid in this village loved to be with. He filled their lives with joy. 
Like habit, he finally takes a hit out of his pipe, “young Y/N, listen to me carefully, cause I’ll only say this once.” He takes another hit.
“Or maybe twice, because I’ll forget I said it the first time, but anyways,” he says frantically. 
“You need to go to the mountains,” Mr. Chan starts off. “There’s only one cave in the mountains, and you must go there.” He looks at you with a serious face. 
“You need to bring one tiger tooth and a pair of chicken feet.” All the pieces are coming together. Your face contorts into confusion. 
“But... why-” 
“There’s no time, Y/N, you must see the Tiger God.”
“B-but it’s just a myth!”
“It’s real, and you need to stop these chains of events from ever happening again, Y/N,” Mr. Chan is fully facing you, “I believe you are the one who can change everything.” 
“I-I thought you need three things?” You’re as frantic as ever. 
“I only remember two, but it doesn’t matter, because you need to take this chance to meet him.” 
“What do I do?” You cry out to him. 
You don’t sleep that night. Too busy preparing for the mission that starts when the sunlight hits the sky. Chicken feet was the easiest to obtain. The orders that Mr. Chan gave you is running repeatedly in your head. But he didn’t tell you how to get a tiger tooth. 
Are you going to have to hunt for a tiger? The absurdity in everything is making the world spin around you. You grab onto the wall of your home for support. Beads of sweat drips down your face. You’re not entirely sure if it’s due to the weather, or if it’s because you’re freaking out. You look to your parents to see if they’re still asleep, not wanting to wake them up. 
That’s when you see it. The hit of the moonshine on the spot of your getaway. Of course. You were making this too hard for yourself. You tiptoe to the head of your parents, eyes glued on father’s tiger tooth necklace. You hear your heartbeat in your eardrums as you hover over father. As careful as possible, you snap the twine that holds the tooth and slowly lift the object. You back away as soon as you have it in your grasp, heart beating out of your chest. 
“You need to leave as soon as the sun rises,” flashback of Mr. Chan’s orders flow through your head, “the tigers hunt at night, so travelling during the day is the safest option, and they won’t attack humans unless provoked.” 
“But I interpreted the prophecy and believe that the path to the cave will be easy.” He states.
“But how do you know?” you ask. 
“All the stories of people going to the cave and back never come back harmed,” he recalls, “however, they never got to see the Tiger God.” 
“Also, what prophecy?” 
“There’s no time, young Y/N, you need to get a tiger tooth and chicken feet.” 
--
Thankfully, no one was awake at this time. You set out on the path that Mr. Chan directed you to follow, with hope and fear coursing through your veins. No one has gone this far into the mountains. The dirt path that lead up to the start of the mountain slope was straightforward. Almost as if this was a road leading you straight to a castle. And that castle belonged to the Tiger God. 
The walk felt foreign to you, for you had never gone this far from the village. Frequently, you would check each side of you in case of a lurking tiger. Fear drips with every step. The last thing you need was to be attacked by a tiger. 
Alas, the long journey awaits you. Your judgement of the size of the mountain did not fail you. You knew it would take you till nightfall to reach the cave. Watching the sunset had given you serenity. Like the calm before the storm. You understood that this task will not be an easy one and knew nothing of what’s to come. Once the sun fell behind the horizon, you had reached the entrance to the cave. 
The view of it gave you chills. The feeling of a lurking entity frightened you. Fear had taken over your body. You could always turn back. 
No. The fear does not compare to the pain you feel. The pain of having a sickly mother on the verge of death. The pain and suffering of the entire village that you grew up with. You must do this. You need to do this. For the sake of the village, and for the sake of your mother. If this damn Tiger God is your only hope, then you’ll take your chances. 
With the courage that had appeared inside your heart, you fire up a torch and enter the dark and murky cave. The feeling of a lurking entity never left. The feeling of fear never left. But there is no other choice. You walk with a shaky hand, holding the lit-up torch in front of you.
Roaming deeper into the cave, you find nothing but a long tunnel that stretches down into a dark abyss. Is there going to be something at the end of the tunnel like cave? You don’t see anything besides your torch, and the entrance that is now far from you. Your courage is now long gone from you, left at the entrance of the cave. 
Welp, there’s nothing here for you. You turn around to leave this dark and scary cave, but that’s when you hear it. A low growl echoing through the cave. You almost feel paralyzed as you slowly turn back around. Your bones are shaking and the only thing you hear besides the low growl is your increasing heartrate. Your heart is about to beat out of your chest, and your mind has concluded that you are going to die. Right here. Right now.  
Two glowing bulbs appear far ahead of you. The feline eyes are the only things you see in the dark abyss. The growl is low, but loud in your eardrums. The eyes come closer, bit by bit. In a flash, the cave is being lit on the sides of the walls. Torches hung in a line through each side of the cave. And as the well-viewed tiger stalks towards you, as the first two paws take a step, each torch lights up one by one. 
Your torch has been long gone on the floor, blown out. Body becoming paralyzed at the sight of a tiger. The tiger is still stalking towards you, slowly but surely. Eyes glowing straight at you, teeth baring at full display. The tingling sensation of fear runs through your veins. From your fingertips to the soles of your feet. The intentions of the tiger are unknown. All logical thoughts left your body. The only thing you can do is accept your fate. 
The tiger has now approached you, and slowly strides around you. Body still paralyzed; you don’t even dare to look at your side. The tiger is now at the side of your peripheral vision. 
A soft touch jolts your awareness. It is then that you realize that the tiger is caressing your back with its long and oddly strong tail. Your body is stone frozen, as the areas are burning with every touch
“Look what the cat dragged in.” A deep voice says. So smooth..so alluring.
Lost for words at how the damn tiger can speak, it comes back around to your other side. But what shocks you is that it’s not a tiger that appears, but a full-grown man in all his glory, and his tail still touching you. With his jet-black hair and a long scar down his eye, you knew this was no ordinary man. He must be the Tiger God. 
The man appears in front of you, staring back at you with his feline like eyes. You look at anywhere, but him. Seeing as how attractive this fearsome man is, astonishes you. “To what do I owe the pleasure...” 
“Y-Y/N,” you stutter out. “A-and I came to make a wish.” You rush it out. 
“What makes you think you are worthy enough?” He spits out. The man walks back, walking to what you see now as stairs leading up to a throne. All made in stone. 
You ponder for a minute. What makes you worthy? You brought the items you were told to bring. Do they make you worthy? 
“I-I brought the things you wanted!” You cry out desperately. “Unfortunately, I only have two of the things...” You wince at your stupidity. He won’t be happy if you only brought two of the three items. 
“Oh, I assure you, kitten,” the man chuckles. “You brought me the three things that I want.” 
“Come closer, kitten.” He waves his fingers at me while smirking. “I don’t bite.” 
You pick up the courage to move your feet, not wanting to disobey the god-like man. Each step becomes faster and faster to make sure you don’t disappoint or anger him by being slow. The basket you brought with you had carried the things you needed. Lowering down to your knees, you set the basket down and take out each item.��
“I don’t know how I have the third item, sir.” You lightly bow to the man. 
“Seems like a little kitten was ill-informed on the necessities of seeing the legendary Yoongi, huh?” His smirk never leaves his face. “This should be fun.” 
“I-I don’t understand, sir.” 
The man, who goes by the name Yoongi, starts descending the stairs slowly. With each step, you become more nervous and more scared of what he’s going to do. When the man appears in front of you, he squats down, looming over you. You try to look at anything else but his nakedness. 
“You give me three things to represent different qualities that I deem worthy.” He takes the chicken feet that have been sitting on the bottom of the stairs. In one gulp, he swallows the feet. The action baffles you. 
“I love chicken feet.” He shrugs. “However, you were supposed catch a tiger by yourself, and give me a tooth.” The man picks up the tiger tooth you had stolen from father and examines it. Realization struck you. You’re not worthy, since you didn’t get the tooth on your own. 
“I’ll let it slide, kitten.” He smiles deviously at you. “It’s been a hundred years, and no one was as innocent as you” Yoongi chuckles. 
“I can smell it from a mile away.” He leans a little towards you and breaths in deeply. The act makes your heart flip. 
“W-what are you talking about?” You’re even more confused. 
“There’s always a price to pay, little kitten.” Yoongi starts. “You give me the things that I want to prove if you’re worthy of making a wish.” 
The Tiger God holds up the tiger tooth. “This represents bravery; however, you didn’t get this one on your own.” He shrugs. “The feet represent generosity.”
“And lastly...innocence.” Yoongi’s eyes shift into something unreadable. But the way he’s staring into you, makes your cheeks hot. 
“Innocence? Like what?” Gradually, you’re starting to understand. 
“Oh, kitten, I love how innocent and naïve you are!” He chuckles. Yoongi gets back up and heads to the stoned throne. You can’t help but look at the view of his curves and naked back side. Something inside you churns. The Tiger God’s presence alone makes you feel something so foreign to you.
As he sits down, he pats his lap. “Come sit.” He demands. Without a thought, you’re making your way up the stairs and plopping yourself on his lap as told. Almost as if something else has taken over your body. The feeling of him underneath you burn your thighs. The close proximity makes your heartbeat faster. You can’t tell what it is that you’re feeling. Never have you ever felt like this towards anyone. 
“What is it that you desire, my little kitten?” Yoongi rubs your thighs. His touch shoot tingles throughout your entire body. Burning heat starts growing in the pit of your stomach. 
“I want my village-” Yoongi hushes you with his finger on your lips. 
“I know what your wish is, but I want you to tell me,” he drags his finger down your lips, “what is it that you desire?” You look the man and watch his facial expressions. Yoongi’s eyes were piercing into your own. Your body is starting to feel different. The way your body reacts to his touch indicates something your unknown to. Chills run through your body. You feel your nipples perking, and it’s not because of the cold. 
“I-I don’t know what I desire, sir.” You stutter out. “But I don’t want you to stop touching me.” You’re embarrassed at your own confession. 
“So innocent.” Yoongi whispers. “Suck” He brings his finger back to your lips. You instantly wrap your lips around his digits and start doing what he commanded. The way he watches you with his tongue sticking out a bit, arouses you even more. 
“You want me to touch you, kitten?” He asks. You nod, slowly. “Say ‘please’ for me. ‘Please, Yoongi.’” He looks at you erotically. His finger slips out of your mouth, slick with saliva. 
“Please.” You breathe out. “Please, Yoongi. Touch me.” You beg. Your brain has gone foggy at this point.
He pulls your back against his chest and uses his knees to spread your legs. His knees keep your legs spread for him, as he trails his hands down. 
“Where do you want me to touch you, kitten?” He breathes in your ear. His hot breath combined with the way he’s talking shoots thrills to your core. Your eyes almost roll back, and he’s barely done anything. 
“Everywhere.” You tell him. He starts with your jaw. Outlining the side of your jaw slowly, he makes his way down to your neck. Softly dragging his fingers, making a trail of saliva wherever he went. When he reaches your perked nipples, he takes extra time to knead the swell of your breast while pinching your nipples. Yoongi is making you feel hazy with the way his hands are touching you. You moan with each pinch before his hands leave your breast to trail down your stomach. 
“Yoongi!” You moan as he touches you where you didn’t know you needed him. His hand goes down your pants and brushes a finger up and down your slick. 
“Mm, feel how wet you are, kitten.” He collects your juices and brings them around your bundle of nerves, circling it with his fingers. The fire you feel inside your stomach burns more and more as he plays with your clit. He strides his tongue up the side of your neck to behind your ear. Your head falls onto his shoulders, letting him make a mess out of you. Taking your earlobe between his teeth, he moans lowly. 
“You like that, kitty? Like how good my fingers are making you feel?” He inquires. Your brain can’t formulate any words, so all you do is give him a small nod. His fingers become faster. You whine at the newfound speed and arch your back into him. 
“No one’s ever touched you, huh? You want me to show you how good it can feel?” You nod vigorously, wanting more of his fingers. Your stomach is tightening as you feel the immense pleasure. It’s nothing you ever felt before. 
“You’re doing so good, kitten. You’re making my cock hard with you moving on top of me. You want my cock inside you, kitty?” The next thing that overwhelms you is Yoongi slowly putting a finger inside you. The unfamiliar feeling sends shock waves everywhere. From the nibbling on the ear, to his grunting in your ear, all on top of his finger pumping in you, sends you completely over the edge. Fireworks explode in your eyes as you come right on top of him, legs shaky and back arched into him. 
“Kitten, you’re so tight.” He chuckles. “I don’t know if I’ll fit.” He says to you as you calm down from your orgasm. 
“Will it hurt?” You finally speak. You try to catch your breath, as you feel a shift from underneath him. The hard, poking feeling is coming from his cock. 
“Relax, little one, only a little bit.” He laughs in your ear. “But you’ll grow to love it.” Everything happens in a flash. He’s got your ass up and faced down on the plateau of the stairs. Yoongi’s one step down, kneeling behind you. His cock is in his hands, pumping slowly. The way he eyes your dripping cunt makes you feel self-conscious, but his next move arouses you. “Look at this cunt dripping for me. I can’t wait to put my cock in your pretty pussy.” He collects your juices and wraps it around his red, swollen cock. You moan at the sight of him. 
“I want you to be loud for me, kitten.” He kneads your ass cheeks. 
You’re unaccustomed to the pain that comes with slipping his cock into you. Your walls are being stretched and it feels like he’s ripping you up. Yoongi moans as he fully bottoms you out. He’s balls deep in you and you feel him hitting every wall. Every nook and cranny that resides in you. 
“Fuck, kitten.” He groans. “You’re so tight for me.” He throws his head back and grabs onto your waist. Pleasure comes over you as he hits a certain spot. His thrusts are slow, allowing you to adjust to his size. Just like he said, you grew to love it. The pain you felt was replaced with pleasure. 
“Faster, Yoongi!” You grew impatient. You wanted him to go faster. You needed him to hit that one spot again. You’ve become addicted to the feeling. 
Yoongi snaps his cock into you harshly. “Did I say you can tell me what to do, little one?” The pain that came with it was what you wanted. Oh, did it feel so good. “I'm a God. You’re omnipotent deity. You don’t tell me what to do when I have you bowing before me as I pound my cock into you, little kitten.” 
Yoongi snaps his hips once again. He snaps three more times before he’s pounding into you profusely. His cock is hitting the spot where you wanted him to be and you couldn’t be more thrilled. You feel sharp nails digging into the curvature of your ass. The pain alights the fire within you. Your knees are digging into the ground so hard, that you’re sure they’re bleeding, but it adds to the pain and pleasure that you’re growing to love. You feel his balls slapping on your clit with every thrust. Everything is pushing you more and more to the edge. You want nothing more than to come again. You had no prior experience of such pleasure.  
“This is what you wanted?” He lowers his head to yours. “Wanted me to fuck you harder so you can come again? Huh, kitty?” He asks. 
“Yes, Yoongi, I want to come again, please!” 
“Beg for it, kitten, I wanna hear you.” He growls in your ear. 
“Yoongi, please!” You start begging. “I wanna come again! You feel s’good inside me!” Your words are slurring. The haziness from the pleasure has taken over you. 
“I wanna come for you, please, Yoongi.” 
He picks you up and sits you on top of his lap, cock never leaving your pussy. You’re now facing the entrance of the cave as he holds your waist up to pound into you. 
“You like the way I fuck you, kitten? You wanna come for me again like the good kitty you are?” He says into your ear. Yoongi has figured out that you liked him whispering into your ear. The dirty words he says to you combined with how he’s making you feel, makes you feel like you’re on cloud nine. 
He wraps a hand around your neck and holds tightly. “Answer me, kitty.” 
“Yes, oh god, yes.” Your head is thrown back. Eyes now rolling to the back of your head. “You feel so good, Yoongi! So big.” You’d do and say anything to come again. The fire inside you is burning and you know what’s coming. 
“I want you to come for me, kitten.” His other hand reaches down to rub on your clit. You moan loudly and grind your pussy on to his cock. You’re riding to reach your high and you feel it coming to you faster. The way his fingers feel on you is pushing you more and more to the edge. Yoongi’s sucking your earlobe once again, which adds to the fire burning inside. 
“I feel you tightening around me, kitty.” He pounds into you faster. “Why don’t you come for me?” His voice is sinister. His finger works faster, and he knows you’re about to come. You clenched around him so tight that he was unexpectedly about to come. 
The feeling of your orgasm is stronger than the last one. You see white lights in your eyes as your orgasm hits you like tidal waves. You’re shaking on top of him, as he’s still fucking you. 
“Fuck, kitten, you’re so sexy.” he grunts out. “I’m about to come from how tight you feel.” You let him fuck into you as you come back to your senses. Purposefully, you clench around him as tight as you can.
“Kitten you’re gonna make me come!” His hips stutter up and you feel his cock twitch inside you. His moans were like angels singing in your ear. As he comes down from his high, he lifts you up from him and watches the way his come drips out of you. His cock is still twitching from the orgasm he had. 
“Oh, kitten, you’re really worth the wait.” He breaths out. Sweat is dripping down his face, and you couldn’t think of anything more god-like than this. 
“Am I worthy of making a wish?” You look at him and ask. Yoongi’s eyes are closed, making you feel doubtful. Did you waste your time and innocence? 
“There’s one more thing I need from you...” He starts.
“Anything! I’ll do anything you want! Just please, save my village. I can’t watch them suffer anymore.” You plead with every fiber in you. 
“A life for a new life.” He looks at you with an emotionless. “Looks like your mother is quite sick. Almost on the verge of death.” You freeze at his statement. How does he know? 
“I’ll make you one last deal. You give me your mother’s life, and I’ll restore everything that has been lost in your village.” What? This can’t be happening.
“A life for a new life.” 
You’re paralyzed. To be in shock is an understatement. How could he do this to you? After everything you just did with him. 
Tears are spilling out of your eyes and ringing is all you hear. The agony that fills you is overpouring. 
You turn your full body to him. “No...” You shake your head profusely. “No! Please not my mother!”
“That is my deal. Take it or leave it.” The look he has on his face is ominous. 
“Yoongi, please!” You beg. Pride, embarrassment, everything is gone. “Not my mother, I beg you!” You bow to him, showing him your hands that are praying. Praying for another way. Tears are running down like waterfalls. Snot threatens its way out of your nose. 
“Please, Yoongi..” You cry out. “Take me instead! I don’t care! Just not my mother!” You bow to him once again. This is all you can do. All that you can give him. “Take me..take me..” 
“Is that your offering?” His voice booms through the cave. 
“Yes, please, take me instead. You said a life for a new life!” 
“Look at me.” You look up at him, quickly wiping your tears and snot. He’s examining your face, seeing if there’s any hint of a lie. He can’t fail this time. 
What’s unexpected was for him to pull your face into his. He kisses you with passion and the last thing you see before blacking out is the way his eyebrows were scrunched. 
--
You wake up due to the sun shining down on you. You blink a couple of times to adjust. Your body feels stiff and everything seems hazy. When your vision becomes clear, you see the shaman looming over you. You’re back in your own home? 
“Good morning, young Y/N.” She gives you a cup of water. “I’ve been waiting for you to wake up.” She sits back down next to you. 
“What happened?” Your voice is groggy. 
“Many things have happened since we found you.” She says. “What exactly do you remember?”
You remembered everything from start to finish. The only question is...how are you here?
“I don’t know if you’ll believe me when I say that I went to see Yo-I mean the Tiger God.”
“I’m a shaman, young Y/N. Of course, I believe you.” She hands you a plate full of food. “It was your destiny to save this village, after all.” You look at her bewildered. 
“My destiny?” You ask. “What do you mean?”
“There’s this old prophecy that involved the Tiger God. He was banished from the Animal Kingdom and forced to live among us. The only way for him to get back home was to have someone make a wish that was selfless. The Animal Kingdom wanted to teach him a lesson for being so selfish.” 
Everything the shaman was saying felt like a children’s story. It was so unbelievable that you weren’t entirely sure if you dreamt about the Tiger God or not. 
“The moment you were born, I knew you were special, young Y/N.” She watches you eat the food unknowingly. “And when I did the ritual for you mother, I was visited by someone from the Animal Kingdom, telling me that I shouldn’t have to worry, for you would be our savior.” 
You put the plate down and give her a confusing look. Everything was just so absurd to you. 
“Y/N! You’re awake!” Your mother is outside the house waving at you. The sun was shining down on her, making her look alive and beautiful. 
“Mother!” You cry. With no hesitation, you get up and run towards your mother and hug her.
“Why aren’t you resting?! You shouldn’t be out like this!” You say to her.
“Y/N, honey, I feel fine! More than fine, actually! I’ve never felt more alive!” Your mother hugs you back. 
“B-but how?” You look at her. She no longer looks sick. Her skin no longer pale, her eyes bright and beautiful. 
“I don’t know! But when I got up to see if I could walk by myself, I find the fields filled with so many crops! And animals were gathered in herds!” She smiles. “I was admiring everything when I see your body lying in the field full of flowers! I was so worried something had happened to you, but Ms. Chiyo said you were fine.” 
You look around you and what do you know, fields of crops had filled the once lifeless land. Not only that, but your mother was okay. And you were still here. You look up at the mountains in wonder. No answers could explain why he let you go. Perhaps it’s better off for the answers to be unknown. You’re here now with your mother. The village is prospering into something miraculously new. No words could explain how thankful you were to the Tiger God. 
--
“So innocent.” He whispers to himself, as he sets you down on the flowers that had once been all grass. Yoongi leans down to plant one last kiss. It felt like time had stopped so that this moment could last longer. Your lips were soft and warm, filling his head with bliss.  He pulls back and looks at you one more time. He smiles at you and turns to leave down the dirt road. Your final moment with the Tiger God, Yoongi, has ended. 
Truth is that the deal he made with you was a lie. He had never intended on taking you or your mother. Yoongi had to make sure that you were completely selfless. When you said you’d give up your life instead of your mother’s, it shocked him. He looked into your eyes and saw innocence. He saw devotion like none other. You were his key to going back home. He needed you as much as you needed him. He was thankful. 
Because of you, he finally gets to go home. 
   --
My first time ever writing on here! And first time writing smut.. 
Give it a like if you enjoyed! :) 
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I have said a Lot about the “Raph is a system” theory over the past several months, so this is something of a compilation post. It’s got some new stuff, it’s got some old stuff. (You’re reading Part 1) (Part 2 is here) (Part 3 is here)
---
Firstly, “system” is the term for someone with Dissociative Identity Disorder, or DID. (The term can also apply to some folks with OSDD.) Someone might develop DID after experiencing long-term trauma at an early age- roughly five or six years old. To paraphrase the DSM-V:
1. We’ve seen three (possibly four) distinct personality states who speak, act, and perceive others differently.
2. The personality states, or “alters”, don’t necessarily share memory, and Donnie insinuated in “The Clothes Don’t Make the Turtle” that Raph has a bad memory in general.
3. Problems arise when alters don’t get along or aren’t on the same page. That none of them seem to be quite aware they’re a system doesn’t help either; it’s hard to work on communication and cooperation when you don’t know they need to be worked on!
4. This whole situation isn’t a normal part of a broadly accepted cultural or religious practice, or just Raph playing make-believe. (Though I wonder if he had “imaginary friends” when he was younger...)
5. It’s also not because Raph’s been smoking the devil’s lettuce or whatever. “Pizza Puffs” was one long weed joke and he was the only one “sober” (not poisoned) throughout! We don’t see this happen to other mutants, so it’s not a bizarre side effect of mutagen either.
(I’ve seen a few people joke that Mikey has “multiple personalities”, but that’s a tad yikesy and also just plain incorrect. His “doctor” personas are something he does deliberately, and youngest siblings are just Like That.)
So yeah, Raph is pretty heavily DID-coded. We’ve seen four alters so far:
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“Host” Raph (HR): He’s our everyday Raph. A “host” is an alter who fronts most of the time and takes care of “business as usual” situations. They are often unaware of past traumatic events, such that they can appear “normal”. (Ex: the host of a child who lives with an abusive parent could be unaware of the abuse. Otherwise, they might cry or be uncooperative whenever the parent is near, further invoking their wrath. This unawareness allows them to be a “good child”, and stay under the parent’s radar sometimes.) Some systems have more than one host, but that the others have shown up so rarely in this story suggests HR is the only host (for now?).
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Savage Raph (SR): Debuting in “Man vs. Sewer”, he’s a survival-oriented alter. HR probably could have defeated the Sando Brothers on his own under normal circumstances, but being in the middle of a breakdown doesn’t do much for your fighting skills. SR got pulled to the front to deal with them instead.
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“Red” Raph (RR): “Red” is just a placeholder since we don’t actually know his name yet (or even if he has one, not all alters do), though I’ve also heard folks call him “Angel”. He’s got a “tough love” approach to problem-solving, which was probably a helpful thing in the past. LDM were no doubt rowdy children! We were (officially) introduced to him in “Pizza Puffs”.
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Mind Raph (MR): MR could just be a manifestation of HR's thought process via Cartoon Goofery, but that possibility doesn’t give me anything to work with so I’m ignoring it. He’s pretty similar to HR, maybe a tad more upbeat. We (officially) met him in “Raph’s Ride-Along”.
When “Pizza Puffs” first aired, I was like “ah yes, this is the alter who has the cranky edgelord tendencies we’ve seen in previous iterations of Raph. He probably broods on rooftops in the rain when he’s in a bad mood.” Combining that with the whole “Red Angel” thing gives off some Batman vibes. And, of course, SR is similar to the Hulk. Those two heroes are pretty different, but they do have one major thing in common...
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A sudden, violent loss. Given how prevalent rushing water is throughout “Man vs. Sewer”, I’m thinking a flood came through and separated Raph from his family. (You could probably argue that turbulent water symbolizes a turbulent subconscious? 🤷) Again, DID stems from long-term trauma, so Raph must have been gone for... a while. A couple of months, maybe more? It’s hard to say exactly; we have a little wiggle room when applying human developmental psychology to a human/turtle mutant. Since Splinter still needed to care for the other three, he wouldn’t have been able to devote much time to searching for Raph, and the New York City sewers go on for miles and miles. The longer Raph was alone, the more convinced he would have been that the others had drowned and he was the only survivor.
How old would he have been? I know the turtles are “different ages”, but they were all mutated at the same time so I’m pretty sure Splinter was just like “the littlest one is the youngest, the biggest one is the oldest, and the medium-sized ones are the middle children.” They’re all probably fourteenish by “Finale”. Back in “MvS”, Leo said, “You know how savage Raph gets when he’s alone”. He didn’t say anything like, “You know how savage Raph gets when he’s alone ever since such-and-such an incident happened”. This suggests that LDM straight-up don’t know something traumatic happened to Raph; they were too little to retain concrete memories of that time. In their minds, Raph has always been like this. Draxum isn’t known for his patience, so even though he wasn’t able to immerse the hatchlings in mutagen for long, they probably mature a bit faster than humans. And since humans usually can’t remember anything from before four years of age, three sounds about right for the turtles, though they would have been stronger and steadier on their feet than any human toddler. I doubt Raph would have survived otherwise.
I think he’s sort of... “stuck” back in that trauma. Catching food, building a fire, making a weapon, and getting camouflage aren’t the behaviors of someone who’s only been gone for a few minutes.
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When SR called for help, I don’t think he was expecting anyone to answer.
But Raph did manage to hang onto something as he was swept away! It wasn’t much, but that little ragdoll gave him comfort while he was scared and alone.
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(The rabbit design on Bruce’s pajamas is probably a coincidence, but...)
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Raph seems the type to have sympathy for odd-looking toys. His knockoff Mrs. Cuddles plushie was the emotional crutch he needed back then.
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And then he was separated from that as well. Lowkey associating Mrs. Cuddles with this traumatic event would explain why HR was so scared of her. That he doesn’t remember the trauma means he has no context for this fear, making it seem silly and baseless to him (and to the rest of his family), which is why he denied being scared at all in the first part of the “Mrs. Cuddles” episode. It would also explain why he collects teddy bears instead these days, they are a “safe” toy. (The moral of the story is to not make fun of triggers that seem silly.)
(I wonder what would happen if Mrs. Cuddles encountered Savage Raph? Perhaps he’d be quite sympathetic towards such a lonely little raggedy thing! Timestuck as he is, he probably wouldn’t question why a stuffed animal can talk... and it wouldn't be hard for her to persuade her “new bestest fwiend” to get rid of some “mean ol’ nasty sewew monstews” for her.)
That whole “sewer monsters” thing suggests Raph ran into... something while he was wandering alone. Y’all have heard those rumors about alligators living in the New York City sewers, right? Encountering Leatherhead could trigger a flashback.
It would be pretty easy to introduce Leatherhead into the narrative. One of the episodes the Rise crew had planned was titled “The Island of Dr. Noe”, and alligators have very impressive teeth. The Mirage comics had a story where Leatherhead and several cryptids were brought to an island to be hunted for sport.
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Noe seems to have quite a few cronies/friends/rivals he could entertain this way. Since he’s got that obsession with Raph, Noe captures him as well, knocking him out with those darts so he can’t waste his energy trying to escape too soon. (Let’s just assume everyone’s powers are glitchy because they all hit another wave of puberty, meaning they can’t just curbstomp the lower-level villains lol.)
HR wakes up on the island and, of course, starts to panic because he’s lost and alone. While wandering, he runs into Leatherhead, which would trigger a flashback to getting attacked by that alligator all those years ago. But Leatherhead doesn’t want to fight! He’s just as scared and confused as HR is, and could really use a partner to help him survive this island.
HR and SR come into conflict because Leatherhead is/isn’t/is/isn’t/is/isn’t a threat. HR eventually wins out, reasoning that even if Leatherhead is that alligator, it wouldn’t be fair to judge him for what he did back when he was an animal.
But time and dissociation can make memories unclear. That our first look at Leatherhead was in Draxum’s “bluh bluh I’m gonna mutate all the humans” bit in “Bug Busters” means he’s a human-base mutant. He wasn’t the alligator back then, but the hunter tracking it. Leatherhead isn’t one of Noe’s targets, he is one of Noe’s guests! And he wants no one to interfere with his quarry, so he’ll play nice long enough for him and the snapper to take out the rest of the hunters and the freaks. Then the two of them will have the island all to themselves...
Years and years ago, Jack Marlin was a big game hunter prowling the New York City sewers in search of an alligator. He did manage to find and kill one, only to realize it had also been hunting! He had inadvertently saved the strangest little turtle creature.
Marlin had become too skilled at this point, the hunt held no challenge for him. This turtle sounded very young, and he was quite big and strong already. An adult could be tough and intelligent enough to entertain him. Marlin tried to get Raph to lead him back to “the others”. But Raph had been lost for some time, and as far as he knew, his family was dead. Hearing that put Marlin in quite the sour mood. A little mutant snapper is a better catch than none at all, so Marlin tried to haul Raph off. Raph fought back and bit off Marlin’s hand. He escaped, but lost his rabbit in the scuffle. Marlin retreated as well, taking some time to recover, scheme, and hunt other game. (And to pocket that rabbit. The blood loss had made him woozy, and he wanted to have some kind of proof he hadn’t just hallucinated the snapper.) Perhaps he turned that alligator’s hide into a vest, which provided the genetic material for his mutation when he eventually got bit by an oozesquito. Like his Mirage counterpart, Marlin didn’t take losing a limb as a sign he should retire, and instead got a tricked-out prosthetic. Who knows what he could do with it in such a mystic setting as Rise.
Raph eventually reunited with his family, but those distrustful, high-strung survivalist traits he had picked up weren’t helpful anymore. He once again had to be the good and patient big brother who didn’t bite when someone play-tackled him or shook him awake at three in the morning because they’d had a nightmare. Those two states gradually got partitioned off more and more, and now they know little, if anything, about each other.
So Leatherhead and HR are chasing away some mothmen or whatever, and things are going pretty well... until one of them knocks Leatherhead over and a familiar ragdoll rabbit falls out of his pocket. SR realizes that Leatherhead is Marlin and switches in to fight him off again. They’re evenly matched, or perhaps SR is even in danger of losing, when LDM arrive to provide support. Leatherhead is enough of a tactician to know that he should retreat. Donnie and Mikey pursue him while Leo stays behind, placing the rabbit in his stunned brother’s hands. “Remember when Pops made this for you? You were always really gentle with it, ‘cause he wasn’t good at sewing back then...”
(This thing really needs patching up, he’s got sewing stuff for whenever he needs to fix his bears/Blue isn’t a threat on his own/Wasn’t he just back at the lair?/Blue gave back the rabbit/Why does he feel like he got hit by a train?/Blue doesn’t want to fight?/ ...Leo?) And that’s enough for HR to switch back in. He’s probably missing memory from his whole time on the island, so while Leo does his best to tell him what happened, they don’t have enough puzzle pieces between them to truly figure out what's going on.
They defeat the bad guys, release the cryptids, save the day, etc. (Leatherhead managed to lose Donnie and Mikey in the woods. A battle for another day.) Once they return to the lair, HR gets help from Draxum to modify the memory spell from “E-Turtle Sunshine” so he can try to fill in the gaps. Surely he wouldn’t get rejected by his own subconscious... right?
Cue part three in the saga of Raph Punches Himself In The Face. SR isn’t happy that HR is essentially trying to poke at an improperly-healed wound, and attempts to chase him off. HR assumes that SR is just a psychic white blood cell like the Lou Jitsu constructs in Splinter’s mind, and retaliates.
But, of course, fighting is not the answer here. All that accomplishes is giving the body bruises. Eventually HR realizes “stay away” and “back off” are a little different than “get out”, and that SR is just scared. So HR tries another tactic. Over the following days and weeks, he tunes in to calmer memories and just sort of... talks. About what happened yesterday, about his teddy bear collection, about how he finally managed to get a good picture of that pizza pigeon. It takes a while to establish a connection, and even then, it’s spotty at best. Using the spell too much can cause headaches and nightmares. There are days when SR is nearby, and days when he’s not there at all. But he shows up when he can.
And then there’s awkward, stilted conversation and questions neither of them know how to answer and questions neither of them want to answer and more scrapes and bruises and strained silences and apologies, but they finally, finally reach a compromise. SR still doesn’t let HR near those memories, but he tells HR what happened as best he can. (The audience would see those memories, with SR as a voiceover.) Afterwards, HR still visits the mindscape that’s starting to become more solid. They talk some more, they watch light and shadow flow around them, they listen to half-forgotten lullabies on scratchy old cassette tapes. Eventually, HR doesn’t even need to use the memory spell, meditation is enough.
They’ll never get along all the time. But it’s a start.
(SR is going to be so clingy when it finally clicks for him when he finally lets himself believe that his family is alive.)
---
This took eight million years lmao. Parts 2 and 3 will come out eventually, they’ll focus more on MR and RR. Let me know if I need to tag this stuff as anything.
The usual disclaimer applies, I am not a system or a mental health professional so if you’re one or both of those things then feel free to give me some of that good good constructive criticism.
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chidoroki · 3 years
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Norman - 22194
March 21st is here and it’s time for yet another birthday post. I already rambled on about Emma and Ray on their special days, so now it’s finally time to complete this full-score tradition with Norman. It might not be as detailed or long as the other two, since he was absent for a good chunk of the story, but it doesn’t make him any less important! I’ll be honest now, the boy isn’t my favorite character (he doesn’t place anywhere in my top ten for this series either) so I probably missed some moments worth mentioning but I did my best to praise this child anyway!
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(spoilers for the entirety of The Promised Neverland, so if you haven’t read/completed the manga yet, consider this your first warning, because I’m once again going from start to finish with this.)
Since I want to stay consistent with the other two posts, this will focus on the manga timeline, as season 2 is, well.. it’s own thing. I’ll mention some things but don’t count on much. With that, let’s go.
- He achieves a perfect score on Grace Field’s daily tests, alongside Emma and Ray.
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- He is, without a doubt, the smartest kid the house has ever seen, as he passes each test flawlessly and has maintained a 300 average.
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- He’s a complete strategist who is capable of achieving victory (even in something simple as tag) by observing his opponents moves and analyzing their weaknesses in order to counter.
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- Knows how to pick locks. The scene from ch1 was left out but we see him doing so later on in ep02.
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- Stays relatively positive and calm after learning about the truth of the farm.
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- Even going as far as giving Emma a reassuring smile, which I think is impressive given the literal nightmare fuel they’ve just witnessed. 
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- I’m giving him half credit for suggesting the idea of there being tracking devices, since anime has him reveal this possibility while in manga it’s Emma.
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- Both of them realize what determines the shipping order and that the demons favor their brains.
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- This silly panel that I love dearly.
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- Made sure to do a sweep of the entire house beforehand to make sure their escape planning doesn’t get pick up on.
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- Figures out that Isabella only knows the children’s locations when she checks the tracker and that it can’t identify who is who.
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- Has the nerve to lie right to Isabella’s face.. not that she believes it, but still gutsy nonetheless.
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- Knowing the house probably wouldn’t have any rope, it was his idea to use the spare tablecloths.
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- Had a feeling that Ray would reveal the harsh reality of how dangerous it would be to escape with all the children, which turns out to be correct.
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- His laugh in ep02 is so precious.
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- This statement being 100% accurate.
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- Manages to convince the logical Ray, who we know now has spent many years coming up with a solid, safer escape plan, to join in and assist with their crazy and reckless plan instead. Having Ray on their side also grants them many advantages.
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- Absolutely hates to lose, which is a good mentality to have in a world where your life is a stake and your time is limited, which eventually leads him to consider every possible opportunity to stay ahead of his enemies throughout the remainder of the story.
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- Realizes that the trackers must only send out a signal upon being broken, which we found out to be true in Ray’s one-shot chapter.
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- - Him looking completely terrified in this panel.
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- He managed to catch all the Grace Field kids in a game of tag even after they received advice from Ray about how to survive longer.
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- The goddamn intimidating energy he gives off here is fantastic.
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- Despite his body being physically weak, he manages to survive and win against Krone during their game of tag.
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- Just like Ray some couple chapters ago, Norman is completely serious about this idea.
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- Suspects there’s a traitor among the kids and swiftly comes up with a plan to lure them out.
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- This panel of him “dead” from the first side story.
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- He has a feeling the spy is Ray, so he moves up the day of the escape to catch him off guard and send him into a panic.
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- Even though the anime didn’t include it, he managed to throw off Krone as well with some fake footprints to keep her off their backs.
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- Was honestly considering on leaving the spy behind while the rest of them escaped, though he doesn’t seem real happy about the idea, considering the traitor is Ray.
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- His plan on fishing out the spy was flawless as he finally calls Ray out by revealing that the information he gave about the ropes and where he hid them were fake locations.
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- Not only was Ray the first one Norman suspected, but he caught onto him way back when Krone first came to the house. All the information Ray was feeding them helped Norman come to this conclusion as well.
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- Along with Emma’s words about believing that no one in their family is truly bad, Norman refrains from cutting Ray off to allow him to become their trump card. This was a risky move itself, knowing Ray could sell both him & Emma out at any time. Norman tends to prioritize victory, so while staying alive is absolutely necessary and that could’ve been achieved without Ray (as he could’ve just used Ray then ditch him later), he still decides to make the offer as realizes that in order defeat Isabella, Ray’s full cooperation is essential.
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- Realizes that it was Ray who hid Little Bunny in the first place and lead Norman and Emma to investigate the gate that night, which leads him to believe that Ray isn’t really an enemy.
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- He’s also left handed. Yes, that’s important. Not only for later in the story but because we’re superior. I’m sorry y’all had to find out this way. 
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- This stupid, little face he makes.
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- Suspects that Ray doesn’t actually plan on escaping at all and intends to kill himself.
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- Just like Emma and Ray, Norman also recognizes and understands morse code.
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- Look at this precious child, not even angry after getting punched and knocked over. (because i certainly would be)
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- Finds Ray’s hidden supply of oil which confirms the method for his future suicide. This also helps Norman later on when he comes up with a refined escape plan by using the fire Ray plans to start.
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- Figures out Krone’s true intention about why she wants to join forces with the kids in the first place. 
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- He ends up accepting Krone’s offer anyway, because despite the large risk, any information that can snag out of her would benefit them.
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- You mad lad, look at you, taunting the bringer of death yet again while a smile on your face.
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- And he still manages to find some strength to smile while upon death’s door.
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- Not for long though, as once he’s given the chance to be alone, he finally breaks down. Having the cup overflow with water really helps demonstrate how impactful the thought of dying hit him as Norman was overcome with so many emotions that he didn’t even have the strength to hold onto the cup or his facade. It’s then he starts to feel scared and sorry for himself but away from Emma and Ray’s eyes as to not worry them.
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- His entire internal monologue as he comes to terms with his unfortunate situation and flips back to his determined “I can’t lose” attitude to help everyone else escape. Also, his theme ‘22194’ hits especially hard.
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- For someone with weak, physical abilities, he manages to climb the wall on his own.
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- Though the cliff stopped his escape, he used that opportunity to survey the surrounding area of the entire farm to rely his findings to the duo and provide them a safer escape route.
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- Completely adamant about his decision to accept his shipment in order to give the rest of his family a chance to escape. (hell, id’ be terrified right now)
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- This hug that is sure to break everyone’s hearts.
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- Quick to react to Emma’s last ditch effort and prevented her from slamming her already busted up leg into the ground.
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- Not only did he predict that Ray would start a fire to distract Isabella and on which day, he also left behind the pen and key he received from Krone along with a new, detailed plan (which he managed to come up with in only a few hours by the way) that would allow the kids to cross over the cliff.
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(post season one spoilers below. again, focusing on the manga timeline, so any new season 2 events will be mentioned sparingly.)
- Like Ray, Norman was able to figure out how the pen worked well enough to see Minerva’s message regarding B06-32.
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- Since he doesn’t show up again for quite some time post-escape, there isn’t much to talk about.. but at least I can make fun of him thanks to extra pages, like how he wouldn’t have enough strength to use a bow.
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- But hey, props to s2ep10 for actually giving us Norman shooting an arrow. He was pretty decent with it too, as he hit his target on the first try behind a darn smokescreen. The manga did show him holding a bow in ch161, but that’s it.
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- Not relevant to the actual story at all, but his smarts certainly make anything possible.
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- I’m sorry but these tiny failures of his bring me great joy.
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- Though the tests at Lambda are harder than those at Grace Field, Norman still managed to get every question correct. Every single day he was there. Even when the facility manages to increase the difficulty of the tests, he continues to pass each one with flying colors.
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- Since he noticed someone who’s right handed also takes the same tests he does, he makes an attempt to communicate with them via a Rubik’s cube. He waits patiently for five months until he finally gets a response from Vincent around Christmas 2046. 
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- Dealt with the experiments/drugs that were forced onto him and the seizures that resulted from them.
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- Even with the tight security and surveillance, he somehow acquired explosives and successfully blow up Lambda and escapes with the survivors.
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- Again, not significant to the story, but seriously dude? You just fainted and yet you still get this crazy question right effortlessly?
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(post time-skip)
- Contacts Lucas moments before the B06-32 shelter gets blown up and gives him the numeric code that eventually leads Emma’s group to the “Jaw of Lion.”
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- Destroyed numerous mass production farms since his escape from Lambda.
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- As well as save countless children from other farms and used the Paradise shelter found by Smee’s network to give them a sense of safety and taste of a normal life.
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- The darn glow-up he receives, like sweet lord child, are you sure you’re still 13??
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- - His cute, squishy cheeks though!
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- He may look like he’s in his thirties, but still has the strength of a child. (see anime? this is how strong ray’s slap should have been!)
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- Learned a great deal of demon history and gave that lengthy lesson about the demon’s genetics and how they inherit the characteristics of whatever they eat and evolve accordingly. 
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- With Emma’s wish about saving everyone and lively happily still on his mind, he thought of a safe and certain method in order to create such a future for all the children raised as food.. which ends up being complete extermination of all the demons caused by a civil war. His plan also includes ending the Ratri clan as well. How cheerful.
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- Are you surprised to learn that Norman getting tackled by the younger kids is my favorite panel of him?
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- You weak, little bean, I’m sorry I enjoy making fun of you so much.
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- Successfully forms an alliance with Lord Geelan and his clan by offering revenge on the royal family, the five regent houses, as well as the Ratri clan, thus putting Geelan in full control. In return, it would grant Norman the full release of farm children, permission to self-govern and some much needed power in terms of demon strength.
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- He knows full well that the entire alliance is a lie and both parties are only using each other, though in works in his favor, as it will send the demons to destroy each other without the lose of any human lives.
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- This absolute powerful panel that the anime decided “nah, we’re gonna change this too” because they’re cowards.
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- Narrowed down possible locations on where to find Sonju and Mujika. Sure it was with the intention of killing our demon friends but his map was accurate.
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- Survived who knows long with his seizures at level 4, and because of his severe condition, he’s completely set on following through his plan and succeeding before his time runs out.
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- Seems to enjoy blowing stuff up, such as the imperial city’s bridges to send the place into a panic and trap all the citizens.
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- Advised the Lambda crew on how to effectively fight against the queen by attacking relentlessly.
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- Let loose a poison that causes not only normal demons to degenerate, but the royal family as well, such as the five regent heads and the queen who’s name is too long and complicated for me to ever remember, who all have the cursed blood. (at least that’s how effective it was in manga, in anime it did absolutely nothing to vylk)
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- He somehow managed to learn, speak and understand the demon language, which, according to Shirai (vol16 author notes), is actually an uncommon language nowadays. (and we’ll unfortunately never know how this language actually sounds, thank anime..)
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- Do I even praise him for killing a demon and well.. all this? Sure in the anime he tried killing Vylk, but old demon was fair more innocent compared to the royal family, so I have no idea.
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- I will give season 2 some credit and say I prefer their take on the “right now you look like a small child, shaking with fear” panel.
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- But not too much credit, as they didn’t give us the full trio hug as the manga did!
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- Then again the anime did have him about to apologize to Vylk and Demon Emma for his actions, which is something, I suppose? since in ch154 he says he didn’t regret killing the queen and royals, which I guess is justified because they were the bigger problem, but oh well.
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- Might have apologized to Ayshe for killing her father? Can’t be sure but that’s the unanimous consensus in the fandom right?
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- Instantly comes up with counter moves and directions for the entire group upon hearing the enemies locations from Vincent during the GF raid.
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- I honestly can’t look at this panel anymore and not laugh about it.. because reasons.
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- He just keeps on winning. (also he looks real good here, i’ll give him that.)
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- He and everyone else are skeptical about there being no “reward,” and for rightfully so.
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- Upon learning that Emma is missing after everyone crossed over to the human world, they all adopt her optimistic attitude and swear to find her no matter where she might be.
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- After a stressful two year search, the kids finally find Emma and Norman is so overcome with emotion that he busts out into tears of joy, despite finding out that she lost her memories due to the reward. All that matters to him is that Emma was safe and happy and he accepts her just the way she is.
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And I guess.. that’s it. I’m sorry again, I know this is truly the weakest post out of the trio and I have no doubt I glanced over a whole bunch of great moments but it still had to be done! Making fun of him probably wasn’t the best thing to do on his special day either, but I assure you this child is very powerful. Who else do you know that is capable of sending an entire fandom into a panic and rage furiously by just simply showing up?
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Ah ha okay, now I’m done. In all seriousness though, this lad is great and through everything he has endured, he definitely deserves to be celebrated today, so happy birthday to our boy Norman!
49 notes · View notes
supercasey · 4 years
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TMA Child Avatars AU
Alright, so ever since I listened to the episode about Agnes’s origins, I keep thinking about an AU where a bunch of the other Entities, after realizing that it’s at least possible to create an avatar from birth, perform their own rituals and make a bunch of the future Archives gang. This AU has a lot of potential for angst, but since TMA is sad enough, I’ll probably mostly focus on the world building and fluffy/funny stuff (‘cus god knows I’m a slut for that shit).
To all my followers, I’m sorry I keep making kid AUs; I got told in like 2015 or so that I sucked at writing kids and it’s Never Left My Mind, so now I always wanna make stupid AUs in order to practice writing kids better (I also have an original story I wanna write soon with a ten year old as the main character, so yeah, I need all the practice I can get).
Anyways, here’s all I’ve got on the AU this far (explanation under the cut; a very long post is up ahead):
Character Backstories
Jonathan “Jon” Sims - Apprentice Archivist of the Eye
Jon is a very complicated story, at least from everyone outside of the Eye’s gaze. It was Elias’s idea to create him, and were it not for Gertrude getting lucky, no one but Elias, Peter Lukas, and Simon Fairchild would have ever known that Jon existed until he was ready to become the next archivist. Gertrude found out by pure chance when she accepted a live statement from one very frightened Delores Sims, who told the archivist about how a strange man had been stalking her ever since she found out she was pregnant. Out of completely nowhere, her husband died a month after she conceived, and even though it looked like an accident, Delores swore that she saw an arm surrounded by fog push him down the stairs. Things only grew worse for her over the next few weeks, as in the midst of her grieving her dead husband, Delores began seeing green, glowing irises out of the corners of her eyes, watching her every move as she lived her life, which was followed by the stalker in question appearing constantly in her dreams, always watching her from afar, an unpleasant and frankly unnerving grin on his face the entire time.
Suspicious, and finding the description of the stalker all too familiar by the end of the statement, Gertrude investigated Delores’s claims on her own time, going so far as to break into Elias’s office in order to dig up more information on whatever he was up to. No matter what her theories may have been, none of them were anything like what she found in his letters to his associates. Somehow, Elias had conspired alongside the Lukas and Fairchild families to find their heirs/avatars together, and Elias was the last person to acquire one of his own. Gertrude was unsure of the details at the time (and she still unfortunately is), but from what she could gather, the child growing in Delores Sims’ body was somehow touched by the Eye because of something Elias had done, and they would be born with the perfect framework to have the powers that an archivist learns over several years of training at birth! With no time to lose, Gertrude got back into contact with Delores, and after much discussion between the two women, she convinced Delores to come to her apartment when she eventually went into labor, and to give Gertrude the baby after they were born so that she could keep them safe from Elias.
The birth was meant to be done in secret, but the second the first contraction occurred, there was a knock on Gertrude’s door, Elias waiting for her on the other side with an unhappy grimace on his face. He came armed with a gun, and threatened to murder Gertrude if she didn’t allow him to claim the child as his own. Aware she still had many rituals to stop in the near future, and that none of her assistants were experienced enough to stop them by themselves, Gertrude reluctantly agreed to let him inside, but on one condition; the child had to be shared between them. Elias was abrasive to the idea of course, but he eventually complied with his archivist’s demands, not wanting to replace her so early on in her career. The sight of her stalker coming into the bedroom to watch her give birth unfortunately sent Delores into a panic attack while she was still very much in labor, making the rest of the birth a rather dangerous thing, but the child survived, leaving his mother terrified and shaking. Gertrude had planned on letting her go on her merry way after the baby was born, but Elias wasn’t taking any chances, and he shot her as soon as he deemed it safe to.
Since then, Gertrude and Elias have had dual custody of Jonathan- the name was Gertrude’s idea, on the grounds that it was a nice, proper name for a young man- trading him back and forth every other week. It’s been hard, especially with the adults he calls his parents wanting to kill each other, but Jon’s oblivious to most of the fighting right now, assuming his folks are just going through a messy divorce.
Martin Blackwood-Lukas - Adoptive Son of Peter Lukas
Peter ended up running very behind in the whole child avatar thing (a first for his family, something Simon reminds him of on a daily basis), and he really struggled with creating a baby avatar that would actually be able to “keep up” with the other young messiahs that were coming to be. Eventually he realized that his family’s usual method would take too long, so out of desperation he went to Elias and Simon for help. It was Simon’s idea that worked; he suggested that since the normal methods weren’t working, and kids usually don’t become lonely until they’re older, that Peter should try his own summoning ritual like the Lightless Flame did with Agnes. Peter was hesitant at first, but he gave in quickly, sacrificing a number of lonely souls to his entity in a well-timed manner, until finally, he found a small, swaddled baby in the midst of the fog; a supposed gift from the Lonely for his loyalty.
Peter was delighted by this discovery, and so were his colleagues, the men relieved that their hard work had actually paid off for once. After naming the little boy Martin- it was Elias’s idea, though he didn’t have much of an exact reason for the name, simply claiming that it “suited” the child- and before long, Peter began raising his newfound son much the same as he was; in almost total isolation, save for a variety of rotating nannies and caregivers. Unfortunately for Peter, this went horribly wrong almost as soon as he got started, as by the time that Martin was six months old he had accidentally forced five different nannies into the fog out of fear of them leaving like the ones before them had. With no other options available, and being able to actually leave the fog if Martin threw anymore fits, Peter was forced to raise his son by hand, which again went wrong, but for very different reasons, as to his shock, he became quite attached to his adopted child.
This evolved into Peter having doubt of the Lonely for the first time in his life, but he refused to acknowledge it for as long as he could. But he was finally forced to when, after Martin turned five years old, the rest of the Lukas family insisted on performing a test on the child to see how well Martin could handle the fog without any guidance. He had been inside the fog before of course, with Peter holding his hand or carrying him through the dense chill, but the family wanted to isolate Martin inside for a full month. This secretly scared Peter like nothing else ever had, but out of fear of what his family might think, he didn’t say anything at the time, simply watching from afar as his son was dragged into the fog and left to fend for himself. The ritual went wrong within the first week, Martin having a full-scale breakdown and nearly hyperventilating to death, and yet the family kept him in there for another week before the intervention.
The results of the test of course disappointed the other members of the Lukas family, who suggested that they simply leave Martin to disappear into the fog and look for a new, more sufficient messiah to serve their god. The news hit Peter incredibly hard, and despite his previous inhibitions and fear, he knew he couldn’t let the Lonely consume his one and only son. So, without telling anyone of what he was up to, he ventured into the fog, rescued Martin, and fled to live with his estranged ex-husband the Magnus Institute. Since then he’s been living with Elias at his house and avoiding his family at all costs, all while young Martin has grown up alongside the other entity kids and has struggled to figure out his role in everything, but at least he has his dad on his side through all of this.
Sasha James - Chosen Daughter of the Mother of Puppets
(Note: I headcanon the Mother of Puppets as a giant spider, so that’s how I’m writing her… sorry if this is inaccurate, but I’m only on MAG 152, y’all. Besides, I think this is cool af.)
Sasha was very much planned, even more so than Agnes was so many years beforehand. The Mother of Puppets had her minions gather hundreds upon hundreds of orphaned infants and bring them to her nest. She swaddled each every one in her webbing and kept them like this for several weeks, allowing them time to adjust to the webbing and adapt. Unfortunately, most of these children weren’t cut out for the Web’s influence, and while a few indeed held their adoptive mother’s mark, almost none of them were marked deep enough to become a fully realized avatar. The unsuccessful batches were subsequently sent off to orphanages across the world and replaced with new babies, this process repeating for years and years, until finally, Sasha was born. There was nothing special about her parents, yet she not only bore The Web’s mark, she seemed to have it embedded into her very soul. This, of course, was met with celebration from the Web, and plans were quickly made as to how to raise her moving forward, as no one wanted Sasha to end up like Agnes did.
Annabelle Cane ended up being the one chosen to home Sasha for the first few years of her childhood, and she was dutiful in her new, rather honorable role, as she not only cared for the child well, but she treated Sasha as her own, though she was careful to be seen more as an older sister than a mother to the girl; that role was, of course, reserved for Sasha’s real mother. When Sasha finally turned five, the Mother of Puppets announced further plans for the young avatar, calling on Annabelle to take Sasha to the Magnus Institute and give her to one of their hidden agents there so that she could learn more about how the Web uses it’s influence over other entities. This worried Annabelle, who wanted to keep the child near her and prove that she was the most loyal of the mother’s children, but she would never disobey a direct order from the being that had given her life such meaning. So, rather reluctantly, Annabelle gave Sasha to another member of the Web, watching from the shadows as this unworthy follower took the blessed daughter into the institute for further training.
This went wrong within only a few months. Gertrude ended up finding out who the Web’s spy in the institute was, as she had suspected that another entity was trying to control her from the shadows, and after disposing of the threat and searching their home for anything useful that she could use against the Web, she found Sasha. The archivist was tempted to kill the supernatural child on sight, but while she can murder her assistants and enemies without much remorse, on the grounds that it’s always for the greater good, killing a child is a very different story. So she took Sasha in, raising the Web’s child as her own alongside the Eye’s own prodigy Jon, all while trying to help Sasha control her slowly budding powers. The Mother of Puppets has been trying to get Sasha back ever since, enraged that the child is so close to her yet just out of reach, but with no luck, though there’s no telling how long that will last.
Timothy & Daniel Stoker - Dancer and Future Ringmaster of the Stranger
Both Tim and Danny are chosen ones of the Stranger, created as soon as their god had gained enough spare power to create them. Tim was born first, being the Stranger’s first attempt at birthing an avatar that might be powerful enough to help lead the Unknowing, but Gertrude interrupted midway through the ritual. By some miracle, Tim survived the ordeal, but he was left “incomplete” to some degree, leaving him simply marked and not fully connected to the Stranger. The entity’s followers ended up keeping him around though, both because Nikola Orsinov was too fascinated by the newborn baby to give him up, and because his parents wanted him to survive, but it was agreed that another attempt would be made, this time with more planning involved. Four years later, Danny was born, and with Gertrude too preoccupied to intervene this time around (and because she didn’t realize they’d try again so soon), the ritual went much better and created a far more suitable vessel for the Stranger’s powers.
After that, Tim and Danny’s parents died, fully succumbing to the Stranger’s transformation and leaving them orphaned. Not that their presence was strictly necessary after the kids were born, as Nikola Orsinov was more than happy to take over in most of the child rearing, genuinely growing quite fond of the two boys, particularly Tim, as despite his lack of supernatural abilities, she found him to be rather endearing, which is probably the closest she can get to genuinely caring about someone. Both brothers were raised more or less the same way, save for Danny being showered with more praise and being trained as a future ringmaster while Tim was mostly ignored and trained to be a dancer. Some followers of the Stranger feared that Tim might harbor resentment towards his little brother and try to kill him someday, but to their surprise, Tim only grew more protective of him over the years, swearing to keep Danny safe as he grew up to fulfill his destiny and help their family mold the world in their image.
Eventually though, when Tim was eleven and Danny was seven, Tim realized what was actually happening behind the scenes, and not wanting his brother to risk being sacrificed for the world’s destruction, he told Danny everything, leading to the young messiah to run away with him to London (they were raised primarily in Russia, but moved with the circus a lot, and were in France at the time that they finally ran away). There, Tim found the infamous Gertrude Robinson, who he knew had the power to stop the Unknowing, as she had once saved him from becoming the Stranger’s avatar, and inadvertently led him to having a little brother. Tim and Danny have since moved in with Michael, and they visit the Magnus Institute whenever they get the chance, as both boys have grown to become friends with the other avatar kids. You’d think that the Stranger’s followers would be furious about all of this- don’t worry, many of their acolytes are- but Nikola has laughed it off entirely and keeps insisting that the boys are just having a “sleepover” or are away at “summer camp” (in fucking January, apparently).
Melanie King - Cadet of the Slaughter
Honestly, the Slaughter wasn’t as into the whole “let’s make an avatar from scratch!” thing that the other entities’ followers were doing, but hey, sometimes child avatars just kinda wind up on your doorstep, ya know? Melanie ended up being found at about four years old, sobbing on her hands and knees outside of a burning hospital and calling for her mommy and daddy to come back to her, but no one answered her cries, and she was left to weep for quite some time before someone found her. The hospital, you see, had been overrun by the Corruption and promptly burned to the ground by the Desolation, neither of which bothered to stick around for some worthless child. Melanie’s parents were both inside when the entities clashed, leaving her orphaned and scared, and while Alfred Grifter, who had been on his way to a show with his bandmates at the time that he found her, had intended on just leaving her be, he saw the overwhelming rage and blood-lust in her crying eyes, and realized in that moment that she was touched by the urge to kill, just like he was.
Melanie was promptly taken in by Alfred Grifter and the band, who honestly had no idea what the hell they were doing. On one hand, Alfred knew that keeping a kid around was unbelievably dangerous for all parties involved, but on the other, he really didn’t want to leave Melanie all by herself, for fear of what she might do if left without any guidance from “people” who knew what she was going through, at least to some degree. That isn’t to say Alfred and his bandmates were all that great at raising her- they mostly just brought her to gigs and let her play on her Gameboy backstage while they started massacres- but they did at least try to give her somewhat of a home. It wasn’t until five years into this that some other Slaughter followers found out about Melanie’s existence, to which they told Alfred to give her to them for proper training. Knowing her life would be horrible with them, Alfred gave his ward a backpack full of everything she ever owned, a kid sized guitar, her Gameboy, and sent her on the run.
Melanie was scared out of her mind at first, having grown to see Alfred and his bandmates as her new family; she had already lost her parents, so why did she have to lose the band, too!? But there were no other options, she had to run, so she did just that, attacking any adult who tried to stop her along the way. She didn’t actually know about the Magnus Institute when she made her way to London, and Alfred didn’t tell her to go there or anything, but she ended up being spotted by Adelard Dekker while she was looking for a place to stay in the area. Seeing that Melanie was an avatar of some kind, Adelard managed to convince her that he was safe, and to let him take her to someone that could help her. He brought Melanie straight to Gertrude Robinson, who agreed to house the child since Adelard couldn’t, though she ended up letting one of her unofficial assistants (*cough* Gerry *cough*) take her to live in his flat so she wouldn’t be as easy for Elias to monitor/get ahold of.
Julia Montauk & Alice “Daisy” Tonner - Children of the Hunt
(Watch as I fuck with timelines so badly that the people who keep track of this shit will order a hit on me) The Hunt found both of their avatars in strikingly similar yet different ways; Julia was first, born from the womb of another entity’s follower, but bound for so much more than anything the Dark could give her. Years after her destined birth, Julia’s mother was viciously murdered by the People’s Church when she was just five years old, her father Robert Montauk going down the path of becoming a fully-fledged Hunter, and in the process he unknowingly marked Julia with his newfound entity, which in turn unlocked an unprecedented potential inside of her, not that it was fully realized until another tragedy struck her. This next tragedy, unfortunately, claimed Julia’s father. Mr. Pitch was mistakenly summoned, and in it’s rage, it destroyed Robert while he was in the midst of a sacrifice. The monster would’ve gotten Julia next, had it not been for the intervention of a nearby Hunter.
Trevor Herbert honestly didn’t mean to get involved, but when he witnessed a little girl screaming as she ran out of a house, a giant mass of darkness chasing after her, and no one willing to so much as call the damn cops, he knew he had to rescue the poor kid. In a flash he ran over, picked Julia up, and ran away with her to safety, managing to get her in his car (which he stole, but that’s not important) and drive as far away from her old home as possible. In the aftermath, Trevor had no idea what to do with Julia, since he had never actually wanted any kids of his own, but… well, he ain’t heartless, and that monster was still out there somewhere, just waiting to sink it’s cursed teeth into this young child’s flesh. Trevor ended up keeping her after that, becoming her adoptive father as he traveled with her around the UK, slowly but surely training her to hunt the same monsters that claimed her beloved parents.
You’d think that would be the end of Trevor Herbert adopting little girls marked by the Hunt, but nope, he just can’t catch a fucking break! He found Daisy about a year later, when Julia was eight and becoming more adjusted to her new lifestyle. Again, Trevor wasn’t really planning on going on any hunts at the time that this happened, he was just traveling through the area, but upon finding a bloodied up, terrified little girl being chased by a boy who looked possessed… well, it wasn’t like Julia wasn’t lonely, and again, Trevor isn’t heartless, and he sure as hell can’t let things go. So yeah, he kidnapped another child touched by the Hunt, even though this one actually had a living parent, and once again he took to traveling the UK with his adoptive daughters, secretly reveling in his new role as a father. Daisy, while scared at first, quickly grew fond of her new family, and even fonder of her new nickname after Trevor patched up her wounds, and noticed a flower-shaped scar on her back, prompting him to start affectionately calling her Daisy.
Yep, things were going pretty good for the family of three, but of course, shit eventually caught up with Trevor, not that he thought he could avoid it forever.
The police eventually caught wind of “Trevor the Tramp” traveling with two little girls who looked an awful lot like the missing thirteen and ten year olds Julia Montauk and Alice Tonner, and in his desperation to keep from getting arrested and having his children taken away, Trevor fled to downtown London in order to lie low for awhile and raise his daughters in relative peace, only ever going out for food runs and the occasional hunt. It was through one of these hunts that he ended up meeting Gerard Keay, the two of them chasing after the same book that had been summoning shadow people to wreck havoc on the city, and after a bit of back and forth banter over the campfire that was once a Leitner, Gerry convinced Trevor to move in with him so that the girls and him would be safer and actually have a home. Although he was hesitant to accept an offer he thought was too good to be true (also, he’s not gonna lie, he thought Gerry was a vampire when they met), Trevor agreed and moved into Gerry’s flat with his daughters, and has since helped Gertrude and her assistants with monster hunts.
Oliver Banks & Georgie Barker - Fetchlings of The End
Georgie and Oliver are an odd story, with the latter of the two having gained his powers as a mere toddler, being plagued with horrible, ghastly dreams that would keep him awake through the night, leaving him absolutely haggard by morning. His father tried everything to help Oliver through this torment- counseling, medication, bedtime rituals- but nothing worked, and before long, Oliver’s beloved father was claimed by his nightmares, dying of a heart attack that he couldn’t stop. Alone and misunderstood by everyone who tried to raise him, Oliver ran away countless times, coming across Georgie during his last attempt. He found the little girl to also be on the run for similar reasons, but unlike him, she wasn’t the least bit afraid. She wasn’t exactly happy, but she wasn’t a bawling mess like he was. Together, the two of them struggled to survive, relying on kindhearted drifters for support while they avoided the police until, at long last, something took pity on them, that something being a large, fat tabby cat.
As it were, the tabby cat- dubbed The Admiral by Georgie- wasn’t a normal cat in the slightest, and although it couldn’t speak, it’s intentions were clear; it was there to help these lost, orphaned children. Oliver was skeptical of course, but Georgie wasn’t about to look a gift cat in the mouth, so Oliver reluctantly followed the cat and his little sister to an apartment building, and from there, into an unoccupied flat. Since then, the two children have been living with Admiral in that very same flat, the cat providing them with a fully stocked fridge, warm beds, and running water. It’s still unclear what the Admiral is, but he seems kind enough, and is obviously quite protective of his newfound children, accompanying them on their outings and occasional visits to the institute.
Michael Crew - Prodigy of The Vast
Out of all avatars to be raising children for their entity, Simon Fairchild absolutely has had the most fun with it all, treating it almost like a fun game or pastime. He was the first (save for the Lightless Flame having Agnes, of course) to “create” an avatar child, and from minute one he was overjoyed with the results. A few years after news broke of Agnes’ origins, and the followers of other entities were all arguing over whether or not to follow suit, Simon didn’t bother waiting for anyone’s input or permission, simply throwing himself into the deep end and praying he could make his plan work. Seemingly overnight, Simon somehow acquired a baby later identified as the missing and presumably dead infant Michael Crew, who he referred to as Mike when he finally introduced him to his friends/associates. He still hasn’t told anyone how he even got the kid- not even Peter or Elias know what he did!- but by some means, he illegally adopted Mike and took to raising the kid like a duck takes to water; a bit unsure at first, but growing to love it fast!
When Mike was introduced to the rest of the entity followers community, many were shocked (excuse the pun) to see that the infant had a long, frightening Lichtenberg scar running down his right arm, his back, and his right leg, the scars glowing a bright blue whenever he took to the sky or, as Elias learned the hard way after accidentally annoying Mike by bouncing him on his knee for too long when he was a toddler, used his powers to electrocute people. Even with his child being such an oddity, even among other avatars, Simon took it all in stride, proudly bragging about Mike to anyone who would listen, most of these people being victims of the Vast, who were hardly able to hear Simon’s excited rambling over their own shrieks of terror. He usually also insisted on bringing Mike with him, even when he was a mere infant, though he at least kept the kid in a tight harness on his chest. In all honesty, Simon being such an excited parent was what kick-started a lot of other avatars to start acquiring their own child avatars, as he made it look so easy!
However, things weren’t always perfect, especially on Mike’s end as he grew older. Being the eldest and more or less “firstborn” of this new generation of entity-made avatars put a lot of pressure on him at a very early age, pressure which Simon tried to help him deal with by not acknowledging it, which unfortunately didn’t help in the slightest. Thankfully Mike started to feel less unsure of his place in the world as he reached his teen years, seeing as the younger kids were now getting all the attention and giving him a chance to breathe. Even now that he’s an angsty teenager, Mike loves Simon like a father, referring to him as such without hesitation. This, of course, delights Simon to no end, and makes all his peers low-key high-key jealous of the awesome relationship he has with his son.
Helen Richardson - Droplet of The Spiral
Not much was known about Helen when Michael first found her. After being sent into The Spiral by Gertrude on what he thought to be a suicide mission for the greater good, Michael was half certain he wouldn’t find anything but his end in that place. Instead he found a small, strange toddler where he was meant to find… well, he didn’t actually know what, but certainly not a baby, that’s for sure! With no one watching baby Helen, and therefore making him believe that she had been abandoned by The Spiral’s other creations, Michael had no reservations against scooping her up and taking her back to the physical world with him, where he was met be a very confused Gertrude Robinson. Michael wasn’t exactly keen on killing/abandoning a baby after he got out, so he and Gertrude brought her back to London with them in hopes of finding out more about the odd child. Along the way, it became clear that the baby was gifted with The Spiral’s powers, the giggly toddler continually screwing with reality, though she wasn’t aware she was doing so.
Back home in London, it took another three weeks of research, but Gerry eventually found out more about the child Michael had more or less adopted. Her name was originally Helen Richardson, and her father, a rookie paranormal investigator who had once been marked by The Spiral, was obsessed with the distortion, and was willing to do anything to become more than simply marked by it. He ended up finding a map similar to Gertrude’s, and a few years before she even knew it was possible, the father went into The Spiral and used his own daughter as a vessel for the entity, hoping she would be a good enough sacrifice to earn it’s favor. This of course ended in disaster, with the father “disappearing” while Helen absorbed The Spiral’s power, but seeing as she was so young, it couldn’t manifest properly, even after two and a half years spent trying to “raise her” within the deepest depths of it’s domain.
With research still being done on what to do about the child, and whether or not the team can remove her powers without killing or permanently injuring her in the process, Michael has agreed to take Helen in, secretly delighted to be raising a baby. With the Stoker Brothers already under his roof, Michael has his hands rather full with them and baby Helen, but the boys take her antics in stride, having learned quickly how to deal with the apartment they live in occasionally “growing” some new doors and changing color at random. Luckily for Michael, he has back-up in the forms of Gerry and Gertrude, who occasionally take Helen and the brothers off his hands for him so he can take a break/fix whatever Helen may’ve accidentally broken with her powers.
Character Roles in this AU
(Feel free to add your own OCs/other characters if you wanna do stuff with this AU, I’m just naming characters I know about/remember!)
Avatar Kids: Jonathan “Jon” Sims, Martin Blackwood, Sasha James, Timothy “Tim” Stoker, Daniel “Danny” Stoker, Melanie King, Julia Montauk, Alice “Daisy” Tonner, Oliver Banks, Georgie Barker, Michael “Mike” Crew, and Helen Richardson.
Avatar Kids Semi-Reluctant PTA Group: Elias Bouchard, Gertrude Robinson, Peter Lukas, Gerard “Gerry” Keay, Trevor Herbert, Michael Shelley, and Simon Fairchild.
PTA Allies: Basira Hussain (Daisy’s best friend and the local Normal Child™), Agnes Montague (Everyone’s emergency number for avatar child advice), Alfred Grifter (Just shows up to hang out with Melanie and cause problems on purpose), The Admiral (Guardian to Georgie and Oliver and occasionally the other kids; best babysitter), Adelard Dekker (Comes around the archives sometimes and always brings presents for the kids + assistants), and Rosie (Elias’s assistant and the only sane and sensible adult in this Chili’s tonight).
PTA Enemies: Nikola Orsinov (Tim and Danny’s “Mom” who keeps kidnapping Jon on accident), Annabelle Cane (Hates the institute and wants Sasha back), Jude Perry (Hates the kids but loves Agnes; worst babysitter),  and Jared Hopworth (Nightmare flesh man that needs to fuck off; mediocre but funny babysitter).
Character Descriptions
(Feel free to tweak the physical designs if you want; I’m just going off my own headcanons, and seeing as my drawing skills are pretty shit, it’s not like I’m gonna be doing much art for this outside of writing. So yeah, go off with your own headcanons if you want to!)
Full Name: Jonathan “Jon” Sims-Bouchard-Robinson Age: 7 Birthday: October 26th (Scorpio) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The Eye, Marked by Literally Fucking Everything Guardian(s): Alexander Sims (Biological Father - Deceased), Delores Sims (Biological Mother - Deceased), Gertrude Robinson (Adoptive Mother - Current), Elias Bouchard (Adoptive Father - Current) Appearance: African heritage with dark brown skin, worryingly short for his age, dark brown eyes that glow bright green when he’s using his powers, long black hair with a few green and grey hairbands tied in, constantly “borrows” Martin’s sweaters to wear, occasionally wears skirts but most of the time he wears slacks, constantly looks sleep deprived, has a very intense stare, and occasionally he can be seen carrying his stuffed moth around. Personality: You’d think he’d be a quiet kid, considering his entity, but no, he has Questions and he wants them Answered, goddammit! He wasn’t raised around many kids his age, being home-schooled by Elias and Gertrude all his life, so he struggles to connect with the other avatar kids. Is only close to the S1 gang at first, but he gets closer to everyone else over time. Idolizes Gerry and thinks he’s the coolest guy ever. Appears rather cowardly at a glance, but he’s braver than most people give him credit for. Would die for his friends/family.
Full Name: Martin Blackwood-Lukas Age: 8 Birthday: February 29th (Pisces) ((This one’s for you, Dane)) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The Lonely, Marked by The Eye Guardian(s): William Blackwood (Biological Father - Uninvolved), Edna Blackwood (Biological Mother - Uninvolved), Peter Lukas (Adoptive Father - Current) Appearance: Polish heritage and pale as a fucking ghost, average height for his age but growing fast, pretty chubby, covered head to toe in little red freckles, short and curly red hair, bright brown eyes, wears big round glasses, wears sweaters and comfy trousers almost 24/7, carries a backpack full of “emergency tools” wherever he goes, usually has a cup of tea in-hand, and sometimes wears a small sailor hat that Peter gave him. Personality: Incredibly reserved, much like Mike, but he’s been trying to come out of his shell more. He’s “Best Friends Forever” with Jon, and gets along well with Tim and Sasha as well. Fears Melanie and Daisy. He likes hanging out with the other kids, but he often gets talked over, leading him to withdraw for awhile if it’s bad enough. Adores his dad, and is so much braver than anyone knows. Incredibly snarky when he feels like it.
Full Name: Sasha James Age: 10 Birthday: November 18th (Scorpio) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The Web, Marked by The Eye, Marked by The Stranger Guardian(s): Francis James (Biological Father - Deceased), Patrick James (Biological Father - Deceased), Annabelle Cane (Adoptive Mother - Uninvolved), Gertrude Robinson (Adoptive Mother - Current) Appearance: Mixed race heritage of African and Caucasian with dark brown skin, slightly taller than average for her age, long dark brown hair, wears big round glasses, sometimes wears a little make-up if she can get away with it, wears a lot of turtleneck sweaters and long skirts, always has at least one cobweb on her, carries around a stuffed spider that she brings with her to the archives every day, and she wears a headband most of the time. Personality: Easily the most level-headed of the kids, as she’s been raised around paranormal stuff the longest and is rarely bothered by the stranger things that happen. She hates Artifact Storage with a passion, but other than that, she loves exploring the institute and occasionally stealing Gertrude’s laptop to mess with it. Very tech savvy, and even more curious! Incredibly smart, to the point that she can even outclass Gertrude and Gerry with her quick-wittiness.
Full Name: Timothy “Tim” Stoker Age: 12 Birthday: August 3rd (Leo) Entity/Mark(s): Marked by The Stranger, Marked by The Eye Guardian(s): Markus Stoker (Biological Father - Deceased), Olivia Stoker (Biological Mother - Deceased), Nikola Orsinov (Adoptive Mother - Uninvolved), Gerard “Gerry” Keay (Adoptive Guardian - Current) Appearance: Mixed race heritage of Latino and Korean with dark tanned skin, slightly on the taller side for his age, messy/spiky black hair that looks impossible to comb, dark brown eyes, is described as a “handsome young man” by strangers, has a very charming smile, wears a lot of Hawaiian shirts and shorts (even during the winter), needs to wear glasses but he refuses to wear them in the archives out of self-consciousness. Personality: Probably one of the brightest personalities of the avatar kids, Tim comes off as very cool and funny, but underneath all of that he’s rather paranoid, afraid that the circus will come and force his baby brother into becoming a monster. Protective of his little bro and the archive kids, but he still teases them to no end. Smarter than he looks, and isn’t afraid to break his cool guy persona to tell someone off.
Full Name: Daniel “Danny” Stoker Age: 8 Birthday: August 1st (Leo) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The Stranger, Marked by The Eye Guardian(s): Markus Stoker (Biological Father - Deceased), Olivia Stoker (Biological Mother - Deceased), Nikola Orsinov (Adoptive Guardian - Uninvolved), Gerard “Gerry” Keay (Adoptive Guardian - Current) Appearance: Mixed race heritage of Latino and Korean with dark tanned skin, about a head shorter than Tim, somewhat neat black hair that sticks up in odd places, eyes are impressively dark and glassy looking, slight gap between his front teeth, is described as being a “handsome young man” by strangers, wears a lot of tank tops and shorts as well as the occasional hoodie if it’s cold, and loves running around barefoot. Personality: A lot of people describe Danny as being a “smaller and cuter Tim”, but that’s just not true. Danny is a lot like his older brother in many ways, but he has a much more refined taste for adventure, constantly getting himself into trouble with Jon on the grounds of “exploring” or what have you. He idolizes his big bro to the moon and back, and loves hanging out with him alongside the other kids. More of a follower than a leader, but he doesn’t mind. Secretly fears the day that the circus will come back to make him into their future ringmaster.
Full Name: Melanie King Age: 9 Birthday: June 7th (Gemini) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The Slaughter, Marked by The Corruption, Marked by The Desolation, Marked by The Eye Guardian(s): Boris King (Biological Father - Deceased), Carrie King (Biological Mother - Deceased), Alfred Grifter (Guardian - Uninvolved), Gerard Keay (Guardian - Current) Appearance: Irish heritage but not terribly pale, rather short for her age, incredibly thin from malnutrition, short brown hair with the ends dyed bright blue, bright brown eyes, brings her leather jacket and her guitar with her everywhere she goes, wears a lot of pink/blue skirts and band t-shirts, wears black leather boots, has a lot of bandages on her knees and knuckles, and always has a camera ready to record things. Personality: Melanie is probably the most disconnected of the avatar kids (save for Helen), seeing as she only just recently joined the group, but already she’s beginning to befriend Sasha and Basira. She’s very protective of the other girls, and she keeps challenging the boys to fight her (only Danny ever agrees; he always loses). Secretly idolizes Julia and Daisy, but will never admit it. She sees Gerry as her big bro and Alfred Grifter as her adoptive dad; she misses Alfred more than she let’s on. Would stab as a warning.
Full Name: Julia Montauk Age: 13 Birthday: April 19th (Aries) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The Hunt, Marked by The Dark, Marked by The Eye Guardian(s): Robert Montauk (Biological Father - Deceased), Linette Montauk (Biological Mother - Deceased), Trevor Herbert (Adoptive Father - Current) Appearance: Indigenous heritage with dark tan skin, tall for her age, skinny enough to look malnourished, close-cropped red hair that gets her mistaken for a boy a lot, metal grey eyes, a scar runs diagonally across her right eye, often wears medium length skirts and oversized t-shirts, always wears athletic shoes, has a lot of scrapes and bandages on her knees most of the time, and has abnormally sharp canines. Personality: Before the deaths of both of her parents, Julia was considered rather normal for her age, being interested in horses, dolls, and dress-up games. After her mother died, she became more tomboyish, which only became more extreme after her father’s death. Since being taken in by Trevor, Julia’s been trying to act more like an adult in an attempt to seem less vulnerable, to varying degrees of success. She adores Trevor to the moon and back, and sees Daisy as her little sister. A bit standoffish around other children, but she’s got a good heart.
Full Name: Alice “Daisy” Tonner Age: 10 Birthday: March 15th (Pisces) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The Hunter, Marked by The Slaughter, Marked by The Eye Guardian(s): Greyson Tonner (Biological Father - Deceased), Antoinette Tonner (Biological Mother - Uninvolved), Trevor Herbert (Adoptive Father - Current) Appearance: Welsh heritage with cream colored skin and a light tan, average height for her age, short and shaggy blond hair, has a number of tiny scars all over her face and hands, has a huge scar on her back that Trevor has told her looks like a daisy, striking green eyes, wears a lot of sleeveless shirts and shorts, refuses to wear dresses or skirts, prefers to be barefoot, and has abnormally sharp canines. Personality: Is already rather hot-headed at her age, especially after her encounter with Calvin while he was being possessed by a spirit of the Slaughter. Even so, she’s protective of her newfound family of Trevor and Julia, and while she misses her mother, she believes it’s best if she stays where she is. She loves playing outside whenever she can, and will spend hours chasing after squirrels and rabbits if left alone for too long. A bit argumentative, but she gets along really well with Julia and Basira.
Full Name: Oliver Banks Age: 10 Birthday: June 14th (Gemini) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The End, Marked by The Hunt Guardian(s): June Banks (Biological Mother - Uninvolved), Isaac Banks (Biological Father - Deceased), The Admiral (Adoptive Guardian - Current) Appearance: African heritage with dark skin, has an array of pitch black freckles on his face, short and neat black hair that reaches just below his ears, ghastly grey eyes that look almost clear and turn black when he’s using his powers; used to be dark brown, worryingly thin from years of malnutrition, wears a lot of baggy and long-sleeved shirts, wears sweatpants, has boots on everywhere he goes, and he’s almost always shivering. Personality: The more distrustful of the “End Siblings”, the only person Oliver even sort of likes is Jon, and even then he’s still scared of him. Constantly fidgeting and yawning from both his paranoia and fatigue. Is protective of Georgie, but more out of obligation than friendship. Prefers to be alone, and rarely visits the archives. He knows something bad is coming, but he’s too scared to do much about it. In the end, he knows he’ll do the right thing, but for now he’s hiding until the bombs finally fall.
Full Name: Georgie Barker Age: 7 Birthday: December 9th (Sagittarius) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The End, Marked by The Hunt Guardian(s): Georgie Grounding Sr. (Biological Mother - Deceased), Sarah Grounding (Biological Mother - Deceased), Jason Barker (Adoptive Father - Deceased), The Admiral (Adoptive Guardian - Current) Appearance: Mixed race heritage of African and Indian with dark brown skin, fairly chubby, has an array of light brown freckles all over her arms, back, and face, has long and curly black hair done up in poofy buns using colorful hair bands, paints her nails all the time with different colors every week, cutest little smile you ever did see, wears a lot of ghost-related clothing (mainly t-shirts and jeans), and she brings her ghost backpack with her everywhere she goes (it has her stuffed leopard inside). Personality: Despite being an avatar of the End, Georgie has a very upbeat personality, having no time for her adoptive brother’s endless worrying and fearfulness. In fact, all her fear has been gone since she was little, so she’s never scared to explore something new and parade into danger! She’s very close friends with Jon (even if he’s distant sometimes) and best friends with Melanie, though she gets along with most everyone else as well. She may be a chipper person, but look out, she’s carrying more baggage than she let’s on. Loves The Admiral more than life.
Full Name: Michael “Mike” Crew Age: 14 Birthday: May 13th (Taurus) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The Vast Guardian(s): Ramsey Crew (Biological Father - Uninvolved), Whitney Crew (Biological Mother - Uninvolved), Simon Fairchild (Adoptive Father - Current) Appearance: Caucasian and pale as a ghost, shaggy white hair that’s almost always wind-swept, strikingly pale blue eyes, smells of ozone and burnt hair, incredibly short for his age, very bony and thin, tends to wear a lot of oversized hoodies on the grounds that they make flying more fun, clothes are almost always pristine and clean, his back, right arm, and right leg are covered in a Lichtenberg scar that glows bright blue when he’s using his powers, permanent bags under his eyes. Personality: A very, very quiet kid, at least around strangers. He’s much bubblier around Simon, but otherwise he’s viewed as an “old soul” by most adults. He does have a sense of humor though, taking a bit too much pleasure out of sending people soaring into the air against their will, especially if they insulted or annoyed him beforehand. Secretly a bit protective of the other avatar kids, and has been known to take them flying if they promise not to let go of him when they do so. Nice kid, but don’t make fun of his height or he might just electrocute you out of spite.
Full Name: Helen Richardson Age: 3 Birthday: February 23rd (Gemini) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The Spiral Guardian(s): Tiara Richardson (Biological Mother - Uninvolved), Dexter Richardson (Biological Father - Deceased), Michael Shelley (Adoptive Guardian - Current) Appearance: African heritage with dark brown skin (has the beginning patches of vitiligo on her face and hands), fairly chubby but Michael swears it’s just baby fat, has bright purple eyes with swirling yellow irises, has short but frizzy black hair that cannot be tamed, is often dressed in very colorful onesies and footie pajamas alongside the rare dress, and occasionally she’ll have a child leash vest on (though it often disappears because of The Spiral). Personality: She honestly doesn’t have much of a personality yet, being a toddler and all, but she’s a very giggly child, and loves nothing more than making Michael “be silly” with the use of her powers. Speaking of which, she has very little control of her abilities, and although she’s too young to understand their impact on the world, she still feels bad when she accidentally goes too far and gets Michael hurt. She adores Michael and Jon, and loves it when Michael brings her to the institute with him. Very playful and mischievous.
And that’s all I’ve got for now! I wanna write some fics for this at some point (particularly I wanna write a fic that has all of the kids’ origin stories in better/more detail), but for now anyone is free to fuck around with this AU, so long as you’re not doing too much shipping between the kids (hints at ships are fine, but they’re still kids, y’all) and ESPECIALLY not any shipping of the kids with the adults/guardians. Feel free to PM me or scream about this AU in the notes/tags; I’d love to hear people’s thoughts!
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smokedstorybara · 3 years
Text
I have so many bnha fanfic ideas, they’ve just been popping into my head every few days for weeks now
So I’m just gonna share them all on this one post instead of making a million new fandom posts out of nowhere (ok, it’s closer to, like, ten - but still!)
If any of y’all want me to actually write any of them, don’t hesitate to say so - or if you just want to ask questions and talk about the ideas I’d be totally down for that too
Also, if any of them inspire you to write or draw something, please send me a link when you’re done!
(under a readmore cause it’s long and also there’s spoilers)
Fae courts AU
Nedzu - Spring King
U.A. / The Spring Court - also known as the Court of Lost Children, all members of the Court were once human children or children of one of the other Courts and they view it as their duty to care for the lost, neglected, and abused children of the world (one of two child stealing Courts)
All Might - Summer King
All For One - Winter King
Objectively, the Summer and Winter Courts are not as different as they like to believe - a Summer fae is just as likely to trick or turn on you as a Winter fae, they just prefer to play at benevolence while Winter fae make no secret of their nature
Shie Hassaikai / The Autumn Court - used to be more like a lesser version of the Summer and Winter Courts, until Overhaul put the King to sleep and made his research into humanity the Court’s focus - they’re now the second child stealing Court
Eraserhead was once human but has made enough deals over the years - most notably with Nezu himself - that he’s practically fae now
Deku and Kachan are human children who were taken in by the Spring Court, though Deku only after catching the attention of All Might
Endeavor - High Fae in the Summer Court - wants to become Summer King but knows he’s not powerful enough to overthrow All Might, married a High Winter Fae in hopes that combining their powers would make one of their kids powerful enough
Dabi fakes his death and eventually becomes a High Fae in the Winter Court
Shouto seeks sanctuary in the Spring Court’s halls
(I don’t actually have a plot for it, but I’m enjoying figuring out the world and stuff)
Evil All Might AU
The underworld knows that young Yagi Toshinori is a con-artist, and a very good one
The kid’s quirkless, and from a bad neighborhood, so of course he gets involved in shady dealings to get by
But he never ever gets caught
See, he’s mastered the eager, innocent, “I know I’m quirkless, but it’s my dream to be a hero! To fight crime! To be someone people can look up to, put their faith in! To be a… a symbol!” act, he’s been running that con any time he’s found in the wrong place at the wrong time since he first started walking - no one with even a single good bone in their body ever questions it
He gets involved with AFO, who’s like “I could give you one of my lesser quirks in exchange for your loyalty, or you could do a long undercover mission for me and get one of the most powerful quirks in existence out of it”
His mission: pulling his signature con on Shimura Nana, being given One for All, becoming a hero, becoming the Number One Hero and Symbol of Peace and the singular pillar holding up hero society, maintaining that status for long enough that everyone grows a little complacent, finding a weak and manipulable child to pass One for All on to, setting them up to fail, and then retiring
(I’d either have this one be All Might-focused and end with the reveal, or have it be Izuku-focused and give it a happy ending where All Might totally chose the wrong kid, cause nothing about Izuku is weak)
Commission analyst Izuku au
Member of the commission overhears him muttering/catches a glance at his notebook while watching a hero fight, strikes up a conversation
The commission tracks him down, shows up at his home with a similar offer to the one they gave Hawks - but instead of a hero they want him to be an analyst for them
Like Hawks, they take away his name, only calling him something like Eagle Eye or something (I’d go with Hawkeye but Hawks already exists so it might be weird?)
(Basically this fic idea is just an excuse to have Izuku and Hawks as the ultimate team, and helping each other get out from under the commission’s thumb - maybe revolutionizing hero society along the way)
Canon rewrite w/ Monoma as main character, somehow
All I have for this one so far is just:
Monoma copies afo, uses copied afo to steal afo, AFO is now defeated
After getting better at controlling her quirk, Eri rewinds Kurogiri back into Shirakumo Oboro
But he’s the age he was when he died
So he joins the current class 2-A
As in Izuku’s class
Basically it’s just his old best friends having to teach him and him making friends with all Aizawa’s problem children
Time travel
(I have multiple cause I really like time travel)
Aizawa-centric time loop fic
Loop stretching from day before Oboro’s death to towards the end of the liberation war (diverging from canon in at least the first loop cause he fucking dies during the fight)
At first he thinks maybe he just, like, dreamt up those 14(?) years
But then things are happening the same way and so he starts changing things and he dies and wakes up the day before Oboro’s death again
He experiments a lot with the loops, figuring out that they’re definitely not time based - unless it’d loop back at the end of the liberation war even if he survives? Requires further testing
Details he changes throughout the loops (culminating in a loop in which he successfully changes all of them):
Oboro’s death
Shimura Tenko being taken in by All for One, All Might’s injury(?), Izuku accepting One for All, and more I haven’t fully decided on
Time travel fic where Pro Hero Deku accidentally time travels back to just before Aizawa’s first year as a student at ua and somehow gets hired as a teacher
Gonna be a two-parter
Part one: Izuku has to teach teen versions of his old high school teachers, channels their future selves a little
Part two: Aizawa, Yamada, and Kayama have to teach the teen version of their old favorite high school teacher, and end up channeling his future self - in different ways
(I’ve come across a couple different “Izuku gets accidentally sent back in time to when his teachers were students” fanfics and they keep making me think about how Aizawa & co would react to meeting him in canon timeline after meeting him in high school and then I took the natural step forward from there to “let’s parallel their nostalgia, make him their high school teacher so it can really hit hard”)
Izuku is related to rooftop trio aus
(I’ve come across a bunch of “Izuku is the biological son of at least one member of the rooftop trio” aus but only one acknowledges that in canon he’s only 15 years younger than them and that one has a very angsty explanation, so I wanted some that fit with canon and also aren’t too heavy - cause like, sure you could go with the complex extremely angsty trauma reason or you could go with the “these 13-16-year-olds(idk Inko’s canon age and as long as I never look it up I can pretend I’m not going against canon by making her only 2-ish years older than them) did what teenagers do and went to a party and made some relatively innocent mistakes and ended up with a pregnancy”)
Dadoro
Oboro and Inko have been neighbors and best friends their whole childhood, despite being a couple years separated in age
The fall before Oboro starts high school, Inko takes him along to a party with her high school friends
They get drunk and sleep together
Inko gets pregnant
They talk it through with each other and their families and agree to keep the baby (they’re both actually pretty excited to be parents) and raise it together platonically
Some months into first year (maybe second), Oboro tells his friends about his kid
Spends the rest of his life gushing about Izuku to all his friends (sorry for the word choice fjdhshshx)
Oboro dies and his friends make pact to help Inko take care of Izuku once they have steady income and stuff
But Inko’s family has moved and she’s married and they can’t find her
They keep searching, for roughly 14 years
And then Midoriya Izuku enrolls in UA’s hero course and his big green eyes and curly green hair match the pictures Oboro used to show them and his smile is identical to their old friend’s
And his mom’s name is Inko
But they’re not sure (His quirk doesn’t match Oboro’s nor his Inko’s after all)
Not until after the first term and the summer training disaster camp and Kamino, when All Might and Aizawa go house to house talking to parents about the dorms and All Might tries to insist on visiting the Midoriyas alone but Aizawa insists right back cause this is the closest he’s come to confirmation
and then he’s face to face with a woman he’s only ever seen in photographs
And then they talk about everything or something idk I haven’t got that far
Dadzawa and Dadmic (trans!aizawa)
A year and a half before he starts high school(I know I changed the timeline a whole year here but shush, how’s he supposed to get into U.A.’s hero course while pregnant?), Aizawa’s middle school and one or two others have a Joint Event, at which he meets a loud but cute blonde who keeps flirting with him
They hook up
He gets pregnant
His dad insists he get an abortion but he doesn’t want to and his mom supports his decision, they convince his dad to let him go through with the pregnancy on the condition that he gives the baby up for adoption immediately
He has twins, both boys (one with green eyes like the blonde’s(but darker) and the other with purple like Shouta’s mother’s)(that’s right, Shinsou is also their son in this, you’re welcome), and he gives them up for adoption to separate families
But with conditions
No one from his blood family is allowed to initiate contact with either boy without the kid’s knowing consent (he’s terrified of his father changing his mind, tracking them down, and hurting them)
With the one exception being that he’s allowed to send each one a birthday present and card every year
Which he does
Then he starts at UA and then gets into the hero course and there he is… the blonde… the father of Shouta’s children… who does not recognize him now that he’s started transitioning
This time Shouta’s the one who flirts - or tries to, the kid’s a little too oblivious
Of course they do eventually get together, and even end up married! (Haven’t decided if they get together during high school or after they start teaching there or what(probably the latter, for plot reasons))
The first time Midoriya Inko contacts Shouta is after Izuku is diagnosed quirkless - she knows the young man loves her son as much as she does and might be able to reassure him where she already failed
His next birthday, Izuku’s mystery card says he can be a hero even without a quirk; it makes Izuku’s year
Hitoshi’s parents also contact Shouta that year, the boy struggling to make and keep friends ever since his quirk came in; Shouta’s birthday card to him isn’t much different from Izuku’s, really
The Shinsous get in an accident and Hitoshi is placed in foster care and suddenly Shouta can’t send him his yearly gift and card anymore cause nobody will tell him where the boy is now because of the contact portion of the adoption contract
They also won’t tell Hitoshi that he was adopted and his birth father is out there looking for him, so Shouta’s pretty sure they’re trying to hide that he’s being mistreated wherever he is
Inko continues to contact Shouta now and then whenever she thinks Izuku will need extra encouragement come his birthday (she never tells Izuku about being adopted - even after he enters his teen years - cause after his diagnosis, everyone but her left him and she doesn’t want him to internalize the idea that his birth parents didn’t want him - Shouta’s not happy with the decision, but he understands)
Then one year he sends Izuku a Present Mic figurine and she writes him to share how excited the boy was and how Present Mic is one of his favorite heroes and he listens to his radio show all the time and Shouta simultaneously melts and has a minor breakdown at the realization that he hasn’t told his husband that they have sons, he can’t tell Hizashi that their son listens to his radio show regularly when Hizashi doesn’t know Izuku even exists
So of course, being the rational man he is, he finally tells Hizashi about Izuku and Hitoshi
Hizashi freaks, of course (in a good way(mostly))
And then, one of the worst days of Shouta’s life
He’s on patrol and sees a figure on a rooftop and rushes to get there - just in case it’s a jumper - and it’s his son, his Izuku
They talk(it doesn’t breach the adoption contract, he didn’t know it was Izuku when he approached and the kid spoke first) and Izuku tells him “everything” about his encounter with All Might, Shouta tells him to tell his parents - they’re there to support him - and also that All Might’s full of shit and a quirkless hero is totally possible with the right training and enough willpower
Then after they leave the rooftop his kid gets in trouble again, rushing in to save a classmate from the same sludge villain that attacked him earlier that day
Of course Shouta swoops in and pulls the kids out of danger before All Might arrives to “save the day”
This time Shouta insists on walking Izuku home to make sure he actually gets there safely
But then All Might shows up again wanting to talk to his kid privately and he wants to tell the man to fuck off but he’s not legally allowed, really, so when Izuku says it’s fine he reluctantly leaves
Inko asks to meet him just days later
She tells him that Izuku told her everything about what happened that day - including what Shouta told him - and she tells him that she’s realized she needs to properly support her son in pursuing his dream
She understands that Shouta wouldn’t feel comfortable training him one-on-one with the kid not knowing who they are to each other, and she’s still not ready to tell him yet, so she asks for a list, for him to help her get in touch with people who can train Izuku or ways for Izuku to train on his own, ways for her to help
He puts her in contact with seven pro heroes (Midnight, Gunhead, the Wild Wild Pussycats, and - somehow - Sir Nighteye) and a vigilante team (the Naruhata Crawler and his team), all of whom he talks into helping - and has to tell about his connection to this boy they’ll be teaching
(Each have something important to teach him: Midnight - using words and body language to throw off opponents, Gunhead - martial arts, Wild Wild Pussycats - stamina, teamwork and use of your environment when out in nature, Sir Nighteye - analysis and planning, the Naruhata Vigilantes - use of gadgets and weapons, use of your environment when in the city, having the heart of a hero, and - most importantly - that quirkless people can be fucking strong and skilled and terrifying and certainly aren’t weak or useless (they were trained by a quirkless vigilante after all, they’re bound to have a different perspective on the idea of a quirkless hero than anyone else, a perspective Izuku could really benefit from))
Ten months later, Izuku passes UA’s entrance exam and is placed in Shouta’s class (he’s pretty sure Nezu did that on purpose)
When the school year starts, he and Hizashi discover that Izuku isn’t the only one in one of their classes - Hitoshi is in Hizashi’s homeroom
They are, of course, fucking extatic
They just need to, y’know, figure out how to tell him that they’re his parents and maybe possibly would love custody of him if he wants
(Again I haven’t gotten any further than that yet)
(Also, if you can’t tell, in this au Izuku turns down All Might’s offer of One for All, cause Eraserhead said he could be a hero without a quirk and was honestly a lot kinder and more responsible (like, making sure the kid got home safely instead of leaving him on a roof) and stuff than All Might and honestly might be his new favorite hero)
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peppersonironi · 3 years
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Duke Thomas/The Signal Fic Recs
This is for @capttain-emo who saw me reblog this wonderful rec list by @stories-from-the-batcave , and asked if I knew any more. (I highly recommend those, btw, I love all the fics on that list! Yes, that includes the one I wrote in there) Duke Thomas is my favorite Batfam member, so I have a bunch! Unfortunately, there isn’t as much Duke content out there as I’d hope - people just don’t seem to like him as much for some reason? It’s sad. So, there are gonna be a couple here written by me. Rest assured, I have way more Duke content on the way - including a WIP coming out this week! (Ao3 linked out at the top of my blog)
I love recommending Fics, so hit me up in my inbox if there’s a trope or character or relationship (platonic or not) that you’d really love to read! I also write fan fiction, and my requests are always open!
1. Siblings: The Truth of the Matter by Me!
Rating: General Audiences Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & his siblings
Duke had a strange family. Two of his siblings had been raised from birth to be assassins. One was born in a circus. One had been a crime lord for a time. Yet another was the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company by the age of seventeen. All of them dressed up in spandex every night to punch bad guys.
So when he was woken up by icy water being splashed in his face, tied to a chair in nothing but his boxers, he wasn't surprised. Now, that's not to say he wasn't worried. Duke was definitely worried. Especially since it was these two.
AKA Duke gets tied up and questioned by his siblings, all while drugged with Truth Serum!
2. Bliss by Me!
Rating: General Audiences Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Damian
Duke walks in on a sleeping assassin child in need of comfort, and takes a chance. Brotherly bonding ensues!
3. An ever growing family of birds and bats by alicecrow6
Rating: General Audiences/Teen Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Damian
a series of Batkids Age Reversal fics where Damian comes first, then Harper, then Duke and so on.
4. look at me, all the things I can do by Aelig  
Rating: General Audiences Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Cass, Duke & Bruce
"Duke took a bite of his toast, gaze still on Bruce. His foster father was sipping at his coffee, eyebrows frowning. To an outsider, you would think he was reading the morning news on his tablet, like always; Duke knew better. Bruce's look was a little away from the screen, his lips downward.
It was almost funny, to watch Bruce internally panic."
OR: It's the morning, and Duke is going back to school for the first time since his injury.
5. The Batchair(s) Issue by NightFlier
Rating: General Audiences Category: Gen w/ background ships Relationships: Duke & Cass, Duke & Steph, Steph/Cass Trio & Batfam
Duke Thomas feels like an outsider, and not just because he's part of the new Outsiders team roster. He's the newest member of the legendary Batclan and hasn't yet formed the close bonds that the others share. Not to mention, he's the only active Meta on the team. As if it wasn't hard enough to relate with people with such colorful, unique backgrounds.
But it's okay! Duke has a plan and it'll probably work for a while before crashing & burning. BatShenanigans ahead.
6. All That Glitters is Gold (Unfortunately) by IndefiniteIceCube
Rating: General Audiences Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Tim, Duke & Steph
The world is gold and Duke can't breathe.
He can't breathe.
He was sitting in AP World History just a minute ago.
Was it a minute ago? It seemed like a minute ago but it could have been hours because all he can focus on is that he can’t breathe. His lungs won’t fill and- and he’s trying he swears but he just. can’t. breathe.
And the gold—
-----
Duke's powers emerge.
It doesn't go well.
7. Be the Light that Helps Others See by Ace_Corvid @ace-corvid
Rating: General Audiences Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Batfam
Duke didn't really know what to expect from movie nights with the Bats.
He could only assume they approached this with the same determined intensity as they approached everything else. They were all so extra it was like their gauge for normal was completely broke. He wasn't really prepared for this.
And yet here he was. Surrounded.
(Alternatively; Batkid's have a movie night.)
8. I've Made a Million Mistakes by Sohotthateveryonedied
“Y’all need Jethuth.”
Rating: Teen Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Batfam
“Don’t worry,” Dick says, throwing his arm around Duke’s shoulders. “Everyone in this room has had their teeth knocked out at one point or another. It’s a rite of passage around here.”
“I don’t know how to tell you thith, but that doethn’t happen to normal people. We acthually prefer to keep our teeth, believe it or not.”
“Wait until you get your first major battle scar. Trust me, they’re cool.”
“Y’all need Jethuth.”
9. Children (All of Them) by TheFalconWarrior
Rating: Teen Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Batfam
In which Tim is not stupid but Jason might just be, Damian is furious, Dick kind of feels like he should be doing…something, Steph is ecstatic, and Duke wonders how long he can survive.
10. In the Dark of the Night by Aelig
Rating: General Audiences Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Jason, Batfam
"Duke was woken up by someone sliding into his bed. Someone big judging by how the mattress shifted.
Because Duke was a well-trained vigilante, his first reflex was obviously to kick whoever was being creepy right now and push them out of his bed.
It was only when the someone landed on the floor with a yelp that Duke realized that he was at Wayne Manor, which was incredibly secure – normally. He could recognize the voice, too."
Rating: General Audiences Category: Gen Relationships: none
OR: The Batfam and their way to deal with nightmares.
11. Welcome to the Family by angstyelephant
In which Duke Thomas goes back to the beginning.
12. Family-- by incorrectbatfam
Rating: General Audiences Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & batfam
“Your assignment over the weekend is to write a poem about your family.”
13. I'm Still Climbing(Even When the Rest Have Fallen) by anidear
Rating: General Audiences Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Dick, Duke & Damian
After his first exposure to the Fear Toxin, Dick checks in on Duke.
14. The cat and the newcomer by Fleur_de_Violette
Rating: General Audiences Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Alfred the Cat
Duke always found people talking to their pets about their problems silly. And yet here he was.
15. Duke-napped by NightOwl1600
Rating: General Audiences Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Bruce, Duke & batfam
The others don’t really bother Duke with his business. They all care about him, he knows, but outside of the vigilante business, they don’t really care to ask aside from the typical “How was school?” or “Can you buy me some chilidogs after you’re done with whatever you’re doing?” So he’s a bit concerned if they’ll even notice when he’s been kidnapped as Duke Thomas, Bruce Wayne’s newest ward. But he’s not about to panic; as the others seem to be so determined that traumatizing new experiences are part of Bat-initiation.
Meanwhile, the rest of the family freaks out because “Did anyone go over the do’s and don’ts of getting kidnapped with Duke?!”
16. Nightmare/Hallucination by FearfulKitten @fearfulkittenwrites
Rating: Teen Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Jason
Duke found himself staring at the ceiling again. His heart was no longer racing, but he wouldn’t exactly say that he was calm either. This is the moment after the end of a race you lost, when all of the adrenaline is starting to wear off and the hopelessness sets in. That’s it. You’re out of the competition, buddy.
Except that this isn’t a race, and Duke hasn’t just lost his spot for the finals. He had simply lost sleep.
17. Jason Todd, Big Brother Part 8792 by Gemini_00
Rating: General Audiences Category: Other Relationships: Duke & Jason, Duke & Damian
Robin and the Signal sneak along the Outlaws mission in order to steal a bazooka and hang out with Kori. Jason has to deal with two little brothers and feeding a team of outlaws. He's putting this on Bruce's credit
18. "What's wrong? What's happening?" By FearfulKitten @fearfulkittenwrites
Rating: General Audiences Category: Other Relationships: Duke & Tim
Duke runs into trouble during his daytime patrol, and ends up needing some back up. The resident over-productive insomniac bat picks up the call.
(A little bit of and Duke interaction for a nice tumblr Anon :) I hope you like it!)
19. Nightmares by FearfulKitten @fearfulkittenwrites
Rating: Teen Category: Other Relationships: Duke & Dick
Filling the nightmare square on my bingo card with the help of an anon on tumblr who asked for a fic where Duke has a nightmare and asks for the help of one of the older batboys!
"Duke checked the time again. Two minutes had passed.
Time was ticking too slowly. He was tired, but sitting alone in the dark was definitely not a good idea right now.
He’d have to ask for help."
20. Brothers in Arms by TheFalconWarrior
Rating: General Audiences Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Batfam
...possibly against each other. Batkid prank wars are the worst.
Duke is learning. Tim is evil. So is Damian. Dick is embarrassing. Jason is dramatic. Steph is brave. Babs is all-knowing. Cass wants in. Alfred is a little amused, and Bruce is so. Tired.
21. First rule of Robin, right? By ALzzza
Rating: Teen Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Damian,Duke & Dick
"Nothing’s going to hurt you—you got that, nothing.”
Duke doesn’t have anything better to do but it’s not like that matters. Hell, he’d drop everything and run—always in time to catch this little bird.
Or, Damian’s Been Having Nightmares, Duke To The Rescue—Dick Always With The Reassurance
22. Duke's Diary by fiery_day
 Rating: Teen Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Batfam,Duke & Dick
This is a couple of journal entries by Duke as he learns to become Signal. He relates his thoughts on the batfamily and aspects of the vigilante life he now leads.
23. Significance of a Gala by nxttime
Rating: Teen Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Batfam,Duke & Jason, Duke & Tim
This year’s Wayne Gala would be Duke’s first, and he had no clue how to feel about it.
 25. The cloud that looks after each other by Batmango
Rating: Teen Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Bruce, Duke & Goliath
Duke wakes up the Bat cave after a fight with the Joker.
For MashpotatoeQueen5 as a thanks for using so many of my prompt in the excellent January Jot-Downs.
Prompt: a hurt comfort after an injury/illness? Or just cuddles. I love me some cuddles.
26. The One You’ll Know By by Redrikki
Rating: Teen Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Bruce, Bruce & Alfred
After losing his memory, Bruce asked Alfred not to tell him about his vigilante life, but he's beginning to think his butler left a few other things out. Like, say, his kids.
27. Duke Thomas Hates Bullies by Gemini_00
Rating: Unrated Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Steph, Duke & Tim, Duke & Bruce, Duke & Damian
Everyone loves that Duke Thomas isn't like all those other crazy Waynes. Everyone loves that the Signal isn't trying to get himself killed. Duke may not see Bruce as his dad, but he is definitely part of the bat family. and nobody is going to bully his family. Or, Duke Thomas Kicks Ass.
28. batman is dancing to fortnight and this might as well happen because vigilante life is already so *Goddamn* weird (Duke Thomas: A Memoir) by MashpotatoeQueen5
Rating: General Audiences Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Bruce, Duke & Batfam
You may not have time to unpack all that, but Duke Thomas does.
(He doesn't get it either.)
(He loves his new crazy family nonetheless.)
29. In a World Where You Can Be Anything, Be Kind by RedHoodie1723
Rating: General Audiences Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Bruce, Duke & Batfam
Day Six of Batfam Week 2020: Take Your Child To Work Day
It was Duke's first time visiting Wayne Enterprises, and he couldn't help but be intrigued by the Martha Wayne Foundation.
30. You’re My Brother by blackpercy
Rating: General Audiences Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Dick
Duke's missing his parents a lot and Dick comes in to help his little brother.
And that’s it for the list! I hope you enjoy these thirty works! Once again, send me an ask if you have requests for fics, recs, or if you have general questions!
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