#too much trauma let them all live out their quiet sitcom lives

[spoopdeedoop]

au where they’re all human and best friends and nothing ever goes wrong ever

#my art #too much trauma let them all live out their quiet sitcom lives #doctor who #doctor who fanart #bbc doctor who #these three are my favourite doctors i will figure out how to draw the others soon i promise #tenth doctor #10th doctor #eleventh doctor #11th doctor #thirteenth doctor #13th doctor #tenth doctor fanart #eleventh doctor fanart #thirteenth doctor fanart #jodie whittaker #matt smith #david tennant #starlight strings au

[hyperbali]

Agatha Harkness Was Right, And Here’s Why

Alright. Finally had to sit down and write my way out of this quiet, internal temper tantrum, and a few people were interested in seeing what I had to say, so I present to you:

Agatha Harkness Was Right, And Here’s Why

Disclaimer: MASSIVE spoilers for the entirety of WandaVision, and I am not nice about it.

I’ll start off by saying that, for all its foibles, WandaVision was genuinely a good example of a property within the MCU/Disney umbrella that stepped out of the usual ‘good guys fight bad guys action extravaganza’ in a way that pushed the envelope. The pseudo-horror aspect of the first few episodes is something I would really love to see engaged with on a more thoughtful basis in future projects.

I would say that it proved to be more than a vehicle to promote toys, but… well…

Yeah. Anyway.

I’ll assume that you watched WandaVision if you’re reading this, but quick recap: In the aftermath of ‘the Blip,’ Wanda is left broken and alone with no one in her corner. Her biggest mentor willingly abandoned his team to get his own ‘happy’ ending (do not get me started on Steve, that’s a document in and of itself), her other biggest mentor is probably off enjoying his family while ignoring the incredibly racist killing spree he’s been on for the past five years, and her lover is dead. When she goes to claim the body, she’s told nuh-uh, that’s government property, please leave.

So she goes to a plot of land in the middle of some nowhere town in New Jersey, which Vision apparently bought despite the fact they were living a pretty decently comfortable life in Scotland, where she looks at the deed that Vision drew a heart on and wrote ‘To Grow Old In’. Very sweet. Kind of weird, considering nothing of this caliber had ever been suggested for either of their characters and they’d been actively running from specifically the U.S. authorities? But sweet.

She has a breakdown and, in her grief, contains the entire town of Westview and all 3,892 of the people in it in her own personal paradise, where nothing bad ever happens beyond sitcom hijinks, no one dies, and every problem is tied up and neatly dealt with by the end of an ‘episode’. Except we learn that this is only paradise to Wanda, who apparently shares the aspect of having to relate everything to her favourite pop culture with Tony, because everyone else in Westview is more or less being psychologically tortured by the incredible amount of pain she’s in, forced to be puppeted actors to make her happy.

Bear in mind, Westview might have been bigger at some point - we have no idea how many people survived the Blip, or how many have been brought back to life within the past few weeks of the current setting. Either way, this is a town that has already dealt with a lot of trauma being dragged into yet another awful, much more specific kind of emotional damage, thanks to ‘the heroes’. Nice.

Agatha Harkness, a witch who’s been up to who-knows-what in the 340 years since she drained the coven that tried to kill her for getting a little too ambitious into jerky, feels the massive expenditure of magical power and decides to investigate. All the while, she carefully uses her own magic to try and peek into Wanda’s psyche, her motivations, all while keeping up appearances and not letting slip that anything is amiss.

I’ll point out that she’s no saint here, either - she specifically keeps one Westview resident at her mercy, and knows what’s happening to the rest of them, but doesn’t attempt to stop it. I’ll chalk that up to her pragmatism; their ‘sacrifice’ was fine to her as long as she could figure out how Wanda could have done something so unheard of in terms of power.

What we come to learn over the course of the show is that, given everything that happened, Wanda didn’t mean to take over an entire town and tool it into her own personal slice of heaven. She very quickly became aware of it; we know that she knows it’s her own personal bubble as soon as episode three, when she’s confronting Monica about how the latter could possibly know about Ultron. Wanda is made further aware of how much damage this is inflicting on others in episode five, when Vision himself tells her that these people are scared. But still, she has everything handled! It’s okay! The outside world is worse, trust her!

Her handling of the question, ‘where are all the children of Westview,’ is one that bears some thinking - and, y’know, kind of more than a little concern. They’re allowed to walk around as part of the ‘Halloween special,’ but as Vision walks further and further out towards the edges of town where Wanda doesn’t have as much full control, people are just frozen in place, or conducting the same few seconds of action over and over. And fully aware of being trapped.

How are they being sustained? Eating, sleeping? If someone isn’t part of her storyline, is she just locking them down into a coma? What made Wanda decide that keeping the children ‘out of the way’ was somehow kinder than involving them, especially given her later argument that she’s been trying to keep the entire town safe and happy?

The fact of the matter is, she only actually starts to feel remorse for any of this after she’s confronted with the fact that, after weeks of being at her mercy, the townspeople of Westview would rather be dead than endure another moment of having to play nice for her enjoyment. She finally opens the ‘bubble’ to let them out - which leads to the ‘epic’ finale of three different entities trying to take down Wanda and her happy family: the S.W.O.R.D. military led by Hayward, the White Vision, and Agatha.

Winding back to how we got here: after Agatha uses her own trapped resident, Ralph Bohner (who, given his casting and the props in place during the last episode, I’m willing to bet is actually the missing witness protection person Jimmy was looking for) in an attempt to lure out Wanda’s reasoning - and fails - she’s pretty much done pretending. She tricks Wanda into her basement, nullifies her powers, and makes her face her own past to get to the truth of the matter.

Not going to lie, favourite moment of the show. Kathryn Hahn killed Agatha’s slightly-amused-slightly-irritated observations about Wanda’s coping mechanisms, and the whole arrangement was extremely meta. I would have paid real money dollars to see her do the same thing to the likes of Tony, Strange, and Loki. Hell, even just having her meet the rest of the Avengers? Augh. If wishes were fishes.

When Agatha comes to the conclusion that Wanda is the vaunted, nigh-indestructible force of nature that she’s literally spent her entire life reading about is the ultimate source of chaos magic and will likely bring about the end of the world, she’s pretty understandably taken aback. To that matter, the fact that Wanda… has very little control over any of it, and is using what she does understand to play housemaker? After how long Agatha has spent learning control, hiding in plain sight, just to be child’s play compared to what Wanda has at her fingertips? I’d be pretty pissed off, too!

The way that WandaVision handled both of the major ‘fights’ - Vision versus White Vision ending in philosophy, and Wanda ending up beating Agatha at her own game of deception - is excellent. A little grating that they had to go with the beat down angle before they got there, but this is MCU; punches and thrown cars had to get shoved in somewhere. And, given that this series very much played with the idea of grey morality, I was sort of hopeful that Agatha would end up in a not-quite stalemate arrangement with Wanda. She’s not as powerful as the Scarlet Witch, but she has the know-how that Wanda sorely lacks; in recompense for her own deeds, she would be able to teach what she knows while also kind of scheming on her own time.

Y’know, like what they did with rehabilitating Loki?

Except that Wanda, who has just gone through the entire rigamarole of coming to terms with the fact that she trapped thousands of people into a nightmare scenario against their will, rendering them helpless to her mercy… traps Agatha into a nightmare scenario against her will, rendering her helpless to Wanda’s mercy.

That moment actually shook me. Oh, my god. We’re supposed to still look at Wanda as a good guy after this?

This isn’t even covering the incredibly awful confrontation with her and Vision where she tries to gaslight him into believing that everything is A-OK, or the fact that the person she gets most violent with (apart from Agatha) is Monica Rambeau, a black woman who spends most of the show bending over backwards trying to say that what Wanda is doing is understandable, justified, and just needs a gentle touch to be dealt with.

That could be its own document, too - how Monica, much as she’s incredible and definitely looks to be a really exciting addition to the MCU roster, more or less gets used as the Good One to absolve and enable Wanda’s actions. One of her last lines to Wanda, after seeing how the people of Westview (rightfully) look at Wanda like she’s monstrous, is “they’ll never know what you sacrificed.”

Sacrificed what? The fake husband and fake kids she made out of her own compulsion to pretend that everything is okay? None of that would have existed if she’d been given the proper resources to actually cope with how much loss she’s had to deal with. None of that would have existed if she hadn’t caused this problem in the first place.

In the end, Wanda flies off in her fancy new gear before the FBI shows up, avoiding any real consequences to her actions - which has pretty much been the running theme of her character ever since she was introduced to the MCU in Age of Ultron. The worst kind of direct consequence she’s ever gotten was being grounded to her room for a while, then kept in the Raft for, like, maybe a day - and both times, she was broken out post-haste.

Meanwhile, she worsened the issues in Sokovia (which, I will say upfront, was Tony’s fault to begin with), unleashed the Hulk on Johannesburg, got a pretty significant amount of civilians killed as bystanders in Lagos (hey, how come Wanda keeps turning a lot of black people into casualties?), and stood back in Wakanda to let their people try to fight off Thanos from getting to Vision until it was clear that there was no other option than for her to get involved.

Great Power Comes With No Responsibility At All, Actually.

Wanda, in the several years she has maintained her identity as an Avenger, has proven time and time again that she takes on innumerable risks without any full understanding of what they mean, allows others to take on the brunt of the fallout for her, and looks sad until she’s forgiven and moves on to the next problem. She has no business casually throwing around the kind of power that being the Scarlet Witch entails, not until she’s actually made any kind of headway into making reparations for what she’s done and tried, really tried, to get a handle on what she’s capable of.

Which she’s apparently doing in the last post-credits scene, astral reading the literal Book of the Damned on her lonesome in the mountains, but… without anyone to guide her, or give her any kind of boundary?

[I ran out of images I could post, but you know exactly what image I am referring to here]

Agatha Harkness was right. And that should terrify everybody that has to deal with Wanda in the future.

(P.S. Do we know if she actually even killed that dog? We never see her holding anything but a blanket, and characters go in and out of that show all the time. Granted, she wasn’t great with the cicada-turned-bird... hmm.)

Additional Notes:

“Well, you’re a Tony Stan, of course you think Wanda’s a villain”

I like Tony because he’s such an awful mess, and the narrative isn’t exactly kind about telling him what a piece of shit he can be! He reaped a lot of problems, created practically half the villains in the MCU, and ended up dying a martyred hero. Thanks to being the tent pole by which this franchise hoisted itself into a cultural powerhouse, he will always be their golden savior. If you want to read about how he’s the true villain of this entire affair, feel free to look up any number of takedown pieces about him that are out there. He’s a dick. I will never “uwu sad baby who did nothing wrong ever 🥺” him the way people do about Wanda.

“Why are you so pressed about this”

Because something as good in concept as WandaVision could and should have been about anyone other than the whitewashed, antisemitic take on Wanda Maximoff that MCU brought upon us. They put crucifixes on her wall in Civil War, for fuck’s sake!

“Weren’t you mad about them not including Aaron Taylor-Johnson”

At this point, I am almost kind of relieved the real Pietro wasn’t resurrected for this, because god knows they probably would have killed him all over again just to inflict that much more pain on his sister.

“Anything else you’d like to tell us, turbo nerd”

This was literally itching at me all weekend to write, so it’s more or less just to get it off my chest. If you powered your way through it, uh… thanks? Sorry if I yucked your yums, but I tried to be as clear with the disclaimer as I could. 🤷‍♂️

#blah blah #long post #marvel #mcu #wandavision #wandavision spoilers #wandavision critical #anti wanda maximoff

[mintandcoldwater]

So…do you guys know The Nanny? As in,,, this sitcom?

Well that, but make it Bakugou.

The Nanny Bakugou HC

NatsuBaku (Also?!?! currently there are 27 Bakugou/Natsuo fics on AO3 and only around 16 are like actual full stories (by that I mean not only PWP, or incomplete) Therefore, it’s is my DUTY to provide more. I just feel it in my bones.)

Bakugou being a nanny hired by one Todoroki brother (here it’s Natsuo) for their oc!kids

So, on a streak of bad luck Bakugou loses his job, his boyfriend broke up with him, said boyfriend also kicked him out, so there goes his living situation too. He ended up taking the nanny job to fix the living situation, and to also give him something to work with while he sorts out everything for the other job he wants.

So, Natsuo has three kids. Your typical lineup (idk if there’s actually a typical line up of kids shh), a teen, a preteen and a toddler basically. Or maybe whatever you call that age where they’re older than a toddler but not preteen as yet. The age when they still like stickers. Anyway.

The oldest is his daughter. Because being the eldest daughter is A Struggle that I can write from the sole of my feet to the end of my hair follicles.

The middle… Wait middle should be twins.

They should be twins if only for a scene where Bakugou can tell them a part when Natsuo’s girlfriend can’t. Hahaha.

The last child is an toddler who doesn’t like anyone and always cries but is really calm around Bakugou.

The kids all end up loving Bakugou but it takes them a while to Get There. Except the last one. The toddler loves him immediately.

So naturally, when Bakugou first arrives they try to drive him away. They make everything harder for him, from making food, to driving them places, to letting him know how the things around the house work or where stuff is supposed to go. Even purposefully messes up his schedules so he always has to rush when it comes to getting them to things. But if they think they can out stubborn Bakugou??? They got another thing coming.

He curses them every single step of the way, but he does not quit. Nope. Cue a typical scene where they bond because Bakugou helps one of the twins with their homework, and the other is like ‘don’t side with the enemy!!’ but eventually they get won over too when Bakugou starts kinda being an asshole to them too. Not really malicious, just doing little things that makes all their little pranks difficult for them instead.

Now I want to to figure out if their other parent is 1. Dead. 2. Alive but doesn’t really care for them. 3. Cares for them but is busy

none of these options include them still being with Natsuo

Dead can fit so much trauma, but the idea of the other parent mistaking Katsuki for Natsuo’s new partner when he isn’t tickles my brain so hard,,,, the other parent is around but they’re distant it is.

The other parent : Doesn’t really care for the kids, doesn’t even want them really. Just paying their money and leaving.

The only argument the twins have is over the other parent. One of them can’t help but miss them while the other just really hates them.

One of the twins invited the other parent to a rehearsal, recital whatever the fuck you want to call it and they didn’t show up but guess who did??? Bakugou. Idc if it’s cliché, I. Do. NOT!! Embrace the cliché.

Bakugou brings them flowers and they both get little charm bracelets with something special to a moment each of them had with him.

Bakugou gets the other job and it’s a teaching job. Before he like, fully here goes though he has to be on a temporary course thing, and who goes to said school? The daughter.

*slaps top of chemistry teacher headcanon* “So many awkward bonding moments can fit in this baby!”

She’s struggling in school? She fears bullied? She has a completely different persona from when she’s at home because she’s uncomfortable with herself/around her ‘friends’ and uses it as a way to cope? Oh my god, she has a completely different persona from when she’s at home because she’s uncomfortable with herself/around her ‘friends’ and uses it as a way to cope. *sobs* so many bonding moments.

Now. His relationship with Natsuo. So much teasing.

So cheesy too.

Natsuo who has more time to eat with the family now that Katsuki is around.

Who had time to go to parks, or sit in the garden outside

Who had time to watch cartoons on Saturdays with the twins

And the always eat breakfast together .

Whenever Natsuo brings home work, Bakugou lounges in his office and works in whatever he has too.

He listen to Natsuo complain about his coworkers and tell Natsuo about whatever dumb things his friends did/were trying to pull him into or complain about teaching

Natsuo always brings home a pastry from the bakery by his office for Katsuki because according to Natsuo they were the ‘best bakery to ever exist’ but according to Bakugou the goods were ‘subpar at best and I could totally make better’ and he wanted to find one that Bakugou liked so that Bakugou would finally bake him something

Bakugou kinda hated Natsuo at first, because he knows all about shitty parents that don’t give their children the time of day, but he eventually sees that Natsuo is trying his hardest and is here for them in all the ways that matter, so <3 (he also said to himself that the family dynamics wasn’t his business and that he wasn’t going to judge. But there he was, judging, judgingly)

Bakugou falls asleep one night with the kids on the sofa while reading them a book(like a novel novel) (yes even the eldest, she like making fun of his exaggeration/taking turns reading parts) and when Natsuo comes home he just…stops and looks at them.

Consider Natsuo having an emotional freak out and projecting onto Bakugou because the baby’s first word was ‘papa’ but they weren’t looking at Natsuo when they said it. (yeah, one year old still counts as a toddler right? I dont think that's late for your first word?? Is it? I’ll look it up later)

He spends so much time over thinking it and thinking about how much he doesn’t hate it a single bit that he ends up fighting with Bakugou and basically firing him.

And the twins get really upset with him. Visibility upset. He thinks his daughter is fine, because she doesn’t complain or even say anything because #eldestdaughterthings but he hears her crying one night on the phone with Bakugou.

Now, everyone is sad and a bit stand-offish, the baby is crying more often, and he misses Bakugou and everyone else misses him too and it’s a mess.

… they get together when the other parent comes for their like,,, check in, pay confirmation, idk I’ll make up something, and then they ask Natsuo where his ‘little boyfriend is’. After Natsuo clarifies that they’re not dating, never were, and that Bakugou is not here they say something like ‘what a shame. love looked good on you.’ or something to that effect, I don’t know the words right now, just the vibe.

(I totally forgot about the girlfriend I mentioned earlier so yeah, this was where he finally saw that he needed to break up with her, she already saw it coming, pain, bless her heart)

Anyway. Natsuo going to find Bakugou and there is some cursing, some tears, well deserved use of the term ‘fucking idiot’, maybe a bit of time and space(?) and finally *plays It’s Quiet Uptown* ‘forgiveness. Can you imagine?’.

Welp, that's the main plot! Writing will definitely include more characters (Fuyumi, Shoto, my loves, I’m looking at you) and what not. I’ll get on it right after I finish the next few chapters of the BakuMomo friendship fic i have going on.

#I saw this entire thing in my head like a movie #i thought this was a lot while writing it but seeing it all in one place it's really not #or maybe it's because i started on mobile and finished on desktop wtv #I didn’t stop for a second to read anything so any errors are your problem not mine #shhh just enjoy the rare pair #minty hc #minty natsubaku hc #natsubaku #mha natsuo #mint fic #todoroki natsuo #bakugou katsuki #bakugou headcanons #Todoroki Natsuo headcanon #Natsuo headcanon #bnha #boku no hero academia #mha #my hero academia

[orderoftheavengers]

Scarlet Legilimens

House: Ravenclaw

Species: Human/phoenix hybrid (formerly human)

Blood Status: Pureblood

(Pointless) Wand: Cherry, 13 inches, phoenix feather  

(Pointless) Broom: Firebolt Supreme

Patronus: Red-billed firefinch

Specialty: Legilimency, Occlumency, Flying, Dark Arts, Wandless Magic

Sorting

Wanda Maximoff is a living example of how the traits of Ravenclaw House may be applied to the most heinous villainy, and the most self-sacrificing heroism. As a villain, she is crafty and manipulative; as a hero, clever and intuitive. Her fighting style, for good or evil, is always more sneaky and innovative than “bold.” Ironically, her mind is also her weakest point as well as her strongest, as poor Wanda continuously ends up as the manipulated as often as the manipulator. A born Legilimens, her abilities, strengths and flaws are all mind related.

Note the “cleverness” and “ready mind” mentioned by the Sorting Hat needn’t always come in the form of a bookish nerd, as Luna Lovegood, Sybil Trelawney, Profeesor Quirrel and Professor Lockheart are all Ravenclaw. Wanda may not spend her free time studying or watching the Discovery Channel, but she does spend much of it experimenting with her powers, and letting her imagination loose. When faced with unbearable loss, she wasn’t immediately able to face her grief head-on, like a Gryffindor; nor, as a corrupt Ministry leader lied, did she try to resurrect her lost lover; instead, she escaped into her own mind, imagining up an (almost) complete fictitious life for herself and Vision, in a matter of seconds, without even realizing she was doing it.

Wanda is capable of impressive courage, ambition and loyalty, to be sure; but all of those things have wavered, when her reality was turned upside-down. She shed years of indoctrination after reading Ultron’s mind and seeing the grim truth. (And yes, she can read a machine’s mind! That’s a Ravenclaw right there.)

Durmstrang Experiments

Wanda and her twin brother Pietro were born to wizarding parents, in the tiny European nation of Sokovia. Wanda was a born Legilimens, like Queenie Goldstein, able to peek into others’ minds without having to perform any spells. A poor family, their father made ends meet by enchanting posters and lobby cards of old Muggle sitcoms to play out entire episodes, which he then sold to Muggle-enthusiasts in the wizarding world. Their home was decimated by a spell invented by Tony Stark, who never intended for it to end up in the claws of banshee terrorists. The twins ended up in a crap Muggle orphanage, which only intensified their prejudices. By the time they entered Durmstrang, a school infamous for professors that supported Dark Magic and even Voldemort, they were ripe for indoctrination and radicalization.

Due to Wanda’s being a Legilimens, the twins were selected for a dangerous experiment by their headmaster Professor Beowulf Von Stucker. Using the Mind Stone, the twins were to be fused with their wands. Wanda’s first name suddenly became very appropriate, a la Remus Lupin. Wanda merged with her phoenix-feathered wand, transforming the born Legilimens into a powerful human/phoenix hybrid. Her telepathic powers were enhanced, and she gained many powers of a phoenix, including flight, inhuman strength for her levitation spells, and being nearly indestructible. Being part wand also made her able to do wandless magic with no effort. Pietro, meanwhile, was merged with his Veela-hair wand, making him a human/Veela hybrid, and gifting him with a Veela’s dancing speed and silvery hair.

(A very special thanks to AlasterBoneman for the idea about Wanda's wand being integrated into her body.) Order of the Avengers Wanda and Pietro are finishing up their first year when they cross paths with the Order of the Avengers, and they don't exactly make a good first impression. Their vitriol against the Avengers and Tony Stark makes very little sense, especially given that Wanda is a telepath, and should easily see they aren't the villains (not to mention how much she has in common with Natasha, whose life story Wanda personally digs up). But, the twins are still only about eleven, and kids that age can be pretty stupid. The Avengers trace Loki's confiscated broom-scepter to Durmstrang, where the dark wizards from the Order of Hydra are keeping it. Wanda, having recently studied with a Boggart, uses her Legillimency to make the Avengers relive their traumas. Tony's fear shows Wanda that he clearly wants to protect the world, and yet she makes the very un-Ravenclaw decision to keep pursuing "revenge." Her plan inadvertently leads to Tony and Bruce accidentally creating a dangerous and ear-bleedingly-irritating gargoyle named Ultron, who the twins personally work with. Wanda even shocks Bruce into green-wolf form, and sends him on a rampage through one of the dormitories at Durmstrang (but it's not her or Pietro's House, so she could care less). Finally, after much too long, she puts her mental powers to some use, and reads Ultron's mind. That's when she puts two and two together. By then, Ultron has unleashed an army of Cornish Pixies to levitate Durmstrang Castle miles into the air, planning to drop it in an explosion of magic that will alert the Muggles to the existence of wizards. Huddled in a swaying castle tower, she confesses her guilt to Hufflepuff Clint Barton. Clint invites her to redeem herself by joining the Avengers. Durmstrang is saved, but sadly, Pietro takes a killing curse for Clint and another first year. wrought with grief and guilt, wanda begins her second year of schooling at Hogwarts, where--after an unusually long time on the stool--she is sorted into Ravenclaw. Her lonely mood is raised slightly when she finds the attractive new Golem, Vision, hovering to the Ravenclaw table alongside her.

The Scarlet Witch Hunt

Perhaps living on her own for a while is what finally helps Wanda regain the confidence to think for herself. When Vision suggests that they both drop out of their respective schools and just run off together, she urges him against the idea. When Vision senses a disturbance in his Mind Stone, she inspects it for him, but reports, “I just feel you.”

They are interrupted by a rude crowd of Trolls under their window, calling for Wanda’s blood. She’s fine to ignore them, but Vision—ever the logical Ravenclaw—is compelled intellectually argue with the Trolls in his lady's honor.

“Wanda is a redemption-seeking-antihero like Tony, who she has not expressed any hatred for since the Ultron fiasco—not even during the whole ‘Civil War’ calamity! In fact, of everyone on Team Cap, she was the least awful to Tony! The only verbal exchange between them during the whole drunk Quidditch match was a brief pout about being 'locked in her room,' which she had no problem with until Hawkeye came and pressured her. She was literally the only person in the Squid prison not insulting him! And just a few minutes ago, when I wanted her to run away with me, she was telling me to keep my loyalties to Stark, and when the news reported him missing she was visibly scared for him! Seriously, where are you Trolls even getting that she still hates Tony?”

One Troll with particularly long horns shouts back, “Well what about that cleavage and slutty red leather? Tony Stark was never a slu—er, wait…”

Vision is now standing in the window frame, unbuttoning his fly.

“Vision?” Wanda asks nervously. “What are you doing?”

A glittering, purple stream poursd out from her boyfriend’s “better wand,” threatening to deface the crowd below.

“Vision no!” she cries, quickly containing the violet river in an energy ball.

Steady hand…    she carefully lifts the ball of glistening liquid higher and higher into the air. …Not gonna screw this one up—

“I say Wanda, is that a giant flying donut?” Vision asks curiously.

Wanda glances up, and there is indeed a gargantuan space donut in the night sky, coming right for them. The strange sight distracts her, causing her hand to slip—just as she’s levitating Visions liquids right over said donut.

This enchanted pastry is in fact the vessel of some of Thanos’s most vicious minions. And Wanda has just drenched them in Vision’s you-know-what.

While Wanda gasps behind her hand, Vision suggests, “Let’s go for a walk.”

On their way down the quiet lamp-lit streets, they are soon stopped by a group of Thanos’s putrid goblin children, currently slightly more putrid than usual.

A blue female goblin roars, “Now you’ve really succeeded in pissing us off!”

Before she can stop herself, Wanda blurts out, “Pissed off? Smells more to me like you ‘been pissed on!”

Somewhere, a boxing bell dings, and a badass wizard’s duel begins.

Just when Wanda and Vision are cornered, a train passes by, causing all parties to freeze dramatically for no apparent reason. Wanda tries to make her body move, to take this opportunity to blast her opponents, but some force has her glued in place, as low music hisses theatrically throughout the night. The train passes, to reveal a shadowy figure, posing heroically. Instead of shooting the figure with a hex, one of the goblins simply throws a spear, which the figure catches expertly. Wanda and Vision both know that there is only one person on the planet would could make an entrance with this much ham and cheese.

Steve Rogers dramatically stepped into the light, revealing his fluffy new beard, and the duel gets a bit more epic.

Oh Snap

In the wizarding nation of Wakanda, Black Panther’s brilliant sister Shuri does her damndest to save her fellow Ravenclaw, and safely remove the Infinity Stone from Vision’s forehead. Sadly, Thanos’s forces overwhelm her, and Wanda is forced to kill her lover--the last family she has left. Many would assume only a Gryffindor would have the resolve to do this, but a Ravenclaw’s wisdom and pragmatism can go a long way.

Ever the sadist, that purple f*ck Thanos uses the Time Stone to resurrect Vision and kill him again, in front of Wanda, and even has the gault "comfort" her in a patronizing manner.

And yet, she’s not so distraught when Thanos’s Dusting curse comes for her. It could be that she’s so despaired by now that she welcomes death. Or maybe the half-phoenix simply doesn’t react to dissolving into ash the same way other beings might…

…in any case, she is resurrected over the summer by Bruce Banner. Vision, sadly, isn’t. In her grief, Wanda accidently traps herself and the entire school of Hogwarts inside the Mirror of Erised, but that's another story entirely. 

Wand, Broom and Patronus

Cherry wood is associated with some of the most powerful and lethal wands.  Phoenix feather wands are considered to have the widest range of magic, and are among the post powerful, yet also the most difficult to tame. 

The red-billed firefinch is one of the few bird species where the females sport some red coloring. These birds are tiny and quiet, but very active. They are flexible about where they live and with whom; they can mix with other bird species, and can live in the wild or captivity, provided they always have plenty of space. Their nests are different from other birds', having a dome shape and being low in bushes. Not unlike the hidden fortress Wanda creates, to hide her family. These crafty birds also build mock-nests to fool predators.  

AN: This has undergone some changes in both the story and image, since the release of "WandaVision." If anyone is for any reason attached to Wanda's old broom, the previous version is saved in my Stash. I plan to reuse that fire design somewhere else, possibly for Harry's Firebolt in my more serious Potter art.

#wanda maximoff #Scarlet Witch #Hogwarts house #hogwarts au #ravenclaw #legilimency #legillimens #harry potter #mcu #avengers #chibi #fan art #order of the avengers

[prophecy-is-inevitable]

Tourniquet - Part 1

Jim Mason x Named Reader/OC

(Jim is in his 20s on this fic. I know most people prefer Y/N or second person, but this one is hard for me to write and hits very close to home, so I gave the reader a name in order for me to feel some distance when writing. It also didn't feel right to wish any of these feelings on "you". Adding it under a Read More because of the possible triggers.)

Summary: While in an appalling rehab hospital, Jim sees another person struggling to deal with life, emotions, and the crushing desire to leave it all behind. She ends up adding a little spark of excitement to his usually mundane day and drawing his interest.

Word Count: 1, 888 (is a baby intro chappy!)

Warnings: SO. MANY. WARNINGS. Please heed the warnings, loves, and don’t read if anything will upset you or make you uncomfortable. If I have missed anything, please let me know so I can add it as soon as possible. Thank you!

Angst, Poor Medical Practices, Rehab Setting, Trauma, Drug Use, Drug Overdose, Withdrawal Symptoms, Suicidal Thoughts, Attempted Suicide, Severe Depression, Self-Harm, Scars, Language, Violence.

Tourniquet - a device which applies pressure to a limb or extremity in order to limit – but not stop – the flow of blood. It may be used in emergencies, in surgery, or in post-operative rehabilitation.

It had been a while since he’d been brought to this place. The plain walls and terribly uncomfortable cot of his room greeted him day after day. Jim had lost count of how many days that had been. He remembered there were at least a couple days where Medina had come to visit and wished him a happy birthday. It should have been a day for them to celebrate together, and instead she was here with him in this awful place.

“I’m so sorry, Medina,” he would whisper as they laid on his cot together, nearly nose to nose. A slight burning sensation tickled his nose every time, but his eyes were too tired to release any more tears. He simply stared at his twin, or through her more like, and let the guilt eat him inside.

“Jim, it’s okay. Don’t be sorry. There’s nowhere I’d rather be than with you. You’re my best friend, my other half. It’s just you and me, remember?” Medina always pulled him close and whispered comforting words to try and quell the storm inside of him. It just made him hate himself more. She should have been outside, free and living her life, enjoying the waves she loved so much. Of course, that wasn’t something he would ever share with his loving sister. He didn’t know what he would do without her.

Jim was just...confused. His best memories of the place were the days Medina would visit. She would bring magazines and articles on surfing or the places they had talked about visiting someday. Envisioning a life beyond this mundane and monotonous existence always brought him a fleeting joy, but that feeling always left with his sister. It was exhausting to have his emotions swinging back and forth inside of him like a tangled yo-yo. He wanted to see her, to feel happy for even the smallest moment, but was it worth the inevitable and painful crash that followed? The guilt that he was holding his sister back and the fear that she resented him?

“Perhaps we should limit your sister’s visits. We could see if that helps improve your mental state.” The doctor had made the suggestion one day after one of Jim’s episodes following Medina stopping by. He’d bruised his hand and nearly punched a hole in the wall in his frustration as he’d spiraled once again. Jim did not take the suggestion well. Orderlies were called in to restrain him while he cursed out the doctor, screaming that his sister “was all he had left”, and he’d been put under heavy sedation for at least a day until his mind and body were too numb to fight back anymore.

Rehab. A place where he was meant to heal and recover and lose his dependency on drugs and stolen medication. All he found was that they used his problems to load him up with all new drugs and all new problems. Most of his day was spent laying in the same spot on his cot, as close to the wall as possible, and counting the flecks of dirt that had gotten stuck in the paint on the wall. He found it hard to sleep after the episodes requiring sedation. His hands trembled and his heart raced. More often than not, his nights consisted of pacing the short distance of his room and clutched his chest in fear that his heart would burst through his ribcage. He couldn’t breathe and swore he was suffocating, panicking, crying for someone--anyone--to help him and make it stop. Please!

It was a day like any other the first time he saw her. They’d forced him into the common room where some patients played games together or watched whatever sitcom rerun showed on the shitty cable tv. Jim sat by the window, tired, empty eyes staring at the palm leaves swaying in the breeze as he dreamed of the ocean waves he’d surfed with Medina. He wondered if she was out there at that exact moment. His thoughts were interrupted by an unusual silence filling the room. Everyone turned to look at the doorway where a nurse was giving a tour to a slightly smaller young woman. Her hair curtained her face as she stood with her arms wrapped tightly around her middle. A sense of holding the shattering pieces of herself together, most likely. Not once did she look up to see who else was stuck in this place with her.

Jim didn’t blame her. Most of them came and went, only to come back again if they didn’t manage to find the eternal freedom they all chased at some point. Jim knew the mark of defeat she wore so obviously; it was identical to his and everyone else that was forced to be here. “Danger to themselves or others” they called them. Her shoulders tugged her upper body down to the ground, her steps slow and aimless as she shuffled over to sit at the far end of the window. Her legs tucked up to her chest and she shrank into the chair in an attempt to disappear. Jim’s eyes widened at the slow droplets of tears slipping down her cheeks. The dark circles beneath her eyes mirrored his own. She was sedated, too. He wondered what had happened to her, why she was here, and then he noticed the thick gauze bandages wrapped around her wrists. Oh.

Her eyes caught his staring at her forearms, and she quickly tugged the sleeves of her sweater down. He couldn’t tell if the look in her glassy eyes was hurt, embarrassment, or anger. Maybe all of the above. She wasn’t sure either. She curled in on herself and turned sideways to rest her forehead against the window. Her chest rose and fell with the jagged breaths she tried and failed to control. Jim forced his gaze back to the world outside, but the quiet sniffles from the armchair a few rows away brought his eyes back to her. She looked tired. So tired.

And she felt tired. So tired. It hurt to feel her heart beating. Each miserable thump inside of her chest continued to pump blood and forced her to keep breathing when all she wanted was for it to stop. Why couldn’t it just stop?! A soft sob parted her lips, and her distress only made her heart beat stronger. There was no more room for her to hide within herself. The muscles in her body shook for exhaustion and the effort she put into trying to will her body into an implosion. Weren’t the meds supposed to help them feel better? Now the guy across the room was staring at her like he didn’t have the same dead eyes and weight inside his soul. Asshole. Fuck him and his gorgeous crystal eyes that shone like the ocean in the sun.

One of the other patients that had been playing cards came over and sat down in the chair next to her. Her eyes remained glued to the outside, and that didn’t seem to sit well with her visitor. He wanted to know her name, why she was so sad, why she was there. Jim knew the guy, Harry, meant well, but he just didn’t know when to leave things alone and call it quits. It wasn’t going to end well for Harry. You never made someone already on edge feel interrogated and pressured. The biggest mistake came when he reached for her arm to see the bandages peeking out from under her sleeves. She jumped up quickly, ripping her arm out of his grasp, and cradled her arm protectively against her chest again.

“Don’t you fucking touch me!” Her scream filled the room, and she let loose a right hook that landed on his nose. 

“Oh, shit!” Jim’s eyes widened in surprise and an unusually bright smile lit up his face. The crunch of bone on bone let anyone within earshot know the guy’s nose was broken. He crumpled to the floor with a cry, holding a hand to his bleeding face, while she stood and panted over him with panicked eyes. A nurse rushed over quickly and looked between them, and two orderlies came running in. one of them bent to help Harry while the other held the girl firmly by her shoulders to keep her back.

“Samantha! What did you do?” The nurse glared at the young woman, Samantha, who opened and closed her mouth while trying to calm herself enough to form words in her defense. Her arms were wrapped around her middle again, and Jim could see her nails digging into her palms from where he sat. Large, fearful tears trickled down her cheeks as she looked up with wide eyes at the nurse towering over her.

“Harry grabbed her arm. She was just defending herself--I saw it. It looked like it hurt a lot.” Jim decided to help her out. Seeing her knock Harry on his ass had been the best thing he’d seen in months, if not years, and he still had a lazy smirk on his face from replaying it over in his head. Samantha stared at him in confusion. He had no reason to defend her, and yet here he was, trying to get her out of trouble. There had to be some ulterior motive, and that made him dangerous. She shrank back against the burly orderly holding her upper arms, even more so when the nurse reached forward and pulled her hand to move her sleeve up. Small patches of red had begun to blossom on the gauze, and the nurse sighed.

“Thank you, Jim.” The nurse nodded at him and quickly turned her attention back to the girl before her. One orderly was already taking Harry to get cleaned up and away from everyone else. “Come on, Samantha. Let’s get you looked at. You know you won’t be allowed to socialize with others if you can’t control your outbursts.”

“What a fucking loss,” she muttered under her breath.

“Samantha! Language!”

They walked past Jim, and he watched her go. Her eyes were trained on her slippers until she stepped next to him and gave him a sideways glance through her hair. He smiled softly only to be met with a teary glare. Jim lifted his hand in a weak attempt at a salutation. Samantha’s brow furrowed and she quickly turned away. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she owed him for stepping in on her behalf. The orderly pushed her forward and broke their eye contact. 

Jim wondered when he would see Samantha again, if she was going to be punished. Samantha hoped she didn’t have to see Jim’s blue tourmaline eyes peering into her ever again. It felt like he could unravel her from the inside out, and she didn’t need any help in that department. She glanced back at him once to see that he was back to looking out window, tired, empty eyes staring at the palm leaves swaying in the breeze as he dreamed of the ocean waves he’d surfed with Medina.

------------------

This one is a bit different and not for Michael. If you’d like to be removed from the taglist for this fic, please let me know!

@guiltyfiend @drasangel @michaellangdonstanaccount @jimmlangdon

#PLEASE READ THE WARNINGS #Jim Mason #Jim Mason Fanfiction #The Tribes of Palos Verdes #My fics #This hit hard and I cried a lot writing this so I'm sorry if it sucks #Jim Mason x Reader #Jim Mason x OC #Felt good to write it out though so yay for self-indulgent angst? #Why yes this fic is titled after my favorite Evanescence song #Listening to Dear Agony by Breaking Benjamin while writing this both helped and hurt tremendously

[admutual]

What do you think Roger’s childhood was like up in space?

oh god , i sdknsdkj have Some hcs for his childhood ,, but my hcs are kinda messy, so i’ll try to word this the best i can.

i’ll start with his relationship with his parents since i got a Lot to say here.

for starters,, his childhood was mostly ,, hh Not Great.

his mother was controlling, emotionally abusive, neglectful, and highly manipulative. she also kept roger a shut-in most of his childhood, so roger never really gained proper social skills and had to rely on her as his only source of interpersonal contact. she had this habit of bullying him and putting him down and just destroying his self-esteem, before softening up and drawing him back in with a faux sense of compassion and gentleness (she def tried to convince him that she was the only one who could possibly love him). she was sorta a ‘zira meets mother gothel meets rainflower from warrior cats, with a little frollo mixed in’ type. she was a mess.

his dad on the other hand was emotionally distant and absent and just utterly disinterested in roger, and the few times he was around he was loud, aggressive, and prone to fits of anger. he was also highly religious and it Showed. i don’t have the actual complete details for the religion he followed, all i really have is most of my inspiration for it stems from a lot of xenofiction i read (lapine mythology from watership down, starclan from warrior cats, the spirituality from tailchaser’s song ,, i’m like physically unable to make non-human creatures without drawing inspiration from xenofiction) and that roger definitely experiences some religious trauma from him.

his parents fought a Lot. and it did a number on roger,, kinda why i like to believe he’s so desperate for drama, it’s all he’s known and the peace of quiet living is unnerving to him.

roger was desperate to be on his parents’ good sides. his mother was unpredictable in this regard in that she bounced back and forth between being gentle and kind before switching to verbal abuse and aggression. his dad though never expressed any positive feelings for roger. rog tried really hard to earn his dad’s affection, but after he got older and started to realize that that just wasn’t gonna happen, his tone toward him shifted to disdain. it definitely helped that his mother was loud in her distaste for his father too and through her aforementioned behavior managed to keep roger on her side through it all. if his mom hated someone, roger did too.

that whole thing about roger eating his dad,, ye . gonna make that Edgier let’s go. i like to imagine it was long after roger had accepted that his dad sucked, he was alone with him, he got pushed a little too far, and he just snapped, killing him. as for the cannibalism thing, that religion i mentioned earlier? i still don’t have much details, but one thing i Do know is that one important belief in this religion is how their bodies are handled after death and it’s very important that funeral services are handled accordingly,, shit like don’t touch the body with bare skin after the passing, their grave must be lined with bark and leaves from a specific type of tree, no visiting the burial site for a set period of time after burial, etc. so roger, being the dramatic extreme petty bitch he is, decided to give one last ‘fuck you’ to his dad by eating him instead to fuck up the burial process. we love taking a generic primetime sitcom and making it edgier than it needs to be.

i kinda like to imagine roger’s relationships with his parents heavily influenced his relationship with stan and francine too:

for stan’s side, roger felt that stan reminded him a lot of his own father. like i said, roger felt a heavy resentment towards his father, and after coming to earth and finding he was going to be living with someone who all too closely resembled him, he put his foot down and refused to allow himself to keel over to what felt like mistreatment from him.

when roger first started to get to know stan, all he saw in him initially was the same anger and neglect he got from his own father, and in turn went out of his way to lash out and harass him as sort of a cathartic defense. but then time went on, the two started to see each other on their own level, and roger realized how stan below the surface was far from how his dad was, and he warmed up enough to view him as a close friend. i kinda like to think roger softened up to stan after finding out about jack too, as you know he could relate to him having a shitty neglectful dad himself.

as for francine, roger was drawn to her for the opposite reason in that she was nothing like his mom. roger was a total mama’s boy back home, like i said she kept him shut-in during his childhood to where she was the only one he could rely on. even after coming to earth, roger was still under the impression that she truly loved him and he had a habit of getting overly defensive of her (klaus makes a ‘your mom’ joke and roger’s in tears screaming at him to take it back). he started to question some of her treatment towards him the longer he stayed, especially with the more families he got close to where he got to observe other people’s parental relationships, but never enough to have an epiphany that she sucked. it wasn’t until after the events of ‘weiner of our discontent’ that he finally started to actively reflect on his past life on his home planet, now that he knew he was stuck on earth to stay, and he finally accepted that his mom wasn’t good to him.

as for how this influenced his relationship with francine, like i said francine was way different from roger’s mom. initially roger was super uncomfortable every time she treated him kindly and gently. he sorta held back from getting too close for a good month or two because he didn’t know which of her behavior was genuine and what was just a facade. but time went on, he decided to trust her by letting down his guard and allowing her to get close, and now the two are as tight-knit as can be. and roger’s still a total mama’s boy with her sometimes. also the aforementioned religious trauma roger experienced,, i like to believe that also drew him closer to francine after hearing her experiences growing up. roger’s just Shared Trauma Buddies with everyone.

anyways after years of constant abuse and neglect, he eventually finds a family that loves him unconditionally and he’s finally allowed to rest. i’m a slut for the ‘earn your happy ending’ trope and i’m pushing that onto roger.

(actually one last thing ,, this isn’t a set-in-stone hc, i’m not sure if i’m gonna keep it, but i like to bounce around the idea that maybe the reason his parents were so awful to him is because they believed he was responsible for a sibling’s death. like roger when he really little was out playing on the ice, things Went Wrong and it shattered, his older sib leaped in to rescue him, but things Went Even More Wrong, and his sibling managed to save him but not themself. and his parent’s (or at least his mom since i like to imagine his dad just from the start was pretty distant) immediately placed the blame on roger and never forgave. like i said idk if i’m gonna keep it as a hc, but whatevs thought i’d mention it anyway since the topic of roger’s childhood’s brought up)

and now that that’s done, the other stuff.

i like to believe because of roger’s kind’s practice of abduction, they have a decent enough study on various other planet’s species. and roger, from a young age, immediately built up a fascination with humans. he spent hours reading and rereading every study and book he could find on them. when he was given the choice to be The Decider, it was a complete dream come true for him, not only because he found what he felt was his life’s purpose, but also because he could finally study up close a species he’s admired all his life. (also once roger landed on earth his interest in humans quickly shifted from an ‘idk i just think they’re cute and fun and interesting creatures!!’ to an ‘oh fuck . o h god … humans are Hot what the hell ….’ like i make jokes about how ‘oh haha steve’s an alien fucker lol’ but tbh ……. roger’s the alien fucker in the relationship.)

bouncing off that, they definitely don’t have english as their main language. that’s always been a trope that’s annoyed me, the whole ‘every alien just inexplicably speaks english by default and can communicate with humans fluently’ trope. because of that, i like to believe roger self-taught himself multiple languages through earthling test subjects, listening to audio recordings and such. he wasn’t completely fluent, but it was enough that he could at least communicate enough once he landed on earth. and as for the mothership featured in ‘lost in space’,, hc that it’s installed with a universal translator. still kinda a lazy cop-out i guess, but whatever.

roger’s always been ,, idk,, softer than his species. not in an ‘uwu he’s actually a total sweetheart’ kinda way, but just in that unlike most of his kind, he can experience compassion (it’s rare and his conscience is still really weak, and empathy is still completely foreign to him, but he does experience compassion for those he allows to get close to him like the smiths), he’s always been too sensitive compared to most of his kind, he’s too emotionally-driven, he latches onto others and cares to much what others think of him, just a bunch of things that to most of his peers made him come across as ‘weaker’.

roger picked his own name!! i don’t really care for the trope of aliens having generic western names, so my hc is that when roger’s kind are born they’re given a placeholder name (or a title or something) and then they’re allowed to pick whatever name they want as they get older, which often times is influenced by other species. like i said earlier, roger’s always had a fascination with humans, and i like to think he decided to name himself after an abduction victim he read up on.

once roger was able to distance himself from his mom and was allowed on his own, he was a constant traveller, both in the sense of journeying across his home planet, and in finding any way possible to travel to other planets. sitting still for too long bored him and he needed to explore every possible place he could.

liste n ,,,,, roger loved building snowmen growing up. the few times he got the chance to get out was always spent building them and creating personalities for them. and he still finds himself building them on earth sometimes.

roger’s always loved reading. he can’t count how many times he flew through all the books they had around the house. and even now he just . really loves to read and can power through massive books in a matter of hours.

he loves watching the snow fall and blizzards always brought him a lot of comfort.

that whole thing about roger’s kind being 60% electricity? roger had a lot of trouble controlling excess electricity as a kid. his parents weren’t good teachers, so he just had a habit of accidentally jolting others on accident, sometimes while reading he’d get too excited and accidentally singe the papers a little, he was always pretty shaky as a kid just from how much electricity he had coursing through his body that he had zero clue how to process safely.

roger’s tendency towards playing characters came at a young age. he was always running around the house playing pretend as multiple characters and that habit just never went away.

i like to imagine roger enjoyed building little dens in the snow to chill in. for his kind, children tend to build snow dens to function in the same way human kids build treehouses,, just to vibe with their friends. and on earth sometimes during the winter roger will decide to build a den in the backyard and spend some of his nights down there.

roger’s kind love swimming. probably one of their more popular sports, hell some of them even choose to fish for their own food in the same way seals do. roger though? terrified of the water. nowadays he’s okay with it (still prefers to avoid it for the most part though), but as a kid it was one of his worst fears.

i feel like there’s something i’m missing? idk, this is long enough though so i’ll stop jsdgndks.

#anon #asks #american dad

[vagrantblvrd]

Temporal (1/1)

Summary: For the longest time they didn’t even know Matt had powers.

Notes: Prompt fill for @sentientmoths who asked for something based on this post.

(Read on AO3)

For the longest time they didn’t even know Matt had powers.

It’s Matt.

Weird little goblin who lives in his tech cave in the basement of their headquarters surrounded by ridiculously expensive computers and gadgets and other shiny things.

Just.

Really weird little goblin with this odd outlook on life and tolerant of the shit they put him through.  (Assholes with an amazing PR team for the public to love them as much as they do.)

He rarely ventures out of his tech cave, and when he does he risks exposing himself to all their assholish glory, and there’s a fuckton of that to go around.

Matt’s job is to keep them updated on crimes-in-progress around the city and any emergencies that spring up. And the thing where he keeps tabs on any villains the team may have in case they’re working on some dastardly new plot or scheme. And the other thing where he does pretty much everything to make sure they don’t get blindsided.

He gets along with everyone on the team, even the ones who’ve tried to kill him before. (Reformed villains and shenanigans that got out of hand.)

Has this thing going on with Ryan where Ryan threatens to kill all that Matt holds dear and so on that freaks the rookies out until they realize it’s just a fucked up game they play. A holdover from the days when Ryan was a supervillain and Matt made the mistake of getting in his cross-hairs that one time.

And then, you know, Trevor, who doesn’t seem to realize he can cone across as unsettling at times.

So...yeah.

Weird little tech goblin Matt who is just sort of there.

He’s a comforting voice on the other end of the comms when they’re on the field, quiet and competent and these hilarious little comments and quips that slip out at the best/worst times. (Generally speaking you don’t want to laugh in the face of the asshole threatening to level the city with their death laser when they’re monologuing, but what can you do, right?)

More than that, though, he’ll let Jeremy lure him out with promises of food or a game marathon, crooked smile like he thinks Jeremy’s ridiculous but whatever. It gets Matt out of that damn cave of his, has him taking a break he sorely needs and making sure the asshole doesn’t starve to death or burn out.

Listens to Jeremy’s outrageous stories or plans to modify his suit and then helps him implement upgrades, even as he mocks Jeremy’s eye for design. (Purple and orange go great together and Matt can go fuck himself on that one.)

Point is, they thought Matt was just a normal guy, albeit one with an above average tolerance for their bullshit.

And then the Breach happened.

One of the Professors - there are a ton of them, a tier below the Doctors - villains with a degree or other with delusions of grandeur and feeling shortchanged and blah, blah, blah) who sent a lackey to infiltrate the team.

Got onto the support staff and sabotaged missions and tech left and right until Matt realized something was up, and then -

Well.

Hell of a wake-up call, coming back from stopping a bank robbery only to find HQ in disarray and Matt in surgery because he’s a squirrely little shit.

Half the team in space because evil aliens bent on destroying the universe, and just Jeremy and Trevor and few rookies to hold down the fort while they were gone.

Hours of waiting to hear if he would make it, and Trevor and Alfredo watching him with these expressions on their faces he didn’t want to see. (Too close to pity to stomach, and goddamn Matt for being such an idiot, for going after the saboteur on his own and just – fucking idiot.)

Getting the story out of him had been a process, because Matt’s a stubborn bastard who didn’t seem to think his powers were anything special.

“I mean,” he’d said, shrug in his voice. “I reset when I die. Kind of a shitty power to have.”

That -

Jesus Christ, no.

“Matt,” Trevor had said, all disapproval and dismay. “You are an idiot.”

Because wow, yeah, okay, yes.

Yes he is.

The worst kind of idiot to just say something like that. Like he hadn’t been reliving his death other and over again for weeks until he stopped the saboteur and – literally – saved the day. Like it was just that simple, sitcom shenanigans and no lasting trauma to go along with it.

As for the part where Matt seemed to know what they would say before they said it? Jeremy’s aware he can be oblivious sometimes, but in that case he’d thought it was Matt knowing them as well as he did to anticipate the shitty one-liners they’d come up with.

Not that he’d relived the day enough times to have it memorized. Know everything that would happen right down to the second.

Just thinking about it gives him the chills, makes him sick to his stomach. Matt stuck in a time loop the rest of his team was oblivious to and reliving his death (murder) again and again until he -

“Hey,” Matt says as he walks up to Jeremy and cocks his head. Sighs, like Jeremy’s the asshole. “I could hear you trying to think all the way downstairs.”

It’s been months since the Breach and Matt’s up and about again, grumbling and grouching and being little goblin he is.

Which is great and all, it is, but Jeremy's brain hates him and likes to remind him about the time Matt died who knows how many times while the rest of them had no clue anything was wrong. (Wonders how often it happens, and when Matt discovered what his powers were. How young he was.)

Matt snorts, and looks at the sandwich Jeremy's holding.

Five minutes ago Jeremy was starving, couldn't wait to eat it and now he’s lost his appetite. (Weird how that happened.)

Matt slaps the sandwich out of Jeremy’s hand, just. Goes for it like it’s a bomb instead of the horrible monstrosity Jeremy concocted in the kitchen.

“Don’t eat that,” Matt says, and something about it -

“...Matt?” Jeremy says, blood going cold because Matt had sounded just like that the day he broke the time loop. Almost bled out before help got to him. Horrified at the thought something went wrong again, that Matt’s in another time loop the rest of them don’t even know about. “What - “

Matt looks at him for a long, long moment, dread building in Jeremy’s gut -

“Cholesterol, man,” Matt says, like his eating habits are so much better than Jeremy's. “It’s a killer.”

Jeremy’s train of thought derails taking all the paranoid, terrified thoughts with it as he stares at Matt.

“What?”

Matt grins, this crooked little thing that Jeremy kind of hates. (So much. Like. Just all the hate.)

“Cholesterol,” Matt repeats, taking care to enunciate like an asshole. “It’s a killer.”

Jeremy stares at Matt.

At horrible little goblin Matt who puts up with their shit to an extent it should be a power unto itself, and is also somehow more of an asshole than all of them combined.

“You - “

Matt’s grin gives way to his laughter, this stupid little thing Jeremy also hates (so much), because he’s an asshole and thinks giving his teammates a coronary is hilarious.

“I hate you,” Jeremy says, even though they both know he doesn’t mean it. Looks down at what’s left of his poor defenseless sandwich scattered over the floor. “So much, Matt. So much.”

Matt keeps laughing, and Jeremy feels himself relaxing at the sound of it. Carefree and happy – assholish - but happy. (Alive.)

“Yeah,” Matt says, getting his laughter under control. “Yeah, I know.”

There’s this pause, and then he chuckles.

“I’m surprisingly okay with that.”

Strangely enough, so is Jeremy.

#jerematt #ragehappy #sentientmoths #fic prompts #Kings of Nowhere #superpowers au

[wee-chlo]

Sitcom AU where after Five disappears, Reginald has an epiphany and commits to being Less of a Dick. It’s rocky going, because Reginald is still a stiff, socially inept curmudgeon who is terrible with children but his efforts include:

Awkwardly attempting to use the names Grace gave them. Eventually becomes so obviously painful that they all just give him an out and decide the number system is just a bunch of nicknames.

Giving Grace a room and more autonomy while also maintaining her upkeep so that she’s sharp as a tack well into their late twenties. Wins points with everyone with this but especially Diego.

The uniforms are worn during ‘school hours’; otherwise the children can wear what they like. Grace is given leave to take the children out for day trips and the first one is to go out and get them whatever clothing they want. Allison, Klaus and Vanya ask if they can get makeup. “Ask your mother.” “Of course!”

Sadistic abusive testing is completely done away with but the children are still trained in combat techniques, teamwork, strategy and tactics, etc. for the future. The creepy posters are taken down though. 

Giving Grace and Pogo leave to celebrate things like holidays and birthdays (hitherto dismissed as pointless waffle). Reginald rarely attends these festivities, but at least one of the children will usually have something for him. As the years pass, more of these gifts are actively used, worn, or put in places where they can be seen.

Coming clean about Vanya’s powers. Vanya goes no/low contact for years but she’s told about her powers in a way that doesn’t trigger every trauma she’s ever had. He makes sure she’s aware that she can keep the violin. She does.

After Klaus’ first (and successful) stint in rehab, he very reluctantly agrees to family therapy despite constantly insisting that he is not their father, he is their guardian, there’s a difference, they are his wards and charges, not his children. Results are mixed but predominately positive. The therapist is very straightforward about the consequences of his actions.

As a result:

Luther and Diego still snipe at each other but it’s more friendly and brotherly. Both of them are better adjusted emotionally and engage in vigilante crime-fighting antics together. They bicker about who’s the sidekick. Luther lives in the mansion, Diego has his own apartment and receives a stipend from Reginald for expenses. 

Luther is more mature, not mutated, and has a much more relaxed relationship with Reginald and his family in general. For awhile he didn’t really have much aside from training and crimefighting so the others encouraged him to get a hobby. Grace taught him how to cook and bake. He also adopted a puppy he named Orion. He has no authority over his dog. He initially intended to train Orion has a sort of sidekick attack dog to fight crime alongside him but then Orion curled up next to him on the bed that first night and he realized that if anything happened to Orion, he would kill everyone in the tri-state area and then himself. Orion stays home and keeps Pogo company.

Diego’s relationship with Eudora is still somewhat tumultuous but his emotional stability means it’s still pretty positive, with Luther and Diego having a much less abrasive relationship with the local police. Diego and Eudora still go on dates sometimes but not consistently. He doesn’t go on dates with anyone else though.

Allison is still a starlet but her relationships with her husband and child are much healthier and she uses her Rumor power much less. She used it pretty liberally early on but conversations with her family made her realize it wasn’t appropriate. She lives across the country but keeps in close contact with everyone and visits for holidays. She doesn’t receive a stipend, but did early on in her career. She and Luther have long since decided that they’re better as friends, and she encourages him to find someone because he really does need that kind of support and intimacy.

Klaus succeeded in kicking hard drugs and while he’s still a shameless pothead and disaster gay, he’s also much more stable. He’s an actor at the theater with plenty of friends and is a staple designated driver and mom friend of local gay bars and raves. He lives in the manor, where he and Luther have become very weird friends as Klaus tries to get Luther out of his shell. Klaus was most recently in a production of Les Mis as Grantaire. Everyone, including Grace, Pogo, and (reluctantly) Reginald, attended. Reginald declared it “surprisingly adequate”. It was the nicest thing he’d ever said to Klaus. 

Klaus got a Siamese kitten on a lark after Luther adopted Orion. Her name is Schatz and she is an absolute terror but always comes when Klaus calls her and will frequently ride on his shoulder like the cutest parrot in the world. 

Ben is alive and is going to college to be a nurse. He still lives at the mansion but actually does pay rent (not a lot, but still) and works as a bicycle courier on the side. He and Klaus are besties; Klaus drags him to every gay bar in the city and he has lots of admirers. Klaus also hooks him up with the therapist he started seeing after rehab. For therapy. Not for romantic liaisons.

Vanya’s therapy actually works because she knows why she needs it. She goes off her power-inhibiting meds, starts taking meds that will actually help her, and retreats to a quiet, isolated place to focus on learning how to control her powers without hurting people. She went no/low contact with the others both because of her hurt and anger and because she didn’t want to hurt them while she experimented. She doesn’t write a tell-all book, and Reginald quietly sends her a stipend to live on while she trains herself.

The Story

Instead of Five dropping in right before Hargreeves’ memorial service, he drops in right before the family’s “Welcome Back, Vanya, We’re Still Super Sorry and Love You Very Much” party as Vanya finally feels comfortable enough to return to the mansion. 

Everyone is still outrageously distracted from Five’s Very Important Mission accept for Hargreeves, who immediately pulls out the uniforms he’s had prepared for them for just this instance. Five’s is too big. Five puts on the school boy uniform and is very weirded out when Reginald apologizes because he assumed Five wouldn’t be a literal child when he returned but he really should have been better prepared.

“Dad, you told the therapist you got rid of those.” “I lied.” “.... alright, asked and answered.”

Instead of being distracted by things like trauma, dysfunction, drug abuse, etc., everyone’s distracted by mundane, goofy nonsense. Luther is set up on a blind date by Klaus with the girl who played Eponine, and is reluctant to leave when Five tries to drag him out of the restaurant. Allison’s husband has the flu so she can’t leave, she doesn’t know anyone here and who would take are of Claire? “... HOW ABOUT MOM, ALLISON?” 

Klaus helps for awhile but is immediately distracted by a very cute soldier in line to discuss a prosthetic leg who introduces himself as David Katz. Five admits through gritted teeth that yes, he has a great smile, but you know what he’ll have in a week if we don’t get this done? A really bad case of death.

Vanya’s better but then she meets Dave’s sister, Esther, and becomes as distracted as Klaus and Five wonders if it’s not too late to just let the apocalypse happen.

Only Reginald is helpful but even his assistance is limited because he basically hasn’t left his manor in actual years and looks like he’s straight out of a Dickens novel. Grace is only moderately more believable. Pogo is a monkey.

On the plus side, the group is much better at working together because despite deciding that brutal psychological abuse wasn’t the best way to go about things, Reginald still made sure they were prepared and well-trained. Hazel and Cha-Cha are still terrifying but Klaus isn’t kidnapped and they’re sent scurrying away after the attack on the academy.

Eventually, Five learns that Hazel and Cha-Cha weren’t sent to ensure the apocalypse but to attempt to instigate it because it’s basically been stopped in it’s tracks by the Hargreeves family being Weird-But-Chill instead of Insane-and-Dysfunctional. However, between Hazel becoming both infatuated with Agnes and increasingly disinterested in causing the destruction of the world as we know it, Cha-Cha not really getting any backup, and the Umbrella Academy’s impressive (if frequently distracted) competence, it just becomes a big circus of black comedy, slapstick, and slice of life nonsense with Five and Reginald trying and failing to get the others to keep their eye on the birdie for longer than six minutes at a time but everyone’s too distracted by things like cute girls and anatomy tests and families and being really gay.

#the umbrella academy #tua #tua spoilers #klaus hargreeves #vanya hargreeves #reginald hargreeves #luther hargreeves #allison hargreeves #ben hargreeves #diego hargreeves #number five

[lucanogis]

fanfic: tender matters such as life

Title: tender matters such as life Fandom: Gakuen Alice Length: 5.2k Summary: Aoi Hyuuga has what she always wanted: A relationship, an apartment, a good job. Yet somehow, memories of her past can’t seem to let her go. And running into Rei Serio in front of a grocery store only makes matters worse. Set after Ch. 180, written for day 2 of ga-party’s May prompts: childhood trauma. 

{ao3} , {ffn}

She doesn’t remember much, but she knows he is her protector. He promised her that and why shouldn’t she believe his words? He was there when she woke, he is there still. He shows her how to use her hands to grasp her surroundings: The wooden floor that leaves tiny splinters in her skin and the metal bars that keep her inside, no, safe. The small bathroom and the shower, her table and her bed. The air is cool, always cool. No fire reaches her skin, no ash tickles her nose. Everything beyond the room and her protector is blurry. Sometimes she reaches for it but always, always there is a wall. But the wall is good, he says. There is no joy beyond the wall. The outside world, he tells her, will not treat her kindly. Sometimes, solitude is protection. She can hear he speaks the truth, the kind of aching, painful truth one cannot learn, only experience. She believes him. He is her protector, after all, and no fire will burn her, no darkness terrify her, as long as he is by her side.

Aoi Hyuuga spots Persona while she’s out buying milk and cornflakes. The night before was rough, as most nights are, lately. She spent a good three hours fighting with Paige about...honestly, she hardly remembers what they were fighting about. Life is strangely cyclical these days. Hours blur together until they become weeks and one argument over their future bleeds into the next. Maybe that’s why she goes out to buy cornflakes - her girlfriend likes them and watching her wolf down three bowls will restore peace to their tumultuous relationship, until the next day at least.

It’s October and the air outside is freezing already, as though winter is stretching out its fingers to have just a little bit more time to wreak havoc. Aoi shivers and burrows her face into her jacket. She’s crossing the street when she sees him. His hair is dark but shorter than she remembers and he’s putting groceries into a car. She’s heard about the whole thing, of course. It’s not like it hasn’t been years since the Elementary School Principal of the Alice Academy in Japan fell and Rei Serio left the school to pursue a better life. But in all those years he never sought her out. Her brother told her Serio got married, had a baby. Back then, her stomach twisted at the thought.

He sees her, she knows he does, even as she tries to hurry into the store. “Miss Hyuuga,” he says.

His voice makes her breath quicken. It’s the same voice, slightly rough around the edges, the same voice she remembers hearing throughout the years she spent living in darkness. Right now, however, shock tints his words and she doesn’t remember that, doesn’t remember him sounding anything less than perfectly in control. She bites down on her lips, anticipating his next words.

“Please, can I...can we talk?”

Aoi pauses in her steps and answers without turning to face him. “I’d rather not,” she says hurriedly, her tongue stumbling over the words. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m busy.”

Three more steps and the doors of the store open. She passes shelves, employees, customers before stopping in between two racks of fruit. Her heart is pounding hard enough to escape from her chest and she can’t quite seem to catch her breath. Aoi lets fear push her down and falls to her knees, the granite floor cool under her legs. He’s just a person, she thinks. Just one person.

She thinks about calling her brother, too, but her fingers won’t listen to her so she leans her head back to look at the ceiling. Above her, fluorescent light bulbs gleam and she stares at them until small dots start dancing in front of her eyes, lets their brightness chase away any lingering memories. Breathing, her therapist taught her, is the most important thing. She breathes for a while, even as her body tells her that she is dying dying dying dead. The panic fades eventually. It doesn’t leave but then it never does. Aoi thinks that maybe it’s just a part of her now - like her bones and her blood and her skin, something life has knitted into her body. She can sense it rising and falling as she goes to buy the cornflakes she came for, incessant tiny waves forever crashing against her mind.

Her brother never quite understands why she chooses architecture as her career. “You would make a great teacher,” he tells her once. “Or a doctor. Something like that.” But architecture offers her the opportunity to make things that will outlive her - buildings that will house humans for decades. After a childhood of leaving buildings behind and burning them down, it feels like absolution to construct them now. Whatever she tore down, whatever was taken because of the fire in her veins, she will rebuild. And the homes that rise up now from the ashes of her own mistakes will be five, no ten times stronger than what came before them. Robustness, that’s what it is about. Nothing fanciful, nothing wasteful, something that will last. “Doesn’t sound like fun,” her brother says. He looks at her with serious red eyes so she forces a smile. “It’s what I want to do,” she tells him. “It’s who I want to be.”

Paige is waiting for her when she unlocks the door to their shared apartment. “Where have you been?,” she demands. There’s an edge to her voice. Aoi stretches out her arm to present the bag she’s carrying. “I got you some cornflakes,” she says, keeping her voice light, her lips curved into a smile. “We didn’t have any left so I thought-”

“You should have told me you were going somewhere,” Paige interrupts. “I called you a dozen times, can’t you at least pick up the phone?”

Aoi slips out of her shoes and hangs up her jacket. “I didn’t hear the ringing,” she answers truthfully. “You know I always keep it on mute.”

Paige’s face twists into a grimace of anger. Inwardly, Aoi sighs. “Look,” she says, trying to sound as calm as she can. “I’m sorry. Let’s not fight, alright?”

“Suit yourself,” Paige hisses. She shakes her head, her reddish curls bouncing up and down as she does, and grabs the bag Aoi’s still holding before stomping off without a word. Aoi can hear her rummaging around in the kitchen and closes her eyes. Breathe, she thinks. Just breathe.

There were days, many months ago, that being with her girlfriend felt less like a chore and more like a blessing. She’d been single for as much as a year at that point, watching from the sidelines as her brother got engaged to his long-time girlfriend. Her own previous relationship had imploded - she’d loved Ahn, but her ex had been so independent that it was difficult to hold onto her in a romantic way. Paige was the complete opposite: Ready to move in with Aoi, ready to settle down. Stability. Until she switched jobs and started coming home tired and irritated, filled with stories about an industry Aoi knows nothing about.

Maybe this is normal, she tells herself as she walks up the stairs to her laptop. The endless repetition, the dullness, the fighting. As much as the arguing exhausts her, at least she knows Paige won’t leave. Aoi can’t exactly say the same about anyone else in her life. Natsume may always manage to come back, but that doesn’t change the fact that he disappears all the time, dropping of the face of the earth to save the world with his friends. He has their mother’s blood, her spirit, Aoi thinks.

She isn’t made for saving the world. She just wants to have her relationship, her home, her job. She’s an architect, mostly responsible for making structural plans for factories and it’s good, honest work. Every time she presents her clients with a plan, their smile makes the geometry and endless planning worth it. Well, almost. Lately not even her job has made her smile. Factories are...robust, redstone and metal, but they’re not places people live in. Still, they’re what her firm specializes in and being self-employed is too high a risk to take.

But when she checks her laptop after getting upstairs, she doesn’t immediately delete a mail her brother forwarded her, about some rich guy looking for a freelance designer to draw up plans for his new home. The guy seems to want a lot, perhaps more than any architect can give him. He is well-known, so any architect who does give him what he wants can expect much needed exposure.  Aoi leans back in her chair. Above her head, the first building plans she ever made are pinned to the ceiling. They are...ambitious, a colossus of sturdy metal and glass. They got her into her desired architecture program, they got her this far. She looks back down to read the email again. “Free-standing, ambitious, cutting edge” it says.

“Sounds like anyone but me,” she mutters to herself and pushes her chair back to get up. But as she walks downstairs, the words echo in her mind and her fingers itch for a pen. Maybe, her mind whispers, maybe, maybe. It won’t quiet down, not even as she sits down next to her girlfriend, not even after the two of them watch a sitcom in awkward silence. Maybe, maybe, this is something she can do.

Her father is the one who convinces her to see a therapist. He says her weight loss worries him, almost as much as the way she never quite laughs with her eyes anymore. He doesn’t make her tell him what’s wrong, but he does tell her about her mother, how she was beautiful and strong but sometimes felt so sad and lost that she didn’t care about life or love or her future. The therapist talks to her about the fear monster, which is what she has started to call the lingering memories from her time at the Academy, talks to her about her dreams for her life and her job. It doesn’t fix everything but it helps, the same way turning on the light helps one find scattered items on the floor. At the same time, it makes Aoi’s skin crawl. Why does she need help? Has the school damaged her so badly, has it made her weak? Or, even worse: Was she weak from the start?

“How do you feel about today’s fight,?” her therapist asks her. Aoi shrugs. She’s sitting on the leather couch in her therapist’s office. The sun is shining through the trees outside, throwing leaf-like shadows onto the wall. It’s a peaceful day, far too peaceful to discuss the intricacies of her relationship.

“It was the same as all the other fights,” she says. “I’m sure we’ll figure it out.” Her attempt at a hopeful smile clearly falls short, because her therapist raises her brows.

“That may be true, but do you want to figure it out?”

Aoi frowns. “What do you mean?”

“Are you happy, Aoi?”

“Sure I am,” Aoi says, the answer more a reflex than the truth. “I love my girlfriend, this is just a rough patch.”

Her therapist nods. “I see. It just seems as though every day, she does something that upsets you. Sometimes people just aren’t compatible. It’s not weakness to walk away from someone who isn’t right for you.”

“What we have between us is good,” Aoi insists. She fiddles with her thumb. “Once we’ve put this behind us, we might even get married. Why not, we already have an apartment. You know, my brother was engaged when he was my age.”

“Why is it you want to get married? Why do you want a life with her?”

“Well, I love her. Obviously.”

Her therapist’s questions are starting to make her uncomfortable and Aoi glances at the clock. There’s still ten more minutes before the session is over.

“Look, does it really matter why I want to get married?,” she says impatiently. “It’s the normal thing to do.”

Normal. She stares at her therapist, who is now wearing a quiet, almost expectant smile. Normal. Is that a reason to want to be with someone? Aoi doesn’t know, but it’s certainly better than the void she slipped into during some of the months she spent being single. The darkness then was almost as bad as the darkness in the Academy’s cage, only it whispered even crueller things into her ears and took away all her motivation. She couldn’t even make herself get out of bed in the morning, let alone do her job. Compared to that, compared to the things she has experienced, her daily fights are a walk in the park and marriage, God, marriage seems like heaven.

“Do you think you deserve no better than that?,” her therapist asks. “No better than a relationship with someone you don’t really get along with? Do you think you won’t find anything in the world that makes you happier?”

Happiness, a loaded word. Aoi was happy once, the innocent kind of happy only children can really feel. And she still is happy now, in some ways at least. She is happy when she sees her brother and his fiancee, her childhood friend Luca, she is happy when she sees the lives they have built. She is happy when she finishes a project.

“I am happy,” Aoi says out loud. The words feel hollow in her mouth.

When she climbs into her car after her session, Aoi feels strangely lonely, so she does what she usually does when that particular emotion creeps up on her. She dials her brother’s number, puts him on speaker and starts her drive home. He picks up after the first ring.

“What’s up?,” Natsume asks.

“Oh you know,” she says. “Just so bored that even talking to you seems preferable to doing nothing.”

Natsume laughs. “Yeah right.”

“Hey, have you picked a wedding venue?”

His audible groan makes her smile.

“Please, don’t you start, too. Luca and Mikan have decided that planning weddings is their calling or something and they won’t stop pestering me about it. I want one second of peace. Just one second! Can’t a guy have at least that?”

“Hmm, I don’t know, Mr. Groom-to-be,” she teases gently. “It is your wedding, after all.”

“If it were up to me, we’d get married a week from now in Imai’s workshop or something. But that sadistic witch won’t let me,” he complains. For a while, they're both silent as she weaves her way through the traffic. Eventually, he asks: “Hey, are you ok?”

“I saw Persona today. I mean, Serio. Whatever.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“No,” she says. “I was...busy.”

“Oh,” he says. Again, silence stretches between them. Aoi gnaws on her bottom lip. She can practically hear her brother’s worried thoughts pile up inside his head. She realizes that although they both know Rei Serio, they know different versions of him. She knows the man who trapped her yet treated her with kindness. He knows the man who kidnapped his sister and hurt him and his friends.

“How can you stand to even look at him?” The words burst out of her unwillingly.

“I don’t know,” Natsume answers. She overtakes another car and stops at a red light before he answers. “I guess one day I just looked at him and realized that hating him would never make me a better person. Part of me will always feel those feelings but...he saved Mikan. I can’t ignore what he did to you but I can’t ignore that either. He seems like he’s trying to change and he better be because if he ever hurts anyone ever again, I’ll kill him.” She knows her brother well enough to understand he’s serious. “But until then,” Natsume continues. “Until he hurts someone, I’ll let him be. Let him try to be better, I guess.”

Aoi is still pondering his words when she pulls into her driveway.

“Hey….Do you have his number?,” she asks before she can stop herself.

“I...Yeah. Mikan gave it to me. Why?”

“Tell him to meet me,” Aoi says. “Tomorrow morning, at the Starburst cafe. Tell him not to be late.”

“Alright,” Natsume says. “I will. Love you, sis.”

“I love you, too.”

And she does, even more than she already has, loves him so fiercely it makes her smile despite her thudding heartbeat. Perhaps some of her mother’s liquid fire courage is finally stirring inside of her, or maybe it’s just the craziness her brain can never quite shed, but whatever it is, it’s pushing her forward, pushing her to meet the man who shaped her past.

Everything comes back to her after her brother frees her. Colors, feelings a sense of purpose. But he sends her away after a few precious days and she feels lost. Her Alice is still gone and the darkness may have a different form now but it’s still there. She makes her father leave the lights on when he tucks her in before sleep, because she is afraid of waking up in the middle of the night and feeling helpless once more. The children at school smile at her and they don’t ask questions. She is thankful and smiles back, thinking that maybe this could be a new beginning. Freedom is exhilarating and wonderful and more, much more than she could have imagined. She dreams of her brother and her mother, of seeing them again. Time, she believes in her heart, will bring all of them together one day. For a while the fear vanishes entirely, but then her brother dies and it flares up, blazes like a flame. Freedom is cruel and terrifying and more, much more than she can handle.

They meet in a small cafe. He’s already there and she can see him through one of the windows, sitting at a table for two and staring straight ahead. For just a few seconds, Aoi wants to turn and and leave. It would be the easy thing to do, it would make the panic disappear again, for a few moments at least. The life she has now, the life she has built, has survived without Rei Serio’s interference. She doesn’t need a resolution to this story, never has. But her reflection in her car window looks back at her through big, deep red eyes and she remembers her mother, beautiful and fierce, the mother she has never known but who maybe, just maybe, is just as alive inside of her as the fear is. Aoi gets out of her car, grabs her keys as tightly as she can and walks forward.

He raises his head when she enters. The shock is back except this time she’s familiar with it. When she sits down on the other side of the table, she scoots back with her chair back, widening the space between them. “So,” she says. “What did you want to say?”

“I didn’t think you’d come,” Serio says. He glances at the gap between her and the table and then up to meet her eyes. “I don’t think I would have, if I were in your position.”

“Well, we’re not the same person,” Aoi says forcefully. All the words she has swallowed before, all the thoughts her session with her therapist has reawoken spill forth now. The smile she usually wears feels impossible to accomplish and so she lets kindness drain from her features as she presses her shaking fists into her legs. She forgets to breathe, lets the anxiousness wash over her, lets her feelings carry the words out of her mouth.  “We were never the same, you and me. I don’t care what happened to you, what sadness they put you through. You took my life and you twisted it around and you had no right to do that, none.”

Her voice becomes louder with each word and a waiter approaches their table. She waves him off with one impatient gesture before focussing on her companion once more.

To her surprise, Rei Serio nods. “You’re right,” he says. “I don’t expect forgiveness for the things I have done. I just wanted to-”

His words are interrupted when his phone starts ringing. The paleness of his skin makes it easy to spot his embarrassment as his ears go slightly red. He peeks at his phone screen and curses softly under his breath. “Do you mind if I….” He gestures towards his phone. Aoi shrugs.

“Go ahead,” she tells him.

With a grateful nod, he picks up. Immediately, as though someone flicked over a switch, the anxiety disappears from his face and a hint of a smile lifts the corners of his mouth.

“Nobara,” he says, “Are you ok?”

His wife, Aoi thinks. The girl who somehow fell in love with a guy who hurt children, who threw them in a cage and lied to them. She doesn’t understand it, their relationship, doesn’t understand how anyone could just forget the blood on Rei Serio’s hands. But her former captor seems so non-threatening all of a sudden, so hopelessly smitten. It’s a startling transformation that reminds her of the way her brother looks at the people he loves. He, too, is lethal in a fight but there are more sides to him than the death she knows he has rained down upon others. In front of her, Serio laughs and Aoi averts her eyes. He never used to laugh when he visited her in her cage. Back then, his voice was heavy and the smell of death clung to his skin. Everything he had witnessed as a child, the horrible things her brother told her about, had twisted him into a monster.

“Does she make you better?,” she asks, after he has finished his call. The question surprises him.

“Yes,” he says, quietly at first and then again, adoration tinting every word. “Yes, she does. But...not in the way you think. She tried to change me, yes, but she did more than just that. She loved me enough to believe I could change. Like maybe all the bad things weren’t what had to define my life, like I could chose to be more than what happened, even after...even after everything.”

“I see,” Aoi says. The gap between the table and her chair lets her see her own hands. They’re laying on her legs, fingers outstretched, palms relaxed. Somewhere in between entering the cafe and listening to Rei Serio talk, fear released its grip on her heart. “Why did you come?”

“I wanted to tell you….I’m sorry. All those months you had to spent in that cage, they’re on me. If I’d been a stronger man, a braver one, I could have gotten you out. But I only ever knew the darkness as a protector. I thought… I thought it might protect you, too. From me and the school and the whole damn fucking mess that was being an Alice back then. But as you said, we’re not the same person. Far from it. You were smart enough to take the hand that tried to save you. It took me a lot longer to do the same.”

“I don’t forgive you,” Aoi says. It feels important to make that clear, to make him realize that understanding him doesn’t erase the past, just puts it into perspective.

“I don’t expect you to,” Serio clarifies. “I just wanted...I wanted you to know that you were never to blame for that fire, or the cage, or your blindness. You never walked into that darkness by your own volition, I pushed you in.”

“I know,” Aoi counters almost automatically. Of course she knows. Right? Of course she has never spent the entire night imagining all the people who got hurt in that town fire or those many many months she never once tried to escape from her cage. Of course she never agonized over her own weakness and wondered how much faster her brother would have gotten away from Persona. Of course she knows. She breathes in and out and looks at him, her heated emotions replaced with pity.

“I never want to see you again,” Aoi tells Rei Serio.

He nods mutely. She thinks that this might be what endings feel like.

She feels lost when she isn’t in a relationship. Before, her father was always there but now she’s living alone and it makes her feel frail. It becomes harder and harder to stay positive, to keep going. Then, one day, she sees a girl with dark hair and dark eyes. They meet, they talk, they fall in love. It’s overwhelming and crazy and life-changing but the girl is like a bird, always ready to take flight and Aoi wants nothing more than for her to stay stay stay. The girl doesn’t want to stay and suddenly Aoi is alone again. She finishes her degree, she starts working. Possibilities are endless, are a chasm opening up in front of her to swallow her whole. She takes the first job she is offered and immerses herself in it. This is right, she tells herself. This is a great opportunity. This is who she is now, even if it feels nothing like the girl she was before and nothing like the girl she set out to be.

They part ways soon after that but she doesn’t go back to her car right away, instead opting to take a walk in a nearby park before sitting down on a bench. Rei Serio is a different man. It doesn’t change the fact that a long time ago, he was a bad one, but it does make her question other things. Perhaps it is possible to shed her skin. Perhaps it is possible to leave the familiar form of her body behind, to slip out of it like one would slip out of a dress and become something, become someone new.

At home, Aoi pulls her first architectural plans from the wall and stares at them. She’s been doing this job for years now and so she can spot all her small mistakes, her miscalculations, the moments where she got lazy. Still, something about the building is magical in the way only beginnings can be. It reminds her of her university days, of meeting her first girlfriend and sneaking kisses from her between classes.

“Free-standing, ambitious, cutting edge”. She picks up a pencil and turns the plans upside down. Her old drawings are still visible but less defined, not a finished product but the first buds of a new idea. Kneeling in front of her plans, she starts drawing. The metal is replaced with wood but she keeps the glass. Aoi draws a building that is floating, balancing walls of windows on poles of wood. One forest fire and the whole thing would come down, she thinks, and the thought makes her feel giddy not scared. She adds steel to the wooden poles, a hidden core of strength. She wants a building that both blends into its surroundings and enhances them, something that looks time and obscurity in the eye and gives both a defiant middle finger.

Her dark hair falls into her forehead, her fingers become smudged and her back hurts. But the house she is building keeps growing, takes on a life of its own. It isn’t a factory, it’s not made to be sturdy but it’s strong in structure as well as in character. Being blind for a few months has granted her the ability to feel materials as well as see their beauty, and now she can imagine it all, the coolness of the steal and the smoothness of the polished wood, the warmth of the sun shining through the enormous windows. The house is new and good and it has character, spirit, a genuine fire her other houses lacked.

Steps on the staircase make her turn around. Paige is there, her hair still tied back from a long day at work. She looks tired and for the first time Aoi wonders whether perhaps her girlfriend dislikes the fighting just as much as she does, dislikes what they’ve become and how they’ve trapped one another in a tight ball of expectations and fear.

“Hey,” she says tentatively.

“Hey,” Paige says. She stares down at the plans on the ground before sinking to the floor to sit next to Aoi. “You’re building something,” she says, less question, more statement of a fact.

“Yes,” Aoi says. “It’s a design for an architecture competition. Do you like it?”

Paige stares at it for a while.

“It’s beautiful,” she says eventually. “I didn’t know you wanted to design houses like that.”

“Me neither.”

They sit next to each other and Aoi scoots over until she can slip her hand into her girlfriend’s. The skin feels strange to her, unfamiliar.

“I think….I think this is over,” she says at length.

It’s strange that the words come to her now, when they aren’t fighting or yelling at each other. It’s almost peaceful to sit next to Paige, to feel the warmth of her body. But it isn’t romance, not anymore. Maybe the lack of anything between them is something only silence could reveal or maybe Aoi has seen it the whole time but really was too scared to search for something better.

“Yeah,” Paige says. She looks down at their clasped hands, squeezes them once and lets go. “I think so, too.”

They end up not having to fight over who gets the apartment. Paige owned it before they got together, it’s only fair she gets to keep it now. Aoi packs her things and leaves. It’s early morning so she drives to a copy shop to scan her design blueprint before forwarding it to the rich guy’s address. Then she climbs back into her car and drives two hours to her brother’s house.

He opens the door after the first knock and doesn’t seem all that surprised when he sees her belongings in boxes. He just picks them up, carries them into his home and then turns around to hug her.

“Hey, sis,” Natsume says.

“Hey idiot,” Aoi answers.

She falls asleep next to him that night, nestled between him and Mikan and it’s the best sleep she has gotten in months. Aoi doesn’t end up staying with them long, only two weeks or so. The money she receives when the rich guy tells her he wants to commission her to design his house is enough for her to rent out a small apartment, one filled with no one but her. She quits her job, too, and it’s easier than she expected. At night, she still sleeps with her lights turned on and sometimes the emptiness of her apartment is a terrifying thing.

The fear inside her never leaves and the memories don’t do either. She still sees her therapist, too, and it helps, even if it sometimes makes her question her own strength. But her life is all of it - the fire that destroyed her home town, her lost eyesight, her time in the Academy with Rei Serio, her brother’s love and her mother’s death. It’s a crazy life, and a good one and more than anything, it is hers. 

#gakuen alice #alice academy #galice fanfic #aoi hyuuga #rei serio #natsume hyuuga #ga-party #wooo i wrote another thing i other news my hands are dead my shoulder is dead my everything is dead! #but i did want to try and talk about mental health and aoi so have a fic i guess?? #manga: gakuen alice #m* #mine: fanfic #mine: writing

[turningtrrift]

Short Story

Let's call the boy "Raven."

By: Chua, Maria Ysabelle

If Raven did not start saying "Hi," I wouldn't have noticed him. In fact, he had said "Hello" to me many times already before I realized that he was actually my lab classmate of mine who I’ve been sitting a few tables away from me all semester. Yes, Raven was really nothing special.

Except he asked for my number game over. Before school closed for the summer break, he asked me and said he wanted to greet me on my birthday. I made excuses, but he insisted. I gave in. He called. Often. We became close friends.

For the sake of our friendship, I ignored the rumors and the chocolates on Valentine's Day. It was harder to ignore the little notes he left on my locker: "Didn't see you today ah. Went home na. Talk to you tonight, okay?" It was even harder to ignore the kilig feeling that sparked in me when I read them.

But I couldn't turn a eye to the dozen roses of them all around my car one day. Friendship it just wasn't the word for it anymore, and I know it I can’t be wrong. I opened my eyes to the fact that he was treating me like a girl not a guy friend anymore. But why would he do that? I wasn't gay. Was I? The boundaries of our relationship were out of seen already; it was only a matter of time before one of us crossed the line.

It was raining that day I told him. I was at university, at the hallway on the bench, and nervous as hell. The day could not end without me knowing what we were just friends or... at the time I could not even bring myself to consider that we could only stay friends. But I knew there were feelings between us that I didn't understand and that I wanted to be more because it could be the best thing that ever happened to me. You always see the bright side when you're in love.

He picked up the phone.

"Raven, I have to tell you something. Promise me to just listen because I'm only going to say this once, and if you don't hear it, bahala ka na, basta I said it na ha."

And I said it: "I'm in love with you, Raven."

We were supposed to live happily ever after I loved him, and we were close friends. These stories always end happily. But instead, there was quietness.

Later on, he told me he is not gay. The roses, the phone calls, the playlist he played for me on the phone these where things guys did for the ones they loved but not with me. So how could he not be in love with me after all? It was an emotional distress and a love crisis all at once. He made me question who and what I was and changed the way I saw myself and who’s around me.

Whatever it was, it ended. And though our ending was forever after, it wasn't happy.

But it was also a beginning.

It wasn't really about "coming out gay" for me because it was something I was hiding in the closet. It was just that I had only began to realize who I really was. After "the Raven thing," times were a bit hard. Aside from the heartache I felt because of the end of the relationship and the confusion that cause me because I was discovering my true identity, there was the added trauma of dealing with a judgmental society. People who knew me insisted I had been in the closet for too long because they always had suspected I was a gay, as if I had been pretending not to be gay. That was a bit harsh. They were intentionally calling me a liar to my face, and the worst kind, too, because I had been lying about who I was so they felt it.

On the other side, there were people who felt I was pretending to be gay. They looked for evidence when they should have looked at the person. Aside from the fact that I didn't fit their group of gayness, hadn't I had a girlfriend for some time before I guess? Did I still not like girls?

True, I used to have a crush on a girl in my barkada (before I met Raven) who later became one of my really good friends. And after Raven, I had a relationship with another girl, which also ended though we are now still close friends. But when every time I thought about it, that's what girls were to me really, friends. I used to "fall in love" with them because they were caring and kind, I wanted to develop in myself. I used to like woman who fit the "mother image." They've since become like sisters to me then.

It was different with guys. No brotherly love here, I wanted something more than just friends. There's an attraction that isn't there with your friends. Let's say it, sexual attraction is what defines ones sexuality. No matter how close we are with our girlfriends or how much we care about them, there are bounds we won't ever cross because they're straight, and we are gay.

No matter what people thought or say, I knew I was no great fraud. I was just continuing to be myself. I did not start to dress or talk differently or make an effort to show off my newfound self. Being gay wasn't a role I had to take on, so why should I change clothes or put on a show?

Remembering the "signs" were there, even when I was young. I used to think homosexuality developed because of his/her environment or because who influences him/her while growing up, but now I believe people are born homosexual. Even earlier than I can realize, I was gay-even before my gay friends, my theater group, my first love, and all the other reasons one would explain why I "became gay." I cleaned up my room the other day, I came across an old story I'd written when I was in fifth grade. Whenever I would describe a female character, the illustration would be short, sometimes just giving her a name. With the male characters, my imagination really outflows. The story would read something like this: ‘This is Issa. She has a best friend named Robin. Robin is so cute. He has an athletic body and likes to play baseball, and he wears short trunks.' And this was before I even knew what being gay was.

There was no dramatic happen with my family where I sat them all down for my big confession. I didn't feel the need to tell them I was gay, and I didn't need to hear them saying they accepted me. Do I need them to tell me they are straight? Of course no.. Being straight or gay doesn't define you as a person. You are what you are, no explanation needed. I didn't change, so the way they treated me didn't change too. Even before I realize I was gay, I'd openly point out cute guys when we go out, and they just laugh. There was nothing for them to adjust to, because I was just being me. Matthew, their son, their brother who just happened to like boys.

I think my mama has always know I was gay because she will tell me telltale stories from my childhood how I liked to dress up as a girl and dance. It was a little harder for my father and brother the men in the family but they were understanding. I'll still give them the grandchildren they want if I can. Since the Philippines is a Catholic country, sadly, I don't see that happening in the future. One of the greatest joys in the world is to be a father/mother. It hurts to think I could be poor of that just being gay.

I think gay people like me are the loneliest people in the world, especially here in the Philippines, because they don't guarantee of companionship in their later years, they can't get married, have a family, or adopt children to give them love and care when they grow older. For gay people, their friends are all they've got, especially if their families don't really accept them. I'm thankful that I have friends guys, girls, and gays whom I know I can count on, hopefully, for life.

I wish there were more Wills (from Will and Grace sitcom) in local media instead of the gay expression we see. Here, gays are illustrated in only one way as comic figures with their shocking behavior and clothing, and their absurd humor. It would seem the reason gays are put on this earth is simply to make others laugh for entertainment. Just because we are "gay" doesn't mean we are naturally happy. We're not automatically funny because we look unlike. Is it too much to ask that we ask some respect in the media and in society?

Not all gays are parlor/salon gays. I'm not. But still, I can't judge those who are. They are still gay, like me, and they are just human like you and me. It's not their obligation to change who they are. It's society's obligation and responsibility to change the way we view them.

In a perfect world, "That's so gay" or "Bakla!" would be a compliment, not downgrading. We would be considered normal. Right now, we have conditioned ourselves to be proud of our unlikeliness to think of it as being special. But it gets tiring loving yourself for being special. I never asked to be special, ever.

In a perfect world, we had to be the heroes of the movies and our movie like lives. People think of gays as second girls the sidekick, the supporting cast, the best friend. Gays are not just women trapped in a man's body because there's also a male part to our person. We are gays trapped in a man and woman's world. We don't get our own check boxes under gender, our own public restrooms, our own storylines.

In a perfect world, I'll get my happily ever after and be able to tell you the story of my gay, gay life. I wonder when that will be.

[writingguide003-blog]

How Nell Scovell survived male-dominated TV writers' rooms

New Post has been published on https://writingguideto.com/must-see/how-nell-scovell-survived-male-dominated-tv-writers-rooms/

How Nell Scovell survived male-dominated TV writers' rooms

She worked on everything from The Simpsons to Charmed and encountered casting couches, bigotry and bullying along the way

Nell Scovell has a lot to teach the next generation of TV writers: how to break the ice on a new set by cracking your dirtiest joke, how writing the episode of The Simpsons where Homer eats a deadly blowfish allowed her comedy to get serious, how she screwed up hiring on the first season of Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and how to select used film studio furniture thats less likely to be covered in bodily fluids. (Answer: pick floral fabric, not leather.) Yes, the casting couch is real which, as Scovell writes in her new memoir Just the Funny Parts, is a cutesy name that sounds a lot better than rape sofa and yes, early in her career, the head writer of variety show The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour aggressively maneuvered her on one, commanding her not to muss his toupee.

Its a startling anecdote, and perfectly timed to todays #MeToo movement and our global conversation about women in the workplace, especially as Scovell also penned Rose McGowans first season on Charmed and co-wrote Sheryl Sandbergs bestseller Lean In. Im a little sad that they actually came up with the metaphor of waves for feminism, says Scovell on the phone from Los Angeles. By definition, a wave goes in and it comes out. I would really like it to be a tsunami that creates a flood that forever changes the landscape.

In the pages leading up to the violation, Scovell, the only woman writing for the Smothers Brothers, already loathes this misogynist who cut her out of meetings by hosting boys-only parties for the rest of the male staff. Their sole encounter is confusing, cold, unwanted and quick, and when its over, Scovell is fired. But even at the time, she was able to take control of the trauma by reframing the beats into a bleak joke, and when she recounts it today, Scovell gets to write the brutal punchline. She never saw that boss again, and probably never will, since I dont get to Branson, Missouri, much.

Nell Scovell in 1972. Photograph: Courtesy of the author

If women could sleep their way to the top, thered be a lot more women at the top, quotes Scovell. That one-liner belongs to Gloria Steinem funny women come in all forms. And comedy writers should come in all forms. The talents who inspired Scovell ranged from the maniacal Groucho Marx and absurdist Albert Brooks to dazzling Myrna Loy and deadpan Jane Curtin. Beams Scovell: I was pretty strait-laced, so Jane Curtin showed me you could be very professional and funny at the same time.

That her heroes were all also white is a struggle Scovell sees with clear eyes, critiquing herself sharply in the book for not hiring more comedians of color in the mid-90s when she became a showrunner. Later, while assembling another female-led show, Scovell catches herself worrying that the five female actors in the cast would get into on-set catfights a stereotype that couldnt have been more wrong. Sighs Scovell: Were all biased, were all raised in this culture.

You want a diverse writers room not because its the fair thing to do, or the right thing to do, but because its the best thing to do for your show, says Scovell. Ive seen that to be true.

The Coach writing staff. Photograph: Courtesy of the author

Yet, for much of her TV career, shes been the only woman in the room. She used to twist her isolation into a compliment. Rarity meant she was exceptional. Later, she realized that she also just fit the mold as a white, straight, Ivy League-educated jock whod covered sports for the Harvard Crimson. Plus, as she writes, People say, Dress for the job you want, and since I wanted a job that guys had, I dressed like a guy.

Still, laughs Scovell, while her unathletic male friends grumbled about their agents dragging them to hockey games, she never got invited to a single match. Instead, she praises Penn Jillette for welcoming her to join a group adventure to an X-rated strip show.

Let someone make their own choice about what makes them feel comfortable, says Scovell. I always say, Im your colleague, not your wife you can say the craziest things in front of me. She was glad the California supreme court judged that certain types of crass jokes on the set of Friends did not qualify as sexual harassment.

We need appropriate behavior, but also not to think the way to get to that is by having no behavior at all, says Scovell. Otherwise, both men and women are locked into an unhealthy gender dynamic that eventually marginalizes women and comedy.

Nell Scovell. Photograph: PR

She saw that play out during the Bill Clinton scandal when men became self-conscious about being alone with women in the office. Shes seeing it again with Mike Pence and his dumb rule. And she lived it herself as a young late-night writer when she avoided speaking to David Letterman in fear her colleagues would think she was trying to flirt her way to becoming one of Daves Girls. Lettermans dalliances with employees were an open secret for decades after she quit and eventually resulted in the host being blackmailed and investigated for creating a hostile workplace environment, though the network ultimately concluded there was no wrongdoing. Of that power dynamic, Scovell calls Letterman the bully who makes you punch him. Later, when Lean In became a hit, she sent him a copy in Finnish with a teasing inscription that hed never read it anyway.

Since then, Scovell has gone on to write gags for everyone from Barack Obama (Johnny Carsons timing), Hillary Clinton (She does self-depreciation beautifully) and Mark Zuckerberg, the embattled Facebook CEO who could stand to win friends with a good quip. Does she have any he could use? Laughs Scovell, Im not touching that question! Like every entertainment career, public success has been matched by private setbacks rejected jokes, harsh script notes, canceled pilots and inJust the Funny Parts, she drags her flubs into the spotlight, printing a list of every project shes worked on so aspiring writers can see an honest percentage of hits to failures, along with full pages of sitcom drafts with her boss criticisms scribbled in the margins.

Her hurdles are oddly encouraging. So is her harshest piece of advice: dont follow your dreams, follow your talent. Thats like the meanest thing you could say to a high school student, says Scovell. But its true. Shes learned firsthand that sometimes a show works better when you pause the comedy and allow people to get real, citing what she calls the tuna fish sandwich moment on the Mary Tyler Moore Show when Mary and Rhoda would have a quiet beat to establish their friendship before the story hurtled them into chaos.

I think empathy is undervalued in a lot of these comedy writers rooms, says Scovell. And in the culture, too. In that spirit, she sent Letterman a copy of Just the Funny Parts in English. Im sure he has not read it, says Scovell. But he sent me back a lovely thank you note.

Just the Funny Parts is out now in the US and will be released in the UK on 3 May

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us