#‘i know we can’t give you oracle but we promise we know her story’ | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

samuel-de-champagne-problems · 3 years

Text

Though I Can't Recall Your Face, I Still Got Love For You

Summary: Spencer’s always been ambivalent about his birthday, but self proclaimed lover of birthday’s Y/N attempts to change that.

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female Reader

Warnings: Spencer’s kind of a sad bitch. Question: Why do I like writing sad Spencer?

Word Count: 2.5 K- ish

Author’s Note: prompts come from here this one is 4,8,25 from @shemarmooresfedora !! please go check out her blog on here and on Ao3!! Also, I’m stilling taking requests for numbers. I’ll update for which ones have been taken 💕

Though I Can’t Recall Your Face, I Still Got Love for You

Birthdays were always hard when all you had to do is go home to an empty house. No sounds of friends crowding the dining room table, no laughter from family members, no well wishes or pats on the back. All there is, is the stillness of silence and the emptiness of solitude. Spencer thought that he was used to it. He remembers the way the sun felt on his face the morning he woke up on his 18th birthday. His first thought wasn’t it’s my day, but it’s the day I put my mom away. The day Spencer became a man, was the first day he really wished he was a little boy again.

Ever since then, birthdays have always been a sore spot for Spencer. They just bring up sour tasting memories of his mother refusing to get out of bed or his father staying late at work to avoid coming home to a wife who doesn’t remember her own husband or a son who he can’t seem to understand. Birthdays, for Spencer, have always been just another day. Or at least, that’s what Spencer tells himself on the long ride up the elevator to the 6th floor of the BAU.

The bullpen is dark when Spencer walks out from the elevator. Paperwork and manila folders clutter the desks. Even Spencer’s workspace seems to reflect himself: frozen in time. He sits at his desk, a photograph of him and his mother placed at the right corner smiles up at him. A newer photograph, one of him and Y/N, sits right next to the one with his mom. There’s one with Derek and Penelope, one with him and Gideon at his Academy graduation, and one with him and JJ, who’s holding Henry. One of him and Luke at a bar, Penelope in the background drunk and singing.

Spencer loves photographs, but recently he’s been obsessed with them. Ever since his mother’s diagnosis, the fear that would ever forget the faces that find a home in his heart paralyzes him. These pictures may very well one day tell a much more older, much more grayer Spencer the story of his life. Today, in his mind, is another day closer to his fate.

His birthday means he’s another day closer to forgetting the way Y/N eyes sparkle when she drinks too much rose, or Henry’s laugh at Spencer’s magic tricks, or feeling when Derek calls him his brother. No one, not even Y/N, knows that Spencer has a drawer filled up of photographs he’s collected over the years. He can’t deal with forgetting the principles of electromagnetism, but forgetting his family? Spencer wouldn’t have anything left, but the smiling faces of familiar strangers, whose names are just out of reach.

Spencer rubs his eyes with the ball of his palm. He knows he’s not going to get work done. Spencer spins in his swivel chair and he’s nearly startled out of his quiet thoughts when his phone rings.

“Dr. Spencer Reid,” he says, swallowing his emotions as he shuts the drawer on the shiny faces.

“You really need to start checking your caller ID, Spence,” Y/N says, with a chuckle. Spencer can practically feel the way she’s smiling. For some reason, her teasing never made him feel bad.

“Well, what do I owe this pleasure?” Spencer asks. He drums his fingers on his desk, waiting for Y/N to respond.

“It seems like we have a missing person case,” Y/N starts, “6’2 male, brown hair, some say his eyes are green and some say they’re brown, so we’ll go with hazel, and he’s like ridiculously smart, but also kind of dumb for avoiding his girlfriend on his birthday,”

Spencer sighs as he launches himself into a long spin in his chair. He’s not surprised that Y/N is calling him; she’s always loved birthdays. She’s always been someone to someone. It’s taken some time to adjust to the fact that Spencer is Y/N’s someone.

“Are you coming to rescue me?” Spencer asks sheepishly. He leans back in his chair, watching the elevator. Y/N might think she’s slick, but Spencer’s sure he knows her better than he knows geographical profiling.

“Maybe, can you tell me how fast elevators can travel up to the 6th floor?”

Spencer opens his mouth, ready to fire statistics on top of statistics, but is silenced by Y/N’s arrival. Spencer tries to remain neutral, remain ambivalent about this day being something more than any other day, but Y/N makes it difficult.

As soon as her feet leave the elevator she launches herself at Spencer, not caring that he’s less than capable of catching anything. In a tangle of arms and legs, Y/N manages to sit herself on Spencer’s lap. His hand snakes around her waist; he holds her so tight that it’s almost like he’s afraid she’s going to get blown out like birthday candles on a cake.

“I can’t believe you thought you could sneak out and come to work, on your birthday of all days,” Y/N says quietly, she threads her fingers through Spencer’s hair. She likes how long it’s gotten and his curl pattern is almost fully restored to their original health from before he went to prison.

“How’d you find me?” Spencer asks, thinking that birthdays might not be so bad if they all involve Y/N sitting in his lap and trying to braid his hair.

“Do you seriously have to ask that? Only the Oracle of Quantico,” Y/N teases and Spencer rolls his eyes, thinking he should have known that Garcia would be the one to track his location for Y/N.

“It’s vaguely illegal for a federal agent to tap into those databases, especially for a civilian,” Spencer counters. Y/N, smiling at him, dips her head down to press light kisses on his eyebrows and down the bridge of his nose.

“So’s an ex-Army Ranger giving me his key card to sneak into the BAU,”

“Luke’s in on this too,” Spencer tries to sound upset, but his heart swells at the thought of Penelope, Luke, and Y/N all instigating for his birthday.

“Of course he is, I had to bring out the big guns for my Spencer’s birthday,” Y/N quips. Her fingers climb up Spencer’s sides, tickling him. She likes the kind of laugh that he lets out when she tickles him. It’s a laugh that’s unguarded and full of life. It’s a laugh that doesn’t hold anything back. It’s a laugh that relieves the pressure that festers deep inside him.

Y/N’s hands may make him laugh, but nothing makes him beam more than hearing Y/N call him “my Spencer”. She says it so simply, like my doesn’t even exist, like it’s an involuntary muscle being flexed. For Y/N, loving Spencer came as easy and effortless as breathing.

“You do love birthdays,” Spencer says, looking up at Y/N. He spins them around in his swivel chair, giggling as she lets out a gleeful squeal. Spencer grows dizzy, but he thinks he’s dizzier from Y/N’s love than from spinning in his chair.

“I love your birthday more than any other day, even my birthday,” Y/N says, getting up from Spencer’s lap to pick up the canvas grocery bags she brought with her.

“I was never one for birthdays,” Spencer says quietly. Y/N, more than anyone, knows Spencer’s challenging past. She knows his fears and she knows his dreams. She haunts his every waking moment; somehow a mercurial threat and a constant promise at the same time.

“I know, but I’m sure I’ll make you grow to love them,” Y/N says, “I wasn’t sure which flavor you wanted so I got all of them. Wawa has a surprisingly good selection of Turkey Hill,”

She takes out three gallon sized cartons of ice cream. One coffee with chocolate chips, one butter pecan, and one Moose Tracks. She hands Spencer a spoon and a napkin before sitting down on the floor and opening a carton of the ice cream.

“I do love dairy,” Spencer says, eyeing the ice cream, but considering the consequences of eating the creamy desert. Spencer shoves the statistics about the effects of dairy on a 40 year old with lactose intolerance down and takes his spot next to Y/N on the floor.

He goes to open his carton of ice cream, coffee with chocolate chips, but before he can dig his spoon into the tub, Y/N grabs his wrist.

“No! Spence, wait. Here, take these. And you need to light it,” she says, plopping a couple lactose pills in his hand and digging out a pack of candles and a lighter from her bag.

“Y/N are you out of your mind! We can’t light something in the BAU, god, Emily will kill me,” Spencer says nervously.

“Spence, do you really think Emily Prentiss is going to give me shit for lighting a candle for your birthday in the middle of the office. That woman lives on the edge,” Y/N waves him off and lights a single candle.

Spencer, staring at the lit candle, listens as Y/N sings “Happy Birthday” to him. Sitting criss cross on the floor of the BAU, he watches as the candle light illuminates Y/N’s face. She looks almost ghostly in the dark with the flickering light making her eyes glow. Y/N wishes the song and grasps his hand and squeezes hard.

“Make a wish, baby,” Y/N tells him. She really believes in wishes. Spencer wishes he could believe in wishes. He desperately wants to believe that Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos are somehow tying knots in the places where his string has been cut.

But more than anything, Spencer can’t bear to forget the face of the women across from. He can’t bear to one day not recognize the way her hand feels in his. He can’t accept the possibility of Y/N being anything less than the person he knows best in this world. Spencer doesn’t particularly care for the metaphor of the light going out. But his fears are put at bay when Y/N leans over and pecks his cheek. He can feel her grinning against his skin and like some virus contracted through touch, it’s contagious. Y/N breaks apart from Spencer and motions for him to eat some ice cream. They sit, shoulder to shoulder, against the front of Spencer’s desk eating their ice cream.

“Thank you, for making my birthday special. It’s been a hard year,” Spencer says, letting the tension in the air speak for itself, “my mom didn’t remember me the other day. I hate seeing her like that,”

“I know, sweetheart. You’ve been through so much. That’s why you need to tell me these things,” She says, setting down her ice cream. Y/N places her hands on Spencer’s shoulders, guiding him to place his back against her chest. His head rests in the crook of her neck. Spencer can feel her steady heart beat against his back. It’s a constant, patterned drum amidst the chaos of his mind.

“Can we take a picture, you know, just to remember this day,” Spencer asks, his voice laced with trepidation. He can feel Y/N nod, and move to grab her phone from her pocket.

Spencer sits up and scoots over to open the bottom drawer of his desk. He pulls out an old camera, one where you have to wait for the picture to appear on the print out. He likes the charm in older things, you really have to work for it. He likes the effort that you have to put into getting the picture made.

“Going old school, I see,” Y/N teases as she catches sight of Spencer’s old camera. He returns to his spot, snuggled against her back. Their legs stick out on the floor, his much longer than Y/N’s. Her arms snake around his torso, holding him tight. Spencer holds the camera out, facing them to capture their faces in some archaic selfie style.

The light flashes before Spencer’s eyes, and Y/N’s kiss on the top of his head burns a hole that instantly leaves him craving more. He’d let her draw any pattern she desires, as long as her kisses are the medium and he is her canvas.

“Can you tell me what you wished for?” Y/N asks, her voice low.

Spencer, looking off into the distance, makes a disgruntled noise. He can feel Y/N’s fingers crawl up his sides and her arms encasing his body. She’s shielding him from his demons, but little does she know that the most menacing foe is his mind.

“You’re really not supposed to, but considering you’re my wish I think you have the right to know,” Spencer offers, “I wished that I’ll never forget you. Never forget this life we made together,” He feels his chest constrict. Mentioning his fear makes it seem more palpable; more real.

“Spencer, have you felt that way for a long time?,”

Spencer takes a deep breath, letting the floodgates open.

“I’ve felt like this my whole life, Y/N. I’m terrified to forget you. To forget our children that I haven’t even met yet. Forget who I am. I’m terrified that I’m going to leave you behind in a murky past that I can never remember,” Spencer says. He chokes back the pain. He doesn’t want Y/N memories of him to be marred by fear and darkness.

“This is about your mom, right. Spencer, listen to me. I’ll love you even if that comes true. I don’t need you to recall my face to know you still got love for me. And you're not leaving me behind. I won’t allow that. I’m not leaving you behind, baby,” Y/N says, her voice the most soothing cure.

She’s a power mixture of biochemicals and neurotransmitters. She heals him at an epigenetic level and restores him piece by piece. Her medicine is love.

Or maybe her love is his medicine.

“I’ve never been this scared of losing something, because I never had someone to lose,” Spencer mumbles, he twists his head so his breath is warm against Y/N’s neck. Somehow in this twisted position, Spencer has never felt safer.

“You can’t lose something that can’t be lost, my Spencer. I’m not going anywhere,”

“I love you to the moon and to Saturn,” Spencer says kissing along Y/N’s collarbones.

Like the pictures in the drawer, Spencer tucks away the fears of the future. He swallows the threat of forgetting everything because the promise of love swallows him whole. He craves a future with Y/N with the possibility of forgetting who she is over the life he’d live if he left her behind.

She said it best, even if one day he can’t recall her face, he’ll still have love for her.

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

Tell me what you thought!

Taglist!

@shemarmooresfedora

@willowrose99

@calm-and-doctor

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid smut #spencer reid x fem!reader #spencer reid x reader fluff #spencer reid one shot #spencer reid x female reader #criminal minds #samuel de champagne problems 300 followers #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid comfort #criminal minds fanfic #spencer reid x reader comfort

279 notes · View notes

iphoenixrising · 3 years

Text

More on the Robinpile Soulmate au

You know, babes, people and their wonderful, encouraging comments on that work in progress are fucking beautiful, so.

I’m going to put a little snippet down that’s probably going to rip at your heart strings and spoil the story a bit for you if you decide to read this small bit. So, just FYI Spoiler.

But, if you’d like a little more on how that story is going to go, welp. here you are *bows*

Note: not formatted or beta read.

After so much careful planning and preparation, Plan C is a go.

Robin is running over rooftops, scanning every shadow for a hint of Red Robin in Gotham. Nightwing and the Red Hood, Black Bat, Batgirl, and Signal are all in crucial parts of the city, on the lookout as well.

He, Jason, and Dick have spent weeks preparing for this, hoping their last-ditch effort would be enough to convince Tim his time as Robin hadn’t been in vain, that he was still, would always be a Bat.

That is the goal tonight, not to try convincing him to give them a chance as soulmates because that is likely impossible, but they could start a much more important mission, to try in their own ways to give him back something they’d all taken. To try to show they knew what they’d done to him, and perhaps could start them on the road to make it right.

(He hopes there’s still a chance.)

Fabrication didn’t take long, but the coupe de gras certainly did.

Word Red Robin would be in Gotham on the down-low gave them a chance to finally act, and Oracle promised them she would do her best to stall their soulmate until Robin could get to him.

And it’s a pang of pain, a lightning strike, when he catches up with Red on the roof of the Wallstone Apartments. The memory of the cut grapple line in the foreground of Robin’s thoughts.

“Please help,” Robin makes himself fall off his grapple to his knees, bent over, panting. “Red Robin, please.”

(Not all of it is an act, not with how hard he was running to get to Red before he vanished into the city.)

The older vigilante kneels by him, out of immediate reach.

“Where?” Is Tim’s Red Robin voice, a hand almost reaches out, clenches tight at the last second to draw back, and Robin sees the aborted move, has a flare of hope.

“Cannery Row–” and Robin rocks to the side, looks up at that closed expression, dares to let the fluttering in his chest give him strength.

Hands and arms around him, steady him, pull him up on his knees. He thinks about the grip Red Robin has on his shoulders to hold him up, how tightly Tim is able to hold on. A finger taps his mask so the whiteouts slide up, taking away some of his nightvision. He’s not concussed, is perfectly fine, but through his research, an injured (seemingly) teammate in need is one of Tim’s weaknesses.

“Robin–”

“We need you, there is too much happening in the city tonight. We are all stretched too thin,” and there is nothing but the truth in his eyes, his demeanor, the way his gloved hand tightens in the cape over Red’s shoulder.

“All right, stay here, call Hood or N to pick you up–”

But Robin staggers to his feet, “I can’t. I must get you to the safehouse. Everything we need is there.”

He keeps himself from a triumphant bellow when Red Robin paces him to the edge of the roof, grapple already in hand.

Luckily, Cannery Row is close enough they don’t have to go far, just their past hanging between them, the connection that’s agonizingly cold and silent even when they’re side-by-side.

Robin lands it this time on the roof of the familiar warehouse. He taps the comm unit on as he touches down, hopes Red won’t notice.

They climb through a service elevator shaft, the two of them prying open the doors once they hit the underground floor.

“Give me the details,” Red’s whole body tense as they lower themselves down into the darkness.

“Black Bat is in the Central Business District, Hood is by the Iceburg Lounge, Nightwing is in the Diamond District. Father is tracking down leads for a case, Batgirl is on her way to the Steel Mill. We still have no coverage for the situation in the City Hall District, but you cannot go alone.”

When they get the doors pried open, when Red Robin was close enough for his cape to brush against his, the underground is revealed in shadows, just as he, Jason, and Richard left it a few hours earlier.

(This is a newer Batman Incorporated holding. Robin is banking on the fact Tim might not know this, his heart starting to beat harder, faster when they get closer to the first stage of Plan C.)

The lights kick on as planned, and in the large expansive floor, a drop-cloth-covered something waits.

That’s all.

Red Robin is looking around for anything, searching for traps, evidence, something to give him an idea of what he’s walking into, back pressed against the elevator before he starts to step out.

His vigilante instincts aren’t going crazy, but he stays close to the shadows as he sneaks out, leaving Robin behind in the elevator shaft to stay or follow.

(Where Damian has the next step in the plan waiting, a duffle bag he’d hidden in the panel of the elevator shaft. He’s fast and silent, throwing off his gloves, gauntlets, cape, and utility belt–)

His instincts still aren’t blaring dangerdangerdanger and his wrist computer isn’t picking up any foreign tech when Red Robin finally gets to the drop-cloth with a frown, wondering if they’ve come across a piece of shady tech or something.

Which is really the only explanation for why Robin would come to him at all, everyone else busy in Gotham notwithstanding.

He grips the cloth and pulls hard, muscles tense for whatever fuckey waits for him underneath.

When he gets an eyeful, his knees go terribly weak for a long painful moment as he stares at–

The Red Bird.

“Oh...fuck,” because his eyes are instantly hot and full, making him blink rapidly behind the whiteouts.

And it gleams in the overhead lights, red and black and shiny, looks like it did the day Bruce showed it to him in the Cave, ready to tear into the night.

His chest hitches and the possibility this could be a cruel joke hits him hard enough to choke.

(It’s because he rejected them. This sick shit is because he refused to let bygones be bygones.)

“Open the door, Tim. Everything you will need tonight is ready for you.”

It’s Dami’s voice echoing behind him, not Robin’s, and Red can’t bring himself to look away, too many things churning in his brain pan around the shock and anger and regret and grief. It might be stupid for him to reach out, to make his wobbly knees work, to open the door with a bigger hand than the last time he did this.

The inside is immaculate, even after years of disuse that Red Robin has to wonder how and why and what the absolute fuck is happening here?

But on the seat, folded neatly with all the bells and whistles, the shuriken R on the red tunic gleams bright in the halogen glow. His throat gets tight when he realizes it’s his original red, gold, and green–the colors of joy.

The colors from the best years, before it all started to go horribly wrong.

A noise comes out of him, something low and pained before he can rein it in, before he can remind himself he’s already moved past the point this should still mean something.

(But it does, it always has, it’s always meant so much, especially back when he was just a kid in a silent, empty house. It meant he had a place, a purpose, a presence at his back when things got to be too much, too overwhelming.)

And it’s stupid how helpless he is, how some part of him –small and weak as it is– can’t stop himself from reaching out to touch, to grab, to try to hold the fuck on.

(Not because of the name itself, never that, but everything he’d lost the second it had all been taken away. A final nail in the coffin, back to being that boy in an empty house.)

When he reaches for the suit, he holds it in both hands like he’s seeing things, chest stuttering on a breath when the scent of new leather and Kevlar proves he hasn’t been drugged or the sleep dep severely fucking with him.

Stepping from the shadows, no longer in Robin but a black suit of some nameless ninja, Damian Wayne is holding the hood and face covering he’s going to wear for the night, waits until he sees how his soulmate will react to this possibly disastrous plan.

He takes careful, tentative steps closer, taking in the hunched shoulders, bowed head, reaching into the Bond when it is ice cold in his chest.

“Wh-what the fuck is this?” Hoarse and painful from his, their Tim. And Dami’s hands automatically reach out in desperation to comfort before he remembers himself and hesitates.

Even if the Bond on his side is closed, cold, silent, Damian breathes in and attempts to send calming, soothing feelings, tries to let his own emotions, his hope, his affection, his protectiveness, his respect, his reverence for this man be available should the Bond at any moment open even slightly.

His soulmate’s rigid control to close himself off from them comes from years of training, of trying to protect himself is such a point of pain that some part of him thinks the three of them together could crash through if they tried, could break down those walls by force.

But he’s here tonight, had worked so hard with N and Hood and Father and Batgirl and Black Bat and Oracle to plan it all, set it all up, because he’s different now, has learned what his actions had cost him, has realized he can’t go back to the old ways.

Instead, he hopes they will have this last chance, will give Tim enough reasons to open up without fear, without pain.

(“It started with taking the cape,” Dick thinks aloud once the three of them are together after a long night, finding comfort, “he thinks he was kicked out of the family, so...this shouldn’t have been about soulmates in the first place.”

“I do not understand, Beloved,” Dami yawns, buried himself deeper against Jason’s chest.

“It’s not about gettin’ him like that, Sweets,” Jay replies, stroken a hand through his hair. “Might never happen…”

“But, we could give him back some of what we took. He could finally come home again–”

Dami’s eyes open, “we...could give him back his place in the family. Or at least try to do so. Is that what you are saying?”

“Hm,” Jay grunts out, arms stealthy when he wraps them both up, rolls to put himself in the middle, “sounds like we godda last resort, now don’t it?”

“We’ll call it Plan C since it’s our last chance.”)

Plan C, indeed.

“Tim,” and he gives them only a few feet of space, no domino, no hood, no face coverings, no masks, holds up both hands in what he hopes is a peaceful gesture.

Red Robin spins with a growl, muscles tense in fight or flight, ready to throw the fuck down because why fix up the Red Bird and bring it here of all places? What game is this? Haven’t they broken him enough?

But Damian isn’t in the tunic he was wearing less than ten minutes ago, and Red Robin stops cold at the obviously planned costume change. He takes a careful step away from the very familiar suit Damian is wearing now, one that looks crazily like B’s when he was Tengu, trying to get himself back enough to take the cowl from Jean-Paul back when shit was crazy but even then he still had Nightwing at his back and–and…

What is wrong with him? He hasn’t thought about any of this in years.

But still. But still, his eyes go to the gleaming Red Bird, and those better times well up from within, a place so deep, he’d convinced himself he’d left all of it behind.

(Nightwing and Spoiler, school and the Cave, new baddies in Gotham to throw more crazy into the Rogue Gallery mix, teenage angst and sidekick wins, people at his back and front even in the worst of times. Being Red for the Titans was good, so good, but not ever the same. Not like it was when he was that Robin.)

He’s still holding the tunic in both hands, fists clenching it tight like something would have to pry his hands open to take it away (again) when what he really needs to do is throw it back in the Bird and get the absolute fuck out of here. Because this isn’t his anymore, apparently never should have been if the last few years were any kind of indication on the Tim Drake policy.

“This is cruel, even for you,” is snarly and low, is simmering anger trying to cover up old pain, pissing him off even more because he’d finally gotten to the place where he could forget for a while.

(And he’ll get there again. Even after all this.)

He makes his fingers unclench, throws the tunic back on the driver’s seat, but none of that covers up how hoarse his voice is, how tight his chest feels.

Dami just moves one hand, slowly pulls out his phone, thumbs the pass code to unlock the screen, and turns the device around to show Red what’s doing on the main screen.

His brain doesn’t process the image that’s him, one of the few existing pictures from years ago when he was still with Young Justice, the one of the core four making stupid faces, torn up from whatever space battle they’d just come back from, half-insane with sleep deprivation and injuries, only back to the planet for moments to celebrate not dying with pizza and Zestis, arms thrown around each other with rips and bruises and blood still staining the uniforms.

Why the fuck it meant something to Damian is the real question.

“I was wrong, when I came to the Tower,” Damian takes a tentative step toward him, still holding the phone out like a distraction that was really a message. “I told you I wanted to know this man you are now. The man that is one of my soulmates. However...however, I was wrong, Tim. You were my soulmate even back then. You were mine, and even if you weren’t, you were already part of the family when I came to Father, and I did not even give you a chance. I did not see how important you were, what lengths you went to make that symbol your own. I was terrified, young, foolish, but that is no excuse. What I should have been doing all this time is learning who you were back then before I attempted to approach you. Only by knowing that boy could I hope to understand this man.”

Wait, what now? How is this happening right now? All the awful things he’d secretly wanted to hear from the blood son, another chosen one. Another crux of his tangled emotions.

“I already told you I don’t need fucking soulmates. I rejected you.” He bites out, trying to breathe, trying to shove those emotions back down where they belong, trying to pretend the sight of the car, the tunic, the things he used to call his own, can’t touch him anymore.

(But it still has power, so much fucking power to break him down to this, that scared kid in an empty house.)

After all these years, he’s moved on...right?

“I know, Beloved,” Dami puts his phone away, green eyes never leaving Red Robin’s tense form. “But this? Tonight? This has nothing to do with soulmates.”

Which is absolutely not what he expects to hear.

“Tonight is about my predecessor, Beloved, not my soulmate. This is for the Robin that stood in Gotham before me,” and it’s gentle in ways Red Robin never imagined Damian could be, not with him. “This,” and Damian sweeps a hand over the car, the suit, “is for the brother we never should have driven away. The one who gave this name his own brand of honor and power, the one who carved a place for himself in the family. Not as the third Robin in line, but as the first Tim Drake.”

Red Robin’s hands fall enough to be less of a threat. Other than that, he isn’t moving, is listening even if it’s grudgingly, even if it’s with disbelief, even if it’s with skepticism, and Damian smiles softly, so softly, at this beautiful, broken man before him.

“My place?” Is hoarse, a warmer edge that isn’t blank coldness, isn’t so much control. “In case you missed it, my place hasn’t mattered in the last few fucking years–”

“Hasn’t it?” And Dami’s eyes are so green, dark jade that catches in the light, easy to pick out. “Hasn’t it mattered?”

The obvious drawback is an opening, a misstep in the detective’s assumptions that Dami takes the opportunity for what it is.

“I know how it must seem,” and he makes himself stop stepping forward when every instinct in his body screams to approach, to reach out, to take this man in his arms, to whisper endearments, to apologize until the tears dry, until Tim’s arms can unlock, until he can start with the smallest measure of belief with splashes of powerful violet.

“I know the years we’ve let you draw further away. I know there’s been disdain and cruelty until that’s all there was between us. And I did not choose to acknowledge it, my wrongdoings. It was easier to hide, Tim, just as it was for Jason and Richard and Father. We were cowards, but not once in all these years have you ever been simply forgotten.”

And here is where preparation for their detective is perfectly done when Damian whips out his utility belt computer and quietly holds it out, his hand trembling ever so slightly.

The evidence is there in clips of Todd sneaking into a familiar penthouse apartment with a bag of coffee in hand or taking a First Aid kit from under the kitchen counter to restock it, it’s there when video shows Richard in the Batsuit, in Nightwing, in Officer Grayson, in workout clothes, in jeans and t-shirt with both hands always pressed to the glass case with Tim’s first Robin suit, it’s there when Father sits on the bed in Tim’s old room over the years with a familiar shining, shuriken R flipping over the fingers of one hand. It’s there in the attempted hacks of Titan’s Tower when the Batcomputer pings with alerts of a bad fight for the Titans. It’s there in all the protocols when Ra’s starts movement against Red Robin, when their worst enemies are cataloged to the nines and contingencies from each member of the Batfamily are so obviously ready.

(With some pride in himself, Dami is the one that came up with the plan to take down Brother Blood, while Jason’s shoot-now-ask-questions-later is crucial to dealing with The Light. Grayson’s experience with the Fearsome Five, Father’s methodical touch to deal with The Insiders.)

It’s there in the smallest details they’d silently done over the years (these things happening without the need to point out how necessary and does Damian ache with the knowledge how easy it could have been to reach out so many, many times), could be enough at a glance to start the seedlings of doubt in Red Robin’s firm belief his place has simply been forgotten.

And Damian hears it in the catch of breath, a soft inward draw. He can’t see behind the whiteouts of Red Robin’s mask, but he hopes, hopes there might be a spark of indecision.

“You were never forgotten.” Gently, Damian reaches out slowly, just enough to close gloved fingers over the screen. “But, you don’t need to hear it from me, Beloved, you need real proof and that we shall provide tonight. Get changed. You’re needed.”

Conflicted as fuck, Red Robin processes as much as he can in that few minutes, muscles in his shoulders unbearably tight. “I’m not going to just patrol with the Bats, especially under your name.”

“It is not as simple as patrol, I’m afraid. We have several Arkham escapees, a possible gang war, and several other take downs lined up,” which is the absolute truth. “I did not lie when I said we needed your help with the overwhelming criminal activity in the last twelve hours.”

Carefully planned twelve hours for one night they’ve been putting into motion for months.

With the computer in hand, feeling more vulnerable than he’s felt behind the mask in years, Red Robin grits his teeth because only the Bats can do this to him. “I can still help the hell out without the bullshit emotional manipulation. Let me guess, this is Dick’s idea.”

“All of us had a hand in it, actually. The Red Bird itself was my idea. Jason and Father helped to restore it to its former glory. Dick, however, had the idea to make it authentic with the suit.”

“Do you even know how messed up this is for me?” Tumbles right out when he wants cold fury, when he wants to snarl at the obvious manipulation at play–

(while being stupidly impressed they actually seemed to know him to put all the pieces in place, make him play right into their hands with a well thought-out plan. Fuck.)

“The point of all of this, Tim, is to give you one last Robin Ride.”

Cue being at a total loss here because what multiverse did he fall into? Seriously, this can’t be his world, not when those words popped out of Damian’s mouth, and along with it, so many possibilities looming right in front of him.

At the same time, dread crawls up his throat, spills bitter into his mouth.

“Even if you never want us, we will, as you said, learn to live with it.” Damian fights to keep it neutral as just the thought of continuing on in this way as they have for weeks, always aware of the empty spot where their fourth should be, makes him cold all over. Still, this cannot be for them, not if they are serious about setting things right in the only way they can. “Even if that is the case, Tim, I...we. We still want to give you this,” his hand sweeps over the Red Bird again.

Because it’s all so much in one go, things he never thought he’d hear, never could have thought would be offered. Unconsciously, his eyes go to the gleaming fender behind the whiteouts. “None of this is– I brought the Bird back years ago so B could remake it for you.”

And Dami chances one more step closer, “but it is yours, Tim. Father made it for you, to keep you safe, and it will always be yours, Robin or not. It should have been given back to you long before tonight, and for that, I apologize.” He tries smiling just a little, “but, better late than never as they say.”

Red’s got nothing for that, for any of this, stares helplessly while Damian pulls on the hood and face covering, only his green eyes visible.

Red’s jaw is tight, clenching down because he finally gets it. He isn’t going to wake up in the Tower, asleep at his workstation, thinking this is a terribly embarrassing message from his subconscious.

“You will need this,” and Damian holds out a hand again. This time, a Batcomm rests in his palm. “The others are waiting for you, Robin.”

“I-I can’t–” because this is fucking real, this is really happening. As much as he’s sure Damian is bullshitting him about this not being a soulmate thing, his eyes are still getting hot, his chest aching, his throat tight. “I can’t do this.”

“You can,” Damian counters gently. “We...I owe you this. Dick will argue he does also. Jason as well. We cannot give you the things we have taken, not completely. As much as I wish we could change things, overcome our own insecurities to remind you that you will always have a place…” Dami sighs, “we cannot go back, either. Not really, but in order to go forward, we can give you the proof you need to see you have always had a place. So, just for tonight, Tim, be our Robin again.”

Damian doesn’t give him time to formulate a reply while he feels like he just got fucking stabbed hearing that out of the current Robin’s mouth.

“This is wrong, this isn’t–”

Damian lays the Batcomm on the top of the car and slowly backs away, melting into the shadows.

“On the contrary,” echoes around him and the lights go out in the underground, only a section of them lighting up the Red Bird. “This may be the one thing we’ve gotten right.”

The flutter of paper he hadn’t noticed is on the ground from where he’d tossed the old/new suit.

The chime on his wrist computer is a surprising upload of locations in Gotham pinging his algorithm, indicating a little vigilante action wouldn’t be amiss. Damian apparently wasn’t lying about too many fires and too few Bats. But, there’s too much happening in hot spots, and he won’t make the most crucial if he’s swinging. He needs a Ducati or–

His eyes go back to it, another symbol of his best days. Back when he could call himself a Bat, and it wouldn’t have been a lie.

Under the mask, Tim Drake breathes out, shuttering through the old pain that lights up his brain pan.

He could turn right the fuck around and walk out of this warehouse with his heart still in check, with his emotions back under control. He could reject this attempt as sure as he’s been rejected for years.

But the tiny part of him that’s always mourned the loss of his tunic is a stronger voice this time, and his hands twitch in his gloves before moving to pick up the discarded suit again, to look at those short sleeves, the green gloves, the shuriken R that was his design – not Damian’s or Jay’s or Dick’s but his.

The suit blurs and Red Robin realizes it’s because his eyes are spilling over behind the whiteouts.

#winter writes #robinpile soulmate au #just a bit more #ANGST #be aware #this is how my life is going #chippon is really patient with me #please give chip your love

84 notes · View notes

joshjacksons · 3 years

Text

Joshua Jackson interview with Refinery29

Against my better judgement, and at the risk of losing any semblance of journalistic objectivity, I start my conversation with Joshua Jackson by effusively telling him what a dream come true it is to be talking to him. See, like many millennial women who grew up watching the late ‘90s and early 2000s teen drama Dawson’s Creek, Jackson’s Pacey Witter means a lot to me. Pacey is one of the rare fictional teen boys of my youth whose adolescent charisma, romantic appeal, and general boyfriend aptitude hold up all these years later (unlike The O.C’s Seth Cohen or Gossip Girl’s Chuck Bass) and that is due in large part to the wit, vulnerability, and care Jackson brought to the character.

It’s the same intention he’s afforded all of his famous roles — Peter Bishop in Fringe, Cole Lockhart in The Affair, and even as a 14-year-old in his first acting gig as sweet-faced heartthrob Charlie Conway in The Mighty Ducks. Now, Jackson, 43, has matured into a solid supporting actor (with memorable turns in Little Fires Everywhere and When They See Us) and as a leading man who can draw you into a story with just his voice (Jackson’s latest project is narrating the psychological thriller and Canadian Audible original, Oracle, one of the over 12,000 titles available today on Audible.ca’s the Plus Catalogue) or find humanity in the most sinister men (he’s currently playing a sociopath with a god complex in Dr. Death). His magnetic pull is as evident as it was when he was the guy you rooted for in a show named after another guy’s creek. Jackson has never seemed to mind the fact that so many people still bring up Pacey decades later, and that’s part of why as an adult, he’s one of the few childhood crushes I still have on a pedestal. I tell him just a tiny slice of this, and Jackson graciously sits up straighter and promises to bring his A-game to our Zoom exchange. Jackson is in what appears to be an office, flanked by mess, like a true work-from-home Dad. He and his wife, fellow actor Jodie Turner-Smith, welcomed a daughter in the early days of the pandemic in 2020, and he tells me that fatherhood and marriage are the best decisions he has ever made. Jackson and Turner-Smith are a rare Hollywood couple who choose to let us in on their love, but not obnoxiously — just through flirty Instagram comments and cheeky tweets. Their pairing is part of Jackson’s enduring appeal. It’s nice to think that Pacey Witter grew up to be a doting dad and adoring husband, even if his wife’s name is Jodie, not Joey.

Jackson is an animated conversationalist, leaning into the camera to emphasize his points — especially when the topic of diversity comes up. White celebs don’t get asked about racism in Hollywood the way their counterparts of colour do, and when they do, they’re usually hesitant at best, and unequipped at worst, to tackle these conversations. Jackson is neither. He’s open, willing, and eager to discuss systemic inequality in the industry he’s grown up in. It’s the bare minimum a straight white man in Hollywood can do, and Jackson seems to know this. When he ventures briefly into trying to explain to me, a Black woman, the perils of being Black, female, and online, he catches himself and jokes that of course, I don’t need him to tell me the racism that happens in the comment section of his wife’s Instagram. The self-deprecating delivery is one I’m familiar with from watching Jackson onscreen for most of my life, and seeing it in person (virtually) renders me almost unable to form sentences. Jackson’s charm is disarming, but his relaxed Canadian energy is so relatable, I manage to maintain my professionalism long enough to get through our conversation. Refinery29: Your voice has been in my head for a few days because I've been listening to Canadian Audible Original, Oracle. What drew you to this project and especially the medium of audio storytelling?

Joshua Jackson: The book itself is such a page turner. I also love the idea of those old radio plays. It's like a hybrid between the beauty of reading a book on the page where your imagination does all of it. We craft a little bit of the world, but because this is a noir thriller married with this metaphysical world, there's a lot of dark and creepy places that your imagination gets to fill in for yourself.

I'm noticing a trend in some of the roles you've been taking on lately, with this and Dr. Death, these stories are very dark and creepy. But so many people still think of you as Pacey Witter, or as Charlie Conway, the prototypical good guys of our youth. Are you deliberately trying to kill Pacey and Charlie?

JJ: I'm not trying to kill anybody — except on screen [laughs]. It's funny, I didn't really think of these two things as companion pieces, but I won't deny that there may be something subconscious in this anxiety, stress-filled year that we've all just had. That may be what I was trying to work out was some of that stress, because that's the beauty of my job. Instead of therapy, I just get someone to pay me to say somebody else's words. So, yeah, that could be a thing [but] the thought process that went into them both was very different. Even though this is a dark story, [lead character, police psychic] Nate Russo is still the hero. [Dr. Death’s] Christopher Duntsch very much is not at all. I can't pretend to know my own mind well enough to be able to tell you exactly how [these two roles] happened, but it happened.

That might be something that you should work through with an actual therapist. JJ: Exactly. Yeah, maybe real therapy is on the docket for me [laughs].

So I was listening to Oracle and you're doing these various creepy voices — I’m sorry the word “creepy” keeps coming up.

JJ: Are you trying to tell me something? You know what? I wanted to skip straight to the creepy old man phase of my career. So, it sounds like I'm doing a good job.

You're doing amazing, sweetie [laughs]. So, I was thinking you must be really good at bedtime stories with your daughter doing all these voices. Or is she still too young for that?

JJ: No! She's all the way into books. Story time is my favourite part of the day because it gives me the opportunity to have that time with her just one-on-one. Her favorite book right now is a book called Bedtime Bonnet. Every night I bring out three books, and she gets to pick one. The other two shift a little bit, but Bedtime Bonnet is every single night.

I love that. Since you're married to a Black woman, you know a thing or two about bonnets. JJ: Yeah, well I'm getting my bonnet education. And I'm getting my silk sheet education. I'm behind the curve, but I'm figuring it out [laughs].

You said in an interview recently that you are now at the age where the best roles for men are. And I wonder if you can expand on that and whether you think of the fact that the same cannot be said for the majority of women actors in their 40s?

JJ: What's great about the age that I'm at now as a man is that, generally speaking, the characters — even if they're not the central character of this show — are well fleshed out. They're being written from a personal perspective, usually from a writer who has enough lived experience and wants to tell the story of a whole character. Whereas when you're younger — and obviously I was very lucky with some of the characters that I was able to play – you're the son or the boyfriend, or you're a very two-dimensional character. It's gotten better, but still a lot like you're either the precocious child or you're the brooding one. I will say that while I would agree with you to a certain point for women, I think that this is probably the best era to be a not 25-year-old-woman in certainly the entirety of my career. And it is also the best time to be a Black woman inside of the industry. There's still more opportunity for a 40-year-old white man than there is for a 40-year-old white woman, but it is better now than it has ever been. The roles that women are able to inhabit and occupy and the opportunities that are out there have multiplied. If I started my career in playing two-dimensional roles to get the three-dimensional roles, most women started their career in three-dimensional roles and end up at “wife” or “mom.” And that's just not the case anymore. There's just a lot of broadly diverse stories being told that centre women. So you're right, but in the last five years, six years I would say, there has really been a pretty significant shift.

And I think that shift is happening because who's behind the camera is also changing. JJ: Right? Who holds the purse strings. That's big. Who gets to green light the show to begin with? You have to have a variety of different faces inside of that room. And then, who's behind the camera. What is the actual perspective that we're telling the story from? The male gaze thing is very real. Dr. Death had three female directors. The central character of Dr. Death is an outrageously toxic male figure. Who knows more about toxic male BS than women? Particularly women who are in a predominantly male work environment. So these directors had a very specific take and came at it with a clarity that potentially a man wouldn't see, because we have blind spots about ourselves. We're in a space where there's a recognition that we've told a very narrow band of what's available in stories. There's so many stories to be told and it's okay for us to broaden out from another white cop.

I hope that momentum continues. Okay, I have to tell you something: I’m a little obsessed with your wife, Jodie Turner-Smith. JJ: Me too. As you should be! I love how loudly and publicly you both love on each other. But I need you to set the scene for me. When you are leaving flirty Instagram comments, and she's tweeting thirsty things about you, are you in the same room? Do you know that the other one is tweeting? What's happening?

JJ: We're rarely in the same room [writing] the thirsty comments because that usually just gets said to each other. But, look, if either of us misses a comment, you better believe at night, there's a, "Hey, did you see what I wrote?" One, she's very easy to love out loud and two, she's phenomenal. And I have to say, the love and support that is coming my direction has been a revelation in my life. I've said this often, and it just is the truth: If you ever needed to test whether or not you had chosen the right partner in life, just have a baby at the beginning of a pandemic and then spend a year and a half together. And then you know. And then you absolutely know. I didn't get married until fairly late in the game. I didn't have a baby till very late in the game and they're the two best choices I've ever made in my life.

I'm just going to embarrass you now by reading one of Jodie's thirsty comments to you. She tweeted, “Objectifying my husband on the internet is my kink. I thought you guys knew this by now,” with a gif that said "No shame." JJ: [laughs] That sounds about right.

She's not the only one though. There's this whole thirst for Joshua Jackson corner of the internet. And it feels like there's been a bit of a heartthrob resurgence for you now at your big age. How do you feel about that?

JJ: I hadn't really put too much thought into it, but I am happy that my wife is thirsty for me. What about the rest of us? JJ: That's great for y'all, but it's most important that my wife is thirsty for me. Good answer. You're good at this husband thing. You recently revealed that Jodie proposed to you. Then it became this big story, and people were so surprised by it. How did you feel about the response? JJ: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to give context to this story. So I accidentally threw my wife under the bus because that story was told quickly and it didn't give the full context and holy Jesus, the internet is racist and misogynist. So yes, we were in Nicaragua on a beautiful moonlit night, it could not possibly have been more romantic. And yes, my wife did propose to me and yes, I did say yes, but what I didn't say in that interview was there was a caveat, which is that I'm still old school enough that I said, "This is a yes, but you have to give me the opportunity [to do it too]." She has a biological father and a stepdad, who's the man who raised her. [I said], ‘You have to give me the opportunity to ask both of those men for your hand in marriage.’ And then, ‘I would like the opportunity to re-propose those to you and do it the old fashioned way down on bended knee.’ So, that's actually how the story ended up.

So, there were two proposals. I do feel like that is important context. JJ: Yes, two proposals. And also for anybody who is freaked out by a woman claiming her own space, shut the fuck up. Good God, you cannot believe the things people were leaving my wife on Instagram. She did it. I said ‘yes.’ We're happy. That's it. That's all you need to know. That has been a real education for me as a white man, truly. The way people get in her comments and the ignorance and ugliness that comes her way is truly shocking. And it has been a necessary, but an unpleasant education in just the way people relate to Black bodies in general, but Black female bodies in specific. It is not okay. We have a long way to go. Jodie is such an inspiration because it seems like she handles it in stride. She handles it all with humour and with grace. JJ: She does. And look, I think it's like a golden cage, the concept of the strong Black woman. I would wish for my wife that she would not have to rise above with such amazing strength and grace, above the ugliness that people throw at her on a day to day. I am impressed with her that she does it, but I would wish that that would not be the armour that she has to put on every morning to just navigate being alive. That's a word. That's a word, Joshua Jackson.

The 13-year-old in me needs to ask this. We are in the era of reboots. If they touched Dawson's Creek — which is a masterpiece that should not be touched — but if they did, what would you want it to look like? JJ: I think it should look a lot like it looked the first time. To me, what was great about that story was it was set in a not cool place. It wasn't New York, it wasn't LA, it wasn't London. It wasn't like these were kids who were on the cutting edge of culture, but they were kids just dealing with each other and they were also very smart and capable of expressing themselves. It's something that I loved at that age performing it. And I think that is the reason it has lived on. We have these very reductive ideas of what you're capable of at 16, 17, 18. And my experience of myself at that point was not as a two-dimensional jock or nerd or pretty girl. You are living potentially an even more full life at that point because everything's just so heightened. [Dawson’s Creek] never talked down to the people that it was portraying. That's one of the things that I loved about it as a book nerd growing up. The vocabulary of Dawson's Creek was always above my level and that was refreshing. To go back to the “diversity” conversation, you can't really make a show with six white leads anymore and that’s a good thing. But I also don't know how I feel about taking a thing, rebooting it, and just throwing Black characters in there.

JJ: I hear that. And there's certain contexts in which it doesn't work unless you're making it a thing about race, right? If you watch Bridgerton, obviously you're living inside of a fantasy world, and so you're bringing Black characters into this traditionally white space and what would historically be a white space. And now you are able to have a conversation about myth-making and inclusion and who gets to say what and who gets to act how. So that's interesting, but I don’t think you’re just throwing in a Black character if you changed Joey to a Black woman [or] Pacey to a Black man. What you're doing is you're enriching the character. Let's say one of those characters is white and one of those characters is Black. Now, there's a whole rich conversation to be had between these two kids, the political times that we live in, the cultural flow that is going through all of us right now. I think that makes a better story. All these conversations around comic books in particular like, "Well, that's a white character." It's like, Man, shut up. What are you talking about? It is a comic book character! Joey and Pacey don't have to be white. Dawson and Jen don't have to be white. And this is what we were talking about a little bit earlier. We get better the broader our perspective is, both as humans, but also in the entertainment industry. So if you went back to a story like [Dawson’s Creek], what was important in that show was class not race, which I think is true for a lot of small Northeastern towns. They are very white. But if you brought race into that as well, you don't diminish the amount of the stories that you can tell. You enrich the tapestry of that show. So I think that would be a great idea.

Make Pacey Witter a Black man in 2021 is what I just heard from you. JJ: Hashtag ‘Make Pacey Witter A Black Man’. There we go!

#joshua jackson #refinery29 #interviews #jodie turner smith #dawson's creek

23 notes · View notes

memzhay · 3 years

Note

I know we got our Enchanted Tiki mug but please tell me that he enchanted a silly skull mug. I just want to believe he has a collection of enchanted mugs after Tiki.

Well, I’m not sure how silly she is, but…

1300 words of silliness obscured by a magical spell. Click below and the story shall materialize before your very eyes. Oooooo! Magic! (whispered theatrically) Special guest appearance by @theredquilt.

Link was deep inside the catacombs under the castle searching for a crate of astrolabes he knew was around here somewhere when he heard a noise. A voice?

He wasn’t especially alarmed by this. The catacombs snaked their way through the countryside for miles, and there had been a time or two when a child from the neighboring village had wondered in looking for adventure and got a bit more than they bargained for. Plus, there were portions of the tunnels that were built entirely in other universes. For tax purposes and for quick access to their favorite restaurants. So, it really could be anything.

He proceeded cautiously holding his torch in front of him, following the faint sound. He thought he had diffused the last of Rhett’s booby traps years ago, but one never could be too careful. He thought he was getting closer and started to be able to make out words. It sounded like the rough voice of an old woman.

“…world turned to ash and ruin. Blood and Fire! Fire and Pain! Pain and Suffering Eternal!!”

Link took two forks to the left and another to the right before nearly tripping over a crate with a big picture of an astrolabe on top.

“There you are!” he exclaimed, stooping down to retrieve it. As soon as he picked it up, a voice rang out from inside. “Blood and Fire!! Blood and Fire!!”

“ACK!” Link yelped, dropping the box.

“Careful, you dundering fool. I’m fragile!” came a reproachful voice from inside the crate.

“M-my apologies,” Link stammered politely. He crept forward, carefully removed the lid of the crate, and peered timidly inside.

Inside was a pile of astrolabes, as he expected, and placed on top in a black velvet-lined box, was a tall silver chalice. The bowl of the chalice was incased in what appeared to be an actual human skull with the top cut off. The skull was intricately carved in a myriad of runes and symbols. Some of which Link recognized, many of which he did not. The dark eye sockets, the teeth, and the top edge of the skull were lined with silver. It was very beautiful, well if you are into that sort of thing. Kind of macabre really. Not something that just goes with any décor.

“Hello?” he said into the box.

“The world will burn to ash, if the vine is not properly tended,” the chalice warned. It didn’t move at all. That at least was a relief. The voice issued, quite loudly, from the inside. “For there is no heart more capable of great evil, than one that has lost great love.”

“Well, that sounds quite serious,” Link said calmly. A prophesying skull chalice. That is something you don’t see every day, Link considered. Even around here. Now that he saw that the source of the voice was inanimate, and didn’t seem intent on harming him, he relaxed a bit.

“There will be blood!” the chalice insisted. “Blood and Fire! Fire and Pain!!”

“Yep. Got that. Let’s get you upstairs, and you can tell us all about it,” he said kindly, picking up the crate. “I’m Link, by the way.”

“I am Bav Neva,” the chalice answered with remarkable gravitas. “Oracle of the Sacred Grove of Improbability. Sorceress. Prophetess. Seer of Ultimate Mystery. I have been sent here by the Guardians of all Antiquity. Guided by arcane and powerful magics to the one wizard that may be able to avert the calamity. That’s you then, is it?”

“’Fraid not. I’m no wizard,” Link assured her. “But you’ve definitely come to the right place. Rhett is a great and powerful wizard-"

“Rhett?!? Oh, not Wizard Rhett? Insanely tall drunken oaf, Rhett? Big bushy beard? Narcissistic personality disorder?” the chalice enquired chagrined.

“Well, I’d hardly call him narcissistic,” Link said defensively. “Self-assured, perhaps.”

“Oh bollocks!” Bav Neva huffed. “We’re doomed.”

Link left the crate of astrolabes in the library and carried Bav Neva to their bedroom where Rhett was curled up taking a nap beneath his favorite blanket, the red quilt.

“Rhett,” Link called gently from the doorway. “There’s an old friend here to see you.”

Rhett stretched and yawned dramatically. Link thought he looked beautiful, all warm and snuggly. If there weren’t the end of the world, or something to contend with, he would like nothing better than to dive beneath that blanket and have a nice long cuddle. And then maybe…

“When time itself has been stolen, the thief must pay with interest! If not, there will be Blood and Fire!!” the chalice shouted.

“Bav Neva?” Rhett said incredulously. “Is that you? I’d know that harpy-like screech of yours anywhere.”

Bav Neva sighed. “Yes, you buffoonish excuse for a two-bit carnival magician. It’s me.”

“Well, it’s been centuries!” Rhett said affably, taking no offense. “Last time I saw you, you were in Istanbul, or Constantinople I suppose, and quite alive if my memory serves me correctly. You look… like you’ve lost weight?”

“I should have dismembered you centuries ago and given your disgraceful guts over to the beasts of the Earth,” Bav Neva said testily.

“Well, bad luck, eh?” Rhett said with amusement. “Link my love, be a dear and put her in with Tiki. We’ll sort it all out presently.”

“But Rhett,” Link objected. “It sounds like there are worlds hanging in the balance. Could be important.”

“Heed me, you swine! I am the Oracle of the Sacred Grove of Improbability. Slayer of Mrizagul, the Unending Serpent. Prophetess of-"

“Listen Bavs,” Rhett said condescendingly. “You can’t just barge in on a man when he is having snuggle time with his blankie spouting doom and gloom about the end of the world or whatnot and expect him to just jump when you snap your fingers, or lack thereof.”

“Blood and Fire!” she shouted. “Blood and Fire!!”

“Put her on the bar,” Rhett instructed, waiving his hand dismissively. “And you better bring me back some kisses,” he added, managing to strike a balance of seductive and pouty that he knew Link found adorable. He rolled around playfully on the bed, gathering the red quilt in his arms and squeezing it invitingly, rubbing his face on it and looking at Link like he would like to do a good deal more to him.

Link gave him a sultry wink and turned for the door, making sure to give his hips some extra sway as he walked out of the room and across the hall to the study.

“Friend for you, Tiki,” Link said happily as he walked into Rhett’s study and over to the Tiki bar.

“Well, hello Gorgeous!” Tiki said in flirty welcome. “What’s a classy, elegant lady such as yourself doing in a tourist trap like this?”

“Link,” Bav Neva pleaded, ignoring the amorous mug, “You must get him to listen to me. Lives are at stake. Entire civilizations could be lost.”

“We’ll be with you shortly,” Link said soothingly. “I promise. No more than 30 minutes or so.”

“Tell Tiki to sing some Puccini!” Rhett bellowed from across the hall.

“Maybe more like an hour,” Link amended. “You got that Tiki?”

“Sure thing boss,” Tiki said happily. “Yahtzee later?”

“Sounds fun!” Link agreed. “Unless the world is ending like super-imminently.

“We’ll call it a maybe,” Tiki allowed. Link gave him a double thumbs up and skipped out of the room.

“He lets me roll the dice,” Tiki explained to Bav Neva. “Makes me feel important. So, end of the world, huh? That sounds… well, bad.”

“The Earth shall cleave itself in twain and all the fruit shall turn to poison. There will be Horror Unimaginable!”

“Tiki!” Rhett yelled. “Do your job!”

“Sorry, doll. Tell me later, yeah?” Tiki offered apologetically. He took a deep breath (very deep for someone without lungs) and belted out his best Pavarotti impression.

Nessun dorma, nessun dorma Tu pure, o, Principessa Nella tua fredda stanza Guardi le stelle che tremano D'amore e di Speranza

The Shakespearean cats would be showing up soon. Hope this whole end-of-everything thing isn’t too dire. They’re going to be a while.

#drunk wizard rhett #rhink fic #rhink #Tiki gets a new friend

16 notes · View notes

crow-in-a-teapot · 3 years

Text

tower of nero spoilers

i have just finished the tower of nero. and before i go searching for other people’s thoughts and art and more of the characters i love so much, i want to write down some of my own thoughts because i know as soon as i delve into that ‘ton spoilers’ hashtag there are going to be complaints and criticisms and so much that i don’t want to hear, or essays that’ll make me upset, or things that’ll change my perception on the book (because on this website people really love to hate the trials of apollo).

i want to start with: i loved it. it didn’t feel earth-shattering or huge and momentous like some of my favourite riordanverse books (house of hades, the blood of olympus, the last olympian and maybe some of the magnus chase books take those pedestals for me) but it was satisfying. and i think it was satisfying because it in no way felt like an ending. whether because eventually rick will write that will-and-nico-go-through-tartarus-and-save-bob novella, or because we (or at least i) will continue writing and imagining and creating for this world i don’t know. he didn’t wrap up the story in a perfect little bow like ‘nineteen years later’, he simply put it on pause. gave us a glimpse of where every character was at at the end.

the only thing that makes me so angry and upset is that i did manage to get some spoilers for moments that i know would have been so good to experience for the first time if i hadn’t been spoiled for them. the moment where rachel mentions penguins in a mansion near her house, nico getting mental health advice from mr d, the fact that will and nico were going to be in the book for so much of the story, but the big thing was literally spoiled for me two days ago, it was the reason i sat down to read it as fast as possible because i was terrified of getting more spoiled and not being able to experience the moments for myself, was that piper had a girlfriend. i know that reading that for the first time would have been so cool and surprising, and the fact that when it came up for a moment in the last couple pages all i felt was disappointment because it was spoiled for me and because it was now tinged with whatever that person was saying about her having a girlfriend.

but i still had some warm fuzzy moments, the two parts where apollo thinks he’s going to die but nico comes up behind him - so good. impeccable.

Leader Guy spat. ‘Now, I kill you.’

He raised his sword... and froze. His face turned pale. His skin began to shrivel. His beard fell out whisker by whisker like dead pine needles. Finally, his skin crumbled away, along with his clothes and flesh, until Leader Guy was nothing but a bleached-white skeleton, holding a sword in his bony hands.

Standing behind him, his hand on the skeleton’s shoulder, was Nico di Angelo.

and

Nero raised his hand, ready to give the kill command, when behind me a mighty BOOM! shook the chamber. Half our enemies were thrown off their feet. Cracks sprouted in the windowsand the marble columns. Ceiling tiles broke, raining dust like split bags of flour.

I turned to see the impenetrable blast doors lying twisted and broken, a strangely emaciated red bull standing in the breach. Behind it stood Nico di Angelo.

gods. poetic brilliance. i can’t believe i’m still a nico di angelo stannie in the year 2021. in five years i have not changed (ever since the tv show announcement last summer i have managed to morph into myself from 2017)

from here i’m not sure where to go next i kind of want to go through everything, except it’ll be more difficult than my tyrant’s tomb reaction because i wasn’t reading on a kindle and thus can’t just do funny little reactions to screenshots of quotes, so i’ll just skim through the book page by page and see what i can comment on (i’m not planning on doing analysis today, no thank you, just enjoying the end of my childhood and trying to squeeze as much out of it as possible)

i have an emotional attachment to mr. snake from the very first chapter, and am very upset that he’ll never get off on his baltimore stop and get to see his wife, lu had no reason to shoot and kill him like that.

that brings me to lu, i liked her, it was interesting to see how rick kind of brought in not only the overarching theme of abuse, but also people who let the abuse happen, i have more i could say on this i’m too lazy to right now, and i promised no analysis - or the fact that Lu had conspired to make the show non-lethal to spare Meg’s feelings rather than - oh, I don’t know - refusing to do Nero’s dirty work in the first place and getting Meg out of that house of horrors.

And are you any better? taunted a small voice in my brain. How many times have you stood up to Zeus?

Okay, small voice. Fair point. Tyrants are not easy to opppose or walk away from, especially when you depend on them for everything.

the parallels to meg and lester heading to percy’s apartment, and then to camp half blood to the hidden oracle was so cool to read, every callback to the hidden oracle just there to remind us readers exactly how far apollo has come and how he’s changed; the entire chapter with sally, paul and estelle just felt sickly sweet, it just didn’t seem real how wholesome and good that family is, like i get why apollo broke down and just sobbed in that shower.

also rick really saying acab again in toa, i thought he was done after that elf cop chapter in magnus chase (the magnus chase series is a masterpiece) but apparently not, with A ‘good cop’ is still a cop... still a part of the mind game.

the grey sisters, i forgot about them completely but this threw me back into was it the sea of monsters when annabeth summoned them? i’m not sure, it could have been the lightning thief either, they really remind me of the disney hercules movie. the whole ganymede paragraph was gold, i love gods being canonically confirmed lgbt in the riordanverse. i also love the whole eye-tossing part -

‘He will crush our eye,’ Anger cried, ‘if we don’t recite our verses!’

‘I will not!’

‘We will all die!’ Wasp said. ‘He is crazy!’

‘I AM NOT!’

‘Fine, you win!’ Tempest howled.

also, the explanation for why dionysus chooses to look the way he does was perfect, because it was something i often wondered about and wasn’t expecting to get an explanation for, and i imagine the whole mythological dionysus to look like.. well like a more feminine apollo i guess, beautiful in a gender non-comforming way.

Other Olympians could never comprehend why Dionysus chose this form when he could look like anything he wanted. In ancient times, he’d been famous for his youthful beauty that defied gender.

...

In retaliation, Dionysus had decided to look and act as ungodly as possible. He was like a child refusing to tuck in his shirt, comb his hair or brush his teeth, just to show his parents how little he cared.

every scene with nico at camp just BREAKS ME, i would throw in screenshots of every damn quote but unfortunately, as said above, cannot and would rather not type every one; we’ll start with, obviously apollo confirming to him that jason is dead.

He didn’t look angry exactly. He looked as if he’d been hit in the gut not just once but so many times over the course of so many years that he was beginning to lose perspective on what it meant to be in pain. He swayed on his feet. He blinked. Then he flinched, jerking his hands away from Meg’s as if he’d just remembered his own touch was poison.

ugh then will talking about how nico’s doing, confirming that he’s suffering with ptsd, mr d giving him advice, helping him sort though what voices in his head are real and which ones aren’t, then the paragraph that just recounts every horrific thing poor nico has been through, how will has to reassure him that he’s okay and ‘with friends’ when he wakes up after shadow travel

will’s kindness to apollo, buying him clothes, and apollo finding seymour the leopard’s head in his bed, put there by mr d aaaa AAAA A A A A A THE ORDINARY, EVERYDAY CAMP HALF BLOOD THINGS..

i could go on for years and years about how much i appreciate rachel having a big role in this book, and the visit to her apartment, everything, her art, the fact that she got what she wanted, she’s going to PARIS to study ART, she isn’t forced to be someone she’s not by her dad, and gets to be a big part of a demigod mission and not stand on the sidelines for once.

i love that her landscapes are still visions, that she still paints the quests demigods go on - the burning maze, jason’s funeral pyre, caligula’s ships; and how nico ~appreciates art~

‘And, hey, di Angelo -’ she pushed him playfully away from the canvas he’d been ogling - ‘don’t brush against the art! I don’t care about the paintings, but if you get any colour on you, you’ll ruin that whole black-and-white aesthetic you’ve got going.’

i. love. rachel.

WILL GLOWS!! THE HEADCANONS FROM LIKE FIVE YEARS AGO THAT YOU’D SEE FLOATING AROUND ABOUT HIM MANIPULATING LIGHT!! CONFIRMED!! CANON!! AMAZING

I AM OBSESSED WITH THE TROGS, I LOVE THEM, THEY ARE GREAT, not gonna lie, i was expecting something more dramatic and spooky with how worried will was and how dionysus was going.. visiting the cavern-runners isn’t ♫ good for your mental health ♫ but the little hat frog gremlins were a good addition. i like them very much and their funky little soup shenanigans. quoting the ghost king himself: trogs good. nice hats. (IM SORRY I KEEP MENTIONING HIM BUT I JUST) also how apollo starts wishing for breadsticks a s ajoke and theY STRAIGHT UP HAVE BREADSTICKS? HUH? WHERE DID THEY GET THE BREADSTICKS FROM??

yeah, i’m also still very much upset by every mention of jason grace, it’s funny how ever since his death in the burning maze i have grown to love him more and more and that’s not fun for me, for that boy to become one of my main comfort character’s and have his death and sacrifice and nobility mentioned every few chapters. i’m pretty sure i cried when he appeared to talk in apollo’s dreams, and this time the tears weren’t from the effort of keeping my eyes open and working for hours straight reading this book (i remember staying up until 2am to finish the sequel to beautiful, broken things, it was very much worth it)

‘All right, Jason. We miss you, though.’

ALSO. THE FACT THAT THIS KID. THIS CHILD. HAD TO THINK ‘BUT IF A HERO ISN’T READY TO LOSE EVERYTHING FOR A GREATER CAUSE, IS THAT PERSON REALLY A HERO?’ A KID ISN’T SUPPOSED TO THINK ABOUT THAT AND BE READY TO SACRIFICE THEMSELVES FOR THE GREATER GOOD,, i,, ugh,, he’s supposed to be finishing school and designing temples not being the perfect hero and soldier,, spain without the s,,

as @couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name said: ‘thinking about how ghost! Jason didn’t seem to understand why Apollo was so upset about his death because he’s been raised to believe a hero’s sacrifice is noble and his life doesn’t matter in the grand scheme and also if he doesn’t understand why the person who watched him get horrifically killed is so torn up over his death he probably doesn’t even realize his other friends are grieving him..’

IM SO UPSET THE ARROW OF DODONA IS DEAD D: IT WAS ONE OF MY FAVOURITE CHARACTERS ALL THE FUNNIEST MOMENTS WERE BECAUSE OF THAT ARROW AND IT'S DEATH WAS SO SAD WTH LIKE WE FIND OUT HOW USELESS THE ARROW FELT AND HOW THE GROVE OF DODONA ALL THOUGHT IT WOULD BE CRAP AND WOULD FAIL APOLLO AND THEN ONCE WE FEEL BAD FOR IT, IT DIES??

the entire python battle was pretty grim, there is a part of me that's like because this is the last book series i would have loved say the magnus chase and kane chronicles gang in a giant battle with everyone like the battle of manhattan but even more dramatic, but even so, i did appreciate that python battle and the whole almost-falling-into-the-depths-of-tartarus thing.

him talking to artemis was cool, but JESUS: 'I turned and strode out of my room, trying to recall how the god Apollo walked.' like that HURTS. it was such a huge culture shock for apollo to go throught this huge character arc and be so human and understand the pain of others, to be around gods again who are so.. apathetic. also, zeus. 'Interesting how he put that: I had done him proud. I had been useful in making him look good. My heart did not melt. I did not feel that this was a warm-and-fuzzy reconciliation with my father. Let's be honest: some fathers don't deserve that. Some aren't capable of it.'

OKAY OKAY SO THE END?? CHIRON TALKING TO A CAT (BAST) AND A SEVERED HEAD (MIMIR) ABOUT SHARED PROBLEMS WITHIN THE PANTHEONS!! WILL AND NICO RECEIVING A PROPHECY FROM RACHEL TO GO TO TARTARUS AND SAVE BOB!! THE HUNTERS OF ARTEMIS, INCLUDING THALIA AND REYNA BEING BEST FRIENDS (qpr.. qpr..) HUNTING THE TEUMESSIAN FOX!! PERCY, ANNABETH AND GROVER, THE ORIGINAL TRIO, GOING ON A CHAOTIC ROAD TRIP TOGETHER!! - SO MANY STAND-ALONE SET -UPS PFSJSJSJ

okay quick word on the reunions at the end: funny little elephant visitation program with livia and hannibal. love that for them. calypso and leo's relationship seems rocky and complicated, but that's to be expected, i think even if they do get properly back together again it might not last long, because it does pretty much feel like a teenage relationship where the two aren't very compatible, but we'll see. hazel and frank are so funny with their gold plated necklaces. lavinia - tap-dance icon. almost cried at the mention of jason's temple-extension plan again. percy not being sure about what he wants to do in college is accurate and i like that that's left to be up-for-interpretation (rick does THE MOST for the fanfic writers pfsjsj). i am OBSESSED with aeithales, like i hate deserts so the burning maze setting is not my favourite but GOD that HOUSE, the vibes are off-the-charts. i'd love a house made of living trees that's also a greenhouse filled with dryads. meg gets a unicorn. that is so great.

i kind of wish the book hadn't ended with 'Call on me. I will be there for you.' because every time I imagine the friends theme song and i don't think that's the vibe he was going for, BUT i do love him talking to meg, that was genuinely emotional - 'You'll come back?' she asked. 'Always,' I promised. 'The sun always comes back.' ; i really wish it had ended with that, but i guess apollo does tend to break fourth walls and talk to the readers, like a lot of the protagonists of riordanverse books.

98 notes · View notes

stxleslyds · 3 years

Text

MY TOUGHTS ON PART TWO OF RED HOOD BY CHIP ZDARSKY :)

A DC BOOK THAT TASTES LIKE MARVEL.

You know when you are reading a book and you feel like the story you are reading seems familiar but not really within the context you are reading it at the moment? If you can’t shake the wrong sense of familiarity you search for what it probably the biggest give away, the author.

Here it’s something like that; I have read other pieces of Chip Zdarsky’s work, namely Daredevil. While I could tell you the familiarity is there, in the subject of guilt after taking the life of another person, the reality is that this book doesn’t taste like Daredevil, it tastes like Marvel.

That can be either an excellent thing (because Marvel has amazing books) or something terrible (because DC isn’t Marvel and they don’t work the same way).

As of now I can’t really tell if this Red Hood story is going to be one or the other, but I can tell you that it feels out of place in the DC universe, or at least that’s how I see it. I will explore this particular thought later, I just thought this was a nice way to open this post.

If you would like to read the first post I made about this book I will leave the link here!

Now…let’s begin.

Part two picks up exactly where part one left off, we see Jason calling Oracle so she can bring the police to the place where Jason killed Andy a.ka. that gigantic piece of shit.

Jason is having some thoughts, ones that I think are important.

“I have taken lives before, a lot of them. I have killed guys knowing nothing about them except that they had guns and murder in their hearts. Those ones are easy; I don’t have to think of their mothers getting the news or of kids being...”

Jason is troubled. He is now in front of a reality that he never truly thought about but to be honest with you I strongly believe that nobody in the DC universe thinks beyond what happens in front of them, that’s just how fictional comic worlds are designed.

Anyway, there is a little something that bothers me in this inner monologue of his, like since when have “murderers” been Jason’s actual target? Like Joker was his target but he didn’t kill him, the base of Jason’s morals when it comes to killing has always been drugs, most importantly if you sell drugs to kids. So unless he is saying “murderers” because they were selling drugs that caused people (especially kids) to overdose then I don’t really get what is going on.

Another thing that I also talked about in the first post is that Jason hasn’t killed in a very long time, this man has been sticking to the Bats rule for so long that it’s actually unreal. Even when he shot the penguin and Batman proceeded to almost beat Jason to death the penguin hadn’t died. So once again I am thinking that Zdarsky has some info that he is not sharing right now or maybe he just didn’t read Lobdell's run (in which case, can you really blame him?)

Now let me talk about the other part of his monologue “…I don’t have to think of their mothers getting the news or of kids being...” This is something that I haven’t seen in DC, direct consequences after a hero/vigilante does something, and let me tell you it feels out of place. Is it a good or bad thing? I don’t really know but I have some thoughts on the subject.

I think it's unfair to put a comic character in that situation or dilemma. Jason has basically three reactions to the same situation and they are all valid, but can this situation be handled by a fictional person in a fictional world? Because to be fair I could also ask about the criminals that are put in hospitals after they are beat up by heroes, what if they die in the hospital? Is the hero a killer or does it fall on the hospital? If a criminal cannot pay for the attention given to them in hospitals and they immediately go back to criminal activity to pay for those things, are heroes a good thing? If the Joker bombs a hospital for the third time in four months and Batman does the same thing (take joker to Arkham) only for Joker to escape and do it again, is Batman as guilty as the Joker for the deaths of innocent people or not?

As I wrote it and as I read it again I see that it is a crazy thought because you can simply add more depth to the characters decisions and the consequences that would ensue because of them, but Gotham is a fictional city created to establish that crime is off the charts and that they need Batman because no amount of resources will be able to fix this city’s problems. So putting Jason in this position is new to me…but only in DC (more of this particular thought below).

Going back to the comic in question, I feel like Jason had the answers and the ideas all in his head. In this issue alone he basically says that if the mother does not pull through the boy will be alone, but alone means going into the system (a horrible system that Jason does not trust and needs improvement), but also, Jason recognizes that if the mother died and the father was left alive then that man would have done horrendous stuff. I just simply wouldn't believe that a man that gave drugs to both his wife and son so they wouldn't bother him is just going to change after realizing that his wife died because of him. Even less believable is him becoming an amazing father.

In the big scheme of things, Jason has killed people who fitted very certain characteristics, never innocents (bye, Morrison). What happens after the killing is done? We don’t know because past stories have never focused on that (criminals in comics are by default one dimensional, villains are not)

But here is the thing, Zdarsky is a Marvel writer and Marvel has gone in depth within those situations (like what happens after heroes commit mistakes or kill someone) mostly with Civil War by Mark Millar and more recently in Daredevil written by Chip Zdarsky, but DC hasn't and DC has been plain for a long time, DC doesn't really explain how batman hurts people severely and nothing happens beyond that.

What I am trying to say is that Zdarsky is going for a different and unique route for Jason here but I think the story is out of place in the DC universe.

I promise I am done with those thoughts, they were really difficult to put on paper and to make them make sense, so I apologize if I only confused you, sorry!

Anyway! After the monologue is done we have a flashback where little Jason is being told by his mother to go buy bread (the only thing they can afford) but she is also making him leave so he doesn’t have to be present when Robby (a friend if you ask Jason’s mom, a drug dealer if you ask Jason) comes to the apartment to help her.

Sadly as Jason is leaving Robby is walking up the stairs, now not to copy little Jason but fuck Robby. Jason’s issues with drugs, drug dealing and overdosing is once again shown here but what is also shown is the violence that comes with it. Jason being terrified for himself (and his mother) as Robby pulls a knife on him broke my heart and as he is left there in the corridor to his apartment all we can see is a defeated little boy and that shit hurts a lot.

After that we jump back to the future with none other than Batgod…I mean Batman. Batman is following a man called Sydney and apparently he disappointed Batman because B told him to stop being a criminal, like come on man if I ask nicely or if I break both of your arms you will surely stop, right? Yeah, no.

I feel like I mentioned something about this while my brain decided that DC never usually explains what happens with criminals after they get caught or killed and now here we are. Consequences. Batman scares a man off of working for Scarecrow but the man still needs to work (does he have a family to provide for? We don’t know. Does he do it because it’s the only job he can get? We don’t know.)

This Batman intermission ends up with Oracle telling him that Jason might be in trouble.

So we find ourselves back with Jason and Tyler in his safe house, Zdarsky does not hesitate and first thing he does is give us a couple of very angsty panels.

I love the way it hurts.

Jason honey, my sweet chonky boy…what are you doing?

Well at least I am not the only one asking that because Jason is having a moment to reflect about what has happened, what is happening and what could happen in the future. In this monologue he says the following:

“Dammit, Jason, what the hell are you doing? You can’t take care of this kid! But you can’t put him in the system either! Just waiting for some obsessed militaristic billionaire to adopt him? Dammit. His dad was scum, he hurt Tyler, he hurt his mom. But if Tyler’s mom doesn’t pull through…I just made this kid an orphan. He is my responsibility, he is too young to really see what he’s gone through, he can still be saved…unlike…”

Yeah that’s some really angsty thoughts, he is really going through it and I understand it. He lost his cool after what that horrible human being said he did and killed him and now he has to face the consequences of his actions, he recognizes that if the boy is left truly alone he will have to step up…but here is the thing, does Jason really want that? It seems to me like Jason is deeply against the idea of children working as heroes, and here he is as an adult that is a vigilante with an impressionable child that sees the Red Hood as his hero, I don’t know, it looks like the perfect recipe for a disaster.

But we don’t get to see what Jason does right away because its flashback time.

Jason only moved from his spot in the corridor of his apartment door to get the bread but as Robby comes out of said door Jason is there waiting. Robby teases that he and Jason’s mom ended up sharing the “medicine” and that she will be sleeping for a long time, and that seems to be it for Jason because next thing you know Robby is falling down the stairs.

Aw, shit.

Jason from the future continues his monologue while he remembers what happened on those stairs.

“I never had a chance, not for one second. But he does, Tyler has a chance. I can help him, help him be okay. This doesn’t…what I did…what his parents did, it doesn’t have to define him.”

So Jason wants to make things right for Tyler so he doesn’t become like Jason. Now I don’t truly know what Zdarsky is going for but I will go for the unconscious route, little Jason pushed Robby (that fucker) down the stairs and he was left unconscious there.

In Jason’s eyes Tyler is still a good kid that deserves only the best (like you Jason, please don’t think so low about yourself) and that can be saved from a life of vengeance, justice and trauma. But whatever Jason was going to actually say to Tyler we don’t know because Tyler informs Jason that through the Red Hood mask there is someone telling him that Batman is coming.

Batman appears out of nowhere as he does and starts talking shit.

Honestly Batman what is with that “not my town” bullshit? Baby this isn’t the medieval times, you are not a king and as far as I know not only is Lucius Fox richer than you but so is Dick so sit your ass down and shut the fuck up.

Luckily Jason is giving the outstanding amount of zero fucks and tells Batman exactly what he needs to be told, sadly Jason’s big brain time doesn’t last long because he absolutely loses his cool and starts a fight. So you know what that means, monologue time!

“This was a mistake, but I can’t help myself, he gets under my skin. His sanctimony, he acts like he’s God, all knowing, all seeing when really…he’s just another failed parent.”

Amen. Jason knows many languages but he chose to speak facts.

As the monologue ends Batman is standing over Jason like he is about to murder him but no such thing happens because Tyler, who was quietly watching them fight, jumps in to protect Jason. Yep, there goes my heart, goodbye.

And this is it. The issue ends with Tyler putting an end to the fight and telling batman that he has to leave the Red Hood alone because he is a good guy. Jason of course is thankful and promises that everything is fine.

I don’t know about you guys but so far I can’t say if I like the book or not. Both parts left me with mixed feelings. I obviously want to see how it ends but I honestly think that there is only one way this story can end with a happy ending, which I think it would be Tyler going back to his mom and Jason somehow working to help her with her drug addiction, maybe even have Dick involved so he can help them economically.

Things that I surely do not want to see are Jason backing down again and limiting himself to the Bats rules. I also absolutely don’t want Zdarsky to go all Geoff Johns on us and make Jason think that he should give up the Red Hood mantle.

Jason really needs to gain his confidence back, he was smart, calculated and strategic and now they have taken those things away to accentuate his “daddy issues” and “inferiority complex”. Why the quotation marks you ask? Oh, because those things are bullshit and there is no room for those things in Jason’s characterization other than to add more angst to the plot.

Let me know how you felt about the issue and my review! Are you excited about what the four next issues are going to bring to the story?

Also if you read Marvel, did this issue taste like Marvel to you too or am I going crazy?

#Jason Todd #red hood #red hood outlaw #batman: urban legends #batman urban legends #infinite frontier #DC comics #robin

35 notes · View notes

phykios · 3 years

Text

i meant to have this up on friday but i didn’t bc i’m lame anyway, this is dedicated to my dearest dearest peyton 💙💙💙💙💙💙💙 one year ago last friday i had the distinct pleasure of sliding into her dms on discord, several fics and 72 separate aus later, here we are. so, for our friendiversary, have a sexy origin story for percabeth 😁

Say So, for @darkmagyk [read on ao3] rated E for sexual content (spicy!!! pls be advised!!!) cw: recreational drug use, experimental bondage, and an accidental hit during intercourse

“I don’t think it’s working,” Annabeth says.

“Just give it a minute.” Sofia sounds gone already, hazy and dreamy.

She gives it a minute.

“Am I supposed to feel something?”

“Yeah.”

“Well I’m not.”

“You gotta be patient,” says Jordan. Throaty and full, her already deep voice is even deeper, almost vibrating in the air.

Annabeth blinks. “Maybe they gave you actual grass. Or maybe I’m too much of a square for it to affect me.” Sofia snorts. “I’m serious. You know at my summer camp they started giving me counselor responsibilities when I was twelve? Percy always said I wouldn’t know what fun was if it hit me in the face. And it’s not like he was wrong, like I spent most of my childhood reading ancient Greek or learning how to use a knife but there were some pretty ridiculous extenuating circumstances and I really wanted this older boy at camp to like me, and why am I talking so fast?”

Masako giggles. “You’re stoned.”

“I am?”

“Stoned,” she confirms.

“High,” says Sofia.

“Intoxicated!” sings Jordan.

“Oh, wow.” She can feel every blade of grass beneath her, tickling along her bare legs, the wind caressing her face, the sounds of Berkeley--frat boys playing Ultimate, rush-hour traffic, a thousand different conversations about nothing and everything--muffled behind a glass wall. “I’m high.”

Sofia laughs. “How does it feel?”

“It feels…” She licks her lips. They taste like avocado fries and sunshine. “It feels like…” Slow. The turn of the earth so soft and gentle, like the tides in the lake when Percy is in a good mood. Like the liminal space between sleepfulness and wakefulness, when you’ve taken a nap and can’t remember what year it is. Like wading through a magical time spell, but warm. “You know what I mean?”

“Annabeth,” says Masako. “You didn’t say anything.”

“What?” She raises her head, looking over at her friend. Her eyes are closed, her hands running along the grass of the quad. “I didn’t?”

“Nothing.”

Annabeth lets her head fall back, thumping the earth. “Oh, theoi, I’m high.”

Overcome, Jordan starts laughing, curling onto her side. The rest aren’t far behind.

Soon they’re not laughing at her anymore, they’re just laughing to laugh. Laughter is fun, she realizes, her breath and blood whooshing through her body, every muscle and bone in her body united in one single pursuit of joy. Her eyes are squeezed shut, cheeks aching from the force of her smile, her body curled in on itself, wracked with euphoria.

Sofia giggles so hard she snorts, setting them all off again.

Wading through an onslaught of laughter, high and squeaky, Annabeth gasps out, “Why am I laughing so much?”

“Because you’re high, girl!” Jordan crows. She has turned herself over on her front, her face pressed against the grass. “Have you really never gotten high before?”

“Don’t tease her,” says Sofia, awkwardly patting Annabeth’s knee. “You know she hasn’t done anything.”

She has done stuff, she almost says--before she shuts her mouth with an audible clack.

“Not even at your camp?” Jordan asks, befuddled. Befuddled is a funny word. “No one ever snuck in some alcohol or whatever?”

Thoughts running at a snail’s pace, she has to seriously rack her brain to think if one of the Hermes’ kids ever brought in any illicit substances. Soda, minor monsters, the most powerful weapon ever created--but not any alcohol or marijuana. She thinks. “Our camp director was really strict about alcohol.”

“Lame,” says Masako.

“I mean, he was in recovery,” says Annabeth, her go-to story about Mr. D, just in case anyone ever asks. “It was a whole thing. He couldn’t have it, so we couldn’t have it.”

“Not lame,” she amends.

“Okay, I think,” she says, a memory appearing out of the fog, after Gaea, after all that nonsense, “I think my co-counselor Katie made some joints out of bay leaves once.”

The younger kids had gone to bed, sent off with a healthy dose of Clovis’ dream magic to ward away any nightmares, but the older campers had stayed up, huddled around the central brazier into the wee hours of the morning. Still so exhausted she could barely see straight, falling asleep on top of Percy, he had hauled her away to bed, but not before he had declined something for the both of them, something small and white and made to be smoked.

“You can get high off of bay leaves?” Sofia asks.

Annabeth nods. “That’s how the… the fucking…” the word was on the tip of her tongue. The thing that Rachel did. But long ago. Oracle! “The Oracle, she got high, in ancient Greece. With bay leaves. She’d smoke them and receive prophecy.”

Jordan lifts her head. “Cool. You got ancient Greek high.”

Annabeth nearly says something about Olympus, or maybe Blackjack, an amazing joke about being high and Greek just on the tip of her tongue, but she has just enough self control not to. “No, I was tired. Percy and I went to bed.”

“Laaaaaaaaame,” says Masako.

It’s just good-natured ribbing. And they’re all high as kites. But Annabeth still frowns. “I’m not lame.”

“You’re amazing, don’t get me wrong,” Masako says, “but you are so lame. You’ve never gotten high before, you’re probably going to marry your first boyfriend… you are so vanilla.”

“And we love that about you!” Sofia jumps in.

Annabeth can’t feel bad right now, but she can feel a little lost. “But I love Percy,” she says. “Why wouldn’t I marry him?”

Percy is perfect. He’s handsome and kind and powerful and funny and brave and handsome. He’s more than anyone could hope for. And he loves her.

“You’re really going to marry him?” Jordan asks. “Like, for real?”

She shrugs. “Yeah, but he says he can’t propose before he finds the perfect ring. He promised he wouldn’t make me wait too long. I don’t want to have Chase on my diploma.”

“Oh my god,” Masako giggles, “you’re even more vanilla than I thought.”

“The dick can’t be that good,” Jordan muses, examining a particularly long blade of grass.

It is, but they don’t need to know that.

Sofia snorts. “It is?”

Oh, fuck. Annabeth giggles. “I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”

“Tell us!” Masako sits bolt upright, eyes wide. “Tell us everything!”

She slams her hands over her face. “Noooo,” she laughs, curling in on herself further. “I can’t.”

All at once, they scream, like the three Erinyes swooping down onto an unsuspecting prey. Or the Cabin Ten campers when someone gets too close with any stray ketchup.

“Spill!” they shriek. “Spill!”

No one has ever demanded to know the details of her sex life before. Even at camp, she and Percy are given a wide berth. Something about walking through Tartartus with your partner apparently takes your sex life from giggle-worthy to kind of intimidating. That’s the biggest difference between her demigod friends and her mortal friends, Annabeth is finding. Other than that, they’re pretty much exactly the same. “What do you want to know?” she asks, naively.

The floodgates open.

“When did you guys first do it?”

“Where?”

“How was it?”

“What does he like?”

“His abs though--”

“Is he good at head?”

“Favorite position!”

“His dick is big, I just know it--”

Over and over, overlapping, a whirlwind of questions, she can’t process them nearly as fast as they are coming--all she can do is laugh, breathless and airy, until they all dissolve into giggles once again.

She’s getting a little tired of this constant laughing.

Even that thought makes her start all over again.

“Okay,” she gasps, “okay, I can’t--I can’t answer all of those.”

Jordan waves her arms. “Me first! First time!”

Annabeth shrugs. “Um, it was… the weekend of Thanksgiving, a few months after we started dating. His parents were at a mixer for their writing group, and I was staying with them during my school break.” What else is she supposed to say? That they’d been talking about it for weeks? That Annabeth had been so excited she’d forgotten to even ask him about condoms? That Percy had been so concerned with making sure he got her off and didn’t hurt her that he’d spent almost an hour fingering her?

They squeal in unison. “His parents’ house!” Sofia gasps, hands on her face. “So scandalous! How was it?”

Annabeth blushes. “Amazing.”

And it had been, as amazing as a first time can be. Any person could only ever dream of having a partner as attentive and respectful as Percy for their first time.

“If he’s the only one you’ve ever had, how do you know it was that good?” Jordan asks. “I thought my first boyfriend was good, too, right up until I started dating Julie.”

“I think three consecutive orgasms counts as being good,” Annabeth drawls.

Once again, the screaming.

“Three?” shrieks Masako.

“Three.”

“Your first time?!”

“He was really really really concerned I wouldn’t get off!”

Sofia collapses on top of her, hands scrabbling for her shoulders, and always, always giggling. “You marry that boy--you marry him right now!”

“I’m trying!”

“And it’s still good?” Masako’s eyes are as wide as saucers.

Normally, she might be a little reluctant to share--even with Piper. The eighth of this edible, though, is certainly helping grease the wheels of conversation. “It’s always good.”

Jordan groans, throwing a handful of grass in her face. “Bullshit.”

“Always?”

She frowns, really thinking about it, trying to remember a time it was bad. It’s surprisingly really hard. “Sometimes we don’t have time for three orgasms.”

“How often do you fake it?”

“What do you mean?” Annabeth asks Masako.

“You know… fake it.”

“Why would I fake it? If I fake it, he won’t know I haven’t come yet.” She laughs, more than a giggle but less than a guffaw. It’s so silly. Whoever thought of faking an orgasm? “How would I even do that?”

“You’ve never faked it?” Sofia is incredulous, her jaw hanging open.

Annabeth sits up, flailing a little, reaching forward to touch her toes. Just because. “Of course not. Do people actually do that?”

“Sure,” says Masako. “Sometimes.”

“Why?”

“I hate you,” Jordan moans, “I hate you so much, you and your stupid sex god boyfriend who makes love to you every night like you’re in some trashy period drama with the…” Her hands come up, weakly making a wavy shape in the air. “The things. You know.”

Masako tilts her head. “Hoop skirts?”

Sofia pitches forward, hands coming flat on the grass. “Okay, Annabeth. Prove to us you’re not vanilla. Craziest place you’ve ever done it.”

All three girls lean in, now, expectant, hungry.

Annabeth frowns.

Where was the craziest place they had done it?

They’d done it a lot in the last few years. His apartment in the city, Cabin Three, her boarding school room…

Oh. Right.

She flushes.

They lean in even closer.

Well, she can’t tell them about the time they had sex in the temple of Neptune in New Rome, but she can tell them about--“One time, at camp,” she mumbles, playing with a shoelace, “we… Percy is in charge of the boathouse, because--because he’s so good at sailing, you know? So, one day, we both passed our chores off to a couple other counselors, then he took out one of the canoes, rowed us out into the middle of the lake, and…” She glances up, bashful.

Cue the screaming.

Annabeth covers her face with her arms, falling back down onto the quad.

“At your summer camp!” Masako cries, gleeful.

“My word!” Playfully kicking her ankle, Jordan pretends to fan herself, like Hazel still does sometimes when she’s startled by something really risque. “Imagine if the children had seen you!”

The children hadn’t seen them, but the naiads definitely had--and had tried to capsize them for their trouble. She hadn’t been able to do any lake-related activities for a week without getting soaked by a stray wave which, coincidentally, managed to avoid hitting everyone else.

“What else?” Sofia asks, practically vibrating. “Craziest kink!”

“Um…” She frowns, screwing up her face so she thinks extra hard. Have they… done anything kinky? They have sex a lot, yeah, and not always in their bedrooms, but other than that… “I… don’t… know…”

Sex with Percy is always amazing--that’s not a lie. But, maybe it’s gotten a little… same-y.

“Well, well, well.” Sofia slow-claps it out, her rings clinking together. “I think she’s ready for the big leagues, don’t you, girls?”

Through her fingers, Annabeth glances at her. “What do you mean?”

“Bondage.”

“Bondage?” She blinks. “Like, tying each other up?”

Annabeth doesn’t think she’s ever been tied up before. Well, except for the time she wanted to hear the Sirens, but Percy had left her with her knife, so that didn’t really count.

“Last time I met up with Skylar, we went back to his, and he has this old-timey bed frame, with the slats, right? So I took the belt from my dress, and--”

“Okay, okay,” Annabeth cuts in, covering her face again. “I get the point.”

Maybe her friends have a point. Maybe she is a little vanilla.

Sofia pats her knee. “Next time you guys have sex--”

“So, in like, three hours,” Jordan snorts.

“--take a scarf or a tie or whatever and tie his hands to the headboard. Trust me, he will flip. Out.”

Annabeth nods, taking mental notes. “Hands to the headboard. Got it.” She’s not sure if he even has any ties, but she’s resourceful. She can cobble something together. “And… then what?”

Sofia shrugs. “Kiss him. Do a striptease. Leave him there. I dunno. Whatever you want.”

Masako scrambles to her feet, windmilling to keep her balance. “The Bon Me truck just pulled up,” she gasps, “and I am starving.”

And thus, that particular conversation is over, thanks to the munchies.

***

Truth be told, she kind of forgets it pretty much entirely. Most of that day is gone, the finer details swallowed up in a haze of heat waves and peanut sauce.

That is, until New Rome’s annual pre-Saturnalia mixer: dress code, lighter side of formal. Whatever that means.

“Hey, babe?” Percy pokes his head in the bathroom, button-down half undone. “I need your eye for a second.”

She grunts around the bobby pin held between her teeth, sliding another one through some hitherto-unknown dimension to hold a curl in place.

“What do you think, this tie with this jacket?” He holds the two of them together, the black and white Greek key pattern contrasting nicely against the navy blue fabric. “Or will that cause an incident?”

“Probably an incident,” she says, slowly, slipping the bobby pin from her mouth. Then, a thought poking at the back of her skull. “How long have you had that?”

He glances at it. “The tie? Paul gave it to me for graduation.”

“That was nice of him.”

“I’m pretty sure he got it from the Met gift shop, but yeah.” All smiles, he slides the jacket on, tie crumpled in his balled fist. “You’re right, no tie.”

She grunts, noncommittal, gaze sliding away as she tries to remember… something.

“You good?”

“...Yeah,” she says, eventually. “Just spaced out for a second.”

“Alright. You about ready to go?”

She glances at her hair in the mirror, the makeup on the counter. “Give me twenty.”

“Sure thing.” Then he goes out, a few moments of silence passing before she hears the sink turn on as he takes care of the dishes.

How in Hades did she end up with the perfect man? Truly.

Percy continues to exude perfection at the party, despite the fact that he is clearly less than comfortable, not that she can blame him. Some of the older citizens of New Rome are a little less reserved with their opinions of the Greeks, Percy’s hand clenching around his glass of sparkling grape juice every time someone badmouths camp, their home, but they both relax as soon as they finish making the rounds of NRU’s board of trustees and other college officials, peeling away to find Frank and Reyna and the rest of their friends.

Still, Annabeth can’t quite focus.

“Hey.” Percy leans in, his hand against the small of her back, murmuring into her ear. “Are you okay?”

“Hm?” Gods, his hand is so big and warm. All that time in the gym is paying off, too, the weedy, skinny teenager she fell in love with blossoming into a young man, broad shoulders and firm chest like a Phidian sculpture.

“You’re just kind of quiet tonight. Did you sleep okay?”

She blinks at him, thoughts coming back into focus. “Uh--yeah, I’m good. Just--”

“Spaced out for a second?” Making a face, he grins back at her, unrepentant. “You wanna ditch the party?”

“Do you?”

He looks around, eyeing Hylla Ramirez-Arellano as she loudly boasts about being Jeff Bezos’ findom. “A little.”

Well, Annabeth is happy to be his excuse.

Citing a (completely fake) headache, they make their graceful exit, walking back to their apartment in the cool California night, hand in hand, Percy carrying her heels as she walks barefoot down the sidewalks.

It’s a quiet night. Percy squeezes her hand every few steps, and she squeezes back, lifting her face to the clear night sky, thoughts she can’t catch slipping through the cracks like wisps of clouds across the moon. But that’s okay. She’s pretty sure they’re good thoughts.

“You sure you’re alright?” Percy asks as they get home, closing the door behind them. “You've been kind of out of it all night.”

Kissing him on the cheek, she shrugs out of her nice coat, slipping it up on their makeshift coat rack, fashioned from a piece of driftwood that had nearly conked Percy on the head the first time they ever went down to the beach. “I’m fine, Percy, promise. Just kind of a bleh day, you know? Nothing a few cuddles and a movie won’t fix.”

At that, he beams, dropping Annabeth’s shoes on the floor. “I’ll get the popcorn!”

"Let me shower first," Annabeth says. Hopefully a shower will clear her head a little.

It doesn't.

Changing into her pajamas, she ruffles her curls with her microfiber towel, frowning as she comes out of the bathroom. Percy's good habits are rubbing off on her; she's left a lot of crap lying around that needs picking up. Collecting stray bobby pins from the vanity, a curling iron from the top of the dresser, and an alternate dress option from where she had left it on the bed, she putters about the room, tidying as she goes, when she stops. Percy's tie lays crumbled at the head of the bed where he had tossed it earlier.

She picks it up, running it between her fingers. It's not exactly silk, but it's still a decently strong weave, machine-made for mass production, inoffensively soft. Annabeth wraps it around her finger, pulling tight, and a flash of heat rushes through her, like a wave off the lava climbing wall.

“So there’s this guy on Youtube who makes popcorn with Lao Gan Ma spicy chili crisp, and it sounded absolutely amazing,” says Percy, walking into their room, popcorn bowl in hand. Annabeth whips around, the tie crumpled in her fist. “I tried to keep the spice level down, but let me know if it’s too much and I can make another one.”

Annabeth blinks, momentarily uncomprehending. “Uh--sure! Sounds good.”

“Did you pick a movie while you were in the shower?”

“Um…” Was she supposed to? “Your choice.”

“The Sopranos okay?” he asks, climbing onto their bed, twisting around to grab his laptop from the side table. His shirt rides up a little, a sliver of waist and hip peeking out at her.

“Sure.” She likes The Sopranos. It’s a little soapy, but usually she has no problem following along.

Keyword being usually.

She’s tucked herself into Percy’s side the way she usually does, her head against his, his arm around her shoulders, his thumb ghost along the bare skin of her bicep. He smells really good today, sea salt and cinnamon and chili oil, a testament to his busy day in the kitchen. He’s so warm, always, six feet of dense, packed muscle practically radiating heat. Annabeth could fall asleep right there. She often does.

Shifting for the sixth time in what must be five minutes, she snuggles into his chest, curling and uncurling her toes. There’s no denying it--she can feel herself getting hotter, a flame in her center, soft and pulsing, reaching every part of her.

How she wishes she could blame it on The Sopranos.

Annabeth presses her nose into his neck, breathing him in, laying a kiss under his ear. Then another on his jaw. And another at the corner of his lips. And one on his mouth, tilting him towards her for better access. He goes, easily, without resistance.

At some point, the popcorn bowl is moved.

Then, Percy shuts his laptop closed during Livia’s wake.

“Hey,” Annabeth murmurs into his mouth, draped over him like some kind of blanket. “I wanna try something.”

He hums, kissing her again. “Okay?”

She reaches behind him, beneath the pillow. She’s not sure why she had stashed it there, rather than hanging it back up in the closet, but she pulls out the tie, holding Percy’s gaze without breaking. “I thought,” she breathes, pressing her chest against him, incentivizing, “you know... if you want to."

His eyes darken, even as his face tries to give nothing away. "You wanna tie me up?"

Lip between her teeth, she nods.

Slowly, controlled, he blows his breath out, bringing a hand up to cup her cheek. "You sure?" he asks, desire rumbling in his chest.

She frowns. "Yeah." Does he not want to?

"Okay," he says, twisting a curl around his finger. "Just want to make sure we’re on the same page here.”

Or maybe worse, does he think she can’t? “Okay.”

Straightening up, she straddles him. He lifts his arms obediently, never breaking eye contact, bracing them against their headboard. It’s not really conducive for this sort of thing, but she threads the tie through the wooden slats easily enough, tying his wrists together, leaning in closer than she needs to so that her chest pushes up against his face.

There. All tied up and ready to go.

She leans back on her knees, taking in the whole pretty picture.

Rhythmically, subconsciously, Percy tests the strength of the bonds, flexing the muscles in his arms. His mouth hangs open, his hips shifting beneath her as he tries to get comfortable, cock hard through his sweatpants.

Annabeth scrambles off him, and he tries to follow, chest jerking as the tie holds him back. He grunts, surprised, shoulders straining, before he falls back, defeated, huffing angrily, a low growl which connects to the pit of her stomach. “Nice try, Percy,” she smirks, sauntering around to the foot of the bed, keenly aware of his gaze as it tracks her, hands on her hips. “It’s my show tonight.”

“Your show, huh?” He settles back against the headboard, wine-dark gaze boring into her. “By all means, then. Give me a show.”

She glares, grinding her teeth. Doesn’t he know she’s calling the shots right now?

Well, fine. If he wants a show, he’ll get a show.

Annabeth is… not a particularly graceful person normally, but on the battlefield, she knows she shines. Give her a knife and an enemy, and she can put the greatest dancers to shame. Well, in this case, Percy is the enemy, and… her clothes… are the knife. Or something like that. It makes more sense in her head.

Slowly, she grasps the hem of her sleep shirt, peeling it up over her chest, the fabric blocking her vision for a brief moment as she slips it over her head. When Percy comes back into view, his eyes have darkened just that much more, almost straining with the effort not to stare at her chest, even as it’s presented for his explicit viewing pleasure.

Annabeth does not have much in the way of breasts--never has. It doesn’t seem to bother him, which is nice. Besides, Percy is more of a leg man, as he has expressed several times. So, legs next.

Her sleep shorts aren’t very sexy, old, threadbare things which had once been yoga pants. When she started gaining a little more weight, and the pants could no longer reach her ankles, she had cut them in a fit of impulsivity, stretching the fabric and sewing herself a new hem, giving her skin more room to breathe. And giving Percy more space to slip his fingers up, the horny bastard.

She turns around, lamenting the loss, as she so wanted to see his face as she bends over, sticking out her ass, slowly slipping the waistband down. From behind, she hears a faint pickup in breathing.

Over her ass, down her thighs and her knees. She thinks she hears a groan, muffled behind a bitten lip. She lifts up one foot, then the other, leaving the shorts in a puddle by her feet. Clad only in her panties now--black, lacy, but not due to any pre-planning on her part, unless you count the laundry just about overflowing in the closet hamper--she straightens back up, her hands going to her hair, running her fingers through it in some kind of approximation of sexy.

She turns around, and is greeted with his look of naked longing, his throat working as he swallows, full lower lip firmly in his teeth. His fists are clenched, the muscles of his forearms big and bulging, his heels pushing into the mattress.

She takes a step forward, her fingers teasing the edge of her panties. She won’t take them off, not yet, just torment him a little, lifting the fabric and letting it slap back down to her skin, then she’ll climb back on top of him, hump him through his sweatpants until he’s begging--

Annabeth catches her foot on the fabric puddle. Tripping, she throws out her hands, aiming to catch herself on the decorative chest they keep at the foot of their bed, her weak ankle buckling as it tries to keep her steady--then she jams her toe into the metal strut. Hard.

“Mother fucker!”

She goes down.

“Annabeth!”

Through the white hot haze of pain, she can barely see, but she can certainly feel it as a pair of strong arms picks her up from the floor, laying her on the bed, a big hand taking her weaker foot, fingers delicately prodding the offending toe, skimming over the sensitive skin. “Percy?” she moans, seeing stars. “What--”

“Nothing feels sprained,” he murmurs, kissing her ankle. “Looks like you just slammed it. Let me get some ice.” And he leaves her for a moment.

Wasn’t he tied up a minute ago?

The bed dips beside her as Percy takes her foot again, carefully laying one of their smaller ice packs across the throbbing flesh. Her vision clears, blink by blink, and as his concerned but fond face slowly comes into focus, she also spies something trailing from his wrist--a strip of black and white fabric.

His tie. Snapped in half. Still attached to him. “Did you…?” she trails off.

He flicks his eyes down to his wrist, and flushes, lightly. “Oh. I, uh, guess I did. I didn’t even notice.”

Annabeth’s body grows hot in a way that has absolutely nothing to do with shame.

“Anyway,” he coughs, dry and useless. “Um, maybe we should call it a night?”

Hiding her face in her arms, she nods.

***

They try again the next week.

While dictating her notes via speech-to-text, Annabeth had spent the last couple of days occupied with making her own rope, stronger and softer than the ones she had seen in her Incognito Mode searches while doing her business in the bathroom. BDSM rope is surprisingly really expensive, especially the less abrasive stuff, but more than that, she feels kind of… well, it’s weird, the idea of spending money on bondage shit when they’d only tried it once, and not very successfully at that. Like, how about they make sure they actually like it first, says the little Percy in her head who occasionally keeps her from making too many impulse purchases, and then they can upgrade their gear?

Also, she’s confident her stuff is on par with the really expensive gear anyway. Plus, it’s blue!

And when she dangles it in front of his face, straddling him once again as she slides her wet pussy over his briefs, practically soaking them, he lifts his arms again, a quiet acquiescence, even as his jaw clenches in the barest hint of displeasure.

Every day Percy does something new to make her fall in love with him. That he trusts her so much to let her tie him up, immobilize him, take away his control like this, even though he’s so clearly hesitant about the whole thing, that’s just today’s thing. She kisses him, soft and sweet, over and over, and he responds in kind, straining his neck to meet her. “You good?” she asks, a whisper into the space between them, and he nods. “It’s not too tight?”

“It’s fine.” She feels more than sees as he flexes his arms again, testing the strength of her rope.

“Good.” She kisses his nose. No way he’ll be able to break these.

The second time is already going better than the first. Having divested herself of her clothes beforehand, there’s no danger of her tripping and injuring herself as she lines herself up and sinks down on him, shuddering at the angle as she slides him inside of her. She just sits there for a moment, rocking back and forth on his lap, enjoying the way he fills her nooks and crannies, brushing up against the sensitive skin, closing her eyes against the sensation as she lifts herself up, sliding back down, up and down and up and down and up and down.

“Fuck, Annabeth,” he moans. “Oh, fuck.”

It’s good. As always. It’s so good.

But… something is missing.

She squeezes around him, and he hisses, bucking beneath her.

Why isn’t he touching her?

He groans, frustrated, his head making a muffled thump as it drops on the pillow.

Oh. Right.

Usually right about now he’ll go for her tits, his big hands covering them completely, deft fingers pinching and twisting her nipples in the most perfect way, so she decides to show him what he’s missing, bringing her own hands up to her chest, rolling her thumbs over her nipples, smiling as he practically growls. Unfortunately for her, for whatever sick reason, she’s not nearly as good at this as he is, her touches not really doing enough for her. And after a few minutes or so, Percy takes notice.

“Oh gods, Annabeth,” he pants, pulling his legs up behind her, the force almost tilting her forward, and she throws out her hands to catch herself, his abs tensing beneath her as she lands on them, her chest right up against his face. Quick as anything, he lifts his head up, mouth headed for her left nipple before she manages to pull herself back.

She narrows her eyes, falling back on his lap even more heavily, pushing a grunt out of him. “Nice try.”

He only grins back, shark-like, eyes dancing. “Had to give it a shot.”

Of course he did. Percy treats rules like [clever metaphor], easily broken and discarded. And now Annabeth has to punish him.

Shit.

What are you supposed to do for punishment again?

Her mind draws a blank.

Percy stares up at her, waiting, brow raised in challenge.

To stall for time, she squeezes around him.

She’d watched a handful of pornos for research, and in a lot of them, the dominant would strike their partner. Percy’s tough, a bit of an adrenaline junkie, and he likes his rough-housing with Clarisse and Frank and the war kids, so he’d probably like that, too, right? If someone did that to her, Annabeth would probably like it.

So she raises her hand, and she brings it down on his soft, untensed, unprepared tummy. Hard.

He jumps so high that he actually manages to buck her off. “OW!”

“Percy!” she cries, scrambling back over to him. “Oh my gods, I’m so sorry!”

“The hell was that for!” he gasps, curling in on himself as best he can with his arms still tied above his head.

“Sorry, sorry,” she gentles, almost frantic, hands hovering over his body. His belly is rapidly turning pink, the outline of her hand stark on his skin, practically radiating heat. “I just--I mean I thought--fuck, I am so sorry!”

He groans in response, eyes squeezed shut.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck--”Let--let me get you some ice, or--” she stammers, sliding off the bed.

“Can you at least untie me first?” Percy wheezes.

“Oh my gods, yeah, hold on.” Despite her shaking fingers, the knot comes undone easily, practically falling apart, and Percy curls himself into a ball, forehead touching his knees.

Returning with an ice pack wrapped in a dish towel, she kisses his shoulder in apology, slipping it between the taut, tight bends of his body.

He is in real, actual pain. Fuck. “I am so, so sorry,” she says again, her voice wobbling.

Squinting up at her, he tries for a reassuring smile, but falls far, far short, a pained grimace painted across his face. “It’s okay,” he rasps.

It’s really not, but saying that isn’t going to be so helpful right now.

Instead, she lies down next to him, resting her hand on his arm, gently stroking back and forth in hopes that it might distract him a little. She knows that whenever her ankle or her shoulder act up, all she wants is Percy’s hands on her, repetitive and soothing. Hopefully she can give back a little of the comfort that he gives her.

After a while, he starts to uncurl. “Goddamn,” he moans, still clutching the ice pack to his stomach. “Remind me never to badmouth the Yankees again.”

She forces out a chuckle for his sake, ducking her head against his. “How is it? One to ten.”

Hissing, he straightens out a little more. “Probably a four,” he says, “but a really spicy four.”

“Percy, I am so--”

“It’s okay.” He knocks his head against her chin. “Maybe just warn me next time?”

“Yeah,” she says, uneasy. Next time is not looking so likely. “Here.”

Slowly, she helps him into a sitting position, applying extra pressure on his stomach, her hand on top of his. They breathe together, letting the sting fade away until Percy drops his head on hers.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey.”

“How are you?”

“How--” she snorts, a little wet. “I’m fine, Percy.”

“Good.”

“I’m sorry about hitting you,” she says. She can’t help but look down at his stomach, pinkness peeking above the ice pack, at his dick, well and truly flaccid. “That was… not my best idea.”

“Can I ask you something?” Tearing her gaze away, she turns back to Percy. “Why are you pushing for this so hard?”

She blinks, taken aback. “What do you mean?”

“Just, you’ve never really expressed an interest in kinky stuff before.” He takes her hand, cold from the ice pack, rubbing his thumb against hers, sweet and intimate.

“Yeah, well,” she cuddles into Percy a little harder, curving her body around his shoulder. “Some of the girls at Berklee were teasing me about being a little vanilla.” None of it was mean-spirited or anything, but it had stayed with her for a while after it had resurfaced that night. Annabeth Chase, despite having run away from home at the age of seven, was a square, a teetotaler, unadventurous, the kind of woman who spent her Friday nights playing board games with a woman who typified 1930s values. Annabeth Chase, after her short, entirely too eventful life, was going to settle down, and marry the first boy she ever kissed.

It had struck a nerve.

“Being vanilla isn’t a bad thing,” he says, something like concern lacing his voice. “But, are you… not satisfied? With the physical stuff?” The unspoken ‘with me’ hangs between them, and Annabeth pulls back, looking him in the eye.

“Percy.”

“Mm?”

Reaching up, she kisses him. “Of course not. I could never not be satisfied.”

Something in him eases, almost imperceptible if she didn’t know him as well as she does. “So…”

Shrugging, she lays her head back down on his shoulder. “I dunno. It’s just--like, I’m pretty sure you’re going to be the only person I ever sleep with--”

“Pretty sure?”

She nudges him with her foot, and he laughs, hissing a little as it jostles his stomach. “You know what I mean. I just don’t want to miss out on anything, is all.”

“Like what?”

“Like--” she gestures to the rope, lying forgotten, tangled up in the sheets. “Stuff like that. Kinky stuff.”

“Okay,” he says, slowly. At least he doesn’t think she’s crazy. That’s always nice. “I guess I’m just wondering if you’re actually into bondage and stuff or if we’re just… you know, trying it out.”

Draping a leg over him, knees pressed together, she shrugs. “It sounded pretty fun,” she mumbles into his arm. “You know. Tying you up.”

She feels him swallow, jaw working as he chooses his next words carefully. “Tying me up,” he asks, “or tying you up?”

That… gives her pause.

“Maybe…” He turns his face towards her, nose in her hair. “We could swap?”

She frowns. “Swap?”

“If you want, I mean,” he says, quickly. “If you’re not--I would never make you do something you didn’t want to, obviously, but, I mean… if you wanted to try?”

Annabeth, for lack of anything to say, rubs her toes against his calf, comforting and grounding.

Does she want to be tied up?

Her first instinct is to refuse, obviously. She’s a warrior. Immobilization is death. And what if a monster attacks? She has to be ready for anything. That was the promise of Athena’s progeny, that they were eternally poised and ready to respond to any problem or threat.

And yet…

The summer she turned thirteen, she had decided that she was strong enough to hear the siren’s song in the sea of monsters. At her request, Percy had tied her to the mast so she wouldn’t be able to jump in and swim to her death. He had forgotten to take her knife, and when she had, inevitably, fallen prey to their song and cannonballed right into danger, he had jumped in after her, holding her back until she had been able to pull herself out of the magic spell.

It had been humiliating, and humbling. She hadn’t even begun to realize that she liked Percy as more than a friend at that point. But, years later, the clearest memory she has of that day is not how her pride had reared its ugly head, but instead just how safe she had felt in Percy’s arms, at the bottom of the ocean.

Here, in New Rome, in their apartment, with Percy… Well, what’s the worst that could happen? “Sure,” she says, perhaps a little more confident than she actually feels.

“Sure?”

“Sure. Why not?” Looking up at him, she searches his gaze for any hesitation or fear, and finds none, and that, more than anything else, settles her. “I’m game.”

He looks for the same in her, and he seems to like what he finds, because he cracks a grin, laying a soft kiss on her lips.

Gingerly, still mindful of his stomach, he reaches over to grab the discarded rope. Taking her hands in his free one, he loops it around her wrists, tucking the ends into itself, tight but not constricting. Comfortable.

Her breath catches in her throat.

“You good?”

Nodding, she flexes her wrists outward, just to feel the tension--and she sighs, a breathy moan slipping out of her without her permission.

They freeze.

Annabeth slams her eyes shut, praying he didn’t hear her.

“...Okay then,” says Percy.

Gods, his shit-eating grin is practically audible. “Shut up.”

“Excuse me?” He leans in, kissing her ear. “Did you just try to tell me what to do?”

She shivers beneath his warm breath. “I…” She is suddenly full of apologies and excuses bubbling up out of nowhere.

Percy hums. “You what?” Slowly, agonizingly, he slides his hand down the length of her body, ending on her tight, just above her knee. He squeezes, featherlight, and she shivers.

“Um,” she says, watching his hand creep higher, his fingers dipping between her legs. “I…”

Then he stops. He stops, that big hand still wedged halfway to her vagina.

“Are--” she stutters, almost yelping as he kisses the sensitive spot beneath her jaw, teeth scraping over the skin. “Are you going to finish?”

“Dunno. Was thinking about it. But maybe I won’t. Maybe,” he chuckles, directly into her ear, his nose pressing against her cheek. His other arm comes around, slipping beneath her bicep, fingers finding her nipple like it’s a damn beacon, and he pinches it, smiling into her skin as she jumps, grunts, and flushes. She wants to touch him so badly, but the angle of her arms is so weird and she’s kind of on top of him, and she can’t reach his cock or his hair or--“Maybe I’ll just get you worked up, and then I’ll go to sleep.”

What--but--he can’t--“I--you--”

“Say you’re sorry,” he teases, pressing his cheek to her head, “and maybe I’ll reconsider.”

Sorry for what?! She almost snaps. Percy’s hand between her legs plays just at the edge of her sensitive spots, teasing with soft touches, driving her crazy. “I’m--I’m sorry, Percy,” she pants, squirming. Maybe if she shimmies down, his hand will move up--

But he won’t be moved. “Sorry for what?”

“For--” he digs a nail into her thigh, a sharp, sweet bite of sensation, like a campfire ember accidentally landing on your skin, bright and pulsing. Fuck, what is she apologizing for? “For hurting you earlier.”

Shaking his head, he chuckles again, moving his hand further away. No! “Close,” he mumbles, “but no cigar--”

Oh! “For telling you what to do!” she blurts. “I’m sorry for telling you what to do!”

He bites her earlobe. His fingers slide up to her pussy, stroking her labia as they open up to him. “There we go.”

And as he jerks her off, bringing her to the finish with the kind of efficiency and skill that only comes after ten thousand hours, he kisses her, wet and hot, mouth insistent, taking her lip between his teeth, and he mumbles: “Good girl. Good fuckin’ girl.”

She breaks, crying into his mouth.

After a while, he slides his fingers out, giving her one final pass on her clit, and she shudders, whining. “Sorry,” he mumbles, warm. “You good?”

Her tongue heavy in her mouth, all she can do is nod, panting.

But when he slides his other arm out, making to untie her--”Don’t,” she mumbles, pulling back.

He starts. “Don’t?”

“Don’t.” Turning into him, she snuggles against him as deeply as she could, her bound hands only making it a little bit awkward, though they do come to rest on his stomach, about the perfect distance for her to reach down and take care of him. “Your turn?”

But he just shakes his head, slinging a leg over hers. “Still a little sore,” he admits, not quite meeting her gaze.

She drops her head onto his chest, relishing in the warm, steady heartbeat beneath her ear. “Sorry.”

“You can make it up to me later,” he says, taking her hands in his, thumb tracing along the edge of the rope. “I’m sure I’ll think of something.”

#my fic #percabeth #pjo fic #darkmagyk #PLS HEED THE RATING OK

19 notes · View notes

wildmagicplant · 4 years

Text

“Finally,” Jason muttered to himself. The last of the mob thugs was down, knocked out and sprawled across the body of the other two. It meant Jason wouldn’t be able to keep tailing them for info, but sometimes you had to cut your losses.

A small sob echoed in the now-silent alley. Sometimes, it wasn’t worth letting things play out, even if it was in your favor. Jason looked around for the source of the noise.

Behind the dumpster, he found it. A kid, desperately clamping her hand over her own mouth even as tears streamed down her face.

“Hey, kid,” Jason said. “It’s okay. Your dad’s gonna need to go to the hospital, but he’ll be fine.”

The kid shrunk back from him, her eyes somehow even wider and more panicked than before.

Shit.

“It’s okay,” he tried to reassure her again. “I’m here to help. Come on, I’ll take you to your dad, and then you can wait with him for the ambulance.”

She shook her head wildly. Her voice was hoarse as she whispered, “No, no, get away.”

“Kid, I’m trying to help,” Jason said. He was trying to keep the irritation out of his voice, and he hoped that the mechanical edge the hood gave him would cover it anyway.

“I don’t…” She took a huge, shaky breath. “I don’t trust you. You hurt them, you could hurt me. Did you hurt my dad?”

Jason ground his teeth together. He didn’t have time for this. The police would show up any minute now. Why wouldn’t she just let him help? “I didn’t hurt your dad, but those men did. I told you, he’ll be okay, he just needs to go to the hospital. I can bring you out to him.”

She didn’t move.

“I promise,” he said, trying to dredge up the long-buried memory of Bruce’s instructions for talking to victims. Jason crouched down, but didn’t move toward her. “I’m not gonna hurt you. I know I scared you, but I’m trying to help. We gotta get help for your dad, but I can’t do that until you come out from back there. No one else is going to get hurt,” he added.

“If you’re helping, why are you hiding?” she said, pointing at his head. At the helmet, he realized.

Jason said the first thing that came into his head. “Batman hides his face. But he helps people.”

The girl rolled her eyes, the first reaction he’d seen from her other than terror. “You’re not Batman.”

“I could be!” Jason said, trying to sound offended. Maybe if he got her to focus on that, she would come with him. “How do you know I’m not Batman?”

“You don’t have a bat,” she said slowly. The girl was looking at his chest. Jason grimaced under the hood. No, he didn’t have a bat, for oh so many reasons. Still, getting her back to her dad was infinitely more important than Jason’s feelings.

“What about Robin? He doesn’t have a bat,” Jason pointed out, scooting back a bit. The girl slowly stood up. She was shaking, but she didn’t go back down immediately.

“You’re not Robin,” she said scornfully, taking a few careful steps toward him and away from the dumpster.

No, Jason thought. No, he wasn’t. Somehow, it hurt a little to hear anyway.

Jason stood up, taking care to back away from her as he did. He didn’t want to loom over her, and it took him closer to the girl’s dad, who was passed out at the mouth of the alley. Jason glanced back at the man. “I’m just saying,” he turned back to the girl. “Robin doesn’t have a bat.”

“Robin doesn’t need one,” she declared. She flinched at the sight of the pile of men, but Jason didn’t think there was any way he could have avoided that one. “He’s bright colored. That’s not scary.”

“So if I had a bat, I wouldn’t be scary?” Jason asked. They were almost out of the alley now, and Jason could hear sirens getting closer.

She was walking a little more steadily now. “Batman’s still scary,” she said. “But he has the bat, so you know he’s good anyway.” The girl gasped then, and ran over to her dad.

“I’m calling an ambulance right now, okay?” Jason said, backing away. “Can you stay with your dad until the police come? You can hear them, right? They’re almost here.”

She nodded, looking up at him. Jason turned away and pulled out his phone. He didn’t have access to Oracle’s network, but he knew how to contact her anyway. He sent a message: emergency. ambulance needed. 34th and Scott st.

Jason turned back. “Good girl.” Jason didn’t want to leave her, but he also couldn’t risk the police spotting him. It was too soon after—after everything. He needed to stay under the radar. “They’ll be here any minute, okay? Keep an eye on your dad. He might—” Jason swallowed, throat suddenly dry. “He’ll be glad to see you if he wakes up, and if not, you can tell the police you helped him.”

The girl didn’t look back up at him, all of her focus on her unconscious father.

Jason left, scrambling up a fire escape in the alley, and making his way across town over the roofs.

-----

“Batman, I think you need to see this,” Oracle’s computerized voice comes through the computer crisply.

“See what?” he asks, focusing on the report he’s pouring through. Crane had used a new toxin the last time he escaped, and they’d barely made it back to the cave in time. Bruce needed to synthesise a new antidote before he got out again.

“This,” he hears, and then the largest of the computer’s monitors is being taken up with a grainy still clearly lifted off a security camera. It’s the Red Hood. He seems to be in the middle of punching someone, although Bruce can’t tell who the victim is. Bruce still isn’t sure what the point of showing him this is, although by the collapsing feeling in his chest, he knows what the outcome will be. It’s fine. He doesn’t sleep well most days now.

“Look at his chest,” Oracle says, impatience showing through. Bruce looks again and realizes what he’s missed.

There, splashed across Jason’s chest, is a bat.

-----

Jason is almost home when he hears it. It’s almost nothing, just light footsteps. It could almost be anyone casually walking behind him, except that Jason is five stories up and most people, even in Gotham, don’t casually go for a stroll on the rooftops.

“What do you want?” he growls without turning around. He’s not sure who exactly it is, but Bruce’s footsteps are heavier than the ones he can hear, so he’s willing to talk.

“Not to pass judgement too quick,” Dick drawls. “But even I ditched the bat logos the second I could, and I didn’t have nearly the explosive homecoming you did. So what’s up?”

Of course one of them would ask. Jason’s been wearing the bat in Gotham for a few weeks now, it was only a matter of time. He supposes, as choices go, Dick isn’t the worst option. Jason turns back to face him.

“None of your business,” he says and punctuates it by crossing his arms.

Dick shrugs and perches on the edge of the roof. “Nah, it really isn’t. But it’s B’s, and I thought you might rather talk to me than him. He’s not pleased about it,” Dick warns. Jason is equal parts irritated and pleased that Dick’s thought process seems to be the same as his.

“I…” Jason trails off. He wants to bullshit, wants to throw Dick off, rile him up and get him to storm off and leave him alone, but at the same time… Jason’s done plenty of things Bruce doesn’t approve of, but this isn’t one of them, and it stings a little thinking that Bruce is blaming him for doing something even Bruce would consider good. “Kids don’t trust a strange man in a helmet. They trust Batman, though.”

Dick’s face does something complicated and emotional. Jason doesn’t try to pick it apart. He’s afraid of what he might find. “That makes sense,” is all Dick says. “I’ll tell B to back off.”

Jason nods. He’s not going to say thank you. Turning, he’s got one foot on the edge of the roof and his grapple out when Dick speaks up again.

“I know you don’t want to deal with us, and that’s your right, but… I’m not him, and if you ever want some backup, don’t be afraid to call me.” He sounds earnest, but then again, Dick always does.

Still.

“I’ll keep it in mind,” Jason says, and leaps off before his voice can give him away.

#hello yall #ONE DAY #i will post something not at Very Late O Clock at night #my stuff #jason todd #dcu #batfam #i started wondering when jason started wearing the bat symbol in comics #but then instead of looking it up (bc i suspect the answer will not be satisfying)#i wrote this #barbara gordon #bruce wayne #dick grayson

530 notes · View notes

ooc-but-stylish · 3 years

Text

freezedive:

I think I said it in one of your other beautiful posts, but I thought I’d mention it again. All of the ridiculous cutscenes did give us a golden nugget of information on Luna that most of us who are brutally critical of her (like you and me), suspected all along: Luna openly admits to Gentiana that she doesn’t think she has anything to offer Noctis outside of being an oracle. And Gentiana makes it worse by speaking in fancy words by saying some bullshit about her being the oracle is her being human or something and that she is fulfilling her true calling and that is what Noctis needs? Idk but it reeked of emotional manipulation.

I hold little to no regard for Ravus because there’s evidence Luna was being brutally beaten right under his own nose while he was busy being the Emperor’s lapdog thinking it could maybe give him the power to save his sister? The man should have opened his eyes and defended her against the men that kept them jailed

I happened on this reply to roxainn’s post while trying to recapitulate all my other FFXV critical posts and reblogs on the way to making new ones.

Crawling back to find anything about this point, I find that it was posted 3 years ago. But at least I reblogged the reply to it.... and missed that it was literally @ ME. Goddamn did I slack.

But here’s my reply, 3 years late, which should elaborate on where I stand on this.

Yes, the flashback that gets triggered by a random creepy little girl in Tenebrae is about Luna and Gentiana. Somehow the little girl knew about that conversation even though she wasn’t there to witness it first-hand? Or maybe Noctis was imagining what the conversation would be like between Gentiana and Luna off of the vague suggestion from the girl, and it’s just him telling on himself that his imagination of Luna says all that? Otherwise the not-altogether-tinfoil-hat theory says it’s Gentiana in the form of a little girl, telling Noctis something that IMO should piss him off but just makes him sad and guilty because Luna loved him so much, don’t you see. She loved him so much that after wrapping her entire life around him, she’d just want to keep that going for the rest of their lives!

Gentiana opens the conversation with, “At first, the father had mourned the fate of his chosen son. Yet in Tenebrae, the two found solace. It was not the Oracle who assuaged their fears. But the girl…she holds…the true power.”

Then Luna replies, “I have little to offer a king, other than the voice afforded the Oracle. Nevertheless…” She turns to look at the wedding dress. “And—I’m afraid he might find this foolish… But…to be together with Noctis again, even if only for a short while… It…would mean the world to me. I do not seek to guide him, merely to stand beside him.”

The exchange is all types of fucky.

First off, she was twelve. What comfort could she have offered Regis and Noctis? What comfort was she capable of when Sylva was right there, an adult with experience of an Oracle and a personality thanks to a presumable full life not hampered by grooming of the gods?

Second, every other scene of Luna as a child is of her telling Noctis his duty, and that it was her duty to see it through. Did that assuage his fears-- the fears he didn’t have at the time since he never knew the entire meaning of his fate and was being told a saccharine, embellished version of it by Luna right there? Did that comfort Regis, knowing a little girl would also die to protect his son if the gods wanted it, but that she wouldn’t have the will to avert their fates whatsoever?

Third, even she thinks Noctis would think her desire to be with him is foolish. So... was she expecting that Noctis himself didn’t have feelings for her or want to spend time with her of his own volition for reasons outside of her job? She was looking forward to a marriage with no emotional security, where her desires are one-sided and unreciprocated, and the man she cares for think she’s worthless outside of her powers? She would’ve been willing to put herself through that, given a choice?

We know what we know and think what we think, but the fact that this was placed right in the vanilla game and no one thought that was wrong, and instead they doubled down on it in patches, is pathetic on their part.

Moreover, what does The Girl have, that was separate from The Princess and The Oracle? Every facet of her being wrapped around Noctis since age 4. She was nothing but her duty by the time Noctis met her; they had no scenes where they acted as children would. Even supplemental/promotional art for other XV media and related locales cement that. Little Luna serves Little Noctis pastries, she’s not seen eating with him. Luna teaches Noctis how to play piano, she’s not playing with him. Dawn of the Future came out with its own art, and Noctis is afforded the liberty to sit in a chair, and his son(?) sits on his lap, while Luna and her spitting image child(?) are both on their knees, looking up at the dudes.

In most of their art together, Luna and Noctis are either not meeting each other's gazes, she's bending or kneeling to him, or he's supposed to be holding her close but he hover-hands her, or there’s that one time where they took a selfie and the picture was of their Pocket Edition versions. They’re still not looking at each other in that one. And it’s not canon.

Anyway yeah, any conversation Gentiana has with Luna about Noctis is emotional manipulation on Gentiana’s part, but the writers manage just enough to make everyone involved seem creepy and reprehensible in their own way.

In DOTF, Luna has a death soliloquy that confirms she sunk into the water at the end of the game’s Chapter 9, but the soliloquy is about how she was prepared to die even at the age of 12, and she put on a smile and resolved to be strong for Noctis’s sake, so that he wouldn’t remember her having a look of despair. There’s a line there about how she would cry herself to sleep but Gentiana would wipe her tears. Gentiana does nothing else except allow her to cry and wipe her tears afterward, and makes no effort to save her from her fate or at least take her out of terrible situations so that she would cry fewer tears. But there is cut dialogue from the game, and used in the novel, where Gentiana revealed herself as Shiva when Luna was <16 (probably still 12 at the time), when she thought she was being held back from forming the covenants, so there’s that. And Luna still somehow ignored that this meant Shiva allowed Sylva to die, and thanked this useless goddess for her nonexistent generosity.

For whatever reason they had to add a passage where Luna superimposes the image of an eight-year-old Noctis onto the adult version-- quote, "the image of him as a child, burned into my eyelids, overlaps with his now-grown face"-- even though Noctis has canonically sent her photos of him as a teenager (15-16, around the time he met Prompto in high school, see: Brotherhood). Granted, that's a translation from Luna's voice actress reading an excerpt as if it were first person POV. The English version says she sees the child image first, then the adult version is superimposed. Then not much after that there's a passage where Noctis smiles as his child self and it was "that smile she loved that had been in her heart all these years, giving her strength, always and forever".

So she was groomed and turned into a shell since age 4, believes she has no value outside of her job and turned her grooming on a similarly vulnerable child, and her strongest image of him, the one she fell in love with and kept in her heart, is of the helpless boy that promised her the world without knowing the cost. The smile of the carefree boy that didn't know his journey would end with his soul annihilated. It couldn’t have been that hard to have her see an image of him as the 30 year old True King of Light that he would become. At least she'd sound a little less like a weirdo who continually places herself (and is placed by the narrative) as below him, unworthy of him, etc. but also has strong feelings and memories toward a goddamn child.

Re: Ravus: you already got a reply to that, but for real? Ravus was also shafted by the plot and beaten down by terrible, amateur writing. The narrative shits on him as if it’s written by a high schooler or otherwise emotionally arrested adult trying to push a Mary Sue Protagonist. The modus operandi for those stories is that everyone who disagrees with the protagonist in any way has to suffer tremendous humiliation including but not limited to death, because the Protagonist Is Just So Good And Perfect And Always Right.

Nothing Ravus does justifies his treatment in-game or in-fandom like he’s a one-note out-and-out villain who wanted nothing but to kill Noctis and disrespect his sister, to the point where his corpse is defiled multiple times in Chapter 13 and he’s twisted into a perversion of himself that begs to die.

Chapter 13 has Noctis land next to Ravus’s corpse and all his letters to Luna, and Noctis has piss all to say about it, either out loud or to anyone. He looks at the Sword of the Father, glances at Ravus, and without a word takes the Royal Arm and lets the Magitek arm-- still dripping, still gross-- fall onto Ravus’s body and doesn’t even move it.

He had no way of knowing beforehand that Ignis and Gladio knew of Ravus being killed. WE didn't even know they saw security footage until Ch13V2 was added in. Noctis happening on his late fiancée's dead bro sounds, I don’t fucking know, like something you’d want to tell everyone else about later. Along with the letters he wrote evidencing that he intended to return the Sword of the Father to Noctis!

An aside: The Letters from Ravus are just weird to behold; it isn't 100% clear whether Luna ever received all of those letters. She had to have received the first one, at least. But the idea that Ardyn intercepted even one other letter so that Luna never heard from her brother between Tenebrae and Altissia is farfetched. He shouldn’t be able to intercept those messages as if they were delivered conventionally. Luna has a pair of magic space-bending Shiba Inu that send letters instantly across continents. If she’s sparing their use to send Noctis one-liners and stickers but can’t afford that for Ravus to send her discrete updates on Noctis’s status, she’s a piece of shit.

They do meet in Tenebrae as Ravus wanted her to, and they have the conversation where he gets on her case about her “throwing [her] life away” for Noctis. So chances are higher that Ardyn only got a hold of all three letters after Luna received them and no sooner, but then he shouldn’t be tossing letters from Ravus at the dude’s body when it makes more sense for him to toss down letters to Ravus, since the writers wanted to make a point of Ardyn having a vicious streak. It makes way more sense for Ardyn to deprive Ravus of Luna’s writing, then insult him with them post-mortem, unless Ravus’s notes were really all he could acquire, meaning Luna never once wrote back to her brother.

The Doylist explanation is that the writing team sucks and couldn't be assed to think of anything for Luna to say because they didn't think of her at all. The Watsonian explanation is that Luna’s a piece of shit and that tracks with her in Kingsglaive watching her brother burn alive in response to the Ring, but ignoring him and running to Regis’s aid instead, but then the rest of the plot presents her as morally pure through her white clothing and “unconditional, self-abnegating love” for Noctis.

Back to the topic: I don’t know, maybe I’m being old fashioned, but Noctis should’ve given more of a shit that his dropping the Magitek Arm on Ravus’s body was probably what turned him into a mutated abomination begging to die, and he thought so little of Ravus that the dude isn’t even in the glimpse of "people who helped me get this far" in the Beyond. Ravus doesn’t even get a spot to wish Noctis and Luna well on their afterlife wedding, not that it makes any sense for any of them to have words to say since Noctis is already dead, no one was there with them, and none of the bros expressed any sign that they knew that Noctis was bound to get married after his sacrifice (he sure doesn’t mention it in the final campfire scene and that’d be a better place than any). But anyway, Regis is in the Beyond at Noctis’s side even though he never told Noctis a damn thing and still never spoke to him from within the Ring, but Ravus? Nah, he’s the real asshole somehow and doesn’t deserve any recognition whatsoever.

The only other characters I know of that have a remotely similar dynamic to Noctis, Luna, and Ravus (lovers, but the girl has a straight-edge protective brother working for the bad guys) is Nero, Kyrie, and Credo (see: Devil May Cry), but as much as I think the writing in that series is hokey as fuck, at least the writer(s) for DMCs 4 and 5 had enough sense to make the love story simple and based it from a line from Amagasaki City-- “I love you, so I love the city that you love.”-- and opted against portraying Credo as an outright villain because if Nero killed him, Kyrie would resent him for it even though she knew Credo was working for the same Order that threatened her life.

Shouldn’t Noctis care about the shit Luna cares about even if he has no personal investment in it or it’s inconvenient to him? Shouldn’t he care about Tenebrae and its prosperity? or about Ravus? Nah, it’s okay, Noctis doesn’t have to respect Luna’s love for her brother or her kingdom because for all intents and purposes, she doesn’t care for Ravus or for Tenebrae as much as she loves Noctis. Her love for Noctis and her looking forward to the wedding is what matters here.

The yaaaas queen vicious clapback from Kingsglaive!Luna about how Ravus is the Empire’s dog is especially rich coming from her when she’s fellating the gods all through the game even though Eos’s equivalent of The Holy Bible says the Hexatheon’s Revelations destroy cities and that undoubtedly means people are killed by the gods, and their summoner is complicit, because there’s no such thing as a perfect evacuation. See: "Revelations left great devastation in their wake, with entire cities being laid to ruin," noted in the Cosmogony long before the True King even exists.

Luna herself didn’t see a problem with this and helped in the effort, with no regard to the collateral damage she would cause with the summoning: bonus points for the part where Leviathan is hostile to humanity and threatens to eat every living being if Noctis fails! She had even less regard to the damage Niflheim would cause in their attempt to kill the gods even though she was first-hand witness to them sacking Insomnia. Waking and defeating Titan deprived Lestallum of the meteor they derived power from. Waking Leviathan destroyed Altissia. Luna’s refusal to leave Insomnia when told to by Regis led to her being used as bait and taking the whole of the Kingsglaive out of Insomnia in time for their Face Heel Turn and Insomnia being destroyed. Everything else leads to the eventual World of Ruin where people also die.

All because she killed herself prematurely from the covenants and didn’t hold back the longer nights as she promised to the public’s face and on her honor as Oracle she would do. Her dying words in Chapter 9 were her being completely satisfied with her fate because “[her] prayers were answered, [her] calling fulfilled”, even though the calling requires that she dies and she should’ve known better than anyone that her death, even if it was for Noctis’s ascension, would endanger the rest of the world for 10 years and helped the Starscourge spread. But instead of fighting for her own life to stem the plague for as long as possible, she let herself die under the belief that "Noct can handle this" to give him the chance to be the revered King of Light. She also didn’t make a single appearance on the world of the living in her spirit form during those ten years until Noctis needed help with a piddly imitation of the Magic Wall, only then does she come down in her ghost form with seemingly all of her power intact, and summons five of The Six as if Noctis can’t easily do it himself.

But Ravus is the lapdog? Luna’s the one with her “ends justify the means” behavior and what looks like general neglect for actual human beings.

Anyway, Ravus stabs Caligo in the back and kills him, and that move only makes sense in light of the idea that Caligo was manhandling Luna as seen in the Dawn trailer. Ravus was 16 when Tenebrae was overrun, and there’s no reason to believe he was magically immune to institutional abuse, so there’s a high chance that he was abused by the Empire too, held resentment of that, and waited for the time he’d be able to retaliate with no repercussions. Gentiana as a goddess is 1000000% more on the hook about letting Luna be beaten than Ravus is, since he saw his mother die in front of him while Regis ran away. Regis had the power of the Ring and could have used elemancy to put out that fire, or void magic to banish Glauca and his MT army, didn’t do that, but he totally spares enough magic during the treaty signing to toss around Thunder spells straight from his hand, cast barriers, and summon some Royal Arms straight at Iedolas, and that’s bad enough. Gentiana who’s been the Fleuret family attendant since Luna was born and also is Shiva who can freeze people with her fingertip had even less excuse to let that fire rage, to let Sylva die protecting her son, and to stand by and allow her ward(s) to get thrown around by some random Imperial soldier.

#freezedive #ffxv critical #ffxv criticism #lunafreya critical #gentiana critical #regis critical #lunafreya nox fleuret #ravus nox fleuret #regis lucis caelum #ravus deserved better #long read

18 notes · View notes

currentfandomkick · 4 years

Text

Marinette did not sign up for this pt 3

Part 3 time. part 1 here part two here, ao3 link here

Cass had long since taken to eating at Yan Toh Heen when she was in Hong Kong, where head chef Cheng Wang served her favorite soup, Marinette Soup. Given that Cass often came at odd times and remained a regular whenever she was in town, she had come to know of Shifu Cheng’s inspiration, his niece’s daughter. A girl who reminded Cass of Bruce’s usual adoptees when she first saw her picture, and mentioned it was a good ting her father hadn’t begun adopting until the girl was already a toddler. Shifu Cheng had laughed at the time, and mentioned that Cass might be a good influence on her, if she could keep her father from trying to steal his great-niece away that is.

Now Cass was looking at the girl’s picture a bit more critically, and with Bruce and his parents in mind, she wouldn’t be surprised if this Marinette—a young designer who had managed to have two major figures in the industry recognize her by 16 with an apparent knack for helping her local heroes—was Bruce’s daughter. Her eyes reminded Cass of Thomas Wayne’s from the portraits, and her smile was a lot like Bruce’s when he wasn’t hiding anything.

With all this in mind, Cass was already on a plane to find the girl and test out her theory—to see if Marinette of the Dupain-Cheng Boulangerie was also Ladybug—Batman and Bruce Wayne’s daughter.

She did smile when she saw the group chat for “Middle Kids Only—No D’s Allowed” exploded with Jason, Tim and Steph arguing over who would find her first and what the prize would be. It looked like Cass would win at this rate. She was fine with that—and having a no-questions asked favor from each of the three in the future would be the icing on the cake to meeting their new sister first.

---

Marinette has to explain to Adrien a bit of her blow up while they were civilians and out of sight in her room. Tikki and Plagg were napping.

“So, you’re uh…” she couldn’t blame him for the lack of words. She tended to forget (re: ignore) the fact herself most of the time.

“Yeah,” Marinette shrugged. “Maman and Papa got me in a closed adoption case, the mother was young.”

“… I’m now picturing a young Batman and can’t wrap my brain around it.”

Marinette snorted at that. “It was before Batman existed.”

Adrien frowned at that, thinking it over as… “So did you ever…”

Marinette shook her head. “My mother warned against it, the note she left for me said it was dangerous to even attempt contacting him.” She ran a hand through her hair as she remembered Maman and Papa letting her read the note not long after her Guardian training began. It was another life entirely. “She said he was an unfit father, and that she never wanted kids so I was better off not looking for them when I grew up. I never planned to—Maman and Papa were all I ever needed or wanted.”

Adrien smiled at that, grabbing a cookie for himself. “So what happened?”

Marinette winced. “I, I don’t want to talk about it. Long story short, a wild Murder Robin appeared and told me not to contact his family or else, and I promised to steer clear of affiliates so he wouldn’t try anything.”

Adrien twitched at that. He knew Marinette and Alya made a few comments about it once upon a time but…

“Is he the one dropping off the weapons and flower threats?”

Marinette looked away, keeping her eyes low.

Adrien tightened his fists. “I see. If he or that family get near you, they’ll have to take on Chat Noir first.”

Marinette huffed at that. “They’re the normies that took down the world ending metas, I doubt there’s much we could do against them chatton.”

Adrien shook his head and jabbed a thumb at his chest. “Black Cat wielder, destruction incarnate, and the idiot you share a soul with.” He gave her his Chat Noir smile. “There’s nothing I can’t take on.”

Marinette snorted at that. “Chemistry.”

Adrien’s face fell at that. “You cannot tell me chemical reactions are that easy!”

Marinette smiled at him then. “I can and will say it—Chemistry is easier and superior to physics. Kitchen Chemistry is how we get food.”

“And physics keeps us from floating off into space.”

“Not studying it. Studying chemistry I get food, physcics is just a headache of formulas on formulas on formulas.”

“But the theories!”

With that, the pair fell into their familiar rhythm of banter for the rest for the night.

Tim was crossing French designers in Paris aged 14-20 that own or work at a boutique, online or physical, and turned up a large number of candidates for who Ladybug/the missing Wayne could be.

Babs rolled in on this particular search, and gave him a look. “You know the Justice League wants us to not to contact her, right?”

Tim made a vague sound of acknowledgement.

“And that Bruce probably didn’t have a kid at 15, right?”

“Just covering my bases.”

Babs looked over his search margins. “Did you check Damian’s search history?”

Tim scowled at her. “Of course I did, he’s been doing more through wipes, I couldn’t get more than a few scarps of useless code.”

Babs began to grin then. “So that means I do have a leg-up on you then.”

He didn’t even want to know how she knew about the competition. But she wasn’t officially in it either (all of the placed their bets down negotiated rules (re: no asking for help from Damian) and agreed the only participants were the four of them). What did Barbra Gordon want out of this?

Tim paused at that. “What.”

Babs grinned at him. Tim remembered why Oracle is the queen of hackers everywhere—nothing is safe from her reach.

“He was particularly taken with a few designers, and one of them happens to be in the range you’re looking for.”

Tim scowled at her. “What do you want?”

“You know that picture of me you took a few years back?”

Tim blinked as that was what she wanted. His ‘Don’t tell The Family’ insurance.

“Yes.”

“I want your copies of burned, and any you may have floating around returned to me.”

Tim weighed the pros and cons to this. The girl should be in his current data pool. And he does know to use Damian’s search again (tracking Bab’s hacks was child’s play now) but she probably deleted most—if not all of—her trail. Decisions, Decisions…

He could just wait to meet the baby bat. But then he would owe Jason a no-questions asked favor if he found her first… and he didn’t want to know what Jason would use it for. Owing Cass a favor meant family nights with the worst board games or tea parties when he was elbow deep in a mission. A no question favor for Steph was always interesting and usually resulted in Bruce giving them both looks.

Did he want to lose his leverage on Babs, or did he want to avoid the consequences of the bet more?

Chat and Carapace exchanged a quick look when the pair arrived. A nod from Carapace as he trailed after their paling Ladybug was all Chat needed to begin operation Distract the Justice Leaguer Members.

He and Rena Rouge were having the time of their lives. Both were genuine in their admiration of the pair and the work they had done. And they were both eager to learn from them—both as individuals and what their people knew of the Miraculous—something Chat and Rena knew there were large gaps in the history of still. And if they could help out Ladybug with gathering information and ensuring she was given space, well, the pair were down for it.

Chat was asking a confused and mildly frightened Aquaman for combat tips in aquatic situations for future Syren-eqsue akumas.

“So how do you keep an eye on attacks from all directions? Is it a ‘feel the water movements’ thing? Or is it just something you know how to do from growing up underwater? Could you teach me a few things on it—it’s a weak point that I need to work on.”

Aquaman was quick to agree to help, eager to avoid angering the Black Cat and given Ladybug’s (apparently continued) evasion of Justice League Members, this may be the best way to both prevent the possible apocalypse and ensure Atlantis’ future safety.

Wonder Woman was having an interesting conversation with Miss Sting about the uses for her spinning top and potential ways to work on her use of Venom while Rena asked about the Amazons and was there really an amazon who wielded the Ladybug miraculous? There were no confirmations from Ladybug and the Guardian was impossible to find to ask. Was there a Fox and did they have anything on the Miraculous’ history?

Wonder Woman was quick to supply answers while scanning the area for Ladybug, and noted that the Turtle was missing too.

“Is Ladybug well?”

Rena and Miss Sting exchanged a look.

Miss Sting stepped forward. “Ladybug just needs some space. She isn’t willing to risk breaking her promise since certain people do know where she lives.”

Rena tensed at that, a scowl quick to her face as she remembered why Ladybug was absent. “She can’t talk to either of you until Murder Robin,”--Wonder Woman winced at the reminder of the current Robin’s past--“makes it clear he won’t keep threatening her if she does.”

Chat caught enough of the conversation to join in. “Its also not good to stress her out, especially since its going to be open season soon.”

Miss Sting sighed at the reminder. “Application and testing season.”

Rena rubbed her forehead. “Don’t remind me. Last time Ladybug was so stressed over her workload that the cure was off for a week.”

Wonder Woman and Aquaman exchanged a look.

“Are you stating that stress on Ladybug alters how the Miraculous Cure works?” Aquaman asked cafefully, hoping it wasn’t the case.

“Yeah,” Chat rubbed the back of his neck. “I figured it always did.”

Wonder Woman shook her head, mind racing as, “No. Not during Mother’s time—it must be a side effect of something. May I speak to one of the Guardians?”

Chat didn’t even have time to respond. Both adults noted the way his pupils shrunk and body tensed at the question. He knew something the others didn’t.

“Uh, there’s only one, and the guy has been radio silent for months now,” Rena explained. “And not to be rude, but given the security breaches in the past, I don’t think it’s the best thing for our Guardian to be in contact, just in case.”

“I see…”

Aquaman was the quick to defuse the situation. “Perhaps one of your sisters could reach out to Ladybug? They are not affiliated with the League so that should lessen her stress.”

Chat nodded along at that. Good. It was better to keep the Destroyer content.

“I can see who Mother would like to send of the historians given the interest in past miraculous wielders,” Diana conceded. “Could you ask Ladybug if that is acceptable?”

The teens grabbed their respective weapons and messaged Ladybug. A moment later the trio stated that Ladybug would agree to those terms.

In the meantime, Chat, Rena and Miss Sting caught the adults up on the Hawkmoth situation and their limitations on investigation. Rena was particularly annoyed by the lack of progress as “Our best suspect was akumatized before Mayura showed up, so he can’t be Hawkmoth. But he lives in the target area, has the funds for a butterfly garden and the ability to keep it underground if LB’s theory about artificial sunlight to keep it secret is right.”

“But we know he can’t be, so we should drop it and look for other suspects,” Chat added a bit nervously.

Miss Sting nodded in agreement.

Rena sighed. “I know, its just, too much adds up on him being Hawkmoth, but then again, that would mean he’d put his own kid in danger just to get the Miraculous. I mean, he’s bad and all but…” Rena shook her head. “LB is right about him making sense but it’s too obvious. I mean, who hides in plain sight, right?”

Wonder Woman made a mental note to find out who this suspect was and maybe—MAYBE—let the bats do a deep search on this suspect if Rena would name them. He could very well be their villain, but she didn’t know enough on this investigation yet to make a call, nor did she have much knowledge on the Butterfly or Peacock miraculous. She only paid attention to the Ladybug and Black Cat legends—a soul spilt in two, destined to always find one another and willing to do whatever it took to protect the other from self-destructing once they grew close as allies.

In Gotham Jason Todd is on a Mission. That mission happens to be meeting the Baby Bat before Timmers or the Waffle Queen herself beat him to it. Cass hadn’t responded to any of their texts, so he figured she was knee-deep in Black Bat and forfeited for once. He hoped.

Either way, Red Hood would be tracking a certain Little Lady when he touched down in Paris once his plane took off, and take out whoever this “Hawkmoth” was. Magic terrorism is one thing. Targeting kids? Well, that puts you Hood’s list and high on his priorities real quick. Add threatening his family (estranged, feuding or 'well they're a Bat') to that? Gotham would live without him for a bit.

Ladybug is currently holed up with Carapace in one of their hide-y holes on patrol. She has borrowed (re: snagged and is not returning any time soon) Carapace’s headphones. The music helps her breath. No immediate danger, she didn’t (further) break the rules of engagement, and she didn’t see any sign of Murder Robin in Paris from news reports.

“So, uh, Murder Robin?”

Ladybug wanted to groan. She knew this conversation was coming. “Can you send the others the cliff notes?”

She did not want to do this with each one of them. there are a lot of miraculous users. Besides Chat and Carapace, there was Rena, Miss Sting, Pegasus, Ryuuko, King Monkey, Viperion, and Bunnix. She did not want to have this conversation seven more times.

“Sure thing Ladybug.”

Ladybug took a deep breath.

“Remember Incinerater and Goo-Boy?”

Carapace paused, face a bit slack as he nodded his head. “The first time Mr. Bug appeared, and the day Rena, Sting and me got our miraculous.”

Ladybug nodded. “Well, it lasted so long because my transformation timed out. I couldn’t figure out what my lucky charm meant—I didn’t know what the kwami box looked like, and a bigger version of the jewelry box I got Tikki in meant nothing to me.” Ladybug sighed, as once again, she realized how much easier it would have been if Fu contacted her and Chat Noir after the first attack, or even during one on their built-in communicators. Just. Something.

“So you timed out.”

Ladybug nodded. “And I got caught in the building that went down.”

Carapace froze. “Most people were still injured.”

Ladybug winced. “I was. Still. Chat somehow knew to look for my civilian identity and found out I was Ladybug. I thought…” Marinette shook her head, pushing old fears of losing Tikki away. She’s the Guardian now. Tikki and her are together as long as Marinette remains so. “Nevermind. The point is, even after he cast the cure and helped me get home, Goo-boy showed up and Mr. Bug was needed again.”

Carapace put the pieces together. “You were still hurt. And he left you alone.”

Ladybug ran a hand through her pigtails. “He had to. I told him to, I figured I could make it the rest of the way.”

Carapace frowned at that. “LB…” He put a hand on her shoulder. “What happened?”

Ladybug swallowed a lump. “Tiny Murder Robin.” She stiffened a bit, fiddling with her yoyo then. “He uh, grabbed me, pulled me into a car and held me a sword-point. Not gun point, sword point.” Marinette bleed through then. “Who does that? What kid goes around and says they’ll kill you with a sword at your neck?”

Carapace rubbed her back, keeping her grounded. “I managed to get him to leave since I was ‘unworthy of the Bat legacy’ and all, discarded and useless.” Marinette shook her head, reminding herself she’s moved past those feelings, the one that tried to well up in her moments. She was bigger than those thoughts. “He let me go since I wasn’t worth the effort if I didn’t know I was Batman’s daughter.” Marinette kept her eyes on her lap, a nervous hands running through one pigtail vigorously. “I kind of sicced him on the current Robin to save my skin.”

Carapace pulled her in for a hug. She clung back a bit. she didn’t have to look at him as he explained the deal. “I promised to not contact Batman or the JL and he agreed to leave me alone. And he did.”

Carapace pulled back. “That’s not all of it, is it?”

“He uh, started leaving flowers and some weapon for winter holidays, Easter and my birthday in my room….”

Carapace paled at that. “He’s threatening you.”

“y, yeah…”

“So that’s why….”

Ladybug nodded.

Carapace hugged her tight. “One sec, I’ll text the team. Then we’re doing that plan of action you made the rest of us do for when we can’t show up.”

Ladybug nodded.

She noticed a text from the others, asking if she’d be willing to talk to an Amazonian historian on the history of the Miraculous and learn from her. That… wouldn’t violate the terms of the agreement, in spirit or wording. She sent her agreement on the terms that none of the sent historians were Wonder Woman or the Queen herself. As cool as meeting Hippolyta would be, Marinette does not want to risk the violation in spirit (family members probably counted to Murder Robin.)

“Done.”

Ladybug blinked as Carapace turned to her.

“Now what can we do to help?”

Ladybug opened and closed her mouth, running over her options. “Just keep non-miraculous heroes from contacting me, especially in battle. I just...” Ladybug struggled for words. “He knows where I live. My family.”

Carapace nodded, keeping a steady hand on her shoulder. “Can’t risk it, I got you—we got you.”

After a moment of silence, Carapace spoke. “Keep the team on speeddial—if you don’t want everyone on, then at least me, Pegasus and Rena. Rena can distract without getting hurt, I can protect all of us and Pegasus can send him and anyone he works with packing. Monkey probably would want in on this too—he is the Distraction King after all.”

Ladybug laughed a little at that. It came out weak. “Sure. Chat, he’s…”

“Busy.” Carapace shrugged. “We all know his dad has him running through hoops to make it to patrol half the time.”

“Yeah…”

(Marinette agreeing to intern with M. Agreste and work on her accessories brand under the Gabriel umbrella did give Adrien more lee-way than he had before, but not by much at first. Ever since her line of scarves based on the miraculous heroes took off last winter, he was given more free reign if it involved Marinette as a designer, not Marinette as his friend and classmate. Adrien was allowed at her house at all hours now without no questions asked on the basis of ‘Marinette’s muses have spoken’. As far as Gabriel was concerned, Adrien was learning more about the designing process and crafting of individual garment and accessories from her, and offering critiques as a model on wear-ability and helping her develop her style as a designer while keeping her ‘on-brand’. The fact they mostly goofed off or worked on miraculous-related things together was another matter for another time.)

Ladybug and Carapace stayed like that for a while, until after the JL left. She may have trolled the Monkey tab on the Ladyblog and snorted at someone’s short of ‘era 1’ Chat running at an akuma while screaming “this is how I will get Ladybug will love me!” with an ‘era 2’ Chat cringing. “That. That is how I got Ladybug to baby brother me.”

Dick was wondering where the rest of the bats were during patrol. The night before, it was only him. Something about needing to look into something for the JL on Bruce’s end, and Damian was working on something again—trying to make up for a past wrong was the most Dick ever got out of him. It was the third year in a row this happened, and around the same time. Apparently needles are part of this apology.

Dick really hopes Damian manages to meet the person face to face this time. He has a feeling the person Damian’s apologizing to might be a civilian by Bat standards, and is probably missing Damian’s message completely. Maybe Dick would check up on him tomorrow—Gotham wait for no one and apparently Nightwing is the only responsible Bat at the moment. Thank god for Oracle’s Birds of Prey and the other vigilantes Gotham’s collected over the years. Dick doesn’t want to think about what would happen if this happened without them all.

PART FOUR HERE

Thanks for waiting on the update. Working with burned hand so it will take longer for the next installments. Mostly planned for the next chapter but character will do what they want and highjack my writing constantly. Things are moving forward (somewhat) on the Bats and JL end, while Miraculous Team stands with their leader, Ladybug, and aren’t ready to let Anyone threaten her.

this makes for a set-up for much to go Wrong. Feel free to add to the upcoming chaos or put in things youd like to see happen in the comments or by messaging me.

@heldtogetherbysafetypins @laurcad123 @raisuke06

#bio!dad bruce #bio!dad bruce waye #maribat #my writing #marinette did not sign up for this #long post #how do i tag

167 notes · View notes

sage-nebula · 3 years

Text

Game Review — Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity

Well, it’s that time. While some might already know at least a good chunk of my feelings due to one or two posts I’ve made while playing, I’ve now beaten the newest Hyrule Warriors game (at least in terms of the main story + secret ending) and I think it’s time for me to write up a review.

Overall Score: 5.5/10

I know there are probably at least a few Legend of Zelda fans out there who want to tear me apart right now, but I urge them to actually read everything I have to say before they do. I’ve been a fan of this series since I was nine years old (I started with Ocarina of Time and Link’s Awakening simultaneously), and while my favorite Zelda game was Majora’s Mask for a very long time, Breath of the Wild unseated it and also took the spot as my favorite video game of all time, period. Thus, my expectations for this game were already pretty high, and the fact that Nintendo lied in the marketing . . . well, we’ll get to that. But overall the point that I’m trying to make is that I am a diehard Legend of Zelda fan, and I did like the original Hyrule Warriors as well, so this isn’t a case of “she just doesn’t like Zelda” or “she just doesn’t like Hyrule Warriors.” I promise my opinions are more educated than that. So with that said, let’s get to it (under a cut / on my blog for formatting reasons).

The Pros:

The little touches to make sure that Age of Calamity felt like it belonged in the same realm as Breath of the Wild made my heart sing the moment I first played the demo. Hearing the same menu sounds, seeing the same UI — all of that made me feel like I was returning home, and I really hadn’t realized just how much I missed the world of Breath of the Wild until that moment. While it is a Hyrule Warriors game for sure, it’s clear that they didn’t want to make it “Hyrule Warriors 2″ as much as they wanted to make it a Zelda game befitting Breath of the Wild, and I really appreciated the respect that went into that.

Overall, the voice acting was pretty top notch. Zelda’s voice still bothers me—there are times when she sounds okay, but I still wish they’d chosen a different actress to voice her—and Riju’s voice was a little weird, but overall the voice acting was just as good as it was in Breath of the Wild and I was happy to see every single cutscene voiced.

They put a lot of effort into giving everyone distinctive playstyles, even when it came to two characters of the same race who use the same weapons (e.g. Revali and Teba). The Neo Champions weren’t just clones of the previous Champions; rather, they stood out in their playstyle so that while you might like playing as one, perhaps you don’t like the other as much. (For instance, I hated playing as Revali, but Teba was very fun to play as.) And while I did stick with Link most of the time, there were enough characters that I really enjoyed playing as that it was no problem at all to me when I needed to switch characters mid-battle. In particular, I really loved playing as Impa and Urbosa aside from Link, with Riju, Zelda, and Teba as backups.

The music was incredible, but that’s to be expected from a Zelda game, let’s be honest. Of particular note is this track, which filled my heart with awe every time I heard it due to the inclusion of the Song of the Hero (seriously, when that choir kicks in at about 1:45 . . . [chef’s kiss]). But really, the entire soundtrack was incredible. I don’t think there was a single bad song. Which, again, is typical of a Zelda game, but I still feel it bears note.

Being able to pilot the Divine Beasts was AWESOME, no doubt about it. The best one (in my opinion) was Vah Naboris, followed by Vah Medoh. Vah Medoh was the easiest to use, but Vah Naboris was the most fun. After that comes Vah Ruta, which seemed always on the verge of dying, and then Vah Rudania. I just didn’t have as much fun with those two.

As far as I can tell, there aren’t any Points of No Return as far as the overworld quests go. While this does offer a gameplay and story segregation break (e.g. you can still face the Yiga as enemies even after they join you), at the same time I like it because you have to complete all the quests to get 100% completion, and it’d be rather awful if quests were deleted / cut off after a certain story point without warning.

Similarly, you can replay even main story quests at any time, which is useful for gathering materials you might need for other quests (or gathering apples which you need for healing and which, for some reason—I’ll save this for a later section).

The Neutrals:

Terrako. I just . . . okay. On the one hand, I hate Terrako because it is the catalyst for all the bullshit that happens in the plot, and the fact that Terrako was actually the most important one all along is annoying af. (Who will be key in defeating Calamity Ganon: The Hero & Princess of prophecy, or one eggy boi? The answer may surprise you!) But on the other hand, Terrako actually has a personality and is kind of cute as hell, and it was really sad when he succumbed to the brainwashing and you had to murder him. The memories Zelda has of King Rhoam taking Terrako away when she was a child as she sobbed and screamed for him to stop were also painful. So it’s like, I would like Terrako if, say, he’d been introduced in Breath of the Wild 2 as a tiny Guardian that Zelda built after the events of Breath of the Wild as like, a little companion / pet of sorts. In theory I like him as Zelda and Link’s child. On the other, I hate its role in this game, so I have really complicated feelings on Terrako over all. (I also apparently can’t decide which pronouns to use, but somehow I get the feeling that Terrako doesn’t even know what pronouns are and thus probably wouldn’t care.)

While the missions themselves were usually fun, the gameplay really isn’t friendly to anyone with any sort of carpal tunnel or anything similar. That is to say, a little bit of button mashing like this game’s gameplay requires made my thumb and wrist ache something awful. As a result, while I did have fun playing, I also experienced pain playing, and so I can’t really decide if this is good or bad, especially since there at least was some strategy involved depending on who you chose to play as (yet I feel it was less finessed than in Breath of the Wild, but since it’s a Warriors game that’s not too surprising to me).

The missions were fun, but they followed a similar format to the first Hyrule Warriors where you were going to be doing the same tasks over and over and over in different missions (e.g. capture the outposts, etc). The one plus is that I feel there was a bit more variety here in that there were escort missions and the like too, but again, that wasn’t too much and so it could get a little tiring after a bit.

It was nice being able to see a lot of characters from Breath of the Wild that I loved again, but honestly? I feel like it was mostly a wasted opportunity because none of them (at least no one in the main group) received any more development or fleshing out that we didn’t already see in Breath of the Wild. In fact, arguably they were flattened. Revali was an arrogant, argumentative jerk from start to finish, with none of the respect he had for Zelda or any softer sides showing through. We saw that Mipha had a crush on Link and that she was protective over Sidon, but we already saw that in the original game + Champion’s Ballad. We saw that Urbosa was caring, but again, we’d already seen that . . . and so on. This was an opportunity to delve into each of them deeper, but the game just rehashed what we already knew of them from the previous game rather than going into it in any more depth. Arguably the only ones we got to see more sides of were, of all characters, Kohga and Rhoam, and even that wasn’t much. So while it was nice to see these characters again and spend more time with them, I also feel that there was a major wasted opportunity in terms of writing and characterization, particularly since we never saw any major bonding moments with them unlike what we saw in the Champion’s Ballad on photo day.

I LOVED Purah, but I was insanely disappointed that she wasn’t a playable character. At first I thought it might be because they didn’t want to give us two Sheikah, but they were fine giving us two Rito, two Zora, etc, so I don’t see why Purah couldn’t have been playable. Yeah, she’s a scientist, but she’s also a freaking ninja. You can’t tell me she wouldn’t be able to defend herself. So while I’m happy that she had such a big role in the plot (bigger than Robbie, arguably), it disappoints me that we weren’t able to play as her.

Astor is a fascinating character, and I feel it’s at least heavily implied that he was the oracle who foretold Calamity Ganon’s return in the actual timeline. But that’s not specified and we really don’t learn anything about him other than Ganon apparently chose Astor himself, and wanted to use him as his right-hand, so that was a bit of a letdown all things considered. If he was the prophet, why didn’t Rhoam say anything? And how could Calamity Ganon choose Astor from the Dark World, or wherever he was sealed this time? Before playing my original thought was that Astor was basically like Agahnim — that is, a manifestation of Ganon that he uses to act while he’s still sealed in the Dark World, rather than an actual person who exists. But that doesn’t seem to have been the case, so . . . who knows.

Some of the maps could be really frustrating, in that the path to take either wasn’t clear enough or there were gates closed with no clear clues on how to open them, blocking off an outpost you needed to get it. My method of getting around this was usually to tell one of the A.I. characters to go there and then follow them (or switch to another character and tell the character I had been playing with to go there and trust the A.I. to accomplish it, etc) but it was still pretty annoying. That said, at least there were ways around it, and the maps themselves tended to be pretty big and well detailed, so I don’t hate the map design too terribly.

Did Sooga die? I honestly could not tell. On the one hand, it sure seemed like he died considering he was never again shown in a cutscene after Astor betrayed the Yiga Clan. On the other, I seem to vaguely remember seeing him on the battlefield sometimes and I find it very strange that Kohga wouldn’t mention wanting to avenge Sooga in particular if he was dead. But I honestly couldn’t figure out whether Sooga was dead or alive, so this goes in the neutral category for now because I don’t know whether to be mad about it or not.

The Cons:

NINTENDO. FUCKING. LIED. ABOUT WHAT. THIS GAME. WAS SUPPOSED. TO BE. Yes, that needed to be bolded, and yes, it needed to be in all caps. Nintendo advertised Age of Calamity as a canon prequel to Breath of the Wild. They did it over, and over, and over again. And do you know what? They lied! Because Age of Calamity is not, and could never be, a canon prequel to Breath of the Wild. It can’t be, because it’s an Everybody Lives AU that negates Breath of the Wild in its entirety. And as someone who downloaded the demo thinking that this was going to be a canon prequel—as someone who tried to hold out hope for that even with the warning signs in the demo—that made me really angry, upset, and concerned about the canon sequel. Because you see, Breath of the Wild merged the original three timelines so that we wouldn’t have to deal with split timeline nonsense anymore. But now Nintendo, for some incomprehensible reason given that Aonuma himself was allegedly the one who didn’t want to have to deal with split timelines anymore, went ahead and created a new one. And my concern is whether any of the bullshit that happened in Age of Calamity will affect Breath of the Wild 2 or not. Realistically it shouldn’t, given that Age of Calamity can’t lead into Breath of the Wild at all. But with the Neo Champions having gone to Age of Calamity to help them, I have concerns. Major concerns. If Age of Calamity affects Breath of the Wild 2 in any way, I’m going to be livid. And before I continue, let me just take a moment to say this: It’s not that I wanted to see the Champions be murdered, per se. I love all four of the Champions and I think that their deaths were absolutely tragic. But at the same time, that was kind of the entire point, or at least part of it. The fall of Hyrule and the death of the Champions were traumatic scars on the land. Countless people died that day, on top of the Champions being murdered in their Divine Beasts. Link himself technically died, or at least very nearly did. Entire villages were wiped out. You can still see those ruins on the landscape, untouched, crawling with monsters. But despite that, over the past 100 years, Hyrule has rebuilt. People are still alive, and are still thriving in different villages across the landscape. Many have not forgotten the past, especially those who had sent Champions to defend Hyrule 100 years ago. But they’ve still continued living, and in that, have refused to let Calamity Ganon defeat them. Moreover, the battle from 100 years ago is not finished yet. Zelda has trapped Ganon in the castle with her and waits for Link to come help her finish things, which they do. The Champions died, but Hyrule did not lose. Hyrule put the battle on pause until they could win, which they did. Breath of the Wild, through having a massive tragedy take place in its backstory, gives us a tale about how victory can be grasped from the ashes, about how you can be broken, but not beaten, and how you can still push yourself up and win no matter how long it takes. That is a beautiful, a powerful story, and taking the Everybody Lives route completely demolishes that. So suffice it to say, I thought the story presented in Age of Calamity was complete garbage.

But honestly, it isn’t just the story completely demolishing and trashing all over the themes of Breath of the Wild that makes it bad, but it’s also what was done with the characters. There were so many pointless retcons of established story and character elements that were thrown completely out the window that a.) destroyed character relationships and b.) flattened characters and took away what made them well-written in the first place. As just a few examples: — It is established in Creating a Champion (the Breath of the Wild compendium) that Link pulled the Master Sword from its pedestal when he was around 11 or 12 years old, and thus was known to be the Hero from that point forward. Note that he had already been in the knights at this point; we know from Mipha’s diary in the original game that he visited Zora’s Domain as a small child and was already sparring with adult knights at that time (which seems crazy, but he is the Hero, so). Nevertheless, being the Hero made Link realize just how much was riding on him, and how everyone in the kingdom was now looking to him as the Hero who would save them, personally. This caused Link to completely shut down his emotions out of anxiety of letting the people down or disappointing them in any way. He also stopped talking for the most part, again afraid that he would say the wrong thing and disappoint everyone. But in Age of Calamity, this is thrown out the window. From a gameplay perspective I get that perhaps they didn’t want you to have the Master Sword at the start, but since you can keep strengthening the Master Sword anyway there’s no reason why they couldn’t have just started it off as a kind of weak weapon that you power up over time. More importantly though is that Link has the same exact personality that he had in the memories in Breath of the Wild, even though he is not the Hero at the start of the game. I mean, he is, but no one knows that yet, and as such he has no reason to be stoic and silent, because his reason for being that way in Breath of the Wild’s backstory is completely gone. We could have gotten to see a goofier, more personable Link (even if they still wanted to keep him mostly silent), but instead we got a stoic, silent Link for literally no reason. It makes absolutely no sense. — As an added contradiction to the above, Mipha tells Link in Age of Calamity that he “hasn’t changed a bit” when they meet again in Zora’s Domain. This is in direct contrast to her diary, wherein she notes that the wild boy she met when they were both children has changed completely when they meet again as teenagers into someone stolid, though she’s not aware of the reason why. So once again, they doubled down on removing backstory that made Link into a more complex, well-written character. — To that end, Link and Zelda’s relationship is also rewritten entirely (and by rewritten, I mean “had all complexity stripped from it and with it any meaningful development). Since Link is appointed Zelda’s personal knight because he fights well instead of because he’s the Hero, Zelda has absolutely no reason to resent him being appointed her knight here like she did in the original history. You see, in the original history, Zelda resented Link for seemingly stepping into his destiny with zero effort given, and also thought (because of her own insecurities and the rumors that Rhoam told her to her face were being circulated about her being “heir to a throne of nothing”) that he looked down on her for not being able to awaken her powers and step into hers. For this reason, she spent most of her time either avoiding him or yelling at him, though she notes in her diary that she feels bad for doing so because she knows that it’s not fair of her to treat him badly when he’s technically just trying to do his job. It’s not until he saves her from Yiga assassins that she starts to do a hard reassessment of her treatment of him, and starts to try to get to know him better . . . which results in her getting him to open up to her, and her being able to open up to him in turn, and both of them becoming each other’s confidant. This in turn makes it understandable when it’s Link’s near death which finally allows Zelda to come into her powers; on top of having lost everyone and seemingly everything else, Zelda saw the one person she could be vulnerable in front of about to die protecting her. Link was so important to her by that point, regardless of whether you see her feelings for him as romantic or not, because he supported her emotionally on top of being there for her in physical defense. That is why her powers awakened when they did, why he was the final trigger. But in Age of Calamity, none of that happens. Zelda doesn’t resent Link because he’s not the Hero at the time he’s appointed her personal knight. Even when he gets the Master Sword later, Zelda is just sad about it rather than holding any sort of resentment or anger toward him. We never see them bond or become close; unlike in Breath of the Wild, where we have memories of Zelda trying to feed him a frog, opening a conversation about fate and destiny and whether one could make a choice in opposition to those things, or scolding him while patching up his wounds, all we get here are repeated scenes of Link defending Zelda from attacks. That’s it. We never see her have any sort of actual conversation with him, we never see them bond or have any non-battle related moments together. We certainly never get an indication that Link opens up to her either, which means that each time he protects her here it’s less “I’m protecting the one person who I’ve been able to open up to about who I really am” and more “it’s all about my paycheck.” Link and Zelda’s relationship, whether you saw it as romantic or not, was the core relationship in Breath of the Wild. And yet, in an alleged prequel (that wasn’t really a prequel after all!), it’s pretty much nonexistent. — Moreover, Zelda’s character gets flattened, too. Here’s the thing about Zelda in Breath of the Wild: She’s written like a real person. She has many good qualities (selfless, devoted, intelligent), but also many flaws (stubborn, short-tempered, quick to judgement). The way Zelda decided she knew all she needed to know about Link right away and reacted accordingly (and by “reacted accordingly” I mean “treated him badly”) was a result of her flaws. But Zelda realizing that what she was doing was wrong and endeavoring to make things right was a direct result of her good qualities. Breath of the Wild’s Zelda is not a perfect person, not because she has a difficult time unlocking her powers (pretty much anyone would in her position, she was dealt the shittiest hand in the world), but because she’s a realistic person who has flaws and makes mistakes and is just doing her best in a world that is determined to knock her down at any opportunity. As a result, we see a lot of emotional range from Zelda throughout the memories in Breath of the Wild. We see her curious and inquisitive, we see her frustrated, we see her sad, anxious, angry, playful, determined, loving, impatient, brave. She’s a compelling character because she is a character, rather than the Deus Ex Machina perfect princess who exists only to either be rescued or be a holy figure who seals away the evil at the end. (Which I mean, she does seal away the evil at the end, but that’s far and away not the only thing she does.) But in Age of Calamity we see . . . basically none of that. There are very brief moments where Zelda is curious about technology, or where she daintily laughs at something Terrako does. She does get determination and her anxieties wiped away after she awakens her power near the end. But for 90% of the game all we see from her is her being anxious or sad about her power. We don’t see her get irrationally resentful of or angry toward Link. We don’t see her getting impatient, making hasty judgments about people or animals (remember, she also judged her horse as unworthy of the royal bridle before Link helped her learn how to bond with her horse properly), or doing mischievous things like trying to make her personal knight eat a frog for Science. I’m going to be perfectly honest with you: While I deeply felt for Zelda in the flashbacks of Breath of the Wild, I got tired of her constant “:( I’m useless :(” angst in Age of Calamity. It got old pretty quickly. And most of all, I was so disappointed to see that the character I loved was now just here to be a woobie, rescued by Link half a dozen times and sad for most of the story. Breath of the Wild’s Zelda is my favorite Zelda, and she was done such an injustice in this game. It was immensely disappointing. — Link and Zelda were not the only issues here, though. The way the Yiga Clan also needs to be talked about, and in order to discuss them, I have to first remind everyone of their history. So. 10,000 years ago. Civilization was thriving thanks to Sheikah scientists and innovators, who created things such as the Sheikah Slate, the Guardians, and the Divine Beasts. It was this technology that allowed Hyrule to triumph over Calamity Ganon the first time he came around to play (or at least that time that he came around to play), and they won pretty handily at that. However, the Hyrulean King at the time quickly grew suspicious and fearful of the Sheikah. Although the Sheikah had faithfully served the Hyrulean Royal Family for milennia due to their goddess-given oaths, the King of Hyrule felt that the Sheikah not only could, but would use their technology to rebel against Hyrule and dismantle the Royal Family. As a result, he: - Exiled the Sheikah from Central Hyrule, as well as any villages or towns where Hylians lived. - Criminalized Sheikah technology, which included imprisoning (or even executing) any Sheikah known to be conducting scientific research, as well as destroying Sheikah technology (or burying what could not be destroyed, such as the Divine Beasts and Guardians). - Essentially legalized Sheikah oppression. The people of Hyrule backed the king in his decree, for the most part, buying into the bigotry and prejudice that spurred it on. The Sheikah had everything taken from them and destroyed: their homes, their research, their artifacts, everything. And while some Sheikah remained loyal to the oaths they swore to the goddesses and decided to keep peacefully in a newly formed, yet secret out of fear of retaliation, village (Kakariko), another group of Sheikah were rightfully fucking pissed at being oppressed and subjugated for no good reason, especially right after they helped save the world. Their opinion on the matter was “fuck that guy, AND his entire family.” These Sheikah became known as the Yiga Clan. Now, why they felt it was a good idea to side with Calamity Ganon is not entirely clear, given that destroying the world would also mean destroying them. But I think that on top of being furious with the Royal Family for this betrayal, they were also furious with the goddesses, because not a single goddess stepped in to defend them when they were being betrayed and oppressed. The Sheikah had kept loyal to their oaths for millennia, and yet this was how they were repaid. If you think about it like that, then the Yiga siding with the one who would destroy everything and everyone the goddesses had ever created makes a twisted kind of sense, even though it assures their own destruction right along with it. And now that we’ve refreshed that backstory . . . let us visit what happens with the Yiga in Age of Calamity. So. First, we see that Astor is the one who has convinced Kohga to go along with reviving Calamity Ganon, even though that doesn’t really make sense since serving Calamity Ganon has kind of been the Yiga’s thing from the get-go, and that they didn’t hate Zelda and Link because Astor told them to, but rather because Zelda was a member of the Royal Family (a.k.a. the people the Yiga have held a grudge against for 10,000 years), and Link is the knight defending her / the Hero. Next, we see that they’re completely aimless without instructions from Astor, which again, doesn’t really make sense considering their goals have always been pretty clear and they’ve been a tightly-run organization from the beginning no matter how bumbling Kohga is. Finally, Age of Calamity has them join the Royal Family and heroes despite this being the antithesis of what they’ve been devoted to for, again, 10,000 years. And here’s the problem with that: In Age of Calamity, Kohga’s alleged reasoning for wanting to join with Zelda (and bowing to her, what the fuck) is because Astor used Yiga Clan foot soldiers (and I think Sooga? It was unclear) to fuel Evil Terrako to resurrect Calamity Ganon. Kohga felt betrayed by this and thus decided to take Astor down. Given that the Yiga Clan have been established to hold grudges over betrayal for millennia, Kohga turning on Astor makes sense. However, it was also already established that the Yiga wanted to revive Calamity Ganon to destroy the entire damn world even though it would mean their deaths as well, because they hated the Royal Family and goddesses just that much. So Kohga deciding to join the Royal Family, and actually bowing to Zelda, makes absolutely zero sense and cannot be excused just because they gave him a line about gagging at the fact that he joined up with Zelda. It’s a complete dismissal of and slap in the face to the legitimate reasons that the Yiga Clan had for defecting from the Sheikah, and does absolutely nothing to address the oppression the Sheikah people suffered as a direct result of the Hyrulean Royal Family’s laws. And yes, that was 10,000 years ago and Zelda herself had nothing to do with it, but we also have little evidence that the current Royal Family has done anything to change it, at least for reasons other than their own benefit. It’s stated in Creating a Champion that King Rhoam was the first king since then to reach out to the Sheikah to try to repair that relationship, and that he only did so when the prophecy about Calamity Ganon rising again was made. Moreover, he made sure to keep a very tight watch on the Sheikah scientists, indicating that he still may not trust them. So whiel the actual betrayal was 10,000 years ago, it’s clear that the Royal Family has not once in 10,000 years attempted to genuinely make up for the oppression that was forced upon the Sheikah, and so the Yiga Clan have every right to still be absolutely fucking furious about it. I can’t blame them for that at all, and I hated seeing Kohga bow to Zelda like that for that reason. (All of this said, no, it doesn’t excuse their other bastardry, such as stealing the Thunder Helm, or murdering the wife of someone who tried to peacefully defect and then threatening to also murder his young children if he didn’t continue to do Yiga missions. The Yiga do some truly fucked up things and that bastardry is not excused by their sad history. However, when it comes to the Royal Family their resentment and fury makes sense, and I hate that this wasn’t addressed in a game that wanted you to team up with the Yiga. They’re not the haha funny bad guys, they’re people who had a legitimate reason to be furious, and the Sheikah as a whole were never given anything remotely close to reparations by the Hyrulean Royal Family. This is something I hope is addressed in Breath of the Wild 2, although my expectations for that are pretty low.) — Finally, while a much lesser note than all of the above, I also found Riju’s characterization to be questionable. I might be misremembering her small part in Breath of the Wild, but while we learn from her diary that she does have some doubts about her ability to lead the Gerudo at her age (particularly given that the Thunder Helm was stolen from her), I don’t remember her having such low confidence, or being so meek so that she would constantly need Urbosa supporting her. I feel like they may have characterized her that way because she’s a child, which I mean, I guess I understand, but it just felt like an alteration of her character to me. I could be wrong since it’s been a while since I played through that part of Breath of the Wild, but that aspect of her character just felt off to me.

Moving on from the story and the characters, I also have to say that the amount of graphical inconsistencies in this game were really just . . . impressive in number. I’m talking specifically about Link’s different outfits, and whether he would actually be wearing them in cutscenes or not, because honestly? You could never know if he was going to be in the outfit you put him in, or if he was going to be in the Default Outfit for any given cutscene. I get the feeling that the difference lies somewhere in-between whether something was a pre-rendered cutscene or like, a quick time event one, but nonetheless it just felt incredibly sloppy and kind of defeated the purpose, at times, of being able to dress Link how you wanted him.

I had issues with the gameplay at times as well, apart from what I already mentioned before. Namely, I found it incredibly frustrating how sometimes, despite being locked on to an enemy, the Sheikah Slate apps wouldn’t actually target that enemy (e.g. Stasis activating on a bokoblin instead of the targeted attacking Lynel). Similarly, I wasn’t a fan of how A.I. characters couldn’t be easily pointed around the map at times, refusing to go to certain locations until you swtiched to them and forced them to go there (e.g. when you had to manually make them jump down to the field during the Akkala Citadel battle).

Why in the actual hell can you not a.) eat ingredients other than apples during battle to heal, and b.) BUY APPLES LIKE ANY OTHER INGREDIENT? Holy fuck it was so goddamn annoying having to go into random battles to try and scrounge up apples from crates and boxes, and only really being able to do it from lower level battles because higher level battles wouldn’t give them as readily to "increase difficulty” (more like to increase frustration). I see no reason why you couldn’t purchase apples from shops, or eat other food items like berries or fish like you could in Breath of the Wild. Apples didn’t even heal that much health, so you had to mash several of them at once late game, and you could only hold a small number and couldn’t buy more . . . frustrating. Just absolutely frustrating for no good reason. (Like if it was a harder difficulty restriction I’d understand, but for normal difficulty? Jeez.)

All in all, if Nintendo had just been upfront and honest about this being an alternate universe game from the very start, I probably wouldn’t have been as furious as the story as I was. I would have still been disappointed, but the anger wouldn’t have been there at the very least. But the weren’t honest—they lied in order to get people to buy the game, and so that dragged the score down along with everything else. While I did like some aspects of this game, overall I feel that it could have been so much better, and all I can hope is that none of it affects Breath of the Wild 2 in any way, shape, or form.

#2020 game reviews #hyrule warriors: age of calamity #loz: age of calamity #''Scrawlers why do you get so mad when things about LoZ are wrong''#because I'm a FUCKING NERD that's why #this game strongly triggered my Super Nerd Wants To Fight instinct & the only ones who should be sorry are Nintendo

32 notes · View notes

awhitehead17 · 3 years

Text

Whumptober 2020: Day 30 - Now where did that come from?

Prompt: Ignoring an injury

Summary: Before he gets the chance to deal with some wounds, an emergency call comes in asking for Jason’s help. Deciding his injuries can wait he goes to help out, however considering his condition he doesn’t know how much help he’ll be until the pain becomes too much to ignore.

Enjoy! :D

He’s not even two steps into his apartment before he’s letting out a heavy sigh and slumping against the wall in exhaustion. Everything’s hurting and Jason wanted nothing more than to collapse on his bed and sleep for eternity.

Now he’s stopped moving he can feel his side throbbing, a pulse traveling throughout his body in repetitive painful waves that make him clench his teeth. Some asshat got a lucky strike in with a knife and now his left side has a nice size gash in it which is currently bleeding like a waterfall. That may be an exaggeration but Jason’s too tried to care.

At least he thinks that’s the worst wound he’s collected that night. He’s pretty sure there are scratches and bruises in places he didn’t know there could be. His hand is hurting too, but he doesn’t yet know the cause of that, it just twinges in pain anytime he clenches his fist. It’s also kinda hard to breathe, that’s either because of some potential cracked ribs he could have or because of the exhaustion, probably both.

Jason doesn’t know how long he spends leaning against the wall, having lost track of time, but he somehow finds the will power to push away from the hard surface and starts to trudge through his apartment towards his bedroom. Once there he’ll patch himself up and then pass out and deal with everything else later on.

As if being exhausted and injured wasn’t enough to be dealing with, when he’s no more than several steps away from the wall his phone begins to ring. Jason groans as he feels the vibrations of the device against his leg. Who the fuck was calling him at this time in the morning? And why were they calling him?

Fumbling around, Jason grabs the device from his pants and answers it. “What?”

“You’re needed,” Oracles voice tells him, “I’m sending you coordinates now, so get there as soon as you can.”

Jason’s mind takes a moment to catch up with what was being said, when it does he frowns into the emptiness of his apartment. “No. Get someone else to do it.” He’s whining, he’s aware of that, he sounds like a child but he doesn’t care. He’s too tired to be dealing with any more shit that night.

“Not an option. It’s an all hands on deck situation.”

“Well I’m busy.” Jason argues childishly.

“Batman’s orders, Red Hood.” Oracle snaps at him in that ‘no room for arguments’ tone of voice she has.

Jason sighs and silently curses everyone and everything. “Fine, whatever! You owe me.” He hangs up before she could reply.

He takes a deep breath and tries to mentally prepare himself for going back out in the field in his condition. He doesn’t know how much help he’ll be in a fight but if he shows his face then that’s something right?

Jason’s phone pings a moment later, a glance at the screen shows it’s the coordinates Oracle had been on about. He makes a note of the place and wills himself to turn around and head back out of the apartment he had only recently returned to.

His injuries will have to be looked at later on.

------

Even from a distance he could see the reason why it was a all hands on deck situation. There was a massive gang war happening right across the docks and Gotham Bay. He pulls up on his motorbike and stashes it in some alleyway out of sight and approaches the fighting from the ground.

Upon approaching, he spots Nightwing jumping in between scuffles of men. Red Robin was running around knocking men unconscious with his staff. Robin was violently tearing into thugs like there’s no tomorrow. Batman was fighting against Bane (how the hell did Bane get here?). Spoiler was grappling with Cheetah (again what the hell?) the two women slashing at each other to get the upper hand. Signal was ducking and dodging Poison Ivy’s giant weeds, trying to get his way closer so he could knock her out without being touched.

Jason watches for a moment, working out where he’s needed most. A few others in the family have other areas covered, different colour suits and gear letting him know who’s where, but he can’t work out where he should go.

How was he not aware of this battle happening, only having to hear it from Oracle minutes before? Why where there such a weird combo of villains together? Something bigger was obviously happening but what was it?

He doesn’t get the chance to try and work it out because a high pitched, accented voice was calling him out from behind. Jason turns around just in time to avoid being swept to the side by Harley’s mallet.

“Lookie here! Who finally decided to show up! Isn’t it my favourite Hoddie!”

Jason bounces backwards to avoid another swing of her mallet. Right of course Harley would be here, Ivy was here so course she would be.

He ducks and rolls to avoid getting hit a third time. Coming out of the roll, his side flares up in pain making him loose concentration and causing him to be unsteady for a moment, this provided Harley the perfect opportunity to actually hit him this time.

Jason grunts as the weapon collides with his side and knocks down to the ground, as his back hits the ground hard the air gets pushed out of his lungs. He's disoriented for a moment but when he comes back Harley is there above him raising her mallet to strike against his head. Thankfully his instincts kick in because he’s able to chuck her off him. The two of them quickly engage in hand to hand combat.

As time goes by Jason could feel himself starting to lag. His earlier injuries and exhaustion was catching up to him. One reaction too late, has him knocked to the floor and this time he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to get up again. His whole body feels tired and worn down, everything becoming too heavy too move.

Thankfully someone comes to his rescue. He doesn’t work out who though he does see Harley turn around shocked and as she unceremoniously collapses to the ground. That’s the last thing he remembers before sudden darkness washes over his vision.

------

When he wakes up, it’s to bright lights, a strong smell of antiseptic and a frowning Dick Grayson above him.

Jason groans and closes his eyes again, trying to shake the grogginess off from the drugs and work out what happened. After several moments he opens them again to the same sight as before.

“What happened?” He asks, his voice sounding rough and croaky.

Dick sighs and moves away from sight, only to come back again with a glass of water in hands. Before giving Jason the drink, Dick helps him to sit up against the headboard of the bed. Jason takes small sips of the refreshing water as Dick impatiently explains what had happened. The unusual impatience of his older brother tells Jason that there was something else he wanted to get off his chest, something more than just what happened at the fight.

Once he was done story telling Dick crosses his arms across his chest and glowers at Jason. “The injuries you received weren’t from the battle. They don’t match what Harley could have made, meaning you got them earlier in the night as you weren’t at the battle long enough to sustain those injuries.”

Jason rolls his eyes. “I got them earlier in the night yeah.” There was no point in denying it, it’s pretty obvious after all.

“Why didn’t you say anything! Why did you come to the battle knowing you weren’t fit to fight?” Dick shouts at him. Jason doesn’t take offence to it, he could see that the older man was worried.

“I did tell Oracle I was busy, but she didn’t listen.” Jason says factually.

“You didn’t tell her you were injured Jason. She wouldn’t have demanded you to join us of she knew that! What were you thinking, ignoring wounds like that? How can you be so stupid?”

Jason huffs, having heard all of this before just in a different time. “Exactly same reason any of us do Dickhead. There were more important things to take care of. Doesn’t matter now does it? It’s all been sorted, I’m assuming Alfred patched me up, and I’ll be back to normal in a few days.”

Dick sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. When he looks at Jason again it’s with an expression of worry and concern. “I understand, I do. I just worry. When you fell unconscious and then we found that blood on you with no explanation if didn’t look good.” He pauses to take a deep breath. “But anyway how are you feeling? Everyone else is okay by the way, no injuries surprisingly besides your own. All the villains are locked back up and everything’s been sorted out.”

Jason shrugs, “Fine I guess. Achy, tried the usual. As I said, I’ll be back to normal in no time.”

Dick gives him an uneasy smile. “Right, of course. Sorry. I’ll go let Alfred know you’re awake and grab you some food while I’m at it, just please get some rest before you start trying to do anything else.”

“No promises.” Jason grins easily. Dick sends him a mock glare before turning around to leave the medical bay. Jason watches him go and once he's out of sight he slumps against the pillows. He was still sore and tired but better than that he previously remembers.

Recovery is going to be hell but he can handle, always has done. It’s just part of what they do. They get injured, recover, move on and the cycle starts again.

#Whumptober2020 #day thirty #ignoring an injury #Jason Todd #dick grayson #fanfiction #angst #fighting #injury #injured jason #worried dick #big brother dick #now edited #mistakes have been corrected #sorry for the original bad upload!

35 notes · View notes

ladylynse · 4 years

Text

A belated happy birthday to @bibliophilea.

Forewarning: All Dipper knew was that there was something buried in some special thermos behind the shack; all Danny knew was that he had no idea how he’d gotten here. Inspired by this artwork by @hashtag-art

Part 3 [FF | AO3] (previous)

-|-

“Okay,” Danny said to himself once he was back in the forest and sitting on a springy bed of moss. He ran a hand through his hair. “They know. Or at least they practically know, because there’s no way they bought that.” That was a problem. Not them finding out the truth, exactly, unless it meant they played that card and trapped him again. (He’d really have to figure out how to prevent that from happening again. His parents didn’t believe in non-ghostly magic, but Vlad would have a field day if he realized that had actually worked.)

Thing was, though, if what he’d done had really been enough, if he’d somehow managed to do whatever Clockwork had wanted, Danny would be on his way home right now.

But he wasn’t, which meant he hadn’t.

And he couldn’t exactly time travel without help, so it’s not like he had an alternate route home.

That probably meant that they hadn’t believed his warning, either. He’d have to figure out how to convince them, assuming he could talk to them without them trying to exorcise him or something. Unless exorcism would send him to the Ghost Zone? He’d be a lot more willing to let that happen if he knew that for sure; it beat waiting around for a natural portal or risk getting caught by Vlad if he tried to sneak into one of the ones he’d built over the years.

Unfortunately, given some of the things Danny had seen in the past, he wasn’t going to bet that exorcism wouldn’t equate to destruction.

Especially in a place that gave off such skin-crawling vibes—seriously, what was wrong with that place?

Well.

Real magic, apparently. Somewhere. Buried within all the scams.

Buried.

Like his thermos had been buried.

What else was buried, then?

Danny slumped back against a tree, absently flicked an ant off his knee, and stared upward at the branches. “I have to go back, don’t I?”

No one answered, which was probably a good thing. It was too much to hope that Clockwork would come back so soon. Especially when he was set on ‘not interfering’ while interfering as much as possible through Danny.

Mabel and Dipper’s magic, whatever sort it was, worked better on him when he was Phantom. His best defense was staying as Fenton. Even if he couldn’t resist whatever they tried next forever, it would buy him time, and that might be all he needed.

It would be nice to think that they wouldn’t be plotting something at this exact moment, but he knew better than to engage in such wishful thinking—at least out loud—when magic was involved.

“I’ll just stay invisible until I can figure this out,” he muttered.

The forest seemed to swallow his words.

This whole place was weird.

The sooner he could get out of here, the better.

XXXXXX

“Are you sure about this?”

Dipper didn’t bother to look up from his reading. “The journal hasn’t been wrong before. I’ve just been wrong when interpreting it. If he’s a ghost, those runes should keep him from harming us.” He made a vague gesture at the walls of their room, which he and Mabel had carefully covered in chalk runes. Not as permanent as he’d like, but a lot easier to get rid of in a pinch if someone came poking around.

Or, more to the point, if something turned out to be the wrong rune or drawn incorrectly and having a meaning that was extremely counterproductive.

“Should.” Mabel’s voice was flat. “Can’t you be more confident than that?”

“I’m starting to wonder if he’s really a phantom, whatever he says,” Dipper explained as he sat up. “He doesn’t have their distinctive piercings, and he didn’t try to hurt me, even though I summoned him. Which means he’s either a category ten ghost or he’s not really a ghost at all.”

“But you summoned him,” she said, “and he was trapped in the circle.”

“That might just be what he wants us to think.”

“So what, then? Oracle? Because of the prophecy?”

Dipper grimaced. “Only if we’re lucky.” He turned the journal around to show her what he was looking at.

“Some kind of demon? You think Danny’s possessed by him?”

“He did say something about interdimensional travel,” Dipper said defensively. “You don’t need to say that like it’s impossible. And that would merit the author’s warning.”

“So would a category ten ghost, and a ghost could possess someone as easily as a demon.”

“I guess.”

He’d tried not to grumble it, but Mabel slid down beside him and leaned against his bed as well. “It’s okay not to know something, bro-bro.”

“I know,” he said, flipping through the journal again to see if he could find something else that might be relevant, “but if I mess this up, things could get bad fast.”

“Maybe we should tell the others, then. At least Grunkle Stan.”

“But then we’d have to tell him everything, and….” And he didn’t want to tell them about the journal yet, not even Grunkle Stan. He just…didn’t. It would feel too much like admitting defeat. What if he wasn’t even allowed to keep the journal?

Mabel hummed in agreement, stayed silent for about three seconds, and then asked, “What if he’s right?”

“Grunkle Stan? About what?”

“No, Phantom. The warning. What if he’s right? What if he is an oracle, or a messenger for an oracle, or something like that?”

Dipper scowled. “Anyone with actual foresight would know that saying something the way he did is just going to make people more determined, not less.”

“Maybe that’s the whole point.”

Dipper glanced at her. “What do you mean?”

“Maybe the point isn’t to warn us off.”

“Really? That’s what it sounded like to me. He kept telling us to stop.”

“But that’s not the actual message he gave us. If you stay on this road, you’ll find yourself on a path you can’t turn away from. That just means if we keep going, we won’t be able to stop later. It doesn’t necessarily mean we have to stop now. Stopping now was just what he thought we should do.”

She had a point. If he really was just a messenger, he wouldn’t necessarily know the true meaning of the message. And if he was wrong? About them needing to stop? Then that had to mean— “It’s forewarning. So we’ll be better prepared for whatever’s coming. Whatever has to come.”

Assuming Mabel wasn’t wrong about that, that changed things.

Phantom might not be an enemy. Danny might not be a conduit or something like that. And the journal’s warning….

But maybe it hadn’t been a warning. It had been in a different hand than the rest of the journal. A special thermos to contain the messenger until it was time for the message to be heard….

“I hope you’re right,” Dipper said.

“But in case I’m not, we still have to do all of this.” She nodded at the chalked runes. “These will stop ghosts and demons?”

“It’s every protection rune I’ve found in here,” Dipper said, lifting the journal a few inches for emphasis. “I’m hoping none of them cancel each other out.”

Mabel snorted. “I’m surprised you didn’t do that weeks ago.”

“I’ve been practicing drawing them,” Dipper admitted. “In the dirt. With a stick. I didn’t want to risk getting something wrong when it mattered. I’m not as good at freehanding as you are without practice.”

“That’s just because you spend more time reading than drawing and crafting.” Mabel climbed to her feet. “You can keep looking through the journal. I’m going downstairs to wait for Danny.”

“You think that’s how he’ll come back? After that story he fed you about his family before running out?”

Mabel smirked. “I’m pretty sure he’s figured out we don’t trust Phantom. Trying to convince us to trust Danny is his best bet.”

“But we’re not going to trust him.” Not liking the look on Mabel’s face, Dipper added a pointed, “Right?”

“I like to hear people out.”

“Mabel!”

“What? He was kinda cute.”

Dipper groaned. “For all we know, he’s as real a person as Norman was.”

She just shrugged. “Summer romances are all about risk-taking and mysteries. It’s part of the thrill.”

“But this is serious!”

“And I’ll help you with all the serious stuff once you figure out what preparations we need to actually make. Just like I helped you draw all this. Doesn’t mean I can’t have fun in the meantime.”

She wasn’t going to listen to him, was she? “Just be careful, okay?”

“I’ll be as careful as I ever am,” she promised before slipping out of the room, and he bit back the urge to yell at her that that wasn’t careful at all. Her definition of careful had nearly ended with her as queen of the gnomes.

But she had helped him with this, and she’d help him in the future, and she really did hate all the research, and that was his favourite part.

He just wished she’d give up the idea of having a wonderful summer romance with any boy who came near the Mystery Shack. It would make his life a lot easier. But that’s what siblings did. They made things harder.

And, usually, they made things worth the effort.

With any luck, that would hold true this time.

XXXXXXX

Danny had absolutely no idea what the siblings—twins?—had up their sleeves, nor how fast they could pull something together, but judging by the magic circle, it would be faster than he’d like.

He knew blood blossoms weren’t the only things that fell under traditional methods of ghost hunting. His parents relied on technology, using their inventions before anything else, and Vlad (and therefore Valerie) was little different. Even Technus and Skulker used it. Danny was getting pretty good at dodging anything Tucker couldn’t just hack, but magic? He barely dealt with that outside of Desiree. He knew next to nothing.

That didn’t make him feel any better about going back to the Mystery Shack.

It didn’t keep him from going, either.

The place wasn’t closed, but it was empty—or, at least, it was as empty as it had been earlier. He would’ve been better off if there had been a crowd. No crowd meant no hope of distraction. He could try being his own distraction, of course—knock a few things around with well-placed ectoblasts, since attempts to duplicate himself would probably end badly with how he felt right now—but the truth was, he didn’t know if that would help.

If the adults bought into the whole magic thing as much as the kids, doing something like that would draw more attention to himself, not less. It was more likely to be recognized for what it was: something unnatural. And for all that this place was clearly set up like some sort of scam, it…. It wasn’t all a scam. He’d felt that much before. He was sure it hadn’t just been the beginnings of that magic circle.

He could still feel it now, hovering where he was underneath a window. Something that made his skin crawl. Something that had his arms covered in goosebumps. Something…something that felt achingly familiar but made him want to run away at the same time.

Or maybe that was just whatever the others had already done.

Or what he was supposed to be warning them away from.

It would’ve been nice if Clockwork could’ve given him some straight answers for once.

Danny put one hand on the sun-warmed side of the shack. Nothing happened, so he tried to phase through the wall. Tried being the operative word, as it didn’t work. He scowled and pushed harder, to no avail. He even tried the windowpane in case glass reacted differently than wood. It didn’t.

It figured.

These guys would find a way to make the entire place phase-proof without coating it in anti-ecto goo.

“Why can’t just one thing be easy for me, huh?” Danny muttered. Clockwork didn’t answer, of course; he was probably back in his tower watching through a portal, sure that everything was going the way he thought it should.

Fine. Whatever. He’d do what he could, even if that meant taking more risks than he’d like in a place like this. Anything to get back home.

Still, what he was doing wasn’t the smartest. Even by Tucker’s terms, it would be a fairly bad idea. Danny knew that even as he circled the shack, looking for an open window that didn’t exist. Everything was closed. Most likely, if anything had been open, the others had closed it. Since phasing wasn’t an option, he’d have to go through a door. Maybe the back door was still open? If Mabel hadn’t locked it behind him….

Danny peeked through the screen on the back door. He couldn’t see anyone, but there wasn’t a full view. He turned the handle slowly, easing the (thankfully unlocked) door open and slipping inside, closing it just as silently. He half-expected to come face-to-face with someone, but the kitchen was empty.

Small mercies.

Danny hesitated, trying to figure out where he should start his search when he wasn’t entirely sure what he was looking for. Did these people hide stuff in plain sight, or was he better off digging through closets and the basement and the attic? Except the room he’d been in with the other kids had pretty much been the attic, or at least some kind of attic room or loft—is that what a loft was?—and he wasn’t sure if this place had a basement, but…

Danny slowly stepped onto the floor, holding his breath as he let it take his full weight. Flying in human form got exhausting after a while. He tried to go intangible and keep going, hoping to slip right through the floor, just in case he wasn’t prevented from that now that he was inside, but his shoes stayed firmly on the wood beneath them.

Fine.

Old fashioned way it was, then.

It’s not like he really expected anything else.

Besides, this place was the Mystery Shack. It had to have secrets. And, well, clearly these people were prepared for the supernatural. Announcing his presence wouldn’t necessarily win him any favours, but maybe he could be his own distraction if he did it in a more old-fashioned way instead of trying to fool them like he had earlier.

Knocking on walls should still help him find hollow spots—hiding spots, for whatever information had to be hidden around here to merit Clockwork’s interference—and they shouldn’t expect anything less from a ghost. Judging from the junk for sale in the gift shop, the head guy would probably use the excuse of calling this place haunted to up his prices anyway. Danny might be doing them a favour.

It wasn’t very subtle, and it meant completely abandoning any hope of coming out of this unnoticed, but it was also very unlikely that he wasn’t expected. He knew that. It was too much to hope for that they weren’t expecting him, especially considering he couldn’t phase through any of the walls. That wasn’t a coincidence.

He just hoped he was right about them not being able to do as much to him as long as he didn’t go ghost, even though he was using his ghost powers.

XXXXXX

Wendy didn’t pay attention to the floor creaking at first.

She didn’t pay attention to the odd knocking sound, either.

At least, not until she realized it was moving and coming far too regularly, too rhythmically, to be something Soos was tinkering with while they didn’t have any customers.

But that’s what made the floorboards creaking wrong, too. No customers. She knew the squeaky floorboards in this place. They all did. They all also avoided them now, more from habit formed by annoyance than anything else. But the last customer to come in had been that kid, and according to Mabel, he was long gone.

Wendy popped the bubble she’d been blowing but didn’t look up from her magazine. Instead, she listened while pretending to read, scanning the page to keep up appearances but not taking in any of the words.

The floorboards shouldn’t be creaking, and there shouldn’t be any weird knocking. Tap tap tap. Tap. Tap tap. Tap tap tap. It definitely wasn’t a woodpecker, even if that might be a seemingly logical conclusion from some city slicker who knew nothing about Gravity Falls. Someone—something—was inside the Mystery Shack. And if it was supposed to be tapping out Morse code, well, it wasn’t being rapped out by someone who had a concept of long and short; the pauses were too inconsistent, even if the reoccurrence was not.

Wendy flicked her eyes to Mabel, who’d come downstairs to borrow one of Wendy’s old magazines and was sitting up on a stool in the corner. She was still humming to herself. Either she hadn’t noticed or she was doing exactly what Wendy was and pretending.

Wendy sighed. Sometimes, she was really not paid enough. Still, this was a good job on the whole. Plenty of time to read and just enough of the inexplicable to keep things interesting. About par for the Mystery Shack, really.

“Hey, Mabel, what’s your brother up to?”

“Reading,” she answered without looking up. “Boring stuff.” She folded open the magazine and turned it around, showing off a bright advertisement for perfumes. “Do you mind if I cut this up for my scrapbook? I like the flowers.”

“Go wild,” Wendy said. Mabel chirped her thanks, but Wendy was still listening to the tapping and the occasional floorboard creak. Whatever it was was coming closer.

She checked her watch; almost closing, but Stan was probably still in town, looking after…something. Wendy didn’t ask anymore. Stan had had that look in his eye recently, been in a sort of mood where he answered questions with a joke, and she hadn’t bothered trying to get anything out of him. He’d fill her in if she needed to know. She knew Soos had gone into the hardware store earlier, too—something about wiring disappearing again—but she was pretty sure she’d seen him in the yard not that long ago. He had to be back, anyway. Stan wouldn’t have left without having him fill in as Mr. Mystery should any tourists swing by.

Not that she needed either of them to deal with this for her, but it’s not like this was an infestation of raccoons. She wouldn’t mind a bit of backup if she found herself dealing with something from the side of Gravity Falls that most people ignored. Or tried to ignore, anyway. Sometimes, it really wanted to be known.

This…might be one of those times. Which might mean she wouldn’t have a choice about giving Dipper and Mabel a crash course in whatever they wound up facing. The truth of it, not whatever stories she knew Dipper tried chasing; however much he seemed to be trying to keep that from her, it’s not like she never heard him whispering to Soos or Mabel. Trouble was, Soos and Mabel being who they were, she wasn’t sure how much of those whispers were truth….

She could remember being as ignorant of all of this as they had been at the start of the summer, as they might still be aside from an encounter or two, but that was before she started working at the Mystery Shack and realized her dad’s ulterior motive for all those survival lessons.

She was pretty sure her dad didn’t believe in any of the stories people told. As far as she could tell, most people didn’t. Urban legends were just urban legends, and a good campfire story was just a good campfire story. If anyone had a particularly good one, well, then it might be deemed something on par with what Old Man McGucket might tell. It was weird, though. People would tell those stories, and then they’d never mention them again, even when offered the perfect circumstances for call-backs. It was like they’d just put it out of their mind completely.

Still, no longer mentioning something and not admitting to even entertaining the idea that there was a modicum of truth in any of those stories didn’t mean people didn’t prepare, even if it was mostly unconsciously.

And even though Stan laughed it off, even though she usually laughed it off, it hadn’t taken the haunting at the convenience store to open her eyes to the fact that there was more going on in Gravity Falls than anyone admitted.

Whatever. Mabel and Dipper were going to find out sooner or later that Gravity Falls wasn’t the sleepy little town it appeared to be—assuming their run-in with the ghosts at the old convenience store hadn’t already done that. Honestly, even she’d thought ghosts were just stories before that one; she’d figured all the real stuff was the sort that was much less popular. Who would’ve thought it was all real?

The door separating the gift shop from the main Mystery Shack showroom creaked open.

Mabel, having torn the page from the magazine, was back to humming to herself and didn’t look up from her reading.

Wendy reached below the counter, trying to figure out what in their eclectic emergency supply would actually be useful in this situation, and settled on the baking soda box that was supposed to be placed in various nooks and crannies to keep the place from smelling too musty when it rained.

There was no tapping, but she heard a floorboard creak. The one by the vending machine, if she had to guess.

“Screw it,” she muttered. She tore the cardboard on the top of the baking soda box and flung the contents in the general direction of the vending machine. For the briefest moment, she saw a humanoid outline in the dust, and then it was gone.

“Wendy?”

Mabel’s voice wasn’t scared, exactly. Nor did it sound like she thought Wendy was crazy. But it was still too cautious for Wendy’s liking.

“What are you doing?”

“Summer dusting,” Wendy deadpanned. “It’s like spring cleaning. This helps you spot all the places you need to dust.” Mabel’s face told her she clearly didn’t buy that, but Wendy didn’t care. She just smirked and added, “Go grab your brother and run outside and help Soos gather some wood. We should roast marshmallows tonight.”

Mabel stared at her for a beat longer before she squealed, “I love roasting marshmallows! It’s fun to catch them on fire and watch Dipper’s face. He hates that. He wants his to be this perfect golden brown, but it’s not done till it’s crispy.” Grinning, she slipped off the stool and out of the room.

Wendy turned her gaze back in the direction of the vending machine. “What the hell are you?” she hissed. “And what are you doing here?”

Something shifted, and she could see the faint impression of footprints in the thin dusting of baking soda.

And then she blinked and saw the kid from earlier standing there.

“This isn’t what it looks like,” he said. “I swear.”

Right. Like she was going to buy that.

“I mean it,” he insisted, probably reading her expression. “I… There’s something wrong with this place, okay? I need to figure out what it is. I…. It’s the only way I’m going to get home.”

There was a thump from upstairs. She had to deal with this fast. “What are you?” she repeated.

“Stuck,” the kid said. “And not a threat to you. Honest. Unless you’re, like, secretly planning to eat the kids who live here or something.”

Well, it’s not like she expected straight answers from something that no doubt loved to trick humans.

“Get out.”

“But—”

“Out!” she jabbed her hand towards the front door. “Now. I’ll know if you try to come back.”

“Not necessarily,” the kid muttered, not quite quietly enough that she couldn’t hear him, whatever he might think.

He vanished again.

No more footprints appeared in the white dusting the floor, but she heard that tapping again.

And then she heard the sound change.

It wasn’t the rap of knuckles against solid wood. There was something hollow, something hidden, something—

Footsteps coming down the stairs.

Mabel and Dipper.

She lunged for a rag beneath the counter and wiped it across the countertop, pretending to be cleaning. When they waved as they ran out the door, she offered a weak smile.

No more knocking.

No more footprints.

Man, sometimes she really wasn’t paid enough for this.

XXXX

Okay, that had not gone as well as Danny had hoped.

Fine, he’d been stupid. Revealing himself had been stupid. He shouldn’t have expected help. Clearly, these people were not here to help him. That would have been too easy.

But at least whatever they’d done to the shack itself to make it phase-proof didn’t extend to its contents. He hadn’t been too hopeful when he’d tried to stick his arm into the vending machine, but once it had worked, well, of course he’d gone right in and tried to keep going. The fact that there really was a hidden passageway behind it was an unexpected bonus. He’d been half expecting a hidden door that would have been just as effective at barring his way as every other wall in this place.

Danny dropped his invisibility and intangibility once on the other side, but he kept floating as he held up a hand and let a ghost ray illuminate the passage. There was a faint light coming from below him, but it wasn’t enough to light his way by itself. Rickety stairs led downwards, the angle steeper than any stairs he’d come across before. This place really did have secrets. Maybe the Mystery Shack wasn’t a total scam after all.

The stairs didn’t seem terribly dusty. Despite creaking under his weight, they held when he stood on them, so he crept downwards.

When he reached the floor, it was just the landing for an elevator. A lone light bulb shone overhead. He pressed the elevator button and waited for it to come up, shifting from foot to foot. Just how deep were the secrets of this place buried that they needed an elevator?

Three floors down, apparently, which might explain why it was so dark when the elevator doors opened.

Danny could hear the low hum of machinery even before he stepped out of the elevator, which made it immediately evident why Clockwork had put him up to this.

This place didn’t only have a creepy hidden room, it had a creepy basement lab. Because, naturally, basements were where creepy secret labs were kept.

He kept walking, calling up a ghost ray again to light up what the various computer screens and blinking lights couldn’t.

Despite having more construction tools and computer screens than beakers or Erlenmeyer flasks, this lab came complete with what looked suspiciously like a nearly finished ghost portal. This one was at least ten feet above the floor, set in some kind of reverse triangle mounting, but it was definitely a portal. Which meant these guys had magic and technology on their side. Perfect. This couldn’t get any worse. This couldn’t—

Danny frowned and walked forward, letting the ghost ray burn a little brighter to give him some more light. That book by the control panel looked like what the kid had had. Danny still didn’t recognize the handwriting—not another novel by Freakshow, thankfully—but those were definitely blueprints to a portal. Incomplete blueprints, but still blueprints. And the portal in front of him was a heck of a lot more complete than the drawings on the page, which was not a good sign in his book.

“Maybe this is what’s going to go wrong,” Danny whispered. “Maybe Clockwork wants me to prevent another accident.” Though, considering no one had stopped what had happened with him or Vlad, that struck him as unlikely. But an unstable portal could lead to a giant explosion, and—

The room flooded with light from overhead, and Danny jumped even as the buzzing of electricity filled his ears.

“I’m not going to let you destroy everything I’ve spent the last thirty years building,” a voice behind him growled, and he turned just in time to see the net flying towards him.

(next)

#danny phantom #gravity falls #phantom falls #crossover #fanfiction #danny fenton #mabel pines #dipper pines #wendy corduroy #my writing #ladylynse #dp snippet #gf snippet #crossover snippet #snippets #some year I will finish this fic

101 notes · View notes

secret-engima · 4 years

Note

AU idea, lobbing it at u. The Ring of the Lucii doesn't take souls, just magic accumulated over a lifetime, & a copy of memories at the end. Nyx Ulric is Somnus reincarnated, & nobody had any clue, until he put the Ring on his /right/ hand & /remembers/. He ignore this revelation for a moment while he takes care of Glauca. Then. He just sits down in the burning rubble of Insomnia & /shakes/. Luna asks what's wrong, & he numbly tells her /everything/ he knows. Cue Roadtrip to F over the Prophecy.

Oh no.

Oh noooooooooooooooooo.

Buckle up it’s time for a ramble and a NEW GLORIOUS AU.

Nyx has always known something was off about him. And not in an arrogant or “I’m destined” way but an uncomfortable, achy way that had followed him all his life. A way that made him reach for something that was never there, like a phantom limb when he was not missing any. A way that made him constantly look to his sides and be surprised-hurt-regretful when they were empty save for Libertus (and he loves Lib, he DOES, but there is something in him that keens still, like Libertus is welcome, but not the one he was expecting or meant to see).

As terrible as the Burning was, Nyx finds that the day he becomes a Kingsglaive was the best day of his life. Because when Regis gave him magic, when magic flowed into his soul and breathed like the air before the storm, Nyx felt as close to whole as he’d ever been in his life. He took to magic like he had been born to it, could warp higher, faster, farther then any other glaive, could summon fire with barely a thought and skate across ice that formed under his shoes, could dance with lightning like he was a coeurl born rather than man.

The glaives laugh and call him Hero.

Libertus looks at his friend and sometimes, when he’s drunk, thinks of him as Twice Born. Because Libertus has known Nyx all his life, has known that Nyx is wounded in his soul and Missing something and that being gifted magic did more to heal it than anything else. Even if it didn’t fix it completely.

Nyx meets Princess and something in his soul screams. He is mourning Crowe, mourning Libertus’s abandonment resigning, his bones ACHE in a way he can’t name and then he sees her, hears her voice and something in him wants to cry.

Aera Aera my friend my brother’s heart and soul and light I’m so sorry I’m so sorry I will never let it happen again I will never let you suffer just please FORGIVE ME

“Sorry,” he whispers past the glass in his throat, “I’m on duty.”

“Then surely there is no safer place for me then right here,” she retorts and Nyx feels a smile pull through the pain in his soul.

This Oracle is different from Aera.

Maybe this one will survive.

But then everything falls apart, and betrayal is like a knife in his back he deserves this he knows what this feels like now oh brother oh Aera please please and they are running, they are fighting and the king is dead and his magic is GONE-GONE-GONE and it hurts but he can’t focus on that right now.

And then.

Captain.

Traitor.

T R A I T O R.

And Nyx- Nyx is angry, Nyx is desperate. He promised to see Princess to safety another Oracle will not die because of him he will not allow it and so he feels no fear as he yanks the Ring out of her hands and slides it onto his finger.

The finger of his right hand.

The same finger Regis had worn it on.

He hadn’t meant to put it on that finger, but some old instinct had slid it there.

The world freezes. Turns dark and blue.

“Welcome back, Kinslayer and Kingkiller.” Say the voices, everywhere and nowhere, a hundred of them at least or more.

He stills, and not just from the pain of his injuries, “What-? Who-?”

“Long have we awaited the return of your soul to fulfill your promise.”

“Rise, Somnus Lucis Caelum from the dust of your forgotten era. All hail the return of the Founder King and Mystic.”

Nyx opens his mouth to say there’s been a misunderstanding, because he is HARDLY some ancient founder king but then the stone beneath him breaks and

f a l l s.

Life and death and memories and regret. There is a sword in his hand and blood drips from the blade as Princess-Aera-Princess-Oracle-Aera-AERA goes too still in his brother’s arms and the monster wearing his brother’s skin scrEAMS.

There is a garden and tears, gentle arms wrapping around his shoulders as soft blue eyes watch over him and red-violet hair mingles with his as a chin rests on his head and a voice murmurs, “It’s alright, little brother. It will be alright.”

There is a throne under his hands and back, a crown on his head that feels victorious for all of a moment before the world crumbles and the Astrals appear and say “What have you done, foolish mortal-.”

There is a brother who loves him always and helps him find his feet.

There is a monster lying chained in the deep.

They are the same thing.

It is all Somnus’s fault.

It’s all Somnus’s fault.

He has to fix this somehow.

It’s all

his

fault.

No.

No, he refuses.

I am Nyx Ulric, he thinks fiercely as he claws his way to the surface of the memories, I am Nyx Ulric, not a kinslayer or traitor and i will not drown beneath these sins.

Nyx snaps awake and magic springs from his fingers as easily as breathing. The shield expands, blocking the blade of the traitor before a flick of his wrist makes lightning blast him away. Nyx stands and rolls his shoulders, feeling injuries knit back together and the bullet slide free of the wound. In another life, Nyx would have smiled and laughed in the face of death.

In another life, Nyx would not be firmly shoving memories of Somnus behind him as he passes the Ring back to Luna and grimly tells Libertus to get Princess out of here.

They hesitate, he snaps at them, the power of a king in his voice, and Libertus looks scared as they run on his order. Nyx watches them go, a shield flaring to life without looking as the traitor attacks again. Nyx turns very slowly.

Inside his armor, Glauca has never felt so exposed as when Nyx Ulric stares him down.

“Traitor,” Nyx hisses coldly, and there is something primal under his words, something ancient and angry, “You will pay for the blood of my kin on your hands.”

They fight.

It is not much of a contest.

Somnus may not have been the better fighter of the two brothers, but he had trained all his life with Gilgamesh.

Compared to his old Shield, Glauca is nothing.

Nyx stares silently over the rubble of his city as the sun rises and feels the weight of a crown that is no longer his to wear. He breathes the taste of ash and blood and daemons as the Old Wall kneel to him and then fade into dormancy, and feels … old. Whole for the first time in this life.

He almost wishes he could go back to being incomplete.

He narrows his eyes as he thinks of the Chancellor of Niflheim that he had glimpsed, of the stories of the Blademaster he has heard since coming to Insomnia.

He thinks of Princess and the great-great grandchild Somnus’s actions doomed to death.

Nyx Ulric, He Who Walks Twice, Founder and Traitor King, clenches his fists tight around his kukri, “I’m coming brother,” he whispers to the sunrise, “I will end what I have begun.” He would end the misery and pain he put his brother through if he had to crack open fate with his bare, bloodied hands.

“Just wait a little longer.”

Then he turns and limps his way out of the city. He has an Oracle to talk to and a great grandchild to save.

(And later, on a Haven, Luna listens in awe and horror at Nyx’s story, at the age in the glaive’s eyes as he effortlessly calls forth the royal armiger. She watches in tense silence as Gentiana looks upon Nyx and calls him “Mystic”, as Nyx looks at Gentiana and cooly asks if she will stand between him and his brother. Gentiana hesitates. Then backs down.

Together, the Glaive Who Was Once King and the Last Oracle set out to destroy the prophecy in its entirety and free the brother he once betrayed and long wronged.

Along the way they stop at the Tempering Grounds, and Gilgamesh discovers that metal CAN cry as he beholds his king a second time. He bends the knee without hesitation, and when Nyx says for him to Come, Gilgamesh rises and abandons his prison without hesitation.

Along the way, Nyx Who Was Somnus But Is No Longer finds that his heart is as willful as ever, and that he cannot help but give it away to Lunafreya, betrothed to Noctis by faulty treaty or no.

And maybe, just maybe along the way, before the end of their journey and the final reunion of brothers, Luna finds herself giving her heart right back.)

#SE asks #anon asks #Secret Engima Rambles #Melodies and Manuscripts #NEW AU #Nyx as Somnus au #gonna call it #ummmmm #Sun Dies (Night Rise) verse

96 notes · View notes

archonssun · 4 years

Text

We Have Time

WC: 1732

Okay, yeah, this is gonna take place in the alternate ending, seeing as the last Noct story I wrote was both a) kinda shitty and b) sad.

You will always remember the first time you met Noctis. He had been such a shy thing back then, back when he had visited Tenebrae. You were from a lesser known branch of the Nox Fleuret family, being cousins with Ravus and Lunafreya. But you were the last of the branch; your parents had died years earlier, along with your older brother and sister. Sometimes, you felt so undeniably alone, only for Luna and Ravus to find you and cheer you up.

Your first encounter with the prince of Lucis was interesting, at least to the adults around you both. Neither of you had known of the other's existence until you had been looking for Luna.

“Luna! Luna!” you called, tears threatening to spill. You and your cousin always hung out with one another at this time, but for the past few weeks, she had been avoiding you. And you were afraid -- afraid that you were losing her the same way you had lost your older siblings. Out of sheer desperation, you had run into the greenhouse, crying, “Luna!”

You had found your cousin, along with an unfamiliar face. It was a boy, around your age, and he was sitting in a wheelchair with a book perched on his knees. When you had cried out, both he and Luna had turned to you. “(Y/n), are you alright?” Luna asked, standing from where she sat next to the boy. Unbidden, your tears started falling.

“Is this why you’ve been avoiding me, Luna?” you asked, voice breaking. “Because you have a new friend? Do you not need me anymore…?”

“(Y/n), that’s not--” But she didn’t get to finish because you bolted, running through the halls of Fenestella Manor. But you didn’t see the man standing in front of you right outside the greenhouse, and ran straight into his legs.

“(Y/n), are you alright, dear?” Aunt Sylva said, coming to kneel at your side. You curled up in a ball, hugging your knees to your chest as the tears fell faster.

“Does Luna not need me anymore, Aunt Sylva? Is that why she’s been avoiding me? Do I serve no purpose here any longer?” At your rambling, your aunt hugged you to her, shushing you and rubbing your back.

“I can assure you that is not the case, my dear,” Sylva cooed, brushing strands of your hair from your face. “Luna will always need you.”

“But--”

“I didn’t realize there was another child in the Manor, Queen Sylva,” the man standing next to your aunt said, making you freeze. You slowly looked up to him, feeling intimidated by the amount of black he wore. Yet, he looked kind -- and kind of like the kid Luna was currently with.

“Yes, she is my niece, King Regis,” Sylva offered, pulling you to your feet. “(Y/n), I would like you to meet King Regis Lucis Caelum, King of Lucis. Regis, this is my niece and Luna’s future advisor, (Y/n) Nox Fleuret.”

You were overcome by a sense of shyness that rarely showed itself as you hid behind your aunt, causing both her and the king to laugh.

“Dad!” a boy’s voice made you look to your right and see both Luna and the boy approaching the three of you. Taking a closer look at the man the boy had called ‘dad’, you realized that their resemblance now made perfect sense.

“(Y/n), I’m sorry,” was the first thing Luna uttered, and you were quick to hug her, almost sending the taller girl to the ground. Luna’s face was split with a sweet smile, and you glared at the boy.

It wasn’t until a month later that anyone had the decency to introduce you to the prince of Lucis, Noctis Lucis Caelum.

***

When Tenebrae was occupied by the Empire, you had been taken by King Regis to live in Lucis, apparently at the behest of your aunt. Queen Sylva had an idea that the Empire was closing in on the country, and had asked Regis to take care of you, the last of your lineage. It took a while, but you got used to the hustle and bustle of Insomnia, and began going to school with Noctis as a close friend.

That time in your life was very difficult, having to juggle between schoolwork and learning how to be an advisor -- that was your job, after all. The branch family of the Nox Fleurets have always been advisors to the Oracle, and that hadn’t changed since that role had been passed down to you from your siblings. You had spent many a sleepless night going over protocol, only to fall asleep during school. Many times you had been reprimanded by those at the Citadel. The only ones that seemed to give you some room were Regis and Ignis, the boy training to become Noctis’s advisor.

“I can’t do this, Ignis,” you sobbed, rubbing furiously at your eyes in an attempt to stay the tears. “I can’t! I can’t help Luna!”

“Yes, you can,” the older boy chided, shaking your shoulders gently. You shook your head at his words.

“I can’t!” You had had enough at this point. You were seven years removed from your home, forced to start anew in a foreign land without your family. Hell, you hadn’t even been able to take with you the one picture you had with them. Your body is filled with hopelessness, making your limbs sink like lead to the floor. Yet you still mustered up enough strength to throw the Nox Fleuret crest across the room. “I should’ve been the one to die, not them! Sera should be here, or even Sole -- not me! They would know what to do…”

When you awoke, it was to King Regis and Noctis sitting next to your bed, and an unfamiliar blond standing awkwardly in the corner.

“(Y/n)!” Noctis called as soon as your eyes opened, crushing you in a hug. “I’m so glad you’re alright!”

“I can’t help her…” you whispered, daring not to meet his gaze. You stared at the ceiling, feeling the tears begin again. “It should’ve been me, Noctis. If it hadn’t been for me, Sera and Sole would still be alive… I’m useless to Lady Lunafreya… Why did it--”

“You’re not useless, (Y/n)” The heat in the prince’s voice caused all in the room to stare incredulously. The lazy prince had never so much as raised his voice since you two had met, and your tears stopped momentarily. You finally met his gaze, taking in a sharp breath at the look that met you. “You can help Luna, I know it. Wanna know how I know?” You furrowed your brows as you waited for him to continue. “Because you’re still the same girl who glared at me while hugging Luna.”

***

When you were eighteen, you and Noctis became inseparable, bonding over your shared love of video games. At first, you were hesitant when the man had convinced you to play a game at the arcade with him and Prompto -- the blond that you had seen three years prior in your room -- but soon found out that they were pretty good stress-relievers. Since then, you have been hooked, spending most of your time not spent training playing games.

It was also that same year that you realized what you felt for the heir: you loved him. But you knew how he felt -- about you, and about Luna. He loved the Oracle dearly, and while it pained you, you were happy for your cousin. And when the wedding was announced as part of the treaty?

You died a little on the inside, all while giving your prince the brightest smile you could.

You wanted so badly to be able to go with Noctis on his trip to Altissia, but fate had other plans for you. Regis had you stay in Insomnia, planning on sending you to Tenebrae -- to Luna -- soon after. But when she appeared in the Crown City, his plans were dashed. And when Insomnia fell, you were able to escape with her and Libertus, putting all those years of training to good use as both you and Nyx had to fight to keep the Oracle and the Ring safe from the Empire.

And you followed after your cousin for weeks as you two travelled all around Lucis, forging Covenants and helping the people. But for a reason you couldn’t remember, you and Luna were separated, and you were left behind once again. So, you stayed in Lestallum, where Gladilus’s sister Iris was. She was happy to see you well, and quickly told you that the boys were in Lestallum as well.

As soon as you saw Noctis, you were hurtling towards him, clinging to him desperately. After weeks of not knowing what had happened to the man and his entourage, seeing him in front of you, breathing, made everything come crashing down all at once. Sure, you were getting weird looks from passers-by, but you didn’t care. You were finally back with your best friend.

“Noctis,” your sobs echoed in the street as you clung to him. All the frustration of being left behind not once, but twice, came pouring out all at once. Your body shook with the intensity of the emotions that wracked your being, and at some point you had collapsed, taking Noctis with you.

“Hey, it’s okay, (N/n),” he whispered. One hand came to rest on your waist while the other stroked your hair. “I’m right here. I promise, I won’t leave you again. You’re stuck with me, for better or worse…”

***

Ten years. It’s been ten years, and Noctis stood before you with a lazy smirk on his face.

“Hey, (N/n),” he said. You barreled into him, sending him to the ground as you straddled his hips.

“You little fucker,” you scowled, keeping his back to the ground with your hands on his shoulders. “You promised, Noct. And you broke it. Do you have any idea how much it hurt to not see you come home after you left for Altissia? I needed you when Luna died, and where were you?”

“Well, I’m here now,” he interrupted, a hand coming to graze your cheek before cradling your face. He pulled your face down to his, lips landing lightly against yours. “We have time, my queen.”

#noctis lucis caelum #ffxv x reader #reader insert #noctis x reader #ffxv

31 notes · View notes