#I am still trying to learn and grow. I have plenty of years ahead of me as im only in my 20s. I’ve regret every
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Lessons
Joshua Rosfield x female reader
Big ol' FF16 spoilers (though not endgame)
“My apologies for disturbing your meal, but would you entertain my company a moment?” You’d been too distracted at picking through today’s soup to hear Clive approach.
Or at least you thought it was soup, maybe it was stew. Is there a proper difference? You just asked for whatever’s hot. The novelty of warm food in your stomach never seems to wear off.
“Of course – I’m pretty much finished anyway.” You reply, placing the spoon back in the bowl and gesture to the seat opposite. “How can I help?”
The Fire Dominant sits and smiles sheepishly, lacing his fingers together as he places his hands on the table.
“It has been brought to my attention that you are interested in learning your letters.”
“Oh…” You’re embarrassed that, somehow, it’s landed under Clive’s remit. You’d only confided in a handful of your fellow Cursebreakers - it had been necessary when you obviously couldn’t read reports that had come in, or send updates in return, and discussed the possibility of learning with Dorys on a handful of occasions but it had never seemed a good time.
You’d arrived at the Hideaway a few months before Clive had, spending a brief period getting accustomed to a free life before you fell in with the Cursebreakers, wanting to assist fellow Bearers in having the same second chance you had been given. Your former master had been a traveling merchant and it had been either you defend him from fiends and bandits on the road, or he’d have no qualms leaving you as bait to gain him passage. After going under Tarja’s steady hand, your Brand had been removed and you’d been sent out with a blade. The past five years had been filled with re-establishing the new Hideaway and Cursebreaker responsibilities.
“I didn’t mean for it to be brought to you, Clive. It was just a passing comment…”
“I wish you had. You’ve toiled with the Cursebreakers for years for those to live on their own terms, and that should include learning letters, if they so wish.” He hesitates a moment, looking a little bashful. “I am afraid I have come with a somewhat selfish notion in my proposition.”
“What do you mean?” If he needed a Cursebreaker who could read, there were plenty on hand…
“I heard from Dorys that you didn’t seem particularly keen on sitting in with the children in Miss Shirleigh’s lessons, and I know that Harpocrates is often kept busy with research on other matters. However, I am aware of someone who is a fine scholar and suddenly finds themselves at a loss of what to do with their time.”
“Who?” You frown, trying to think of who else in the Hideaway would befit a title. One of Mid’s Engineers, perhaps?
“My brother – Joshua. He’s been prescribed a moon’s cycle of rest by Tarja and it is going to be difficult to get him to comply. I thought if he had something to focus on in his period of convalescence, it might at least keep him within the Hideaway, and help you fulfil your goal.”
“But if your brother is meant to be resting, he surely shouldn’t be attempting to tutor me.”
“Resting from anything physical – I assure you his mind remains at full health. Please, at least think about it. He is getting through the contents of our shelves at a fair pace, I think he’d enjoy acting the tutor.”
You hesitate. “Have you broached this idea with him?”
“Not yet. I thought it best to speak with you first.”
“I am not sure. It doesn’t feel the best time. I mean, with the growing number of aetherfloods and akashic…”
“You’ve done so much for the Hideaway over the years – please, allow yourself to be selfish. And, if you still struggle to do so, please do it as a favour to me. I would be in your debt.”
“All right. But see how your brother feels first. If he doesn’t want to, please don’t push it.”
Clive grins.
--
You were nervous ahead of your first meeting with Joshua. Clive had offered his chambers as a makeshift classroom – Founder knows he was hardly in it – and he thought the two of you would appreciate the solitude it provided.
You knocked hesitantly on the doors before they were swiftly opened by a smiling Clive.
“Come in.”
The Phoenix is already sat at the solar’s desk – a bit more colour in his cheeks than there had been when you’d seen him limp past the mess, on his way up to the infirmary after their return from Kanver. The map that’s usually found spread across Clive’s desk is carefully folded away and instead blank parchments, ink pots and quills fill their place, and another chair has been sourced, sat the opposite side of the blonde.
Joshua gets to his feet with a charming smile, approaching you. He kneels swiftly, taking your hand and kissing the back of it in greeting. “My lady.”
“Joshua, did you not learn your lesson from Mid?” Clive laughs, noting your shocked expression as the blonde gets back to his feet and lets go of your hand.
“I cannot help it, Clive.”
“It is a pleasure to meet you.” You nod, trying to regain your composure. “And thank you, my lord, for agreeing to help me.”
“Not at all. And, please, call me Joshua.” He gestures for you to take the seat in front of the desk before looking to his brother. “Clive, if you’d be so kind…”
“Of course.” The outlaw nods, heading towards the door. “Enjoy your studies.”
The next few hours were spent with Joshua establishing how much you did know. Some letters were familiar, but your grasp on the full alphabet was patchy. Your penmanship needed attention – non-existent before this morning, truthfully - as he kindly helped position the quill between your fingers after enquiring as to your sword hand.
At noon, when your head had started to swim and your fingers cramped from copying out letters, there had been a hesitant knock at the door before Jote, the Phoenix’s attendant, entered, carrying a tray bearing a vial of medicine and some food.
“Your grace, forgive the interruption but it is time for your medicine,” she nods at the tray in her hands. “I also bid you do not overtire yourself with your tutoring.”
“Thank you, Jote. I assure you I am fine, but…” He pauses, watching you scribble out a poor attempt at the letter Q once more. “..I do believe that is probably enough for us to cover today, my student?”
“If that would be acceptable, m… Joshua.” You correct. “I do not wish to appear work shy.”
“Not at all. We have covered a fair amount this morning. Here,” he slides over some blank pieces of parchment, alongside your list of letters and another one with a single word on it. “Good tutors assign their students exercises. Practice your letters when you can, and try to say them aloud too. We can meet again tomorrow, if you’re available.”
You nod, “I can check in with Dorys and send word. Thank you.” You take up the papers in your hand, before pausing and pointing at the one with the single word upon it. “What’s this one?”
“That,” the Phoenix grins, charmingly, “is your name.”
--
More lessons pass, a little longer in nature as your hand adjusts, though a little spread out due to your Cursebreaker responsibilities. You’d been away two nights and word had been sent to Joshua for a lesson on your return.
You bid the blonde good morning before sitting down and retrieving a pile of papers from your pack with your other hand. “My apologies, I did complete the exercises whilst away, but we got caught in a storm and the parchment got a bit… soggy.” You slide the pitiful bundle of paper across the desk. It’s dried out now at least, but there’s patches of smudged ink on a few lines.
“I intended to re-do them before our lesson but, well…” You place your writing hand on the desk, revealing it to be bandaged up. “I can’t quite hold the quill. Tarja said it might be a few weeks before I could – sword hilt included, I must add. But I do hope this won’t hamper our lessons too badly.”
Joshua’s eyes widen and he takes your hand in gentle, inquisitive fingers. “What happened?”
“It was foolish of me. We were intercepting some Black Shields in Rosaria. I’d dropped my blade and one of theirs was aiming true for a Bearer. I panicked, I supposed, grabbed his blade with my hand and kicked him back.”
He winces at your tale. “May I take a look?”
“Erm, of course.” You watch as he deftly unwraps the bandage Tarja had re-wrapped this morning. Maybe he thought you were trying to get out of penmanship practice? He reaches your palm – black stitches hold the palm together, the cut thankfully clean rather than jagged.
“It looks painful.”
“I’ve had worse.” You reply, lightly. It’s true.
“I don’t know how much you have heard of the blessings the Phoenix provides.” He conjures a flame in his other hand, playing with it between his fingers. “One is the ability to heal, if you would permit me.”
“Oh, no.” You want to tug your hand back from his but slim fingers keep it firmly in place. “I would never ask that-”
“You haven’t, I have. May I? I would so like my favourite student to keep up her penmanship lessons.”
“Not if it causes you to suffer.”
“It won’t. Here.” He presses the flame into your palm and you brace yourself for a burn. A warm sensation envelopes your palm, like when you’ve warmed a blanket on the hearth in the ale hall, before an odd sort of feeling tickles over your palm. He removes his palm to reveal the line of thread Tarja had painstakingly sewed last night is free and not a mark remains on your palm.
“How does it feel?”
“Fine. But, Joshua, you’re meant to be resting, you shouldn’t have-“
“Do not fuss, please. It is my pleasure. I will, of course, let Tarja know of your miraculous recovery. Now,” he lets go of your hand at last, allowing you to pull it back and flex the fingers tenderly, and turns his attention back to the exercises you’d presented a few moments before. “You took these out with you?”
“Mm.” You nod, placing your hand back down in your lap before a thought crosses your mind. “I’m so sorry, I should’ve asked before I took them out of the Hideaway-”
“No, not at all.” The blonde chuckles. “They are yours to do with what you see fit. I am just surprised at the dedication to your studies.”
“I do not mean to waste your time. I know it’s not my finest work, but I didn’t want to show up empty-handed. I could re-do them now, I mean…”
“Relax. I can decipher these just fine, which means you can start on these, if your hand feels up to it. Try reading aloud as you copy, hm?” He slides over a new piece of parchment, filled with new words for the day.
You nod, eagerly, and pick up the quill.
--
“We are not going to read all of those today, are we?” The pile is nearly up to Joshua’s shoulder on the desk.
“No,” he smiles. “It is my fault – I was in the shelves earlier looking for some practice material and some wanted to share their favourite literature with you. This one is Clive’s suggestion.”
He lifts up a couple and picks up the book in question, placing it down in front of you.
“The Saint And The Sec… Sectary…?”
“Very good.” Joshua’s praise always makes your head feel warm. “It’s a play, so be wary that if Clive sees you reading this, he’ll probably make you run lines with him. He always plays Sir Crandell.”
“Oh, and what role did you perform?”
“I never made the cut, sadly. I could never remember my lines well enough and Clive would not let you keep a script in hand.” He smiles at the memory. “This, however, was my favourite.”
He takes a book off the top of the pile and holds it out in front of him for you to read.
“The Merry Moogle And Other Tales.” You frown, the title ringing a bell. “They read this to the children for bedtime stories.”
“Are you mocking my tastes?”
“No!” You look alarmed. “I-“
“I jest – forgive me. It truly is one of my favourites and is, in fact, the first book I read by myself. It is a selfish pick, really, I am looking forward to going through it again, if you’d be so kind?”
“I can try.” He pushes the book in your direction before getting to his feet and lifting his chair, walking around the desk and placing it besides you.
“I hope you don’t mind – reading upside down is something I have yet to master.”
“Oh, no. It’s fine.” You feel flushed, is it possible the Phoenix just emits heat wherever he goes? He leans in, flipping open the book.
“Excellent. Begin, when you’re ready.”
You nod, swallowing.
“There… once was a very merry… moogle…”
--
More lessons pass, growing longer in their duration. Dorys appears to have you on duties within the Hideaway rather than out, but you don’t complain. Clive has even had to chase the two out of his chambers twice to hold discussions, though he had immediately clocked the copy of The Saint And The Sectary on the desk the first time, regaling how he made a fine Sir Crandell in his youth. Joshua had rolled his eyes at that point, causing you to laugh and Clive looking a little bemused before he’d waved the two of you out.
Far too soon, though, Joshua’s convalescence is nearly at an end, alongside word that the Enterprise is mostly repaired and ready its return journey to Ash and the Mothercrystal that resides there. You’re nervous for all who will be boarding, but especially your dear tutor.
You’re sat side by side in Clive’s chambers once more, trying to ignore the fact that Joshua’s thigh is pressing up against your own, and you’ve just finished reading a passage from The History of Valisthea. Joshua admitted it was perhaps a little dry, but he wanted you to experience all sorts of genres in his lessons.
“I can’t help but notice that your confidence has increased tenfold in reading aloud and I do not think it is solely down to having me as your captive audience. Care to share your secret?”
You bite your lip in a smile. “I’ve been… I’ve been reading to Torgal.”
“Oh?” Joshua smiles adoringly at you, prompting you to continue.
“I was a little self-conscious of practicing in the bunks, but there’s a bit of decking that overhangs the lake that I’d taken to. He started to join me – I think to nap away from the children. He usually sleeps through it, but I see his ears twitch, sometimes a tail wag… Apologies, that sounds foolish now I’ve actually said it aloud.”
“Not at all. We’ve always thought Torgal a fine hound, and he proves it more every day.”
Joshua then leans over and reaches for a bit of parchment over the other side of the desk.
“Now, the true test is whether you can read my everyday handwriting,” Joshua teases, handing it over to you.
“You have fine penmanship.” The words he notes down for exercises are always clear and easy to read.
“That is just for our exercises together. I’m afraid I fell into bad habits on the road. Scrawls, more than anything.” He nods at the parchment. “Aloud, if you may.”
You wet your lips with your tongue, squinting a little at first at Joshua’s cursive.
“Forgive me for putting you to the test with my hand, but I am confident that you will meet this challenge as you have throughout our studies thus far. I must confess I have enjoyed our time together, and I am disappointed to see it come to an end.”
You look up from the parchment, wondering if this is the last time you’d ever be within each other’s company. “I’ll miss our lessons too, Joshua.”
“There’s a little more, on the back.”
“Oh.” You turn the parchment over and continue. “However, now we are no longer tutor and student, I would like to ask one thing that I will simply regret if I do not. May I… kiss you?”
You stare at the word again a moment, before looking up at him. “Did I read that right?”
“Do not doubt yourself now.” He says, softly, maintaining eye contact.
“Then my answer is yes, you may.”
He places a hand on your scarred cheek as he leans forward, his other arm slipping around your waist to bring you in closer before your lips meet. It’s clumsy, you know it’s clumsy – you’ve never kissed anyone before – but prove yourself a quick learner again, your tongue finding entrance into his mouth and deepening the kiss.
The two of you pull away after a moment and Joshua leans his forehead against yours, keeping you pulled in close.
“I am afraid I have failed as your tutor on this occasion, my darling.”
“How so?” You ask, quietly.
“I am unable to come up with a word to aptly describe the feeling in my heart at finally having you in my arms.”
--
Masterlist . Requests welcome . Ko-fi
#ghostdogwrites#ff16 x you#ff16 x reader#joshua rosfield x reader#joshua rosfield x female reader#joshua rosfield x you#ff16 fluff
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Thoughts While Watching Gilmore Girls-Season 2, Episode 1 ("Sadie Sadie")
Full steam ahead! We have now arrived at Season 2, the Jess Season. It's gonna be an absolute fucking nightmare that I am not looking forward to. Enjoy! Please visit the Denise Rewatches Gilmore Girls tag for all of my past reviews!
Thanks to MaxMedina, SH is absolutely infested with daisies. People are stepping on daisies. They're shaking daisies out of their pants. There's daisies in the food. I am praying Dean Forrester is allergic to daisies and becomes absolutely debilitated with hay fever. Michel is most likely still complaining about how daisies are weeds and is even more insufferable to work with than usual.
I'm pretty sure some kind of daisy-cult has sprouted up in the aftermath of MaxMedina's pre-proposal manipulation tactic.
Peep this guy with a TJ Maxx bag, lol. Someone escaped The Hollow/Daisy Cult and visited the outside world! Good for you, guy.
You gotta respect the hustle of this dude in the background, living in a town where yellow daisies are so free and plentiful they're growing freely out of people's buttcracks, to set up a cart to try and SELL them. Some Stars Hollowans are not so bright. You can see it looks like someone is actually buying them.
"A Stars Hollowan and their money are soon parted". -Famous Quote.
God I fucking love shows from the early 2000's.
Lane referring to her "parents" sending her to Korea, instead of just her mother.
Just want to take a moment to check out all these vintage magazine covers.
Lorelai pays Bootsy for her magazine (he doesn't look up from his paper to see how much she gave him, but still) but she can't pay Luke for her food.
That's a lot of bridal magazines for a town where Lorelai is probably the only person who is currently semi-engaged.
Rory buys a bridal mag for Lorelai for $6. That seems like a pretty outrageous price for a magazine in 2001. Bootsy must be in cahoots with the guy selling daisies.
We learn that Lorelai has not yet accepted Max's proposal.
The DaisyCult members are gathering.
Not to sound like a broken record but but doesn't anyone in Stars Hollow have a job? How does their economy not collapse? Does the town survive on tourism, outsiders buying snowglobes and keychains? Because clearly the people who actually live here are bored and desperate for stimulation.
Rory Gilmore needs to get a job.
Okay, where was I...
Lorelai: Everything about me turns Luke off. My coffee, my eating habits. I called him Ranger Bob last week!
Kinky.
These people crushed up against the door blocking the exit are a real fire hazard.
LORELAI HE'S USING A CAN OF SUPERMARKET COFFEE RIGHT OUT IN THE OPEN. HE HAS NO FUCKING SHAME! YOU'RE LOOKING AT IT! THIS IS LUKE'S SUPER SPECIAL SECRET BLEND THAT YOU GO INTO WITHDRAWLS OVER! Your whole life is a lie! Do you have nothing to say?!
A can of Hills Brothers coffee is currently $8.48 at Walmart.
Eventually he upgrades to Folgers.
Luke: "Fresh" (lol) coffee will be ready in a minute unless you want to roll up a dollar bill and go nuts.
Cocaine joke! Whee!
Luke:This whole town should be medicated and put in a rec room with ping pong tables and hand puppets.
Lorelai tells Luke that Max proposed and he responds with his maximum level of Luke Enthusiasm: "Eh, I figured."
Tomatos Sign: spotted.
Luke absolutely fries Lorelai's brain by getting her to admit she's about to accept this bozo MaxMedina's proposal without them having discussed very important pre-marriage things...like where they're going to live. Honestly, Lorelai.
Luke seems like the sensible one now, but in A Year In The Life, it seems as if Luke & Lorelai are discussing having children together for the first time after they've known each other for over 20 years. But we don't count A Year In The Life. It never happened. Never heard of it.
Lorelai retruns to her seat and asks Rory what happened. Kirk has passed out. Everyone outside is just staring at Kirk laying on the the ground and no one is helping him or calling for help.
This shot puzzles me, because (unless someone wants to fill me in on something I missed?) I don't understand the context of this ring and why we're seeing an extended closeup of it and her fidgeting with it until she took it off. Nothing was mentioned about Max buying her a ring yet (besides a Ring Pop), but with the level of discomfort she's exhibiting by looking at her hand and then pulling it off her finger, I will assume it came from him? Is it just her own personal ring but she's imagining there's an engagement ring on her hand instead? Maybe that's it.
Okay. Look. I fucking loved butterflies growing up. For a good 10 year span, I needed everything I owned to have butterflies on them. I dreamed one of one day having a butterfly themed wedding and yes even a butterfly ring.
But that ring looks like it came out of a gumball machine at Walmart (next to the aisle with the Hills Brothers coffee). Probably the same gumball machine where Dean found Rory's "medallion". Surely he can afford something a little better on his fat Private School English Teacher paycheck.
You can afford all those books, now go to a real jewelry store.
After Luke fries her brain, Lorelai ends up calling MaxMedina in a panic in the middle of a Friday Night Dinner to ask him these reasonable and important pre-marriage questions. His response only serves to manipulate/ confuse her further by saying "You'd only be asking me these things if you were going to say yes to my proposal."
And by her giddy reaction mere moments later, we know she apparenly accepted...a proposal over the phone. And by the brief period of time between the conversation taking place and her freaking out, we are to assume the questions she called him to ask were either never answered or discussed for about 1 minute. Good luck you two.
Later, Max calls the GillyGirls household and Rory picks up while Lorelai is standing next to her. Max confides in Rory that he's ring shopping and he asks for her advice on Lorelai's tastes in jewelry. He's shopping for a real ring. Oh thank god.
Look Rory, you know Max has a history of taking suggestions way too literally, as the Yellow Daisy Lung epidemic sweeps through Stars Hollow. You need to make it clear that you're kidding.
This is 2001, so instead of texting pictures of the rings, he has to literally describe them. "The first one has a gold band and sort of a square diamond." How quaint.
Email with pictures did exist in 2001, Max, but I suppose he realizes that The Hollow is severely behind the times technology wise and that an email would take at least another 5 years to reach them.
SHUDDER. He's back and with an even stupider haircut.
Are we recovered from that last horrible kiss? Because whatever time off Jared Padalecki had between filming the last episode of the 1st season and the 1st episode of the second, he did not spend practicing kissing on his pillow/ blowup doll. Get that eye bleach out again, if you have any left.
Of course Dean asks "where's your Mom?" The real love of his life.
You got this JarPad...you can do it...just kiss her without making a face like you're licking a block of salt...
Swingandamiss.
Dean Garbageface: I missed that.
Rory: Yeah me too.
I doubt it.
I honestly don't know how so many people who watch this show are oblivious to the DALA (Dean and Lorelai affair)
Dean: Long pause to process his girlfriend's mother coming onto him.
"Uh. You need me to change your water bottle don't you?"
She needs you to "change her water bottle" just like Luke was "fixing her porch rail."
Rory steps outside to find Dean cranking on Lorelai's water bottle.
He's probably dreaming of that special time in every teenage boy's life when their girlfriend's mother gives them a handjob. Lord knows Rory never gave him one while they were dating (also the reason Jess was constantly cranky).
Rory asks Dean to come to Friday Night dinner, and Dean hesitates. What's the ultimatium going to be this time?
Say whaaaat? He agrees to go (after Rory assures him her grandmother is no longer mad at him for falling asleep with her at the dance)? No complaints? No ultimatium? No pouting? I'm stunned.
Lorelai calls Dean back into the house to help her reach a can on a high shelf presumably so she can look at his butt while he's doing it.
Look at this doof in his doofy necklace.
Dean: I'm just gonna sit here and stare at my hands.
Good boy. Glad you know your place.
If anyone needs me, I'm going to be over here delighting in how much Richard dislikes Dean.
Flat out ignores the doofus when he tries to shake his hand LOL
I thought you were just going to sit there and silently stare at your hands. Sit back down.
Lorelai: I can't believe you found a recipe for Beef-A-Roni.
Emily: Let's just say it's not beef.
Ah, humans. The Gilmores are serving human meat. Probably one of their former maids. Got it.
Me glaring at Dean every time he moves or talks or blinks or breathes or exists.
Lorelai: Uh, I bet there's a fabulous dessert waiting in the kitchen.
Emily: Yes, Twinkies. I know how much Rory loves Twinkies.
Twinkies filled with...human meat?
Richard: So, Dean, where are you going to college?
Dean: It's called Sleep with Your Daughter University.
If ya'll hate me right now I understand. I do.
Emlly: Please, Richard, don't grill the boy.
If only someone would literally put him on a grill.
Sigh....I am pulling one of my infrequent Dean Cards here.
Dean was....not bad in this episode. Sure, his mere existence makes my blood curdle, but he didn't DO anything. He didn't complain or give Rory an ultimatium to attend the dinner, he went willingly, was visibly uncomfortable but tried his best and got rewarded with Rory's grandfather death-staring and grilling him the entire night for no reason whatsoever, and when it was over he didn't even transfer his frustration onto poor Rory like he usually does and make her feel like it was her fault.
She's making it sound like he's Prince Charming making an appearance at the ball (ooof, I almost forgot about the fucking Debutante Ball that's on the horizon) when in reality he is a 17 year old dork in a puka-shell necklace who gets C's in math and whose only marketable skills are bagging groceries and making necklaces out of old quarters.
The DALA affair chugs along.
Lorelai assures Rory that the only reason she thinks Richard was hostile to Dean is because RIchard thinks Dean will get her pregnant and she'll drop out of school like Lorelai. And somehow he managed to be half right on both accounts.
Rory:"I'm not going to get pregnant."
Lorelai (When It's Dean): I know that. (how exactly does she know that though?)
Lorelai: (When it's Jess): He's not allowed to drive up to the house while I'm not here because he'll get you pregnant if he so much as steps into the living room (this was the actual basis of the episode "Swan Song")
Sookie calls Emily to tell her she's planning Lorelai's weddng and of course Emily had no idea.
Emily demands Richard apologize to Rory because Lorelai just excluded them from her wedding, and in the future Emily doesn't want Rory to hate them and exclude them from her wedding (a wedding which of course she never has, at least not while Richard was still alive). In a very rare display, mysterious salty drops (tears) almost begin to form at the corner of Emily's eyes.
Lorelai and Max are sitting on the porch talking and he pulls a ring out of frigging nowhere. It's not in a box or anything. it's not even in his pocket. He just opens his hand, and it's there. It's too big for Lorelai's finger because the gumball machine just spit out the little plastic egg and he had to take whatever he got for his quarter (just kidding, he actually just wasted a buttload of money on a real ring when Lorelai is going to get cold feet in a few weeks and call off the entire engagement) but anyway he wants to take it off to get it resized.
"Just let me get it sized and you'll never have to take it off again."
Maxmillian, you sweet naive summer child.
Let's end this mild trainwreck of an episode on a funny note.
#gilmore girls#denise rewatches gilmore girls#gilmore girls season 2#sadie sadie#richard gilmore#emily gilmore#anti dean forrester#luke danes#lane kim#Dean and Lorelai Affair#open your eyes people#folgers
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Christmas Letter 2022
Like the petals in our pockets
May we remember who we are
Snow by Sleeping at Last
It’s a white Christmas for the first time in what feels like forever. As I reflect, I wonder if that’s actually true, if it really has been years and years since the last time we had snow on the ground at Christmas, or if life is simply doing that thing that it does and changing things around to fit a better story.
Because if I’m honest, nothing has felt like Christmas used to, not for some time.
It scares me, you know? Maybe it’s just getting a little bit older, maybe it’s how easy it is to how bad the world can be. Maybe there’s plenty of good reasons, but it still scares me.
So I play the same Christmas movies I watch every year, and I listen to all the right music, and I put up the tree and I order the presents and I do whatever I can to possibly celebrate, and I hope for a spark.
Because it feels like to lose that part of me, to lose the boy who would be the first up, every Christmas morning not because of the presents but because of the sheer joy of the day, would be to lose something essential.
It feels like losing that part of me would be to lose myself.
I’m learning lately that I don’t really like boxes. That if you tell me I have to be or do just one thing, I’m going to get restless. I can’t stay in one place for too long without thinking about what it’d be like to do or be something else.
It’s one of the reasons I left my last regular job. I am not just one thing. I can’t be. I’m learning that if you ask me to be, it’s the same as eventually asking me to leave.
So if I really believe that, if I really think that I am made to adapt and grow and change, why do I think that I have to feel the same way about Christmas I did five years ago? Or ten? It gets trickier the further back you go.
The simple answer is … I don’t really know.
Maybe it’s that, looking back, it’s so easy to see the bad memories, the pain, the hurt, and so much harder to see the joy. Pain stays with you in a way that happiness seemingly can’t. It leaves its fingerprints and they don’t ever seem to wash off.
Except, at least for me, at Christmas. When I look back at Christmas, I don’t see the scared little kid I used to be — scared of being alone, scared of being a little bit weird, scared of the one because of the other.
I see the Christmas mornings, being the first up and sitting in the light of the Christmas tree, the whole world quiet from sleep and snow. I see the hope, the possibility, the chance that even for just a few hours once a year, we’re all on each others’ sides. That we’re all moving in the same direction, with the same purpose.
That we all want to make the world a little better, a little brighter, a little bit closer to the place that it could be.
That’s what it is about me and boxes, after all. And that’s what it is about white Christmases. It’s about what could be.
When I think about what could be, I see so many opportunities spread before us. We all have the chance, so often, to nudge the world even one inch closer to good. You might not see them, or you might, like me, wonder if the things you’re doing really matter, but the chances are there, ever ahead of you.
All you have to do is take them.
So, if you ask me why I make the things I make, why, given the other options, I choose tireless hope, let that be something of an answer. I know what we’re capable of. I’ve seen it; I’ve felt it.
There’s nothing left for me except to try and make it.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays,
Michael
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Career Fit
I did my Bachelor's in Mass Communication and graduated in March 2022 which was this year. Mass Communication is wide in career opportunities hence the reason why I chose this course for my degree. I remember in 2015, I set my mind and a goal to be in the media line as a profound writer and told my parents about my dream. To be precise my dream is to be a reporter (Journalist) and Newscaster in any bilingual or native language.
So, right after my internship in a creative agency I was looking for jobs that I wanted and dreamt of. But there were rejection emails and interviews for two months continuously. Somehow one day I got a job offer and the offer letter immediately, where I was over the moon and immediately accept it without having any second thoughts. This happened because I was so stressed out for the two months of being a jobless fresh graduate and just grab it away. I wanted to give my try and best in this job and I confidently started to give it a shot.
This particular job is related to media but it is not what I wanted initially. It took me 3 months to discover that I don't fit into this job. I am stuck somewhere in the middle thinking about the agency people's inconvenience if I resign and so on. Life is too short to think a lot about people around us and their opinion. So here am I going ahead to find the right job that I wanted while learning the process of life growing in a positive way.
To all the fresh graduates out there, you are still young to explore your career path patiently, and DO NOT GIVE UP! There are plenty of opportunities out there, look out for them and go for it!
I would write again about this topic after I joined my new career journey. Stay Tuned!
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It's been awhile since I visited this blog. I'm not good at consistency, clearly. I think I want to be better a consistency, but I'm not sure it's a priority right now. Especially a blog. I think I've made a lot of progress and embraced a lot of growth over the last couple years. I know I still have a lot more progress and growth ahead of me. I also can simultaneously say that I am finally okay with who I am in this moment. If I never grow or progress from where I'm at today that would be okay. Not ideal, but okay.
At the end of this month I will have been working at the same hospital for a year. I had a bout of short-lived jobs between the last big job and this one. I'm also a year away from graduating with my BSW. Although it is going to be costly, I want to walk for my graduation which means I have to make my way to California to do so. I have the option to walk for both my BSW and my MSW. I'm still on the fence about walking for both. It will really come down to cost.
My wife and I are at a really good place regarding our communication and relationship overall. We have done a lot of work on ourselves and our relationship over the past year and a half or so. We've opened things up and are now actively involved in the poly community. Her idea of poly is different than mine, but we're learning that and accepting and still need to work on agreements and boundaries. I'm realizing that she and I really should talk about these agreements and boundaries before either of us engage in the next connection. I tend to get feelings and she prefers to keep things casual friends with benefits type connection. I think it's important that we both are able to experience poly in the way that makes sense for us while also being sensitive to our partners needs and comfortability and triggers etc.
About a month ago I ended things with a man I had fallen in love with rather quickly. He and I had known each other for a couple weeks and realize that we wanted to be more than just friends. We both, or so I was told, shared with our partners how we felt. His wife was adamant that she was fine with everything the whole time, while showing us that she was not and also anytime we would ask she would give us every indication that she was happy and good with things. Then at the end it was all my fault as I had said an ultimatum that made her feel she couldn't express her true emotions. There never was an ultimatum. I really believe she twisted something that was meant to be good in regard to not wanting to be a part of the problem for their relationship. Really when I look at the whole thing I see that I should have bowed out the moment it was obvious that they had a lot of work to do on their marriage before they stepped into Polly. They both assured me they could work on their marriage and continue their relationships. She was seeing and or having sex with at least eight or nine other people while he was seeing me and courting one or two other ladies. Even those relationships were very tentative and that makes me feel like maybe he played a role in her not having the full picture. I still love him and someone asked me the other day if he were to show up at my work or at my doorstep and ask for me to take him back would I. I think it would be one of the hardest things for me to turn him away, but I would have to because I recognize that the behaviors he exhibited we're not indicative of a healthy person trying to engage in healthy relationships. He admitted that he was not honest with himself, with me or with his wife fully. There were plenty of times where I questioned whether he was being honest and I wish I would have trusted my intuition. I learned so much and gained so much growth from that relationship. I don't know that I would do too much differently if I were to be given the opportunity to go back. I was able to at least partially heal some very deep-rooted sexual trauma regarding penis having people. The sex between he and I was incredible which is not something I can say about any previous penis having partner. Ever. I think that has put me in a strange place regarding sex with any penis having partners in the future. My hope is that the disconnect I had for so long with penis having people has been alleviated, but my worry is that it really only can exist that way with him. That being said, I don't plan to enter into any relationships with penis having people that progress to sex anytime soon. I say penis having people because I don't know if male to female trans pre-op people would be an issue for me or not. My mind tells me they likely would not be because female energy is different than male energy and it's generally more about the energy than the body. This is a huge part of why I identify as pansexual as opposed to bisexual.
Anyway, life is relatively good. I'm grateful for all that I have and looking forward to building a brighter and better future with my wife and any new partners. I'm excited to see her blossom in her own healthy poly relationships as well. I know that there will be challenges, but I believe she and I will communicate and work through them as we've learned from our past mistakes and hopefully will be able to do so more quickly and fully.
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Marta Misztal - Climbing the 7 summits and wanting to reach the highest peak of each European country #tolivetotravel
Marta in her own words:
“My name is Marta and I come from a small town in Poland called Pila. Growing up I was raised by a single mum; I had a good but humble upbringing, I always loved the outdoors and hanging out with my friends.
My childhood in Poland was a happy time in my life, but after my first trip to London as a teenager it all changed. I realised very quickly that living in Poland wasn’t for me anymore; I had big dreams and ambitions that I knew I couldn’t pursue in my hometown. I spent one more year living in Poland, learning English and saving ready to finally enter the ‘big world’… then I moved to London.
Taking this chance opened up so many opportunities for me. I got a good degree, good job, I travelled the world and had some awesome adventures whilst doing so, that I’ve decided to share them here. So, here I am, writing my blog, hoping to inspire and invite you on my journey.
My love for travelling has grown immensely over the years. The more countries I saw, the more countries I wanted to see. Along the way, my style of travelling changed; I had even bigger accomplishments on my agenda. So I set myself two goals: to climb to the highest peak on each continent, the challenge known as 7 Summits; and to reach the highest peak of each European country, which I call The Crown of Europe.
Out of the 7 Summits, I’ve already completed 5 (the highest peak in Europe, Africa, North and South America, Antarctica) and I am getting ready to attempt another one later this year… Everest. I am extremely excited about it as this is also the last continent I still haven’t seen.
The second goal is to reach the highest peak of each European country, which I call The Crown of Europe There are 50 countries but 48 peaks and I have already completed 17 of them. However, this leaves plenty of adventure still ahead…”
*This episode was recorded in 20th January 2022 - Marta summited Everest 6.25am on May 15th, 2022.
New episodes of the Tough Girl Podcast go live every Tuesday at 7am UK time - Subscribe so you don’t miss out.
Support the mission to increase the amount of female role models in the media especially in relation to adventure and physical challenges. Visit www.patreon.com/toughgirlpodcast Thank you.
Show notes
Who is Marta
Moving to the UK from Poland 17 years ago
Her goal to climb the 7 summits
Wanting to climb the highest peak in each European Country
Growing up in Poland and what her early years were like
Not being close to the mountains as a child
Being inspired by her father who was very outdoorsy
Getting use to the cold weather
Her passion for travel
Wanting more from travel and wanting to combine it with adventure
Setting herself 2 BIG goals
The Crown of Europe of Challenge
Climbing Kilimanjaro first
Climbing Mt. Blanc and then Elbrus.
Climbing Aconcagua in South America
Climbing Denali in North America which was the toughest climb she’s done.
Go to Antarctica to climb Vincent and why it was her favourite climb so far
Taking on Everest in April 2022
Leaving Carstensz Pyramid until the end due to the political situation and the costs involved.
Costs of climbing mountains and how she’s paying for the adventures
Going to Everest in 2021 and having her trip cancelled
Funding her challenges
Her fear of dying while in the mountains
Dealing with the downtime and how she handled the waiting.
Handling her period while in the mountains
Using wet wipes to shower
Stop taking the pill when you are at high altitude as it thickens your blood
Wearing a nappy on the summit push?
Trying things out in advance
Dealing with stress diarrhea while climbing
The mental side of the challenge
Dealing with stress and anxiety
How you can change your thinking
Focusing on what she can control
Visiting the Altitude Centre in London
Getting physically strong and what training looks like this year
Developing her own training plan and being flexible with what it looks like
Stretching for recovery and eating well
Being anaemic and feeling tired
Feeling more relaxed and knowing what to expect this time around
Being guided by Nirmal Purja team
Elite Expeditions
Being inspired by Martyna Wojciechowska
How you can follow Marta
Final words of advice and wisdom
Being a normal person and making the decision to go for it.
Social Media
Website: www.tolivetotravel.com
Instagram: @tolivetotravel
Facebook: @tolivetotravel
Twitter: @tolivetotravel
Check out this episode!
#podcast#women#sports#health#motivation#challenges#change#adventure#active#wellness#explore#grow#support#encourage#running#swimming#triathlon#exercise#weights
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IDOLiSH7 6th Anniversary Special Story: Full of Heart...
Chapter 4: Unreasonable Demands
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6
Tamaki Yotsuba: I'm glad you can
get your photo now, So-chan. But are
you sure you can make it to the
North Pacific?
Sogo Osaka: I think so... He did
say he could make a stop at the nearest
yacht harbor.
Sogo Osaka: What about your photo?
You mentioned that Re:vale could
help...
Tamaki Yotsuba: Yeah. I just messaged
them, and they said they were gonna
come pick us up.
Sogo Osaka: Pick us up?
[Toot toot!]
Tamaki Yotsuba: Ah! That's Momorin's car!
Momo: Tamaki! Sogo!
Yuki: Good evening.
Sogo Osaka: I'm sorry you had to
come all this way! Tamaki-kun didn't
tell me you were coming for us
until just now...
Momo: It's fine! Hop on!
Tamaki Yotsuba: Where are we going?
Yuki: Back in time.
Tamaki Yotsuba: Heh. If I could
time travel, there's a ton of stuff
I'd wanna do.
Yuki: Same here.
Tamaki Yotsuba: I bet you would
too, So-chan.
Sogo Osaka: Sure.
Momo: I've got a ton of stuff I'd change,
too. But sorry, we're not actually going
back in time. We're going to Yuki's place!
Tamaki Yotsuba: That's fine. There's
a bunch of stuff I wanna do there, too.
Yuki: Like what?
Tamaki Yotsuba: Playing the guitar.
Teach me.
Yuki: Okay.
Sogo Osaka: You could've asked me,
too... Though I'm sure Yuki-san has
better foundations and technique...
Tamaki Yotsuba: I don't wanna learn
from you. You'd get on my case about
being bad. Yukirin seems way nicer.
Yuki: I'm a lot scarier than
you think.
Tamaki Yotsuba: Huh..? Oh, right.
No way am I gonna learn from you.
I'll just ask Ban-chan.
Yuki: Ban's not any better, you
know. He'll click his tongue and
call you an amateur.
Tamaki Yotsuba: If he did that,
I'd start crying...
Sogo Osaka: I would, too...
Momo: I'd cry so much, my tear
ducts would never recover...
[Toot toot!]
Momo: Ah! We can talk later!
Hurry up and get in the car!
Sogo Osaka: ...Thank you!
Momo: Off we go!
- - - -
Tamaki Yotsuba: Yaaay! Long
time no see, Yukirin's place.
Sogo Osaka: Tamaki-kun, you
could at least thank Yuki-san for
his hospitality.
Yuki: It's fine... Hey. Tamaki-kun,
wait, at least put some slippers on
before you walk in.
Tamaki Yotsuba: It's fine.
Yuki: It's not fine. Put them on.
Sogo Osaka: I'm sorry about him!
I'll make him wear them! Tamaki-kun,
come back here. You can't just run
into people's homes like that.
Tamaki Yotsuba: I was so excited
that I had to floor it.
Momo: I guess you'll need to
install traffic lights at your
entrance hall, Yuki.
Yuki: I'll paint a little crosswalk
on the floor while I'm at it.
Sogo Osaka: Thank you, and I'm very
sorry for the trouble...
Yuki: I was joking. I guess you
can be a bit soft on Tamaki-kun,
too.
Sogo Osaka: Oh, that was a joke?
Momo: So, what's up?
Momo: You needed help finding a
childhood photo for Welcome to Kids'
Room, right?
Tamaki Yotsuba: Yeah...
Tamaki Yotsuba: Y'know the apartments
I used to live at? There was this guy
there who had a camera.
Momo: A guy with a camera?
Tamaki Yotsuba: I forget his name,
but I think he lived in our neighborhood.
He took a family photo of us.
Tamaki Yotsuba: I wanna meet him,
so I can ask if he could reprint the
picture we put in Mom's casket...
Tamaki Yotsuba: And for that,
I need you guys to make some shady
deals.
Re:vale: Shady deals..?
Tamaki Yotsuba: Yeah.
Re:vale: Shady deals!?
Tamaki Yotsuba: Yeah. I need the help
of some underground type guys for this.
Can't Re:vale make that happen?
Yuki: You want us...
Momo: To make shady deals...
Sogo Osaka: Re:vale... Please.
If it's at all possible, then I'd
like you to help him, too.
Momo: Now even Sogo's asking...
No, hold on just a minute!
Momo: I'm not sure where you got
the idea that we make ANY kind of
shady deals to begin with. Yuki, do
you know what they're talking about?
Yuki: I have no idea. You?
Momo: Nope...
I feel like shady deals are the
one thing we can't help with...
Tamaki Yotsuba: No way... I was
sure you guys would have some leads.
Yuki: What kind of a deal were
you planning?
Momo: I think we'll be more helpful
than any of the "underground type guys"
you had in mind.
Tamaki Yotsuba: I need someone to
hack into every surveillance camera
in the world, to find out where that
dude is now.
Sogo Osaka: Every surveillance
camera in the world..?
Tamaki Yotsuba: Even though most people
don't realize it, there's shady organizations
that control the world from the shadows!
Tamaki Yotsuba: Or at least that's
what it said in this "Scary Truths of
the World" book that Isumin had.
Yuki: You mean you read it in some
book about the occult? And you went
ahead and assumed we were associated
with these shady organizations?
Tamaki Yotsuba: Yeah... Re:vale kinda
gives me that sort of vibe sometimes...
Momo: I never knew people saw
us that way. Heh, not bad.
Yuki: So basically, you want to
know where that camera guy is now?
Good thing I happen to know a private
detective.
Sogo Osaka: You know a private
detective? Did you meet him while
studying for a role?
Yuki: No... I met him while
looking for your manager...
Tamaki Yotsuba: Oh, Ban-chan!
Yuki: Yep.
Momo: But if that private detective
couldn't find Ban-san, how useful
could he possibly be?
Yuki: Probably not very useful,
no.
Momo: But you still kept him
on your payroll?
Yuki: Well, Ban taught me not to
keep replacing our bandmates, and you
taught me to hold people dear...
Momo: Oh, Yuki! You're such
a good boy!!! You're a gentleman
and a hottie rolled into one!
Yuki: I sure am. I'll even forgive
you for our earlier argument.
Tamaki Yotsuba: You guys had a fight?
Momo: We butted heads over
our Welcome to Kids' Room photos,
that's all.
Sogo Osaka: But why would you fight
over your childhood pictures..?
Momo: Well...
- - - -
Rinto Okazaki: Then it's settled.
This will be your picture for the
show, Momo-kun, and this will be
yours, Yuki-kun.
Yuki: Wow..! You look adorable,
Momo! A little round-cheeked boy
with a tan, playing soccer. It's
so cute.
Momo: ...Holy crap...
A listless pretty boy, playing
the guitar...
Yuki: I like this photo.
I feel like it'd be a great source
of energy whenever I'm tired from
work.
Yuki: I know we talked using each
other's selfies as lock screen backgrounds,
but I think these childhood photos
would work better.
Rinto Okazaki: Great idea! I happen
to have these picture lockets, would
you like some?
Yuki: A locket? If I put Momo's
picture in that, it'd be like he's
my son.
Yuki: That could be kind of funny.
Should we try it?
Momo: No way...
Yuki: What!?
Momo: I can't take this photo!
As both your fan and your partner,
I think this picture's bad news!
Yuki: How is it bad news!?
Are you saying I'm not cute in it!?
Rinto Okazaki: I think you're
positively adorable!
Momo: You're wearing SHORTS! Since
when do you wear shorts!? There's no
way we can show this on TV!
Yuki: And why not? Even I was once
an innocent kid, like Iori-kun and
Tamaki-kun.
Rinto Okazaki: I think you're still
plenty innocent, Yuki-kun!
Yuki: That's it. I'm making a
copy of this picture, and putting it
inside your locket.
Momo: Oh, no you don't! I'm not
wearing that, you hear me!?
Yuki: But you said we should use
each other's pictures as lock screens!
Momo: I didn't say anything about
our childhood pictures! I'm gonna
lose my mind if I have to walk around
with a picture like this dangling
from my neck!
Momo: And how did you just so
happen to have two lockets lying
around!?
Rinto Okazaki: The president
got them for you.
Yuki: He wants us to have
each other's pictures?
Rinto Okazaki: No, he actually
wanted you to have a childhood
photo of himself and I.
Momo: Wait, I wanna see that!
Rinto Okazaki: Here it is.
Momo: Wow! You went to a studio
for this one!
Momo: Okarin, is the one sitting
on the chair you? Does that mean
our prez is the one standing up?
Rinto Okazaki: That's correct.
Yuki: You and Rintaro look really
alike. The suits look chic, so it's
actually kind of cool.
Yuki: Was this taken for a
special occasion?
Rinto Okazaki: Our neighborhood
cameraman needed something to display
on his shop window, so he took a
picture of us.
Rinto Okazaki: We received the
lockets as thanks.
Rinto Okazaki: He thought that if
we brothers kept a picture with us,
we'd always be able to find each other,
no matter how far apart we end up.
Yuki: Huh. So it's a novelty
gift. If you can call it that,
anyway.
Rinto Okazaki: This was 20 years
ago. Come to think of it, there was
a picture of the cameraman's two sons
on the window, too.
Rinto Okazaki: Though even our parents
said they'd only ever seen the older
brother.
Yuki: I see. Maybe something happened
to the younger one, then. Poor thing...
Rinto Okazaki: Perhaps...
Rinto Okazaki: The older son's business
failed, too, and eventually, the camera
shop closed its doors for good.
Rinto Okazaki: My brother remembered
the cameraman thanks to this picture.
That was probably why he wanted you
to have some, too.
Momo: So we could keep each other's
pictures close by?
Rinto Okazaki: No. Like I said,
it's our picture he wants you to
put in the lockets.
Yuki: I think Rintaro's a little
too in love with himself.
Rinto Okazaki: I'm sorry about him...
Momo: Ahaha! Still I think it
could be funny to walk around with
your picture hanging from our necks!
Right, Yuki?
Momo: It would really show off
our loyalty to Okazaki Productions,
don't you think!?
Yuki: .........
Do you really hate the idea of
having my picture that much..?
Momo: Uh, no...
Yuki: I see how it is. You refuse
to keep my picture in a locket, but
the Okazakis are fine?
Momo: I didn't mean it like that...
Rinto Okazaki: Ah, how unusual.
Normally, it's Momo-kun doing these
sort of interrogations.
Yuki: I can keep your photo in
a locket, you know. I could even
make you lunch for your practice
match, Momose-kun.
Momo: Dang! I'm starting to
feel jealous over my picture self..!
Yuki: I hope you'll grow up
into an idol and be happy with me.
Momo: I don't think I can talk
to your picture that easily... Or
that casually...
Momo: Then again, wouldn't it
be a little pervy if I started
calling this picture of my partner
"Master Yuki", or something..!?
Rinto Okazaki: I don't see the
problem. Re:vale's already got an
eccentric image, after all.
Yuki: I feel bad for my unwanted
younger self. Give him back to me.
I'll raise him with little Momose
here.
Momo: I told you, that's not it!
I'd never neglect little Yukito-san..!
Rinto Okazaki: There you go,
starting some bizarre family roleplay.
Allow me and my brother's picture
to join in!
- - - -
Momo: And that's how we started
arguing.
Sogo Osaka: That sounds rough...
Yuki: Here's Momo's picture, by
the way.
Tamaki Yotsuba: Wow! Momorin was
so cute! Used to be super tan, too!
With shiny white teeth!
Sogo Osaka: You really did put
it in the locket.
Momo: Wanna see Okarin and
his brother?
Tamaki Yotsuba: Okarin was adorbs,
too! And I've never seen his brother!
He's cute!
Yuki: Not anymore, he's not.
Sogo Osaka: So you did use Okazaki-san's
picture for the locket.
Momo: I thought it'd be funny, and a
good way to advertise our agency...
Yuki's is too real for me to walk
around wearing it. Do you get what
I'm saying, Yuki?
Yuki: Not at all. I still feel
bad for little me.
Momo: Don't you get grumpy
on me again!
Yuki: ...In any case, I can introduce
you to a useless private detective.
Tamaki Yotsuba: I'd rather you
introduce me to a useful one. Does
your detective pal know any better
detectives?
Momo: Good point. If he's in
the business, he's gotta know who
his biggest rivals are!
Yuki: I'll try asking him.
[Dial tone]
Yuki: Hello, it's Yuki from Re:vale.
Do you know any good detectives, other
than you? Like, the king of private
detecting or something...
Yuki: What..? There's a detective
so great, he's only spoken of
in legends..?
Tamaki Yotsuba: ........!
A legendary detective..!!!
Sogo Osaka: He sounds like someone
who could help! That's great, Tamaki-kun!
Yuki: I have a job for that detective.
Get in touch with him for me. I need to
find somebody. Yeah. I'm counting on you.
[Beep]
Momo: He's going to introduce us
to a legendary detective!?
Yuki: He's willing to try, at least.
I'll get in touch as soon as I hear
from him again, Tamaki-kun.
Tamaki Yotsuba: Okay! Thanks!
Yuki: But... If it's too hard for
you to get a hold of that picture,
you can quit if you want, you know.
Momo: You guys must have better
things to do, anyway. It's not like
Ban-san or Maneko-chan are forcing
you to do this, right?
Tamaki Yotsuba: Yeah, but...
Tamaki Yotsuba: I wanna have something
like this pic of Momorin playing soccer,
or Yukirin playing the guitar.
Re:vale: .........
Momo: Right. I hope you find your
picture, Tamaki. We'll help in any
way we can.
Yuki: If you run into trouble,
call us.
Tamaki Yotsuba: Ehehe... Okay!
- - - -
Sogo Osaka: .........
Sogo Osaka: They even drove us back
to the dorm.
Tamaki Yotsuba: Yukirin's cooking
was so yummy, and Momorin played with
me a lot. Re:vale's super nice!
Sogo Osaka: It's because you're
such a good kid.
Tamaki Yotsuba: .........
Sogo Osaka: You're so honest and
kind, there's not a single person
who wouldn't want you to live a
happy life.
Tamaki Yotsuba: Haha... That's the
opposite of what I used to hear,
though.
Tamaki Yotsuba: Like when something
I had broke, or something didn't make
it to me in time, or something I'd been
excited for didn't work out.
Tamaki Yotsuba: Apparently it was
all a punishment, 'cause I'm such a bad,
nasty kid.
Sogo Osaka: ........
Tamaki Yotsuba: I'd get mad and
yell, "That's not true!", but still.
Sometimes when I'm having a bad day,
I remember that stuff.
Tamaki Yotsuba: I fall down,
or something I like breaks, or
I get caught in a rainstorm... And
I wonder if I'm being punished.
Tamaki Yotsuba: I mean, I'm not
THAT good of a kid. I don't work hard,
I'm kinda rude. Plus I'm dumb.
Tamaki Yotsuba: ...If I was smarter,
maybe I would've gotten a copy of
that photo before it went into
Mom's casket.
Tamaki Yotsuba: I don't have any
pictures 'cause I'm an idiot who
can't take proper care of anything.
Tamaki Yotsuba: Meanwhile, you're
good at keeping things clean, and
you do everything right.
Sogo Osaka: ...You're not an idiot,
and the photo thing wasn't your
fault.
Sogo Osaka: I can't believe anyone
would say things like that to a child.
Of course you're not being punished.
Tamaki Yotsuba: .........
Sogo Osaka: I can guarantee that
you're not, so don't worry.
Tamaki Yotsuba: Ahaha! So-chan,
you're acting kinda cool all of
a sudden.
Tamaki Yotsuba: Thanks.
To be continued...
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The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue Quotes that I Loved
This is just a list of quotes or excerpts that I highlighted while reading the book- literally all of them and there are a lot. I’m going to go ahead and say spoilers below just because there are so many quotes and while I don’t think the quotes actually spoil anything, I don’t want to accidentally spoil something for someone.
Some of the quotes might seem a little weird out of context but these are quotes that hit close to home, made me say “Hell, yeah, Addie!!!", quotes that made me laugh, and then basically all of the other quotes that I loved while reading.
I know that I didn't completely fall in love with this book like so many other people did, but it was still so beautifully written and there were so many amazing quotes in this book.
And just a heads up, I read this on my kindle, just in case the page numbers I list don’t match with your copy of the book.
Spoilers Below:
Quotes that Hit Close to Home
“Three and twenty, a third of a life already buried.” Page 39
“The day passes like a sentence. The sun falls like a scythe.” Page 41
“[...] and when she dies it will be as though she never lived.” Page 42
“I am so tired of not having choices, so scared of the years rushing past beneath my feet. I do not want to die as I’ve lived, which is no life at all. I—” Page 46
“[...] she swears sometimes her memory runs forward as well as back, unspooling to show the roads she’ll never get to travel. But that way lies madness, and she has learned not to follow.” Page 61
“His parents meant well, of course, but they always told him things like Cheer up, or It will get better, or worse, It’s not that bad, which is easy to say when you’ve never had a day of rain.” Page 97
“But then a night would go long, and a day would start late, and now he feels like there’s no time at all. Like he is always late for something.” Page 119
““I see someone who cares,” she says slowly. “Perhaps too much. Who feels too much. I see someone lost, and hungry. The kind of person who feels like they’re wasting away in a world full of food, because they can’t decide what they want.”” Page 140
““Life is so brief, and every night in Rennes I’d go to bed, and lie awake, and think, there is another day behind me, and who knows how few ahead.”” Page 167
““I mean feeling like it’s surging by so fast, and you try to reach out and grab it, you try to hold on, but it just keeps rushing away. And every second, there’s a little less time, and a little less air, and sometimes when I’m sitting still, I start to think about it, and when I think about it, I can’t breathe. I have to get up. I have to move.”” Page 177
““Small places make for small lives. And some people are fine with that. They like knowing where to put their feet. But if you only walk in other people’s steps, you cannot make your own way. You cannot leave a mark.”” Page 179
“It was such a lovely jar she had kept them in. But the glass is cracking now. The water leaking through.” Page 215
“Moments of joy register as brief, but ecstatic. Moments of pain stretch long and unbearably loud.” Page 225
“[...] you’ve never felt called to any one thing. There is no violent push in one direction, but a softer nudge a hundred different ways, and now all of them feel out of reach. Page 226
“[...] in wanting to live, to learn, to find yourself, you’ve gotten lost.” Page 226
“He lets it ring, holds his breath until it stops. He tells himself that if they call again, he’ll answer. If they call again, he’ll tell them he is not okay. But the phone doesn’t ring a second time.” Page 229
“He misses the structure, misses the path, misses the purpose. And maybe it wasn’t a perfect fit, but nothing is.” Page 257
“That he’d blinked and somehow years had gone by, and everyone else had carved their trenches, paved their paths, and he was still standing in a field, uncertain where to dig.” Page 283
“And those first two years, he was happy. He had Bea, and Robbie, and all he had to do was learn. Build a foundation. It was the house, the one that he was supposed to build on top of that smooth surface, that was the problem. It was just so … permanent.” 283
“Choosing a class became choosing a discipline, and choosing a discipline became choosing a career, and choosing a career became choosing a life, and how was anyone supposed to do that, when you only had one?” Page 283
““The vexing thing about time,” he says, “is that it’s never enough. Perhaps a decade too short, perhaps a moment. But a life always ends too soon.”” Page 333
“He is all restless energy, and urgent need, and there isn’t enough time, and he knows of course that there will never be. That time always ends a second before you’re ready. That life is the minutes you want minus one.” Page 421
“The world is wide, and he’s seen so little of it with his own eyes. He wants to travel, to take photos, listen to other people’s stories, maybe make some of his own. After all, life seems very long sometimes, but he knows it will go so fast, and he doesn’t want to miss a moment.” Page 438
Quotes that Made Me Laugh
“Henry loves his sister, he does. But Muriel’s always been like strong perfume. Better in small doses. And at a distance.” Page 120
““Sorry, Book,” she mutters, lifting the cat gingerly onto the back of the old chair, where he does his best impression of an inconvenienced bread loaf.” Page 248
““It’s Halloween!” defends Robbie. “It’s the twenty-third,” says Henry, but Robbie treats holidays the way he treats birthdays, stretching them from days into weeks, and sometimes into seasons.” Page 274
Quotes that made me say “Hell, yeah, Addie!!!”
“If she must grow roots, she would rather be left to flourish wild instead of pruned, would rather stand alone, allowed to grow beneath the open sky. Better that than firewood, cut down just to burn in someone else’s hearth.” Page 31
“[...]from this moment forward, her life will be her own.” Page 48
“There is a defiance in being a dreamer.” Page 117
““It has only been two years,” she says. “Think of all the time I have, and all the things I’ll see.”” Page 132
“It will take time, but time is the one thing Addie has plenty of. So she opens her eyes, and starts again.” Page 192
“But then Addie straightens, lifts her chin, smiles with an almost defiant kind of joy. “But isn’t it wonderful,” she says, “to be an idea?”” Page 261
Quotes that I Love
“[...] never pray to the gods that answer after dark.” Page 7
“What is a person, if not the marks they leave behind?” Page 15
“The things that last, even when memories don’t.” Page 16
“As if you couldn’t like one place and want to see another.” Page 23
“Books, she has found, are a way to live a thousand lives—or to find strength in a very long one.” Page 35
“The kind of place where time slips and blurs, where a month, a year, a life can go missing.” Page 39
“[...] attraction can look an awful lot like recognition in the wrong light.” Page 56
“The rise isn’t worth the fall.” Page 56
“Being trapped, buried alive, these are the things that scare you when you cannot die.” Page 57
“Funny, how some people take an age to warm, and others simply walk into every room as if it’s home.” Page 58
“Déjà vu. Déjà su. Déjà vécu. Already seen. Already known. Already lived.” Page 66
“[...]a lifetime of knowing brushed away like a tear.” Page 73
“[...] and it is sad, of course, to forget. But it is a lonely thing, to be forgotten. To remember when no one else does.” Page 77
“[...] ideas are so much wilder than memories, that they long and look for ways of taking root.” Page 77
““These days, everyone’s looking down,” muses Sam. “It’s nice to see someone looking up.”” Page 101
“Being forgotten, she thinks, is a bit like going mad. You begin to wonder what is real, if you are real. After all, how can a thing be real if it cannot be remembered?” Page 103
“If a person cannot leave a mark, do they exist?” Page 103
“Dreamer is too soft a word. It conjures thoughts of silken sleep, of lazy days in fields of tall grass, of charcoal smudges on soft parchment.” Page 11
“She considers the cut of their clothes, the absence of bone stays or bustled skirts, and thinks, not for the first time, and certainly not for the last, how much simpler it would be to be a man, how easily they move through the world, and at such little cost.” Page 129
““I remember you.”” Page 135
“The darkness claimed he’d given her freedom, but really, there is no such thing for a woman, not in a world where they are bound up inside their clothes, and sealed inside their homes, a world where only men are given leave to roam.” Page 163
“She watches these men and wonders anew at how open the world is to them, how easy the thresholds.” Page 165
““I think there are many ways to matter.”” Page 179
“But ideas are so much wilder than memories, so much faster to take root.”” Page 210
“He is full of roots, while she has only branches.” Page 212
“Easy to stay on the path when the road is straight and the steps are numbered.” Page 229
“Outside the window, the day just carries on as if nothing’s changed, but it feels like everything has, because Addie LaRue is immortal, and Henry Strauss is damned.” Page 235
“[...]I didn’t want to live forever. I just wanted to live.”” Page 236
““There’s this family photo,” he says, “not the one in the hall, this other one, from back when I was six or seven. That day was awful. Muriel put gum in David’s book and I had a cold, and my parents were fighting right up until the flash went off. And in the photo, we all look so … happy. I remember seeing that picture and realizing that photographs weren’t real. There’s no context, just the illusion that you’re showing a snapshot of a life, but life isn’t snapshots, it’s fluid. So photos are like fictions. I loved that about them. Everyone thinks photography is truth, but it’s just a very convincing lie.”” Page 239
“God, it feels good to be wanted.” Page 256
“[...] And ideas are wilder than memories. They’re like weeds, always finding their way up.”” Page 261
“Homesick—Henry knows that one is supposed to mean sick for home, not from it, but it still feels right.” Page 262
“Dressing up, he thinks, is just like watching cartoons, something you enjoyed as a kid, before it passes through the no man’s land of teen angst, the ironic age of early twenties. And then somehow, miraculously, it crosses back into the realm of the genuine, the nostalgic. A place reserved for wonder.” Page 274
“Bea always says returning to campus is like coming home. But it doesn’t feel that way to Henry. Then again, he never felt at home at home, only a vague sense of dread, the eggshell-laden walk of someone constantly in danger of disappointing.” 282
“He doesn’t know what he believes, hasn’t for a long time, but it’s hard to entirely discount the presence of a higher power when he recently sold his soul to a lower one.” Page 284
““You can’t make people love you, Hen. If it’s not a choice, it isn’t real.”” Page 290
“He has asked the wrong god for the wrong thing, and now he is enough because he is nothing. He is perfect, because he isn’t there.” Page 290
“A life reduced to a block of stone, a patch of grass.” Page 299
“The present folding on top of the past instead of erasing it, replacing it.” Page 306
“She knows the paint will fade, rinsed off by a puddle, or simply wiped away by time, but that’s how memories are supposed to work. There—and then, little by little, gone.” Page 307
“Without the bells, the organ, the bodies crowding in for services, the church feels abandoned. Less a house of worship and more a tomb.” Page 311
“God is so large, why build walls to hold Him in?” Page 311
“Once you know about a thing, you start to see it everywhere. Someone says the words purple elephant, and all of a sudden, you catch sight of them in shop windows and on T-shirts, stuffed animals and billboards, and you wonder how you never noticed.” Page 314
“There is a freedom, after all, in being forgotten.” 325
“Memories are stiff, but thoughts are freer things. They throw out roots, they spread and tangle, and come untethered from their source. They are clever, and stubborn, and perhaps—perhaps—they are in reach.” Page 327
“They’ve been lucky, so lucky, but the trouble with luck is that it always ends.” 329
““You said it yourself, Luc. Ideas are wilder than memories. And I can be wild. I can be stubborn as the weeds, and you will not root me out. And I think you are glad of it. I think that’s why you’ve come, because you are lonely, too.”” Page 332
“She closes her eyes, reminds herself there are many ways to leave a mark, reminds herself that pictures lie.” Page 337
“She may not feel the years weakening her bones, her body going brittle with age, but the weariness is a physical thing, like rot, inside her soul. There are days when she mourns the prospect of another year, another decade, another century. There are nights when she cannot sleep, moments when she lies awake and dreams of dying. But then she wakes, and sees the pink and orange dawn against the clouds, or hears the lament of a lone fiddle, the music and the melody, and remembers there is such beauty in the world. And she does not want to miss it— any of it.” Page 342
“Luc’s smile darkens. “Because time is cruel to all, and crueler still to artists. Because vision weakens, and voices wither, and talent fades.” He leans close, twists a lock of her hair around one finger. “Because happiness is brief, and history is lasting, and in the end,” he says, “everyone wants to be remembered.”” Page 351
“It is a sign, when even gods and devils dread a fight.” Page 367
“And this, he decides, is what a good-bye should be. Not a period, but an ellipsis, a statement trailing off, until someone is there to pick it up. It is a door left open. It is drifting off to sleep.” Page 419
#the invisible life of addie larue quotes#the invisible life of addie larue#the invisible life of addie larue by ve schwab#ve schwab#quotes#my favorite quotes#addie larue#henry strauss#luc#bookish quotes
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Headcanons for being Thor’s twin
Thor Odinson x twin!reader
warnings:
a/n: HSHSHHSHSHHSHSGS
prompt: @locke-writes: “Wait Lacey I have a headcanon idea if you’re willing to write it. Headcanons for being Thor’s twin??? Idk man I feel like that could be unbridled chaos”
okay, i believe that odin and frigga refused to tell the two of you who was born first
“either one of you could earn the throne, but you need to prove that you can handle the responsibility” -odin
jokes on him, neither of you cared for the opportunity to rule
you two were much better suited as warriors
you were both able to weild mjölnir, which created...disagreements
“i should have mjölnir! i lifted it first!” -you
“only because you pushed me out of the way!” -thor
“will you two just rip each other apart already?” -loki
speaking of loki, his pranks always exhausted you
especially when you appeared to have woken up in your twin brother’s body
“wh-what is this? LOKI!!!”
he always got a kick out of it
and the celebrations of victory? they never disappointed
“brother! another victory on the battlefield, but was there any other doubt?” -you
“of course not, y/n! at this rate, i don’t think we’ll ever fall!” -thor
“don’t put your hammer where your mouth is” -you
you and thor were definitely unstoppable fighting together, both blessed to be literal gods
“eyes front, thor! the fight’s not over yet!”
when you walked beside each other, sometimes you’d summon mjölnir to your hand
it always annoyed the hell out of him
“give that back”
“i don’t think i will”
“y/n, i’m serious”
“come and get it”
“that’s it!”
*swatting and wrestling in the middle of the hallway*
sometimes frigga would even catch the two of you arguing
“oh, my children. would you quit your bickering for just one moment?” -frigga
“but mother, y/n took my hammer!” -thor
“you’ll just have to learn how to share” -frigga
as the years flew by, there was always something crazy to occupy you
especially the day that thor had been banished, which hadn’t exactly gone as planned for loki
you were supposed to be banished, as well
“i suppose the future of the throne is your responsibility now, my child” -odin
“i...i don’t know what to say” -you
“but y/n doesn’t desire the throne one bit, i would have no problem stepping up, father” -loki
“we’ll deal with this later, brother” -you
you had to plan something with sif and the warrior’s three
yes, it was treason, but your brother would always be worth it. no matter how much you two argued, he was your other half
now you found yourself on earth, it was such an odd-looking place
and then you were chased by a destroyer
“thor, you must get to safety! i will not lose you again!” -you
“hi there, i’m jane...” -jane, obviously
“hello, lady jane! i’m y/n, thor’s twin!” *blocks debris* “i must go now!”
life didnt get much more simple after that, especially since loki had died (or so you thought) and the bifrost was completely destroyed, it would take a long time to fix any of the damages that asgard suffered
mourning over loki felt right and wrong at the same time, he betrayed you and your family, but you’d never stop loving him
he would always be your brother
as time went on, you had to visit earth once again because of...loki
“i should have known” -you
“yes, you should have” -thor
“you didn’t know, either!” -you
“and they call us petty?” -any SHIELD agent or avenger
loki mocked you when he was captured
“you were nothing but loved growing up, brother. what happened?” -you
“there was a shadow cast over me, thor’s shadow. don’t tell me you haven’t noticed it, either. odin only ever truly notices him and all of his feats” -loki
“you tell nothing but lies, loki. i won’t fall for them and i will not help you. you should stop while you’re ahead”
“so you agree that i’m ahead?”
threatening loki with mjölnir
ppl actually called mjölnir “thor’s hammer”
“i think you mean our hammer” -you
the battle of new york was admittedly terrifying, you knew loki had it in him, but seeing it in the moment just hurt you
it was possible you had a guilty conscience
but the avengers saved the day (mostly) and you brought loki and the tesseract home
and loki was sentenced to an eternity in prison
“hey, thor, think i’d have a shot at lady sif?” -you teasing the hell out of him
“shut up. you won’t make me jealous no matter what you say. my heart belongs to—” -thor
“the midgardian, i know”
you did sort of make him jealous tho ngl
aaanyways you pushed him to go see jane again, it had been too long to leave a midgardian waiting. their lives were short.
and you got to see her again! unfortunately you lost your mother that same day
and you were p i s s e d
murder? murder. (murder)
you may or may not have broke into the vault to get a weapon you could truly call your own
and then went against your better judgement and took loki to off-world with you
“y/n—” -loki
“shut up” -you
but you wish you had listened to what he had to say since you had the bear the loss of loki once again
now you had two family members to avenge
speaking of avenging, you steered clear of the avengers because......they were nuts
“y/n! you know, we could use another god like yourself on our team” -tony
“thor won’t help power your building, will he?” -you
“you got me” -tony
“so, you and thor are twins? who’s older?” -steve
“we actually don’t know!” -you
“oh...neat” -steve
“you know, thor was crying the first time he tried to lift that hammer of his” -clint
“i have no doubt about that” -you
“thor always talks about fighting in wars, but he never gives us any details. has he really fought wars?” -natasha
“oh, plenty of them! my brother and i have fought side by side in countless battles, you’ve even witnessed one! in new york!” -you
“how could i forget?” -nat
okay getting past all that, you focused on getting a headstart on some more *prophetic* instances that thor caught up to you on
and once you got back to asgard, you knew there was something wrong
“are you kidding me? loki? again?” -you
“hello, sibling. it’s nice to see you again” -loki
“why are you the way that you are?” -you
“that’s enough, y/n” -thor
✨going to midgard for odin who instead gave you a homicidal sister✨
hela was not nice at all. at ALL.
your heart broke when she shattered mjölnir
and loki made a bad call to open the bifrost for the whole odinspawn family
and next thing you knew, you were on sakaar
“thor? what the hell?” -you
“y/n! oh, it’s so good to see you! help me out here, please!” -thor
“i’m sorry, brother, but me and loki have been playing the loving brother/sibling act to keep it civil. this place...it’s unlike any place we’ve ever seen. we need to be smart. and we need to get back to asgard.” -you
“yes, we do. there is no doubt in my mind that hela is destroying asgard as we speak” -thor
“right, well...i don’t think loki will be joining us because, he and, uh, the grandmaster as they call him...they sort of formed a relationship” -you
trying to break thor out of prison and oh....hulk is here? that was unexpected
“y/n! y/n, that mean girl who kidnapped me? a valkyrie. a real life valkyrie!” -thor
“what?! father told us they had all died!” -you
“i think it would be safest to disregard everything father has ever told us” -thor
“i very much like that idea” -you
kicking absolute ass on your way out
you and valkyrie teamed up, so you had to say your goodbyes to loki early on, he made it clear he wanted to stay
“you will always be my brother, loki. i wish you well on your journey to find your place in this life. and i do love you, remember that” -you, giving him a hug
“...thank you, y/n. i...me, too” -loki
yet he came back for you in the end
after thor had lost his eye, he’d unlocked his true power........not to be a sore winner, but you’d unlocked yours first while he was on earth
but you two together? that should have been unstoppable
yet you weren’t
“what the hel? she should be dead!” -you
“we need to go” -valkyrie
“wait, i have one more idea” -thor
and that idea was the idea that ended asgard
but you’d create a new asgard
but then half of asgard was murdered by thanos! and you and thor were stranded in space! and loki actually died! and you were saved by space pirates! and were flirted with by half of their crew!
“thor, you need to see dmitri, you need a new weapon if we’re going to finish off thanos” -you
okay, well you and the “guardians of the galaxy” went after infinity stones instead, you knew that one day you’d have to
running into tony stark in space?????
“y/n? what are you doing here?” -tony
“i’m here to kill thanos, what are you doing here, stark? who are these two?” -you
“hi, i’m peter! that’s mister—doctor strange” -peter
everyone turned to dust after thanos escaped and you, tony, and nebula went to star-lord’s ship
and were saved by captain marvel
and reunited with thor
“y/n, by odin’s beard, i thought i had lost you” -thor
“it’s alright, i’m here now” -you
starting up new asgard and watching your brother fall into a depression that caused you to do most of the heavy lifting in this new kingdom
“are you still playing fortnite, brother? it’s five in the morning” -you
“can you pass...” *belch* “just pass me another beer” -thor
and after 5 years, you got to go back to asgard? but asgard from 10 years prior
“mother...” -you
“y/n, we have a mission” -rocket
“i know, i know...where’s thor?” -you
running into your mother while getting thor
“hello, mother. i...yes, hello” -you
“hello, my child. i hope that the future is treating you well” -frigga
“it isn’t, but thank you, mother. i love you” -you
and then you were back on earth and had to comfort thor, who was self-loathing again
but the work had been restored by a simple snap!
and you and thor were able to fight a real fight once more, summoning mjölnir again was invigorating
and there was some kind of bittersweet win here, one i’ve covered plenty of times
“it was fitting for such a great battle to be our final one for now” -thor
“you’re leaving?” -you
“i am, but i trust you’ll take care of our people like you always do. i will see you again, dear sibling. one day” -thor
taglist: @alwaysananglophile // @rorybutnotgilmore // @locke-writes // @sweetheartliz07 // @queen-destenie // @natasha-danvers // @lokihiddles // @frostedficrecs // @emygirl // @lotsoffandomrecs // @johnmurphyisbisexual // @teenwaywardasgardian // @pappydaddy // @captainshazamerica // @freya-xo // @ravenmoore14 // @thisetaernallove // @ofthedewthesunlight // @canarypoint // @zoeyserpentluck //
#thor odinson#thor odinson x reader#thor odinson imagine#thor odinson x sibling!reader#twin!reader#odinson!reader#odinsdottir!reader#marvel#marvel x reader#marvel imagine#avengers#avengers x reader#avengers imagine#loki laufeyson x reader#loki laufeyson imagine#loki laufeyson#loki laufeyson x sibling!reader
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Thoughts on Mulan (2020)
I don’t see any reason to pretend I wasn’t comparing this live-action adaptation to 1998’s animated version the entire time I was watching it.
I was born in the 90s and growing up Mulan was my favorite Disney "princess". Though the truth is that Mulan isn’t a princess at all, which looking back is a big part of why I related to her so much. She wasn’t a princess, she didn’t want to be one, and neither did I. I was labeled a tomboy by just about everyone I encountered. Like Mulan, I simply never fit the mold the world was always trying to put me in. Mulan and I would never have made very good princesses, we weren’t even good at being what girls were supposed to be. But Mulan was more than that. She embodied qualities much more valuable than royal blood, she was brave and clever. She cared for her family more than anything else. These were qualities I could relate to as a little girl, and qualities I still aspire to today.
Naturally, this 2020 live-action has been highly anticipated by me. I feel it’s long overdue. Given the effect the 1998 film had on me and the rose-colored influence of nostalgia, I never expected the live-action to stand up to my beloved childhood hero. But I have to say it did a decent job and didn’t leave me disappointed. While the film isn’t perfect (so few films really are) I’m confident in its ability to bring Mulan to a new generation.
That being said, here are my thoughts on Disney’s live-action Mulan…
Minor Spoliers Ahead (but we all basically know the plot already don’t we??)
The new film is undeniably gorgeous. The cinematography and directing is beautiful to watch, and the score (which was clearly inspired by 1998’s musical soundtrack) is powerful and inspiring.
The plot generally follows the same beats as the 1998 film, however one of the major additions is the concept of chi. A sort of inner strength harnessed by warriors that grants them supernatural skill in battle. So basically 2020’s Mulan has superpowers. I’m not too pleased with this.
As I mentioned before the things that I admired about Mulan were about her strength of character. I didn’t love her because she was a superhero or the Chosen one. We have plenty of those already. I loved her because she was brave and stubborn and clever and caring. Those are the qualities that allowed her to save China and bring honor to herself and her family. She didn’t need special powers, all she ever needed was her own innate awesomeness.
This contrast is perfectly framed for me in the training montage scenes of both films. In the animated movie (to the absolutely bangin' “I’ll Make A Man Out Of You”) Mulan struggles in bootcamp to learn the ways of the warrior and to keep up physically with her male counterparts. And at what I feel is the film's most powerful moment, she works out the trick to climbing the post and retrieving the arrow, when no one else could. This is so important. She accomplishes this by being clever and thinking creatively, not by having some mystical physical advantage over her fellow soldiers. In the live-action, the task is instead carrying buckets of water up a mountain (boring). There is no trick to it. It’s just a physically difficult task that Mulan eventually overcomes without issue, because she’s got strong chi. This takes all the impact out of the moment, rendering it just another pretty shot in a movie full of beautiful visuals. Likewise during the film’s climactic battle scene, Mulan physically overcomes Bori Khan, rather than outsmarting him and his men by thinking outside the box as she does in the animated version.
It’s not all bad news, however. A change I really enjoyed in the new film was Honghui (a reworked version of General Shang). Honghui’s role is less of a love interest, which Mulan doesn’t really require, and more of a friend which she desperately needs. He is a character made of camdraiere, rather than teaching Mulan to be a soldier or a man, he teaches her to be a friend, a leader, and part of a team.
Mulan (2020)’s villains left me with mixed feelings. There are two characters to consider. The Shan Yu inspired Bori Khan and the new addition, chi witch Xian Lang. Bori Khan honestly pales in comparison to Shan Yu. He simply lacks the strange charisma and presence Shan Yu commanded, and ends up coming off as a coward who lets Xian Lang do all the heavy lifting for him. Xian Lang however does serve as a compelling parallel to Mulan. Another woman who was never going to fit in. But her motivations aren’t fleshed out enough, she seems to just be angry at the world and happy to use Bori Khan as an excuse to be evil.
Despite all these differences and over 20 years between them, both films got the same result from me...I nearly cried at the end. Maybe it’s simply nostalgia, but 2020’s Mulan still has much the same effect on me as an adult as the animated one did on me as a child. It left me feeling like it wasn’t just okay for me to be who i really am, but that it was actually a good and admiral thing to be different, to be more than what society expected of me.
The story of Mulan didn’t start with Disney and it is not defined by all the little details that make these 2 films alike or different. The story has endured, and it’s bare bones will always be good enough to inspire those like me who really need to hear it.
#mulan#hua mulan#mulan movie#mulan 2020#disney's mulan#animated vs live action#niki caro#disney plus#disney remakes#fa mulan#female empowerment#girl power#female led films#women warriors#warrior women#movie review#mulan review#mulan 2020 review
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My Hero
Clark Kent x reader
Warnings: Smut
Disclaimer: There is unprotected sex in this story, so remember a condom a day keeps them babies away!
*divider by @writeyourmindaway*
Word Count: 2,302
********
You were pushing your cart through the grocery store and scanning the many items you knew that you didn't need.
"This is why we never shop on an empty stomach," you said to yourself.
When you reached the end of the aisle your cart hit a man's legs.
"Oh my goodness! I'm so sorry, I wasn't paying attention. Are you okay?"
"It's okay, I'm fine," a small laugh escaped his lips. "Y/N?"
You finally looked up at him, "Yes?"
"Wow, I thought that was your voice that I'd heard."
"My voice?" You asked, confused.
Blue eyes, wide grin, deep dimple in his chin.
"Clark?" Your eyes were wide with realization.
"It's me," he said.
"No way, look at you," you scanned him from head to toe. "You've come a long way from the scrawny kid who I used to walk home with from school."
You threw your arms around his neck for a hug and quickly pulled away. You would swear that you could feel every muscle in his rock hard body.
"So, uh, when did you get back in town?" He asked.
"Few days ago. My dad retired and moved to California. He's left getting rid of the house, to me of course."
"I'm surprised he left. He loved that house."
"Yeah, well, he says he needed a change since my mom passed away, but I think this Superman guy just freaks him out a little bit," you shrugged.
"Understandable," he replied.
"Well, um, how about you come over for dinner tonight, so we can really catch up?" You suggested.
"Oh, no, I couldn't impose."
"Why not? You got big plans for those TV dinners?"
He looked down at the four Hungry Man meals he was holding.
"That's what I thought. I'll see you at 8pm, Kent." You pushed your cart forward to the checkout line.
He watched as you walked away. Willing himself not to use his x-ray vision to look through your clothes.
Clark showered quickly when he got home. He looked through his closet and cursed himself. How many flannel shirts does one man need? He settled on a blue and gray shirt and pulled it on.
"Where are you going?" Martha questioned him.
"Uh, you'll never guess who I ran into today. You remember Y/N?" He asked his mother.
"Of course, I do. How could I ever forget the sweet girl who walked my baby home everyday to save him from bullies?" She patted his cheek and laughed.
"Funny," he mocked her. "She invited me over for dinner tonight, so I needed to change."
"Oh, well, that's good. You haven't been out since, um... ever."
"Ma, it's really just old friends catching up. It's not a date."
At least, that's what he'd said out loud, but his racing heart was telling a different story. Martha raised an eyebrow and turned to leave. She didn't need enhanced senses to know her son was telling a lie.
Clark thought back to the day the two of you had become friends. He was a grade ahead of you, so you never really spoke until...
You trailed behind the crowd a bit, as always, with your black Cane Corso, Tiny in tow. He was massive, so his name definitely didn't match, but when he was just a puppy, he was so tiny that you carried him zipped up in your hoodie wherever you went.
Every day, Tiny would come to the school and sit with the parents waiting to pick up their kids. Even though he was huge, he was a sweetie and everyone loved him, so no one ever complained about him running around alone.
When the group ahead of you reached the junkyard. You heard Jessie, the school bully, telling Clark to get out of the truck. Once you reached the yard, you saw Jessie throw Clark to the ground and raise his fist as if he was gonna hit him.
"Come on, fight back! Get up, Kent!" He yelled at him.
"Why don't you leave him alone, Jessie? He doesn't want to fight." You said from behind them.
They all turned to look at you.
"Hey, stay out of it and mind your business!" He pointed at you.
"Make me," you said.
Tiny growled and crouched low to the ground when Jessie took a step towards you. You stayed in your spot as he slowly walked towards the other kids and came to a stop right in front of Clark.
The group backed away slowly with their hands lifted in surrender.
"I don't want to see any of you bothering him again, got it?" You asked.
"Y-y-y-yeah. Yeah, I got it. Just call him off."
"It's okay, Tiny, let them go," you walked closer to your dog.
He was almost as tall as you were sitting on his haunches.
You made a hand motion for them to go and they all practically ran away. You turned to help Clark off the ground and brushed some dirt off of him.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, thanks," he said softly.
Mr. Kent made his way over to the two of you. Tiny wagged happily and waited for a few pets from the older man. He ran off plenty of times to the Kent's farm to play with their dog Hank. Plus, he and your father had known one another since childhood.
"I'm not sure how you resisted the urge to break his face, but good for you," you said before waving at Mr. Kent and telling Tiny to come along.
From that day forward, you and Clark had been inseparable. He'd walk you home and then head to the farm.
You'd developed a crush on him as the years went by, but never spoke up about it, because you learned very early that nothing was worse than losing your best friend over a failed relationship.
Besides, once he graduated, he took oddest jobs doing manual labor. It caused him to be gone for months at a time and you knew that wasn't a life you wanted, so after you graduated, you went out of state to college in Metropolis and got a job there.
Clark clutched the bottle of wine in his hand as he knocked on the door. He couldn't understand why he was so nervous. He'd been to this house dozens of times.
"Hey," you greeted him when you opened the door.
"I brought wine," he held up the bottle.
"Thanks, the food is almost ready, so have a seat and I'll be right back." You hurried off.
Once the two of you sat down for dinner you laughed and talked as if you had never parted ways. He was still the same old goofy Clark Kent that you remembered.
You were now on the couch with your legs comfortably tucked behind you and staring into his eyes.
"What?" He asked nervously.
"Nothing, it's just been so long since I've seen that smile. I'm enjoying it."
His face turned red as he blushed at your compliment.
"I do have a question. Something that's been bugging me all day," you scooted closer.
"What's wrong?"
"You never wore glasses when we were growing up. In fact, you could see so far down the road that I thought you placed things just to be funny."
"What? No, I... um, I had an accident on a job site. There was fire and I was a little close. Messed with my eyesight a little...bit." He stammered over his words.
"You always were such a terrible liar, but I'll let it slide, because you're cute." You sipped from your glass.
"You think I'm cute?" He asked, shocked.
"Yes, I always have," you admitted.
"Really? Why haven't you ever told me that?"
"Oh, please, Clark, like you didn't know that I had the biggest crush on you when we were kids," you rolled your eyes.
"No... Well, I — uh... didn't know for sure."
"Mmm hmm," you straddled his lap. "I know you can hear the way my heart beats faster any time I'm near you." You grabbed his hand and pressed it to your chest.
He shifted beneath you. No doubt trying to will himself not to get an erection.
You swivel your hips ever so slightly. To a normal man, that would have been nothing. But to Clark, it was damn near a sensory overload.
He threw his head back and clamped his eyes shut.
"I know that you know how wet I am for you right now," you lifted your dress and dipped your fingers inside of your panties, swirling your wetness around with your fingers.
He was no longer able to contain his erection.
"Look at me," you said.
He opened his eyes and looked at you. You brushed one of your slick coated fingers over his lips before kissing him softly.
"What are you doing?" He was finally able to ask.
"Whatever I want," you said and slid his glasses off of his face.
He looked nervous. You may recognize him without his glasses, so he quickly kissed you.
You trailed soft kisses from his neck to his ear. Biting the lobe once you reached it.
The soft sigh that he released turned you on even more as you grinded into him again.
He shifted his position, so he could lie you flat on your back.
"Can I taste you?" He asks.
He didn't wait for you to reply. He pulled your already soaked panties to the side and licked at your center.
"Ssss, ooh," you hissed.
You threaded your fingers into his hair and grabbed on to those jet black curls. Rocking your hips slowly as he alternated between licking your clit and sucking it into his mouth.
First you felt one finger slide inside of you and shortly after another followed.
"Yes, baby, don't stop," you moaned.
Clark watched your face as he pleasured you. The way you bit your bottom lip and gripped his hair forced him to buck against the couch cushions for a bit of relief.
You squeezed your eyes shut as your orgasm neared, but felt your body being lifted and turned. Before you could grasp what was happening, Clark was now on his back and you were riding his face.
You grabbed on to the arm of the couch and placed one foot on the floor and the other by his head.
"Stick your tongue out," you instructed.
When he stuck his tongue out, you lined it up with your needy cavern and let him fuck you with it. You used your other hand to rub your clit and once again your orgasm was nearing.
"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" You chanted as the familiar feeling washed over your body.
Once again, he readjusted you as if you weighed nothing, bringing you face to face with him. You kissed him again. Moaning into his mouth as your tongues connected.
"Fuck me, Clark, please?" You asked as you unbuttoned his pants and wrapped your hand around his thick throbbing shaft.
He groaned loudly as you stroked him. When you were about to lower yourself onto him he stopped you.
"Wait, I," he cleared his throat, "I've never actually, um, gone all the way..." He admitted.
"I find that very hard to believe with the way you just ate my pussy."
"I learned from... ya know..."
"Good," you slowly lowered yourself onto him. Making sure to keep eye contact as he stretched you wide. "I'm sure you learned how this goes too."
He held on to your hips as you bounced up and down on him. Then he grabbed up the fabric of your dress and ripped it. Kissing the newly exposed globes of your breasts.
He turned you on your back. Lifting your leg high and pushing himself deep into your pussy. Giving you everything that he had.
He tucked his face into your neck as he fucked you.
"Yeah, that's it. Give me that dick, baby," you whispered.
"You feel so good," he groaned.
The closer he got to ecstasy, the more vocal he became.
"Shit!"
"It's okay baby. Give me all that cum. Can I have it?" You asked sweetly.
"Yes!"
"Mmm, yesssss," you clawed at his back as you started cumming. Your pussy tightening around him.
His body started to spasm as he released his load inside of you.
You held on tight until he stopped moving and you loosened your grip. It was only then that you noticed that you were floating in mid air.
"Clark!" You yelped and grabbed onto him again.
He chuckled. "Don't worry, I've got you," he slowly lowered your bodies back down to the sofa.
He pulled out slowly and laid his head in between your breasts taking in the moment. You twirled one of his curls around your finger.
You felt his body suddenly start shaking from laughter.
"What's so funny, Kent?" You asked.
"You just had sex with the kid that you used to protect from bullies. You were my hero,” he said.
"No, I just had sex with the grown man that saves planets."
"So, how long have you known?" He questioned.
"Since the moment I first saw you on TV," you replied.
"Hmm."
"Yeah, and if I hadn't already known, you recognizing my voice from the other aisle when I clearly whispered to myself would've been a dead giveaway."
"Not to mention the whole flying thing just now," he added.
"Exactly," you giggled.
You finally got up before ruining the couch and grabbed his hand to lead him to the bathroom. He looked a little confused at first.
"Surely, you have at least one more round in you, Superman?" You teased.
"I've got as many rounds as you can take," he lifted you and walked up the stairs to the bathroom.
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au idea: snape left the wizarding world as a teen and finished his studies in muggle school
humor me on this one:
snape did not have a great time in hogwarts. he was bullied, rejected, outcast, abused by all the wrong people, and ignored by those who could have helped him...everything that would have constituted a nightmare growing up
when lily finally broke off their friendship during their 5th year, he finally made up his mind: he told his mam he wasn’t going back to hogwarts
eileen had her own reservations about the wizarding world (she never returned to it after all) but she would be damned if her only child would be disgraced like this when he was easily Hogwarts’ most brilliant student. for the first and only time in her life, she floo-called albus dumbledore, told him several choice words, and after a long winding discussion of which severus was not privy to, eileen emerged back in the sitting room looking triumphant and holding a sheaf of papers: dumbledore at least had put a good word in to several muggle public schools that would be more welcoming to her boy and his extraordinary mind, and was willing to foot the bill for the classes he needed to catch up with his peers, at least for the year, as a trial run. all they had to do was fill out the application forms
(dumbledore appeared once to talk to him and ask if he was sure and when he said yes, sir the headmaster sighed and performed a spell that would repress his magic and told him that if he wanted to go back to Hogwarts next year he could and severus shrugged)
severus caught up to his muggle lessons in no time. it was so much easier when magic wasn’t involved; there were less variables and more absolutes
because he had already learned to train his accent and manners thanks to his slytherin housemates, he also blended well with his posh classmates, and the scholarship he was granted made sure he had the required uniforms and school supplies, as well as extra money he could use to buy sweets or small gifts for his mam
his classmates were idiots but they were all right; at least no one strung him up or hexed him when he wasn’t looking, and there were plenty of other boys like him, who weren’t rich but had their own intellectual strengths and for once he was challenged
at that age he had also already grown taller and he was good at mimicking lucius’ stance. no one dared to mess with him, especially if they wanted his help for their chemistry or biology homeworks
he excelled in drama club too and was part of the choir
they learned muggle classics and french and greek and played rugby and even though severus wasn’t good at everything he had mates that could help him out and they would do stupid things like flicking pens at each other or sharing secret cigarettes or trying to pretend they were that bloke bowie singing about young americans
he laughed more times than he had in the past six years and sometimes he swore he could see the silhouette of a wizened old man with a long scraggly beard by the gates or on the bleachers watching him, but he would disappear before severus could take a second look
when dumbledore finally visited during the summer hols after he had spent a full year in muggle school, severus was taller, tanner, broader, and walked around with an easy swagger that the headmaster would have mistaken as james potter’s. his dark hair was cut short and he wore a simple dark sweater and pressed trousers. somewhere in the house, a record was playing, asking about it being “real life or is it just fantasy”, and when he was faced with the boy, severus looked him straight in the eye, something he did not (could not) do back in Hogwarts. behind him, eileen stood and watched, her arms crossed, looking almost smug
well my boy, dumbledore said, Hogwarts is still awaiting you with open arms. what will it be?
(he didn’t tell him of the darkness that had grown in the boy’s old House, how his old House Master lamented the lack of ingenuity in the current batch of students, how the marauders had been expelled following their continuous torment of another student, how lily evans had asked of him and how crushed she had looked when dumbledore had told her of his sudden departure, how he knew the girl had begged for the address of his new school even to eileen snape but the woman had ignored her, how there were dark times ahead and his gut told him he needed this boy back, that he would be essential to what was coming...)
thank you, severus said, and he smiled with ease, but no, headmaster. i shall not be returning. i am perfectly happy here.
#au#what if#muggle student!snape#honestly i just want him happy#if it would have taken him leaving hogwarts#i'd have gladly let him#but i also wonder how differently the future would have been#would the potters even die#would voldemort have won early on#or would he have been defeated during the first war since there would have been no spy to snitch about the prophecy#the prophecy however would have still existed#hmmm#musings#i also left out tobias lmao#i didn't know where to put him#i also know he would have had to revise for GCSEs at some point#shhh#severus is a genius#he'll ace those exams and make it to cambridge#he'll become a doctor because he still has a messianic complex#but he'd be a v good one#he'd have been happier as a muggle i bet#snape#snapedom#pro snape#hp
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Until proven otherwise, my headcanon is that both Ironwood and Watts survived and are going to team up again out of necessity lmao.
HI, ANON. So let me tell you about how this simple, silly sentence sent me down a 4k writing rabbit hole. “Lol I’m going to write a little parody about that” I thought to myself and then somehow? It got serious?? I honestly don’t know what this fic is, but I’m chucking it at everyone anyway.
Also, I changed the whole “Atlas and Mantle are immediately submerged in water” plot point because it’s my coping mechanism and I get to choose the canon we ignore.
***
Once upon a time there were two villains having a Very Bad Day.
The first, Arthur Watts, had survived an explosion, being buried under rubble, and the threat of a ten-story drop only to find himself suffocating amidst a magically produced fire. A horrible way to go, all things considered. Painful, of course, but more importantly, no self-respecting man should die with soot on his clothes.
Or leave behind a charred corpse.
In fact, Watts had just begun to acknowledge the full indignity of his death when the momentum he'd felt — just there on the periphery of his awareness — suddenly ceased, Atlas crashing into Mantle and throwing him with a squawk in the process. His head took a nasty hit against one of the desks, the smoky gray of the room growing darker, and by the time Watts had come to, the fire had been replaced by water.
Ice-cold water, lapping up to his knees.
"Well," he said, lifting a sodden boot. "I suppose this is an improvement."
***
Elsewhere, James Ironwood — former General of the now sinking Kingdom of Atlas — was lying facedown on the stone of the outer vault, contemplating his choices. Upon reflection, no, he didn't regret what he'd done, but it would have been nice if things had turned out...any way other than this.
"Fuck," he said to the empty hall, enjoying the reverberation. He deserved that much at least.
In time, Ironwood was able to pick himself up off the floor, supported as much by the fact that he'd been knocked out by his own blast as his shaky, barely-there aura. Up the elevator running on emergency dust reserves, through the corridors that groaned ominously under damaged supports. Ironwood headed towards the military headquarters purely out of habit and as he did the sound of water grew stronger, almost like waves, until there was an inch of it across the floor, more trickling in from the staircase. Ironwood had been watching his boots splash with each step, almost mesmerized, and didn't look up until another pair unexpectedly entered his view.
Watts froze in the act of wringing out his pantleg, eyes wide. His expression, the water, how the hallway tilted downward at a slight angle... it all felt like something out of a dream. Ironwood just watched as Watts watched him, until his eyes traveled to the gun clipped on his belt. Ironwood hadn't even realized he'd picked it up.
"Here to kill me, James?" Watts said.
"No." He knew it was true as soon as he'd said it. The mere thought of starting another fight right now was... exhausting. "Do you intend to kill me?"
"Oh really. Does it look as if I'm in a position to fight you? Do use your head for once. I have no weapon, no aura — damn fire ate it all up — I feel as if I've swallowed a hot coal, I am wet — "
Ironwood turned partway through the ramble, meandering back up the way he'd come. He'd passed through two checkpoints before realizing that Watts was not only still talking, but following him.
"What do you want?" he asked, more to shut the man up than out of real curiosity. If Watts was capable of reading the difference between the two, he didn't show it.
"Cinder."
"Cinder?"
"I don't make a habit of allowing people to try and murder me without consequence, James!"
"She's gone."
"Yes, thank you for that stunning bit of info! There's no possible way I could have realized that for myself. What's gotten into you? They left us, fool. Salem, Cinder, Neo, Emerald, even your so-called allies... they all deserve the worst that we can grant them. Though right now, I'd settle for wringing that idiot Pietro's neck. Ten years I gave to that research and he rendered it obsolete with a single report, all because he wanted to play father to some stupid hunk of metal. I never would have gone to Salem if — " Watts cut off, hands balled into fists.
Ironwood just blinked dazedly, coming to a halt. He searched his uniform, the scroll he'd stashed there miraculously whole. Dimly, he registered that he should be feeling some sort of emotion right now.
"I can do that," he murmured.
"What?"
But Ironwood was already keying in the code, the desire to complete a task, any task, taking hold. Watts looked on, mouth twisted in a deprecating sneer.
"I already took out communications, in case you failed to notice."
"But not the trackers I had installed in my top scientists." Ironwood held up the screen where a small, red dot was blinking. "Pietro's still here. Looks like he's out near the mine with a second aura signature. If you want to...?" He wasn't going to finish that sentence.
"I see," Watts said in a tone that heavily implied he didn't. "And you'd just give me this information out of the evilness of your heart?"
Ironwood considered that. "I killed a man yesterday, tried to kill two others, and was ready to bomb all of Mantle to keep the rest of my Kingdom safe. I don't care what you do with the man who betrayed me."
"...fair enough."
Except after five steps Ironwood realized that Watts wasn't following him. He was looking down at his arms, still as a hunted hare.
"You put trackers in all your scientists?" he asked.
"A requirement I implemented after you went missing."
"Ah! Ingenious. Lead the way then."
***
The way led to the tundra, an environment that neither of them were prepared for. Watts was wet from the waist down and Ironwood had long ago learned that snow and metal didn't mix. Neither had the aura for the kind of storm that was raging either. Luckily, the panic of Salem's invasion had left plenty of vehicles to purloin and soon they were speeding East with the heat on, the faint beeping on Ironwood's scroll growing stronger.
He'd felt the impact of his city crashing down and the two of them had clamored out of Atlas' husk, dropping into rubble and cracking ice. Still, the true destruction wasn't evident until they were moving away from it. Through the rearview mirror, Ironwood could see pillars of smoke from fires that the water hadn't yet smothered, dark shadows that could only be grimm, and Atlas itself, plunged halfway into Mantle. It wasn't noticeable from this distance, but all of it was sinking.
"I was lucky," Ironwood said, his voice hollow. His eyes flicked back to the expanse of snow ahead of them. "If Atlas had tipped the other way, the vault would have flooded. I'd have drowned."
Watts snorted. "I'm lucky. That damned water put out Cinder's fire. I'd have burned."
Neither felt particularly lucky and for fifteen more minutes, neither was keen to discuss it.
***
Once upon a time, two heroes were having a Very Bad Day.
"You've got to be shitting me."
Maria paused in the act of bandaging Pietro's leg, mechanical eyes narrowing at the two figures that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. Watts sucked in a breath at the duo. Ironwood gave a small, awkward wave.
Then he nodded his head at the scene: one old, exhausted woman and a paraplegic currently bleeding into his chair. "So... going to kill him?"
Watts ground his teeth. "Well now that just feels like a fool's errand. Look at him. He's pathetic!"
Pietro was slumped at an uncomfortable angle, sporting a gash in his leg and an impressive display of bruises across his face. Maria, in contrast, seemed to have only lost her hair tie.
"Pathetic?" she spat. "Your lackey did this!"
"Who?"
"Angry girl with the creepy arm."
"Ah, it all comes back to Cinder." Watts pinched the bridge of his nose. "Yes, thank you for recognizing that I was her superior, but no, I didn't send her to kill the likes of you. Must have done it on her own, the little idiot. Don't believe me? I was in jail at the time, if I recall correctly. Isn't that right, James?"
"You were helping me hack Penny."
Maria let out a skin-crawling cackle. "Why do you think the girl was here? She blew a hole in the bottom of Amity! Penny tried to hold us up, but..." she swallowed, still pressing against Pietro's leg, but turned warily towards them. "You hacked her? You did that? What precisely do you think happens when a man who never learned to apply aura as a shield crash-lands in this hunk of junk!"
"I expect most men in that position perish," Watts said smoothly. "The fool is lucky to be alive, but he won't be for much longer if you keep trying to staunch the wound with your soiled gloves. Move aside."
"Get away from me!"
"Oh, put your stick down, you old bat. I'm trying to help."
"Why?" Ironwood hadn't realized he'd spoken until Watts was glaring daggers his way.
"So I can kill him later myself!"
Still surreal. Still dream-like in its absurdity. Ironwood listened to the bickering between Watts and... Mary? Maria? He wasn't even sure. He wandered away, content to gaze out through one of the windows at his Kingdom. Or what was left of it. He idly massaged his left arm, trying to rid himself of a pain that wasn't there, and when the howl of a grimm reached them across the snow, he shivered.
His unlikely companions screamed at each other loud enough to reverberate through the whole building. There were the sounds of two bodies trading blows, but only for a moment. Pietro, voice groggy and high-pitched with terror, demanded to know where his daughter was.
"She's dead," Ironwood said. He didn't turn to see their expressions, didn't need to. "Winter she... she defeated me as the Winter Maiden. That can only mean one thing."
"One thing to you, perhaps." Ironwood did turn then, watching stoically as Pietro tried to right himself in his chair, Watts cursing as the leg continued to bleed. "Where is she? I want to see my little girl. I can heal her, fix her — " he broke off, doubling over with a cough that splattered more blood into his hands.
"Maybe you could have," Watts said, a cruel satisfaction in his voice. "If her little friends hadn't made her human."
Some of the pieces fell into place then. His Lamp, long missing, had apparently wound up in Neo's hands, then Salem's, before it was finally used by Cinder. Watts described — with immense pleasure — the plan the group had concocted and the wish they'd asked of Ambrosius. He'd been a bit preoccupied with bomb duty to learn the details, but he knew that Cinder lived and Ironwood, it seemed, knew that Penny had perished. What a tragedy. Do you know how to bring back the non-mechanical, Doctor?
Ironwood honestly thought the old woman was about to kill him, murderous intent put on hold only because Pietro collapsed then, curling in on himself as sobs wracked his frame. The only words that escaped the mess of tears were "Penny" and then "Maria," one hand reaching out blindly for comfort. Pietro found it, the two holding onto each other as Watts sat at their feet, grinning up at the display.
Ironwood thought only, So that is her name.
The other, crucial bit of info was that everyone was gone. Dead or evacuated, it didn't matter. As far as any of them knew, they were the last four in Atlas, with Salem on her way to destroy whatever kingdom next took her fancy. It was over. They'd lost. And despite the horror of it, the realization was oddly freeing too.
When Maria asked in a tone edging on hysteria what precisely they were going to do — because it seemed this was a "we" situation now — Ironwood suspected she meant in the short term. What were they going to do about their wounds? The grimm? Finding and reaching the others? But those were foolish concerns, the thinking of someone who'd never had a kingdom's life in their hands. Ironwood knew there was only one answer here, the same one he'd had from the start.
"You can do whatever you like," he said. The metal of Amity sparkled against the rising sun, leaving splotches of color behind his eyes. "I will defend Atlas."
Maria's mouth dropped open and Watts stared. Even Pietro ceased his crying long enough to suck in a breath.
"Defend it from what?" he asked.
Ironwood shrugged. "The grimm. Salem. I don't know. I don't care. To quote a former friend, I have never wavered in defending the Kingdom of Atlas against its enemies and I don't intend to start now. This is my city and I won't leave it."
"It's sinking!" Watts cried, overlapping with Maria's, "We need to help" and though so much softer, quieter, more innocent than the spittle Watts was scattering across the floor... that single word sank its teeth into Ironwood. The woman may as well have stabbed him.
"Help?" he said. "Help? I tried to help! Everything that I have done in the last two days — the last two years — my life! — has been to help not just Atlas, but everyone I feasible could. Don't talk to me about help when you and Ms. Rose did everything you could to stop me. I had planned to help the world and you all lied. You betrayed. You set your weapons against me and kept me from saving what parts of my Kingdom I could. Tell me again: what precisely did you do to help?"
He'd crossed the distance, one hand on his holstered gun and the other leaning against Pietro's chair, using it to leverage himself down into Maria's space. Ironwood didn't need to see her eyes to know the emotion they held.
"I," she spit, "didn't try to bomb a city."
And just like that the fight in him was gone. It had barely existed in the first place. Ironwood straightened, swaying slightly on the balls of his feet. "No. You didn't. So it's as I said, go help if you want. If you can." His gaze slid to Watts. "You were one of her men. That says it all." Pietro. "You helped them reveal Salem to the world. Will she have time to destroy the other kingdoms before the grimm do it first?" Maria. "And I don't know you, but you don't earn a prize like that without seeing combat." Ironwood lifted his metal finger, tapping it against Maria's goggles. She flinched away. "Can you honestly say you haven't made mistakes?"
"You and I are nothing alike!"
"I didn't say we were."
Ironwood turned and walked away, as steady as he could manage as the world grew a little darker, despite the sunrise. Behind him Watts' voice rang out like a shot.
"So that's it then? The captain goes down with his ship? You idiot!"
He paused. "Not quite. It turns out I'm not the only idiot around these parts. Ms. Rose left the vault open." One last turn to savor their shocked expressions. "That's where I'm going. There are still plenty of airships if you'd like to leave, but just remember: they abandoned you too."
Perhaps he should have been surprised that by the time his boots hit the snow, three more footsteps were sounding behind him. Frankly, in fourteen hours time Ironwood would barely remember their conversation, let alone everything that came after it. One of them drove back to the sinking city. Someone tested the ice before they cautiously crossed it. Someone else dispatched the stray grimm foolish enough to get in their way. Ironwood saw and heard none of it. He walked with the determination of a wind-up toy, wobbling now that he'd reached the end of his string. Cool blues, a shining gold, and then beautiful, miraculous grass. Ironwood ignored the murmurs of amazement behind him, dropping directly to his knees.
When his palms hit the ground, only one was capable of feeling how soft it was.
I need to update my arm, he thought, even as he curled into a ball and passed out.
***
When he woke they were already running out of time.
For the first two days Ironwood barely spoke to the others and thus he never quite figured out why they'd stayed. Had it been hopelessness? Spite? The all consuming thought that there was nowhere else to go? That Atlas, for all its rubble and slowly rising water, wasn't any different from what the rest of Remnant would look like soon?
Why not here then?
Especially when the vault, filled with wildflowers and an endless sun, made for such an enticing retreat.
"Soil's farmable," Maria said, running some of it through her fingers. It was a statement of fact, nothing more, and the three of them stubbornly ignored the implications of it.
"There's — " Pietro coughed, self-consciously clearing his throat. "There's plenty to salvage. Machinery to pull water from the humidity in here. First aid supplies. We could section off an area for our wa — "
Watts seethed. "If you finish that thought I will — "
"What?" Maria arched a brow. "Kill him? Like you've been saying for the last day?"
Day? Ironwood blinked. How long had he been out?
"I will!"
"Like you'd be able to. Just try it, beanpole."
They argued, and they threatened, but none raised their hands to one another again, and when they finally dispersed across the kingdom to collect what they could, none of the acknowledged what it was for.
Ironwood waded through the remnants of his home and didn't think about building another. Because the idea alone was absurd.
"Don't let the door slam shut," he'd said when they’d first left, nodding to the stone slab that had appeared after Penny had first arrived. Ironwood watched the three exchange glances, unsure if he was joking.
Fuck if he knew.
***
Those four days — or five, if Ironwood counted the one he'd lost — were conducted in a strange state of frenzy. None of them were in a position to be working on such a project, but when had the world ever cared for their needs? Pietro stayed behind in the vault, cataloguing what they'd found and making lists for what was still needed. His chair, while dynamic, wasn't meant for the sort of terrain Atlas had become and his wound was still healing.
He also seemed to appreciate the privacy, frequently mourning his daughter with an honesty that made them all uncomfortable.
Maria went off to do the Gods only knew what, disappearing for hours at a time, then coming back wet, cold, and carrying little. Though she always had information. Which parts of the city were too grimm invested to traverse, which were now completely underwater, which were too unstable as Atlas tilted like a ship, disappearing beneath the waves. It gave them all focus and, surprisingly, something like hope. Whatever else she carried was usually small, such as the seeds filched from the bio laboratories.
"Couldn't take them all," she said, critically surveying the land, "what with so many of the labels getting lost in the crash. Don't want to eat something your lot has experimented on."
"You should. If we're lucky you'll mutate into someone bearable." Watts, taking stock of the clothing they'd gathered, didn't seem to realize that Maria was flipping him off.
He went on a deep dives (sometimes literally) for salvageable tech, most of it of a practical nature, but other pieces... not. Nothing had shifted Ironwood's world view quiet like day two, walking in on Watts looming over Pietro, assuming there was another fight brewing... only to overhear them exchanging theories, the conversation filled with as many insults as legitimate claims. Still, the seeds of camaraderie were there, and were perhaps easier to grow than originally thought. After all, Watts had once been one of them and Pietro, for all his heroics, had once entered Ironwood's office with a manic gleam in his eye, rambling about giving an aura to a machine. Defense technology at its finest!
What was it Glynda had said? Ah yes, agreeing with young Ms. Nikos about how "wrong" it all was. But desperate times, desperate measures and all that.
They'd had that discussion, of course. Soon after Ironwood awoke, talk of Amity began again, this time about whether it was possible to send another message. With enough time and effort, not to mention luck... a short one, perhaps, and only sent to an individual scroll. But what was the point? Who would they call? When no one could — or would — answer that question, the idea was dropped.
In the days since, Ironwood had fantasized about messaging Glynda. One of the few who'd ever been a true friend, perhaps the only one left alive who might care that he was still among the living... if Ms. Rose's message hadn't killed that too. Not that it mattered. Even if Amity wasn't a hunk of metal gathering ice, Ironwood hadn't a clue what he might say to her.
Dear Glynda,
Thank you. Sorry. Good luck.
Sincerely,
General James Ironwood
P.S. If things had ended differently, I would have asked for a second dance.
How ridiculous.
So he walked the broken streets of Mantle and climbed the streets of Atlas, more and more of it disappearing every day. Their hoard grew though, born of not just military property, but personal belongings as well. It wasn't as if anyone was coming to claim them. Unless more magic was at work, both cities would be miles beneath the ice before anyone crossed the border again. Still, Ironwood would always pause before packing away what he found in the hastily abandoned houses. Bedding. Utensils. The literal shirt off someone's back. He'd changed into jeans and a thick sweater the second day, taken from a collection of civilian clothes he'd placed into a locker years ago and promptly forgot about. The uniform felt... obsolete now, no matter that his goals remained the same.
He'd encountered Maria on one of those trips, admiring a basket of yarn in some nameless Atlesian's living room. Her shoulders had tensed at his approach, but she just snorted at the sight of him.
"You knit?" he asked, unsure of what else to say.
"No."
"Crochet?"
"No."
Ironwood didn't know any other crafts that involved yarn. "Then why are you taking it?"
Maria hummed. "Just a thought. That I might, someday, try to learn." She shook a book she’d pulled from the basket: Knitting For Beginners.
A stray thought indeed. The thing they still didn't talk about. The closest they got was on the fifth night when an explosion sounded outside, massive enough to unsteady them even deep within the vault. By the time all four of them had made it out and onto one of the roofs, the sky had turned a sickly yellow, followed by black tendrils that raced, turning, back and around on each other until everything went dark. The only light came from what little electricity they had running on generators and a red aura, pulsing from the West.
From Vacuo.
Realistically, it might have meant that they'd won. It wasn't as if Ironwood had any idea what the death of an immortal witch looked like. But the night wore on and they had no idea because that unnatural, starless black never receded. In time, Pietro wandered off and returned with two bottles he'd pilfered from somewhere, cracking the tops off on the side of his chair and passing them around.
They still didn't say it aloud, though the sky and the alcohol said enough already. Ironwood kept his eyes on the watch his mother gave him, hours ticking by until sunrise was long overdue. Atlas felt even colder now and that red, seeming to inch closer, sent a different kind of chill down his spine. The grimm that still prowled below had taken off hours ago, summoned by some unheard call.
Ironwood downed the dregs of his bottle and threw it into the city.
"Come on," he said. Ordered maybe, or asked. He wasn't sure he knew the difference anymore.
Blankets. Glasses. As many non-perishables as they could find. Generators. Tool kits. The building blocks of renewable energy. Clothing. Decorations. Wood to build small, individual dwellings.
Watts hoarded laptops and a small mountain of batteries, never showing them what he was working on, intensely protective.
Maria grew obsessed with entertainment, snagging every book, game, and video until there was a veritable library piled on the grass. She kept muttering about deserving a real retirement.
Pietro built a shrine to Penny, a simple stone monument to the left of the doorway. He tended to organize their supplies there, occasionally reaching out a hand to brush the code he'd inscribed with a laser. Whatever meaning it held, Ironwood couldn't read it within the ones and zeros.
And he... he found a cat. His last day, picking his way across dwindling islands until his eyes found the small, electrical fire just out of the water's reach. The cat had wedged herself into the rubble above it, trying desperately to keep warm.
She was as black as the sky above them and Ironwood was sure, when he reached out, that she'd run, terrified of his prosthetic hands. They certainly weren't any warmer, but she weakly crawled into them nonetheless. Ironwood held her securely against his left side, where his heart and flesh were, and thought with an absurd, internal laugh that he'd at least saved one.
There was so much left to do still, but their time was gone. That evening, eating what little they had the stomach for, water began to pour from the vault's elevator. First a trickle, then a deluge, until there was a sizable waterfall to admire. Ironwood sat on the steps with his unnamed cat on his shoulder, watching inevitability creep towards him.
He could still lie though.
"There's still time," he said, addressing the three behind him. "If you head up the elevator shaft and down the west hall, you can still break the surface. Find one of the remaining airships. Fly away."
Watts scowled, avoiding his gaze. He remained leaning against the doorway though.
Maria and Pietro exchanged glances.
"I'd carry you," Ironwood offered to Pietro. They both knew it would be a death sentence with their combined deadweight, but he'd do it anyway.
"No," he said softly. "I did all I could already."
Maria. She was harder to read with those goggles, but it wasn't peace on her face. Guilt, more likely, but that had never stopped any of them before.
"It's damn cold out here," she muttered and marched back to the grass. Pietro followed her, Watts trailing not far behind. He turned back though.
"You coming?"
Ironwood didn't answer and eventually Watts left, heading into the meadow that stretched until you lost sight of where you'd been — and then reappeared there. A tiny pocket dimension, born of a magic now lost to this world. Ironwood figured that a bit of water and ice couldn't break it.
Probably.
He watched the flood cover the floor of the vault, then lap upwards, one stair at a time. There was a part of him, a part unimaginably tired, that thought he might just sit there. Keep rooted until the water was so high it was too late to do anything. That would be easy. Fitting, even. Shouldn't he go with his kingdom?
But then the cat — his cat — dug nails into his shoulder and Watts said something that made Maria screech. Ironwood sighed.
There were still things to protect, simple as that had become.
He turned his back on Remnant, now encased in an eternal night, and walked to the three who remained, cowering in an eternal day.
Ironwood allowed them one last choice and when they all nodded, he kicked the vault door shut.
#tw suicidal thoughts#rwby#fic things#rwby fic#Ironwood#Watts#Maria#Pietro#idk what this IS#post-apocalyptic RWBY I guess#with a side of questionable people not talking to each other#Anonymous
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Lettenhove Au
Part 1
When somebody loved me.
Geralt was staring at the clothing the staff had placed out for him. It likely wouldn’t fit. Not until they had it significantly tailored. He turned when he heared him enter. Relief. Hope. Fear. He could catalog each emotion perfectly as they flit across Geralt’s face.
He’d had plenty of time to learn.
“You may stay until spring.” He stated. “You will act as my bodyguard until then and in return I’ll make sure you two get safe passage to Skellige. Nilfgaard won’t find you there.”
“Jaskier-“ He started. Stepping towards him in his towel.
“Names are important.”
Everything was beautiful.
“Julian.” He grit like a curse. “Come with us. You hate this place.” He looked around like he expected a monster to jump from the wooden paneling. “I know that.” He said like he meant I know you.
He plastered on the noble smile that was all politeness and cruelty. “Come now. We must all face our fates eventually. You’ve found yours. I have mine.” He pulled his bathrobe from the drawers and handed it to Geralt. “We’ll have your uniform tailored in the morning.”
Every hour we spent together lives within my heart.
“Julek!” His mother crossed the room to hold him in her arms. It always struck him how much smaller and greyer she was even after all these months. “You finally listened to me! Thank you. You’re doing my old heart such a kindness. I know you don’t think you’re in danger but-“
It wasn’t that he didn’t think he was in danger. He just didn’t care. Nilfgaard would overtake them in a year or two anyway. No bodyguard would save him or his people from their destruction.
“Of course Mother. Hired the best of the best. Rest easy.” He kissed her crown and waltzed her back to the desk. “What else needs doing?” Because there was always more that needed doing. Even though he was just a Viscount.
She looked down at stacks of papers that had accumulated on the desk in the years since his Father had passed. Then back up at him. “You’ve done enough for one day.” But not enough to make up for all the days he’d missed. “Will you play for me tonight instead?”
His heart twisted in his feeble chest. Not tonight. He wanted to say. You can burn the fucking lute. Said another part of him.
“Father wouldn’t like that.” He weakly protested.
“I won’t tell him.” She promised. Hope, excitement in her eyes.
His shoulders fell. “Alright. I’ll hold you to that Mum.”
And when he was sad. I was there to dry his tears.
“They took my cloak Geralt! It’s all I had left and they took it and-“
He knocked quietly. They stopped. It opened.
“Jas-“ He cut himself off. “Julian.”
He stepped in around him and closed the door. “In the morning you two will have to play your roles well. You will do your work eagerly and without complaint. Kerack does not have the army to protect you if Nilfgaard realizes you’re here. Lettenhove certainly doesn’t.”
The poor girl look exhausted. On the verge of tears.
He knelt in front of her. “Princess I can’t give you your cloak back but I will send it ahead to Skellige and it will be waiting for you there.”
“Why?” Geralt asked him. “It’s just a cloak.”
He looked at the floor next to Geralt. Keeping him in just the corner of his eye. “It’s Cintrian blue. I could tell that even through the mud. It makes you a target if nothing else. It makes this entire country a target.”
They couldn’t afford to be a target.
He stood to his full height. Turned to Geralt at last.
His hair was shorter now. Matts and dirt and perhaps even lice had necessitated it. A younger version of him would have apologized. Ran his hands through it. Spent hours trying to salvage its length. Geralt kept it long for a reason.
He didn’t know the reason. But he knew there was one. That was enough.
“I promised you a place to stay if ever you could not make it to Kaer Morhen for the winter.” He knew that was why Geralt had come. The trust or hope that despite it all his promise from years ago still held true. “But I’ve also promised to protect these people. Do not make me choose which to uphold.”
His eyes were solemn when he nodded.
And when he was happy so was I.
“Why does your Mother think you need a bodyguard?” He asked when they were alone in his office.
“Dangerous times.” Was all he offered.
He didn’t talk about the assassin who’d pressed the blade to his throat until a kitchen worker had crushed the man’s head with a frying pan. Or the meals that had left him pallid and shaking. He did not explain how court was at least as dangerous as any bog or mountain they’d traversed over the years.
“More heartbroken ladies huh?” Geralt remarked offhandedly.
He stopped reading. Forest. Was the last word. It burned into his eyes.
“Ah yes. I am a cynic, a lecher, a womanizer, and a liar. There is nothing complicated about me.” He echoed Geralt’s words from an inn they’d shared long ago. “How could I forget?”
“Jaskier-“
“You will address me by my title or you will not address me at all.”
“You’re still mad at me.”
Of course I’m still mad. You haven’t even bothered to apologize. You’ve made no effort at all. You’ve shown up at my doorstep pulling favors that you should have lost the right to when you took life’s one blessing. Hissed the part of him that was.
He looked out at the dark varnish of his father’s office. In a few years’ time this place would very likely be his grave as Nilfgaard claimed this land with blood and fire.
He didn’t care.
This place would be his grave and he didn’t care.
It was here or at some cuckholds hands or at the bottom of a bottle of wine.
Death had always nipped at his heels. He was just done running.
“What’s the most important thing in the world?” He’d rambled in Geralt’s direction once. “Friendship.” He’d answered himself. “Friendship and love. Oh and wine.”
Well look how all of that had worked out. His closest friend was a man who did not care for him. Every woman he’d loved he’d cheated on until they could love him no more.
Because he wasn’t made for any of that. Not love. Not friendship.
“Duty. Honor. Our people.” His father had said. “Get your head out of the clouds and think of them.”
At least he always had the wine.
“No.” He answered honestly. The hollow in his chest outweighed the spark of anger a thousand to one. “I know you. I know why you said it. I know the motivations and pain and fears that spurred every word.”
He dipped the quill in the ink-pot and signed. Geralt stayed silent behind him.
“I know you, Geralt of Rivia, perhaps better than you know yourself. So I am not mad.”
He let Geralt brood behind him as he read the next document. Shook his head and moved it to the reject pile. He’d have to write a letter altering the terms later. They didn’t charge Witchers that much for food.
How dumb did they think he was?
“You’re upset. I know it.” Geralt ground his teeth together. “I know you.”
He sighed. He was so tired. “Did you? Do you?” He shook his head. “What do you want Geralt?”
He knew what Geralt wanted. There were several answers and he knew each one.
To keep her safe. Warm. Fed. That was perhaps the most honest answer he could give.
To not be alone. To face raising his daughter on his own this winter without the support of his family. He was terrified and seeking support was another.
I want nothing. He could lie. It was a favorite lie.
“We needed help.” He answered honestly. They did need help. More than he could provide. “And. I missed you Jaskier.”
Did you? Did you miss me? Or just what I provided for you in coin and comfort?
“I will help you, as I have promised.” He began to draft a letter to Baron Oliwier. “But there is no one here by that name.”
He could hear Geralt’s jaw clenching in protest.
“I told you. If I go home I will never come back.” He plotted out the words in careful tongue. “There is no running from destiny. This is mine.”
“Have you given up on poetry then?” Geralt snapped. “You plan on being a miserable old man?”
No. I plan on dying young. He didn’t say.
“You always told me I needed to grow up.”
The fireplace crackled and his quill quietly moved across the page. It sounded like a thousand nights they shared under a starry sky.
And it felt as if he were still all alone in the world.
When he loved me.
#geraskier#geralt x jaskier#lettenhove au#geralt#jaskier#tw depression#also like not straight up suicidal thoughts but like. being okay with dying.#idk what yall who wanted more expected#He's clearly severely depressed in part one did you think part two was going to be happier?#i'd post this on ao3 but idk how to give it a happy ending yet so not going to til i figure that out#and also if i can finish it#:p#also the only reason i ended up writing part 2 was cause i thought of this song and was like WELP#so.... if you want part three drop me some song suggestion? gr. How to give this a happy ending#writing
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Seeing Stars
Written in response to Hauntober prompt #9: Stars.
Summary: Little Lady Blinder universe. Clara, Finn, and Isiah getting up to trouble.
Characters Featured: Tommy Shelby, Finn Shelby, Isiah Jesus, and Clara Shelby (Shelby!Sister)
-----
Polly was certifiably livid, but Tommy found the detour following an afternoon of meetings to get after his siblings and Isiah for something stupid they’d gotten up to a mere annoyance in his day. Sure, he wanted to go for a drink, had expected to be heading out to the Garrison with his brothers by now, but as he headed to the church, he still found himself in good spirits.
Polly had parked the three kids there in the Lord’s house a little after noon, leaving them to think about their actions as the bruises and cuts and scrapes littering their skin grew sore. Polly hoped they’d feel something close to contrition as they waited on the hard wooden pews with nothing but God and themselves for company.
When Tommy pushed open the hall’s great doors, laughter found his ears, a chorus of entirely unbothered giggles, his sister’s harmonious cackle a touch louder than the other two. He couldn’t imagine why Polly had any faith in Finn, Clara, and Isiah passing the afternoon hours sitting somberly, seeking absolution from their sins. The three of them had never been particularly good with atoning unless they were scared out of their wits about what would be coming to them next.
“I thought your aunt was going to fucking murder us,” Isiah said. “You, especially.” He nudged Clara in the shoulder and she smirked, propping her feet up on the seat between them.
“We’ve had worse,” Clara answered.
“Just you wait until Thomas hears about this. You three’ll be the ones seeing stars when he knocks some sense into you.”
Clara and Isiah roared at Finn’s ‘Polly Gray’ impression, Clara’s feet kicking against the pew as she laughed.
“By the sounds of it, I should do a lot more than knock you three idiots upside the head.”
Clara was closest, sitting near the center aisle, with Isiah to her right and Finn in the pew ahead of them, her back to Tommy.
“Whatever she’s told you, she’s exaggerating,” Finn offered, occupying Tommy’s attention long enough to give his sister a moment to turn around.
“Oh, is that right?” Tommy asked, hands in his pocket as he looked between the kids. “You three didn’t start a—”
“Pol’s just being overdramatic because she’s got nothing better to do than get after— Ow, Tommy!”
Clara grabbed at his hand, pushing it away after he tapped the back of her head.
“Was your aunt being dramatic or was she in the right?” he asked.
Tommy heard a different answer from each of them and he focused on Isiah, the most reasonable of the three, most reliable when trouble was involved because he wasn’t family. Tommy could count on the boy for the truth, even if it was like pulling teeth to get the actual words out.
“She was just being excessive, Tommy. You know how she is,” Clara said, pulling Tommy’s eyes back to her.
“You keep your mouth shut.”
At meeting his eye, Clara averted her gaze, reaching up to cover the back of her head in case he decided to give her another smack.
Tommy’s hand clasped down over the crown of her head and he noted her flinch as he turned her head to face him. “You’d save us all a lot of grief if you’d learn to do that, especially where Aunt Polly is concerned, and especially when you’re supposed to have been at school rather than out messing around.”
“It was a half-day at school. I told y—”
“Fine, that doesn’t mean you have any business being out startin—”
“I wasn—”
“Enough, Clara.”
Clara’s shoulders slumped, the last of the belligerence flowing out of her and he fit his hand under her chin, tilting her head up towards the light as he studied the bruising on her face. “You’re alright?”
“I’m fine, Tommy,” Clara offered, the corner of her lip pulling up just a bit as she glanced up at him. “You should see the other kid. He probably really was seeing stars.”
“She kicked his arse, Tommy,” Finn said.
Tommy rolled his eyes as he dropped his hand. “Yeah, well, she shouldn’t have been doing anything of the sort. You three know better.”
“Tom, it was just a bit of fun. No harm done,” Finn said.
“Right, that’s why our thirteen-year-old sister’s got herself a black eye.”
“We’re nearly fourt—”
Tommy looked at her again, his long blink daring her to finish the sentence, but instead, she stopped herself and settled back against the pew so Tommy turned his head towards Isiah.
“Right, Isiah. We can’t trust these two, so which is it? Was Polly justified or—”
“Tom, it’s not really my place.”
“I’m asking you, so it is,” he answered.
Isiah took a moment, avoiding the twin’s stares, and met Tommy’s eye instead. “I think Polly was a bit dramat—”
“See!” Clara stood up in front of Tommy, gesturing towards Isiah. “Even Siah says—”
Tommy tugged Clara forward, placing her back to his chest as he clapped a hand over her mouth, Clara’s hands immediately going to his arm as she worked to loosen his hold, her protests muffled.
Tommy ignored her, nodding towards Isiah. “Go on, Isiah.”
“It was a show, dragged these two down the lane by their ears, but she was probably justified a bit,” Isiah answered. “But Finn’s right, too, Tom. It was brilliant and—”
Tommy felt his sister’s smile grow beneath the hand he’d been using to keep her quiet, her hands settling on his arm for a moment instead of fighting him.
“We made a killing, Tom,” Finn said. “No one bet on her. Thought she couldn’t fight ‘cause she’s a girl, but she knocked him right out.”
Clara dropped her hands from Tommy’s arm and dug deep into her pockets, pulling out a wad of notes.
“We wanted to help with buying her the house,” Finn said.
Tommy looked down to his sister, his hand dropping to her shoulder. “That was meant to be a secret, Clara.”
Clara tilted her head back to look up at him. “Finn and Siah won’t tell. They promised.”
“I know we can trust Isiah, but is that right, Finn? You won’t tell?”
It was still months out, Polly’s birthday, but he was planning already, getting ready to move the cash they’d accumulated through the shop and the protection work into real estate. He’d told Polly of his plans to buy a place for Ada, but the home for her was to be a surprise.
“I can keep a bloody secret, Tommy,” Finn said.
“Yeah, well you’d better. It’s meant to be a surprise,” Tommy answered. “And no more fucking fighting. I had you boys teach her so she could protect herself, not so you three could run a fighting ring out on the lane, and a fixed one at that.”
“We’re just continuing the family business,” Clara answered. “Learned it from you.”
“Yeah, well the business is changing, which is why you’re meant to be spending your days in a classroom on the other side of Birmingham and you two aren’t meant to be scrapping in the lane. No need for you three to be worried about making money, there’s plenty of it to go around these days.”
“We were just trying to help.”
“Well, you’ll be a bigger help if you stop giving Polly such a headache, eh?”
They all grumbled some form of an affirmative answer.
“Alright, let’s get you off home, then,” Tommy said, his arm over Clara’s shoulder as they walked out to the lane.
“Can’t we come with you to the Garrison?” Finn asked when they were nearly back to Watery Lane, just after Isiah left them to head for his own home.
Tommy turned to Finn about to speak, but Clara beat him to it, her voice an octave lower than normal.
“Come with me to the Garrison? You’re lucky I don’t knock you idiots upside the head so hard you’re seeing stars. You’re going home and you’re going to bed witho--”
Finn’s eyes went wide for a moment and Clara swallowed hard rather than finishing her sentence.
“No, that sounds about right,” Tommy answered. “Off to bed with you both, no supper.”
“No, no, Tommy,” Clara answered. “I was just being clever. Aunt Polly didn’t let us have lunch and it’s not even six yet.”
“Maybe this will teach you to stop being so clever.” Tommy glanced to Finn.
“And you to stop obliging your sister’s foolish whims.”
“It’ll be their cleverness that’ll—”
“Enough with the voices, Finn,” Tommy snapped as the twins began laughing again.
“But they’re funny,” Clara said.
“Am I laughing?” Tommy asked.
“No, because you’ve become a horrible grouchy old man,” Clara said.
“I’ll show y—“
“I’ll show y—“
Tommy stopped himself and raised an eyebrow at the girl, at her words, the very same words as his, spoken at the very same moment, her voice humorously deep though the pitch didn’t quite match.
Clara smiled up at Tommy before grabbing Finn’s arm, pulling him a step away from their older brother.
“I think we should be getting home, Finn. Let Tommy get on with his evening. No more threats of making anyone see stars, needed eh, Tommy? We’ll go back and put ourselves to bed early. No supper. No more voices. No more unsolicited cleverness.”
Tommy made no attempt to hide his smirk and Clara chanced a hug.
“We are sorry for the trouble, Tommy. We were just trying to help,” she mumbled into his coat.
Tommy ran a hand down the back of her head.
“Go apologize to your aunt, eh? Maybe she’ll still let you have your supper.”
-----
Read more Little Lady Blinder stories here.
#Hauntober#peaky blinders#peaky blinders fan fic#shelby!sister#isiah jesus#finn shelby#tommy shelby#little lady blinder#clara shelby
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demon’s daughter
Uh- this is my first time attempting a multi-chaptered fic, so bear with me. There is no canon. Just saying.
Masterlist [Chapter 1] Chapter 2
Marinette Al Ghul was very, very angry.
Half the League had staged a coup, killing many of the members still loyal to the Demon’s Head. Her mother, Talia, was in a watchtower, rapidly shooting down the helicopters assaulting the compound.
And Ra’s Al Ghul, the Demon’s Head, lay on the floor in front of her, his body horrifically burnt. He was alive, but just. The work of Slade, his trusted right hand man.
Marinette hurries to Ra’s’ side as her twin draws his sword and attacks the traitor, anger fueling every one of Damian’s attacks.
“I am sorry that I was never good enough, Ra’s, but I am not sorry that you will be dead soon.” She murmurs. Marinette stands up, the rage of the Pit burning inside her. These people want to kill her. Kill her brother. She refuses to let that happen.
She flips open her two steel fans and bares her teeth in a snarl as Slade swings at Damian, who blocks the blow, but the force of it sends him crashing into the building.
Marinette charges the man, fans glinting dangerously in the light. She dodges the first swing and delivers a swift kick to Slade’s stomach, one fan slicing a cut across his right cheek. The second blow is intercepted by her fans. She is pushed back, her slim eleven year old body no match for a full-grown, very well-trained assassin.
Damian joins her and the onslaught of attacks from both of them sends Slade flying across the courtyard.
“So you’re Talia’s little bastards.” He sneers. “Not bad for children, but no match for me.”
“We shall see about that.” Marinette hisses. The Pit rage inside her grows even larger, and she lets the madness control her movements. The steel fans whirl through the air as she flicks her wrists, spinning and kicking, pushing the man back under a balcony.
Damian understands her motive and slices through the support beams with his katana, sending a large amount of wood crashing down on Slade. When the traitor bursts upwards, Marinette feels satisfaction as Damian thrusts his blade into Slade’s right eye.
“And now, your heart.” He snarls. Slade parries Damian’s blow and intercepts Marinette’s swing with his armor, eliciting sparks.
Three spheres roll to a stop at Marinette’s feet. They spew out black smoke, and the twins reflexively cover their noses with their sleeves as Slade makes his escape.
“I’ll make you two suffer for this. Next time.” Slade’s voice rings all around them as they search blindly through the haze.
The smoke clears in time for them to see Slade being lifted out of the compound by a helicopter, with a man they recognize crouching in it, smirking.
“Ubu.” Damian growls. Marinette puts a hand on his shoulder.
“Do not worry, akhi. We will make him pay.” The helicopter sails away and they follow it out of the building.
Her brother raises his sword. “Come back and finish it, cowards!”
The remaining traitors also throw smoke bombs as they are picked up by the helicopters, leaving the twins in front of a burning building, surrounded by smoke, corpses, and blood.
“Grandfather.” Damian remembers, running back into the burning building. Marinette follows, not about to let her brother go alone anywhere. Not after what just happened.
“Damian!” She hears Talia call. “Marinette! Wait!”
She ignores her mother and charges down the stairs that lead to the Lazarus Pit, then freezes at the bottom. Damian releases a shaky breath by her side as Talia stops behind them.
Ra’s’ burnt corpse lay in front of them, outstretched hand just mere centimeters away from the green water.
Damian walks towards the body, sword falling to the ground.
“Damian.” Talia says. Her brother tries to pick up the corpse, heaving with the strain.
“We have to get him into the Lazarus Pit.” He says desperately. Damian picks up the body, but Marinette runs in front of him, blocking his path, stuffing down the tiny spark of elation at seeing her oldest, and largest tormentor dead.
“Akhi, you know the Pit cannot heal bodies this damaged. Ra’s is gone for good.” Damian sets the corpse back down and bows his head, tears glimmering in his eyes but refusing to fall.
Talia puts a hand on each of their shoulders. “You did your best.”
“I failed.” Her brother says. Marinette lets her hand rest on top of his, offering him silent comfort. We both did.
“We can’t think about that now. We must move.” Talia says. “Damian. Marinette. Come.”
Marinette stands obediently, but Damian stays a moment longer. “Damian. Now!”
Marinette gently grasps her brother’s wrist and pulls him to his feet, following her mother out of the room.
“...Where are we going?” Damian asks.
“Gotham City.” Talia replies. “It’s time you meet your father.”
.o0o.
The ride to Gotham City is tense. Damian repeatedly polishes his katana, while Marinette continuously opens and closes her fans.
Their father is Bruce Wayne. World’s richest man, known for his work in many charities and for his ‘playboy’ reputation. At night, known as Gotham’s Dark Knight. In other words, their father is Batman.
Talia leaves them on the boat, choosing to track down their father and bring him back herself.
Marinette turns to Damian once she’s sure her mother is gone. “I would like to spar you, akhi. It would be a good outlet for both our feelings right now.”
Damian scans at the space around them. “As much as I want to agree, this space isn’t nearly large enough for a productive spar.”
Marinette huffs. “You are right. I shall meditate instead. The Pit rage has not completely receded yet from the fight.”
“Remind me why Mother wants us to stay behind this curtain again?”
“Officially, it is because she wants to keep us hidden until she is sure he will accept us. Unofficially, I think it is because she would like to seduce him first.” Marinette replies.
Their mother comes back not long after, with the footsteps of a tall man trying to be as silent as possible. Batman.
“Would you like a drink?” Talia asks.
“Last time that didn’t go so well.” A deep voice responds.
“Oh, you’re right. If I remember correctly, I put a little something in your beverage.”
“Same way I remember it.”
Damian and Marinette exchange a look. So this is how they were born.
“It made you romantic.”
“It made me do what you wanted.”
“Was it all bad, Beloved?”
A pause. “...No. It wasn’t.”
Marinette tunes out after that until Talia says “And now this man wants to kill us.” Her heels click closer to the curtain.
“Us?” Batman asks.
“Not you.” Talia replies. “Me.” She draws back the curtain, letting Damian and Marinette step out of the shadows.
“And your children.”
“Children?” Batman says, only the slightest change in tone indicating his surprise. “You expect me to believe this?”
“I assure you, they’re yours.” Talia says easily.
Damian, always the more confident of the two, walks up to their father and eyes him up and down. “Don’t look so stunned, Father. I thought you’d be taller.”
Marinette raises an eyebrow at her twin. “Akhi, he is six feet and four inches tall already. Any taller, and he would be a tree.”
Batman stays silent, choosing to glare? Stare? Do something that Marinette didn’t know because the white lenses hid his eyes and his facial expression doesn’t change.
.o0o.
The boat drives away, leaving Marinette and Damian with their father.
“You didn’t know about us.” Marinette states.
“No.” Batman is not known for his eloquence.
“So Mother has made us your responsibility.” Damian snarks, but there is an air of seriousness to it.
“Something like that.”
Marinette squeezes her brother’s hand for reassurance. “This isn’t necessary. We can both do fine by ourselves.”
“So do I. But things have changed. Your mother thinks that the two of you are better off with me for the time being.”
Damian raises an eyebrow. “What do you think?”
“Better than with the League of Assassins.” Their father replies.
“They taught us how to fight.” Damian says hotly.
“And I take it, not much else.”
“Actually, Father, that is not true.” Marinette jumps in. “In addition to learning many forms of martial arts and how to wield plenty of weapons, Damian and I are years ahead of a normal curriculum and we are both fluent in twenty languages. We can also play multiple instruments. My brother prefers piano and violin, while I tend to favor woodwinds such as the flute and oboe.”
Batman grunts and presses a button on his belt. The Batmobile opens, and the twins follow their father towards it.
“I’ll drive.” Damian says.
“No.” Their father grumbles.
“I know how.”
“No.”
“Can I drive then?” Marinette asks.
“No!”
Once they’re settled in the car, Batman hits the ‘Call’ button for someone named Alfred.
“Alfred.”
“Yes sir?” The butler has an impeccable British accent, much like Marinette and Damian’s. She can put on an American accent at will, but she preferred the sound of the British one. It was more structurally elegant.
“We’re going to have company. Prepare two rooms.”
“A sleepover? Oh, goody.”
“Actually, we would like to share a room.” Marinette says. “It would make us feel more comfortable.”
“I shall prepare a bunk bed then.”
“We don’t have a bunk bed. Alfred, where-” The call hangs up.
The Batcave is everything Marinette has ever imagined. Dark, yes, but full of state-of-the-art technology, vigilante costumes, and a medbay off to the side. Plus, a lot of bats.
An elderly man greets them when they exit the Batmobile. “Welcome back sir. I presume this is the young man and lady of whom you spoke?”
Damian strides up to the man and tries to stare him down. “Hello, Pennyworth. I’ve heard about you.”
Alfred bows. “At your service, Master Damian and Miss Marinette.”
“Would you prefer it if we called you Alfred, Mister Pennyworth?” Marinette asks.
“If you are comfortable calling me Alfred, then yes, I would prefer it.”
Damian looks around the cave. “Where are the rest of the servants?”
Alred raises an eyebrow. “I am the sum total.”
“You have only one servant?” Her brother says condescendingly to Batman, who looks a little awkward.
Marinette squeezes his hand. “Akhi, do not be rude. Our father was gracious enough to let us stay, although he did not have to. It would be counterproductive to his nightly activities if there were too many people who knew about it.”
“He’s not a servant.” Batman says. “He’s a friend.”
Marinette smiles at Alfred. “Pleasure to meet you, Alfred, friend of the Dark Knight.” She curtsies with perfect posture, the way she was taught, eliciting a smile from the man.
Damian sniffs and walks over to the Batcomputer. “So this is the fabled Batcave. Grandfather told me all about it.” Her brother sits down in the chair, inspecting the computer, then turns around and folds his hands, looking every bit like their grandfather.
“I, too, have heard about this place, but never from Ra’s or Mother. It was Lady Shiva who informed me instead.”
Damian frowns. “It is not your fault that Grandfather was always disappointed in you. He was… biased against women.”
“Ra’s has been disappointed in me since the day I was born. I do not care for his opinion.” Marinette says easily.
She walks up the stairs to the loft with the vigilante costumes and grimaces. “Father, what is the meaning of these atrocities?”
Batman is nonplussed. “What?”
Marinette gestures to the Robin costumes. “This. Why are they colored like a traffic light? What happened to Gotham’s Dark Knight, the epitome of stealth? Why were your proteges such eyesores? What exactly is the function of a bright yellow cape in the city of darkness?”
“This one does not even have pants.” Damian says tiredly. “Why would one fight criminals without pants?”
“Master Dick was a boy when he wore that.” Alfred says. “As for Master Jason and Master Tim, the Robin colors are now tradition. It is a legacy, the mantle being passed from boy to boy.”
“Never very peacefully though.” Damian comments. “The first Robin became Nightwing after a falling out with you, father. The second one took on the mantle not long after, and when he died, the third one, who found out your identity, essentially blackmailed you into taking him on. When the second Robin came back as Red Hood, he attempted to kill the third Robin on multiple occasions, did he not?”
“Akhi! Do you not have any tact? The death of family members is always a sensitive subject!” Marinette hisses, in Icelandic. It is highly unlikely that they will understand it.
“You don’t seem too sad about Grandfather’s death, ukhti.” Damian retorts.
“Ra’s holds no special place in my heart. He sent me to train with Shiva from birth. You and I may have both grown up fighting, but you were treated like a prince, akhi. I was the lowest of the low. You endured hardships, yes, but you have never died. Nobody dared to kill you in training. I did not have such luxuries.”
“Would you like to see where you’ll be sleeping?” Alfred asks. “It is getting late.”
They follow him out of the Batcave and into the Manor.
“Are the others sleeping?” Marinette inquires.
“Hopefully. Master Dick is returning from Bludhaven tomorrow night. Master Jason currently at the Manor, recovering from some fractured ribs, and Master Timothy will likely be out for another six hours after Master Jason sedated him so he could get a full night’s sleep. Miss Cassandra should be asleep as well, though I think she will now be awake from the sound of our voices and our footsteps.”
“Cassandra Cain, correct?” Marinette says thoughtfully. “Daughter of Lady Shiva, Batgirl. A master at reading body language, capable of beating just about anybody in a fight. I was trained to match her, but my skills are nowhere as precise as hers.”
“Yes. Miss Cassandra is very proficient in reading body language. She knows a lot more than she lets on.” Alfred stops in front of a door.
“This will be your room. You will obviously have free run of the Manor, although I would suggest not going into any of the other bedrooms without the occupant’s permission. The door on your left leads to a bathroom, and the door on the right leads to a game room.”
“Thank you, Alfred.” Marinette says, when it is clear that Damian will not be saying anything polite. “If it is alright with you, we would like to be alone now.”
“Of course, Miss Marinette. Goodnight, Miss Marinette, Master Damian.” The door shuts behind him.
Damian immediately gets to work, searching the room for any bugs and finding none. Marinette opens the closet and pulls out two sets of pajamas: one in green and one in lavender. She grabs the lavender ones and lays the green ones out on the bottom bunk for Damian.
“Akhi, I am going to take a quick shower. It has been far too long since the last one.”
“I am claiming the bottom bunk, ukhti. I will investigate Ubu’s location while you are gone.”
Marinette heads into the massive bathroom and turns on the shower. Hot water comes streaming down immediately, and she marvels at the sight. Damian, being the heir to the Demon’s Head, would be used to it, of course, but as a female, she was seen as far below his status and was treated as such. She didn’t even know she was an al Ghul until after her first death.
Marinette knows that her twin brother was always treated with much more reverence, resulting in much more confidence and arrogance on his part. Damian has been exposed to the Pit, but he has never been killed. When she returned to Nanda Parbat at age nine, Damian was condescending at best. He did not believe her to be worthy of his time, no matter the blood bond between them. Just like Ra’s al Ghul, the man he was trying to grow up to be.
She changed that when Talia ordered them to spar, with Ra’s as a witness. They traded blows for hours, evenly matched, and it became evident that neither would lose unless the other collapsed from exhaustion. Ra’s decided to end the spar, and Marinette left the room tired and sweaty, but satisfied.
Damian was a lot more willing to talk to her after that, and she finally got to bond with her brother, even if he was rude at times.
Ra’s was not so easy to please. Marinette spent the rest of her time at the compound trying, but he would not acknowledge her no matter what she did. She would never be good enough anyway, so Marinette stopped trying. It wasn’t like she couldn’t take on any assassins he tried to send her way. (She killed six in the year she spent at Nanda Parbat.)
She and Damian bonded fairly easily after that. They never slept in the same quarter, but Marinette requested that they be put in the same room at the Manor for a couple reasons. One, so they could have some familiarity in this new city, and two, so they could plan Ubu’s demise without arousing suspicion.
Marinette stares at the mirror as she dries her hair. Tan skin, littered with lighter scars of all shapes and sizes, not noticeable unless one looked for long. Her eyes are the same shade of blue as her father’s, unlike Damian’s piercing green. Her midnight black hair was chopped short for practicality in combat. She slips on the pajamas and heads out of the bathroom.
Damian is sitting on the bottom bunk, clad in the green pajamas with a laptop on his lap. “I found Ubu’s location. He’s also in Gotham.”
“Good.” Marinette says coldly. “That means we can get him ourselves.”
“I shall make sure he dies a painful death.”
“Only after we get the information, akhi.”
That was another difference between them. Damian had no qualms about killing. He saw it as the only way to defeat someone in a fight, unless it was a spar. Marinette, while fully capable of ending a life, hated it. She did not kill unless absolutely necessary, or when the rage of the Pit overtook her, which did not happen almost at all. She had gotten a lot better at controlling the madness.
“Ubu does not plan on moving for quite a while. He is certain that he is safe here. We do not have to make a move tonight.” Damian shuts the laptop. “You should sleep, ukhti. It has been quite a long day.”
Marinette gives him a small smile. “It has been a long day for you too, akhi. We both have to sleep.”
She flips off the lights and climbs up to the top bunk. “Goodnight Damian.”
“Goodnight, Marinette.”
Marinette closes her eyes in the unfamiliar bed and lets the darkness overcome her.
Next
Update: the tag list for this fic is now closed. Everyone who either asked or commented has been put on the list! Thanks for your support! 😊
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