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kiame-sama · 4 years

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28 years (1st pregnancy)- Yandere!Silva x Reader (tiny lime)

One of you lovies, requested to know what I think Silva acted like during the first pregnancy in 28 Years! I am currently working on part 3 of 28 years and should have it out sometime soon, but for now, here's the backstory of when Illumi was born! If you would like more from this vein, perhaps I'll just make 28 years into a full-blooded story!

Warnings; mention of blood, protective Silva, mention of adult themes from '28 Years', the struggles of pregnancy, mention of abusive behavior, hypersensitivity, surprisingly fluffy moments, a bit of ooc, Silva's depravity, creepy moments, ANGST, tiny lime moment, milk (women do produce it during pregnancy, after all), MORE ANGST, mention of depression,

~~~~~~

That night, after the female doctor checked you and confirmed you were pregnant, almost everything changed.

She had confirmed you were pregnant after her initial inspection and was promptly told to leave. Quickly following, you had fallen back into a fitful sleep, tired from your sudden sickness and the realization that you were carrying this monster's infant.

You woke up several hours later in your bed, feeling more well rested than you had in years. The room from the beginning had been rather sparsely decorated and had a few modest blankets over the slightly uncomfortable bed.

But now, everything was different.

The bed beneath you was unbelievably soft and plush. It was far more comfortable than it had been before, practically enveloping your body and supporting you. It was covered with a heavenly cloth that was what you assumed to be some kind of high-grade material that you could never afford. Many blankets and similar items had been added during your nap, and they now wrap around your figure comfortably.

Shelves, drawers, and other such things had been added to the room as well. You quickly noticed that all sharp corners and hard edges on the furniture had been sanded smooth. The hard floor had been covered with what looked to be unbelievably soft carpet.

It stunned you and you almost got up before voices came close, quickly pretending you were asleep, making sure to keep your breaths even.

"-stays comfortable. If I didn't know better, I would say you've become more than just interested in her, Silva."

"I told you from the first day she arrived, I have no intention of leaving or losing her."

"Your children are next in the Zoldyck line, so they should carry on the family business and name."

"I'm not losing her to anything, old-man. I'm not losing her to illness. I'm not letting her go. And I'm not losing her life for an heir."

"Her having your child proves she is yours and only yours, doesn't it?"

"..."

"That's what you want, isn't it? That's what you've wanted from the moment you first laid eyes on her. You've wanted her to belong to you, to love you, to worship you like you do to her. You want her to fear you enough to respect your authority, but refuse to actually lay a harmful hand on her. You need her like a drug so you refuse to let her go. You don't want to lose her? Then don't."

"..."

After another moment of silence, you heard the door to your room open for a moment before before gently closing, Silva likely checking in on you. It was odd, as he didn't usually show much concern for your desires or comfort. He would take you when he wished even if you didn't want him to, he always had that strong chain keeping you from being able to reach the door or window, he hardly cared if you wanted to leave or wanted him to leave.

But now it sounded like your captor showed more concern for you than he had initially let on. You had been so scared that he would truly kill you if you didn't obey, but Zeno is making it seem like Silva would never actually harm you like that. He likely needed you more than even he thought, so he refuses to bargain your health for anything.

"Fine. But I'm not taking contracts while she is pregnant."

"That's fine."

"And if it is between her life or the infant's, there is no question that I will choose for her to live. If she dies and the child lives, I'll kill it myself."

You shivered at the sudden dark tone that his voice had taken and you tried not to flinch or react when the door opened again. You couldn't hear the approaching footsteps but you continued your act, laying as still and relaxed as you possibly could. Just because you knew he wouldn't kill you now, doesn't mean you wanted to push him that far just to test it out.

If he thought you were resting, you may learn even more on how you might escape or what you could use to your advantage. For a moment you considered holding the life of the infant hostage, but it was clear he didn't care about the child enough to release you. That thought, however, quickly left your mind as you knew it wouldn't work and you didn't want to draw an innocent life into it.

The child may be of your captor, but an infant shouldn't bear the sins of the parent. If you really were stuck here, why would you ever allow the child to be hurt by your hands? No. As long as you could help it, your child will be safe from their dangerous father and will be protected in your arms.

The bed slightly slumped somewhere near your body as Silva sat down. You knew it was him from the moment the door had opened, but the slight trailing touch on your shoulder confirmed it. Silva barely allowed the female doctor to touch you, so of course he wouldn't let Zeno touch you.

"It seems you truly do care for the woman. At first it seemed that this was just lust, but that isn't it. You love this woman, don't you?"

"... Yes."

The sudden voice of Zeno almost made you jolt as it seems both assassins were in the room with you. Silva was closer to you, judging by the volume of his voice. Another soft touch on your shoulder slightly soothed you, as you were feeling more than a little starved for gentle contact.

You let yourself enjoy the moment, even if it was gentle affection from the man who destroyed your life. The continued gentle action made you actually slip into sleep, resting easy even with two killers nearby.

~~~~~~

You were around three months into your pregnancy and you almost felt like you were actually in a relationship with the terrifying man.

Almost.

You were still collared and your collar was still attached to a chain. You weren't allowed to go outside, no matter how many times or what way you asked.

Beyond that, however, Silva was more accommodating and gentle with you. He no longer took you against your will anymore, instead he held you close and had you sit on his lap. You weren't ecstatic about being forced to cuddle with him, but it was better than the alternative.

He spent almost all of his time with you, needing some kind of contact with you at all times. You faintly assumed it was his way of satisfying his need for you that didn't involve fucking you.

You were currently seated upon his lap, reading a book from the many he had left in the room for you. It was some kind of adventure book, but you weren't really paying attention. As you went to flip to the next page, a sudden pain in your abdomen forced you to drop it, letting out a light cry of pain.

"What? What's wrong? Answer me!"

You felt his form rigid beneath you, one of his hands on your thigh and the other on your stomach. You shook your head, getting your breath back from being so suddenly winded by the sharp pain.

"It's done... It's done..."

"What is?"

"The pain... It's gone..."

"What happened?"

Silva's voice was a low growl and his grip on your leg tightened slightly. He seemed more stressed than you were at that moment and you hesitantly rested your hands over his. At the warmth of your hands he slowly relaxed, frowning in displeasure.

"I don't know what happened. It's probably nothing."

"I'm having your doctor check you."

"I said it's nothing."

"And I say you are going to be checked. I already dislike the pregnancy, I'm not going to let you die and leave me because of it."

He moved to set you gently on the couch as he left to retrieve the kind doctor.

You almost wanted to sigh in displeasure at the idea. Though you appreciated your doctor you felt like you had seen her almost every day.

Her name was Kikyo and she served two roles at the Zoldyck estate. The first being your doctor, as she was well versed in medicine. The second being your decoy.

Apparently her family tried to set her up with Silva and quickly abandoned her afterwards. Zeno often refered to her with a cruel title, "that useless woman," as she was infertile. Her family had been slaughtered for daring to try and trick them, and only by her medical abilities was she saved from suffering the same fate.

Shortly after she arrived at the estate, Silva had brought you in as well. She was the only female there who had medical experience and so she was spared under the condition of playing her two roles.

As your doctor, she obviously took over your primary care. As your stand-in, she was the one who attended meetings and other things of the like to seem like she was married to Silva. Others only saw her and not you, meaning she would be targeted should anyone try to attack the family.

You had made a pact with her, that if anything should happen to you, she would take your child and run. She couldn't have children and you could never leave. You both suffered something and so, you both connected on a different level. Outside of other Zoldycks, she was the only one allowed to come see you.

She was an unlikely friend in your dark new life. You took comfort in her presence and she took comfort in yours. Though you two barely got to speak due to Silva's possessive behavior, you had both formed a near unbreakable friendship.

You looked up when the door opened once more, Silva entering followed closely by Kikyo. You kept a calm facade as you knew that Silva would become jealous should you show excitement upon seeing her, and you would rather not risk the life of your friend.

"What's happening?"

"Sudden sharp pain. It didn't last long, but it certainly was there."

"Centered around the stomach?"

"Yes."

You sat as still as possible, feeling Silva's eyes bore into you from across the room as Kikyo examined you. She gently lifted your loose shirt to prod gently at your stomach. You let out a small squeak of pain when she put light pressure in a certain spot, making her focus on that area.

"It just started today?"

"Yeah..."

"And localized around here primarily?"

"Yes."

"Hm... Might have to preform an ultrasound to see what's going on. Women are more likely to lose their child around the end of the first trimester at three months in. Could be the embryotic sack has been punctured, or it is just a simple pain of your body adjusting to the child. Regardless, it should be checked."

You nodded and she stood, looking over at Silva.

"Sir, I will need to retrieve the ultrasound equipment. Likely should do it soon since these pains can indicate something life-threatening to both her and the-"

"Stay here. I will send out others to retrieve it immediately."

Kikyo nodded and returned to kneeling in front of you, continuing her examination of your slightly swelling stomach. Silva paused at the door, only for a moment and looked back at you and Kikyo, his eyes cold as the darkest ice.

"If she dies or if anything happens to her, I will torture you for days on end and flay you alive. Understood?"

"... Yes, sir."

With that he left, closing the door behind him. You wasted no time in resting your hands on her shoulders and pulling her into a hug, both to comfort her and yourself.

"I wish he didn't threaten you, I'm so sorry..."

"It's not your fault. We were both thrown unwillingly into this life. We didn't choose this, it was chosen for us. I'm just glad I can help in whatever way I can."

~~~~~~

Five months in and you were already so sick of it. Sick of being stuck in a room. Sick of being told to sit down and rest. Sick of having cravings. All of it.

Pickles and chocolate sauce? Watermelon and pretzels? And damn it, you could barely remember things at times. SIMPLE things. And not to mention all of the tossing and turning because nothing was comfortable anymore.

And the mood-swings. Oh hell, the mood-swings. You can be happily pacing as you've taken to recently, but the moment Silva tells you to sit and rest you're sobbing hysterically or shouting at him. Your faintly surprised he hasn't retaliated or snapped at you. No, he just stays infuriatingly calm and holds you until you calm down or pass out.

It was surprisingly more comfortable to sit on him than the couch or bed, as the way you can lean back and still have support around your stomach did wonders for the back pain.

You leaned back against the warm chest behind you, wanting to just sleep and relax instead of pacing as you usually did. You were starting to slip into sleep when you tugged at your shirt, feeling a wet sensation on your chest.

You opened your eyes to snap at Silva for toying with you, but his hands were resting beneath your stomach. A small bit of confusion sparked in your tired mind so you reached up to examine your shirt. Indeed, there were two wet spots on your shirt.

Out of confusion and lack of caring, you lifted your top completely to examine your chest. To your surprise, white liquid was beading up on your breasts.

"What the hell..?"

Your question drew Silva's attention, making him lean forward to see what you were looking at.

"Seems you've started producing milk early."

"But... That isn't supposed to happen until right before the baby's born..."

"It can happen early... Sometimes months early."

One hand slowly trailed up your stomach, making you shiver in stress. His movement was so slow and sensual that you felt worried he would try something, seeing as he had left you alone for months now. You let out a soft whimper when he cupped your chest, thumb gathering the liquid.

He growled at your whimper, retracting his hand from you and licking the cream off of his thumb. His pupils were fully dilated and focused only on you. He was snapped out of his trance-like state when you protectively wrapped your arms around your stomach.

He stopped himself and frowned, letting his hands rest where they had been, the lust was clear in his eyes. It seemed to be ripping him to pieces to have to resist touching you. His eyes trailed to your stomach and you could have sworn you saw hate in them. When he spoke next, it was softer, gentler. Almost like a low croon.

"You know... I have no intention of sharing you with anyone. No one gets to touch you like I do and no one should even lay their eyes on you other than me. Do you know what I thought when I saw you for the first time?"

"..."

"I thought I had died and actually woke up in the afterlife. I don't believe in any of that, even if my great-grandfather does. But I honestly thought you were an angel."

"..what-?"

"From that moment I knew I had to have you. To hold you. To keep you in my arms. I knew I wasn't going to share you with anyone or let anyone take you from me. So I clipped your wings. Now my angel can't fly away from me. Now you're for my eyes only."

His low voice in your ear made a whimper escape your lips, very suddenly feeling unsafe in his arms. You slowly wrapped your arms around you, moving your hands beneath his, not wanting him to touch your stomach anymore.

His eyes flickered for only a moment, to you stomach and then back at you, a displeased look in his eyes. You began to feel more attached to the life growing within you, now wanting to keep both you and your child safe from the man who claimed to love you.

~~~~~~

Eight months.

Eight long months.

You've begun to notice how Silva has been acting more and more aggressive than usual. He is becoming visibly irate whenever he looks at your stomach, seeming to dislike how he had to leave you alone. He was antsy, he was impatient, he wanted nothing to do with the impending arrival of the infant.

It was only now that you realized what could happen to you. Silva already disliked the child and he had spoken many times about refusing to share you. The child you have been trying so hard to protect would be taken from you.

You just knew it. He would never let you keep your baby.

You began to refuse to let him touch your stomach. You refused to let him hold you. When you would sleep, you did so on your side, facing away from him.

Your actions seemed to bother him in a whole new way. At one point, he seemed to be affectionate towards the life inside of you, even waking you in the night while speaking to it. But now, he was a completely different person.

It seemed he disliked sharing your attention with the soon to be born infant. Like he no longer saw it as a way to possess you, but a threat to his time with you. A threat to him.

Your actions of turning away from him only made it worse. Instead of protecting the child, you only made him begin to loathe it. It threatened him now, and it was taking the attention he felt entitled to.

You worried what would happen when the child was finally born.

~~~~~~

The unconscious woman awoke with a start, panting heavily and looking around. She was in bed. The lights in the room were turned off, and a figure slept next to her.

The first thing she noticed was that her stomach was no longer as extended as it had once been. An emptiness within that made a whimper escape her lips. Her hand resting over her stomach.

"You're awake."

A deep voice from the figure beside her rumbled out, slowly sitting up.

"Where is he?"

"Who?"

"You know who! Where is my baby?"

"..."

"Damn it, answer me!"

"Dead. Died during birth."

The world shattered in that moment. Nothing was real. Nothing made sense.

"I don't believe you... I don't believe you! You killed him didn't you!?"

"(Y/n), stop. This isn't-"

"I heard him cry. I know my baby didn't die during birth. I heard him cry."

The tense silence was nearly deafening, only to be broken by sobs as her anger gave way to crushing grief.

"(Y/n)-"

"Don't touch me you murderer! You killed my baby! You couldn't stand me looking at anyone but you, so you killed him!"

"I did not kill the infant-"

"Stop lying to me!"

She slowly stumbled out of bed, covering her eyes and sobbing. Silva let her go, knowing she would react this way. Of course, he could have told her that the child survived, and the both of them almost died after she gave birth. But he didn't want her to know the child was still alive.

He believed lying to her was more merciful so she could move on faster. But, if she learns the child is still alive, she will never let it go.

But he was wrong. He was so wrong. It had been weeks, and still she wept. Still she paced. Still she pulled on her chain desperately towards the door, hand stretched out as far as possible.

She refused to be consoled, practically feral every time he tried to touch her. She suffered. She would sit for hours, nearly choking herself in attempts to get out to search for any sign of her child being alive. She would pace with empty eyes, arms wrapped around herself as if to try and keep it together.

She was lost. She wailed until her voice was gone. She clawed at him until his arms bled- a rather impressive feat on its own- leaving scars behind.

Then, three weeks after being separated from her child, she disappeared. Her collar on the floor, door open, and nowhere in sight.

"No one saw her leave!? All of you, eyes everywhere and not one of you saw her get out?! Search for her. Now. If any of you dare come back empty-handed I will slaughter all of you."

The butlers scrambled and scurried from the room like rats, all terrified to look back at those cold blue eyes.

"Where is the infant?"

"She wanted him to be named Illumi, and he's in the nursery. She didn't take him. I doubt she even knew he was still alive."

"She's convinced that he is."

"And she's right. It was a foolish mistake to take him from her. She-"

Silva's fist silenced the chastising words of his father, the very wall cracking and breaking. His hand was sunk into the concrete and the metal behind it was bending under the pressure. He had done it with his own raw strength and rage at his little darling being allowed to slip away. He didn't use his Nen, but his bare hand.

"I know. I'm well aware it was foolish. But someone let her out."

"What do you mean?"

"She was set loose by someone. The collar was opened, not torn. The door was unlocked, not burst open. Her tracker was removed, by someone who knew it was there."

"Someone helped her escape."

The soft sound of heels clicking against the ground drew the attention of the two men. Kikyo had arrived.

"There is no blood in the room. So she wasn't taken by force. There were no prints either. Nothing but her own. There is a slight residue left behind, likely from disposable gloves. She was let out by someone who knew what they were doing. Whoever it was likely told her the true fate of her infant."

"If that's so, why didn't she take him?"

"Perhaps she knew not to. She could have assumed that the child is alive somewhere else, or she could believe that the child is safer if she didn't take him."

Silva was about to turn his rage against Kikyo before a soft knock sounded. Silva did not move from his spot, fist still sunken deep within the wall. Zeno was the one to open the door and receive the news, knowing what would result the moment Silva heard it.

"She's been located."

"Where?"

~~~~~~

Empty eyes.

Devoid of light, of emotion, of anyone still left within.

Like a doll with all of the stuffing having been torn out. She doesn't move anymore. She doesn't eat. She doesn't make a single sound.

She sits with her knees pulled up to her chest, her arms around them. She hasn't blinked for who knows how long. Her arms and legs covered in blooming purple marks shaped like hands. She doesn't even cry anymore.

"What is wrong with her? Answer me now."

"She's checked out completely."

"The hell does that mean?"

"It means she's so mentally, physically, and emotionally broken she's not there anymore. Maybe deep inside, buried away, but that isn't her anymore. Humans can withstand many things that should kill them. But those who go through extreme loss, or abuse-"

The doctor was cut off, a hand wrapped tightly around her neck, causing her to choke. She tried weakly to claw at the iron grip, though her nails didn't even break the skin.

"Choose your next words wisely. I do not abuse my wife. She needed to learn that running from me solves nothing for her. It only results in suffering to leave. She will not leave again. And if she doesn't leave, she won't be hurt again."

With that he dropped the choking woman to the ground, watching with cold eyes as she gasped and fought to breathe. Still, the woman in the corner did not move, her eyes staring through everyone. She was gaunt, pale, and seemed lifeless.

"She won't come back. Not on her own. You say you taught her to not run? She won't. Not anymore. She isn't even in there anymore to think about running."

Even in his anger, he knew she was right. He knew he had gone too far. He knew his little wife was broken. He hadn't intended on pushing her that far or harming her as he did. Her flame was gone. Her eyes were empty.

That was not his angel. That was a shell.

"Then how do I fix it?"

"I don't know."

"How do I fix it!?"

"I don't know!"

The cry of an infant was heard clearly throughout the room, nearly echoing off the walls. It had come from the door that led out of the cell, and was getting louder.

"What the hell is that old fool doing? Does he honestly think bringing that thing will help-"

"Baby?"

A croaking and strained voice met Silva's ears, silencing him and drawing his complete attention.

She had moved.

She could barely crawl, let alone walk, but still she was drawn to the door, like a moth to a flame. She reached the length of the chain and still kept trying to reach the door, whining in desperation.

"Baby..! My baby..!"

Her voice was strained and gasping but still she extended her arms as far as she could reach, choking herself with the collar. Then it finally opened as Zeno entered, a swaddling of blankets in his arms fussing and crying.

"Baby! BABY!"

Her voice was screeching at this point, fingers tense with stained muscles, all of her energy focused on reaching out to the tiny life in the arms of the elder. He did not hesitate to place the crying infant into her arms, allowing her to retreat to her corner with the bundle held close.

Curling her body protectively, she gently moved the blankets from the face of her child. A soft cooing noise coming from deep within her as she rocked the infant.

"My baby... My Illumi... My light..."

She continued to coo low hums and soft whispering to the now quiet child. Her entire being seeming to strain and hurt, but she still smiled, rocking the infant slowly.

Zeno then joined the two who were silenced by the sudden revitalization of the previously broken woman.

"How did you know that would work?"

"Boy, do you think you're the only one in the entire family who has found someone this precious to them? It tends to run in the family. Yes, you went too far. We all did. Wonder why you're an only child? Why I am an only child? The only difference is she was able to be brought back, and you had better not do it again, do you hear me? You don't know what that loss truly feels like. It will destroy you if you let it. I didn't let it. My father did."

There was a silence in the air at the revelation. The realization of what could happen and what has happened.

"You do not harm her again, because she won't survive it. You will not take that child away until she has healed. And you damn well won't allow this to happen again."

The gentle cooing continued, followed by soft sounds of an infant babbling. Small hands rest against the pale (s/c) cheeks of his mother, large doll eyes gazing up intelligently. He knew who she was. He had heard her voice many times. She was comfort, and her heartbeat gently pulled him into sleep.

"Baby... My baby."

Her soft words carried as she curled on her side, cradling the infant and using her arms as a bed. Her back turned to the others, facing the corner and humming softly, joining the infant in slumber.

"I won't let her get like this again."

#Silva Zoldyck #hxh silva #Silva #daddy silva #silva x reader #yandere #yandere silva x reader #yandere silva #Female reader #fem reader #pregnant reader

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im-just-a-random-fandom-girl · 3 years

Text

trying to articulate my frustrations with Marvel’s treatment of female characters and characters of color

Hi, hello, hola, bonjour. I've been having a lot of thoughts about Marvel’s lack of diversity and of how they treat minority characters, so I'm taking a page out of Luisa’s (@its-tortle) book and just making a long, rambley post to get it all out.

Please bear with me while I try to encapsulate all of my frustration within the limitations of English language.

(ALSO, I'm white. I’m Spanish-American, but I do not have the ability to speak for fans of color and the other grievances they have. This post is just a combination of my own thoughts and what I've heard other people say on Tumblr, in YouTube videos, in articles etc.)

Now that we've had over week to collect ourselves after the WandaVision finale, because it was such a tearjerker and the end of a true masterpiece of a show, we really need to talk about how Marvel treats their their characters of color and female characters. I'll specifically be looking at Sam Wilson, Natasha Romanoff, and Monica Rambeau.

Let's start with Sam.

Until Monica Rambeau became Photon just a few weeks ago in WandaVision, Sam was THE ONLY Black superhero in the MCU.

He first appeared in Captain America: The Winter Soldier 7 years ago in 2014, and he's been in 4 movies since then (not counting the post-credits of Ant-Man).

Let's see what we know about Sam in the MCU:

He was a pararescue airman in the U.S. Airforce

His wing-man, Riley, died in combat, prompting him to leave active duty

He works at the VA to help other veterans adjust to civilian life

That's it. This is all we know about his backstory, separate from Captain America. However, the MCU decided to include these parts of his backstory, (and exclude others) because they make him a better supporting character to Steve.

Sam's a vet - so is Steve. They have the same, early-morning run routine that alludes to strict military training. Steve is still new to the future and hardly knows or approaches anyone, but Sam is wearing his VA sweatshirt, so there's some sense of connection, one that is furthered when they talk about their beds being too soft. Sam is someone who can understand him, aside from being a super soldier.

Riley, Sam's wingman, died in combat - Hmm, haven't heard that one befo - oh, wait. *Bucky waves from the abyss of the Alps*. Yeah.

I'm not saying that these connections are bad, in fact, I think the opposite. In terms of storyline, these connections are incredibly important for their friendship. Steve is lost and alone in the future. No one he knows cares about him for any reason other than the fact that he's a super soldier, nor can he relate to any of those people on any level. Sam just fits. He's funny and kind and although they are 60 years apart in age, he can, to some extent, understand what Steve is going through in a way they no one else can.

But for the last 7 years in the MCU, all he's been is Steve's supportive friend.

Almost immediately after meeting Steve, Sam is dragged into an end-of-the-world battle. He readily agrees to put his life on the line to fight by Captain America's side. After SHIELD falls, Sam gives up his life for 2 years to help Steve find Bucky. When they find him, Sam, without a second thought, becomes an international fugitive to protect Bucky and Steve.

I mean, he practically says that he lives in Steve's shadow himself:

"Don't look at me. I do what he does, just slower."

Who does all this? Seriously? Sam is also a recovering vet. He, in theory, has a life, a family, a job, his own mental well-being to consider, but he immediately gives it all up to help Captain America, to follow in his shadow, to be his back-up and support in every battle. Marvel wrote him as a 2D character that lacks his own identity and agency.

Sam deserves his own storyline; he deserves to exist outside the orbit of Steve Rogers.

What Mackie has been able to do with the character is astounding. He took Sam off the page and truly brought him to life, turning him into a beloved character. I'm ecstatic that both Mackie and Sam finally (hopefully) get their time to shine in TFATWS, but it should have happened WAY sooner. Marvel has continuously overlooked Mackie, despite how much he brings to the movies and despite the significance of Sam as the only Black superhero. It's just so clear that they do not care about representation.

(And let's not start with the whole "Bucky should be Captain America" thing, thanks)

Next, let's talk about Natasha.

Nat has been in the MCU for 11 years, starting with Iron Man 2 in 2010. She was heavily featured in an additional 6 MCU movies (not including small cameos/post-credit sequences). She's one of the few female superheroes in the MCU, and the only one that's been there since the beginning. Nat was the only female superhero for 4 years until Gamora appeared in Guardians of the Galaxy.

Let's see what we know about Natasha's history:

She's a former KGB operative and assassin, trained in the Red Room project

When she was a part of the Red Room, she was sterilized

Clint Barton got her out of the Red Room and converted her to a SHIELD agent

THAT'S IT. The second point is actually nauseating because this is what she says to Banner when we learn about her infertility in Age of Ultron:

"They sterilize you. It’s efficient. One less thing to worry about, the one thing that might matter more than a mission. It makes everything easier — even killing. You still think you’re the only monster on the team?"

Like, actually, what the fuck? I remember watching this scene and having to rewind because I thought I mis-heard what she said. In truth, Natasha is probably referring to the terrible things she was forced to do as a KGB operative are what make her a "monster," but why in the world would they include this anecdote here?? It's just so distasteful and disgusting! It makes it seem like her infertility is what makes her a monster, perpetuating the misogynistic belief that the center of a woman's identity and purpose is to have children.

As Vox says in this article, the subject of Nat's infertility

"rears its head sub-textually when Black Widow sacrifices herself for the Soul Stone. [...] It’s reasonable for Natasha to make the calculation that Clint’s kids deserve to have a dad when they come back to life after the Avengers complete their “time heist.” But because of that Ultron plot, there’s also an insidious implication that Natasha’s infertility renders Black Widow just a little bit more disposable than the rest of her teammates."

Furthermore, Nat's death in Endgame serves for nothing more than motivation for the other characters working in the time heist, WHICH ARE ALL MALE. Even then, the other characters talk about her death briefly (in a mostly unaffected manner), and by the end of the movie, she's been pretty much forgotten about, completely overshadowed by Tony Stark.

I don't want to say that Nat shouldn't have died in Endgame. It caused me so much heartache and emotional pain, but I truly believe it was a great way to end her arc. CinemaWins on YouTube put it best:

"She needed to save her family, Clint included, finally wiping the red from her ledger. So much of her jouney in the MCU was trying to find her purpose, figure out which side she was on, and she finally feels like she's found it, just in time to die for it.

"It's not wrong to feel cheated by her death, [but I think] she deserved this moment because of it's importance."

She says it in the movie:

"I used to have nothing, and then I got this. This family. And I was better because of it."

Nat shouldn't have to die, but it's on her terms, and she is absolutely ready for it. Saving her chosen family... that is her purpose.

But altogether, over the course of the MCU, Natasha was cheated out of getting the storyline she deserved. Like Sam, she was relegated to the position of the supportive friend of Steve, but also of Bruce and Clint. For the audience, her identity is tied to this role that she plays. The identity and motivations she has independent from these other characters, her history, is skimmed over, and treated with immense disrespect.

It took 11 years, but it is thrilling that Scarlett Johansson finally gets to be the start of her own Marvel movie. There is no way that Black Widow will be able to completely make up for her and Natasha's mistreatment by the MCU, but I hope it will at least bring us some closure and allow us to have a better understanding of Nat's history and who she is away from the other Avengers.

Last, but certainly not least (despite what WandaVision may have you believe) is Monica Rambeau.

I spoke about this last week after posting about this review of the show, but it bears repeating.

Monica is a new character. You'd hope that, after 11 years of extremely limited diversity in the MCU, much to the dismay of fans worldwide, and after recognizing this and creating a movie with a cast like The Eternals, Marvel would try to get their shit together across the board.

Nope!

Monica was seriously the token diversity character of the show. It seemed like they would give her more depth after the episode during which they flashed back to the her during and after the snap, losing her mother, and seeing a little bit of what she's done as an adult since Captain Marvel, but that ended up being the most we got.

But why? Monica literally became a SUPERHERO. She became Photon! She deserved a much greater role in the show, especially in the finale, where she instead had maybe 5 lines and just stopped some bullets for about 30 seconds.

As the review I linked says,

“There are so many black writers, fans, and critics noting how Monica got relegated to a complete lack relegated to meaningless best friend protector lacking in their own self agency and story except for making a shoehorned comparison of grief.”

Marvel made the same, bull-headed mistake that they made with Sam with Monica!

Let's do this again. Monica was snapped away for 5 years, and when she was snapped back, she learned that her mother had died. Losing someone you love and having the whole process of mourning and pain be complicated by the snap? What an interesti- oh wait. *Vision phases his head through the wall with a smile*

The only reason we got this backstory was because it made her a more sympathetic character towards Wanda. Her understanding of what Wanda is going through allows her to be the catalyst in the creation of the ideological fork in the road between herself, Darcy and Woo, who see Wanda as a victim of grief and loss, and Hayward and the rest of SHIELD, who see her as a dangerous threat.

How do you make the same, major mistake that you've been making for the past 7 years again? Guess what? You don't! Maybe it's not intentional, but Marvel, again, clearly doesn’t care enough about their characters of color to consider the roles they relegate them to in the MCU, realize what they've been doing is harmful, and then change it.

Hopefully, they will not continue to treat Monica this way and will remedy this in the next Captain Marvel.

In conclusion: MARVEL GAVE A FUCKING ROBOT AN ACTUAL ORIGIN STORY, A RELATIONSHIP AND MORE INDEPENDENCE THAN ALL OF THESE CHARACTERS.

But in all seriousness, Marvel needs to be help accountable for how they treat women and their characters of color in the MCU. I just looked at 3, but you could also make a similar argument about Rhodey, Hope van Dyne and Valkyrie, as well as Jane Foster, MJ, and Ned, although they are supporting characters and not superheroes. And I'm sure there are many others. Marvel (and Disney!!) has had an awful track-record, and change is long overdue.

#fuck marvel #fuck disney #sexism and racism in marvel #minorities in minor roles #thank you for coming to my TED talk #discussion #fatws #wandavision #sam wilson #natasha romanoff #black widow #monica rambeau

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phoenixlionme · 2 years

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Pixar’s Brave Rewrite

1. Title - Pixar should’ve kept the original title, “The Bear and the Bow”. It matched the theme of the story and sounds WAY BETTER.

2. Merida and Mor’du First Meeting - Same thing happens with Merida following the Wisps but she somehow ends up facing Mor’du. It’s tense, scary, and traumatizing. Merida tries to use her bow (she has her bow with her in this version) and arrow and it does work but not enough. Leading to #3.

3. Amputee Merida AND Fergus - Both of them are injured by Mor’du. Fergus still loses a leg while Merida an arm and blinded in one eye. For her arm, Merida uses a specialized prosthetic to help use a bow and arrow. Even making her prosthetic a makeshift crossbow. She also carries around other Scottish weapons that were typical of that time.

4. Muscular Merida - Given #3, Merida is not only more highly fit than the original but also absolutely ripped from head to toe.

5. Elinor Slowly Transforms into Bear - Her becoming a “bear” would symbolize her losing her sanity and be a metaphorical “death”. In such, she and Merida only have a number of days to bond (and find a cure) before she “dies”.

6. The Necklace - I don’t know how but it should be given more importance in this rewrite. It obviously meant something to Elinor.

7. Kept Deleted Scene - I would keep the deleted scene of Merida sneaking back into her room before her mother noticed but said mother does notice. It explained their relationship and was funny.

8. Mor’du Changes - As a human, he wanted to rule a kingdom. He attempted to kill a young Merida because she was the heir and by killing her, he would be in charge. The DunBroch managed to scare him into a secluded forest where he rules.

9. Build-Up of Mor’du Backstory - I just thought that the backstory should’ve been built up better.

10. Kingdoms Unite to Fight - No marriage proposal more like fragmented kingdoms with differing issues or something like that. In the end, it’s Merida who unites them like the original

11. Conflict between Merida and Elinor - Tying into #2 and #3, these small changes would add more complexity to their dynamic. Elinor was already traditional but after Merida, her baby, nearly dies from a monster indirectly due to a bow and arrow, something that she was already hesitant and blamed herself for thinking she nearly got her child and her husband killed. Maybe she tells a story of where her fear of change comes from, maybe a traumatic past; the original movie hinted that the adults were in a war with Northern Invaders (?), and this rewrite could expand on that. From Merida’s side, she would feel similarly but it would expand on her fearing her own mother conditionally loves her and that she’s a failure as a woman for not genuinely liking traditional female interests. They have a heart to heart and come out being more sympathetic and understanding.

12. Merida and Young MacIntosh Ship Tease - Romance will not be a central focus but she will have growing bonds with the three sons and her interactions with MacIntosh will be laced with hinted romance.

12. The Three Kingdoms - More screen time of the leaders and the sons that aren’t just comedy.

#pixar #pixar brave #rewrite #my posts #mymedia

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laurawritesandgames · 4 years

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Title: The Children We Never Had

Fandom: Beetlejuice (Musical)

Rating: PG-13

Pairing: Beetlejuice/Barbara/Adam

Prompt: Hurt/Comfort

Content Warning: References to miscarriages and abortion

Summary: As Delia and Charles prepare to start their family together, Barbara reflects on her chance to have her own children. What once seemed so simple can become much more complicated when you’re a ghost....

Delia and Charles had just completed the first round of IVF treatments. Delia was fanatic about getting all toxins out of the house, so one Saturday the Maitlands, Beetlejuice and Lydia were helping Delia get rid of any plastic containers in the kitchen, to be replaced with glass containers.

“Why is there so much Tupperware?” Delia exclaimed.

“One of Mom’s friends sold Tupperware, and we had a few parties,” Lydia said. “Mom was sick for years. If she’d been able to keep up with the science, I doubt she would’ve kept them. She was nuts about the environment.” Lydia frowned thoughtfully. “Say, Delia, what exactly are your thoughts on vaccines?”

Barbara and Adam shared a look. They knew from the Maitland-Deetz’s biweekly parenting meetings that Delia had anti-vaxxer tendencies. She was, at least, open to a respectful discussion about vaccines. Give Charles a few conversations and she’d probably give in to science and reason—the newlyweds were crazy for each other.

Not that Lydia had any of that context.

“I’m just not convinced vaccines are necessary. I have some very interesting websites I can show you later, Lydia. There’s a lot of doubt about the so-called ‘science’ that Big Pharma doesn’t want you to see.”

Lydia’s lip curled in the disgust.

“Are you an idiot?!” Beetlejuice said. “I lived in a world without vaccines. It was shit!”

“I just don’t know if I’m willing to take that risk,” Delia said, with her polite, argument-deflecting smile. Adam’s parents had been masters at avoiding conflict, so Barbara knew what would happen next. She’d say something light or silly and try to get everyone focused on the kitchen again.

“I should draw a door and bring you to the Netherworld, Delia. Give you a tour of Diaper Town so you can see all the dead babies that’re there from before childhood vaccines were a thing.”

“Diaper Town?” Lydia asked.

“Eh, that’s not the real name—just what we called it. Where the dead babies go. Ugh! I had a shift in Diaper Town for a few decades. It was the worst.”

“I imagine they look like they did when they died,” Lydia said, thoughtfully.

“And they never age! That’s the only reason people hang around babies—because they eventually become not-babies.”

“What about miscarriages? Mom had a few before me. Is there going to be a clump of Deetz cells in the Netherworld?”

Barbara reached out for Adam’s hand and found it within seconds. (He’d been across the room a second ago. He must have teleported.) She clenched it. Hard.

Beetlejuice didn’t notice.

As a ghost, you were always cold. Barbara couldn’t get colder. She also couldn’t swallow to try to wet a dry mouth. Her hands wouldn’t grow cold and prickly with shock. Her emotions were completely disconnected from bodily sensations. She could feel Adam behind her and leaned back into him slightly. Not that he made her feel warmer. Nothing ever would.

If she’d been alive, she might’ve looked like Delia: her face pale as she forced a too-wide smile onto her face. “Let’s all talk about something else, shall we? I don’t want any bad vibes.” Her hand rested on her stomach. During one of their parenting meetings, she’d mentioned she only had a few eggs left. “Not—not right now.”

Lydia glared at her. “Seriously? Hearing about a dead woman’s fertility issues isn’t going to hurt your fetus.”

“The Deetus,” Beetlejuice added. “Deetz fetus. Get it?”

Lydia ignored him. “Bad vibes aren’t a thing!”

“We’ll agree to disagree on that one.” Delia hurried out of the kitchen. “Would anyone mind a smudging ceremony? Just to clear the air and usher in tranquility?”

Lydia followed with a shriek of rage. “’Smudging ceremony’? Are you from an Indigenous tribe, Delia? Because if you’re not, that’s major cultural appropriation!”

“Ooo, cultural appropriation! I know that one!” Beetlejuice said, delighted. When he’d first come back from the Netherworld, the Maitlands had held a few sensitivity seminars for him so he could stop getting into arguments with Lydia. Beetlejuice’s views were a weird mix of surprisingly progressive and incredibly archaic. “It’s a culture, not a costume!” He floated over to Barbara and Adam. “Did I do that right? Do I get a kiss?”

It took a lot of effort to focus on Beetlejuice right now. “Sorry,” Barbara said. “We’re not going to reward you for being a decent person. But thank you for trying.”

Beetlejuice huffed in disappointment.

Adam cleared his throat. Barbara glanced at him. Adam tilted his head slightly at Beetlejuice, raising his eyebrows questioningly. He was asking her for permission to tell Beetlejuice. After a moment’s thought, Barbara nodded. Beetlejuice liked to keep things light, but he was their boyfriend, after all. He should learn a bit more about Barbara and Adam.

“What happens to children who died before they were born?” Adam asked quietly.

Beetlejuice shrugged. “I dunno. I was born dead in one of the original versions of the musical, but it ain’t canon. There aren’t any fetuses floating around the Netherworld. Maybe they go someplace else?” He shrugged, spreading his hands. “I got nothing.”

Out of habit (not because she actually needed to breathe), Barbara sighed in relief. Thank God, was her first thought, despite having a pretty good idea that God didn’t exist. She let of of Adam’s hand, giving him a small smile.

“Why do you wanna know?” Beetlejuice asked.

Barbara shared another look with Adam before saying, “When I was 22, I got pregnant.” She cleared her throat. She hadn’t talked about this in years.

Beetlejuice didn’t like silences. Immediately, he said, “Quit pulling my leg. If you were pregnant, then where’s your—”

It took a few moments, but his eyes finally widened and his jaw dropped. “Oh. Ohhhh. I didn’t think…” His hands began flapping, then running up and down his sleeves and fiddling with his cuffs. “So we’re bringing in some of the movie backstory. Okay. Okay. Sure.”

“The what?” Adam asked.

“Nevermind. So you guys had a miscarriage.”

“An abortion, actually,” Barbara said.

Beetlejuice stopped bobbing faintly, freezing in mid-air. His voice rose in pitch as he said, “I saw the tags on this fic and I assumed you’d be hurt/comforting me! I’m the one with all the issues! Who the hell told you that you guys could have issues?!”

“What now?” Barbara said, forcing her tone to stay even.

“And also, our lives weren’t perfect,” Adam said. “I just want to remind you that both of my parents are dead. So…yeah. When we were alive, we had struggles and challenges like everybody else.”

Beetlejuice began coughing. He stuck his fingers in his mouth, eventually pulling out a foot and tossing it on the ground. (Barbara had learned not to ask whose foot.) “Um. Can I try again?”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Feel free.”

Beetlejuice opened and closed his mouth a few times, but didn’t say anything.

Adam said, “Just so you know, Bug, this isn’t something to share.” Beetlejuice was a compulsive oversharer; they’d learned to explicitly tell him what was appropriate and what wasn’t.

“It’s not because we’re ashamed,” Barbara said quickly. “It’s just our story to tell, that’s all.”

“Right! I can do that.” He focused on something in the middle distance. “Although maybe some people could really examine their need to inject complicated real-world issues into a stupid five-page fic for Beetlelands Week. Not every fandom and every fic can bear that weight! And some characters definitely aren’t designed to deal with shit like this! They’re awesome Deadpool-style badasses and not…not…whatever this needs!”

Barbara loved Beetlejuce, but he was getting on her last nerve. I didn’t think he’d completely disassociate like this. It’s only a goddamn abortion. He didn’t even have to deal with anything! “Well, I’m sorry my and Adam’s history is such an inconvenience for you. I’m going to go find something to do. If you want to talk when you’re not spiraling and doing whatever this is, come find me.”

Barbara teleported to their bedroom, the Deetzes’ former guest room, upstairs, and Adam teleported with her.

Tears wavered in his eyes. Startled, she held him, stroking his back.

“Sorry,” he murmured.

“No, don’t be.”

He sniffled a few times, wiping his tears away. Their ghostly bodies still remembered how to produce tears, and if Beetlejuice was any indication, that memory would stick with them for centuries. He whispered, “We would’ve had a child. If it weren’t for me—”

Adam had always felt needless guilt about mentioning the abortion first. She’d thought he’d gotten over it. “You didn’t force me. We had student loans, the recession had just hit the year before, we couldn’t find work, and most importantly? We weren’t ready. We were barely ready 10 years later, when we had a house and good jobs.”

He smiled sadly, wiping the tears from his eyes. “Sorry. I don’t know where this is coming from.” He stroked her cheek. “I’m here for you. Whatever you need.”

She blinked. “I’m…fine? I’ve been fine for 10 years.” She hadn’t been fine immediately before and after the abortion. There’d been lots of crying, praying, and long conversations, but that had been a long time ago. Gently, she asked, “I thought you were, too. Was I wrong?”

When did we really talk about it except immediately after? Barbara couldn’t recall.

Adam gave her that same distracted smile he used to give her after his parents’ funeral. He was a brave little soldier, marching forward. “You weren’t wrong. I’m fine.”

You didn’t push when you saw that smile. “I think I’m going to read something. Want to join me?”

“I wouldn’t mind working on the model a bit more. Call me if you need anything.”

“I will.” She kissed his cheek, and he went up to the attic to work on his model of Winter River.

She was choosing between Michelle Obama’s biography a polyamory how-to guide when a spider skittered underneath the door. The spider climbed up the wall then began spinning a web in the corner of the room at unnatural speed. Letters appeared in the web.

SORRY

I WAS A BAD BOYFRIEND

It’s a Charlotte’s Web homage, Barbara realized. She’d loved that book as a child. He remembered. “Apology accepted, Beetlejuice.”

He knocked on the door. Opening it revealed him reading from index cards. Delia, who was using her life coach skills to help Beetlejuice adjust to being part of the family, had encouraged him to write down important things.

“I should have reacted a lot better than I did,” Beetlejuice read. “You and Adam trusted me with with a part of your lives, and I should have liz—lizden? Shit, I’m bad at spelling.” He looked up from the cards, rocking back and forth on his feet. “Anyway, thanks for trusting me, baby. Sorry I was being a dick about it. You and Adam having an—an abortion had nothing to do with me or my feelings.”

Beetlejuice could talk about the filthiest sex acts and talk about rotting corpses without flinching, but now he was stumbling. Interesting. “Well, ‘we had an abortion’ might’ve been a lot to throw at you. We could’ve prepared you better.” She nodded him inside, and he floated in. She closed the door behind her. “I imagine abortions weren’t really talked about in your day.”

“Well, we thought ladies’ wombs wandered around their bodies, so…no.”

“Do you have any questions?”

“Um…are you okay?” He fidgeted. “You’re all…y’know, motherly and shit. Are you sad about having an abortion?”

“No. I mean, I don’t love that I needed it. Adam and I were a lot more careful making love after that, believe me. But Adam and my family had my back, and luckily I live in a state where I can access an abortion easily. I also found some forums, and chatting with people who’d also had abortions helped me feel less alone. Honestly, until Lydia brought up miscarriages today, I hadn’t thought about my abortion in years.” Feeling awkward, she chuckled. “Um, really glad I won’t have to deal with a clump of cells following me around in the Netherworld, though.”

She felt a twinge of guilt for not feeling guiltier. Her Good Christian Girl upbringing still reared its head now and then. But I did what was best for my family at the time. That’s all anyone can do. If I’d known Adam and I were going to die 10 years later, we might’ve done things differently, but how could we have known that?

“So, that’s my story. I was supported and very lucky. I’m not sad or guilty or anything.” She frowned. “Adam might be, though. He was strangely upset.” Did I do something wrong? Has he been suffering for years without me noticing? “He’s upstairs working on the model again.”

“I’ll cheer him up!” Beetlejuice said. He clapped his hands together. “It’s hurt/comfort. Time to be goddamn comforted, Adam.”

“I’d give him a few hours.” Adam was a brooder. There was a certain point where he just wouldn’t engage.

Beetlejuice chuckled, patting her smarmily on the head. “Your boring, married-couple rules don’t apply to me, Babs. I’mma shake things up and heal his wounded heart. You can come up and watch, if you want. Watch me win.”

Barbara made herself laugh as she tried to ignore her jealousy. Beetlejuice was just being his usual low-grade dickish self, but what if he was right? Maybe Adam will respond better to Beetlejuice than to me. I didn’t expect Adam to be this sad, after all. What else have I missed? “If you succeed, feel free to come back and give me a play-by-play of your victory.”

Beetlejuice poofed away, and Barbara picked up the how-to guide to polyamory. It couldn’t help to get a refresher.

If Beetlejuice made Adam feel better, then that was a win for everyone. She could ask him how he’d done it and learn from him. The entire point of dating Beetlejuice was to break out of their old patterns and add a little excitement to their afterlives.

Barbara was lying down on their bed, reading the first chapter when Beetlejuice teleported back in.

“You mighta been right,” he grumbled.

“It’s almost like I’ve been dating him since I was 16.”

“Of course you were high school sweethearts. You two are so cliché, I blocked that out.” Beetlejuice floated closer, whining, “Sexy raised his voice to me, Barbara!”

Barbara set the book down. “Oh, I’m sorry, Bug.” That was the Adam equivalent of full-blown shouting. (Adam had shouted at Beetlejuice before, of course, but that was when Beetlejuice had been a villain.)

“Me! The favourite!”

Barbara raised her eyebrows. “Maybe you should read this chapter with me about egalitarian polyamorous relationships—and how terms like ‘favourite’ are toxic.”

Beetlejuice floated away from her. “Mmm, nope, too many things to do.”

She’d expected that. It wasn’t clear when Beetlejuice had died, but it was definitely before therapy and couple’s counselling had become more mainstream. He didn’t have the same ability to talk about and reflect on his and other’s feelings that Barbara and Adam had. Usually, he just reacted to his own. Barbara wouldn’t have gotten into a relationship with Beetlejuice if she’d been unwilling to teach him.

“Lemme know when he’s ready to talk, okay?” the demon continued.

“Well, I don’t have a psychic link to him, but I’ll try…if you read this chapter with me.”

Beetlejuice crossed his arms over his chest, harrumphing. After a few moments, he shrugged, floated over to the bed, and curled up beside her.

If her eyes could water, they might have at the smell of rotting flesh. But Barbara quickly got used to the smell. “Let me guess—your clones poked around and didn’t find anything else interesting happening right now?”

“Ha! Busted! Delia, Lydia and Charles are still arguing about vaccines. Yap, yap, yap, yap, yap. Making out with you is way more fun.”

“We’re learning how to have a more equitable, communicative relationship. Not making out.”

“We’ll see, baby.”

They approached Adam later that afternoon.

He looked up from a figurine he was painting, expression guilty. “I’ll come down when it’s time for dinner, okay?” he said quietly. “Don’t worry about me.”

“Is there anything we can do for you now?” Barbara asked.

He looked between Barbara and Beetlejuice. His eyes were so haunted…. Barbara took a few steps forward.

“Adam?” she said softly.

“You said we weren’t ready,” he murmured roughly. “What if we would’ve been? We never even gave ourselves the chance….”

He showed her what he’d been working on: a little child figurine with her blonde hair. “There would’ve been part of you and me living now. Someone with your hair and my eyes, or your smile….”

Okay. We haven’t talked about the abortion in years, and now he’s making a model of what would have become our child. So, this is new. But I can handle this. I know him. I’ve got this.

Nevertheless, a tiny part of her really wanted to tag out and let Beetlejuice handle this one. Not that he would’ve done well—he was frozen except for his eyes, frantically flicking between her and Adam.

While Barbara thought of the most empathetic, respectful way to respond, Beetlejuice blurted out, “Someone’s got a case of the Shouldas.”

“Hmm?” Adam grunted, looking uninterested.

“You know, shoulda done this when I was alive. Shoulda done that. Every newlydead goes through it. Of course, usually they’re stuck in an endless void and not chilling in the living world with their sexy boyfriend.” Beetlejuice nodded to Barbara. “And your sexy wife.”

So he had learned something from that chapter they’d read together. Barbara gave him a small smile. “How do newlydeads usually get through it?” she asked.

“‘Get through’ is real optimistic, Babs. They just get crushed by overwhelming despair and hopelessness. It’s the Netherworld. Everything sucks there.”

Adam grunted again.

Beetlejuice rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, I can’t really talk about ‘healing’ and shit….” He gestured frantically for Barbara to do something.

One thing about spending so much time with Beetlejuice was that you got used to out-of-the box thinking. It was time for a little experiment. Barbara didn’t give herself time to think, and dove right in.

“Congratulations, Maitlands.” She made air horn noises. The words ‘The Life We Never Had’ appeared in bright text above the model town. “Welcome to your life where you had your child!”

Adam and Beetlejuice both stared at her in stunned silence.

“This got so dark, so fast, but I kinda love it,” Beetlejuice commented.

“Well,” she said, “first of all, forget this house. We’d probably be living with your parents. They don’t even live in town.” She took a few moments to create a mental map, then gestured at the model. It grew larger, to the surrounding counties. Adam’s family farm was on the outskirts of this new map.

“And forget the CPA degree. No way we can afford that now. But your uncle Eddy has that plumbing business. He’d probably give you a job.” She manifested Eddy’s truck, making it drive through town. “I’d probably knit and sell things on Etsy…. Wait, it’s 2010. Does Etsy even exist?” Barbara couldn’t remember. “Or I’d sell them at the local farmer’s market. We probably still love our projects, even if we don’t have as much time for them now.”

Barbara could’ve gone darker. In this future, she would’ve been stuck in Adam’s parents’ home with no career prospects and a baby she wasn’t sure she wanted. If anything was a recipe for postpartum depression, that would’ve been. But she kept it light.

“Oh, jeez,” she realized, “I forgot all about names! What do you think of Aspen?” Barbara had always wanted a nature-themed name.

“It has the word ‘Ass’ in it,” Beetlejuice complained. “Do you want bullies to give your kid swirlies?”

“You’re not here, mister. You don’t get a say.”

“Hey, that’s right! We never meet if you don’t move into the house.” Beetlejuice frowned. “Truly, this is the darkest timeline.”

“What about River?” Adam said. “For our child.”

“River. That’s beautiful. Okay, so little River goes to school here.” She gestured to the school in town. “What do you think? Good grades?”

“Of course.”

“And then you guys commit crimes!” Beetlejuice interrupted.

Barbara raised her eyebrows.

“What? Boring people commit crimes all the time and become awesome. Weeds? Breaking Bad?”

“I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t.”

“Argh, fine, I was just getting bored of all this slice-of-life shit. Let’s spice things up!”

“Ooo, maybe we solve crimes? Like a cozy mystery set in rural Connecticut.”

“Committing them is way more fun, but I’ll take anything at this point. Your ideal lives are so boring! River’s gonna do meth just to feel alive!”

“They might fall in with a bad crowd in high school,” Barbara said.

“Thank you! A little conflict, please. It’s the essence of drama!”

“But we’d be there for them,” Adam said. “Hmm. Mom and Dad would still die, I suppose. I’d probably disappoint my Maitland ancestors and sell the farm.”

Barbara watched him intently. He wasn’t smiling, but he seemed a bit more engaged than he had been.

“We could move into one of the homes here,” she suggested, nodding to one of the small houses on the outside of town.

“That’s gonna really suck for you when the zombies attack,” Beetlejuice said.

Barbara kept making up their fake life, with Adam chiming in every now and then, both of them trying to ignore Beetlejuice’s input. They tried to give River a nice life, with a full-ride scholarship to NYU (which was, coincidentally, Lydia’s dream school), lots of friends, and a home that may not be full of money but was full of love.

Eventually, Adam smiled and shook his head. “Thanks for playing dolls with me, guys.”

Barbara hugged him from behind. “If you need time to mourn, take all the time you need. Beetlejuice and I are here for you.”

Adam wiped some tears from his eyes. “I think I do. Sorry, sweetie. Sometimes all the things we never got to do…they just hit me, hard. Even things I’d made peace with long ago. I spent so much of my life worrying….”

Barbara moved to stand beside him, kissing his cheek. If she could’ve made him feel warm, she would have.

Beetlejuice was spaced out, staring into the middle distance. Thinking of his own Shouldas, maybe? Nah. He never looks back unless he’s trapped in a traumatic memory about his mother. Probably wondering when we can make out again.

She nodded him over, and he blinked, coming back to the present. Hesitantly, he floated over and rested his chin on Adam’s head.

They were both still and silent, two things Beetlejuice hated, so it wasn’t surprising when a horde of centipedes skittered across the model, or a tiny King Kong grabbed a figurine and climbed up to the top of the town bell tower, roaring.

Lydia interrupted them when she she poked her head into the attic and told them dinner was ready. “And the leftovers will be stored in glass containers—if you leave us any leftovers, Beej. Delia cleared the cupboard of all plastics. Don’t worry about the baby, either. If Delia continues to believe tea tree oil can cure pneumonia or whatever, Dad and I will get the kid vaccinated when she’s not around.”

Barbara smiled at her chosen daughter. Beetlejuice was right; they weren’t stuck in the lonely void of the Netherworld. There was life and family just downstairs. “I’m glad. But I’m sure we’ll be able to convince her otherwise. We have nine months.”

“You’re more optimistic than I am, Barbara.”

Adam put the River figurine with the smattering of other children outside the grade school. “Let’s go,” he said quietly.

The three of them followed Lydia to the dinner table.

#beetlelandsweek2020 #beetlelands #goldenbeetle #beetlejuice the musical #beetlejuice #adam maitland #barbara maitland #beetlejuice x adam x barbara

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princesssarisa · 4 years

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“Beauty and the Beast”: Belle’s beautiful discontentment (warning: long)

In my Feminist Defense of the Animated Belle, I addressed most of the issues I’ve heard people complain about regarding Belle’s character. But there was one I didn’t touch on, because it has very little to do with gender roles: the common complaint that Belle is a “snob.” I’d like to discuss that topic now. I’d also like to use it as a springboard to discuss a valuable aspect of Belle’s character that sets her apart both from certain Disney princesses who came before her and from depictions of Beauty in other Beauty and the Beast retellings: her willingness to own her discontentment.

I do understand the “snob” accusations. After all, Belle’s neighbors are poor peasants working hard to eke out a living. It’s only natural that they have little time for books or dreams of adventure and think Belle’s passion for those things is impractical. It’s reasonable to sympathize with their perspective more than the movie seems to want us to. It’s fair to argue that the movie has a (probably unintentional) classist undertone by portraying the villagers as small-minded and bigoted and by having Belle only find a kindred spirit in a prince, albeit an enchanted outcast prince, and find her ultimate happiness by leaving the town in favor of a royal castle. I’m grateful that other BatB retellings exist (e.g. Megan Kearney’s webcomic, or Robin McKinley’s Rose Daughter) that portray Beauty’s peasant world in a more positive light, depict the historic cruelty of royal court life in the Beast/Prince’s backstory, and have him leave the castle in the end to become a peasant rather than Beauty becoming a princess.

But none of the above is any reason to criticize Belle.

I don’t think she looks down on her neighbors. She most certainly doesn’t shun them, as some critics claim she does. Just look at her meeting with the baker during the opening song: she tries to have a friendly conversation with him and tell him about the wonderful story she’s read, only for him to rudely brush her aside with “That’s nice... Marie! The baguettes!” I don’t interpret her subsequent shrug and eye-roll as showing disdain for his “low-class” disinterest in books – just as “Oh well, as usual, no one shares my interest.”

Nor do I buy the claim that she shows disdain for the “I need six eggs!” woman (and by extension for all struggling mothers) when she rides past her. It’s true that she does seem to be smiling, which might imply amused contempt, but she might also just be enjoying her ride on the wagon while at the same time wistfully yearning for a new life, with her expression having nothing to do with the woman. I don’t know what the animators meant to convey. And even if that overwhelmed mother does represent the life Belle doesn’t want for herself, and if Belle sings “There must be more than this provincial life!” in response to seeing her, what’s wrong with that? I don’t think it’s an insult to women who choose to have big families. Even a woman who chooses to have five kids shouldn’t be expected to wrangle them all by herself while also doing her grocery shopping, with no help from her husband or from anyone else. That’s the kind of unpaid labor women have too often been forced into and it’s not “insulting other women” for Belle to yearn for something different.

Belle has the right to be bored by her small town life and want something more. She’s not some rich girl looking down on the poor peasants; she’s a poor peasant too. A person trapped in a dull, stifling lower-class existence has every right to long for a different life. Would we accuse Cinderella of being a “snob” and “ignoring the value of domestic work” because she dreams of escaping from her enslavement by her stepfamily? Of course Belle’s life in the village is more comfortable than that, but it’s still reasonable that she should want to break free from its limits.

“But Belle is clearly richer and more privileged than her neighbors!” some critics argue again and again. “Most peasants in those days were illiterate, so the fact that Belle can read shows she’s had a higher-class education, and in the stage musical, Maurice tells her she’s ‘class’ while their neighbors are ‘the common herd’!” I don’t buy that argument. I’ve never bought it. Not one bit. The movie’s setting isn’t the real late 18th/early 19th century France – it’s the Disney version of it. The village has a bookshop in the animated version and a church library and schoolhouse in the live-action remake. There’s no indication whatsoever that Belle's neighbors can’t read. (Gaston holding her book askance as he looks for pictures in it and Le Fou’s inability to spell Gaston’s name don’t count; the first is a “parental bonus” gag implying that Gaston is looking for a centerfold, while the second is a “Le Fou is stupid” gag. Gaston quotes Shakespeare in “The Mob Song,” so he’s clearly had some education.) Belle just stands out because she has a passion for books, instead of only reading now and then during breaks from “more important” things, and because she would rather read than engage in smalltalk about practical everyday matters. Belle is shown borrowing her books, not buying them, which I presume implies she can’t afford to buy them, and Maurice builds his invention out of ordinary household items (e.g. a wood stove, an axe, a teapot), so he presumably hasn’t spent much money on it either. Nor are they any better dressed than their neighbors, nor does their house look any fancier. They certainly don’t seem richer than Gaston, who apparently owns the village tavern and can afford to arrange a wedding party on short notice and bribe Monsieur d’Arque with a bag of gold to help him blackmail Belle. As for Maurice’s remarks in the stage version, they’re clearly about her personality, not about social class.

Belle also has the right to be an individualist and a misfit. That’s part of the whole point of her storyline. It seems to me that critics who complain that she “looks down on normalcy” are doing the same thing the villagers do, which is supposed to be wrong: saying “It’s a pity and a sin she doesn’t quite fit in.”

It’s no surprise that people should complain about Belle’s complaining, though. Traditional fairy-tale heroines aren’t supposed to complain. As much as we can joke about the cliché that the “I want more” heroine became during the Disney Renaissance, we shouldn’t forget how innovative that kind of heroine was in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. Just think back to Snow White: at the beginning she’s dressed in rags and forced to work as a scullery maid by her stepmother, but we find her smiling and cheerfully humming as she scrubs the castle steps. Then there’s Cinderella: a bit more complex and openly discontented than Snow White, but in general she still goes cheerfully about her chores. The heroine who lives in unhappy circumstances but “bears it cheerfully and without complaint” is a mainstay of classic, old-fashioned fairy-tales (and other stories too). The early versions of Beauty and the Beast are no exception. After Beauty’s family falls into poverty, we’re told that her sisters constantly wail and cry over their lost wealth and status, but Beauty swallows her grief, resolves to be cheerful, patiently shoulders all the household chores, and devotes her days to consoling her father and siblings. For this she’s held up as a role model, in contrast to her complaining sisters, who despise her and insult her for it, but whom she always loves and forgives.

Of course there’s value in that kind of character. Resilience in the face of adversity and finding happiness where others find none is a strength in its own right. But it can be overdone. The more that women, poor people and outcasts are encouraged to be cheerful, patient and uncomplaining, the more they’re expected to “stay in their place.” Any righteous desire or demand for a better life or better treatment is labeled “rude,” whiny,” “petulant” and “selfish.” It doesn’t always cross that line, but it can.

Linda Woolverton, the head screenwriter of Disney’s BatB, knew that she wanted Belle to be different both from the traditional Beauty and from the likes of Snow White and Cinderella. So did lyricist Howard Ashman, whose experience as a gay man did much to influence the outcast heroes and heroines of the three Disney movies he wrote for. As noted in this Time Magazine article, they resolved to create a heroine for “the next century,” who wasn’t “based on being kind and taking the hits but smiling all the way through it.”

They definitely succeeded.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s wonderful that Belle owns her discontentment. It’s beautiful that she doesn’t try to fit in or put on a patient, cheerful mask, but unabashedly yearns to escape from her dull, small-minded village and find adventure in the great wide somewhere. It’s wonderful that she has no patience for Gaston’s rudeness and arrogance and that she loathes the thought of having to give up her reading and intellect in favor of a mundane marriage and raising a gaggle of children. It all leads beautifully into her friendship and romance arc with the Beast, where she refuses to tolerate his bullying, refuses to let him control her even though he’s the master of the castle, only forgives him when he earns her forgiveness, and inspires him to change for the better. The happy ending comes about precisely because Belle was willing to be discontented and shamelessly wanted more than she was given at first. This makes her almost the opposite of the original tale’s Beauty, whose story was written as an allegory for arranged marriage and whose purpose was in part to convince girls to submit to unwanted circumstances for their families’ sake. I love that instead, Belle refuses to submit to what she doesn’t want, and her refusal becomes the catalyst for all the positive growth and transformation in the story.

Let’s hear it for heroines who want more!

#beauty and the beast #disney #belle #meta

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darkspellmaster · 4 years

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Sex and the Castlevania series

So you may have all heard by now that the new seasons of Castlevania will have more gore and sex involved in the series. And for me at least this is a bit of a surprise. Not because Castlevania has not had sex as part of its storyline, (how else are the Belmonts going to be born), nor that nudity would be shown (see the Succubus for example) but in how it’s going to be used.

As a player of the games, one thing has always stood out to me about the Castlevania series and the idea of fan service and sexuality and sex itself, it’s never used as a means of just titillation. There’s always a meaning behind it. And the reviews have me wondering if this is going to still be the case with the show, or is it going to be used as an “Oooh look how edgy we’re being this season.” because that’s not what sex in Castlevania is about.

Sex, or the idea of intimacy between two romantic partners, has always been at the heart of the backstory of the Castlevania series. From the outset there’s has always been a sense of family and love and devotion in Castlevania. Even with the Arcade edition of Haunted Castle in 1988, the addition to the story of Simon was that he was newly married to his bride Selena, who was taken by Dracula. Years later Selena and the Mysterious Woman in Simon’s Quest II were mixed to create Linda Entwhistle who was Simon’s girlfriend in the book series based on the games.

Years later during the more story-driven games that came out, sexuality and intimacy became part of the game in how it was presented. Namely the use of sex as a way to pull the innocents to the darkness ala the Vampire Brides in the original Dracula, and the loss of innocence (as with Lucy in the novel) and the idea of devotional love that conquers that darkness and temptation.

In this sense, we’re seeing the use of the deadly sin of Lust acting as a temptation to the heroes as a means of making them be killed for their wanton desires. Yet love and intimacy also plays a huge part in fixing issues in the story and leading to tragic and happy endings.

So with that in mind, I want to do a quick walkthrough of the way sex and love is used in these games and discuss why the idea of sex and violence shouldn’t be on the table with Castlevania as a metaphor as much.

Let’s start with the timeline, rather than the game order because it makes more sense that way.

The story of the Belmont Clan and Dracula are intertwined for all time, this is just a fact of the matter and not just some random accident. And Love plays a huge part in this story as the cannon story stands right now. Prior to this, Castlevania was a fun romp through the idea of beating up Old Universal Monster Movie characters (every one of the main bosses in the first game was tied to some form of Universal Horror Monster and it even has some Hammer Horror connections as well). But with the growth of the franchise, it was clear that a story needed to be told, so over the years, that story had evolved until in the early 2000s we got the very first story in the Belmont vs Dracula timeline in the form of Lament of Innocence.

Now Lament isn’t just a story about the loss for Leon and his world view that there is nothing lurking in the dark. It’s the loss of friendship and of love, but also it’s the reinstatement of belief of the good of people and that there are those that can and will stand up to the darkness and that even as one loses everything, you don’t have to lose your soul in the processes.

But let me start from the beginning in this case. Leon Belmont was a knight templar in the crusade. He was best friends with and cared deeply about his fellow Crusader Mathias Cronqvist. Now Mathias was a man of science and of learning and of a lot of things, he wasn’t a fighter the same way Leon was, so he was more into spells and magics, something that his family kept mostly from the Church at the time.

Both Mathias and Leon were in love and devoted to the women that they felt deeply for, that being Leon’s fiance Sara Trantoul, and Mathias’s wife Elisabetha. Leon’s devotion to Sara was known by everyone, especially Mathias and this is very important since it’s Leon’s Love of Sara that drives him to abandon his cause with the Crusades and pretty much take up Vampire Killing for the rest of his life, training his children and their descendants, on how to defeat the man that took that love from him.

Mathias, on the other hand, was emotionally devoted to Elisabetha, and, given the way he speaks of her, it’s clear that the devotion and love was returned. So much so that his love for her basically poisoned his mind and made him into the monster that would later come to regret his actions. As it was, Elisabetha died due to illness and Mathias abandoned the Crusades, became ill, and holed up in his home unable to be reached by any of his friends, Leon and Sara. It’s only when he learned that Sara was in danger from Walter Bernhard that he was able to get out of bed and warn his friend Leon of the danger, but, by then, it was too late and Sara was captured and taken to Walter’s castle.

Now one of the huge parts of the story of Lament is is that it deals with devotion, honor, and the choices we make based on love. So while Leon is trying to save Sara he meets up with an alchemist, Rinaldo, who had lost his daughter Justine to Walter and was unable to save her.

Leon renounces everything; his baron title, his home, his lands just so he can cast off his duty to go and save Sara. His love for her runs that deep that he’s willing to go into the Castle of Walter with just a sword and prayer and god save anyone that gets in his way. Rinaldo is far more of a pragmatic person and in this way juxtaposes Leon’s love of Sara. Whereas Leon is far more optimistic about his chances against Walter, Rinaldo knows the bitter truth, that Sara has no hope of making it out of the castle and not becoming a vampire in the process.

This becomes an important part of Leon’s story as he traverses the castle to try to locate Sara and comes across a number of characters that play a part in the story and the idea of love. Medusa, though not a sexualized being in this one, mentions that the whip he’s using is far more powerful than that of the version that Rinaldo used to save his daughter.

Now, why is that? One could speculate that Rinaldo lacked the will to save his child, or that he knew the truth and couldn’t bear to have to take his daughter’s life. His feelings, however, whatever they lacked, caused the Whip to fail in what it needed to do, and thus he was forced to kill his own daughter. Leon on the other side of things has nothing but the will and drive to save Sara, and his love for her and desire to bring her home urges him on. This love, this need to help her, is what makes that whip work. That need for protecting something, it’s why Trevor needed to find Sypha and Alucard to eventually come to a reason why the Vampire Killer came to him.

Joachim is an interesting one in regard to love in this game and how it is presented. Walter seduced the young man with the idea of immortality and when Joachim gained his Vampire state he realized that Walter was above him and rebelled. This lead to Walter putting him in captivity and driving him mad, for his own amusement. But how is this love? It’s a very dangerous and bad form of it, as Joachim both loathes Walter but also seems obsessed with him. He hates him with all he is, and at the same time wants to overpower and control him. This same sort of hate and love is what drives Mathias as well in his story.

Then there’s the Succubus, the one character that really hammers in the idea of desire/Sex and love in this game and the differences between them. So the Succubus in Lament is an actual boss, vs. just being an enemy. She has no name, but her role is critical in understanding what’s going on in Walter’s castle. This succubus had previously disguised herself as Justine for Rinaldo, allowing him to lower his guard and possibly may have harmed him in the process. His rejection of this form of his daughter may have to lead him to make some critical mistakes. Mistakes that Leon doesn’t seem to make. Namely, after a bit, he sees through the Succubus using Sara’s form to trick him.

Leon recognizes that the woman isn’t Sara based on her actions and way of moving, showing that though his connection with Sara he can’t be tricked and lured in by kind words from a monster. This is the opposite of what happened to Mathias.

As I said there’s a tragedy to the love and sex in this game and the use of it. Walter luring Justine away with his beauty and her desire for him lead to her downfall, which leads us into Mathias. (We will circle back to Leon, I promise.) For Mathias Elisabetha was his whole world and when she died while he was away it leads him to reject all of his desires for hope and love and feelings. He lost his way and decided to renounce God and live as an immortal as revenge for God taking away his beloved wife. In order to get what he needed, he made a deal with Death, and the two decided to use Sara as bait for Walter and Leon was to be his sword. Mathias’s own devotion to Leon, and some of his humanity as well, shows up later in the story where he sympathizes and connects with Leon in regard to his own loss. Showing that they’re the same and that Leon should join him, which Leon rejects.

This moment in the game is interesting because by this point in the story Leon has learned about how to defeat Walter and that Sara was bitten. In a lot of Vampire lore, biting is used as a way to indicate, in some cases, a sexual desire or a need that is fulfilled in a more intimate way. After all the neck is a body part that is known for being very much something that can be used for erotic aspects of lovemaking or showing desire. Which brings us back to the fact that Sara didn’t want to be turned. This wasn’t a choice on her part, unlike Joachim, and it leads to her rejecting the idea of wanting to remain a vampire. She desires death over having to be a monster and leads to Leon, at first vehemently rejecting Rinaldo’s order to kill her, and then accepting Sara’s desires to become one with the whip.

It’s an important moment because it shows that Leon is willing to ignore his own desires for that of Sara’s, again showing his selflessness in putting what she wants ahead of his own, showing his love and devotion in a more adult and complex way. Sara’s own love is what fuels that whip and her need to protect Leon are the quintessential factors of Love (Leon) to the opposing one of Lust (Walter) and in this case.

Trevor and Sypha come next in regard to the issue of love and sex and while the show is clearly going to be showing more of their romantic escapades, it should be noted that the game doesn’t really make much mention of it at first, as Sypha in the game has a bit of a love triangle going on with Grant and Trevor as the main choices, although it seems like she only had eyes for Trevor. We know the two eventually had children but Sex, or lust, in the game never was a thing. Their devotion to each other in the show is telling, and in other games, both do pair up frequently, even in Judgement there’s an underlying tension between them.

It’s of interest that in the show, we get to see the two of them acting as a couple, much like how Lisa and Dracula were shown acting like a couple. But actual sexual acts are, as with Lisa and Dracula, put on the side and in the case of Trevor and Sypha it’s only hinted at and not a full on display. Which falls into the same idea that most Castlevania games seem to have, the hero’s love interest typically is not shown engaging in sexual activity, or rather, only after bad things happen.

I’ll jump to Richter and Annette, because that seems to be the next one in regard to how sexuality is used heavily in Castlevania. So in Rondo of blood, Dracula has Shaft take Annette since she is engaged to Richter Belmont. In a scene with him during the game, Annette threatens to take her own life rather than have relations with Dracula who intends to drink her and turn her into his bride. For the original version there’s a dramatic moment where Annette is talking to Dracula and he tries to lure her into becoming immortal to stay with him. She says she will not fall in such a cheap manner, the implications there are more along the lines of sex and him taking her physically from her fiance Richter. In the PSP game, if you take too long or go the wrong route you get the bad end where Annette has been transformed into a vampire and is placed in an overtly sexual outfit, down to a thong and bodice. Her hair goes down rather than the updo she has when she’s not turned and she very certainly is meant to be a temptress and a signal that Richter failed to save her from the deviousness of the vampire.

This idea of sex, or the sexual, being used as a temptation and a devious thing in Castlevania has been around for a long time. However for every moment of some devious succubus being in the way of the hero, there’s always a moment of love that shows the positive side of it’s nature vs. the lustful side. Again, looking at Annette and Richter we get a moment when he frees her of her embracing him and happy that he’s there to be with her. That she knew he would come and that everything will be okay.

Sexuality plays a heavy role in tempting Gabriel Belmont in his game, Lords of Shadow. During the game, as he tries to get to see his dead wife with a specialized mask. During the game he meets the Vampire Carmilla who offers to him a chance to become a vampire and enjoy the idea of a lustful existence. Every inch of her in the game is designed to pretty much be a temptress and lure Gabriel from his path to finding a way to see his dead wife. Yet it’s in this moment that we get to see how deeply his affection for his wife runs as Gabriel rejects this offer even more violently than with other Lords of Shadow that he’s faced. It’s a pretty strong moment for him as a character, and shows a deeper feeling in regard to his connection to his late wife.

The reason I bring all these moments up is because even in the games where there’s hints of the sexual, as Vampires now are associated with Lust and temptation, the show uses sex as a means of connecting it with violence and some pretty dark ideas. Which contradicts the idea of how Love is the most powerful thing to defeat the darkness in Castlevania.

Take Hector’s story right now. In the show we have his sexual encounter with Lenore which is contrasted with Isaac’s battle with Legion. The idea here is to show that both Isaac and Hector are being used, one being brought to his knees via false affection and entrapment by a woman who doesn’t love him and is using him as her own pet, who later slips the ring on him to collar him as she would a dog or cat. While the Isaac, even though he’s doing a good thing in defeating Legion (and i’m still damn sure that woman is Death in a false form) was used to destroy the wizard in the tower, releasing the village. In both cases manipulation was used in order for the opposing party to achieve their goal.

For Lenore it was to get Hector to trust her enough to trap him and use him in her own way and for her own needs. She controls him now, making it impossible for him to escape from them, or so we are told to believe. On the other hand you have Isaac who, while used, acknowledges that he was so, accepts it, but is free to move on as the use of him wasn’t against his will, nor was it something changing him down. Rather the manipulation was used to not only stop something terrible, but also show him that there were others out there that were worth saving. Thus, in the poster, we have Lenore holding onto a bound and trapped Hector, and Isaac not quiet twisted up in thorns.

The use of violence that we see shows that there’s a thin line in this world causing people to become entrapped by their own desires. For Isaac it was his revenge, for Hector it was his need to feel human again. Which brings us to the point where Rosaly comes into play in regard to Hector’s story. In Hector’s game Curse of Darkness, we see how his life drastically changed when he and she connect. From where he was in the story she brought the idea of hope and light to him, vs the darker aspects in the game that hint at someone who was cursed to believe he is a monster. In this way, I hope that if they bring in Rosaly we can see the opposition to Lenore’s way of using him for gratification and chaining him to her.

On the other side of things, and something a bit easier to get at, is the idea of trauma through the use of sex as shown in Alucard’s story. In the show we get to see Trevor and Sypha in bed, but it’s clear what’s happened there and the idea is that it’s less about their sexual encounters with one another than about their growth as a couple and how they interact outside of the bedroom and how they show love for one another. We see also they have a sense of betrayal when dealing with the Judge and the idea of Sypha’s world going from it just being fun and doing the right thing, to realizing the world is not black and white, and that not all people are good.

In Alucard’s case we see the idea of the twins (I’m using the term as it’s easier for me to call them this, it doesn’t mean I’m saying they are twins just that they look alike) as filling a void and clearly being a representation of Trevor and Sypha (They even share the first initial of their names) that Alucard is looking for. Through their interactions we see that Alucard is, like Sypha in the other town, trusting them regardless of how many red flags they raise. The whole issue comes to a head when, after sharing a lot of things with them, Alucard is seduced by the two while trying to sleep. During the scene, as with Hector and Isaac, we see the sex as being connected to the violence of the battle that Sypha, Trevor and Germain get into. The twins end up wrapping Alucard in iron rings, much like Hector is imprisoned by Lenore with the ring, so to is Alucard. We see then that like Hector he’s betrayed and harmed by the emotional aspect of the betrayal. But unlike Hector who feels trapped, Alucard now feels anger at those that hurt him.

The sexual act leads into the idea of him no longer trusting humans, especially with his heart. This of course is being used to drive Alucard to decide to lock himself back to sleep until the time of Richter and Maria (the warrior and the Mage), three hundred years later. The idea here is that the physical act of it is being used to show people being harmed in vulnerable states, and that sex is used as a tool to harm or destroy others just as certain acts of violence can.

Yet, part of the story line of Alucard is that Maria chooses to go after him even after he says he’s cursed. Again, like Hector and Rosaly, showing that love is more of a counter to the anger and hate that seem to embolden those that would do bad in the world of Castlevania. So then, I must ask, why is the sex in the show being used not as it should be, showing how love can change someone, but rather as a connector to the violence. That wasn’t the idea of Castlevania, so I have to wonder what Warren is driving at here.

#Castlevania #alucard castlevania #alucard #adrian fahrenheit tepes #adrian tepes #castlevania season 3 #hector #castlevania isaac #rosaly #castlevania hector #netflix castlevania #maria renard #leon belmont #dracula #elisabetha #trevor belmont #sypha belnades

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hollyhomburg · 5 years

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Sugary Sweet

(Polyamory au) ( Bunny Hybrid! Reader x Tiger Hybrid! Taehyung x Cat Hybrid! Yoongi x Owner! Namjoon)

SUMMARY: Namjoon has a perfect life once he moves out of the city to a cabin alongside his two rescue hybrids, Yoongi and Taehyung. But then one night in the middle of the rainstorm they find you, a bunny hybrid, hiding in their chicken coop.

WARNINGS: Anxiety attacks, Anxious! Namjoon, mentions of hybrid abandonment, hybrid mistreatment, Half of this is Domestic fluff, possessive behavior.

W/C: 5,000 words of backstory you don't need + 5,000 words of pure fluff

A/N: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ THIS IS A VERRY VERRY HAPPY BIRTHDAY PRESENT TO MY MAIN HUMAN @peeachypop ❤️WHO I KNOW IS A SLUT FOR TIGER HYBRID TAEHYUNG AND CAT YOONGI, AND AN INTELECTUAL BOYFRIEND NAMS.❤️❤️❤️ I HOPE YOUR NEXT YEAR IS FILLED WITH AS MUCH FLUFF AS THIS ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

- Namjoon was not what you call a people person, not most days anyway.

- Most of the time he preferred to sit at his desk in his little box of an apartment building and write away at his laptop, content only to leave if inspiration was failing him or if his need for caffeine overtook his anxiety.

- Public places made him anxious, the clawing dread in his chest something he couldn’t shove down and live through, of course Namjoon was admittedly living in the middle of one of the largest metropolitan cities in the world. But the feeling didn’t go away and leave him with age like it should have when he’d aged from being a shy school child into being a full-fledged adult with an anxiety disorder.

- Instead mid twenties Namjoon sat down at his desk for almost a whole year and wrote a book. Of course it was successful, the fantasy and philosophical tidbits combined to an adventure story that captivated audiences.

- His publishers tried to get him to go for photo ops and for interviews no matter how much they begged Namjoon even as his novel climbed on the bestseller list. He didn’t want to look like a bumbling idiot in front of cameras, all those eyes on him, just the thought of it made him feel like he was going to be sick.

- So Namjoon’s daily routine was this, he woke up at a time most people would consider lunch or even dinner, and wrote for a few hours. Then he would go out for coffee at around 6 pm or so when everything wasn’t so crowded in his favorite coffee shop (that his best and only friend Jin owned, they’d only became friends with because back when Namjoon’s anxiety wasn’t so bad Namjoon used to write late night in Seokjin’s 24/hour coffee shop.)

- It’s an idea for his next book that makes him adopt a hybrid, because he’d never had one and Namjoon is always thorough in his research, and if he’s going to write about a hybrid character then he needs to know what it’s like to live with one.

- The beginning of the process is surprisingly easy, but the next step, actually choosing one is the hardest. Namjoon looks in the room of bounding puppies and foxes and bears that are all playing and biting each other’s ears and Namjoon isn't comforted just overwhelmed.

- Not able to choose Namjoon turns and walks down the hall, thinking that maybe this was a mistake, maybe he should just make the character in his book a human, maybe it was bad of him too want to get a hybrid for selfish reasons when in reality they where so close to people.

- “Hey watch where you’re going!” a low grumpy voice says the second before Namjoon trips over a pair of stretched out legs. Namjoonfalls flat on his face barely managing to catch himself against the linoleum. He doesn’t even know how he manages to scratch his palms so bad. They make him hiss in pain as he picks himself up.

- “What the fuck! can’t you see anything with those glasses?” the person growls, dressed in all black baggy clothes, a round face with a hood pulled up over his head and a pair of headphones. “Apparently not” Namjoon says wiping his scraped hands on his jeans. One of the attendants comes crashing through the door. “I’m sorry mister! Did he hurt you at all?” Namjoon stutters out a no before they turn to small man that Namjoon tripped over.

- Namjoon is just about to apologize to him again before the attendant hisses almost lower than Namjoon can hear, “you where supposed to be in your pen Yoongi, making sure you didn’t bother the patrons. Now apologize.” Namjoon spies the electric prod through the attendants waste, the way his hand hovers on it and the way Yoongi shrinks into the back, no not the man- the hybrid, whose hands are covered by the large sweatshirt that sticks over his hands, and the black hood that covers lumps which must be ears of some sort.

- “I’m sorry” Yoongi says, his face downward. And Namjoon feels the protective instinct in him swell up. Thoughtlessly he reaches up and pushes back Yoongi’s hood, Yoongi flinches and Namjoon becomes even more displeased as he spies the small black cat ears that are poking out of the hybrids rumpled curly hair.

- “Actually, I was just talking to Yoongi about the possibility of adopting him when I tripped, we where just on our way to the office.” Yoongi’s eyes are wide as dinner plates alongside the attendants, his lips parted, his puffy tail swishing. No matter how hard they try to convince Namjoon to adopt “a more suitable companion.”

- Namjoon won’t budge. Yoongi is going to be his hybrid.

- Namjoon assures the facilities manager again and again that he knows the return policy and that this hybrid is the one he wants. The middle-aged woman goes on and on about how Yoongi is the most disobedient and disrespectful hybrid in the whole facility. But her whole speech about how horrible the hybrid next to him is just makes him want to adopt the other more.

- Yoongi keeps his eyes downcast for the entirety of the meeting, With every negative word Yoongi shrinks a little bit more, his shoulders crumpling in on himself, it’s only when the woman leaves that he talks, “are you sure you still want me?”

- “You want to leave here right?” Namjoon answers. Yoongi sends a tentative glace in the direction of the corner of the room, and Namjoon spies a camera, it’s red eye blinking, recording their conversation . “Please.” Yoongi begs, low and almost a whisper. His eyes down at the floor. Namjoon’s hand comes up to rub against his ears and Yoongi flinches again.

- A 400,000 won adoption fee later and Yoongi is heading out of the adoption facility side by side with Namjoon. His belongings in a black backpack on his back. “It’s not much,” Namjoon says, when he flicks on the light to his pre-war apartment, the brick walls pained over with white and the old fashion fridge and steal sink filled with dishes that Namjoon meant to do this morning before leaving “But I hope it’s enough.”

- He probably should have cleaned up a little bit and now he finds himself shy over how Dingee his apartment looks with cobwebs in the arched ceilings, the piles of his rough draft on the small circular table by the window where Namjoon eats, the battered curtains drawn up close against the windows and the thread bear blue velvet couch that Namjoon falls asleep on editing 9 times out of ten.

- Yoongi doesn’t make a sound one way or another, but Namjoon busies himself with dishes when he notices Yoongi’s eyes are filling with tears and prattles to Yoongi about his collection of take-out menus and that Yoongi can choose tonight. Yoongi’s not upset about the state of the apartment though- he’s so so happy, because this place is his, he’d never had his own space before.

- Over the first few weeks of owning Yoongi, Namjoon starts to realize, Namjoon might not be a people person because he’s hybrid person.

- Yoongi could be biting in his comments and harsh with his undertones but at the end of the day, he never curled up on Namjoon’s pull out couch to sleep, instead preferring to curl up around Namjoon’s thighs in Namjoon’s bed.

- Even if he pretended that he didn’t want cuddles when Namjoon would enter his room around bedtime and find the small hybrid curled up in the very middle of his bed watching some TV show on the TV propped up on his dresser. Even if the hybrid hissed at Namjoon when he initially tried to pet his ears, it was always around the third of 4th pass when Yoongi finally relaxed against Namjoon, the slow purring filling his bedroom.

- Yoongi might bitrate and badger Namjoon for more cream in the fridge or laugh openly whenever Namjoon trips, but he always always always purrs when Namjoon shows him any sort of affection. The low rumbling making Namjoon smirk, and Yoongi blush as his eyes blink closed lazily.

- After the first few weeks, once Yoongi gets comfortable Namjoon is sure that Yoongi is the most affectionate hybrid that he’s ever met.

- Namjoon doesn’t realize how much the companionship is doing for his mental health, his anxiety, until they go out to the store one-day together. Usually he would never think about going to the store during the day, but Yoongi literally drags him away from the first draft of his novel and makes Namjoon go.

- “I swear to god Joon if you live off of microwave meals forever you’re going to get an ulcer and die” he hisses when Namjoon tries to drag it out so that E-mart will be a little bit less crowded from people just getting off work. But Namjoon just smiles’, knowing the bickering is how Yoongi shows he cares.

- They go to the store, and with Yoongi by his side Namjoon doesn’t get anxious at all. It’s a miracle really, and when Namjoon realizes it late one night when they’re walking through the crowded streets of Gangnam, feeling as at ease as he would in his own home. He would have gotten a hybrid much much sooner if he knew it would have had such a positive effect on his life, and as far as hybrids go…Namjoon can tell that Yoongi is special.

- But then one day, Yoongi looses him in the crowd, there are too many faces, too many people moving at a brisk pace through the lit up streets of Myeongdong, food stalls advertise food with shouts that crowd out his mind, and then someone recognizes him from the cover on the back of his book and shouts his name and even more people turn and Namjoon can’t breath as someone takes out their phone and shoves a camera in his face the flash making white spots dance along with the black in his vision.

- Yoongi’s hand is like a vice around his as he pulls Namjoon away towards the subway station. Namjoon curls into Yoongi’s shoulder and doesn’t look at a single person as he shakes through the end of the panic attack on the subway ride home. Listening only to Yoongi’s voice as it says low in his ear “we’re gonna be okay Namjoon- you’re okay, no ones looking at you, hell I won’t look at you if you don’t want me too.”

- It takes a few weeks, and more than a few days with Yoongi curled up on the pull out couch and Namjoon’s bed, Namjoon’s head buried in Yoongi’s shoulder. Before Namjoon can even think about setting foot outside again.

- And then the eventual question from Yoongi “if Seoul makes you so anxious- why don’t you just move?”

- “Don’t you like the city?” Namjoon asks, by lew of an answer. Really Namjoon could move, he only meets with his publishers every few months and his editor, Jimin communicates with him mostly through email or Skype call. Namjoon could move to the countryside and out of Seoul. but Namjoon thought Yoongi had grown up in the city like himself, and that he would want to stay, “Not if it make you like this Joon.” Yoongi admits, his teeth gnawing on his lower lip as the hybrid looks up at him from beneath his lashes, concerned.

- Namjoon searches for a house in the greater Seoul area and comes across a few good options, a modern loft in a residential neighborhood, but that doesn't have a yard, or a condo- which is right next to a park near a train station and this gorgeous little turn of the century cabin, with two stories and two bedrooms. His second novel peaks at number 2 on the best sellers list. “We need to get a car before we buy a house out there.” Namjoon realizes a few weeks after that- because as much as pictures are lovely he knows Yoongi needs to see the house in person.

- They find a gently used car for sale on Facebook and Namjoon is just walking to pick It up in the theater district early one evening when he spies something.

- The red circus tent is being dismantled, half of the red and white spiral fabric hangs limp or gently flapping in the brisk wind. A lone workman operates a lift putting cages into the back of the truck.

- Namjoon walks by it slowly, eyeing the grubby body in the bottom of that crate. The sound of chains rattling as the hybrid inside pulls against the chains snags his attention. The workman notices Namjoon looking and Namjoon shrinks, abashed to be caught staring. “Hey cut that out!” the man growls hitting a wrench against the side of the cage. The hybrid inside flinches back for a moment and stills before he starts pulling again.

- Namjoon make eye contact with the pair of the most beautiful golden eyes that he’s ever seen; the boy is dirty, the striped tail that curls around his body protectively (for some form of comfort or warmth) is grubby brown when it should be orange. He’s probably a few years younger than Namjoon is. Namjoon spies curved orange ears sticking out the top of his head and reverses direction.

- “Where are these hybrids going to go?“ he asks the workman, who looks down at him before he finishes loading the crate onto the truck and pulls away. Namjoon waits as he gets out of the lift and hops down.

- “The circus is shut down, this ones probably going to be euthanized, he’s the only rare-breed that couldn’t be auctioned off, while the domestic breeds will be sent to adoption agencies.”

- Namjoon peers into the container, and sees a gaggle of dog and cat hybrids that are huddled, each of their hands and feet bound, watching Namjoon with scared and hungry eyes. The tiger hybrid in the cage’s expression is desolate, he knows where he’s headed, but still his hands pull against the chains that fasten him to the bottom of the cage, unable to give up quite yet.

- The money for the car in his pocket feels so heavy like it might bring Namjoon to the floor or tear a hole through his pocket. Namjoon makes a split second decision, fuck getting a car, “I’ll give you 5 million won right now if you give him to me.”

- The delivery man looked at the wad of cash in Namjoon’s hands like he might not take it. “You know what you’re offering to do is extremely illegal.” Namjoon’s jaw was tense, he knows the laws about illegal adoptions, but he stares the workman down. The man sighs and takes the envelope, after a moment, glancing at the money inside, before he takes out his keys. Namjoon heaved a sigh of relief.

- The hybrid had heard the entire conversation but still wasn’t saying anything, he skitters back against the wall when the man unlocks the front door of the cage, taking care to unlock the shackles around his ankles before stepping back.

- Those golden eyes where stuck open blinking wildly. The boy shivering, his shoulders tense and his curved ears pinned back to his head as he curled his hands around the bars of the cage and hopped out of back of the truck. Namjoon saw a full body shiver run through him as his bare feet hit the floor.

- The man undid the shackles around his wrists. The hybrid hissing and biting his lip when they rip away from the red skin, broken in the place around the ball of his wrist.

- The hybrid can barely walk, let alone think about trying to escape as he goes from one captor to another. The man doesn’t look threatening but Taehyung knows you can never be sure. His muscles are too tired to fight anymore to resist going with the man who looks well dressed, in a thick wool coat and a pair of wire-rimmed glasses.

- Namjoon shocks Taehyung by pulling off that coat and tossing it over Taehyung’s bare shoulders, making him shrink further into himself before he clutches the jacket around his chest and lets Namjoon hook an arm underneath one of his as he sways at the rush of blood to his head, narrowly keeping him from falling over. “It’s okay. I’ve got you” Namjoon says as he starts to lead Taehyung back down the street in the direction of his apartment.

- “I don’t like him, he take up so much room.” Yoongi whines after the third day, Taehyung is stretched out on Namjoon and Yoongi’s couch on his stomach his bushy tail waving lazily as he dozes, his fun now clean and a light orange color, his golden eyes closed to the world.

- Taehyung even has stripes, slightly darker patches his skin that tan a little darker and quicker than the rest of him, he’s spent the last few days looking out the “portal” (that Yoongi continually corrected him where called “windows”), so the small ones on his face are the most noticeable.

- When Namjoon had taken him home and taken a look at his injured wrists, he’d also gotten a look at the back of his thighs and back, scared from countless whippings that where fresh in a few places. It would be a few more days until he could lie on his back comfortably, and Namjoon had already bought the hybrid a can of scarring cream. (He even went to the store to buy it by himself, Yoongi was insanely proud. Even if the shock of Namjoon bringing home another hybrid instead of the car he was supposed to buy prevented him from saying it just yet.)

- “He doesn’t have anywhere else to go Yoon, and I won’t put him out on the street.” Namjoon hushes from his desk in his bedroom. Aware that Taehyung can probably hear him.

- Despite his upbringing, the tiger hybrid is anything but cold, though it did take a few days for his sunny personality to shine through the years of trained obedience reinforced by abuse. He’d broken a plate on his 5th night, and Namjoon had blanched when Taehyung had shrunk and pleaded, “please don’t beat me” in a hushed voice.

- Namjoon had been overcome with guilt and horror at those 4 soft words. And the hybrid had shook through his first hug ever as Namjoon had wrapped in him in his arms and tucked his orange head against his shoulder. Yoongi too- had folded himself against the hybrids back, and Taehyung had watched astounded as Yoongi scent marked him nuzzling into his shoulder and letting out a reassuring purr that made Namjoon melt.

- Namjoon sat him down and tried to assure the hybrid that he wasn’t going to be treated that way here. Or ever again if Namjoon had anything to say about it. After that incident, Yoongi lets Taehyung cuddle him whenever he wants- which is most of the time.

- After the initial shyness melted away came the unassuming wonder at everything in the world, Taehyung had only ever seen the world outside of a metal cell or a large stage, and now he found the things that Yoongi and Namjoon overlooked exceeding endearing and excited. Taehyung tripped over his words, telling Namjoon about everything and everything that he had spied about the window out his apartment.

- “You mean we have a mailman!? The same man who delivers mail to all of Seoul stops by our apartment building! Someone should give him a present for doing so much work!” Taehyung is so excited to learn about the most mundane of things that Namjoon can’t burst his bubble, even if Yoongi tries, his nonplused and realist side making an appearance no matter how Namjoon tries to discourage him from bursting the adorable bubble that is Kim Taehyung.

- Taehyung Splashes in the water of Namjoon’s small bathtub with his large hands making Yoongi hiss when he tries to force the other hybrid to take a bath with him. Whining cutely when Namjoon clipped his nails (Namjoon was lucky that Taehyung didn’t actually have claws- it was just that the people at the circus had made him grow his nails out too look like them) and that endlessly boxy smile that lit up the entire apartment, even making Yoongi blush.

- Taehyung was so loveable, constantly throwing himself on top of Namjoon when he works, never even thinking about sleeping on the couch instead preferring to curl around Yoongi or the foot of Namjoon’s bed at night.

- Yoongi is his favorite thing to cuddle, no matter how the other hybrid whined and pushed him away, complaining to Namjoon when the younger nibbled and licked at Yoongi’s ears in something similar to grooming. Yoongi yowls and swats at Taehyung when he calls Yoongi “cub” ignoring him for a whole day and almost reducing the younger hybrid to tears. After that Taehyung always calls him hyung.

- With Taehyung they definitely need more space, and Tae looks so forlorn looking out of the window every chance he gets, his tail swishing behind him every time someone walks down the street below. Namjoon wishes he had a yard or someplace to let Taehyung burn off all of his energy, It’s been a struggle to get legal papers for the hybrid and until he does, Namjoon can’t let him go outside so much.

- Namjoon expedites the process for moving them. Getting a car finally so that they can take trips with a realtor to the outskirts of Seoul. The cottage that Namjoon finally decides on is a cozy 2 story with 2 bedrooms, the master with it’s attached study making up the entire second floor, it’s got a nice balcony there too and a combined living room and kitchen on the ground floor. the patio doors open up from the kitchen onto an old brick semi-circle.

- The whole building is made for a view of the rolling forested hills that start at the edge of their property. The Realator even says there are trails there. Namjoon’s never been a nature person but maybe he could be. It’s a little older, with squeaky floorboards but a lot of chareter, Taehyung says he can fix it up (a nice thought, but Yoongi and Namjoon both cringe when they think about letting Taehyung near power tools)

- Taehyung certainly loves it- especially when he spies the open back yard and the pond at the border of their property, traipsing through it and getting covered with mud Much to Yoongi’s disgust.

- “I am not letting you cuddle me until you’ve had at least 2 baths Tae” he growls when Taehyung tries to drown the other with hugs. Namjoon can’t bring it in himself to refuse him as Taehyung hugs him in the yard getting his black slacks dirty.

- Namjoon’s squeal of protest makes a muted clucking resonate from the side of the house. Taehyung’s ears perk up, his tail stilling. “No no no Tae-“ Namjoon says, dashing after him when he takes off. The realtor mentioned something about chickens, and Namjoon feels dread fill his stomach as he thinks about explaining to them that yeah my hybrid attacked one of your chickens but it’s not really his fault because it’s just in his instincts too want to chase after things that are small and prey sized.

- Coming around the side of the house with Yoongi hot on his heels. How the hell Taehyung managed to fit his shoulders and his whole body through a tiny door Namjoon doesn’t know, but he’s sitting in the chicken coup with one of the hens forcefully restrained in his lap, the ripple of purring immediately halting Namjoon and Yoongi as Taehyung rubs his scent all over the chicken.

- “Fluffy babies.” Taehyung says, while he pets rougher than the chicken likes. The chicken squawks and tries to get away, very uncomfortable with Taehyung’s forceful show of affection but unable to escape his hands. “my fluffy babies.”

- “Did you like the house?” the relator asks when they come back inside. After they bribed Taehyung with ice-cream to get out of the chicken coop. “We’ll take it” Yoongi smiles, his hand on the small of Taehyung’s back, their tails entwine behind their back, something Yoongi only allows when he’s been feeling particularly affectionate.

- Moving is easy when you’ve got two young hybrids to help pack everything away and shove it into a small moving van. Namjoon says goodbye to his old apartment and the city he grew up in with both of his hybrids chatting away in the back seat of his car.

- The hills and forest behind the cottage are misty in the morning of late fall. One of the unrealized consequences of moving out of Seoul is that now they can’t eat out for every meal (though there is a pizza place and an panda express in town that they order from often enough) but Yoongi surprisingly becomes the de facto cook.

- The countryside is much better for Namjoon’s mental health than the city was, in the mornings; he looks out from the second story balcony and feels calmness settle into his bones. Sometimes Yoongi will join him, wrapping his arms around Namjoon’s waist and nuzzling his head between his shoulders.

- “You stole my heater.” Yoongi complains when Namjoon finally turns around. Namjoon kisses the pout off of Yoongi’s face, making him gasp and grip the front of Namjoon’s shirt.

- “You still have your other one back there.” Namjoon nods at their bedroom. The king-sized bed- freshly purchased, and Taehyung starfished in the middle of it, laying on his stomach, his tail flicking in his sleep. “Yeah but that one snores worse than you do.”

- Namjoon’s chuckle rouses Taehyung from sleep. And he blinks up at them wearily, making grabby hands in their direction and whining for them to keep cuddling him. Neither Namjoon nor Yoongi can turn him down.

- It’s not a surprise when Namjoon finds both of his hybrids kissing one morning, Yoongi hoisted up on the counter in the kitchen so that he’s taller than Taehyung for once. Taehyung’s hands wrapped in Yoongi’s thighs almost swallowing them. When they pull away, Yoongi is so flustered that he nearly combusts when he sees Taehyung smirking at Namjoon like the cat that got the cream.

- One month in, a fox sneaks into Taehyung’s chicken coop and kills 2 out of the 10 chickens, including his favorite one, a caramel colored on that was the softest according to Tae. Taehyung cries about it for a week and then he goes on a hunt, scouring the forested hills behind their property for any sign of the fox, and crying more when he finds none.

- Thunder and a rainstorm rage outside a week after Taehyung gives up the hunt. Namjoon’s family sits cozy at their wooden table with the chipped edges, warm soup and fresh bread almost ready to be eaten, Taehyung is telling Namjoon animatedly about a website he found that would let them order chickens like can you even believe that you can get baby chicks through the mail, like what do they eat when they’re-

- And suddenly Taehyung stops, going still in the listless predatory way he does sometimes, his ears tilt in the direction of his chicken coup. Tae’s ears pick up on some movement outside making him dash out the door in fear, forgetting his shoes. Feet splashing in the mud outside the patio door left open in his hurry.

- Taehyung has much finer senses than Yoongi does, so its not surprising that Taehyung picked up on the disturbance before Yoongi. But the other still dashes after him, Namjoon pulls on his shoes less quick then the others grabbing a flashlight off the mantle.

- The wind outside pushes rain in his face as Namjoon trots towards the chicken coup, “Namjoon!” Yoongi yells, his voice panicked “come quick!” Namjoon starts running, not bothering to pull up the hood to his jacket against the coming rain; Yoongi is holding Taehyung back as his low growl ripples threateningly like the thunder above them.

- And then through the coop a small, tiny whimper. Namjoon grabs a hold of Taehyung and peers around him dropping his flashlight in shock at what he sees.

- Yoongi manages to tear Taehyung out of the door as Namjoon crouches down. “Hey there- they’re no need to be afraid,” he says, making his voice low and honeyed. Stretching out his hand.

- The bunny hybrid in front of his is impossibly small, pillowed among the fresh hay that Taehyung had put in there just a day ago, clad in clothes that are no where near warm enough for the weather and soaked to the bone.

- You shake with a mixture of fear and cold, your bunny ears almost hidden with how they’re tucked close to your skull. “I didn’t mean to trespass- I’m sorry I- it’s just so cold outside and-” you cut off with a whimper hiding your face in your hands.

- Namjoon feels movement behind him and its Tae who’d momentarily gotten out of Yoongi’s hold Tae’s looking at you like he’s more curious than worried but you whimper and shrink back into the corner.

- And Namjoon is pushing them both away, “No! no- don’t worry about them.” Yoongi murmurs that he’ll take Tae inside, and you relax when they disappear from view. “I’m sorry about Tae he’s just a little overprotective of his ladies” as if sensing that you’re talking about them- the chickens around you coo and huff in their feathers. You peer out of your hands at the chickens. Who look at you interested- to them you must smell different from the other hybrid they’re accustomed to hanging around.

- “This chicken coop is no place someone to spend the night” Namjoon says, straitening up slowly as to not startle you, his hand still outstretched, “especially in this weather, but my houses is far warmer.” You stair at Namjoon’s hand for a moment, and internally he coos when your nose and your ear twitches.

- You gnaw on your lower lip, but then you reach out tentatively so that you can take his hand and he can pull you up to your full height. You don’t even have to stoop in the chicken coop, whereas Taehyung almost has to double over.

- How can someone be so small, Namjoon wonders as he carefully leads you back inside. You almost bolt again, several times, especially when you see Tae and Yoongi peering at you from around the corner as Namjoon ushers you upstairs. You’re still shaking like a leaf when he settles you into a bath and leaves you to disrobe and warm up in peace, saying that there’s some stew waiting for you downstairs when you’re ready. Leaving some clean clothes outside your door.

- “I don’t want either of you making her feel uncomfortable when she comes downstairs, she’s skittish, and she’s clearly been through a lot, I don't want her getting startled.”

- “It’s probably because we’re predators” Yoongi notes, carefully picking the meat out of a portion of the stew he made leaving the vegetables, especially careful to give you most of the baked carrots. Taehyung whines at Yoongi’s words, “I swear I wouldn’t have like- attacked her or anything- I was just so surprised to find another hybrid on our property.”

- “uhm Namjoon” a quiet voice- your voice says from the doorway, you’re only half in it, hiding from behind the edge to shield your body, even in Yoongi’s clothes the long sleeve shirts is almost falling off your shoulder, the pants tied tights around a tiny waist the little black cotton tail poking out the hole that was usually for Yoongi’s tail.

- Yoongi and Namjoon resist the urge to coo when you blush, Taehyung watches you with his golden eyes, his tail swishing back and forth quickly. “Here darling” Namjoon says, extending a hand which you take and sit at the table, sitting on your hands, your ears are still pushed back against your wet hair. Still pinned back.

- By the time you’ve finished your stew you’re nearly asleep in the soup bowl, slumped in your chair asleep, tipping to your left into Yoongi who catches you almost barely. His hand comes up shakily, Shure you’re still partially awake when he combs his hands through your hair, feeling the silkiness of your black ears. twined through your hair, pink in the middle and black on the outside, they twitch, your nose mimicking them when your head falls against his shoulder. a little buzzing noise coming out of your throat, sounding something like contentment.

- Yoongi resists the urge to purr. His hand stills on your forehead, his eyebrows knit together, “she feels a little warm.” He murmurs to Namjoon and Taehyung.

- Yoongi carries you to onto the couch, which Namjoon has cast a sheet over, lying your head against the pillow where you barely stir as Taehyung throws their fluffiest blanket over you, your feet quirking to the side kicking a little as your ears perk up.

- Namjoon rests his hand against your flushed cheeks, Yoongi is right, a fever is slowly starting to rise within you.

- “I don’t wanna take medicine” you whine when Namjoon makes you take some the next morning, though you have to admit you don’t feel so good, the heat in your body makes you feel hazy and not all there as you let a predator, an actual predator cuddle up to your side, though Taehyung whines from the doorway, still watching you. Though admittedly he’d tried, and you’d almost jumped off of the couch before Namjoon stopped Taehyung with a raised hand.

- You’re not exactly intimidated by the tiger hybrid still, but your first meeting wasn’t exactly glowing by any review- so you’re comfortable with him staying away for now. “Would some carrots make it better?” Yoongi plies, and you’re distracted momentarily, but you still won’t open your mouth to take Namjoon’s waiting spoon full of red liquid for your throat.

- Yoongi’s fingers tickle your bunny tail and make you shout, giving Namjoon the perfect opportunity to shove the medicine in your mouth. You’re pouty and angry at all of them until Yoongi brings you carrots and some more munchies including strawberry ice cream that makes your ears flop and twitch happily.

- Namjoon lets you stretch out across his lap as he pets your ears, by the end of the day you’re feeling better, not quite so hazy and you gush to him about how you didn’t know something could be so cute and yummy at the same time.

- Which of course Leeds Namjoon to buying you a light pink pullover and a white skirt as well as knee socks and a whole bunch of pastel clothing that you absolutely adore wearing. Even getting you a little bit of makeup because girls like that sort of thing don’t they?

- Namjoon cannot resist spoiling all of you; he’s always sitting next to you and pulling you to lie against him, as well as hoisting your feet up in his lap to rub a lazy thumb across your shins. It takes you a little while to adjust to just how affectionate Namjoon and the others can be, but you begin to accept more of it. As spring warms to summer Namjoon finds himself taking the three of you out more often, into town and into the outskirts of the city.

- Official adoption papers where easy to come by for you and Taehyung now that you where both out of the city where the laws where more harsh. Stray hybrids where often found out here and adopted as farm hands, it was easy to claim both you and Taehyung as adoptees. And Namjoon even got a tax right off.

- He celebrates by taking the three of his hybrids out to the movies and dinner, and you all argue between which movie you should see, a mystery (Yoongi’s choice), an action thriller (Taehyung’s choice), and a romantic comedy (your choice.)

- It’s not surprising to Namjoon that they end up watching the romantic comedy. All you have to do is pout and Taehyung and Namjoon melt unable to resist you and the way your ears flop around your face, your eyes wide and almost tear-filled, your nose twitching cutely.

- God they are so so whipped for you already it’s not even funny.

- Yoongi is the only one who it take convincing, and he ends up pouting on the other side of Namjoon who holds your hand through all the sad parts while Taehyung practically wails on the other side of you, always a little sensitive.

- “You’re all a bunch of crybabies.” Yoongi complains, but later you catch him holding onto your hand a little tighter, not wanting to let it go when you go to get fresh fruit parfaits afterword’s at the only all-night restaurant in town and you know the sad ending where the two love interests don’t end up together is weighing on him in a way he won’t express.

- You’re still sleeping in the living room that night when Yoongi comes down and peels back the covers to slip underneath your little burrow of warmth to press his head against your neck and scent mark you, the usual way he greets you now. “Wanna come to the big bed tonight?” he asks, and you make a non-committal noise as he pulls you up.

- In the main bedroom Taehyung is already asleep, but Namjoon is still writing more, his head against the headboard and his eyes tired, glasses pushed up on his face as he sighs and runs his fingers through his hair, making it stick up in all sorts of directions.

- “Joonie you should go to sleep.” Yoongi says, “the writers block will be better in the morning” forcefully pushing Namjoon’s laptop closed “just one more second, need to save,” he says, barely casting you a glance as you go over to his side of the bed and tell him too scoot over while Yoongi peals back Taehyung’s arms and settles himself under the crook up his elbow.

- Yoongi’s tail flicks as he watches Namjoon write a few more seconds. Finally leaning up to press a kiss to his lips and take the laptop out of his lap. “Alright alright” Namjoon says when his hybrid pulls away, his lips pink and damp and cute. “Bed now- I get it-“

- Namjoon runs a hand down your back next to him where you’re propped up on a pillow under your chest too look at him. Namjoon see’s the way you’re looking at him and know, knows what you’re thinking and what you want. After all how many goodnight kisses does Taehyung whine for on the regular? It took at least a dozen to get him to go to sleep that night without Yoongi in the bed even though he was bone tired from repairing the chicken coup today.

- “Want a goodnight kiss sweetheart?” Your tail twitches happily as you nod, Namjoon leans one hand supporting himself on the other side of your head, his lips sweet and soft that make you sigh against the seem of his lips.

- Yoongi would never say anything, but in that moment, he looks up at Tae and finds him watching you with something like longing in his eyes. But he doesn’t mention it ever, only holding onto the other hybrids shoulder and nuzzling further into him.

- Yoongi looks up more vegetable heavy recipes for you, looking up online the correct balance and dietary needs of prey hybrids, as canine hybrids can basically eat like humans with no bad effects but you’ll get sick if you eat even half as much meat as Taehyung, Yoongi, and Namjoon do.

- You feel a little guilty that sometimes Yoongi has to make you something entirely different when he cooks dinner offering to help him constantly. You know how stressed it makes him when Taehyung asks for bulgogi and pad thai which Yoongi doesn’t even know how to make. And of course Taehyung is too adorable to turn down, but Yoongi simply can’t make all of that by himself.

- So you help Yoongi in the kitchen sometimes, because Taehyung manages to cut himself almost consistently within the first 20 minutes of cooking every time. And after the last one needed stitches and had him licking at it for a few weeks, he has been officially banned from the kitchen. Whenever Namjoon tries Yoongi just straight up growls at him because he is not dealing with cleaning up after Namjoon.

- And you guys have a fun doing it too, cooking is always better with a companion and though you’re not entirely hopeless Yoongi does enjoy teaching you how to cook, humming alongside you in the kitchen as he stirs some fishcake around with wooden chopsticks.

- You express a desire to learn how to bake and not cook which Yoongi can't help with but agrees to try, and by the time you have the batter for the strawberry shortcake poured in the pan Yoongi’s black hair is almost grey with how much flower is in it. he obsessively grooms himself later that night, alongside you whose ears have turned similarly as powdery from hanging in your face like they do when you’re concentrating.

- You giggle when Yoongi grooms them giving into his urge to care for you. These instincts regarding mates can be annoying for cat hybrids like Yoongi- who ignores his animal instincts as much as he can most of the time.

- Yoongi thinks your ears are absolutely adorable when they hang in your face or when one of them lifts in the direction of whoever's talking when you’re concentrated like that. It’s almost like they have a life of their own

- You complain about them sometimes, pushing back your ears from your face when you get a little too focused on something and they block your vision. One morning you come down to find a pink scrunch on the table and ask Yoongi who blushes and stutters.

- “I got it for your ears because you don’t like the way rubber bands feel on your hair” Yoongi recalled that the other day when you went to the store and picked up hair ties, notifying Namjoon that rubber band just wouldn’t work. And that regular hair ties pinch your ears too much “ you know- so that they don’t get into your face when we cook or when you’re trying to do your makeup.”

- You forget to put it on most of the time until you’re already doing something, because it does look a little goofy when you tie up your ears, your hands elbow deep in the dishes when you call Yoongi’s name and he swoops up your ears and fastens them together on top of your head with the pink scrunchie.

- And then you start to lose it, Yoongi finds it under the couch and sighs, putting it on his own wrist where it lives when you’re not using it, always ready in case you ask for it. Namjoon smirks at him when he catches Yoongi looking at it one day and tugging at it with a little lovesick expression. “Stop looking at me like that” he growls, trying to disguise the flush on his cheeks. “It’s not my fault I’m the only one who can keep track of things in this house.”

- Yup, Yoongi is definitely whipped for you.

- Eventually you get good enough with makeup to try and beg Yoongi to let you put on him “hell no y/n, I’m like some fierce panther or something I am not letting you put me in bubble gum lipstick.”

- “I could put some on!” Taehyung says, and you giggle a little and shyly put on some red on his lips, and when he leans over and kisses your cheek, making you startle and hop back, he grins when he sees the kiss mark he’s left. Which of course Leeds Taehyung to kissing you all over your face to leave little red marks, and then begging for you to apply more so that he can give Yoongi and Namjoon the same treatments.

- Taehyung wakes one morning early, gets out of bed because he knows its going to be a nice day and the chickens will probably need to be let out to mill about the back yard. And he descends the rickety stairs and find you already in the kitchen, drinking some tea and clacking away on the phone that Namjoon bought you last week.

- Taehyung gives you a small smile, staring at you with longing as he tells you good morning, your ears flick in his direction as you lift your head in his direction as you give him a small smile that makes his heart race. And Taehyung can’t bear it any longer, doesn’t want to stay away anymore, he’s been trying to give you enough space to get comfortable with him like Joonie said.

- “Do y-you wanna come out and get the eggs with me today?” you take a sip of your earl grey tea, looking like you’re going to refuse and Taehyung wonders why he even bothered when he knew you weren’t ready when your ears perk up in interest, and you stand to put your teacup in the sink.

- Taehyung stutters as he tells you their names, his too-big boots sloshing a little as you spread some seed around in the grass, making excited little noises every time they cluck, even mimicking the little noises Taehyung makes and giggling with him as he does this little call and response thing with his chickens.

- “And now the best part” he grins, opening up the back of the coup to have access to the nests, “they’re still warm!” you cry in delight as Tae deposits two brown eggs into your hands and takes the rest that are there in his hands 3 in one hand and 2 in the other.

- The big fluffy white chicken that’s too shy to let Taehyung get within a foot of her comes up next to you, pecking around your feet as you watch her in wonder. “She’s super shy I wouldn’t try to pet her” Taehyung warns, he himself had gotten pecked more than once. You stoop down, the chicken gives you soft clucks as Taehyung pouts, and your smile soft and eyes wide in wonder as you she lets you pet her before fluffing her feathers and moving away.

- “She never lets me do that!” he cries later when they’re inside, Yoongi clacking away on his computer and Namjoon upstairs writing. Yoongi’s ears flick in annoyance as he spies the way you’re no longer skirting around Taehyung like he has the plague or some very nasty infectious disease, “I can’t believe you got marshmallow to trust you! I feel betrayed!”

- “Marshmallow did what now?” Namjoon says as he descends the stairs, still in his pajamas even though its nearly 2 in the afternoon his hair sticking up the way it does when his writers block is particularly bad. Of course all of them know the names of Taehyung’s chickens by now, given how much he talked about them.

- Taehyung launches into the story as you fold yourself against Yoongi on the couch, your body a line up against him, he purrs and nudges into your shoulder, tempting a lick against your cheek, which make you squeak.

- “Stop that” you whine as Yoongi pulls you against his chest, lying his laptop on your lap instead of his but hooking his chin over the side of your shoulder so that he can still see it “Don’t lie and say you hate it,” which makes you pout but you accept his affection, your small cotton tail twitching against his thigh.

- Seokjin comes to visit Namjoon’s new house and you’re entirely smitten with the gorgeous human, your ears shyly pinned to your head the entire time he’s here, smoothing out the giant sweater of Namjoon’s every few seconds and almost melting when Seokjin says “you have the best luck finding the most well behaved and beautiful hybrids.”

- Seokjin even reaches out and closes his hand around the base of your ear, drawing his hand away to feel the silky texture, “I have half a mind to take one for myself.” You squeak and blush and hide your face in Namjoon’s shoulder as both of them men chuckle.

- But Namjoon smiles as you perpetually hide behind him, “he’s just teasing you sweetheart,” Namjoon says as you shyly peer at Seokjin out of your protected place behind Namjoon’s chair. It feels kind of nice when you hide behind him, trusting your human to be your protector.

- It was easy for Namjoon to rely on Taehyung and Yoongi for most things, especially when it came to his anxiety, but to feel depended on in the way you depend on Namjoon makes his heart swell with this different kind of pride. You make Namjoon feel strong and protective. He pulls you to sit across his lap and lock his arms around you. You still hide your face in Namjoon’s neck, peering out at the other human every few seconds.

- Yoongi and Taehyung boil though at Seokjin’s words, because no one is going to mess with your little unit even if they’re just joking, and Tae can’t believe that Namjoon’s human friend got to touch you like that, though a look from Yoongi stops Tae from growling at Seokjin.

- Petty as always, Taehyung and Yoongi don’t let Seokjin pet them like usual before he leaves, instead he snuggles up to you screaming “Aish! You brats- you don’t know how to properly love your hyung!” Tae even steps forward like he’s going to do something when Seokjin presses a kiss too your cheek in goodbye, making you squeak and blush.

- That night Taehyung and Yoongi are a little bit possessive of you crowding you in-between the both of them on the couch while you watch movies, not letting you get up to make popcorn or for drinks. Taehyung even squeezes your shoulders in a relaxing back massage, smirking when you relax into his hands, tipping your head back, your ears relaxed at your size even when he nibbles a little at your ears.

- Namjoon thinks it’s absolutely adorable how possessive his two hybrids are over you.

- You and Namjoon go on walks in the mist in the early mornings sometimes when Taehyung and Yoongi take forever to wake up, with him by your side the woods don’t seem as scary as they did back when you lived in them.

- Most of the time Namjoon will link his arm with yours and tell you in his low timbre about the fantasy worlds he imagines just behind the hills that you walk through. And it’s amazing how for Namjoon, it always seems like adventure is around the corner of the wooded path.

- Living in the wilderness has been amazing for his productivity, writing, and imagination. He’s content to bounce his ideas off of you in your morning walks and not actually live through the adventures he dreams up. Namjoon finds you a surprisingly good beta reader as well and you absolutely swoon when he writes romance into his fantasy stories.

- One day you read his draft and stomp up to his office and pout, your ears twitching agitated and your foot even stomping, “you can not leave a romance story this good at such a cliffhanger Namjoon! Your readers are going to hunt you down and slap you before I do!” Namjoon just grins and says with a wry smile, “I can tell you how the next book ends if it will make you feel better?”

- Some mornings you don’t join Namjoon for his early walk, and on those you’ll wake up to soft bluebells or pink cosmos from the feilds lying on his pillow next to your head, or on one of the shelves in your closet, or in one of the brush containers by your makeup stash in the bathroom.

- Sometime Taehyung will wake up early as well and join you- though in those times the conversation will often turn into a horror story retelling which will make you press closer too the two of them with every strange noise that greets you on your walk- which of course was Taehyung’s plan all along.

- One day Taehyung goes into the shared master bedroom to find it in chaos every single blanket and pillow in the house alongside some of their clothes piled into a big puddle. He finds you sleeping in one of Taehyung’s red sweatshirt in the center of the nest. Your cream silk shorts poking out from underneath the hem, one of your socks pulled up your thigh and the other down around your ankle.

- Taehyung huffs and crawls into the middle of the nest and wraps his arms around you. Nesting or burrowing is a regular enough behavior of rabbit hybrids that it doesn’t alarm Taehyung though you’ve never made one out of the bedroom before.

- You wake up a little making sleepy noises and letting out the cutest little yawn, your black bunny ears twitching aggressively for a moment and then going totally still the next as he snuggles in next to you. You let Taehyung manhandle you across his chest and you’re vaguely aware of him purring and rubbing his chin around the top of your head.

- “You’re mine- my fluffy bunny.” He murmurs his voice a low growl as he scent marks you again and again until you’re bathed in the tiger’s rich spicy scent.

- You’re in and out of a haze sleeping in your little nest/fort thing that you’ve made but somewhere along the afternoon Yoongi joins in on the other side of you, rubbing at your shoulder too, crowded in between both of them and unbelievably warm.

- Yoongi’s tail, always more dexterous than Tae’s thicker one curls around one of your legs, and there is one hand running endlessly over your ears, especially around the base of them, and another rubbing a hand down your back under your shirt, scratching a little lightly around the base of your tail.

- And then the next time you come too in the haze of your nap you’re on your back, and you have one face resting on your stomach, Yoongi’s judging by the black hair that pushes against where the sweatshirt has ridden up, Yoongi’s arms wrapped around your waist.

- But that’s not why you’ve woken up, your back arches and a sigh leaves your mouth as Tae nips along the edge of your jaw sometimes stopping to suck at the skin, his oral fixation that all hybrids tend to have acting up maybe, or maybe not, especially when you start to squirm he lets out a low growl. “Would you let me mark you, let me make you ours?” he grounds out his voice low and breathy.

- Namjoon can only smile in amusement as he finally reaches his writers block for a day and comes in to find his bedroom torn apart and his three hybrids lounging in each others warmth, both your and Yoongi’s necks are a masterpiece of red and purple marks and Taehyung humming happily as he tries to snuggle closer to both of you. Taehyung even has a few marks on his collarbones. Your head pokes up at the noise, your ears at attention as Yoongi whines when you remove your neck from the reach of his mouth,

- You smile sleepily up at him eyes closing slowly before you reach up, Namjoon entwines his fingers with yours slowly, his large hands dwarfing your small ones, until you tug him down with a little yelp on his part.

- You get so many kisses on a daily basis. You get your good morning ones from Namjoon, usually tasting like coffee, and Kisses that are smiley and almost taste like a laugh when you pout from Namjoon, and slow relaxed kisses that happen in the hazy gray light of the living room when it’s gotten late enough to turn the lights on but no ones bothered yet.

- You get ones from Yoongi when you do something cute or just because he wants too (usually when you’re drinking your tea or smiling softly at something and he gets this burst of emotion that prompts him to stop whatever he’s doing and kiss your pink lips).

- And endless kisses from Tae- though both Namjoon and Yoongi are as much a victim of his kisses as well, whenever he bounds in from the outdoors, whenever someone does something particularly cute, like drop a mug or crash into the door without his glasses (Namjoon,) like pout and say something biting and grumpy (Yoongi) or when you do that little thing where you crunch your jaw happily around your food or excitedly run around one of the three of them in circles.

- That particular behavior has Namjoon smiling something soft and suspicious and even Yoongi starts to grin after a point. And it feels like the two of them have some secret inside joke that Taehyung’s not apart of when he sees it.

- “What are you hiding from me- why did you look at Yoongi like that when Y/n started to do the circle thing.” Taehyung pouts one morning after it happens in the kitchen.

- “We’re just happy Tae” Namjoon soothes, Taehyung’s head is lying across his lap in the office and the hybrid pouting lips tickling against his bare thigh.

- “I looked up hybrid behavior on the internet a few weeks ago- you know because you and Yoongi are a little easier to read but Y/n has a few indecipherable behaviors- its actually really interesting from a genetic point of view why prey type hybrids tend to have more typically animal behaviors-“

- Taehyung lets Namjoon ramble on about some paper he read when he was doing research for his last book, straightening up to press a kiss to his lips that makes Namjoon stop and blush because an excited Namjoon is an absolutely adorable Namjoon and Taehyung always always always wants to kiss his boyfriends.

- “Oh just spit it out,” he says when Taehyung sees that adorable shy smile that Namjoon’s says, running his fingers through his kiss mused hair.

- “The circling thing- it means she’s selecting us as her mates.”

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bigskydreaming · 4 years

Note

For the fic ask meme, 4, 16, 24, or 28

I will answer 16 now, because No Reason, Just Whimsy, but stay tuned as I’ll probably end up answering 4, 24 and 28 at some point anyway, because like. No Reason, Just Whimsy. *Shrugs*

16. If you only could write one pairing for the rest of your life, which pairing would it be?

I can’t tell you, see, because I would simply make that one pairing endgame and everything else leading up to it like, contain all the other ships I could not bear to be without. (Hahahaha this is why I could never be a romance author, I can not abide by the rules of HEA or HFN in relationship stories to save my LIFE). So, y’know, SPOILERS.

No but also I’m completely aware that this is cheating and not the point of the question. But I can not choose though, that is the point, like, have you met me? I am the original poster child for ADHD. I’m THAT old.

So instead I will simply say that in the realm of Teen Wolf, Scanny is very very very important to me, which like, surprises no one. But also I would still fight someone who tried to take either Scira or Scallison from me, I remain obnoxiously fond of Scackson’s potential, and I’m still out here being like, the sole Scosh (Scott/Josh Diaz) shipper in all the land, I’m pretty sure, lmfao.

And I mean, also there’s Scyle, of course. I could never give up the Scyle.

As far as Marvel goes, like, I am going to be riding the high of Bobby/Christian being canon for quite some time, as anyone who has known me long knows that I have been shipping this ship since Christian was first introduced and then written offstage like two issues later….seventeen years ago.

(I have a lot of issues with straight writers making gay characters’ gay-specific tragedies and traumas like….someone ELSE’S angsty back story, while they themselves are just shuffled off the page and considered irrelevant. For those who don’t know, Christian is Emma Frost’s gay older brother who she adored and when their father had Christian institutionalized against his will because he was gay, this was what made Emma break away from the rest of her family for good and set her on the road to becoming the White Queen of the Hellfire Club.

And then, despite like, this being life-defining for her, not a single writer in the next fifteen damn years ever thought to ask themselves…..hmmm, why would Emma Frost, one of the most powerful telepaths in the world and someone whose personal morality in no way makes her above using those powers, her wealth or Hellfire resources however she damn well pleases in the name of protecting herself, those she cares about, and advancing her agendas…..why would this woman who has never let anything stand in the way of what she cares about before like….simply just…never once in all the years since she was a teenager think to herself….hmm, what if I simply go to the institution where my beloved brother is kept against his will, and just…..made them release him?)

So, aside from always thinking Bobby/Christian would be a great ship with amazing potential given Bobby’s unique history and dynamic with Christian’s sister and the fact that Christian shares a lot of the same traits, backstory and other elements that make Emma an amazing and multi-faceted character and he’s just been sitting there in Limbo for fifteen years with all this untapped potential just waiting to be mined….

I’m always going to be gleeful about this ship and with a special fondness for Sina Grace for bringing Christian back from comic book Limbo and laying the foundation for this ship, like, just because like……I feel its long overdue and the only way to ACTUALLY make anything decent out of the bullshit that was mining his oppression for the sake of another character’s angst: by finally giving HIM the chance to be a character who is affected by all that, developed and moved forward from all of that, is the FOCUS of all that…..and even more importantly, now after being left offscreen for fifteen years by writers who considered his narrative nothing more than tragic filler….he finally has a chance to be an example of a gay character who gets to come BACK from all of that and move FORWARD from it, and like…find healing and happiness with another character, like Bobby.

So Bobby/Christian is actually hugely important to me for a variety of reasons, especially right now since this is all just happening recently, and I will love them forever and in defiance of the inevitable bullshit some future writer pulls that will piss me the hell off. Y’know, just going off of Vegas odds or whatever.

Aside from Bobby/Christian I’ve also always had a weakness for Bobby/Johnny Storm because they are the most iconic ice and fire characters out there and I am basically twelve. I also have blogged at length in the past about all the reasons I’m a huge fan of Bobby/Bishop and not just because their ship name would make them a literal bop. Again, I refer you to the thing where I’m basically twelve. But yeah, there’s a whole history there where when Bishop first came back into the past and met the X-Men who’d all been legends in his time, he kinda fanboyed a little over Bobby because of Bobby’s future legend, and then was kinda like….oh, that’s it? about him once he got to know Bobby and Bishop became like, the physical embodiment of underwhelmed.

And ever since then Bobby’s always low key been like, a hyper-active puppy around Bishop, like, trying not to SEEM like he cares an awful lot about whether or not he’s managed to impress Bishop but because he can’t be subtle to save his life, mostly just coming across as “am I living up to the hype now? how about now? am I legendary NOW? What about now?” and I dunno. Its just kinda cute and a fairly unique dynamic, and Bishop has this deliberately bland, blink and you miss it sense of humor with the right writers and that I’ve always thought has a ton of potential for him to be privately amused by this tendency of Bobby’s, enough that he’s unwilling to confess to him that Bobby actually earned his respect years ago by this point, and he just doesn’t want to let Bobby know because then he’d stop.

And then in terms of DC, I’ve posted a lot a lot a loooooooooot about my love for Dick/Kory in canon, and how they - and by extension we - were robbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbed, and if DC doesn’t give me my canon Mar’i and Jake Grayson one of these days, I don’t care if they have to import them from another universe and then have this universe’s Dick and Kory awkwardly try to co-parent them while living their own lives separately before finally coming back together and falling in love all over again and then becoming a single united family unit forever and ever in the most ridiculously complicated comic book version of the Parent Trap ever, like…..

I can’t even think of an over-exaggerated threat creative enough to convey just how badly I want and need this, DC, give it to meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee plzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

And then also, I’ve actually posted a lot a lot a loooooooooooot (though not in a few years, probably, so those posts are all super old, lol) about how I think Kyle and Donna are a criminally under-rated canon couple and were actually really really good together because they went through so much together and Kyle literally grew so much as a character specifically on the things Donna called him out for the first time they dated, like, literally so he could be BETTER, and then with how anticlimactically they ended...because the thing is, they never actually even broke up! It was this thing where like, when Donna went to LA with Kyle for his high school reunion and to literally MEET HIS MOM, like HELLO, that is not a basic relationship step, that is Advanced Dating, like…..that is where they were at in their relationship when Donna literally got the call then and there that her ex-husband and her son had just died in a car accident.

And Donna was devastated of course, and Kyle was devastated too - for her, and also in his own way, because he’d adored Robert and like, there were these issues where they were super cute and took him to the zoo together and Kyle was bonding with him and just like, melting over this kid, and Robert and Terry were killed by a drunk driver, and like, there was a later story where Kyle just went apeshit on this drunk driver he encountered because he had all these repressed feelings about Robert’s death and how it had hurt Donna and he’d made sure not to show any of that to her or even let on that he hurt for Robert’s loss in his own way, because he didn’t want to make it about him, he KNEW better…

And anyway, the point is…they never actually broke up in the sense of either of them at any point being all, oh we no longer love each other or think this can work, we need to end it. Instead, Donna said that she needed to take some time away from Kyle and everyone else and just…come to terms with what she’d lost and figure out who she even was now in the wake of that….and Kyle totally understood, didn’t argue or try and change her mind, he just said take as much time as you need, I’ll be here when you’re ready, and oh btw, here’s this lantern construct of a locket that I want you to keep because as long as it exists you’ll know that a part of me is still thinking about you and wanting you to be happy, wherever that is.

And then like…..less than a year later, DC did their super weird Dark Angel story where Donna was erased from reality and then had to be ‘recreated’ from Wally’s memories, and for awhile just existed in the form and identity she’d been recreated from, which was based entirely on what Wally knew of her and thought and felt about her, and so there were huge gaps in her identity where she was missing stuff she should have known but didn’t now because WALLY didn’t know about it.

Such as how when Donna met Kyle’s subsequent sorta-girlfriend Jade some time later - I say sorta because she and Kyle were still figuring things out at that stage, and Jenny-Lynn in part didn’t know if she wanted to actually get into a relationship with him because she thought he was still in love with Donna - well anyway, when Donna and Jenny-Lynn met in a later issue and she said all this to Donna, Donna reassured her not to worry about it, she was reading more into it than actually existed because she and Kyle had never been that serious anyway.

Which. SCREECH! Brakes please. HOLD UP.

Like, I’m sorry JAY FAERBER YES I REMEMBER IT WAS YOU WHO WROTE THAT ISSUE UGGGGGH, but like, in what UNIVERSE is “dated, broke up, then got back together later because she thought Kyle had matured a ton since they first tried dating and now they were so much stronger as a couple that she oh I dunno, introduced him to her son and they went on playdates together, went with him to meet his mom, had a never-vanishing lantern locket construct that signified just how much he would always love her” uh…..’never been that serious anyway’? I’m. What? Does not compute.

BUT WHATEVER.

LOL. Anyway, point is, so things like that actually make sense when you factor in the role Wally’s memories and perspective played in who Donna literally WAS for awhile (and the understandable existential crises she went through as a result). But like, at the point in time when Kyle and Donna were most serious, Kyle was still fairly removed from a lot of the rest of the DC universe, he wasn’t a core member of the JLA yet and usually operated independently, and he and Wally were NOT close at all yet, let alone friends….in fact, for as long as Donna and Kyle dated, Wally pretty much still actively hated and resented Kyle for just existing, since he’d always been close with Hal since he was a kid and Hal was his Uncle Barry’s BFF-and-homosexual-life-partner-in-all-but-name.

Like, it was only after Kyle became one of the core JLA alongside Wally that the two of them finally worked out their mutual antagonism and became friends, but before that, Wally was NOT shy about expressing he hated this new GL guy and wanted nothing to do with him, even though it was for unfair reasons, sooooo……like, its not really that shocking that even though Wally and Donna are two of each other’s oldest friends and super tight, like, he was never going to be the friend she called up to let him know how great things were going with her and Kyle these days, lol, y’know?

So it makes sense that when Donna was first magically reconstituted thanks to Wally’s memories/view of her (btw, this was because Wally was out of phase with reality and was in the Speed Force at the precise moment that Donna was erased from reality by the Dark Angel’s magic, and that’s why he alone remembered her and was the template for undoing what the Dark Angel had done). But anyway, it makes sense that she would for a time have had very little memory or even knowledge of her and Kyle’s prior relationship, and basically just know/remember what little Wally actually knew of it. So from her perspective then, it could very well have seemed that they were never that serious, and everyone but Kyle like….kinda just nodded and figured okay, you would know after all, and just…..everyone ended up walking away with the idea that they were just this brief fling and neither had ever had strong feelings for each other, let alone love.

The problem I’ve always had is that eventually Donna DID regain her full memories and her own sense of self, and like….she was Donna again, through and through, existing as she always had without being limited to just Wally’s view or memory of her.

Soooo, at THAT point, she should have been perfectly aware of what her and Kyle’s relationship had ACTUALLY looked like, in its entirety, and I mean, I can understand them not getting back together at that point. It’d been years, they both were in very different places, Kyle had eventually gotten together with Jade after it was expressed by Donna herself that there was no reason not to, given that its not like they were ever that serious….so by the time Donna herself would have realized otherwise, I can totally understand her feeling that the moment had passed for them, that Kyle had moved on (just as Kyle had only ‘moved on’ once he felt there was no longer a chance of them returning to what they were). Like, all of that is super weird and complicated even by ridiculous comic book soap opera standards, so I mean….lol, how do you even BEGIN that conversation, y’know?

Buuuuuut, it just kinda sucks that at no point after that Faerber issue has any later writer ever had either Donna or Kyle discuss their previous relationship(s) in terms of what it ACTUALLY was, for BOTH of them, rather than just this trivial, ancient history fling that neither had ever been super invested in….even though for several years in the nineties they were one of THE major hero couples in comic books.

So. Yeah. As evidenced, I have a lot of unresolved Donna and Kyle feelings lol.

And then of course, there are and always will be my epic “OMG DICK AND KYLE COULD BE THE GREATEST SHIP AND END ALL THE SHIPS LIKE COULD YOU EVEN IMAGINE” feelings, but like. That’s a thirty pound tome in and of itself, so. Like. Just picture the two of them standing staring soulfully into each other’s eyes and then me, creepily fixated on them twenty feet away, chin propped up on my hands and going awwwwwwww while my own eyes like, sparkle anime style but also are the heart-eyes motherfucker meme at the same time.

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wheremytwinwatches · 4 years

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[Where My Twin Watches]: Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood Episode 12

Episode 12 - “One is All, All is One” We open with whoawhoawhoa it’s Beardy from the intro. Papa Elric? Do we finally get backstory on Absent Dad this episode?

Beardy doesn’t look happy about something. And Ed wakes up in shock. More points towards it being Papa Elric, and also it not being the healthiest of families. But hey, this is anime, good luck finding any Protagonist families without Drama. Al says they’re almost at Dublith, asks if Ed was having a bad dream. Then stays oddly quiet when Ed says it was about ‘him’. Jeez, what’s with this guy? In town, both boys are very unenthusiastic about seeing Teacher again. And now the screens suddenly shaking, the door creaks open ominously gah bloody knife what the Oh dear. A very very big man has just stepped outside. Seriously, this guy looks like he could give Armstrong himself a run for his money. [Ed]: “Um… hello, Sig.” [Al]: “Long time no see.” Ah, a butcher! Got it. He’s rather chill about seeing the Elrics after so long, just patting them on the head and commenting on how they’ve grown (and can I just say how it’s adorable for the Giant Fanged Suit of Armor to be happy about having his head rubbed? Daw.) Sig pokes his head through a window, tells “Izumi” that the “Elric Shrimps” have come for a visit, she puts down an Alchemy book and says that she’s feeling a little better today. You’re right Al, that doesn’t sound good. What’s wrong with Teacher? Oh. Oh dear. Ed just got done kicked in the face across the street. I believe I have a good read on Teach, now.

To menacing music, McKickyFace steps outside, looking down on Ed with shadowed face and glowing red eyes. [McKickyFace]: “Hello, my stupid pupil! I hear you’ve become one of the military’s dogs!” And then the creaky door betrays Al’s hiding spot, she turns… and Al’s cuteness factor is unstoppable, McKickyFace instantly transforms to Izumi, commenting on how Al has grown. Aw, that’s nope never mind just a ruse to easily throw Al to the dirt. Jeez, for someone “not feeling well” you’re tossing these chumps around like ah that’s blood. No Teach, I don’t think you’re “perfectly fine.” Sig tells her not to exert herself and oh they’re married. One, that’s adorable, and two, ok that explains why they went to Sig. But above all else that’s adorable. Also funny how their love is so overpowering that Ed’s just standing there unnerved, getting bumped in the head by floating hearts. Inside, the four are sitting around a table, the conversation as typical being about the Philosopher’s Stone. Teacher doesn’t know much about it though, says it doesn’t hold much interest for her. Why’s that, do you know the secret or just have that much faith in your own abilities? Sig contributes that there was one guy in Central who knew about it. A guy called Hohenheim? Whoa Ed what’s wrong? And Al, do you recognize it too? Ah, image of Beardy! Teacher asks why the reaction to the name, Al confirms that it is indeed Papa Elric. Who “ran out” on them when they were little? Damnit man, why do you have to perpetuate the trope of Absent Anime Father? Flashback! Mama and Papa Elric are standing at the door, Baby!Ed and Baby!Al happened to be up early in the morning. Mama’s of course all over her children, but Papa Elric… just glares down at Ed, that’s the only description I can use for that look. Then he turns without a word, and walks out the door. ...seriously? Dude, dick move. So Mama Elric did say later that Papa left, but not with any finality. Then we get various scenes of Mama Elric and the Babies being cute, until… Mama Elric collapsed on the floor. Back in the present, with Ed still lost in Flashback-Land, Ed asks if Papa Elric had said anything about the Stone. Teacher says it was something about a life-long dream coming true. Even happy when he said it. Then she gets up, punches Ed out his sulk, and says that they’re going to eat.

At the dinner, Sig offers Al some food… uh oh. Have the Brother’s really not explained about Al’s state? Wow, really subtle attempt to change the subject to the last episode there Ed. I can tell Sig’s not buying it, he just looks to Izumi drinking her tea. Another flashback? A big storm in their hometown, the young Elrics are looking down with the other townsfolk as men try to keep a sandbag barrier holding against a flood. The wall’s breaking, everyone’s pulling back- except for Teacher, who’s striding past them as the epic string music picks up. With a clap of her hands (ooh, so Ed picked up on not using TCs from her!), she earthbends a bunch of walls up to hold back the river. And then Sweetie Sig walks over with an umbrella as she turns to the crowd. Who don’t recognize her? Ah right, a passerby, she lives in Dublith after all. And then she vomits blood again. Oh dear. Ah, so the boys were too short to see the blood this first time, all they saw was someone being Awesome and Saving The Town. So of course they run up and ask her to be their teacher. Buuut maybe don’t call her “Old Lady”. She refuses at first, she doesn’t teach and she’s just passing through, but when she’s told that they two boys clinging to her arm are orphans? [Pretty Lady]: “How am I supposed to say no to that?” And now for the first lesson: apparently, getting dropped off on an island and left to fend for themselves. Without any alchemy, even. Lady, I have to question your teaching methods.

Titledrop! “One is all… and all is one.” They have- one month?! Good Leto woman, you’re leaving them on their own for a freaking month? Yeah, the boy’s aren’t doing too well their first night. Trying (and failing) to sleep on some palm leaves, stomach’s rumbling. A lesson in wilderness survivalism, then? Ad-break picture of Sig and Izumi looking ready for a fight, shows last name of ‘Curtis’. So what’s their story? Sig seems to be working away as a butcher, a proper butcher unlike a certain Pudgy we’ve met before. But what about Izumi? Where did she get her training, and learn how to do non-TC Alchemy? Aaand where the first picture was of them looking tough, the second is of Big Tough Sig fanning his blood-spitting wife. Lady, maybe you should get that looked at. Oh, show’s answering my question already, apparently they work the butcher shop together. Sig’s wondering if they’re doing alright, Izumi stands by her lesson as being the best way to learn the essentials of alchemy. The same way she was taught, even. Casual throw of sharpened knife to Sig who does a two-finger catch (making me wonder if he has any training?), Big Butcher says he’s more concerned about their lives being in danger. Izumi scoffs, saying her training began with fighting bears for a whole month in the mountains. In winter, no less! ...couldn’t help but notice that you look a bit older that the Elrics in that picture, Izumi. On the island itself, the Brothers have just caught a rabbit in a snare! However, it leaves them with a live rabbit, so they’ll have to kill it themse- Oh that is just not fair. Rabbit’s going full Cute Anime Mode to avoid being dinner. The Brothers are playing Hot Potato with the knife to avoid using it. Until a passing fox takes advantage of the easy meal, and runs off with the rabbit. But look! The fox took the rabbit to feed its cubs! Aw, that’s sweet. Then the cubs start eating, and the Brother’s quickly decide to try fish instead. Yep, kinda hard to fish without rods. Maybe you can carve a spear? Or just build a lean-to, and go without food for a few more days. Yeesh, Ed’s not doing too well. Had a moment where he hallucinated Al as food and chomped, and now is alternating between nomming on ants and screaming about how gross they are. Oh, turning point! Ed’s talking about how he’s alive because he ate the ants. Um, no? I seriously doubt those few bugs gave you enough calories to make up for a few days foodless. Or rather it’s a metaphorical thing, how Ed’s alive because he consumed life. And then I guess he resolves that if he’s going to eat life to live, and by Leto he’s going to be at the top of the food chain! Cue montage of the Brothers going all Lord of the Flies, fashioning tools, chasing down a rabbit and killing it before a passing fox this time, starting a fire. They even get to the point that they toss some cooked food to the fox cubs in passing. Finally, it’s the night before Teacher’s to come back. Al asks Ed if he’s figured out what she meant by “One is all, and all is one.” Ed confirms that after he ate the ants, he thought his body feeding the ants, going to earth and becoming grass that the rabbits would eat... ...if I wasn’t doing a Professor Moody theme this episode, this would be a perfect spot for a Lion King gif. So yeah, Ed thought about the food chain. But also the island, how long ago it was under water, and thousands of years from now it could be the top of a mountain. It’s an “all things are connected” lesson, how in the span of the cosmos even our Main Characters are smaller than ants are to them. Test time! Teacher arrives and asks for their answer. [Al]: “All is one!” [Ed]: “And one is me!” Teacher… bursts out laughing? But she accepts the answer, and says the real training starts now. Now in Dublith, Teach is casually reading a cookbook while she lectures about TCs as the basis of Alchemy and absently spars with the Brothers. Sick moves lady, her technique seems to be all about deflecting and redirecting their attacks. That’s Judo, I think? Reviewing the lesson, Al calls her out on not using TCs when she casts, they ask how she does it. Teacher says something cryptic about herself being the matrix, that it might be something they learn if they see the truth. Wait… truth, or ‘Truth’? And yup, Ed wakes up with a realization: Teacher has seen the truth too. The next day, the Brothers are meeting with Teacher in the front yard, presumably to ask her. But she suddenly Alchemizes a spear from the wall, strikes out at Ed who has to TC-less change his arm to a blade in defense. That, on top of Al being armor and Ed missing two limbs confirms it for her: Edward’s seen it too. Which begs the question: how did Izumi see the Truth? Did she try Human Transmutation too? Yep, she did. And the rebound struck her… stomach. And in the center… Ah. That’s who she was trying to bring back. Izumi confirms the sad tale, why she committed the taboo. And when she says that it must have been awful for them, the Elrics adopt their customary bravado about it. ‘Not a big deal’, Al’s got his list of stuff to do, ect ect... [Izumi]: “You darling little idiots. It’s ok to hurt.” ... [Ed]: “Forgive us.” [Al]: “We’re so sorry, Teacher.” [Ed]: “Please forgive us.” [Al]: “We’re so sorry.” [Ed]: “Please forgive us.” [Al]: “We’re so sorry.” Flashback to the island, the young brothers expounding on living being the deconstruction and reconstruction of old life to new life [Ed]: “Alchemy is part of that flow. And the flow is life itself.” End-credits. Oof. Started out as a mostly amusing episode, was mostly looking for details on Absent Papa Elric. But nope, Brotherhood continues to be brutal to my emotions.

#wmtw #where my twin watches #ranubis #full metal alchemist #full metal alchemist brotherhood #fmab #fmab 12

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astudyinsarcasm9 · 6 years

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Fantastic Retcons and Where to Find them 2: The Misdoings of Grindelwald

*Sighs* Why, just, why?

Caution, may have spoilers!

I’ll start by saying that while this is by no means an awful movie, it;s still not good.

Visually? Yes it is quite stunning. Except for the beginning where I could barely tell what the hell was going on. Did it really have to be a heavy storm?

Plotwise? It was a mess. If I were to tell someone what this moive is about I could not sum it up in a sentence. And that is bad. The plot should be simple to follow and not a tangled mess of characters and plot threads that go nowhere.

Like, take the plot point of Tina and Newt being awkward with each other. It seemed to so forced, so contrived. Just so that we can have some drama. Same with Jacob and Queenie.

They literally could have resolved the Tina and Newt drama if Newt told her the first time she saw her that he was not marrying Leta. But nooo we have to stretch it.

Characterwise? The same mess.

There were soooo many characters that shouldn’t have been there yet they were.

Nagini? Jus there so people can say ‘Hey isn’t that Voldemort’s snake?’

Nicolas Flamel? He is there so people can remember this film still has some ties with the HP cannon.

Bunty? Just there so we can be told just how popular Newt is with women. I swear she appears out of nowhere, no explanation given as to how the hell Newt decided to get help and why. She swoons over Newt a bit and then disappears as if she were not there in the first place, bearing no significance to the plot whatsoever. And that is the case with a loot of characters.

The woman helping Grindewald? totally irrelevant, he could be working alone but she’s there to be this sort of Bellatrix Lestrange only way less intetesting. Yusuf Kama? useless and added just for creating drama.

Queenie? well she was just plain stupid. We know Jacob loves her so why the hell did she need to enchant him. Just so he can agree to marry her? I swear it s like we lost about an hour of movie in between Part 1 and Part 1 of Fantastic Beasts. She then has a breakdown, I guess? because she can’t find Tina and because she lost Jacob and has a massive headache from hearing everyone s thoughts and then BAM she is picked up and taken to meet Grindelwald, after which she has a change of heart.

That creepy woman at the french Ministry of Magic was just so out of place. She existed just to have this evil grin on her face and sic her evil cats on Newt and Tina. (ok i know they’re not cats but still).

Side note: it was never explained why Queenie could not find Tina at the french Ministry of Magic. Like TIna is an auror so she should be in their records. unless she was lying? Who cares that subplot takes us nowhere.

There were so many problems in this movie that I honestly have no idea where to start.

First, why the hell is McGonagall a teacher at Hogwars during Leta and Newt’s time if we know she was born in 1935? Just how do you mess that up?

Why is casting Avada Kevadra as easy as taking candy from a kid? In the HP canon this spell is supposed to be incredibly hard to cast and it requires a lot of power from the caster, as well as for them to essentially rip a part of their soul every time they cast it. Yet here they’re casting it like it’s nothing. Even an auror goes as far as to cast it. Oh and all of this is done nonverbally even though we know that only extremely powerful wizards and witches can perform nonverbal magic. But whatever.

Why is the Mirror of Erised showing the past as opposed to showing one’s deepest desire like in the current canon? Dumbledore should not be seeing that scene with him and Grindewald making a blood pact. That’s not how the Mirror of Erised works.

How in the everloving fuck do muggles not notice the giant flying carriage at the beginning of the movie? One can assume it was enchanted to not be seen but we’re given no indication of that. And on the same note, how the hell did the muggles not question the GIANT cat like monster that was wrecking havoc on their streets? When Newt and the others come out of the sewers we see the beast doing its thing and I don t think that those scared people were wizards. They had cars, they had to be muggles. Wizards don’t have technology like that.

How, just how can Credence be a Dumbledore? Why retcon what we know about the Dumbledore family like that? Where would a forth sibling even fit in? And why did Credence have to be related to one of the major wizarding families. Credence was already interesting, what with having an obscurial, you did not need this subplot movie. I mean fine he can search for his family but in the end he could have learned that it doesn’t matter where he comes from or who he was but who he is now and that he can still be loved and all that. Tossing him around and making it seem like he is a Lestrange only to just mindfuck us at the end and say he is a Dumbledore is just awful.

Many fans are hoping Grindewald is lying and while I kinda hope too because at least we d get rid of this stupid plot point, I am afraid he is not and that it will just be a permanent thing.

What else? Ah, yes!

Well the acting was ok.

Johnny Depp as Grindewald was nothing noteworthy. The movie tried so hard to convince us he was evil that it was becoming cartoony.

Grindewald got rid of his pet. See? See how bad he is?

Grindewald had a baby killed. See? He is evil.

Grindewald killed one of his followers. He is super evil.

Grindewald killed some strangers to take their apartment and then stood outside as their bodies were being taken away in coffins just so that we can see what an evil motherfucker he is.

Goddammit movie WE GET IT he is evil.

But you see the problem is just this. We know Grindewald is an awful person, we don’t need it hammered in like we’re 5 year olds.

I am still upset over the fact that Collin Farrell could not be Grindewald. He would have been amazing at it.

I fee like, while Jonny Depp was not bad, it just felt like another one of his characters where he gets over the top make up and that s it. I would have loved if he looked more normal. I mean with Voldy it made sense he looked weird as fuck, it was his doing. What s Grindewald’s excuse?

Oh and also Zoë Kravitz can’t act. And her backstory about killing her brother was stupid. She did not want to harm him yet she took her infant brother and put him in another room WHILE THE SHIP THEY WERE ON WAS SINKING. Yeah I’m sure you meant well, dear. And another thing: she said that he was crying all the time but...they have magic. Ok, weak magic cus their caretaker was a half-elf but still. Is there no spell that can shut up a baby?

Jude Law was fantastic. Just fantastic.

Also big points for using the original actors for young Dumbledore and Grindewald. Stroke of genius there. Wish we could see more of them.

And now for the last part: the PANDERING

Oh my god the pandering.

We waste time at Hogwarts because the movie wants to pander to its audience namely the HP fans and their nostalgia. Every shot was thought up like that.

See? It’s Hogwarts. remember that?

See? It’s DADA classes. Neat right?

See? Random classroom. Pretty cool right?

See? Random flashback showing parts of Hogwarts and its grounds. Amazing isn’t it?

It didn’t feel like the story needed us to visit Hogwarts. There was no crucial plot point that demanded that. It was just pure nostalgia.

It’s ok to be nostalgic, it’s ok to be happy to see Hogwarts. I was, but that is not the point of this movie. Yet it is. In fact, that’s what they are counting on to keep selling tickets.

All in all I think it’s a movie who had no idea what it wanted to be so it just was all of it at once.

A lot of characters, a lof of plot threads, a lot of things that just do not add up.

I give it a 5 out of 10.

#harry potter #hp #fantastic beasts #the crimes of grindewald #fantastic beats 2 #fantastic beasts and where to find them 2 #dumbledore #review #spoilers #grindewald

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dontcallmecarrie · 6 years

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Natasha's judgment is so off for a spy. Could we get insight as to how they're thinking? I know you wrote a chapter but maybe some backstory or such to explain why she dislikes Tony on principle? Why she's so quick to insult Maria and choose Steve? Is she caught up in the goodness and honestly Steve seems to project? Does her judgment on his decisions become biased bc she's used to reading ppl who mean harm not ppl who unintentionally/subconsciously harm? Does Steve make her feel like she's good

I’ll see what I can do to clarify this in-story, because odds are you’re not the only one who’s seeing it. Hopefully, though, at least some of my reasoning showed through.

Under the cut, because cue meta and you guys know how much I ramble when I get going:

There’s several factors to it all:

First and foremost, there’s the unreliable narrator thing to consider.

JARVIS, for instance, hasn’t trusted her since before she stabbed Tony in the neck, back in IM2.

Add to that how he died trying to protect Tony [and at least managed to give a bit of a warning, when the Penthouse Incident happened], coming back online [with all the trauma that entails, even if he doesn’t quite show it], to see Natasha doing absolutely nothing while Tony was a flick of the wrist from a snapped neck, and you get a budding Skynet who harbors absolutely no goodwill towards Natasha Romanov [and it shows through in his POV, even if it’s hopefully subtle].

Tony’s slightly more chill, but he’s known that Natasha doesn’t like him, and after the disaster that was his sole attempt to reach out towards Bruce, well…once bitten, twice shy.

Then, during the Penthouse Incident, he’s 50% on the defensive while the other 50% is in shock because JARVIS died and only Maria Hill even cared. [That he was being attacked was secondary, at that point.] So when someone’s attacking the only one who gives a damn about JARVIS, Tony’s not exactly feeling very charitable towards the woman who introduced herself as Natalie Rushman.

…also, anyone notice the codependence going on between Tony and JARVIS? There’s a reason I’ve been warning for it.

As for my take on Natasha’s perspective: I did my best, and hopefully my dislike didn’t show [much].

Thing is, TWiFFON is a spitefic at heart.

I started it in reaction to the turn the fandom took when it comes to Tony Stark especially after Civil War, so I’m not going to be exactly very friendly towards Natasha [or anyone on Team Cap for that matter, if you guys haven’t already noticed].

And that leads me to the next point.

Fun fact: I actually like Natasha, for the most part. Her characterization throughout the entirety of the MCU’s been through the wringer, fluctuating from movie to movie, though, and I took advantage of that when I outlined this fic.

See, Phase1-and-pre-AoU!Natasha’s got a good head on her shoulders. Her, I like: she’s badass and loyal to people rather than institutions and ruthless enough to do what’s necessary to keep her people safe [gee doesn’t that sound familiar]. She’s outwitted Loki [even if he was under the influence of the Scepter at the time], and survived the Red Room, for crying out loud! [If you’ve read my fic idea Welcome to the Family, you know that’s the one I had in mind at the time of writing.]

…however, that’s not the Natasha we’ve seen recently.

Phase2-especially-post-AoU!Natasha didn’t think to call the genius who’s company she infiltrated during a time they could’ve really used his expertise, didn’t see the problem in letting the fugitives she’d been helping chase go, and didn’t think twice about attacking the Crown Prince of a monarchy that just lost its King. I know it’s probably just bad writing in general [where the hell did the Bruce/Natasha thing even come from? Or the wanting a kid thing?! Canon or not, that’s just…nope], but still.

She unironically tried to go “I’m not the one who should watch my back”, in Civil War, despite having painted a target on anyone she ever worked with [yes I’m still salty about it], so it really should be no surprise that this is the Natasha I have in mind when writing TWiFFON. [Not very nice, but like I said, spitefic.]

So, that’s a good chunk on my approach to Natasha, right there. The rest involves her backstory.

I’ve yet to read a comic, but via tumblr and Phase 1, I got the feeling that the Red Room isn’t exactly very kind. [No comment on Phase 2′s interpretation bc I hate AoU with a passion rivaled only by Civil War.] As such, I can extrapolate from there that Natasha’s had some hardcore training, and to be fair, she’s very good at what she does, and her confidence in her skills is mostly justified.

However, she’s been born and raised as a living weapon, a child soldier and spy: that skillset is not exactly conductive towards being an analyst, or tactician.

Infiltrate consulates and take out hit squads singlehandedly? Sure. Reading people for the short term so she can use that to her advantage? Absolutely. But what she gets up to later on in the MCU is nowhere in her job description [coughcough*analysisinIM2*cough]. She can make a decent facsimile of it, sure, but she just isn’t qualified to diagnose people [though I have a headcanon for that scenario that explains why, but that’s something for another post].

But she can read people very well, and since it’s worked thus far, Natasha doesn’t think twice about it. Due to the life she’s had, she doesn’t look back, which I completely understand because if she had she might’ve drowned in regret because I get the feeling the Red Room’s upbringing was nothing less than cutthroat. Those two things get a special mention because of how she’s introduced to Tony.

Now, let me backtrack a little: I’ve done some meta before on how good Tony is at masks, enough so that he’s fooling everyone even as he’s dying. He grew up in front of the cameras, and learned how to work them from a master of the art [his mom, in my AUs].

So, when a spy rocks up expecting a show, Tony puts it on, and Natasha buys it. I don’t doubt she twisted some things to suit the analysis at the end, of course, but between his public image and his masks, Natasha ends up falling in the same trap everyone else does.

Anyone who gets close to him knows it’s bull, but since Tony in TWiFFON is more guarded than ever before, and he’s not about to let Natasha in now.

As for Steve Rogers…Tony’s image is a general “everyone knows” thing; it’s subtle and low-key “oh what’s he done now? Another Fashion Week Fiasco?” Kardashian-style sort of thing, which is part of why Natasha fell for it. Steve’s image, on the other hand, was blatant propaganda since the start and only became more so over time […I wonder what the Second Red Scare would’ve looked like, in the MCU now, ngl], so for Natasha, with her Red Room upbringing, it’s pretty damn easy for her to tell.

From when she first meets Steve, and later on down the road, it’s a no-brainer to look past the propaganda and notice the lonely man who’s adrift in a world that’s moved on without him. And from there, it’s very [almost scarily, for someone who’s very guarded when it comes to personal stuff] easy to make friends.

Steve sees Natasha where others see the Black Widow, which isn’t something many people do [Phil and Clint’re the exception, not the norm], though, so it makes sense that she warms up to him so quickly. Plus he’s a good man, and given the life she’s had, Natasha can fully appreciate just how few of them there are in the world.

And since we’ve already established that Natasha’s fiercely protective of the few people she likes, it makes sense she’s just as fierce to attack if the situation ever arises.

During the Penthouse Incident, Natasha’s immediate take-away of the situation was: Tony’d fucked up somehow and needed to own up to it, meanwhile Maria Hill was on his payroll, defending him when he was in the wrong, and had a gun pointed in the general direction of the people she liked more than the people she didn’t. Of course Natasha was going to yell at her for it!

And it wasn’t like Thor was going to hurt Tony or anything, his hand was obviously positioned in a way that was meant to be nonlethal and if he’d really wanted to kill Tony his grip would’ve been different.

After the fact, once Ultron’s made clear just what he is, she’s mildly apologetic about it. But since she didn’t really like Tony anyway and Maria Hill seemed to have forgotten about it, well, it wasn’t like it was anything major anyway, right?

...meanwhile, Maria’s very good at hiding her grudge and venting whenever she’s at one of the SWORD meet-ups while the others are patting her on the back while continuing to plan Phase 3 and checking out rich protocols, but that’s a story for another day.

Also: bear in mind that Natasha, in my AUs, has the Red Room’s version of the serum, so she forgets that not everyone’s as durable as she is. [that’s the only explanation for why I see her being so chill during That One Scene because the alternative’s incoherent internal screaming]

#behind the scenes #meta #if you're going to be evil might as well do it right meta #now the time is here for iron man to spread fear #if you're going to be evil might as well do it right #The War is Far From Over Now #Natasha Romanov #Headcanon #kinda #canon went screwy years back here's my attempt to fix it

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black-wolf066 · 7 years

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Well, You Do Have My Chin

Update: OMG!!! MY TIRED 36 HOUR LACK OF SLEEP BRAIN ACCIDENTLY DELETED THE STORY I POSTED THIS MORNING!!! I meant to hit edit, and apparently I hit delete and when it gave me the prompt to hit yes or no, my tired brain that it said “would you like to edit: yes or no”.... so here goes round two... so sorry guys. I wanted to add that i have this on Fanfiction.net now too (under my account Wolf-shadow666) but I just curfunkled everything... ANYWAY underneath is pretty much the post that got deleted... thankfully i save everything on document...

First off, let me just say. I’M ALIVE!!! It is now 8am in the morning, I’ve been working on the better part of this little shit that wouldn’t leave me alone i mean piece since 9pm last night…. i have TO GO TO WORK IN AN HOUR!!! HELP ME!!!!! *flails all over the place* I swear i can adult right sometimes… just not today apparently…. keep this in mind as you’re reading cause even though I’ve proof read this thrice, I’m sure some (or many) things have escaped my brain’s notice.

anyway….

Here is the comment that inspired me to write this one-shot:

@timetravelingpotatoast said:

All I really want from this season is for Killian and Henry to become good friends and talk about Lucy’s “conspiracy” only for Killian to ask who she thinks he is. However, somewhere in the translation it’s lost that Killian is his step-dad, so Henry just says his dad, leading to a “well you do have my chin,” commentary from Killian.

When the curse breaks they just squint at each other for a really long time.

Now, for the sake of the prompt, this is gonna be very heavily AU from season 7. This is by no means a “fix-it fic” because I really am enjoying season 7; I’m only writing this because I really wanted to see something like this be a thing after reading the comment. I absolutely love father/son bonding fics between Killian and Henry and I need more of it in my life… (Seriously there aren’t enough Captain Cobra centered fics to satisfy my craving for it). And I know that I said “I wish I was creative enough to contribute to the fandom of Once Upon a Time”, but after posting my last little snippet; I figured “what the hell I’m gonna do it anyway” because that’s what fandom is (I still feel like I suck terribly but *shrug* if you’re having fun doing it than screw being good at it, right?). (((Also something that should have been maybe 2000 words or less, ended up running away from me toward 4000 (my brain projecting my need for more Captain Cobra moments I guess)… I realize a lot of it is probably considered filler and I could have done away with it, but I kinda wanted to build that relationship between cursed Killian and Henry much like the relationship between Snow White and Emma in season 1)))).

Anyway, here’s a bit of backstory that I came up with for the AU universe of this fic…. If you don’t care and simply just want to read the story, than you can simply scroll down to the Continue reading link:

So in this AU, I’ve pretty much figured that Rumple, Killian, Regina and Emma came to save the day for Henry (Henry may have asked for Killian, Regina and Emma, but the three probably went to Rumple for help or something and Belle urged him to go). I’m thinking the timeline in the realm Henry is in moves faster than the timeline that is Storybrooke, so Henry might be 25 and not 18, but to the rest of his family only 1 year has passed since Henry left in search of his own story((((wondering if this is actually canon considering how shocked they were at seeing him so grown and I don’t believe for a single second that it took Emma and Killian that long to have a baby)))). Emma wasn’t pregnant at the time but eventually as they all stay and help the resistance against Tremaine and Drizella (after finding a way to send word back home that everything and everyone is alright and that they’re staying to help… maybe Rumple being pushed by Belle to stay and help them too), she and Killian end up having twins, and barely a year later Henry has his own kid with Ella. When the curse comes and separates them all, the curse spans the whole state of Washington (Tremaine or Drizella wanting to separate as many of them as they could and not keep them all in the same place… especially the true love couples. But they didn’t bank on Lucy remembering or Rumple finding a loop hole so he didn’t get cursed along with everyone else), so HH is the main hive so to speak but the fairy-tale characters are scattered across other cities and towns. Emma is off in one city (maybe Walla Walla), their twin daughters are in a group home in another city, Henry lived somewhere in Olympia (which is close enough to Seattle and HH), Robin (because I need Regina to be happy damn it! And I figure maybe they found that his soul wasn’t destroyed but simply stuck in the crystal, even across all alternate versions of said crystal in any realm, so he ends up getting freed) is also scattered somewhere, and Rumple, Killian, Regina, Ella and Lucy remained in HH where Tremaine and/or Drizella could keep an eye on them and make their lives a living hell. When Lucy finds Henry, and Jacinda steals his car (much like in the show and what not), he decides to stay at a motel for a week, finding the place interesting (and spurring a bit of creativity that he hadn’t felt since his failed first book) and eventually that week turns into him finding an actual place to stay once he gets to know the people in the neighborhood (made hard by the outrageous prices being asked). When Detective Rogers hears about his search, he offers to turn his den/office into a spare room (the only reason Regina/Roni didn’t offer is because she lives in a small studio apartment above the bar with the only closed room being a bathroom)…. Eventually Rumple as Weaver manages to get everyone back into the neighborhood (((he was the one to give Lucy the book. He was the one to find and bring back the cursed versions of Robin—Kevin Adams, who is a struggling lawyer that ends up helping Jacinda, by Rumple/Weaver’s prompting, get custody of Lucy back—and Emma—Danielle “Dani” Stevens, who was a sketch artist for Walla Walla police department. He was also the one to find which group home the twins were staying in and try to adopt them, since he wasn’t sure how long it would take to break the curse, and he didn’t want them staying there… Rumple and Killian might be civil borderline grey area friends, but he likes the twins and it’ll get them back to their family that much quicker once the curse is broken if he does it like this…)))) and the curse gets broken the same as in season 1 with Henry and Lucy (cause I’m unoriginal and my brain can’t think of anything else right now) ((((That should be enough of a background right? I don’t know… I’m terrible at this… don’t question the plot holes too much okay? You might get sucked into its black hole…))))

(((I looked at apartment averages in Seattle as a guideline (got rid of link since it wasn’t working)… and even though almost 3000 is very high for a one-bedroom apartment that Henry was looking for; I figured that Tremaine and Drizella were trying to weed out the people in the neighborhood slowly so they could bulldoze and improve and bring forth a ‘richer’ environment and a “richer” culture of people to surround themselves with, therefore causing more suffering and separation for those cursed and gaining something else for themselves….))))

((also when it comes to ages, I’m probably way off from canon, but these are my head canon ages for them here so… Emma was 28 at the start of season 1; Killian was 29, Regina 32. Adding 9 years considering Henry left at 18 and only a year passed in Storybrooke whereas 7 years passed where Henry was, that would make them 37, 38, and 41. With another 11ish to 12ish years they are now 48, 49, and 52 with Henry being 37ish.

tagging @superchocovian since she kindly asked me to (hope you enjoy it!!!)

Anyway, without farther ado, i give you this Captain Cobra one-shot in all it’s (step)father/son bonding glory!

Well, You do have my chin

Word count: 4203

Rating: pg-13 for my potty mouth

The din of Roni’s bar was oddly relaxing to Henry as he searched on his laptop for available apartments to move into, but after another site herald the same results, he sighed, closed the screen, and dropped his head into the crook of his arm. Was it too much to ask for a place within his price range? Hell, he was sure he could find something cheaper in the heart of Seattle than he could here.

But no, he stubbornly wanted to stay in this part of the neighborhood. There was something about Hyperion Heights, something that spoke to him, and not just Lucy’s crazy theory that his book was real and they were all fairytale characters scattered across the state (never mind the even crazier theory that he was her father—there was no way he could ever forget meeting a beautiful girl like Jacinda or be stupid enough not to fight for more than a one night stand with said woman).

The scraping of a chair across from him brought Henry’s attention up to that of the arrival of Detective Logan Rogers. The cop’s eyebrow was raised at him in silent question and concern as he sat down and nabbed the untouched bear claw from his plate.

“Bad day?” he asked finally with a tilt of his head as Roni approached with his usual beer.

When Henry still didn’t move to answer, simply groaning and hiding his face back in the crook of his arm, Roni supplied. “He’s looking for places to stay… and failing by the looks of it.”

“The asking prices are outrageous! How do you guys survive here?” he griped into his arm.

Roni snorted and Henry peeked up at her with a perturbed eyebrow raised. “You’ve seen the state of the neighborhood and the state of my bar before I decided to fight back. Isn’t that answer enough for you?”

“What’s your budget?” Logan cut in with his query before Henry could snark back and start an argument with the ornery bartender.

“Well,” Henry’s eyes shifted to him just as the older man took a bite out of the pilfered pastry. “With Seattle, I kind of figured I’d be lucky to find something for twenty-two hundred, but there is no way I’m paying almost three thousand for a place that’s barely in the city’s limits.”

“Welcome to the land of Belfrey greed.” chimed Roni as she walked back to tend the bar and the new arrival of customers.

Henry scowled un-amusedly at her back as she went.

“I have space,”

Startled, Henry gazed, wide eyed, back at the Detective. “What?”

“Well, it’s not really a ‘room’, but the den can easily be turned into one.” Logan continued, his good hand going up to scratch nervously behind his ear.

“Wha—Why?” Tilting his head and narrowing his eyes, Henry pressed on. “I know the three of us are ‘kinda’ working together, but we barely know each other. Hell, for all you know I could be a serial killer.” at Logan’s snort and raised brow, Henry rolled his eyes and said defensively. “Shut up, you know what I mean.”

“I trust you.” Logan relented simply with a shrug of his shoulders. “Besides, I have a gun I’m not afraid to use, and you look to be out of options, mate.”

Still eyeing the older man with suspicion, not used to blatantly kind gestures from others, he asked. “Can I swing by to look at your place before I decide?”

“Of course.” taking a swig of his beer, Logan gestured with his head to the closed laptop. “Now, what was it you wanted to show me?”

(***)

Walking into the apartment after Logan, Henry took in the sparsely decorated living space with a familiar pang beating against his chest. It was neat and orderly, everything he considered the detective to be, even after a week of working covertly with him and Roni. But seeing it so bare, devoid of… well, devoid of life and personality; it all just resonated with him. There wasn’t even a single picture or photo on the walls or table tops (Henry knows there are photos of Logan out there. He’s seen the pictures Roni hangs proudly on the walls of her establishment, knows that the picture of Logan and Roni—two best friends, he’s come to learn, that grew up together in the neighborhood—has a special place right behind the bar where she works). There was nothing, other than the books neatly tucked into a shelf, to give Henry a glimpse into what made this man Logan Rogers.

Walking through the 900 square foot space, he knew it wasn’t just the home of a bachelor; it was the home of someone who was just as lost as Henry himself felt. A space made entirely out of necessity rather than be made to feel like an actual home. It reminded him of his years after the foster system, before he had met his late wife, where he had had nothing of that old life worth keeping. Anything he had gained afterwards had been destroyed by the fire that took his wife and daughter three years ago, and after that he had just never bothered to start over (it wouldn’t bring them back and honestly they were all Henry wanted, not materialistic things).

As Logan led him through the kitchen toward the open den, Henry wondered what kind of past the man must have had, wondered if he too was an orphan looking for a place to belong.

“Here it is.” Logan stated with a flourish of his hand and ultimately cutting Henry out of his thoughts.

His eyes roved over the small space, at the neat and tidy desk underneath the window and the wall lined with more bookshelves and books and a single three-drawer filing cabinet.

“Sorry, I know it’s not much… doesn’t even have a door.”

Henry’s eyes cut to the older man just as he saw his good hand go to scratch behind his ear (a nervous tick he’d come to realize early on in the week). “No, it’s perfect,” He reassured as he walked around the opened room; envisioning where his stuff would fit. “I don’t really need that much space anyway.” he moved back to the opened archway and gave the man a small smile. “And privacy can be fixed with a curtain,”

“Does that mean you accept my offer?”

“If you don’t mind me for a roommate, than yeah, I’ll take it.”

(***)

A little over one month since his move into the neighborhood, and not once did Henry regret his decision (well, maybe a little; after all, Victoria Belfrey and her daughter are a force to be reckoned with… and good god did those two give him a headache sometimes). He genuinely liked it here; he liked most of the quirky people and he could clearly see why the neighborhood was worth trying to save. He also found rooming with Logan to be better than he originally expected. Sure they had their moments (like the kitchen incident that nearly gave the detective an aneurysm, or how scarily grumpy Logan could get when he’s had a bad day at the station), but their camaraderie was easy going between them, and for once after three years, Henry felt like he had a true friend again.

It was because of this easy camaraderie that Henry and Logan, one Saturday morning, found themselves planning a Star Wars marathon and arguing over the order in which to watch it (“They’re my movies, Rogers!” “And it’s my TV, Mills.”).

Somehow Henry won the argument, which found Logan sitting on the couch with the large popcorn bowl settled on the middle cushion and a beer in his hand, while Henry squatted down in front of their combined movie collection to find the first disk.

As he skimmed the neatly ordered DVDs for the one he wanted, his finger froze on a particular title and could barely contain the Cheshire cat grin as he pulled it out and pivoted to face the detective.

“The Princess Bride: Special Edition.”

Logan scowled and pointed his finger at him as he defended. “Shove off, mate, it’s a good book and a good movie; leave it alone.”

The grin on Henry’s face turned impish as he pivoted back and added as he went, “As you wish.”

The couch pillow thrown at his back did nothing to curb his mirth.

(***)

It was almost three months after his move to Hyperion Heights, that Henry managed to work the nerve enough (more like getting the quadrant that was Roni, Logan, Sabine and Lucy to shut up, and to stop hounding him to try and move on and be happy) to ask Jacinda on a date.

Glancing at himself in the hallway mirror, and trying to ignore the grinning idiot leaning against the wall a few paces behind him; he felt the bubbling of nerves roiling in his stomach as he finally turned to face his roommate.

“You’ll be fine,” Logan soothed with the utmost confidence. “You didn’t have any problems when you were flirting with her, one date isn’t going to kill you, mate. Just be yourself.”

“Yeah, be myself.” Henry snorted and rubbed his sweating palms against his jean clad thighs. “Cause any girl would swoon at a failed writer, a widowed husband, and a nerd for all things 80’s, Star Wars, Harry Potter, or Tolkien related.”

“Henry,” Logan stepped forward than, placing his hand and prosthetic firmly on his shoulders as he earnestly stated. “You’ve told Jacinda all of this already and yet she still accepted to go to this concert with you. So cut yourself a little slack, give her a little more credit than that, and go out tonight and have fun.”

(***)

It was almost six months after his move, and during one of their covert meet ups at the bar, when Henry felt a little friendly revenge against Roni and Logan was in order (because dear god, if they didn’t stop and take their own damn advice, he was going to go crazy… or take Roni’s bat and beat himself or them with it… really, he wasn’t picky).

It hadn’t been long after his and Jacinda’s first—or even their second— date that Jacinda decided enough was enough and it was time to try and win custody of her daughter back from her step mother. Detective Weaver had recommended a Lawyer from Spokane, and ever since Kevin Adams stepped foot into Roni’s bar, the two had done nothing but snark at each other.

Within the same month, a missing person’s case had popped up that apparently Weaver thought required the work of a sketch artist from Walla Walla… or so Logan kept griping to him to no freaking end. Honestly, Henry thought Danielle (or Dani as she asked to be called) a rather nice woman, maybe a little too bubbly and Chatty Cathy at times, but if Logan was to be believed than she was the worst woman he had ever had the displeasure to work with.

Yeah… right…

Denial, she is a river, and both of them are currently drowning at the bottom of it.

“So,” He began innocently around a mouthful of pizza. “When are you both going to stop pussy-footing around and ask Dani and Kevin out?”

The soda Logan was drinking and the pizza Roni was currently chewing, both ended up spat out on the table and floor, and the word vomit that followed as they tried to deny it had Henry rolling his eyes so hard he was surprised that they didn’t just roll right out of his head.

“Uh-huh,” putting his slice back down on his plate, he folded his arms across his chest and stared them both down, feeling for all the world like the no nonsense father he should have been to the daughter that would have been thirteen now. “Guys, I’m not stupid… and the last I checked my vision was perfect, so not blind either.” He cut them off before they could rush to deny it any farther. “If I have to sit here and watch you two continue with this charade a moment longer, I will either be checking myself in somewhere or Detective Weaver will have not one but three missing person’s cases to contend with.”

They didn’t try to feed him any more bullshit after that, which he was grateful for, because seriously there was only so much a person can take.

And if he caught his roommate dressed (rather nicely) in a blue button up shirt, black iron pressed slacks, and trying to rush past him and out the door before Henry could say a word with a bouquet of pink and yellow roses in hand.

Well… he could only thank whatever deity listening for small miracles.

(***)

It’s at elven months since his move, that Henry felt for all the world a content man. Jacinda had won her battle against her step-mother, and Lucy had become a constant presence in the apartment, especially since he had offered to watch her after school while Jacinda worked. He loved Lucy and her precocious nature, found her imagination beyond incredible for an elven year old and even began to look forward to hearing her crazy theories about them being cursed.

Sometimes they would be alone, with him helping her with her homework and other times Logan would be there, smiling and humoring her and her theories like they all had agreed to do.

It was during one of these nights, after Jacinda and Lucy had eaten dinner with them and left, that Logan’s curiosity had gotten the better of him. They were in the kitchen, Henry washing the dishes while his roommate dried them, that Logan broke the comfortable silence.

“Who does she think I am?”

“Huh?” Henry glanced over with a brow raised.

“Lucy,” he elaborated. “With her theories, who does she think I am? She never tells me when I ask.”

Henry snorted out a chuckle as he handed over the plate and proceeded washing the next one while answering. “Captain Hook.”

“You’re kidding.” The dry look Henry gave him caused him to roll his eyes. “It’s the hand isn’t it?”

“Probably,” Henry shrugged. “Or it could be the fact that she thinks you’re my dad.”

“What?” Logan froze mid swipe with the towel and Henry could practically feel the man’s eyes burning his profile.

“Yeah, crazy, I know.”

“Mate, if she is to be believed and you are my son; I would have had you when I was 11…”

They both chuckled at that.

“Again, crazy, I know.”

They went back to the comfortable silence as they worked, but the occasional contemplative side eye he would catch Logan giving him in his peripheral as they cleaned up the rest of the kitchen, eventually had Henry turning to stare blatantly at the man’s profile with an eyebrow raised in question.

“Do I have barbeque sauce on my face or something?”

Startled, Logan shifted his attention away from the stove top he was wiping down, and met his eyes with that contemplative expression still in place.

“No, you’re fine.” He distractedly answered.

“Than what’s on your mind? And don’t tell me nothing; you’ve been staring at me off and on for the past five minutes?”

“I was just thinking.”

The other brow rose to meet its twin as he deadpanned. “Clearly,”

Logan rolled his eyes and elaborated. “I was thinking about what you said, about who Lucy thinks I am.”

“Logan, none of that is real.”

“No, I know that… but—now that it’s been said, I can’t help but see it. Hell, Henry you can’t tell me that you can’t see it, not even a little bit.”

Henry tilted his head and narrowed his eyes at him; his eyebrows practically at his hairline now.

“We do look a little alike, mate; long lost cousins or brothers or something. I mean you do kinda have my chin, our noses are almost similar and the brow structure too…” he trailed off.

With a snort, Henry joked. “You’ve been hanging out with Dani too much, you’re even starting to sound like a sketch artist.”

“Shut up,”

He dodged and caught the wet rag thrown at him, before tossing it back; both chuckling at the ridiculousness of it all as they finished up and moved to the couch to see what was on TV.

Expect, as the days and weeks progressed (and Weaver shockingly adopted two pre-teen girls from Aberdeen that looked eerily like Dani and Logan), Henry found that he couldn’t stop thinking about it too (no matter how hard he tried to shake the insane notion from his head each and every time it sprung back into the forefront of his thoughts).

He’d often catch himself staring at Logan when the older man was distracted and—illogically enough as it was—could practically see what the other man was talking about.

It was crazy.

It wasn’t conceivable.

But damn it all if Logan wasn’t right.

They did share the same freaking chin, and though his nose was a bit larger than Logan’s, it was the same freaking shape.

Maybe he needed to check himself in somewhere after all…

(***)

Sixteen months after moving to Hyperion Heights, the curse was broken.

It had been an emotionally exhausting week beforehand, with Lucy suddenly falling into a coma that the doctors couldn’t medically explain. Jacinda had rightfully been beside herself with worry, and all Henry could feel was the crushing feeling of losing another loved one… another child. It had been the very reason why he didn’t like opening up, didn’t like taking these leaps of faith when it came to his heart and feelings. Yet he had stupidly allowed himself to get close to all these people, and stupidly thought he could have a second chance at a family, but those dreams had gone up in flames the first time and now plummeted back down from the stars a second time with the flat lining of the heart monitor as Jacinda brokenly wailed her heartache.

He didn’t feel the hand of his roommate trying to console him as he numbly watched Jacinda break down in the waiting room they had been forcibly moved too when the doctors came swarming into the room. Didn’t hear the words being spoken as Jacinda fought and then bonelessly collapsed in Sabine and Roni’s arms; her wails gut wrenching and shredding his already scarred heart to pieces. The flood of his emotions and his own tears didn’t come until after the doctor told them that their precious, precocious little Lucy was truly and utterly gone, that the defibrillator failed to restart her heart.

It was Logan who caught him when his legs refused to hold his weight any longer, when the world suddenly came crushing down around him and nothing felt right anymore. And it was Logan who helped him into the chair; the warm presence of his roommates hand at the back of his neck guiding his head to lean on his broad shoulder. And he took the comfort and sobbed for all he was worth. Sobbed for the loss of the wife and daughter he had had to bare losing and moving on from all on his own, sobbed for Jacinda and how much she didn’t deserve to know the gut wrenching pain that losing a child brought, sobbed for Lucy who had been robbed of her own dreams, who had been robbed the chance to live and grow.

His heart hurt as he followed Jacinda into the room to say goodbye, the tears blurring his vision at seeing the white sheet lying over Lucy’s little body; so final in its position that it made him want to collapse all over again. But he couldn’t, he had to be strong for Jacinda as he was the one to hold her upright as they moved toward the bed.

Her sobs as she pulled back the sheet to view her daughters pale face tore at him even more, her words a broken, jumbled mess as she climbed onto the bed and wept onto her daughters unmoving chest.

Running on autopilot, Henry’s feet moved of their own accord; one hand going to Jacinda’s shaking back and the other to card the bangs off of Lucy’s forehead.

“I’m sorry Lucy, I’m so, so sorry.” He whispered as he leaned down and pressed his lips to her crown.

The whoosh of wind startled him and before he could right himself to wonder where it came from, the overwhelming flood of memories came next; slamming everything back into place and causing the air to deflate right out of his lungs. The watery, startled gasp from Ella (his wife, his true love) told him she remembered too, but it was the choked rush of life from his daughter, his daughter (his beautiful and very much alive little girl, his other true love), that was bloody music to his ears and heart.

“Papa? Mama?” she wheezed out as her eyes foggily and confusedly took them and her surroundings in.

“Baby!”

Everything was alright.

Everything in the world was right again.

(***)

The moment Lucy was cleared to leave; the overdue reunion of their family came afterwards. The battle was far from over; not with Tremaine and Drizella currently in hiding and no one knowing where they had run off too, but they were together again, and at the moment that was enough for them all as they celebrated at the bar that had been his adoptive mother’s home for the last eighteen months.

Henry had his wife and daughter back, his half-sisters, both his mothers, both his step-fathers and his grandfather. To say he was over the moon would have been an understatement as the din of fairytale characters and his family filled the industrial styled establishment.

It was all so overwhelming still that he had to take a seat at one of the tables; simply content to watch as he sipped at his beer. Killian soon joined him with his own glass, rum he was sure now that the man remembered who he was, and the thought of step-fathers in general had his mind venturing to their conversation once again.

It must have been on Killian’s mind as well because before either knew what they were truly doing, they were starting at one another, eyes narrowed and the rim of their drinks to their lips as they tried to see what apparently their cursed selves had been able to see.

“Man, I hope this is the last curse we ever have to face. I’ve lost count at how many cursed memories we’ve had forced into our heads at this point.” Emma groaned, yet her arrival didn’t completely break their staring contest as she dropped into the chair next to Killian; her eyes not yet looking at either of them but at her daughters who were laughing along with Lucy near the corner of the bar. She blindly but efficiently snatched her husband’s glass out of his hand and downed the last shot of the dark amber that was left as she continued. “Seriously though, can you imagine the identity crisis we’ll have in our old age if we get Alzheimer’s?” Finally glancing over at them, and realizing she had neither her son nor her husband’s attention, she raised an eyebrow and asked with trepidation. “What’s up with you two? Is everything alright?”

“Yeah love,” Killian briefly met Emma’s eyes, before he was squinting back at Henry as he continued. “Apparently while cursed, and thanks to our lovely granddaughter, the two of us got it into our heads that we were blood related; something about seeing similarities in our features and what have you.”

Blinking once than twice, Emma’s eyes bounced from one to the other, before she was tilting her head and squinting at them as well. Satisfied with what she saw, she nodded to herself, shrugged, and stated. “I can see it, especially when you wear your hair like this and stop shaving.” She grinned and chuckled and leaned forward to ruffle her son’s gel slicked hair, which Henry swatted away with a scowl as he tried to fix it back into place.

However her statement only proceeded to have them squint even harder at each other, and Emma could do nothing more than laugh at her first two goofy true loves.

As the celebrations began to die down and people started heading home, Henry and Killian simply shrugged and let it go as they hugged each other goodbye for the night (each having every intention of spending this night with their loved ones).

“Well,” Killian began softly. “Blood related or not, you’re still my son Henry; always have been, my boy.”

The smile that stretched Henry’s face, nearly threatened to split his skin from ear to ear as he replied just as softly but no less sincerely. “Thanks, dad.”

And if they hugged each other just a little tighter and their eyes shone just a little brighter with emotion, no one that witnessed the moment commented on it.

#captain cobra #captain swan #henry x cinderella #glass believer #hooked queen friendship #outlaw queen #once upon a time #ouat s7 AU #ouat ff #once upon a time fanfiction #my fanfiction

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zippdementia · 4 years

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Part 86: Alignment May Vary: Back to the Future

This post begins Chapter 10, which used to be called Tears and Torments, but which I’ve renamed “The Coming of the Three.” It marks the last chapter of our game and focuses on the prophecy of the three. For a reminder, the prophecy was created by a Surveyor who foresaw that Primus’ great mission to bring stability and order to the world would end in Chaos and sorrow. He passed down a prophecy of how this would come to pass and how it could be countered. The prophecy is as follows:

Three shall be the kings who sit the single throne And Order's rule by Chaos shall be overthrown The Universe will end by their divine hands Chaos will devour every woman, child, and man

Each shall be seen by a singular sign Each shall be born of a different line. The devil's blood runs in the first of the three They bear the eye that can seek but cannot see The second will by heaven be blessed But wings of black will mar their pureness The third contains the dragon's flame What was dead will rise to live again Three to rule, Three to lead, Three to destroy and make the universe bleed. Removing one will not lead to the fall To end the curse you must destroy them all Four things must gather to alter fate's course The Sword, The Shield, The Stone, The Source Then upon the throne the three must be Before they can meet their destiny In the time these things come to pass The future will be decided by the ones from the past

As this is the last chapter and there is a lot of call backs and wrap ups, I’m going to focus more on the big picture narrative and less on individual mechanics. I’ll try to put in reminders, too, of who everyone important is as I coe to them. One day I will finish the Encyclopedia but until then, I’ll do everything “in-post.”

Through the Woods to Grandmother’s Fortress

There was something wrong about this place, but what was most disturbing was that the wrongness hadn’t been there a moment ago. The very earth was becoming infected beneath him, with him as witness to its corruption. The wrongness wasn’t an attribute of this land, it was a living malice, moving through the land and turning it against all living creatures. Imoaza tensed and stood quickly, spinning around to face the horrors that were emerging on all sides of her, from the sudden mist that had settled upon everything. She held up her hand to summon Blackrazor to her and then stopped, noticing that where she had pressed it into the earth fresh blood had stained it. The very ground was bleeding... that was her first thought. But then she gasped as hands erupted from under the earth, seeking, grasping for any flesh they could find.

~ Imoaza facing the Blighted horrors of the Wytchwood

The first part of this chapter is about introducing the players to the end game set up. This means introducing them to the key NPCs and situation. But I don’t want to be blunt about it. It’s more engaging if it’s not just one big exposition but rather an experience of what’s at stake.

So we start with them not sure if they’ve made it back to Faerun. They wake up in the woods being stared at by a Forest Giant. Daymos isn’t with them, and Ruze has undergone a change: no longer a fox faced man, he becomes an elvish looking female with black hair. She does not explain the transformation or the choice of her new form, but it reveals something about her nature: she is a Changeling, a mysterious race of dopplegangers that is rare on Faerun, but which does have clans spread around the world. A rather large one existed in Brindol, and as a matter of fact, that’s where Ruze is from.

The Giant is soon joined by a lean female Half Orc. The two are allied, their names are Grimoire and Sierra. Sierra tells the characters that they have been waiting for them and that their coming was foretold by Carrick, who found his way to these woods after he awoke in the Destroyed Temple of the Yuan Ti. Now they are to take them to the Lady of the Wood. Also, they are in for a shock: 80 years or more have passed since they left Faerun.

Cliff Notes: Carrick was the character originally controlled by Ruze’s player. He had a really in depth plot tied to the backstory of the game, as the players discovered that Carrick had long ago been possessed by the soul of the last Surveyor. The Surveyors are creations of Primus who helped usher in the age of Humanity on Faerun and who are indirectly responsible for many of the major events of the campaign, like the powers of the Jade Statue, the downfall of the Yuan Ti society, the arrival of the Mind Flayer who creates the Red Hand, and the Prophecy.

The players accompany Sierra on a short side quest, first, as she scouts out Skull Gorge, where it is said that the Enemy was recently spotted. Who is the enemy? They are told that only the Lady of the Wood truly knows, but that it is said to be the revived form of some old dead warlord, a Dragonborn who tried to conquer the world long ago.

Cliff Notes: All of this is referencing back to the PCs adventures with the Red Hand campaign. Skull Gorge Bridge was blown up by Nysyries in a very memorable moment decades earlier. The Dragonlord is Nazragul, whom the party served for a while when they were turned evil. The fact that he is mentioned to be returned is dark tidings indeed, as his power was shown to be pretty intense even from beyond the grave. How did he return, though? It should be noted that none of these PCs actually know of Nazragul or met him. The last PC who would have worked for his cause would have been Aldric.

While out scouting by the bridge, the party encounters a strange plant creature pouring some sort of necrotic energy into the land. The land becomes infected and the party is set upon by awakened trees and blights and Grimoire, whose connection to the forest causes him to be infected as well. The PCs win the battle but Hecate disappears during it. The PCs track her to a spot where they discover many prints that Imoaza recognizes as belonging to other Yuan Ti. Before they can investigate further, they are attacked by a Death Knight. He surprises Imoaza but when she draws Black Razor Alpha he retreats, and the party, taking advantage of the sudden reprieve and wondering who this mysterious helmed knight is, follows Sierra to Vraath Keep. They are about to meet the Lady of the Wood.

Cliff Notes: Vraath Keep was last seen 80 years ago, during the Red hand campaign. Xaviee, companion of General Twyin... renamed Lorin by us later... became its ruler and restored it to glory. But he died some time ago and who runs it now?

The Keep is revealed to have been expanded upon greatly in the past decades and has become a refuge for creatures of all manner, from humans and elves to giants and fey and even changelings. Really, it is a last bastion, a final hope of resistance to the forces that are growing in the Elsir Vale and swiftly taking it over. The major cities of the nation have fallen, Brindol most recently, and now Vraath Keep is all that remains, the only place housing an army left to fight back against Nazragul and his swarms of undead. Around the entire keep is a magical shield, meant to keep out all invaders and their magics.

And the Lady of the Wood? None other than an aging Karina, one of the original companions for the entire campaign and a major player in the Tomb of Haggemoth adventure. She retired from adventuring after Haggemoth and set about creating an adventuring school in the former Desert of Thud, believing that she would one day need an army of adventurers to combat Abenthy, who turned to a dark path when last she saw him.

The PCs meet with Karina and it is a solemn meeting as she fills them in on the history they have missed. She knows much of their story from Carrick (who is currently out on a mission of his own) and she knows of the prophecy. Discussing the prophecy becomes the focus of most of a session for us, while the players read over the lines and try to make sense of it with Karina. She also reveals that Nazragul has arisen after taking over the body and mind of a former disciple of hers: Jade, whom she last saw nearly 80 years ago, when she left to travel to the Elsir Vale because she sensed Nazragul’s power and sought to defeat him. With her went Verrick, Karina’s lover, and Lee, their pet slime. Abenthy she hasn’t seen in years either, and his presence seems to have disappeared from the world of Torril, or is otherwise blocked to her scrying. She believes some ill befell him, but she cannot be sure. She says that the Yuan Ti have joined with Nazragul in a religious Jihad, for they believe the end times are coming at last and the Night Serpent will finally swallow all light.

At hearing the news about Jade, Daymos suddenly appears, still in his Quasit form. He reveals that he has been invisibly following the party since they left Esheballa’s realm and now rails against Karina for not keeping his sister, Jade, safe. He then uses his prodigious abilities to phase through her protective shields around Vraath Keep, claiming he will find a way to save Jade.

There are some really amazing roleplaying moments while at Vraath Keep, as I ask each player what their character does in between their meetings with Karina. Each choice is a really interesting look at the character’s psyche. Here’s the brief of each one.

For Imoaza, the Weave has started to become visible to her. She can see it shaping the magic of the world around her, the way it coalesces around Karina and is tightly knit in her magical energy shield surrounding Vraath Keep. She spends her time examining her surroundings with this new found sight, but it drifts in and out and ultimately she is left without access to it, only a feeling like she has had an incredibly important thought, but cannot retrieve it now. She talks with Black Razor alpha, too, and gains a further understanding of her bond to the sword. He considers her his “mother,” a word that has uncomfortable past associations for Imoaza. And finally, I ask her what she seeks out for food, as it has been, in Faerun years, a very very long time (decades) since any of our companions have actually eaten food. They did not eat in the Chaos world (and good thing, too). Imoaza, true to a character beat that was established back on the air planet, seeks out sweets to salve her addiction to sugar, and gorges herself on fruits and baked goods made by some of the best bakers from Brindol, now refuging in Vraath Keep.

Cliff Notes: The Weave is the magical energy that powers magic in Dungeons & Dragons. It’s never been fully explained in canonical text in order to leave its inner workings more mysterious and up to GMs to develop. The idea of seeing the Weave came to me in a moment of improvisation as I tried to find ways to picture the level of magical power that Imoaza has reached after spending time in the Chaos plane.

For Ruz, she seeks out the company of other Changelings, looking to see if she has any family left in this world. She finds a tribe of Changelings, but she does not know any of them. Too many years have passed since last she set foot on Faerun. Ruz also is given a set of magical robes by Karina, which Karina’s used to wear on her own adventures. They have a lot of powers and incorporate her old Mariner’s Armor from back when she was level 3, so many real time years ago. Ruz also donates a huge amount of wealth, her spoils from Esheballa’s realm, to the war effort, which does not go unnoticed, though does not effect the current session. My favorite thing about her downtime, however, is her description of Ruz’s reaction to normal food. Ruz was in the Abyss far longer than the others and did partake of its food out of neccessity. But food on the chaos realm is hardly sustenance. It is soul energy and it is poisoned, like a drug that worms its way inside your heart. It almost drove Ruz to insanity and suicide, but she survived, her hope restored by the companions when she found them wandering Esheballa’s dark beach. Now, the player describes in beautiful detail how Ruz reacts to real food: real vegetables and meat. She asks for a simple meal, that of beef stew, the more generic and normal, the better, for it is “normal” that she has lacked and sought all of these years.

For Milosh, he does not eat. He is no longer a biological creature and hasn’t been since the Surveyor built him so many aeons ago. But something has changed in him: he now is beginning to remember who he was before he was a machine. His manner changes, no longer naive and friendly. He is now dour and quiet. His characteristic “ah!” with finger upraised has been replaced with a cool intellect and assessment of each situation he finds himself in. And he has recently gone through several shocks: first Carrick is dead, then he finds out he is still alive and on Faerun, and now Milosh is no longer certain of his mission. He goes to the keep’s forge, which Dwarven refugees have expanded into a mighty operation in the basement. Here, Milosh requests armor be made to help cover up his disfigurement (gotten at the fiery breath of the dragon on the Githyanki asteroid) and then he falls into a deep slumber. While he slumbers, he is visited by a beardless dwarf: Haggemoth. Haggemoth tells him that he had tried to forge a better future for the world but he failed when Aldric died and Blackrazor escaped into the void to work terror and mischief in unseen ways. Now he says that Milosh is the one who can change the future and forge a better path and that if he needs a new purpose, then this should be it.

What Does the Prophecy Mean?

In a long meeting with Karina, the PCs discuss the prophecy and its meaning. Here is what they come up with...

Three shall be the kings who sit the single throne And Order's rule by Chaos shall be overthrown The Universe will end by their divine hands Chaos will devour every woman, child, and man

This section seems to be fairly obvious. It is a warning and a reference to Primus’ war against Chaos, a history that was given to them in full by the last remaining Surveyor they found on the air planet. The three kings are the catalysts for a great and terrible destruction.

Each shall be seen by a singular sign Each shall be born of a different line.

The devil's blood runs in the first of the three They bear the eye that can seek but cannot see The second will by heaven be blessed But wings of black will mar their pureness The third contains the dragon's flame What was dead will rise to live again

The three are identified. The first has devil’s blood and the eye that can seek but cannot see. Karina acknowledges this must be her, as a Tiefling (Devil’s Blood) and known by the moniker “Seeker of Callax,” and indicates the gem that is fit into her empty eye socket.

The second, Karina suspects is the Assimir Abenthy, a companion she once sought a great treasure with before he “turned his will to darker ways.” She says that Abenthy was whom she feared was leading the undead army before she discovered it was the possessed Jade.

Which brings her to the third... she believes the third is Nazragul himself, the one possessing Jade. He is Dragonborn and was dead, but has risen again.

Three to rule, Three to lead, Three to destroy and make the universe bleed. Removing one will not lead to the fall To end the curse you must destroy them all

This part Karina is contemplative about. She does not know what it means to “destroy them all.” She admits she has contemplated suicide in order to remove her from the possibility of being used to end the world, but as the PCs point out, “removing one will not lead to the fall.” They all wonder if perhaps the three have to be destroyed at one time or if there is a riddle hidden in this line.

Four things must gather to alter fate's course The Sword, The Shield, The Stone, The Source Then upon the throne the three must be Before they can meet their destiny

This is where most of the discussion takes place. What are the four things that must be gathered? Karina says that Carrick has been out in the world searching for the answers to this riddle. The Sword they think is probably Blackrazor, as it is the most powerful blade they have ever encountered.

The Shield... Imoaza wonders aloud if it could refer to a person, like “Jon Snow, the Shield of the North.” But if it does refer to a person, they have no idea who that person is.

The Stone Karina says that Carrick figured out and believes is one of the crystals that the Surveyor used to power his creations, like a certain Jade statue from days gone by. He’s searching for a piece of one of the Crystals now.

The Source is another stumper... none of them have any idea what it might mean. Milosh wonders if it is the source of the prophecy, or maybe the source of the troubles. Ruz wonders if it is a place, like a river’s mouth or a source of heat or power. Imoaza wonders if it is the Rod of Storms... a different kind of source of power.

In the time these things come to pass The future will be decided by the ones from the past

This one seems pretty obvious to the PCs. The ones from the past are themselves. They are the ones destined to determine the future.

In any case, the PCs stay up late into the evening with Karina before retiring to get some much needed sleep. But they are awoken early by a summons... Karina has dreamed of Dragons, and one in particular to whom she long ago traded the Rod of Storms when it was briefly in her possession. She was told that when the time was right, she would be given something in return and in her dream she had been told that time is now. And so she has a mission for the players.

Next time, the heroes tackle their final dungeon crawl of the campaign (not the final dungeon, mind you...) in a scenario lifted directly from Tyranny of Dragons, The Sea of Moving Ice.

#DnD 5e #dungeons & dragons #AlignmentMayVary #alignment may vary #haggemoth #Nazragul #Red Hand of Doom #Karina #Campaign journal

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