#Which just tells how fucked laws in Central Universe are and that I have to make at least one story inside the CU and not in outside worlds
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I have a character that would unironically love Human Centipide not because they would think the film is good but because they would hold a centiment towards it - it reminds them of silly quirk of old friend of theirs.
#I'm not joking#One of my character have an old friend that basically mutilates sentient being from across the multiverse for “science”#Well#That friend also is a great healer and even revived in perfect conditions said character a few time#But anyway#They are such a good and old friends that said character began to find medical mutilations cute and fun#Btw that guy turned Throne into working vehicle that still was alive so not only some gods of few universes could use them as a transport#And then he legally sold those things#Which just tells how fucked laws in Central Universe are and that I have to make at least one story inside the CU and not in outside worlds
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@gehayi said: can you please tell us more about Israel Rank?
POV: We are at a slumber party and I am kicking my feet and giggling and telling you about the boy I like.
"Oh my god, his name is Israel Rank, and he's from a book called Israel Rank: Autobiography of a Criminal, and he is so hot! The musical A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, and the movie Kind Hearts and Coronets were both based on the book, but they made him other things besides Jewish, which is so bogus. Roger Ebert said it made the story more 'universal', which I guess means half-Italian is more universal than half-Jewish, which, what the fuck?
Anyway, he's the worst person in the world and I love him. He's like Heathcliff plus Steerpike plus Edmund the Bastard. He's the really distant relative of and earl, and his mother was disinherited for marrying a Jewish man. Israel isn't technically Jewish, he was baptized and raised Anglican, but he looks Jewish- and also really hot, and he says that combination upsets people! Kind of an Adrian Brody thing? I would have cast Ezra Miller before they turned out to be a shitshow of a person. And his name is Israel, kind of as a fuck you to mom's family. So he decides if people are going to give him shit about it anyway, he's going to embrace it.
He's in love with this girl Sibella, who won't marry him because he's both half-Jewish and poor, so starting as a hypothetical lark he wonders if he could just murder every single family member between him and an earldom. And then he does it! After sexual fantasies about Lucrezia Borgia encouraging him to! What an absolute freak.
So he starts killing, and his narration is so dry and funny about it. He tells the reader that in his experience, Jews aren't all that violent- he speculates that Shylock would have walked back the pound of flesh if he'd had time to calm down- but he has the blood of evil rapacious noblemen on his non-Jewish side which are to blame. He kills most of his family, except for the cousin-in-law whom he marries. He also still love Sibella. And his wife! He just can't stop fucking, he's so awful! (And I think he's bisexual. At least, I don't know how else I'm supposed to interpret the part where he's in school and "the boy I loved chose me as his Jonathan.")
And he gets away with it! He's super popular at his trial because he's so handsome and charming and the same society that scorned him, now that he's an earl, gossips that his Jewish ancestry must be very slight and distant. And there's a twist that gets him off the hook which is actually a real bummer of a plot point, even he's bummed out by it, but it's such a perfect capper to a life of cruelty.
Honestly, I do get why none of the adaptations keep the half-Jewish thing, they're probably afraid it would seem antisemitic, but in my opinion it's a real shame because it's so central to his character and I think I do want a sexy Jewish Byronic antihero. He's the worst. I love him. I would marry him. I would immediately divorce him. His favorite book is Emma!"
For a more academic discussion, I did a podcast episode on him way back when!
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Straw Hat modern!AU v.1: Jobs and Random Bits of non-plot Headcanons
Yes I know Oda already gave a list and far be it from me to disagree with canon (/s) but hear me out
Jimbei - full-time activist, former soldier/bodyguard. Lorge. Still does work as a bouncer from time to time, this is how he meets Luffy.
(Does karate at the national level. Works out at Zoro's gym, teaches classes sometimes.)
Brook - musician, naturally. Classically trained, accidentally achieved popular fame after the band he was in with his old buddies for fun was scouted out. Lost his bandmates. :( Was depressed for years and just tuned pianos and guitars and other instruments until the Straw Hats brought joy to his life again.
Franky - freelance handyman. Is an engineer, has a engineering degree and certification, but no firm will hire him because he refuses to wear formal clothes (main client is the local university, they asked him only to work at night to avoid students and claims plausible deniability if he chooses not to wear shoes on his own job sites) but he doesn't mind his lot in life because fuck 'em anyway also because trauma and also he's in love with one of the profs
Robin - university professor, teaches history/linguistics/historical linguistics/archaeology. Has like four PhDs. Was wrapped up in some shadiness in Central America while a grad student, but does such high-quality work and is in love with her building's handyman that no one tries to get her in trouble for it
(Robin and Franky meet and bond over keeping the fucking ancient anthropology building both up to livable standards and eligible for the national heritage register. They talk A Lot about historical building materials and methods)
((Note I said 'up to livable standards' and not 'up to code'. Franky's nickname is short for 'Frankenstein' for what he's done to the building's wiring, though somehow it still works))
Chopper - third year med student at 15. Already accepted into the residency program Law is an attending at. Also, he has his driver's license now!! He's the DD for the Straw Hat crew when they go out to bars, and is also self-appointed booze coordinator and hits the brakes for people when he senses alcohol poisoning coming on. Not even Whitebeard Himself can argue when little Dr. Tony gives his super-serious little disapproving pout.
(No, a 15yo cannot legally drive at night, much less operate a car full of drunkards. No one tells him this because he takes the responsibility for the well-being of his friends so seriously, and also no one gives a shit, and also everyone else is drunk anyway.)
Sanji - sous-chef at Baratie (I know, I know, shocker) which is next door to Zoro's gym. He takes classes at the university so that he'll be able to run his own restaurant one day.
(If he finds the FUCKING SHITHEAD who's drawing that Sora, Warrior of the Sea-inspired comic in the school newspaper someone's gonna have to fake an alibi to get him out of murder charges. Even if he does approve of Germa 66's ugly designs and cries over Sora's successful escape and loving words to her lost son)
Usopp - physics major, art minor. Draws a weekly comic for the school newspaper called The Adventures of Sniper King. Picked up boxing due to high school requirements, works out at Zoro's gym.
(Yes it's him. He's got a yellow stripe painted down his back due to the vitriol Sanji spews at his pseudonym daily. He really didn't mean for it to take off! Sanji told them all his story once and Usopp was heartbroken because he lost his mom too and one day he got an itch and he drew a comic about what he thought Sora'd say to Sanji, or what he thought Banchina might say to him, or some weird combination--and then sent it instead of the next installment of Sniper King to his editor ON ACCIDENT and PEOPLE WANTED MORE and HE'S SO SORRY AND HE'S SO SCARED. SANJI'S GONNA KILL HIM AND USOPP WILL DESERVE IT)
((Sanji condemns him into being busboy at Baratie for a month and refuses to speak to him for three days. But he also gives him spicy ginger desserts every night for a week, because Usopp's Sora is truer to life than the original Sora in terms of the love she embodies, and because Stealth Black's rumored escape is shown in the light of triumph. Sanji could hear her in the monologue of Sora's thoughts to her son when she learned he'd escaped Germa 66's clutches. How proud she was that the circumstances of his birth and life hadn't chained him down forever. It was the first time since the age of 9 that he could clearly remember what she had sounded like because, whether through pure miracle or the shared sympathy of orphan-hood, Usopp had gotten her voice exactly right, and it soothed something old and hurting in Sanji to hear it.))
Nami - business/finance, computer science double major. She REALLY wanted to study geography and GIS systems but her family needs the money so she's tilted her dreams--she's going to build the most precise geographic information system in the WORLD and market it to rich assholes while "losing it" to low-income thieves in need.
Stole 50% of her college tuition and negotiated down the other half in a meeting the bursar's office can't actually quite remember fully? But it's their signatures on the papers.
Zoro - business major. Yes, it's as ridiculous as it sounds. No he is not passing any of his classes. But Kuina had been determined to inherit the dojo and keep it flourishing, even if her dad didn't think a woman could. Then she died; and Shimotsuki-sensei died when Zoro was in high school; and now Zoro has two dear friends' dreams on his shoulders, and damn his lack of an MBA or any common sense but he will succeed. Sanji, Nami, and Jimbe are helping.
He did rename the place, from just 'Shimotsuki Dojo' to Kuina's Asskickers, and opened it to all sports. All classes and all tournaments are co-ed, all ages. He tried to get "ASSKICKER" on the gym's competition uniforms/gi but some of his students are toddlers so that wouldn't fly, so he uses 2001 instead. People think it's the founding year and get very confused when the gym is technically 50+years old; 2001 = the number of fights Zoro lost to Kuina.
(Nami asks him why he didn't use "KUINA"; Zoro looks at her funny. "But that's not [male student example]'s name? Why would I put that on his back? Do you want people to get confused??")
((He does have Kuina's name stitched into his gi))
Luffy - biology major. HEAR ME OUT. Garp insisted he go to college for at least a semester and while still an undecided liberal arts major, Luffy discovered a whole BUILDING FILLED WITH COOL BUGS!!! AND PEOPLE GO OUT AND FIND THEM?? AND BRING THEM BACK!! THAT'S A JOB???? SO COOL!!!
So yeah. Technically he's on the road to become an entomologist, but is struggling due to his undiagnosed (but incredibly obvious) AuDHD and a lack of care for statistics (and math in general) and research writing (and reading/writing in general). Robin, Chopper, and Usopp are working HARD to get him to the general area of passing. Luffy also is getting a minor in Portuguese (which is his first language) because he plans on exploring the Amazon Rainforest looking for cool beetles when he graduates.
Ace - fire fighter with shady connections. (more later?)
Sabo - activist with much shadier connections. (more later?)
#jesus this turned out longer than i meant#op#one piece#opla#if you'd like#this is version 1#i'll write out v2 at a later date
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If you want to suffer because of timelines, try to figure out when the Black Sun happened in the games/books timeline :D i have a post dedicated to raging about this but Im on mobile so I cant aend it to you to check it out. But I do want to know yoir thoughts on it! The central characters are Syanna (and Anarietta by proxy), pf course Renfri and Deidre. I loom forward to your theories and screaming about the ages
(ALSO! Radovid V is younger than Ciri (i think) and Morvran Voorhis is around 18 in TW3 ("a child accoridng to Imperial Law in 1268", which doesnt specify the age but he seems younger than ciri or her age at the very least; dunno where I heard 18, but eh, close enough). Look at their game designs. Look at them and tell me they look their age)
jaw on the floor. jesus holy hell. i never even noticed that but now i'll never UNnotice it
when the fuck did the black sun happen???
now ok, the thing with deidre is, i never really understood treating her as canon, because there's another fanmade adventure included in the enhanced edition's base game, in which geralt helps santa save christmas and is then raped by an old man in an infirmary. so like, i dont really consider that to be canon to the series. so deidre to me exists in the exact same sort of liminality.
and also like, she just Says Word For Word stuff that renfri said. so she's pretty obviously a renfri clone. it makes for an interesting fan game, and it was definitely well done and compelling! but she's. She Is Renfri, basically. and if they'd had syanna also say things renfri said word for word, they could play it off as intentional, these are things all girls born under the black sun say, this is some aspect of their weird metaphysical powers linking them all. but they DIDNT do that(i dont remember syanna saying anything renfri did), so you cant say that, so it's just renfri's dialogue lifted.
so already i never tried to mentally fit deidre into a timeline that worked, because in my head she never really Worked at all, she was an interesting thought experiment. you would have to fudge the numbers to fit her into canon, is my perspective. (though what if everything with her went down, in the SAME YEAR geralt ended up in blaviken with renfri. spooky. "two drops of water," indeed.)
but even graciously allowing "deidre didnt happen, or if it did it wasnt wholly accurate to the timeline", what the hell is going on with syanna!!!! she and anarietta would have to be like.... in their 60s or something!!! i see a wiki page(though its a fandom.wiki which means its entirely unsourced and basically worthless ugh 🙄) where the curse of the black sun is just being born under AN eclipse, not a SPECIFIC eclipse, but that really feels like cheating.
i could maybe accept an in-universe sorcerer fudging the numbers like that on purpose to get syanna out of the way, if she wasnt favored by him for some reason, but that just straight up isnt what happened in the game. and i refuse to believe that "AN eclipse" is the proper reading OR how cdpr understood the prophecy. its just too much of a stretch
i mean, props to them that they twisted the timeline that severely and i never noticed, quite the narrative slight of hand, but STILL. that is EGREGIOUS. it doesnt make any sense!!! is syanna drinking potions of immortality. how good is annarietta's moisturizing routine, damn. do the people not notice theyre being ruled over by a bratty immortal
also:
MORVRAN IS NOT 18 OH MY GOD I THOUGHT HE WAS LIKE. I DUNNO. 40. MAYBE OLDER. 18 is killing me. like, i had heard that radovid was still a teenager, and while i dont See it and that character design does NOT communicate that... i thought it made some amount of sense for the character to be young, how he acts and how the world treats him. a young despot. i get it.
but MORVRAN he looks so old he acts so old he is OLD in my heart he will always be an annoying old guy 😭 he is middle aged he cares about horse races and has a weird thing going on with that lady he's always hanging out with. that is an Adult Man
#witcher tag#ogc tag#thank you. this is killing me. i'll be thinking about it forever and b&w will never be the same 💕
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Beyond Reasonable Doubt (ch.1)
– A Lawyer AU –
You and Kylo Ren have hated one another for as long as you can remember. He, a criminal prosecutor, and you, a defense attorney should be natural-born enemies, and you are. But when Kylo comes to you seeking representation after being charged for a murder he didn’t commit, you both learn a thing or two about life, the law, and love…
[5k, no warnings for this first chapter!]
Available on AO3
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In a world of ever-changing circumstances, where people do things that cause ripples and shocks through the very fabric of society that shake them to their core, where the sun shines and rain falls and snow blows cold through the streets of Manhattan, where there is life and death and a mess of bullshit in between, there was but one thing that you could ever comfortably rely on in life.
Only one thing remained constant in the grand scheme of it all: your alarm.
With a grunt and sigh, your arm extends out from underneath the covers to smack at the loud blaring jingle that sounds from your phone, hand desperately trying to hit the dismiss button without looking so that you don’t have to face the day just yet. It’s too early, you reason, to pull your whole self out from under the covers.
Eventually you give that thought up though, because dammit now you’re awake and it’s Monday morning and you have an office that’s waiting for you uptown. So, ever grudgingly, you throw the plush comforter off of your body and stretch to greet the day, saying good morning to the city that never sleeps.
You don’t usually dread waking up, but well, the last time you’d been in the office was Friday afternoon, after you lost your case.
After you lost your case, to him.
Glancing at the clock on your phone, you chew your lip for a moment or two, before finally turning off the do not disturb function, immediately going into the bathroom to shower and ready yourself for the day while damn near a hundred backlogged notifications make your phone buzz nearly onto the floor.
There’s a small mirror in the shower, a little compact to make sure there’s nothing left on your face after you scrub your skin clean, and you catch your own reflection in it. You’ve looked better, that was for damn sure – but by that same token, you’ve also looked worse. Mondays were shit, but today was gearing up to be an even worse one than normal.
No, you think as you shake your head adamantly, you have no desire to let him soak up any more of your good mood than he had already. So what if you had forgone your entire weekend, canceling plans and ignoring friends to nurse the sting to your pride that was losing? So what if instead of checking your email or your phone, you sat yourself on the couch and wasted two entire days doing nothing but watching shitty shows on Netflix?
What you did on your downtime was nobodies’ business, and since you live alone in your beautiful one-bedroom in SoHo, no one was there to spill your secrets. If anyone asked – not that anyone would, if they knew what was good for them – you would tell them that you absolutely did not spend the weekend wanting to throw darts onto a photo of his face. That wouldn’t be very professional, now would it?
Shutting off the water, you wrap yourself up in a big plush towel, and pad across the floor to your closet. Briefly, ever so briefly, you glance at your phone on your way, holding your breath, wondering, hoping that there might be something from him.
If there is, it’s buried under a pile of emails and text-threads from your firm, so he’ll have to wait.
Manhattan in January was chilly, so you bundle yourself up in your chicest coat overtop your most well-fitting skirt suit and a pair of heeled boots. Even if you felt like shit, you could look like million fuckin’ bucks, and no one would be the wiser.
And what a wonder the power of confidence was! Through the streets and down to the subway, you smiled at everyone, and they all smiled back. You offered your seat on the train to an elderly man who clearly needed it more than you, and he complimented your gloves. Everyone from the NYPD officer drinking his coffee to the mom scolding her three children brightened as you wished them a good morning, and somehow, along the way to work, your Monday blues disappears into something a little brighter.
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Your good mood only continues to grow as you exit the elevator of the huge high-rise that you call your home away from home, your office on the twenty-third floor right in the heart of the Upper West Side. Sandwiched between the Hudson and Central Park, you have to admit that getting your ass out of bed was worth it, even if just for this view.
“Morning (Y/N).” The front desk security guard greets you, and you say hello back to him with a performative show of your badge.
HKS Law, so named after the founders and current partners Amilyn Holdo, Ben Kenobi, and Luke Skywalker, is a shining pinnacle of what defense attorneys and opposing counsel at trials should be. Not only had the firm made history time and time again with incredible wins and even more incredible ultimate losses, but it prided itself on being representation for the people no one else could represent.
Most of all, it had you.
If your alarm was a constant, than this was a universal truth: you are a damn good defense attorney. As you walk through the crisp and clean polished floors, you hold your head high, knowing that this loss against him still put you at the lowest loss rate of anyone in the history of HKS, lower than even the founders themselves.
That little reminder has you grinning to yourself. You’d been working with HKS for nearly six years now, and very quickly you saw your office climbing higher and higher up the skyscraper, saw it getting bigger and bigger. And now, you were nearly positive, that your meeting at eleven o’clock would be to discuss partnership with the firm as a reward for your continued hard work.
“Hey (Y/N)!” One of the associates, Rose Tico smiles at you from where she’s chatting with her sister Paige by their desks.
“Someone looks like they had a nice weekend.” Paige remarks, and you only wink at them, playing the game.
A game, which becomes instantly easier as your assistant, a bright-eyed intern fresh out of law school appears seemingly out of nowhere.
“(Y/N), good morning!” She is already offering you a cup of something nice and hot, her arm cradling a stack of manilla folders that have all sorts of sticky-note flags on them, that she shifts onto her hip ever so slightly to brush a few loose braids out of her face, speaking at what feels like a million miles a second, “I have your coffee ready and there’s a fresh breakfast buffet in the break room if you’d like, I can get you something – ”
“Good morning Neisha.” You accept the coffee gratefully, but interrupting her only to give her a chance to catch her breath. You check your watch, it’s only half-past seven, she’ll wear herself out if she exerts that much energy first thing. “A bagel with the usual would be perfect, thank you.”
“No problem – oh, Rick wanted you to look over those case files before your eleven-o’clock.” She breathes a sigh of relief, and gives you a smile.
Groaning, you accept the manilla folders too, balancing the coffee cup on top of them as Iman follows you into your own private office. Your assistant stands in front of your desk at the ready, looking sharp and put together, as ever.
One thing that you loved about Neisha – aside from the dozens of things that you admired and appreciated about her – was that you have never ever seen her in something other than a pantsuit. She did not wear dresses or skirts, she was almost never in heels, and she did not carry a purse. Instead, Neisha could almost always be found in a very smart trouser and blazer set, often complete with vests, and fun-colored socks in her loafers to coordinate with her ever-expanding collection of ties.
“Rick can go fuck himself.” You mutter under your breath, and she laughs.
“Should I tell him you said that?” With a playful glimmer in her eye, she crosses her arms over her broad chest.
“Yes.” You wink, before checking your watch once again and reminding her about that, “Bagel?”
“Bagel – right, on it.” Neisha snaps her fingers and leaves, closing the office door behind her.
You like your office, even if you’ve outgrown it. Much like the rest of the firm, it has stayed up to date with the contemporary interior design of the day. However where the open floor of the firm is mostly whites and silvers and glass, your office feels warmer with shades of coffee browns and creamy neutrals.
Remembering how you had been so excited for the promotion to your own office, you can’t help but chuckle to yourself now – it really was a small office. It consisted of a long dark brown desk situated in front of a wall-unit bookshelf/display area, and a seating arrangement of matching brown chairs situated around a free-edge wooden coffee-table. A soft rug covers the marble flooring, and cream gauzy curtains cover the windows, but that was about it.
You had been to the offices of the higher ups, you knew just what you could achieve if you made partner – even if you made junior partner.
And if all went well during this meeting at eleven, you knew you’d be moving into one of those offices soon.
For the first time all weekend, you sit down in the big leather chair behind your desk and finally check your phone. The case files remain on your desk, and you know you’ll get to them eventually, but until you’ve had some breakfast and that coffee can work its magic, no one could blame you for scrolling through the shit that you had put off since Friday.
It’s mostly work friends taking your side, which you appreciate. They knew losing a case was hard for you – you didn’t do it very often. And even though you never lost to anyone besides him, it still never got easier.
The case had been a simple one, or at least, you had thought so. Murders are so often simple, either the person did it, or they didn’t. If they did, there’s evidence, and if they didn’t, well, there’s evidence too. And when two parties come forward with their own evidence, compelling, strong fucking evidence – evidence of alibis and proof that your client couldn’t have been there, couldn’t have done it – it’s up to the jury to decide who to believe.
In this case, this jury decided to believe him, and there was nothing you could do about it. It was losses like this, losses like the knowledge than an innocent man was going to prison, that make you seriously question the legal system as a whole, frankly.
It’s then that you see it, and your hand freezes.
You have a missed message from him.
He’s saved in your contacts as the dick from VTH, and even though that could refer to any number of people, you know that it’s him. You have five missed messages from him, as a matter of fact, which sends both a rush of adrenaline through you, as well as a spike of anxiety.
The two of you…you’d never been friends, not really. In fact, the closest thing to a relationship that you might have is that of a rivalry, if not flat out enemies. You hated him, and he hated you, and he had hated you ever since the first day he set eyes on you, from the very first moment you walked into the courtroom as a last-minute addition to the defense counsel, and won the case in fifteen minutes.
Which was a shame, because you often find yourself thinking that if he weren’t such a…well, a dick, there could have been something there. Instead of a friendship, or even a civil acquaintanceship, you have over the years developed something of a hate-fucking-enemies-with-benefits arrangement. He was probably pissed that you ignored him all weekend, but that was okay – let him be pissed, you were pissed too.
You don’t open his messages, not yet. You’d need coffee in you and food in your stomach before you’re able to handle whatever mood he has to be in, now that you’ve got the energy to deal with him.
You’re so deep in thought that you nearly miss when Neisha returns with a plate for you, a big spread arranged on your desk for you to enjoy. You’re about to thank her and let her get on with whatever work she has to do, but she holds out a newsletter with a devious smile and curiosity gets the better of you.
“Have you seen?” She asks, and you raise a brow, a smile of your own creeping across your face.
The newsletter was something that circulated through the different firms in the area, keeping everyone up to date – or at least as up to date as legally possible – on the goings on in the sphere of influence that you all found yourselves in. Everything from congratulatory memos to case results, and even high profile celebrity gossip was fair game, but one of the more scandalous parts of the newsletter, was the publication of trouble that various lawyers found themselves in.
The Monday morning newsletter had quite a bit of this from over the weekend, and right there on page sixteen, is none other than his face looking as irritated as he possibly can, as he’s being given a hard time for a DUI on Friday night.
“Oh fuck.” Your eyes widen, wanting nothing more than to call him and yell at him for being a fucking idiot, “What the hell does he think he’s doing?”
“Whatever he wants, evidently.” Neisha shrugs, no doubt thinking the news would cheer you up in some sort of vengeful way that you appreciate. She reaches for a pumpernickel crisp from the spread on your desk and muses, “I bet the cops are thrilled, they hate that sonofabitch.”
“Yeah them and me both.” You mutter, already rubbing away a headache that’s starting to form across the expanse of your forehead. “He’s not going to be pleased about that photo, he looks rumpled.”
Sighing, you look down at the photo. He’s very clearly intoxicated, you’ve seen that look in his eyes more than once, the blurry out of focused glassy look that he gives you over smiles at dinner sometimes. You blink away the image of him in a nice suit on the other end of a table, reminding yourself that you’re angry with him.
“Doesn’t he have a driver? I wonder why he got behind the wheel himself.” Neisha continues, and bless her you think, for continually giving you a means to not be left alone with your thoughts.
“If there’s one thing I know about that man, it’s that when he sets him mind to something, no one is going to stop him from doing it.” You reply, not able to ignore a bit of gut-wrenching regret.
Maybe if you hadn’t been so mad at him, you could’ve gone with him to wherever he was coming back from, and maybe you could’ve --
“Should I have this framed?” Neisha asks, and you blink again.
You check your watch, it’s only a quarter ‘til eight. Have you really only been at work for fifteen minutes? That stack of folders sits on the edge of your desk, taunting you. You’re gearing up for an extra long day.
“No, that’s okay.” You shake your head, opening the bottom drawer of your desk and dropping the newsletter into it. “I will keep a hold onto it though. Just for fun.”
With a laugh, Neisha leaves and once again closes your office door.
“God dammit.” You grumble, pulling your phone out yet again.
The unread messages from him sit buried beneath thirty other messages that don’t warrant responses, and you hover your thumb over his name.
After all these years, something about getting a text from him made your heart jump. It felt stupid, you weren’t some teenager with a crush in high school, you were an adult, and this was just another adult, who you happened to have developed some sort of attachment to. Not a friendship, or a relationship even, but some kind of attachment.
Right now, you wanted to bitch at him for getting himself into trouble, for driving while he was so very clearly drunk, a whole argument prepared about how he could have seriously hurt or even killed someone, how even though he’s a rich asshole he can’t afford to be so reckless.
But first, in order to bitch at him, you have to read what he’s sent you over the weekend, and that’s where you keep tripping up. You don’t know why, but when you do finally open up his texts, you find that you’re holding your breath until you read them.
You try to ignore the way the thread starts out, try to ignore how if anyone were to squint, they might think something was going on between you two.
Incoming: [1/8 6:03am] just picking up croissants from that place u like. jam?
[1/8 6:10am] Yeah, raspberry if they have
Incoming: [1/8 6:11am] on it, go back 2 bed.
That had been just over a week ago, and you remember the day well, how you exchanged smiles over bites of fresh and flaky pastry, how you had dipped the croissants into hot chocolate in his bed, not giving a fuck about the crumbs that weren’t your problem because they weren’t your sheets.
How that was the last time you had seen him, before the conclusion of the case.
Now, now that you’d lost, the tone of the thread has very clearly shifted to something much colder. One thing you’re surprised to see though, is that they’re all from around Friday night, which was unusual.
Incoming: [1/15 7:43pm] going out 2 celebrate tonight, join me
Incoming: [1/15 8:57pm] u can’t ignore me forever u know
Incoming: [1/16 12:02am] i’m glad u didn’t come, ud fucking hate it here. theyre playing music 2 loud
Incoming: [1/16 12:15am] r u seriously still mad?
Incoming: [1/16 1:09am] Fuck you.
Rolling your eyes, you rub away more of that headache that starts to form. It was weird that he didn’t text you at all for the whole day of Saturday, or Sunday for that matter. If you didn’t spend the weekend together, he was very content to simply blow your phone up with links to random bullshit or long text conversations in broken grammar because his thumbs were too big for the buttons.
So for there to be radio silence after one o’clock in the morning was strange.
“For fucks sake.” You find yourself texting him back without even thinking about it, your fingers moving over the keyboard easily and quickly, sending off a slightly antagonizing reply after two days of nothing;
[1/18 7:55am] Looks like you had quite the night on Friday.
There, you think. That should get a response out of him. No doubt he would be quick to complain about how he had been pulled over and the whole nine yards. You wait for it to come through, the text. Or more accurately, the string of impassioned paragraphs that he tends to send you.
But a minute go by, and there’s nothing.
Five minutes, and nothing still.
You know you have to work, you have shit to do, you have that big meeting in a couple hours that you have to mentally prepare for, there’s no time to be worrying about him not texting you back. Still, you don’t like the silence. Sure that makes you a hypocrite, but he deserved your cold shoulder for beating you in court. At least, that’s how you justify it for yourself.
Getting up from your desk, you hover in the doorframe, where your assistant’s desk sits just outside to act as a buffer for anyone wanting to bother you.
“Hey Neisha?” You ask quietly, getting her attention, “I haven’t missed any calls, have I?”
A crease of confusion dips between her brows as she frowns, and immediately she checks the call logs on the conference phone that sits on her desk next to the big computer that takes up most of her space.
“No not that I can think of, are you expecting someone – ?”
Just as she’s asking, the phone rings. You lean over and see the number is one you don’t recognize, and you frown too.
“Better get that.” Neisha says awkwardly, so you just nod and retreat back into your own office from where you came.
It’s been seven minutes now, and there’s still nothing from him.
“Fine, fuck you too.” You mutter at the phone, locking it and putting it in the shallow drawer of your desk so you can focus on the folders in front of you finally.
The stack is pretty normal, all the weekend material finally coming in now that it’s the start of a new week. There’s new case files to look through to decide if you’re doing to accept the client, supplementary material from old case files that you’ve asked for to review, notes and evidence belonging to associates’ cases that you said you’d give your opinion on – all mixed into one big pile.
You liked it though, liked staying busy. It was a good distraction from a loss, the ability to win, the ability to prove to yourself and to the world that you’re good at what you do. There are all sorts of awards and pieces of paper displayed on the walls of your office that show that you’re good, but still, there’s nothing like a strong win after a frustrating loss.
But you’re not even halfway through reading the first folder, when Neisha knocks on your door and opens it slowly, a look of preemptive apology on her face.
“I’m afraid you’re going to need to cancel your eleven o’clock.” She says, and you can tell by the tone of her voice that there’s no use in trying to argue with her.
You let the folder fall down onto the desk, and brace yourself for whatever bombshell she’s about to drop on you, what could possibly be so important for you to have to reschedule one of the biggest meetings of your career. They would understand, you’re sure.
You hope, anyway.
“Who is it?” Your tone is already filled with dread, but a resigned kind of dread, knowing that whatever it must be, it has to be big, and you’re the only one in this entire fucking firm who can handle big things like this – it was the reason they wanted you for partner in the first place.
But Neisha hesitates with this response, scratches the back of her neck in a way that makes you instantly curious.
“I…I was instructed not to say, just that you’ve been requested to meet with them regarding representation.” She tells you, and now your headache pounds even harder.
Clients didn’t withhold their identity from you; some used an alias of course, but you can’t say that so far in your career you’ve had a completely anonymous client. Whoever this person was, had to either be royalty, or something very very close.
And though that meant there was going to be a nightmare of a trial – because these high profile people almost never got to simple settle, not when the prosecutor wants to make a show of prosecuting them – you can’t help but think that would be a pretty good notch in your beltloop, as it were.
“Alright, where are they?” You’re already up and away from your desk, shuffling the case files into a locked cabinet.
“Rikers.” She says straight away, and you let out a groan.
“Of course they are.”
You had almost hoped that whoever this mystery client was, they had posted bail and could meet at a nice neutral location. You didn’t have anything against Rikers personally, but rather the entire prison industrial complex as a whole, and as far as New York prisons went, there were few more infamous for being unnecessarily brutal than Rikers Island.
“I can call them back and tell them you’re busy…but they sounded adamant about wanting you in particular.” Neisha nudges gently, and really there’s no need to butter you up, you’ve already made up your mind.
“I’m guessing they didn’t tell you why?” You ask, even though you know the answer.
“Correct.” She replies with a sheepish shrug.
You look at her, at your watch, at your phone screen which shows no new notifications from the last time that you checked it, and you square your shoulders.
“Alright, reschedule the eleven o’clock, and let’s get out of here before Holdo freaks the fuck out on me for that.” You say, grabbing your coffee and a few more of the pastries to take in the car with you for the drive.
----------------------------
Most times, you have no problem taking the subway wherever you need to get, but visiting Rikers wasn’t as easy as hopping off the train and walking a couple blocks. For times like these, you and Neisha take one of the company cars, a sleek and shiny black thing with dark tinted windows. Cars really aren’t practical in the city, which is why you don’t have one of your own, but it was nice to be driven around from time to time in the peace and quiet of a car like this.
Normally, visitors are not allowed on Mondays or Tuesdays, but you’re not a normal person, and you’re not here for a normal visit, so once you pass through the security gate, the K-9 unit and the metal detector security tests with ease, you find it a pretty quiet lobby.
“Good afternoon Ms. (L/N), here on official duty?” One of the correctional officers that sits up by the front visitation desk beams at you.
“No, I just missed you Jake.” You reply, fishing out your identification for him even though he really doesn’t need it. Jake has worked there only a year or so, and every time you see him you can’t help but think he’s young, too young for this job, you think, too young to become desensitized to the humanity of incarcerated individuals. But that’s not a conversation that you’re here to have today, so instead you keep up the chitchat with, “How’s Lottie and the kids?”
“They’re good, who are you here for?” Jake asks as a matter of protocol, and you give Neisha a look, before looking back at him.
“That’s just the thing, I don’t know. I wasn’t informed for confidentiality reasons.” You try to explain, before leaning forward and mock-whispering to him, “Please tell me someone has me on the list and I didn’t drive all this way for nothing.”
Jake laughs, a sound that feels out of place in a place like this, and pulls something up on his computer. You can’t really see it, the list, and that’s okay. Whoever this mysterious person is, you’ll find out within just a few minutes.
“You know the drill, they’re waiting for you in the back.” Jake waves you off, and you’re glad to go.
“Wait out here.” You tell Neisha, who clearly looks uncomfortable even being in the lobby, and with good reason. She doesn’t argue you on that, instead takes a seat on a bench near Jake’s table, and the two of them get to chatting while your boots click on the floors as you walk away.
There’s a couple different visitation areas in the jail, and the deeper into the building you go, the more that you’re glad that visitation isn’t allowed on Mondays. You don’t want the chance of running into someone that you had failed. Granted there had only been a handful of those instances, but the thought of any one of them being here is not outside the realm of possibility.
Through the sea of empty tables and chairs that are reserved for long term inmates who happen to have visitation privileges for good behavior, you find yourself moving deeper and deeper, until you’re at the door of another room, a closed off one more typical to that seen in movies and television shows.
Opening the door, you hang in the hallway to confirm that there’s no one else there, as there shouldn’t be. There’s eight stations, four on each side of the small room, with a phone and a pane of bulletproof glass. Right away, you have a feeling this is going to be a murder trial, if they’re not even letting you meet with the client out in the open, if they’re monitoring the phone conversation that you’re about to have.
You see a shuffle of movement out of the corner of your eye, and assume that that’s who you’re here to meet, so with your chin held high, you step into the room, and make your way to the visitation booth where a man in a bright orange jumpsuit is waiting on the other side of the glass.
Stopping as quickly as you’ve started, you stand frozen in the middle of the room, blinking away and desperately shoving aside a wave of feelings that have crashed over you at the familiar face behind the glass.
The dark hair, the deep eyes, that proud nose, those full lips, you take it all in with some strange sense of disbelief – surely this must be a dream? It has to be, even as you sit on the little stool and yank the phone off the wall, shoving it against your ear, not even knowing where to start as you try to wrap your mind around the fact that the man, this mystery client…
“Hey sweetheart.” He says, and you could smack him upside the head if only there weren’t this glass between you and Kylo Ren.
----------------------------
Tagging some pals, please let me know if you’d like to be added to or taken off the taglist! @safarigirlsp @steeevienicks @mochabucky @sacklerscumrag @artsymaddie @bitchydecisions @direnightshade @reyloaddict55 @kylorenswhxre @sunflowersinthesnow @mousemakingjam @the-unmanaged-mischief @drake-bells-waxed-penis @littleevilme13 @rennaissance-mama @materialisthicc
#kylo ren x reader#kylo ren/reader#kylo ren x you#kylo ren/you#kylo ren fanfic#kylo ren imagine#reader insert#slowburn#modern au#lawyer au#my writing#beyond reasonable doubt#adam driver fanfiction#adcu
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Wigging Out.
Choreographer and director Jonathan Butterell tells Gemma Gracewood about stepping behind the camera for Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, his love for Sheffield, and making sure queer history is kept alive. Richard E. Grant weighs in on tolerance and Thatcher.
Of 2021’s many conundrums, one for musical lovers is why the narratively problematic Dear Evan Hansen gets a TIFF premiere and theatrical release this month, while the joyously awaited Everybody’s Talking About Jamie went straight to Amazon Prime.
And yet, as the show’s lyrics go, life keeps you guessing, along came a blessing. There’s something about the film streaming onto young people’s home screens, with its moments of fourth-wall breaking where Jamie speaks straight to the viewer, that feels so important, given the content: a gay teen whose drag-queen destiny sits at odds with the less ambitious expectations of his working-class town.
Director and choreographer Jonathan Butterell, who also helmed the stage production (itself inspired by Jenny Popplewell’s 2011 BBC documentary, Jamie: Drag Queen at 16) agrees that the worldwide Amazon release is a very good silver lining. “I made the film for the cinema but, in 250 territories across the world, this is going to have a reach that—don’t get me wrong, cinema, cinema, cinema, collective experience, collective experience, collective experience—but it will get to people that it might not have got to before.
Jonathan Butterell on set with star Max Harwood, as Jamie.
“It feels as niche a story as you could possibly be. But also for me, I wanted it to feel like a universal story, that it didn’t matter where on any spectrum you found yourself, you could understand a young person wanting to take their place in the world freely, openly and safely.”
Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, with screenplay and lyrics by Tom MacRae and songs by Dan Gillespie Sells, sits neatly among a series of very specific feel-good British films about the working class experience, such as Billy Elliot, Kinky Boots and Pride. The film adds some historical weight to the story with a new song, ‘This Was Me’, which allows Jamie’s mentor, Hugo (played by Richard E. Grant), to take us into England’s recent past—the dark days of the discriminatory Section 28 laws, at a time when the HIV/AIDS epidemic was still ravaging the community.
Hugo’s drag persona Loco Chanelle (played in the flashback by the stage musical’s original Jamie—John McCrea from Cruella and God’s Own Country), sports a wig that looks suspiciously like the Iron Lady’s unmistakable head of hair. Grant confirms that was Hugo’s intention. “His heyday was in the 1980s, so as a ‘fuck you’ to Mrs Thatcher, what better than to be dressed up like that, at six-foot-eight, with a wig that could bring down the Taj Mahal!”
Richard E. Grant as Hugo, getting to work on Jamie’s contours.
In light of the current pandemic, and the fact that the 1967 legalization of homosexuality in Britain is only “an historical blink away”, Grant’s hope is for more tolerance in the world. “Maybe Covid gives people some sense of what that was like, but with Covid there’s not the prejudice against you, whereas AIDS, for the most part in my understanding, was [seen as] a ‘gay disease’, and there were many people across the globe who thought that this was, you know, whatever god they believe in, was their way of punishing something that they thought was unacceptable.
“The message of this movie is of inclusivity, diversity, and more than ever, tolerance. My god, we could do with a dose of that right now.”
Read on for our Q&A with Jonathan Butterell about the filmic influences behind Everybody’s Talking About Jamie.
Hugo in a reverie, surrounded by his drag menagerie.
Can we talk about the new song, ‘This Was Me’, and the way you directed it in the film? It’s a show-stopper, with Richard E. Grant singing in that beautiful high register, and then moving into Holly Johnson’s singing, as you go back in time to show that deeply devastating and important history.
Jonathan Butterell: It felt inevitable, the shift, and necessary. Myself, Dan Gillespie Sells, the composer, and Tom MacRae, the screenwriter, we created this piece together, the three of us, and it’s a film by the three of us. We lived through that time, we went on those marches. Actually, in one of those marches [shown in flashback], Dan’s mum—actual mum—is in a wheelchair, by a young boy who was holding a plaque saying “my mum’s a lesbian and I love her”.
That is Dan with his mum back in the day, and it all speaks to our stories and it moves me, I can see it’s moving you. It moves me because I lived through that time, and it was a complex time for a young person. It was a time that you felt you had to be empowered in order to fight, and you felt very vulnerable because of the need to fight. And because of that disease, because HIV was prevalent and we lost people—we lost close people—it was a difficult time. I wanted to make sure that that story kept being told and was passed on to the next generation.
It’s so important isn’t it, to walk into the future facing backwards?
It still exists, that need to fight still exists. The conversation, yes, has moved on, has changed, but not for all people and not in all communities.
What would be your go-to movie musical song at a karaoke night?
My goodness. There’d be so many.
I mean, is it going to be a Cabaret, a Chicago showstopper, or something more Mary Poppins, something from Rent?
I think what I would go to, which is what I remember as a little boy, is Curly singing ‘Oh, What A Beautiful Mornin’. It’s such a kind of perfect, beautiful, simple song. That, and ‘The Lonely Goatherd’, because I just want to yodel. It would be epic. Trust me.
What is the best film featuring posing and why is it Paris Is Burning?
It’s always Paris Is Burning. Back in the day, I was obsessed with Paris Is Burning, I was obsessed with that world. In fact, at one moment I even met [director] Jennie Livingston in trying to make a theater piece inspired by that. I lived in New York for eleven years and I met Willi Ninja. I just adored everything about him, and he would tell me stories. And again, it was so removed from the boy from Sheffield, I mean so far. That New York ballroom scene was so removed from my world, but I got it. Those two boys at the top of the film, I just wanted to be one of those boys who just hung out outside the club.
Harwood and Butterell on set, with Lauren Patel (right) as Jamie’s bestie Pritti Pasha.
What films did you and Tom and Dan look at to get a feeling for how to present the musical numbers?
Actually, a lot of pop videos, from present day to past. There’s an homage, in the black-and-white sequences, to a little ‘Vogue’ Madonna moment. Pop is very central to me in this story because pop is what a working-class kid from a working-class community will be listening to. That’s in his phone, that’s in his ears. Not that many young people listen to much radio at this moment in time, but that’s what will be on Margaret’s radio, that’s what’s coming into the kitchen. And that was central to the storytelling for me.
Bob Fosse also really influenced me, and particularly All That Jazz and where his flights of imagination take him. I felt that was so appropriate for Jamie, and again in a very, very different way, but I could see how Jamie’s imagination could spark something so fantastical that would lead him to dance, lead him to walk on the most amazing catwalk, lead into being in the most fabulous, fabulous nightclub with the most amazing creatures you’ve ever met in your life.
For me personally, the film that most inspired me was Ken Loach’s Kes, because that is my community. Both the world in which Jamie exists—Parsons Cross council estate, is my world, is my community—and the world of that young boy, finding his place in the world with his kestrel friend, I remember identifying with that boy so clearly. He was very different from me, very different. But I got him, and I felt like Ken Loach got me through him.
Ken Loach made a few films set in Sheffield, didn’t he? But also, Sheffield is a setting and an influence on The Full Monty, The History Boys, Funny Cow and that brilliant Pulp documentary. So Jamie feels like a natural successor.
It absolutely does. Sheffield’s where I grew up, it’s my hometown. Although I moved away from it, I always return. To have a chance to celebrate my community, and particularly that community in Parsons Cross council estate. If you’re in Sheffield and you’re in a taxi and you said, “Take me to Parsons Cross,” they’d say, “Well, I’ll drop you there, but I’m not staying.” Because again there’s a blinkered view of that community. And I know that community to be proud, glorious and beautiful.
And yes, that community, particularly through the ’80s, really suffered because some of that community would serve the steelworks and had three generations of unemployment, so they became disenfranchised because of that. But the community I grew up in, my Auntie Joan, who lived on that road, literally on that road, was a proud, working class, glorious woman who served chips at school.
Aside from Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, what would be the most important queer British cinematic story to you? (And how do you choose between My Beautiful Laundrette and God’s Own Country?!)
You can’t. My Beautiful Laundrette influenced me so much because, one, Daniel Day Lewis was extraordinary in that film, and two, because of the cross-cultural aspect of it. I went, “I know this world”, because again I grew up in that world. And it affirmed something in me, which is the power and the radicalness of who I could be and what I could be.
With God’s Own Country, when I saw that film—and that was Francis’ first film, which I thought was extraordinary for a first-time filmmaker—I knew he knew that world from the inside, from the absolute inside. And I know what that rural community was like. I read that script, because we share agents, and I was blown away by it—again, because of the two cultures coming together.
Jamie Campbell, the film’s real-life inspiration, with screen-Jamie Max Harwood.
Richard E. Grant’s character, Hugo, is such a pivotal mentor for Jamie. What did you need to hear from a mentor when you were sixteen?
Don’t let yourself hold yourself back, because I think it was me who put some limitations on myself. And of course I came from a working-class community. I was a queer kid in a tough British comprehensive school. And did I experience tough times? Yes I did. And did I deal with those tough times? Yes I did. But the song that speaks to me mostly in this is ‘Wall in my Head’, in which Jamie takes some responsibility for the continuation of those thoughts, continuations of the sorts of shame, and that’s a sophisticated thing for a sixteen-year-old boy to tackle.
I also was lucky enough to have a mother like Margaret—and a dad like Margaret as well, just to be clear! And I remember my mum, at seventeen when I left home, just leaving a little note on my bed. It was quite a long letter. She said, Jonathan, you’ve probably chosen to walk a rocky path, but don’t stray from it, don’t steer away from it. That’s the path you've chosen, there may be rock-throwers along the way, but you’ll find your way through it. That stayed with me and I think that’s what resonates with me. And when I saw that documentary, Jamie: Drag Queen at 16, I felt that that sparked the need for me to tell that story.
Sarah Lancashire as Jamie’s mum, Margaret New.
We need more mums and dads like Margaret, don’t we?
We do, we do. And the wonderful thing is, Margaret Campbell will say it and I think Margaret New in the film will say it: she’s not a Saint, she’s an ordinary mum. And she has to play catch up and she doesn’t understand in many ways, and she gets things wrong and she overprotects. But she comes from one place and that is a mum’s love of her child and wanting them to take their place safely in the world and to be fully and totally themselves.
Related content
Eternal Alien’s list of films Made in Sheffield
Letterboxd’s Camp Showdown
Persephon’s list of films recommended by drag queens
Passion’s list of films mentioned by Jaymes Mansfield in her Drag Herstory YouTube series
Follow Gemma on Letterboxd
‘Everybody’s Talking About Jamie’ is streaming now on Amazon Prime Video.
#everybody's talking about jamie#max harwood#john mccrae#richard e. grant#sharon horgan#jonathan butterell#musicals#drag queen#queer film#lgbtqia cinema#british cinema
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Champagne Problems-Diego Hargreeves
a/n: WHO’S READY FOR THE ANGST?! here we go lol. i’ve never written a song-inspired fic but here we are. this part 1 of of my 2 valentine’s day fics. the other is a cute luther fic and hopefully I’ll be able to write more umbrella academy so... NO I HAVE NOT FINISHED SEASON 2 DON’T COME FOR ME. i’m also totally willing to write a second part to this, especially after i hurt myself so bad so if it’s something you’re interested in, please let me know. listening to champagne problems during this is probably a good idea. this also exists minorly in my law and order: special victims unit x the umbrella academy universe but it’s really only slight mentions of ADA work, so no real connection.
masterlist | prompt list
warnings: ANGST, Hazel, Agnes, and Eudora live and Ben comes back to life because I said so, post-Texas apocalypse but my own storyline because I haven’t finished season 2 yet, my own thoughts and feeling in the form of the main character, Ben’s secretly a history nerd, Tumblr fucked with my spacing and I’m salty
word count: 3,064 (including song lyrics)
You booked the night train for a reason
So you could sit there in this hurt
Bustling crowds or silent sleepers
You're not sure which is worse
-
You always opted to take the cases that kept you up the latest at night, working the hardest to get victims justice. You refused to sleep at night until you knew you’d be able to put a killer or rapist away the next day. Which, in turn, meant that there’d often be nights a detective would call in need of a warrant, already knowing you’d still be awake. However, there would be nights, weeks, even, where it was a small case or no cases at all. Those were the days you’d busy yourself in the office until you had no other reason to be there, finding the later you took the subway home, the fewer people there would be. Usually, the quiet of the night calmed you and gave you time to reflect. Sometimes though, your mind would wander to him.
-
Because I dropped your hand while dancing
Left you out there standing
Crestfallen on the landing
Champagne problems
-
Diego had taken you on a drive, bringing you to the city of Manhattan. You always spoke of your love of the city, missing your time spent there while in law school. The two of you had gone for a walk and picnic through Central Park and as the sun was beginning to set, leaving the New York sky a dusty pink, he grabbed your hand as you talked about your favorite memory at the Chinese place just down the road. You paused, looking up at him, seeing the love for swimming within his features. After that night, you had grown to hate the sight of Central Park and avoided it by all means necessary. Your team had never been able to figure out why.
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Your mom's ring in your pocket
My picture in your wallet
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Although never actually married to Reginald, and despite the fact that she was an AI, Grace had a wedding band she kept tucked away. When Diego had introduced you to Grace, he knew that you would be the one he’d marry. You were so kind to the AI, not batting an eyelash at her charging port or her sometimes distant nature. She was Diego’s mom by all accounts, and he’d be damned if he was going to live the rest of his life with a girl who didn’t respect his mother. Despite Diego’s fear, you and the AI got on splendidly and at the end of the night, when you were talking to Pogo, Grace brought the boy upstairs and slipped him the small band. She smiled at him and Diego had to restrain himself from crushing the sweet women in a hug. “Just in case.” she had said.
-
Your heart was glass, I dropped it
Champagne problems
-
Diego had tried from the very beginning to be honest with you that he came with a lot of issues. Building trust had been difficult and a fragile process. You had been patient and kind and understanding and everything he was certain he didn’t deserve. Diego slowly learned to let his walls and heart open to you and by the end of it, Diego believed that you had melted his heart of ice and worked your way into his life and family. Until you turned away, dropping the ice heart, shattering it.
-
You told your family for a reason
You couldn't keep it in
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When you and Diego had first met, it had been purely by accident. You were just moving into the apartment across the hall from Vanya’s and he had come barreling down the stairs after Five. After knocking you and one too many boxes to the ground, Diego profusely apologized, concerned eyes flitting across you to make sure that you indeed weren’t hurt. He had offered to help you finish moving your belongings, wanting a few more minutes with the pretty girl on the stairs. You agreed and asked if he would be interested in grabbing dinner with you that night since you didn’t know anywhere in town. He agreed and the two of you had always considered that your unofficial first date. As the two of you grew closer and Diego’s family became interested in the mysterious ADA with whom he spent all his time, the more determined Diego became to shelter you from them. His family came with a lot of baggage, a lot of trouble, and you had enough just trying to put the bad guys away. But as he became more certain he wanted you in his life for a long time, the more he knew he wanted to tell his siblings. After the apocalypse, he and his siblings had tried to repair the broken bridges and had been successful for the most part. So, one night, at family dinner, he looked around at his siblings, laughing at some witty comment Five had made, and he blurted it out before he could stop himself. The siblings went quiet, looking over at him. You had just met Grace a few days ago, and he was sure he wanted to spend the rest of his life with you. “I think I’m going to marry her.”
-
Your sister splashed out on the bottle
Now no one's celebrating
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Allison had been the most excited, wanting to plan an elaborate engagement scheme, wanted to help him pick out the ring. He let her too, unsure of really what to do, and was happy to see her so excited about something. She had convinced Diego to introduce you to her and Vanya, wanting to get to know you, to accurately help Diego (and of course to get to know her future sister-in-law, with whom she was determined to be best friends). As the date that they had settled on drew nearer, she bought an expensive bottle of champagne, stating that only the finest would do for her brother’s engagement. Diego rolled his eyes, but deep down he appreciated that she cared about him this much to help him. When Diego returned to the Academy that night, unannounced and much later than originally intended, Allison immediately knew something was wrong. The siblings looked around at each other, in shock and disbelief. No one had really thought you’d say no.
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Dom Pérignon, you brought it
No crowd of friends applauded
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You weren’t sure why Diego brought the bottle of champagne with him, and he wasn’t sure either, both knowing you didn’t drink. As you stared at him, and he stared at you, hurt flickering across the other’s face, all Diego could focus on was the fact that he brought that stupid bottle of champagne. Why had he listened to Allison, or Vanya, or any of the Hargreeves for that matter? Diego was not meant to get a happy ending, he was sure of it. And he had gone and tempted fate and had gotten the heart-breaking answer he knew all along.
-
Your hometown skeptics called it
Champagne problems
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The Hargreeves had taken Diego out to Griddy’s that night, not sure what else to do with him. Hazel and Agnes looked at him, pity in their eyes. The police chief of the town was there, the one who had despised Diego entirely and was entirely infuriated when he had found out his favorite ADA was “messing around” with the disgraced ex-police officer-turned-vigilante. He looked at the pity party that seemed to be happening in honor of Diego and laughed. “She always was too good for you. Glad she finally realized it.”
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You had a speech, you're speechless
Love slipped beyond your reaches
And I couldn't give a reason
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Diego had a speech, he had. He’d prepared it with Grace and Allison and had practiced it a million times over, to make sure he wouldn’t stutter. Klaus and Ben had listened patiently, giving him pointers and Vanya had even helped him rewrite it when he thought it wasn’t conveying what he wanted to say. And yet, as he looked at you, he couldn’t think of a single word of it. He was nervous, sure, but he was so consumed by the love he felt for you, that he just blurted out, “Wanna get married?”. He offered wondered if he had given you a speech, told you how much he loved you, why he loved you, if you’d still be with him.
-
Champagne problems
Your Midas touch on the Chevy door
November flush and your flannel cure
"This dorm was once a madhouse"
I made a joke, "Well, it's made for me"
-
Diego had been so nervous bringing you to the Academy to meet his siblings. He wasn’t sure how’d you react to the dysfunction of his family and he was terrified in anticipation of what the siblings might say or do that would scare you off. Luckily, you and Klaus had immediately become attached at the hip and you were already familiar with Vanya. Luthor and Five had been cold at first, waiting to see if they were up to their standards and if you had ulterior motives with Diego. You, of course, passed with flying colors and by the end of the night, you had them laughing and sharing embarrassing stories of Diego. Allison was enthused and happy to welcome you to the family. Ben had engaged you in a deep conversation about the legacy of ancient civilizations long after anyone else cared to listen or contribute. Still, Diego had been nervous it was all a front as to not have the dinner be awkward and uncomfortable. As he drove back to your (unofficially shared) apartment, he had joked that his house was a madhouse. You had seen right through him, knowing he was trying to apologize for the chaos that is his family and that is, well, Klaus. You had laughed and told him that if you could survive in your madhouse of a family, you could survive in his too.
-
How evergreen, our group of friends
Don't think we'll say that word again
-
As Diego looked back on your relationship, he looked for signs that you were unhappy, or wanting to leave. He was unable to come up with any, with the exception of one. You and Diego never fought. It couldn’t have been healthy but there was… never anything to fight about. You were both okay with the other’s line of work, and while not perfect, Diego was learning to be open and honest with you about what he needed from the relationship and you had always been so receptive to that. Ben had once joked that he hadn’t seen plants so evergreen as your relationship. You had laughed and Diego smiled, happy he had someone that was so easy to be with after all the hardship he’d experienced in his life. Now all Diego could do was look back on that memory with the bitter taste of regret.
-
And soon they'll have the nerve to deck the halls
That we once walked through
-
Christmas had been your favorite holiday ever since you were a child. As you had gotten older, the excitement faded, but the cheer and happiness that came from watching old Christmas films and dancing to songs in your kitchen as you baked cookies found its way into your heart without fail every year. So, when the first Christmas with Diego came around, you had cautiously asked him if he’d like to celebrate it with you. Diego tried not to speak too much on Reginald, and from what you knew about the man, Christmas didn’t seem like something that was being celebrated at the Umbrella Academy. Diego had shrugged, saying he didn’t really know what Christmas was about to know if he’d enjoy celebrating it or not. Thus, you had taken Diego to look at lights and watched all your favorite Christmas movies as a child and listened to songs while baking family recipes and he had even helped you decorate the apartment. By the time Christmas rolled around, Diego had started to understand why you cherished the holiday so much. But waking up the morning of Christmas to gifts you had picked out for him, one making up for every year he lost out on what Christmas was supposed to be like, he felt his heart growing three sizes more, like the Grinch from the night before. Diego had never felt a love as pure when he looked at you.
The next year had been no different, just on a larger scale as the whole Hargreeves clan joined in this time. That year, Christmas morning found the Hargreeves boys whisper-yelling at Diego about how he had found the perfect woman as they woke to an abundant amount of gifts under the tree. You dragged Vanya and Allison down the stairs, insisting the family had to open presents together. Klaus had insisted he act as Santa, stating the real Santa should get to sit with her boyfriend. You hadn’t protested, seeing how much a kick he got out of the hat and curled up into Diego as he sat with his back against the arm of the couch. Diego ran his fingers through your hair, and you laid your head against his chest. Luther, wide-eyed, asked you how you were able to pay for all of it. You had shrugged and stated that being an ADA paid you a much larger salary than you knew what to do with and moving out of Manhattan meant a lot less on rent. When Vanya asked why you’d bother spending all that money on them, your response had ensured to Diego that he’d found the right one. “Well, you guys are like family to me. And you never got the Christmases I grew up with and it’s all about making other people happy. I wanted to give you back the Christmas you never had.”
As he looked around at the decorated Academy this year, Klaus and Ben insisting on continuing the tradition you left behind, Diego just felt an overwhelming sense of hatred of the colors and lights. All just painful reminders of what he lost. Of the girl who left.
-
One for the money, two for the show
I never was ready, so I watch you go
Sometimes you just don't know the answer
'Til someone's on their knees and asks you
-
Luther was the only one who could never quite believe you were with Diego totally and completely. Maybe the misgivings came from his strained relationship with the second Hargreeves boy but he always believed you were in it for one of two reasons. Either the money that came with Hargreeves fortune or the fame that came with the Hargreeves name. Of course, Luther wasn’t you, and would never understand the real reason you had said…
“No.” Diego looked at you, hand on his pocket, ready to give you Grace’s ring, unsure if his fear was playing tricks with his head. You shook your head, “No, Diego. I’m sorry.” When those words had left Diego’s mouth, your heart had stopped. You loved Diego, more than anything you had ever known, but the untold horrors of your life before Diego came rushing to the surface and began to choke you. How could you marry Diego when you couldn’t disclose the worst moments of your life to him for fear of being a burden on the already broken boy? You realized at that moment, you could be everything Diego needed, but you would never allow Diego to be everything you needed, setting your relationship hurtling for sure-fire failure. You gasped, the tears threatening to render you breathless. “Diego, I-” And in a moment of pure, blind panic, you grabbed your things and ran, leaving the boy devastated behind you.
-
"She would've made such a lovely bride
What a shame she's fucked in her head, " they said
-
A few weeks after that night, Diego found himself alone at the Academy with Five. The two of them were sitting at the bar, not saying much. Finally, Five put his drink down on the table and looked at Diego. “I am really sorry about her, Diego.” Diego looked up at Five. “It’s a shame she’s got too many issues up here,” he said, tapping his head, “to give you what you wanted. She was one-of-a-kind.”
“What are you talking about Five?” Diego questioned, mildly annoyed Five brought you up.
“Did she give you a reason why, Diego?” Number 2 shook his head. “She always seemed to have her own issues, her own baggage, she was never willing to discuss. Maybe her issues with marriage was one of them.”
“That’s ridiculous Five, she would’ve told me.” Diego said, taking a sip of his drink. But as he thought about it, the more he wondered if Five was right. You had told him about your less-than-ideal relationship with your family and disclosed the fact that you didn’t drink due to a genetic predisposition of being an alcoholic, but he had always sensed there was something more you wouldn’t share.
-
But you'll find the real thing instead
She'll patch up your tapestry that I shred
And hold your hand while dancing
-
One night, he ran into Eudora at Griddy’s making a midnight waffle run for the family. She told him she had heard about the failed proposal and that if he ever wanted or needed to talk, she’d be there. He called her a few days later, and the two of them met up at a bar for a few drinks. He told her about you and that night, and as Diego talked about it, he realized that pain subsided. The outings to the bar became weekly occurrences and he found himself enjoying the company and comfort Eudora offered. And as Eudora found her way back into his life, as time went on, Diego realized he thought of you less and less.
-
Never leave you standing
Crestfallen on the landing
With champagne problems
Your mom's ring in your pocket
Her picture in your wallet
You won't remember all my
Champagne problems
You won't remember all my
Champagne problems
#champagne problems by taylor swift#champagne problems#diego hargreeves#diego hargreeves imagines#diego hargreeves imagine#diego hargreeves fic
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So, I always wanted to know a bit more about Wands in the harry potter universe. Given that they are so central to life, it would be nice to have a bit more info.
The wood - we know there's like 4/5 different types of wood they choose, and they're all things they can get in region. Does that imply then that aussie wizards could have wattle, eucalyptus, or other local trees?
What about trees native to the region, JK? TELL ME
How do they choose the tree. Do they have to come from a specific place, or do wandmakers need to wander through magically inclined forests until a branch falls off into their hands, or what?
Is there like commercial plantations of these trees, to feed the constant need for all the children constantly coming into their power?
What does that look like? What are the hazards? Can the place get infested by bad magic or what? Pesticides or no?
So they find the tree, next step? Is it just like 'yes, dibs that branch' and that's it, or do they take the whole tree?
What are their conservation policies?
Or do they need to do a spell, or use a ritual or something before/during/after harvesting?
Crafting... how do they know what length and shape to make for each piece of wood? Like, is it like when artists make statues and they can already see what is inside the marble/wood, etc.?
Or do they just make as many randomly shaped wands as they can for each one... is there a magial equivalent of a lathe? Or is this all by hand?
How do they choose designs, assuming the wand isn't calling out to them? Like, some are delicately patterned, and the elder wand was straight up a**l beads???
Are there variations based on the shop, the wandmaker and the region?
The core - apart from the main question of how they get the core in there (drill a hole and slip it in? make it into a potion and soak the wand? lay it on the crafted wand and it disappears in a show of magic?), and if this is done before or after the wand is shaped...
You have to think it's a little fucked up the way they go about it, right?
Standards are like, Unicorn hair, Phoenix Feathers (Rare) and Dragon Heartstring, right?
Well how the fuck do they get these things without unethical commerical farming? Unicorn hair is easy enough, you have a herd of them on a ranch protected from bad guys or whatever (and centaurs are lobbying against it bc what the fuck magical people) and most of the strands can be picked up from where they catch / fall out by fences, in the paddock, in the barn at night, etc
But what if they just pluck them. I mean, there are places that live-pluck birds for the feathers, which is fucked up, and we know magical people see any magical creature or half-human as lesser...
Assuming things are totally ethical, best case is that the unicorns lose a bit of mane or tail hair every so often and it is sourced from the field. Worst case, they are trapped in stalls all day every day and shaved beyond acceptable (look up horse tails, it's not all hair) to the detriment of the animals...
Ideally, but more impracticably, the wandmakers could wander through the forest and meet at a certain place with wild herds. They bring the carrots, the unicorns hand over a few strands once a year...
\I know unicorn cores are meant to be harder to turn to the dark arts but like... what if the unicorns are upset, stressed and angry? You'd think that would turn on them, right?
Phoenix Feathers... well they're rare. I think they probs have to get it willingly, or it doesn't work. Wasn't that in the books somewhere?
But it wouldn't have to be. I mean, they're an immortal resource... even if you mistreat a phoenix, it cant escape in death.
You just have to wait a bit for it to regrow, and there's probs spells to help speed that up. I mean, look how the world treats chickens (caged), would it be that hard for magical society (with fewer animal oversight committiees and laws) to pull some nonsense...
The dragon cores are the ones that always used to stress me out, as a concept, as a child. Like, there's a LOT of dragon heartstring wands, its common... that implies a lot of dead dragons.
How many hearstrings does the average dragon have, in this universe? Assuming at least four... that's only four wands, maybe eight if they cut them in half and it still works.
So, are they commercially farmed? Is Charlie Weasley complicit in dragon farming with the goal of harvesting the animals for parts? What happened to the dragons from the Triwizard Tournament? Is there a first year with a Special Dragon Heartstring wand?
Also, would they need to prep them specially?
What variations are there, as well? Like these are the main 3, but other countries and places have to have others, or have tried other magical things?
Do you think there are houself ears, or Centaur tendons, or mermaid fins, or kraken tentacles, or niffler claws, or goblin teeth, or redcap blood, in their wands? And it only phased out of common production recently as new protections came in for magical races?
Is there a blackmarket trade for illegal cores and if you have enough it can be 'verified' as a legal core...? There are implications here.
So you have the core, you have the wood, you have the wandmaker who slapped it together and imbued it with magic... you have a wand. Does it do a little sparkle or something when it works?
Are there wands that get to the end of the process and just... fail to work? How do they dispose of them?
Do they put resin or a protective potion/agent on it? They have to last for years, right?
Longevity - So you have a wand your entire life, unless it breaks or it is taken for being a Bad Naughty Little WizardTM... for one, how does the wand choose the person? Even if we slap a 'magic' bandaid on it, there are still more questions about it.
Do you lose your wand if you become impaired? Like, would a magical doctor remove your wand if you got dementia and 'lost capacity'?
But then, how would it control your innate magic? The stuff you can do wandless? Off topic.
So you pass away, is your wand typically buried with you?
Is it given to a family member? If so, then how does that work because the info the author gave was it was one wand = one person, pick each other etc. Assuming it does bond to that other family member, who is probably young enough to not have their own wand yet... does that mean their perfect wand will never be bought?
If not, what normally occurs?
Does the wand get taken by the council Dept of Births, Deaths, Marriages and Magical Incineration to be checked over and reset to 0? Does it get returned to the Wandsmith shoppe who made it, so they can check it is fine to be reused?
Does your wand choose another person, who will never know how well it once fit into your hand? The atrocities you committed with it?
How does this system work? Is there magic recycling, or is it all waste...?
Are cores from animals who did not consent at greater risk of turning the bearer evil?
What if your wand breaks... like Ron's did?
Like... he had an older relative's wand, so he got a proper wand that matched him. But what if your Perfect Match of a wand is damaged?
Why is there no option to have the wand repaired properly...
If humans today would rather die than get a replacement roomba, you have to assume people would be pretty damn attached to their wands... maybe more than usual. Is it about profit? Or can they just not fix it? What are the limitations on fixing a wand, or is it just not considered at all?
Is there... wand insurance?
Like, it feels like there was a lot to talk about...
#things i have wondered during hours coughing and drivin#g#harry potter#the author is dead#so i turn to the fandom and people who probs thought of this first#lets make some LORE
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Rachel Eliot: The Infodump
Here’s just a big info dump on my oc Rachel, with explanations of canon characters & her relationships with them — it was written for a friend who hasn’t watched The Society so it should be comprehensible even without being familiar with the fandom! I’m just very excited about her lmao! However it does contain spoilers for the show!
Her twin brother is Sam Eliot, the deaf & gay character (in other words, obviously my favourite) — he's about the nicest person in town tbh
their older brother campbell is a piece of shit and a psychopath (however it's very hollywood-sensationalized and really the only thing I sort of dislike about the show, so I'm debating if I might go for a more realistic route or fully lean into that and go angsty as fuck)
she's a lesbian, and she's dating a guy on the football team named Grizz (best boy, literally a human ray of sunshine) — they started dating when she was 14 and he was 15; when she was 16 and he was 17 she told him she was a lesbian and his reaction was basically "oh thank god, I'm gay — also I have a crush on Sam", however neither was ready to come out, so they're still dating as far as everyone else knows
canonically speaking, Grizz isn't out and has slept with girls in the past and his plan has always basically been "pretend to be straight until I graduate, go to university, come out, never look back", and I thought it would be an interesting dynamic to play with in terms of they very much are soulmates and love each other so much, they have slept together and they're comfortable kissing to keep people off their backs, but neither of them are any less gay for choosing not to come out yet bc fuck gatekeeping in queer communities
and she's in love with Becca, who's Sam's best friend! Becca (spoilers!!!) is pregnant and refuses to tell anyone who the father is, and when she tells Sam about her baby (and her fear of what people will say if there's no father), he immediately offers to step up and be the father; both in terms of helping to raise the baby and in terms of "you can tell people that I'm the bio dad and that we experimented or something"
so needless to say, the baby will have a very confusing family tree — "this is my mom becca and my dad sam and this is my other mom rachel who's also my sam-dad’s sister and this is my other dad grizz who used to date my mom-aunt rachel"
In terms of her personality/interests/hobbies:
Rachel is an artist and a writer! She's about to be done her junior year of high school when they end up in this parallel world
Grizz is her best friend and her safety net, Campbell is pretty much the only person she's afraid of, she has bpd (undiagnosed at that point, but I know it about her!), and she's got a bit of an atlas complex!
at first she has no intention of really trying to be a leader in their new society — she'd rather just stick by Grizz's side, and when she can't do that then she's helping Sam try to investigate how they ended up in the town! When Grizz gets put in charge of taking a team into the forest that now surrounds them, to look for land for farming, she's the first to sign up and is his second in command on the team, because the idea of being in New Ham (their town) without him terrifies her
When they return, things are kind of a mess, and that's when she gets this sort of "someone has to do something, and I guess I'm the one who has to do it" mentality, particularly about dealing with Campbell (it's not that Campbell has a soft spot for her by any means, but rather that if he's going to hurt someone then she'd rather it be her than anyone else and maybe, just maybe, if she survives his game for long enough, she'll find a way to win)
she's self sacrificing to a fault, keeps her emotions locked down tightly with everyone but Grizz (and eventually Sam & Becca) but cares *so much* about everyone around her, and she's pretty much constantly 0.2 seconds away from having a panic attack
and she's an honorary member of the football team bc of Grizz! She usually hangs out with them (which can be really hard bc Campbell also hangs out with them often-ish) and even though the three who aren't Grizz can all kind of be assholes, they do actually care about her and see her as a sort of little sister
And, she becomes the historian for their new society! Her cousin Cassandra is the first mayor and I have this moment between them planned when jobs are being assigned where Rachel just goes up to her and goes "I want to write" and Cassandra says something about like "I know you do, and I want to go to Yale, but we can't do that right now" and Rachel just being like "No, I want to write. We're either going to be found, find a way home, or die. And someone, someday, should know what happens to us. I want to write it all, I want to record it."
her job comes to include recording & tracking of all of their resources, writing a newsletter (that gets posted in the few central areas in town since paper is a limited resource) that recaps everything that's happened and has a schedule for town meetings, movie nights, meals, etc, and any new laws that get put into place, and then her half-journal almost (except she tries to record everything that's going on not just what's going on for her, and she tries to keep it unbiased) about every single day and everything that happens in town and how people feel about choices that get made and whatnot
#rachel eliot#ghost town#ocappreciation#allaboutocs#queerocs#my ocs#my work#the society oc#im obsessed with her btw
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Parenthood as a Major Theme in The Witcher
aka a defense of Yennefer's fertility arc
In some commentary on The Witcher season 1, I've read about disappointment that mid-season Yennefer spends her story time dedicated to hunting a fertility cure. The primary critique of this 2-episode arc for her is that it appears to conform too readily to a trope that "all women eventually want babies", and also seems counter to her previous disregard and cynicism for the idea of motherhood.
I think there's two cases that can be made that demonstrate why this element of the series deserves more than to be judged as "lazy or reductive writing". The first is Yennefer's personal journey--which after two viewings I believe holds up strongly. The second, even bigger case is what the theme of parenthood means to the show, and why Yennefer is only one of several aspects of it. That's what I am going to talk about in this post. Expect full spoilers for season 1.
Birth, Babies, and Legacy in Season 1
To put it bluntly, the topic of reproduction is all over The Witcher. The show is kind of obsessed with it. Let's go through the ways that parenthood and/or reproduction feature significantly in every episode:
1 - The conflict in Blaviken is a result of Stregobor's murderous obsession with killing babies born under a supposed curse. Those infants and girls represented power that he wanted to terminate. In Cintra, Ciri becomes an orphan.
2 - Yennefer's mixed elven parentage is the source of her power and her physical deformity. Trauma is inherited generationally, seen again in Fillavandrel's outcast society, stripped of heritage and legacy. Jaskier's first song references abortion.
3 - A striga is made when a pregnant woman is cursed and her undead fetus becomes a ravenous monster. Foltest wants her to be rescued to live as his child and heir. Her monster body still has its umbilical cord--a gnarly cosmetic flourish that drives the point home. In Aretuza's scary gyno chair, Yen is sterilized in exchange for ultra-performative femininity. Although she consents, it is a corrupt bargain designed to exploit her.
4 - The Queen of Aederin and her newborn are assassinated for being unable to birth a male baby. Yennefer almost dies trying to prevent it, then gives a monologue about how the patriarchy only sees women as vessels. Queen Calanthe tries to protect her daughter from the Law of Surprise, only to see it initiated again on her grandchild.
5 - After some 50 years as a mage Yen goes hunting for a fertility cure, using alchemy and then a djinn. She tells Tassaia that although she knew what she was giving up in Aretuza, "I didn't know what it would mean to me." Also, wow a lot of sex is had.
6 - Geralt and Yen talk about parenthood and their respective lost opportunities. The episode mcguffin is a dragon egg, whom they both fight to defend. Borch Three Jackdaws states the theme of parenthood outright. On the surface he is proclaiming his own motivation, but in the context of Geralt and Yennefer's prior discussions we know that he is speaking for both them and the show as a whole:
"This is my final 'first'. A child. This treasure, this legacy, must endure. There is no other reason to go on."
Episode 6 also shows how Geralt and Yen have grown since episode 4. She is forced to accept that natural birth is impossible, and Geralt is forced to reflect out loud that it's only fear of parental failure that has prevented him from claiming his own child.
7 - On getting news of the Nilfgaard invasion, Geralt decides to claim Ciri. Calanthe and Eist go to extremes to keep their child in their family.
8 - Everyone wants to be Ciri's new family, including this nice woman who doesn't have any daughters. In the end, Geralt finally becomes a father.
Destiny = Family
I firmly believe that the show is leading us to a point where Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri form an eventual family. The desire for family is verbalized multiple times for Ciri, notably in Brokilon Forest when she calls Dara her family, and then when Dara leaves her and tells her find another family. Twice in the show women try to adopt Ciri, promising safety and care. Yet she's driven by a strong directive to find Geralt as "he is your destiny". She is his Child Surprise, essentially this universe's fucked up version of a godchild. And the Law of Surprise is not just tradition, but a cosmic binding with tangible consequences. Geralt initially denies this, but Duny, Eist, Mousesack, Yennefer, and Borch all vocalize it, and season 1 events bear it out.
If Ciri is steered by a bond of destiny, so is Geralt. When he rejects the Child Surprise at Pavetta's wedding, Mousesack warns that doing so will bring ill fortune. Episode 5 and 6 subtly but persistently imply that this prophecy is true, as the witcher's next several years are filled with sleeplessness and an undefined longing. Magically binding himself to Yennefer alleviates some of that (essentially by making him happy), but I don't think it's only because of love, but also because his destiny being intertwined with Yennefer is a step towards his destiny being intertwined with Ciri. Because even after getting some peaceful nights with intermittent Yennaffairs (get it? hah!), something still seems off with Geralt.
"You feel it just the same as me that hole inside you. That itch inside your brain keeps you awake at night. Come with me, I'll show you what you're missing." - Borch Three Jackdaws
This is a cute screenplay trick because we assume that he's talking about nostalgic adventure, but on review he's actually talking about parenthood. Later when Geralt gripes that the thing he was missing is Yennefer as she walks away again, Borch replies, "What you're missing is still out there. Your legacy, your destiny. I know it." (hello Ciri!) We never get a clear idea of why Mr. Three Cool Names knows all this stuff, but I didn't care because a dragon being cryptically omniscient is exactly the sort of thing I want from my fantasy shows.
Conclusion
So it's family, family, family. Yennefer is just one corner of this thematic tapestry; the other three are Geralt, Ciri, and #destiny. Their journey to find each other, to accept these bonds, is what the show is about. I expect the theme to cement even more in future seasons.
Consequently, to reduce Yennefer's storyline to cliché alone is to miss the way everyone on this show is obsessed with parenthood in some form. It also misses how much fatherhood will be central Geralt's journey. Even if he came to the same decision 2 episodes (and 13 years) later than Yen did, Geralt actively decides that he want to claim his role as a parent figure. That isn't the easy gripe target of "women want babies", but the point is that Yen and Geralt are both on the same path, with Ciri as the destination. A character can have something that resembles part of a cliché without being negatively defined by it. In The Witcher, the greater context is relevant to this critique.
So I urge you to look at the full season and see how her fertility arc fits into the big picture. If you still wish that Yen had continued to be proudly child-free, then I respect your desire to see that story told. However, it would be worth it to recognize now that this probably isn't going to be the story you want. Parenthood is a big part of it. This story is going to be about two magical adults and one magical child becoming a family.
A family of total badasses, adopted through destiny and love.
#thewitcherdaily#the witcher netflix#the witcher#geralt of rivia#geralt x yennefer#yennefer of vengerberg#princess ciri#cirilla of cintra#ciri#geralt#netflix witcher#toss a coin to your witcher#queen calanthe#renfri#witcher meta#witcher memes#DISCLAIMER: I have played Witcher 3 so I know about Geralt's relationship with Ciri in that game#However I really tried to ground ny thought process here on what I actually saw in the season#Which ended up being pretty intense#like wow so much stuff about birth and dead women and dead babies and suffering
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This isn't a meme thing or anything but I was wondering if you had a top ten favorite characters from books? I actually end up getting a lot of good book recs from reading your blog so I was just curious lol.
LOL I wasn't going to do this ask because I was like ugh I suck at top ten lists because I can never pick just ten. But then I thought about it for like, five whole seconds and realized I DO have ten standout characters in answer to this so its like oh hey, learned something new about myself today! Lmao.
Anyway, in no particular order:
1) Anyanwu - from Wild Seed by Octavia Butler - Can not stress how like fucking...formative Anyanwu's character was for me as an abused kid who first read this when I was like 12. The book heavily deals with the back and forth across centuries between these two immortals, Anyanwu and Doro, as Doro basically tries to control her every which way he can, and Anyanwu just defies him at every turn, and it just....you love to see it. She's a bad-ass and I adore her.
2) Prince Corwin and Merle Corey/Merlin - from Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny - Yes I'm cheating but its me so you should have seen that coming. Another fave series from when I was in middle school, its ten books in total, and the first five are in Corwin's POV and the second five are in the POV of his son Merle/Merlin. So I maintain it counts. And is fine. Shhh, let it go, Elsa said so. ANYWAY, I actually probably like Merle better than his dad, because I mean, lbr, Corwin is a total asshole. But he's MY asshole, y'know? Wait, that came out wrong. Don't quote me there. But you know what I mean. Merle is a lot more level-headed, and quick-witted I think, and I like his supporting cast of relatives who want to kill him and he sometimes want to kill more than his dad's supporting cast of relatives who want to kill him and he always wants to kill, but like. Both are Valid. Also shout out to Fiona and Rinaldo, with a side shout out to Flora, who are probably my next three favorites from the series. Dara would be up there too but she knows what she did.
3) Elric/Corum/Dorian/etc - from the Eternal Champion books by Michael Moorcock - Look I'm already cheating so why not continue on a theme. But basically this counts too, I'm just saying. See Michael Moorcock's big project going all the way back to the 60s was he created a fantasy multiverse of different dimensions where this one Eternal Champion, meant to balance the scales between the Lords of Law and the Lords of Chaos, like, is reborn over and over again in different incarnations but who are all essentially him. So Elric of Melnibone, Dorian Hawkmoon, Corum I can never remember his last name.....they're all essentially the same guy.....but they're all at the same time very very very different, and they have extremely different storylines. But I maintain if you're gonna read one you kinda gotta just read them all, all Pokemon like and such forth, because the real beauty of these books is seeing the familiar traces of the Eternal Champion threaded through each of these incarnations but also contrasting how different they are from each other and like, looking at what makes them so different each time and how much it stems from their environment and situations, etc.
4) Civet - from the Dragons of the Inland Sea series by Laurence Yep - This is a kids' series, like for ages 10-12 kinda, but easily my favorite from when I was a kid. I reread them so many times, and I love pretty much all the characters from Shimmer to Thorn to Monkey, but Civet was always a standout. She's essentially a tragic character and her ending is bittersweet, but like.....she fully knows who she is and what she's about and makes no apologies for that, and she ends on exactly the note she wants to. Like, her story and her characterization was pretty damn dark for such a young-aimed series, but that's part of what drew me to it, it managed to capture the tone it set out to convey but in a completely age-appropriate way, and in an era when most books aimed at kids dumbed down most of their story concepts and themes, this one was refreshing for just being....real. Despite being blatantly fantasy. Also the Boneless King is one of the best villains ever, despite being deliberately over the top a lot of the times....idk what it was about him, but he was just chilling.
5) Jack the Bodiless and Diamond Mask - from the Galactic Milieu series by Julian May - These are linked as well because they're a couple and their stories intertwine so much that there's no real point in separating them y'know? That's my story and I'm sticking to it. But anyway, they're a weird choice for me because Julian May is hit or miss for me overall....I HATE her Saga of the Pliocene Epic, which is technically in the same universe as her Galactic Milieu series, but they have totally different vibes and the latter series doesn't contain any of the elements from the Saga of the Pliocene that I loathe, so it just works. Plus it has Jack and Diamond Mask, and like.....I don't actually know why I love them so much? They're just so different from pretty much any other characters I've ever read. Like, May does a lot of really high concept stuff across the board, but Jack and Diamond Mask are like.....high concept character wise? If that makes sense? Its okay if it doesn't. I'm literally just spitting words out here. Honestly, its hard to say anything specific about them because so much of their characters conceptually just doesn't make sense without knowing the in-universe concepts that led to them even existing, but like. They're weird and off the wall but still astoundingly human for all that and I love them.
6) Naomi Nagata - from the Expanse books by James S. A. Corey - I mean, if you've seen me ramble all the Naomi love in my live-watches of The Expanse TV show, this should be no surprise, but my love for her in the books like, exists manifold. She's great in both, but the books cover so much more content-wise, that her character has so much more room to breathe and be explored in all kinds of directions the TV show never touches on. The funny thing is, I actually prefer the TV characterizations overall....I think the authors of the books are actually pretty shit at characterization a lot of the time, but the basic thread of Naomi's character is consistent and the sheer abundance of story material she has in the books like.....keeps me going back to them even just for her. Her conflict with Marco in the books in particular just has so much more depth than in the show....like, I don't hate the show's version at all, anyone who's seen my posts there knows that lol, and I'm not actually even sure which version I actually like more in terms of that particular storyline.....but I just love that both versions are so different, while still being recognizably the same, y'know? I don't even know. Nobody knows. Its a mystery. Just nod and say yes, shh, its fine.
7) Locke Lamora - from The Lies of Locke Lamora/The Gentleman Bastards series by Scott Lynch. This is an odd one for me, because in one sense Locke is a very contrived archetypal character from an author that doesn't always pull it off as successfully as I feel he thinks he does.....like, what I mean is Locke is inherently that type of character that is SUPPOSED to push buttons and straddle a line between likable and unlikable....and to be fair, that is VERY hard to pull off without at least some of the time falling on the wrong side of that line and alienating at least some readers. But there's something very genuine or sincere feeling about the character underneath all that, which is ironic for a character who is an acknowledged pathological liar and hardly ever tells the truth....like I said, its an odd one for me because I can't actually put my finger on what makes this particular character work for me when so many similar characters just bug the crap out of me.
8) Damien - from Black Sun Rising/The Coldfire trilogy by C. S. Friedman - This one is a whole fucking lie because I don't actually even like Damien that much lmao, but the thing is, I don't have a particular fondness for any of the characters in this series? But I gotta put it on the list anyway because I just love the world in this series so much, and its practically a character in and of itself. Like, so this was a science fantasy series set on a distant planet in the future but otherwise steeped in fantasy archetypes about spirit creatures that only Adepts could see, and like, Fae and life energy and sorcery that had roots in scientific principles but was otherworldly all the same. And that's like.....all literally my jam, and so I can't deny that this series was very formative for me even if its not the best example of those concepts. Its just the one I tend to go back to the most in my mind, like....the world and its characters are very standout and larger than life for me, even if they don't specifically APPEAL to me? They're impactful all the same. Its another odd one. I'm odd. You just kinda gotta roll with it. Its a thing. Its factual.
9) Yeine Darr - from The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin - This was a tough one because I love literally everything by Jemisin and all her characters are just so....ooof. They're very very real, even in the most fantastical of settings. I have mad characterization envy every time I read her stuff, but like. Its so good. So really the struggle was picking one character or even two, because I mean, The Fifth Season and its sequels are easily her best known works and have a ton of fantastic characters, and I think her Dreamblood duology is vastly overlooked but in the end I had to go with The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms even if just cuz of nostalgia. Its the first of her works and when I first started reading her and so its just.....anyway, if I was gonna go with that, it had to be Yeine, because she's so central to everything and also just....fantastic. Nahadoth and Sieh are also standout characters who get mentioned a lot in talk of this trilogy, and they're both such big personalities that at times they kinda overshadow Yeine, but Yeine has such a compelling.....undercurrent to her that she never actually gets lost in the shuffle even when surrounded by all these larger than life gods, and just. You love to see it. I do anyway. And its my list so nyah. But also if you're gonna read Jemisin, read everything Jemisin. It just makes sense, y'know? Good for the pores.
10) Cayal and Arkady - from The Immortal Prince/The Tide Lords by Jennifer Fallon - All the other Tide Lords can rot, but Cayal is hilarious in a depressing way. He's a ten thousand year old immortal whose greatest wish is just to die, which is how he meets Arkady who is a historian who just wants to like....know everything he knows once she realizes he actually is the figure of legend he professes to be and is so mad at him for not really giving a shit about all the weight of history he's been present for, but Cayal's just like, umm, I LIVED it so that's why I don't care, I'm allowed to not care, that shit hurt. Did you miss the part where one of the other Tide Lords threw a fucking meteor at me? And Arkady, distinctly unimpressed, is just like....I thought YOU did that, to Jasper. And Cayal's like, no that doesn't sound right. And Arkady's just like, you literally JUST told me that story. And Cayal's like, huh. I must have been lying. I do that sometimes. And Arkady's like, I thought you never lie, that's your whole thing? And Cayal's like, ahah, but what if THAT was a lie too? And Arkady's just like, bitch I hate you so goddamn much, how are you the worst of all the Immortals while still the only one who will actually talk to me and answer my questions. Cayal's like, we may never know.
Anyway, there's my list but like there's a lot more obviously because I'm me, I don't do moderation, its against my religion, but also I have to stop some time and the ask was for ten and those were the ten that popped into my head so they must be the right ones! Probably. Until I change my mind at least.
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Could you do KoyoIchi (Swinging Pendulum), please? C: I have fallen in love with this ship ever since you posted those short one-shots (or whatever they are called) a while ago.
Hmm you didn’t include an AU and I’ve already done a KoyoIchi SP AU in the last batch, there’s not much else I can write for that I think. So how about KoyoIchi post-canon AU instead, where Ichigo’s human body gives out after the Quincy War, so he ends up splitting his time between SS and the Human world afterwards.
Edit: omg wtf did i do i went off i’m sorry this ended up semi-background pre-relationship KoyoIchi + like a dozen unrelated headcanons thrown in it’s a mess fml
1. It’s not usually done, he’s technically dead now (but not a Shinigami, not a Quincy, not a Hollow, and not even a Human anymore), but he has a lot of support from a lot of people - Kisuke has no qualms crafting him a gigai that would allow him to draw his blade even without stepping out of it, and Kyouraku basically gives him free run of Soul Society after they hammer out what Ichigo is supposed to do there considering he’s now stronger than the entire Gotei combined but also he’s technically only eighteen years old.
(It would be scarier, Kyouraku thinks, if Ichigo’s moral fibre hadn’t already proven itself superior.)
In the end, they settle it like this - Ichigo attends the Academy part-time for all the lessons Kisuke and Yoruichi and Shinji never bothered hammering into him because it was never important to the war, attends university in the human world, and the rest of his time is his do with as he pleases, whether that’s taking missions directly from Kyouraku, visiting with his friends in various squads and being roped into doing paperwork, or digging up yet another rebel faction or secret invasion out of the woodwork (”Please don’t dig up yet another rebel faction or secret invasion out of the woodwork for at least a month, Ichigo-kun. One month, you hear? We still haven’t finished cleanup from the last one.”).
Because it’s Ichigo, it works. it’s not like he wasn’t already coming and going from Soul Society when he was still human. The Shinigami have let him get away with far too much already to put restrictions on him now, especially considering he’s saved all their asses twice over now, and that’s not even counting all the trouble in-between. If there are some who complain, well, there are even more who are capable of making sure nothing ever comes of it.
So okay, no rebel faction, no secret invasion, but Ichigo’s not Ichigo without something to work towards, and he’s always wondered why the Shinigami side of his family was slumming it out in Rukongai when they’re supposed to be nobility like Byakuya and Yoruichi. The answer is simple enough - Aizen had mind-whammied everyone after Isshin ran off and fabricated a coup that resulted in assassinations courtesy of the Second Division before the remaining Shibas were ousted from Seireitei overnight.
(It was only too easy for Aizen to make them believe it.Nobody ever questioned whether or not the Shibas could. They had the power. They just never had the ambition, which nobody could understand.)
No way is Ichigo going to take that lying down. So he goes and yells at Kyouraku, who says it’s complicated and would take time, but Ichigo reminds him of the Visored and Kisuke and Yoruichi and Tessai, all let back in in the wake of the Winter War. If they could be pardoned, and rightfully so, why can’t the Shibas too?
“I’m not saying they can’t forever, Ichigo-kun,” Kyouraku says placatingly. “But Central 46 will want… assurances-”
“You mean they’re scared to let my family back in cuz they might still be a little bit pissed from having three-quarters of their members murdered in their beds,” Ichigo summarizes flatly.
Kyouraku sighs and gives up all pretenses of a neutral party. “If you have a better idea…” He waves a hand at the general situation, eyes dark and intent on Ichigo’s face.
Ichigo snorts and straightens up. “Yeah. It’s called ‘being too strong to fuck with’. The old bastards are in session right now, aren’t they? I’ll be right back.”
One day, Kyouraku muses as he watches Ichigo go, this will probably not work, and it’ll come back to bite them all in the ass. Then again, Central 46 has run Soul Society their way or no one’s way for far too long; Yama-jii had always given them too much power. They’d learned nothing from Aizen, so maybe Ichigo is exactly what they deserve, straightforward and running on emotion, but fair, always, and decent in a way that Kyouraku thinks most of their government has forgotten how to be, if they ever knew to begin with.
One day, even Ichigo’s threats won’t make Central 46 back down. But a god doesn’t bow just because someone demands it, no matter how important they think their bloodline or rank or status is. And Ichigo is probably the closest thing they have to a god these days. A god, with plenty of friends to back him up if he needs it.
So Kyouraku leaves him to it - better Ichigo than him, less headaches in the long run - and he isn’t at all surprised when Ichigo sweeps back into his office five hours later, expression grim but triumphant, reiatsu still writhing like a living shadow around him as he informs Kyouraku that his clan will be needing their old estate back.
Kyouraku pushes over the paperwork he’d completed an hour ago, authorizing the full restoration and compensation of the Shiba Clan. Ichigo smiles at him almost fondly, features only slightly tinted with a banked sort of inhuman rage that he carries around almost constantly these days - it’s three steps left of his cousin’s memory, with Hollow glinting in his eyes and the shade of his ancestor draped across his shoulders. He’s gone again in the next moment, off to tell his family the excellent news, and Kyouraku thinks it was probably a good thing Yama-jii died when he did. However reasonable Ichigo still is, he is no longer that boy with the too-forgiving heart who took the insults they served him with all the doormatted self-sacrifice of a storybook hero.
(He came back from the Soul King Palace equal parts pensive and victorious, with old eyes and reiatsu levels they could no longer sense and a terrifying sort of detachment when he looked at them all. But his friends had fallen on him without care, only relief, and the icy distance in Ichigo’s mien had melted. Kyouraku had understood though, in that moment, that Soul Society would stand only so long as Ichigo allows it.
He likes Ichigo, he genuinely does. Jyuushirou had too. That hadn’t stopped his old friend from attempting to leash him, which had almost backfired in the end and literally only hadn’t out of the goodness of Ichigo’s heart, and it doesn’t stop Kyouraku now from catering to Ichigo’s whims. Only time would tell if this approach will work better or worse than Jyuushirou’s law-abiding one, and in the meanwhile, it doesn’t hurt that Ichigo doesn’t actually want anything Kyouraku doesn’t want to fix anyway. Soul Society has been his home for over nine centuries now. He does not want to see it burn. If that means dragging it kicking and screaming into a new era with a boy their world created to fight their wars for them looking over his shoulder, then Kyouraku will do it gladly.)
It takes almost three months for the Shibas to gather again and move back in. They’d scattered, after their exile, all across Rukongai, but Kuukaku is their head, and Ichigo has single-handedly wrested back their birthright for them, and when both of them call, the rest of the clan answers, trickling in in twos and threes and fours, suspicious and wary and not inclined to trust anyone but their own, but they come, and the first thing they do is raise wards around their home strong enough to withstand a siege from the Royal Guard.
“That’s everyone?” Ichigo asks, looking from the civilians to the once-Shinigami to the children. All in all, they barely make thirty total, and over half of them are from their retainer families.
Kuukaku shrugs tiredly at his side. She’s never looked older than she does now. “You know Isshin’s staying in the Human world for your sisters, but other than that, pretty much. Everyone else is dead.” She pauses. “Well, except one, but I doubt he’ll come. Kaien’s wife’s brother,” She adds for Ichigo’s benefit. “Koyonagi Senzou. He was the Kidou Corps Commander before Tessai, demoted to Academy teacher after some mission the higher-ups covered up. He was the only one the Gotei kept on after we were kicked out. Never found out whether he actually wanted to stay or if Central 46 insisted he stay. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the latter. He’s wasted at the Academy, too useful to kill but too dangerous to let out of sight. As far as I know though, he’s still there.”
Ichigo frowns as he digests all this. “And he won’t come by to see you guys?”
Kuukaku shakes her head. “I doubt it. He was never really one of us.”
“Why not?”
Kuukaku shrugs again. “He never wanted to be. I didn’t know him very well, Ichigo, but he loved exactly one person, and she was more or less killed under Kaien’s watch. It wasn’t Nii-san’s fault of course, but she was sent out on a mission given to her by the Thirteenth Division lieutenant, and she never came back. He attended her funeral. That was the last time any of us saw him, although our Shinigami members reported glimpses of him in and around the Academy over the years.”
Ichigo hums. Kuukaku gives him an arch look and then snorts. “Shall I prepare a room for him anyway when I start renovations?”
Ichigo grins at her. “That’d be perfect, Kuukaku, thanks.”
2. Of course Senzou has heard of Kurosaki Ichigo. You’d have to be living under a rock in a cave in a different dimension to not have heard of Soul Society’s God-Slaying Saviour.
And of course he’s a Shiba. That lot always was more trouble than they were worth, too powerful for their own good, and too reckless or too confident or too stupid - Senzou has never really figured out which - to hide it from the world or at least play it down to keep the world from turning on them because of it. No subtlety at all. And look where it got them in the end.
In the aftermath of the Quincy War, he hears of the Shibas’ return to the city, and he can feel the power in the wards they almost immediately erect around their home. For protection, no doubt, because old dogs can learn new tricks after all, but to Senzou, it just looks like a very pretty cage. Why they - or the Visored for that matter - came back to serve the very people who betrayed them in some of the worst ways possible is beyond him.
Not that it makes much of a difference to Senzou. He’d ignored them for decades before their exile; no doubt, he’ll happily ignore them for decades more. They’re related only through an unfortunate marriage, and considering both parties are long dead now, what little obligation he had to them likewise expired years ago.
But, he thinks, as he watches an increasingly familiar head of orange hair slide into his classroom, someone forgot to give that memo to the Shibas’ newest pride and joy. Even Senzou - with expectations that literally no student has ever met - can admit that Kurosaki Ichigo attending Kidou lessons is a complete waste of time. Senzou spends his days teaching idiots the incantations for each of the ninety-nine standard spells, trying not to scratch his own eyes out when he has to grade their papers, and making sure they don’t blow themselves up when they practice producing them. Even the most advanced of the sixth-years can only manage spells in the fifties range, with a fifty-fifty chance of average-at-best success.
Ichigo memorized all the incantations in the first two weeks he was here. His first essay on the use of forbidden Kidou - instead of a regurgitation of laws citing the illegality of them that everyone else turned in - became a dissertation on their pros and cons, arguing that every case in which they’re used should be thoroughly investigated not only by Central 46 but also by a panel of Shinigami, and why the laws against them should be amended to allow for unexpected circumstances. The brat even had the gall to throw in quotes of interviews he’d conducted, and if it had been anyone else claiming to have received firsthand and eye-witness accounts of forbidden Kidou usage from names like Tsukabishi Tessai and Hirako Shinji, Senzou would’ve set them on fire for being such a bad liar. He couldn’t even fail the boy for incomplete research because the books he referenced might not be found in the Academy library but they all had Urahara Kisuke stamped on them.
And his practicals? A high level of reiatsu usually means the caster would have a harder time performing Kidou, especially when they’re first starting out, too much power shoved into the lower-level ones, too little control to hold together the higher-level ones.
Not Kurosaki Ichigo. That boy spent the first week putting holes into everything except his targets, went away for a weekend, and then came back with singed eyebrows and bags under his eyes but a resolute set to his jaw and picture-perfect Kidou at his fingertips. He didn’t even need the incantations anymore. And to make him even more of an anomaly, he could perform spells right up into the nineties. In fact, the higher the difficulty and reiatsu output, the better he was with them.
There is nothing the standard Kidou curriculum from any year can teach him. His learning curve is insane, and his essays read like he’s gearing up to go toe to toe with Central 46, never mind an Academy class.
He doesn’t need to be here. Senzou knows it. The other students know it. And Ichigo most certainly knows it too. And with the special allowances granted by the Soutaichou himself, he doesn’t even need permission to skip. The boy’s been given unprecedented free reign to come and go as he pleases, and yet he comes back, week after week after week. He doesn’t even have the decency to sleep through Senzou’s lectures. He’s a flickering candle in the corner of Senzou’s eye, all flame-bright hair and brown-gold-brown eyes and shadows that won’t stop moving, and that unwavering attention he pins on Senzou every time makes it damn clear exactly what he’s waiting for.
Shibas. No subtlety whatsoever.
The bell rings. Bags are packed. There’s a scramble for the door.
“Kurosaki-chan,” Senzou calls in bored tones without looking away from sadistically adding an extra assignment to the board. If no one notices, that’s their problem. “Stay behind.”
There are some interested whispers and prying eyes, but one glance from Senzou sends them scurrying away. And then Ichigo is there, sauntering up with his perpetual scowl - not at all like Kaien this one. The two are as charismatic as each other, from what Senzou’s observed. But Kaien had people wrapped around his finger because he had a knack for putting them at ease and making them feel special and making himself both approachable and worth looking up to. Ichigo on the other hand scared a lot of people when he first showed up at the Academy with an armful of books and a gruff disposition that didn’t lend itself to making allies, let alone friends. He wasn’t arrogant, just introverted, but it made him the kind of genius that people resented.
And then Senzou caught him in the hallway one day, looming over a mousy-looking fifth-year student huddled on the ground, and at first, he’d thought Kurosaki was bullying her. Everyone’s golden boy, picking on a shrinking violet of a girl. But then Ichigo had stooped down and gathered up all the books spilled across the floor before offering them back to the girl. The girl had still cowered, but she’d accepted them, and when Ichigo reached out and hauled her to her feet, she’d flinched but hadn’t moved away once she was on her feet again and Ichigo had let her go.
Then Ichigo had told her, quite clearly, “Next time someone can’t keep their hands to themselves, break their fucking wrists. Or kick them in the balls. Or tell them to fuck off. Start a scene so they have to stop. Do something. Don’t just fucking stand there.”
And then he’d stormed off, and the girl - Fujiwara, from the Kyouraku family - had stared after him, all baby-duckling wide eyes. And the next time Senzou had happened across her, it was just in time to see her chuck one of her textbooks at the head of one of her bullies. Said bully had staggered back, and then purpled with anger, already moving forward with fists clenched. Half a second later, he was on the ground and wailing from a broken nose, and Ichigo was standing over him, murder glowing gold in his eyes and black reiatsu streaking his hair and pooling at his feet.
Nobody had touched Fujiwara after that, especially since the girl had taken to following Ichigo around. Ichigo had still scowled like no one’s business, he’d also been seen kicking Fujiwara’s ass in one of the training rooms, they studied together in the library, and they ate together in the courtyard when Ichigo happened to stay for that.
And gradually, other students joined in, tentatively, some nervous, some with hero worship in their eyes, all hopeful. Ichigo never turned any of them away, but one day, he started a debate in the library about laws that would take species outside of Shinigami into consideration that ended with raised voices and enthusiastic opinions that got the whole giggling bunch thrown out, and another day, he suggested a free-for-all game of tag where only Kidou could be used to catch each other which ended with everyone sweaty and gasping and wanting another round, and in calmer in-betweens, he answered when the others finally asked him about what Hueco Mundo was like, what the Material world was like, what Arrancar were like, what Humans were like, and he never lost his temper with them even when he had to explain something more than once.
He was still blunt and borderline rude and not at all like Kaien, like a Shiba, not outgoing or friendly or instantly personable. But the charisma was the same, people couldn’t help but be drawn to him, and it took weeks for Senzou to realize he was just as susceptible to it as Ichigo’s growing circle of friends within the Academy. So susceptible he was literally stalking him everywhere just to see what other chaos he was sowing.
That’s probably why he wants the boy gone so badly. He’d sworn he’d never forgive the Shiba Clan for taking his sister away from him, the only leeway they got was that he wouldn’t actively go after them either because Miyako wouldn’t want him to, and it wasn’t as if it was difficult to keep such a vow. He’d never liked the Shibas anyway. When they’d been slaughtered and cast out, and no assassins had shown up at his door in the aftermath, all he’d thought was good riddance.
But Kurosaki Ichigo…
Under any other circumstances, Senzou would be thrilled. Here is a student who challenged the world around him and brought a storm to the Academy.
But this isn’t any other circumstances, and as Ichigo stops in front of his desk, a beast glinting behind his eyes and a dead king’s inheritance pulsing in the shadow splashed at his feet, Senzou meets his gaze and slices a mocking smile in his direction.
“Kurosaki-chan,” He starts, smirk widening when Ichigo’s eyebrows twitch. “The Academy’s star part-time pupil. What exactly are you still doing in my class?”
Ichigo shrugs. “I signed up for it, your lectures aren’t boring, and I’m trying to figure you out.”
Senzou feels his smile grow fixed. “And how is that going for you?”
Ichigo scruffs a hand through his hair, pauses briefly to frown tug at the shoulder-length strands like he wants a haircut, and then shrugs again. “You’re the one following me around all the time, what do you think?”
They stare at each other for a moment.
“Let me make one thing very clear, Kurosaki-chan,” Senzou finally says. For once, he doesn’t feel like weaving his usual mind games. “I don’t know what your clan has told you, but I have no desire to play happy families with them. I know you Shibas tend to be all about bringing family together, but I am not one of you.” His lip curls. “Do not push this issue any further than you have. Am I understood?”
Ichigo cocks his head, something animal in the way he watches Senzou now. “Kuukaku agreed to reserve a room for you at the compound if you ever want it, but you don’t have to if you don’t want to. I’m not here for that.”
Senzou’s eyes narrow. “Then what are you here for?” He gives the boy a sardonic look and cuts him off preemptively. “Besides class.”
Ichigo grins, quicksilver bright, and something in Senzou recoils with surprise.
“I don’t really have a plan,” The boy tells him. “But I’m getting my family settled back in, and making sure nobody can fuck with them ever again.” He aims another considering look at Senzou. “If you don’t wanna be all buddy-buddy with them, that’s fine. It’s not any of my business if you wanna hammer your shit out with them or not. But you were connected to them even if you didn’t like it, and that doesn’t change just because that connection’s gone. So I guess what I wanted to figure out was whether or not someone’s fucking with you too.”
Senzou opens his mouth, then closes it when nothing comes out. How embarrassing. He settles for a derisive smile that feels a touch too brittle on his face. “I don’t need your protection, God-Slayer.”
Ichigo immediately makes a face. “Don’t call me that. And I didn’t say you did. But when I start something, I like to see it through, so I thought I’d check just to be sure.”
Senzou scoffs with disbelief. “Then why didn’t you just ask?”
Ichigo rolls his eyes like he thinks Senzou’s being dumb on purpose, which is a new experience for Senzou. Usually he’s the one rolling his eyes.
“Well you didn’t want me to, did you?” Ichigo says, looking exasperated now. “You were curious about me, and all the stalking was recon or whatever.” He levels a thoughtful look on Senzou before snorting with something like amusement. “You are the type. But yeah, anyway, now you know. If you need help, the offer’s open indefinitely. But I’ll stop coming to class if you don’t want me here.”
He trails off, arching an eyebrow in question. When Senzou doesn’t reply, the boy shrugs once more, adjusts the strap of his bag, and turns to leave.
Senzou… Well, he’s pretty much been on the back foot this entire conversation, hasn’t he? There’s something about Ichigo that just… throws him off. It’s frustrating. Unnerving.
And yet… Ichigo didn’t push. Kaien would’ve pushed. The rest of his family would’ve pushed. It’s what Shibas do when they want something - push and push until they get what they want, a single-minded persistence hidden under their signature cheerful geniality that makes the rest of the world believe them to be the nicest clan in all of Soul Society.
Miyako had said no, the first time Kaien had asked to court her. But he’d asked again and again, until she’d said yes, and she’d been happy to, Senzou had made certain of that, she’d been perfectly willing, had found a good man in Kaien and been glad she’d finally given him a chance.
But she’d said no first, and Kaien had pushed, and it just… rubbed Senzou the wrong way. Because once upon a time, Shinigami had plucked them out from Rukongai, dusted them off and provided the training and shuffled them into the military, all expenses paid, but no had never been an option, and that had become all the more true after Miyako became such a public, vulnerable figure, not only Third Seat of the Thirteenth but also wife of a clan head.
When Central 46 had come knocking, interested in Senzou’s prodigal skills with Kidou, they hadn’t even needed to drop Miyako’s name for Senzou to know that saying no then wasn’t an option either. He’d been pushed into their service, and it had taken Miyako’s death for Central 46 to finally leave him alone, solely because he had no one else for them to hold over his head.
It’s not the Shibas’ fault, not really. It’s been long enough that Senzou can admit that, if only to himself. Miyako’s choices were her own, and even if she hadn’t married him, Central 46 probably would’ve found another way to get to him through her. But Senzou has always been petty and vindictive at heart, and he’ll blame the Shibas for the rest of his life, because at the end of the day, they’re just like all the other nobles in this place. What they want, they’ll push until they get, because privilege is in their blood.
So Senzou flounders when Ichigo doesn’t push his advantage. The boy is already halfway to the door, and somehow, Senzou is certain, if he doesn’t say anything now, Ichigo won’t come back. It’s so wildly different from what he’d expected, so unexpectedly not-like-a-Shiba, that he has to fumble for something to say for an unforgivably long moment. Him, fumble. This whole conversation has been one unexpected surprise after another, and later, Senzou will blame the shock for his next decision.
“Wait.”
Ichigo stops and turns back. He doesn’t look surprised, but neither does he look triumphant or even just smug.
Senzou suppresses a grimace. “The school has nothing left to teach you about Kidou.”
Ichigo nods in unabashed agreement.
Senzou snorts softly. “But I do. And I guarantee it won’t bore you.”
Ichigo blinks, and a crooked smile slowly curls at his lips. It doesn’t erase his frown, but it softens his brow and makes his features look less harsh. “You sure you wanna teach me?”
Senzou scoffs and pulls out his chair. “I wouldn’t have offered otherwise.” He gives himself a mental shake and drags a grin back onto his face, sharp enough to cut. “Sit your ass down so we can figure out a schedule, Ichi-chan.”
Ichigo instantly loses the smile and glowers like a thundercloud. Senzou all but basks in the familiarity of it, inwardly relieved at being back on steadier ground.
“Don’t call me that, asshole!”
He probably shouldn’t have offered, should’ve just let him go and good riddance. But Senzou hasn’t been taken so off-guard so quickly in a long time, and it had been frustrating and unnerving but underneath both…
There is a storm waiting on the wings of Seireitei, and Kurosaki Ichigo is the one holding its reins.
And Senzou. Senzou is just curious enough to want to see what that storm will bring.
3. “Did your hair grow three inches over the weekend?” Senzou asks the moment Ichigo walks into one of their weekly lessons.
Ichigo dumps his bag in a chair and scowls at him. His hair has been swept up into a bun, which is certainly a feat considering the last time Senzou saw him three days ago, it had only brushed his shoulders.
“This body is seriously shit at regulating itself,” Ichigo grumbles. “I didn’t have time to go to the barber’s, and Kuukaku threatened to shave me bald if I tried to chop it off with my Zanpakutou again.”
Senzou squints at him. “You realize that’s not normal.”
Ichigo rolls his eyes. “I didn’t have a knife on me, and it was getting in the way, okay? Don’t judge.”
This time, it’s Senzou’s turn to roll his eyes. “That wasn’t what I meant, Ichi-chan. Shinigami bodies don’t suddenly grow several inches of hair overnight.”
“You’d be surprised,” Ichigo mutters before shaking his head, and Senzou watches as black reiatsu crackles lazily across his shoulders. “I’m just kinda weird. Excess reiatsu plus funky biology apparently means random hair growth and dye jobs.” He shrugs. “Kisuke’s still figuring it out.”
Senzou hums noncommittally. “Urahara Kisuke. Your… mentor?”
Ichigo pulls out the books Senzou had given him last week, along with a notebook and the latest essay Senzou had assigned him. All are tagged with multiple sticky notes.
“Kind of?” Ichigo sounds like he isn’t all too sure himself and even less concerned about it. “He’s… Kisuke.”
Senzou eyes him curiously. “You don’t care that he basically engineered half your life then?”
Ichigo stills. Then he glances up with Hollow-gold eyes, and Senzou smiles and meets them without flinching.
“Why would you say that?” Ichigo asks in even tones, but the office suddenly seems darker.
Senzou shrugs carelessly. “Urahara has a bit of a reputation for… working outside the box. It’s not just me who thinks it, Ichi-chan. There aren’t many who knew him who wouldn’t take one look at you and guess that he had something to do with your existence.” He pauses. “Although admittedly, I suppose the worst of these rumours come from the ones who want him back most. Central 46 doesn’t benefit half as much without his skills in assassination and technological development. It must’ve been a blow to their egos when Urahara refused their invitation to come back after the Winter War. They might be hoping enough unease over any other projects he’s bound to be working on would be enough to make him come back under their protection-”
“That’s not called protection,” Ichigo growls, and Senzou stops, words withering on his tongue.
There is something about the black abyss of Ichigo’s unblinking stare that makes some base instinct in even Senzou want to back away, run, throw himself at this eldritch entity’s feet and beg for mercy. He squashes the urge and smiles like monsters don’t exist.
Ichigo blinks. The darkness in his eyes recede, and the room clears again, bright with the sunshine pouring in through the open window. A shadow passes over his face, and when he opens his mouth to speak, Senzou catches a glimpse of fangs.
“Well that sucks,” The boy remarks succinctly like the silhouette on the far wall behind him doesn’t outline a grinning mouth with too many teeth. “It’s none of their business anyway. Kisuke prefers his shop. He’s his own boss there, and he likes it that way. Central 46 will just have to deal with Kurotsuchi.”
He flips open his notebook and shoves his essay over. “Now come on, we only have an hour today, and you said you’d go over this bit with me.”
Senzou nods and drops the subject. But three weeks later, he laughs when whispers tell of five Central 46 members retiring from their seats, replaced by one Shiba elder, one Shihouin, one Kuchiki, and two seated officers from the Gotei, one of which has served long enough that she doesn’t mind semi-retiring, and the other who prefers more time at a desk job over constant fieldwork. Both have roots that trace back to the slums of Rukongai. Twelve days after that, the Soutaichou announces a new official position filled by Urahara Kisuke - Human World Liaison - and a team of his choice, effective immediately.
“You don’t waste any time,” is Senzou’s greeting the next time he sees Ichigo after that debacle.
Ichigo, seated on the edge of the Academy roof and surveying the rest of Seireitei (like a ruler looking over his kingdom), waves a dismissive hand that trails solid shadows through the air. “People who’ve never been Shinigami shouldn’t be allowed to judge them. Kyouraku-san agreed.”
“I’m sure he did,” Senzou agrees, fighting near-hysterical glee down to a chuckle as he drops down to sit beside Ichigo.
He wonders if this is what it looks like, for a man to crown himself without even trying while most of the world cheers him on.
He glances to the side, arching an eyebrow when he finds Ichigo watching him. “Yes, Ichi-chan?”
There’s a disappointing lack of irritable twitching this time, but the thoughtful look Ichigo has levelled on him instead is more interesting.
“I have finals starting next week,” Ichigo says abruptly. “So I won’t be coming by the Academy until I’m done.”
Well, less interesting than he’d expected. “I’ll pick up your assignments for you,” Senzou offers, feeling generous. It’s not every day Central 46 takes a beating. He doesn’t care about Aizen, but if there was one thing he did right, it was butchering the judiciary authority on the way out. One group of them anyway.
Ichigo snorts. Rude. “Thanks, but I was thinking, you could join me down there for once instead of me coming up to meet you here. I want to concentrate on my university exams, but I have to eat and stretch my legs sometime. If you want, I could show you around campus. Kisuke can lend you a gigai so you won’t even have to request one from the Twelfth and wait for the acquisition forms to be approved.”
The first thing Senzou wants to say is I can’t. Because he can’t. Central 46 can’t make him do shit anymore, but short of slaughtering his way to the Senkaimon or disappearing into the Rukongai and living out the rest of his life as a fugitive, he can’t leave Seireitei. He doesn’t hate it here so much that he’d prefer either of those options, but the truth of the matter is, this is as much his home as it is his prison.
(A very pretty cage indeed.)
So he can’t, but Ichigo isn’t stupid, he should’ve already figured it out, or guessed, if not from the start after whatever his family told him about Senzou, then in the five months since. Stuck at the Academy because he’s too much of a wild card to go on missions.
Ichigo isn’t stupid, but neither is he cruel, not to those he has no quarrel with - that much Senzou can accept as truth. That he’s bringing this up anyway…
So, “How?” He asks instead, raising his eyebrows when Ichigo actually barks out a laugh. And then his eyes widen when Ichigo twists fingers through the air, and a Garganta springs into existence beside them.
“This can take us there,” Ichigo grins. “And no one will ever even know if you don’t want them to.”
Senzou stares from him to the murky void and back again. “…Why?”
Why are you doing this? Why would you offer?
They’ve known each other for five months, six if you count the one Senzou spent studying him. Most of that time has been spent in private tutoring sessions, and it’s benefitted Senzou as much as it has Ichigo. He technically shouldn’t be teaching Ichigo even half the Kidou Corps secrets he’s already imparted, but Ichigo makes it worth his while - quick on the uptake, a challenge in the sparring ring, and a breath of fresh air from the tedious drudgery of teaching his other students. Occasionally, they even go out for meals, tucked away in a quiet corner of a restaurant or a food stand. And sometimes, Ichigo brings souvenirs back with him from his trips to the Human world - fiction, toys, tech, trinkets the living modern age has that Soul Society does not - and he gifts them not only to his friends amongst the students but also to Senzou these days.
It’s a friendlier relationship than Senzou thought he’d ever have with anyone outside his sister, doubly so for a Shiba. Then again, Ichigo’s barely that, thank the Soul King, even if he was raised by one of the worst examples of that clan.
“Why not?” Ichigo counters, like it isn’t downright unnatural for anyone to do anything for Senzou, mostly because he’d rather stab himself in the face than fall into anybody’s debt. People avoid him when they can because he is cruel, and that’s the way Senzou likes it. He has high standards and little tolerance for things that bore him. Nothing bores him as easily as people do.
Until Ichigo.
“You don’t wanna be stuck here all the time,” Ichigo continues. “And I have an easy way out. So yeah, why not?”
Senzou turns his gaze to the horizion, past the sprawling streets and buildings of Seireitei to the sun setting beyond the wall.
He looks at the Garganta again. When Ichigo doesn’t move to stop him, he reaches over and lets his fingers drift past the mouth of the portal. The void is cool to the touch but not freezing the way he’d half-imagined.
He retrieves his hand. “A campus tour then?” He muses lightly, and Ichigo’s features brighten in response.
Senzou almost sighs. He thinks he might understand now. Ichigo is a little more like a Shiba after all. It’s just that he’s also a little more manipulative than one would expect of him. Senzou had all but told him not to interfere, to play hero for someone else, so Ichigo had backed off. But he’d figured out what Senzou wanted anyway, and his solution was to offer another way out instead.
Persistent, without disrespecting boundaries, and cunning enough to find another answer. In that regard, he’s nothing like his Shinigami relatives, who are always so loud about their intentions.
Charismatic, but… discreetly, almost insidiously so.
Senzou blinks. And then glances sharply at Ichigo again. His eyes look bronze in the light of the sunset, with the heat of his Hollow just beneath it. He has his head propped up against one loose fist, elbow balanced on one knee.
He smiles, almost guileless if not for the possessive resolve in the curve of that expression, and Senzou thinks, unbidden, ah. That’s how he won their devotion.
He gave his friends and family and allies everything they wanted, everything they needed, threw his heart and soul and body into every fight in their defense, shattered himself and rebuilt himself to protect the ones he’d taken under his wing, and so when the time came, how could any of them have done anything less for him?
It had probably not even been something Ichigo had done consciously from the beginning, it was just how he was built, through a quirk of the genetic fun park Urahara had ensured, or perhaps from the numerous near-death experiences life had forced him into. Ichigo probably hadn’t been aware, at first.
But he definitely is now.
Senzou thinks Ichigo is only just starting with him. Senzou’s already been claimed, because - for whatever reason - Ichigo wants him.
It probably says a lot that even this early on, even having already figured it out, Senzou… can’t say he cares enough to protest.
A Shiba in his bones, but leagues more dangerous by far.
4. The Human world is bigger than he remembers. Size-wise, it’s the same. But there’s a lot more in it than he thought, and he isn’t sure if that’s due to the passage of time or because he’d never spent more time than strictly necessary here when he took missions on the material plane back in the day.
Either way, he’s free to explore it now, even if just a small part of it for the time being. The campus of Ichigo’s school is large and sprawling, and with Urahara’s gigai and fake IDs and some Human money (he trades them for a box of seal traps even Tsukabishi Tessai wouldn’t know of because they’re Senzou’s own creation, and Urahara smiles like he understands and doesn’t object), it’s easy enough to come and go once Ichigo drops him off.
“You bought an apartment?” Senzou asks the first time Ichigo shows him the place and lets him poke around inside. It’s recognizably a living space, but it’s foreign to him all the same, with a generous open floor plan and wide windows, marble countertops in the kitchen and dark wooden cabinets and a bathroom constructed of polished chrome and gleaming tile.
“Kisuke bought me an apartment,” Ichigo corrects, flopping down on the couch where he has papers and books spread all over the coffee table and floor. His hair’s shorter today, barely past his shoulders, tipped black and hanging loose. Senzou is vaguely curious about what the boy’s classmates think of it.
“I wanted my own place,” Ichigo explains. “But Kisuke took one look at the rent I could afford and practically frog-marched me here instead. Then he had Yoruichi-san steal all my stuff and move it here, and then he said I might as well just take it because staying would be less work than moving all my stuff back.” He snorts, but it’s a fond sound. “The asshole. It’s not like I’d want to turn this place down. But it’s a bit much, so I try to help him with his research projects whenever I can in exchange.”
Senzou digests this with briefly raised eyebrows but says nothing. Urahara probably considers this another desperate form of making amends, and Ichigo probably knows it too. He probably wouldn’t have accepted otherwise.
“There’s a guest bedroom,” Ichigo calls after him as Senzou wanders down the hall to investigate exactly that. “Rukia’s stayed overnight, Renji too, and a few of my human friends have as well, but I always clean the place after they leave, so if you wanna stay tonight, feel free.”
That’s all the conversation between them for the rest of the day. Ichigo already showed him the campus the day before, and after tossing him a key to the apartment, Senzou is free to wander off and explore on his own.
Two weeks of regular visits to the Human world, and he still feels a little awkward in one of the shirts and jeans and sweater that that Quincy friend of Ichigo’s had shoved on him before whirlwinding back out again, apparently neck-deep in the middle of his own finals project.
“It’s Ishida, he makes clothes for everyone,” was Ichigo’s unhelpful clarification. “You help by walking around and looking good in them.”
So Senzou does, and part of him feels like he should stand out more, but nobody gives him more than a passing glance at most. Well, some do, but he recognizes shallow attraction well enough to ignore it.
In the end, he finds himself spending the most time in the libraries and lecture halls, slipping into the back of a classroom and listening to lessons he actually has to pay attention to to even understand some of what the professor is talking about. The science lectures mostly go over his head, and he’s never been interested in that field anyway so he doesn’t bother putting much effort into following them. It’s the literature courses he likes the most. There aren’t any at the Academy, not like this, and there are so many more books in so many more languages and genres than Senzou ever thought there existed in the world.
Soul Society suddenly seems so small in comparison.
It’s always an exercise in patience every time he has to return to Seireitei to teach now. After the first two weeks of almost daily trips to the Human world, he orders - on a whim - the students from his upper-year classes to split into groups before assigning each of them a project due at the end of the term on the theoretical creation of three new Kidou spells.
Group projects are not a thing at the Academy. Senzou wonders why.
He tells them that at least two of the research sources have to be from outside the Academy, and he smirks when he follows Fujiwara Asuka to the First Division compound to speak with her cousin, and then the Eighth to speak with her cousin’s former lieutenant, and then even braving the Fourth, straight-backed and stiff with anxiety but marching in anyway with her nervous group members in tow until she manages to wrangle fifteen minutes of time from a few of the healers willing to answer her questions about Kaidou.
Even here, Ichigo’s influence flourishes.
Outside the classroom, Senzou begins collecting copies of Human books. He half-bribes, half-blackmails the librarian into setting aside a section for him, and then he begins his own project of filling it.
“You’ve been busy,” Ichigo remarks when he staggers in from his last exam and collapses into a chair just as Senzou finishes setting the table for dinner.
Senzou arches an eyebrow, smirking when Ichigo just rolls his eyes.
“People tell me things,” Ichigo informs him, barely waiting for Senzou to sit down before falling onto the meal like he hasn’t eaten in a week.
“You would make a poor king if people didn’t,” Senzou murmurs, smiling serenely when Ichigo’s eyes flick up to meet his. It’s not as intimidating when his cheeks are bulging like a chipmunk’s.
Actually, Ichigo in the Human world just seems less… overwhelming in general. It isn’t as if he’s any less powerful. This particular gigai doesn’t restrict him in any way. But there’s a relaxed quality in him here that Senzou’s observed in the past three weeks that’s always absent when he’s the rawest form of himself up in Seireitei.
“Soul Society needs to change,” Ichigo says at last, instead of denying anything. “If that means kicking it in the ass until it stops fucking up the lives it’s supposed to be looking after, then that’s exactly what I’ll do.”
Yes, and Senzou has no doubt he’ll succeed. The majority of those in power have no desire to stop Ichigo. Those who do aren’t strong enough. And Ichigo wants it. He wants it with a conviction Senzou has never seen in anyone, almost obsessive in its unfaltering desire… like the abyssal hunger of a Hollow and the eternal grudge of a Quincy and the timeless pride of a Shinigami all rolled into one.
Ichigo wants it, and he’ll get what he wants.
The Soul King knows the universe owes him that much, and even if it didn’t, Senzou doubts it would make a single bit of difference to their God-Slayer.
He lifts his mug in a toast. “Then I look forward to your endeavours. You’ll need to watch out for Central 46′s spies though. I’m sure they won’t take this lying down.”
Ichigo cocks an eyebrow. “Is that an offer to keep your ear to the ground for me?”
Senzou attempts an innocent face, which works about as well as he expects when Ichigo snorts. “A mere Academy teacher like me probably can’t help much, but…” He thinks of the seals he’d planted throughout the entire Central 46 compound every time he’d had to report in, slowly but surely sneaking invisible ears into the heart of Soul Society’s government. “I might hear things now and then. I’ll pass it on if it happens to be interesting.”
Ichigo grins and tips his own mug at Senzou like they aren’t talking treason.
5. “So.”
Senzou almost rolls his eyes. The Shibas’ commitment to their theatrics clearly hasn’t changed.
“Kuukaku-chan,” He says instead as he strides into his office and smothers the urge to draw his blade on the woman sitting on his desk like she’s posing for Most Dramatic. He smiles instead, hiding the teeth of it behind his lips. “What a pleasure.”
Kuukaku grins back without any of the same courtesy. Of course. “None at all, I’m sure, so I’ll get straight to the point. What are you doing with Ichigo?”
Senzou does roll his eyes this time. “You’ll have to be more specific. As of yesterday, he’s teaching me how to drive a car.” His lip curls. “It’s a mode of transportation Humans have developed.”
“I know what a car is,” Kuukaku snaps, finally hopping down from the desk to prowl across the room. “Why is he teaching you? What do you want with him?”
Senzou pauses halfway through setting down a stack of essays to be marked. “…If I said vengeance on the Shiba Clan once I’ve convinced him to side with me, would that be about what you were expecting?”
Kuukaku glares and crosses her arms. “Ichigo would never.”
Senzou smirks. “Then you have nothing to worry about, do you? You’ve wasted a trip.”
He brushes past her to flip through the paperwork on his desk. End-of-term reports are coming up, and that’s always a waste of his time, so the sooner he gets them done the better.
“I know you resent us for what happened to Miyako,” Kuukaku says from behind him, and Senzou wonders if he can just walk out. Probably, but there’s no way this woman won’t cause a scene. “But Ichigo wasn’t part of any of that.”
Senzou heaves a sigh and turns back around. “Kuukaku-chan, I thought we just established that we both know that using Ichigo against your family won’t work.”
“No,” Kuukaku nods. “But you could hurt him to get back at us.”
They eye each other for a long moment, not quite hostile but far from amicable.
“…My vengeance for Miyako was not lifting a finger when your clan was all but massacred,” Senzou finally says, ignoring the way Kuukaku’s expression pinches. “And so long as contact with you and yours is kept at an absolute minimum in the future, I don’t care anymore. Besides, there is no point in targeting Ichigo to get to you.” He sneers. “He’s a Shiba, but it would be an insult to consider him one of you.”
Kuukaku bristles but doesn’t explode in anger the way some of her even more hot-tempered relatives would. She stares at him instead, and when she doesn’t speak right away, Senzou goes back to organizing the contents of his desk.
“Say I believe that,” Kuukaku finally says, ignoring Senzou’s scoff. “Maybe you are hanging out with Ichigo with no ulterior motives. The gods know he makes that easy. But if that’s what you’re doing, there’s no way you won’t be seeing more of the rest of us eventually. He wasn’t raised the way a Shiba should’ve been, with none of our traditions and only a fraction of the family he should’ve had. That’s on us. But he’s still family, and so long as he doesn’t say no, we’re going to be a part of his life. You’re going to have to accept that if you plan on marrying in.”
The shelf closes with a resounding thud under his hand, and judging by the give, he’s probably cracked the back of it too. He barely notices as his gaze snaps back up to stare incredulously at his uninvited visitor. “I beg your pardon?”
Kuukaku smiles thinly, and this time she looks more amused than anything else. “Something to consider. But you’re more like Miyako than most people would think.” Her arms drop to her sides as she turns abruptly towards the window. “That’s all I had to say. You’re a smart man, Senzou. I don’t need to tell you what will happen if you fuck up.”
And before Senzou can demand an explanation or - more likely - set her on fire for cracking such an abysmal joke, she’s gone, disappearing through the window in a rush of Shunpo.
Senzou stares after her, then at the books he’d carried in earlier, then at the paperwork he’s putting off for the weekend because he has dinner with Ichigo tonight… just as he does almost every night nowadays.
He runs a hand over his face.
Shibas.
6. He says nothing. He’s self-aware enough to know (now, damn Kuukaku) that there’s something there, a spark, a connection, a pull Senzou has never felt towards anyone. He isn’t going to call it love or whatever Kuukaku thinks is happening because it isn’t. He finds Ichigo fascinating and endlessly entertaining, and anyone willing to face down Central 46 is worthy of some admiration in Senzou’s opinion. That Ichigo plans on turning the whole system upside-down and actually has the power to achieve it only raises Senzou’s esteem for him.
But he says nothing because Ichigo knows all this already. The day Senzou’s first instinct, when an assassin sent by Central 46 attempts to take Ichigo’s head, is to slit the hapless woman’s throat - even though he knows full well that she wouldn’t have come anywhere near to succeeding - is the moment Ichigo gets irrefutable proof that Koyonagi Senzou is willing to kill for him.
Ichigo doesn’t gloat of course, he isn’t the type. Senzou half-expects it anyway, breath caught in his lungs for a moment with something disgracefully close to fear twisting in his gut as he turns to check Ichigo’s reaction.
But Ichigo only wrinkles his nose and toes the fresh corpse at his feet, and then he glances at the blood splatter dotting Senzou’s shirt and offers to get him a new one.
He also reaches out to touch the hilt of Senzou’s Zanpakutou before nodding once, deliberately, solemnly, the weight of it as much a thanks as it is an acknowledgement.
And that was that. Senzou relaxes, doesn’t bat an eye when shadows surge up and swallow the body whole, and goes to change into another shirt. The incident passes, and it will be longer still before Ichigo’s enemies realize they probably should’ve tried harder to get rid of Senzou years ago. They’d thought themselves safe enough though: they would never earn Senzou’s allegiance, but at the same time, nobody - including Senzou - ever thought anybody else would earn it either.
But the point is, Ichigo knows. Senzou has no need to speak of it, and both of them are content with that. If something more comes of it down the road, Senzou doesn’t think he’d fight it. He lost this battle a good while ago, and he never even cared.
In the meantime though, he spies on Central 46 and enjoys what time he can spare in the Human world and continues reconstructing Seireitei’s education system brick by stubborn brick. There’s a kingdom to conquer and a god Senzou has pledged himself to, and for now, that is enough.
#headcanon meme: answered#bleach#koyoichi#koyonagi senzou#kurosaki ichigo#kyouraku shunsui#shiba kuukaku#post canon au#headcanon#hi brain#wtaf happened
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london calling {poe x reader} - 1
a modern coffee shop au
in this chapter: you could have sworn that london was trying to eat you alive. you didn’t ask the universe for a reason to stay in the city but it gave you one anyway - in the form of poe dameron, your new manager.
warnings: swearing
this was based off of a dream i had & then @cherieboba mentioned an AU...and now we have this. enjoy!
- val xx
‘Will you watch where you’re fucking going?!’
You hated Tuesdays. Tuesdays were truly and completely awful in every sense of the word. They were slightly better than Mondays but still...undeniably dreadful. This one had been no exception. You’d woken up late (and hungover, but that wasn’t relevant) and you were convinced that the Department of Transport had personally paid every single commuter to make your life a living hell that morning. Whatever patience you’d had upon waking up - and trust me, it wasn’t much - had worn completely thin by the time you’d been released from the hellish grips of the London Underground.
Your main concern was getting to work on time. The start of your shift coincided perfectly with the morning rush - also known as two straight hours of grumpy, uncaffeinated commuters. It was your job as a barista to provide them with coffee and to do-so in a timely manner. Anything less than thirty seconds would often result in a middle-aged, greying businessman coming for your ass. This morning, you were prepared to bite back.
‘How nice of you to show up.’
‘I know, I know!’ You pushed past your co-worker, tugging your apron around your waist as you did. ‘I overslept,’
Finn rolled his eyes at you, shaking his head. ‘Then you owe me five pounds.’
‘Why?’ You grumbled, pulling an order receipt from his hand.
‘The bet, remember?’ He replied. ‘You have officially been late twenty times so far this year.’
You let out a groan, mind going back to New Year’s Eve. The pair of you had made a deal that whoever was the first to be late twenty times owed the other a fiver - and it looked like you would be paying for his lunch today. It was unusual for you to be late so many times in a row but in the absence of a manager or acting boss, you’d let yourself slip a tiny bit. You knew that had to end today, however, because your new manager was due to start.
‘I’ll give it to you when I get paid.’ You said. ‘My rent is already late and that five pounds could be detrimental-’
‘- I’m just taking the piss.’ Finn chuckled. ‘Get these orders done and we’re even.’
He slid you the pile of receipts and you immediately slipped into autopilot. You’d been a barista for the better part of five years by that point; your hands could be at work whilst your mind was elsewhere. That was certainly the case today - your mind was raking through your financial woes and the fact that your rent was due four days ago - as you worked. After fifteen minutes of here’s a small skinny latte for Brian! and a large Americano to go for Roger!, you’d completely ridded the shop of the queue.
‘Busy morning, huh?’
You peered up from the coffee machine, eyes falling on the man in front of you. He was holding a half-empty cup of coffee, a smile on his face and warm brown eyes examining the mess of coffee and milk around your work station. He had a tangle of messy curls and...well, hot fucking damn. What else were you supposed to say?
‘Uh, yeah.’ You smiled. ‘Highlight of my day, I suppose.’
He grinned at you. ‘Do you enjoy working here?’
‘Yeah.’ You nodded. ‘I mean - it gets stressful but a job’s a job, right?’
‘Right.’ He replied, eyes falling to where your name tag rested on your apron. ‘I’ll see you around.’
Trying to hide the blush on your face, you picked up the empty milk cartons and carried them through to the kitchen at the back of the shop. Finn was already in there on his phone, swiping through Tinder. Your best friend’s love life was often a subject that came up on shift - as far you were concerned, he deserved the world. It was finding the world that was the hard part.
‘Hot customer alert.’ You greeted him. ‘And I mean hot.’
‘What kind of cute are we talking?’ Finn looked up from his phone. ‘Like...Leo Dicaprio in Titanic cute kind of hot or Leo Dicaprio in the Revenant, large and hairy kind of hot?’
‘Kind of in the middle.’ You replied, dumping the cartons in the bin. ‘He said he would see me around, so I guess he’s a new regular?’
‘Actually,’ somebody else’s voice came from the doorway. ‘I meant see you around as in I’m the new manager.’
You had never wanted the ground to swallow you more. Seriously - if the jaws of death could have opened right there and then, you’d be willing to jump into them with the tip of your hat and a so long, folks! This was definitely the worst Tuesday of your life. That was truly saying something, because you’d spent all of last Tuesday scraping dried milk off of a table. And, the Tuesday before that, you’d got stuck in the doors of the tube on the Jubilee Line and then -
-Not relevant. The presence of other shitty days didn’t erase the fact that you had just called your manager hot and compared him to Leonardo Dicaprio. Right to his face.
‘Hey, Finn?’ You glanced up at your co-worker. ‘I think it’s time I quit-’
‘- no, I take it as a compliment!’ He chortled. ‘I’m Poe, Poe Dameron. You’re the assistant manager, right?’
‘Yeah.’ You nodded, trying to hide the blush creeping up your cheeks. ‘Unless you fire me.’
‘No, I like a colleague who bigs me up.’ Poe grinned at you. It only made the blush worse. ‘It’s a nice store. I’m excited to work here.’
‘And I assume you know how to make coffee?’ You quirked an eyebrow at him.
‘I could do it in my sleep.’
You handed him an apron. ‘Brilliant.’
It seemed as though whoever was above had answered your prayers, because another queue quickly began to form and you had to get back to work. Poe and Finn chatted amongst themselves, bonding over the fact that they were both Americans working in London. You, meanwhile, focused on pumping out oddly specific coffee orders.
‘A hot-but-not-too-hot black Americano for Holdo!’ You called.
Mrs Holdo - or, Holdo as she insisted on being called - was one of your regulars. She was a high powered business woman who stopped by the coffee every morning. It was usually one of the highlights of working the morning shift. You were convinced she was on steroids of some point because she was the literal definition of a power bitch. The fact she dyed her hair lavender made her even more iconic.
‘Morning!’ You beamed at her, sliding her drink across the counter. ‘How are things at the law firm?’
‘Stressful, as always.’ She grabbed the cup. ‘New manager, I see?’
‘Oh, yeah.’ You glanced over your shoulder at him. ‘That’s Poe.’
‘You talkin’ shit?’ He grinned at you, giving you a wink.
Once the queue had died down again, you made yourself a coffee. A few people were fluttering about the shop; it was the usual, really. There was a businessman on his laptop at one table and an artist at the next. One of the perks of working in such a central area was all the people you got to meet. It certainly made the job more interesting - and you had a feeling that your new manager was only going to add to that.
‘So - tell me about yourself.’ Poe leant against the counter next to you, nudging you with his elbow. ‘Other than the fact you think I’m hot and that you probably love Leonardo Dicaprio.’
You let out a groan. ‘You’re killing me, man.’
‘If that’s the case, I hope you get someone to cover your shifts before you die.’
‘Isn’t that your job?’ You shot back. ‘Being the manager and all.’
‘You are my assistant manager-’
‘- no I am the assistant manager.’ You cut him off. ‘And I’ve been here five years so I know all that you could possibly need about running this place.’
‘Mm?’ Poe raised his eyebrows. ‘Care to share?’
‘Finn can’t be on shift with Hux - he’s an irritating part timer, really up himself - because they will kill each other.’ You paused to take a sip of your coffee. ‘And Kaydel is super sweet but she’s always late, so it’s best to put her on afternoon shifts.’
‘Like you were late this morning?’
You groaned again. ‘It was just one of those mornings - it was one thing after the other. I swear it won’t happen again.
Poe gave you a soft smile, the sarcasm fading from his face. ‘I’m just kidding. Don’t be so hard on yourself.’
With that, he took the coffee from your hand and took a sip. ‘Jesus Christ, what is in this?’
‘Four shots of vanilla syrup.’ You snatched your drink back from him. ‘Let me guess - you’re the kind of guy that exclusively drinks espressos and judges people for adding sugar?’
He simply raised his eyebrows, holding his hands up in defense.
--
Nine hours later, your shift was finally over; you were closing with Poe, who was currently sweeping the floor and singing I Want To Break Free. Your feet were aching but thanks to the free coffee, you were slightly buzzed. You’d decided that you liked your new manager - there were some pitfalls, however. Watching him flirt with every woman that came in was bordering on painful by the time lunchtime came around.
‘Rey’s here!’ Finn popped up from behind the coffee machine. He was supposed to be cleaning it, but it looked as though he was counting coffee beans instead. ‘Do I look okay?’
‘No different than usual, Finny.’ You replied.
Rey was your room-mate and best friend (Finn would argue differently). She worked in a primary school a few streets away from the coffee shop. She usually came in after you’d shut to get a free drink - she also drove to work, which meant you didn’t have to take public transport home. After a nine hour shift and with an impending caffeine crash, being shoved into a small tube carriage was your idea of hell. With that said, Rey’s driving wasn’t much better.
Fiddling with your keys, you unlocked the door to let Rey in. She looked tired - presumably from chasing after little children all day. You could see a bottle of wine sticking out from the top of her bag. That was this evening’s plans solved.
‘Hey!’ She greeted you brightly. ‘Hey, Finn!’
‘Rey, hey!’ Your co-worker waved at her. ‘I mean hey, rey!’
‘I’m just gonna clock out.’ You said, glancing over your shoulder at Poe. ‘If that’s cool with you?’
‘God knows, god knows I want to break - oh yeah, that’s fine!’ He suddenly pulled his headphones out.
‘This is Rey, by the way. She’s an honorary team member here.’ You explained. ‘And this is Poe, our new manager.’
‘She thinks I’m cute.’ Poe grinned.
You turned to face Rey. ‘I’ll explain later.’
‘Right. Of course.’ She gave you a wink. ‘I went home at lunch to feed Chewy. He’s eaten another pair of your shoes.’
Chewie was your six-month-old border terrier puppy. He reeked havoc pretty much everywhere he went - usually leaving a trail of fur behind him - but you loved him dearly. He’d earned his name after eating through eleven pairs of shoes in his first week at your apartment.
‘Of course he has.’ You grumbled. ‘See you tomorrow!’
‘See you!’ Finn waved at you, before giving Rey a sweet smile.
‘See you in the morning!’ Poe called. ‘And be on time!’
tags: @thespareoom @softly-sad @interwebseriesfan24 @yougottakeeponkeepinon @princessxkenobi @blue-space-porgs @cherieboba @highlycommendable
#poe dameron x reader#poe x reader#poe x you#poe dameron x you#poe dameron imagine#poe imagine#star wars x reader#star wars fan fiction#star wars preferences
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Survey #404
“death doesn’t answer when i cried for help”
The person you had the strongest feelings for dies, do you care? I'd be fucking devastated. It wouldn't feel real.
Is there something you’re happy about at the moment? A few things. I'm still on that high of my APAP mask working, like I'm actually getting some fucking quality sleep, and I think I'm noticing the effects of my TMS therapy finally, too. My PTSD has most notably been much more bearable, and my interests are beginning to spread again.
Do you want someone dead? No.
Do you ever wonder what your ex is up to? I mean yeah, I think that's pretty normal, even for someone without my issues.
Have you ever fed or taken care of a stray animal? Oh, many times.
What is something you tend to worry about? My health and future.
What is something you do that is unhealthy? Sit at the computer for way too long. I'm absolutely certain my vision is as poor as it is partially because of me endlessly staring at screens.
What is something you do that is good for you? I'm not afraid to prioritize my mental health.
What last caused you to force a smile? I was watching a Mark video for the first time in a while and was just reminded of how much I love and appreciate that moron.
What was the last video game you played? Was it fun? Because you said "video" game, I guess I'll exclude computer ones, in which case I'm pretty sure it was Silent Hill 2. Given it's one of my all-time favorite games, of course I think it's fun. It's one hell of an emotional ride.
What is something not many people know about you? The fact I was a dancer for many years would probably surprise people once they have a good idea of me and what I like.
What word describes your basic style? Lazy, honestly. I dress for comfort, and given that's usually just pj pants and a tank top... yeah, I don't put much effort into my clothing when I'm going most places.
Have you ever been told you were going to Hell? She kinda beat around the bush, but yes.
Have you ever wanted to kill yourself? On more than one occasion.
If yes, what convinced you not to go through with it? Well, I did OD once, but on the other occasions, it was the fear of the unknown that deterred me.
Have you ever rejected a guy, only to have him push the issue by asking “why?” and insisting that you just need to get to know him better? Omg no, thank god. I would NOT handle that well.
Is there something that you believe everyone should do and you can’t believe that some people don’t do it (e.g., recycle or go to the dentist regularly)? I didn't know 'til a survey question asked it that there are people who don't brush their tongue when brushing their teeth. Like holy shit dude, there are SO many germs on your tongue, clean that shit.
Regarding the last good choice (healthy choice, kind choice, selfless choice, etc.) you made, what was your real motivation behind it? Ummmm the nearest that comes to mind is I guess taking my meds? I mean I do that every single day, but it's still a healthy choice for me. The motivation was because I am very serious about doing what I can for my mental wellbeing.
What is something that you have had to practice at to get the hang of it? If you can’t think of anything, that’s okay, what’s something you are currently practicing at and trying to master? I really can't think of something for the first half of the question, but I can tell you that right now I'm attempting to force a routine of applying a therapy technique called "opposite action" into my daily life, where you, well, do the exact opposite of what your depression tells you to not do. It is WAY harder than it sounds, but I'm doing it with reading 30 minutes a day!
Have you ever gone to the store to buy something, like a video game, when it came out at midnight? Not to my recollection, no.
Regarding the last novel you read, was there a romance included? If so, was it central to the plot? The last novel I finished, yes. It wasn't central to the plot.
Have you ever done relaxation meditations or listened to relaxation guides or positive-thinking/healing recordings? No, except in therapy when different therapists wanted me to experiment with it during a session. They just don't work for me.
Do you have any interests that are also often shared by children? Yeah. Those are the one I'm especially self-conscious about.
there something that could be a solitary activity but you really only like to do it with other people (e.g., watching movies, playing video games, etc.)? Watching movies or TV.
Are you satisfied with the interior design or decoration in your home? Or do you think it needs a total home makeover? A makeover would be nice...
Is there something that you’d like to own but you can’t find it anywhere? If not, can you a remember a time when you wanted something? Did you ever end up finding it or did you eventually stop wanting it? OKAY SO I actually have seen this custom-made once long after deciding I wanted it, but it was RIDICULOUSLY expensive. There's a location in the Silent Hill games called Heaven's Night, and I'd love love LOVE to commission someone to duplicate the neon pink sign of it to hang in my room. Hopefully one day I could still do it.
Who makes you smile the most? Probably my cat, honestly.
What piercings do you want/have? I've talked about the piercings I have, but I'll talk about those I want. My #1 is absolutely collarbone dermals, but as I've explained a billion times, I want to lose weight so the bones are more prominent for the sake of contrast; you can't really see my collarbones now, so I just think it'd look pretty dumb and random to just have random piercings somewhere around there with no dimension. I also want way more in my ears, dermals in my back dimples also once I've lost weight, my right nostril for the dozenth time (but this time I'll wear a hoop), and while I'd absolutely adore an undereye microdermal as well, it'd be pointless with glasses. :/
What's your favorite website? KM is my pride and joy and really feels like my online home, so despite using sites like YouTube more, that 'ole RP site has to be my fave.
Do you own a fish tank with fish? No. I had fish bowls (AWFUL idea) as a kid, but never tanks
Do you like the movie 300? Never seen it.
Do you pop your knuckles? NOOOOOOOOOOO. I absolutely hate the sound. It makes me cringe and shiver.
Do you have Photoshop? Yes. It comes in the Adobe CC photography bundle I have.
Do you use tinypic or photobucket? I used Photobucket back in the day. Now I just upload to imgur.
What’s your favourite song from the 1980s? You're talking to someone who adores classic rock/metal, haha.
How about the 1990s? There are way too many songs to choose from.
Have you won anything recently? No.
How often do you make Excel tables? What for? Never.
What was the last baby animal you saw in the wild? There was a poor fawn as roadkill on the highway recently. :/
Are you always available or online? Preeeetty much.
Do you have dietary restrictions? Or do you just eat what you like? I can eat whatever.
Do you prefer gold, silver or steel jewelry? Or no jewelry at all? Steel. I'm allergic to silver, and I think steel is more subtle than gold.
Have you been binge-watching any shows lately? If so, what? No.
If you dye your hair, do you do it yourself or go to a salon? I do it at a salon.
If you have any, do you like your in-laws? I don’t have any.
Would it bother you, if your partner had cut contact with their parents? If they had a good reason, no.
Have you ever wondered whether you were adopted? As a kid I did because I thought Mom was meaner to me than my siblings, lol.
What’s the best physical feeling in the entire universe? ........... This question is a setup lmfao.
Have you ever grown a berry bush? No.
Have you done something new to your hair recently? No. It's been the same for quite a while. I wanna dye it badly.
Do you have bad anxiety? If so, do you take any kind of medication for it? I'm diagnosed with generalized and social anxiety, so yeah. I take Klonopin once and day and Ativan as needed for attacks.
One thing you’ve experienced that you thought you never would have? HA, the first thing to come to mind was being noticed by Mark by making a viral (in the community, anyway) gif of he and his doggy. I shit you not, I couldn't sleep for three days lmfao.
What was the last thing someone said to you that kept repeating over & over in your head? That I gained fucking seven pounds in two months at my last doctor appointment. I wanted to scream.
How often do you have late nights out? Never. I'm a homebody.
If you could, would you work from home? Do you think that would make you more or less productive? No. It would absolutely make me less productive.
If you had the ability to change the weather, what would you change it to right now? Cool with a nice breeze, mostly clear skies, crisp air... That'd be nice right now.
Is there something that you really need to do, but can’t seem to get motivated to do it? I say it all the time: finish decorating my room. It's funny, because I KNOW I'll feel more at home and cozy with my bedroom more personalized.
Most disturbing movie you have ever seen? Paranormal Entity. The ending was... a lot.
Has a life goal or dream ever come true for you yet? If yes, what is it? If no, do you think you’ll achieve it? Not that I can think of. .-. I hope I can achieve some...
Have you ever had food poisoning? No, thank God.
What are you listening to? "The Man Who Made a Monster" by Dance With the Dead.
Do you think there will be a WWIII? I find it inevitable at some point down humanity's future. People are too hateful for it not to eventually.
Has anyone ever asked you if you were emo? Yeah.
Has someone ever liked you that you never thought would? Maybe? Idk.
In all honesty, can a person be too nice? Yes, in some instances.
Has one of your friend’s boyfriends ever tried to cheat on them with you? Yes, when I was around 12. And I let it happen. It's one of my biggest regrets.
Is mental abuse really as bad as physical abuse? Of course it is. Emotional abuse can cut just as deep as some physical blows, or even deeper.
Do you shop at Sephora for make-up? No.
Zelda: Twilight Princess or Ocarina of Time? I'm actually not into TLoZ.
Do you own a rosary? I did as a kid growing up in a Catholic Sunday school.
If you were homeless, how would you cope? If I had no loved ones in my life and no sign of things getting better, I'm honestly preeetty sure I'd end my life.
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P
Hi, you're on a rock floating in space. Pretty cool, huh? Some of it's water. Fuck it, actually, most of it's water. I can't even get from here to there without buying a boat.
A plane is shown flying from South America to Africa. The plane fades off the screen, and a lone, sad stick figure is shown standing on Africa.
NARRATOR: It's sad. I'm sad. I miss you.
The camera pans left across the globe to show more sad stick figures also standing on South America, North America, and Europe.
CHORUS: How did this happen?
NARRATOR: A long time ago- Actually, never, and also now, nothing is nowhere. When? Never. Makes sense, right? Like I said, it didn't happen. Nothing was never anywhere. That's why it's been everywhere. It's been so everywhere, you don't need a where. You don't even need a when. That's how "every" it gets.
A long pause happens.
NARRATOR: Forget this. I wanna be something. Go somewhere. Do something. I want things to change. I want to invent time and space, and I know it's possible because everything is here, and it probably already happened. I just don't know when to start, and that's exactly where it started.
The sound of VCR fast forwarding plays.
NARRATOR: Ooh, I paused it. I think there's a universe now. What's it made of?
CHORUS: Quarks and stuff!
NARRATOR: Ah, that's a thing, in a place. Don't like it? Try a new place, at a different time. Try to stick together because the world is gonna get bigger and emptier, but it's not empty yet. It's still very full and about a kjghpillion degrees.
About no seconds pass.
NARRATOR: Great news! The quarks are now happily married and in groups of three, called a proton or a neutron, and there's something else flying around too that wants to join in but can't because it's still too-
An explosion goes off while the screen says, "HOT."
10 minutes pass.
NARRATOR: Great news! The protons and neutrons are now happily married to each other. Some of them even doubled up.
About 380,000 years pass.
NARRATOR: Great news! The electrons have now joined in. Congratulations! The world is now a bunch of gas in space, but it's getting closer together...
10 million years pass.
NARRATOR: ...and it's getting closer together...
500 million years pass.
NARRATOR: ...and it's getting closer toget-
An explosion occurs.
CHORUS: It's a star!
NARRATOR: New shit just got made. Some stars burn out and die. Bigger stars burn out and die with passion, and make some brand new, way crazier shit...
CHORUS: Space dust!
NARRATOR: ...which allows newer, more interesting stars to be made, and then die, and explode into-
CHORUS: Even crazier space dust!
NARRATOR: ...so now stars have cool stuff around them, like rocks, ice, and funny clouds, which can make some very interesting things, like this ball of flaming rocks for example.
NARRATOR: Holy shit! We just got hit with another ball of flaming rocks, and it kind of made a mess, which is-
CHORUS: Now the Moon!
The year is now -4,000,000,000.
NARRATOR: Weather update, it's raining rocks from outer space.
NARRATOR: Weather update, those rocks might have had water inside them, and now, there's hot steam in the sky.
NARRATOR: Weather update, cooler temperatures today, and the floor is no longer lava.
NARRATOR: Weather update, it's raining.
NARRATOR: Severe flooding alert! The entire world is now an ocean.
NARRATOR: Volcano alert!
CHORUS: That's land!
OCEAN: (Mumbles) There's life in the ocean.
NARRATOR: What?
CHORUS: Something's alive in the ocean.
IMMATERIAL OBSERVER (IO): Oh, cool. Like, a plant or an animal?
The camera zooms in on a single-cell organism.
NARRATOR: No, a microscopic speck. It lives at the bottom of the ocean and eats chemical soup which is being served hot and fresh, made from gnarly space ingredients leftover from when it was raining rocks or whatever.
The cell divides.
NARRATOR: Oh, yeah, and it can do that.
Those cells divide many more times.
NARRATOR: It has secret instructions written inside itself telling it how to build another one of itself. So that's pretty nifty, I would say.
NARRATOR:
Tired of living at the bottom of the ocean?
CHORUS: Now you can eat sunlight!
The year is now -3,000,000,000.
NARRATOR: Using a revolutionary technique, you can convert sunlight into food.
CHORUS: Taste the sun!
The year is now -2,300,000,000.
NARRATOR: Side effect, now there's oxygen everywhere and the sky is blue. Then the Earth might have been a snowball for a while. Maybe even a couple of times.
The year is now -500,000,000.
NARRATOR: It's a sponge. It's a plant. It's a worm, and some other types of weird, strange water bugs and strange fish.
CHORUS: It's the Cambrian explosion!
IO: Wow, that's animals and stuff.
SEA LIFE: But we're still in the ocean. Hey, can we go on land?
CHORUS, as LAND: No!
SEA LIFE: Why?
CHORUS, as LAND: The sun is a deadly lazer!
SEA LIFE: Oh, okay.
CHORUS: Not anymore, there's a blanket.
NARRATOR: Now the animals can go on land. Come on animals, let's go on land.
FISH: Nope, can't walk yet. And there's no food yet, so I don't care.
100 million years pass.
LAND: Okay, will you learn to walk if there's plants up here?
SOME BUGS AND FISH: Maybe
NARRATOR: ...said some bugs... and fish.
The year is now -380,000,000. FISH grunts because it is struggling to get on land, for it has no legs. 5 million years pass. The year is now -375,000,000. FISH now has legs, for it has evolved into an AMPHIBIAN.
AMPHIBIAN: Okay, so I can go on land, but I have to go back in the water to-
CHORUS: Have babies!
The word "idea" flashes on to the screen.
NARRATOR: Learn to use an egg.
AMPHIBIAN: I was already doing that.
NARRATOR: Use a stronger egg. Put water in it. Have a baby, on land, in an egg. Water is in the egg. Baby, in the egg, in the water, in the egg.
The year is -312,000,000.
AMPHIBIAN OFFSPRING: Works for me.
CHORUS: Bye bye, ocean!
50 million years pass.
NARRATOR: And now everything's huge. Including bugs. Wanna see a map of the land?
IO: Sure.
The year is now -252,000,000. A globe is presented. The camera starts to pan around it when a large explosion happens, destroying a land mass on the globe the size of a continent. Text pops onto the screen reading "PERMIAN EXTINCTION." The Permian Extinction has occurred.
NARRATOR: Oh fuck, now everything's dead. Just kidding, here are the survivors.
The thrinaxodon, lystrosaurus, and proterosuchus are shown.
NARRATOR: Keep your eye on this one...
The proterosuchus is circled. 75 million years pass.
NARRATOR: ...'cause it's about to become the dinosaurs. Here's another map of the land.
The globe is shown again. It does not yet look like the Earth we know today; many of the continents are in pieces or out of place.
NARRATOR: Yeah, it broke apart. Don't worry about that. It does that all the time.
The year is now -66,000,000.
NARRATOR: Here comes a meteor.
A meteor comes into frame and hits the globe near what is today called Central America.
CHORUS: And the dinosaurs are gone!
NARRATOR: It's mammal time! Here come the mammals; look at those breasts.
The year is now -15,000,000.
NARRATOR: Now, they're gonna dominate the world, and one of them just learned how to grab stuff, and walk.
The year is now -4,000,000. A transition from one of human's older ancestors to one of human's younger ancestors is shown.
NARRATOR: No, like, walk like that, and grab stuff at the same time.
The year is now -3,000,000.
NARRATOR: And bang rocks together to make pointed rocks.
IO: Ouch.
The year is now -1,500,000.
NARRATOR: And set things on fire.
IO: Yeouch.
The year is now -200,000.
NARRATOR: And make crazy sounds with their voice.
CAVEMAN: Gneurshk.
NARRATOR: Which can mean different things.
Via the CAVEMAN's thought bubble, "Gnerushk," is shown to mean, "Hi," "Bye," and, "Can you hand me that rock over there?"
CHORUS: That's a human person!
NARRATOR: And now they're everywhere, almost.
Text pops on to the screen, above the landmass that is today called North America. It reads "not here yet." Humans have not migrated there yet. The year is now -20,000. Text pops on to the screen, between what is today the American
state of Alaska and the Russian autonomous okrug (district) of Chukotka. The text reads "ice age." The ice age is occurring, creating a land bridge between the two landmasses.
CHORUS: Ice age!
HUMANS: What? You can walk over here? Cool!
The year is now -10,000.
CHORUS: Not anymore.
HUMANS: Well, I guess we're stuck here now.
NARRATOR: Let's review. There's people on the planet, and they're chasing their food.
HUMAN: Fuck it, time to plant some grass. Look at this. I control the food now. Now, everyone will want to be my friend and live near me. Let's all build houses, except mine is bigger because I own the food. This is great. I wonder if anyone else is doing this.
The year is now -5000.
NARRATOR: Tired of using rocks for everything? Use metal! It's underground.
NARRATOR: Better farming was just invented in a sweet dank valley right in between these two rivers, and the animals are helping.
A sheep baas in the background.
CHORUS: Guess what happens next!
NARRATOR: More food, and more people who came to buy the food, and you need people to help make the food and keep track of the sales, and now, you need houses for people to live in and people to make the houses, and now, there's more people, and they invent things which makes things better, and more people come, and there's more farming and more people to make more things for more people, and now, there's business, money, writing, laws, power.
CHORUS: Society!
NARRATOR: Coming soon to a dank river valley near you. Meanwhile, out in the middle of nowhere, the horse is probably being tamed.
DISTRAUGHT HUMAN: Why is all my metal so lame and lumpy?
NARRATOR: Tired of using lame, sad metal?
The year is now -3300.
NARRATOR: Introducing-
CHORUS: Bronze!
NARRATOR: Made from special ingredient tin from the far lands of Tin Land... I don't know, my dealer won't tell me where he gets it. Also, guess what?
CHORUS: Egypt!
The year is now -2000.
NARRATOR: Meanwhile, out in the middle of nowhere, they figured out how to put wheels on a horse. Now, we're getting somewhere. Also-
CHORUS: China!
NARRATOR: And did I mention-
CHORUS: Indus River Valley Civilization!
A "society count" comes on screen. It lists the four civilizations just named (including Mesopotamia, the "sweet dank valley right in between... two rivers"), as the counter counts up from one to four. It pauses for a moment before ticking up to five. A fifth civilization appears on the list. The camera pans right across the globe to what is modern day Peru.
CHORUS: Norte Chico!
NARRATOR: The Middle East is getting more complicated. Maybe because it's in the middle of the East.
The year is now -1600.
PEOPLE WITH HORSES: Knock, knock. Er... clop clop.
NARRATOR: It's the people with the horses, and they made an empire, and then everyone else copied their horses.
CHORUS: Greeks!
NARRATOR: Ah, look, it must be the Greeks. Or, a beta version of the Greeks.
Text pops up on screen, reading "mycenaean greeks." These "beta version... Greeks" are the Mycenaean Greeks.
NARRATOR: Let's check in with the Indus River Valley Civilization - they're gone. Guess who's not gone?
CHORUS: China!
The year is now -1200.
CHORUS: New arrivals in India! Maybe it's those horse people I was talking about, or their cousins, or something... And they wrote some hymns and mantras and stuff!
NARRATOR: You could make a religion out of this.
The year is now -1150.
NARRATOR: There's the Bronze Age collapse.
CHORUS: Now, the Phoenicians can get down to business!
HUMANS: (Offscreen) Also, can we switch to a metal that's a little easier to find?
Bronze switches to iron.
HUMANS: (Offscreen) Thanks.
NARRATOR: Look who came back to Israel - it's the twelve tribes of Israel!
CHORUS: And they believe in God!
NARRATOR: Just one though; he's got like a ten step program.
NARRATOR: Here's some huge heads. Must be the Olmecs.
The year is now -800.
NARRATOR: The Phoenicians make some colonies. The Greeks copy their idea and make some colonies. The Phoenicians made a colony so big it makes colonies.
The year is now
-671.
NARRATOR: Here comes the Assyrian Empire.
The year is now -600.
NARRATOR: Nevermind, it's the Babyloni-
The year is now -580.
NARRATOR: Media-
The year is now -500.
CHORUS: It's the Persian Empire!
IO: Wow, that's big.
NARRATOR: Ah, the Buddha was just enlightened!
IO: Who's the Buddha?
NARRATOR: This guy, who sat under a tree for so long that he figured out how to ignore the fact that we're all dying. You could make a religion out of this.
The year is now -475.
NARRATOR: Oops, China just broke, but while it was breaking, Confucius was figuring out how to have good morals.
The year is now -400.
NARRATOR: Ah, the Greeks just had the idea of thinking about stuff...
The year is now -330.
NARRATOR: ...and right over here, Alexander just had the idea of conquering the entire Persian empire. It's a great idea. He was... Great, and now he's dead. Hopefully, the rest of the gang will be able to share the empire evenly between them.
The year is now -305.
CHANDRAGUPTA: Knock knock.
NARRATOR: It's Chandragupta. He says-
CHANDRAGUPTA: Get the hell out of here. Will you get the hell out of here if I give you five hundred elephants? Okay, thanks. Bye.
CHORUS: Time to conquer all of India!
NARRATOR: Er-
CHORUS: Most of India!
IO: But what about this part?
NARRATOR: That's the Tamil kings. No one conquers the Tamil kings.
IO: Who are the Tamil kings?
CHORUS: Merchants, probably... And they've got spices!
TAMIL KINGS: Who would like to buy the spices?
ARABIANS: Me!
NARRATOR: ...said the Arabians, swiftly buying it and selling it to the rest of the world.
The year is now -221.
NARRATOR: Hey, China put itself back together again, with good morals as their main philosophy! Actually, they have three main philosophies.
Confucianism, Taoism, and legalism appear with the corresponding messages under: having good morals, go with the flow, and "fuck you obey the law". The land northwest of Qin China, which is roughly modern-day Mongolia, is circled.
NARRATOR: Out here, the horse nomads run wild and free, and they would like to ransack your city.
The horse nomads repeatedly bump into China with the coin sound effect from Super Mario playing each time they do so. The camera pans left on the globe back to the Ancient Greek Empire.
NARRATOR: Let's check the Greekification levels of the Greekified kingdoms. Greekification overload!
PARTHIANS: Bye.
NARRATOR: ...said the Parthians.
JEWS: Bye.
NARRATOR: ...said the Jews.
PARTHIANS: Hi!
NARRATOR: ...said the Parthians, taking over the entire place.
The year is now 1 CE.
ROMANS: Heyyyyyyyy...
NARRATOR: ...said the Romans, eating the entire Mediterranean for breakfast.
JEWS: Thanks for invading our homeland.
NARRATOR: ...said the Jews, who were starting to get tired of people invading their homeland.
The year is now 30 CE.
JESUS CHRIST: Hi, everything's great.
NARRATOR: ...said some guy, who seems to be getting very popular, and is then arrested and killed for being too popular, which only makes him more popular. You could make a religion out of this.
NARRATOR: Want silk? Now, you can buy it from China. They just made a-
CHORUS: Brand new road to the world!
China conquers Vietnam.
CHORUS: Or you can get there on water!
INDIA: Sick! New trade routes.
NARRATOR: ...said India, accidentally spreading their religion to the entire southeast.
Funan is highlighted.
NARRATOR: Hm, that's a good place for an epic trading kingdom.
The sound of a zooming car plays.
NARRATOR: There goes Buddhism, traveling up the silk road.
The year is now 220.
NARRATOR: I wonder if it'll reach China before it collapses again.
The year is now 225.
NARRATOR: Remember the Persian Empire?
PERSIANS: Yep.
NARRATOR: ...said the Persians, making a new one. Axum is getting so powerful they would like to build a long stick. Has anyone populated Madagascar yet?
BANTU and MALAY: Let's do it together!
The year is now 280.
CHORUS: China is whole again!
The year is now 320.
CHORUS: Then it broke again.
NARRATOR: Still can't cross the Sahara Desert? Try camels!
CHORUS, as
GHANA EMPIRE: Hell yeah! Now we've got business!
NARRATOR: ...said the Ghana Empire, selling lots of gold and slaves.
ROMAN CHRISTIAN: Hi, I live in the Roman Empire, and I was wondering-
CHORUS, as ROMAN CHRISTIAN: Is loving Jesus legal yet?
ROME: No.
The year is now 330.
CONSTANTINE: Actually, okay, sure.
NARRATOR: ...said Constantine, moving the capital way over here to be closer to his-
CHORUS: Main rival!
CONSTANTINE: Don't worry about Rome; it won't fall.
The year is now 400.
CHORUS: It's the golden age of India!
NARRATOR: There's the Gupta Empire, not Chandragupta, just Gupta... First name Chandra... The First. Guess who's in Rome.
CHORUS: Barbarians!
NARRATOR: What's a barbarian?
ROMANS: Non-Romans.
NARRATOR: ...said the Romans, being invaded by non-Romans.
The year is now 476.
NARRATOR: R.I.P. Roman Empire. Er, actually just half of it; the other half is just fine, but it's not in Rome anymore, so let's give it a new name.
CHORUS: The Mayans have figured out the stars!
NARRATOR: Oh, and here's a huge city, population: everyone.
The year is now 576.
NARRATOR: The Göktürks have taken over the entire Eurasian steppe. Great job, Göktürks. How's India? Broken. How's China?
CHORUS: Back together.
NARRATOR: How's those trading kingdoms?
CHORUS: Bigger, and there's more of them.
NARRATOR: Korea has three kingdoms. Japan has a kingdom; it's the sunrise kingdom.
An intermission occurs. The year is now 610.
NARRATOR: Deep in the Arabian desert, on the top of a mountain, the real god whispers in Muhammad's ear, so he goes down to the cube where everyone worships gods, and he tells them their gods are all fake...
The year is now 622.
NARRATOR: ...and everyone got so mad at him that he had to leave town and go to a different town. You can make a religion out of this...
The year is now 650.
NARRATOR: ...and maybe conquer the world as well. The Roman Empire is long gone, but somehow, the Pope is still the Pope! Plus, there's-
CHORUS: New kingdoms all over Europe!
NARRATOR: I wonder if there's room for Moors.
The year is now 786.
NARRATOR: Here's all the wisdom, in a house: it's the Baghdad House of Wisdom, just in time for the-
CHORUS: Islamic Golden Age!
SWAHILI: Let's bring stuff to the coast, and sell it, and become the Swahili on the Swahili Coast.
NARRATOR: ...said the Swahili on the Swahili Coast.
NARRATOR: Remember this tiny space you have to go through to get from here to there? Someone owns that now.
NARRATOR: Wanna get enlightened in the middle of nowhere?
NARRATOR: The Franks have the biggest kingdom in Europe, and the Pope is so proud that he invites the king over for Christmas.
The year is now 800.
POPE: Surprise! You're the new Roman Emperor!
NARRATOR: ...said the Pope, pretending to still be part of the Roman Empire. Then, the Franks broke their kingdom into what will later be called France and Not France. The Northerners (or just Norse, if you don't have much time) are exploring. They go north, from the north, to the northern north, and they find some land, two types of land, and they name them accordingly.
Large text comes on screen reading, "prankd."
NARRATOR: They also invade some other places and get called many names, such as Vikings.
The year is now 882.
NARRATOR: There's the Rus, the Kievan Rus.
IO: Are they Vikings?
KIEVAN RUS: I don't think so.
NARRATOR: ...said the Kievan Rus.
IO: Okay, fair enough.
NARRATOR: The Pope is ready to make some more emperors of the Roman Empire, the Holy Roman Empire. It's actually Germany, but don't worry about it! New kingdoms!
DISTORTED VOICE: CHRISTIANIZE ALL THE KINGDOMS!
NARRATOR: Which brand would you like?
ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH: Mine's better.
EASTERN ORTHODOX CHURCH: Mine's better.
ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH: Mine's better.
The year is now 1066.
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR: Time to conquer England.
NARRATOR: ...said William.
The year is now 1071.
NARRATOR: It's a bird! It's a plane! It's the Seljuk Turks!
BYZANTINE EMPIRE: Aah!
NARRATOR: ...said the Byzantine Empire, who's getting so small it almost doesn't
exist anymore.
BYZANTINE EMPIRE: We need help!
NARRATOR: They need help, so they call the Pope.
BYZANTINE EMPIRE: Hey, Pope, can you help us get rid of the Seljuks? Maybe take back the Holy Land on the way? Come on, I know you want to take back the Holy Land.
POPE: Yes, I do actually want to do that. Let's do a Crusade.
The year is now 1099.
CHORUS: Crusade!
NARRATOR: They did many crusades, some of which almost didn't fail, but at the least the Italians got some sweet trade deals.
The year is now 1100.
NARRATOR: Goodbye, Mayans.
CHORUS: Hello, Toltecs!
NARRATOR: Goodbye, Toltecs.
CHORUS: Hello, Mississippi!
NARRATOR: Look at those mounds! There's the Pueblo. I've always wondered how to build a town on a cliff.
The year is now 1150.
NARRATOR: Guess who's here? Khmer!
IO: Where?
NARRATOR: Here, and Pegan is there! Vietnam unconquered itself, Korea just became itself...
The year is now 1192.
NARRATOR: ...and Japan is so addicted to art that the military might have to take over the government. China just invented bombs and typing...
The year is now 1230. It rapidly starts to count upward as the Mongols spin and fly all over north Asia. The year ends on 1259.
NARRATOR: ...and the Mongols just invaded most of the universe. (sarcastically) Nice going, Genghis! I bet that will last a long time.
The Mongol Empire that was just formed shatters.
NARRATOR: Some of the Islamic Turks were unaffected by the Mongol invasions because they were busy invading India.
Bright, happy text comes on the screen reading, "tonga time."
NARRATOR: Is it Tonga time?
TONGAN: I think it's Tonga time!
Text comes on screen reading, "colonizing the pacific ocean..." The Tu'i Tonga Empire forms.
NARRATOR: I just found out where the Swahili gets all their gold!
It is shown that the gold comes from the Great Zimbabwe, as the Great Zimbabwe is highlighted.
NARRATOR: Look at this "chad" (it means lake). There's an empire there, right in the middle of-
CHORUS: Africa!
The year is now 1324.
NARRATOR: The King of Mali is so rich, he's going on tour to let everyone know.
NORTH AFRICA and THE MIDDLE EAST: Wow, that guy's rich.
NARRATOR: ...everyone said. The Christians are doing a great job reconquering Iberia, which will soon be called Spain and Not-Spain.
IBERIAN PENINSULA: Please remain Christian. We will check in later to see if you're still Christian when you least expect.
The year is now 1350.
NARRATOR: Whoops! Half of Europe just died!
CHORUS: Ming!
NARRATOR: China's back, yay!
The year is now 1400.
Hey Khmer, time to share! New kingdoms here and there. Oh, look who controls all the islands. It's the Mahajapit-
The buzz of an "incorrect" buzzer buzzes.
NARRATOR: Majahapit-
Buzzes.
NARRATOR: Mapajahit-
Buzzes.
NARRATOR: Mahapajit-
Buzzes.
NARRATOR: Mapajahit-
Buzzes.
NARRATOR: Ma-ja-pa-hit?
The ring of a "correct" bell rings. The year is now 1450.
NARRATOR: Oh, Italy's really rich. Time for them to care a lot about art and the ancient classics. It's kinda like a re-birth.
The text on the screen reads "renaissance".
NARRATOR: Here's a printer, let's make books!
BYZANTINE EMPIRE: So you think you can conquer the Byzantine Empire?
OTTOMAN TURKS: Yep.
NARRATOR: ...said the Ottoman Turks. Nice job, Ottoman Turks!
The year is now 1453.
NARRATOR: Oops, you missed a spot. Don't forget to ban Europe from the Indian spice trade.
PORTUGAL: What? That's bullshit!
NARRATOR: ...said Portugal, spiceless.
CHORUS, as PORTUGAL: Well, I guess we'll have to find another way to India!
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS: Wait!
NARRATOR: ...said Christopher Columbus, probably smoking crack.
COLUMBUS: If the world is round, let's go this way to India!
PORTUGAL: Nah, don't worry, we already got this
NARRATOR: ...said Portugal. So Chris goes to Spain.
COLUMBUS: Hey, Spain, wanna hire me to find India by going around the back of the world?
SPAIN: No.
COLUMBUS: Please?
SPAIN: No.
COLUMBUS: Please?
SPAIN: No.
COLUMBUS: Please?
SPAIN: Okay.
The year is now 1492.
NARRATOR: So he sails into the ocean and discovers... More
ocean... And then discovers the Indies and Japan.
The year is now 1494.
SPAIN and PORTUGAL: Let's draw a line to decide who gets which half of the world.
NARRATOR: The Aztec and Inca Empires are off to a great start. I wonder if they know that Europe just discovered their continent?
NARRATOR: The Hapsburgs are marrying into so many royal families that they might have to start marrying each other.
The year is now 1500.
NARRATOR: Move over, Lithuania! Here comes Moscow. Ivan wants to make Russia great again. Move over, Timurids; maybe go invade India or something.
The year is now 1501.
NARRATOR: Persia just made Persia Persian again. Let's make it the other kind of Islam, the one where we thought the first guy should have been the other guy.
ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH: Hey, Christians! Do you sin? Now you can buy your way out of Hell.
MARTIN LUTHER: That's bullshit, this whole thing is bullshit, that's a scam, fuck the church. Here's 95 reasons why.
NARRATOR: ...said Martin Luther, in his new book which might have accidentally started the Protestant Reformation.
SULEIMAN THE MAGNIFICENT: You know what would be magnificent?
NARRATOR: ...said Suleiman, wearing an onion hat.
The year is now 1530.
SULEIMAN: What if the Ottoman Empire was really big, which it is now?
The year is now 1556.
IVAN THE TERRIBLE: What if Russia was big?
NARRATOR: ...said Ivan, trying not to be terrible.
NARRATOR: Portugal had a dream that they controlled the entire Indian Ocean, including the Spice Trade... and then that dream was real. And Spain realized that this is not India, but they pillaged it anyway!
ENGLAND and FRANCE: Damn.
NARRATOR: ...said England and France.
ENGLAND and FRANCE: We gotta start pillaging some stuff.
NARRATOR: Then, the Dutch revolt, and all the hipsters move to Amsterdam.
The year is now 1600.
AMSTERDAM: Damn.
NARRATOR: ...said Amsterdam.
AMSTERDAM: We gotta start pillaging some stuff.
ENGLAND, FRANCE, and THE DUTCH: Question 1: Can you get to India through North America? No, but at least there's beaver. Question 2: Steal the Spice Trade.
NARRATOR: That's not a question, but the Dutch did it anyway.
CHORUS: Sugar!
The year is now 1640.
NARRATOR: Guess where all the sugar is made. In Brazil-
THE DUTCH: Stolen!
NARRATOR: -In the Caribbean, and it's so goddamn profitable that you might forget to not do slavery. The next thing on Russia's to-do-list is to get bigger.
The year is now 1754.
NARRATOR: Britain and France are having a friendly discussion about who should control the entire world, more specifically Ohio.
Then it escalates into a seven year discussion, giving Prussia a chance to show Austria who's boss.
IO: But what about Britain and France? Did they figure out who's boss?
NARRATOR: Yes, they did! It's Britain. Guess who's broke. Also Britain, so they start taxing the Hell out of America.
The year is now 1776.
AMERICA: Fuck you.
NARRATOR: ...says America, declaring their independence and fighting for it, and France helps them win. Now, France is broke...
The year is now 1788.
NARRATOR: ...and Britain will have to send their prisoners to a different continent.
IO: Wait, if France is broke, why do the king and queen still wear such fancy dresses?
The year is now 1794.
ROBESPIERRE: Let's overthrow the palace and cut all their heads off!
NARRATOR: ...says Robespierre, cutting everybody's head off until someone eventually got mad and cut his head off.
IO: You could make a religi-
NARRATOR: No, don't. Haiti is starting to like the idea of a revolution...
The year is now 1791.
NARRATOR: ...especially the slaves, who free themselves by killing their masters.
TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE: Why didn't we think of this before?
IO: Wait, who's in charge of France now?
The year is now 1804.
CHORUS, as NAPOLEON: Me!
NARRATOR: ...said Napoleon, trying to take over Europe. Luckily, they banished him to an island-
CHORUS: But he came back!
NARRATOR: Luckily, they banished him to another island.
A burst of horns play.
NARRATOR: There goes Latin America, becoming independent in the Latin
American Wars of Independence.
They last from the year 1812 to about 1830.
NARRATOR: Britain just figured out how to turn steam into power, so now, they can make-
CHORUS: Many different types of machines, and factories with machines in them, so they can make a lot of products real fast.
NARRATOR: Then, they invent some trains and conquer India and maybe put some trains there.
BRITAIN: Hey, China!
NARRATOR: ...said Britain.
BRITAIN: Buy stuff from us!
CHINA: Nah, dude, we already got everything.
NARRATOR: ...says China, so Britain tried to get them addicted to opium, which worked, actually, but then, China made it illegal...
The year is now 1839.
NARRATOR: ...and dumped it all into the sea, so Britain threw a hissy fit and made them open up five cities and give them an island. Britain and Russia are playing a game where they try and stop each other from conquering Afghanistan. Also, the-
CHORUS: Sultan of Oman lives in Zanzibar now.
NARRATOR: That's just where he lives.
The year is now 1857.
NARRATOR: India just had a revolution, and they would like to govern themselves now.
BRITAIN: Nope.
NARRATOR: ...said Britain, governing them even harder than before.
The screen reads, "HI I JUST SENT YOU A MESSAGE THRU A WIRE," while the Morse Code for "SEXLOL" plays in the background.
CHORUS: Technology is about to go crazy!
The year is now 1863.
NARRATOR: The United States finally figured out whether slavery is good or bad.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN: It's bad.
NARRATOR: ...they decided, and then, they continued manifesting their destiny, which is to kill the rest of the natives and take their land and maybe kick out the Mexicans too.
The year is now 1884.
EUROPE: I know! Let's rape Africa.
NARRATOR: ...said Europe, scrambling to see who could rape it the fastest. (They never got Ethiopia.) Britain and France are still hungry! (They never got Thailand.) The United States ran out of destiny to manifest, so they're looking for more.
CHORUS: Hawaii and Cuba!
IO: Wait! Spain controls Cuba!
UNITED STATES: Well, blame something on them, and go to war.
AMERICANS: What should we blame on Spain?
The U.S.S. Maine explodes in the Gulf of Mexico.
UNITED STATES: Let's blame the Maine on Spain
NARRATOR: ...so they blame the Maine on Spain.
The year is now 1898.
AMERICANS: Now, we're in business!
NARRATOR: To celebrate, they kick Panama out of Panama and make a canal, connecting the two oceans.
The year is now 1908.
NARRATOR: Britain just found oil in the Middle East. (It makes cars go.)
The year is now 1911.
NARRATOR: China is so tired of being bossed around that they delete their old government and make a new, stronger government, which is accidentally weaker and controlled by a guy from the previous government. Europe hasn't had a war since the last war...
The year is now 1914.
NARRATOR: ...so they start World War I. Look at those guns! It's gonna be a "Great War" - so great we won't need a second one. After it's over, they blame Germany.
The year is now 1917.
NARRATOR: Russia went on strike, and the workers overthrew the government. Now, everyone's paycheck is the same.
The year is now 1922.
CHORUS: Communism, in the Soviet Union!
NARRATOR: The Arabs revolt...
The year is now 1917.
NARRATOR: ...and Britain helps.
BRITAIN: (Offscreen) Now, the Ottoman Empire is gone,
The year is now 1922.
BRITAIN: (Offscreen) So we can give the-
CHORUS: Jewish people a place to live!
NARRATOR: Hopefully, the Arabs won't mind.
SYKES and PICOT: Let's cut the cake!
NARRATOR: ...said Sykes and Picot, cutting up the remains of the Not-So-Ottoman-Anymore Empire.
The year is now 1923.
CHORUS: Except Turkey! Turkey makes a brand new Turkey!
NARRATOR: ...and then, the Saudis conquer Arabia. It just seemed like the right thing to do.
A phone rings.
IO: Hello?
THE 1920s: Yes, it's the 1920s calling. Let's get in a car and drive to a party and listen to jazz on the radio and go to the movies. The economy is great, and it will probably be great forever- just kidding!
A slide whistle with decreasing pitch briefly plays.
The year is now 1933.
NARRATOR: Germany is back, featuring Hitler, the angry mustache model, and he's mad at the Jews for existing. Japan is finally conquering the East, and they're so excited...
The year is now 1937.
NARRATOR: ...they rape Nanking way too hard. They should probably just deny it.
The year is now 1945.
NARRATOR: Hitler's out of control, so the international community tackles him and tries to explain why killing all the Jews is a bad idea. But he kills himself before they could explain it to him.
CHORUS: That's World War II!
NARRATOR: Bonus Round!
Air horns momentarily play in the background.
NARRATOR: (Like Announcer from Mortal Kombat) Pacific Showdown: United States versus Japan! Fight!
A drop-down menu that reads "weapon select" pops up, and the U.S. cursor moves down from "boat" to "plane" to "extinction ball." It is picked, dropped on Japan, and an explosion results. The year is now 1945.
NARRATOR: (Like Announcer from Mortal Kombat) Finish him!
Another one is dropped, and another explosion follows.
NARRATOR: Let's unite all the nations and have some-
CHORUS: World peace!
NARRATOR: Seems legit.
GANDHI: Hi, I'm Gandhi, and if Britain doesn't get the Hell out of India, I'm gonna starve myself in public.
The year is now 1947. Britain leaves.
GANDHI: Wow, that worked?
NARRATOR: Bonus! Now, there's Pakistan. Actually, two Pakistans; one of them can be Bangladesh later. The Jews and the Arabs finally figured out which one of them should live in the Holy Land.
JEWS and ARABS: Me!
NARRATOR: ...they both said at the same time.
The year is now 1947.
UNITED NATIONS: Let's divide up the land so everyone's happy.
CHORUS: Sike! They both get angrier.
NARRATOR: Look out, China!
The year is now 1949.
NARRATOR: There's a new China in China! What's on the menu?
PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC of CHINA: Communism!
REPUBLIC of CHINA: No, thanks.
NARRATOR: ...said the other China, escaping to an island. I wonder which one is the real China?
The year is now 1950.
NARRATOR: There's the Korean War: Korea versus Korea. Nobody wins and then it's on pause forever. Let's meet the sponsors! Oh, it's the two global superpowers. They're having a friendly debate over which economic system is good and which one is an evil virus of Satan. And they both have atom bombs.
NARRATOR: (With an echo) FIGHT!
NARRATOR: Wait, no, that would be the end of the world. Let's just keep it cool and spy on each other instead, and make sure we have enough atom bombs.
The year is now 1957.
SOVIET UNION: I'll race you to space.
The year is now 1969. An American rocket ship is shown to land on the moon.
SOVIET UNION and UNITED STATES: Now, let's make some more countries fight themselves.
NARRATOR: Europe is tired of pillaging other continents, and the continents they were pillaging are tired of being pillaged. So here's a new map, with new countries! Now, you can't tell who they're being pillaged by.
The year is now 1963.
NARRATOR: The United States finally decided whether racism is good or bad. They decided it's bad, and the world agrees. South Africa might need another minute to think about it. Let's check the world population.
A graph is shown, displaying a spike upward in population that jumped from "a billion" at the beginning of the 1800s to "way more" around the beginning of the 2000s.
IO: Whoa... Okay.
NARRATOR: Technology is better too; that might keep happening. The Soviet Union decides to relax a little...
The year is now 1991.
NARRATOR: ...and accidentally falls apart. Europe makes a union...
The year is now 1999.
NARRATOR: ...so now, they can all use the same money, except Britain 'cause they don't feel like it. Let's check the mail! Surprise! It's on the computer.
The year is now 2001.
NARRATOR: Whoops, someone just attacked America. I bet they'll remember that. Phone call! Surprise! It's in your pocket. Wanna learn everything? Surprise! It's on the computer. Now, your phone's a computer, which is in your pocket.
A chart of the 2008 economic recession is shown.
NARRATOR: Whoops, the economy just
crashed. Don't worry, the big banks won't fail because they're not supposed to. Surprise! Flying robots, with bombs. Wanna print a brain? Some people have no friends, some people have no food, the globe is warming-
CHORUS: And the ocean is full of plastic!
EVERYBODY: Let's save the planet!
NARRATOR: ...said everybody, not knowing how.
The year is now 2028.
THING INVENTOR INVENTOR: Let's invent a thing inventor.
NARRATOR: ...said the thing inventor inventor, after being invented by a thing inventor. That's pretty cool. By the way, where the Hell are we?
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Chapter 16 | Tinder Tommy
Words: 1953
Notes: hello my lovelies, i am so sorry that this has taken so long - i feel like this has literally been months and you deserve better! lots of shit has been happening in my life which has meant that i haven’t really had the focus to do anything but watch brooklyn 99 or peaky blinders for the 500th time, but ya girl is back for now! I hope that you are all still with me and are looking forward to seeing how Tommy works with his new found affection! This chapter pairs directly with @idesiretomhardy‘s Mr Solomons story (in that the dialogue is the same in parts, and the timelines are the same. These stories exist in the same universe. Enjoy!
Taglist (just send me a message if you would like to be added):
@a-dorky-book-keeper @ishoutmarcoandyoushout @idesiretomhardy @theamuz @blinderscaps @peakywriting @justanothershelby @contemporary-mary @auroravipers @moonyscardigans @peakysxshelby @miss-shelby-barnes @vintage-fantasyyy @ly—canthrope @morgan-1830 @i-love-you-green @l0tsofpennies @exploringmycosmicsoul @maah-chan @peakyblindersengland
The journey to Birmingham was almost pleasant. The first class ticket his assistant had scored him came with whiskey and although he couldn’t smoke, the journey was so seamless that he was only craving a cigarette when he stepped into the fresh air of Birmingham new street.
It had always amazed him in the way it only could a local to Birmingham that he could get to between the London office and the place it had all began in a matter of hours. He remembered when he had to call a car to get to the London office when it just started up, when the trains were so shit that he had to rely on his own mileage to get there. But so much had changed since then. He had changed since then.
Tommy Shelby crawled into Small Heath four hours after he had reluctantly left his home in Mayfair, the staff he had in the midlands office a far cry from the suit wearing, polished people in Canary Wharf.
“Good afternoon Mr Shelby,” the receptionist spoke, smiling at him and looking toward the old knocked down wall which led to the rest of what they loosely called the Birmingham office.
The large room had once been three or four terrace houses but had long since been knocked through, a small platform allowed for John to stand by a massive touch screen where he was checking stock prices and the market which was much further from their legitimate business.
The business in the north was far different from the import and export business in the south, and far from legal.
Shelby Company Limited were the first company in history to produce software which allowed the significant players in import and export of illegal goods to check market price, and buy and sell illegal goods on a secure server which was entirely untraceable.
The software was a massive success, and had gained the Shelby name infamy with even the most brutal and violent drug cartels still operating in the 21st century.
“So what was so urgent that I had to get a train up here immediately?”
John stepped aside and showed him the spreadsheet he was working on, and pulled up the share prices for drugs so it sat next to it.
“By all accounts, the cocaine market is following the same pattern as it did 5 years ago”
John didn’t have to go into detail for Tommy to remember the influx of cocaine into the country via a rival London based company, and the price drop which followed due to supply heavily outweighing demand. It had been the main reason Tommy had set up the office in the south.
“Is it Kimber again? Because I swear to god—“
“Not Kimber. His company uses our software now and he called the support team thinking it was a fucking glitch in the system”
Tommy’s brow furrowed as he eyed the prices and the spreadsheet which showed the fluctuations John had been keeping track of since the incident so long ago.
“And uh.. that’s not all” John spoke, gesturing for Tommy to follow him into his office and he did, taking a seat in one of the plush leather chairs which sat on the other side of Johns desk while his younger brother poured them whiskey and placed the glasses in front of them. “As well as the share prices I’ve been keeping track of the weight of the product coming in and going out. It’s been declining steadily for the last week. Not by much, not even enough to alert me at the start but it’s going down an ounce each time.”
“So you’re telling me someone is skimming off the top?” And John nodded, sipping his whiskey as he unintentionally mirrored Tommy’s posture, leaning back in his chair with one ankle resting on the other knee.
Tommy let out a sigh, hating that there was yet another issue that he had to deal with. External problems like share prices and supply and demand came with the territory. Internal problems were not something he had patience for.
“Any theories who it is?”
“You mean except Michael?” The malice in Johns voice was matched only by his expression, his hate and disdain for his cousin clear in everything from his brow to his clenched fingers around his glass.
Tommy responded only by rolling his eyes, Michael’s drug problem being something he was fully aware of.
“Michael pays for what he takes. And he pays double. Any real theories?”
John remained quiet, sipping his whiskey and allowing his silence to speak for itself.
“Fantastic.” Tommy sighed, downing his whiskey in one gulp and plucking a cigarette from the case he had pulled from his inside pocket. “Do we at least know which office?”
“Oh it’s definitely up here. The coke is lighter way before it even touches county lines”
Tommy lets out a sigh with the exhale of his cigarette, smoke billowing from his nose as the prospect of someone stealing and the punishment they deserve runs through his mind.
“Alright. I’ll speak to the managers up here separately and let them know what’s going on, ask them to keep an eye. I don’t want either of us up here if there’s a supply/demand problem in case we get raided. These people will get away with saying they were following orders, but we’re the fucking captains.”
John nods, sipping his whiskey and glancing out of the window, his mind clearly trying to puzzle out who it could be as Tommy did the same.
--
Later that evening, Tommy slipped into a bar in new street to wait for an old friend. One that he couldn’t quite believe was even stepping foot in the city.
The room seemed to part for Alfie Solomons, the very air around him bending as he walked into a bar Tommy had picked for its proximity to Alfie’s hotel. The older man was one of the few he would make allowances for, and it had been so long that he would rather take a private car the half an hour into central Birmingham than make the effort to convince him to come to small heath and listen to him complain the whole time.
“Thomas” his booming London accent turned the heads that weren’t already staring at Tommy, and he couldn’t help the bemused smile which washed over his features as he shook his hand and settled to drink his whiskey.
“Alfie, it’s been a while,” he speaks, sipping at his glass knowing full well which comment is coming next.
“Yeah well you don’t get to London as much these days,” He catches the bartender's attention, a woman who eyes up Tommy when she comes over to take his order, her eyes only leaving his friend to make Alfie’s drink.
“You could always come here,” Tommy suggests, causing Alfie to snort. His disdain for the northern city clear in both his response and his body language.
“Mate, the only reason I’m in this shit city is cause of that fucking meeting, couldn’t get me here any other way,” he comments, Tommy giving him a hint of a smile behind his glass which only widens as he watches his friend attempt to hide a selfie of all things which had made its way to his lock screen.
“So, how’s the family then?” Alfie asks.
“Arthur got married,” Tommy tries and fails to keep his distaste for Linda from his voice, and Alfie smirks as he relishes in the hate which is so evident to someone who is also quick to anger.
“And I wasn’t invited? What’s she like?” He quips
“She’s good for Arthur,” is all Tommy says, the comments he could make about his brother’s new wife unsavoury at best.
It’s then that Alfie’s phone buzzes once again, and with a second glance at his lock screen Tommy can’t keep his comments to himself any longer.
“Who’s that then aye?” Tommy says, inclining his head towards Alfie’s phone. “Got yourself a girlfriend, have you?”
“Yeah mate, I have. She’s fucking brilliant she is,” Alfie says, rolling his eyes at the smirk that crosses his friend’s lips.
“You’re going soft Solomons.”
“Fuck off,” Alfie says, the smile which splits his face something that was a rarity, and the bashfulness something Tommy had never seen in him before. “She wrote that piece on me for The City Scoop.”
“I wondered why that interview was so flattering, fucked your interviewer did you?”
“Took her out to dinner first mate,” he says with a grin, making Tommy shake his head. “I’m telling you, it’s fucking nice having someone around who wil-“
“Suck your cock?”
“She is good at that mate. Nah I’m telling you, it’s nice having a woman around to keep me company,” he says, and Tommy rolls his eyes.
“Fuck, you have gone soft,” Tommy mutters, shaking his head.
“Maybe so. It ain’t that bad though. Maybe it’s time you find yourself a girl, might be good for you.”
Tommy rolls his eyes, downing the rest of his drink to avoid replying which only causes Alfie’s grin to spread wider his face lighting up.
“Or do you already have a girl Thomas?”
“I’ve been talking with a woman yes,” he offers, though doesn’t elaborate as he orders another drink.
“Talking aye? And where did you meet her?”
“Tinder,” Tommy mutters, fingers itching to reach into his pocket for a cigarette the no-smoking laws the only thing stopping him.
Alfie scoffs, shaking his head as he runs a hand through his beard while Tommy glares at him.
“What?”
“Fucking tinder? Can’t meet a girl the old-fashioned way, aye?”
Tommy clenches his jaw at the insinuation, choosing not to rise to the comment as his hand reaches into his pocket, fingers brushing against his cigarette case.
“Like having a magazine send a journalist to your work? That old way you mean?” He runs the cigarette along his bottom lip and glares at the bartender who moves to tell him that he can’t smoke indoors, piercing eyes daring anyone to test him.
Tommy’s phone lights up and he immediately turns it face down, “besides, easier isn’t it? Haven’t got time to be spending on women in bars or journalists I need to write a good profile about me because I punched someone without thinking.”
The smirk on Tommy’s face tells Alfie that he’s joking, but the bearded man takes a sip of his beer without a hint of amusement washing over his features.
“Never knew Tommy Shelby to be so desperate that he’d turn to fucking Tinder.“ Tommy scowls and takes a long drag on his cigarette
“And I never knew Alfie Solomons to be so soft that he’d have his girl as the fucking wallpaper on his phone.”
Alfie shakes his head, hours flying before he finished what could have been his third or sixth drink, his hand resting on Tommy’s shoulder as he stood.
“I’ll be off now then,” he says, before leaning in to speak directly in Tommy’s ear. “And by the way mate, I was thinking before I punched Sabini.”
Patting Tommy’s shoulder, he makes his way out of the pub turning back to look at his friend.
“Nice seeing you mate, give me a call next time you’re in London.”
What Tommy has failed to tell his friend was that if things went well, he saw himself spending a lot more time in the capital. He suspected his friend might have something to say about his admission that he would want to spend more time away from his hometown, and he had won the battle of who was more whipped. At least for now.
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