#and does not respond to ANYONE after dropping that bomb on them lol
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Soulmate AU: First Words + End of the World ; requested by @justwannabecat!
Duke has long since accepted that he doesn’t have great luck. Most things in his life tend to go wrong very quickly, or complicate situations he was already struggling in (see: being a meta and getting his powers in the middle of a fight). Having an incomprehensible soulmark is an unpleasant discovery on the morning of his nineteenth birthday, but not entirely unexpected.
He had been hoping for something simple, a common one like hi it’s nice to meet you or sorry, didn’t mean to bump into you.
What Duke gets instead isn’t even words.
Scrawled across his left hipbone is a string of symbols glowing a faint green. They’re not in a language he recognizes, and the symbols seem to move, shifting ever so slightly so they look different every time he blinks.
“Well,” he says after a solid five minutes of staring into the mirror, unable to rip his eyes off his soulmate’s words, “I hope theirs looks nicer than mine.”
He spends his birthday in a bit of a daze, enjoying time spent with the Waynes and his friends. It’s hard to be fully present when he’s all too aware of the soreness on his hipbone flaring up each time he moves. It’s hard to keep his mind off of it, wanting nothing more than to search for answers, unravel the mystery of his soulmate’s first words.
“Something on your mind?” Jason asks, as the attention shifts off of him for a brief moment as Harper and Cullen get ready to leave and everyone rushes to give their goodbyes,
Duke shrugs, carefully keeping his hands still so they don’t drift to where his soulmark is hidden beneath his clothes. “Yeah. Nothing you need to worry about, though.”
Jason looks him over critically, then nods.
Duke resigns himself to being investigated by the rest of the Bats. If he’s off enough that Jason had to comment on it, then that means everyone’s noticed and are trying to figure out what’s happened. They’re not going to ask him, because they think he needs space to work through whatever’s got him so distracted, but they’re also not going to just do nothing.
This won’t be the first time they’ve done this. Duke expects it. Frankly, it would be stranger and much more concerning if they didn’t try to dig up all his secrets the moment they caught wind of him hiding something.
He’ll tell them about getting his soulmark soon. Soulmarks can appear on any birthday between the ages of thirteen to twenty five; they might suspect he got his, but they won’t be able to confirm.
For now, Duke can keep his soulmate’s first words (whatever that gibberish means) to himself.
He makes the decision then and there, as his birthday party winds down, to tell them in a week.
And because his luck is abysmal, a world ending threat hits five days later and suddenly there is no time for soulmarks and first words.
Duke is the last to arrive at the Fortress of Solitude, hitching a ride from Superboy to get there. The biting cold and the harsh winds keep the place far from the reaches of the rest of humanity, surrounded by nothing but deadly white.
Desolate as the landscape is, it’s still in better shape than the rest of the world.
Things would be better if it was alien invaders. It would be more bearable if some sort of cosmic colossus tried to eat their solar system. At least then there would be something physical that they could fight.
Instead, the world is breaking apart, the sky and earth both fracturing to reveal glowing green faultlines. Timelines are getting mixed up and muddled; just yesterday, Duke had to evacuate a building that had been demolished forty years ago, then stop a gang leader who wouldn’t be born for another eight years from taking over a neighborhood block and holding the residents hostage. Strange creatures are appearing out of nowhere, crawling out of shadows and tide pools and from beneath the roots of trees, all horrible, monstrous things that go after people with teeth and claws.
The Flashes and the rest of the speedsters are nowhere to be found. The last time anyone get communication from them, it had been Impulse sending Red Robin a glitchy, barely audible video chat saying something along the lines of “trying to fix—unstable—keep us here—never been alive before.” All things that are very concerning to hear, made worse by the fact that no one had been able to contact them at all.
The quiet loneliness of the Fortress of Solitude is a welcome change from the constant screaming, death, and destruction that’s taken over Gotham as well as the rest of the world. Last he heard, even Justice League China was at the end of their rope.
“In here,” Superboy instructs, guiding Duke through the halls. There’s no time to look around at Superman’s secret base. All his focus is stuck on staying conscious for another few hours to see if this gathering of heroes is able to find a solution to the world breaking apart.
Batman stands besides Superman. Both nod at Duke when he enters the room. Wonder Woman is watching over John Constantine as he writes something on the floor, muttering under his breath. The rest of the Justice League lean against each other, visibly exhausted as they wait for Constantine to finish up what he’s doing. A few other heroes are here too, and Duke goes to join them where they lean against a wall, fighting to keep their eyes open.
“Hey,” he greets, voice low. “Hanging in there?”
Wonder Girl sighs. “Somehow. I don’t know how much longer we can do this. There’s just too much…”
“We’ll get through this. I mean, even without us out there, plenty of civilians have formed rescue and relief groups to help with keeping things under control,” Speedy says, gently knocking her arm against Wonder Girl’s. “We just gotta keep going. No giving up.”
“What’s this plan, anyways? I just heard that they needed me here to some attempt to fix things.”
“Well, without the speedsters, you’re kind of the only one who can help with time and power related stuff,” Speedy says.
“That’s definitely a stretch. My powers don’t really have anything to do with time. It’s all just light and shadow.”
Speedy shrugs. “Well, you’re here, aren’t you? Too late to complain about it now.”
Duke doesn’t get a chance to say anything else when a loud clap catches his attention. The entire room goes still and silent as Constantine stands up and surveys the circle and symbols he’s written, taking up an entire corner of the large room.
“Alright,” he says. “Time to get started. Remember, let me do the talking. If you have to speak, it’s only to back me up or when a question is directed to you.”
Batman nods to the other Justice Leaguers, and suddenly everyone is falling into formation behind Constantine. Duke hurries to join them with Wonder Girl and Speedy, taking a place on the edge of the group where he’s a little closer to the circle than the others.
Constantine begins chanting. His voice is steady though none of the sounds make any sense, refusing to form themselves into recognizable words, and the air the in the room feels heavier. The chalk circle glows a blinding white and Duke can see magic swirling through the air, his power kicking in the let him watch as reality tears and a glowing star in the shape of a boy comes out of it.
Duke blinks, forcing his power down. The hypnotic swirls of magic fade from sight, but the boy still glows, bright and terrible as he floats above the circle and surveys them all. A crown engulfed in blue flame hovers above his head and the fabric of the cosmos is draped over his shoulders as a cape.
Just from presence alone, Duke can tell that this figure is now the strongest existence in this universe. He hopes this boy king is kind; no one, not even Superman, would be able to beat him in a fight.
The boy king opens his mouth and speaks, but it’s not words than comes out. A strange static like sound emerges, but light and almost melodic.
His left hipbone burns.
Duke gasps, hand flying down to it, and the boy king’s gaze snaps to meet his.
The world stands still. No one moves. No one dares to breathe.
And then the boy king drops to the floor and walks out of the circle.
“I thought you said that would hold him!” Batman hisses at Constantine, who is looking more and more distressed.
“It was supposed to! I wrote it specifically to hold the King of the Infinite Realms!”
The boy king glances at Constantine. This time, when he speaks, it’s in smooth English. “Did you name the king in your circle?”
“Yeah, I named Pariah Dark… Bloody hell, you ain’t him, are ya?”
“No,” the boy king smiles, “I’m Phantom.”
The cape and crown fade away, and suddenly it’s not an all powerful, terrifying king standing before them, but a young man with white hair and green eyes who looks Duke’s age. Like he could be any other new generation hero in the room.
“Phantom,” Duke repeats lightly, just under his breath, but it makes Phantom look at him again.
He walks forward, ignoring the other heroes’ aborted attempts to stop him, coupled with Constantine’s frantic back off motion happening behind him. Phantom leaves the circle and the Justice Leaguers behind to stand before Duke, a soft smile on his face.
“Hi,” he says softly, “I dreamed of you.”
“You—what?”
“I dreamed of you. I have for years now. To think that being summoned was what made us meet—” Phantom breaks off into a breathless laugh.
Duke swallows, then drops his had from where it had been pressed against his hip. “So we’re really—? You have my first words too?”
In the corner of his eye, he sees Batman stiffen up. Maybe he should have just told them the day after his birthday, but in Duke’s defense, this is the definition of extenuation circumstances.
“First words?” Phantom repeats, “Is that… Do we have different soulmate connections?”
“I think so. Here, everyone gets the first words their soulmates say to them appearing somewhere on their body.”
Phantom’s gaze darts down to Duke’s hip, then back up. “Oh. I get dreams. Where I’m from, we dream of our soulmates, and the closer we get to meeting them, the more we remember the dreams.”
“And you dreamed of me.”
“I did.”
“As touching as this is,” Constantine interrupts, and Duke gets to watch as Phantom rolls his eyes, “We summoned you here for a reason. Our world is falling apart at the seams and we need someone powerful, from the Realms, to help us fix it.”
“Okay.”
“...What do you mean ‘okay’?”
“I’ll help,” Phantom says.
“Just like that? No deal to be made, no price to be paid?”
“Just like that. I’m not one for deals anyways. If I can help, then I will. But I do want to see what the problem is with my soulmate by my side, if you don’t mind.”
Batman steps in, fixing Duke with a steady gaze, a barely noticeable tilt of his head. “Signal?”
“Yeah I’ll go with him. Of course I will. The sooner the better, in fact, because everything’s gone to shit.” Duke turns to Phantom, taking hold of one of his hands. “It is really bad out there,” he warns, “If you need help—”
“I’ll ask for help from others in the Realms,” Phantom says. “No offense or anything, but if it’s really that bad, I doubt living mortals will be able to do much to fix things. It’s why I was summoned, right?”
“Right. Let’s get to it, then.”
There’s a flash of mischief in Phantom’s eyes, and cheeky grin stealing across his face for a moment, before he says, “Aye aye, captain!” and picks Duke up like he weighs nothing and flies up through the ceiling.
Duke is able to hear everyone’s surprised, panicked shouts before they’re outside the Fortress of Solitude and Phantom is flying them away. He only needs a few directions from Duke before he finds the first of the large fractures in the sky.
“Yikes,” is all he says, which is not a great thing to hear. “I think I know how to fix it, though. We’ll need to do a little investigating as to who, exactly, started messing around with reality, but once we find the source, it’ll be an easy fix.”
“That’s the best news I’ve heard all week.”
“Even better than meeting your soulmate?”
“I haven’t slept for more than four hours all week. Knowing there’s an end in sight beats everything else.”
Phantom laughs, throwing his head back and Duke can’t help but drink in the sight of him, so ethereal and bright and full of life. “Fair enough! Got any ideas as to where we should start?”
“I’ve got an entire crew of detective vigilantes,” Duke replies. He’s not taking any more chances. No more waiting to talk about important things; he messed up by keeping his soulmark to himself, so he needs to make sure everyone meets his soulmate before shit goes south again.
“Let’s go find them, then!”
They take off again, soaring through the skies that are barely holding themselves together.
The world is still ending, and every hero is being stretched thin, but held carefully in Phantom’s arms, racing head first into a solution, Duke can’t help but feel that everything’s going to be alright now.
He’s had enough bad luck. Now, his soulmate with him, bearing the title of King with grace, things are finally starting to look up.
#ghostlights#dc x dp#dp x dc#dpxdc#dcxdp#dc x dp fic#prompt fill#my writing#when its the end of the world but youre soulmate is here and ready to help fix it#meanwhile constantine had gone ON and ON about how dangerous summoning realms beings are#and all the precautions they have to take and how to be specific when making deals etc etc#it was supposed to be only the justice league but with the world ending they wanted their proteges and allies with them in case things#went wrong w the summoning. and with the rest of the bats helping out in gotham and around the east coast#signal gets to join batman. plus hes got his meta powers that could help in the worst case scenario#NO ONE predicated signal and the GHOST KING being SOULMATES#batman leaves for gotham immediately. updates the rest of the team w 'ghost king successfully summoned. he's signal's soulmate.'#and does not respond to ANYONE after dropping that bomb on them lol#they do all get to meet phantom when they join forces to find whatever doomsday cult caused all this#and the world gets saved!!#also. semi related to all this. the speedesters are gone bc time went wacky and they tried to fix things. but then the speedforce kinda#came to life and trapped them. so they have been lowkey eaten by the speedforce bc the speedforce is the true eldritch monstrosity here#anyways. thanks for the prompt!!#working on ur other two prompts now :)
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Hi! I'm a nobody just a fan of your takes and analysis for Arcane. They always have me thinking alot more intellectually about this piece of media. So I just wanted to ask you for opinion on a question. and I've had this one on my mind for a bit. In Episode 8 of Arcane when Jayce asks the two girls who made the bombs and Caitlyn hesitates, Vi is quick to respond that it was Jinx. Do you think that was her selling her out? We know that Vi refers to her as Powder when they're together so I wouldn't be surprised if Vi considers them a bit different despite being the same, but I was always under the impression that the situation would've gone differently if Vi didn't namedrop Jinx and rather frame her as a henchmen of Silco and not her own perpetrator. Also, do you think Vi and Jayce were right to want war with Silco? I honestly feel like nothing was solved for the welfare of Zaun with Jayce deciding Silco should be the one to lead it in independency. I mean he's no Reagan but there was a real "War on Drugs" effort here...
Vi absolutely sold Jinx out to the council, whether she intended to or not, and honestly I'm still lowkey mad about it lol. Like, everything else Vi does through the season I can pretty easily forgive, up to and including originally "abandoning" Powder (because of the overwhelming stress of the situation). But there's something about Vi throwing Jinx under the bus during the council scene that really rubs me the wrong way.
And again, just like with "abandoning" Powder, Vi dropping Jinx's name set off a catastrophic chain reaction, with Jayce demanding Silco turn Jinx in, Jinx thinking Silco was going to betray her, leading up to the entire clusterfuck of the teaparty and ultimately the council getting blown up.
But, looking at it as objectively as possible, I can sort of understand why Vi did what she did there. As you noted this scene is actually the only time Vi used Jinx's real new name, and I think that's because at this point Vi had made a serious emotional and mental distinction between "Powder" her sister, and "Jinx" Silco's terroristic hitperson, and I think that's because of the events that occurred on the bridge the night before.
In the previous episode, Jinx opened fire with her minigun and tried to kill Vi and Caitlyn. Now while I think that that was a psychosis-induced impulse that Jinx would have immediately regretted if she had actually hurt Vi (similar to when she killed Silco), Vi doesn't have the proper context to understand that. So after, when Vi leaves with Caitlyn (literally turning her back on Jinx) and lets Ekko fight Jinx (without even attempting to talk to her again), I think that indicates a definite shift that at least some part of Vi feels like her sister is a lost cause.
So during the council scene she puts all her cards on taking out Silco, and if "Powder" is going to be saved at all that can only be accomplished if Silco is gone (of course taking out Silco is primarily if not entirely about Vi satisfying own desire for vengeance, but I read her justifying that partly in terms of "saving Powder"). So if playing ball with the council so that they'll help take out Silco requires she sell out Jinx, then so be it.
Personally I think Vi and Jayce's decision to go to war with Silco was a terrible one and the narrative itself pretty much shows why with the resulting consquences. But also...just like any despot...you take him out and then what? Power vacuum and civil war, that's what (which I would guess is partly what season 2 is going to be about).
And also yeah the whole deal to make Zaun independent Jayce cut with Silco was also pretty bad (no hate toward Jayce though, I think he legitimately did his best in an extremely complex situation with a lot of moving parts for someone who had only been a politician for like a week) and I don't think would have really helped anyone except Silco (in that he would solidify his political power) and the council themselves in that they could wash their hands of the cesspool they helped create with no consequences (that is, until Jinx blew them up....whoops!).
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this is me, slipping into your asks from your friends blog! idk if you saw the request but i’d love a bokuto fic where his s/o is having a rough natural hair day, i am currently ... struggling lol. thank you angel!!!
𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐩 𝐦𝐞 𝐨𝐮𝐭
reading: black!fem!reader
genre: fluff
word count: 1.6k
request: this is me, slipping into your asks from your friends blog! idk if you saw the request but i’d love a bokuto fic where his s/o is having a rough natural hair day, i am currently ... struggling lol. thank you angel!!!
a/n: I’m am SOOOO sorry for the wait sis 😭 but I really do hope you enjoy
Another one. For the past two hours, you’ve managed to break three scrunchies and your rat tail comb. You groaned in huge frustration, trying to figure out why your hair isn’t working out for you. “What the fuck?! Work with me, DAMN!” You harshly combed out your hair and SNAP! You brought back down the wide tooth and saw the comb snapped in half. In fury, you threw the comb across the room.
“This thing acting like I won’t shave it off and call it a day.” You complained out loud while pulling on your hair and trying to figure out what to do.
“Babyyy! Y/N!” What a relief! Your handsome, six foot two, volleyball playing boyfriend came into your shared home, happy to be home with his beautiful girlfriend. Typically you would yell back hello if you were busy or come into his large body and give him a tight hug as he tells you how his day went and give you multiple forehead kisses.
But today you didn’t. You haven’t left your vanity and glued yourself to your seat as out loudly cursed your hair. Seeing that you didn’t welcome him home, he looked around the house to see where you were until he met a frustrated you pulling at your hair. Bokuto was actually used to your bad hair days so he knew how to approach you whenever your hair didn’t feel like cooperating.
He put his bag down next to the couch and quietly crept into your shared bedroom. Instead of greeting you with loudness, he wanted to comfort you and distract you from the thing that was stressing you the most. He walked behind you and snaked his arm around your waist, giving you a soft hug as he softly said, “Hello y/n, did you miss me?”
You got scared at his touch but calmed down at the hearing of his soft voice talking to you. You slightly turned to face your boyfriend and smiled at his golden eyes trying to calm you down. You took a breather from all the stress and answered, “Of course Kotaro, why wouldn’t I miss you? You’ve been gone all day.”
“You seemed frustrated when I came and you didn’t say hello.” He curved a slight downward smile, “You didn’t even give me a hello hug, you always give me a hello hug.”
You sighed and kissed his cheek to reassure him, “I’m fine babe, it’s just that my hair is not working with me at all.” Bokuto looked at your hair then back at you, mentally solving how he can fix your hair problem.
DING! Something hit him and grew happy at his idea. He smiled widely and asked you, “Y/N can I do your hair? Please please pleaseee. The way you style your hair is so pretty and I wanna try it myself.” The man kept begging you until you finally agreed, “Okay okay Bokuto, you can do my hair. But fuck it up and you’re sleeping on the couch for a week.”
“Don’t worry y/n, I got this.” Of course your boyfriend had confidence that he knew exactly what he was doing since he saw you do your hair literally almost every day. For date nights, games, work, any occasion, he would just sit on the bed and watch you work your ways on your hair until it becomes a masterpiece. Always leaving the white/black hair man in awe of what you can do with two hands. One of the great gifts of having a black girlfriend if he does say so himself.
You got off your chair and took a seat on the carpeted floor. While Bokuto went to go shower and put on a change of clothes cause he knows you don’t like having his sweat roaming the room. After, he took a seat at your vanity and looked at your hair supplies spreaded around. He thought about what style he should do on you, there’s so many to choose from and you would look good in all of them but which one?
You looked at him and saw a concerned look on him, you asked, “Something wrong Bo?”
“I don’t know what I wanna do, I mean what I can do to make my baby even prettier than she is now?” You lightly laughed at his compliment, and his thinking face that he had on.
Finally, a style came to mind, one that was simple yet he loved seeing you in it. Before starting, he collected all of the supplies that were needed and got to work on your hair. At first it was silence surrounding the two of you until Bokuto excitedly started talking about how practice went.
“Y/N you should’ve seen me at practice today! The way I was hitting those spikes was literal perfection, I barely missed any. Oh, we had this five-on-five game today and I got to be team captain.”
“It brought back old memories didn’t it?” You smiled at the memory of seeing Bokuto in his high school uniform, fulfilling his captain role, putting a smile on his team's faces for scoring, and being one of the greatest aces in Japan of course.
“Yup! Feels like old times when it would be Akaashi setting the ball for me and the great ace, that’s me, comes flying in, spiking it and getting another score. Now it’s Atsumu setting for me and Hinata cheering me on, I think Sakusa cheered for me too, don’t remember.”
“Last time I remember Sakusa cheered was when Hinata actually didn’t fuck up his quick attack with Atsumu.” You two laughed at the memory of Sakusa being somewhat excited at Hinata for not missing the ball or spiking it too late.
The conversation continued on about practice until Bokuto decided that it was your turn to speak. You spoke about it as Bokuto was all ears, listening to you, even though you were mostly cooped up in this house since it was your day off from work.
You stopped talking to take a peek at what your boyfriend was doing until he firmly pushed you back down on the carpet. He commented that you would ruin the process, he needs to focus, and that he wants you to wait until the end.
“But Bo-”
“Nope y/n, you have to wait.”
You furrowed your brows at him, “It’s my hair Kotaro, why can’t I see?”
“Trust the process y/n! Don’t you always do that with your hair?”
You let a ‘hmph’ and crossed your arms, “At least I get to see what I’m doing.”
Bokuto gave a wide smile to your grouchy face, “You’re gonna love it y/n, I promise.”
You peeped Bokuto grabbing rubber bands, giving you some ideas of what he could be up to. “And I’m holding you to that promise.”
To make time fly by, the two of you had random conversations that led into a whole nother topic than before. One minute you’re talking about getting new furniture then the next, you’re talking about the coral reef. At some point, you guys even had an odd conversation about weird habits that people do.
“Anddd done y/n.” Bokuto scooted back the chair and got up from it, giving you room to get up and take a look at your hair. Your eyes widened and your jaw dropped at the work your boyfriend did. You were honestly caught by surprise that your boyfriend could do something like that with your hair. Styling it a large puff with black and white rubber band style going across.
Meanwhile, Bokuto was chewing his lip and getting nervous, wondering whether or not you liked it. He knew how much you loved your hair and he wouldn’t wanna do anything to mess up your beautiful curls/coils. “Do- do you like it y/n?”
You turned around, seeing your face lit up washed away his nerves and giving him a breath of relief. You immediately jumped on him, which caught him by surprise and made him lean back, landing on the bed with you still on him. You responded,”I love it Kotaro! You did such an amazing job and this style is bomb as hell, where did you learn how to do that?”
“After that failed attempt at doing your hair, your great boyfriend, that’s me, went on Youtube to learn how to do different hairstyles with your hair. I really loved this style and I spent hours learning it, but I say it was worth it.”
You smiled at his answer, it made you giddy inside that your boyfriend takes time out of his day to learn how to do your hair. Your hair! One that was definitely different from his natural spiked up hair. This kind of dedication made you fall in love with him even more than before.
You gave him a large smile and kissed him, “It was definitely worth it Bokuto cause I fucking love it. Plus I think it’s cute that you tried to match with the black and white rubber bands.”
“I’m so happy you love it y/n.”
You kissed his cheek and said, “I’m even more happy that I have a boyfriend like you.”
“Besides, what if we have a kid y/n? I can’t leave it to you to do all the work. I wanna have little daddy-daughter dates and do her hair while I’m showing her volleyball videos.”
You laughed at him, “You’re gonna stuff our future daughter’s brain with volleyball and make them say ‘One touch’ instead of ‘mama’. But I think that’s so sweet of you Bokuto.” You hugged your boyfriend and he hugged you back even tighter, “That and I didn’t like seeing my baby frustrated.”
“Next time my hair doesn’t cooperate, I’ll just call you for help.”
“Call me Bokuto, the great hair superhero!” You two laughed at the superhero name and shared the moment of happiness and content surrounding the two of you. Honestly, you couldn’t ask for a better boyfriend besides Kotaro Bokuto himself.
omg I finally finished it, wow I’m proud of myself
I haven’t written in a superrrr long time but hopefully I can get back and write regularly
bye babes, drink your water, stay hydrated, and remember that you are the baddest bitch on the planet 🥰 no matter what ANYONE says
𝐏𝐬𝐚𝐥𝐦 𝟐𝟕:𝟏𝟒 💗
© 𝟤𝟢𝟤𝟣 𝗂𝗓𝗎𝗄𝗎𝗌𝖽𝖾𝗄𝗎. 𝖺𝗅𝗅 𝗋𝗂𝗀𝗁𝗍𝗌 𝗋𝖾𝗌𝖾𝗋𝗏𝖾𝖽
#bokuto x black!reader#bokuto x black reader#haikyuu x black!reader#haikyuu x black reader#kotaro bokuto#x black reader#black y/n
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ooo exciting !!! jungkook + romance/fluff + "kiss me" + e2l
Anonymous said: Can I request a fluffy jungkook fic with a touch of angst. Any AU you want and maybe a friends to lovers? Feel free to decline :)
Anonymous said: a fluffy “oh! you’re jealous” prompt with Jungkook pls? any au is fine☺️
Anonymous said: jungkook, prompt list 1 - #27: “Are you blushing?” :> i hope you have a lovely holiday season!!
Anonymous said: Friends to lovers!! Or enemies to lovers pls!! I love that shit
This is the most ambitious crossover of requests since Avengers lol jk.
↳ Suspended, Seduced, Surprised!
1.9k || 99.5% Fluff, 0.5% Angst || Jeon Jungkook || E2L, Huddle For Warmth!AU (sort of)
It started off with Jungkook coming out of nowhere and nearly scaring the living daylights out of you.
He laughed — that noisy sound that makes his nose scrunch — and you rolled your eyes, turning back around in the line. When the ski lift chair arrived, he asked if he could come too. You told him to kindly fuck off, but in the next second, he slid next to you, smiling widely.
It was too late for him to get off. Not when your feet was already lifted off the ground.
You don’t know why he’s so adamant about bothering you. If Taehyung didn’t tell you at the last minute that Jungkook was coming along, you would’ve just not come on this trip and ruin your winter break like this.
“Why didn’t you go with Sana?”
The ski lift is ascending upwards at an incline, moving past the coniferous trees and those skiing down the mountain beneath you. Luckily, it wasn’t too sunny or snowy out. But the air was still sharp with frost that’s long made your cheeks numb. Every exhale past your parted lips creates a cloud of condensation.
Jungkook’s thick brow lifts and he pushes his ski goggles up onto his head, on top of his blue beanie like yours. His doe eyes look at you. “Why would I go with her?”
You shoot him an incredulous expression. You don’t know why he’s playing dumb. “I thought you were trying to get cozy with her.”
The corner of Jungkook’s mouth slyly curls and he leans in. “Oh. You’re jealous.”
Instantly, your face contorts into a disgusted expression and a boyish laugh bubbles out of him.
“I would,” he says, “but she already has a boyfriend.”
“She does?”
Jungkook hums. “Some guy two years older than us, majoring in finance.”
Oh. You didn’t know that.
Suddenly it sinks in that you’re having an actual conversation with Jungkook. One where he’s being a cocky asshole only a tiny amount and you can actually bear through it. It almost feels like you’re….friends.
But right as the thought comes to mind, the ski lift chair halts and momentarily swings. You jolt, looking at the chair ahead of you that’s frozen as well before turning around. “What happened?”
“I don’t know.” Everyone is seemingly as confused as you are. “It looks like we’re stuck.”
You groan. “Oh shit.”
Five minutes later, Taehyung comes wandering underneath you. He stands by a tree on the sidelines and cups his gloved hands around his mouth. “Oh my god!” he screams at the top of his lungs. “I finally found you guys!”
“Taehyung!” You shout back at him. “What’s going on?!”
“Well, I was looking around for ages and Jimin wanted to give up since he thought you went down to the lodge and I told him no way—”
“Dude!” Jungkook shrieks and you wince at the sheer volume of his voice. “We get it!”
You remember why he grinds on your nerves so badly. Everything Jeon Jungkook does just irritates you. Including the fact that he was currently trying to burst your eardrums.
“Right! Sorry! They said it would be fixed in half an hour! Hang in there!” Taehyung fist pumps the air with a rectangular grin as if it’s enough to encourage the two of you and you sigh loudly.
“Whelp.” Jungkook settles back into his seat. “Looks like we won’t die.”
“Great.”
“Are you cold?”
You turn to the boy, surprised that he’s actually considerate enough to—
“We could always get naked, you know,” he adds, shattering the image of him that had curated in your mind for point two seconds and it flees as quickly as it came. “To converse heat.”
Your mouth opens, speechless. You shake your head. “Right when I thought you were being nice to me for once.”
Jungkook grins unabashedly. “I am being nice. Contrary to popular belief, I don’t flirt like this with anyone else and if you ask me, I think it’s working too.” The bastard leans in and you lean backwards to keep more distance. He bats his pretty lashes. “Are you blushing?”
You deadpan, “It’s literally negative thirty degrees out.”
He laughs again.
The both of you get comfortable, laying your ski poles across your laps, and looking out at the snowy mountain landscape that’s all too peaceful. Or at least until you feel a poke through your puffed jacket.
You look down to find Jungkook handing you a heat pack from his pocket. “It’s not much but it might help.”
“....Thanks.”
Strangely, the guy doesn’t brag about how kind he is or how much you should appreciate the gesture. He simply starts to hum to kill time. It’s soothing. Kind of nice to listen to even.
You enjoy it until he abruptly stops and asks— “Why do you hate me so much?”
You look at him. “Seriously?”
Jungkook smiles and it’s somehow reminiscent of a rabbit. “What? Nothing like confronting people when they’re trapped in a spot with nowhere to run, right? Plus, this is a good opportunity to be reflective, don’t you think?”
You scoff, not sure where to begin. But there’s no reason why you should spare him from the truth of why you grew to have such a strong distaste for him. If he wants to know, you’ll happily let him know.
“How about for never calling me back after you slept with me? Is that a good enough reason for you?”
Jungkook’s head whirls over. The bomb’s been dropped.
You feel his stare on your profile. It goes deathly quiet.
It’s the biggest resentment you held against him, what made his cocky attitude even uglier to you. Maybe you shouldn’t be so angry. It wasn’t like he vowed anything would happen afterwards. Maybe he thought it was supposed to be a no-strings attachment thing. But it wasn’t like that for you.
Jungkook acted interested when you first met. He sweet-talked you. He led you to believe there would be something more. And when there wasn’t— well, the rest is history.
You wonder if Jungkook’s shriveling up and cringing for asking in the first place or if he’s remotely ashamed. You hope he is. It serves him right. The audacity he has to talk to you casually after ghosting you so brutally like that is insulting. You wonder how he’ll respond, if he’ll regret bringing the subject up, if he’ll try to conjure some kind of half ass apology—
“Because you never gave me your number.”
This time, your neck snaps towards him. Jungkook’s gaze is unwavering.
“You’re the one who ditched me,” he says. “You were gone when I woke up.”
“I wrote you a note. On a napkin on the dresser.”
The man, in the blue snowboard jacket and black ski pants, frowns. “No, you didn’t.”
“Yes, I did. Do you think I would lie about this?”
“Then I never saw it.”
It’s easy for Jungkook to lie. One of his many talents is his pretty lips that has easy words rolling off his tongue like butter. But by his expression, the slight pout of his mouth, the furrow of his brows, you can tell he’s being genuine. There isn’t any facade, any flirtation.
“I would’ve remembered if I saw it cause that morning Taehyung woke me up and he never wakes up before me. But he was whining because of his allergies and needed me to run to the pharmacy—”
The pair of you go silent.
It dawns on you both.
Kim Taehyung.
Knowing Taehyung and his godforsaken allergies, he must’ve taken the napkin and sneezed right into it. He probably threw it in the trash or took it with him and crumpled it into his hand. God fucking dammit.
“It wasn’t my fault,” Jungkook murmurs, his eyes rounded at the realization.
You shift uncomfortably. The possibilities of what-if storm your mind. What if Jungkook saw it, what if he texted you or called you afterwards like he promised. What if you didn’t meet again on accident through Taehyung but continued the communication yourselves. Could he be sitting here next to you as someone more in your life?
But you brush the thoughts away as it overwhelms you.
“That’s funny,” you pipe up, mustering some stiff laughter, breaking the silence. “At least we solved one mystery.”
“Y/N.”
“It’s cold.” You wrap your arms around you. “We should stop talking and conserve heat.”
Jungkook nods and the pair of you quiet down. But without conversation, time drags on slower.
You peek a look at him and instead of being deep in thought like you thought he’d be, Jeon Jungkook is looking around, blinking with his doe eyes, the black strands from his bangs nearly pricking into them. He’s completely nonchalant and you internally sigh to yourself.
You’re not sure what you were expecting.
Jungkook is Jungkook.
That note on the dresser probably wouldn’t have changed anything.
“Y/N.” He speaks up a minute later.
“What?”
“You know how we could keep warm?”
“What.”
“Kiss me.”
You could not roll your eyes harder.
An enormous grin spreads into Jungkook’s cheeks, irises twinkling from the snow’s refraction. The little shit has too much fun annoying you and he jumps at the chance to continue to egg you on, “Why? Too scared to? Think you might fall in love with me now that we cleared the air and you don’t hate me anymore?”
He bats his lashes exaggeratedly.
You scoff. “Yeah right. As if.”
“Then why not?”
Your head spins around to face him, momentarily taken aback at how he’s a few inches away but you conceal your expression just as quick. You don’t know why he’s so insistent on this terrible joke. “Why? Do you want me to kiss you?”
Jeon Jungkook’s grin taunts you.
You loll your head to the side, eyes narrowing into slits. “You think I won’t do it.”
“I’m just trying to improve the mood.” He sits back and shrugs, having too much fun watching your explosive reactions. “It doesn’t matter what I say to you. You’re a dog with all bark but no bite, Y/N. I know you too well.”
Your jaw clenches at the challenge. At his mocking tone. At the bastard’s audacity.
And just to prove him wrong, you grab Jungkook’s face in your hands and turn him towards you. In one breath, you aggressively slam your mouth against his. It almost hurts. Your teeth nearly clash. But you barely feel anything with your numb lips except for how chapped his lips are.
It’s a brief kiss, but enough to prove yourself.
You pull away with a cocked brow and small smirk, relishing in his wholly stunned expression.
At that same moment, the ski lift jolts and starts to move again. Someone behind you cheers.
“You don’t know me at all, Jeon Jungkook,” you murmur softly, seductively and with the smirk still plastered on your features. The unloading zone approaches, so you move the safety bar, stand up from the ski lift chair and glide away.
Jungkook’s delayed, but follows after you helplessly a second later. You turn around while you still have the chance and he stares at you, blinking owlishly.
“If you want to make me blush or get jealous, you’re going to have to try a lot harder than you have been, Jeon. You should probably work on your kissing skills too. Staying like a dead fish isn’t appealing to me.”
You glide away on your skis before he can get another word in. In the meanwhile, a grin slowly spreads into Jungkook’s cheeks and he decides to accept your challenge.
#bts fanfic#bts scenario#jungkook fluff#jungkook fanfic#jungkook reader insert#jungkook scenario#bts fluff#bts reader insert#Anonymous#Jimlings
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Can I ask for 3rd Life Scott angst? Idm who with, thank you :)
cw: blood
i feel like this one is a little darker than usual but that may just be me lol
…
“Ow!” yelps Jimmy, pulling away from his friend.
“Hold still,” Scott chides, continuing to clean the jagged cut in Jimmy’s neck.
“It hurts!”
“Well then, you shouldn’t have tried to disarm a bomb by jumping on it!”
Jimmy sulks. “You’ve got no sympathy for me. I died twice in half an hour and all you’re doing is telling me where I went wrong.”
Scott gives a quiet sigh. “I’m sorry. I do have sympathy for you, but it’s hard to express it when both deaths were caused by your own stupidity. And the second time, you took two other people out with you.”
“This is just making me feel worse, Scott!” Jimmy snaps. “I don’t need you to remind me that I’m stupid, okay!”
“Jimmy, you’re not stupid.”
“You just said I was!”
“Well-.” Scott breaks off. “Okay, I kinda did. I’m sorry; I didn’t mean that. I just meant that sometimes, you don’t think before you act. There’s a reason I didn’t do Tango’s death game, you know.”
“Yeah, yeah,” mutters Jimmy. “Whatever.”
Scott takes this as his cue to shut up and get on with his task.
Just as he’s patching up Jimmy’s last wound, they both hear a voice from above: “Hello there!”
“It’s Scar,” Jimmy whispers. “Pretend we’re not here.”
“I know you’re there,” comes Scar’s voice.
“Darn.”
Scott gets up and heads outside Jimmy’s house to find Scar and Grian standing on the hill above them, in the middle ground between the valley and the highest point.
“Great,” he mutters. “What do THEY want.”
Jimmy comes up behind him. “I only just turned red a few minutes ago. Surely they don’t want to finish the job… right?”
“Well, only one way to find out.”
Scott and Jimmy go up the hill and meet Scar and Grian near the edge that overlooks the river. “What can we do for you?” asks Scott warily.
Scar ignores him and goes straight to his companion. “Jimmy! I’m sorry to hear about your unfortunate death, and so soon after your first one. How are you doing?”
Jimmy shoots a panicked look at Scott, who shrugs back. “Um… it’s been a rough day, but… I think I’ll be okay.”
“That’s not what I meant,” says Scar. “I meant how’s the bloodlust?”
“Wait, what?”
“The feralness stirring inside you, the desire to go after people and kill them, the lust for blood. You’re not feeling it?”
Jimmy slowly shakes his head.
Scar frowns. “Huh. It usually kicks in pretty quick.”
“I don’t want to hurt or kill anyone,” Jimmy says nervously. “I just want to carry on with my life.”
“Oh! Maybe it’s not kicking in properly because you went from green to red so quickly. We might need to give it a bit of a kickstart.”
Jimmy frantically shakes his head. “Nononononono, I don’t want you to. I don’t want you to! I don’t want to be bloodthirsty like you!”
Scar ignores him and turns to Grian. “What’s the best way to activate the red life bloodlust?”
“Well… the easiest way would be to actually spill blood, I guess,” Grian replies reluctantly.
“That’s a good idea.”
Scar turns to face Jimmy, who fearfully resumes shaking his head. “No, no, no! Please!”
“I can’t hurt YOU, Jimmy, don’t worry.”
Jimmy relaxes slightly, until he realises what that means instead.
Scar turns to Scott, who has been watching this in silence. As he walks slowly towards him, Scott realises what’s about to happen and backs away, but quickly bumps into the cliff face behind him. He reaches for his sword, but Grian appears on his other side and snatches it from him.
Left with nothing, Scott is unable to defend himself as Scar grabs his wrist and forcibly stretches his arm out.
“No, leave him alone!” Jimmy yells desperately. “Scott!”
“Get off me!” Scott snarls, struggling to pull his wrist out of Scar’s grip.
In response, Scar lifts his sword and slices a deep cut diagonally across Scott’s forearm.
Scott and Jimmy both scream in unison as blood gushes from his wound. Scar releases Scott, who automatically drops to his knees and clamps his hand over the wound to try and stem the blood flow, but the injury is larger than the area his hand can cover. He hangs his head, trying to hide the tears leaking from his eyes at the horrific stinging pain.
Scar turns to Jimmy, who is staring at Scott with both hands clamped over his mouth in shock. “Do you feel it, Jimmy? The sight and smell of blood. Has it awakened something in you? It has, hasn’t it?”
Jimmy’s eyes flash red. Scar’s words ring true; something HAS awakened in him. Something has snapped. Red hot anger is starting to surge through him, threatening to explode outwards at any moment.”
“Let it out, Jimmy,” urges Scar. “Let it out.”
So Jimmy does.
But instead of targeting Scott like Scar expected, Jimmy charges straight at Scar and knocks him to the ground, his hands flying to Scar’s neck.
Before he can do any damage, however, Scar quickly regains his senses and wrenches Jimmy’s hands off his throat. The two grapple on the ground for half a minute or so, before Scar finally manages to shove Jimmy off him and scramble to his feet.
Jimmy immediately attacks him, raining blow after blow on him. Scar lifts his shield but the pure fury behind the red lifer’s strength breaks it within seconds.
As Scar twists round to start attempting to flee, Jimmy charges at him again and knocks both of them off the edge of the cliff.
They both roll down the side of the cliff for at least ten seconds before they finally hit the river at the bottom. Jimmy grabs hold of Scar under the water and tries to hold him down but Scar manages to get free and escape the river, leaving Jimmy to drag himself out on the other bank.
Battered and bruised from his fall, Jimmy determinedly climbs back up the hill, passing Grian running in the other direction on his way, and finds Scott still bent over, clutching his arm. A worrying amount of blood has pooled on the grass under him.
“Scott!” Jimmy calls, stumbling over to his friend.
Scott looks up as he approaches, his face pale. “J-Jimmy? Are you g-gonna kill me?”
“What?! No! W-We gotta get you back to your house, Scott.”
“No,” Scott responds shakily, through gasping breaths. “Go get the first aid k-kit. Quick.”
Jimmy immediately dashes back to his house, almost falling over several times in the process, and retrieves the first aid kit. He brings it back to the mountain, where Scott has managed to move himself away from the patch of drying blood, sitting propped up against the cliff face.
Kneeling down beside Scott, Jimmy takes out an antiseptic wipe and starts cleaning up the wound. Scott hisses with pain as it stings his skin, tensing his whole arm.
“Hold still, Scott,” Jimmy says teasingly.
Scott lets out a quiet chuckle. “How the tables have turned. As I recall, I was the one patching you up less than fifteen minutes ago.”
“Yup, you were.”
As Jimmy works, Scott clears his throat. “So, um… That was a thing that happened…”
“Yeah.” Jimmy takes a deep breath. “Scar tried to get me to turn against you by activating my… my red life bloodlust, I think he called it.”
“It really backfired on him,” remarks Scott. “I reckon he’ll think twice before trying to mess with you again.”
“And you,” Jimmy says, starting to wind a bandage around Scott’s forearm. “I hope he knows now that if he tries to hurt you again, he’ll get another butt-kicking.”
Scott nods approvingly. “You really did kick his butt. Honestly, Jimmy, I’m really proud of you. I think it’s fair to say you’ve never been the strongest fighter but I was really impressed by the way you handled yourself. I’ve never seen someone’s demeanor change quite as fast as Scar’s changed from smug as hell to absolutely terrified in about half a second.”
Unable to hold back a proud smile, Jimmy finishes bandaging Scott’s arm and sits back on his heels. “There we go. That should be good.”
Scott inspects his friend’s work. “Wow, this does look good. Thanks, Jimmy.”
“No problem.”
As Jimmy helps Scott up, the latter grips his arms for support, sudden dizziness overcoming him. “Oh boy…”
“Looks like you lost a lot of blood,” says Jimmy worriedly, steadying his friend. “You should rest and get your strength back. Come on, I’ll help you back to the base.”
“Wait.” Scott takes a deep breath, fighting against nausea. “Before I become delirious, I need to say something, so you know I mean it. Thank you for saving me, Jimmy. And just for being my friend. I get that I’m not the easiest person to live with, but I just need you to know I really appreciate you.”
Jimmy blinks back sudden tears. “Oh, Scott… That means a lot. Thank you. But you probably are getting delirious so let’s get you back home, okay?”
Scott gives a quiet chuckle. He’s never felt safer than he feels with Jimmy right now.
“Okay.”
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Bombing
Request : Hi I was wondering if I can request a hotch fic So I’m still on season 4 ep 6 I’m beginning lol but I thought about that one episode is season 3 with bombing in the car ??? But it happen to Y/N instead of hotch
I had fun writing this one, thank you for the request and I hope you like it ❤️❤️
As you and your squad were splitting up in the face of a possible terrorist attack your boss Hotch caught your arm as you passed him.
“Y/N, can you go with Agent Joyner, I have something else I need to handle.” You nodded your head.
“Of course,” Before shifting gears and going after the agent in question. You caught up to her side at the elevator, “Hotch asked me to go with you, he said he had something he needed to deal with,” You explained and Kate nodded.
----
You were on the street, walking towards the parked black SUV, Joyner was in front of you, talking about the possible location of the next attack. You looked up at her as your fingers flew over your phone, sending a text to Garcia. Joyner said your name and you looked up to respond and suddenly she was falling away from you, or maybe you were flying backward. You hit the ground with a dull thud and everything went black.
----
Garcia watched her phone as the bubble next to your name continued to signal you were typing. It continued, yet no messages were going through.
“There was an explosion,” the detective Garcia was working with informed her panicked, “A black SUV,” Garcia’s stomach dropped.
“Where!!! Pull it up!!” She practically shrieked, watching as your bubble continued, still no messages. She hit the phone symbol next to your name and held her phone to her ear. “Please pick up please pick up please pick up.” Nothing. Garcia dialed Hotch’s number next. If you were hurt he needed to know. She listened to it ring once before Hotch answered.
“Garcia?”
“A Black SVU blew up, Y/N isn’t answering her phone, we’re trying to pull the footage up now but it’s all over the news, oh my god Hotch, Y/N-” Hotch cut her off.
“Garcia. Find the video, send me the location now.”
“Yes sir,” with that he hung up, pulling a hard U-turn and flipping his lights on before peeling off back in the direction he left you, his heart in his throat. He did this to you, he asked you to go with Joyner. Hotch cursed out loud to himself and slammed an open hand onto his steering wheel. You had to be okay.
----
When you opened your eyes the world was spinning and everything was blurry. You felt like you were underwater and you briefly wondered to yourself ‘am I drowning?’. The ringing in your ear made your head hurt but you still managed to bring yourself to a sitting position, looking around. In front of you the SUV you had been walking towards was up in flames. You pressed a hand to your face and it came away bloody. You struggled to your feet staggering slightly, the only thing you could hear was that insistent ringing, and all you could see was the fire.
“Joyner.” You whispered to yourself, going towards the car, someone grabbed you, and you jerked yourself away. You hadn’t even noticed them approaching. They were saying something to you and you shook your head. “There is an FBI agent in there!” The ringing was either dulling or your brain was getting used to it but some of the fog was lifting and turning into panic. The fire must have reached the gas tank before there was an eruption of fire from the car that almost knocked you back.
“Y/N!” The voice came from your right, not the car being incinerated in front of you. Your head snapped and you saw the other agent laying on the cement some feet away. You rushed to her, falling to your knees in front of her.
“Kate, you’re okay, you’re okay.” You assured her but you didn’t… you weren’t sure.
“Y/N,” She repeated grasping you with a weak hand. You turned to the young man who was hovering beside you with wide eyes.
“Please call 911, tell them an FBI agent has been hurt.” He nodded and took a few steps away to dial his phone and make the call, you went back to Joyner. “I need to get my hand under you, I need to stop your bleeding, okay?”
----
Garcia replayed the video again and again watching your body hurdle through the air and land on the ground. She watched as you got up after a minute, staggering towards the car and then off-screen. You were alive.
----
Garcia sent Hotch the exact address of the explosion, and then a follow-up text confirming it was you and agent Joyner who were hurt, but you were alive. That only made Hotch feel a small margin better.
He made it to the scene in record time, getting out of the car and rushing forward towards the barricades that have been set up. Far down the street he could make out two figures and a mass laying on the ground. He kept pushing forward even more determined.
“Hotch!” He was intercepted by Morgan, who grabbed him by the shoulders, “You can’t go down there, remember? The first responders are the target.”
“I’m not a first responder,” He practically growled, “It’ll be a waste of a bomb.” He pulled away from Morgan pushing forward again. Someone else tried to stop him but he snapped “I am SSA Aaron Hotchner and that is /my/ agent down there.” The man looked at him for a moment before stepping aside and letting him past.
----
“Help!” You screamed, throat sore. Everything was sore, you could faintly hear your heart pounding a steady bass to the high pitched ringing that was still rocking your head. “Please!! We need help! I have an FBI agent down! Please!” You begged, holding your hand as tightly as you could to Joyner’s wound. Finally, a figure broke through the barrier and came towards you in a sprint. As the person got closer you recognized your boss running towards you and for the first time you felt a tiny bit of relief.
“Hotch,” You choked out as he reached you. He dropped down beside you, eyes blown wide in panic.
“Are you hurt, y/n?” He asked eyes scanning your face and then down your body looking for any injury. You shook your head, it didn’t matter right now.
“She’s bleeding bad,” You whispered and Hotch looked like he wanted to keep checking on you, but you both knew that you could wait. She couldn’t.
“Yes, okay we need to move her,” Hotch moved so his hands were under her arms, he looked at the young man who had been helping you, “Can you try and lift her legs? Y/N, try and maintain pressure on the wound. Kate, Kate.” He got her attention, “You’re going to be alright.” The men lifted her and you attempted to keep pressure but it was too much, blood seeped through your fingers at an alarming speed.
“Stop! Stop!” Everyone stopped, “It’s not going to work.” You stared up at Hotch, eyes wide with fear.
----
Hotch looked down at you. You were bloody and bruised, lip busted open and eyes red either from pain or from crying or possibly both. You were scared he could see it clear as day in your eyes, but the problem was he was too and the usually stoic man was having trouble hiding it.
Hotch knelt down again grabbing your arms and making you look at him full on.
“Y/N, It’s going to be okay.” He did his best to state it, without question in his inflection. You nodded slightly but you didn’t seem convinced. He wanted to take you in his arms and protect you, “This is my fault.” He didn’t mean to say it out loud but suddenly it was there, you looked shocked so he finished, “I asked you to go with Joyner. I sent you.” You shook your head and Hotch watched your eyes well with tears before you blinked them away.
“No,” Your voice was firm but your eyes were soft. “Don’t do that, Aaron, don’t do that to yourself. It could have been any car. Anyone.” He wished he could believe that but he didn’t argue. He wished it was him. His phone vibrated in his pocket and he grabbed it quickly answering.
“Hello?”
“Hotch,” It was Garcia, she sounded worried.
“What?”
“It’s him! The guy who was helping, he put the bomb there, and then he watched it blow up!” Hotch’s body completely stiffened. You had been alone with him this entire time. His blood boiled.
“You’re sure?” He asked.
“Yes.”
“Thank you, Garcia.”
“Yes, sir.” He hung up and put his phone away slowly, looking over your shoulder at the man who had helped you. He had taken a few steps away but he watched as Hotch looked at him.
“It’s him,” Hotch said.
“What?” Your head swiveled and just like that the man was off and Hotch was on his feet running after him.
----
Morgan watched as the figure he knew as the good samaritan ran and the figure he knew as Hotch got up and chased after him.
“They’re running,” The cop beside him pointed out and Morgan cursed.
“I’m going down there.”
“No- you said we can’t!” Morgan didn’t listen, he took off at a jog down the street towards where you were still hovering over agent Joyner.
“Does anyone in the FBI listen?” The cop yelled after him but it didn’t matter.
----
You watched as Morgan ran up to you, hands still on Joyner’s open back wound. She was starting to slip and if you didn’t do something very soon she was going to die.
“What’s going on?” Morgan asked.
“He was the bomber,” You told him, “We need to do something, now.”
“Am I going to die?” Kate asked from below you, “It’s okay, I just want to know.” You shook your head pressing harder.
“I’ve got you, Kate.” You promised her. Just then, an ambulance came from the opposite direction of the barricade and you almost sobbed with relief. It pulled up to you and someone jumped out.
“I couldn’t sit and watch any longer,” That was all you needed.
“She’s lost a lot of blood,” You moved away so the EMT could take over, Morgan helped him get her onto a bed and into the ambulance.
“You stay with her, I’ll drive,” Morgan ordered before turning to you.
“Go to the barricade, there are EMTs there, go.”
“I’m coming,” Morgan shook his head already getting into the front of the ambulance.
“Y/N, go.” And with that he was off and you and the ringing in your ears were the only things left on the street. You turned as if in slow motion as the adrenaline that had been coursing through you began to dissipate. You began to walk in the direction of the lights and people standing at the other end of the street.
----
The first thing you noticed was that your ears were still ringing, then the headache really set in. You cracked an eye open and groaned at the light.
“You’re awake,”
“Close the curtain.” There was movement and then the light was cut in half. It was enough for you to get your eyes open. Hotch was sitting at the edge of the seat beside the hospital bed you were in. You touched your head and felt the bandages over your ears.
“Concussion,” He told you, “And a ruptured eardrum.” You sat yourself up slightly in bed even though most of your muscles were still screaming.
“Joyner?” You asked. Hotch’s face told you all you needed to know and you fell back into the bed again, eyes to the ceiling.
“Y/N,” His voice was gentle, but you didn’t want to hear whatever wise words he had to offer you. “You did everything you could.” He assured, reaching his hand out hesitantly to grab yours. You looked down at it, and it didn’t seem real. Your hand looked paler, bruised where the IV was. But his hand was so warm around yours, comforting. You squeezed his hand hard, letting a few tears drop onto the cheap hospital blanket.
“I could have lost you.” He whispered, you almost didn’t hear him. “I don’t know what I would have done. You could have been blown backward and cracked your head open. I keep watching that video. You don’t move for almost a minute, 57 seconds. I counted.” His words were coming out in a rush. You were shocked by the confession but you let him continue uninterrupted. “I memorized every second I thought you were dead,” were his eyes wet? His hand tightened around yours, “I never want to feel like that again.”
“Aaron,” You whispered and he looked at you with a sad smile.
“You could have died without me ever getting the chance to tell you I love you.” This was the second hardest impact you had experienced in the last 48 hours.
“What?” Aaron brought the hand he was holding to his lips and kissed it with closed eyes.
“ I love you, it took me a long time to admit it to myself, and even longer to admit it to you, but I love you Y/N and it’s alright if you don’t feel the same. But I needed you to know.” You smiled. It was your turn to pull his hand to your chapped lips, kissing the back of it.
“I love you too, Aaron.”
#criminal minds#criminal minds x reader#criminal minds request#criminal minds one shot#aaron hotchner#aaron hotchner x reader#hotch#hotch x reader#hotch request#hotchner x reader#aaron hotchner imagine
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First off, I love your writing so, so much! Secondly can I get some headcanons about La Squadra dating a milf/single mother, and if they interact with the kid? Just something light hearted and fun along those lines, if you answer this then thank you so much ^^
Umm.. first off thank you for your ask. Fair warning, I really liked this request so I kind of went HAM and the post is really long so bare with me lol.
Risotto Nero
Risotto is torn. His s/o is the best thing to ever happen to him. But his line of work and general lifestyle isn’t conducive to a child. He wouldn’t want the kid to get attached to him and then he’d be dead the next day.
After a bit of convincing, and realizing that his s/o’s love is worth it, Risotto agrees to meet the child and his s/o invites him for a meal so he can meet them.
He’s extremely nervous that he’s going to scare them off, given his height and eyes.
When the day finally comes, and he’s outside their door, knocking, his s/o calls out to their kid that their ‘special guest’ is here and asks them to open the door.
When the toddler reaches up and opens the door to see Risotto’s knees, their eyes go up… and up… and up, until they finally make eye contact with him, letting out a shy, awestruck “woah” at the man’s height.
The kid becomes obsessed with Risotto after meeting him. They love it when he hoists them up on his shoulders so they can see over everyone.
One of their favorite things to do is wear Risotto’s bell cap and run around the house scaring the cat. Risotto thinks it’s the cutest thing on Earth.
They love sitting in his lap and having his big arms around him. It makes them feel safer than they’d ever felt before.
The two of them get into their fair share of mischief together. Notably, Risotto used Metallica on him and the kid, and the two of them snuck backstage when a nearby circus company came near Naples. However, Risotto got distracted by the toddler running off and accidentally scared one of the elephants.
Over time, Risotto slowly but surely sees this kid as his own, with the little toddler warming up to him as their dad as well.
They become his source of light and good in the world, and he becomes their big friendly giant that can protect them from anything.
One afternoon, the two of them are playing in s/o’s backyard when the kid gets a cut on their knee. After using Metallica to ease the pain and stop the bleeding, while he’s putting a bandage on it, the kid mutters a soft, “Thanks daddy.”
The next day, Risotto is still gushing with happiness at an important meeting, and the rest of the squad doesn’t know why.
Prosciutto
When he first finds out, he’s terrified.
In his own way, Prosciutto’s scared of commitment, because in a long term relationship eventually he’d have to break down his tough-guy exterior.
And a kid? That’s about as high of a commitment as it gets.
When his s/o arrives at the park with her child in tow to meet Prosciutto so they can all spend the day together, he’s nervously fidgeting, making sure he’s presentable.
At first, Prosciutto finds it awkward to talk to them. Prosciutto spent his own childhood taking care of other neighborhood kids, but he hasn’t interacted with a kid in years.
However, the kid sees the suave way that Prosciutto talks with their mother, and the way he carries himself, and how happy their mom is near him, and they immediately take a liking to the mafioso.
Prosciutto and the child have a much more idol and follower relationship, as opposed to father and daughter/son
They want to be exactly like him. They want to dress like him, act like him. Do what he does. Say what he says.
And Prosciutto loves showing them his way of life. How to be a leader, how to be proud of one’s self. His s/o is part of Passione as well, so he doesn’t need to hide that part of his profession from the kid. But he does hide that he’s part of La Squadra.
He also stops smoking. This kid is making him a better man. They remind him of how he looked up to his own father on how to be perfect.
He even bought them a mini P pendant for them to wear and they never take it off.
Since the kid is a little older when Prosciutto meets them, he gives them advice constantly, and they absorb it like a sponge.
One time, they came home and asked Prosciutto about how to deal with a crush they had on one of their classmates.
The next day at school, the kid wears fancy, incredibly cool looking clothes that no one had ever even seen them in before. Turns out it was an outfit they had bought with Prosciutto the day before.
Their crush becomes smitten when their classmate even looks at them and says the lines that their stepdad had said to say. Prosciutto’s plan worked to get their attention.
Formaggio
Formaggio is the member of La Squadra that is least in favor of their s/o being a mom. He even tells her how apprehensive he is about the idea of being any sort of father figure. He even considers leaving her.
His s/o understands (it’s quite the bomb to drop), but she still wants him to meet the child. A smile comes to her face, she thinks they’ll get along just fun.
It turns out that her child is quite the little trouble maker, quite similar to the mafioso.
Formaggio has his doubts when he first meets the kid while the three of them are having dinner together at a restaurant, but those doubts are soon forgotten when the kid starts reaching over and steals another kid’s crayons at a different table when they aren’t looking.
s/o keeps scolding them and apologizing to the family at the nearby table but both the kid and Formaggio share a chuckle when they make eye contact.
The two of them love annoying s/o together. They’ll make gross noises out in public just to make each other laugh. If she asks either of them a question, they both just respond with another until the three of them are talking in a circle and s/o gets annoyed.
If the kid knows about stands, Formaggio will shrink them both down so they can sneak up behind the kid’s mom and scare her constantly.
Formaggio begins to love the little kid as his own. Whenever his s/o is working and he doesn’t have a mission, he’ll take the kid to the park and they’ll play soccer together.
They love Formaggio’s cat since their mom is allergic and won’t let them have one of their own, so Formaggio usually takes the kid back to his place so they can play with it.
After a while, the two of them have a real father and daughter/son relationship. Being so young, the child can’t remember their real father that well, but they do remember the nights their mom spent crying when he left them.
But when they look up into Formaggio’s face when the two of them are sitting together on the couch watching cartoons, they can’t help but smile and feel loved. They don’t think Formaggio will leave them and their mom.
Formaggio reaches down to ruffle their hair and blow into their ear teasingly. He doesn’t want to leave them either.
Illuso
Illuso already knew that his s/o had a kid. He would never admit it to anyone, but when relationships get serious, he’ll spy on his lover a bit through the mirrors. Much to his surprise, he saw that she has a child. Freaking out, he immediately heads back to the hideout and wonders what to do.
When his s/o finally tells him herself, Illuso would have had a lot of time to think of the situation. He decides that his s/o’s love is worth the effort of caring for a kid, and he keeps an open mind when he goes to meet the child.
It turns out that the curiosity that drew Illuso to his s/o was inherited by her child. The moment that s/o introduced the two of them, the kid starts asking a million questions.
“Do you like my mom?” “Yeah, of course, I do.”
“...Why’s your hair so long?” “I like it that way.”
“Why does your jacket look like that ghostbusters monster?” “The Pillsbury Dough Boy???” “Yeah.”
The two of them develop a bond of mutual interest in one another. Neither is really ready to say the other is their father or child, but each of them vows to “figure the other out”
One main thing that’s holding the kid back from accepting Illuso is their memories of their birth father.
Being a little older, they still recall the cool tricks that their dad would do to impress them and their friends. Without the kid knowing it, the previous father was a stand user.
When Illuso learns of this from his s/o, Illuso makes it a mission to impress the kid in the same way. He comes up to them and asks if they want to go with him on a day trip to Milan. The kid looks at him confused, as Milan is about a 7 hour drive from Naples, and hesitantly say sure.
The two of them turn to the full-length mirror in the kid's bedroom and within just 5 minutes, the two of them pop out a car’s side window into the city of Milan. Illuso had used his stand to hop from mirror to mirror at lightning speed.
The kid can hardly believe what just happened, and look up at Illuso, who’s giving them his signature grin.
“How’d you do that?!” “Not telling.” “Come on! Tell me!” “You’ll find out eventually.”
Pesci
When he first finds out, he freaks out more than he’s ever freaked out before. He was already nervous that he’ll ruin his relationship with s/o, but a kid??? That just makes his anxiety worse!
His s/o assures him that since she’s still so young herself, the kid isn’t even two years old yet, so Pesci doesn’t really need to make an impression so much as just be there for her and her kid.
That calms Pesci down immensely, he doesn’t know how he would react if the child was a rambunctious toddler. He agrees to meet them, still nervous.
The night before, he asks Prosciutto for advice, who simply tells him to listen to his s/o’s words on how to take care of the little one, and that he’ll know immediately whether or not the baby likes him.
When he arrives at his s/o’s apartment, and she places the sleeping child in Pesci’s lap for the first time, the little one wakes up and looks up the new guest.
Pesci holds in his breath, too nervous to exhale. Those nerves are quickly forgotten when the baby reaches up to grab some of Pesci’s hair, happily squealing the word “green” and then starts giggling in the mafioso’s arms. His s/o smiles at the sight, meanwhile Pesci’s face is bright red. That was the cutest thing he’d ever experienced.
Pesci’s s/o had joined Passione to make enough money to support herself and her child after her family had kicked her out for getting pregnant, leading to Pesci quickly taking up the mantle and becoming the support for the young mom and her baby.
He falls in love with the baby, even buying them a cute little pajama set that has different colored fish all over it.
After some time of Pesci taking care of his s/o and now their kid together, the rest of La Squadra begin to notice a change in their comrade. He holds himself higher, has a brighter gleam in his eye. Has a strengthened resolve. He opts to go on missions by himself without Prosciutto.
When Risotto asks him what’s happened, the young man smiles.
“I’ve got people to watch over now. I can’t disappoint them.”
Ghiaccio
Ghiaccio, having no awareness of other people’s emotions, immediately starts panic yelling at his s/o when she first tells him she has a kid. When he asks why she hadn’t told him sooner, she simply said she didn’t want to ruin anything between them.
She understands if he wants to leave her, but in reality Ghiaccio is unsure of what to do. He asks Melone what to do, to which his friend excitedly (almost too excitedly) encourages him to meet the child without delay.
What’s holding him back is his anger. He doesn’t want to scare away the kid or get angry with them. Then he’d surely not forgive himself, and lose his s/o’s love in the process.
Little did he know that s/o’s kid was more than capable of taking a little anger their way. Turns out that they had inherited their mom’s snappiness, and was ready to meet Ghiaccio so they could start tearing him apart.
S/o, upon realizing that both her kid and her boyfriend have the shortest tempers known to man, prepares herself to play referee.
When the two of them finally meet, Ghiaccio tries his best to not burst at the toddler, when they just look him up and down and stay silent for a while without any reaction to him.
This pisses him off and after minutes of just bored, blank stares from the kid, he impatiently asks, “well… what do you think? Do you like me or not?”, causing his s/o to groan at such a straightforward question.
The kid mentally pats themselves on the back for getting the poor man right where they want him and just shrugs, giving Ghiaccio a bored, “meh”.
This sets Ghiaccio off big time, and the two of them get into a match of sarcastic teases and insults, which s/o immediately breaks up. After though, Ghiaccio turns to the kid, who flashes him a big smile, and Ghiaccio can’t help but respect them for their temper.
At the very least, though Ghiaccio isn’t quick to call this kid his, he is willing to spend time with them, mainly because he finds their sarcasm entertaining and equal to his own.
The moment that Ghiaccio vows to treat the child as his own is when he takes them to a nearby skating rink. He finds himself being proud of them for being so good at skating after only a couple times, helping coach them on their turns and spins. And he finds himself being even more proud of them when they go on a yelling rampage at another kid for bumping into them. Ghiaccio has to carry them away as to not make a scene, but the two of them share a knowing smile. Yeah… this was gonna work out fine.
Melone
Melone is, obviously, ecstatic to hear that his s/o has a kid. He usually gets made fun of by his teammates for his “naive” wishes to have a kid of his own, telling him that he has no right to knock anyone up when he could be dead the next day.
This way, he gets to help raise a kid with someone without getting made fun of by his teammates. The kid’s already born, and Melone can’t wait to take care of them!
Almost surprised by Melone’s eagerness to meet her kid, s/o tells him to come over to meet them the next day.
Melone comes well prepared, with toys and new clothes (he wasn’t sure how big the kid was so he got one of every size), that he had just bought to help win the kid over. He also creates a plan for the day that the three of them would spend together, chock-full of things that are sure to get on the kid’s good side.
However, when he arrives at his s/o’s door with everything, she immediately gushes over everything that he had bought, but the kid merely hides behind her shyly, not wanting to meet Melone.
Melone tries his best to form a connection throughout the whole day of fun activities, but the kid stays quiet, holding onto their mother’s hand and not wanting to talk to the eccentric mafioso.
When the day comes to a close, the three of them are sitting outside of s/o’s house that night to relax after the eventful day. The child’s mother goes back inside to get coffee for herself and Melone, leaving the young man and the toddler alone in the backyard together.
Melone looks down at them in the awkward silence asking, “Is there anything I’m doing wrong?”, and the kid silently shakes their head.
“...You just don’t like me?” Melone asked sadly, not wanting to hear the answer.
However, the answer never arrives. He watches as the kid stands up and walks over to the small pond nearby, seeing a group of fruit flies resting on the water.
This causes the young kid to smile and he decides to finally break the silence with Melone.
“...I once read a book in class that fruit flies are used in studying medicines because their DNA is really big and easy to look at. I told the last guy my mom liked that I wanna study DNA one day, but he laughed at me…”
Melone’s entire face lights up at the fact that that’s the first thing the kid’s said to him all day and rushes at his side saying, “It’s not just that. It’s that they have both an X and Y chromosome, but that doesn’t inherently mean they’re all male. That makes them the perfect model organism. You’re on the right track (f/n).”
Seeing the way the kid’s face shot up with glee at finally being understood for their interest in biology, Melone realized that he didn’t need all of those presents to get to the kid’s heart. He just needed to be himself.
When s/o finally arrives back to the backyard with the coffees, her heart is warmed to see her shy child absorbing every word that Melone says about the intricacies of genetics and the studies that he conducted when still in school. A smile came to her face. She knew then that she wanted Melone to be around to teach her child everything he knows about the world around them.
#jjba#jjba writing#jjba hc#headcanons#la squadra#part 5#vento aureo#risotto nero#prosciutto#formaggio#illuso#pesci#ghiaccio#melone#sorry this is so long#and I kinda geeked out at the end#fluff
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After the Fall: War Within Family
Fandom Far Cry 5/New Dawn
Warnings: mentions of abuse, drug addiction, and sex addiction, general angst, brief mention of suicide
A/N: this is long lol. Just warning you. I’m honestly really proud of this and hope anyway reading it loves this as much as I do. Like all my writing, this is my own idea and Braeden is my OC for Far Cry 5. This is unedited so there may be mistakes. Should I make a second part? Enjoy!
Summary: Braeden is riddled with guilt and remorse for her actions before the collapse. With the death of the Seeds, her friends, and coworkers on her mind, she retreats into herself for seventeen years, only to be brought out of it by Joseph himself. After finding out some alarming news, Braeden is left feeling betrayed by a person she thought you would never feel that from.
I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I was going to save everyone, save the county. I was wrong. I was very, very wrong. Jacob tried to stop me, begged me to stay. That was the first and last time I had ever heard him beg.
Now I wish I had listened.
“You don’t need to do this, Braeden,” Jacob spoke softly to me. His face wore an expression I was unfamiliar with. “You have me. You have John and Faith. Isn't that enough? Joseph can only do so much without us.”
I spun around to actually look at him, instead of looking at him through the mirror. “Yes, I do, Jake. I tried to be reasonable. I tried to get him to stop of his own free will and he refused. It doesn’t matter if he can’t do much on his own. He can do enough and the county deserves to live in peace.”
I took a few steps toward him and cupped his face. He was beginning to worry me. “Please be careful...”
“I will. Go to your bunker. I made sure the Peggies cleared out so it should be safe. John and Faith are already preparing to leave in the safety of their bunkers. You should too.”
He pressed a kiss to my lips, soft and hesitant.
That was the last time I saw Jacob. I left to go face Joseph with the support of Whitehorse, Pratt, and Hudson. Joseph had taken my friends, the members of the Resistance, and it was a battle to get them back. Eventually, it was all of us against Joseph and he didn't stand a chance. As he made his final speech, crawling across the ground bloody and bruised, I checked my watch. I was supposed to meet the others in ten minutes. I was running behind schedule.
I watched as Whitehorse put Joseph under arrest and Joseph spoke a few words to me. I couldn’t really hear him over the howl of the wind and the sound of a bomb exploding in the distance.
That was the moment I knew I fucked up.
Whitehorse ushered us into the truck while Nick and the others took off in other directions.
I tried to get us to safety. I tried to get us to Dutch, but I crashed. I was knocked unconscious and when I came to the others were dead and Joseph was gone. Joseph ripped me out of the truck and I was in and out of consciousness until we reached Dutch’s bunker. There, when I came to fully, I saw that Dutch had been killed by Joseph.
Joseph became my family that day. My only family. I was sure that John, Jacob, and Faith were dead.
Joseph and I were stuck in that bunker together for over five years. Over the course of those years, I changed, Joseph changed me. He told me he forgave me for turning his family against him, but I never quite believed him. I still don't.
I haven’t said a word since right after the bombs destroyed the world, nor have I shown my face. I left myself behind when the door to that bunker sealed shut and I lost everyone I loved. After everything I did... I deserve this.
The Twins were quick to move into the valley and New Eden, Joseph’s new following, fought The Highwaymen until they extinguished the fire in Joseph’s statue that I had destroyed years ago. They lost faith in Joseph, despite still being completely loyal to him, even after he left us. They’re scared, and I don’t blame them. The Highwaymen aren’t like Eden’s Gate was all those years ago. They aren’t taking over for the greater good, or what they think is the greater good. Unlike Eden’s Gate, The Highwaymen are self-absorbed. They care about their survival and their survival only.
News of outsiders in the county traveled fast and word of some “Captain of Security” giving The Highwaymen hell circulated through the compound. Whoever she is, she reminded me of me when I caused trouble for Eden’s Gate. Sometimes I miss those days, but most days I don’t.
“I know you’ve heard of this Captain of Security,” Ethan muttered to me inside his living quarters. “She intrigues you, does she not?” He turned to look at me. I just stared at him. “My father has told me about you and him before the collapse.” I stiffened up at the mention. I never talk about that. Never. I never want anyone inside these walls to know who I used to be. I’m ashamed of it. “She’s a bit like you, isn’t she Deputy?”
The name hit my ears like nails on a chalkboard. It pulled memories out of the deep pit in my mind causing an acid taste to hit my mouth. I glared at him through my mask. If I could’ve, I would’ve yelled at him. Shouted that he doesn’t know anything, but not talking for nearly seventeen years does a number on your vocal cords. Instead, I clenched my fist and he got the message, brushing it off with a chuckle.
“I have received word that the Captian will be coming here to seek our assistance with The Highwaymen. You remember what to do when an outsider wishes to come inside these walls, correct?”
I nodded.
“Good. I doubt she will succeed, but I guess we will find out.”
Ethan walked away from me at that point. My glare followed him as he disappeared out of sight.
Not long after that, the Captain appeared at our door, but I turned her away just as I had been instructed to do. Everyone was surprised when she came back with the Book of Joseph and I had to let her in. Ethan instructed her to bring back proof that Joseph was dead. He wanted his father to be dead so badly so that he could take over for good, but that didn’t happen. Joseph was alive and well and Ethan was furious when New Eden rallied behind him once again.
After that, I began to accompany the Captain on her journey to take down the Twins. It had been a long time since I had done anything like that. It felt good to get away from New Eden and away from Ethan. It gave me a distraction. And God knows I needed it.
***
“You see that sniper up there?” Cap asks me, pointing to a tower on the other side of the Chop Shop. I nod to her. “Take it out.”
I break into action and sprint to the tower silently. I was a bit rusty when we first teamed up, but my old instincts have kicked in once again and I’m back to kicking ass just like I used to.
Maybe John was right. Maybe I am wrath.
My arrow lands in the neck of the Highwayman and he crumples to the ground, bleeding out silently. I look back to Cap and watch her takedown of the Highwaymen with a shield. She picks it up and throws it at another Highwaymen. I can hear the crack of her neck as it snaps from the force of the throw.
“You hear that Joseph Seed is back?” I hear one of the Highwaymen mention to another, blissfully unaware of their dead colleagues.
“Who hasn’t?” the other responds. “You hear about the sighting of what people are believing are the other Seeds?”
I nearly choke on air at that.
“What?”
“Yeah, people are seeing what they think are other three Seeds up north.”
“C’mon, you don’t really believe that, do ya? There’s no way they’re still alive.”
“Of course I don’t believe it. I just think those people drank a little too much ethanol.”
Being distracted, I didn’t even realize I was being snuck up on until I felt the buzz of a bullet fly past me and land in the head of a Highwaymen. I look back at Cap who motions for me to charge. She’s taken out the alarms.
I do as I’m told and jump a barricade. Within mere minutes we have taken back Fall’s End-I mean the Chop Shop.
I stand in front of what used to be the Spread Eagle, thinking about when I first met Mary May and Pastor Jerome. I had saved them from the peggies that had taken Fall’s End. Then I shared a drink with them right there in that bar.
I wonder how Jerome is doing. I know Mary May died, as did most of my friends when the bombs dropped. I haven’t seen any of the living ones since that final battle with Joseph. I refuse to enter Prosperity. I don’t know if I’ll be able to handle seeing John’s Ranch.
I remember when I took John’s ranch from the cult. John was so upset with me. He threw every insult he could at me and got even angrier when I didn’t react. I wonder if he’s ever forgiven me for taking his home away from him.
I wouldn’t forgive me for that.
“Whatcha lookin’ at?” Cap questions me, pulling me from my thoughts. I glance at her, then back to the ruins of the bar and shrug. “You don’t say much, do ya?” I shake my head. “Joseph told me you haven’t spoken since right after the bombs dropped. Is that true?”
I nod slightly in response.
“Why?”
I shake my head and look around what used to be Fall’s End while thinking, You wouldn’t understand.
She sighs, slinging her gun over her back. “I’m going back to Prosperity. You comin’?”
I shake my head again. She’s told me who’s there. I want to see everyone, but they wouldn’t recognize me. I’m not the Deputy anymore. I’m the Judge. I couldn’t stand to have them see me how I am now. I shell of what I once was. I couldn’t stand to see John’s ranch.
“You’re gonna have to go there eventually, Judge. What if the Twins attack it and we need your help?”
I shrug again and at this point, I can tell she’s irritated with me.
“Fine, do what you want. I’ll be at Prosperity getting a hot meal and some sleep if you need me.”
I want to tell her everything. Tell her that I was like her once. Naive in the mindset that I could save the county. But instead of saving it, I caused the apocalypse. I ruined the whole world and destroyed myself in the process. I caused the death of so many of the people I cared about. Why did I get to live?
Maybe that’s why Jacob had tried to convince me to not stop Joseph. Maybe he knew what would’ve happened if I did, but couldn’t tell me, or didn’t want to tell me for some reason.
Why didn’t I listen to him?
***
I make it back to New Eden and immediately go to my bed. My stomach grumbles, but I ignore it. My tiredness trumps my hunger as I fall asleep the moment my head hits my pillow.
I wake back up to see Joseph standing next to my bed and holding a bowl of soup.
“I noticed you did not stop to eat,” he mentions. I sit up and take the bowl from him. He sits down next to me as I move my mask up to eat. He chuckles a bit and glances at me. “You know, I never thought that you would actually stick to your vow of silence. When you stopped talking to me, I thought you were angry with me for some reason, but then when we came topside and I saw that you wouldn’t speak to anybody, I was sure it wouldn’t last more than a few weeks. But you proved me wrong.”
He places a hand on my shoulder as I eat.
“Their deaths were not your fault. None of them. Not my siblings, not your coworkers, not your friends. The collapse would’ve happened one way or another. We just sped up the process.”
I want to ask him how he’s so sure, but I can’t seem to get the words to leave my mouth.
“Do not keep punishing yourself, Braeden. It is not what Jacob would’ve wanted. It’s not what any of them would’ve wanted.” With that, Joseph walks away and I’m left in my thoughts. I haven’t been called by my real name for a long time. It felt strange to hear it, especially from Joseph, the one who rebranded me as the Judge.
It’s insane to think that that crazy son of a bitch could’ve ended up being my brother-in-law one day. Jacob and I had never talked about marriage; we never really got a chance to talk about our future together. I doubt the man would’ve wanted to be married, especially being in his late forties by the time we got together. I wouldn’t have blamed him for that. Being with him was enough for me. A piece of paper saying that we were legally bonded together would never have changed anything, and I’m sure Jacob felt the same way. Jacob wasn’t always vocal about how he felt about me, but he didn’t need to be. He showed his love by his actions and he was incredibly good at it. I understood his love language better than most people did, maybe even John and Joseph, but I also got to see a part of him they never did. I loved him. I still do. No one will ever be able to replace him.
I loved John and Faith, too. I love Joseph, despite everything he has done.
He’s right. Jacob wouldn’t want this for me, especially this long after the Collapse. None of them would’ve wanted this.
After that night, I decided to take Joseph’s advice. In private, I began working on being able to talk again. Not speaking for so many years took a hard toll on my vocal cords and for a while, I began to think that I had lost the ability. No matter how hard I tried, the words just wouldn’t come out.
It wasn’t until I stumbled upon what’s left of John’s bunker that I finally spoke. It was the only bunker accessible, the other two being stuck inside the radiation zones and making it impossible to reach, even with Eden’s Gift.
Seeing it in ruins like this makes me unreasonably emotionally. I stand at the top, staring into the flooded hole in the ground. Memories pour back. When I first met saw them in the church when we arrived in Hope County. When I seized control of his house singlehandedly. Me, never being able to stop apologizing for that. When John first found out about Jacob and me.
I still remember the look on his face when we decided that we were leaving the valley after Joseph was stopped. I could tell he was devastated. I don’t blame him, though. I promised him happiness, a life where he’s not a herald.
At least one of those things came through. He’s not a herald any more.
“I’m sorry, John...” I choke out, my voice rough and raspy. Tears fall down my face and I rip my mask off. “I... I j-just wanted you all t-to be h-h-happy and I-I-I fa-iled.”
“John? Who’s John?” I hear Cap’s voice behind me. I glance back and see her coming up the hill. “Judge, is that you?”
I wipe the tears from my face. “Ye-ah, Cap, It is.”
“You’re talking!” she exclaims.
I laugh a bit. “I am.”
“Who’s John?” I look back at the broken bunker.
“He would’ve been my brother-in-law if life had been kinder.”
As I talk, it gets easier and quicker, too.
“Ew, did you have a thing with Joseph?”
I laugh. “No, no.” I turn and face her. “Have you heard stories of the Deputy that nearly saved this county singlehandedly back before the Collapse?”
“Of course I have, Kim and Nick never shut up about her.”
“I was that Deputy, Cap.”
She looks as if she’s about to choke on air. “W-what?”
“I was the Deputy. My downfall was falling in love with the oldest Seed, Jacob. Joseph wouldn’t stop what he was doing and after he was stopped, I was going to leave the county with Jacob, Faith, and John,” I look at the bunker. “But the Collapse started before I could get to them and I believe they died that day. I was stuck in a bunker with Joseph where the guilt and mourning ate me up until I became this, the Judge. Joseph certainly didn’t help.”
“I never would’ve guessed that you were the Deputy.”
“Most people don’t and haven’t. The only ones that do are Joseph and Ethan.”
She takes a few steps toward me. “That’s why the other day at the outpost you got distracted when those Highwaymen were talking about the rumor that the other Seeds are alive.”
I nod.
“How are you so sure they aren’t alive?”
“I missed our meeting time. They would’ve been topside and away from safety when the bombs dropped.”
“But are you sure?”
“Please don’t get my hopes up, Cap. I’ve spent the last seventeen years mourning these people and feeling responsible for their deaths. Do you know something I’m unaware of?”
“Well... I wasn’t gonna say anything, but knowing what I know now...”
“Tell me!”
She sighs, crossing her arms. “I was up north a few days ago and... I saw what those Highwaymen were talking about.”
“What!?”
“I don’t know how, but I think they’re alive.”
***
My first steps into Prosperity feel strange. It feels like I’m coming home yet arriving at a completely unfamiliar place at the same time. My mask stays on as I look at what they’ve done to John’s ranch. I’d like to think that he would like it.
I walk around and find so many familiar faces that I almost feel overwhelmed by it. I don’t know how I should do this. Should I expose my identity to everyone all at once or do it one at a time?
Now that I think about it, all at once may be too overwhelming. One at a time it is.
My eyes wander over the sea of faces before they land on one that causes an indescribable feeling to shoot through my body. It’s Sharky. My crazy pyromaniac best friend. My ride or die for as long as I was the Deputy.
His back is to me when I walk over to him alone in the explosives lab, but he turns when he feels me getting close to him. He eyes me, unable to figure out what to make of me.
“Who the fuck are you?” he asks. His words would sound aggressive if you didn’t know Sharky like I do. Or did. Good thing I know better than to think that he’s being an asshole.
My hand reaches up for my mask and grasps it firmly. He’s looking at me strangely and I lift it up barely enough for my mouth to show.
“Hi, Shark,” I whisper.
His expression changes quickly. “Shorty?” he whispers back. Finally, I get the nerve to take my mask off all the way and I do. He wraps me in a bear hug when he sees my face, and he tells me he’s not crying when I feel wetness hit my neck, but I know Sharky too well. When we pull away his eyes are filled with tears, just like mine. He holds my shoulders, staring at me.
“I missed you too, Shark.”
“What the hell happened to ya, Brae?”
I hold up a hand and shake my head. “That a long story for another time. Just know that I’m back.”
A huge smile spreads across his face and he pulls me into a hug again.
One by one, I go to everyone and show them who I am. Then, I get to Nick, Kim, and Carmina.
She grew up into such a beautiful woman, Carmina did.
“The Captain brought you in, right?” Kim says, sparing a glance at me as the three of them have their backs to me and are looking at a map or something. For a moment I forget my mask is back on.
“Mhm,” I answer.
“Great, well, welcome to Prosperity. I’m sure you’ll be of great help. I’m Kim, the unofficial leader of our community. This is Nick, my husband, and our daughter-”
As she was talking and slowly took my mask off. Then, I finished the sentence for her. “Carmina,” I say. “Heard that name once or twice.”
My mask drops to the ground and the three of them turn to look at me. Nick and Kim stare at me in awe for a second, seemingly unable to move before they both spring forward and wrap me in a tight hug.
“Braeden, is that really you?” Kim questions, sniffling. I nod to her.
“Braeden...?” Carmina says. “You don’t mean that this is...?”
“Yes, honey,” Nick says. “This is Braeden Creed. Your godmother.”
Without hesitation, Carmina hugs me. And when I say it was the best feeling in the world, I don’t mean it lightly.
***
“Where have you been all this time, Braeden?” Nick asks after I got into a change of clothes. Those old rags I had been wearing were beginning to be uncomfortable. They sit around a fire, eating, and I join them, being handed a plate.
“I’ve been up in New Eden,” I answer. “After the bombs, I was stuck in Dutch’s bunker with Joseph. I... I felt guilty. I blamed myself for everything. For the end of the world, for the death of my coworkers. For the death of Adelaide, Mary May, Jess, Dutch, Eli. For Jacob, John, and Faith. I was mourning the loss of the people I loved while feeling responsible for it at the same time and Joseph took advantage of that.”
“Why for the Seeds?” Grace asks me. “What made you feel like it was your fault they were dead?”
I sigh. “The day we went to stop Joseph, I was supposed to meet with them after and we were gonna leave. Leave the county. I missed our meeting time and they would’ve had to have been topside and away from safety by the time the bombs dropped.” I set my food down, suddenly not being hungry anymore. “Jacob had pleaded with me to not confront Joseph that day. Maybe he knew what would happen if I did, I dunno, but he begged me not to and Jacob never begged. He was too proud for that.”
“But, if he knew what would’ve happened, why would he have let himself die?” Carmina asks.
I shrug a bit. “Jacob was fully prepared to give up his life for Joseph’s throughout the war. And he didn’t even really know if he believed that Joseph could talk to God.”
“That’s one thing about Jacob,” Hurk cuts in. “He never needed a reason for anything.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” I respond.
The more I think about Carmina’s question, though, the more it makes sense. He wouldn’t have just let his family die. Not if he could have prevented it. Maybe Carmina’s on to something here.
Maybe the others really are alive.
***
I stare at John’s house, still in awe of how good of shape it’s in, even all these years later. The Ranch is still as beautiful as it’s ever been. Kim has taken such good care of it.
“Do you think he’d mind that we moved into his house?” I hear Carmina behind me. I turn to look at her and she hands me a cup with something in it.
“What?” I ask, my voice cracking a bit, making her laugh as I take the cup. “Sorry. Rusty vocal cords.” I crack a grin at her and she smiles back.
“Do you think John would mind that we moved into his house?”
“That’s a good question. I had never really thought about it. If I’m being honest, I think he would’ve preferred this to it ending up like a lot of the other structures around here.”
I place my cup on my leg, smiling sadly at the house.
“I remember when I took this place from the cult,” I mention to her. “Jacob and I were nothing more than two smartasses flirting with each other, and John was furious. Called me every name under the sun and more and me not reacting to it made it worse. I thought it was hilarious.” My face falls a bit. “Eventually he got it back, but he didn’t get to enjoy it much. I knew he was mad at me still and even when he said he was over it, I never quite believed him. The Resistance had destroyed a lot of his property: his plane, family photos.”
Carmina looks at me for a second before pulling something out of her pocket. “Here,” she says, handing me a photo. “I found it in the master bedroom in a safe. When you find them, you can give this to him.”
I glance down at it and find a family photo of him, Jacob, Joseph, and Faith. I smile and look back up. “Do you really think they’re alive?”
“What I think doesn’t matter,” Carmina responds. “If you know, deep down, that they’re alive, that’s all that matters. Do you think they’re alive?”
I look down at the photo and run my thumb over it. “I want to. But if they are then I spent all these years punishing myself and feeling guilty for they’re deaths. I’m scared that if they are alive, things won’t be the same.”
Carmina stares at me for a second. “You’re afraid that Jacob won’t love you anymore. That’s it, right?”
“I...” I pause, the realization hitting me. “Yeah... I am afraid of that. Terrified, actually. A lot can happen in seventeen years and I still love him with all my being. I don’t know what would happen if he didn’t love me anymore.”
“I’ve heard about how you and Jacob were. And from what I’ve heard, it seemed like he really loved you. Not just any kind of love, either, no. The kind of love that can and would survive the end of the world. If he’s out there, there’s not a doubt in my mind that he would love you the same, even after seventeen years.”
Carmina’s words of encouragement stuck me with me over the next weeks as we started our search while simultaneously fighting the Highwaymen. Even New Eden is searching, wanting to bring the beloved heralds home. For a long time we turned up empty and I was beginning to lose hope. Then another sighting would happen and the process would start over. It began to feel like I was chasing ghosts.
“Times like this is when I wish I had one of my old guns for hire or fangs for hire” I mutter as me and the Captian steak out an outpost.
She glances at me. “Who were yours?”
“Well, for my guns for hire I had Sharky, Nick, Hurk, Adelaide, which was Hurk’s mom and Sharky’s aunt, Grace, a girl named Jess, a dog named Boomer, a cougar named Peaches, and a bear named Cheeseburger.”
“Sharky was a gun for hire?”
“Well of course. He and I were best friends. Loved to fuck shit up on the cult’s expense. I remember this one time-” My recollection gets cut short when commotion starts in the outpost. We watch as cheering spreads through the outpost. One by one, we see prisoners being dragged in. I grab my makeshift binoculars so I can get a better look and that’s when I spot a familiar blonde being dragged in. The green eyes were a dead give away, if the hair wasn’t.
I smack Cap’s arm and she gets annoyed at me before seeing my expression.
“That’s Faith,” I breath. “It’s Faith.”
“Let’s go raise some hell, then.”
Faces blur together as I take them out one by one, making my way to Faith as fast as I can. It feels as if time as slowed down as bullets fly out of my gun, embedding themselves in the flesh and bone of the scumbag Highwaymen. Then my gun gets knocked out of my hands and I barely manage to dodge a swing as the bat connects with the metal behind me. I roll off to the side to put distance between me and my attacker when suddenly my gun comes sliding up to me. I look up, expecting to see Cap, but it’s not.
It’s John.
With a heavy breath and a smile, I pick up my gun and land a shot into the guy trying to kill me. After that, I jump to my feet and run over to him.
“I’ve got the key to free the prisoners they’ve already put away,” he sighs quickly. “I’ll go get them and Faith. Just keep doing what you’re good at.”
He leaves me with a hand on my shoulder and the question, “Where’s Jacob”, hangs in the air but I stop myself. For now, I need to focus on killing these bad guys.
I spin on my heel and fire off a few shots, dropping them like dead flies. The recoil of the gun feels familiar and for a second, Hope County is back to normal and I’m dropping Peggies faster than you could say Eden’s Gate. The memory waivers for a second before the scene in front of me turns back to normal and the last Highwaymen drops in a heap on the floor.
I glance to my left and see John making his way over to me, Faith in tow. Her eyes light up when she sees me and I run over, crashing into both of them and wrapping them in a tight hug.
“Please tell me that Jacob is okay.”
I pull away from there and their expressions are unchanged, giving me hope.
“He broke up away from the group when they were bringing us in and ran off,” Faith explains.
“We’re not really sure where he is, but we know he’s okay. It’s Jacob,” John adds.
Their eyes look past me and I hear heavy footsteps behind me. Turning around quickly, I see him.
I see Jacob.
Jacob.
My Jacob.
It’s almost like he doesn’t believe his eyes when he looks at me, but an emotion washes over him that I’ve never seen on him before. A look of confusion, mixed with pure joy and happiness.
I can barely contain myself and find myself crashing into his chest. Even seventeen years later, the man is well built and takes my impact without budging. My arms snake around his neck and I hold on like he might disappear if I let go, and a part of me might believe that.
“I thought you were dead, all of you,” I whisper to him. “I thought I had gotten all of you killed.”
“You can’t get rid of us that easily, sweetheart,” he says into my ear. His voice... I missed his voice so much.
I feel something wet on my face and it takes a minute to realize what they are.
Tears.
I haven’t cried in years.
“I wouldn’t want to.”
“Braeden, backup’s on its way! We need to go!” I hear Cap yell to me. I gather myself quickly and nod to her. “We’ve got a ride waiting on the road on the other side but we have to make it there in one piece!”
I let out a loud, ear busting, whistle, pulling the attention of the survivors around us. “Listen up! Highwaymen have reinforcements on the way so if you wanna live, you’ll follow us!”
The group of us run up into the tree where Cap and I were waiting and just as she said multiple trucks are waiting for us and we all pile in.
“Braeden, you’re bleeding,” Cap points out from across the bed of me.
I look down, seeing a gash in my upper right arm.
“When that person tried to take me out with the bat, the metal he hit must’ve buckled and cut me...”
“Well, I guess it’s good we helped Selene out so she can patch you up when we get back.”
“Back where?” Faith asks.
“Our base,” Cap answers.
“Yeah... John, you may not like this...”
***
The moment we’re through the door to Prosperity, Carmina’s on me, clinging to me for life.
“We heard what happened through the radio. I was so scared we lost you.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“What happened to my house...?” John mutters, looking at me.
“Hey, don’t look at me. I had nothing to do with this.”
A little bit later we sit down for dinner and the three of them start interrogating me.
“So, all three of them died...?” Jacob questions me, talking about Whitehorse, Pratt, and Hudson.”
“Yeah,” I breath out. “The truck crashed when I was driving us to Dutch’s bunker and, well, when I came to, it was too late...”
“Wait, then how did you survive?” John asks.
I smile a bit and look down at my food. “Joseph. He pulled me out of the truck. Unfortunately, I was trapped in that damn bunker with him and it changed me.”
“Changed you...?” Faith says.
I stir my food around, debating on whether I should tell them or not. “For the last seventeen years, I felt guilty and responsible for the collapse, for the death of you guys, my coworkers, my friends-everything. I became a shell of what I was. Stopped talking, never showed my face.” I glance over at Jacob. “It wasn’t until Joseph came to me a few months ago and told me that none of it was my fault and to stop punishing myself...”
“Braeden... did Joseph ever tell you what he tried to do?” Jacob asks me.
I feel my stomach drop at his tone and cautiously, I question him. “No, he didn’t. Why? What did he do?”
“He tried to convince us to stay... to stay hidden in our bunkers while he fought you. Tried to convince us to not leave,” Faith answers. “We didn’t listen to him and John and I, we went to meet Jacob at his bunker so we could go meet you together, but when we went to leave, there was a small army of followers outside that kept us from leaving.”
I stare at her, trying to make sense of what she just told me.
“Joseph sent the followers, Braeden,” John continues. “He’s known this whole time that we were alive.”
Once the realization hits me, I feel the rage bubble inside me-my wrath. I slam my bowl down, spilling what was left inside of it, and jump to my feet. “That son of a bitch let me believe that you were dead for the last seventeen fucking years. Let me feel guilty and responsible for your deaths and mourn the loss of all of you at the same time. He had the audacity to look me in my face and tell me that your deaths weren’t my fault. All while knowing that you’re alive!?” I pause for a moment, looking at them for a second. “I’m gonna kick his teeth down his throat and rip his fingernails out.”
***
They tried to stop me. They really tried, but they should know better than to stop me while I’m indulging in my wrath.
I was an unstoppable force when I stormed into New Eden for the first time in months with the other Seeds in tow. New Edeners were stunned to see my face as I blew past them in search of Joseph.
Ethan tried to get in my way when I found them, which was a major mistake. I shoved his bitch ass so hard into the wall that it seemed like the wall cracked under the pressure.
Joseph’s face was priceless when he saw the others and even better when slammed his back into the wall behind me. My rage was nearly palpable as I stared at him.
“You,” I seethed.
“What did I-?”
I pull him forward and slam him into the wall again. “YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU DID,” I roar at him. “For all these years, all these FUCKING YEARS you let me believe that they were dead and for what? To make me into your fucking monkey!?”
Joseph falls quiet for a second. “I wanted you to feel my pain. To feel what I felt when you turned them against me. I never meant for it to get this far.”
“Yeah!? And what the fuck did you mean to happen!?”
“I wanted to tell you! I wanted to find them, but the further you fell into yourself the harder it became.”
“Yeah? And what about them? What about leaving them trapped in that bunker for years!?”
“I never intended for they’re exit to be blocked! Believe me, I tried to move the rocks time and time again, but I am only one man! It was by the Grace of God that an earthquake came through and uncovered the doorway.”
“You’re a piece of shit, Joseph. Fuck you for what you did to me and fuck you for what you did to your siblings. I didn’t turn them against you, Joseph. You did that yourself by refusing to see that truth. You’re lucky I don’t put you out of our misery right now.”
I back away, glaring at him as I do. The rage eventually subsides and all I'm left to feel it betrayed.
Who would’ve thought that I could feel betrayed by Joseph Fucking Seed?
What a joke.
#jacob seed#john seed#faith seed#joseph seed#Far Cry 5#far cry 5 oc#new dawn#far cry new dawn#the deputy#the judge#oc: braeden creed
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2x01: In My Time of Dying
Then:
Sam and Dean Winchester: Monster hunters
Now:
We pick up right where we left off last season, only this time Netflix got the rights to the proper music. Bad Moon Rising, indeed. Sam, Dean, and John are all unconscious or dead in the now destroyed Impala. The possessed trucker jumps out to double check. Sam’s actually awake (aw, baby Sam Fucking Winchester emerges!) and threatens the demon with the Colt. The demon smokes out leaving Sam to call for his family while the horrified trucker looks on.
Cut to Rescue 911. The Family Winchester is airlifted to a hospital. Dean wakes in the quietest hospital ever. He starts wandering around trying to find somebody only to find the world’s rudest reception station. It dawns on him that the woman can’t see him. He races back to his room, only to find himself with tubes everywhere and monitors beeping. Oh dear.
Sam rushes in and Dean starts talking to him, but just like the receptionist, Sam can’t see or hear Dean. A doctor comes to tell Sam that John is awake. Sam wants to know about Dean though. He tells Sam they won’t know the full extent of Dean’s injuries until he wakes up --if he wakes up. Dr. Doom and Gloom doesn’t know Dean’s love/hate relationship with death. If he’s alive, he often wants to be dead and if he’s dead nothing is stopping him from coming back alive.
Sam visits John and discusses Dean’s status. He’s as determined as Dean to save him. (Go, codependency, go!). John says that they’ll look into alternative medicines and then he asks for the Colt.
That doesn’t sit so well with Sam. But he tells him it’s in the truck of the Impala and Bobby’s on his way to tow it back to Sioux City. John tells Sam to get the Colt and to pick up some things for protection (Oh, how young Sam had NO CLUE what the ingredients were for.) Sam asks if John knows anything about what the demon meant when he said he had plans for him and children like him. John doesn’t know.
Dean was watching the whole exchange through, and he ain’t buying it.
For Skeptical Son Science:
Sam and Bobby meet by the Impala and Bobby, needlessly cruel, admits, “This just ain’t worth a tow.” DEAN’S SOUL IS ALWAYS WORTH REPAIRING! (Natasha: Preach!)
Sam then gives Bobby the list of ingredients and tells Bobby they’re for protection from the demon. Bobby ain’t buying it.
John visits Dean. Ghost Dean starts pleading with John to help. He hasn’t called anyone, hadn’t done a thing but sit there. “I’ve done everything you have ever asked me. Everything. I’ve given everything I’ve ever had. And you’re just gonna sit there and you’re gonna watch me die?”
He hears a noise outside the room and checks it out. A flash of something rushes by and Dean heads to investigate.
He finds a woman choking on the floor. No one responds to her weak calls for help, and no one can hear him yell. (What kind of hospital is this, just letting a lady die on the floor like that?)
Sam comes back and Dean keeps trying to talk to him, with no luck. John notices Sam’s mood. Sam tells John he knows what those ingredients are for --summoning a demon. John’s got a plan (Good lord, Sam is his father’s son.) Sam is GOING OFF on his dad, and I mean, in retrospect, oops (but you kind of deserve this for not telling Sam your plan). Dean gets so frustrated watching the exchange he knocks a glass of water off the table. And then lets the audience know that he TOTALLY watches chick-flicks (I know, I know, Swayze always gets a pass). He starts to glitch out and people rush past John’s room. Sam follows them to Dean’s room where he’s flatlined and they’re trying to bring him back.
Dean sees a reaper hovering over his body and tries grabbing it but is pushed away. It then rushes from the room and Dean gets a pulse again. Whew. He tells Sam that he’s going to get it before it gets him.
Wandering through the hospital, he finds a woman yelling at others. “Can’t you see me?” etc. Her name is Tessa and she wants to know if she is dead. Dean takes her to her room. He tells her that they’re spirits but if they hold on, they don’t have to die.
Meanwhile, Sam is telling John he felt like he sensed Dean and wonders if it’s possible. John says anything it possible.
Dean and Tessa wander the Hospital of Young Adult Nearly Dead Angst.
Actually, Tessa is handling this whole almost dead thing really well. HMMM. “It’s out of my control. It’s just fate.” Them's fightin’ words, Tessa. Dean doesn’t take kindly to “fate”. “That’s crap, you always have a choice.”
Sam’s back in Dean’s room with his handy “Mystical Talking Board”.
Dean feels like he’s at a slumber party, but dives right in to talk with Sam. Remarkably, Dean doesn’t take the opportunity to immediately spell out B-O-O-B-S. He takes control of the pointer to spell the word H-U-N-T.
Through the board, he tells Sam that there’s a reaper after him. Sam knows that if it’s there naturally, they can’t defeat it. “You can’t kill death,” Dean says rather famously. LOL those were the days.
Sam spins into Winchester denial mode because there’s always another way! He heads in to talk to John but that little chicken has flown the coop.
Down in the boiler room (never go into the boiler room, kids!) John unloads a bag of supplies. He takes out a piece of chalk and begins to draw sigils on the floor.
Sam heads back into Dean’s room with John’s journal. Dean thanks Sam for fighting to save him (as opposed to his absent dad). Dean reads over Sam’s shoulder from the section on reapers, mutters “son of a bitch,” and then heads out on his own mission.
Dean finds Tessa back in her hospital room, but this time it’s empty and sterile. He drops some interesting facts about reapers, like that they can alter perception. A reaper can appear in any form, which is why we see Tessa in the form of Neil Gaiman’s Death.
Tessa explains her subterfuge as the only way to get Dean to listen to her (instead of stabby stabby knifey knifey). She’s the spectral presence he’s been seeing all over the hospital, gently reaping souls. “Death is nothing to fear,” she tells him. “You’re living on borrowed time.” Once I finish digging the knife out of my own heart because I just sat around remembering the episode Faith, we cut to John.
John has finished his craft project and slices his hand with a blade while chanting. (I pity the custodial staff who’s going to have to come clean this mess up.) His ritual appears to fail when a custodian does show up and orders him to get out of the boiler room. John levels the Colt at the guy. “How stupid do you think I am?”
Well...stupid enough to lone wolf this demon summoning.
Two other demons flank John. Yellow Eyes mocks John, pointing out that he only has one bullet left. John doesn’t care, though. He’s there to make a deal.
Upstairs, Sam talks to Dean’s body, telling him that he’s hit a dead end in trying to save him. “I’ll keep trying as long as you keep fighting. You can’t leave me alone here with Dad. We’ll kill each other.” Sam begs him to stay.
Dean begs Tessa for an exception to the reaping rule. They’re still in the middle of fighting Yellow Eyes; he can’t leave his family now. Tessa tells him that the world keeps turning no matter who she reaps. The world will go on without Dean in it. (Stares directly at the camera.)
Dean refuses to leave and Tessa drops her final bomb. Dean can’t get back into his body. He’s really almost very much mostly dead.
She gently explains that angry spirits are created by ordinary souls who try to stay behind and eventually go mad. If Dean stays, he’s gonna join their ranks.
John offers Yellow Eyes the Colt and its last bullet if he’ll heal Dean. Yellow Eyes scoffs at John’s offer. He doesn’t think much of Dean or Sam. He then asks John if he knows about the other children. YEAH DUDE. But John definitely hasn’t told Sam or Dean about it. John’s all business. He demands to see that Dean is healed before he’ll hand over the gun. Yellow Eyes is intrigued, but he demands one further concession.
For Vulnerable Dean Science:
Tessa tells Dean that it’s time to go, or time to stay. Whatever his choice, it’s decision time now. Dean turns to her, about to say…………..something. And the lights flicker. Black smoke floods in and possesses Tessa. She looks back at Dean with yellow eyes and smacks her hand on his forehead.
In Dean’s hospital room, he wakes up and gags on his life support tubes. YIKES.
Cut to later: the doctor reviews Dean’s miraculous recovery. “You’ve got some kind of angel watching over you.” (Listen, I know this is supposed to be ironic because har har a demon saved him, but…. DUDE Dean you’ve really got some kind of angel watching over you. Wink wink.)
Dean doesn’t remember a damn thing about when he was near death. He just has a bad feeling about…something.
John checks in with Dean, glad to see that he’s recovered. Sam grills him about taking off but John begs for them to not fight. It’s a mark of how little gentleness they see from their father that John begging quietly for peace makes Sam ask if he’s okay. (#JustSayin)
John sends Sam on an errand to get a cup of coffee. Once Sam’s gone, he tells Dean about something that Dean did when he was young.
When John returned from hunts, messed up and scarred, Dean would comfort him and tell him it was all okay. (I need a minute to cry right in your FACE.) John apologizes to Dean for putting so much responsibility on him at such a young age. Dean is being SEEN. John tells Dean that he’s proud of him. Dean double checks that it’s his father. I’ve drenched my pillow.
John gives Dean one last mission: to watch out for Sammy. He leans forward and whispers into Dean’s ear and when he pulls away, Dean looks horrified.
John leaves Dean’s room and walks up to Yellow Eyes. He sets down the gun. Says, “Okay.”
Sam, walking back with a cup of coffee and finds his dad lying dead on the floor.
______________________________
Quotes: The High Cost of Living:
Screw you, doc, I’m waking up.
Dude, I full on Swayzed that mother.
You’re much prettier than the last reaper I met.
______________________________
Want to read more? Check out our Recap Archive!
#spn recap#spn rewatch#spn 2x01#in my time of dying#dean winchester#sam winchester#john winchester#tessa#azazel#bobby singer#supernatural season 2
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I still hide you in my poetry
since parrlyn hurt/comfort seems to have become my brand, I bring you more parr-based parrlyn angst at nearly 3am! I didn’t feel like sleeping so ended up writing instead. and it’ll probably be back to boleyn angst next time but this is honestly so soft and these two are so cluelessly in love it’s adorable.
this makes a few references to ‘one more chance’ but you don’t have to read that to read this
also cathy still writes like she’s a tudor lady lol
When Cathy was struck by writing inspiration, it was common that she wouldn’t set her pen down until her idea was fully formed in her notebook regardless of when or where it was. More than once she’d been struggling to scribble the last few words down when the 15-minute call for the show came and she was still in her own clothes, deaf to Jane’s complaints that Cathy was giving her grey hairs due to stress. Time became irrelevant when there were words in her head and a pen in her hand, often working until 3 or 4 in the morning just in case she forgot a crucial detail overnight if she decided to finish it in the morning.
Their Sundays off were Cathy’s dedicated research days, where she would open all the bookmarked articles and wikipedia pages she’d accumulated over the week and spend the entire day working through them for as long as she liked. Normally she wouldn’t leave her bedroom-turned-study until Jane sent someone to drag her down for dinner, too intent on taking advantage of her day off to spend it any other way.
But today the writing was slow. Painfully slow.
‘Writing has been my life’s work. My lives’ work in fact – the lack of grammatically correct ways of saying that is probably related to how rarely a person has two lives to dedicate to something. It’s what I’m good at, what I do. I don’t know why I’ve been so distracted this week, since that bad night I’ve found myself wanting to be alone less and less even during the day. It’s inconvenient at the least and I don’t understand myself at all.’
Cathy let out a groan as she rested her head on the page; there had been a headache pulsing behind her eyes for the last hour or so, and as much as she’d been trying to ignore it and keep working it had only been getting progressively worse. She’d given up on writing anything academic and was instead working on her journaling; in her old life she’d kept a diary, but this time around her journal was more of a place where she could write down what was on her mind and elaborate on deep thoughts that occurred to her. But even though she wasn’t trying to write anything worthy of publishing, she could still pinpoint where she’d started talking in circles rather than making any sort of sense.
Wondering if a change of scenery could help, after picking up her journal and pen she found herself walking up the staircase towards Anne’s bedroom. It was always cooler up there thanks to the skylights which made it nice to work in, or that was the excuse she told herself. The question of whether Anne was in or not when the door opened before she’d even knocked, revealing a hopeful looking Anne in her comfy clothes. “Thought it might be you heading up here again,” she said, her smile brightening as soon as she saw Cathy.
“Yep, me again,” Cathy replied with a half-hearted laugh, too out of sorts to respond with any more enthusiasm though Anne’s cheery face did brighten her up a little. “Would I be bothering you if I worked in here for a little while? I think I need a change of scenery?”
Anne nodded, holding the door open and beckoning for Cathy to come in. “Course not, make yourself at home. You ok though?
She was surprised yet touched that Anne could read her well enough to ask that. “I’ve got a bit of a headache but I’m fine, promise,” Cathy said, meeting Anne’s concerned eyes with a reassuring smile.
“If you say so,” Anne teased, shutting the door before sitting back down at her desk. From the papers strewn everywhere it looked as though she’d been writing too, and clearly having more luck than Cathy had been.
They fell into a comfortable quiet as Cathy sat on Anne’s bed with her back leaned against the headboard, leaning her journal on her knees as she kept on writing. But she was still frustratingly distracted, finishing a lengthy sentence with ‘and my head hurts’ before her pen stilled.
That was when she noticed the flash of colour in the corner of her vision, on her right hand side where the pain was currently sitting. Very slowly, very carefully, she crossed her legs and sat up properly as if she was moving a bomb which could explode at any moment.
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
Cathy almost flinched at how loud Anne’s voice sounded. She didn’t turn her head to look over at her but the worry in her tone was obvious, and even if it had been worth Cathy pretending nothing was wrong she wouldn’t have considered lying to her. “I think I have a migraine coming,” she said quietly, trying not to acknowledge the growing feeling of dread in her chest.
The mattress dipped beside her just before she felt Anne’s hand on her knee. “Can I do anything?” she asked softly, clearly having noticed Cathy’s sensitivity to sound.
“I don’t know,” Cathy murmured honestly. “It doesn’t happen often but I just have to ride it out when it does. I can go back to my room if you want me to.”
“What? No!” Anne said, grabbing Cathy’s hand from where she’d already been about to shuffle off the bed. “Please stay, you shouldn’t be on your own while you’re in pain. Nothing I’m doing is that important.”
Cathy smiled faintly. “Thanks,” she said, sitting back down. Even though there was nothing she could do to prevent the oncoming storm, it was a comfort to know that she wouldn’t have to endure it alone. Taking stock of how she was feeling, she paused a moment before adding “I’m ok at the moment. It’ll probably be about half an hour before it starts to get really bad.”
“Gotcha,” Anne nodded, a look of intense concentration on her face. “What will you need? I can go get everything now before you need it. D’you want me to get Jane or anyone else?”
Anne’s endless slew of questions was endearing, showing that she really did care and want to help in whatever way she could. The last few weeks since Cathy had first spoken to her about her trauma and particularly the aftermath of Cathy’s own night terror had unveiled a softer side to Anne which Cathy hadn’t quite expected but was honoured to know. “Some ibuprofen would really help, thanks. And something cold for my head if you can find anything,” she said, but shook her head at the last question as she added “and no, it’s ok. I trust you to look after me.” She smiled wryly at that, leaning over to nudge Anne’s knee with her elbow and ordering herself not to blush.
The wink and finger guns that Anne sent her way did little to stop Cathy’s heart from fluttering, and if it wasn’t for her headache and the persistent flashing in her vision she would probably have matched Anne’s smile with a giddy grin. “Gotcha,” she repeated, sliding off the bed and heading for the door.
Cathy watched her go, then her gaze turned to the journal that had fallen off her lap. Feeling safe enough to write one more sentence, she hesitated for a moment while twiddling her pen between her fingers before she scribbled a few words down on the final line of the page.
‘I think the cause of it all might be that I’m a little bit in love with Anne Boleyn.’
The sound of footsteps thudding up the stairs made Cathy jump like a child caught with their hand in the sweet jar, accidentally dropping her journal before she fumbled quickly to close it before Anne arrived.
“Jane sends her love,” Anne said as she walked through the doorway, carrying Cathy’s water bottle in one hand and a glass bottle of coke in the other with a box of pills tucked under her arm. “Got you a stash of painkillers, and figured this might be nice and cool for you. Aragon wouldn’t let me take the frozen peas because she’s cooking and Kat’s using the ice pack because she took a frisbee to the head about five minutes ago. Apparently it was Anna’s fault. I dunno, it was all going on down there.”
Cathy laughed softly, easily imagining the chaos that was going on in the kitchen as they spoke. After downing a dose of pills with a quick sip of water she pressed the coke bottle to her forehead, closing her eyes and humming quietly at the soothing relief it provided. “This is perfect. Thank you so much,” she said, opening one eye to look up at Anne.
Anne shrugged modestly, sitting back down and knocking her shoulder lightly into Cathy’s. “S’alright,” she said, looking slightly embarrassed by the praise. “Just doing my bit to help. Got to live up to you trusting me and all that.”
Despite her worsening headache, Cathy still found it in herself to smile.
She wasn’t able to for much longer though. An hour later found her lying down with one arm covering her eyes and the other hand resting on her stomach, attempting without much luck to breathe through the nausea that had worsened along with her now agonising headache. It was one of the worst migraines she’d ever had, proven by the tears that flowed silently down her cheeks. Her head felt like someone was trying to crack open her skull with a blunt chisel.
The light dimming behind her closed eyelids made her crack open one eye and lift her arm a little to see that Anne had drawn the curtains to leave the room in darkness. “Hey you,” she whispered as she noticed Cathy watching her, kneeling down beside the bed so they were at the same height and placing a hand atop the one on Cathy’s stomach. “Stupid question I know but how’re you doing?”
Lacking the energy to answer her probably, Cathy just gave a lifeless hum.
Anne nodded, seeming to understand. “You feeling sick?”
Another affirmative hum.
“Want me to grab a bucket or something?”
“Mhm.” The noise was intended as a ‘yes please’, as Cathy couldn’t see herself making it down the stairs from the attic to the bathroom if she did end up needing to throw up.
Anne’s departure left silence in her wake, until there were quiet footsteps on the staircase and the sound of something being placed on the floor next to her. “Waste paper bin,” Anne explained without Cathy needing to ask, the mattress shifting as Anne carefully crawled over to sit next to her. A cool flannel on her forehead replaced the coke bottle that Cathy had long since given up on, a soothing distraction from the throbbing pain on the right side of her skull.
Movement from Anne prompted Cathy to reach out blindly with her closest hand, desperately not wanting to be left alone. She relaxed with a sigh when Anne caught it in hers, squeezing gently as she readjusted her position then making no effort to take her hand back when she settled down again.
They stayed like that for a while, Anne dampening Cathy’s forehead with the flannel while holding onto her hand as a constant reassurance she wasn’t going anywhere. Anne could admit it was more than a little unsettling to see her friend laid out so helpless and vulnerable, possibly more so than when she’d been so shaken after her night terror. At least Anne had known what to do then because she knew what Cathy would do for her; she didn’t have quite the same maternal streak as Jane, Aragon, and Cathy herself did, meaning all she could do was make a few guesses and try her best.
When Cathy lurched forwards Anne wondered at first if she’d fallen asleep and had another nightmare, but caught onto what was really happening in time for her to hold Cathy steady as she threw up into the bin. “It’s ok, I’ve got you,” she said softly once Cathy had finished and she fell limply into Anne’s arms, wiping her mouth with the flannel before dropping it next to the bin.
“Sorry,” Cathy croaked in a fragile voice, but made no attempt to move from where she’d collapsed with her head in Anne’s lap.
“Nothing to be sorry for,” Anne said, threading her fingers through Cathy’s curls and noting how she relaxed under the touch. If Cathy was feeling her usual self she probably would have stopped there, but Cathy’s disoriented state meant that Anne could get away with saying things that she didn’t want her friend to remember. “You’ve helped me enough these last few weeks. It’s the least I can do to show you I’m more than grateful.”
Cathy gave no indication that she’d heard anything, just curling her legs up towards her chest as Anne continued to play with her hair. Anne’s mind was racing with thoughts questioning what she’d got herself into and how small the woman in her lap looked when all her walls were beaten down, but there was one that spoke louder than all the others:
‘Boleyn, you have fallen so hard it’s fucking unreal.’
#six the musical#six the musical fanfiction#six the musical fanfic#parrlyn#anne boleyn#catherine parr#laila's writing
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Ikemen Revolution - Fenrir’s Route
Aaaand here’s one for Fenrir’s route!
My main comments are: FUCK those avatar challenges. It took me five thousand years to finish this damn route because I was stuck grinding for Lin for five thousand years because according to cybird, I can’t get the good ending w ma man unless I look cute smh.
The night that Alice lands in Cradle, she pretty much goes out to the garden to sob her eyes out because of the stress of being killed (oh honey don’t worry this game doesn’t have any bad ends. If you were in a game like Amnesia then I’d start crying LMAO). Fenrir happens to see her and wipes her tears away (*๓´╰╯`๓). He decides to spend the month with Alice to make her have as much fun as possible, and makes her promise that so there will be no regrets, the two will not fall in love.
But we all know that’s not gonna happen.
I guess because the boys finally learned from Lancelot’s route to never send a nameless faceless nobody with Alice, Ray assigns Fenrir as her personal bodyguard.
Fenrir takes it upon himself to be Alice’s personal tour guide, so they go on a date around the Central Quarter eating all kinds of sweets like a bunch of dorks D’AWW. Of course the red army are full of party poopers who crashes their alone time.
@Red army boys, I LOVE YOU ALL BUT YOUR SOLDIERS NEEDA CHILL. Like my grievances from Lancelot’s route carry over in twofold because the nameless red soldiers are once again, STILL a bunch of blood thirsty hooligans who are clearly letting “may glory flow crimson through our veins” slogan get to their heads WAYY too much.
(☪̤̆_̆ ☪̤̆) THAT’S SO SPECIFIC LMAO.
But anyhoo I guess having a body guard with actual plot armor was really beneficial because Fenrir drives off all of the Red soldiers! And as it turns out, they were sent by Edgar (but of course why am I not surprised smh).
They return home and a few black army soldiers comes out shitting their pants because apparently there’s a ghost, and when Fenrir hears that HE shits his pants.
Luka has his priorities straight.
Fenrir pussyfoots outside the army headquarters for a few minutes because GHOST but then big bear Sirius comes out RURL pissed because everyone keeps making a ruckus.
WHY DO I FIND THIS SO FUCKING FUNNY. LIKE IT’S PICTURE PERFECT. I CAN IMAGINE HIM DOING THIS IN MY HEAD FRAME BY FRAME.
So the ghost was actually a magic cult goon creeping around like a lech looking for women's’ underwear, whom Seth covered for. I had zero interest in Seth before but I do find it interesting that more hints about Seth’s connection to the magic cult goons are being dropped, and if anything it makes me want to play his route now.
I’d love to be your friend!!! But unfortunately Fenrir is a giant stick in the mud and won’t let me! But never fear because your route is coming out soon so soon I’ll be more than just your friend LOL!
Fenrir gets news that some of their soldiers got cornered on the Red Bridge. Well what do you know, turns out the nameless red soldiers are still mad that they busted a nut in anticipation for nothing because they didn’t get to skewer any soldiers in Lancelot’s route, so now they’re taking out their pent up frustration here.
Luka hears the news as well and rushes to the red bridge just in time to see Jonah and the rest of the red soldiers man handling the black army soldiers (wtf Jonah I expected better of you). Luka goes from simmering with rage to boiling with rage and charges at the red soldiers. Obviously the red soldiers don’t care (or... they just can’t comprehend) that Luka is their superior’s freaking brother because all they can think about is reaping the reward for unnecessary stabbing and so they go into Ultimate Shish Kabobing Mode and decide to kill Luka.
Jesus christ... these fucking red soldiers. I am so sorry but I think the only people in this clown of an army that has any shred of honor or self control are the red army love interests LOL.
Anyway Fenrir drags Luka’s delirious bloody corpse back to the black army and the scene ain’t pretty. But it’s okay because we all know that this game doesn’t have the balls to actually kill anyone so it’s not like there’s any need to be worried.
See even Alice acknowledges it lol. This game’s too soft (not that that’s necessarily a bad thing... if I want angst I’ll just read fanfiction ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
Apparently the one who actually made swiss cheese of Luka was Jonah. At first I was just SO CONFUSION?? JONAH WOULD NEVER DO THAT! until this bomb dropped and my only reaction was honestly just “...yikes”.
CRIES @ MY HEART
Jonah sneaks into Black Territory unarmed and Fenrir decides to arrange for him to see Luka like a the great wingbro he is. Alice’s left awkwardly keeping Jonah company but the ice quickly breaks and they end up spending the day talking about Luka ♡(.◜ω◝.)♡.
Fenrir successfully sneaks Jonah into Luka’s room but the two end up just having a screaming match and Luka boots Jonah out of his room. Understandable, considering how all the red soldiers are like little kids that you needa put those backpack straps on because who knows what the fuck they’ll do if left to their own devices.
me whenever I have any kind of guests over.
eat my ass @ Sirius
When it’s decided that the Black and Red army are gonna go to war for realsies, Alice requests to go onto the battle field with Fenrir so she can repel magic. Sirius freaks out going all like “ojou-chan, you mustn’t! It’s not a walk in the park!!” but Alice ain’t having any of that and essentially tells Sirius to eat her ass. Fenrir being the amazing bro he is sticks up for Alice and asks Ray if he can take her with him, swearing he’ll protect her. Ray’s like sigh fine. This scene was honestly my favourite because I loved how much confidence Fenrir had in Alice and how he respected her desire to help. Unlike a certain someone ੧| ‾́ェ ‾́ |੭ (totally not throwing shade at Sirius LMAO).
CRIES SOME MORE THAT’S SUCH A CUTE NICKNAME.
I could have asked the exact same thing of you Sirius.
The rest of the Black Army can clearly see sparks flying between Fenrir and Alice but unfortunately, Fenrir has to join Sirius in the emotional constipation of “what is this feeling in my chest?! Definitely not love!” Granted Fenrir has an excuse because of the promise he made her, but it’s still frustrating nonetheless.
oh my god can you shut up about this dumbass slogan for one minute.
Ngl despite the heart warming moment of resolve when Fenrir decides to take Alice into battle, it’s pretty damn hard to take the war seriously because it feels like a bunch of 14 year old teenagers doing a play-war considering of how almost comedic it is. Again, I’m not saying that this game needs to be an angst fest where everyone dies, but for a story about two armies on the brink of war, it does a pretty bad job at building any real tension or showing this war as a source of any real conflict with any real stakes or any real consequences.
I totally *do not* dislike that nickname 👀
We cut back to the red army who are all quite frazzled because they all had that “oh fuck” moment when they realized that they’re getting their asses whooped by the black army. Lancelot decides to stay his hand, whereas Jonah rages at Edgar’s incompetence but Edgar’s ultimately like “¯\_(ツ)_/¯ King’s orders”.
Alice you’re doing amazing, sweetie.
Alice continues to fight with Fenrir on the front lines but she realizes that she really loves him and she doesn’t want to go home anymore! UNFORTUNATELY FOR HER, our lovely gentleman Fenrir “this feeling in my chest is totally love but I WON’T ADMIT IT!” Godspeed repeatedly dodges her attempts at confessing (¬_¬). GOOD SIR I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING. You’re just trying to put off having a heart to heart about your feelings until the full moon so you can boot Alice back to her world without ever having to talk about it (ლಠ益ಠ)ლ.
Alice tries once again for the nth time to confess her feelings to Fenrir but this time they’re interrupted by the magic cult goons who are hell bent on capturing Alice. This plays out exactly as you’d predict and the two get cornered at a cliff LOL. Alice gets blown off the cliff and Fenrir jumps after her to save her.
This, my friends, is what we call: plot armor.
They miraculously (and conveniently) survive their fall and end up in the castle ruins in the forbidden forest. I guess being lost in an abandoned forest with a totally not haunted castle next to them sets the mood for sexy time because they end up making out like their life depends on it. Conveniently, without actually saying they love each other ლ(ಠ_ಠლ).
GUYS... THE DRIVER IS LITERALLY RIGHT THERE.... GUYS....
They make it back to Black Territory in one piece with the help of Loki and Harr and Ray loses his shit because he thought they died T T T. Fenrir is sent back to the front lines and Alice is totally ready to go back and kick some ass but I guess all the fire and confidence in this power couple completely deflated because Fenrir becomes Sirius 2.0 and refuses to take Alice SMH.
Alice finds Fenrir boarding a carriage to leave, and she stops him and tries to tell him that she loves him. Fenrir responds by pulling Alice into the carriage with him and at this point I was HYPED because “is he actually gonna take her with him?!?!” but my hopes are quickly dashed when he shoves her into the carriage, initiates round 2 of INTENSE MAKE OUT SESSION LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT..... then throws Alice’s sad ass back out of the carriage and leaves her behind once he’s finished (┛ಠДಠ)┛彡┻━┻.
UGH! FENRIR! JUST--- AGHHHHHHH.
YOU CAN SAY THAT AGAIN. Like yea sex is great, but have you ever heard of proper verbal communication??
(I also find it funny how the driver was just sitting there the entire time they were making out doing a big boi sweat).
me with group assignments in school.
Fenrir comes back on the night of the full moon and Alice for the 100TH DAMN TIME IN THIS ROUTE, tries to tell him that she doesn’t want to go home, but Fenrir, again, dashes her hopes and tells her she has to go back he won’t be able to protect her all the time. Which we all know is bullshit, but nevertheless Alice decides to listen to him.
Ha ha ha you are so full of shit.
And so Alice once again goes to the gates of hell garden portal which I officially dub as “The Hole Where Bad Things Happen” or more accurately, “The Hole That No Player Ever Wants To See”.
Anyhoo Alice leaps back home and spends about a month moping in London until one day a black army soldier comes to London and begs Alice to go back with him because Fenrir’s in danger! Alice, having literally zero self preservation because I guess her time on the battle field taught her jack shit, blindly follows this fellow back to Cradle and the moment she arrives, the guy reveals himself to be a magic cult goon and so she’s kidnapped and taken to Amon’s sex dungeon.
Look. I’m not gonna accuse Alice of “dumb mc syndrome” and I don’t necessarily blame her for falling for it but at the same time, COME ON. THIS IS THE DUMBEST PLOT POINT EVER. Of all the possible reasons she comes back to Cradle, THIS IS THE ONLY THING THEY COULD THINK OF? What makes it so aggravating is that it’s stated multiple times that any person from Reason can repel magic, so if that’s the case, the cult goons could have just kidnapped any random off the street instead of wasting time and energy looking for Alice. And if they could conveniently stroll into the land of Reason, why didn’t they do that ages ago?!
You know that writing rule “make your villains smarter, not your protagonists dumber”, or something like that? Well in this case, everyone is dumb!
Anyway during the month Alice was gone, Lancelot finally decides to stop going radio silent and consults the Black Army about Amon and his weed stash. This felt really convenient and almost inconsistent with Lancelot’s character because in the other routes he was hell bent on not talking unless 100% cornered, but in Fenrir’s route he spills the beans like it’s no big deal.
Fenrir hears the news of Alice being kidnapped by Amon and the Black army pretty much storms into the Magic Tower and fishes Alice out. Amon finally reveals himself but honestly he doesn’t put up much of a fight because Fenrir shoots him with one of those hiccuping guns and that’s enough to deflate all of Amon’s fighting spirit lmao so he gets arrested in the end. Talk about anti climatic as hell. This entire thing just felt really stupid because if all they had to do with storm the damn tower, they should have done so ages ago.
Admittedly I do like the resolution to this whole fiasco. Fenrir is totally ready to get down and dirty, but before that Fenrir and Alice actually, finally, and at long last, properly talk about their feelings and sort out their relationship mess.
Dramatic End:
Alice officially joins the Black Army, and they hold her enrollment ceremony. Hosting it is usually Ray’s job since he’s king but since Alice is his best friend’s babe, he decides to let Fenrir take over. Unfortunately, Fenrir can’t keep his excitement in check and ends up picking Alice up and spinning her around in joy ╭(๑ ॔ㅂ ਂ ॓)و ̑̑. THIS WAS SO CUTE I LOVE THIS ENDING.
-----
Honestly I have a lot of mixed feelings about this route. There’s the good, the bad, and the ugly, but since I don’t wanna end this post on a salty note so I’ll just start with the ugly and work my way up.
The Ugly: The route starts losing momentum their promise of not falling in love morphs into the source for Fenrir’s self cockblock fest for the rest of the route and him repeatedly rebuffing Alice’s attempts to tell him she wants to stay in Cradle became unbearable frustrating. Playing Sakuya’s route in Norn9 alongside Fenrir’s route did not help at all because his route also had a “promise of not falling in love” premise and had the exact same problems as Fenrir’s route so honestly my frustration was just doubled at this point.
The Bad: The plot is balls off the rail in the second half if it isn’t obvious enough from my complaints earlier. The Hole That No Player Ever Wants to See making a reappearance in Fenrir’s route kills a lot of the build up between Alice and Fenrir and there was honestly no point of having Alice go back to London. The circumstances that lead her to returning were so stupid it had me head banging against the wall.
The Good: I think Fenrir and Alice have a very strong “friends to lovers” romance going on and it was honestly really sweet and wholesome. I loved how their friendship and subsequent romance builds them both up and makes them better people-- they’re both stronger together, they’re equals, they’re partners. You really get a sense of camaraderie between the two and their relationship is founded on mutual respect, understanding, trust, and confidence in each other which I’m 100% on board with. Fenrir taking Alice onto the battle field with him is a testament of the rock solid trust between them. They have a very strong partner in crime vibe that I love!
I adore how Fenrir refers to Alice as his “best friend” or his “best buddy” and it was just so cute, it made my heart swell because I’m a firm believer that your s/o SHOULD be your best friend.
Overall imo, Fenrir’s route is about on par with Lancelot’s, though it has higher highs and lower lows than Lancelot’s route did.
Anyway, I’m making my way through Edgar’s route currently (♥ω♥*).
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MCU Rewatch: Civil War
I love the banter between Sam and Nat. “Someone ever told you you’re a little paranoid?” lol
I also love Wanda floating Steve into the building. “Just like we practiced”. So cute.
lol Redwing. Sam/Nat is an underrated pairing.
Wanda does not set off the bomb. Rumlow does, and then Wanda only fails to contain it.
There are like. Lots of hypocrites in the MCU, but, man, does T’Chaka takes the cake. lol My dude... I don’t think you’re the best person to talk about indifference.
I don’t want to make this commentary all like “Steve DOES do this thing fandom complains about him not doing”, because this happens through the entire movie, but I want to point out the only thing Steve says to Wanda is that the Wakandans’ deaths are on HIM, not her. Then, when she says it’s on both of them, he doesn’t dispute it.
I’m gonna SPARE you all from turning this into a rant about how much I hate the Accords, but boy oh boy, does the way Ross essentially presents it as “sign it or retire” and the way he refers to Thor and Bruce as “nukes” show a little of who this character is, and how meaningful it was that we’re presented to the Accords by him.
I have a lot of feelings about how Steve is essentially surrounded by his closest friends on the world when he opens the text telling him of Peggy’s death, and his reaction is NOT to tell ANY of them what is happening, but instead leave to cry about it alone, pretty much hidden. Suffering in silence. Sam is with him at the funeral, but did Steve even tell him? Or did he find out in some other way? God this moment makes me so sad.
His red eyes as he carries the casket. So much pain.
I used to resent the fact that the Russos gave the “you move” speech to Sharon, but in context, it makes sense. In this moment it’s what gives him motivation to not sign. I feel like, if it were given to him, it would sounds petulant.
Chadwick Boseman is just SO COOL in this movie. His accent, his expressions. T’Challa gets such an amazing introduction to the universe here.
Also, I once posted that T’Challa breaks the Accords in Black Panther on the Seoul chase scene, but it never occured to me that he totally does it in this movie as well. lol Good for him.
I love Steve’s “come on, man” when he catches the guy Bucky dropped lol.
Wanda and Vision’s flirt is cute.
I can’t get over the way Tony looks at Steve on the pens scene. I can only imagine how shooting it went. “Ok, Robert, now we need you to try to convince him...” “And look hopelessly in love and in pain while I do it. Got it.”
GOD THIS SCENE! I love that Steve totally sees through that Tony is going to try to get him to sign and that he’s trying to appeal to his nostalgia by bringing up the pens, so he starts out pretty defensive; then Tony gets personal when talking about Pepper, and Steve drops his guard. His “I’m so sorry, Tony” is very sincere.
I’m thorn on whether Steve assuming Pepper might be pregnant when she and Tony aren’t even TOGETHER is an indication of him and Tony not keeping much touch, because the movie kind of implies by Pepper cancelling her appearance at MIT that the Pepperony break up was recent. Either way, I feel like the fact that Steve just assumes they’re madly in love and ready to have a baby is a great detail for fics to use.
I feel like people overlook Tony’s highly personal reasoning for signing the Accords. Sure, it’s not the only reason he signed, but it was a strong one.
I also have feelings about how Steve says nothing after Tony talks about Pepper - generally feeling the impact of Tony’s words -, so Tony kind of got through him in a way, and then Tony immediately stands up and creates distance between them, turning away and quipping “In her defense, I’m a handful”. Oh, Tony.
One thing this scene clearly DOES imply is that they’ve never discussed Howard before.
Also, Steve looks genuinely hurt when Tony says he hated him. Awww. And then his smile when Tony goes “no, you don’t”. I love this scene to bits.
I want to make my commentary more insightful then “this is gay as fuck”, but the way Tony says “sometimes I wanna punch you in your perfect teeth” is just TOO GAY TO FUNCTION. He legit looks like he’s actively holding back from jumping him. I can’t deal.
And then with “I don’t wanna see you gone” his voice turns so soft. And it GETS to Steve, clearly. He’s honestly considering signing it.
And then the Wanda exchange happens. There’s a lot to unpack here, but I don’t want to waste time going through stuff people say about it that everyone and their mother already knows I disagree with, so... I’m not gonna dwell on it too much.
I AM gonna dwell on “these documents can be amended”. How? And most importantly, why? Once they’re signed, WHY would 117 countries agree to renegotiate something that’s already going the way they wanted to, just for a couple individuals they clearly have no respect for since they basically pushed the law on them without even trying talking about it while they were being discussed? What reason do they have to add in safeguards at this point? I feel like Tony is totally bullshitting here, or not thinking through what he’s saying.
All discourse aside, I love this scene. And Tony looks in so much pain after it ends, and I love that he puts the sunglasses on even after Steve leaves. Using an armor because he’s upset.
Tony fighting Bucky with the gauntlet is such a cool moment. That is a very cool sequence.
The use of the superserum and the potential other Winter Soldiers is so well-used as a red herring, both by Zemo and by the movie. It sets up the final twist so well.
“I can’t control their fear, only my own” I love this line.
No hate for Sharon, but damn that’s an awkward kiss.
Scott meeting Steve is an eternal mood.
The airport fight is so fun. Such a great use of so many different characters.
It’s bizarre that the movie clearly says Tony was in the wrong, has Tony VERBALLY acknowledge this, and his fandom sitll somehow denies it. lol
T’Challa mentions there are people on the way when he holds Zemo down, so the movie does respond to the question of how did Tony come back from Siberia.
The final scene in the bunker is top notch. It’s painful and hurtful and so well-acted. This movie really hits well on the two buttons of why you’d make superheroes fight. There’s both the fun “what if X fought Y”s stuff, and the emotionally heavy stuff.
Steve’s apology in the letter is... pretty much as apologetic as apologies go. He says “I’m sorry, I know I hurt you, I thought I was going for you but I was just sparing myself”. Sure, he could’ve gone on about his reasons, but... it’s an apology, and not a “i’m sorry, but...” type of apology. I feel like anyone hoping to see Steve grovelling will be disappointed, but also, I don’t think Tony is expecting him to do that in canon, either. I feel like the apology is there, and while things obviously aren’t fine, I don’t think it’s fair to act as if it isn’t.
And it’s over! I actually like this movie a lot. The pacing is airtight - it’s two and half hours long but it flies by. There are so many fun moments, but the emotional parts still hit very well. Also, I feel like a lot of bad discourse about it (especially about Steve) comes from people just... not rewatching it, and forgetting what actually happened other than the main events (the same applies to AoU). It’s a good movie. I agree with the criticism that it’s not really a Steve movie, it’s more of an Avengers movie with slightly more of a focus on Steve, but I think the quality outweights this concern, imo.
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Let’s Read Victory of Eagles; the Prepare to Cry About William Laurence Edition
earlier temeraire let’s reads (yes I’m sticking with it)
- oh man starting with temeraire’s pov is such a good call, I don’t know if I could take getting plunged straight into laurence’s misery without some (very slight) levity first
- lol and also crey @ laurence gently reminding these young guys how to keep him prisoner
- temeraire on his way to revolutionize dragon politics after one damn month... I’m so proud ;___; on the other hand him thinking laurence is dead is... nope not processing this laurence is fine let’s not worry about it
- SURPRISE THARKAY! BEST KIND OF SURPRISE
looool he just keeps coming to get laurence and finding him embroiled in some fresh catastrophe... I’m sorry ur bro is in another castle/war camp/ship wreck/prison tharkay you’re a champ for tracking him down again and again
- He has a new birb!!! good stuff. this part of them walking through the quiet ruined town is really striking too
- laurence feels like he can be just himself for the first time in months huh... cool cool cool
- “You and Temeraire would be welcome in other parts of the world. You may recall there is some semblance of civilization,” he added dryly, “in a few places, beyond the borders of England.”
fsdakhfdasdfsaflj a) I love him so much b) I g u e s s Tharkay kind of just asked Laurence to run away with him in his low-key sardonic way... super triple extra cool cool cool extremely admirable even if he and everyone else in the world knows it to be doomed
resting his hand on his shoulder because he knows Laurence is gonna be Laurence about this... yeah okay just punch me in the heart
- tfw the guy you sort of have a thing for is determined to get himself killed for a government you feel exactly zero personal loyalty to and now you have to watch his back 🙄
- lol laurence is like ‘I’m not gonna start a fistfight’
five minutes later: granby pulls laurence out of a fistfight he started because someone talked shit about his dragon
- aw demane and sipho! good boys bein’ good boys
- temeraire reciting principia mathematica to himself and changing his voice so he can pretend it’s laurence reading to him... that is under the belt naomi novik that is just mean
(all the funnier/more heartbreaking for knowing laurence has no fucking idea what he’s reading out loud when it comes to that book and would never have touched it if temeraire didn’t love it so much)
- “Oh,” Temeraire said, and sat back on his haunches. He was not quite sure what to say. “I am very sorry?” he offered, uncertainly. He supposed it must be very unpleasant to be a coward.
fjfjghfgj how is he so darling
- tbh perscitia is very much me when it comes to fighting; I too am small and slow and cripplingly overly aware of all the ways things can go wrong which everyone seems happy to overlook
- as a professional tharkay spotter: he is in fact present in the proceedings right now, he arrived at the same time as granby and had one (1) line of dialogue! I am not sure why everyone’s talking about this napoleon fella instead of specifying to me what precise dragon he hitched a ride with or what kind of babysitter arrangement he has put in place for his birb but y’know I’ll take what I can get
(there is a peculiar sort of satisfaction in getting reeeeaaal attached to a side character; this reminds me a lot of being nine and scrupulously scanning every page of a harry potter book for mentions of sirius, no matter how peripheral or inconsequential)
- all of temeraire’s dragons are pure gold tbh, I especially like majestatis and his laconic competency (I may have a type)
- temeraire not getting why laurence isn’t responding to him quite as he should and laurence basically getting his affairs in order... William Laurence if you break both our hearts I will never fucking forgive you this is my stern voice
- adding a second (and tonally very different) pov is such a genius move at this point in the story; it really breathes new life into everything.
- lady allendale is the real mvp, you can really see a lot of laurence’s good sides in a straight line from her to him
- oooooooooooooooooooooh roland dropping some truth bombs on laurence for being so very very honorable and so very very dumb
thank you jane I guess at least he’s pretty
- having to read laurence trying to convince all the people who love him to basically let him kill himself is extremely upsetting and I Do Not Care for it
- temeraire absent-mindedly putting ‘coming up with some way to let laurence live as long as me’ on his ‘to do’ list is Everything
but also he doesn’t even realize how wrong things are with his captain and I want to curl up in a ball. no bb no one is going to take him but he’s halfway through taking himself out :(
(I will say that there’s something about laurence’s incredible inflexibility and self loathing that is very relatable, which is probably why I’m so mad at him and also so scared for him. incidentally one of hanzo’s traits I really identify with. anyway onwards)
- ah of course granby was kidnapped I was wondering when something bad would happen to him in this book
- “You are not obliged -- ” Laurence began.
“No,” Tharkay agreed civilly, with one raised brow, and Laurence bowed and left it there.
fdsfdklsalkjhfkjasdhfjkadshdsfhksdfjakh how... how can anyone be so impossibly lovely and so sarcastic in one word... my heart feels so full
but also ow b/c I think tharkay does see the state laurence is in and it must be extremely stressful to look out for all the swords your bro is determined to throw himself on
- oF ALL THE DOORSTEPS IN ALL OF LONDON THEY HAD TO END UP AT LAURENCE’S EX’S how many mirrors has this poor man broken to end up here
- oh uh wow I think I just murdered woolvey’s shitty racist ass with my mind I never even knew I had the power
- Tharkay seeming to suss out the whole Situation here at a glance... *prayer hands emoji*
- Tharkay shook his head, and when Laurence looked at him said quietly: “It must be difficult to follow an officer of public repute, in the affections of a woman who loves courage.”
...
“My reputation is hardly one any sensible man would covet.”
“It does not name you a coward,” Tharkay said. “Whatever has Bertram Woolvey done?”
as observed completely impartially except for that one awful enormous crush he is developing lol
- oh no... woolvey died... this is... terrible.... *insert ‘shocked’ captain kirk reaction image here*
okay it does put edith in a genuinely awful situation, which super sucks. everything around her is like the one part of laurence’s self loathing that is sort of justified: he’s been making her life so much harder for so long. first she had to worry about her not-even-husband-yet getting lost at sea and he seems pretty emotionally distant, for all that he can be sweet, then he adopts a dragon and she is SUCH AN AFTERTHOUGHT to him in that process (because, as I have discussed earlier, william laurence should just not ask people to marry him b/c he never. actually. means. it. he just thinks he should I think)
and then, after finally disentangling herself emotionally from that she manages to marry a dude who’s a twit, but a twit who by all appearances treats her well and she’s happy -- and then Laurence shows up for three fucking hours and her HUSBAND IS SHOT DEAD
most of laurence’s guilt is the useless self-flagellation of depression, but in this one case I’m a bit more ‘yeah okay valid bro’
- Laurence’s tendency to describe, in minute detail, what some dude is wearing even under the most dire of circumstances is so endearing. (also he barely ever does it with women; usually it’s like ‘and she was wearing idk a dress?’ lol)
- laurence’s superpower is inspiring people’s affection and loyalty and then wondering why they’re all not cool with him throwing himself off a cliff
- is tharkay like basically a scottish lord on his dad’s side and has been fucked over by either the system or the rest of his family. are you fucking kidding me jfksadflsadfj
- oh. oh okay that’s the king that’s super extra salt in the wound for our golden boy :I
- NOOOOOOOOOOO TEMERAIRE THINKS LAURENCE MIGHT BE ANGRY WITH HIM!!!!!! LAURENCE YOU BEAUTIFUL USELESS DUMBASS PLEASE SNAP OUT OF YOUR DEPRESSION LONG ENOUGH TO TELL YOUR DRAGON SON YOU’RE NOT ANGRY WITH HIM OR SO HELP ME I’LL... CRY AT YOU I GUESS
- okay so this is all very bleak and... borderline war crime-y and laurence is clearly In A Bad Way but also demane has just put every scrap of clothing he could find on his little brother, who now can barely walk for all the layers but is presumably nice and warm, and my heart is doing strange things in my chest
- “Laurence, what are you doing?”
*ELMO SURROUNDED IN FLAMES GIF* MY BOY THARKAY BEING THE REAL MVP ASKING THE REAL QUESTIONS
this whole scene is so brief but so good fkdslahfaklsdhfaskld laurence literally slipping back out of dissociation and noticing the smells and sounds around him again... this is So Much, tharkay you fucking miracle of a man
- there is something incredibly interesting about how laurence is just viscerally terrified by the things tharkay seems to represent to him -- that’s at least twice now that he’s thought straight out, in pretty much the same words, that tharkay’s way of living seems achingly lonely and untethered and frightening to him. (the first time is in black powder war, just as he’s about to give the offer of friendship that tharkay seems equal parts confused and touched by lol) laurence has this intense need to be part of something bigger than himself and doesn’t trust himself to know what’s right (...even tho he’ll historically still occasionally go off and do The Right Thing despite orders anyway because he’s a beautiful idiot), while tharkay obviously puts freedom and autonomy faaaar above any of that (understandably, from his background lol)
and still it’s exactly this dude who woke laurence up to himself again and reminded him who he really is. this is the man he knew he’d be ‘sorrier to lose than yet I know’ and gooooddamn if he wasn’t right about that. I’m not ready to be coherent about it yet but uh wow this is A Lot
- the way novik writes laurence dissociating is. a bit too close to home, I’m not thrilled about this haha
- LAURENCE IS TALKING TO HIS DRAGON SON AGAIN AND I CAN FINALLY BREATHE THANK YOU THARKAY
- also let me specify that tharkay coming in and ending laurence’s breakdown by just showing him that he, y’know. doesn’t have to commit borderline war crimes if he doesn’t want to is... yeah. when he’s like ‘yeah no bro I like you and all but this is fucked up I’m out’ and Laurence slowly puts the pieces together and goes ‘...that... is an option? F U C K’ is the Good Stuff (I’m being flippant about it but also I really mean it lol)
- temeraire is giving the french uniforms the side eye for being boring and admiring the kilts... god bless him, focusing on the real things on the eve of battle
- gOD lien is so fucking COOL, celestial who actually knows wtf she’s doing OP pls nerf
ETA: also I’ve looked up some spoilers for the rest of this series (b/c there’s a couple of characters now who I’m so attached to that if they die I don’t even fucking care anymore lol), and apparently they never get to fight lien/meet her for too long again and can I just say... What The Fuck, why would you come up with such a compelling antagonist and not use her???
- Tharkay, straight(hah)-faced: yeah I’m coming with you to australia on this prison ship nbd just curious about it that’s all
Laurence, blinking back tears, barely getting the words out: cool bro
(I think laurence has been like. crying or on the verge of crying in every single scene he and tharkay have been alone in this entire book. tharkay saw laurence through an ugly ugly divorce (with the government of england if not the land) and is still going with him to fucking australia. that’s how you know it’s love tbh, he’s done for)
also for the meme: AND THEY WERE SHIPMATES! OH MY GOD THEY WERE SHIPMATES!
ALSO also: tharkay getting granby a drink fdsafjsalkdjfh best boy, best friend
- not connected to anything but I do appreciate that laurence is a rare extremely extroverted protagonist. he just really needs people around him and sort of wilts when he’s isolated, whether by circumstance or his own Stuff.
- Oh man I really liked this one! the pacing worked better than the last one, the dual pov really shook things up, the new dragon characters were cool and Laurence had a lot of character development that has been in the cards since book 1, even if it was really upsetting while it happened. and Tharkay was there a lot, which is the surest way to my heart at this point, to be fair.
#temeraire#victory of eagles#william laurence x tenzing tharkay#willzing#meta#okay let's go to australia everyone! what could possibly go wrong#it's only known for being full to the brim with creatures that can murder you with a glance#...added a ship tag b/c I'm not exactly being subtle in this one lol
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First 3 Dungeons Completed
So, my grandma finally got her controller set up, along with my game settings files, (which she very much likes) but I screwed up a tiny bit and later realized I put her game audio in Japanese. LOL Damnit. It’s okay though. It’s an easy fix I can help her change. She didn’t complain about it, but i had to ask her. She moves much faster, and when she follows me, she’s always right behind me. I don’t have to pause after i turn corners to make sure i don’t run too far ahead and have her lose me. And she dodges in battle now!! Aaahhh! She says the controller is much easier on her though, which i’m very glad for. She was saying something about the touchpad on her laptop bothering her finger after awhile. I can imagine how uncomfortable playing like that is.. She is using the chat function more too now that she doesn’t move with the keyboard.
The last time I did MSQ with her, we left off in Gridania, and she just never left. She’s told me she loves it several times already. With a few side quests she’s picked up, she ended up in Lavender Beds, looking around houses, and got lost. During the night when I couldn’t sleep, I peeked on her account to see where her MSQ was, and found her logged in front of someone’s carbuncle house. I didn’t want to touch anything and got off. When she picked it back up, I helped her get out of there and back to where we needed to be for the MSQ. She seems to wait for me to do those with her. When we met up finally, I was no longer my usual female raen au ra, but instead a male seeker miqote. I stood there and told her i got a haircut... she didn’t react though, so we moved on.
Fast forward a bit to us standing in front of Sastasha. I explained that this was a dungeon and we’d be getting a random player with us. As i’m typing, she’s running around the area, trying to find where to click on to progress next. When she started to run away, I typed faster, asking if she wanted me to go over a few things to make things smoother basically. With a yes, I went over briefly what the tank’s job was, which was to lead the party through the dungeon and keep the enemy’s focus off everyone, along with the mention that dps and healers shouldn’t run ahead of them, and that she and my boyfriend were to kill everything. And that was all! I didn’t bother with mechanics at all, so she could just experience them.
In Sastasha, we learned that she really liked Sleep.. Lol. I eventually told her that it didn’t do any damage and it was something that was rarely needed. During this run, we were seeing that transpose was still an issue because when MP was low, she’d stand and wait for it to refill, but she’s playing around with her spells and seeing how they work. The healer spent their time jumping around and running ahead to pull more things, so while I trying to see what she was doing and helping as i tanked, i had that to try to deal with that.. I felt like I couldn’t really say much though. x__x; When the coeurl boss came up, i’m not sure what happened, but she got locked out and tried to run around to figure out how to get through. D: After that, she made sure to be in front of the line to not get locked out again. For loot, she figured out how to roll on her own because I saw that she won something. And on the last boss, she just focused on that, so we ended up burning it.
Overall, there was a lot of sleep use at the start, blizzard II seems to be her favorite way to deal with mobs, probably due to her mp trouble, and at one point, while she did stay behind me, she used her range to pull another mob before we were done with the current. I went over the last bit, explaining why this was bad, but also that it was my fault for not telling her about it. When I reminded her that fire was the better source of damage, she asked me what it turned into. So we went over transpose again, and then I introduced Fire II and mob fighting with her. She also commented about how many levels she got in that run, surprised.
So, onward to Tam tara! The healer wanted to run ahead and pull more and then stand there, watching us deal with it. Lol Ahh! Why does this keep happening! I saw Nana using Fire more, and when there were was a mob, she’d use fire II. *tears of joy* There was a few things of Sleep as well, but i think these were accidents. I didn’t really see Transpose, but she’d swap to Blizzard II to refil then resume her fire use. At the very least, I think she’s understanding that blizzard spells give mp. On the last boss, when it used that large aoe, I saw her run out of it and i yelled out loud, “HOLY SHIT, SHE DODGED! OMG SHE DID IT!!”. Before the controller, this was something I didn’t see her do, so I was ecstatic!
Seeing the improvement in this run was a real treat, but once we stood outside Copperbell, the queue wasn’t popping, so we stood around. While we waited, I gave her a baby chocobo minion since she had previously asked me about the “things” that follow me around. After some time, I cancelled the queue and tried to see if I could grab someone more ..patient. xD; I tried a few people (some of you name dropped for me in various forms of private messages, but weren’t on at the time unfortunately) and I eventually asked my Balmung FC if anyone was free for some lowbie dungeon healing. I explained what Party Finder was to Nana and then pulled our FCmate in. I introduced them, we talked for a little bit about stuff, and then went in.
The run went pretty smoothly, and there was actual conversation during battles, which was pleasant. Our FCmate would ask how she was doing with loot rolls and things, which was pretty nice too. For the boss fight with the spriggans, I gave the heads up that a lot would be spawning, and we dove into that. However, halfway through, my eyes started to burn really bad, and while I tried to deal with that squinty and teary eyed, i couldn’t take it anymore and apologized, jumping out of my chair to go deal with it. In my stead, the boyfriend guy tanked and they killed the things, and then they went over using Limit Break with Nana. Since the FCmate used a PS4 controller too, she went over how to assign things to her crossbar. This was something that I was grateful for because I completely forgot about this. Nana was confused with it all though, but she told us she took a picture of the instructions to try it later. I think she didn’t want us to wait for her.
After my eyes no longer felt like they were on fire, we continued on, but as we were grabbing up loot, I turned to my grandma and I finally asked, “Nana, did you notice I was a cat boy?” There was a pause and she replies, “no”. The FCmate chines in with “I noticed right away >.>”. The boyfriend laughs in the background. I chuckle with my deep mancat voice and continue on.
So, the slime boss.. Nana wanted it dead, so I just let her blow it up while the FCmate did the bomb thing for us. I said we needed the bomb to explode on the slime and not to kill it. With her focused on the slime, we watched the bomb come over and explode. *Insert me yelling at my screen as she dodges them*
On the last boss, we let her know she could ignore the koolaid men coming out of the walls. Aaand dungeon completed! Hooray!
I just want to apologize for the lack of screenshots. i know it never was something promised, but I always try to tell myself i need to get more for you guys, and I keep forgetting! By the time I remembered, I scrambled to get that unflattering one. Lmao .. I’ll try harder to get more.
Anyway! After that was all said and done, it was late and Nana wanted to get ready for bed. Our FCmate and her said their goodbyes and we split off. I think Nana afk’d or tabbed at this point because she stopped moving/responding, so I said I was logging, but would pm her on facebook.
Note: she uses speech to text on this when on her phone.
Me: I wanted to ask.. did you like the dungeons? i was wondering if they were too hectic.
N: Yes I'll get the the magic down better I took a picture of everything we wrote and your friend told me how to do that I didn't get it but I took a picture so I can do it tomorrow and level 27 now that's a good thing those dungeons do I had no idea where we went how we went there and where I'm at right now I'm just going to shut it down because right below it I have an old thing to do something to get that done
N: No punctuation marks you're going to have to figure it out
Me: i am reading slowly, but i think i got it.
Me: i didn't know how to do limit breaks for awhile, so i think it's normal.
N: Yeah and you can't go back and correct it either
N: I don't even know what limit breaks means
Me: remember in the final fantasy games how there would be a gauge that would fill over time and it was a big attack you could use every now and then?
N: Oh yeah
Me: that's what it is, but a different name. it's shared by the party.
N: *thumbs up emote*
N: Okay I'm going to finish up here and go to bed your mom and I are going to run errands tomorrow
N: That little duck looking thing is in my minion thing is that where it's supposed to go and what happens now
Me: click on it in the minion guide.
N: Okay
Me: it's a chocobo. lol!
N: Lol nn
Me: okay, good night !
N: *sticker of two sprawled out dogs, sleeping with Z’s*
So, that’s that! A little progress here and there. Good stuff. \o/ Phew!
Also.. Added bonus. Here’s an older screenshot while we were still stuck in the desert. This guy has no shame. I kinda want to draw this out..
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The first part of the finale.
Listen to monotone robot man. Why would anyone follow this dude?
Baby Elizabeth is soooo cute. ;__;
This conference looks SO AWKWARD with the Enterprise crew just … standing on the stairs in the background. Phlox is the only one who looks cheerful and everyone else looks like they’re waiting for the dentist to pull out their wisdom teeth.
Clap clap clap.
Archer KNOWS they look bad so makes everyone clap harder.
Trip REALLY doesn’t want to clap. If you watch carefully, it looks like T'Pol caught a stray thought from Trip and is just sharing in his sullenness. Archer probably made them stand away from each other because it would be waaaay too obvious otherwise.
Aw, look at this crew. Sourpusses together.
Trip says something. T'Pol answers, but even her words sound completely unconvincing.
They are totally having a private mental bitch session and none of you can convince me otherwise. T'Pol has a bit of a delay before moving down the stairs too, as though she’s finishing listening to Trip grousing in her mindspace. Also, it looks like she’s zoning out a couple of times on the stairs. LOL.
Random woman staggering in wearing a jacket from 1970.
SECURITY!
T'Pol is backing Trip’s POV up to Archer. My babies have come so far since Season One! Also, that quick amused look Archer gives her. Like, oh, backing up Trip, huh?
Look, the bad jacket lady is shoving something at T'Pol while saying, “They’re going to kill her.” She looks like a bomber or a shooter.
Is there NO SECURITY at this Very Important Conference?!
T'Pol looks very concerned by the words of this person who has wandered in off the street.
But no, she’s a dying, emotionally disturbed good Samaritan who has a DYING MESSAGE.
Or a vial with hair in it. Doesn’t the hair look TOO LONG for a baby?
T'Pol has the facts about Susan Khouri and has clearly been doing some digging. Trip just looks befuddled. He’s more concerned about who the hair belonged to. Clearly he thinks there’s some sort of hostage situation.
Trip and T'Pol as a duo standing together is a good thing because this is a crazy truth bomb that is about to be dropped on them.
Phlox is like, yes, I know exactly who the hair belongs to. It’s a baby that contains Vulcan and human DNA.
T'Pol’s face is very calm and considering.
Phlox: I did everything possible to verify these shocking hair results. It’s TnT’s baby!
Trip’s FAAAAACE.
Trip turning to T'Pol all: Wait, we had a baby?!
T'Pol looks a little unsettled by all the looks but is otherwise like, yeah, of course? in her demeanor.
Of course, the very next scene she is meditating so she isn’t THAT calm about it. Aaaaand obviously she knows who is at her door.
Trip strides in all: “We gotta talk about this.” We can only wonder how they left the conversation after sick bay but it doesn’t look like they got anywhere with it if this is where they’re starting. I assume there was a lot of Trip going, ARE YOU SURE? And Phlox going: Did I stutter?
Anyway, Trip sits down and steeples/smooshes his hands against his face. This is not an easy conversation.
T'Pol’s like, OK, I am not sitting next to you as it appears you may behave irrationally. Also, I dunno what’s going on either.
Trip’s all: Science! DNA! Verifiable facts! Logic!
T'Pol: Are you calling me a liar? I’ve never been pregnant. Like, ever.
Trip: Then WTF is going on?! I’m so confused and distraught. (Though really, if we look at the date of the first time they had sex, unless the Vulcan gestation period is VERY short, I don’t think they could have a six month old? Like, I guess human females pregnant with a half Vulcan baby actually have a TEN month long pregnancy? And she would have probably had to get pregnant when they were chasing the Xindi and like … hidden it for months as their ship was on the verge of breaking down???)
T'Pol can’t explain how it’s possible and Trip is just … not dealing very well.
T'Pol: Do you believe me?
This is a really important question. This is a crisis here. Like, this is basically her LIFE PARTNER (and father of her child(ren)!) questioning whether she is telling him the truth.
And we don’t see her expression but we see Trip’s expression, and slowly, slowly, he says, “Yeah.” He believes her. Phlox must be wrong. If she’s never been pregnant then she can’t have a baby.
He is having some MIXED feelings here. On the one hand, we KNOW he loves the idea of having kids with her. He LOVES THEIR KIDS. He was SO DAMN HAPPY about Lorian. On the other hand, at least T'Pol is not a giant liar McLiar McLying face who had his baby and hid it from him only to have dangerous people kidnap it?
And ever since he said that he believed her, she’s been moving closer to him. And she sits down in front of him now, so close, now that they are finally able to be in the same space, and she tells him, she knows that it’s their baby.
He’s like, Wait a minute, did you NOT just tell me two seconds ago that you’ve never been-
She hasn’t.
And now he’s all angry and confused and going crazy again. WTF is going on?!
Here you can hear the emotion leak out of her. She can’t explain how their baby exists, but it does. There is definitely a baby out there that is theirs.
And Trip’s face is just a picture of WHAT ARE YOU EVEN SAYING? How do you know that?!
She just rapid-fire responds with: I’m Vulcan.
His disbelieving face is the best. It’s like she said, I know because I’m a witch. And he just slumps a little like, Samantha, why didn’t you tell me you were a witch BEFORE we got married?! (Okay, I actually dislike so many things about Bewitched, but this is just the example that popped to mind!)
Archer has faith in humanity. Yes, reference that theme song!
He’s rebutted with: We can’t afford to operate on faith.
Archer: No, ‘cause I’ve got faith of the heart! I’m going where my heart will take me! I’ve got faith to believe, I can do anything!
Archer is like TnT are going bananas, please tell me what you found out.
Yeah, now Archer has to call on Malcolm for a shady favor.
Malcolm hanging out at the actual docks. LOL.
Ugh, now Malcolm is back in the shady covert organization. All for Archer.
Everyone’s like: where did this baby come from? The mysterious secret dude doesn’t even know.
The bad guys are plotting. The TnT baby is so cuuuuuute that no one can resist. She’s a cutie patootie.
Terraists are always totally crazy (see LoGH, I mean Terraists).
Megalomaniacs always have scale models of buildings in their rooms.
I still don’t see any security at this conference!
Why do politicians always look so sleazy?
Archer is being pretty decent at getting information for once. Not enough underlying threat, though.
Travis’s subplot again. Hi, subplot. Travis is mad because Gannett broke up with him.
Trip needs some one to talk to so he goes to Phlox, because as you know, starships were not equipped with Counselors back in the day.
Trip gets right to talking about the baby. He wants to know about it, if it’s a boy or a girl. After what T'Pol said, it’s become real to him.
He’s so gobsmacked that she’s a girl. He’s in awe. He is fucking INVESTED. Immediately. Instantaneously. As soon as he let himself believe in it. (He is gonna back SUCH A GOOD DAD.) Now he wants to know if she’s okay, being a hybrid. (I mean, he’s seen Lorian so he knows it’s possible for her to be fine.)
Phlox says humans and Vulcans are pretty similar (yeah, all that Seeder stuff) so to the best of his knowledge, she’s perfectly healthy. (Nuuuuuu, whhhhyyyyyy.)
Trip is relieved and smiles a little bit. Then Phlox is a little TOO free with the info and tells him that she has his eyes. He laughs. Lorian had his father’s.
And T'Pol’s ears. Lorian had those too.
Trip’s still flabbergasted. It’s so much to take in.
Phlox is like, yeah, it’s totes weird since T'Pol’s never been pregnant. (And as her DOCTOR, he should know.)
And then Trip says: She could have gotten pregnant and not told me about it.
I will cut him a little slack because the situation is so completely bizarre and they were definitely having their fair share of problems, but, seriously Trip, you need to have more faith (of the heart)! That was beneath you.
Phlox does not bat an eye that they’re clearly sleeping together (well, he half orchestrated the whole thing), but the way he says, “Ah,” is so heavy and chiding. “And she had the embryo removed, also without your knowledge. I believe you know the answer to that theory, Commander.” Phlox is shaming him for his line of thought and Trip acknowledges it and that he’s wrong to think it. He knows that he should believe in her.
Phlox is like, OK, I will give you a pass this time, but you better not be a dumbass about it and say anything like this to T'Pol.
Trip thinks hard, nods, and says that’s good advice. He just won her back after a hard fought struggle. He’s not enough of an idiot to throw that away again.
Trip shares the fact that his father always wanted a granddaughter and bothered his sister about it all the time. (Was Lizzie married? I think originally he might have been supposed to have an older sister, but she got wiped from canon, so it must be Lizzie who’s being referenced.) For once, talking about his sister doesn’t seem to be painful for him. He’s smiling.
Phlox plays along and says it seems his father got his wish.
Trip shakes his head and blows out a breath, feeling overwhelmed. Here he is, dealing with sudden fatherhood. But to his credit, he already loves this baby he’s never met.
Ugh, listen to these xenophobic Terraists. Watch this robo-dude shoot himself up.
Travis and subplot checking out the shuttlepods. Ah, Shuttlepod One. The scene of many close encounters. You guys should close the door at least? C'mon, Travis.
Trip and T'Pol are the only ones sitting at the table. Like everyone else is standing around giving a presentation and the two of them need to be sitting in case there’s more bad news. Trip immediately volunteers to go on the undercover mission to the moon. T'Pol looks conflicted for a second, listening to him, but makes up her mind that she also wants to go. They’ve gotta get to their baby. Archer sees their resolve and doesn’t argue.
Doctor dude from earlier is the end result of ROCKS FALL.
Why are we mining the moon? Poor moon.
Trip and T'Pol are apparently the ONLY ONES on the undercover mission. Like, uh, you couldn’t send a couple MACOs??? These people have their baby. DON’T YOU THINK THEY’RE KIND OF RECOGNIZABLE?
Anyway, they are quibbling over directions while dressed in truly ugly jumpsuits.
Trip accuses T'Pol of downloading an outdated map.
She’s affronted. The map is fine!
Trip: “Maybe you’re reading it wrong.”
She is so peeved right now. She is pursing her lips in annoyance. THIS is the man she’s in love with? Really? But she restrains herself like a Vulcan and offers gently, “We can ask for directions.”
Trip is NOT asking for directions and tells her to give him the map.
He tells her that he’s figured out the problem and she clings on to this glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. “What?”
“We’re lost.”
Her irritated face is a delight. They’re lost. Also hilarious.
He suggests going in one direction and she inquires as to his reasoning.
He doesn’t recognize the tunnel and she bows her head and gives in.
Well, they’re alone in this tunnel so she wants to have a heart to heart. She knows he’s not convinced that she told him the truth about the child.
He looks really serious here when he asks her what she means.
She looks both sad and a little testy as she says, “You think I might have gotten pregnant without your knowledge.”
He can’t really deny it and looks away, but tries to defend himself anyway. “I never said that!”
“I know.” Jolene’s delivery here is so good? She is acknowledging that he didn’t say that even if he was thinking it, and she knows it was because he didn’t want to hurt her, even if she is still hurt by it. She does a little swallow after she says it too.
He’s not mad or anything but the first thought that comes to his mind just pops out of his mouth: “You’ve been talking to Phlox.”
And by this T'Pol is a little skeptical as to where the conversation has gone and turns it around on him. “Nooo? Have you?”
Now he’s kind of frustrated but not mad. “Look, it’s because you’re Vulcan, inn’t it, that you know all this?!” Like he’s at a perpetual disadvantage and T'Pol is full of some witchy secret mind-reading knowledge that he’s not privy too. She knows that the baby is theirs. She knows that he has doubts. (Darlin’, she could read you without the psychic bond. And don’t forget, you once told her the same thing.)
He’s sick of the bond!
Now, this riles her up. She doesn’t particularly enjoy it either. Especially when it tells her her partner is doubting her!
But the way Trip handles this really shows how much he’s grown and that he really took his talk with Phlox to heart. He tells her that for the last time he DOES believe her and that if she gets any more feelings (I think he was probably going to tell her to talk about them with him first rather than stewing in her own juices) – but he gets distracted by T'Pol staring over his shoulder.
Yup, they finally found the area they were looking for. So Trip was right about that. And then they have to table the conversation because finding their baby is more important.
Ugh, Travis, SOMEONE HAS TO CLEAN THE SEATS OF SHUTTLEPOD ONE.
Also, hasn’t it been a day or two since you guys were originally having sex? You were the one with the friend on the moon base so TnT could sneak in so you had to have been productive at SOME point. Were just helping out between bouts of having sex in the shuttlepod?! Has Gannett just been hanging out on the ship the ENTIRE time?
Hoshi is fixing the universal translators. Malcolm is getting antsy.
Trip’s been singled out and is playing along to get in good with the good ol’ boys club. Uh, Josiah is being a Xenophobic butthead, but the rhetoric sounds so familiar. It’s not lost on me that they have multiple black men AND an Asian being xenophobic buttheads, BTW, but in Star Trek race isn’t an issue anymore. It’s species.
T'Pol comes up and without preamble starts to tell him that she’s figured something out. He grabs her, makes a gesture for silence, and hides her behind him to make sure everything’s clear. Gotta protect his lady.
T'Pol’s telling him about the dead doctor with the air of someone revealing the set up of a murder mystery.
Trip immediately knows that she’s not buying the cover up and they agree to split up and figure out what they can tonight.
Ugh, I don’t want to listen to the alt-right meeting, I mean … no, that’s exactly what I mean.
T'Pol is checking out the scene where the doctor’s body was found and of course she gets shot.
5 thousand unregistered aliens on Earth. Could be 10 thousand. Humanity won’t exist in the future because of aliens among us. Wow is this episode timely. Like LOOK, THESE ARE THE BAD GUYS SPOUTING THIS BS.
Trip, you’ve been found out. Your face is too famous.
Yeah, Archer and Malcolm have found out that your girlfriend is a spy.
Trip gets thrown in the room and the first thing he sees is T'Pol sprawled on the ground, struggling to get up. “Are you all right?”
“I think so.”
When he hears that, he is so upset that she didn’t respond with “Yes.” That means she got hurt or worse. He sees the guard and rushes at him, demanding to know what he did to her. He is about to go to town on this guy but is held back.
The guard smirks at him and says, “Not nearly enough.”
Trip’s face right now? This is the face of a man memorizing all of your features, buddy. So that he can find you later and beat the ever-living crap out of you so that even your own momma doesn’t recognize you. HOW DARE YOU.
Now Paxton comes and is just so ludicrous with his delivery, comparing them to Romeo and Juliet, (Seriously, you guys were SO NOT DISCRETE – EVERYONE KNOWS ABOUT YOU), ranting on about them being starcrossed lovers …
Trip is wondering if this is all a huge joke. Is he being punked right now?
He and T'Pol both come to the realization that Paxton is the man in charge.
Then he rambles on about their baby being fine.
T'Pol is so pissed. Trip is so pissed too. He demands to see her.
Paxton yells: “No!” and then starts ranting some more. Trip’s face is like, WTF is even happening?
Paxton starts dissing Vulcans in particular. Then he starts dissing Trip and T'Pol’s relationship in general.
T'Pol wants to punch Paxton in the face and she is logically considering whether it will be worth it. Emotionally, it will be SO worth it. But logically, it could put the baby, Trip, and herself at risk.
I have always thought this, but apparently Trip and T'Pol are SO NOT discrete that even an organization of xenophobic whackjobs knows about them. Goodness.
TnT exchange a look, like, is he serious right now? This is the guy who’s the threat? THIS yahoo?
Yeah, the moonbase is mobile. He’s just letting Trip and T'Pol stand around with no guards? Like, really?
Gannett is being interrogated and wants a lawyer. Travis cannot believe this is happening.
Hoshi is only slightly judging.
Yeah, that’s correct, the entire mining facility is taking off.
Trip and T'Pol thinking that they’ve been caught by an absolute madman here who’s going to warp INSIDE the system.
Trip is like, WTF is holding this together, spit and string? Why would you even make this monstrosity?
TnT are a unit here.
Since when did we arm Mars?! With, like, the outpost from The Martian and lasers shooting out of the satellite dish?
Why are we ALWAYS firing on our poor Moon? Like, LEAVE THE MOON ALONE.
T'Pol literally feels sick standing next to this man.
#adventures in liveblogging#star trek enterprise#st:e demons#this is why I don't liveblog#Trip x T'Pol
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MOXIE is more than just a book, it’s a call to action! We talk all things Riot Grrl, music and our misspent youth with author Jennifer Mathieu.
The Riot Grrl movement was born out of the feminist punk scene of the 1990s. Nearly 20 years later and so much has changed, but even more has stayed the same. There is still a need for female unity. There is still a need for feminist activism. There is still a need for Riot Grrl. Jennifer Mathieu’s new book MOXIE reminds us of all the reasons we need REVOLUTION GIRL STYLE NOW!
YA WEDNESDAY PRESENTS:
An Interview With Jennifer Mathieu
Q: The dedication of this book is badass but it makes me think this story is personal. What inspired Moxie?
A: Writing that dedication was, truly, the most fun I have had writing in years. It was very cathartic. I think I was inspired to write Moxie not only because of my personal interest in Riot Grrrl and feminism (which really started during college) but also because I wanted to write the sort of book my high school self would have wanted to read. My high school was very conservative, stifling, and especially restrictive when it came to gender roles. It was the early 90s in the suburbs and it was hard. The teacher to whom I dedicated the book also bragged about giving his wife a frying pan for her birthday. The vibe was just gross and in my gut I knew it. But I didn’t have Moxie or anything like it, so I decided to write the book I wish I’d had when I was 15.
Q: I grew up in small town not unlike East Rockport High and Vivian’s story felt very real to me. Was your high school experience like what was described in Moxie?
A: Yes, in a lot of ways. I didn’t grow up in a small town, but the sports teams were very important at my school. My school was religious, too, so in many ways it was very conservative. I don’t mean to imply you can’t be religious and progressive or religious and a feminist, but my school was very conservative in its approach to social issues. It put a high premium on conformity. I had several bad experiences there. The teacher to whom I dedicated the book was one of them. I also had my cheerleading coach imply I needed to lose weight. It was really gross.
Q: Music was such a large part of the Riot Grrl movement and Vivian’s story. What songs fueled you while writing Moxie?
A: I remember the first girl punk song that blew my mind was Cherry Bomb by the Runaways. I discovered it in high school because it was on the Dazed and Confused soundtrack, which I played obsessively on cassette – lol! When I got to Northwestern for college, I met up with people who I really connected with, and they introduced me to punk. I listened to a lot of those songs as I was writing Moxie, including a ton of Bikini Kill, of course. I listened to Cool Schmool by Bratmobile repeatedly as well as a lot of Team Dresch songs. I listened to a lot of music by bands that came a bit after the RG movement, including Sleater-Kinney and Cadallaca. I don’t always listen to music when I write, but for this book I definitely did!
Q: In Moxie, Vivian finds a box of paraphernalia from her mother’s high school days called “My Misspent Youth” box. What would be in your My Misspent Youth box?
A: Great question! It’s funny because after the book went to print I wondered if I should have called that box something else because I don’t think Vivian’s mom thought her youth was misspent – she was mostly being tongue in cheek about it! Her youth was important and revelatory for her as was mine. I’m 40 years old, and I think I would include my ticket stubs from all the shows I went to – Fugazi, Sleater-Kinney, The Queers, etc. as well as some of the books that made a real impact on me, including Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion and the Sisterhood is Powerful anthology, edited by Robin Morgan. I’d include some of my journals and the letters and postcards my friends and I wrote to each other – we were part of the last generation to write to one another instead of just email or text. I would also include Zine, the Pagan’s Head zine anthology by Pagan Kennedy, which introduced me to zine culture and what zines are all about.
A few item from Jennifer’s “My Misspent Youth” box.
Q: Vivian was inspired by the Riot Grrl movement from the 1990s. What historical movement or individuals inspired you both in high school and now?
A: For me personally, looking at feminism’s second wave, I am deeply inspired by Gloria Steinem and Audre Lorde. I had the opportunity to hear Gloria speak when I was in college and it was an amazing experience. Audre Lorde’s “Sister Outsider” collection is as relevant today as ever, especially in regard to feminism needing to be inclusive and not just a movement full of middle class white women. As far as RG, I was and still am inspired by Kathleen Hanna, the lead singer of Bikini Kill and later Le Tigre and The Julie Ruin. I know in her early years she shunned off the “leader” title, but she is so charismatic, inspiring, and hilarious it’s no surprise that word kept getting thrown at her. I have also been so impressed by Beth Ditto, who led the band Gossip and is now a solo artist. I recently read her autobiography From Coal to Diamonds and was so touched by her insight and honesty. She was really influenced by the Riot Grrrl movement as well. And finally, Roxane Gay is one of the most important feminist voices out there right now. She should be required reading in schools, and that’s why I name dropped her in Moxie! LOL!
Some of the woman that inspire Jennifer Mathieu. Take note ladies.
Q: In Moxie, some students are less than enthusiastic with the idea of a feminist agenda at their school. What would you say to anyone who thinks “feminist” is a dirty word?
A: I would be really gentle with them because arguing back isn’t going to help change their minds. I would ask them why the think this way. For a lot of people I think it’s the media’s influence or just stuff heard at home. Feminists are man haters or can’t wear makeup – just dumb stereotypes that get circulated online and elsewhere. I would ask them if they think women and men should be paid the same. I would ask them if men should be able to cry in public and not get shamed for it. I would ask them if childcare and housework should be valued no matter who does it. Feminism isn’t scary if you think about it like that – it’s really about liberation for everyone from stifling and repressive stereotypes. As the great bell hooks said, feminism is for everybody. It’s about love, inclusivity, and living authentically. I think approaching the conversation that way might help.
Q: After finishing Moxie I was ready to take over the world! What would you suggest for girls who want to continue the Moxie movement after they finish this kick-ass book?
A: I’m so glad you felt this way! I didn’t want Moxie to be the ending point but rather the starting point, so with the help of my former student, Lexi Acevedo, I created the Moxie Tumblr which can be found at moxiegirlsfightback.com. There you can find resources, a playlist, and tips on starting your own Moxie Club at your school! You can also Ask a Moxie Girl a question or submit original art and writing to be shared on the Tumblr. It’s my hope that the Moxie movement really becomes a community. The book is already out in the UK and I recently heard from two young women over there who are working on their own zines and starting a Moxie Club! i wanted to scream with excitement! Actually, I did!
Q: So, the rights to Moxie have been acquired by Amy Poehler’s production company (yay!). What songs would be on your dream Moxie soundtrack?
A: Yes, right now the screenplay is being developed and we’ll see what happens from there! As for my dream soundtrack, I would recommend every song on the Moxie playlist, which you can find on the Tumblr. For sure Bikini Kill’s “Rebel Girl” and “Feels Blind” would go on there, but I would also want to include some contemporary lady punk, including a song called “Mujer Moderna” by this kick ass San Antonio band called Fea as well as “Dream Number Nine” by a UK band called Big Joanie.
San Antonio band FEA
UK band Big Joanie
Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu: The Review
From the book flap:
MOXIE GIRLS FIGHT BACK!
Vivian Carter is fed up. Fed up with a school administration at her small-town Texas high school that thinks the football team can do no wrong. Fed up with sexist dress codes, hallway harassment, and gross comments from guys during class. But most of all, Viv Carter is fed up with always following the rules.
Viv’s mom was a tough-as-nails, punk rock Riot Grrrl in the ’90s, and now Viv takes a page from her mother’s past and creates a feminist zine that she distributes anonymously to her classmates. She’s just blowing off steam, but other girls respond. As Viv forges friendships with other young women across the divides of cliques and popularity rankings, she realizes that what she has started is nothing short of a girl revolution.
Moxie is a book about high school life that will make you wanna riot!
Overall: There are times when the problems of the world seem too big to handle. Climate change, racism, politics…Problems- so, so BIG. Me- SO, SO small! To stop myself from sliding into depression and retreating to my bedroom with a quart of gelato, I remind myself that no problem, no matter the size, gets solved with inaction and even a small act creates momentum, the opposite of inertia. MOXIE is that reminder. Moxie proves that small acts can lead to BIG change. Alright ladies-go read this book, then go change the world!
Judge a Book by its Cover: Black, white, pink and pissed! The Moxie cover fits the book’s vibe perfectly.
Me Talk Pretty: Jennifer pretty much channeled me at 17 while writing Vivian. This quote especially sums up my high school experience.
Audiobook Narration: Audiophiles, you’re in luck. Moxie will be available as an audiobook on September 19th and the reader is audiobook veteran Suzy Johnson.
Kick-Ass Factor: The Kick-Ass factor for Moxie is high! Don’t get me wrong, this is not a book about a girl who suddenly finds out she’s got secret martial arts skills and starts challenging bullies in hand to hand combat. No, Moxie kicks ass in a way that is real, believable and accessible to anyone. Vivian just gets fed up with the misogynist status quo at school and she decides to do something about it. It’s not something that would be considered overly grand or reckless to everyone, but for meek Vivian, it’s huge. And from her one act of defiance, the Moxie movement is born.
Body Count: While this is not a book with a literal body count, there are definitely casualties.
The Chosen One: The plot of Moxie could have slipped into the cliché if not for the skillful writing of Jennifer Mathieu. Moxie is Vivian’s story, but this is not one girl against the world. There are other girls in this book who are fighting their own battles in their own ways. Moxies girls fight back, but there are consequences.
Just. Why. One thing I couldn’t understand was Vivian’s love for frozen dinners. Please Vivian, stop with the Stouffer’s!
He Said/She Said: Moxie is told from the perspective of Vivian, a girl who does a lot to go unnoticed. She’s smart, but afraid to speak out in class. She clever, but doesn’t want to draw attention to herself. She’s got ideas, good ones, but she’s too scared to voice them. Vivian’s inner dialogue proves this girl has a voice, she just needs to learn to use it.
Bizarre Love Triangle: Jennifer introduces the sort of love triangle that is way more common in real life than the usual YA trope: The Platonic Love Triangle. It’s easy to feel pulled in two different directions when a new friend threatens to shake-up the friend equilibrium between you and your old school bestie. Especially when the new friend is a badass girl from the big city with all kinds of subversive ideas. Is there room in Viv’s life for old friends and new ideas?
Don’t Believe the Hype: When Amy Poehler endorses your book and wants to turn it into a movie, the bar is set pretty damn high. And for me personally as a self proclaimed Riot Grrl, this particular bar was 20 feet above eye level. But Moxie is worth all the praise it’s receiving. ALL. OF. IT.
Open tab/Last call: Jennifer Mathieu proves that Moxie Girls can be both gentle and tough. This is why the perfect Moxie drink is Fortified Lemon- sweet and sour with a hidden kick! We’ll keep the punch bowl full for you, Jennifer!
Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu, Roaring Brook Press, 336 Pages, September 19, 2017
Ann-Eliza
First Reads Friday Presents: MOXIE by Jennifer Mathieu, Author Interview + Review MOXIE is more than just a book, it's a call to action! We talk all things Riot Grrl, music and our misspent youth with author Jennifer Mathieu.
#Audre Lorde#Bell Hooks#Beth Ditto#Big Joanie#Bikini Kill#Bratmobile#FEA#Fierce Reads#Fugazi#Gloria Steinem#Jennifer Mathieu#Joan Didion#Kathleen Hanna#Moxie#Pagan Kennedy#Riot Grrl#Roaring Brook Press#Roxanne Gay#Team Dresch
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