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papercorgiworld · 5 months

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The Death Eater Drabbles 2:

Cuts and bruised egos

Mattheo, Theodore, Enzo, Draco and Blaise

Read part 1: Untie me.

You have to take care of your prisoner, which means spending time together.

Find part 3 here

You had been staring at a wiggenweld potion for over 30 minutes contemplating on whether or not to use it to heal your prisoner. You were short on ingredients, so you normally only used it for really bad injuries. And since your new housemate was still complaining and not crying of pain you really had no right to offer him the healing potion. However, you were really not looking forward to cleaning him up and healing every injury. It demanded that you stay in the same room for longer than 5 minutes and not just that you had to sit close to him. Thankfully he was still tied up.

Urgh, this is going to be a nightmare.

Mattheo Riddle

His legs were dangling on the bedside as he lay on the bed staring at the ceiling, but as soon as he heard you enter he sat up. “Here to give me my bath?” He asks with a smug smile. You sigh but make your way over and sit next to him. Mattheo’s eyes land on the bowl of warm water and the small towel you’re holding. He wants to say something snappy, but at the same time his face and torso are really hurting. So he keeps quiet and watches you dip the tip of the towel in the water. You try to clean off the blood without reopening the cuts or pushing too hard on the bruised skin. When you see him clench his jaw you immediately pull away. “I’m sorry, I’m almost done.” His eyes never meet yours and he simply forces a smile. “It’s nothing.” You stare at him sympathetically, not buying into his tough act. After a few more soft touches his face looks better. “You have a few small cuts, but they will heal on their own.”

You get up and want to head for the door when he urgently gets up as well, startling you. You watch him as he clearly searches for words, but he just clenches his jaw again. “Nothing.” Is all he says and sits back down on the bed. It’s then that you notice him wince in pain. You press your lips together. Why do I feel so bad for him? “Where does it hurt?” You ask and he looks up. Mattheo just shakes his head. “I’m fine.” You roll your eyes and put the bowl of water on the nightstand before sitting down next to Mattheo. “Right you’re so tough you don’t get hurt or don’t feel pain.” You mock him and he’s clearly annoyed with you. But before he can open his mouth your hand is already on his chest and slides down. When you press down on the sensitive spot on his side a painful hiss escapes him. He curses himself for being so vulnerable. “That’s your good mate, Harry’s work.” You’re a bit shaken by the anger in his voice. “Shouldn’t ‘ve picked a fight with him.” He looks at you, but you avoid his gaze and focus on unbuttoning his shirt. “Not like I had a choice.”

You look up and his dead and angry eyes lock with yours. “You must really enjoy this?” Mattheo snaps with venom dripping from his words. “No I don’t, but I bet most girls would pay money to undress you.” Your attempt to lighten the mood seems to be a success as Mattheo’s death glare falls. You’re done with the last button and examine the bruise on his side. “Nothing a simple healing spell can’t fix.” You pull out your wand and make the bruise fade. “Do you take such good care of all your prisoners?” You smile pleased that he’s calmed down. “You’re my only prisoner.” You answer as you get up. “Sounds like marriage to me.” You narrow your eyes at his horrible joke. “How about I get you some clean clothes?” His signature smirk is back on his face as he watches you leave. Oh please, (y/n), don’t be so nice to me, I might never wanna leave.

Theodore Nott

Theo lay on the bed and was resting his eyes, but when he heard the key flick his eyes flung open. “Missed you.” He quips with amusement ringing in his voice. He rolls to his side. You snort and go to sit on the bed. “I’m here to check your injury.” You push him back on his back. “Going to undress me, this is getting interesting.” Your lips form a line as you shake your head. “Don’t get your hopes up, Nott.” You unbutton his shirt and as expected a large cut stretched over his torso. “I won’t be able to heal it at once, but I’ll do my best to ease the pain.” His smirk fades as he watches you gently dip a towel in warm water to slowly clean off the blood. He winces in pain a few times. “I’ll be done soon.” You reassure him. Theo just huffs, an arrogant grin on his face. “I’ve had worse.” You look at him with a disapproving look. “That’s not something to be proud of.” Once the cut is cleaned you use a spell to heal it a bit and to bantage him.

Theo watches you as you clean the slightly bloodied water with one flick of your wand. “Okay, now let me look at that face.” As you reach for his cheek he pulls away. “It’s not that bad.” You sigh and roll your eyes. “Let me at least check. Otherwise you might end up scared.” Now it’s his turn to roll his eyes. “Don’t you women love a man with a scar?” You let out a laugh. “I guess having a scar can be sexy, but trust me your pretty face already has a few small scars and that’s sexy enough for you.” You lean a bit over him and start cleaning his face. It wasn’t that bad, but it’s definitely better with all the blood gone. “You’re really taking good care of me, especially since I’m your enemy.” He suddenly blurs out, instantly regretting it. You look him in the eyes and give him a soft smile. “You decided to be my enemy, but I never chose to be yours.” You carefully push some of his messy hair out of his eyes. He pulls his face away from you. “You made a choice too.” He says bitterly. “Attacking people is a choice, Theo, but protecting the people I love that’s not a choice, that's just my duty.” Theodore just stares holes into your skull. “That’s a hollow argument, things are never that easy.” Your eyes linger over his bandaged torso. “You’re probably right.” You turn your eyes back to his face and force a sweet smile. “Anyways you look a lot better.” Theo nods softly. “Thank you.” His sincerity touches you. “Now, let me look, maybe I can get you some clean clothes.” I never wanted to be your enemy, (y/n), I never chose that.”

Enzo Berkshire

Enzo was sitting on the bed while leaning against the frame. When he sees you enter he jumps to his feet. “Change your mind?” He wiggles his eyebrows. You smile at his playfulness. “No.” You say and you give him a soft shove so he lands on the bed. “Your actions are giving me different signals. Pushing someone on a bed is clear language to me.” A giggle rolls over your lips and Enzo watches you with admiration. “I’m here to check on the cuts and bruises on your face.” You sit down next to him and push a few strands of his hair aside. You frown as you see one particular deep cut above his right eyebrow. “Hermoine is merciless. She slammed my face into a wall twice.” You don’t look at him as you dip a towel into a bowl of warm water. “Maybe you shouldn’t have attacked them in the first place.” You state as you softly swipe the towel against his face. “It was three against one. I thought that if I surprised them I could get away. I swear I wasn’t really trying to kill them.” You pull away for a moment to watch his expression trying to figure out if he was being truthful. You keep quiet not really knowing what to say. If he was indeed outnumbered he was probably scared.

“I’m glad you’re here with me.” Enzo speaks up as you start cleaning the gaping cut near his eyebrow. You simply give him a smile. When you suddenly pull out your wand Enzo jumps a bit. “No worries, I’m going to heal you so you aren’t left with any scars.” He lets out a sigh of relief and you tap your wand against his head healing him. “I’m not going to hurt you as long as you don’t try to escape.” You say while you put your wand away. Enzo offers you a bright smile. “It’s like I’m in heaven. I’ve got a soft bed and a pretty girl taking care of me. What more can I ask for.” “Maybe some fresh clothes?” Enzo nods and watches you leave in awe. Heaven.

Draco Malfoy

You walk in and Draco huffs in annoyance. He had been pacing around the room in frustration. “Ready for part two of our bad date?” You say referring to his earlier comment in an attempt to lighten the mood. A foul look appears on Draco’s face. “For your own sake let me just check your injury and heal you.” He narrows his eyes at you weighing his options. “Fine. But don’t jab your brute fingers between my ribs again.” You roll your eyes at his dramatics. “How about you drop the attitude and I won’t jab.” He ignores you and reluctantly takes a seat on the bed. Draco watches you carefully as you work your way down every button. “This is straight up embarrassing.” You raise a questioning eyebrow at Draco. “You, undressing me while I’m tied up.” He explains with a harsh tone. You roll your eyes. “Trust me, Malfoy, undressing ‘you’ wasn’t on my bucket list either.” “You probably prefer Potter then? A bit cheap for you isn’t he?” Your eyes fling up in anger, ignoring his half undone shirt that your fingers are still working on. “No, Harry is just my friend. But he’s not cheap. And honestly, I hate rich kids like you.” Your boiling frustration reaches its peak when the last button of his shirt won’t budge. In anger you accidentally rip his shirt. Draco’s eyes widen and embarrassment washes over you. “Sure, says the girl that literally tore my shirt off.”

If looks could kill you would be burying Draco instead of healing him. When he finally drops his arrogant smirk your death glare falls as well. You inspect the bruises on his side and he watches you in silence, adoring your beautiful features. “A quick healing spell and you should be all better.” You announce before pulling out your wand. “Don’t screw this up.” You simply narrow your eyes at him and cast the spell. “I feel better, you did well, I’m impressed.” Draco says in an attempt to sound grateful. You sigh, but refuse to get into another argument. Draco is disappointed by the fact that you aren’t entertaining him with snappy retorts anymore. He really doesn’t want you to leave so soon already. “This was an expensive shirt and you tore it.” You roll your eyes, but look at his bare upper half. You couldn’t leave him like this. “Alright, I‘ll see if I can find you a new shirt.” He nods and forces out a hesitant ‘thanks’ before you leave the room. Draco lets himself fall onto the bed. (Y/n), you can tear off my shirt anytime.

Blaise Zabini

You hadn’t properly set foot in the guest room and Blaise’s playful voice was already ringing in your ears. “Missed me?” You huff. “Not in the slightest.” He’s not convinced and continues grinning. “I’m here to fix up your face and make sure you don’t have any fractures.” Blaise stands up from the bed and walks towards you towering over you. “Just admit, (y/n), you missed me.” You reach for his face, gently stroking over the marks and bruises. Blaise’s playful smile drops. “Your friends would’ve never caught me if they hadn’t snuck up on me.” You frown, not impressed by his arrogant tone. “Pretty sure they said they stumbled into you by accident, not really the same as sneaking up on someone.” You push against his chest urging him to sit down on the bed. He complies, his eyes never leaving yours. “Harry is just trying to impress you.” A smile creeps up on your face. “Harry is trying to impress me? Sounds more like you’re trying to find excuses for being a sucky wizard.” Blaise immediately pushes himself up from the bed. “Am not!” You snicker at how easily he was offended. “Sit.” You command as you push him down again and pull out your wand.

“Maybe I just don’t want you to think I’m less of a wizard because they beat me in an unfair duell.” Blaise confesses and you stare at him for several seconds before looking down at your feet. “I don’t think less of you because you got caught, I just don’t trust you because you, you know, you joined him.” His lips part but no words come out. You offer him a sympathetic smile and get up heading for the door. “It’s complicated.” Blaise finally says and you turn around to look at him. “Yeah.” You whisper softly, understanding that it probably wasn’t his choice to get involved. As you look him up and down you notice how ragged his clothes are. “You really need some fresh clothes. I’ll be right back.” Much rather have a fresh start with you, but I’ll take the clothes.

#slytherin #slytherin boys #theodore nott #theodore nott imagine #theodore nott x reader #blaise zabini #blaise zabini imagine #blaise zabini x reader #enzo berkshire #enzo berkshire imagine #mattheo riddle imagine #mattheo riddle x reader #mattheo riddle #mattheo #draco malfoy x reader #draco malfoy imagine #draco malfoy #enzo berkshire x reader #papercorgiworldwritings

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sehodreams · 5 months

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riize MTL to leave bruises (your choice irl or characters)

I wanted it to be soft but I think it got a tiny bit dark in the way hahahaha

Most

Sungchan

Anton

Seunghan

Eunseok

Wonbin

Sohee

Shotaro

Least

Sungchan has a size kink, we've all agreed on that, and I can totally see him tossing you to the bed and lifting you to the wall with ease, but of course, to do those things, even if he didn't mean to use too much force on you, you'd end with marks all around. Also, he couldn't lie, he liked to use more strength than what he should most of the time, he knew it, you knew it, it was no secret, but you liked it too so it was like a silent pact, even when you tried to take control he'd end showing you his strength, like when you rode his dick and felt tired, he'd just grab your hips and help you fuck yourself, leaving fingerprints on your waist that would turn green after. Then, when you looked yourself in the mirror, examining all the marks, he'd appear behind you, kissing your neck and caressing his art "you always look the prettiest after we're done", but you knew what he meant, you looked the prettiest when you had all those spots he left on your skin.

Anton is a young big boy, he still needs training in how to control himself, and I think he would leave you really bruised without any of you noticing, like when he moved you around or pushed your hands behind your head, you both were so into the moment none of you noticed the force he was using, and the next morning when you got dressed you'd start to see all the bruises in your body. He'd feel so embarrassed "I'm so sorry, I swear it wasn't on purpose" he'd say, and you'd nod because you trust him, but he had to admit it did something in him to see your arms and thighs with green spots, a reminder of how much he could do to you. Also, I think this boy wants his mouth to always do something, whether kissing or biting, it doesn't matter, so it's not surprise you find mark of his teeth on your neck or shoulder all the time.

Seunghan is a biter, and he also has a dumbification kink, so it's no wonder you're always hurt. He liked it when you, his good pretty girl, rode his dick to help yourself cum, and he liked it because he could leave marks all over your chest and neck to stimulate you even more, his lips on your neck never failed to make you drip on your panties even before sex, and when you sunk on his cock he liked to bit your shoulder to make your eyes teary. Also, there were just times when you were outside, and suddenly you felt a sting on your skin when you did anything, perhaps your friend grabbed your arm and you hissed of pain, and when you lifted your sleeve you'd see those purple spots he left you decorating your skin, "Honey, those are love bruises" he liked to say when you sent him photos of them, so you would came back to him asking for more.

Eunseok didn't like to hurt you, you were his pretty princess and you deserved the best of him, so nothing of bruises made on purpose, and the only kind he let himself do to you were the ones on the inside of your thighs or a couple of hickeys on your neck and chest, and only because he did them while taking care of you, giving you the attention you deserved, but if he could, he wouldn't leave mark at all, except when he's jealous and he needed others to see you had an owner, that you were his property, because sometimes the little necklace with his initial wasn't enough and he had to leave his lips on your neck for everyone to see, but those marks didn't count, right?

Wonbin is not really a fan of leaving you bruises, if it happened, well nothing he could do, but something he really likes is receiving attention, even in bed, so he loved when you took his cock on your mouth while being on your knees, so pretty down there, on the hard floor, doing your best to please him. He had to admit that one of his favorite parts of aftercare was to press his fingers over the bruises you did to yourself while doing your best for him, and caressing those green and purple shadows over your pretty knees or anywhere you hurt yourself made him feel really good, so maybe, every now and then, he'd push you to see how much you could endure, but he wants to clarify something, he wasn't the one doing them, you were.

I see Sohee being a little clumsy while fucking, so he'd leave a couple marks on your body after, but it wasn't anything he really enjoyed, it just happened, and it wasn't too frequent neither.

Shotaro likes to kiss you, sometimes a bit too much, so the only bruise he would leave are hickeys, and if you ever said that you didn't like them, he'd totally stop doing them, my beautiful respectful boy.

#riize x plus size reader #riize x reader #riize smut #anton x reader #eunseok x reader #wonbin x reader #sungchan x reader #seunghan x reader #shotaro x reader #sohee x reader

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saint-siren · 2 months

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A World For Her Alone | Sisyphus

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16

cw (chapter specific): child neglect, very vaguely implied forced prostitution, death, abuse, poisoning, suicide, mentions of pregnancy and childbirth, arranged marriage, infidelity

pairing: claude x fem!reader

summary: we take a brief intermission from claude's suffering to examine what the fuck is wrong with reader's family

author's note: me and my husband we're sticking together🎵

Claude lingered around your parents’ manor like a ghost after you died. In the middle of the night, every night, he found his way to your bedroom, standing at the foot of the bed you’d died in, remembering the shape your body formed in the sheets. The room still smelled of your blood and sweat, though the room had been cleaned up by the maids as soon as your body was taken out of the room. Your absence was starker than your presence. After the funeral, Diana expressed that she wanted to go home, heavily implying she would leave if he came with her but Claude was no longer beholden to her wants. He had no reason to care whether she came or went.

He was wielding grief as the knife he held up to cut deeper into himself in hope that if he only suffered enough, his hands would wash clean of your blood. But in the end, he had already decided to live, if only because he could do nothing else. Morbid thoughts plagued him, swirling around his head like unquiet spirits begging him to give in. He thought perhaps he should cause his own ruination and this time, live with it. He thought he should make for certain that both of your houses are set aflame and collapsing on top of the lot of you, to bury and burn your sycophant parents, his helplessly selfish wife and even his own child. He thought that nothing should be spared from complicity. He knew not anymore if he truly believed that it would save you, or if this was what some divine terror was willing him to do even still, but he began to long for punishment. It became catharsis, the thought of being punished.

He roamed through the house you grew up in, searching for any trace of you that survived, as if some inkling of you would help him to save what had already been lost too many times. Even so, it was automatic for him at this point, no longer even really a choice. He had no direction, only frantic need pulling him toward the doomed task. He was trying to get to the dregs of a goblet of wine which never ran dry, he kept drinking until he was sick but never satisfied, never finished.

Your parents’ manor was an eerie place, he’d always thought. Wind blew in from an opened window in the hall and the house seemed to breathe, and its hollow bones creaked softly. Despite her gentle ultimatum, Diana could not actually follow up on it, she must have known that but she believed better of him at the time and thought that everywhere she went, he would follow her like a lovestruck teenager again. There were things to be done at manor that she could not neglect as its lady even if he chose to neglect his own duties. She had come into her own as a marchioness, no longer the shy and unassuming lady that lay in bed sick day in and day out. She would not leave the territory without management though he knew she desperately wanted him to come back home. She seemed dazed to return home without her husband for that purpose, for the lament of a sister she had infinitely more right to grieve so egregiously. Even after all those years, the silly girl was only just beginning to grow aware of the disparity of marriage.

Somehow he felt it was hard for her to reconcile that she wasn’t a precious young lady anymore. Even as he was mired in a pool of half catatonic grief, she dared ask him to leave with her because she truly expected he would do so if she did. Had she not grown out of the habit of expecting to be near worshiped no matter what that her parents instilled her? He remembered how she was after your funeral, when he was sitting in the dark of a guest room. She had come to him, tried to hold him, to kiss him; believing all this would be a comfort and not a further indignity. She’d had arrogance enough to look hurt as he pulled her from him and recoiled from her touch. She must have still believed she was the cure to all ills because she was once more in a house where she was always treated as though she truly were.

He found his way to the library where you’d spent much of your life, if Felix’s word was truth. He brushed his fingers along the spines of the books, looking for the one that he left his missive in, the one Diana read and did not want understand. He searched through the categories of books that contained subjects you three would have studied together as he could not remember which particular book it was, but even after pulling all the books and flipping through the pages, he couldn't find the letter. He wondered if you had ever even set eyes on it once before Diana got to. Had it been your catalyst to run away? Had you read the note and understood that the effort of trying to be happy at his side was a fool’s errand? Was he again the cause of your downfall?

As he gave himself to thought of you, he continued looking through your family’s collection of books. It was all fairly standard and even a bit utilitarian, lacking any of the fanciful novels so beloved by many young nobles. He assumed if there were any, they’d be in Diana’s room because they’d be bought for and read by her alone. But there was something that struck him as he roamed around the shelves, his eyes scanning aimlessly for a book that looked as if it had been perhaps been misshelved. It was subtly tucked into the highest shelf but it still stood out to him eventually among droll guides, needlework books and encyclopedias emblazon with gold lettering. It was hastily bound looking more like a journal and it was worn, unlike the rich and well maintained leather of the other books and it was small, leaving a wide gap between the top of the shelf and the top of the book. Its spine did not read a title.

When he pulled the book, he understood what it was. Its title read “The Princess and The Knight,” signifying it was some common, tawdry romance novella. Still, he began to read it, the absurdity of its place in a house so heavy and serious intriguing him. Could this book have belonged to you? Could it have been an escape for you who was locked firmly out of girlhood when you were only just betrothed? When he’d read the title, his mind flashed with the memory of your face as Felix’s body fell into the dirt in front of you. He remembered how fiercely Felix had protected you even in this life. The rage and grief in his voice when he came for retribution. Though he knew you were ever dutiful and if there was love between you and Felix, it was never more than courtly, maybe you had seen this book and it had reminded you of some place where it could be more.

The story revolved around the love affair of a princess from a bloodline with an affinity for magic fleeing her country at wartime and being assigned a knight from the neighboring kingdom she sought refuge in. The two began a passionate and sanguine love affair in secret, all while living under of the tension of war and the threat of both of them losing everything to their love. But when the war was won, thanks in part to the wits of the two characters, and peace spread over the kingdom, she and her knight were able to be wed and live happily ever after. He had been searching for you in the pages, interpreting the knight and the princess, looking for traces of a love you might have had once. He had been looking for you so closely in every word that he hadn’t realized the grander scale of things until the end; when he flipped over the last page to read the epilogue, on the blank side of the page he saw a sketch.

The drawing was finely, intricately done in ink and resembled…Diana. The owner of this book had drawn Diana so vividly, yet there were a few differences in the likenesses of the two. This woman had long spools of curly hair spilling over her shoulders and a mole near her gently smiling lips. She was older than Diana must have been when the book was written. She looked like the heroine that had been described in the novel. For some reason, he found himself fixated not in awe or admiration but in mind numbing shock. He could feel the love that went into each stroke of the pen and a knot formed in his stomach the longer he stared. It was uncanny in a house like this, to find anything that should mark vulnerability or simple folly. He recalled an occasion where your father had gifted her a portrait he’d made of her and their daughter. Though two different mediums, the style looked so similar. From what Claude saw, it seemed that your father seldom made art of anyone but Diana. Your father surely had not been so passionate about a throwaway romance that he had ignored his bias and poured so much love into an image of the heroine.

The only one who could be so brazen as to have a romance novel among his books wherein which they lovingly drew an almost intimate image of a woman, worn with the spine slightly bent from being handled so many times— not even properly hidden away, would be your father. Your father who paraded his illegitimate child, born from a mistress. The revelation gave him pause. What did Claude truly know about Diana? He couldn’t remember having ever asked her if she’d known her mother because she so resolutely accepted the countess as her only mother. But this woman sketched onto the page of a well loved romance, was this her mother? She looked as if she could be. Portraits of Diana hung in exposed parts of the house, he did not seem to care that the custom of having an illegitimate child was to have them separate from one’s “official” family, to not love a child born of one’s own lust so openly. Even if one had a particular love of their mistress and child, he would simply put them up in a nice mansion close enough for him to come and go but your father had your mother raising his illegitimate child. He celebrated her birthdays lavishly and even allowed her to go to the academy. He absolutely refused to hide her, to show shame in her. So why was this woman Claude presumed to be Diana’s mother who was clearly beloved by him even now, shut up in the back of a romance novella?

A thought occurred to him then, that perhaps the otherworldly force pulling him into Diana, entangling him in her was not otherworldly at all. Perhaps it had not originated in him alone as some primordial curse formed around him before there even was a him. He thought of just how besotted he was with Diana the first time he met her in each life, how the greater part of him felt foreign. He thought of your mother’s unusually devoted love for a child that wasn’t her’s, a product of her husband’s disloyalty. Something inside him thought that the answer lay at Diana’s feet. In her very blood, he was convinced, was the answer.

Such a tenderly written romance, signed with a carefully drawn illustration of the woman who could be Diana’s mother. The part of “The Princess and The Knight” which struck him so was the bit about the princess possessing capacity for magic. It was not mentioned much nor utilized greatly in the plot but it made an impression. Magic users had decreased over the years, their powers waning until they were unheard of entirely. To anyone else who read the novella, it must have given the story to a bit of fantasy but to Claude, it was almost uncanny. He could not take it for an unassuming romance. To him, the story hid some truth under its veneer, for it was no coincidence that the princess resembled Diana so and that it ended up under the same roof as her, worn with years of eager hands flipping back over the pages. The princess’ power was never described in detail but if she were based on a real woman, then perhaps she had something to do with his situation.

He might’ve gone to Diana right then for answers but he feared his body might be taken over again at any time. He did not want to see her, did not want to feel the familiar paralysis of affection reaching up through his body. He did not want to see himself bed her again while the memory stood frozen in his eyes. Each time he saw her after he’d been set free, he’d worried that it would happen again. That his body would betray his mind and he’d never find anything of substance to end the cycle of misery the two of you shared. And he was committed to the task of trying, even if he could never succeed. He was ready to succumb to the greater sense of careworn madness he found in you.

He decided to explore the unattended corners of your home further, thinking there would be— must be more. If ever Diana’s mother had lived here, someone left a trace that he intended to find. He might’ve asked your father directly but as much as he was a lickspittle, something told him that your father would be afflicted by the same paralysis of mind that he had when he belonged to Diana. Unable to share the love he held for her but unable to hide it either, culminating in a pathetic sort of half-baked defensiveness. He wasn’t likely to get anything out of that, even you hadn’t been able to get anything out of him when he was like that. Worse still, he might try to cover up all that he kept that ever indicated Diana’s mother had lived there once, that she had a name and a face. And then what?

No, it was better this way. Better to find it all before he got the chance to hide any of it.

Your parents were still in the house, seemingly without intention of asking him when he was going to leave but there was still a bit of anxiety in the air when they entered the room. He could tell that they very much wished for him to return to their daughter and make her happy again as she was destined to be. It was awkward that their son-in-law had a longer bereavement than your sister did. But still being the cowardly sycophants they were, they could not ask him to leave for her sake—only “encourage” him by tossing out little updates on Diana. “Diana and our grandchild miss you very much,” “Diana takes ill so easily when she works so hard, we should hope you’ll be well enough to go back to her soon,” “Diana sends her love and wants you to know she’s there for your sake.”

Claude wouldn’t care if Diana’s life hung by a thread and he was all that could spare her, frankly and he brushed off all responsibility in favor of giving himself to his task. It was shameless, he knew, but he’d given up everything inside of the barren, hollow shell of his self to save you. It was a task that had already and would yet again supersede death, birth and the enveloping void he fell backward into each time his life was ended. He waited until they inevitably visited Diana, likely to calm her worries with lukewarm supplications about his grief, to go searching in the other parts of the house uninhibited. For, even if the servants were to tell their lord and lady, he’d already have looked through every corner he intended before they’d have a chance to move things around to better hide them.

He started with Diana’s old room. When he walked in, he was surprised to find it was left exactly as childish as it had been when she was only a young miss. Just the scent of the air turned his stomach, heavy and cloying with a pungent smell of medicine that was still sitting on her night stand in a small white bottle. He frowned as something fell clumsily into place. It hit him like the stray sour note of a violin. He recognized the bottle. Where did he last see this bottle?

For how preoccupied he was with the revelation taking slow form, he did not realize that Felix had entered the room until he heard the distinctive sound of a sword unsheathed. He did not turn.

“Felix.”

“Lord Claude,” Felix acknowledged, his voice struggling to keep its softness. “I might’ve known you’d be here. You truly cannot help yourself, it’s like a sickness.”

“Yes, it is very much like that,” Claude agreed easily. “But I’m not here for what you imagine I am.”

“I’m not so sure it matters, my lord.” Felix’s voice was flat.

“Nor am I. But I need you to let me live just as long as it takes for me to make sense of this.”

Felix went quiet for a moment but nothing about the situation made Claude think it was because the knight was going to hesitate. On the contrary, he was sure that his sword would swing just as neatly. “Do you know where I found my lady chained up, my lord? There are places, you know, that they bring women who had no other place to turn. You must know. You were at her side every night when we brought her back, you saw what toll it took. You saw what had been done.” Felix took a shallow breath. “You’re asking me to spare you so that you can make sense of whatever it is your farce of a marriage is built on? When my lady was given no such pardon? I know you’re the head of your house now, honored knight of the crown and you must think yourself above your treatment of others but I assure you, this will be the last time you ever assume so.”

Claude held still, his voice firm even as fear raged through his body. It was not fear for his life or of Felix’s wrath, it was the fear of failing, yet again, to make any movement in saving you. “I know how you think of me, Felix. I know that I have failed my wife. I know that I deserve to die here and now but even so, I can’t.”

“That is no problem, I’ll do it for you.”

Claude smiled joylessly to himself at the devout knight’s words. How could you have been judged so harshly in that life for wanting to run away with him when he so clearly had a loyalty akin to love for you? “You don’t understand. You cannot possibly. But answer me this, do you know who Diana’s mother is?”

The question puzzled Felix but he stood resolutely, ready at any moment to fell Claude’s head. “Everyone else in this household has care for Lady Diana. My duty was to serve my lady, I was the only one and I did not ever lapse. You’re asking the wrong person.”

“Felix, I do not ask for my wife’s sake. I know how this will sound but I’m trying to find out just what exactly it is that Diana holds over me and everyone else. I’m trying to figure out what exactly she is. You have seen it, haven’t you? The disparity between how people treat my wife and how they treat your lady. Do you think it natural to love a daughter born from an affair more than one’s own?”

He heard Felix laugh bitterly. “You believe her to be a succubus? Is that your excuse?”

“No. I believe her to be something worse.” Claude laughed as well, though his was more hysterical than anything. “She rules everything, Felix. Even in death. No, especially so in death. I have lived this life many times. I have died and returned back to the day that I first met her at the tea party. And when I do, I am taken over by her. It feels like love at first, it really does. But then intrusion. And then a curse. It is a cycle of death and resurrection, for myself and for the lady.”

Felix was silent and Claude continued on. “In one such life, she ran away with you, you know. It was raining the night we found you two. You were holed up in some abandoned cottage out there in the countryside, the one with the patches of white clover in the yard and a missing shingle on the roof.”

“What are you saying?” Felix’s voice wavered with near disbelief at the picture he painted but he held firm.

“My knights killed you where you stood and took the lady back to my manor. Your betrothed visited her. She had asked to speak to the woman who had been responsible for your death. She told me you two had planned to get married once the lady and I were finally married and settled in. She could not even mourn you properly because you were compelled to run away with the lady and killed.”

It is clear that Felix still thought Claude had lost his mind but what shocked him was the truth seeded into his madness. How could he have known the intimate arrangements of their betrothal and marriage when even their families had not known the cause for delay? This was not knowledge he could send an errand boy to fetch him nor an illusion he couldn’t hope to keep up, this was lived. It was memory.

“What does that have to do with Diana?” Diana was more likely a seductress than a sorceress in Felix’s opinion. Such a thing as a time loop, how could a girl so weak and childish create something like it?

Claude turned slightly, slowly toward him. “I don’t know yet myself. That is what I seek to find out. So that I can perhaps end it, for the lady at least. I don’t need anything Felix, not Diana, not my child, not my house. All I need and want is for the lady to stop suffering. I only beg you not to hinder me. When the time comes, I swear I will die on my own.”

Felix had no idea what to make of it all. Much of what Claude said seemed stilted, frantic and half thought. Yet he could not help but feel there was a certain sincerity to be had even in the worthlessness of Claude’s promise. And in any case, he was not entirely unfamiliar with the concept that Claude explained but all that it implied, he was not ready to believe. He sheathed his sword again finally and Claude turned to face him with the medicine bottle in hand. “Have you any idea why this would be in Diana’s room? It’s medicine that the lady took before.”

Felix’s eyes widened slightly in surprise. “It’s used to treat severe infection. It’s not supposed to be used by just anyone who gets ill. Lady Diana should not have needed that medicine, it would take effect like poison if not administered to someone battling a harsh infection. The doctor sent one of the servants to fetch it in town.”

“Yes, but this bottle is dusty, it’s mostly emptied out and the liquid inside it has congealed. It’s been sitting here for years. The medicine inside is aromatic. It has a distinct smell, doesn’t it? The lady’s room still reeks of it even with the windows opened up. Every time I went into Diana’s room when we were young, I smelled it, I tasted it. That means she was not only taking medicine she did not need but taking it regularly.” Claude said aloud, more to himself than to Felix who had bristled at the way he implied he and Diana were. “Was she…ever even sick?”

“Of course she was. Perhaps madame gave her the wrong medicine. She would not have poisoned herself, far be it from me to defend her but she did not desire to be sick. She seemed to envy the lady for her health, as she saw it.”

“…it was the lady’s mother who administered this medicine?” Claude questioned as new pieces fell together in his mind.

“I only know that the madame came to Lady Diana before bed to give her medicine. I do not know that it was that medicine, I did not see it.” Felix paused. “What is the significance, my lord?” He asked, annoyance creeping into his tone at the extensive talk of Diana.

“I intend to find out.”

He had wished to creep into the madame’s bedroom quickly and easily but the door was locked so they’d needed to fetch the key. Claude was shocked at the amount of sway he had over the servants of a house he was not a part of for the head maid simply handed over the key when he asked for it, albeit hesitantly as though she thought she might be scolded for doing so. When he took in the room, it was tidy and rather plain by aristocracy standards. The room seemed to have a chill about it, there was a draft somewhere that made it feel colder than the other rooms.

He began to pick carefully through her things, looking in every corner of the room for anything hidden. It was all mundane, droll and typical until he reached the last drawer of a dresser that was locked. Sure enough, nine bottles of unopened medicine neatly lined into rows of three. When he tried to pull the drawer out all the way and see what more he could find, it was caught on something that had been pressed against the top. Claude reached in to feel for it and pulled down what looked to be a simple leather bound, worn and yellowing journal.

Immediately he began to read. He was a bit startled at himself when he realized that he was eager to read the contents of his mother-in-law’s mind. He wanted to know how she saw you. How she justified treating you the way she did to uplift a child that was not her’s. A pitiful part of him just wanted there to be reason. He wanted cause for the rift in the relationship. He needed to believe there was a because to your suffering.

But what he read was not as he suspected. In neat, small lettering on the first page, it chronicled her life back to when she had been perhaps 19 years old but it was dated some ten years later. A reflection on her younger self written seemingly less as a journal and more a memoir.

“The princess had always been so gracious a mistress that even her tasks sounded like gifts.

When it was her time to return to her duties in her own kingdom, she resigned to it with great grace. However, she understood that the opposite would be true of her beloved knight. This fragile man only smiled in her company, protected her with wild fervor and once told her that he felt divinely guided to her. That to him, she was the symbol of god’s forgiveness and in serving her, loving her, he saw his life’s purpose. Oh, the princess lamented to me how dark a life her knight had lived, how the blood he shed as a knight haunted him with guilt. How his father had been of a violent sort in his efforts to transform his only living child into a knight of some worth to bring more prestige to their house and in his efforts to vent his own turmoil over his wife taking up with men of far more money, status and legacy than he. Her knight resembled his mother and so became the target of the ire he could not give his wife for the great protection being a mistress to such men afforded her. His mother knew what his father did, she did not care so long as it were not her. My heart came to soften for him too, the more she told me.

He had been a quiet man, shy and quite unknowingly sweet for his reputation as a ruthlessly skilled knight. He opened up to my princess like a flower toward the sun. He loved her so madly that she knew even though it was inevitable, he never intended to be where he could not protect her and stand at her side. The princess feared that their duties as princess and heir to a county respectively would give way to the knight’s devotion. She feared he’d kill himself trying to reunite with her or simply deteriorate under the burden of his own isolation but her own life was dedicated to more than just one person. It was her nation, her home of people waiting to see her return that she could not abandon. So in her stead, she asked me to stay in the kingdom and marry him. To give him a countess and to keep watch of him for anything he might do to interfere in both their duties.

It was a great honor she had given me entrusting someone so precious to me and given me a title higher than that I had been born with, I still feel that way now but I was foolish then and I did not understand the nature of what I was being asked to do. Nor would I until after it was already done.

You see (and it does, still pain me to even write such a silly thing), I did, at the time believe that I would become close to my husband. I viewed it as a matter of course, for I was far from a home I could never return to and he had no one. We were, for each other, the last traces of the princess. Though I could never think to hope for the kind of love that he gave to the princess, I believed that commonality could be nurtured into love or kinship. I wished for someone to turn to as my heart was sinking faster than a stone the longer I spent from my home. I believed it would happen. I believed he would become someone to lean on.

Though the first months of our marriage were cold, I managed to coax him into trying to have children as was our duty. I saw this as progress both in the way of our relationship as well as keeping him from the princess. I viewed even our coldness then as a sign of something beginning. It was only once, afterward, I think he worked very hard so that I would not ask him to do it again. But even so, I found that I was with child soon. I was a stupid girl then, I believed a child was what we needed to grow closer. I brought this news to him with a smile, I must have looked like an idiot.

My husband’s expression, I can never forget it. He was horrified at this revelation. He looked at me as though I’d announced a death. He looked at me as though I had wounded him. Then his beautiful eyes sparkled with unshed tears and his expression reverted to a weak, helpless smile as he said all the right things in his wavering voice.

It was then that I realized he would never love me. He was horrified at having a child with me, it was sheer terror and dread on his face when I told him. Perhaps he thought that I would not become pregnant at all, he would have preferred it that way. I hadn’t the relationship with him to truly comfort him, to know intimately what he feared about my child. I was useless in that way.

Through the following months, my apprehension was near unbearable. I kept feeling my stomach sink in dread, I kept waking up thinking that I would be home. I kept thinking that I had done something irreparable but I could think of nothing which was actually within my control. Therefore, when I finally gave birth, my relief that it was done with was greater than my joy. But that was alright with me because I had intended to deal with things in my own way."

From there, she went on to describe her rigid attention to being a diligent countess for a few droll pages. But at last, Claude came to another thing of significance. Your father had been summoned to court for political matters regarding the civil unrest which had not been quelled with the end of the war. Your mother could not follow him and leave a newborn alone so she had no choice but to simply trust in your father. She would come to regret that.

"My princess appeared like a bolt out of the blue months later. She was dressed as a peasant and had a somewhat bashful smile on her lips. Although I had missed her, all that I could think in seeing her was, "She should not be here."

But we brought her to the study so that presumably, she would tell us why she had returned when she had surely sworn that she could not. She took off her cloak and then I understood without her needing to tell me. I saw a little bump on her otherwise thin body and I was overcome. When my husband had returned to court, he had not been officially permitted to see my princess but they had met anyway and she was now with child. She had waited until she was just about to start beginning to show in order to take leave from court on the pretense of recovering from illness at her villa in the countryside.

I had been given the task of minding him but I had clearly failed. I should have gone with him no matter what. I should have taken the chance and left my child so that I could have prevented this. But my princess looked at me as faultless and took my hands in hers to assure me that she regretted nothing. She comforted my husband who apparently also knew nothing about this pregnancy until then. She knew his fears like the back of her hand, she knew exactly how to soothe them as I hadn't. He did not even have to speak. She simply knew.

Until then, I had not known that my husband dreaded having children for fear they would be cursed and afflicted with the same moral decay that his own parents had; and because he feared that having a child would bring the same thing out of him. Even if I had known, the princess was the perfect one to comfort him. She asked him if he believed a child born of her could be wicked and of course, he said no. She spun such sugary images of their child together for him with her eyes shining with joy. She told him that their child was special, that she did not fear him becoming a parent like his own because their child would change everything about being a father for him. It surely helped that my princess was glowing as she said such things, that the excitement radiating off of her grew stronger with each passing moment. He could not deny her, could not bring himself to contradict her words because he would always believe in her even if he did not believe in himself.

It went unsaid that the princess would be entrusting the child to the both of us. I had much apprehension about taking care of two babies rather than one and the secrets to be kept piling up above me but I could not complain, it had been my job for years to make everything work. I could not stop then when my princess needed me most. In any case, her presence in the manor brought life to a place that had become so eerie to me. She was the only flame in the dark and we were huddled around her, trying to preserve an ounce of warmth within ourselves. She was joyful through her pregnancy, she could not stop talking about the baby she was to have. The more she chattered, the more excited I became too as though I had any right to be. This was true of my husband too, who tentatively felt the kicks of his child and smiled, genuinely smiled as the princess did. I could see that he loved that child.

She slept in the master bedroom with him, after he left each day, I went in to help her get ready for the day. It was though I was still her maid and I suppose I wanted to be, would rather be that than a wife. But I could not bring myself to complain. I was not unlike my husband, I viewed my duties to the princess as somewhat sacred. I was as honored as I was anxious to raise the child.

On the day Diana was born, my husband was at my princess' side the entire time, as though he could protect her as her knight again. I could only marvel at him. When I had given birth, he stood at the foot of the bed stiffly and asked me what I intended to name our daughter, if I was alright and then told me that if I needed anything to have the butler prepare it at once. After Diana was born, my princess was still beautiful, perhaps even more so in her vulnerability. She held the most beautiful baby I had ever seen, close to her chest as my husband looked down at the both of them with sheer joy. It was as though all the happiness in the world existed between those three. My Diana had been born out of love and so it was easy to love her.

I left my own daughter to the maids in favor of caring for Diana when the princess rested. Her little ruby eyes and her head of soft blonde hair captivated me. Each coo or cry had my focus in a fraction of a second.

I had not yet considered the greater implications of her birth until my princess brought it to me. Diana had been born with an inordinate affinity for magic. The princess, as a member of the royal family had the capacity of a mage, it was kept secret through the death of magic that through her bloodline were those capable of miracles. I only knew after years of my proximity to the princess. This child, born in the time of civil unrest, when the queen had not yet been blessed with a child and the civil war had still bitterly divided the houses, was capable of being seen as a potential figurehead that could be used as a pawn in a new round of rebellion.

It was for me and my husband to put her above all things. Above even our own child. That, to me, went without saying for I did love Diana as my own daughter. But the princess knew that anything could happen and she used all of the strength of her magic to cast a spell over her that would be held with Diana's own great magic. My princess nearly expended all her energy to do so. Magic, she had once told me, was seen as a weak form of power because it relied so greatly upon emotion. It was the transformation of want into will. I knew not the details of the spell which bound my mistress' daughter. All my princess said was that her precious Diana would live happily, that for all the odds against her, she still had odds in her favor."

Claude felt numb as he turned the pages. He was in shock, suddenly the environment of the room felt too harsh and stimulating but he was glued to the journal. He could not dare stop reading it no matter what truths arose. So he flipped the page and read every single entry even as his hands trembled.

From then on, it was Diana, Diana, Diana. With each entry, she recorded a measurement which he assumed was the amount of medicine administered and her symptoms. She fretted over whether it was right to give her more or to give her less. She wrote about denying Diana's requests to go outside, to go to the theatre, to do much of anything besides stay in bed. It chilled him to the bone but more than that, perplexed him. He was staring at a page where your mother had seemed to write sloppily, hurried and anxious when he heard a voice.

"Lord Claude?" It was your mother, standing in the doorway.

He looked slowly up at her, at a loss for words and unable to reconcile the cold mother she was to you with her joy at being Diana's proxy mother. Unable, still, to understand why she was poisoning the daughter she loved so much.

"My lord, you should not be in here," she said softly but in her blank expression, it was apparent that she knew what he was there for. "It will look strange to others, for you to do something like this."

"You poisoned Diana," He was keenly aware of how delicately she was trying to dance around this subject but he was unwilling to indulge her.

Your mother did not even blink. "You must understand me, Lord Claude. Please understand."

"What is there to understand? You neglect your own daughter and fawn over your husband's illegitimate daughter only to poison her."

Your mother shook her head slowly as if she could not believe what he was implying. "I love that girl," she said, moving deeper into the room and shutting the door behind her. "Diana is my little princess. She is my only daughter."

A rush of rage ran up his body, carrying an unbearable desire to hurt her. "She's not your daughter at all. She's the daughter of a woman far more beloved than you."

But your mother could only smile helplessly. "Yes, but even so, she is my daughter in heart. You must trust me when I say that Diana was hopeless before."

"Hopeless?" His brow furrowed and a cold feeling creeped up his back, extinguishing his fury and replacing it with a kind of fear for the woman in front of him. "She wasn't hopeless, she was able to wed me, to live happily." He said it not as a defense of her but as an accusation.

"That poor girl. In the first place, she already had a weak constitution, because her magic was stronger than her body but it was the perfect excuse to keep inside and away from the eyes of those who would want to hurt her. But it was my eldest daughter who kept planting false hope in her. She even sent Diana before my husband to beg him to let her go to the academy because she knew very well he could not say no to her." There was venom in her voice, a sneer on her face. Claude rose to stand slowly, not knowing what he was going to do.

"He cannot say no to Diana because he loves her so, no, he loves her mother so," she sighed. "All the other one did was cause troubles. Diana had already given up but she roused such hope in the girl, false hope, cruel hope. If she had not been able to marry you...I do not know how we would have protected her. If my daughter was still alive, everything would be ruined. It was you who saved her, my lord. That is why I beg of you, don't judge me. You know that Diana is special. You must know."

"I did not want to save her, she did not need to be saved."

She remained with that pitiful smile on her face. "My husband is weak to her. He will...he will never forgive what I've done to our- his little princess. He won't understand. He will think that I have killed my princess. You know, he almost sees them as one in the same." She reached onto her desk, picking up a letter opener. "Diana will be hurt if she knows. I ask that you let the girl live her life believing as I told her. She deserves that much. I let her believe what I did because it was in her best interest. Please take care of her."

Before he could react, your mother plunged the sharp end of the letter opener into her throat.

tags: @kage-tobiuo@kreishin @rosephantomhive@yeahdrarry@splaterparty0-0 @dear-dairiesss @qluvrv @hafsuhhh @eissaaaa @ayolk @doan-19 @fourcefulcupid@ariachaos@cerisearan@irisspade@yaesflorist@jcrml@xiaosprettygf@yevenly@amaris08atoshi012022 @obsessed-with-a-fictional-man @softbummiee@cassanderasblog @waka-babe @bananatwirl@s1mp69 @mitsuyamistress @hottiewifeyyyy @reiko69 @syyyy4ever @pinkpastel-l @dododododooosworld @gwyneveire @mvoonxlightv @noisyenthusiastface @coldpeachkitten @brightykitten @worstliving

#claude x reader #wmmap x reader #claude de alger x reader #claude de alger obelia x reader #wmmap fanfic

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specialagentlokitty · 6 months

Text

Carol Danvers x reader - say love

A/N: I’ve never wrote for Carol before it’s probably bad but I just wanted to write for her 😂

Standing on the Statue of Liberty, you looked at the light of New York from across the water, a small smile on your face.

“Been a while since you smiled.”

Tilting your head back, you went back to staring at the city.

“Didn’t think you’d be able to get up here Fury.”

“I have my ways you know this (Y/N).”

You hummed a little bit, slowly nodding your head.

“We need you.”

“I told you after everything that’s happened I’m not coming back.”

“Stop being childish.”

You turned around, stuffing your hands into your pockets as you glared at him a little.

“I get it, you two go history. We all got history but that don’t mean you can ignore me when I call for you.”

“You’re not my boss fury, I helped you as a one time thing, that’s it.”

He sighed, leaning back against the stone as he looked at you.

“We’re playing this game? You don’t wanna play this game with me.”

“Just leave me alone.”

“No way, you don’t get a free pass out this shit anymore. I don’t give a crap whether you two get alone, Earth is in danger and you’re going to get your shit together and help Danvers.”

You turned around, crouched down, resting your arms on your legs.

“Either you do this by choice or I make you.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“I know, now let’s go.”

Getting up, you walked over and placed a hand on his shoulder, teleporting you from the statue to his office and let go of him.

“Thank you.”

“I would’ve left you up there.”

“No you wouldn’t, now shut up and take the damn file.”

You rolled your eyes, grabbing the file and you opened it, giving it a quick read over before tossing it back on to his desk.

“Seems like she can handle that.”

“Maybe most of it, except Danvers can’t touch the device, even with her powers it would destroy her.”

“Okay?”

Fury sighed.

“As a demigod you have that ability to touch it, I need you to get in there, grab the device, bring it back here and secure it for us.”

You sighed a bit.

“Fine. Okay.”

“Great, she’s already there, just get in and get out.”

You waved your hand dismissively at him as you teleported away, heading to the location.

You could tell that Carol was here, the guards were unconscious, and you made your way inside.

It wasn’t hard to find which way she was going, so you just made your way there, standing in the entrance of the room.

You watched as Carol reached out.

“If you value your hand and you life I wouldn’t.”

Carol spun around, fist raised but when she saw you she slowly lowered it.

You walked over, reaching out you picked up the circle object.

Tossing it in your hand, you examined it a little bit.

“What is it?”

“Don’t know.”

“Who did it belong to? What race?”

“Don’t know.”

Carol sighed a little, looking at you.

“Are we ever going to talk about this?”

“No.”

She slowly nodded her head and you turned your attention back to the device in your hand.

You held it up against the light, and you lowered it again, then you put it in your pocket looking around the room for anything else.

“We need to go.” Carol whispered.

“If the device is here then there has to be some sort of research, a hard drive or something and I need that as well.”

“Right, okay.”

Carol began to search around as well, anything she thought was related she would bring over to you to have a look at.

Most of it you threw aside, a few things you kept, stuffing them somewhere into your jacket.

“Take a look at this.”

You walked over to the superhero, taking a seat in the chair as you watched her type something into the keyboard.

“It’s not a weapon.” She said.

“It can still be just as dangerous, by the looks of this it’s something to bring back life.”

“How?”

You glanced at her before looking at the computer quickly erasing all the data.

“By taking the life of somebody else, it takes that life force, and for the right people it will use that energy to bring someone else to life, or add to their lifespan. These guy’s probably wanted to study it and try replicate it for their use.”

“Would that work?”

“No. Only a god can create something like this.”

You stood up, and turned around, only to be thrown back against the wall which knocked the air out of your lungs.

You fell to the floor, slowly taking a breath.

“Fuck…”

You slowly pushed yourself up and you looked around with hazy eyes, trying to find out where the shot came from.

You found Carol fighting the attackers.

You teleported away, dropping your jacket in Fury’s office.

“Don’t touch!”

With that you teleported back and grabbed Carol by the back of her suit and you threw her behind you, tensing your back as you felt someone hit you with something metal.

Spinning back around, you grabbed it as they tried to hit you once more.

Taking it from his hand, you tossed it aside and punched him through the wall.

Flames licked at your fists as you spun around, punching someone else to the ground.

Backing up, you put your back against Carol, and you both stood there back to back, fists raised.

“We can’t fight our way out of this…” she whispered.

“Give me you hand…”

“What?”

“Give me your damn hand Carol..”

You reached out behind you, and you felt Carol grab your hand.

“Don’t move…” you whispered.

You raised your foot, slamming it back on to the ground to send everybody around the pair of you flying out, then you were gone.

Letting go of Carols hand you vanished again, and you rolled your shoulders a bit, placing your hand on the wall.

“Sorry boys, it’s been real fun.”

Flames burst out of your hand, engulfing the wall in flames, and you swung your hand to the side, catching all the walls in flames.

You teleported out again, back into the office and you picked up your jacket.

“I’ve got their research don’t worry I’ll deal with it all.”

“As always it’s been a pleasure.” Fury said.

You said nothing, and you teleported from the room back to your home.

It wasn’t fancy, but it worked for you.

You had a hidden room for where you stored the device in a case and sealed it along with its researched and you left the room again.

Throwing yourself on your couch, you picked up a baseball and you threw it towards the door.

“Breaking and entering is illegal.”

“We need to talk.”

Carol walked over, setting the hall back on the table and she stood in front of you.

“We’ve got nothing to talk about.”

“Right, so you’re not ignoring me and everybody who talks to me?”

You shrugged a little and she sighed.

Walking over, Carol knelt in front of you, resting one of her arms in the couch and brought the other up to gently touch the side of your face.

“Please don’t angry with me..”

You reached around her, grabbing the tv remote to turn it on and she took it from you, setting it back on the table.

“Come on, please? I’m really sorry.”

You carried on ignoring her and she leant forward, resting her forehead in yours.

“(Y/N) you know I didn’t mean too.”

“You stood me up Carol, our two year anniversary and you stood me up.”

“I’m sorry, okay? I really am sorry.. my ship broke down and I had to fix it, then I had to come back here..”

“You could’ve called…”

“I did, you blocked me.”

You huffed a bit and she smiled.

“Come on.”

You moved your head back and head butted her slightly.

Carol laughed slightly.

“Okay maybe I deserved that.”

She got up, and she laid on you, putting her head on your shoulder, her hand coming down to hold one of yours.

“I’m not leaving though.”

Wrapping your arm around her, you closed your eyes, holding her tightly.

“I love you.” She grinned.

“I hate you.”

“Uh huh, keep telling yourself that.”

Grinning a little, you pressed a kiss to her head and she smiled brightly, closing her eyes as well

#marvel #marvel x reader #marvel x you #marvel x y/n #marvel imagine #captain marvel #captain marvel x reader #captain marvel x you #captain marvel imagine #Carol Danvers #Carol Danvers x reader #carol danvers x you #Carol Danvers imagine

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burst-of-iridescent · 10 months

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I saw your response to the previous anon. even if we assume that you are right about KA (you are wrong, but I don't see the point in arguing with you), there has never been such a lot of negative interaction between Aang and Katara as there was between Zuko and Katara. Katara threatened Zuko with death and was literally going to leave him to die (and Zuko remained alive only thanks to Aang), and Zuko betrayed her trust and literally said that he did not understand why she was angry with him (although Katara explained to him the reason for her anger a minute ago) and then, according to Katara herself, forced her feeling that she has no choice. I hope you understand that "a partner who respects her, admires her, supports her, cares for her, and loves her just as much as she does him" is pure fanon, and none of this is in the canon (neither in the show itself, nor in post-canonical things)? it's normal that you ship zutaru, and you can read and write as many fanfictions as you want, where Zuko loves Katara, and Katara loves Zuko, but the truth is that the canonical Zuko, the real Zuko, was never in love with Katara, he chose another girl for himself, and had a child with another gir (Mai actually) whether you like it or not. Just like Katara chose another man for herself and lived with him for many decades, gave birth to three children from him. You may think they made a mistake, but it was their choice, and canonically they never considered each other as likely partners. It's weird that you can't understand in any way that canonically there was never anything between Zuko and Katara.

what a pity that avatar: the last airbender ended ten minutes into the southern raiders episode. what a pity that katara never told zuko that she was ready to forgive him, that she never hugged him tenderly, that she never joked with him, supported him, comforted him, and agreed to fight by his side. what a pity that zuko never took a lightning bolt to the heart to protect her, and that katara looked shocked and terrified at the sight. what a pity that she never yelled his name, forgot the incredible danger she was in and tried to run to him and help him. what a pity that katara never took down a firebending prodigy at the height of her power and then rushed to zuko's side and cried when she was able to heal him.

what a pity that they didn't end the show with a beautiful, strong, intimate friendship that provided the perfect foundation for a romance to develop.

i'm not sure if you're aware that fictional characters usually undergo something called development, where they adopt different attitudes, behaviours and feelings from those they held before. i love that katara goes from threatening zuko to fighting for zuko tooth and nail in the finale, because that is called change, and growth, things that are generally considered good and necessary within character arcs and relationships - but i understand you may not be familiar with those concepts in romance, given that you ship kat.aang.

literally said that he did not understand why she was angry with him (although Katara explained to him the reason for her anger a minute ago) and then, according to Katara herself, forced her feeling that she has no choice

it is usually good to provide this little thing called evidence when carrying out analysis.

that is hard to do, of course, when you have none.

You may think they made a mistake, but it was their choice and canonically they never considered each other as likely partners. It's weird that you can't understand in any way that canonically there was never anything between Zuko and Katara.

in case you don't know, zuko and katara aren't real people with free will. their choices are made for them by writers whose job is to make those choices make sense within the scope of their own narrative arcs, and fit the themes and messages of the show. when they fail at that job, audiences are perfectly within their rights to recognize that and examine what could have been done differently.

just because something is canon, that doesn't mean it's immune to criticism. of course i know katara canonically got married to a.ang, and that zuko chose a different partner. that doesn't automatically mean those are the right narrative decisions because - and this may come as a shock to you - engaging critically with media also means looking at the ways in which it fell short and how it could have done better, and the romances in atla are by and large one of its major shortcomings.

#zutara #anti kataang

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minimorgana · 9 months

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Rambling about Ace Hardy:

To me, Ace saying "I believe in being true to yourself, even at the risk of being misunderstood" is one of his most character defining lines in the series. It's cool to think about this quote after finishing the series and knowing everything we do about Ace.

Even though at the point of him saying this we haven't seen the full extent of the conflict with his dad, in retrospect, we can understand that Ace is likely thinking about his dad in some sense when saying this. Yes, he is saying this to Laura and in response about leaving Horseshoe Bay, but it extends to so many aspects of his life and character.

Ace is well aware that his dad doesn't understand or respect where he currently is in life, but he doesn't try to change himself to make his dad understand him. No matter how much he wants his dad's approval, he doesn't compromise who he is. He knows that will only lead to him living a life that isn't really his. What his dad sees as laziness is Ace having not found his purpose and not wanting to force himself into a box before knowing if he will fit.

Ace values being true to himself, and he values this trait in the people he surrounds himself with. This is at the heart of the conflict between him and Nancy in season 2, and I think it might give some perspective to why he struggled to find a solid group of friends before the Drew Crew.

We all know that high school is a difficult time for self-identity and finding yourself, and this has been affirmed through Nancy's character and her high school friends. So I think Ace struggled to make meaningful friendships with people who weren't necessarily being true to themselves (speaking from experience, this is something I struggled with in high school, and it was aggravated by questioning my own sense of self and hiding parts of my identity).

But for the most part, once the layers of secrecy at the beginning of season 1 are removed, I think Ace realizes that this group of people try their hardest to be true to themselves, despite some slip ups.

Nancy could easily leave the mystery solving to the police and stay out of trouble, but she values truth and justice, and she knows it is her responsibility to find those things. Bess values family, whether it is biological or found, and she strives to do right by the people she loves, even if it costs her. George has been known as the town screw up but for the most part, she ignores the labels others put on her and works hard to build a life for herself and her sisters. She knows she is more than their labels for her. Nick is driven by his desire to help and protect people. We see him stay true to himself most clearly when he tells his mom he's staying in Horseshoe Bay, that he has a purpose in this town and he's been planted there for a reason.

That was a long winded way of saying that Ace has finally found people who try their hardest to push away the opinions of other people and stay true to themselves.

For a moment, I was thinking about this quote in line with him telling Nancy he isn't lacking anymore after getting his apartment and starting to work at the morgue. Because if this is the code he lives by, then why would he do these things just for someone else's approval? But then I realized that he isn't. He's had an interest in medical and forensic examination since season 1 when helping examine Lucy's bones. And I think he's been ready to move out of his parents house for a while. He just needed a push to do those things and his insecurities tell him that he has to prove to Nancy that he is good enough for her. But the things he chose to do are still true to who he is.

So yeah, I really just love this quote and think it sums up who Ace is and we can see it reflected in everything he does throughout the series, even up to the very end.

P.S. Another good example of him living by this code is when he visits Mr. D and tries to understand why he made the choice he did. Part of him knows that if Nancy ever found out, she wouldn't be happy about him befriending her dad while she is very mad at him. But he does it anyways, even at the risk of being misunderstood. Because to him, he's doing what is right.

#ace hardy #ace nancy drew #nancy drew cw #nancy drew #ramblings #i don't know if any of this makes sense but i just love his character so much #there are so many things about him i relate to

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knowlesian · 2 years

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i was chatting about this over messages and hadn't seen anyone else post about it, so i figured what the hell: why my fourth favorite joke might be izzy’s pissy little ‘i do this, i do that, you're so erratic’ rant, and the subversion/setup/foreshadowing it provides.

(third: montezuma’s revenge joke via izzy the metaphor colonizer. e5 setup, e9 punchline. now that’s some next level comedy writing.)

anyway! let’s take it line by line.

For years, I’ve followed your every whim. I’ve managed your increasingly erratic moods, I’ve massaged this crew when they were worried about your judgment.

Mmm. Sounds stressful, Izzy.

so! it would be very easy to just take izzy at his word and create scenarios to suit, where izzy is a reliable narrator and actually doing all these things.

(and just as a structure nerd note while i’m at it, since i think that term gets used colloquially so often that much like filler, it needs clarifying sometimes: unreliable narrator doesn't mean never right or always lying. it just means unreliable, and their ultimate narrative purpose is to force an audience to think critically and examine the text as a whole to try to find what is empirical reality and what is not, instead of sorting them into liar or honest and leaving it there, thanks for coming to my tedtalk & etc)

izzy himself is urging an audience to fill in those gaps, to create pre-canon scenarios that support izzy and silence ed. to make us imagine an ed who is out of control and in need of a constant exasperated minder; to implicitly and thematically render him a violent, angry child and not a full man in his own right. an ed who cannot face the world or make his own choices, unless izzy is there to guide him and set boundaries so he does not ruin his own life.

and izzy feels so, so burdened by this. he tells us so!

hmmm. a burdened white man... which would make ed a white man’s burden.

now, where have i heard that before? it’s on the tip of my racist system of genocidal white people of all classes rolling up into places where people are living and dying and making good choices and bad choices alike all on their own just fine thanks and saying, party’s over kids. daddy’s home now, and you better listen up because father knows best tongue.

that’s izzy’s purpose in the narrative, at least when it comes to the specific angle of implicit bias and the stressful and constant unavoidable racial power dynamics that come into all our social interactions whether we like it or not. because if we are honest and genuinely want to dismantle white supremacy, we need to name the beast so we can fight it. that means admitting even when class is figured into the matter, white men of a certain age who act like izzy acts and say the things he says are unconsciously processed as being logical and in control no matter what, and people who are not white get the exact opposite treatment.

it’s the rule of who would the cops believe. (or, in this case, his majesty’s royal navy.)

izzy holds social power ed does not, alongside institutionalized power. this show is playing out very modern racial dynamics with izzy, so he’s blind to this power— we as an audience can’t be, or we’re... izzy.

and to be very blunt, because i feel i need to be: if you think being izzy is a good thing, then oh boy. time to think about why a white man who makes the black crew members do hard labor and none of the white ones is someone you are cool making excuses for.

i do not believe izzy cannot change his ways; i do believe he very, very much needs to change them.

which brings me to the undercover joke.

so, the first line is doing a lot, right out the gate: izzy says he's followed ed’s every whim.

first layer: izzy, hon, this is ed’s ship. he’s captain. his whims are what you literally signed up to follow. if you don’t want to follow them... go find a different captain, or be your own captain! these are very, very easy things to do, especially as the things canon backs izzy up on is that he’s a competent sailor and a fantastic fighter, when he's fighting people who actually play by traditional rules and not stede and his hijinks-heavy style of fighting.

(and just to say it: izzy losing to stede does not make him a bad fighter. it makes him an inflexible one, who is not good at improv’ing solutions outside blunt force ‘uhhhh we could kill things about it????’ type answers, and one who didn't see that cherrywood mast coming when he popped stede’s getting stabbed cherry. skilled people fuck up sometimes even before you get to not being able to predict new factors in situations you think you have thoroughly prepared for; it’s not impossible to lose, even when you are very very good at something and you prepared as well as anybody could. even serena williams has off days, and izzy hands you are no serena.)

second layer: uhhhh, do you follow his whims iz? because we see you push back, all the time forever, several times to the point of just saying fuck you, i won't let you make this choice and i am gonna make it for you.

third layer, crunchiest of all? actually, ed ends up where he's at by the end of the finale because he decides to follow izzy’s whims, and just give that sad little man the blackbeard he asked for: a cartoon legend who cuts off toes for a laugh.

then we get to the next claim: he's managed ed’s ‘increasingly erratic moods’.

now, don't get me wrong— we see ed respond to bad situations with sometimes outsized despondency, he gets real mad at racists and yells at nature/snakes, and when specifically triggered by very literally his worst memory that was also the moment that convinced him he's a bad person he cries in a bathtub and decides he’d rather not repeat that action, especially not when this time he’d be directly killing a man he's starting to love.

so i’m not like, ah yes. edward teach: famously always on an even keel and doing just fine.

but what's actually erratic about those things? erratic means unpredictable, not dramatic. he’s responding to bad situations in ways that indicate he's nearing the end of his desire to keep juggling all the plates he’s got in the air and that weariness combined with a certain amount of arrogance is making him stop double-checking for mistakes, but we see nothing that says he’s losing the ability.

only izzy tells us that. izzy, who is constantly being managed by ed throughout the run of the series. izzy, who seems to exhibit somewhat erratic behavior and mood swings of his own; izzy, who calls down the royal navy upon them all because he's butthurt and jealous and all his cds are in the car, regardless of what he tells himself about protecting ed from ruin.

izzy is shocked ed would sign the act of grace, but if he actually knew ed that would be a somewhat predictable action; anybody can see that ed really fuckin’ likes stede. he tried to stop izzy from the duel, and then when stede won he stuck to his guns and kicked izzy off the ship. ‘i wonder if he’ll just give up on this guy if i track down his crafty frat boy ex and get him to do a reverse parent trap’ is sort of a stupid plan, unless you’re assuming ed is genuinely just longing to go back to the old days and need to be shocked back into reality.

you know what i’d argue is actually fairly erratic, because erratic actually means unpredictable? that fucking plan of his.

how on earth would anyone be like, ah yes. jack was sent by izzy to break them up and lure ed off the ship so the royal navy can come crashing down on all their heads. nobody could have immediately predicted that, right after the sandwich bonked izzy on the noggin.

because izzy expresses horror that ed would lick the king’s boots: the unspoken there is there would be no boots to lick if izzy had not gone and fetched said jackboots and licked them to a shiny gleam first himself.

so when izzy is like, ewwww ed. you'd work with the KING??? we as an audience need to remember: izzy is a textual hypocrite. izzy still has the taste of bootleather on his tongue, and he’s got the gall to get all snotty at ed about the act of grace— a choice ed makes under duress with a literal gun to stede’s head, where izzy made a choice of his own free will out of misplaced emotions and a condescending colonizer mindset that tells him he has the fucking right to look at ed and see a burden to be shouldered and a man who is half-insane, not a fucking genius at the top of his game who keeps telling izzy to please just knock it off and stop being so fuckin rigid.

which brings us to the third part, and the text’s subtle confirmation that everything izzy says he does for ed in that speech, ed actually does for izzy.

he’s massaging the crew when they doubt ed’s judgement, izzy says.

we know that’s not true. fang and ivan don’t respect him for a myriad of reasons, and anytime ed is gone and they can express it they do.

then, once they think ed is gone for good— it's curtains for ol’ izzy. fang and ivan would rather sail under the leadership of one oluwande boodhari, Genuinely Good Captain Material than spend one single more second dealing with izzy’s version of the same.

what saves izzy from meeting the devil at the bottom of the deep blue sea?

ed’s arrival, and ed’s desire to have a familiar face bring him tea. because he'd rather it be stede, but he doesn’t want to be alone; and izzy is still there while stede is gone, potentially forever as far as ed knows.

so, the text tells us: if there was any massaging of the crew going on, it was ed’s legend and the idea of what ed would do if he woke up and somebody had shoved his purse dog overboard keeping izzy afloat.

we know that, because they showed us.

so what the text shows us is ed, keeping him around even though nobody else has faith in him, managing izzy and knowing his mind well enough to do so successfully. we see ed ask izzy for tea once; to make up scenarios where izzy did that for so long he’s just tired of taking care of ed at long last is to ignore what we see, and just listen to what izzy tells us.

because what does ed say? that sounds stressful, izzy. sounds; not is.

i just wanna TALK to these writers, you know? jesus fuck.

he’s mocking izzy, because ed knows what the fuck is going on. he knows everything izzy claims to do and wants to take credit for, ed is actually doing and deserves the credit for. this is what it is, to exist in the world and look like ed: there is always, always a white person ready to take credit for your labor while they devalue you and say it's for your own good.

heartbreaking part loud: most of the time, they fucking believe it is. racism is also an unconscious reflex action, floating along in the cultural bloodstream, popping up in ways people don't often see in themselves, or care to investigate at all when someone points it out to them.

to wit: we know ed asked izzy to bring him lucius. he did not want izzy for comfort; we do not see izzy witness him cry, not once. pointedly: ed cries alone, once lucius is gone.

to ignore that and to assume izzy has been watching that happen, over and over and over because ed is erratic and lacks control and surely could not hide things from izzy, World’s Least Emotionally Intelligent Man, is to ignore ed’s version of events— and the version of events we see play out in front of our eyes— because we heard izzy’s point of view before we got the truth of the matter.

to take izzy at his word at first is understandable; he literally spoke first, and the action then showed his version of history to be untrue afterwards, episode by episode. these are careful writers and subtle ones to boot, so it’s easy to forget this is not a show where the curtains are just blue, leave the matter there and then filter all future action through what izzy told us to see.

and beyond that, we are all trained to see men like izzy as reliable sources and arbiters of empirical reality and history via the dominant culture set by those who most benefit from these assumptions. sadly, most media has at best a surface desire to break that narrative pattern. i very much know that in most shows, izzy would be reliable and ed would be erratic, and it would be a pattern repeated on accident without malicious will or conscious intent ever entering the chat— that’s what makes defeating it so hard to do. people genuinely do not mean to do these things, so they tell themselves they could not be doing it at all.

antonio espera (aka, poke) gives a whole speech about this in generation kill, another piece of media that considers these issues and (due to the subject matter and the real men it portrays) has the approach of presenting us a rainbow of izzys to understand, see them as fellow complicated humans worth empathy who have a specific history that made them what they are, then hold them to narrative account for the horrible things they do, anyway.

white man’s gotta rule the world, says the conventional wisdom via a us marine who combines dark humor and honesty when discussing his lack of ability to be a powerful white man and his job enforcing a broken fucked up power system for them. it’s just a job; and that’s just destiny.

on ofmd, they’re far more interested in building a world where none of that is the case at all.

#our flag means death #i want to be super measured and understanding on this one #but people who take izzy at his word and defend him and ignore canon to create a world where ed is literally a white man's burden?#it's just Not It #and i love the text in part for knowing that #seeing so much of fandom ignore it lowkey breaks my heart #also makes it an unfriendly space for poc fans #which ...sucks! very much sucks #this show is the rare show that knows implicit bias exists in the everyday #and not just in huge outsized monsters #they are engaging with racism and the toll it takes to deal with white people who mean well but don't get it yet #i really wish fandom could do more of the same #my ofmd meta

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ackerfics · 1 year

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shall we hold hands and head home? — an anthology ft. levi ackerman and eren

mission title: how i met your father (wc: 6.1k) | masterlist

You have a problem.

“Eren, let’s review for the entrance examination!” you call from the living room, straightening your posture after putting a couple of books you borrowed from the library you’re working in (you got the job) on the coffee table.

Almost immediately, you hear a door slam shut. Specifically, the door to Eren’s room.

You sigh, putting your hands on your hips. “Eren, this is the fifth time you’re doing this now.” He doesn’t answer from behind his bedroom door. “Eren.” Again, there’s only silence. You purse your lips as you narrow your eyes at his door.

This has been going on for three days now and there are only less than five days to prepare for Eleutheria Private Academy’s entrance examination. The day after Eren moves in, you visit the nearby bank for a withdrawal . The documents you received alongside the money contain the application forms, appointments for the examinations, and the test itself. The moment you read the first question, you instantly question whether this academy is right in the head for asking about how many hectares of land George owned or how many kilometers James trekked in five minutes with the proper direction. The questions are truly for the geniuses of this generation. It baffles you that at Eren’s age, you never had the proper education to solve or comprehend any of these. This is why you should try your hand at teaching Eren how to be a proper student. But that’s not as fruitful as you think when he’s scurrying away every time you say the word study .

It’s like he’s a kitten. A terrified kitten. And this terrified kitten is peeking through the crack between his door right now. Green eyes narrow at you. You can’t even see it but you know he’s pouting.

“Eren, you have to prepare for the exam,” you coax. The crack between his door and the frame decreases and decreases by the second. You have no choice but to bribe him. You have enough money to spare anyway. Everything you received from your organization has led to this moment. “I’m going to buy you the limited edition Super Spies blanket and a Merry Meal of two cheeseburgers from the local fast food restaurant.” The crack becomes an open door. Eren is now looking at you like you’re responsible for the positions of the constellations in the sky.

“Pinky promise?” he asks, lifting his pinky in the air.

You smile. “Pinky promise.” He runs to you and loops your fingers together. You seal it with a gentle kiss on his thumb, something that has him beaming. “You have to make sure you have to do the end of your bargain.”

Eren nods, that adorable determined look plastered on his face.

“Now, let’s start with Mathematics.”

At the subject, Eren looks like he’s about to shit himself.

Eren doesn’t like studying.

It triggers nightmares. It gives him chills and he freezes. When the scientists finished their experiments on him, they subjected him to rigorous examinations to maintain the maximum brain power needed for his abilities to occur. Every day for almost twelve hours, Eren was studying in a lab like a newly-bought pet in training. No matter how much he cried or had a tantrum, the scientists never batted an eyelash, including that bespectacled man who took part in his existence. After he escaped, he didn’t touch a single book in the orphanage, except for the times the old bat of a caretaker forced him to do so to appeal to the couples wanting to adopt him, which was quite a challenge because he would fight against it and it would lead to him getting a lashing or not getting adopted in the end.

The marks on his back start itching as he listens to you drone about the basic operations of Mathematics. Addition and subtraction he can solve with ease. But multiplication and division? He might as well listen in on the other applicants’ thoughts while answering the exam. Now, you’re moving on to more complicated parts of Math. Eren’s left eye twitches when he sees shapes and bigger numbers jumbled in the problems.

He sniffles at the one-hour mark.

“Eren?” you ask him in the middle of formulating a problem for him to answer.

His bottom lip wobbles in distress. “I can’t do this anymore!”

You gawk at him, your head bouncing between him, the wall clock, and the pile of books on the coffee table. You sigh, the sound encompassing all the incoming exhaustion leading up to the examination. “Eren, you promised, right?”

Eren looks up at you. “But this is hard, Mama!”

“I know it’s hard but you have to study to pass this test.”

“What if I just read—”

You slightly narrow your eyes at him. “Are you planning on cheating?”

Eren purses his lips shut. That’s a mistake; an act of desperation. He almost revealed his powerful weapon. He stays silent as you huff.

I already have the list of answers from this exam thanks to Hange, maybe I should just let Eren memorize them , he hears from your mind.

Eren’s face morphs into a childish wonder. That’s right, you’re an awesome spy like the main character of the show he loves watching when you’re off running errands or doing what spies do. Maybe you infiltrated a secret base with top-notch security, specifically the hidden vaults of the academy he’s about to enter and suffer from, just to get the test papers and the answers. You’re so cool. Eren keeps on staring at your side profile until you have no choice but to glance at him from the corner of your eye. The both of you regard each other, one gaze filled with admiration while the other is painted in confusion.

Then, he comes up with this brilliant idea. “I don’t want to study anymore,” he whines. He makes sure to take glances at you in an attempt to gauge your reaction. When you give him a blank stare, Eren keeps on lamenting his fate. “This is so so hard! I don’t think I’m going to pass!”

He hears a sigh. That catches his attention. “I suppose I have no choice but to do this. Eren, I hope you have room for more than one promise. You mustn’t tell anyone about this.” You fix him a stern stare, your pointer finger wagging in front of him. Eren prevents a grin from surfacing on his face. “What I’m about to do is something against my morals but since we have no time, we’re going to take a shortcut.” You take out an envelope with a stamp that says do not touch . Eren wants to touch it. His eyes brighten at the document. “This,” you wave the envelope in the air, “is an important piece of paper and it has all the answers to your future. All you have to do is to memorize every single letter in here, Eren, and then we’ll be on our merry way. Do you understand?”

“Yes!” It’s not even a second and he immediately answers. He vibrates in his seat as you raise an eyebrow at him. Maybe he shouldn’t have answered that quickly. Oh, well.

“Here you go.”

Eren takes the envelope from your hands and stares at it. All he has to do is to memorize the answers. That should be easy enough.

It’s the day of the exam and Eren doesn’t remember anything from that blessed envelope.

His eyes are shaking in nervousness. His forehead is breaking into a cold sweat. His hands are trembling to the point that he can’t hold the pencil properly. All your efforts of making him look presentable as possible went in vain when Eren looks like he was about to combust and launch himself from the window of the examination room. It’s on the fourth floor of a large Victorian building. His shaggy hair is messier than usual with all the scratching he did just to lessen this funny feeling in his stomach that’s stirring the breakfast you made earlier in the morning. Eren clutches his tummy with a scrunched face. It’s alright that he feels this way because the other applicants look way worse than him. Others are murmuring prayers under their breath, something along the lines of asking a woman named Ymir for guidance (who is that?), while some are already apologizing to their parents.

Eren doesn’t want to apologize yet. He has to finish this test first.

“D-Do you want some ointment?” A timid voice comes from beside Eren.

He turns to the voice and sees a blond boy handing him a tin of aromatic salve. “What?” Eren dumbly asks.

The boy lifts the tin. “Ointment.” At Eren’s intense gaze, he looks down at the long desk connecting their two seats. He starts fiddling with the tin container. It doesn’t help that Eren looks angry when he’s nervous. “M-My Dad gave this to me before I entered the building. He said that it helped my older siblings when they took their exams, too. He told me to open it when I feel too o-overwhelmed with the exam.” He pronounces the big word carefully and tentatively. “Y-You look like you need it.”

Eren tilts his head, regarding the tin container as if it’s an unknown flying object in his favorite show. It’s a mystery waiting to be solved. He watches as the blond boy twists the cap and almost immediately, Eren gets a whiff of something minty, fruity, and soothing all at the same time. His shoulders relax and he inhales a good portion of the air surrounding them. How can this measly item make all the butterflies in his tummy vanish? Maybe he should tell you to buy something similar, one with a container filled with stickers of his favorite cartoon characters. Eren doesn’t realize it but he’s starting to lean closer to the blond boy’s side, his nose adorably twitching the more he nears the tin container of ointment.

“Here,” the blond boy pushes it to his face.

Eren backs away when a cooling glob touches the tip of his nose.

The boy jumps as well, panicking that he probably scared off his possibly new friend. “I-I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to do that!”

Still, Eren looks at him with his tiny hands over his nose. His eyes narrow at the questionable thing that shines underneath the streaming lights of the examination venue. It’s shiny though, he gives it that.

“I’m sorry!” the boy continues to plead.

Eren glances away from the now teary-eyed boy. Great, he made someone cry. Now, if you catch any wind of this, he’s the one crying while going home. He’s never seen you mad. Frustrated, yes, but never angry that has him tucking his tail between his legs. And seeing as he never wants you to be mad at him, Eren tries to stop this boy’s tears by reaching out his hand, palm up, all the while still not looking at him straight in the eye. “The ointment.” Eren pouts. “Can I have some?”

The blond boy sniffles, his blue eyes glistening with tears. “A-Are you sure?”

Eren nods, almost a huff coming out of his mouth.

The boy wipes the tears from his face and flashes him a brilliant smile. It makes Eren squint. It’s too bright. Not as bright as your smile, though. You have the most beautiful smile in his little mind and he doesn’t squint at the sight of it. In fact, he basks in every fiber of your being. The boy says something and it brings Eren back to reality. “You have to apply it near your nose so that the scent can stay until the exam is over.” The blond boy takes a good dollop of the ointment and smears it on Eren’s hand.

Eren follows his instructions and even makes an invisible mustache around his mouth. “I’m going to tell Mama to buy this,” he says, determined to make you buy this.

“I’m glad you like it!”

“Eren.”

“Huh?”

“Eren. That’s my name. What’s yours?” Eren peeks through his eyelashes.

The boy beams. “Armin. My name’s Armin.”

A small hand waits for another. “Wanna be my friend, Armin?”

Now, the lone palm has someone intertwining with it in a handshake. “Yeah! I hope we pass this together, Eren! That way we can be classmates.”

Eren doesn’t expect to have a friend for this exam. But one thing’s for sure, he’s thankful that he was directed to this seat because Armin knows all the answers to the questions. At least that’s what he thinks. After seeing the test papers, Eren wants to go home the next minute. He knows all the answers to this but the nervousness plaguing him minutes before the start of the exam flicks the memorized letters out of his head. So, he tries reading everyone’s mind all at once. It gives him a headache but still, he perseveres. He strains himself but all he can hear is a jumbled mess of children crying in their heads. Until Armin starts mentally narrating his calculations. Visibly, Eren brightens in his seat and vigorously writes on the test paper, the lead of his mechanical pencil a pleasant sound to his ears.

Wait for a second, there’s no 10 in the choices! Armin thinks out loud.

Oh. Now, Eren’s in trouble.

Maybe praying to this girl named Ymir can help him survive this.

He wants to go home and bury himself in cuddles with you. But just like how you have a mission, he has a mission, too. Eren shuts down his mind-reading abilities and starts writing from his memory. It’s a steady flow onward.

You have your hands entwined underneath your chin as you sit in one of the chairs of the ‘waiting room’. With how this area of the academy is constructed, you’d think it belongs to a hospital. The chairs line up the hallway and you’re one of the parents who are praying to some unknown deity just to have your kid pass the exam. You know Eren can do this. Aside from making him memorize the answer sheet, you tutored him in between breaks of memorization just to jog his intellectual and technical reasoning. You still don’t have the heart to break free from your morals of straying from the path of shortcuts. It’s how you achieved where you are right now. You hope Eren took note of that philosophy while you two were studying.

The bell rings, signaling the end of a five-hour exam.

Children crying fills the silence of the waiting room. The doors to consecutive rooms burst open to small pitter-patters of shoes leading the owners to their parents. What the hell? Surely Eren didn’t cry inside his examination room.

You stand from your chair and crane your neck to find that shaggy head of brown hair. After a couple of minutes, you see Eren walking behind a group of rowdy children pushing each other. He doesn’t hold that usual annoyed expression he has when you two go out to the business district. Instead, Eren has his head down, his appearance looking more disgruntled than earlier. Did he battle something in there? You can’t help but think. Like he can feel your gaze, he slowly looks up from the patterned floor. The expression on his face upon seeing you sends a flurry of dopamine inside your body and the next thing you know, a small body clutches your leg in the tightest hug a little kid can achieve. “How was it, Eren?” You gently pull him from your leg before lifting him in the air so that you can carry him in your arms. It baffles you that at six years old, Eren can still be carried like this. He really is too small for his age.

Eren nuzzles himself into the crook of your neck and you catch a familiar scent of an ointment you smell in passing whenever you are with Mike in the headquarters. The big bear of a man briefly mentioned that it’s the rage in the continent after it was patented by someone working in the business district of Liberio, the zone of Eldian people residing in the heart of Marley. “I finished it, Mama.”

Pride settles in your chest. Your hand runs through his hair, fixing the unruly strands popping in different directions. “That’s great, Eren. You’re so amazing like that spy character you very much like.”

He giggles. “I am, aren’t I?”

“Yes, you are.”

From across the hallway, you spot a head of blonde hair done in an elaborate bun, and an expensive dress adorning her figure. She is greeted by a boy sharing the same features as her. Blue eyes that are as beautiful as the sky, are the features only the Tyburs wear with dignity. Suddenly, the little boy points in your direction, the girl following his finger to you and Eren. You look down at Eren who swivels his head from your neck. “Did you make a friend, Eren?” you ask, still staring at the child in your arms. You try not to psychoanalyze the actions of Willy Tybur’s children. Hange once told you that you can be intense when you’re observing someone. Better lay low for now. With the way Eren kicks his legs in the air, you conclude that he did make a friend before the exam started.

Eren and the little boy exchange waves at each other before the former looks at you with stars in his eyes. “Yeah! His name is Armin. He’s the one who let me use this ointment. Do I smell nice, Mama?”

You heed his question and playfully inhale the area where he’s ticklish the most, right behind his ear. His giggles are a manifestation of seraphs; it makes you smile. “You do, Eren. How about we buy some of that ointment to help you in the future?”

He beams at your suggestion, nodding like a bobblehead charm.

“Okay then.”

Armin A. Tybur. The youngest in the Tybur family and the reason why it’s highly encouraged for you to put a child in this year’s academy admissions. According to the file given to you, Armin is a six-year-old prodigy who is expected to sweep the academy off its feet. Despite having no appearances in public, the maids and tutors working in the Tybur estate mentioned that the little boy started learning how to read when he was only two years old. He even wowed his family by expressing highly advanced emotional intelligence when normal people couldn’t even begin to understand emotions as adults. The Tyburs already placed their bets that the boy won’t have friends while attending an institution that’s open to the general public (in other words, those who have money and wits).

Yet here’s your child befriending such a genius recluse on the day of the examination no less. Eren can be the key to understanding more of the Tyburs than you originally thought. At first, you planned to be closer to the Tyburs by being a part of the parent organizations but with this opportunity in your arms, you’re presented with something that puts Eren on a much more purposeful path.

“How about some ice cream on the way home, Eren?” you propose.

“Really?!”

“Really.”

“I want the new flavors, Mama!”

“Anything you want, Eren.”

The mail always comes at seven in the morning.

You open them at nine after your morning routine has settled you in a fresher mindset and a new set of clothes.

On the table a week after the examinations is a plate of breakfast, a glass of juice, a cup of caffeinated tea, and the mail that has been delivered hours before. Eren is happily gobbling spoonfuls of chocolate chip waffles into his mouth as if it’s his last day on Earth and you’re occasionally taking sips of your preferred flavor of tea as your eyes trail on the envelopes with various stamps. You recognize a few of them containing codes that only the Wings of Freedom formulated for any undetected letter sending but your eyes unconsciously move to an intricate piece of scented paper with a wax candle for a seal.

The seal says Eleutheria Private Academy in elegant, cursive letters.

Your breath hitches. The result of the entrance exam is here. You take a quick peek at the little boy oblivious to today’s mail. You try calming yourself down — taking a deep breath while closing your eyes. It’s such a waste to open such an expensive letter but you hardly care now that it carries the fate of your mission. It doesn’t even crinkle at your hold. The seal pops off from the paper and the scent of something floral drifts inside the dining room.

Eren now stares at you. “What’s that, Mama?”

You internally cringe. “The result, Eren.”

The boy gulps down his waffles.

You’re acting as if you’re the one who took the exam. You gingerly take the folded letter from the envelope. The floral theme of this piece of paper mocks you. You faintly hear Eren jump down from his seat in front of you, his small footsteps nearing you until he’s leaning on your knees. “Are you ready, Eren?” He nods at your question with wobbly lips. You nod back before opening the letter.

“Good day!

We are so happy to inform you that your child, Eren Jaeger, passed the written—”

“Oh, my God!” you shriek. “You passed!”

Your mission is still on the go.

Without thinking twice about it, you lift Eren in the air like that cartoon he previously watched, the one where the monkey presents the lion cub to all of the savannahs to see and marvel. You’re the monkey and Eren’s your lion cub. The pride you felt during the entrance examination doesn’t compare to the pride you feel right now. It’s all-encompassing. You can take on any villain right now. The rush inside your veins pushes you to plant kisses all over Eren’s face, his giggles coloring the dining area with the most vibrant hues and shades known to humanity. It’s contagious and it has you laughing along with him. You dance with him in this imaginary tune, your journey leading you to the couch inside the living room. The laughter coming from the two of you dies down a couple of minutes later.

“Did I do good, Mama?” Eren asks you against your chest.

You happily hum, hugging him close to your heart. “You did very well , Eren.”

Eren giggles, nuzzling more into you.

As he relishes in your warmth, you finish reading the letter in your hands.

“The second phase of the admissions is a mandatory family interview. Both parents must attend with the applicant. Absolutely no exceptions. Failure to meet this condition will amount to immediate termination of the application.”

Fuck.

Eren flinches in your hold.

“Why?!” you whine. “Why do they need both parents?!” It’s unbecoming of you to whine.

Eren lifts himself from you. “But I don’t have a Papa!”

“That’s the problem — there is no Papa.”

Where will you find someone who will stand in as your husband?

Levi finds himself in a predicament.

Once a dweller of the ‘Underground City’, the most dangerous place in the continent, it’s befuddling to know that he never leaves any traces of himself after a kill. This is why, as an assassin, nobody has ever uncovered his tracks except for the type of wounds he inflicted on his targets. When one sees holes in the chest right above the heart, that’s the work of Midnight. After his tenth kill he realizes that murdering people undetected runs in the family, only this time, he has an edge compared to his uncle who is literally called The Ripper in Marley and her neighboring cities. Levi kills people who are threats to the government or threats to the clients who hire his services even if those who hire him aren’t ideal citizens, to begin with. He doesn’t even like the lifeless eyes staring at him when he digs his stiletto knives into their chests. He does this to purge humanity of the miasma plaguing its core.

If he wants to continue this gig of his, he has to prove to the government that he’s not a spy. Because right now, he stares from the window of his other job in the City Hall. An Eldian employee of thirty years of age is being dragged by the authorities for being an unmarried man. The man’s screams are piercing and the whispers that follow are ruthless. This is what Marley does to Eldians who reach the age of thirty with no house or family to come home to. They think that by being married under their laws, one pledges their life to the cause and vision of the nation, that there’s no reason for them to betray Marley. Levi thinks it’s bullshit.

“Poor man,” a coworker whispers. “Well, it can’t be helped. It’s better to be wary instead of letting them run around here.”

“You’re absolutely right.”

Marleyans.

Levi rolls his eyes and goes back to his desk in one of the large offices.

“Levi!” An irrelevant human being calls for him.

“What?”

The man leans over his divider. “You’re still unmarried, right, and you’re what thirty-five?”

“Twenty-nine.”

“Yeesh, you look older,” the man grimaces. “Better hurry up and find a dame or else you’re the next coworker to be tortured by the Military Police.”

You don’t have to say that again . Levi rolls the sleeves of his button-up to his elbows and starts typing whatever document their manager ordered him to do. On better days, Levi would have stabbed that stingy manager in the chest but seeing as he poses this law-abiding citizen with a penchant for tea and hand sanitizers, he chooses to type whatever shit this is. The man continues droning about whoever he finds attractive these days and who he’s planning on marrying but Levi doesn’t listen one bit.

On second thought, maybe finding someone to pose as his wife would be the best solution. Then again, it’s also a win-win situation when this country hunts down all the bachelors and bachelorettes they have their sights on. Preferably, he wants someone who can comply with whatever condition he throws on the table or someone who’s not that noticeable for his coworkers to suspect. Before he can prevent his mouth from opening, he says the stupidest thing he ever said in his lifetime.

“I’m actually married.”

“What?! For real?”

“I heard that! Dom, you owe me fifty bucks!”

“God damn it!”

Now, Levi starts digging his grave for the sake of his other, more important career and life.

This is all he can think about until he’s on his night job.

Bodies surround him in this presidential suite booked by one of the mafia leaders working on the surface. Someone gurgles their blood, clearly alive despite the wounds, and Levi throws his stiletto knife right in the middle of his forehead without looking. It hits its target and the gurgling dies down. Hours before, this suite is bouncing with sound waves of a random Bossanova song. Women are sitting on every bastard’s lap and money is thrown everywhere without care. Now, the women are safely escorted out but not before Levi pushes a specific nerve to make them forget what happened on this night. The bastards create this painting on the suite’s floor, another one of Midnight’s masterpieces. It’s an elaborate abstract one entailing the dirty deeds of humanity — the perfect shade of red splattered on a dark canvas, with no light for days on end.

Levi sighs, his head tilting to the ceiling. He realizes that there are rips on his black suit. Great, he should visit the tailor shop by his apartment first thing in the morning. For now, it’s another sleepless night of never regretting where he is right now. He’ll put the wife-hunting on tomorrow as well.

The grandfather clock of the suit rings through the room.

Midnight welcomes another day and it’s tomorrow already.

“I fucking hate the world.”

“ Midnight ?”

“Yes?”

“ I have a client for you. ”

“...”

“ He goes by the name Lobov and he wants a man named Erwin Smith dead .”

The line goes dead. The dealer is always like this — cutting to the chase, considering no questions. He dials another number as soon as the call is dropped.

“Farlan, I need you to look into someone.”

“Sure, go ahead.”

“Erwin Smith.”

Keyboard clacks reverberate from the other side of the call.

“Hmm. Are you sure he’s a real person?”

“Why would I ask for you to look into him when he’s not?”

“Okay, okay, geez.” Another round of keyboard clacking. “Wow, his files are locked in the database.”

“Who are the people in his close circle?”

Farlan whistles. “Are you going through the “ getting close to subordinates to take down someone” route? Damn, okay.” It takes him a minute. “I found something. Belladonna.”

“What?”

“Someone named Belladonna is his closest ally. Get close to her and you’ll be closer to your target.”

“Belladonna, huh?”

“She’s a spy of Eldia, Levi. Be careful.”

One would think you’re too excited to put Eren in this private academy. With his application still in processing, you’re already taking him to the tailor shop to have his uniform fitted. You’re one pretentious, confident mother who fully trusts her son to further explore his academic prowess in a place full of prodigies and children of those who treat money like passing interests.

“Your son is an adorable one, madam,” the owner of the tailor shop gushes as she takes Eren’s measurement. The little boy is trying so hard to make himself taller by standing on his tippy toes.

You chuckle, leaning on the countertop and watching your son do the most ridiculous faces. “He is. He’s so excited to go to this school that he can’t wait to have his uniform already.”

“Eleutheria Private Academy, huh?” The tailor stands up to write down the measurements on a piece of paper that has the design of the uniform, a detailed piece with the insignia and all. “That’s one fancy school. Your son must be a genius.”

I wouldn’t say that , you silently laugh. You don’t notice Eren swivel his head toward you with a scandalized look on his face. As you open your mouth to retort something practiced, you feel a chill down your spine, your blood running cold in your veins. You inhale a sharp breath, the weight of the gun lodged in the thigh strap beneath your skirt creates this foreboding urge inside you to shoot someone. The door doesn’t ring but a person is walking in front of you, sliding past your senses in a completely predatory-like way, as if they’re a creature of the night. You turn to the person standing beside you, waiting for the tailor to accommodate him in the store. What the fuck?

Levi Ackerman .

A man nearing his thirties and has yet to be married. He’s one of the people on the list of probable marriage partners Hange gave you the night before. His file is too empty for him to be called a citizen of Marley. The only things you know about him are that he’s unmarried, an Eldian, and that he works for the City Hall under the Taxes Department. Oh, and he has no historical background. The more you stare at him in the corner of your eyes, the more he seems suspicious. How did someone like him get past the strict security of Marley? Is he a person of importance behind that office worker facade? You narrow your eyes at his appearance. Black hair neatly styled on his head, a three-piece suit with no creases, muscles straining against the material of his clothes — he’s actually attractive. There’s not a single flaw found in him. His side profile is otherworldly and makes him appear like a sculpture made by the finest artist of the century. He puts all the muses for the perfectly-proportioned man to shame.

Silver irises meet yours.

Your face burns now that you’re caught staring at this man.

“Is there something you need from me?” His voice is blunt and takes no shit. It’s almost intimidating the way he trails his eyes from the top of your head down to the toes of your shoes. “I don’t appreciate the staring.”

You fix your panicking mental state. “No, I just found you handsome, that’s why.”

His eyes widen a little. He fully turns to you. God, did the deities take time in making him? “You find me attractive?” He’s not even skeptical. You nod at his question because it’s the truth. “So—”

“Mama!”

Oh, yeah. Eren.

The man you’re talking to is the one Eren saw when he held your hand for the first time. This future of yours that he got a glimpse of is within a golden hour, lights down low and slow songs serenading the kitchen of a much cozier home. Sizzles coming from a frying pan brought the scent of a multitude of savory smells that had Eren wishing he could have a taste of the food being prepared in this vision of his. The two of you are not alone though. The black-haired man staring at you right now also stared at you in his vision, eyes softer and riddled with an overflowing efflux of love and adoration that remained superior to the present. The man was holding you close to him as you were humming along to the tune of one love song, his more muscular build swaying you to the melody. And Eren was sitting on his shoulders, looking over to watch you stir vegetables and meat, his tiny hands holding Levi's ears in a tight yet harmless grip. It was a picture-perfect family worthy of being placed in a museum.

There’s no doubt about it — Eren has to put you two together so that the future will be met.

Shit, she has a kid? Did Belladonna marry someone? How will I go about this situation now? But she’s the one Erwin Smith trusts the most. Fuck. This is the kind of thing that exposes me as an assassin. I can’t exactly terminate her now.

Eren gasps. This man is dangerous. An assassin and he’s after you? Not on Eren’s watch. But the vision didn’t show any sign of this behavior at all.

He grasps your leg tighter, his viridian eyes glaring at the man that’s supposed to be his father. He doesn’t know if he should trust this man that easily yet.

Fathers are cursed anyway.

“ I’m your father, Eren, so do as I say! Stay still and let me inject this so you could be the one who saves us all! ”

Eren shakes his head free of that memory. This is no time to dwell in the past. You’re the one who saved him from that path and you’re happy with this man in your future.

“Oh, Eren, are you finished with letting the kind lady take your measurements?” You lean down and pat his head, something that he nuzzles into. It never fails to make him feel warm. So cute , he reads your thoughts.

“Yeah!” he cheers. He loses his smile and looks up at the angry-looking man staring down at him with furrowed brows. Eren uses his so-called cuteness to hide the fact that he just read something life-threatening from this man’s mind. He tilts his head to ask, “Who’s this, Mama?”

You don’t answer the question. Instead, you turn your head to the man standing in front of you with his hands inside his pockets, expectantly waiting for him to say his name. “I believe he hasn’t introduced himself to us yet, Eren.”

“My apologies. My name is Levi.”

“Okay, Mister Levi.” Eren emerges from behind your skirt. The way he stares at Eren can be adorable but you recognize that look anywhere. It’s the same one he had when he was wiping his face from tears as he was memorizing the answer key to Eleutheria’s entrance exam. You saw it when he was trying to imitate the fighting scenes in his favorite shows. During the times Eren is trying to make himself stronger and older than he is, he has that look on his face. Your first meeting with him was there. When you saw him for the first time, it was blazing, and right now, his eyes hold the summer sun. Levi doesn’t even have time to respond because Eren opens his mouth to say, “Be my Papa!”

Maybe having this man as his new father will be the key to preventing you from getting killed, all the while becoming the best son there is. After all, Levi looked so bewitched and besotted with you in the future. Eren will make everything come true.

taglist:

@misslovingpearl

#rory's passages 🌼#spy x family au 🏡#aot x reader #attack on titan x reader #levi ackerman x reader #levi x reader #attack on titan imagines #snk x reader #levi ackerman x you #eren aot #eren attack on titan #eren yeager #eren jaeger

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ak-vintage · 2 months

Text

Quarry - Chapter 8

Pairing: Din Djarin (The Mandalorian) x f!reader

Summary: Din Djarin is on what he expects to be his last bounty hunt for Greef Karga. After all, Nevarro is swiftly moving away from its previous reputation as a Guild member’s paradise, and Din has more important concerns now, like finding a Jedi to train his mysterious foundling. However, after capturing a wanted starship engineer who would rather go anywhere other than “home,” the Mandalorian is forced to reassess his priorities.

Your taste of freedom had been brief but glorious. Now you are a prisoner of the most infamous bounty hunter in the Outer Rim – it’s only a matter of time before he turns you in. There isn’t much you would not do to keep from being sent home, but as you find yourself growing closer to your captor and his strange little companion, you start to wonder whether escape is really what you want.

Set after Chapter 13: The Jedi but before Chapter 14: The Tragedy.

Chapter Tags & Warnings: Please note new TWs in red!!! Reader is Mando's bounty, second-person POV, no use of Y/N, minimal descriptors of reader character, hurt/comfort, discussions of slavery and indentured servitude, power dynamics, trauma

Series Masterlist | Read on AO3

It had all happened so quickly, your brain was having a difficult time keeping up.

The long, silent walk from the Razor Crest into the city, the anxiety and the fear flaying your nerves until they were raw.

The strong, steady grip of Mando’s hand on your arm, keeping you warm and upright.

The moment your gaze landed on Orron, the feeling of time standing still. The sinking numbness that cloaked you like a shroud at the sensation of his pale blue eyes on your body as he examined you, the stabbing sharpness of his fingers in the hinge of your jaw.

The endless, burning pit of fury roiling in your stomach as that bastard dared to look Mando in the eyes and claim that he had any right to your labor, to your life.

The cortical tracker sinking its awful metal prongs into the meat of your neck had been painful, of course, but it was familiar, and something about that made it easier to process. What you weren’t certain you would ever understand, however, what had your mind racing and your joints feeling like water, was the sight of Orron being escorted out of the office with three purple cloth bags, heavy with credits, clutched in his wiry hands.

It was over. You never had to go back to Chardaan again. You never had to see him again.

25,000 credits. An unthinkable sum. And Mando had just…handed it over. Without a single thought or protest.

How would you ever be able to repay him?

“Are you all right?”

Mando’s voice cut through your spiraling thoughts like a hot knife through butter, pulling your awareness out of yourself and back into the present. Swallowing heavily, you nodded, ignoring the shooting pain the motion caused. “Yes. Yes, I’m fine.” You hardly recognized your own voice. You sounded breathless, confused, small.

The bounty hunter didn’t seem convinced by your reassurance. “Let me see your neck,” he said, curt but somehow still gentle. With a delicate touch, as though you would break if gripped too hard, he cupped the uninjured side of your face in his hand and turned your head so he could see the damage left by the cortical tracker. He appeared to study you closely for a few moments, his helmet cocked to the side, his visor impassive as always, but when he spoke again, his voice sounded almost relieved. “You’re bruising. Badly. But the puncture wounds are small. We’ll stop by the medical clinic and pick up some high-grade bacta topicals on the way back to the ship. We’ll make sure you get healed up.”

Your throat dried and your heart sped up at his word choice. “We.” Were you a “we” now? Did you want to be?

Before you could think on it further, the other man in the room, the one called Karga, spoke up.

“Perhaps you’d like to tell me what’s going on here, Mando,” he grumbled. “As I’m sure you can imagine, I try not to make a habit out of taking back bounties.”

Guilt festered in your gut at the admonishment, but as the Mandalorian dropped his hand from your face and turned to confront his Guild agent, you saw nothing in his posture that looked like shame. In fact, he looked more determined than ever.

“I gave you my word that the exchange would be completed, and it was. The bounty transferred custody, and payment was given,” he asserted.

Karga frowned at that response and folded his arms across his broad chest. “You’re scraping by on a technicality, and you know it.”

Mando inclined his head in a single nod, wordlessly acknowledging the older man’s point. “But I did not break my word.”

It became clear to you then that the conversation between these two men that you had overheard from the cargo hold a few days ago had not been some kind of standard check-in. They had been discussing you. Had Mando been planning this? Had he known when he brought you here that you wouldn’t be leaving with Orron?

Oblivious to your inner turmoil, the Guild agent shook his head, a humorless smile twisting his full lips. “No, I suppose you didn’t.” He sank into his high-backed office chair with a groan and a shrug. “Well. It looks like our business is concluded for now. The two of you are free to go, I suppose.”

It appeared, however, that the Mandalorian wasn’t quite finished.

“Have you given out your remaining bounties? The ones I left behind last time?” he asked.

Karga’s gaze was hard as he stared back at the bounty hunter. “No, I haven’t.”

“Would you consider giving them to me?”

“Ordinarily, yes. Without question,” the older man replied. “But…as your Guild agent, after the stunt you just pulled – ”

“This was an exceptional circumstance,” Mando interjected. You felt your cheeks flame at that, and you looked down at your feet, guilt and pleasure warring with each other in your chest.

He had called you exceptional. The descriptor made you want to melt into the floor and grin in equal measures.

Karga, however, appeared skeptical.

“You know I can resolve them faster than any of the other hunters in this sector,” Mando added. “You’d be able to move on, focus on your…political career. Focus on Nevarro.”

The Guild agent appeared to consider the argument for a moment, running his fingers across his short, white beard as he glanced meaningfully back and forth between you and Mando. You wondered what he saw when he looked at you. A bounty hunter’s charity case? A friend? Something…more? What assumptions was this man making, this man you had never met before today?

Did you even want to know?

With a heavy sigh, Karga seemed to come to a decision. Opening another one of his desk drawers, he produced five bounty pucks and five tracking fobs, spreading them out evenly on the desk in front of him. “Fine,” he said, his voice resigned but not displeased. “But I want all of them in carbonite this time, understood? This may be my last batch of bounties, but I’m still a professional. And so are you.”

If you didn’t know better, you would have thought that you could hear the Mandalorian release a quiet breath of relief. In a handful of long strides, he crossed the room and scooped the pucks and fobs into his hands and tucked them away in his innumerable utility pockets. “I understand,” he replied, low and serious.

A small, genuine smile quirked the corner of Karga’s mouth at that. “Good. Now…as your friend? That was some quick thinking, Mando. Well done.” The man’s gaze had transformed from aggravated to fond, and you felt your regard for him soften a bit in turn. “Dealing with slavers is the ugliest part of our business. I’m glad to see that this one wasn’t allowed to win today,” he continued.

“That man had no honor. He got better than he deserved,” Mando growled. You watched as one of his gloved hands balled into a fist seemingly of its own accord, the black leather of his gloves straining against his knuckles.

“Yes, well, I appreciate your…restraint,” Karga said with a strangely knowing chuckle. Meeting your gaze for the first time, he added, “And you! The very best of luck to you. Perhaps we shall meet again, hm? That is, if you decide to stick with our Mandalorian friend, here.”

The Guild agent’s words left you mystified. If…I decide?

“T-Thank you,” you stammered.

Am I…staying with Mando?

___

“Mando.”

“Yes?”

“We have to talk about what happened back there.”

The moment the two of you had departed from Karga’s office and emerged back into the town center, your thoughts had begun racing once again. Without a word, Mando had taken off down the winding street, clearly expecting you to follow him. You did so without protest, feeling as though you were moving on inertia alone, and he had led you to a blue-painted building two blocks away. The faded white text painted on the battered, durasteel door read “Community Clinic” in Galatic Basic.

You had watched, silent and wide-eyed, as he traded a not insignificant amount of his remaining 5,000 credits for two tubes of top-shelf bacta gel, and while you had felt as though someone might have shoved cotton in your ears while you weren’t looking, Mando had listened intently to the droid behind the med distribution counter as it outlined the application instructions in excruciating detail. He had placed the tubes in your limp hands then, murmuring, “Stick those in your pocket” before heading back out into the city.

Now, you were trailing behind him a couple of steps, seemingly following him back to the Razor Crest. Your mind was buzzing as though it were full of winged insects, the bacta in your pocket felt shockingly heavy against your leg, and no matter what you did, you couldn’t seem to wrap your head around the events of the last few hours.

Your split lip stung. Your jaw and cheekbone throbbed with the beat of your heart in the shape of Orron’s backhand. Your neck felt impossibly stiff, and you could sense the crust of dried blood on your skin.

You were free. Finally, after all these years, you were actually, definitively free.

Except…were you?

“Mando?” you said again.

He nodded then – you watched the back of his helmet bob up and down in acknowledgement, and you almost breathed a sigh of relief. “We will,” he replied, his voice soft and cautious. “But you’re injured. And I don’t trust Halcard to leave this alone. Let’s get you healed and get back into hyperspace. Then we can talk.”

Something like a smile passed over your lips. “You don’t have to worry about him coming after me,” you reassured him. “If there’s anything Orron loves more than control, it’s money. After what you just paid him… I’m sure he’s already long gone. He wouldn’t have wanted to give you a chance to change your mind.”

“You may be right,” Mando agreed. “But I’d rather not risk it.”

The tension gripping your chest loosened a bit at the protective edge in his voice. Even if you were now indebted to this man, you appreciated his concern for your well-being. It had been a long time since anyone had looked out for you in that way, and although you would be lying if you said that protectiveness didn’t chafe a bit against your desire for independence, a part of you wondered whether, in time, you might get used to it. Might grow to welcome it.

Your thoughts remained fitful for the rest of the journey back to the spaceport, so much so that the sound of the blast doors opening and the gangplank extending from the rear of the Razor Crest caused you to jump, startled. Mando wordlessly gave you a once-over, concern evident in his body language even though you couldn’t see his face. However, before you could assure him that you were all right, your eyes landed on the small, green figure drowning in brown robes waiting right at the top of the gangplank.

Grogu squealed the moment he saw you, his little arms immediately stretching out, his three-clawed hands grasping for you, his smile toothy and wide, and you could feel your face crumple as tears flooded your eyes. You were up the ramp in an instant, sweeping the boy into your arms and cradling him close as you choked back a sob.

“Hey, kiddo,” you murmured wetly, your tears soaking the collar of his robes, your voice shaking. You pulled him from you gingerly, holding him out a bit from your body as your gaze eagerly traced over his little round face, his wing-like ears, his wispy white hair. “It’s so good to see you.”

Just a few short hours ago, when you had exited the Crest, you had been certain that your paths would never cross again. You had already mourned that last cuddle, that last giggle, that last shared meal. Holding him again, it felt as though a part of your heart that you had lost had been restored to your body. You could feel it snapping back into place in your chest, as real as the feeling of the boy’s coarse robes under your fingers.

And that seemed to be all your overwrought nervous system needed to open the floodgates that had been tightly sealed over the last few hours. The grief at the impending loss of your freedom, the fear and anxiety at seeing Orron, the pain of his abuse, the relief and the joy and the hope – all of it came bursting forth in that moment. With a whimper, your knees weakened under you, and you sagged against a cargo bin, Grogu still clutched tightly in your arms as you wept. You felt a tiny, three-fingered hand reach out and touch your cheek in comfort, and you smiled through your tears.

It wasn’t until you felt the vibration of the gangplank retracting back into the ship that you realized that Mando was now in the cargo hold with you, standing back a respectful distance, watching silently. Grogu turned and gurgled at him in greeting, and you sniffed heavily, dragging the back of your sleeve across your wet cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” you said instinctively, your face burning with embarrassment.

He shook his head. “There’s no need to apologize,” the Mandalorian replied. His voice was soft, gentler than you had ever heard it, and it made your chest ache and your breath catch in your throat.

The two of you gazed at each other for a moment, the image of your face reflected in the blackness of his visor. The silence hanging between you felt weighty, significant, but before you could think of something to say to break it, Mando seemed to make a decision himself. With two slow, measured strides, still holding your gaze, he crossed the cargo hold to stand before you. From your position atop the cargo bin, you could feel the warmth of his body radiating mere inches from your own, his thighs very distinctly not touching your shins where they hung over the edge.

Then, slowly, carefully, like a farmer approaching a spooked animal ready to bolt at any moment, the bounty hunter reached out his large, gloved hand and delicately brushed your cheek and the edge of your jaw with the backs of his fingers.

You swallowed audibly, your eyelids fluttering shut at the contact.

“Be generous with the bacta,” he rasped. “Don’t just focus it on the puncture wounds – get the surrounding muscle, too. And your face, or that will be swollen and bruised by morning, too.” A lingering tear fell from your eyelashes onto your cheekbone, and you felt him sweep it away tenderly. “Take all the time you need. I’ll be in the cockpit when you’re ready.”

Your heart was beating a tattoo on the inside of your ribcage, but you managed to offer him a nod. “Mm hm,” you murmured. Your voice was suddenly a higher pitch than you were used to, almost a whine, and you felt your flush deepen. You couldn’t handle this right now – this rush of want suddenly warring with all of the other emotions currently rioting inside your body. You needed him to leave.

Thankfully, he made good on his promise not a moment later, pulling his fingers away from your skin and climbing up the ladder without another word.

Grogu watched you with wide, knowing eyes as you gathered yourself. The well-worn fabric of your boilersuit sleeve was abrasive against your skin as you wiped your tears, only adding to the ever-increasing sources of discomfort on your face and neck. Sitting the boy down on the cargo bin beside you, you pulled one of the tubes of bacta topical from your pocket with shaking hands and offered him what you hoped was a comforting smile.

“Don’t worry, I’m okay. I got hurt, but your dad got me medicine,” you explained, showing him the tube. You felt a bit of pride that your voice only trembled a little now. “It will be all better in no time.”

The bacta gel was translucent, viscous, and cold to the touch, and it smarted where your wounds were raw – your split lip, the puncture wounds in your neck. Everywhere else, though, the places where you could feel deep, throbbing bruises already forming, the cooling sensation was heavenly, and you found that you hadn’t really needed Mando’s encouragement to apply the gel generously. By the time you had coated every surface that hurt, nearly half the tube was gone.

As you sat there in the cargo hold, giving the miracle gel a few moments to start taking effect, you could feel the turmoil begin to rise in your chest once again. Of course, you were thrilled to be out from under Orron’s thumb – that much you felt confident about. And of course, you were filled with joy at being reunited with Grogu. The two of you had grown incredibly attached to each other over the months you spent on the Razor Crest, and parting with him had felt like ripping away a piece of yourself. But all of that happiness didn’t seem to be enough to stamp out the confusion, the apprehension, the unease around what this new development meant for you.

It didn’t change the fact that Mando had paid more money than you had ever seen in your entire lifetime for you.

Did he…expect something from you now, in exchange? Would he want you to pay him back? Could you ever hope to do that?

As you mulled this over, uncertainty sitting heavy in your abdomen, you felt the telltale vibration of the engines turning over, the rapid ascent of the Crest through the atmosphere, and a moment later, the stomach-dropping lurch of a jump to hyperspace.

You made up your mind then. You tucked the half-empty bacta tube back into your jumpsuit pocket, and you slid down from your perch on the hard, gray cargo bin. Gathering Grogu to your chest, you dropped a brief kiss onto his wrinkly brow for strength. You couldn’t live another moment with this kind of ambiguity, especially not with the blossoming softness you could feel taking root in your heart for the Mandalorian. It was more than you could bear.

___

The sight that greeted you when you entered the cockpit was one so familiar, it was almost painful. The glow of the instruments and control panels, the bright, streaking light of the stars filling the view window, the way it all reflected off of Mando’s beskar. You bit your lip and settled into your preferred co-pilot seat, nestling Grogu in your lap like you had a hundred times before. However, you couldn’t shake the feeling that something about this felt completely different than it had in the past. And you couldn’t leave that hanging any longer.

“Where are we headed?” you asked, your eyes trained on the back of the bounty hunter’s helmet as he faced forward.

“Trandosha,” he replied. His competent hands moved over the controls, monitoring your speed, your pitch, keeping an eye out for any objects in your path, making minute adjustments to avoid them, always thinking three steps ahead. Most people these days preferred having a flight computer or a navigation droid do that kind of work for them, but he seemed to favor a more manual approach. You loved watching him fly. He was a natural pilot, like you.

“What’s on Trandosha?”

He shrugged, mirrored starlight arcing over his pauldron. “Picked one of the new bounties at random,” he said simply.

You paused at that for a moment, blinking in the darkness. “So…that’s it?” you said, a hint of incredulity making its way into your voice.

You watched as his hands paused on the control panel, hovering in place. You had his attention, but still, he did not turn to face you. “What’s it?” he echoed.

“We just…go back to how things were before? Like nothing’s changed?” There was more than a hint of suspicion in your tone now. You sounded almost accusatory to your own ears, but you made no attempt to censor it. Your mind had been steeped in confusion and insecurity since the moment you had watched him hand over all those bags of credits, but it seemed to you as though Mando had no such compunctions about his decision.

“If that’s what you want,” he replied. Unpretentious, unbothered.

How could he be so casual about this? Did he give no thought to what this change might mean to someone like you?

You scoffed, disbelieving. “What I want? What do you want, Mando?”

That did it. The Mandalorian turned in his chair, swiveling around as best as he could to face you, meet your gaze. He studied you for a moment, taking in your rigid shoulders, your flushed face, your grip on Grogu’s body as you held him close in your lap. “I’ve upset you,” he said, not a question but rather a statement.

You sighed heavily, your body sagging, softening under his stare. “You haven’t upset me…” you said quietly. “Well, you have, but – ” You groaned, hiding your face in one of your hands, bracing your elbow on your knee. “I think I’m just confused.”

The bounty hunter remained graciously silent as you gathered your thoughts.

Eventually, the question that emerged was, “What you did back there… I never would have asked you for that, you know that, right?”

Mando nodded once. “Yes.”

“Because that was…that was an absurd amount of money. That was almost every credit you earned over the last two months. And you just…dropped it. Just like that!” You could hear your voice getting higher, your heart starting to speed up.

Still, the bounty hunter appeared unaffected. His low, rasping voice crackled calmly through his helmet vocoder as he replied, “The kid and I don’t need much to get by.”

“Maybe not, but still…” You trailed off, the root of your insecurity suddenly staring you in the face. Before you could stop yourself, before you could pause and examine in further, it was spilling out of your mouth, meek and fearful. “Mando, I’m not worth 25,000 credits. I’m just…I’m not.”

At that, the Mandalorian drew back slightly, leaning back in his chair and cocking his head to the side in a gesture that you had learned indicated confusion. “Of course, you are,” he insisted. He sounded completely taken aback, almost angered by the implication.

You could feel the burning sensation of a flush rising in your cheeks at his vehement disagreement, but you fought it back, tamped it down. You weren’t done. Now that you had found the words to express your fears, you didn’t seem to be able to stop.

“Well, since you…bought me, what are you planning to do with me?” you demanded. “Do you want me to…work on your ship some more? Be Grogu’s nanny? Something…something else? Am I supposed to call you ‘sir’ now?”

“What? No, no, nothing like that.” If Mando had sounded angry before, now he was downright offended. He leaned toward you, his hands braced firmly on his thighs, his knees spread wide, almost startingly close in the cramped space of the cockpit. “Let me be…perfectly clear,” he continued, slow and deliberate. “As far as I am concerned, I did not buy you. I bought your freedom. It’s yours to do with as you wish.”

And just like that, it felt as though all of the wind had been taken out of you. You felt yourself deflate, sag in your chair, loosen your tight grip on Grogu’s little body as the bounty hunter’s words hung in the recycled air. I bought your freedom, he said. Your freedom. The word echoed in your head, your mind suddenly blank. He couldn’t be serious.

“W-what?”

Mando appeared to take in your utter confusion, and he sighed your name, soft and gentle. “I expect nothing from you. You owe me nothing,” he said. His voice had lost its edge. He was no longer offended, only sincere. “Your life is yours. You get to choose what you do next.”

You swallowed thickly, tears threatening to prick the corners of your eyes once again. “So. So if I want to…go back to where you found me, go back to waiting tables in a cantina, you would let me?” you asked.

He nodded. “Yes. I would take you there myself.”

You pushed. “If I wanted to go back to Nevarro, settle there instead?”

Again, the Mandalorian nodded. “Of course. I would introduce you to the marshal. She’s a friend of mine. I would ask her for recommendations on places for you to stay.”

You could feel your heart pounding in your chest, something dangerously akin to hope welling up in you as the possibilities for your future expanded before you for the first time in your adult life. “What if I wanted to go to Coruscant? Would you ferry me all the way to the Core?”

At this suggestion, Mando finally seemed to hesitate. But still, he said, “I…prefer not to travel so far inward. My ship draws too much attention there, and I’m wanted by the New Republic. But I would take you to a spaceport and help you book passage there yourself.”

You gave that revelation a moment to settle, gave yourself a moment to process what he was saying. He would really let you go. After all the time he spent toting you around the galaxy from hunt to hunt, all the effort of keeping you safe for months so he could turn you in, all the money he paid to cover your so-called “debts” and release you from Orron’s grip, he would actually allow you to leave – all you needed to do was say the word. You understood that now. What you didn’t understand was…

“…why?”

“Because everyone deserves the freedom to choose their own path,” the bounty hunter replied simply. “And you have a generous spirit. Especially now that I have seen where you come from…it is a great strength, to remain kind in the face of such hardship.”

You lost the battle against your tears in that moment, and you immediately dropped your gaze to your lap. Grogu cooed at you sweetly, reaching out and stroking your long, braided hair in a clear attempt at comfort. You offered him a weak smile in return, but you didn’t trust the steadiness of your voice to speak.

You had never seen yourself as strong before. Or, at least, not in the way that others were strong. Not in the way Mando was strong.

“However…”

You snapped your head back up to face him once more, uncaring for the moment about the embarrassment of the tears tracking down your cheeks.

Mando held your gaze as he spoke, his voice confident, genuine. “In the time you spent on the Razor Crest, you have proven to be an…invaluable asset. The ship is in the best condition she’s been in in years, you’re a good pilot, and I trust you with the child. I would happily offer you a job, a real job, here – as a member of my crew.” You felt your eyes widen in shock and your tears cease. After a moment’s silence, during which he must have interpreted your reticence as displeasure, he quickly added, “You’ve seen the lifestyle I lead, so you know that the pay would be…irregular, but it would be generous. And it’s a dangerous line of work, so you would have to work on your combat abilities for your own safety. But. If you want it. You have a place here.”

You drew your lower lip between your teeth, biting down as you considered the offer. “Is that what you want?” you asked, hesitant.

The Mandalorian shook his head immediately, hardly allowing you to finish your question. “Like I said. It’s not about what I want. The choice is yours. I will make sure you end up wherever you decide to go. Do you want to stay?”

You allowed yourself a few moments to reflect on it, and your eyes dropped down to Grogu, busying yourself with tidying his downy hair, straightening his collar. When you first escaped from the shipyards, your only goal had been just that – to leave. You had given little thought to where you might be headed when you boarded the freighter that unknowingly ferried you to freedom. Your plan had been to stay concealed as long as you could, and at your first opportunity, abandon the freighter and melt into the crowd. You hadn’t been looking for adventure or even another ship builder who would compensate you fairly for your talents. You just wanted the opportunity to choose. So you chose a mining planet, a waitress job with horrendous hours, a busy hostel that smelled like old fish – because you could, and it’s what you could afford.

Now, you were being presented with the chance to choose again, and this time, the galaxy was at your fingertips. You were no longer on the run, no longer in hiding. You had transport to wherever you would like to go. You could pursue any dream you desired. And yet…

You ran your gaze over the tiny, green child in your arms, felt the warmth of his little body snuggled against yours. You recalled the sensation of the Mandalorian’s hands on your face, your neck, your wrists, the rugged softness of his leather gloves burnt into your memory like a brand. The deep rasp of his voice accompanied by the hum of the twin engines you had grown to know like the back of your own hand echoed in your mind.

Was it possible to be homesick for a place, for people that you hadn’t yet left?

You looked up again, into Mando’s visor. “Yes. I want to stay,” you said.

You were certain that if you could see his face, you would find the bounty hunter smiling. “Then you are welcome here as long as you wish.”

#din djarin #the mandalorian #din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #din djarin x f!reader #din djarin fanfiction #the mandalorian fanfiction #pedro pascal #pedro pascal characters #pedro pascal characters fanfiction

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racefortheironthrone · 1 year

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Can we have your analysis of NY governors since Rockefeller like you did with the NYC mayors.

That's a bit trickier, but sure! (Interesting choice of starting point. No Al Smith, no FDR, no Lehman, no Dewey - that's a lot of famous NY governors out of the picture.)

Governors below the cut, because this one is going to run long.

Nelson Rockefeller (1959-1973):

Certainly a politically successful governor - the man won four elections in a row! - Rockefeller was the last of his kind, the quasi-liberal Northeastern Republican to which he gave his name. At the same time, when you dig into his record, there is as much to be ashamed of as to be proud of.

In the interests of fairness, let's disuss the positives first: Rockefeller believed in taxing and spending on a grand scale, whether that was for public works, state parks, state aid to education (SUNY grew sixfold during his tenure), low-income housing, pensions for public sector workers, mass transit, or Medicaid. On non-spending issues, Rocky was an early supporter of abortion rights, state-level civil rights legislation, the ERA, environmental conservation, and a state-level minimum wage.

When it came to the monuments that he hoped would become his legacy, Rockefeller liked to build big. Unfortunately, when it comes to the negatives of his governorship, they are of a similar scale. Chiefly, the problem was that Rocky was a pretty consistent "law and order" politician - the laws that authorized "stop and frisk" and "no-knock" warrants were passed with his enthusiastic support, state police payrolls and budgets balooned in size, and he was a consistent supporter of the death penalty pretty much until the end.

But when it comes to "law and order," two monuments stand taller than all the others: Attica and the drug laws.

On September 9th, 1971, over a thousand incarcerated men (overwhelmingly men of color) seized control of the Attica Correctional Facility in a protest over living conditions and political rights. They took 42 correctional officers and staff hostages, issued a list of 33 demands, and then negotiated for four days in good faith. Refusing to meet with the inmates and unwilling to either remove the unpopular superintendent or grant amnesty for the uprising, Rockfeller instead sent in the state police, armed corrections officers (for some ungodly reason), and the National Guard and gave them free reign.

On the morning of September 13th, troopers dropped tear gas into the main yard and then just started shooting indiscriminately. In fifteen minutes, 29 inmates were murdered - including most of the uprising's leadership, who were targeted by name for execution - and so were 10 hostages. (Often shooting blindly into the billowing clouds of tear gas with shotguns, the troopers were so undisciplined that they wounded another five corrections officers and one state trooper in friendly fire incidents.) Another 85 inmates were wounded, and hundreds and hundreds of survivors were made to strip naked, crawl through mud and shit and broken glass, and then tortured by corrections officers.

Rockefeller covered all of this up. The governor claimed that the prisoners had committed "cold-blooded killings" of all the hostages, and particularly trapped himself by claiming that the prisoners had slit the throats of the hostages - medical examiners concluded that all of the hostages were killed by law enforcement bullets. Although forced by public opinion to establish a Special Commission to investigate what had happened, Rockefeller did his level best to ensure that the truth of what happened never got out (it did eventually come out, but it took years and many couragous whistleblowers and crusading lawyers to make that happen), to ensure that not a single trooper was held criminally resppnsible, and to avoid as long as possible paying any restitution to the families of the dead, let alone the survivors.

All because he didn't want to look weak on crime.

When it comes to the Drug Laws to which he put his name, it's hard to see them as anything less than a political stunt that ruined the lives of thousands and thousands of people. Rocky had previously supported liberal treatment and social services approaches to drugs, but he wanted to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 1976, so he did a 180 to burnish his "law and order" credentials.

Under his laws, selling as little as two ounces or merely possessing four ounces of opoids, cocaine, or marijuana would be punished with a minimum of 15 years to life and a maximum of 25 years to life. Over the decades since the enactment of the Rockefeller Drug Laws, some 150,000 people would be incarcerated for non-violent drug offenses in New York, over 90% of whom were black or Hispanic men. It took until 2009 for these laws to be dismantled.

All because he wanted to run for president.

Verdict: like Jekyll and Hyde. Both an asshole and not an asshole, depending on the issue.

Hugh Carey (1975-1982):

The first Democratic governor of New York in almost 20 years, Carey was elected in the Democratic landslide of 1974. And like a lot of "Watergate baby" Democrats (like one Joseph Robinette Biden), Carey was an odd blend of fiscal conservative and social liberal.

This applied most immediately and most significantly to his handling of New York City's Fiscal Crisis. The city was massively in debt, New York financiers were engaging in a capital strike, the President of the United States was openly hoping for NYC's financial demise in order to punish American liberalism, and the one thing everyone knew and no one wanted to admit is that someone had to pay for a bailout.

As governor, Carey did bail out NYC - but at the cost of the city not only giving the bankers everything they had demanded (public sector layoffs, wage freezes, subway fare hikes, the closure of public hospitals, libraries, and fire stations, and the end of free tuition at CUNY), but also of surrendering the city's fiscal autonomy. As quid pro quo for state funds, Carey pushed through the creation of the Municipal Assistance Corporation (MAC) to handle the city's bonds and the Emergency Financial Control Board (EFCB) to control the city's taxation and budgets. These two unelected bodies continued in existance for decades, and set a precedent for the state government to call the shots when it came to local NYC governance, even while NYC's economy funded the state government.

All this at the same time as Carey was cutting income, capital gains, and corporate taxes for the wealthy, creating the modern suite of tax breaks for developers, and keeping state spending below the rate of inflation. On the flip side, he did build a bunch of fancy public works like the Javits Center, Battery Park City, and the South Street Seaport to attract tourists back to NYC.

However, on social issues Carey was quite progressive. On both the death penalty and abortion rights, he stopped the state legislature from rolling back reforms forced on them by the courts. He made the de-institutionalization of the mentally ill and the provision of community-based services a signature issue - although not enough to prevent a rise in homelessness among the mentally ill. Unlike Rockefeller, he tried to do the decent thing when it came to the aftermath of the Attica Rising by pardoning the rioters. Like Rockefeller, he was in favor of environmental regulation.

Verdict: Mostly an asshole. Meeting baseline expectations for a Democrat doesn't cancel out fucking over NYC for a generation.

Mario Cuomo (1982-1994):

Writing about Cuomo the Elder is difficult, because for a generation of New Yorkers and others he represented liberal ideals and aspirations tbat were ultimately unconnected to the day-to-day business of governance. This was largely due to the way he exploded into national prominence with his "Tale of Two Cities" speech at the 1984 Democratic National Convention, which challenged the rosy rhetoric of Reagan's "Morning in America."

youtube

The problem is that, as governor, Mario Cuomo stressed "progressive pragmatism" and tried to straddle the line between liberal goals and business-friendly methods. As Saladin Ambar put it in American Cicero, "whereas Rockefeller oversaw a period of tremendous government expansion...Cuomo was later derided for having no big policy focus. His was an era of contraction, one of smaller progressive victories."

When we look at Cuomo's record, we see he prided himself on the "largest tax cut" in New York state history and balancing the budget through cutting spending, but also on expanding Medicaid to low-income children and pregnant women. He lowered the top income tax rate, but also increased the basic welfare grant. He trumpeted $500 million in state aid to education, but also spent $500 million to build new public prisons. He spent $850 million on environmental clean-up efforts, but $300 on paying down state debt.

Ultimately, the issue that defined Cuomo had nothing to do with economic policy or social spending - it was the death penalty. His opposition to the death penalty had cost him the mayoral election in 1977, but it won him the gubernatorial nomination in 1982 - both times in matchups against Ed Koch. As governor, he vetoed 12 different bills to restore New York's death penalty. Ultimately, it would be the issue that brought him down: running for a fourth term in 1994, Pataki attacked Cuomo for his oppositition to the death penalty. Highlighting a horrible case in which a child murder who had inexplicably been allowed to plead down to one count of manslaughter, and who then became a serial killer after serving his time in prison, Pataki hammered Cuomo as being soft on crime and the incumbent ended up winning a grand total of one county north of Yonkers (and losing Staten Island in the process).

Also, I have no patience for Cuomo's "Hamlet on the Hudson" bullshit when it came to seeking the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and 1992. If you're going to run, have the guts to say so.

Verdict: I'm not mad, I am disappoint.

George Pataki (1995-2005):

The great irony of the 1994 gubernatorial election is that Pataki would go on to reinstate the death penalty in his first year as governor - only to see the New York Court of Appeals declare it unconstitutional. Pataki prided himself on being "tough on crime," and ended up pushing through 100 laws increasing criminal penalties - which he erroneously claims caused crime rates to decrease.

When it comes to economic policy, Pataki was just as lousy as any other Republican - cutting income taxes on the rich and corporate taxes more than any other governor before him. This at the same time that he cut a million ooor people off of welfare. His commitment to the economic illogical of balanced budgets led him to propose significant spending cuts in 2003 even as New York was still wrestling with the economic fallout of 9/11, only to be overriden by the state legislature.

His social policies were somewhat better. There was a modest expansion of health care for the working poor through SCHIP, he supported gun control, he supported abortion rights, he was in favor of anti-discrimination laws to protect LGBT+ people but opposed gay marriage (which was fairly good for a Republican in the early 2000s), he did put some money into environmental programs. His education policy rather sucked - he was strongly pro-charter schools (boo) and micro-managed CUNY to get rid of remedial education.

Verdict: bit of an asshole, but less so than most Republicans.

Eliot Spitzer (2007-2008):

It's hard to find much to say about Spitzer's time as governor, because he wasn't around for very long. Elected on the basis of his reputation as a crusading Attorney General, Spitzer came into office saying that he would "change the ethics of Albany." He spent most of his brief time as governor feuding with the (corrupt and convicted if it wasn't for the Supreme Court) leadership of the state legislature. While a lot of his proposals were quite good, Spitzer's "steamroller" strategy was pretty much ineffective in getting legislation passed (hey, turns out the Johnson Treatment is bullshit) and it's hard to point to a major accomplishment of his tenure as governor. But what Spitzer is primarily remembered for is the prostitution scandal that brought him down. As someone who thinks sex work should be legal, my main issue with his behavior is that he was "a real weasel" about not wanting to use condoms and used his money to get his way. This is an occupational health and safety issue for sex workers, being able to insist on condom use and reject clients who refuse to use them is a labor rights issue for sex workers, and clients who try to use their wealth and power to undermine the autonomy of sex workers should be blacklisted.

Verdict: an incompetent and an asshole to sex workers.

David Paterson (2008-2010):

Suddenly thrust into the limelight after Spitzer's resignation, David Paterson's tenure as governor started extremely unluckily, as both he and his wife admitted to having extamarital affairs the day after his inauguration - something that wouldn't have been as big a deal if it hadn't been for the Spitzer scandal intensifying the level of media scrutiny directed at the personal morality of elected officials.

He then had two weeks to negotiate the state budget at the height of the Great Recession, which hit particularly hard due to the outsized importance of Wall Street to New York's economy and state finances. This was never going to be a good budget, but it was highly noticeable that Paterson's budget leaned heavily on spending cuts rather than using state reserves or taxing the wealthy, while providing significant tax cuts to middle-class and affluent homeowners.

This was rather surprising given Paterson's liberal roots as a former Dinkins staffer. It was similarly surprising that when Paterson was called upon to appoint someone to fill the U.S Senate seat left vacant by Hillary Clinton becoming Secretary of State, that he went with Blue Dog Kirsten Gillibrand rather than Caroline Kennedy (the leading scion of the Kennedy family in New York) or Andrew Cuomo (the heir to his father's legacy). This led to something of a feeling that Paterson was turning out to be something of a liberal in name only.

The main issue where Paterson's liberalism seems to have remained strong was gay marriage, where Paterson did something of an end-run around the deadlocked state legislature by ordering New York State agencies to recognize out of state marriage licenses from same-sex couples. While successful in his efforts, this didn't help Paterson win support within the state legislature for a statutory legalization of gay marriage, and the bill went down to a 38-24 defeat in the State Senate.

Ultimately, however, I think Paterson's tenure as governor was hamstrung by the deadlock in the State Senate, which was evenly split between Democrats and Republicans with no lieutenant governor to break the tie (thanks to some truly stupid decisions by state courts on the issue). While most of the chaos had to do with two truly appalling conservative Democrats going over to the Republican side in exchange for personal considerations and wasn't really Paterson's fault, it did prevent him from achieving many legislative wins ahead of the primary election in 2010 - although two late-breaking scandals really did the fatal damage to his further political hopes.

One unanswered question is to what extent Paterson was knifed by then-Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, either/both in revenge for being overlooked for the U.S Senate and/or to clear the way for Cuomo's 2010 primary run for governor. After all, it was Cuomo who was handling the investigations into Paterson, who torpedoed Paterson's attempt to end the Senate crisis by appointing a new lieutenant governor, and presumably Cuomo who lobbied Obama to persuade Paterson to drop out. Moreover, given Cuomo's later penchant for conservative Democrats enabling Republican control of the State Senate, it's hard to avoid conspiracy theorizing that he had something to do with Monserrate and Espada's parliamentary coup.

Verdict: while Paterson was dealt the worst possible hand when he became governor, he played it badly. Kind of an asshole.

Andrew Cuomo (2011-2021):

In the interests of full disclosure, it's going to be very difficult for me to be objective about Andrew Cuomo since I was involved in several efforts to defeat him for public office and I personally loathe the man. So I'm going to try to focus as much as possible on what he did as governor of New York, because hopefully the focus on concrete actions will keep me from going off the rails.

I think the first thing to start with is that Cuomo deliberately undermined Democratic governance of the state of New York by engineering the formation of the Independent Democratic Conference, a group of conservative Democratic state senator who handed back control of the State Senate to the Republicans after Democrats won control of that chamber in the 2012 election.

Cuomo betrayed his own party and the policy agenda he nominally supported and had run for office on because he didn't want to be pressured by the left wing of the Democratic Party on progressive priorities and preferred to cut "moderate compromises" with the Republican leadership. Cuomo maintained this unholy coalition until it became a stumbling block to his hopes of winning the Democratic presidential nomination, at which point he terminated it just before the IDC's members were swept out of office by an enraged electorate.

As baseline expectations for Democratic elected officials go, I feel that supporting Democratic control of government and opposing conspiracies to hand over control of government to the Republican Party is about the minimum.

The second thing to understand about Cuomo is that while he has a long list of seemingly progressive accomplishments - gay marriage, gun control, marijuana legalization, paid family leave, and a $15 minimum wage, etc. - virtually all of them are cases in which actual progressive groups and elected officials had been pushing for years, where Cuomo had blocked their efforts either through executive inaction or outright opposition to legislation, and where he eventually took credit for compromise measures that repeatedly turned out to have regressive stings in the tail that made them much weaker.

And all of that is before he was brought down by his own manifest corruption, his total incompetence on COVID despite becoming a media darling on the issue, and his long history of sexual harassment and assault.

Verdict: the biggest asshole in New York political history.

Kathy Hochul (2021-present):

Normally, there wouldn't be much to say about a brand-new governor who was unexpectedly elevated to office by their predecessor's resignation in disgrace. For a good while, all that Hochul seemed to aspire to be was "not Andrew Cuomo" - not a bully, not a misogynist, willing to listen to everybody.

More recently, we've learned a bit more who Hochul is through how she's chosen to spend her political capital. In all but one case - building more affordable housing in suburban upstate New York - Hochul has shown herself to be a relentlessly conservative Democrat, who's willing to spend political capital in order to dismantle bail reform or try to get a conservative judge appointed to the Court of Appeal or appoint a Republican to lead the public power utility.

Except the problem for Hochul in her attempt to be Andrew Cuomo but without the misogyny is that Democrats control both houses of the legislature now, and the legislature from the leadership to the rank-and-file is no longer subservient to the governor as they were under Cuomo. When Hochul put up LaSalle for the Court of Appeals, she was repeatedly humiliated by getting stomped in committee and floor votes. When Hochul tried to appoint Justin Driscoll to the New York Power Authority, he was defeated too. And sadly, when Hochul tried to get her housing proposal by including it in the budget, suburban legislators stripped it out.

That's kind of the problem with Hochul: she's not very good when it comes to the core skills of a politician. She's not good at reading the room, otherwise she never would have nominated LaSalle after labor told her that anyone but him would be acceptable. She's not good at counting votes, otherwise she wouldn't have pushed votes on LaSalle and Driscoll and the housing package that she ended up losing by lopsided margins. And she's not very good at campaigning either, otherwise she wouldn't have needed to be bailed out by the progressives at the last minute in the 2022 election.

Verdict: an asshole, but thankfully not as good at being an asshole as Cuomo was.

#history #u.s history #new york history #new york #governors #ny governor #ny governors

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lilies-and-forget-me-nots · 1 year

Text

Lilith, the bride.

Komori Kayo (小森華代)

The alternate protagonist unlocked after completing one playthrough as 「Komori Yui.」The so-called demon child.

Different circumstances, different personality—different endings.

“I’ll make it out… whether I stay alive or end up dead.”

Biography

Age 18

Race Human.

Gender Female

Height 170cm

Weight 54kg

Blood Type AB+

Occupation Former demon hunter in training Third year high school student

Relatives Komori Seiji (adoptive father…?)

Background

Kayo was an amnesiac child found in a forest in Europe by Komori Seiji, a demon hunter who had just completed a mission. Due to several incidents upon finding her, he concluded that she was a demon. He brought her back to the church, where she was examined by multiple priests and high-ranking church officials, all concluding that she was no different from a regular human.

Despite this, Seiji continued to believe that she was, in fact, a demon in disguise, nicknaming her ‘the demon child,’ and sometimes even ‘the Child of the Devil’. To keep her within the church, Seiji reluctantly adopted her and named her Kayo, though he never considered her his child. He kept her far away from the girl he considered his real daughter, Yui.

(Despite this, the two do meet, one moonless night. Yui never believed that Kayo was anything like her father said she was. She was probably the first person who had ever been kind to Kayo despite ‘knowing’ what she was.)

He began training her as a demon hunter later on. Whether it was because he saw potential in her, or because he simply wanted the demon to kill her own kind… who knows?

Kayo was skilled in hunting—with a knife, with a gun, and even with a sword. Though, despite all her talent and training, she was often too soft-hearted to kill demons. This only fueled Seiji’s belief that she was hesitating because she refused to kill her ‘fellow demons’.

At the age of eighteen, Kayo was now slated to complete her rite of passage as a demon hunter.

Despite earnestly getting ready to complete it, Kayo learns about Yui’s arrangement as the sacrificial bride. Being the only person who treated her as a human, Kayo takes pity on Yui and forces her to flee to Europe to find Seiji. In her place, Kayo arrives at the Sakamaki manor, building her courage to kill them all, and yet…

Appearance

Kayo is a tall young woman with short black hair and yellow eyes. She often has a small braid to the right side of her hair.

As a child, her hair was long and wavy, reaching just above her waist. She often tied it in a ponytail until she was forced to cut it after beginning her training.

Personality

Kayo is a guarded person. On the surface, she appears dry and occasionally even temperamental. She’s more sadistic than her counterpart, willing to hurt and maim, though never kill. Despite this, she can be caring in her own ways, and is even prone to being a little ridiculous at times.

Underneath the dry exterior, you can only wonder why she’s always hesitant to kill. She dislikes being called a demon child and other such similar nicknames.

Kayo can also be socially awkward due to her isolation in her youth, and despite appearances, is easily attached to those who have shown her any semblance of kindness.

As the protagonist, her personality can be molded by your choices. Make her give up everything to be loved, or be true to herself despite it all.

-> The Hunter. -> Start game?

-> True Profile

#profiles #lilith #diabolik lovers oc

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grislyintentions · 6 months

Text

| 4.2 AQ- Commentary |

Note: Spoilers referencing 4.2 AQ as well as voicelines from Neuvillette regarding the other archons

Traveler's actions, doubt and uncertainty regarding Furina: Given our perspective as an external audience, the traveler's reactions and actions taken against Furina can be seen as harsh/cruel etc. However, I don't think it was out of character for them to follow through with it all despite their inherent kindness/reluctance to cause her pain.

Furina's whole purpose was to deceive everyone. And given the fact that she believed she must never have her charade found out, or it spells doom for all of Fontaine, she took every precaution possible to hold onto her facade.

The traveler, whose interactions with Furina were kept deliberately limited, would not be in a position to fully get to know what she's like as a person. They saw only what she wants them to see. It's only natural that they would be led to uncertainty regarding how she really is or how to reach out to her. As referenced in the end, when they got to see what she was about to say, they were still surprised at her actions.

It's important to remember that the Traveler is not all-powerful or all-knowing. And that this entire arc exists as a lesson that what one sees may not always be the truth. Seeking it out requires courage, the conviction to see it through, and an open mind towards other possibilities.

What they all did with their plan was cruel but doing the right thing, doing what one believes is necessary, is not always the easiest choice to make.

Parallels of Furina and Fontainians with Raiden Shogun and Inazumans:

Both Furina and Ei are people who inherited their predecessor's duties and pain. Both of them are people who sought to isolate their inner feelings and turmoil from others. They were both thrust into a position of power regardless of whether they were ready or not. Nobody knew that Ei is not the original electro archon, except for those who perished in the cataclysm and the spirits/youkai of old, and none of her subjects can ever know. Nobody knew that the Furina is trapped in an eternal opera except for her "mirror-me", and none of her subjects can ever know.

So we see interesting parallels between Fontainians turning on Furina and vision holders forming rebellion forces to challenge the Shogun. We cannot blame Neuvillette and the others for forcing Furina to endure a trial when they are doing the exact same thing the rebellion forces in Inazuma were trying to accomplish: To get through to their archon, to MAKE them understand the situation that's hurting the public, to MAKE them hear their voices? When they believed there was no other options left?

In the end, getting through to Ei required forcefully breaking into her plane of Euthymia multiple times in a show of resolve/determination, as well as compassion. In the end, getting through to Furina required forcefully subjecting her to a trial and stripping her of her pretenses but also a willingness to understand her. Parallels between Neuvillette and Ei in the aftermath of disaster:

Neuvillette is left to watch over all of Fontaine's proceedings in the wake of devastation. Similarly, Ei was the one who had to watch over Inazuma after a cataclysmic disaster. Neither of them own the luxury of time to grieve or examine their own feelings in the overwhelming events that came to pass. Life must go on and order must be reinstated. Neither of them really knew how to navigate things with the people they leave behind with an emotional distance (for neuvillette: furina, for ei: yae miko) even if they care for them. How does one bridge that gap?

While the Fontainians do hold Neuvillette in high regard, would they still be able to blindly carry faith in any potential reforms or structure he intends to introduce? Would they, if known, still be able to trust him if they come to find out his efforts to ensure Furina lives comfortably? Will they be able to fully adjust to his approach to things, given their love for theatrics and romanticism of justice? What unrest would emerge from the hidden corners now that Fontaine is newly recovering from things?

Ei was someone who had to deal with rebuilding her nation after all the tragedy. If someone could relate to all that sorrow and the uncertainties, if there is someone who is living proof that a state of normalcy and renewed faith can happen (before the decrees), it is her.

Neuvillette's disposition towards other archons:

With reference to his voicelines about them, I personally think that should there come a time to pass judgement, his decision would be a fair one. That is why he feels it a necessity to meet with them and mentions that it is not a given that his judgment would lead to physical confrontation.

I believe he does not hold contempt for them as individuals. It is their association with Celestia and their allegiance to them that warrants them as deserving of being placed on trial. His desire to meet them, may very well include trying to understand their position and disposition before forming his own decisions. The mere fact that he is more than willing to wait 400 years of more, after learning about Ei's seclusion and Venti's tendencies, his ability to extend compassion to Nahida's plight all emphasise his nature.

Celestia's inactivity/arrogance:

The Heavenly Principles are a set of rules passed down by Celestia to install order in all of Teyvat. Why would they be inactive despite the fact that the "Hydro Throne" is now no more and that power has been restored to Neuvillette?

Presuming that Celestia is an all powerful arbiter of the heavens, all of Teyvat must look like ants to them. Why would any portion of ruin on there be seen as anything else than insignificant and tiny? Why would it matter to an entity that usurped the powers of the dragon sovereigns? That even the archons have to answer to? Why would they pay attention? It is this that makes Focalors' plan so incredibly smart, how they were able to trick them until the very end.

I have been wondering why there are specifically seven gnosis' and seven elements (as of the moment). And why all of the archons are named after demons in demonology. Given the recent information about skirk referring to a gnosis as the remains of descenders: could they have descended from Celestia themselves? Thereby making them not of Teyvat? Do the seven gnosis' function as "seven pillars of God's wisdom" that uphold the will of God (celestia)? Would it take destroying them simultaneously to finally get Celestia's attention and 'bring them down to their level'? Why were gods and goddesses so compelled to participate in the archon wars? What incited it all? There is also the factor that all of the archons we have seen so far do not particularly seem proud or covetous of their own gnosis.

Much is unknown about the Heavenly Principles at this point. But there are some established facts that we do know: - Archons are unable to reveal information about it and there are still certain things they have to ask for permission from Celestia before they can proceed (ie: they are not to step above their station/challenge Celestia's authority) - Messing with the 'natural order' (manipulating life and death via magic or alchemy etc) goes against the principles

#the voice: a #spoilers cw #[I have a lot of feelings and i am going to YELL]#references to religion cw

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raayllum · 1 year

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I know it’s a longer one, but I vote for Rayla’s Position In The Narrative as a Dual Antagonist!

*cracks knuckles with shania twain music* let's go girls

So I've talked about this very briefly before in the context of a much larger meta about something completely different, but 'Rayla is the only character who enters the show as an Antagonist for both the humans and the elves. She is the first character to be caught in the middle, opposing everything the human characters are currently all trying to save (King Harrow’s life), and also ruining whatever chance her mission has of success, angering and endangering her fellow assassins. Much of season one, then, is pushing her into a more positive role for the humans, and much of season three examines whether or not she is right to oppose the elves — and how to reverse it if she can. This is part of why she wrestles so intensely with the ‘failure’ of both her own mission and her parents’

After all, neither Viren nor Claudia are an antagonist in any way until 1x03. Soren doesn't arguably become an antagonist at all until S2. Part of this is because Soren and Claudia, while they face set backs in what they were trying to do (protect the royal family; keep the egg on their side), they don't 100% shit the bed, so to speak. Claudia would've had the upper hand if Callum hadn't blind sided her and even then they struggled to get rid of her smoke wolves and she got out of the chain herself. Soren did successfully protect Callum and reeled from the loss of Harrow, but was still confident in his ability to find the princes when he thought that was the mission Viren was giving him.

Which is to say: Soren and Claudia don't go looking for redemption until much, much later, if at all; Soren only reaches that precipice 2.5 seasons later in 3x05 and then finds in full in 3x09. And even when they are opposing the heroes, they are not opposing their father; they are still aligned with a certain side. Likewise, even though Callum and Ezran are working against some humans, they have confidence that they are making their mother proud with the mission they have taken up and are later reaffirmed in their choices by Harrow.

Rayla doesn’t have any of this reaffirmation. Even Ethari, with their brief reconciliation in S3, doesn’t offer her much, if any, hope or comfort beyond their initial hug.

Rayla enters the show, has one scene, and immediately shoots herself in the foot, because she fails at the one uttermost thing she was absolutely supposed to do on a mission we have every indication she begged/fought to be on within an inch of her life, and she chokes at the finish line.

R: I am pretty awesome at everything... right up until the moment when it really matters. I dunno. I hesitate. I think too much. Get confused about the right thing to do. Then the next thing I know, I've failed.

Then, to make matters worse, she covers up her failure and lies about it until it’s forced out by circumstance. Then, even after being removed from the mission, she resolves to make up for her mistake and heads to the castle in secret... and then defies and fights her mission leader. Thus, Rayla is squarely an antagonist for the first two episodes and it is only because we see her spare a human / struggle (both things our favourite princes are not privy to) that we root for her and trust her when she begins to turn in 1x03.

And in fact, much of 1x03 revolves around narratively ‘rehabilitating’ her as she follows Ezran’s lead, answers the boys’ questions, defends them, stands against Runaan to protect them, and is cinched by her vow to Callum: “Say the word and I’ll go back in that tower with you.” Say the word and I’ll fight against the rest of my troupe / people for you.

She goes from being both an antagonist to the humans and elves to switching right around and becoming an antagonist to her own people, the elves as well as her own family, with her and boys becoming their own side and their own team in many ways. Otherwise known as, in Rayla’s words:

But even once she’s switched sides, this double antagonism doesn’t just go away. Rayla is often directly opposed to whatever the boys want in S1-S2 - to go to the Banther Lodge, to take the boat, to take the easier path up the mountain, to trust Soren and Claudia at the Moon Nexus, to have Callum go out into the storm, or to try to save the dragon in forest. And in addition to this double antagonism, much of S1-S3 is Rayla’s reformation and redemption arc to both sides of the war, to both the humans she would have hurt and to the elves she left behind.

However, and this is where it gets somewhat tragic, is that it’s not like S1-S3 are smooth sailing for Rayla. She continues to consistently fuck up, often regardless of the support other characters’ offer in action or in word.

Which is to say: Rayla is also the most antagonist to herself. She gets in her own way, she trips herself up, and all of that just compounds and reaffirms her belief that the problem is her. She can switch sides, run away, get people to back off, take or learn every possible maneuver, and disaster will still follow, because the disaster is her.

Which is to also say: Rayla focuses so hard on redeeming herself to other people, to other causes, to other nations, she forgets that redemption is also supposed to be for herself, let alone that in so many cases she has nothing to forgive herself for. Not all, as we see in TTM and S4 and the way she blows her own life to pieces and Callum is caught in the crossfire most of all, but much of it. Even in the way she comes back into season four, knowing that she fucked up in some capacity, and that now she has to make up for it.

In many ways that what makes S4 so complicated for her, as Rayla is simultaneously at her best and her worst. On the one hand, she’s come home to try and let go (as far as we know). On the other hand, she still can’t let go, and she’s lost what made her Rayla in so many ways in her time away. Which just makes me think of this quote from a recent podcast interview with Head writer Devon Giehl and writer Iain Hendry on the show (reflecting on Rayla in 4x08 rather than 4x04, mind you):

You see her through seasons one through three like — just seems like any opportunity, she’ll be the one to make the big sacrifice. She’ll go out there to try and save the dragon, she’ll go and try and fight Viren and his army alone to protect everyone and so on. So the fact that once again she defaults to ‘I have to give up something painful to myself.’ [...] But I think you don’t do the — usually, you don’t do the greater whole any good by completely sacrificing yourself, and I do think that is often the lengths, like you said, a lot of the Moonshadow elf culture norms and mantras go to eventually is ‘You have to be willing to completely forget who you are’.

So now it seems, perhaps, that her heart is finally hard enough to do whatever it takes.

Or is it?

Rayla reminds Callum that destiny is a book he has written himself. That the pen and paper is in his hands. That the Narrative is his to control. And I think it’s particularly purposeful that Rayla says this in response to Callum pigeon-holing them both into the roles they initially started out in. Callum, feeling powerless and out of control as a ‘regular’ human or as a dark mage, submitting to the terror of doing horrible things. Rayla, being asked to be a proper assassin, and kill the accidental snag in her plans, her mistaken target, for another’s sins. He’s asking her to be his antagonist again, if he’s forced to be hers.

And, of course, this extends even further into the season finale, in which Rayla does the last thing the world that Callum wants, running after Viren again, highlighting what’s changed about their dynamic and what hasn’t, the ways they’ve grown to understand and accept each other, and the fundamental misunderstandings and clashes they’re still having. If you want to read more about this exchange and interplay of foils I’d recommend reading this meta here :)

Last but not least, I’d like to close this meta off by saying that there is one character who shares this dual antagonism from the start, and that’s Aaravos. He ‘helps’ people while really making them indebted or flat out pawns in his game. He offers gifts that leave the mages who take them dead shortly thereafter.

He opposes the elves and dragons, yes, but has no love for humanity left in his heart. He opposes and orchestrates the downfall of each effort of peace. He will use humans and discard/destroy elves and dragons alike with little recourse. He doesn’t care about anyone, and Rayla (used to at least, and still does, deep down) care about everyone.

And just one of the many ways they parallel each other across the seasons, but particularly in season four.

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arse-blathanna · 2 years

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what kind of relationship do you think roche has with non-humans in general? do you think he despise them, hates them or doesn't consider them admirable beings? or none of those things? from what we have in game he seems to be pretty chill with them and his hatred is only targeted towards scoia'tael (which is still bad) but i don't know...(also out of topic love your yenralt fics <3)

(before I go on a massive tangent or twenty, I'm happy to hear that you like my yenralt fics <3)

First off I have to apologize for making you wait, anon. I wanted to give this answer a proper rundown but I didn't have the Spoons to do it earlier. Not to mention writing long replies on mobile sucks and I hate doing them that way. So sorry for the wait, hope this answer will satisfy you. Also buckle in, this ended up significantly longer than it needed to be so I'm putting most of the answer under a cut. Hope that's alright, anon.

TLDR: Roche is not particularly concerned with the rights of non-humans either way, his problem is with scoia’tael methodology more than anything else. However despite not having any particular interest either way he’s also surrounded by racism as background noise and doesn’t show any particular problem with it. It’s just not what he’s interested in. In Roche’s own words, Temeria, that’s what matters.

Content warning for sexual assault later down in the post.

My point of view on Roche's relationship to nonhumans is that it’s well, complicated. Mostly because the only times we see him really dealing with them is in the context of fighting Iorveth and his men. Outside of that context (and the driving force there is always much more heavily focused on Scoia'tael Bad than anything else) it isn't a topic that actually comes up that much.

His core character trait, above all else, is his patriotism, whether that comes in the form of intense loyalty to Foltest, going on a warpath to save Anais, or doing anything and everything that it takes to see Temeria survive another day. Fighting the Scoia’tael is just a part of fulfilling that goal, not really the whole of his interests or motivations. That's not to say that Roche is making good choices, or right choices, or just choices.

He's very much a character who can lean back on the line of "I was just following orders" with regards to fighting the scoia'tael and pacifying Mahakam, whatever that might have looked like. Could he defy those orders? Maybe, possibly. Probably not since we're shown pretty consistently that the punishment for desertion is death and that's all over the games and the books. Not that Roche exists in those books, but it's a line of consistency across the books-games canon we can refer to.

If you're familiar with the concept of the banality of evil as proposed by Hannah Arendt, I think it's a good angle to examine Roche from but I'm also not at all qualified to have that discussion. At all. Still worth considering, if you're willing to do some extracurricular reading for your fandom horseshit. Worth reading regardless, actually.

Anyways, back to our man with the stupid hat. His core goal is Temeria's stability, and that's shown to us consistently throughout Witcher 2 and 3 (though because we know that Iorveth was demoted to Cut Content in Witcher 3 it's likely that there was quite a bit for Roche regarding the Scoia'tael and evolving motivations that we just never got to see, just to address that particular elephant in the room.)

We're told that the Blue Stripes are meant to be the human equivalent of the Scoia'tael. Misguided, needlessly brutal, extremists who have a habit of leaving a bloody smear wherever they go. The Scoia'tael are considered in-universe to be a terrorist organization. I think it's this, above all else, that Roche is opposed to because if his core goal is Temeria's stability, a terrorist organization is a pretty big threat to that.

Yes, their cause is good, but their methods are poor and routinely lead to non-humans who aren't part of their cause being punished disproportionately because of assumed connections. We see this in Witcher 2 with the gallows scene. Of the four people on the gallows, only 1 isn't assumed to be scoia'tael and that's Dandelion. Zoltan and the two others? All assumed to be members of this group. Zoltan has in fact been contacted by Iorveth's commando, but also specifically turned down the offer of a command. Still treated as a member regardless by Loredo's men.

If you take Roche's path in Witcher 2, Zoltan doesn't end up loving the experience, but he does end up hanging around the Blue Stripe's camp until there's the chance to cross the fog with Geralt. So at the very least Roche is willing to offer accommodations to a non-human, and when it comes to Geralt he's pretty genuine (if wary) and even friendly.

Since it’s the one time where we see Roche really involved with fighting Scoia’tael, let’s talk about Flotsam actually. There’s clearly history where he’s been there before, but we aren’t told much about it other than that Roche is harsh with the Scoia’tael, he and Iorveth have been going at it for at least four years, and both have some massive hate-ons for each other. The plight of non-humans in Flotsam is poor, Loredo’s men police them heavily, and most live outside the city walls. The non-humans in Lobinden and Flotsam also consider Iorveth and his men to be extremists, with Cedric in particular having left that life. To say that they’re saviors to the people they claim they’re protecting in the eyes of those people is a bit of a stretch.

Roche and his men show back in Flotsam on the only lead they have in Foltest’s murder. Roche is in work-mode, his main interest in the Scoia’tael being that Iorveth is involved in assassinating Foltest (that Iorveth and the scoia’tael are being used isn’t on anyone’s radar quite yet.) He’s not particularly interested in getting Iorveth and lets his men harass the locals, destroying shrines and whatnot. He doesn’t take issue with Loredo for his treatment of the non-humans, but he does take issue with the man’s willingness to sell Flotsam to Kaedwen, thus compromising an important port along Temeria’s border. It’s that which makes him act to take action against Loredo, nothing else.

Even with the issue of Moril, the elf woman who Loredo kidnapped (and if I remember correctly is implied to not be a unique case) and her baby, Roche is more or less indifferent. With Moril dead, the baby is left behind. Roche doesn’t particularly care what happens to the baby, referring to it as a half-breed and only wondering who might take it in. Geralt’s the one who makes sure that the baby ends up somewhere safe. Roche has gotten what he wants, Loredo is dead and Temeria is safe from him and the Kaedweni spy he was consorting with.

In chapter two if the player chose Iorveth, Roche’s anger isn’t directed towards Geralt hanging around elves, it’s that he’s chosen “a group of thieves and bandits.” That’s what he thinks of the scoia’tael. If you take Roche’s path instead, he goes to Vergen to fight, but he’s not looking to fight the non-humans in Vergen so much as he is with Geralt trying to figure out what’s going on with the sorceresses and Henselt. Where he has the chance to gut Henselt as an act of revenge, if Geralt chooses to let him.

Speaking of that act of revenge, we should probably talk about Ves and what his most trusted person in the universe being Ves has to say about both of their characters. Because we know that Ves would follow Roche anywhere, and we know that Roche will fight tooth and nail to make sure she survives.

If anyone has good reason to hate the scoia’tael and elves, it’s Ves. She’s been through absolute hell, with her backstory implying that after her entire family and village was slaughtered by a scoia’tael commando, she was taken and kept as a sex slave as a teenager and only escaped because Roche and the Blue Stripes found her. He took her under his protection which is enough to earn a great deal of loyalty, but it’s not as though there aren’t shared values. Here’s what she says on this topic:

GERALT: Is your hatred towards the Scoia'tael some sort of revenge?

VES: You don't know me, Geralt. Human or nonhuman - it makes no difference to me. We were chosen to fight the Scoia'tael, and that's the mission we pursue. To me, the Scoia'tael are but bandits hiding out in the woods. If there were humans among them, I'd kill them in a flash just the same.

Not exactly the words of someone who categorically hates elves.

That’s not to say that Roche isn’t surrounded by people who dislike elves, because he definitely is. It’s the background noise of the Blue Stripes, it’s one of his men spitting at the sight of a half-elf baby. He gives his men free reign to terrorize Flotsam and only seems to tighten the leash when they’re camped directly alongside a Kaedweni camp. Whatever his feelings on the topic are, he’s not compelled enough to stop this behavior. Common folk hate the Blue Stripes, and that’s because of how they behave, and that behavior is allowed under Roche’s command.

Compared to the characters that we know do actually hate non-humans Roche is pretty pale by comparison. When it comes to Radovid and the Witch Hunters, he’s directly opposed to them (though again, his interest isn’t necessarily non-human rights as much as it is Temeria.) He’s not as bad as Loredo is, we don’t actually see him ever going out of his way to punish elves or dwarves. He’s against the Scoia’tael, but otherwise... just indifferent.

The best point of comparison to Roche’s character is probably Black Rayla in Thronebreaker and Witcher 1, and even compared to her (who is, at least according to CDPR’s canon a half-elf) Roche comes off as significantly more lax where non-humans are concerned. And even Rayla claims to be opposed to scoia’tael as opposed to non-humans.

Indifference in situations like this gives power to the oppressor rather than the oppressed, but that’s where he is. Is it right? No. But it’s where he is.

Lastly I just want to talk about the function of writing Roche in this way from a more Doylist perspective which is: if you make a character that Geralt (i.e. the player) is meant to possibly side and sympathize with, you can’t make them too much of a bastard. It’s a pattern that we see in the two witcher games where Geralt is asked to pick a side between Scoia’tael and Temeria/Order of the Flaming Rose. The elf commanders are usually assholes, but their position is that they’re trying to save their race from extinction.Despite Iorveth and Yaevinn being mean, they’re automatically sympathetic due to their cause.

On the other hand we have Roche and Siegfried of Denesle, who are on the wrong side. To make the player sympathize with them, it’s a matter of sympathizing with their characters as opposed to their cause. For instance, if you want players to sympathize with the Order, you’re asking the player (and by extension, Geralt) to be on board with a guy who time traveled and decided that the best way to stop the White Frost was to do some genocide. If Siegfried himself, your main point of contact is sympathetic, it’s not as hard of a pill to swallow (and even at the end of Witcher 1, Siegfried himself is directly opposed to the Order’s apparent endgoal.)

Roche’s cause isn’t as bad as the Order’s, to be clear. But he’s still in the wrong where the rights of non-humans are concerned. His focus is on maintaining a certain status quo, at least until he goes off the deep end and gets driven by a little revenge. The scoia’tael and his conflict with Iorveth are set dressing, it’s just not what he’s about. He wants to protect his kingdom and his people. He wants to serve Foltest and his crown, and protect what’s left of his line. Nothing else.

Because as Vernon says in Witcher 3: Who cares about the Scoia’tael anymore? Temeria- that’s what matters.

#ask #anonymous #vernon roche #the witcher games #the witcher

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