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chironshorseass · 4 months

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ok i really really really enjoyed watching the first two episodes and i think the show is already so faithful to the books in ways the movies wished they were BUT i’m gonna be a bitch just because i can and rant about a few insignificant but at the same time very important Things the writers didn’t Understand:

percy is angry.

and i know this is seen with his anger towards poseidon in the show, but i’m talking angry. as in, generally speaking. when he’s with grover and they’re talking about nancy, percy says something along the lines of “we should fight back,” and grover’s like “noooo we can’t stand up to bullies.” and then percy stands up to her and blah blah blah…but in the books percy’s first line is “i’m going to kill her” after she throws a sandwich at grover. grover talks him out of it because he’s already on probation.

with just this scene we know percy stands up to bullies, and that’s partly why he has so much trouble at school! in the show, he stands up to nancy, apparently for the first time, and gets kicked out because of it! sorry but as someone who worked in a school, i know for a fact that kids can get away with so much more before they’re actually kicked out lol. it would’ve made sense, like in tlt, that he’s already at risk of suspension so him “pushing” nancy is the final straw. it’s just very weird, considering it could be only a line of dialogue that makes percy’s anger and the connection between his outburst and him getting kicked out more clear.

consequently, percy arrives at his appartment and gabe is just a general (still admittedly abusive) jerk instead of a drunk, violent (also abusive) man. when we meet gabe, it makes a lot of sense why percy has so much trouble with his anger. it’s easy to see that connection. literal child + alcoholic abusive father figure = there’s bound to be some trouble….that’s not really the case in the show, especially in the way that sally easily stands up to him. people have said a fair bit about this topic already, so i’m not gonna expand on that, but i really wish the writers had focused more on percy’s internal anger, as it’s such an important part of his character and affects the way he reacts to things throughout the books; it just worries me that in the first episode it wasn’t as established. i. e. he hates dionysus on sight because he reminds him of smelly gabe, he hates the gods—is angry at poseidon—because, where was he when my mom and i were suffering at the hands of smelly gabe? ok i’m not gonna talk about more of this or of sally because other people have said it and i could write a four page essay of what the show got wrong plus i want to talk abt other things before this gets too long:

the monster scenes.

the mrs. dodds being a fury reveal felt sooo…weird? even the movie version did it better lol. it felt super rushed and strange how percy’s just standing there and the next he’s on the ground, but he had riptide with him so he just impaled her and then she turned to dust??? in the books, not only does she get percy alone, but grover tries to stand up to her—which is a big deal since he knows what she truly is and shows how much he cares for percy in that moment. percy has time to be genuinely terrified bc he’s alone with a literal monster and he’s about to die…and chiron throws him riptide just in time, but then he too vanishes so percy’s left wondering if he imagined everything. but no, in the show mrs. dodds comes out of nowhere and attacks him, and it’s so fast that percy doesn’t have time to dwell on wtf happened. the situation doesn’t seem as serious as it does in the book; in the book she tries to interrogate percy bc she thinks he’s the lightning thief, and when she doesn’t get her answer, she attacks him. this is another thing: the stakes. they don’t feel as high in the show because there’s no annabeth trying to ask percy what was stolen, no hellhound, no fates cutting a string, and no alecto/mrs. dodds interrogation. there’s not much of a lead up to the quest, really.

theeen the minotaur scene, which also feels super weirdly paced and there’s just not that same sense of urgency. again, other people have talked about this, so i’ll just stick to another main concern of mine: grover’s role in the scene. it was so strange how in the book he’s semi unconscious and in the show he’s fine (so fine that sally does something completely out of character and makes grover swear to keep percy safe? she would never put that much pressure in a child???) ok so he seems fine in the show, but then when they’re running percy’s holding him as if he can’t walk???? they’re not even fully sprinting, given that a monster is chasing them lol. (the problem with the stakes; i mean with the way they run and have an entire talk with sally makes it feel like they’re not in any real danger).

back to grover: he was perfectly fine, and he got percy back safe. not at all like in tlt, where percy has to practically carry him back, after loosing his mom and killing the minotaur. THEN percy passes out and later wakes up at the big house. this is important, bc grover’s entire THING is being percy’s protector, and he couldn’t do that properly bc he was indisposed. he felt awful. of course he did. his character arc is overcoming the guilt and insecurities—that he’s not a proper protector and therefore can’t search for pan; his main character motivation—by successfully completing the quest and helping percy retrieve the master bolt.

these are just little seeds that needed to be planted in the first two episodes of the show…so that the rest of the show feels cohesive and makes sense with what happens in tlt. if these character traits and scenes are looked over and not given proper importance/not replaced with something similar, then the show will have a different tone than it does to the books. i don’t think it’s necessarily bad, but it is disappointing that the details sprinkled in the source material are lost in translation. they may have seemed insignificant to the writers, but not to meeee!!!!!!

#pjo adaptation #percy jackson #grover underwood #they should’ve hired a couple of insane pjo girlies to read and revise the script. just saying!!!!

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itsclydebitches · 6 months

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Zevlor: An Angsty Character Analysis

Hey, Zevlor simps. Can I interest anyone in 4,000 words about our favorite disaster tiefling? 💀

“We can’t stay, but we’ll be slaughtered if we leave—we’re no fighters.”

Back during my first play-through this is the line that turned Zevlor from another dime-a-dozen, exposition spouting NPC to a character I was legitimately interested in. “We’re no fighters.” My DnD ignorance abounds, but even I could see that wasn’t an accurate statement. Here’s a mountain of a man sporting fancier armor than my level 2 Tav knows exists yet, having wrecked half the goblin hoard with his crossbow and, if you let him, he'll happily turn to punching as a solution to verbal disagreements. Plus, he’s clearly the one giving the orders, so what do you mean you’re not a fighter?

Having explored the Grove a bit I chalked it up to a generalized assessment of the refugees as a whole. They’re mostly kids, civilians, and would-be protectors who only look the part of fighters in cobbled-together armor. One woman is grappling with the guilt of killing someone for the first time, even an enemy. Lakrissa is sure they’re all going to get slaughtered and is willing to put money on that fact. Meanwhile, the couple you meet are more concerned with what pet they’ll get when they somehow, someway, make it to the city. Don't worry about how that'll happen. You learn later that even those like Ronan are small potatoes compared to most of the baddies you’ll face. On paper he looks and sounds like the real deal—dressed in robes, talking up an apprenticeship with the famous Lorroakan—but scenes like the celebration light show and his own fury at needing to be saved, again, highlight how far he still has to go. The point is that Zevlor is right: these aren’t fighters and he at 18 strength, paladin, former commander, is definitely the exception.

However, BG3 is the sort of detail-heavy game where I’d expect them to include that exception in the dialogue. “We can’t stay, but we’ll be slaughtered if we leave—these people aren’t fighters.” Zevlor’s inclusion of himself in this assessment continued to nag at me and it didn’t start to make sense until I delved into his tag here on tumblr, with more patient players than myself posting everything there is to know about the tiefling. (Thanks, all.) Zevlor is fascinating to me in part because he has this contradictory nature, one example of which is that he’s a very talented fighter who desperately doesn’t want to be a fighter anymore.

…but also he totally does.

We overhear in his dialogue to Tilses that Zevlor is adamant about shedding the titles he’s earned through combat: Hellrider, Commander, Sir. He insists that they’re just civilians now and it’s not like he’s being disingenuous here—note that he introduces himself as just “Zevlor” to Tav. Zevlor means what he says to Tilses and we can see that he’s trying to both reinforce his point and lesson the blow by referring to her as “Tilly.” The nickname is a sweet one, hinting at their close bond in just a single word, reminding her that he’s not saying this to hurt her, he cares for her… but the nickname is simultaneously something he never would have used as her commander. The intimacy meant to comfort is also a hard blow to weather. They're now people who use nicknames inappropriate for the hierarchy of battle.

So Zevlor means what he says here, means it enough that Tilses is convinced and drops her use of “Commander,” but there’s definitely a hint of bitterness in his voice. At least, I’ve always heard it. Zevlor is steadfast in his conviction here, even going so far as to say, “I’m done soldiering, Tilly” when discussing what will come next at Baldur’s Gate. Yet for all of that his tone conveys (understandable) anger and disappointment that it’s come to this. Zevlor doesn’t act like someone who truly wants this change, but rather someone who’s been forced to accept it.

Is it outside forces unwillingly influencing him then? Did Avernus truly change things irrevocably? No, not really. At least, not in the way Zevlor likes to claim. Tilses herself states that being a Hellrider is for life; nothing can take away that title. You lost your post? Your whole city? Most of the people under your protection? Doesn’t matter! You’re a Hellrider forever, no matter the circumstances. I can easily picture a time in Zevlor's life where he would have agreed with Tilses wholeheartedly. They are Hellriders, dammit, and so long as there’s one person looking for their help they will wield that title alongside their blades. And right now, Zevlor has a lot more than just one person in need of his assistance.

So it’s not that Avernus truly stripped them of that identity. Nothing can do that. Zevlor is not rejecting titles and planning retirement because the mechanisms of fate are forcing him to.

He’s doing all that because he’s lost confidence in himself.

Even as someone with a shaky understanding of DnD classes, I love the parallel between a broken oath and the rejection of a lifelong title. If Zevlor can fail in his oath—or in his faith entirely, according to the memories stemming from his pod—why-ever would he think that any other ‘permanent’ part of his identity was worth fighting for? If you can loose the very thing you’ve built your entire life around, every important aspect of yourself, tied to your very soul… what’s a bestowed title compared to that? Zevlor doesn’t believe himself worthy of being a Hellrider anymore, but I think that goes deeper than a string of horrific circumstances making him feel incompetent. As an Oathbreaker, Zevlor likely believes that if he couldn’t uphold that, he can’t uphold anything. Calling himself a Hellrider would be a lie. A fiction. A pathetic, dangerous, insulting fiction at that. It’s like calling yourself the “Hero” while continually failing those around you. Sure, others might insist it’s a title you’ve earned, one you will always carry with you, but you don’t believe them anymore and at a certain point calling yourself that feels worse than embracing the title of “Villain." You don’t want to be the villain… but you want to pretend you’re the hero even less. Pretending is exhausting.

We see this struggle in the many ways that Zevlor fails, or almost fails, to uphold the ideals that originally guided him. I use the term “villain” above deliberately because Zevlor is not merely a former hero-type who’s self confidence has been shattered, or who has been reduced to a civilian, or who thinks themselves useless; he’s actively fighting against temptations that, under less stressful situations, he’d never even consider. I don’t think he is a villain, I think he’s a flawed, struggling victim who sees his own, inevitable mistakes as villainous—and the longer that warped perspective continues the easier it is to fall into bad behaviors. This cycle is perfectly summarized in the autobiography Zevlor keeps by his bed:

“When every passer-by thinks you a thief and a heretic, it is deeply tempting to become one.”

We don’t know if this is Zevlor’s autobiography (as far as I’m aware, anyway) but even if it’s not the words have clearly resonated enough for him to keep them nearby. This particular line paints a pretty clear picture of Zevlor’s struggle. If everyone you meet says you’re devil-kin, vermin, or would-be criminal, isn’t it easier to just give them what they want? If you can’t persuade them otherwise, why put in the effort of trying? If he can’t be Faithful to his God, why have faith in anything at all? If he can’t save these people—setback after setback, mistake after mistake—why is he even making the effort?

Zevlor obviously is trying, very, very hard, which is why such thoughts are merely temptations rather than actual, questionable actions. Still, the Grove gives us numerous examples of the precipice he’s balanced on—and the ways Tav can tip him in one direction or another. You can talk Zevlor down from his anger and get him to acknowledge his disgust in nearly sinking to Aradin’s level. You can also let him boil over and punch the human at a time when the last thing anyone needs is more violence. You can convince Zevlor that there are peaceful ways of stopping Kagha's ritual, or you can help him in pursuing the darker temptation to kill her. It’s a “low” thought, but at his own admission he hasn’t been above entertaining it. Zevlor’s requests for help, though always polite and humble, carry a spark of manipulation in them too. He’s not above leveraging your previously selfless good deed to his advantage—"She owes you for saving this grove"—and if you approach him before speaking with Kagha he’ll claim that the ritual will “be trouble—for all of us.” Except, no? Not really? Tav can make it clear that they’re just here for a healer, they’re only passing through, and as a fighter they are not beholden to the Grove’s sanctuary as the teiflings are. It’s not trouble for everyone involved, yet Zevlor frames it as such in the hopes that (unnecessary) self-interest may motivate you if selflessness fails. Finally, if Zevlor dies in your play-through and you use Speak the Dead on him, he will admit to having “plenty” of secrets, none of which he’ll share. Admittedly, this may be the result of cut content, specifically a story-line in which Zevlor knowingly betrays the tieflings rather than being tricked by the Absolute. Still, the game as it stands is the story we have and within it we’re given a man who is both fighting against these dark urges (ha) and has a past riddled with secrets. If Zevlor is anything, it’s blunt when it comes to his own failings, accurate and otherwise. So how terrible must these secrets be that he outright refuses to divulge them when, generally speaking, most corpses speak freely in death?

However, out of all of this the struggle I’m most intrigued by is the one surrounding the gate. Zevlor represents the tieflings: persecuted refugees, vulnerable civilians, people seeking to survive through cooperation, specifically by joining a community. Kagha represents the druids (or at least a vocal subset of them in Halsin’s absence): bigoted individuals, powerful fighters, people seeking to survive by giving in to their fears, specifically by keeping themselves isolated. This is the moral dichotomy of the Grove and it is symbolized through the gate. Zevlor wants to open it to everyone whereas Kagha wants to close it, permanently.

So isn’t it odd that Zevlor is the one ordering it shut?

When the scene first starts Kanon shouts down that no, he won’t open the gate. Zevlor said that no one is allowed in. Notably, he’s saying this to Aradin and his crew, people that the Grove is at least passingly familiar with, given that Halsin left with them to search the temple. It’s also notable that Zevlor isn’t expecting goblins to attack the Grove. He’s shocked that this is suddenly a problem, brought about by Aradin’s decision—“You lead them here?”— and the entire point of staying at the Grove is that it’s at least comparatively safe. Yes, there have been more attacks lately, but Zevlor seems to be relying on the Grove’s relatively unknown location, as well as the fact that goblins are normally disorganized. The safety is only compromised because Aradin brought a hunting party back, so Zevlor has no reason to expect any visitors, let alone ones that would be a threat.

More importantly, he should welcome such visitors even if he did expect them. After all, that’s precisely what the tieflings are: strangers with no ulterior motives other than to survive. Broadly speaking it makes perfect sense why he'd shut the gates. Zevlor’s first priority is to his people, so anything that keeps them safe is, theoretically, a good thing. But through the lens of his specific characterization and this specific, moral dilemma, it’s an awfully hypocritical decision. Based on everything we’ve seen, our party would not have been welcomed by Zevlor if we’d arrived without danger on our heels and a rescue to endear him to us. So his people should be welcomed, trusted, kept safe, given the benefit of the doubt… but Zevlor isn’t necessarily willing to extend that same trust to others. At the end of the day, he and Kagha want a version of the same thing: safety for those they deem are worthy of it.

It’s precisely these flaws and temptations that make Zevlor such a great character to me, even before he’s tricked by the Absolute. The fandom has leaned hard into Zevlor’s self-loathing and let me tell you, I love it (kisses, hugs, and cookies for you all), but canonically I think he has more reason to fear himself than we tend to portray in the H/C fics. I’m not saying he’s a bad person. Rather, it’s precisely because Zevlor is such a good person that he has the capacity to fall so far. It’s his all-consuming desire to protect his family that leads Zevlor to do and consider so much that a paladin would normally balk at. Denying others the safety you’ve been granted. Subtly manipulating others to do your dirty work. Considering murder.

Zevlor is someone torn between doing the Right Thing and the thing he believes will help those under his care survive. Importantly, when we first meet him he considers these to be two separate courses of action. So can you imagine what goes through his head when he first sees Tav saving everyone and doing so righteously? I think it’s integral to Zevlor’s characterization that the game all but forces you to play the Good Guy in that initial encounter. A cut scene starts, you’re thrown into combat immediately afterwards, and unless you plan to start attacking the Grove members alongside the goblins (which the mechanics discourage through the coloring that distinguishes enemies from allies) you will always finish this fight as Zevlor’s hero. Sure, you can be an asshole afterwards and demand payment. You could already be plotting your betrayal and the slaughter of all the refugees. But in this moment you are nothing but a miracle made flesh in his eyes. Right from the start Tav is succeeding in all the ways Zevlor feels like he's failed. You're the hero.

More specifically, you’re an Every-Man Hero. We might have epic backstories for our Tavs, but within confines of the game you’re largely a nobody when not playing an Origin character. How powerful must that have been to witness then? A total stranger, someone who has no ties to the tieflings or even, depending on your class, any sworn reason to help others, putting their life on the line to save what is most precious to Zevlor? I think a lot about the fact that he never asks Wyll to step in and try to change Kagha’s mind. She owes him just as much as she does Tav—Wyll is an equal participant in that fight and, if your shoddy play style is anything like mine, he likely did more damage—and Wyll is clearly invested in the tiefling’s survival, training the kids as he is. Now, obviously Zevlor’s reticence is largely a question of assigned roles (we need to be the one engaging with Kagha because we’re the protagonist/player) but, like Zevlor’s choice to include himself in the Not a Fighter group, it would have been all too easy to explain this away within the narrative. One comment about how Wyll already tried and failed, or how Kagha doesn’t trust Warlocks, or hell, maybe you don’t meet Wyll in the Grove at all. It’s an easy thing to accomplish and though this is edging more into the realm of headcanon than anything else, I can’t help but think that Wyll isn’t the kind of person that Zevlor could turn to for help right now. Because he’s a folk hero. The Blade of Frontiers, known far and wide for his impressive, selfless deeds. Zevlor is struggling so hard to keep the tieflings safe, tempted by all the unsavory solutions that might achieve that, drowning in self-hatred as his past and current failings catch up with him, wanting nothing more than to be his peoples’ protector:

“I would be a paladin again—with a god’s purpose, a god’s power. Everything I needed to protect my people. And all the while, the cult tortured them. They fought, and ran, and died around me, while I imagined myself their savior.”

Three of the things Zevlor mutters while trapped in the pod are “Hellrider… for… life…,” “Trust… in me…,” and “Children… look away… look at me…” He wants to be the protector, the one children look to for reassurance, he wants his words to Tilly to be a lie and he wants a way to prove that he is a Hellrider for life… but he’s not. At least, Zevlor doesn’t believe it. He lost his titles while Wyll still proudly bears his. Wyll trains the children to fight while Zevlor can only get swept up in anger at them being threatened. The people trust Wyll, adore him, he’s the hero and Zevlor… is not. Not anymore.

It’s too painful to approach Wyll and admit all that. That would be a hell of a blow to Zevlor's pride. But Tav? A stranger? A nobody? The Every-man who had no reason to help or reputation pressuring them, saving them anyway? That’s inspiring. Someone like Tav could be the answer and even, perhaps, the proof that Zevlor could redeem himself. Neither of them are folk heroes, untouchable in their assumed perfection. Tav is a living, breathing example of how the flawed, everyday adventurer can be everything Zevlor strives for.

No wonder he won’t shut up about them in the Shadowlands.

All of this is why it’s so tragic that Zevlor wasn’t given a redemption arc. Sure, you can recruit him for the final battle against the Netherbrain, but there’s no quest to change the cast’s opinion of him—or change Zevlor’s opinion of himself. All his content at the end of Act 2 and Act 3 reinforces that self-hatred.

Let’s make a list, shall we?

Nearly every line of his reunion with Tav has Zevlor painting himself in the worst light possible, from “a lie kinder than the truth” to his refusal to join you because he believes he’ll stab you in the back. You cannot convince him of the Absolute’s manipulation and there’s no response to his belief that such horrors start within the person like, “Of course it does! Because we’re all flawed and equally capable of good and evil deeds! That potential doesn’t make you irredeemable, Zevlor, it makes you mortal!!”

He’s utterly failed as his peoples’ champion and he’s also deemed “unworthy” of being a True Soul. Obviously not being chosen by the Absolute is a good thing, but for a man drowning in self-loathing that’s one hell of a complicated rejection.

Nearly all the tieflings hate him now, all those people he’s been sacrificing his soul to keep safe. I found it particularly devastating that this is one of the rare occasions where nailing a persuasion check doesn’t change the person’s mind. There’s at least one tiefling at Moonrise (I’m drawing a blank on her name) who will believe you when you explain how the Absolute influenced Zevlor, but that doesn’t lead to forgiveness.

Zevlor is deemed unimportant on a literal, narrative level. He is very easy to miss in the pods (I nearly did on my first play-through) and the game does incredibly little to dissuade you from that mistake. Putting aside for a moment that obviously an Origin companion is more significant than a minor NPC, compare this to Shadowheart screaming from her own pod, the game making it abundantly clear that this is someone in need of help—someone worth rescuing. She’ll even say later that you could have run past, more concerned with your own survival and the big picture heroics to bother with her. How must it feel then, if Zevlor ever learns that Tav was there and never stopped for him?

If you do miss Zevlor… oh boy. We’ve probably all seen at least a recording of Orin’s so-called gift. There are plenty of characters who can meet untimely and devastating ends, but very few go through this level of horror. Zevlor—after being held captive, remember—is tortured by God’s Favorite Torturer. He is stripped of his personhood and reduced to a mere “message,” a “pet.” Zevlor is further humiliated in death by being literally stripped of his armor—not just vulnerable in his nakedness, but denied the last symbol of his faith, his status, his power—and it’s always struck me that this is the closest we see to him 'enjoying' an intimate moment, this parody in Orin’s painting. Zevlor is one of the NPC’s most in need of physical comfort and instead he’s forced into this torturous mockery of a sex scene. It also hits hard that when Tav first spots his body the narration says that Zevlor “might almost be sleeping.” Undoubtedly this is a man who isn’t taking good care of himself. He needs a good night’s rest, yet this horrifying trick is all he gets.

As if all this weren’t enough, most of your companion are VERY critical of Zevlor while commenting on his demise. It’s one thing for the tieflings to believe the worst given their ignorance and the fact that they are the ones who suffered from Zevlor’s failure, but your company understands the Absolute and the ways that she gets her hooks in people. Still, Astarion calls him a “wet rag” even if he did deserve better than this. Shadowheart wouldn’t have wished this on him either, but she can’t help but slip in a “no matter his failings.” Lae’zel, often the most blunt, straight up says that he was “always destined to fail his people—and to fail us.” Wyll shakes his head and intones that “even good intentions can lead us down deadly paths.” Only Gale and Karlach stick to mourning the dead rather than airing his shortcomings.

When I spoke to my allies before the final battle Zevlor didn’t have a cut scene. It became clear to me later that this must have been a bug in my play-through, but at the time it only reinforced my feelings that his story was incomplete. Looking on Youtube I’ve found recordings of him saying that he is a Hellrider once more and he would “die a proud man if [he] were to die this day”… but that rings as terribly hollow given where we left him. Last we were together, Zevlor was saying in no uncertain terms that he could not be trusted, he would fail again, he was unworthy of forgiveness. Where did this change of heart come from? It makes perfect sense that he would help Tav in this moment—he begs to be of some use after getting free—but not that he would present himself with such confidence. Within the story as it’s been told this feels… fake. Like Zevlor is putting on a mask to fit the mood of this lively, optimistic party. Which, in turn, gives the “I would die a proud man” line a terrifying implication to me. Does Zevlor expect to die this day? Does he intend to? What would persuade him not to lay down his life here and now? His mission is complete. The tieflings are safe—though not by his hand. There's no hero's welcome waiting for him after this battle. They hate him. He hates himself, and by his own admission the one thing that could still make him proud would be to die at Tav’s side, trying to do one last bit of good. If someone said that to me after everything Zevlor has been through I would keep them far away from the front lines.

(I did, for the record lol.)

I’m not saying anything new then when I go, “Larian, PLEASE add more to his story.” Give us a Zevlor side-quest to renew his oath. Let us invite him to our camp. Something to link the broken man mid-game and the confident fighter at the end so that the latter doesn’t feel like an alarm bell with two legs and a tail. I mean yeah, I get hooked on minor characters so 75% of this is simply me wanting more content of a fave, but I also I do legitimately believe that BG3’s story would benefit from tying up loose ends like this.

Zevlor is a fantastic character, someone who contains an astounding amount of complexity for so little screen time. You have to follow up on that complexity though. If he’s meant to be a purely tragic figure, okay, fine, that’s the ending you get with Orin. But one where he joins you with a smile and reclaims a title he's previously rejected with such fervor requires more work in the middle; a through-line that explains how someone with so much self-loathing learns to think of himself as the hero again.

Because it does all come down to Zevlor’s perception of himself. He was always a hero, flaws and all. He always was and always will be a Hellrider.

The UI knows what's up :)

#BG3 #Zevlor #bg3 Zevlor #wow this took forever #someone cry over this wet cat of a tiefling with me #mymetas

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gffa · 1 year

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This scene from The Mandalorian season 3 premiere really puts the scene from “Old Friends Not Forgotten” into context, because both of these scenes are about projection. Bo-Katan was part of Death Watch, the very group that plotted with Maul to overtake Mandalore, and it was only when Maul killed Pre Vizsla to take over Death Watch and rule Mandalore that she left. And then Maul killed her sister. She blames Obi-Wan, who is saying that they can’t just invade Mandalore (because that’s what it would be) and breaking centuries old treaties and starting yet more war, as if all the damage that will do shouldn’t mean anything because her sister is dead. When it’s Bo-Katan who doesn’t care about the collateral damage, so long as she gets what she’s after, it’s Bo-Katan who feels a crushing guilt and anger toward herself that she was part of those who helped bring the being into power that killed her sister, that she was the one who helped destabilize her entire planet. And she does the same with Din. Bo-Katan’s role was to unite the Houses, to be the leader that they needed to follow and fight back against the Empire. That was the entire point of giving her the Darksaber and why she’s so desperate to win it in combat against Moff Gideon, and it’s not on Din’s shoulders that he happened to win it first, that he doesn’t want to keep the thing, that he didn’t even know about other Mandalorians. It’s Bo-Katan who is angry at herself for failing, she’s angry that other Mandalorians weren’t hollowed out by this loss, that they can still pick up and go on with any other kind of life, just like Obi-Wan was able to pick up and go on despite Satine’s loss. Bo-Katan was gutted and consumed by fury and destroyed by loss, why wasn’t everyone else destroyed in the same way? And she is so angry about that and it puts that TCW scene in such an interesting new context for me that I’m whipping around to actually love it a ton!! Let women be angry and wrong and messy and still be good!!! Let my wife be a mean bitch who is broken in heart and soul!!! I wouldn’t change a thing about her, she’s awful and wonderful and I love her!!!

#obi wan kenobi #din djarin #bo katan kryze #the mandalorian #meta

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thecosmicmap · 4 months

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Strap in folks this is gonna be a long one.

So as we know Dean Deblois is the writer of HTTYD2 and 3. As a writer you have a list of rules you should follow. One such rule is “show don’t tell.”

Dean disregarded this rule and we mainly see it with Grimmel and the Night Fury genocide. In the movie he tells us “I hunted every last night fury except yours” yet Grimmel has nothing to show for it. No trophies, no night fury hide cloak, not even a claw. The most we get is a few “facts” about Night Furies that aren’t even true, or can’t be proven to be true because we’ve only ever seen one Night Fury.

“Night Furies can’t survive the cold.” Yet Hiccup tells us (in GOTNF which is canon) that winter in Berk lasts for most of the year.

“Night Furies can’t fly long distances” Yet Toothless’ wings are large and wide, which allows him to glide for long periods of time.

“Furies mate for life.” We would never know because we only see one Night Fury in the entire franchise. And if we take a look at other dragons, it seems they only see their mate during mating season.

And why would Grimmel know that if he’s trying to kill off the Night Furies forever? What’s the point in knowing their mating habits if there’s never going to be any Night Furies again? Did he just look at a Fury pair and go “yeup. They mate for life.”

Now another thing about Grimmel is that his hunting method is unreliable. One, he left his bait without any restraints. Imagine if the Light Fury woke up minutes before and just left? Boom! No more bait. What if Toothless wasn’t horny and was mad at the Light Fury for trying to kill Hiccup multiple times? Boom. He wouldn’t be trying to deal with her and the plan is ruined because the bait isn’t appealing to the target. What if Toothless didn’t smell her and never showed up?

Lots of plot conveniences. It happens in the entire movie. Dean also had to confirm that yes, Grimmel did kill all the Night Furies in an INTERVIEW because people didn’t believe that Grimmel genocide the Night Furies. And Dean only did this because he thinks Toothless is special because he’s the last Night Fury.

Now we could be here forever talking about how stupid grimmel is as a villain and how stupid it is to even entertain the thought that ONE man and his six, drugged dragons were able to commit genocide to a species of intelligent, elusive and fast dragons, but let’s just continue.

Another rule Dean disregarded is having good characterization. Or ANY characterization!

The Light Fury immediately comes to mind. Name one personality trait she has that we actually see in the movie. You can’t, can you? Because Dean actively wrote that out. There was a deleted scene of Light Fury and Toothless’ romantic flight which gave her much more personality, yet Dean wrote it out and gave us the boring one we have now.

Also, can we just talk about how she doesn’t have a name? Her name is literally “The Light Fury.” Which is the same as naming a Golden Retriever Golden Retriever.

I know Hiccup would’ve named her. Hell, anybody would’ve named her! But no, Dean decided that she didn’t need one because “how else would she be wild”?

Dean says this in an interview, “We intentionally try to keep her [The Light Fury] wild and elusive, to kind of represent something that is pure dragon, that hasn't been tainted by human beings by domestication.” Which just goes to show that Dean doesn’t know what domestication is.

(Dean also doesn’t know what a subspecies is because if he did, then he would know a Light Fury can’t possibly be a Night Fury subspecies because they have too many differences).

1. this means that Dean thinks all of the dragons that have benefited from human companionship (Toothless, Cloudjumper, Meatlug, Stormfly, etc) are tainted.

And 2, there is nothing “dragon” about the Light Fury. She has small feet (Hiccup’s head is literally bigger than her feet), small claws, a small mouth, her wings are weirdly shaped, she’s curved, she has no protective scales and her tailfin is in the shape of a heart, which would actually mess up her flight.

Many people have said this is because she’s semi-aquatic. But this is disproven by the fact that we’ve never seen her in the water and the art book.

Here’s two direct quotes: “We had to explore how the Light Fury would walk and make her feel like a female.” “We had to control all the shapes while keeping her both powerful and graceful so she didn’t fall too much into the reptilian category.”

The Light Fury is a plot device, a “agent of change” in Dean’s words.

Now while we’re on the topic of characterization, let’s talk about our main cast. We’ll start with Toothless.

Toothless is Hiccup’s best friend, who will do anything to protect him no matter the costs. He’s sassy, intelligent, curious, loyal, protective and playful.

Now take all of this, and throw it in the trash because this isn’t the toothless you’re going to see in THW. In THW Toothless’ playfulness is shot to the max, making him more like a slobbery puppy than the lethal panther he was in HTTYD1.

Toothless isn’t protective of Hiccup at all, his intelligence is below hell itself and we don’t see a lick of sass. Httyd3 Toothless is physically incapable of looking scary because his face has been deformed to to look blocky and smushed together. He lacks any aerodynamics and we can even see it in his flying. He looks like he’s struggling.

Toothless and Hiccup’s friendship is so watered down in this movie, just for the sake of romance. That’s not how it should be. Romance and friendship go hand in hand, one is not more valuable than the other.

Astrid is nothing but Hiccup’s emotional support, yet she also puts him down. “you gave him [Toothless] his freedom, what were you expecting?” This implies that the dragons are being held captive and Toothless doesn’t want to be with Hiccup.

Which he does, as we see in GOTNF. Toothless only left to get Hiccup’s helmet, then he broke the auto-tail. But why would Astrid even say that? Thats so insensitive 😭.

The twins are dumbed down (despite proving to actually being intelligent), Snotlout is flirting with a woman who’s 20 years older than him (and might be his aunt, depending if you see Hiccup and Snotlout as cousins) and Valka outright tells Hiccup that they can’t hide away from the world.

Which is true, they can’t. Because eventually they will be found. Now remember this, it’ll come back later.

Now, when writing a story it’s important to move the plot along in a way that doesn’t seemed forced. When I think of this, I think of Trollhunters: tales of Arcadia.

The protagonist (Jim) goes into the villain’s home in order to rescue his friend’s baby brother, yet he gets trapped there. His friends have to get him out of there, which allows the villain to be freed from the Darklands. This happening allows the story to move forward in a way that makes sense and isn’t forced.

Now back to HTTYD3. Let’s look at the scene where Toothless and the LF get captured. The Light Fury smells grimmel, she calls to toothless, runs towards Grimmel and gets shot.

Toothless runs over (ignoring Hiccup’s warnings) approaches Grimmel, takes forever loading a plasma blast while sloooowly walking towards Grimmel, allowing the man to shoot him and make him go night-night.

Hiccup runs over, also taking forever. And the next time we see grimmel he’s already tied up two dragons (BY HIMSELF) in these complicated straight jackets. The other dragons come around (finally) ready to attack, yet Grimmel threatens the light fury and tells Toothless to call of the dragons.

“But isn’t Toothless asleep?” I hear you ask, and to that I respond with “no, he’s not. He miraculously woke up in time to call the dragons off, despite the light fury still being knocked out cold.”

The dragons are called off and grimmel leaves on his quad-copter. The dragons follow them, even though Grimmel didn’t tell toothless to make them follow.

Do you see how forced this is? There’s many more forced plot points, but we’ll be here forever talking about it and this post is long enough already.

Next up on the broken rule list, Dean let the antagonist win. Now it’s okay for an antagonist to win, but never in the third act.

Grimmel’s ultimate goal was for dragons to disappear. Dean himself says “he does not want a world in which dragons roam free.” And what do we see at the end of HTTYD3?

The dragons disappearing into the Hidden World forever. Exactly what Grimmel wanted.

Finally, the last rule Dean broke is having a consistent plot. Now the plot of each movie is a bit different. Httyd1: Hiccup shows Vikings that while dangerous, dragons aren’t monsters. And it’s better to work together than working apart.

Httyd2: Dragons are being captured and enslaved, we need to save them and fight for our friends.

Httyd3: toothless needs to get a girlfriend. He HAS to, despite not ever showing to want one, but he’s horny right now so YES, he HAS to.

But the franchise has an overarching narrative about humans and dragons coming together. That no matter what, they will prevail because they’re working together.

Well in HTTYD3 yes, they prevail. But the dragons leave. Why, you may ask? Because no matter what they’ll always be bad humans so there’s no point fighting.

Hiccup sends the dragons to an underground glittery cave that doubles as a prison, and six years of friendship is thrown down the drain for a female Toothless met three days prior. Hiccup tells the audience that dragons will hide until humans learn how to get along (despite the many humans that already get along with them).

And that’s it. The end. No more.

“But wait!” I hear you ask, “Won’t the dragons eventually be found again?” And to that I say, “Oh, you remember!”

Because yes, the dragons will eventually be found out again. And because Hiccup gave up on fighting for change, these humans think dragons are dangerous monsters and will undoubtedly enslave/kill them.

We even see this with his own kids! Zephyr thought dragons were monsters and was ready to hurt them in order to “protect her family”. Humans of the future will no doubt act like this as well.

Humans and dragons will never learn to get along if they are never around each other. Change won’t just happen, you have to fight for it. Like the end of slavery, or the Women’s Rights Movement. Those things didn’t just happen, people had to fight for change and they had to keep fighting because if they gave up then nothing would change.

And when the dragons are inevitably found once again, it will be Hiccup’s fault when they’re either killed or enslaved.

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literaryavenger · 4 months

Text

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Summary: You're part of the Strike team and join Captain America as he tries to live his new life in the 21st century. [Reader is NOT Hydra]

Pairing: platonic!Steve Rogers x F!Reader, platonic!Natasha Romanoff x F!Reader

Warnings: Language. Rumlow being a dick. Mentions of death. My poor attempts at being funny. Idk, everything else in the movie?

Word Count: 2.7K

A/N: Happy New Year! This the first chapter in a new series I'm starting! I'm not sure how long it's gonna be yet, but I know it's gonna be longer than Broken. These series is about an alternate universe where the reader exists and lives through the events that happen in the MCU. A lot of the details will be changed to insert the reader, a lot of the lines said by other characters will be changed to be the reader's and I've also made up a lot of things and scenes and added them, trying my best not to change the official timeline and the main events. I hope you enjoy this and all chapters to come!

Masterlist | Series Masterlist

“You heard the boss, newbie, text Romanoff and tell her to pick up Rogers.” Rumlow taps his knuckles twice on the table for emphasis before getting up and exiting the conference room.

You make sure he doesn't miss the way you roll your eyes at the now old nickname before writing ‘New mission, need you at the jet in one hour. Asshole wants you to pick up the old man in spandex’ on your phone and sending the message to Natasha, then you get up and make your way out of the room.

“Armory.” you say as you enter the elevator.

“Confirmed.” the elevator voice says as the doors start closing.

You suit up for the mission just assigned by Pierce and go to the jet to start doing the checkups you know the rest of the idiots on the STRIKE team won’t even think about doing.

After making sure everything’s ready and in order, you can do nothing more than wait for everybody else.

Natasha and Steve get there exactly an hour after your text.

“Right on time.” you point out.

“It wasn’t a coincidence, YLN.” Natasha smirks, making you laugh.

“Cap.” you greet him with a smile that he returns. “Y/N.”

The rest of the team meets you a few minutes after. “Ready for take off.” Rumlow says to the pilot and the jet takes off.

Once you get close to the target Rumlow starts briefing Steve and Nat. “The target is a mobile satellite launch platform: The Lemurian Star. They were sending up their last payload when pirates took them, 93 minutes ago.”

“Any demands?” Steve asks.

“A billion and a half.” Rumlow answers.

“Why so steep?” Steve questions frowning.

“Because it’s Shield’s.” you answer promptly, ignoring the scowl on Rumlow’s face that disappears almost immediately.

“So it’s not off-course,” Steve says, understanding flashing in his eyes as he glares at Natasha “it’s trespassing.”

“I’m sure they have a good reason.” Natasha offers.

“You know, I’m getting a little tired of being Fury’s janitor.”-Steve seems really annoyed now.

“Relax, it’s not that complicated.” Natasha simply says.

“How many pirates?” Steve’s attention is back on the screen.

“Twenty-five, top mercs, led by this guy. Georges Batroc.” Rumlow pulls up the photo of Batroc on the monitor and looks at you expectantly, making you roll your eyes.

Of course you’re the only one who actually looked through the files.

“Ex-DGSE, Action Division. He’s at the top of Interpol's Red Notice. Before the French demobilized him, he had thirty-six kill missions. The guy’s got a rep for maximum casualties.” you fill everybody in, although it was obvious most of the guys aren't listening. At least the Captain is.

“Hostages?” Steve questions you, but Rumlow cuts in.

“Mostly techs. One officer, Jasper Sitwell.” he shows his picture. You’ve seen Sitwell around headquarters, he seems pretty close with the STRIKE team. Not that you hang out much with them outside of mission, or at all for that matter. “They’re in the gallery.”

“What’s Sitwell doing on a launch ship?” Steve asks more to himself, and he has a point. “Alright, I’m gonna sweep the deck and find Batroc. Nat and Y/N, you’ll kill the engines and wait for instructions. Rumlow, you sweep aft, find the hostages, get them to the life-pots, get ‘em out. Let’s move.”

Yep, he’s definitely in Captain mode.

“Ay ay, Captain.” you salute with a smirk that mirrors Natasha’s while Steve gives you a fake annoyed look.

“STRIKE, you heard the Cap. Gear up.” Rumlow says but you’ve already started getting ready and stopped listening to him.

“Secure channel seven.” Steve says into his wrist communicator.

“Seven secure.” Natasha replies. “Did you do anything fun Saturday night?”

“Well, all the guys from my barbershop quartet are dead, so… No, not really.” Steve answers, making both you and Natasha laugh while the pilot lets you know that the drop zone is coming up.

“You know, if you ask Kristen out, from Statistics, she’d probably say yes.” you point out, exchanging a knowing glance with Natasha.

“That’s why I don’t ask.” he fires back

“Too shy or too scared?” Natasha pushes.

“Too busy!” He yells over the wind as the door opens and then he jumps.

You and Natasha both roll your eyes and look at each other smiling, not needing to talk to understand the other.

You barely register Rumlow and Rollins commenting on Steve jumping without a parachute before grabbing one for yourself and jumping alongside Nat.

You and Natasha have known each other for a while now, all the way back since she was first brought in by Clint.

You trained with both of them, went on countless missions together (yes, including Budapest) and you would’ve been right by their side in New York if you hadn't been on an important undercover mission and had strict orders directly from Fury not to blow your cover.

After that you got assigned to the STRIKE team by Alexander Pierce, though you still have no idea why. But orders are orders so you’ve been working with the idiots ever since.

But you and Natasha are thankfully still pretty close and your down time is spent mostly with her, sometimes also visiting Clint and his family at his farm.

Nat’s still annoyed at Clint about naming his only daughter after you, middle name but still, and not her. But to be fair, you have known Clint longer, a fact that always amuses both you and Clint to bring up.

You’ve just landed when you hear Rumlow saying “you seemed pretty helpless without me” to Steve.

“What about the nurse who lives across the hall from you?” Natasha says.

“Yeah, she seems nice.” you add.

“Secure the engines, then find me a date.” Steve says in his captain voice.

“We’re multitasking.” Nat tells him before turning to you. “you take port, I’ll take starboard and we’ll meet at the rendezvous point”

“Copy.” you say and make your way to the engine room on the right side of the ship. You start taking down guys and can hear Rumlow saying they’re ready in position.

Just as you finish with the last guy you hear Steve calling your name. “What’s your status?”

“Port engine room secure.” you answer.

“Good, make your way to help Rumlow with the hostages.”

“Roger that.” you can almost hear him groan in annoyance as you smile while following his orders.

“Natasha, what’s your status?” you can hear her grunt while she fights through the comms. “Status, Natasha?”

“Hang on!” She says as she keeps fighting. “Starboard engine room secure.”

You hear Steve countdown from three and then the team moving in on the targets, you get to the rendezvous point just in time to see Rumlow rounding the corner with the hostages on his tail.

“Hostages en route to extradition.” he says in his comms as you look around for Natasha.

“Romanoff missed the rendezvous point, Cap. Hostiles are still in play.” you let Steve know while helping take care of the hostages.

“Natasha, Batroc’s on the move. Circle back to Y/N and protect the hostages.” he receives no answer and at this point you get a little worried. “Natasha!”

You want to go looking for her but you know better than to leave your post, and you’re also very aware that Natasha can take care of herself.

So you keep protecting the hostages while listening intently to the comms where you can hear Steve fight, then you hear a voice you assume it’s Batroc’s talking French and are even more surprised to hear Steve answer back in French. Impressive.

You can hear him fighting again and then you finally hear Natasha’s voice but don’t pay too much attention to the conversation, bringing your entire focus on the hostages now that you know she’s okay.

You’re helping people into the life-pods when you hear an explosion go off somewhere on the boat. You don’t even realize you’re holding your breath until you hear Natasha’s voice again and let it go, feeling even more relieved after hearing Steve too.

The ride back is very uncomfortable as you help Natasha with the minor injuries from the explosion, Steve refusing help and insisting that he’s fine, and in the mood he’s in you’re certainly not about to argue.

As soon as the jet lands he stomps away angrily and you share a concerned look with Natasha, worried about what he’s gonna do next.

You help Nat to the medbay and leave her there when she assures you she’s okay and to not make a fuss over her.

So you make your way to the usual conference room for debriefing but when you get there Rumlow very smugly assures you that you’re not needed at this meeting.

You’re used to being left out of meetings with the STRIKE team and Pierce by now, since you’ve been forced to join you’ve been left out of more meetings that you’ve attended, but it still bothers you sometimes.

Still, at least you don’t have to spend too much time with those neanderthals. Not your circus, not your monkeys.

So you just make your way to the Armory to put away your gear and then the locker room to change and go home for what you think is gonna be the rest of the day.

A few hours later you find yourself in the hospital where the STRIKE team has been called in the middle of the night because, guess what? Someone tried to kill Director Fury. Or, as it turns out, succeeded.

You’re behind Steve, Natasha and Hill alongside Rumlow and Sitwell, watching Fury flatlining and the doctors calling it.

You want to go with Nat to see Fury, be there for her knowing she cared about him as much as you do, but obviously Rumlow has to be a dick and order you to stay put. And, whether you like it or not, he’s your boss.

He rudely interrupts Nat and Steve’s conversation telling him they need him back at headquarters and you can already tell something’s suddenly off.

As much as Rumlow can be an asshole, he’s never been openly rude towards Steve.

You can hear Sitwell in your earpiece telling the team to bring Rogers in for questioning as he and Rumlow get closer.

“STRIKE, move it out.” he orders but you don't start moving until Steve’s by your side, giving him what you hope is a reassuring smile.

When you get to the Triskelion Steve is taken to Pierce’s office and you get ordered to go to Forensics and check into the evidence found on the roof, then go to Operations Control and wait for there for further instructions, so you do.

When you get to the control room you see Sitwell concentrated on a particular screen so you get close trying not to get noticed and see Steve fighting STRIKE and SHIELD agents in the elevator.

You barely have time to understand what’s happening before he’s throwing himself off the elevator and lands on his shield near the entrance of the building. Thankfully Sitwell’s “Are you kidding me?” covered your quiet “holy shit.”

You’re in the room when Sitwell gives the orders to track down Rogers to all the Agents and when he’s done, you discreetly follow him and the rest of the STRIKE team out the room.

For a bunch of guys who work for a top secret organization they sure suck at knowing when they’re being followed.

No one talks until they get to a deserted corridor. “Pierce is going to kill us. Rogers has the flash drive and can use it to find Zola. You fucked up big time letting him go.” Sitwell sounds pissed.

“Take it easy, four eyes.” Rumlow sounds just as angry “You’re not the one that got punched by a supersoldier.”

They keep talking about the flash drive and Steve and Pierce and Zola. That name sounds familiar but you can’t remember for the life of you where you heard it from.

Then it hits you.

Zola was a former Hydra scientist from World War II, turned ally when the war ended. Thank god the Howling Commandos were hot so you actually paid attention during that particular history class.

You're about to turn away so you won’t risk getting caught eavesdropping when you hear your name being mentioned.

“Someone should keep an eye on her.” Sitwell says, making you worried of becoming the next Shield target, but Rumlow proceeds to ease your worries.

“That’s a waste of manpower. The whole reason she’s even on our team was so we could keep a closer eye on Rogers, but she just spends all her time with Romanoff.”

So that’s why Pierce assigned you to the STRIKE team.

Yeah, you’re closer to Steve than most people but it’s not like you’re best friends, you sometimes hang out outside of work but most of your interactions are mission related.

You decide you've heard enough to kind of put together what’s going on, but there’s not much you can do to help Steve yet, not knowing where he is. So you stick to following the STRIKE team, praying that your absence in the control room goes unnoticed.

STRIKE gets a hit on Steve’s location and you follow them in your car to a mall but think better than to follow them in, waiting patiently outside.

After a few minutes you see Steve and Natasha in their not so well thought out undercover outfits and, once again, the Captain surprises you by hot-wiring a car.

You follow them, more discreetly this time, knowing Natasha and Steve would be better at realizing they’re being followed.

You get to an old army camp in Wheaton, New Jersey and are about to follow them in and make yourself known to them, but before you can get out of your car you hear the plan the STRIKE team has through your comms.

The idiots never even thought about using a different channel. Of course Rumlow would underestimate you this much.

So you decide to drive deeper into the trees surrounding the camp to make sure you’re not visible and wait, knowing Steve and Natasha will need a fast getaway.

You can do nothing more than watch as a missile hits the bunker and the helicopters start coming. You want to go and help them, make sure they're okay, but you will yourself to stay put and not give away your position.

When you can faintly see Steve’s figure, almost running with what looks like Nat in his arms, you finally turn the car on and drive coming to a stop right in front of him and startling him to a stop on his tracks.

“Get in.” you urge him, and he seems wary of you, rightly so. “Come on, Cap, they can’t know I’m here!”

He seems to decide to risk trusting you and delicately sets an unconscious Nat down in the back seat before getting in the passenger’s seat.

As soon as his door is closed you drive away as fast as you can, heading back to Washington and you can feel Steve’s eyes on you.

“How do I know I can trust you?” he finally says after a minute of silence, his eyes never leaving you. “You’re part of them, after all.”

“I can see where you’re coming from, but trust me I’m not one of them.” You glance at him and you can tell that he’s not convinced yet, so you go on. “I didn’t even know who ‘them’ were before today. Apparently the reason Pierce assigned me to the STRIKE team was in hopes to get closer to you. He overestimated how close we actually are. If Natasha was awake right now she would tell you how much I hate working with those assholes… You can trust me.”

You take a look at the rearview mirror and see Natasha, but her relaxed face does nothing to ease your worries.

Steve seems to pick up on your concerns as his features soften and, ever the hopelessly optimistic, he chooses to believe you.

“Okay,” he says, “what do we do now?”

“We have to get you somewhere safe” you check your mirrors as much as you can, making sure you’re not being followed “I don’t know any safehouses outside of Shield's radar. We need a place we can go that they know nothing about.”

“I have an idea.” he says, you glance at him and see him already looking at you, so you nod.

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separatist-apologist · 2 months

Text

Traitors Never Win

Summary: When Feyre Archeron's father promises she'll marry notorious crime boss Rhysand Moreno, Feyre will do anything to get out of the arrangement…including framing him for murder.

Rhysand isn't about to let her go so easily.

Read on AO3

[Five Years Earlier]:

Feyre stood over the lifeless body of her father, her hands coated in sticky blood. Beside her, an aluminum bat lay bloodied on the floor, tossed like trash mere feet from where her father’s body lay. She had killed him in a fit of fury, her patience finally shredded beyond her control. Feyre, like her sisters, was merely a pawn in her fathers criminal enterprise.

The problem was, besides the murder, that she knew he’d loved her in his way. There was no escaping marriage for a woman like her, especially now that she was eighteen. And still, as she stared down at the cooling corpse at her feet, Feyre couldn’t bring herself to regret her actions.

She wasn’t going to marry Rhysand Moreno.

Feyre had never met him, of course—but she’d heard stories. Ruthless and cold, he headed up the rival crime family in the city and was the reason they were in this mess to begin with. Her father had been losing territory for a solid decade, his guys scooped up by cops and jailed. They ratted each other out, damaging the once solid Archeron Family until there was little left.

Nesta should have gone first, Feyre thought with just a touch of frustration. Then Elain. Her sisters were older than her and yet when Rhysand came, he’d came looking for her. He’d promised safety—a merger, of sorts, with Feyre at the center of it all.

So long as she was a dutiful wife and did as she was told, the rest of her family would be cared for. Feyre intended to go through with it…and then tonight had happened. Her father had called her in to discuss the upcoming wedding and what was expected of her and Feyre…just…snapped. Picked up the bat her father kept beside his desk and took a vicious swing. She could have stopped there, but a lifetime’s worth of rage poured out of her until her father was the beaten, bloodied pulp now laying before her. Feyre kept waiting for fear or regret to creep in, but all she really felt was numb.

And maybe the smallest sense of satisfaction.

It was all over now. Somehow, Feyre doubted Rhysand’s affection extended behind a jail cell. She’d gotten the freedom she’d been praying for every night, though not the way she’d imagined it. Feyre reached into her pocket for her cell phone, ears ringing loudly. She was going to call the police, confess to everything, and take responsibility for her actions.

A hand slapped her phone to the ground.

“Don’t you dare,” Nesta hissed. When had she come into the room? Both of her sisters were there, staring down at their father with a mixture of expressions. Elain stood in the doorway perhaps to not bloody the pretty white flats on her feet, her hand pressed against her lips. Nesta was beside Feyre, arms crossed over her chest, her own expression impassive.

“I need to tell the police—”

“You need to lie,” Elain interrupted, her voice cracking beneath the stress.

“This looks like a hit,” Nesta added, cocking her head to the side to really examine the scene.

“Don’t touch anything,” Elain warned, carefully stepping into the room. She was so out of place in her pretty yellow sundress and perfectly curled hair. Daddy’s princess—he would never have forced Elain to marry someone like Rhysand.

That knowledge had once made Feyre angry, but not anymore. Elain didn’t deserve worse than Feyre simply for being their father’s favorite. Nor did she deserve worse because she was the youngest and easiest to forget.

“We’ll say we came home and he was like this,” Nesta told Feyre, turning to face her fully. “We need the same story. We came home, he was already dead, and you panicked until I got here. You’re in shock. The police will go through his records—”

“Oh, god,” Elain said, carefully stepping through the room to make their way toward their fathers desk. Without getting a drop of blood on her clothes, Elain sat in their fathers high back, leather chair, and turned on his computer. They all knew how to delete things that no one should know—no one should see—before the cops found it all.

“Leave it!” Nesta barked, the family lawyer. “Don’t delete anything. They’ll find the marriage contract between Feyre and Rhysand.”

“Why would we want that?” Elain demanded, eyes too glassy to make her irritation sharp.

“Because Feyre is going to tell them the same thing. She’s going to tell them she was being trafficked into an unwanted marriage and she’s going to say she told father so. That he’d finally relented and agreed to call it off. That Rhysand came here and killed him for it.”

“You’re crazy,” Feyre whispered, her voice shaky. “You want to blame this on Rhysand?”

“Two birds, one stone,” Nesta replied crisply. “Men like Rhysand expect contracts to be honored no matter what. Killing father isn’t going to save Feyre…but sicking the feds after him might. If they decide to pin this on him, we can forget he ever existed.”

“You think he’ll let her go that easily?”

Nesta shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out. Now. Do we all understand the roles we’re about to play?”

Elain’s eyes were already watering. She’d be full on sobbing by the time the police arrived. Elain was so good at playing on people’s sympathies. Beautiful and sweet to the point that most people assumed her to be guileless, she’d be the first person the police met. Then Feyre, who would show them the body while Nesta watched, the careful matriarch of their family.

Everything was a blur in the aftermath. Feyre heard herself choking back a sob as she explained the scene to the 911 operator while Elain gave Feyre a thumbs up for encouragement. They didn’t need to speak to one another when the police arrived. Elain was sobbing while Nesta paced and Feyre just stood there, pale and blank. They could hear the jokes about their family on the lawn and endured the jabs about their father’s profession.

They were excluded given none of them worked for him. And still, Feyre saw even Elain clenching her fists when yet another remark went flying, earning the laughter of the cops tramping all over the scene. Everyone was so desperate to find some juicy detail that they didn’t seem to mind that they were contaminating the scene. And by the time the feds arrived and forced the local cops out, Feyre knew they wouldn’t be able to tell who had picked up that bat and swung. At least six different officers had touched it by then, and she’d heard a couple of them taking pictures with her fathers dead body.

She wished Rhysand had committed this crime, if only to see him come back and kill everyone making jokes, too. That was a dangerous thing to wish, though. It meant the man she was so close to escaping could just saunter back into her life and do her a favor…for a price, of course.

“Feyre?” A masculine voice pulled her from her thoughts. Looking up from her spot between her sisters on the front porch steps, Feyre found herself looking at a pair of federal agents wearing badges—Rosewood and Vanserra.

“She’s not talking without her lawyer present,” Nesta said before Feyre could get a word out, causing the man with the long, auburn hair pulled into a ponytail to smile, though he tried to smother it quickly. He looked like a man who’d seen at least some action if the trio of brutal scars running down one side of his face was any indication. Handsome, too, for a cop—beautiful, really, in the same way Elain was.

Maybe that was why her older sister was watching this man shyly. Or maybe it was merely another act Elain put on to make people think she was helpless so they’d want to protect her.

The other man had shorter, blonder hair and a pair of pine green eyes currently burning a hole through Feyre’s skull. Unlike his smiling partner, he seemed to be taking the entire thing seriously.

Extending his hand, he said, “Tamlin Rosewood. I’ve got some questions for you, Miss Archeron—”

“She’s not talking without her lawyer,” Nesta repeated.

“I suppose that's you?” Vanserra asked in a voice far deeper and richer than she’d expected.

“For now,” Nesta replied. Tamlin sighed, clearly frustrated.

“Look…you don’t have to say anything. Just listen. We’ve got a hit in there and a man we’ve never been able to get anything on.”

“She’s not helping you with your investigation,” Nesta spat.

Tamlin ignored her. “I want to put the three of you in witness protection,” he said, catching them all by surprise. “Just until we’ve got enough on Rhysand. And I want you to testify,” Tamlin added, turning to look at Feyre again. “Put that fucker behind bars for good.”

“Witness protection?” Elain asked, eyes bouncing from Vanserra to Tamlin.

“It’s not forever,” Vanserra told her, sucked in just like every other man on the planet. Feyre almost felt bad for him. Almost. If he liked Elain, he’d want her to be safe and that was enough for Feyre at the moment.

“I’ll do whatever you need me to,” Feyre said before Nesta could interrupt again. That was true. She wanted to live her life without the threat of Rhysand hanging over her head. They’d start over somewhere new, just until Rhysand was ready to go on trial for a crime he hadn’t committed. Feyre would lie and say the murder was over her refusal to get married and then she’d come home if she wanted.

Or maybe she’d stay wherever they sent her. She was young, just eighteen, and figured she had more than enough time. How long could it possibly take. A year? Two?

“We want to put the three of you in a hotel tonight,” Vanserra told them earnestly, careful to look at the three of them rather than just Elain. “We’ll have more details for you in the morning. Right now, I just need you to pack up your things. Whatever you want to take with you…there’s time.”

“We’ll be right outside,” Tamlin added, still looking wholly at Feyre. “Take your time.”

It wasn’t forever.

And so they stood up and went back inside.

[Present Day]:

“Good morning, Feyre,” Tamlin said with an easy smile, popping his head through the front door. Feyre, paint stained and still a little sunburned from the day before, grinned when she saw him.

“Hey Tam,” she replied, plunking a paintbrush into a coffee cup filled with murky brown water. “You’re back!”

“If I ask to come out too often, I get questioned,” Tamlin admitted, ducking inside her two bedroom townhouse sheepishly. “Plus every form needs to be filled out in triplicate…”

“What do you tell them?” she asked, rising from her chair at the dining table.

“That there are things I need to ask you that can’t be asked over the phone,” he replied, eyes flashing ever so slightly.

“That’s all you tell them?” she teased.

Tamlin reached her, running his fingers over her bare, freckled arm. “If I told them that being away from you for months at a time was driving me crazy, they’d assign another agent and move you somewhere I’d never see you again.”

“And we can’t have that, now can we?” she said, leaning up on her tiptoes for a kiss. Feyre couldn’t remember when this had started. Sometime between moving in and the intense loneliness that sometimes overtook her, Tamlin had become someone she genuinely cared about. Someone she thought she could love if they were ever in the same place longer than a weekend. She knew Tamlin’s time was limited, which was why the pair hastily shed their clothes, mouths frantic as he managed to get her upstairs to the bedroom. Tamlin was strong, hoisting her up in his arms and carrying her up the stairs and Feyre had always liked that about him.

He had become her savior, somehow. The man who’d showed up right when she needed him. Who’d protected her from a monster that was still hunting her—trying to enforce a contract she’d never agreed to and never signed. She and her sisters were scattered, though Feyre knew that Nesta was somewhere in the south and Elain had ended up in the midwest. Feyre was in Portland working as an art teacher at a local elementary school and teaching paint classes for date nights and bachelorette parties in her spare time.

In the years since her fathers murder, she’d graduated college and settled into her life. She had a cat Bryaxis and her neighbors all knew her by name. Not Feyre, of course—they called her Sarah. Which was, maybe, why being with Tamlin felt so good. He knew who she was, could call her by her real name and tell her about the life she missed. Tamlin gave her information about her sisters in between all the sex, and the updates on her fathers case that Feyre was always desperate to hear.

After all. She’d killed her father and the only people who knew were her, her sisters…and probably Rhysand at this point. He must have figured it out—the thought gnawed at her. Laying naked in bed beside Tamlin, Feyre asked, “How are things going?”

Tamlin shrugged, his expression tightening. “I can’t say much…but this is almost over. You’ll be able to leave soon if you want.”

“And if I don’t?” she questioned, kissing the tips of his fingers.

“I was thinking I could request a new post,” Tamlin said, rolling on his side to look at her. “If that was something you wanted.”

Was it? “We can talk about it,” Feyre said with a smile, delighted when he pulled the blankets up over their head for another round. They stayed in bed for the majority of the day, ordering food to the door once to eat it half dressed while they talked. Feyre talked and talked about everything, trying to fill the silence Tamlin so often left behind. He just never had much to say, the one thing that kept Feyre from truly jumping into whatever was happening with them.

She didn’t know if she wanted a lifetime of this. Maybe it was just being young and inexperienced talking…maybe relationships were a give and take. Tamlin had saved her and she cared about him, but it would have been nice sometimes to hear him talk about what he even liked about her. Feyre was always too afraid to ask—not since she’d once mentioned he never paid her compliments and he’d responded awkwardly by telling her that her hair looked clean.

It was possible that Tamlin’s reasons made sense to him, but were difficult to vocalize. She just wanted a little time to think about it—and she knew she’d get it that next morning.

“Another agent will be coming by soon,” Tamlin told her over breakfast, redressed in his suit. “Just to give you the rundown on what’s happening. I’m going to put in a request for vacation the week before we fly you back so I can help you get ready.”

“So this is definitely happening?” Feyre asked, suddenly too nervous to eat.

Tamlin nodded, raising his coffee mug to his swollen lips. “The last of our evidence was sent to a federal prosecutor. Now we just wait and see…I’m not going to lie to you. You’re our most solid piece of evidence and the whole case hinges on your testimony.”

Feyre offered him a pretty smile. “No pressure, then.”

“No pressure at all,” Tamlin replied, offering her a smile that didn’t quite meet his eyes.

“I won’t let you down, Tam,” she promised, reaching over the table to take his hand in hers. “We’re going to put him away.”

“I know he’s plotting,” Tamlin murmured, pulling his hand out of Feyre’s grip. “I can feel it. Whatever happens next, he’ll have a response for it. I just hope we’re ready.”

“We are,” Feyre assured him. She believed that, too—long after Tamlin had left, Feyre was bolstered by his visit. It wasn’t just the sex, but the knowledge he’d given her. How long did she have, really? Six months? A year, tops? Having spent her life watching the feds dog her fathers footsteps, she knew they’d be foaming at the mouth to take down another mobster. They’d want an airtight case to make punishment inescapable, which meant they’d be more cautious before laying down charges. Feyre could survive that. She could make it through one last Portland winter before finally returning home as herself. No more Sarah, no more hiding, no more wondering what her would-be husband was doing, planning, plotting.

He’d spend the rest of his life reflecting on the fact that he’d been outsmarted by the woman he’d once thought to trap. Feyre hoped it rotted him from the inside out, left him festering and hollow. All that money and power and for what?

He still couldn’t beat Feyre Archeron.

RHYS:

The hotel door opened quietly, flooding light from the hall into the tiny, smoke scented room. Rhys didn’t move from his chair, still shrouded in darkness. He listened as the lock clicked and the chain slid into place, trapping the pair of them inside. He held his breath and waited for the man to step into the main room and hit the switch.

“You.”

Rhys smiled, looking up at Tamlin Rosewood. He was mere seconds from knowing where Tamlin had come from and finally putting the nightmare he’d been living to rest. Slowly, Tamlin set his carry on to the green carpeted floor before raising his hands.

He’d seen the gun in Rhys’s, pointed directly at his center. Did he realize this was the end for him? That he’d never get to say goodbye to the people he loved? He must have—there was a grimness to his expression that Rhys would be thinking about for years to come.

“Me,” Rhys replied, rising slowly from the rickety chair in the corner of the room. “You seem surprised.”

“You’re being monitored,” Tamlin replied flatly. That was the thing about federal agents—they lacked imagination. Truthfully, they were too in love with the rules that it was embarrassingly easy to get around them. Rhysand was being followed all day, every day. His calls monitored, women wearing wires thrown in front of him hoping he’d divulge a few secrets for a little pussy.

Rhys was a faithful man. That was the first thing Tamlin never figured out about him. The man was about to learn, though.

“Am I?” Rhys questioned, amused by his words. “I had an easy time getting through the airport.”

“I’m not going to tell you where Feyre is,” Tamlin said, daring to speak her name. All Rhys’s amusement evaporated, replaced with burning hot rage.

“I don’t need you to tell me anything about her,” Rhys replied casually, holding Tamlin’s stare. “Just one thing about you.”

“What?”

“Did you fuck my wife?”

Tamlin blinked, uncertainty sliding over his features. Sweet little Feyre—his murderous little love. She’d been keeping so many secrets since she’d left and it wasn’t surprising she’d keep this one, too. He could forgive her for having Tamlin. He imagined she was lonely and scared. Maybe she thought she needed to keep the agent placated so he didn’t realize the truth everyone else could so plainly see. Or maybe she was desperate and Tamlin was available. Rhys didn’t like that last option, though he conceded it was possible she merely wanted someone around and would settle for the human equivalent of drywall.

“Excuse me?” Tamlin asked, lips parted with surprise.

“Did. You. Fuck. My. Wife?” Rhys enunciated each word slowly, forgetting that Tamlin wasn’t just terribly dull, but also impossibly stupid, too.

“She’s—she’s not your wife—” Tamlin spluttered, his words cut off but the ringing shot of a bullet. Rhys could have made it quick, ending Tamlin before he even knew what happened. That kind of peace was undeserved by the man hunting him…by the man who’d spent the weekend defiling Rhys’s wife. He shot Tamlin in the chest just so Tamlin would be forced to spend his final, terrifying moments with Rhys.

There would be no peace. Not in this life and not in the next. Rhys walked over to Tamlin, ignoring the gasps coming from purple lips. “She is my wife,” Rhys whispered, not caring that it wasn’t technically true. “And she killed her father that night. This has been a little game between us, but it’s over now.”

Tamlin’s last expression was one of horror before it flattened entirely. One last exhale that Rhys breathed in, just in case Tamlin’s soul thought he could escape. It was only then that Rhys stood and tucked his weapon into his holster beneath his jacket.

Rhys spent a minute rifling through Tamlin’s things. He quickly recorded Feyre’s phone number in his, giddy at the thought of having it at all. He found Tamlin’s last few locations on his phone, including a residential home in Portland, Oregon.

Sloppy, Rhys thought, though he already knew where she was. Killing Tamlin was merely a formality Rhys had always planned to carry out. He’d accelerated that plan when he’d learned Tamlin was fucking Feyre, which, he could admit, sent him into a jealous spiral. He’d imagined she was living much like he was—like a fucking monk.

That ended now, though.

What Rhys really needed was the badge and gun in Tamlin’s pocket. He had everything he needed beyond that. The one saving grace between himself and Feyre was the fact they’d never met one another. She’d been merely a picture on his screen when her father came begging for help. One of his daughters to get the debtors off his tail before they killed him. His crumbling empire, united through one woman.

He’d been offered the eldest first before the reluctant middle, but neither were of any interest to Rhys. And the third might not have either had it not been for her eyes. He could still remember the sight of her, smiling like a cat holding a mouse. A beautiful woman—the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, if he was honest—with a secret. Something dark, something scary.

It had been a hunch back then, proven right when the feds came knocking on his door. Archeron was dead, bludgeoned with his own baseball bat. And pretty little Feyre Archeron swore it was him. Rhys knew then he’d been right about her, though she’d vanished into thin air by the time he managed to steal away to see her.

So began a five year chase. Feyre was smart, of course, but so was he. Tracking her down began by finding her sisters first. Nesta Archeron was holed up in some swampy Georgia town which made her the easier of the three to find. And Nesta, for all her brains, routinely emailed her younger sister Elain.

Elain was harder to pin down. Living in Chicago, she had a personal watchdog in the form of Agent Vanserra, who was protected by his Senator brother. Elain, though, had a burner phone the agent didn’t know about—and on that phone she texted Feyre. Finding that link had taken Rhys the better part of three years.

Tracking her to Portland took another year, though it shouldn’t have. That was the year the feds ramped up how hard they surveilled him, and every electronic he owned ended up being traced and tapped. Let them think he didn’t care about her. Let them never see Rhys search for her, hear him speak of her.

It was Tamlin who fucked it all up. He’d let it slip to Vanserra, unaware Rhys was just as capable of tapping a phone. I was with Feyre this weekend. Hearing those words filled Rhys with a rage he still struggled to contain. Feyre was supposed to be with him—and instead, she was spending time with his greatest enemy.

It was over now. As far as the FBI knew, Rhys was at home, pacing his study and raging about a deal gone wrong. And by the time anyone realized the truth of things, Feyre would be his wife in the ways that mattered to the federal government, and no longer able to lie under oath. Rhys pulled out his phone and sent one message to two contacts.

Lock it down.

And then he was off.

Rhys stepped onto a weed freckled lawn a little after nine in the morning. An overgrown bush had taken over the paved path up the sidewalk, but Rhys didn’t mind getting his shoes a little muddy. Among the row of townhouses, this one had a bright purple door and a half dead fern on the little porch.

Charming.

He knocked, eyes obscured behind a pair of mirrored shades. Behind the door, Rhys heard the sound of thudding feet on stairs before the door opened and there she was. Her chestnut hair was pulled into a long braid draped over an exposed, freckled shoulder. She had a smudge of red paint on her cheek and a splatter of freckles along the bridge of her nose.

And those mischievous, dark blue eyes.

“Sarah?” he asked, certain he’d blow his cover if he called her Feyre. Rhys flashed the badge at her, assuming she wasn’t going to take it from him and scrutinize.

She rolled her eyes. “What can I do for you…?”

He wasn’t going to lie about his name. “Rhys,” he replied with a lopsided grin. “They should have told you about me.”

“Yeah, Tamlin did. Come inside, then, before the neighbors start wondering why there’s a cop on my doorstep.”

He did look like a cop, but that was the point. He wanted her to see him as professional before she saw him as himself.

“Unfortunate name,” she called over her shoulder as Rhys stepped inside. Unfortunate—

“Oh,” he said with a weak laugh. “Yeah. My mom was Welsh, though, so I come by the name naturally. Belonged to my grandpa.” Why was he telling her this? Stop talking.

“Oh yeah? Better than me—my mom found it in some fairytale she’d read as a child. Feyre,” she muttered as she led him into the main artery of her home.

“It’s a beautiful name,” Rhys heard himself saying. She glanced up at him, brow furrowed and slowly—so, so slowly—Rhys slid his sunglasses over her eyes to rest atop his head. This was the moment. Would he hold her hostage, or would she accept this lie?

There was no recognition on her face. She didn’t know. Rhys had always wondered how much her father told her—how much she’d known about him before the murder. And after, he could never be sure if someone had shown her pictures. They hadn’t. Feyre had only her imagination to go on.

Good.

“Anyway, are you staying here?”

Rhys blinked, his plans shifting once again. “Yes. Until the indictment,” he lied, because how would she know, anyway? Her eyes brightened.

“They charged him?”

Rhys smiled. “It’s almost over. Just three months and I’ll be flying you back home and you’ll be free of all this.”

Her smile seemed to split her face. “Oh my god. I can see my sisters again.”

Potentially—if Cassian and Azriel managed to keep them unaware and out of the way he supposed. Again, they could work this all out later.

“Well,” Feyre said, taking a deep breath of air. “Let me show you to your room, then.”

Rhys smiled back. “Lead the way.”

#feysand #feyre archeron #rhysand #feyre x rhysand

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the-guilty-writer · 1 year

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Death by a Thousand Cuts

Request from anon: Spencer x daughter!reader (like 19/20) after the JJ confession she like storms into the BAU to confront her and basically is really mad that she told him that whilst married

“He told me, about the date. I was too young but I just remember him crying.”

“You don’t get to do that, you don’t get to choose when he matters to you and when he doesn’t. You don’t get to tell him something like that knowing you have a family and he only has me. It was a shitty thing to do. You’re so f****** selfish”

Sorry I went off I just hate that scene it was so pointless hahha

But I need some protective daughter!!!!

Spencer Reid x daughter!reader

Summary: After you hear about JJ's feelings towards your dad, you tell her the truth about how you feel about her too... and it's not friendly.

A/N: This is basically just the reader yelling… I’ll let you guys imagine how the conversation afterwards might go (this will not have a part 2). I changed the dialogue a bit to have it make more sense but kept it the same for the most part. This is also unintentionally Taylor Swift inspired. The lyric just fit so I put it in.

CW: Spoilers for S15, swearing, reader is kinda really mean to JJ (it's understandable thought)

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Trying to find a part of me you didn't take up Gave you too much but it wasn't enough But I'll be all right, it's just a thousand cuts -Taylor Swift, Death by a Thousand Cuts

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It was a conversation that you were sure you weren’t supposed to hear… honestly, it was a conversation that your Aunt Penny wasn’t supposed to hear either. You were on your weekly phone call with her when she told you about it… what JJ had said to your dad. Well, she didn’t exactly tell you as much as you could tell something was off and then you pressed until she spilled.

At first you had kept your composure- simply saying goodbye to Penny. You’d driven peacefully from your college campus to the BAU. You were pleasant while going through the security check. It wasn’t until the elevator indicated you’d reached the sixth floor of the building that your vision went red, anger burning inside you like a fire that was burning at the edge of its confinement, blood boiling in your ears.

You stepped out of the elevator and went straight through the glass doors, not even bothering to say hello to Agent Anderson as you passed him in the hall. The team was in the bullpen, all at their prospective desks, calmly working on files when you marched your storm of anger right through the office.

“You bitch!” Your voice was filled with fury as you seemingly hurdled yourself towards JJ’s desk. “You selfish little-”

Luke grabbed you hard before you could swing your fists in the direction of the blonde woman you once would have trusted with your life. You strained against the man holding you. The sounds of voices filled the bullpen and agents were getting out of their seats but no one bothered to reach for a side arm. You weren’t a real threat.

But you didn’t need a gun to kill someone.

“(Y/N)-” Your dad’s voice stuck out to you. “What happened?”

You looked at your dad for only a split second before turning your head to meet JJ’s gaze. Both of you knew what happened. You stopped your struggle against Alvez and he loosened his grip, letting you go, but your eyes never left JJ’s.

“If there’s something you need to talk about, you can do it in my office,” Emily offered, but in your feeling of anger you didn’t want help from the woman who faked her death, leaving you and your dad to mourn her only to find out she was alive seven months later.

“How could you?” The fury was beginning to taste bitter with sadness. “How could you do this to my dad? How could you do this to Will and Henry and Micheal-”

JJ cut you off. She was calmer than you, but just as loud. “You don’t get to bring my family into this-”

“Yes I do!” you screamed. “Because I actually give a shit about people! Because for ten years Will took care of me while you guys were out on cases and Henry brought me to show and tell as his older sister when he was in kindergarten and my name was one of Micheal’s first words! So yes- I do get to bring your family into this because I care about them. I care that someone loves them because that’s what they deserve! They don’t deserve to have a wife and a mother who tells another man that she’s always loved him- especially when that man is their godfather! You don’t get to say things like that when you had the chance to do it fifteen years ago!”

JJ’s eyes were filled with tears. Her voice was meek as she spoke. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh really?” Your laugh was humorless and dry. “Because I do. I was only four at the time, but he told me about the date. I was too young to understand what was truly going on but I just remember him crying. You had your chance, JJ. You had a choice and you decided against my dad. He’s always cared about you. You could have at least told him that he mattered.”

“Your dad matters to me-”

“No!” you cut her off this time. “You don’t get to do that- you don’t get to choose when he matters to you and when he doesn’t. You don’t get to tell him something like that knowing you have a family and he has me. It was a shitty thing to do. You’re so fucking selfish. You hurt everyone who cares about you and you don’t even see it because you’re too busy making sure everything goes the way you want it to. Fifteen years ago you made a choice and you sure as hell don't get to go back on it and damage everyone around you, especially not my dad.”

The bullpen was silent, the venom in your words lingering in the air. Having said what you needed to, you turned away and walked back towards the glass doors. Before you pushed against them, you stopped and turned to glance back.

The entire team was staring at you, utterly bewildered by the events that had just transpired. The only one who wasn’t looking at you was JJ- her eyes averted from the person who had called her out on all her bullshit, every mistake she had made, every insecurity she had now out and open for everyone to see.

And some malicious part of you was happy she was in pain.

“You know,” your voice was calm now, “my mother was a bitch, but at least she was kind enough to break my dad’s heart and leave. But you, JJ? There isn't a single part of our family- our lives- that you didn't touch. You've taken everything and it's stil not enough for you, so the rest of us have to suffer death by a thousand cuts.”

Without another word you pushed open the doors and left.

#criminal minds fanfiction #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x daughter!reader #spencer reid x child!reader #spencer reid x y/n #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds x y/n #criminal minds x teen!reader #criminal minds x daughter!reader #criminal minds x child!reader

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musclesandhammering · 5 months

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Unpopular Phase 4 & 5 Opinions

Quantumania is the worst Phase 4/5 movie. And it wasn’t even because “kang got beat by ants.” (I liked kang in this movie). It’s just that the Spy Kids aesthetic & bad acting & overall weird vibes just weren’t for me.

Love and Thunder is no worse than Ragnarok. I would argue that it’s better in a lot of ways, actually. I really liked it.

Taika Waititi ruined thor with bad humour all the way back in Ragnarok tbh, but y’all weren’t complaining about it then 😒.

BuckySarah is better than sambucky every day of the week.

The Marvels was a good ass movie & they’re one of my favorite teams in the mcu. I’ll never forgive cbm sites & online dudebros for killing the hype from the moment the film was announced.

I adore America Chavez & Kamala Kahn and I want to see them in everything. They must be protected at all costs.

Multiverse of Madness had shitty characterisation & basically just copy-pasted the ‘grief made me go off the deep end & hurt people, then I realised and stopped myself’ storyline from Wandavision… but Wanda was extremely selfish & apathetic to other people’s suffering from the time she was introduced in the mcu. MoM didn’t make her like that.

Wanda should’ve been looking for Vision (her actual real life boyfriend whom she spent years with irl) in MoM instead of the kids that weren’t even real that she spent like a week using as characters in her sitcom.

Making everyone forget Peter Parker wasn’t profound or poetic in any way- it was just frustrating and needlessly cruel.

I’m begging marvel to understand that heroes don’t have to be in constant suffering to be heroic & villains don’t have to sacrifice themselves to achieve redemption. Let characters heal and atone, you absolute weirdos.

What If…? is the most boring show ever. I’d rather watch Secret Invasion or She-Hulk.

Season 2 of Loki is, in a cinematic & artistic sense, the best marvel project period.

Loki season 1 was meh- more of a fun au than anything because his characterisation kinda sucked. Season 2 fixed it, though, and made it way easier for me to incorporate this version of Loki back into the larger mcu.

Having Steve stay in the past with Peggy was stupid af.

I don’t hate Peggy (or Captain Carter), though. I actually think she’s pretty cool.

I don’t really love Steve. He’s arrogant & they never really let him have flaws & something about him being a perfect metaphor for the American military industrial complex (and marvel painting that as a good thing) doesn’t sit right with me.

The Illuminati got done dirty and the only reason they went down so fast was because Wanda had all that plot armor.

I thought the retcon of having Wanda be “destined” to become the Scarlet Witch since birth was an annoying cop-out. Her powers originating from being experimented on with an infinity stone was way more interesting.

Loki & Wanda have almost the exact same powers.

Nebula deserved a bigger rule in killing Thanos & everything else moving forward.

I love Kathryn Newton but her acting as Cassie Lang was the worst acting I’ve ever seen in the mcu, like it was outrageously bad.

I’m glad Sam is the new Captain America and not Bucky.

The fact that Bucky probably isn’t gonna be one of Thee lead characters in the upcoming avengers movies feels sick and twisted.

Secret Invasion was actually passable until the G’iah scene at the end. That ruined it. And Nick Fury deserved way better for his solo series.

Kang is so much more interesting than Doctor Doom. I really hope they just recast him.

Carol Danvers does NOT deserve the hate she gets.

I actually disliked Carol until The Marvels. That movie made me a stan.

The way people treat Monica as Wanda’s little inferior pet creation or smth & then brag about it is uhh very sus.

I don’t like sylvie (bc she’s an amalgamation of 3 different comic characters- which killed any hopes of them appearing individually in the mcu, the creators used her existence to butcher Loki’s genderfluid rep, & she was written poorly) & I HATE sylki (bc it’s weird & unnecessary).

Marvel isn’t dead. I actually love where they’re taking things. But that’s just me.

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cooliogirl101 · 6 months

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sayuri and tiny feral shen jiu!!! i am so interested in what their dynamics would be like

“What are you waiting for? Get rid of the girl already,” Wu Yanzi demanded impatiently.

Shen Jiu stiffened.

“There’s no need. She won’t tell anyone,” he answered, keeping his voice carefully even. “Shizun, the authorities will be here any moment. We should leave.”

“All the more reason to kill her quickly, then,” Wu Yanzi sneered. “She’s a witness and if you’re too stupid to see what a liability she is—”

The remainder of Wu Yanzi’s words would forever have to remain a mystery, however, because the next moment he was staggering back, both hands clutching the knife lodged in his throat, voice trailing off into a wet gurgle. Shen Jiu gaped, then whirled around to see Qiu Haitang standing up, apparently not unconscious after all, casually brushing the dirt off her clothes.

“Haitang,” Shen Jiu managed. His tongue felt slow and heavy inside his mouth.

“A-Jiu,” she returned. If she was at all bothered by the fact that she’d just killed someone (and he still couldn’t wrap his head around sweet, innocent, bright-eyed Tangtang taking a life), she didn’t show it. “I suppose I owe you a great deal for uncovering this scoundrel’s scheme and arriving in the nick of time to save my life. It’s unfortunate that the rest of the household didn’t make it but at least their souls can rest easy knowing their killer was caught and killed in the middle of executing his plan.”

She said all this very blandly, with about the same level of emotion as someone reading last month’s budgetary reports out loud. Shen Jiu vaguely wondered if he’d hit his head on his way out of the burning building.

“Haitang, I promise you, I wasn’t— this isn’t— I can explain. Your family—” He stuttered, stumbling over his words in his rush to get them out.

The look of absolute hatred that crossed Qiu Haitang’s face at that moment made the words dry up in Shen Jiu’s throat.

“They’re not my family,” she hissed, icy fury saturating every syllable. “My family would never have done the things they did.”

Shen Jiu swallowed.

“You knew.” All this time, he’d thought—

“A recent development,” she admitted, the coldness in her eyes receding and reverting to its prior emptiness.

“I never wanted you to be involved,” he stated, the closest thing to an apology he could bring himself to say. “I should go.”

“Don’t be a fool, A-Jiu,” Haitang huffed. “There are few ways to make yourself look more guilty than by fleeing from the scene of a crime.”

“But the authorities—”

“Haven’t we already established that you were the one to uncover that murderer’s plan and arrive just in time to save my life?” she said blandly. “You’re a hero, Xiao Jiu.”

“You can’t possibly believe that’ll work,” Shen Jiu said incredulously. There was no way it could be that easy. It couldn’t be that easy, could it?

“Lucky for us, the only other witness is in no state to provide a credible statement at this time,” Qiu Haitang said, aiming a rather vicious kick at Wu Yanzi’s corpse.

Shen Jiu looked at her for a long moment. All this time, he’d thought that she’d been the one person ignorant to his situation, blinded by her own naïveté and love towards her father and brother.

He didn’t know her at all, he realized with a faint note of wonderment.

“Why?” He asked, desperate to understand. Why give him an alibi? Why help him cover up the murders of her own family? Why help him?

She was quiet for a long moment.

“Because if I don’t have you, I don’t have anyone,” she said finally. “Isn’t that enough?”

Shen Jiu thought about Yue Qi and broken promises, about staying behind on a sinking ship long after he should have swam for safety, all for the tiny glimmer of a hope that he still had someone in this world who cared about him. Who would come back for him.

“Yes, I suppose it is,” he answered.

#tlm!au #murder cat au

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yujeong · 1 month

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I saw ur post about wanting writing prompts so I thought why not lol. (This is my first time doing this 😅) but I have a few of AUs on my art blog that I would love to see expanded on like my Tall Pete/Short Vegas au, A band au with Vegas being a lead singer and Pete falling in love at first sight, or Pete being Vegas’ personal bodyguard instead of Tankhun’s. So yea if u find any of these interesting I’d love to see ur spin on it

OMG hi! Thank you so much for sending me this, I'm so flattered you thought of asking me to write sth surrounding your AUs ❤️ It kind of feels like the secret Santa event all over again, I love it haha. The timing is actually a little too perfect, because a few weeks ago, I randomly stumbled upon a YouTube short about the side couple in Laws of Attraction and I proceeded to 1. lose my shit, so much so that I decided to start watching the show and 2. write a whole page full of notes about an AU in which Pete is Vegas' bodyguard, based on the pool scene of said short. So, to give a little context: In this alternative universe, Vegas and Gun visit the main family compound for a meeting. At some point, Korn wants to talk to Gun alone, so Vegas goes to the pool area to find Porsche, along with Pete who follows him. Vegas proceeds to flirt with Porsche, as Vegas does, up until Gun suddenly appears and starts yelling at him for unclear reasons. He escalates it when Vegas asks, baffled, why he's being yelled at, by slapping him and putting his head into the pool. Pete normally doesn't intervene when Gun gets violent with Vegas, but his protective instincts here kick in and he stops Gun from literally attempting to kill his own son. As a result, Gun's anger gets redirected at Pete, who gets beaten up in Vegas' stead. The snippet I wrote for you is the aftermath of everything I described above. I hope you like it ❤️ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Silence, occasionally broken by a faint sound that resembled sniffing. Pete couldn’t tell what it was, but in his state he couldn’t really tell where he was either, so he stopped worrying about it. He tried, instead, to remember what had happened that brought him here, wherever “here” was. The last thing he recalled was the feeling of Khun Gun’s shoes digging into his forearms, which he used in his attempt to protect his head from his boss’ repeated, brutal kicks. Khun Gun wasn’t the strongest man Pete had ever met, but there were reasons he always tried to stay on his good side, and his cruelty was one of them. The cruelty that had so many times been directed at his own son. The kind he was eerily familiar with.

Khun Vegas’ face materialized in Pete’s mind. Droplets of water running down his nose, his sharp cheekbones, reaching his neck. His hair wet and disheveled, his chest heaving from the difficulty to breathe after having had his head shoved into the pool. His expression crumbling with worry, something Pete had no logical way of explaining. Fuck, where was he? Pete could only hope Porsche had protected him from his father’s fury afterwards. Khun Gun was unpredictable; he couldn't be trusted to only be satisfied by lashing out at Pete. Pete needed to go find him as soon as possible. Opening his eyes proved to be a challenge. A heavy fog was clouding his vision, and the pain that was engulfing his whole body was preventing him from doing the simplest of movements. He groaned as he shifted his torso in a futile attempt to get up, resulting in a gasp that startled him into opening his eyes to check where it came from. His mouth was hanging open as he took in the image of Khun Vegas staring at him, fidgeting nervously in the chair he was sitting on. His eyes were red around the corners and he looked ghostly pale. Pete’s breath hitched. “Pete… ?” he said, dropping his gaze to the floor. He always did that when he was feeling guilty about something. “Are you... ?” “I’m fine, Khun Vegas,” Pete replied, despite the numbness in his limbs and the headache that was starting to form. “What about you? Are you hurt? Should I take you to the doct-” “We’re at the infirmary, you idiot,” Vegas shouted, interrupting him, but his voice lacked the usual heat. “Stop acting like my bodyguard right now, it pisses me off.” That’s all I know how to be, Pete wanted to tell him, but remained silent. That’s all I’m allowed. He didn’t really mind Khun Vegas’ words. He’d heard worse things over the years, things that should have probably hurt him. Somehow, Pete had the ability to forgive him anything. The atmosphere grew tense between them. Pete had grown used to that, too, but he had never seen Khun Vegas be so self conscious before. He wondered why the sudden change. “I’m not thanking you,” Pete heard him murmur after a few seconds; he uttered the words under his breath, while staring at his feet. If Pete had a better view of his face, he’d argue Khun Vegas was pouting. Pete could only reassure him. “You don’t have to, Khun Vegas. I was simply doing my job.” It had the opposite effect. The creases between his eyebrows deepened as he lifted his head and stared at Pete. Astonished as his mouth was open agape, likely for a retort that never came. Alternatively, he turned his attention to the small table next to Pete’s bed. He stood up and approached it hastily, grabbing something that was resting on top of it, before Pete could take a closer look. “The nurse said you have to take this,” he said and extended his arm at Pete, revealing a small pill. It was probably a standard type of painkiller. Bodyguards never got any special medical treatment, especially those working for the minor family. It wasn’t worth the trouble. Pete tried to lift his hand to take it, but he bitterly realized it was impossible. He winced as he took a look at both of his arms and found them bandaged, smears of purple popping at places his skin was uncovered. He cursed under his breath. “Ah, I’m sorry, Khun Vegas, I’ll just call the-” Cold fingertips pressed on Pete’s chin. They felt even colder on his lips, the pressure just enough to make him open his mouth. The pill slipped between his teeth easily, with the help of a wet tongue he'd never thought he'd get to taste. Hot air hit Pete’s cheeks. His heart was beating rapidly. For a moment, he forgot how to breathe. Water traveled down his throat, taking the pill with it. Pete blinked. His head felt light, his body even lighter. He didn’t know how to describe the feeling, but he didn’t think it was bad. He focused, instead, on Vegas, who was standing above him with an unusual sense of confidence. “Get well soon. That’s an order.” It was enough to ground Pete back into reality. He was thankful for it.

“Yes, Khun Vegas.” It was only then that Pete noticed how the color returned on Vegas’ face and how his slight trembling seized. “Has Pete woken up yet?” Both of them jumped at the sound of Porsche’s voice. He poked his head into the room, completely oblivious to what had transpired before he showed up. “Oh, he has. How are you feeling?” “Good,” he replied sincerely. The pain didn’t bother him anymore. A smile spread on his lips as he added, “Khun Vegas just gave me my medicine.” Porsche returned it, though his was more mischievous than playful. “Pete, you should have seen Vegas while he waited for you to wake up. I’ve never seen him crying so hard-” Vegas punched Porsche hard on the shoulder to stop him from talking, which made loud laughter escape Pete’s mouth. It earned him a glare, one of Vegas' serious ones. It'd bring him hell later, but Pete realized he was fine with that.

#it feels so weird posting sth I wrote without having it beta read #shout out to my beautiful beta thank you for keeping me sane #sth I wanted to add but Tumblr doesn't let me is that here Vegas and Pete have a significant age gap #Vegas is 20 at most while Pete is around 28 #it's how Laws of Attraction inspired me I'm sorry people #this may turn into an actual fic if I get inspiration to write the rest of it #God it feels good to write again #I have a few more prompts to write and I will I promise #I've kind of figured them all out but it'll take a little while longer #but thank you to everyone who sent me a prompt they're all incredible #it means the world to me #kinnporche the series #vegaspete #fanfic writing #writers asks #writing prompt

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loveronlineee · 2 years

Text

Stranger Things Season 4 Volume 2 spoilers.

At first it was denial.

I saw the signs. I saw how he said Never change Dustin Henderson. I saw him say again and again that he’s no hero. I saw him go back to give the others more time. I watched as he lay so close to gone with Dustin holding him and I still didn’t believe it.

Then it was shock.

How the time skip happened and everyone was safely back, out of the upside down. No mention of Eddie from anyone, until Dustin.

Then it changed again, going back and forth between heart wrenching mourning and white hot anger.

I am upset. The kind of upset where your feelings overcome your body and you can’t even stand, your knees giving in beneath you. Crying on the floor. Watching the tears fall onto the ground, inches from your face.

I am upset. The kind of upset where you can’t even hold back the fury. Where nothing will calm you down and you’re shaking and tense, and you just have to feel that feeling with every fibre of your being until it turns back into tears.

I convinced myself that Eddie wasn’t going to die. I read posts saying that Eddie and Jonathan were gonna have scenes next season, they put forward the point that Why would there be so much promotion for a character that wouldn’t even be in the next season?

I couldn’t even enjoy the rest of the episode after that. I couldn’t be excited about Robin and Vickie. I didn’t feel anything when Hopper and Joyce reunited with their kids. I didn’t care that Hawkins was in trouble. Nothing else mattered after that. I felt numb.

Thank you Joe Quinn. For bringing alive a character that I love more than any other I ever have. No other is even close. And fuck you Duffer brothers for absolutely ruining him.

I’m only half serious, because I understand that when you make something and people love it, you’re terrified that one day you’ll fuck it up and all those supporters will turn on you. I know that the Duffers originally didn’t want Eddie to be that likeable, since they planned on killing him. But they didn’t change what they planned even after casting Joe.

And I think what makes me the most angry is that his death wasn’t even a good death.

No one mourned for him. There was no funeral. We don’t even know that much about what happened after. We can assume that they just left his body there, to rot in the upside down. Alone. Forever.

He never got to meet Will. He would have loved him. He would have taken him under his wing and protected him and become a second older brother. He never got to meet El and see her awesome powers in action. He never got to meet Hopper, or Joyce, or Murray or Argyle or Holly or any of the parents or anyone else.

I wanted to see him become part of the group. I wanted to see him interact with the others. What would Hopper have said after taking one look at him? It would’ve made me laugh whatever it would’ve been. I wonder what Eddie would’ve thought of Dustin’s girlfriend Suzie. Did he even know that this girl with superpowers was Mike’s girlfriend???

His name was never redeemed. Everyone still hates him. He never graduated. And no, he didn’t die a hero. His death wasn’t an epic sacrifice like Billy’s was. He died even though the exact same thing happened to Steve and he survived.

His death didn’t feel like it meant anything.

And it should’ve

It could’ve.

If Eddie died it could’ve been him protecting Steve, Nancy and Robin. He reaches the house, saves them but ultimately doesn’t make it. Maybe he makes such a ruckus that Vecna has to find him and kill him himself, giving El and Max more time to save themselves.

If they were planning on it, it could’ve been so. Much. Better.

Duffer brothers you made me fall in love with a show and continue to love it for 6 years. And you ruined it in just under 4 hours.

But even after everything, I still love this show. And I will not stop writing. Eddie Munson you stole my heart and I have no regrets about that.

And I will share this love with every person who reads my work and interacts with my blog who loves him too.

I’ll write Eddie the story he deserves.

Eddie I love you. You freak.

- Willow.

#willow’s warbles #vol 2 >:(#eddie munson #stranger things #stranger things season four #stranger things season 4 #volume 2 #stranger things 4 #stranger things season 4 volume 2 #eddie munson x reader #reader x Eddie Munson #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson fanfiction #st eddie munson #eddie munson fluff #stranger things x reader #stranger things imagine #stranger things spoilers #st spoilers

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schoenht · 1 year

Note

Pls write the reader praising Jamil during his overblot- like when everyone is jokingly praising him… [reader] just accidentally goes off on a tangent. And he actually remembers it during his recovery.

↳ praise the sorceror.

character: jamil viper.

genre: fluff, kind of crack.

a/n: i love him. he’s my favoritest. the way i would have actually been praising him and not even as a joke, i would’ve been a MENACE in this scene anyways kind of long bc i got distracted

If there was anything that could be said about Jamil, it was the exhaustion he carried behind a calm mask. Sooner or later, it would have to be shown. There were only so many emotions that someone could bottle up.

Unfortunately, Jamil’s emotions created something that was supposed to be rare in mages.

“And what are we supposed to do now?” You asked. You were standing behind Azul, Floyd, and Jade, holding Grim in your arms. The only reason you were standing behind them was because Floyd had literally shoved you behind them so that you would not be directly attacked by Jamil. “Way to show that I’m magicless...”

“Well, you are, Shrimpy!” Floyd said cheerfully, almost as if he was ignoring the giant shadow looming behind him. If the twins were tall, the phantom was practically a skyscraper. “Now, boss, what’s the plan?”

If it wasn’t for the terrifying idea that Jamil could possibly kill you, you’d try to make a joke to make it more light-hearted. But there were no reinforcements. Everyone was on vacation. Even Crowley, that selfish headmage, could not be reached with the same phone that he swore he’d answer. The only people that could save Scarabia from going under Jamil’s reign were Kalim, the twins, and Azul.

But Jamil’s fury didn’t stop there. With a wave of his hand and a cackle, he had sent all of you flying out into the desert. The second you landed, you swore up and down that maybe you should rethink your crush on him. Luckily, nothing was broken, yet everything still hurt.

“Good plan, boss.” You said snarkily, wincing as you stood up. “Now we’ve left Jamil alone with the rest of Scarabia!”

“You sound too concerned for him, Y/N.” Azul had taken off his glasses, inspecting them to make sure they were not cracked. “One would think that, perhaps, you think more than fondly of him.”

Your face contorted into a angrily flustered expression. “You think I’m not fond of him? It’s not like that--I mean, while you all were ignoring him--never mind. Let’s go. But before that, Azul, can you please do something about Floyd’s voice? I won’t be able to take him seriously.”

Floyd responded, “You never take me seriously anyways!”

“Do too!”

“Do not!”

“Do too!”

“Do not!”

“Both of you calm down, I will destroy the contract anyways. Floyd’s voice was disturbing me too.” Azul said to calm you both down, eliminating the contract in the process. Floyd’s voice was finally back to normal. You had to smile at him before getting serious.

“We need to go back now. Come on.”

Meanwhile, Jamil had turned into someone else completely. He was ordering the residents around, basking in this new light as the self-proclaimed replacement for the sultan that was Kalim. With a grandiose smile, he urged, “Tell me more about myself.”

Azul spoke up. “You are incredibly handsome...”

Grim followed, “Tall, dark...”

It was as though Jamil didn’t recognize their voices. “And?”

Jade responded, “Your eyes are so angular, so intelligent--”

“So well-dressed.” His twin followed with his signature smug smile.

Kalim happily stated, “You just look strong, you know!”

Finally, it was your turn, just as you had practiced on the way back. “You’re entrancing.” That was supposed to be your only line, yet it was as though more compliments burst out of you like a dam. “You’ve got this beautiful voice that can charm even the most stubborn people. You’ve got these pretty eyes that could entrance anyone even without your Unique Magic and shine brighter than any star. You’ve got skills that no one else has, your cooking is so amazing that sometimes I feel as though you could be one of the best chefs around. You are so intelligent and so helpful--ow!” You stopped when Grim had kicked you with his tiny paw. The realization of what you said hit you like a truck. “Oh. My bad.”

“Hmm, what wonderful compliments--” He had turned to look at you for a second before it dawned on him that everyone he had thrown out was here. “You’re all here?! I’ll finally be able to use my true power!”

But this time, none of you were sent out flying. The battle between Jamil and Azul, Jade, Floyd, and Kalim was harsh. You were not dense enough to step in. You were absolutely magicless and it would be the worst decision of your life, possibly your last, if you dared try to get in their way. You could only hope that they defeated Jamil in time before anything worse happened to him.

Sooner than you had thought about that, there was a blinding flash. The phantom behind Jamil had disappeared. The ink running down his arms had disappeared along with it. He was back in his normal dorm uniform, looking normal. You stepped forward tentatively. “You didn’t kill him right? Right?!”

“I might have killed him, just a little bit,” Floyd joked. But he grunted in pain. “What was that for?!”

“Don’t make jokes about that! Tell me he’s going to wake up.” You asked Azul.

“He will. All four of us used the same spell to take him down.” Azul answered, nodding at you. “Are you still going to deny your fondness for him?”

“In front of you? Yes. Who knows what stupid contract you’d try to get me into?”

Behind you, there was a mumble and a groan. You turned around to look at Jamil, who was moving slightly, his head turning to wake up. His eyes finally fluttered open and you breathed out in relief. “I thought he was going to die.”

“Obviously! You hurt me!” Floyd whined.

You moved carefully near me, sitting down. “Jamil? How do you feel?”

Jamil’s head was still pounding from the excessive use of magic. He could only remember flashes of what had happened but the biggest part that he remembered was you. Your compliments and how sincere you sounded in comparison to everyone else, who was only talking as though to fulfill a quota. Maybe...maybe he could bring his hopes up. When he locked eyes with you, the anger in him calmed down slightly. Maybe there was a chance. “Where am I?”

“You’re in the lounge. They got rid of your phantom. Do you feel okay? How’s your head?” You looked genuinely concerned for him, something he was not used to at all, always on the giving side instead of the receiving side.

From behind you, someone cleared their throat. Jamil shifted to see the twins, Azul, and Kalim, the latter barely holding back tears. Azul spoke up. “We thought you wouldn’t wake up. Y/N, in particular, was panicking. They were hyperventilating and sobbing, they were absolutely bawling. It could have rivaled Kalim’s Unique Magic.”

“I was not!” You sounded outraged. “Get out! Let me talk to him before all of you insult him.”

“And they punched me!” Floyd added. “It hurt!”

“No, it didn’t, you are just trying to get Y/N’s attention again. Come along, brother.” Jade said, pulling him away and walking with the others.

Jamil swallowed dryly, almost afraid of the question he was going to ask you when you turned around. “Did you mean it?”

“Hm?”

“The...compliments.”

Your eyes widened, not thinking that he was going to be able to recall it. “You remember that?”

Jamil nodded slightly. “Did you mean it?”

Breathing out softly, you smiled at him. “Every word. It’s okay if you don’t feel the same, I don’t want to pressure you or anything--”

His hand had clasped around yours. You looked down at your hands and back at him. He looked almost shy, definitely flustered based on how his eyes were looking away from you. But the grip on your hand said everything. “I may have feelings for you too.”

“Oh good, that’s a relief, I was worried that I was complimenting a monster and not you.” You looked out at the night sky, the stars glittering as if they were happy at your reunion. “You want me to tell them to give you time?”

“No. Don’t go. Stay with me for a while.”

“Of course.”

He was looking at the same stars that he had always seen, yet this time, something in him felt warmer. Maybe it was your presence that made them shine brighter. Either way, he couldn’t stop the smile appearing on his face as he continued to hold your hand and look at the sky with you.

#twisted wonderland x reader #twst x reader #jamil x reader #jamil viper x reader #jamil x yuu #jamil viper x yuu #jamil x mc #jamil viper x mc

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foxys-fantasy-tales · 3 months

Text

OC Kiss Week Day Two - Rain

I'm going to do eight days instead of seven because I want one kiss for EVERY ship in Arigale! This is going to be tough lol. Also, these are canon events and will likely be slotted into the books to come in various places whether that be as flashbacks or present day events, so you have been warned. So excited to take part in @ockissweek again! Word Count: 2.4k Characters: Skye and Aldric TW: Some mentions to kidnapping and torture but no shown scenes.

Skye stumbled back from the unexpected shove. He yelped as he fell onto his tail and drew it out from under him with his hand. From the creaky inn flooring all he could see was the ignited, disgusted weight in Rahat’s countenance staring back down. “Him? Of all people, you knew he was watching us from afar and you chose to keep quiet? In case your mind has faltered, that man nearly ruined my legs. He tortured you and Ri after kidnapping. He serves Yani!”

“You think I don’t know all that? I was the one there,” Skye argued. He pushed himself back to his feet and leaned on the door with his hand on the knob. The two stared at one another, one boiling and clenching his fists, as Skye’s tail swished to let out his bit of agitation. “And I’ve explained, ever since we came back, that Aldric did what he felt he could for us. We might have starved without him sneaking us food he made. He tried to help Rita’s anxiety when he did as he was ordered. Most wouldn’t. Fuck, her old healers hardly cared for that. He saved my life by making a convenient excuse when Yani wanted me gone. They didn’t need me. He made a reason.” “He made Yani stronger is what he did. You saw him with us that day. What? Some down in the dumps old corpse shows up and your caring instincts go wild?” Rahat asked. “All I’m saying is we’ve already seen worse people make comebacks. There’s a clear intent, but he’s hesitant, and for a good reason with what happened to him. Like how you’re hesitant with Toshi.”

“Don’t get me started. I’m not happy having him about, considering how he inadvertently made me what I am now, but this is different even from that. He’s alive because of Yani. He’s connected. Letting him close could get us all killed!” “Look, I didn’t mean for him to-” Skye began, but Rahat growled and slammed a fist over his head. Crackling wood made Skye’s ears pin as he froze.

“Get. Out.”

“Rahat, I’m sorry if I worried you, but trust me on this. Please.”

Skye’s big brown eyes did nothing to assuage the fury on display. He found he couldn’t blame his friend, so tail tucked, Skye twisted the knob and slammed the door behind him. While racing down the halls toward fresh air outside, he paused and looked at his and Mille’s room. Rita was in there. He wished she’d have stuck up for him, but she’d been so dazed in their captivity that he doubted she could say much, even if she were willing to stand up to her lover on the matter of her torturer. Good gods. He did sound like he lost it. Skye grit his teeth and pushed on out the wide double doors and into the pouring rain. Not ideal weather, but the cold and wet felt deserved after upsetting his closest friends. The others were all concerned as well about the correspondence, yet Rita and Rahat were closest to the matter. She once trusted him to look after Blue way back when. It felt like a lifetime, not a matter of years. The distance in her eyes as Rahat told her what he found was a sharper strike than the former’s hit.

“You’ll catch your death.”

“Aldric?” Skye turned toward the source of the voice. The reflection of his blazing red eyes was magnified by the thick spectacles he wore, so the man wasn’t hard to find in the dark. The tree he was under had thick enough branches, even if leaves were few, to hinder the rain a little. Skye rushed over and started to squeeze at his long braid and tail as he shivered.

“Just a refreshing jaunt. What are you still doing out here? I thought you fled.”

“I needed to make sure my informant was well first. What matters is you all think I fled.”

“Don’t call me that,” Skye urged. His eyes narrowed as he craned his head up from his stooped pose to meet the man’s eyes. He crossed his arms to hold in some of his warmth, though the chill and air were helping to clear up some of his hurt, at least the ones on the inside.

“Very well. What would you have me call our arrangement then?” Aldric asked.

That gave Skye pause. He’d like to say friends, but Aldric had laughed that off before, or what passed as laughter. The stern downturn of his scarred lips made Skye press his own together in a firm line and straighten his back. Thunder and lightning cracked overhead and ruffled his damp fur.

“Acquaintance? I don’t know. That seems a bit too little for what all happened. Plus, Rita and I saw you daily for months. Hardly an acquaintance then, but maybe you’d reconsider friend?” Shit. He said it anyway. Skye smoothed back the short, cropped layers of hair surrounding his face. The drips of cold rain carried down his cheeks and chin, with more falling through the gaps in the tree above than he liked. The sound reminded him of the awful state of the cell he’d shared for so long. The steady drip of leaking was constant, so much so he’d begun to time his songs to it to kill time. It was only when he began to hum one of the tunes that he realized Aldric had been silent and cocked an ear toward him as he leaned it up to his lips to listen.

“How about mutual aid?” Aldric asked.

“What?” Skye laughed and held his ribs in place. “Quite a title, and may I ask what aid you’ve offered recently? I’ve supplied you with lots of reasons to try and save this plane, or at least not continue seeking its end with that pompous prick of a boss you have.” “Which could also cost my life.” Skye wilted. He didn’t need that reminder. His throat ran dry, but thankfully all he had to do was tip his head back to drink some of the rainwater. He made a show of it, tongue out to catch as much as he could and leaning to where the drops fell thickest. Aldric just shook his head as Skye swallowed a big gulp. The cheeky grin Skye added in only deepened Aldric’s scowl. “You’re truly trying to reach an untimely death. These trees are often diseased. Parasites and who knows what they water could drag along.” “Good thing I know an amazing healer then, one who owes me mutual aid.”

“Why do you insist on still using that title?” Aldric asked.

“Why do you refuse to use the simple word ‘friend’?” Aldric scoffed and declined to answer. Skye looked back to the inn, the only one around for miles, and heaved a sigh. The shutters were all down. No light shined but from a couple of windows, one of which just blew out a flickering candle.

“Looks like I’m a homeless cat myself for the night. Funny turn of events, huh? You have a spot you’re staying.”

“Not welcome.”

Being shot down so thoroughly stung, but Skye was nothing if not stubborn as the rest of the people Judith had brought together here. “Then can you spare a bit of coin for me to get my own room?” “Ah, so this walk you mentioned was under more duress than you let on. Hardly surprising.”

“Well, you were hanging about to check on me! You couldn’t go inside, so what, wait until the morning when we go?” He shuddered and blew a wet piece of hair, but it remained firmly stuck over his cheek.

“Yes.”

“What? Why? My information is hardly anything special you know, and my whole defense of friendship and love looks a bit flat right now.”

“I wasn’t going to tread there unless you did. Since we are on the same path, why?” Aldric asked. He removed his glasses. A silver cloth was drawn from his pants pocket to wipe the lenses, but the chill and worsening rain made them rather useless regardless. With a groan of discontent, he placed them in a case and into his coat pocket.

Skye felt his throat tighten as he watched. His eyes should have been a terror, but all he saw was sympathy buried within the blood red tones. His face went slack a moment. Perhaps the others had a point. For some reason, he felt a bit too close to all this, to Aldric in particular. He rubbed at his neck and smacked his lips. He cleared his throat. He pulled a number of stalling measures while fussing with his tail and clothes.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Aldric said.

Skye groaned and sucked on his teeth. His tail flipped about behind him the second he let it go and rain drenched it all over again. No helping it. He closed his eyes to the eerie, entrancing light of Aldric’s and leaned on the tree trunk with his legs crossed and hands clenched in his pockets. “I understand you,” Skye whispered. His voice was nearly drowned out by the rain, but Aldric leaned in and nodded.

“Really? I have some trouble believing that.” “It’s true. You can stand out here worried in the rain about someone you hurt, someone you really hardly know, all because of something you want. Information, right? No, Aldric. You want hope. I’m good at giving it. It’s why I ran the shelter. It’s why I sing. It’s why I agreed to your deal. I see the same in you I saw in all those who made bad choices and ended up in my care. Rahat’s right that I can’t help but get involved with those in need, even the worse ones, even someone who nearly killed my friends.” He scoffed and lifted his eyes to look at Aldric’s again. Nose to nose, Skye found his ears flipping about in time with his stomach.

Aldric didn’t seem to change a bit. He was steel. His hair fell flat and damp, sticking to him far worse than Skye’s short hair. The man’s face was running rivulets down off his chin from the storm. Something about it all made him look more normal. Aldric was always so put together and professional, scarily so. He followed orders and worked himself to the bone. He couldn’t feel pain much at all and it showed in how he fought with grotesque brutality.

Yet he had been a healer before it all went up in flames. He was an expert in damaging his opponents right where it would hurt, but he’d not killed anyone yet to Skye’s knowledge. Quite a feat for the position he found himself in. Aldric waited patiently for more, though Skye was finding it difficult to dislodge the words as his heart began to feel like it filled his chest and throat. “I still harmed them terribly. Mentally, Rita may not make a full recovery from that trauma. Physically, Rahat is lucky to still have most of the use of his legs. There was a high chance it wouldn’t end that way, but I seem to underestimate you Indimal’s healing prowess. Your bodies are stronger than those I once treated,” Aldric prompted. “You could have easily finished the job with the shape you had him in. Showing mercy is more than most victors do at times like this. I still think you’re more healer than violent lackey. You just want something to believe in. Your people killed you mercilessly for saving someone in a way they didn’t approve of. I can’t imagine I’d be different from you if I’d been done like that for running my shelter. We both want to end the pain. Once upon a time I lost someone and I… I considered your way then. Burn it all. Let them beg and close my eyes as it all went to black around me, yet I didn’t. We both picked a different road, but you could turn back. Others have. Chit and Toshi both escaped Yani.”

“They had lives they could still salvage. Chit was unmarked. Toshi was still in possession of a beating heart once those two finished with him. I don’t possess that luxury.”

“Really?” Skye pressed his hand on Aldric’s chest and the stiff clothing gave way to the large indent and scarred ridges he’d seen once before. His breath caught and halted in his chest. Eyes remained focused on keeping contact with Aldric’s, though the latter began to pull away with a look of discomfort.

“I should leave. You should find a dry spot even if the rooms are currently out of reach. Perhaps the stable.”

“Hey, wait,” Skye pleaded.

He couldn’t be sure what overcame him. Maybe the disapproval of his friends had him in a tough spot too. Maybe Aldric was oddly cold and he wanted to share a bit of warmth, though he knew he wouldn’t get sick. Probably wouldn’t feel a bit of discomfort with Yani’s power flowing through him, yet Skye hoped he felt this.

His eyes closed the moment their lips touched. Aldric inhaled sharply, but static ran down Skye’s tail, so he pressed in a little more. The uneven texture from Aldric’s scar cut across both lips, and Skye found it incredibly personal suddenly. His hands reached for the buttons on Aldric’s top. One popped and he smiled through the kiss. Maybe he could show the same affection for his other scars. The second button popped and Aldric withdrew from the kiss with a similar sound. He was out of breath with the rain pouring into his gaping mouth as he shoved his long silver hair back from his face and turned to the sky.

Skye grabbed him by the jacket and the deep maroon leather crinkled under his tight grip. He noticed how hard he was breathing by the fog in front of his face at the same time those red lights of Aldric’s eyes turned back to him.

“I-I wanted to uh, to…” What had he wanted? His ears fell flat as he struggled to comprehend what he just did. “We’re both um… You shouldn’t have to feel alone making your choice. I’d have made a much worse one if I hadn’t had others for perspective. I’ll keep providing that for you, but no more intimate details. No lies to my friends, if they’ll have me back.”

Aldric’s face was more lined and strained than Skye had ever expected to see it. The steel was warping, if only slightly. He snapped back to straight posture and nodded, but Skye could see him biting his lips as he turned away and walked into the vast emptiness of the landscape. Tagging: @jezifster, @fracturedfable, and @wynters-writings If you would like to be added please fill this out: FORM LINK

#oc kiss week #ockiss24 #writeblr #arigale #indie author #tw kidnapping mention #tw torture mention

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siriuslysatorusimping · 6 months

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*Excerpt* Shattered Existence Deleted Scene (Another Level)

Hiiiiiiii 😊

I know I've been a lil MIA lately 🙃

Just been focusing on a few things other than writing for the first time in a while... But I wanted to share this deleted scene that I decided not to include because I felt it would have just served as needless filler 😬

Since we're already through it, I figured it'd be fun to share!

If you haven't already, you can read Another Level on AO3 💕

And the installment this was deleted from, Shattered Existence

Shattered Existence Deleted Scene

“My precious students are watching, you know.”

Gojo’s laugh was deranged as he jutted his thumb toward the crows watching.

“My girlfriend, too!” he continued, his voice sounding delirious. “You hear that Megumi? Finally fuckin told her.”

“How sweet,” Sukuna laughed. “How does she feel knowing that you and her kid are beatin’ the shit outta each other?”

Her jaw clenched, her chest constricting with fury as Sukuna’s grin widened.

“And who’s gonna stop her from comin’ in here and getting herself killed when you die?”

“I’m not gonna die,” Gojo shot back confidently, grinning just as wide. “But at least I have someone who cares about me enough. What’ve you got? That monk? My girl could take ‘em easy.”

“I don’t give a shit about anyone else tagging in for me,” Sukuna replied, smirking now. “You rely on others, and that’s what makes humans weak. But you, you’re at least somewhat capable. Still nothing compared to me. Like I said, you were only the strongest because you were born at a time when I wasn’t around to put you in your place earlier. An ordinary guy.”

Gojo laughed. His genuine laugh that lit up his entire face and made his eyes brighter.

“Yeah,” he said, nodding. “Maybe I am an ordinary guy. But I’m still gonna kill you.”

“Is time what’s necessary for adaption, or is it experience?” Yuuji asked, his eyes not leaving the screens as they debated Mahoraga’s adaption.

“You mean, does he take the time to analyze an attack after being hit and then adapt?” Kusakabe clarified, his hand on his chin. “Or does he adapt after being hit by the same attack multiple times, right?” Yuuji nodded, and Kusakabe tilted his head to the side. “Yeah, which is it?”

Their rambling was beginning to get on her nerves. The constant questions that were being thrown around, Kusakabe’s babbling about domain expansions.

He was, to an extent, right about most of what he said. But the problem was that even when he didn’t have answers, he was still fucking talking.

“Either could be possible,” Kashimo said. He had a wide grin on his face, excitement oozing off him in waves. “This is the fight I wanted to see-”

“It’s closer to the second,” Rinko stated absently, ignoring the confused looks she received. Her focus remained on the fight in front of her. “It’s volume. Not quite experience because experience still requires time. The complexity of the technique combined with the amount of cursed energy put into its use. The more energy used, the faster Mahoraga is able to adapt. So, if Gojo were to use more energy with Lapse Blue, then Mahoraga would likely gain more than one spin.”

It was why Gojo needed to finish Mahoraga in one hit. It couldn’t adapt if it was dead.

#another level #another level deleted scene #gojo satoru x original female character #rinko kurisaki #rinko kurisaki aka my favorite oc i've ever written #gojo satoru fanfic #jujutsu gojo #jjk manga spoilers

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karizard-ao3 · 7 months

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Eremika Role Reversal WIP Segment

It's Mikasa Week on Twitter and I was really trying to get this fic done in time for it but it's ended up being a lot more than I anticipated, so I'm sharing this portion of the rough draft because I still want to celebrate Mikasa, who is a perfect angel and has never done anything wrong in her life.

There's no context needed. This is from the start of the WIP onward.

The door swings open and slams into the wall, rattling the paintings that hang there in the luxurious suite.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” Armin shouts, storming into the room, his eyes blazing with fury and panic. “Do you even know what you’ve done?”

Eren is on his feet in an instant, his eyes hard and dark, his teeth set into a snarl, stalking towards him, wolflike and dangerous, putting his body between Armin and the pale, black-haired girl beyond. It is still strange to Armin, seeing Eren like this: glaring at him with two gleaming eyes, standing there without his prosthesis or his crutch. Armin’s eyes linger for a disoriented moment on the strange curve of calf and shin that fills out Eren’s pant leg before he comes back to himself and turns his attention to the young woman beyond. At the window seat, Mikasa has barely moved, her eyes still trained on the desolation below. Armin’s stomach twists, fresh anguish and rage coursing through him. He doesn't recognize either of his two best friends anymore. He doesn’t know where he fits in this new hell they have created.

“Mikasa!” Armin shouts.

“Get out,” Eren growls. “If you’re here to act superior, just go.”

“I won’t,” Armin snaps. “I need to talk to Mikasa.”

Mikasa turns towards the commotion, watching them both with shadowed eyes, her lips pulling into a frown.

“Armin?” she says. “How long have you been here?”

“Do you know how many years of diplomacy you’ve just wasted?” he demands, ignoring her question, pushing past Eren. Eren grabs his wrist, restraining him, squeezing far tighter than he needs to, his fingertips digging into Armin’s skin hard enough to bruise. Armin ignores the pain. “Do you know how many people you’ve slaughtered, Mikasa?”

“They were coming to kill you,” Mikasa says, faintly, her cheeks fading to an even whiter cast. “They…”

“Leave. Now,” Eren instructs, swinging Armin around and shoving him towards the door. “She needs to rest.”

“She needs to answer for her crimes,” says Armin, his voice dripping with vitriol.

“She hasn’t committed any,” Eren hisses, giving Armin one final shove and shutting the door in his face. He turns the key in the lock and turns to Mikasa. “Don’t listen to him,” he says, but she has already turned back to the window, her body curling in on itself. He comes up behind her, resting his hand on her shoulder.

“The houses look so small without the walls,” she says. Eren considers this, looking out at the scene before them. The cottages and inns and shops of Shiganshina huddle together like frightened mice, surrounded by a mind numbing expanse of empty, trodden fields. In the distance, he can see the horizon. It feels like a dream to be able to watch the sun set instead of losing it to the walls long before darkness falls.

“I wasn’t thinking about diplomacy,” Mikasa whispers. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I wasn’t.” She sits for a moment, the muscles in her throat shifting as she swallows again and again. “How many babies did I kill?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Eren soothes. “You didn’t mean to do it. It was her, and they’ll see that soon..”

She takes a deep, shaky breath, her gaze still glued to the scars she has left on the land. She hasn’t looked Eren in the face since she came out of her titan, wheezing and gasping for breath, her eyes wild and frenzied, their friends staring at her in simultaneous horror and relief.

No one can agree on whether she has saved them or damned them all.

But Eren knows where he stands, and it is here at her side. He combs his fingers through her tangled hair, an idle habit, and she wilts beneath his touch.

"How do I live with myself after this?" she says. "Why did your father put this burden on me?"

That's something Eren has often wondered himself, first with discontentment and jealousy and then with dawning sorrow as he realized the full scope of the unwilling sacrifice his father had exacted from her. She would not talk about it at length, besides when she had revealed all during her trial, but he believed he could pinpoint the night it had happened. He had risen, restless, from his sleeping pad on the floor of the makeshift refugee center- a colorless, hollow cavern echoing inside his chest as his every nerve screamed for his mother to return to him from across the gulf of mortality. How could he sleep when the memories of her disappearing into that titan's grinning craw played an endless, looping show in the theater of his mind? Surrounding him, curled on their own thin mats, Armin and Mikasa slept, their breath deep and even, sleep erasing the harrowed, wide-eyed panic that had painted their faces beneath smears of tears and dirt. Eren could not lose himself in sleep and so he walked, wandering the streets of this unfamiliar city, imagining he would find his mother waiting around just the next corner and reminding himself that wishful thinking was not enough to raise the dead. When he finally returned, not long before sunrise, Mikasa was lying awake, staring up at the ceiling, so still that he feared for a moment she was dead, too, but, as he lowered himself onto his mat and pulled the thin blanket to his shoulders, her head fell sideways and she looked at him. Her eyes were so wide and shiny that they seemed to glow like twin full moons, the reflected light silvery and sad. She looked even older than she had before she had fallen asleep. He had a moment of disorientation noticing that the scratches he remembered seeing on her cheeks and forehead were gone, but memory could be fickle and he brushed away his moment of unease.

"I couldn't sleep," Eren said, scooting to the edge of his mat, closer to her.

"Someone woke me up," she'd said, rolling to face him. "Now I'm thinking."

Their eyes met, and for a moment Eren could imagine that they were in the bedroom they had shared in his family home, back in Shiganshina, tucked into their twin beds and whispering their secrets to each other from across the expanse of floor that separated them. Now they were so close that Eren could reach out and take her hand when he confessed, "I miss my mom."

"I don't know who I am anymore," said Mikasa, repaying his revelation with one of her own. She was working her way up to telling him what was truly on her mind. She never disclosed her real secret in the first round

"I want to kill every last titan," said Eren, his hand tightening around hers, his voice quivering with irate passion. "I want to wipe them off this earth." Mikasa shrank in on herself, and Eren didn't know why there suddenly appeared to be a wall between them. He hated walls. "When they're all gone, we can have our home back," he said. "When all the titans are dead, we'll be free."

He waited for her to take her turn, but it was a long wait, agonizing as she turned her thoughts over in her head, always so much more careful than he. Finally, she met his eyes again and said, "I'm scared."

"Then you can sleep with me tonight," said Eren, just as his mother would have done, and lifted his blanket for her to crawl under. It barely covered them, but she added her blanket to the pile and they wrapped their skinny, ten-year-old arms around each other and laid like that until dawn, neither of them speaking but neither of them sleeping either.

Now he wonders if they're in for another sleepless night as he strokes her black hair, humming under his breath. She rouses a little, turns to him. "Don't do that," she says. "I don't deserve it."

“Of course you do,” he murmurs, his fingers smoothing down the black, silken strands, gentle but persistent.

“How do I live with myself?” she repeated, and even though it pains him to hear the anguish in her voice, it comforts him to see that she is no longer playing the statue.

“You lost control,” he reasons. “Ackermans aren’t supposed to transform. It’s the one thing you’re not good at.”

Her lips twist and she touches her fingers to the back of her neck, her eyes dulling like stones. He knows what she is thinking, knows better than he knows his own mind. “And yet…” she murmurs.

And yet she can transform.

She wonders, as she often does, how many people ignored her screams on the night that Grisha Jaeger cursed her, when he lured her from her mat at the refugee shelter, murmuring, “Come with me, Mikasa. Let’s find Eren,” and spirited her away to the small wood outside of town. She had trusted Eren’s father, had thought nothing of following him in among the trees, had still believed he would never do her any harm when he withdrew the syringe from his coat and held it up, gleaming in the moonlight. “This has to work,” he had rasped, grabbing her arm with a hand like a vise. “I can’t give this to my son. I can’t give this to Eren.”

“Uncle?” she had whimpered as he twisted her into a headlock and forced her chin forward, exposing the nape of his neck. She was polite in her terror, respectful of her elders as her Hizuran mother had taught her to be.

“If I do it here, maybe… Maybe…” Grisha muttered, running a finger along the ridges of her vertebrae and settling on one bony peak.

“Uncle?” she whimpered again. Then, pain. It stabbed into her and shot down her back and clawed at the base of her skull, howling through her throat in an agonized wail that shifted into a roar of hunger.

It wasn’t until she had devoured the old man that she came to and realized what he had done to her and what she had done to him. His memories bled into hers, giving her a panoramic view of his violent demise, crushed between her gnashing teeth and down into her gullet, and the understanding that she was one of the fabled Ackermans, and she could not be turned into a titan except by this one trick, Grisha’s final gambit – an injection directly into her spine.

She was delirious as she stumbled back to the shelter, battered by tidal waves of past lives that would have been locked to her if it weren’t for her exceptional inheritance – her Ackerman immunity. She lost her way several times, dogged by the paranoid sensation of being watched from inside her head, her every confused thought observed by a pair of shadowed eyes. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she searched for her sleeping mat and Armin, hoping that Eren would come back and that he would not hate her for what she had become. The memory unleashes her tears in the present. They lacquer her cheeks and she tastes their saltiness when the beads break open on her lips. The back of her neck prickles. She resumes her vigil at the window, her teeth making tatters of her lips as she frets, wisps of steam shrouding her face as her skin stitches itself back together with Sisyphean diligence beneath her unrelenting ravages. Her hand hovers at her bare throat, her fingers reaching for nothing. Eren stands and goes to her bedside, retrieving a neatly folded bundle and letting it unfurl.

He loops the scarf around her neck and her grasping fingers find purchase in the knit fabric, tugging it up over her nose. She sighs, the tension in her back easing just a little. Eren brushes the hair away from her forehead.

Mikasa lets out a long, painful breath. “I don’t know why I thought I could control it this time. I thought… Historia…” she trails off, nestling deeper into her scarf. “Do you know where she is?”

“I can find her for you,” Eren offers, wondering if he should leave her alone. “We can go look for her together.”

Mikasa looks towards the locked door. On the other side are the friends who had become her foes. She almost wishes they had succeeded in killing her.

No.

Not almost.

She should be in the ether along with everyone who had died today. And yet, she is not and she is not sure whether she even deserves that peace. Because of her, twenty percent of humanity has been trampled and a new wall has formed, advancing Paradisian territory far beyond the island, bisecting continents and cupping the sea. Years of diplomatic efforts had been negated in a matter of hours. Would Hizuru at least still stand with her, or was this too much for even them who had declared themselves allies to the devil island that had sheltered and raised their lost Azumabito princess?

“Mikasa?” Eren asks. “Do you want to go look for the Queen?”

Mikasa does not. She is afraid to see Historia. She is worried they will come too close and that skin will touch skin and the horror will begin anew. And yet, Mikasa needs to see her with an intensity that threatens to turn her inside out.

She falters. “No,” she says, running her hands up and down the gooseflesh that has risen on her arms. “I can’t face- When they see me again… I want- I want to at least look strong.” She takes a deep breath. “I want to take a bath and put on my uniform. I think… I think I should at least do that… I should be at my best when I go to face my crimes.”

With that declaration, the meager ration of resilience bestowed upon her by her scarf’s gentle embrace is depleted and she is nearly crushed by the weight of what she’s become.

Eren surges towards her as her eyes cloud over and she wilts like a moisture-starved campanula. She has withdrawn once more. He cradles her face in his hands, trying to catch her gaze but she is limp and listless and all he can think to do, when all his other efforts have been exhausted, is to pull her to her feet and help her to the bathroom. She stands against the wall, staring at nothing as he fills the claw-footed bathtub.

"Come here, Mikasa," he says in a melodious, inviting baritone. "Your bath is ready."

She wanders over and looks down at the clear, steaming water. She wants to be immersed in it, but the small feats she must complete before she can are insurmountable. Her fingers falter at her neckline. The small white button on her shirt is the heaviest thing she has ever had to move.

Eren does it for her, brushing her hand away with gentle fingers. His capacity for softness becomes infinite when they are alone. He looks everywhere but down as he slips each button through its buttonhole, remembering another time when he undressed her. His breath catches and he fumbles on the last button, then steadies his hands and slides her shirt from her shoulders. She doesn't blush or smile at him like she did in Marley. Her eyes now are like tarnished silver coins when back then they had gleamed like polished hematite, holding his as he settled on top of her with gleeful uncertainty. He helps her remove her pants, sliding them down her legs and tapping each shin in turn, prompting her to step out of them.

"Sorry," she mutters, placing a light hand on his shoulder to steady herself.

He keeps his eyes on her feet as he removes her underpants, then stands, averting his gaze, and turns her around so only her bare back is visible to him when he pulls her athletic brassiere over her head.

He helps her into the tub and she sinks down to her chin, resting her head back against the porcelain. The tips of her short hair fan out across the surface of the water and she closes her eyes.

Eren retrieves a chair and sets it with its back against the tub before he sits in it, wiggling the toes he's still getting used to having again while he listens to the faint lapping of the bathwater behind him and Mikasa's measured breaths.

He extends his leg, moving his foot back and forth. It still didn't feel like his after so many years without it. He had been eaten in Trost when he was fifteen, swallowed by a bearded titan after throwing Armin from its maw. His leg had fallen victim to the monster's teeth, and his eye had been damaged after, possibly when Mikasa, in her titan form for the first time ever, had torn open the bearded brute and excavated his gullet, searching for Eren. He had lost a lot of blood and his consciousness, remembering nothing past pitch blackness, suffocating heat, and his futile attempts to haul himself back up the monster’s esophagus with his blades, plunging them into titan’s slimy gastric wall, his head swimming from the temperature and the sanguineous gush from his severed knee. He thinks he remembers ripping his sleeve and tying a clumsy tourniquet around his stump, but the only thing he can be sure of is that he has been ingested, and then he woke up in a bed with a bandage over half of his face and phantom pains in his missing foot and calf. Armin was sitting with him, staring out the window, unaware that Eren had returned to the waking world.

“Did Mikasa save me again?” he’d croaked. He was parched. His tongue was rough and tacky against the roof of his mouth and he wanted nothing more than he wanted a sip of water.

Armin jolted, looking down at Eren with wide eyes. “Good morning!” he said. “I mean, good afternoon!”

Eren cast a feeble glance side to side, expecting to see Mikasa, but she was nowhere to be found. The betrayal irked him but he was too proud to ask why she wasn’t at his bedside with Armin. “How- how long-?” he asked, struggling to form the words in a mouth like the deserts in Armin’s book. How long had he been asleep for?

Armin stood. “I’ll get you some water,” he said, catching Eren’s predicament. “And then… I have to tell you about Mikasa.”

Armin said it in such a grave way that Eren was sure that she was dead. He would have gulped if he’d had enough moisture in his mouth to do so, but he could hardly swallow. Instead, he lay there with his hands clasped on his chest, waiting for the water and waiting to find out his dearest and most confusing friend was gone. It didn’t make sense. She was strong, and talented, and she was supposed to survive longer than the rest of them. She was supposed to die as an old woman.

Armin helped Eren sit, propping him up with more pillows and holding the glass of water to his lips. Eren drank as much as he could stomach, then lifted his chin, indicating he was done. Armin sat back down in his chair, holding the half-empty glass in his lap with both hands.

“What happened to Mikasa?” Eren rasped.

Armin didn’t answer for a long time.

“Armin? What-?”

“She’s a titan.”

Now it was Eren’s turn to fall silent as he tried to work out what Armin could possibly mean. “You mean…” This time he can swallow. “Are you saying a titan ate her?”

“...No,” said Armin. “I mean…” He sighed. “It sounds… It sounds insane, doesn’t it? But… in Trost… after you saved me from that bearded titan and he swallowed you instead, the supply depot was abandoned and overrun by titans. We couldn’t retreat without more gas and we couldn’t get to the gas. It was just us cadets, and… well. Mikasa… she screamed something about being strong and if we don’t fight we can’t win and she went tearing away across the rooftops and went after the titan who had eaten you. She used up way too much gas and we were too far behind her to help. One of the titans noticed her and headed her way, and…” Armin stopped, staring sightlessly in front of him, reliving the moment with lingering disbelief. “She cut her palm with her blade, and… she just… burst, somehow. Like… she burst and the titan inside of her shot out and wrapped around her, and… Uh.” Armin shook his head. “The first thing she did was rip apart the bearded titan and take you out. Once she'd put you out of reach, she took care of the titans outside the supply depot and we took care of the titans inside, and… Well. I had this idea, too. That we could do before we went back to rejoin the troops. There was this big boulder near the gate and Mikasa was still a titan and…” He trailed off.

“And what?” said Eren.

Armin was clearly proud of his ingenuity but doing his best not to brag. “I suggested that she could seal the gate with the rock. I think it saved her life.”

“Eh?” said Eren. He was tiring out fast but he was still trying to make sense of how Mikasa, their Mikasa, could be one of the same enemies who had killed his mother.

Armin gripped the water glass tighter. “They wanted to kill her,” he said.

Eren tensed.

“Most of the cadets retreated before we tried for the gate and reported what had happened to Command. And then it took her a while to come out of the titan. She kept pacing around until eventually she collapsed and… well. People were scared and the wait gave them plenty of time to panic. She could barely move when I got her back over the wall, but everyone was circled around us, flinching and jumpy like they thought she was going to attack them. There was this one guy who kept screaming to ready the cannons. But, you know. The gate was sealed because of her, and Pixis had just arrived and he's… If you meet him, you'll get it. He's… interesting." Armin stopped talking for a moment, lost in thought. "If Pixis hadn't been there, I don't think Mikasa would have made it out alive."

"Of course she would have," said Eren, resting heavily on his pile of pillows. "She's the most talented cadet in our year. Maybe ever."

Armin was doubtful. "You didn't see her," he said. "Trost took a lot out of her."

"Where is she now?" Eren asked. He was too weary to restrain the plaintive note in his voice, or to decrypt what it meant for him if the girl he'd always wanted to save had become one of the monsters he needed to destroy.

"She's locked up while they decide what to do with her," Armin said.

Eren had gone back to sleep not long after that, and in his dreams Mikasa loomed over him, smiling like the titan who had orphaned him, blank-eyed and clumsy. He spent the next couple of weeks stewing over it whenever he was alone, trying to make sense of it. He wanted to see her but the thought repulsed him at the same time. Mikasa was a titan. Armin had seen it happen, and the people attending to Eren's care whispered about it with each other, sharing the rumors that were floating around on the streets.

When they helped him into a wheelchair and rolled him to the courthouse for his first outing since his injury, he was sullen. The conflict still raged inside him. How could he kill all of the titans when she was one of them? Without her he had no more home, but creatures like her were the ones who had taken it from him in the first place.

#mikasa week #mikasa ackerman #mikasaweek2023 #role reversal au #Attack Titan Mikasa #Founder Mikasa #She does the Rumbling but it's not the same #You'll have to wait and see

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