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all-mirth-no-matter · 4 months

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Time After Time | Chapter Fourteen

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x Reader, Tommy Shelby x Original Female Character

Summary: Startling revelations ensue after drinking the tea. While you wait for Tommy to return, Benji comes in search for another date. Ada takes you shopping for a new dress to wear to the races.

Warning: language, slight supernatural (kinda?), harassment (not anything explicit but not fun), less tommy in this one but promise next chapter will make up for it!

ao3 link | catch up on tumblr here

Chapter 14: Raise Hell

I found myself an omen, and I tattooed on a sign. I set my mind to wandering, and I walk a broken line. You have a mind to keep me quiet, and although you can try. Better men have hit their knees, and bigger men have died.

It came upon a lightning strike, and eyes of bright clear blue. I took that tie from around my neck, and gave my heart to you. I sent my love across the sea, and though I didn’t cry. That voice will haunt my every dream, until the day I die.

— Raise Hell, Brandi Carlile

The tea cup landed on the rug with a soft thud, the hot liquid spilling at your feet — though you couldn’t feel a degree of it.

Your mouth gapped open at the sight before you — your mother, sitting on the rug across from you, her legs crossed same as yours, as she smiled at you.

“This isn’t real,” you whispered, still too surprised to move, your heart racing.

Your eyes searched over your mother’s features, looking for some hint of something fake to indicate the trick that was being played here.

But there was your mother — as plain as day. There was no otherworldly glow or translucent quality. She looked solid, wearing the same kind of modern shirt and jeans that she would have been wearing back when she was alive, looking very out of place against the 20th century backdrop.

The only difference between the person in front of you and the memory of your mother was the smile on her face.

“Real is quite relative, don’t you think, Y/N?”

Her voice sounded the same as well, if not maybe stronger than it had in her last handful of years.

Instinct to combat your mother reared its ugly head as you scoffed and responded involuntarily, “Quite relative to whether I’m hallucinating or dreaming, sure.”

Your mother chuckled, “I’ve missed you, my darling. We have so much to talk about.”

Swallowing, you accepted that whether dream, hallucination, ghost, or indeed real, you’d done this for a reason. You’d been given this opportunity by the Delphi for a reason. It was now or never, and you couldn’t let a little thing like freaking out over talking to your dead mother stand in your way.

“Do you know what’s happened to me?” you asked, feeling yourself sit up a little straighter.

Her smile fell, eyes moving around the bedroom before landing back on you, running down the clothes you were wearing. “The curse. It finally came for you, too.”

“Too? Are you saying—“

“Yes. I too was pulled from my present and into the past. As was my mother, and her mother, and her mother before that.”

You couldn’t believe it. Of all the things you had expected, this hadn’t even crossed your mind. “How far back?” you wondered aloud.

She shrugged, “Centuries, I suppose. All the first born daughters of this cursed lineage. Cursed to know the future, because it’s our past.”

So that was the schtick, you realized. You couldn’t predict the future, but you could recall it from a past that hadn’t happened yet — as long as you’d been paying attention. Your mother’s insistence of learning history now made more sense.

And yet, there was still a big question, one you asked aloud, “Why?”

“I don’t know. That is still a mystery.” Your mother dropped her head slightly out of shame, “Even in death, I’m still searching for answers.”

I curse you, Cassandra! The voice from your dreams echoed through your head and a crazy realization hit you. “Who was the first?”

Your mother swallowed. “When you were born, I saw a vision of my daughter. A woman who would know the future, just like I did. I heard the whisper of a name. It should have been a warning, but I was under a lot of drugs and hormones and thought the name was pretty. So did your father. We already had your first name picked out so on the spot agreed to name you Cassandra. I had no idea it was the name of our matriarch — of the first to be cursed.”

“So it’s true, we come from the original Cassandra of Troy?” Your mother nodded and you shook your head. “But that doesn’t make any sense. Say the stories are true — say the Greek Gods really existed — she could actually tell the future and she’s from the ancient past.”

“Another mystery.”

You huffed, so sick of the ambiguity.

“I’m sorry,” your mother said softly, causing you to meet her eyes again. “For lying to you all those years, for confusing you. For causing you grief and madness.”

You felt a lump in your throat, your chest tight at hearing the acknowledgment you’d wished for your whole childhood. Your brain wanted to comfort her, tell her it was alright, but your heart was more wounded than you’d ever realized.

You swallowed down the rise of tears that were threatening to build and changed the subject. “When were you born?”

She blinked, aware of your deflection method, and answered. “The early 2020s.”

“But that’s so—“

“Close?” your mother sighed. “Yes. I grew up blissful — my mother never mentioned her own displacement. So when I was stripped from my loved ones in 2040 to 1990, I was distraught. I was lucky to meet your father, though regretfully I was never able to open myself up completely to him, still mourning the loss of my first love. I would jump from fits of madness to total denial. After we had you, I thought things would be different. But as you grew, I became more suspicious that you would also be stripped away from me, or I you, and the fear drove me mad. So I tried to prepare you. But the closer I got to my own birth date, the madder I became and more desperate for answers I grew. Eventually, I became convinced that I’d made the whole thing up. The line between reality and delusion became nonexistent.”

You felt the tears begin to pool again as you thought about your own struggles with reality since arriving here. Madam Despoina had told you that you were stronger than your mother. But that wasn’t fair. None of this was fair.

“I’m sorry for your father, as well,” she went on. You opened your mouth to protest, but she stopped you. “I was able to warn him about certain events — terrorism, the housing bubble, natural disasters — but I couldn’t save him, not in the end.”

“Did you ever tell him? Properly, that is?” You found yourself asking, thinking about Tommy.

Your mother shook her head. “Not directly. The best I could come up with was the gift of prophecy. After a while of telling that story, a part of me began to believe it. Believe it for you.”

“I’m sorry,” you found yourself saying, “for being so hard on you. I didn’t understand—“

“And now you do,” she said with a soft smile, “more now than ever. And unfortunately, darling, I’m going to have to put pressure on you one final time.”

“What do you mean?”

“The curse — it must be broken. You have to find a way to break it.”

“Me? Why—“ your words stopped as you thought about Madam Despoina’s prophecy. “‘You have a chance to mend ancient mistakes. Break the cursed chain, end the line of travel.’ A woman from the Delphi family who said she was a descendent of the Pythia told me that.”

She smiled knowingly again, “Your tattoo, ya?”

Your mouth dropped slightly, “You knew?”

“I have the same one. I had the same impulse before I was pulled away. I didn’t even know you had it until I—“ she cut herself off, looking somber again before clearing her throat. “It’s the tree of knowledge, of balance. But how were you able to find them?”

“I’ve met some people since arriving here. A Romani family that I’ve grown quite close to. One of the brothers specifically, he— he helped me find them.”

Your mother hummed as she listened, her eyes moving again to the space around you. “What year is this exactly?”

“January 1919.” Your mother’s eyes widened. “I’ve been here a few months now.”

“And I thought fifty years was a shock,” she murmured. “Remarkable. Although the interwar period has it’s merits I suppose. Roaring 20s, jazz, rise of automotives, electricity, women’s suffrage. Though suppose it also has it’s negatives: Great Depression, prohibition, facisism, gangsters—“ You must have had a reaction, because your mother paused. “This man, is he a nice man?”

You swallowed at that, your eyes shifting. “I think he wants to be. But the circumstances are a little more complicated.”

“Complicated like organized crime complicated?” She retorted, and you were surprised at her humor in the situation. “Oh sweetheart, you didn’t—“

You scrunched your face, “I didn’t mean to. There’s been odd coincidences between us since even before we met. I had a vision of him the night I woke up here. He had one of me as well. And then there’s the other dreams—“

“What dreams?”

You took a deep breath, feeling once again like you were in a room filled with puzzle pieces trying to figure out which was the right piece to pick up and share with your mother. “I’ve had dreams. Very real feeling dreams of myself as Cassandra in ancient Troy. They’ve just been pieces though, it still feels incomplete.”

“You’ve got a strong connection to her,” your mother mused. “There has to be something in those dreams, that story, that can help you?”

Shifting in your place, she rose her brow at you. A wave of nostalgia hit you as you recalled the look many times from your childhood. She knew you had more.

“The Delphi woman, Madam Despoina, she— she called him Apollo. It’s his face I see in my dreams when I, as Cassandra, am with him, as Apollo. But I— I don’t know what that means.”

Her eyes narrowed as the muscle in her cheek flinched, “And does he mean something to you?”

Her question caused your brow to furrow. “What does that have to do with this?”

“Mother’s intuition, I suppose,” she smiled. “It’s been good to see you, my darling.”

“What do you—“

You blinked.

She was gone.

——-

You woke up the next morning on the cold floor of your apartment, the empty tea cup still laying on the rug.

“Mum!” you exclaimed with a jolt upward, looking to the spot in front of you.

But of course, no one was there. You were as alone in your apartment as you’d been when you arrived last night.

You reached for the tea cup and knew that it didn’t matter. Yesterday you might have tried to argue with yourself that you’d simply been dreaming or hallucinating, but the time for denial was over.

Whatever this stuff had been that Madam Despoina gave you had given you the ability to talk with your mother last night.

As you got ready for your shift at the Garrison, you tried to go through everything your mother had said to you, trying to commit it to memory, afraid that any little bit of it could slip away.

You were going through it for about the twentieth time when a patron cleared his throat at the bar.

“Apologies, I was—“ you turned and your customer service smile fell, “Oh, Benji, hello.”

“I was just coming by to see when you were available next,” he said, offering you his most handsome smile. “No deaths or births or any other excuses this time, eh?”

Your brow lifted, finding that statement slightly rude. It’s not as if you’d blown him off for a headache or something minor — someone had died.

But you knew what you had to do. Benji had been nothing but nice, if not a little forward, with you since you’d meet. It’d been wrong of you to accept his invitation when you were feeling alone and rejected. You couldn’t allow him to continue to believe he had a shot, but there was no reason to be rude about it.

“I’ve been thinking about that, Benji, and I just— I don’t think it’s such a great idea.” His smile slowly began to fall as you talked, his brow creasing. “I shouldn’t have accepted in the first place,” you continued, feeling awkward and guilty.

“Come on, love, you haven’t even given me a chance,” he tried to defend, pulling another smile on his face, though it didn’t reach his eyes.

“I wasn’t ready to start anything. I’m still— I’m still adjusting and I—“

“Hmm,” Benji shoved his fists in his pocket. “And this wouldn’t have anything to do with the rumors going around of you and Tommy, would it?”

Your mouth opened slightly at the allegation, but you couldn’t form any kind of defense. Instead you crossed your arms, “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

“Liar,” he hissed, slamming his fist to the bar top. The handful of patrons in the pub looked toward them, curious by the commotion. Benji noticed the eyes and cleared his throat, lowering his voice as he lifted his finger. “You’re making a big mistake, Y/N. Tommy-boy can’t sit on the throne forever, I’ll make sure of that.”

He gave you a wicked smile as he turned and left the pub, slamming the door on his way out.

You contemplated whether you should tell anyone about your interaction with Benji. Unsure if his threats were real or brought on simply by rejection and jealously, you decided to stay quiet for now.

Things had been quiet for a few days afterwards, but slowly you began to notice some major irregularities in the books. Benji’s numbers were showing signs of stealing again. It started off small, similar to what it’d been when you originally became suspicious of him. But now it was quite obvious.

Finally, you came to the conclusion that you had no choice but to bring this to Polly’s attention. It was early in the morning before the shop opened. Polly was helping with John’s kids while Ada was MIA (though if you were a betting woman, you’d say she was with Freddie), and you found yourself sitting alone at the kitchen table, book open in front of you as you felt weirdly conflicted over Benji’s malfeasance.

In the past, you hadn’t been aware of what happened to the people you reported. But now, you knew that there were physical repercussions for stealing from the Shelbys, even as extreme as death. And whether it was guilt for leading him on or some piece of you that still believed that deep down he was a good guy — you began to contemplate whether he deserved a fair warning before you officially reported him. If he knew that he wasn’t as sneaky as he thought he was, that someone was paying attention to him, maybe he’d realize his mistake and end it before something bad happened to him.

You got up to get some tea, trying to think through how exactly you were going to warn him without giving yourself away, when the front door opened.

“How were the kids?” You asked over your shoulder as you poured, assuming Polly had returned.

“Y/N?”

A deeper voice than you expected came from behind you. Spinning around, you were surprised to find the man himself standing in the kitchen doorway.

Your heart rate surged when his eyes moved curiously from you to the table, the open diary and pencil next to it.

“You–” he started, the gears in his head turning to process the scene in front of him. “It’s been you all along.”

“What are you–” you tried to discreetly walk toward the other set of doors, but Benji rounded the table quicker than you, cutting off your escape routes.

What was the saying about good intentions?

“Benji you shouldn’t—“ you tried to lift up your arms between you.

His eyes narrowed and he took a step toward you. Your back hit the counter behind you as he caged you in. “It’s you isn’t it? I kept trying to figure out how it was Lenny and Jackson got stitched. And there you were all along — the little mouse hiding in plain sight.”

“Get off me!” You shouted as you tried to push him away, but he grabbed your arms. You tried to use some of the self defense moves you’d learned, but Benji was stronger than you’d anticipated, and much more sober than the last man you had to fight off of you in the pub. He spun you around and pinned your arms behind your back, pressing his weight onto you so you were pinned even tighter against the shelves and counter. You tried to kick, but he had your legs locked between his.

You were completely defenseless.

“You think you can fuck with me—“

“I wasn’t— I haven’t said anything–,” you gasped out, your face against the shelves as you tried to catch your breath while still struggling to get him off you. You felt the tears begin to fall down your face as you felt helpless.

“And you fucking won’t! You killed my mates. I’m gonna make you wish you’d never met Tommy—“

“Oi!”

Polly’s voice shouting from the doorway finally caused Benji to release you. At the slightly feel of freedom, you pushed him off and ran for the other other end of the kitchen. You grabbed a near empty bottle near you and threw it at him. He ducked as it broke against the wall behind him.

“Out!” Polly shouted, grabbing his arm and pushing him out the door. “And don’t you dare come back!”

Benji was shouting as well, raving that he was a Peaky Blinder dammit, and no one could stop him from getting what he wanted.

He looked back at you as he said that and you shivered.

Sure, you were shaken by being manhandled like that by someone you thought was a good enough man. But more than that, you were angry. This had been the second time since you’d been here that a man thought he could toss you around like you were some kind of doll.

Polly turned back toward you, and immediately got busy pouring you a cup of tea. She let you take your time as you finally launched into explanation. At the end, she calmly rose from her seat and found Scudboat in the betting den, who’d shown up at some point in all your distraction. You watched as she whispered in his ear and then calmly again walked back toward the kitchen. She reached into a drawer and pulled out a small handgun.

“You know how to use this?”

Nodding, she handed it to you and told you to keep it on you from now on.

“Go back to work, Y/N. Benji won’t be bothering you again.”

——-

Polly had been right. Another week went by and you hadn’t seen or heard a peep from Benji. Part of you wondered if the bastard was dead, and you weren’t sure how exactly you felt when you realized that you didn’t really care.

You also wondered if Tommy knew now about what happened with Benji. You hadn’t heard from him since he left again, but knew from Polly and Ada that they’d be back by the following weekend.

In all the excitement, you’d forgotten about Tommy’s invitation to the races. When Ada burst into your apartment to announce that they were going shopping, you’d been surprised. It’d been a while since you’d been to the shops, but you weren’t going to deny the opportunity to find something nice to wear to your first race.

“I’ve been crying nonstop for weeks,” Ada explained as you both walked around, looking at different fabrics as she pointed out some options. “Every little thing sets me off, I tell ya. I thought it was because of the funeral, but Martha and I weren’t really that close. Suppose it’s sympathy for the kids. Dunno. It’s been making me so tired though. I think I may be ill or something.”

“Maybe,” you mused, grabbing the dress she handed you.

A woman caught the corner of your eye. At your gaze, she dropped her head and turned.

You ignored her, used to people staring when she was out with Ada. You hadn’t understood it when you’d first become friends, but now you realized.

When you saw her again at the next shop, you began to feel less like it was accidental.

“Hi,” you greeted when you met her eyes again. She looked away and tried to leave, but you spoke again, “Can I help you?”

The woman stopped finally and turned, her head down slightly sheepishly. She wore a small hat and trendy dress, her hair was cut short like most women of the day, and you could tell she was quite tall, though she seemed to slouch slightly. Her facial features were sharp, complimenting her slim body shape. She was quite beautiful, and in your day could see her being the ideal supermodel. But the bags under her eyes and wornness of her skin led you to believe that her story probably wasn’t that simple. Not here, in Small Heath.

“Pardon?” She finally said innocently, trying to subtly give you a once over as well.

You shrugged, “It just seemed like you were needing something from me. My mistake.”

You turned to leave but she spoke again. “This is incredibly improper of me, but I saw you and I just— you and Tommy, ya?”

As you turned back to her, your brow creased. Instinct had you looking around for Ada. Ever since your encounter with Benji, you’d been edgier than you’d ever been, always looking for the exits and for familiar faces to run toward. It made you feel incredibly vulnerable and you absolutely hated it. You felt your fingers grip the strings of your handbag, knowing the gun Polly had given you was safely tucked away inside.

Swallowing, you resounded yourself to shake it off, to toughen up, and you straightened your shoulders as you addressed the stranger once again. “Excuse me?”

“My sister saw you both walking home often late at night. I suppose he’s moved on, I shouldn’t be surprised.” She was rambling now, her cheeks blushed as if she were embarrassed by her own words. “I know we shouldn’t be speaking of this, not in public at least. It’s just hard, y’know, losing a customer. Especially one like him.”

Customer. You looked over the stranger in front of you again and tried to think of any other instance where her phrasing would make sense aside from the very clear one that came to mind.

Ada called for you, reaching you with a handful of dresses. You turned back to the woman who nodded and made her leave.

“Ada, who was that?”

She craned her neck and clicked her teeth. “Ah, that was Lizzie Stark. Surprised you haven’t seen her around town. Though why would you, less you were payin’ I suppose. Here, try these on.”

——-

It’d been a while since you’d been on a real date. Even before you’d been sent to this place, dates had started to dwindle as you got older and got more choosy. For a while, starting in college, you’d easily been able to flirt with someone new, get to know them, and then start a fling for a while until one or both of you got bored. The couple serious relationships you’d had were harder for you. Being vulnerable hadn’t come easy for you, and it created commitment and trust issues. Dates became more complicated than they were worth.

Tommy had greeted you at your place, and you surprised yourself with how much you missed him in the few weeks he’d been away. There was something about his presence, knowing that he was here, in the city, gave you a wave of some kind of safety and security that you hadn’t realized you’d been missing.

He looked tired, though he smiled at you warmly as he walked you toward the family car, and offered you a hand in as you climbed in.

This had been the first time you’d actually been excited for a date since possibly high school.

And of course, Harry had to go and buzz kill your mood the day before the races. He hadn’t meant to, of course. After the Benji incident, he’d been extra protective and cautious. You’d explained the situation (without the stealing money from the Shelbys part) and he’d been surprisingly sensitive. But he believed his recent pub decision would make you feel better instead of make you sour.

“Somethin’ the matter?” He asked when you were quieter than he expected. “If this is about Hancock—“

“No,” you answered, already knowing from Polly that Tommy and the brothers had learned of Benji’s malfeasance, but he’d disappeared before Scudboat and Lovelock could find him. You’d cursed your previous self for trying to be sympathetic toward the man — it seemed like you’d just made everything worse. “It’s nothing honestly, just something silly.”

“Go on, then. I can handle silly.”

Your cheek flinched as you looked over toward Tommy, humored by him even saying the word ‘silly’. He rose his eye brow as he looked over to you, offering you a smirk before pulling his eyes back to the road.

“Harry’s putting in an advertisement in the paper for another barmaid.”

Tommy’s smirk turned into a frown, “Is he mad? The place wouldn’t be standin’ without you — I’ve seen the numbers, I know. I’ll have a word with Harry—“

“He’s not replacing me,” you quickly corrected. “I thought the same thing, but he wants me to concentrate more on the books and said he’d rather bring someone in part time to fill in behind the bar.”

“Ah,” his brow creased as he gave you a short look. “The problem, then?”

You sighed, knowing that you were being childish. “I’m just feeling territorial, is all. I know I’m not technically being replaced, but part of it feels that way. Did I mention I have a small case of control issues? I blame it on being an only child.”

Tommy chuckled softly and shook his head. “You have nothing to worry about. If anything it’ll leave more time for you to do your real job.”

“My real job?” You asked him curiously.

“The Shelby business, ‘course. Wheels are already in motion, and today we’re going to enact the second part of my plan.”

“And that is?”

Tommy smiled, “Gonna buy a horse.”

>> next chapter << chapter masterlist

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ermesskiss · 2 months

Text

what music I think jjk adults would listen to

✧ ft: satoru, suguru, nanami, shoko, choso, higuruma, toji, sukuna, and kenjaku ✧ a/n: been thinking about this for a minute, and I decided to write out my opinions/hcs

jjk student version here + jjk character playlist works here

· · ───────────── 𖥸 ────────────── · ·

✦ gojo

➥ Gojo is a very laid-back and fun guy, so I think he would listen to music that has that same energy

➥ He kinda reminds me of those moms who listen to the overplayed songs on the radio and always sing them, I don’t know to explain it, but that's him

➥ I think that he gets his song recs from his students in a attempt to bond with them

songs

♪ Heaven To Me: Tyler, The Creator ♪ Chanel: Frank Ocean ♪ Died and Came Back: Lil Uzi Vert ♪ Pop Style: Drake ♪ Wake Up in the Sky: Gucci Mane ft. Bruno Mars

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✦ geto

➥ I think Geto listens to a little bit of everything, alternative, rock, rap, R&B, and hip-hop. I can’t really picture him strictly listening to rock and alt. It doesn’t feel right

➥ As Geto got older, I think his music taste changed. He still likes everything, but he leaned towards one genre rather than several

➥ When Mimi and Nana show Geto their favorite music, he adds the one he likes to his own playlist, and vice versa

songs

♪ Sextape: Deftones ♪ Passion Fruit: Drake ♪ Rental: Brockhampton ♪ 3005: Childish Gambino ♪ Even Flow: Pearl Jam

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✦ shoko

➥ I think the music that she listens to is very mellow and relaxing but might have some sad undertone to it from time to time

➥ She gives me older music vibes from the 70s to the 90s. Like Fleetwood Mac, ABBA, and Sade. I can’t see her listening to newer music

➥ I think she listens to more female artists than men; it’s not intentional. She does enjoy songs from men, but it’s a pattern. I also think that Shoko is a big fan of The Cranberries; I am a soul believer in this

songs

♪ Sunday: The Cranberries ♪ Bette Davis Eyes: Kim Carnes ♪ Fade Into You: Mazzy Star ♪ Landslide: Fleetwood Mac ♪ So Far Away: Carole King

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✦ nanami

➥ Student Nanami was emo, so he definitely listened to My Chemical Romance

➥ He started listening to more rock when he grew out of his emo phase. He prefers light rock rather than heavy

➥ When he gets sick of music, he puts on a podcast about business/the economy, or world events OR OR audiobooks

songs

♪ Helena: My Chemical Romance ♪ I Miss You: blink-182 ♪ Dust in the Wind: Kansas ♪ Dancing In the Dark: Bruce Springsteen ♪ Rocket Man: Elton John

───────────────────────────────

✦ choso

➥ He’s giving off rock and metal vibes, also like sub-genres of those

➥ His go-to music is rock, but I definitely think he listens to other music, something like R&B and hip-hop

➥ Like the great sibling, he is, he always gives Yuji the aux and listens to his song recs

songs

♪ Granite: Sleep Token ♪ Generation Dead: Five Finger Death Punch ♪ Enter Sandman: Metallica ♪ Chop Suey!: System Of A Down ♪ War Inside My Head: Suicidal Tendencies

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✦ higuruma

➥ Similar to Shoko, I think he also listens to older music rather than newer stuff, but it’s not because he doesn’t enjoy new music; he is just too busy and stressed to figure out what artist he likes and just stays to what he knows

➥ He’s a big Radiohead fan, and maybe The Smiths, too? Music that's kind of sad and angst, yk?

➥ Genre-wise, I think he would like a little of everything if he could sit down and enjoy music.

songs

♪ Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now: The Smiths ♪ Karama Police: Radiohead ♪ Wild Sex (In The Working Class): Oingo Boingo ♪ Eyes Without A Face: Billy Idol ♪ What’s Up?: 4 Non Blondes

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✦ toji

➥ Definitely listens to divorce dad music

➥ Drinks a nice cold beer while listening to Nickelback

➥ I think because Toji doesn't think highly of himself, I can see him listening to self-loathing music and music that relates to anger or internal turmoil

songs

♪ How You Remind Me: Nickelback ♪ Pancake Land: Element Eighty ♪ The Man Who Sold the World: Nirvana ♪ It’s Been Awhile: Stained ♪ Crawling: Linkin Park

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✦ sukuna

➥ So, at first, I was sure he would listen to heavy metal and rock because he has such an aggressive personality, but after I gave it some more thought canon, Sukuna would hate it. Music or noise that loud and obnoxious would annoy him.

➥ Acknowledging the fact that he was born in the Heian era and during that time, they listened to Gagaku (court music), which is either instrumental or vocal. It’s calming and relaxing in contrast to his persona

➥ Or he hates music altogether, idk; he's a grumpy old man. Everything pisses him off

songs

♪ Menace: Five Finger Death Punch ♪ Monster: Skillet ♪ Bullet With Butterfly Wings: The Smashing Pumpkins ♪ Push: Matchbox Twenty ♪ Geisha: Anthony Davilio

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✦ kenjaku

➥ Since he's over a thousand years old, imma say he has a very diverse taste of music and probably listens to a little bit of everything. If I were to choose what genre he likes most, I would say rock, both light and heavy

➥ Kenjaku enjoys listening to Marilyn Mason and Oingo Bingo. Marilyn Mason because he’s Marilyn Mason (derogatory) and Oingo Bingo because of their surrealist music, which I think Kenjaku would find them entertaining

➥ Listens to music that feeds into his delusions, motivating him to continue with his vision of the world he wants

songs

♪ Weird science: Oingo Boingo ♪ Aerials: System Of A Down ♪ Break My Stride: Matthew Wilder ♪ The Beautiful People: Marilyn Mason ♪ Everybody Wants To Rule The World: Tears For Fears

───────────────────────────────

✧ I currently have over 1.9k liked songs, so hopefully, there is enough diversity in songs and artists. i was going to do yuki, but it was stressing me out. Maybe in the future, I'll add hers. There is definitely more I wanted to add but my mind can only contain so many thoughts, unfortunately. ✧ Anyway, I want to hear other people's opinions and/or if people agree or disagree!!

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crazyk-imagine · 7 months

Text

Life from a New Perspective

Pairing: Edmund Pevensie x Fem!reader

Characters: Peter Pevensie, Susan Pevensie, Edmund Pevensie, Lucy Pevensie, Fem!reader, Reepicheep, Oreius

Warnings: Fluff, fighting, Narnia in another battle, this came out of nowhere, I don't know where this was really going but I went with it, stupid backstory for the storyline to make sense, Edmund needed to meet his match, this is oddly cute, I thought this was going to be cringey but I proved myself wrong lol, the title is 100% based on P!ATD song

Word Count: 784

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You stop, breathing hard with the prickling sensation of the people chasing you are getting closer. You spin around and see a familiar-

You furrow your brows, fighting stance barely weakening. "Reepicheep?

The brave mouse lowers his sword and calls out your name. "I thought you died?"

"When has anything ever taken me down?"

He nods, "I knew I chose you for a reason."

"You did no such thing."

"Uh- sorry but you two know each other?" You turn to the dark-haired man.

Your eye twitches. "Royalty?"

"He is the second king of old."

"The young man?"

"I prefer to be called by my name."

You close your eyes, not wanting to shout at someone with royal status. "What's your name?"

He furrows his brows, confused about how much yet so little you know about him. "You don't know?"

"I prefer not going into town."

He raises a brow, “that’s not concerning to hear.”

“People don’t like me.”

“I wonder why," he mumbles, not meaning for you to hear.

You scoff, “until next time, Reepicheep.” You jump over a log and tale off.

“Now, look what you’ve done,” says the mouse.

“Me? If anything, it was you.”

“I did nothing to run her off. I’m the reason she stayed but then you opened your big mouth.”

Edmund rolls his eyes, “whatever, let’s go.”

They take off, meeting with his siblings and a few of their warriors.

“What are we going to do now?” Susan asks.

“We can go to the river and see who will be willing to fight from there?” Peter offers, not entirely sure where else they can go to find more Narnians.

“We would have had a good swordsman had you not talked,” Reepicheep grumbles.

“What’d you say?” Lucy turns to him.

“His majesty ran off our only hope.”

“What’s he talking about?” Peter turns to Edmund and then the mouse. “What are you talking about?”

“The sarcastic decided to open his mouth and run off my apprentice.”

“Apprentice?” Lucy chimes in. “When did you have an apprentice?”

“Well-”

A group of bandits come up from behind the trees.

“Where did your apprentice go?” Peter shouts, kicking the bandit back.

“How am I supposed to-”

You jump the tree branch you were perched on and swing across the way, kicking the one sneaking up behind Edmund.

“There she is.”

You duck just in time, giving the mouse a bridge to climb and attack. “Looks like we meet again,” you nod to the third eldest Pevensie.

“Looks like we do.”

“Let’s see if you fight as good as you talk,” the corner of your lips twitch.

“Believe me, I’m good with a sword.”

“Care to make a wager?”

“Like?”

“If we make it out of here alive, we spar together?”

“You’ll lose.”

You shrug, “I’ve always wanted to be defeated by a king,” you wink and run to help Lucy.

“Look who’s decided to come out of the woodworks,” Oreius says.

“Guess who’s still in the woods,” you respond.

“You’re still not funny.”

“I disagree. I’m hilarious.”

“I think Edmund’s found his match,” Lucy whispers to his siblings.

“Were they flirting while we were fighting?” Peter asks, still baffled about it.

“They were,” Susan pats his arm. “Is everyone alright?”

“Well, if everyone’s fine. I’ll be off now,” you try to sneak away when your favorite mouse stops you.

“Hold on there.” He stands upon a rock. “You’re not leaving so fast. I haven’t seen you since that idiot got thrown out of town.”

“What?”

“Yeah, after you left, we found him stealing from everyone and threw him out.”

“No one believed me.”

“I did, that’s why he's gone.”

You smirk, “I knew there was a reason we met.”

That certainly quiets him down. “I believe there is someone else for you to meet.”

“I don’t like what you’re implying.”

He shrugs, giving the young king enough time to walk up to you. “You fought well.”

You slowly turn, “I didn’t need to save you nearly as times as I thought.”

“I didn’t need saving.”

“That’s what you say but who was the one to take down the bandit sneaking up behind you.”

“I had it handled.”

A smile dances across your lips, “I know. I just wanted to mess with you.”

He stares at the ground, trying to ignore the heat in his cheeks. “I- that was uncalled for.”

“Someone’s got to keep you on your toes.” You skip over to the other siblings and introduce yourself, throwing them off; on one hand, you can be deadly and fight and on the other, you can be as sweet as can be.

It intrigued Edmund a little too much for his comfort.

#the chronicles of narnia fanfic #the chronicles of narnia fanfiction #the chronicles of narnia imagines #the chronicles of narnia imagine #the chronicles of narnia #the chronicles of narnia x you #the chronicles of narnia x reader #edmund pevensie #edmund pevensie imagines #edmund pevensie imagine #edmund pevensie fanfic #edmund pevensie fanfiction #edmund pevensie x fem!reader #crazyk-imagine #edmund pevensie x you #edmund pevensie x reader

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sjmgirlie · 2 months

Text

I’m sorry. I try not to be rude about people’s ships because well you have fun with what you like and I’m totally okay with that. But the discourse about the Blood Rite and Hybern camp is hilarious.

Of course Cassian was freaking out knowing his mate was in the BR. A completely normal reaction when you have strong feelings/a bond with someone. Did Azriel? No. Was he still furious at the mention that the women he is training are in harms way? Of course??? Contrary to popular believe, Azriel actually exhibits way more protectiveness over the females in his life than any other character in ACOTAR:

Mor - Eris calls her a slut and he literally almost chokes him to death. Always protective of her in Court of Nightmares and around Eris.

Feyre - be careful how you speak about my High Lady. Helps her with flying and other moments.

Nesta - He brought her back from the mask and comforted her in CC3. Was never mean to her in any of the books even when the rest of IC was.

Elain - Hybern, when everyone (including her sisters and mate) thought she was crazy. There’s more.

His mother - Nesta makes a comment about how Az probably has a bad mom and he gets mad.

These are off the top of my head.

I feel like people forget that Az… does not like Illyrians. He literally said in ACOFAS:

“A pointless week of bloodshed” pg 25

“The Illyrians are pieces of shit” pg 67

If it truly came down to it, I’m sure that Azriel would at least argue to break their rules. Just like Cassian did. But Cassian still cares about the Illyrians. Azriel really doesn’t.

The involvement of Nesta and Gwyn is the Blood Rite is not as significant as Emerie’s!!!!!! Emerie is an Illyrian woman. She is the ONLY Illyrian woman to ever win the Rite. THAT is the biggest plot point of the event. Yes, Gwyn and Nesta participating builds on their healing journeys and the Valkyrie, but Emerie winning the Rite initiates what SJM laid out in ACOFAS. Where Cassian and Emerie first met. The layout for a change in Illyrians and the Illyrian women actually training as warriors.

If anyone is going to “fix” the Illyrians, it will be Emerie. Not Gwyn or Nesta. Emerie, the ILLYRIAN women. And Cassian would be who helps potentially. Because he actually cares about the Illyrians regardless of his history. He is the General. Of course he cares.

Now in terms of the rescue of Elain in Hybern, as many have already said, this was a massive risk. Cassian said "We'll get her back", but moved to comfort Nesta. Not only did Az actually notice Elain wasn’t there, but he also specifically said “I'M getting her back” twice (with rage if I might add) even after Nesta specifically said “then you will die”. Az, Feyre and Elain could have died in this rescue attempt too.

What was the point of this kidnapping if not to show he saves her? Tamlin redemption for giving Feyre the wind to fly? Jurian helping Feyre enter the camp? For Feyre to fly? Like maybe but the biggest point was Azriel going to save Elain. Tbh we kind of needed Feyre there to narrate lol. “You came for me” which Feyre says is what she saw in her dream of what the cauldron even lured Elain in by. That Grayson had come for her. He didn’t, it was Azriel.

Do I think if there weren’t the rules for the Rite that Cassian and Azriel would have went to save them? Of course they would have. But they weren’t meant to rescue them.

This was the big moment in all of the healing journeys for the Valkryie. For Emerie, becoming the first Illyrian women to win it. For Gwyn, leaving the library and becoming a true warrior. For Nesta, holding the line and protecting the people she loves like she hasn’t been able to before. THAT is the purpose of the Blood Rite. Not determining if there’s some couples involved. We already know the couple involved. It’s Nessian.

We seriously need to stop diminishing massive moments in the female characters journeys to ships.

#acotar series #eriel #pro eriel

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applejuicefruit · 1 year

Note

I have a really sad request to make :)

Can you write reader being Kylian ex and she died like in a car crash or in any way you want and Kylian spends his free days just daydreaming about their past together because he can’t move on because he doesn’t want to? I know it’s very sad but I love your angst so much please thank you 😊

writing this made me cry :((( also reader wasn’t his ex but his gf i hope you don’t mind!

tw : major character death, sadness, depression, just a lot of angst, mention of smut and pregnancy

kylian mbappe x reader

Daydreaming

“Kylian can you pass me pink t-shirt that’s on the bed?” you asked from the other side of the bathroom.

“Why?” he asked you back but you could feel his voice slightly teasing you.

“Because I have to get dressed?” you sarcastically remarked.

“But I love when you’re naked” he said opening the door as you were standing only in your underwear in front of the mirror.

“Kylian…” you called him.

“Fine” he murmured throwing you the t-shirt so you could finish getting dressed up “but tonight I don’t want to see anything covering you up okay?” he smirked kissing your cheek.

“Yeah yeah tonight I’ll be naked and shivering” you joked.

“Who said you’ll be cold?” he teased you.

“Kylian, finish to get dressed or we’re be late and I don’t want to be late at Ethan’s birthday” you scolded him and he started laughing.

“Okay boss” he laughed again as he got back in the bedroom looking for something to wear.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I can’t believe that in less than a year you’ll be the one in white” Kylian said as you were going through some magazines looking for the perfect wedding dress.

“It took you a bit too long to propose don’t you think?” you teased him.

“Fair is fair…” he joked too.

He loved how you were able to pull off a remark or a bad joke in every kind of situation, always making him feel at ease and making him laugh.

“We still need to pick up a location…you know time is ticking” you told him.

“What? I am the Kylian Mbappè, I could call the louvre and rent it for tomorrow and they’ll be okay with it” he joked.

“Okay Beyoncé” you laughed.

He sat on the couch next to you as he scooped you closer into his arms.

“I don’t want a fancy or big location…it just have to be romantic and full of love…we could be even get married in our apartment that honestly I wouldn’t care…” he said wrapping his hands around your waist as you laid your head on his chest.

“I love you Kylian” you said looking at him.

“I love you too mon cherie” he kissed your lips.

“But no, we’re not getting married into our apartment…” you joked again and he breathed out a laugh.

“You’re something else” he said to you.

“I know I know” you teased him again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I’m so fucking proud of you” you said to Kylian as you were kissing every inch of his face.

PSG has just won an important match and Kylian scored twice so as you were waiting for him to come back home you decided to pull out a little surprise for him, wearing your favourite black lace bra and matching panties.

“Thank you mon amour” he said holding your waist as he gently laid you down on the bed “is this all for me?” he asked even if he already knew the answer.

“Of course” you said smiling.

“I love you so much you know?” he said as he started kissing your neck and collarbone.

“No…I think you have to show me” you teased him looking at him directly in his eyes. You weren’t always so confident, especially when it came to intimate situations but Kylian always made you feel loved and comfortable, always treating you as you were a work of art and always prioritising you. He made you feel special and comfortable about yourself. And he never admitted but he loved how he was able to bringing that confidence out you because his favourite moments were when you took charge in the bedroom, he could be on his knees everyday for you.

“I’m gonna show you exactly how much you mean for me…” he said as his kisses started going down and you couldn’t hold back your moans.

They were music to his ears.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Why it’s not working?” you said with tears filling your eyes.

“Baby…sometimes it takes time” he said as he sat on the bathroom floor next to you.

“We’ve been trying for a year now…maybe something is wrong with me?” your eyes never meeting his face as you started down looking at the negative pregnancy test you were holding in your hands.

“What? No baby don’t say that…never say something like that okay? It takes time, sometimes even a few years…it’s not your fault…we can try as much as you want” he said holding your face as his thumbs wiped off your tears.

“I really want a family Kyky…” you whispered, hating to feel so vulnerable.

“I want this too baby but you can’t stress too much about it, it’s not healthy and it will only make you suffer…” he said looking for your eyes.

“Okay…” you only said.

“I feel like the next time would be the perfect one, just have a little faith baby” he said too hopeful as you nodded.

If only he knew that there wouldn’t be a next time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kylian was peacefully sleeping when his telephone started ringing. He had three missed calls from his brother and one missed called from his mom as she was trying to reach him again.

He woke up around 2 am and he saw his mom calling him.

“Hello?” he answered with a very sleepy voice.

“Hospital. Now” she said hanging up and Kylian’s heart started beating so fast he thought it could explode.

You weren’t in bed as he knew you were partying with your best friends as it was your bestie’s birthday so you had to be safe, right? Right?

He quickly got dressed and drove as crazy through the empty parisian streets.

He reached the hospital in record time and once inside he saw his brother waiting for him.

“What’s going on?” he saw his brother with a very sad face.

“Kylian…you should sit” his brother said.

“Ethan…tell me the fuck it’s going on…” he started to get a bit aggressive as everyone was around him and no one would tell him anything.

“It’s y/n…she was in a car crash…” Ethan said and Kylian’s heart missed a few beats.

“But she’s okay?” he asked too hopeful.

“She’s in coma right now…” his mom said trying to calm him down “…a man didn’t stop at the red light and he crushed into y/n…the police already has him in custody, he was drunk too so he probably will be in jail for a long time…” his mom said.

But Kylian’s didn’t want him in jail. No he wanted him death for even trying to hurt you.

“She’ll be okay son” his father said as Kylian sat down in the waiting room.

Kylian and his family spent the whole night at the hospital waiting for some news on your situation. His mom already called your family, alerting them of your current situation.

The next few days were hell, for everyone.

Kylian missed trainings and a very important match but at the moment he couldn’t care less about his team as you were fighting for your life in a hospital bed. Your family was in the hospital with Kylian’s family. He spent every single minute he could in your room, always whispering soft words and singing your favorite songs hoping you would wake up.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I’m so sorry…there’s nothing we can do” the doctor said the next day while everyone was in the waiting room “she’s gone…” he said before leaving them all alone.

You were dead.

And Kylian couldn’t do anything about it.

The moment he heard those words coming out from the doctor’s mouth and he didn’t know what to feel.

Your family started crying. His family started crying. Ethan saw you as a big sister so he was as heartbroken as everyone was. But Kylian started at the long corridor feeling completely empty, like he had just lost a part of him.

His family tried to persuade him to come home with them but all he wanted was to go to his home, lay in bed and cry.

So that’s what he did.

He hold your pillow and started crying all night.

He wouldn’t leave your pillow as it was smelling of your perfume.

The world found out about your death pretty quickly and every one started calling or messaging Kylian but he wouldn’t simply reply. He would leave everyone on read or he would hung up. The pain he was feeling was too much and he didn’t know if he could handle it.

Your funeral was easy, filled with pain and sadness, only his family, your family and your friends were there. The moment he buried you he knew it was over, that you wouldn’t come back.

He came back training a few weeks later and since that day PSG started winning every single match as Kylian was hurting himself by training more and playing every single match. Everyone around him noticed it but they kept they mouth shut because they knew Kylian was too vulnerable in that moment.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I really want to go to Iceland tho…” you said while you were both in bed as you were looking for your perfect honeymoon trip.

“But it’s cold…” he said.

“Who said honeymoon has to be in a tropical place?” you teased him.

“But why Iceland?” he asked.

“Why Bahamas?” you asked him.

“Because we can swim” he laughed and you started laughing too.

“We can swim in Iceland too you know…” you teased him.

“Oh please…” he started laughing as he held you closer.

Little did you know he already booked the whole trip to Iceland but he wanted to be a surprise for you.

“I’ll stick to the Bahamas…” he joked.

“I’ll convince you anyway” you said kissing his lips.

His arms went to hold your waist as you sat on his lap.

“Is this how you wanna convince me?” he teased you.

“Maybe…” you started kissing his neck as his hands went under your t-shirt, leaving goosebumps all over your skin.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kylian spent all of his days daydreaming about you.

About the family you were going to create.

About the love you two shared.

It’s been months after you died and it didn’t what his family tried to do to cheer him up, he rather spent his days dreaming about you being there with him instead of moving on because he knew that the day he would accept your death it would be over for him too.

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gowns · 1 year

Text

excerpt from article about sarah polley and her experience as a child actor

Almost twenty years ago, Polley considered making a documentary about former child actors, and interviewed several adults who, like her, had been stars in grade school. In 2011, Polley told me, “My memory—and it’s a genuine memory—is that I really wanted to do it as a little, little kid, and that my parents were jaded about the industry, and they knew better and resisted, but I had a will of steel and forced my way into it.” All her interview subjects had told the same story, she explained: “There’s not a single child actor you’re going to meet who’s going to say, ‘My parents pushed me into it’—even if they have terrible stories about their parents being stage parents. Shirley Temple, who started when she was a toddler, insisted that she forced her way into this. I frankly don’t believe it. And so, if I don’t believe their stories, why do I believe my own?”

Indeed, Polley’s family history belies the notion that she chose to act professionally. John Buchan, Polley’s brother, the second of two children from Diane Polley’s first marriage, told me, “We were all child actors. We can all find pictures of ourselves with our names and the color of our eyes and a phone number listed on the back.” Buchan did a little TV work, as did their sister Joanna and their brother Mark. “But, with Sarah, she hit the big one,” Buchan said.

Polley started acting at the age of five, appearing in a live-action Disney movie, “One Magic Christmas.” She was subsequently cast in many television roles, including a stint as Ramona Quimby in a series adapted from Beverly Cleary’s novels. In 1988, when Polley was nine, she played Sally Salt, the diminutive sidekick of the eponymous antihero of “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen,” a zany spectacular written and directed by Terry Gilliam, of “Monty Python” fame. Gilliam was an idol to Polley’s parents—particularly her father, Michael, who was born and raised in England.

The shoot took place largely at Cinecittà Studios, in Rome. Polley has happy memories of the city: she and her parents ate dinner every night on the Campo de’ Fiori, where she sometimes joined in with a band of roving musicians performing for tourists. The set, however, was often chaotic—and scary for a child. In one scene, she had to run through a mockup of a war-torn city as bombs exploded. The first take was terrifying enough to convince Polley that the detonations had gone awry; she ran straight into the camera, ruining the shot. For the second take, she was so frightened that she ran too fast, again rendering the scene unusable. In “Mad Genius,” an essay in her book, she writes, “I sobbed in my father’s arms in between takes and pleaded with him to intervene, to ensure I didn’t have to do it ever again. But when an assistant director came over to say they needed another take, my father said, with genuine remorse, ‘I’m afraid they have to do it again, love. I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can do.’ ” (Gilliam has said that, even if the set felt dangerous, it wasn’t.)

There were moments during her career as a child actor when adults, rather than just overlooking her vulnerability, appeared to cynically exploit it. Polley had only recently started work on “Avonlea” when her mother died—a tragedy for which, she says, she was entirely unprepared. (In her memoir, Polley writes with candid self-awareness of the gratification she took in being the pitiable child of a mother with cancer while at the same time being certain that her mother would recover.) During the show’s second season, Polley, who played a character named Sara Stanley, was presented with a scripted monologue in which her character cries over her mother’s death; unsurprisingly, she delivered an utterly persuasive performance. But the experience of this scene and others in which her character recalled her mother derailed Polley’s ability to mourn. “Because some of the first tears I shed about my mother’s death after the day she died were in aid of a performance, I was unable to produce genuine tears of grief for years to come,” she writes. In the aggressively wholesome world of “Avonlea,” which was made by Disney, Sara Stanley comes across as singularly sad, gaunt, and complicated.

Polley’s account of her life as a child performer—of being locked into extended contracts, and working “crushingly long” hours, and being beholden to adults whom she didn’t want to disappoint—raises disquieting questions about the ethics of having children act for commercial gain. Polley’s experience also underscores the fact that a child’s sense of volition—both in the moment and retrospectively—can be an expression of the sublimated desires of parents or other authority figures whom the child is eager to please. (The family, no less than the patriarchy, involves a structural imbalance of autonomy.) When Polley meets stage parents who insist that their child wants to perform, she replies, “Yes—and lots of kids want to be firefighters and doctors, too. But they must wait until they are no longer children to assume the pressures and obligations of adult work.”

sarah polley profiled by rebecca mead in the new yorker, nov 14 2022

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poisonpercy · 7 months

Note

i would be most intrigued to know the reason you hate nico di angelo

that sounds threatening oh god no im just gen curious

Lol you’re good and don’t sound threatening (to me)

As the self proclaimed “#1 nico fandom hater” that I am, I love this ask. Anyway, that being said, I don’t hate Nico di Angelo. My problem lies with fandom and how Nico is perceived. Before I get into it, here’s a collage of tumblr posts that represent my feelings on Nico:

And my favorite post that fully sums up my thoughts on Nico:

I’m going to be making some generalizations throughout this which I don’t love, but it gets my point across the best.

Canon Nico (specifically in pjo) = good! I like this little boy! Little cutie and a little shit. What’s not to like! (hoo!Nico = eh, he’s ok I guess. He didn’t need to have POV chapters and should have taken on a more minor role imo)

Fanon Nico ≠ not good! Please burn it with fire 😃

FYI: when I talk about canon Nico, I’m referring to the original characterization of him throughout pjo (maybe some hoo, but no toa).

So this problem happens across every fandom it seems like, and I have a dislike for every character that gets treated like this throughout all my fandoms. Not everyone is like that, but I am.

So what am I talking about? It’s the blatant fanonization of Nico to the detriment of his character and others. It’s taking popular fanon takes regarding Nico (behavior, personality, relationships, etc.) and insisting that they’re canon even when evidence shows the opposite.

A big problem for me stems from the solangelo ship. If you like it/ship it, that’s great! I personally hate it… like a lot. To me it came out of nowhere and the inclusion of it in canon has brought in fanon concepts into canon that overall damages the integrity the the wider scope of the riordanverse.

What do I mean? I can’t speak too much on canon since I only read up to The Burning Maze and refuse to read any further in toa or tsats, but generally what I’ve seen from others is that canonical events/their perceptions of them have been skewed in Nico’s favor to put down Percy and other demigods, even when Nico is more at fault. Not saying this is 100% in canon but it is in fanon. And this view is widely spread by people (not all) who like Nico, and it’s very hard to ignore if you don’t like it because it is everywhere.

Saying things like no one cared for Nico when he first came to chb is blatantly untrue and makes me think that if you have that opinion, you didn’t read botl. People didn’t hate him because he was the son of Hades because the vast majority did not know Nico was the son of Hades! He was mostly unclaimed from chub’s perspective. It’s just the people that went on the quest in ttc that knew because of Bianca.

Also like Percy straight up worried for that kid day and night. He felt responsible for Nico even though Percy himself was a child! Nico was the one that was pushing Percy and everyone else away. That was his own doing, though understandable. Don’t push Nico’s actions onto other characters to villainies them in Nico’s story.

Also, for some reason people still blame Percy for Bianca’s death and then come to the conclusion that Nico hates and (still) blames Percy for it. He doesn’t. If you don’t like Percy, that’s fine (but why are you reading the series then?) but don’t spew hate about a character on things that aren’t true. Nico isn’t going to be your bff if you do so.

There’s also the belief that Percy is like abusive to Nico because of that one scene in tlo. Please put on your thinking caps if you genuinely believe only Percy was in the wrong. Percy only lashed out at Nico because Nico betrayed his trust. Also, once again they’re both kids. They’re going to have immature reactions, but you also have to remember the stress of the situation that compounds everything that these characters do.

Ok, back to solangelo. There’s this weird codependent relationship that fans tend to force on Nico and Will. Other ships do it too but solangelo stands out to me. And maybe it’s because I just don’t like solangelo, or have a favorable opinion on Will Solace, or stopped reading toa, but I genuinely don’t think there’s much grounds to Will’s character besides being Nico’s boyfriend. I know he gets some more depth throughout toa (and possible tsats) but that only happened because he was Nico’s boyfriend. Like he was Nico’s boyfriend before he was Will Solace.

And because of this, fans generally tend to make Will this mouthpiece in fandom regarding Nico. He feels like a self-insert and not in a good way. And because of this, there’s a lot of negativity towards other characters in fandom that fans use Will’s “voice” to push in name of defending Nico or whatever. Like babes, you’re projecting. I don’t know Will, but the Will from the limited time we knew him in pjo wouldn’t speak that way/share those views.

Also the weird patient/doctor relationship solangelo has going on gives me the ick. Espresso with how it’s portrayed in fandom. Like there’s this weird power dynamic that just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I’m rambling at this point, sorry. I’m only on 2 hours of sleep right now so forgive me lmao.

I won’t go too much more in depth but Nico also gets infantilized a ton by Nico/solangelo fans which isn’t cool. He’s a kid, but he’s not a fucking baby.

Also making Nico this 1-dimensional emo, sad boi type character is not cool. He’s so much more to him. When you reduce characters to a singular trait, it leads to all the issues I described. Ok I’m just going to leave it at that.

TLDR: I don’t hate Nico di Angelo, I just have a lot of problems with his fans.

#i’m sorry if this makes no sense #nico di angelo #ask #anon #skys post

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sister-cna-reader · 1 year

Text

Dan meets Oracle

Snippet from How Red Hood Became a Househusband

He could feel the echo of his core breaking into a million pieces. Once again he was a gangly teenager with too much power- too big for his body. Seeing her there- healthy, older, with the same glimmer and concern in her eyes- threw him back to her gravestone, where her empty coffin lay.

His Jazz never got to be an adult. His Jazz died in the Nasty Burger explosion.

But here, in the wheelchair was someone so painfully like his Jazz. If he had saved her- If he had pulled her out of the wreckage-

He would have done anything to save her, to bring her back.

“Is he okay?” Not Jazz asked, her voice so different but still with the same softness.

Dan could feel Jason’s core reach out to comfort or console. The shadows on his form flickered over the hand on his shoulder. Tiny hands found his cheeks wet and Elle’s little burble of soothing brought him out of his past.

His fingers came away wet with blood red tears. He hadn’t cried these tears of grief since before he stole Vlad’s core.

“Da?” Elle cooed, her little head laying over his heart, arms spread as wide as she could to hug him.

“Ah, I’m okay kid.” Dan wiped the tears from his face and put on a smile that hurt at the edges.

“Nice to meet you Eyes of Gotham.” Dan greeted, right hand over his chest in salute, effect dampened by Elle’s koala cling. “I am Dan Phantom. I am supposed to train jason in his ghost powers.”

“Eyes of Gotham is a bit formal” the woman mused. “My code name is Oracle. I run surveillance and communications for the Bats and Birds. You can call me Barbara when in civvies.”

Barbara smiled warmly and gestured to Elle. “Who is the Cling On? I saw the group chat and want to be introduced properly.”

“My Daughter. Danielle. Or Elle.” he took a small step forward, letting the toddler know that this new person was friendly. This gesture led the tyke to happily float over to the Jazz Doppleganger.

“She can float?” Jason asked.

Dan shrugged, “She usually only does it when she’s really tired.”

“What a cutie! Are we sure she’s not a long lost Wayne Adoptee?”

“I’m hurt Babs! Back from the Dead Part 2 and you’re more interseted in Miss Sticky Hands?”

The redhead nodded. “Yeap.”

“This is ridiculous!”

“You should introduce Phantom and Co. to the Siren’s before they start to think Big Buff and Glowing over here is a new rogue encroaching on their territory.”

Toddler given back she dismissed them with a wave of her hand.

So what was that about?” Jason inquired as he practiced flying between rooftops.

Dan kept a steadying hand on his elbow. “Just got deja vu I guess.”

The responding “Sure” was just as believable.

Feels inspired by this Krossan Art:

#fanfiction #dp x dc #Dan Phantom #danielle phantom #halfa jason #That Art HITS SO HARD OKAY?#danny phantom #oracle

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benkeibear · 1 year

Text

☰ 𝐆𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤

⧫ Character: Shinichiro

꒰ ͜͡➸In every Timeline (1) | ꒰ ͜͡➸Losing you (3)

⧫ Reader: female | AFAB

⧫ Wordcount: 3.0k

⧫ Summary: Part 2 of In every timeline. The fate came crashing down on Shinichiro after he went back to save Mikey

⧫ WARNINGS: manga spoilers, major character death

⧫ A/n: don’t want to miss a post? Sign up for my Taglist in my Navi! (This is a repost from my old blog)

// 4 years later //

It was a sunny afternoon when you pushed the wheelchair Mikey sat in out of the hospital, smiling softly when the first rays of sunshine illuminated his skin, thinking how nice it must feel for him to leave the boring walls of the hospital even if it's just for a few hours a day. “Did you hear that Haruchiyo gets released tomorrow again?” You asked him, waiting a short while “Shinichiro planned on picking him up… Takeomi still doesn't talk with him” you continued, filling him in on the latest news. It felt like you were talking to yourself but you didn't mind, knowing that he might not be able to answer but he does understand and he deserves to know what's going on around him.

The rest of the way you told Mikey about your day, filling him in on the latest gossip from your work like every week when you round the corner to the local park, going up the small hill with him, just like you did when he was younger, having picnics with his family at the very same spot. It sure was harder to get there now, having to push his wheelchair all the way uphill but you never minded it, wanting to make Mikey happy as much as you could. Once you reached the very top you put a thin blanket around the boy, shielding him from the soft breeze as you crouched down next to him to hold his hand. “I can't believe that it's been 4 years already” you mumbled with a small frown but quickly shot him a smile “your brother is doing so great… Today is his last exam - i’m sure he aces it” you explained happy, proud of how Shinichiro handled everything. You were well aware that he wouldn't have made it this far without you after his grandpa died and Emma left, he was all alone with Mikey, trying to work at the hospital and to study to become an official caregiver, all while studying. It was you who made sure he got at least a few hours of sleep and that he ate, moving in shortly after Emma left. You never once complained about the situation, happy to be this close with him but it still hurt your heart that you couldn't be with him, there was simply no time for the both of you.

After two hours of enjoying the view you slowly got ready to go back to the hospital. Wrapping the blanket tighter around Mikey you smiled at him once again before slowly walking on “I'm sure your brother is done by now” you mumbled lighthearted, taking faster steps towards the big building. You were right - Shinichiro was already sitting outside, bouncing his leg in an impatient manner, a big smile appearing on his face once He saw both of you rounding the corner. “They said I did well!” He exclaimed excited, ruffling Mikeys hair and giving you a tight hug before taking the wheelchair from you, smiling softly at you. “And thank you again for taking care of this little Munchkin… In general, thank you for everything” he mumbled tired but appreciative, hoping you can take care of your own things soon again.

You would have thanked him but the way he put it sounded like this, like Mikey was a burden to you, which wasn't the case at all. “Don’t thank me for that you Idiot! Mikey is my little brother after all” you protested, shooting him an angry look which made him pout shortly, his eyes seemingly empty as if his head is somewhere else. This was one of those moments again where his heart ached, where his heart yearned for you and he wanted nothing more but to kiss you and hold you close against his body - but he couldn't. It wouldn’t be fair to either of you. He shook his head ever so slightly and went inside with you, having to bring Mikey back to his room before gently holding his hand. “I’ll be back tomorrow as always… But Baji and Haruchiyo are coming to visit too” he explained with a big smile, already looking forward to see Haruchiyo again. You waved goodbye to Mikey and left the room with Shin, pulling him into a tight hug once the door was closed, letting go of a breath you didn't know you were holding, head buried in his chest. “I know… I know he's looking worse every day. But we’re all doing our best” he whispered, letting his hand brush through your hair in a weak attempt to soothe you. It was hard on him as well but right now He had to be there for you, after all he had learned a long time ago that this will happen sooner or later and he had time to prepare himself. But how do you prepare yourself to lose a loved one? How do you prepare to say your last goodbye and let them go? It was impossible but at the same time inevitable.

You collected yourself after a few short moments in Shinichiros arms, wiping the few tears away that managed to escape and giving him a timid smile. “Sorry… I know it's hard on you too” you apologized sincere and held onto his arm as you two made your way to his bike, wanting to go home and just call it a day. The ride was spent in silence, just you holding extra tight onto your friend as you tried to swallow down the rollercoaster of emotions inside of you. Once you arrived at the Sano residence you warmed up the leftovers from the previous day, neither of you in the mood to actually cook. Dinner was served with a bottle of wine, feeling like you needed it to get your brain to think of anything but the inevitable fate of Mikey.

2 hours later and the bottle was emptied by the both of you, Shinichiros cheeks slightly pink from the effect the alcohol had on his body and your plan worked - both of you were thinking of something else, of each other to be precise. Before either of you could realize it, your lips were already connected with each other, a soft sigh escaping you at the contact. Just as quick as it happened you two pulled apart, head spinning as your mind was racing, Shinichiro didn’t look any different, a thousands possible outcomes running through his mind but he pulled you onto his lap, crashing his lips onto yours again, hoping you're feeling the same connection. You did - kissing him back just as eager as your arms looped around his neck, fingers playing with the hair in the nape of his neck as your lips danced against each other. He didn't even notice how his hands slipped under your shirt, resting on your back to feel your skin and pull you impossibly close to him. This was a moment both of you only dared to dream of happening, his tongue slipping into your mouth to deepen the kiss.

Just as quickly as things escalated, you forced yourself to stop this, not able to just casually hook up with Shin when both of you wanted more but never had the time to maintain a relationship. As if both of you sobered up upon your lips disconnecting, you looked at the other with shock, neither of you daring to move. “This shouldn't have happened… We can't do this” you eventually whispered, feeling your heart break all over again so you leaned in once more, kissing him with all the love you had to give before quickly going to your room, locking the door behind you the second it fell shut. Shinichiro sat on the couch for a while longer, head buried in his hands as he silently cried into them. The day was already hard enough, he didn't need to have his heart broken all over again but he understood - you two wouldn't work out and he didn't want to destroy this friendship, though it still hurts.

// 2 months later //

With a tight grip on Shinichiro’s hand you approached the casket to say your final goodbye to your little brother, trying your best not to cry as you saw the boy laying there, eyes closed and a small smile on his terribly thin face. Silently you two stood there, thanking Mikey and wishing him well on his last journey, may it be a peaceful one.

It was a small funeral, only Mikeys closest friends were there and once everyone bid their friend and brother farewell. It was Shinichiro who left first, needing some fresh air. With shaking hands he lit a cigarette, inhaling the smoke with ragged breaths when he saw you coming out of the building as well, seemingly looking for him. Once you found him, you couldn’t find any words, wanting to comfort your friend, be there for him but nothing came out so you leaned your temple against his chest, reaching up to take his cigarette so you could have some of it too. “Since when are you smoking?” He asked cold but you couldn’t seem to answer, the grief sitting deep within you as you felt your body shudder again before soft sobs managed to escape your lips. Shinichiro wanted to comfort you, he wanted to hold you but he couldn't, he couldn't even comfort himself at this moment so he just let you cry into his chest, one arm wrapped around you as the other took the cigarette from you so he could finish it.

“Oi Shin, wanna grab a drink?” Wakasa called from a small distance and you felt his head shot up, nodding shortly after and without another word he left you standing there, crying into your own hands. He hated himself for leaving you behind like this but he couldn't do this, he couldn't be there for you and act like everything was alright when nothing was - and he knew how childish it was, but he was angry. Angry that you broke his heart more than once. Angry at himself for being this bitter when it was his own fault in the first place.

At the bar he heard another group of men talk about some homeless guy who talked about traveling through time and at any other day Shinichiro wouldn't even have listened but the desperation of losing Mikey made him lose his mind. “Where did you say was that guy?” He asked serious, earning himself a round of laughter as they couldn’t believe he was so naive to believe in something this childish. Shinichiro didn't care anymore, leaving the bar once He had his answer, Wakasa walking right behind him “Oi, Shin! The fuck's wrong with you?” He barked as Shinichiro confronted the homeless guy, making himself look like a lunatic. “Shut up” the black haired man growled at his friend who left shortly after, clearly fed up with Shinichiros behaviour.

“I wanted these powers so much, that I got them by killing the person in front of me” the homeless guy laughed and packed his things, leaving the spot under the bridge with his few belongings. Shinichiro couldn't think straight anymore, picking up the closest object, a metal pipe, and smashing it over the strangers head - over and over again until his skull was flat. He quickly realized what just happened, staring at his hands and the scene in front of him with anger and disgust. “I- I killed him” he whispered to himself, relieve washing over him as He realized that he could go back to change the past, go back to save Mikey and set things with you right. “Go back. Go back…GO BACK” he stared at his hands as he screamed from the top of his lungs but nothing seemed to happen, a desperate laugh escaping his lips. Losing everyone around him left him crazy, believing in such a childish thing… Time traveling… How naive he was.

Standing on top of the bridge, Shinichiro looked down into the muddy river, tears flowing freely as he thought about his next move, taking one stop forward. The last thing he heard was how you called his name out in Horror as you jumped after him in hopes to save him…

—

“MOVE MOVE MOVE” Mikey screamed, landing his foot right in Shinichiros face when he jumped over the couch, model airplane in his hand. Once He came by again he started to cry, hugging Mikey close who tried to free himself from his brothers grasp, calling him weird for hugging him out of nowhere. The embrace ended and the oldest Sano wiped his tears away, taking the airplane away from Mikey who tried to reach for it, unable to get his hands on his beloved model because of the way Shinichiro held it up “Don't ever touch this again. Never” he spat serious, hating this piece of plastic once the memories sat back in before locking it away in his room, making it impossible for Mikey to get his hands on it again. “That's unfair Shin! I had so much fun” he protested and stomped outside to his friends, complaining loudly about what an Idiot his brother is.

“Did you really have to be this strict? It's just a toy and there's no way his kick was that bad!” Takeomi tried to reason from his spot on the couch but Shinichiro didn’t pay his comment any mind, relieved that Mikey is safe - he did it, didn’t he? Mikey is safe so there's just one thing he has to fix now… “Do me a favor and have an eye on them - I need to do something important” he mumbled, already running out of the room, leaving his friend no other choice but to be the babysitter.

He arrived at your place out of breath, the butterflies in his stomach doing cartwheels when he lifted his hand to knock at your door with a shaking hand. “Shin? Is everything o-” you couldn’t even finish your question, getting cut off with a kiss. You were too shocked to react, pulling back once you realized that your best friend is kissing you this very second. Looking down to your feet you tried to avoid the puppy eyes he's giving you, scared of your next words since he knew this situation all too well, already knowing what your next words will be. “P-please don't… Don't ever do this again. You're like a brother to me and this is…weird” you whispered out after taking a deep breath, the shock of this kiss still sitting deep inside your bones.

His face fell upon hearing your words, heart breaking once more at your rejection… was it all just a lie? Did you pity him? “B-but you said you loved me?” He whispered out more to himself than to you and you sighed, heart clenching in your chest when the tension around you was thick enough to suffocate you. “I never said that Shin… But I do love you - just not like this” you tried to reason, not knowing what's suddenly going on with your friend. Sure you had a crush on him as a child but you were long over it, not seeing him as anything else but a platonic friend. He laughed, that's all there was left to do - laugh at how stupid he was, thinking He can just show up at your doorstep and confess his love in the stupidest way, and with that he left, not saying another word.

As if there was a sudden shift in the air, you couldn’t stand to be around him anymore, needing hours to respond to a simple message he sent, coming up with excuses why you can't see him that day. “I’m such an Idiot” he whispered at his Phone screen, his last message not even going through anymore and the message you sent with this was clear, you cut him out of your life. Staring at your screen through tear stained eyes you blocked his contact, hoping he won't try to come over. The situation was too much for you to handle, too weird to just move on like nothing happened. It was his heartbroken expression you kept seeing every time you closed your eyes and the guilt of being just another rejection sat deep in your heart, unable to shake it off.

Days weren't the same anymore without you and Shinichiro became a shell of his former cheerful self, barely leaving his room anymore next to going to work, not seeing a point in taking care of him when he lost one of the most important people to him because of a stupid mistake. The fact that he will never see your smile again, never hear you laugh from one of his stupid jokes and never gets to hold you again ate him up from the inside. “When does y/n come over again? I need her to paint my nails” Emma asked him, earning a pillow being thrown against her head “she won't come over again” was all he said in a cold voice, worrying even Emma but she didn't dare to ask, leaving him to be miserable once again. The moments spent with Mikey were the only thing that made him smile but they became more rare with every passing month, making him wonder if he should dare to leap once again. He was happy that Mikey was okay, knowing that he will be safe and sound if he goes back again but he needed to fix this, he needed you to fix him, he needed your love like his lungs needed oxygen. The loneliness was destroying him from the inside, wondering if he jumps from that bridge again - will he be able to go back? Can he fix what happened one year ago? He would be fine with being just your friend, laying his greed for your love aside if that meant you will stay in his life.

#tokyo revengers x reader #tokyo revengers angst #tokyo revengers fluff #shinichiro x reader #Shinichiro angst #Shinichiro fluff #tokyo revengers x female reader #Shinichiro x female reader #shinichiro sano #tokyo revengers shinichiro #repost ♡

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ginneke · 9 months

Text

Flash Fiction Friday - #213: "Ten Years Later."

@flashfictionfridayofficial has released today's prompt and I've been ~inspired~.

—

I wrote an AU of my own AU, 'A Seed of Song', in which -- ten years after the Calamity -- a juvenile Rito tries to learn more about her Hylian dad, guided by her dead father's diary.

Told in reverse chronology. 1k words exactly in GDocs.

—

And The Time Has Flown

Characters: The Chick (A Seed of Song), Aryll, Purah (mentioned), Impa, Sidon, Revali (posthumous)

—

"The Director told me you're here. That you're healing.

"...Are you? I'm not doubting her! But— Are you really gonna wake up?

"...Are you really my father?

"Nobody can tell me. But if you are… Please. Come back. Come back."

—

"Hi! Um. I'm looking for Lady Purah?"

Aryll pauses and looks the little Rito girl over. She doesn't seem much taller than an eight-year-old, and her russet-and-cream feathers are in substantial disarray from a long, hard flight.

"The Director?"

The little girl nods. Her eyes flash with hope.

"You want that big building up the hill, then," Aryll says, pointing the way, and tries not to smile at the flicker of dismay on the girl's face that soon turns into grim determination.

"Thanks."

"You'll have a hard time getting up there, you know," Aryll calls after the child as she starts hopping away up the path/ Her legs are only little. "It’s late. I'll be running supplies up there tomorrow morning. You're welcome to stay with..."

- us, she almost says, but that's not right anymore. It's just Aryll in that old house across the Firly, after Gramps passed away and Ma went out hunting and never came back, and Nanna didn't wake up one morning, and—

And Dad and Link both died, far away from home, when the Calamity came.

“You promise?”

The girl says it with such suspicion that Aryll has to laugh. “Promise.”

She beckons for the Rito girl to follow. As they near the bridge, she thinks to ask, “What's your name?

The girl chirps out, “I’m—"

—

"...I see."

The child fidgeted from one foot to the other. "Do you... believe me?"

Truthfully, it is quite the wild and incredulous tale. If she hadn't been an unwitting witness to some small part of the tale, she might not have believed it.

But Impa had found herself cast as a silent intermediary, letting Link's letters slip out of the castle with minimal disturbance and no eyes but her own setting sight on their contents.

Champion Revali's replies had been scarcer, and neither side had given much indication of the regard that might imply a shared parental duty, but...

Purah told her, just once, of the champion's chick. Her older sister had always enjoyed keeping secrets. It would come as no surprise if Purah knew something more.

So Impa puts her doubts aside for now, and tells the child what she knows, and sets her on the path towards Purah.

...And that evening, when the shadows fall and the village turns still, Impa walks to the island where the Goddess Statue stands and prays Link might wake and return to them soon.

For Princess Zelda's sake, and for this child who calls herself his.

—

This year, Gaddison is chosen to wield the Ceremonial Trident. Not for the first time, Prince Sidon longs to be bigger. Then he might be the one to carry it instead.

He's distracted anyway. There's a Rito perched on the cliffside the entire time, though they don't make any move to approach, watching the subdued ceremony in silence and shifting only when Laflat steps forward and sings the song that Sidon hates them singing.

By the time the festival ends, and Sidon manages to glance up at the cliffside again, the Rito has gone.

He tracks them to a pond, south of the Veiled Falls, and finds them sitting at the edge of the water, a book in their wings and a bow set within reach.

They are - she is - singing. But it's not the simple version, the way Laflat sang it: it's Mipha's version, and Queen Sela's before her, with a few unknown turns that speak of another voice that passed it on.

Sidon picks up on all of that, but he can't make sense of it. "How do you know that?"

The Rito snaps her book shut, guilty. "I — my dad sang it to me when I first hatched."

"...You're a Rito," Sidon points out.

"Um. Yeah?"

Rito don't marry Zora. Do they? Maybe there's something he doesn't know. "How was your dad a Zora?"

"They... weren't? They were Rito. And Hylian. He's the one who sang to me. My uncle said he was a knight in service to Hyrule's princess..."

That's wrong. She's wrong. Princess Zelda only had one sworn knight. Everyone says so. And he was...

"The Hylian Champion was gonna be my sister's husband," Sidon tells her with certainty. His father says it's true, and all the councillors believe it too, even if they hate Hylians now. "You're mistaken."

It's the wrong thing to say. The Rito girl flies into a rage. "I'm not lying," she shrieks, "you're lying!"

"You're wrong!" Sidon yells back. "Why would my sister have made him that armor if they weren't…"

Everyone says it! Mipha loved Link. Mipha wanted to marry Link. So why does this girl think she can barge in and say otherwise?

But she flies off before Sidon can say so, winging her way south, away from Zora's Domain. Well. Good riddance, Muzu would say.

...He still feels bad about it. If he sees her again, he'll try to say sorry.

—

He keeps talking about giving her a name.

No matter that I've told him she has a name, and it's only a sad quirk of his biology that he can't say it. How else would she recognise when I'm talking to her? Really. She doesn't need a Hylian name yet.

—

...Loath as I am to concede the point, he might - inadvertently - have one.

And the name he suggested wasn't that unacceptable...

I wonder if she ever felt this way when I was young. Probably not: the way people speak of her, she thought herself invincible.

I should thank her for that lesson, at least. No warrior is invincible. Any battle might be our last. I knew that, but...

It took until now for me to understand it.

Yes. That name will do. I'll tell him when we meet at Mt. Lanayru…

#flash fiction friday #fic: a seed of song #ginnefic #revalink #implied revalink #why yes i'm deliberately playing coy with her name!#also: by writing this you can rest assured that these events will NOT happen in SoS #[Revali's diary gives a clue as to why/how.]#I'll add this to 'one-shots - one sitting' on ao3 eventually #but not yet

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bonebabbles · 9 months

Note

So since my rose-colored Gray Wing glasses have been torn of my face and stomped into tiny pieces, I’m now wondering if my perception of Clear Sky’s arc is also skewed. I thought his redemption arc was well done (until Star Flower came back) because he was sincerely trying, wasn’t expecting forgiveness, and (unlike a lot of redemption arcs) was not forgiven by most of the characters right away because of how bad his actions were. Until he got with Star Flower, I thought his redemption arc was damn near perfect. Do I have on rose-colored glasses for his redemption arc?

Clear Sky's "redemption arc" is one of the most incompetent bits of writing that has ever blighted the entire series and I promise you I'm not doing hyperbole. It is so bad that it drags down everything it touches, including Gray Wing, Thunder, Acorn Fur, and the entire concept of StarClan.

And, unfortunately, both things you cited there absolutely did not happen, I am going to have to eat your glasses. I'm gonna munch. I'm gonna cRUNCH

"He was sincerely trying"

He wasn't. He just stopped actively shredding random people on his border and then whines that he's "Trying So Hard," using it as yet another guilt trip tactic because he's still an abuser.

The SECOND anyone gives him any criticism (FOR BRINGING A WIFEBEATER INTO HIS CLAN MIND YOU), he twists the fact they're supposed to "forgive him" against them, starts calling Gray Wing slurs for having asthma, and gets offended at a warning while huffing, "no one tells me what to do!"

Like a big fucking baby

And he only let Tom into his clan (even implying he's not a REAL cat because he's fat + an ex-kittypet) because he promised he could show him how to "fight dirty."

AND ALSO he is fully aware that this man kidnapped children in a previous book; but Blazing Star completely forgets major details of the previous three books in a way that is absolutely unacceptable. You are practically reading a new continuity.

"He was not forgiven by the other characters right away"

He was. He was literally, immediately forgiven in the very opening of Blazing Star. By Gray Wing and Thunder, because the narrative decided that Everyone Is Responsible.

Even back in First Battle, right after the fight ends we get a line that gives Bramblestar a run for his money. "WE let it get too far." The narrative even scrambles for some reason to make a woman responsible and grabs Tall Shadow for some fucking reason.

Acorn Fur doesn't even mention that CLEAR SKY WAS STARVING HER FATHER before she decides to move in with him, because she would miss her parents too much on the moor... those parents who just died. In the battle Clear Sky started.

Everyone immediately forgives him and kisses his butt because "The guilt will hurt him more than any actual consequences :((( He was just under so much pressure of leading guys.... which is why he should continue to lead............"

I've actually had a hard time continuing my reread because I've actually been fucking enraged at how Thunder is swooning over his daddy "finally looking at him" uwu

This is painted like a good thing. This is a sweet and nice thing that finally, the abusive ghoul who shoved his face into a festering wound and said he shouldn't have been born just before trying to kill him and all of his friends 'respects him.' Oh Joyous Day Yippee Hooray!

How this ruins the other characters

It destroys Gray Wing because it makes ALL this dogshit behavior that he displayed for the first three books correct. In spite of how GOD awful this "Redemption Arc" is, you are supposed to believe that there is good "deep down" within Clear Sky. That all of this abuse apologia was wisdom. Gray was, and IS, right to take every insult and understand it as humility, and the Clear Sky on the page is actually a Good Boi who Really Does Love His Clan.

It ruins Thunder because even after ALL of that physical and emotional abuse and neglect, he's still supposed to honor Clear Sky as "You'll always be my father." These destructive impulses to want his approval are good and natural in this narrative, not something to confront or fundamentally question.

Fuck, just look at the Tom Redemption. The writers LOVE abusive parents. Even if they beat the shit out of your mom, get her killed, kidnap you, and had no part in raising you, "they still love you and would die for you." Tom's Redemption and Clear Sky's Redemption are just different lines in the same song.

Acorn Fur moves in with the guy who held one of her parents hostage and ultimately got both of them killed

And STARCLAN forms to "tell clear sky what to do," because in the baffling Fear vs Greed Dichotomy this series thinks is some kind of thesis, Clear Sky was just "afraid," not "greedy," and that means his fucked up little head can be fixed by the comfort a religious force can bring. He wasn't abusive because he loves having power over people, the thing that is right there on the page, nope, he really was just worried about death or responsibility or something.

This isn't even getting to the person he is in later material. He's a MONSTER in Moth Flight's Vision, as if his growth never happened.

And this is taking him all at face value-- in a meta sense, the sheer amount of female characters that get brutalized just for his man pain is legitimately dizzying. 2 mates die, 2 innocent women slaughtered, a child beaten and another starved to death, and even pregnant Star Flower gets pinned to the ground and licked on the face as her assaulter talks about how much he wanted her as a mate

This is the worst arc in the entire Warrior Cats franchise and it is spinning on the crap-axis that is Clear Sky's 'redemption'.

The arc is bad BECAUSE it is working towards this idea, that the best villain the series ever wrote has to become the writer's Poor Little Meow Meow halfway through 6 books, so we can get to our regularly scheduled Born Evil Foreigner Villains Who Hate Love And Friendship.

Imagine TPB but Fireheart cries that self defense against Clanborn cats makes you Just As Bad, Tigerstar was just scared or something, and you get two Diet Scourges. That's DOTC.

#dotc hate #tw abuse #tw fatphobia #tw domestic abuse

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uniquebureau · 1 year

Text

I love you when you do that

The prince comes to her room at night.

Author note: this is an extract from my fanfic. The female character is an oc.

When she opened the door, she held her breath.

Her prince was right in front of her. Looking even wearier and more tired than that morning: the circles under his eye had grown deeper and darker and his skin looked paler.

Elia opened her mouth to say his name, but he shut her down putting his lips on hers, cradling her face in his big hands, icy cold on her warm face. She pulled him inside her room, closing the door, wise enough to think they couldn’t be seen kissing like that.

When the door was closed, he slipped his tongue inside her mouth, groaning while tasting her, savoring her like he was starving.

He licked her lips one more time before interrupting the kiss, keeping his forehead against her without saying anything, his face tensed, a frown on his eyebrow.

They stayed like that for a bit, Elia understood he needed only that, he needed the calm and the silence, so she stayed in silence, waiting for him to speak, caressing the back of his hands, bony and soft.

He sighed and pulled her close, his eye still closed. “I didn’t know where else to go”

“I’m glad you came here” she admitted, brushing her nose against his.

“My father is dead” he whispered so weakly that she could hear him only thanks to their closeness.

She raised her hand and caressed his face. “I know” she whispered, nodding. “I’m so sorry”

His frown deepened.

“You’re freezing,” she caressed his cheek, right under the lace of his eyepatch. “Sit by the fire. I get you some water”

She poured the water into a cup, watching him walk to the fire almost limping; he looked drunk, but she knew he probably hadn’t been sleeping in days. When she brought him the water, he was sitting on the ground, on a big red carpet right in front of the fire. She held her gown and sat by his side, handing him the cup.

He looked at the cup and then at her, smiling briefly, a smile that looked almost painful.

“Thank you” he muttered under his breath.

She shrugged. “How are you?”

He chuckled, looking into the fire, he put his palms over the fire. “People keep asking me that, and I keep replying that I’m trying to be strong. But I’m not: the ugly truth is that… I don’t feel anything , at all. I mean, one should be sad on the day of his father's funeral, right? This is how normal people feel when their father dies. Then why can’t I feel anything? Why can’t I be normal for one fucking time?”

Elia had the impression that, if he had been in his full senses, he would have never told her something like that, he would have never opened up like that with anyone.

“Because love isn’t owed,” she replied, caressing his forearm. “It’s deserved”

He turned to her, nodding.

“I’ve tried, you know?” he admitted, turning back to look at the fire. “When I was little I followed him everywhere, I’ve listened to hours of boring meetings of the Small Council, of Lords making requests, I’ve asked him about his life, about his dragon… I couldn’t believe that my father was the last rider of the Black Dread. But he never cared about me, or any of us…”

The flames were burning into his eye while he talked. “The night I’ve lost my eye, something changed in me. And not just because I had claimed Vhagar. I was there, bleeding, defaced forever, and he was screaming at me, at me , for calling their precious grandchildren bastards . A simple statement, more than an offense, if you ask me.”

The more she heard that story, the more she realized that a war was starting only because of children’s bickering.

“I blamed Aegon, for telling me that.” he admitted, chuckling. “I thought he would have denied it, but my brother, the drunk idiot who had never missed a chance to taunt me, surprisingly had my back, he took the blame for me, and never said a word. I even had the suspicion he actually liked the Strong boys, but he took my defenses. Only he and our mother did. That night, I understood that we had just ourselves, that it didn’t matter how good I was, my father would have always preferred Rhaenyra and her family. I avoided him like the plague, since that night, and he has never asked why I suddenly stopped following him, so I thought it was a relief for him”

“The biggest lie of this world is that we should necessarily love our parents,” she told him. “Or that they will love us no matter what.”

“I wanted to punch all the people who had come to me today, saying how much he loved us” he confessed, closing his fists.

“You should have” she replied, shrugging.

He looked at her, giggling. He stopped and gave a deeper look at her hair completely loose, falling in black waves around her shoulder, it felt like he was seeing her again for the first time, without her colorful dresses or flashy jewelry. “I’ve missed you, sea girl”

Yeah, he definitely would have never talked to her like that if he was more in himself.

She chuckled, laying her head on the couch, looking at him. “I’ve missed you, too”

He looked down. “Can I stay here, tonight?”

She bit her lips, smiling. “I wouldn’t let you go anywhere else, my prince,” she said, tilting her head toward him. “Especially because you look drunk”

He chuckled. “I’m not drunk, I swear. I’m just really really tired”

She smiled. “Oh, I can tell. Do you want to lay on the bed?”

He shook his head. “Let’s stay here, just for a bit”

She nodded, coming closer.

“What about you?” his eye was battling to stay open, closing languidly for more seconds than a simple blink. “Were you asleep? Did I wake you up?”

She shook her head. “No, I… I couldn’t very much sleep”

“Were you worried about… I mean, about what would happen to us?”

That and so much more, my prince. She wanted to say, but she simply nodded.

“I’ve asked, before,” he told her. And her heart sank in her stomach, she realized only at that moment how scared she was to have to say goodbye to him. “They say nothing has changed, the wedding is still arranged.”

Her body relaxed with a deep sigh of relief when she heard that. Yet, she was far from being tranquil, but at least it was something less to worry about.

“What were you doing?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Getting bored, awake with nothing to do, and nothing to read except The Seven-Pointed-Star ” she admitted with a grimace.

“A delightful read” he joked, chuckling. “I’ve tried to read it to the twins but they get bored. They like stories, though.”

Elia came nearer, settling near him, her head almost on his shoulder. “What stories?”

“About our past, our ancestors, their dragons, how they conquered the Seven Kingdoms, how they forged the Iron Throne…”

She giggled. “I hope you tell them the part where Dorne refused to bow to the Targaryens and that’s why there aren’t dornish swords on the Iron Throne”

His tongue snapped lightly in his mouth. “I may have neglected that part…” he admitted with a laugh, “but Jaehaera asks me to tell her the tale of Nymeria every time she is sick. She has asked to learn how to use the sword“

She smiled. “Would you teach her?”

He nodded. “Of course I would. I’ve already commissioned a sword to give her for her name day”

“It’s very sweet of you” she admitted.

“I’ve always thought that when I would have had children, I wouldn’t have made any differences about them. Sons, daughters…they all should have the same possibilities”

That was sweet, other than absolutely right to say. Yet she felt like she wanted to sink into the ground and never came up again.

Here's what you’re taking away from him.

Go to your prince and tell him that he’ll never have an heir, that he’ll never give his family name to a child, that he’ll never put a dragon egg on his child's cradle, that he’ll never see his heirs play with his nephews… Tell him that and you’ll lose him forever.

“Do you… do you really want children?” she asked, tentatively.

He shrugged, he had finally closed his eye but was still clearly awake. “It’s not that I have other choices. It’s my duty, I have to make our bloodline continue. But… after all that’s been, I don’t really know if I could be a good father. I think about it sometimes…”

Elia had to bite his lips not to let tears drop down her face. She raised a hand and put it on his cheek, slowly caressing his cheekbones.

“You would make a wonderful father,” she told him, while her fingertips were starting to move in circles around his jaw until he relaxed.

He sighed, drowsy and almost peaceful when he spoke. “Gods, I love you when you do that”

She flinched. “You mean you love it ?”

But he didn’t reply, finally asleep, finally resting.

She took a blanket from her bed and put it on him, before sitting next to him and nestling on his shoulder. Falling asleep instantly.

#aemond targaryen fanfic #aemond targaryen #aemond targaryen x reader #aemond targaryen x you #house of the dragon fanfic

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oncemorewithqueering-tv · 3 months

Text

twin peaks sexuality headcanons

warning: very long

my god do I have THINGS to say about this show and 99 of them are about albert

so I thought before my feed is entirely twin peaks, I’d give my thoughts on the Outrageous Gay Tension of this show with some context

also ignore my handwriting, I’m very sick at the moment and have taken a lot of paracetamol (be more responsible than me kids)

spoilers for all 3 seasons, sorry

DALE COOPER

he/him

transmasc (FTM)

bisexual

listen. listen. trucoop is real rosencoop is real it’s all real. i love coop more than i can describe (which is weird considering I’m gay) and i heavily head cannoned him as trans and bi the second he drove onto my screen. i think he’d prefer men but women are also his cup of tea, or coffee rather. anyway he deserved better and he deserved to give Harry a little kiss.

HARRY TRUMAN

he/him

cisgender male

bisexual

i originally would have said Harry was gay, but I’m not a big fan of relationship erasure. yes, he is with josie. that’s why he’s bi.

i think Harry would have had a crush on some guys at school but would have bottled it down, until coop came to town, and he suddenly had a gay crisis. if i had to pinpoint a moment, i would say his initial realisation would have been when coop steals his nose (best scene) and he would have come to terms with it by the end of season 1.

even harry is not immune to the eyes of Dale cooper.

LAURA PALMER

she/they

cisgender female (but questioning her identity)

biromantic lesbian

first up, I’d like to give my consolidation to Laura palmer and anyone who may be reading who ever experienced something like her. she is my favourite character, apart from Coop Harry and Audrey, and i think she deserved so much better. PERSONALLY i think she and Donna had a very strong emotional romance but not necessarily a physical one. i think that her experiences with men caused her to do a big ol’ comphet and assume she liked being intimate with men. in reality, i think she wasn’t actually attracted to them but was doing it, alongside all the canon reasons, to reject her feelings to women.

and James happened, i guess.

DONNA HAYWARD

she/they

demigirl

homoflexible

idk whether i just see my identity in donna, but i think she definitely isn’t 100% female. i can’t explain it at all, but i just get the vibe.

as for her sexuality, obviously she and Laura had their thing, but i think her romantic tension with literally all. the. female. characters. initially made me think she was a lesbian. but, we have the James factor.

fucking James (my reaction whenever he is onscreen btw)

i think that her emotional intimacy to Laura would have naturally led her to the other emotionally intimate person in Laura’s life. i think James is the closest thing she has to Laura left, which is so sad. i love donna, idc what the widely accepted opinion is. i believe the ‘Just You’ song scene is her grappling with her feeling with maddy. i mean tbh if my girlfriend died and then her identical twin came back, i would probably be weird about it too.

AUDREY HORNE

she/they

trans femme (MTF) (i couldn’t fit it on the picture sorry)

biromantic demisexual

AUDREY AUDREY AUDREY AUDREY MY BELOVED

when i tell you i came out of twin peaks 15% gayer it is BECAUSE OF THIS GIRL. i love her storylines, her dialogue, her friendship with coop. it all feels so realistic! and her dancing!

back to the sexuality and gender thing, which is what this post is about, i personally believe her crush on coop came from a place of seeing a happy trans person comfortable in their identity and finding that beautiful. then translating that to love.

as for being biromantic, c’mon. donna and her definitely had a thing going for a bit. her demi sexuality comes from a place of her extreme discomfort in sex work (which is valid if you aren’t demisexual, by the way, but combined with her virginity until she forms a meaningful connection, the pieces fell into place for me. yes i am also demisexual and yes i am totally biased.)

ALBERT ROSENIFELD

he/him (because he is Him)

trans masc (FTM)

gay as fuck

“I love you, sheriff Truman”

I’m sorry??? excuse me?

albert is gay in so many ways it’s not even funny. with coop. with Harry. with gordon in season 3. and my trans headcanon? idk i just sort of vibed with it. normalise head canonning people as gay or trans with no reason.

also i love the idea that Denise, Albert and coop are just a group of trans fbi agents. we already have Mulder from the x files we need more (tell me if you want an x files version of this)

GORDON COLE

he/him

cisgender male

bicurious

i honestly can’t tell if David lynch would curse me for this post or just shrug it off

anyway. gordon didn’t strike me as being particularly fruity until season 3, when he had his whole trans power speech and those weirdly domestic scenes with albert. like, pop off little fbi husbands. i think he’s still working through period-typical biphobia and isn’t ready to say he’s bi. but i think with time he will be.

someone needs to take me away from this show for like a week and sit me down with some literature. I’d just gay headcanon it anyway (looking at you Sherlock Holmes)

BOBBY BRIGGS

they/he

demiboy

bisexual

the more i watch this show, the more i think to myself…”Bobby is…me?” idk whether it’s dana ashbrook’s truly unhinged and amazing performance, the weird nervous gay energy and the lack of masculinity for a character who would normally be obnoxiously masculine. i love him so much.

i think Bobby would struggle in the gender norms of being the child of a military man. and the sexuality norms of being the “bad boy” in school. i firmly believe that he is bisexual, because let’s face it, everyone in this godforsaken show is bi. find me ONE straight character. ONE STRAIGHT.

SHELLY JOHNSON

she/her

cisgender female

heteroflexible and demisexual

SHELLY IS A LITTLE BIT GAY BECAUSE I SWEAR TO GOD AS I WAS WATCHING THIS I WAS THIS CLOSE (HOLDS FINGERS TOGETHER) TO KISSING MY TV SCREEN.

shelly seems like the sort of person to have been raised with certain heteronormative values. but, i think after going out with Bobby, i think she’d have a little sit and think and say “huh maybe i would kiss a girl.” she hasn’t, yet, but that’s just because her crushes so far have been on men. if she met the right girl, she would.

i think her demisexuality comes partly from trauma and also because we need something in common because, if i haven’t made it clear, i LOVE HER.

HAWK

he/him

cisgender male

gay

don’t be lying about that poetry being for your girlfriend hawk. this is the only character where i will defy canon, fold my arms and say no. i love that hawk got a bigger role in season 3, and i think that based off all i know about him (being the best character) i would headcanon him as being gay. why? idk. look at him?

hawk would totally just rock up one day with a guy on his arm, no explanation, and say nothing until Lucy stumbled into asking him about this guy. and he’d just be like “oh this is my husband. yeah we’ve been married for 6 years. you were at the wedding, we just didn’t tell you it was a wedding.”

iconic.

also i had hair envy the entire show, i wish that when i straightened my hair it was that luxurious.

LUCY BRENNAN

she/her

cisgender female

bisexual

I’m sorry Lucy, no one is THAT frazzled and not sapphic. it’s a rule.

i feel like Lucy would consider herself straight until she was taught about the internet, got a Facebook account, and promptly shut it down, but before doing that saw the word ‘bisexual’ and felt weirdly drawn to it. Andy was, of course, super supportive if a little confused. she’s still figuring it out.

i feel like she’d wear sweaters in the bisexual colours and be very happy whenever someone noticed.

ANDY BRENNAN

he/him

cisgender male

straight ally (but not really)

Andy is straight, but like more in a straight with a question mark way. maybe if he hadn’t dated Lucy, maybe if they hadn’t fallen in love, he would have caught feelings for a guy. after Lucy came out, he did some thinking, but decided to keep it to himself. who knows, maybe his tulpa is “kinda gay” (obligatory Buffy reference)

WE ARE DONE LADIES AND GENTS AND PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT EITHER BUT STILL HIGHLY ESTEEMED.

so, thoughts? I’m gonna do a part two with the season 3 exclusive characters, and some characters i forgot, like Norma, ed, Hank, josie, James….and Wyndam Earl. OH and Denise

thank you so much for bearing with me, and love y’all 🫶

(not as much as I’ll ever love Shelly)

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superman86to99 · 1 year

Photo

Superman: The Man of Steel #33 (May 1994)

An unfortunate series of events has turned Superman so grotesquely swole that he now looks like he’s, well, a character in a ‘90s superhero comic. Last issue, his rapidly growing powers simply made him slightly taller, but by now he's basically a head drowning in a mass of comically large muscles (I’m amazed his costume hasn’t burst yet; props to Ma Kent’s stitching abilities). Another unfortunate side effect of his ordeal is that he’s afraid to even breathe near Lois Lane because he thinks he might kill her.

Superman asks his friends at Project Cadmus to come up with a way to turn him back to normal and they oblige, despite having their hands kinda full with the army of sewer mutants currently trying to invade them (more on that in the plotlines section below). Their idea is to put Superman near the Parasite, the superpower-stealing supervillain, so that he’ll absorb Superman’s excess energy. Wouldn’t that make the Parasite super-strong and stuff? No, you see, because they’ll put him near some “siphoning coils” that will drain the excess energy from him.

Within a few seconds of the experiment starting, the siphoning coils fail to siphon the excess energy (you had one job, siphoning coils) and the Parasite becomes super-strong and stuff. He immediately breaks free and starts killing Cadmus people as Superman tries to stay away from him so he doesn’t become even more powerful. Then Superman realizes “Hey, wait a minute, I’m even more ridiculously overpowered!” and does this:

Superman pushed the Parasite into the ground so fast and with so much strength that the rock melted from the friction and crystalized, trapping him in a “glass prison,” just as Superman planned -- he may look like the Hulk now, but he’s no brute.

Since that plan to cure Superman failed, Cadmus decides to take a page from him and do what he does whenever he has a problem he doesn’t know how to solve: just chuck it into space. As in, they strap Super-Superman to a big-ass rocket and launch it to a space station orbiting the Earth’s dark side so that he won’t be able to absorb any more energy from the sun.

For once, I sympathize with Cadmus’ Director Westfield when he asks if all that expense was really necessary (couldn’t Superman have flown himself there?). Anyway, TO BE CONTINUED!

Plotline-Watch:

As mentioned, the Clone Plague storyline escalates dramatically when the sick and dying Underworlders invade Cadmus en masse and actually manage to break in before they’re shot down by soldiers. We then see the dramatic death of Rambeau, the ram-headed Underworlder we met at the start of the “Doomsday!” storyline, who dies right in front of the (also sick) Newsboy Legion kids after warning them that they’re next. We’ll miss you, Rambeau... or maybe not so much since, according to the “Death of Superman” video game, he’s got like 40 identical cousins.

Last issue, master hacker Lex Luthor Jr. hacked into Lois Lane’s computer to rewrite her exposé on him so that no one would believe her ever again, and now we see what he came up with: a front-page article accusing Luthor of being a “SPACE-ALIEN CLONE” who “WILL SLAY EARTH’S WOMEN.” He also bribed (and later murdered) the Daily Planet’s night editor so he’d let the article through. Everyone from Director Westfield to a random traffic cop makes fun of Lois for her story, but Don Sparrow points out: “In a world where every major American city is guarded by super-powered off-worlders, is Lois Lane’s ‘alien clone’ headline that laughable?” Yeah, perhaps the most incredible part here is that this wouldn’t really be front-page news if true.

Luthor’s revenge on Lois doesn’t end there: throughout the issue we see that he went full Kingpin on her, ruining her credit cards, emptying her bank account, bribing that traffic officer so she’d fail a breathalyzer test, and making it look like she’s having a nervous breakdown. The credit thing is the worst part, because it embarrasses Lois as she’s paying for a meal with Mayor Berkowitz in a fancy restaurant. Don again: “I know that it’s to set up her online financial problems, but was Lois really picking up the cheque while dining with the Mayor? Or were they going Dutch?”

Speaking of Lois, this issue includes another variation of the cute scene where Superman wakes her up by lightly tapping on her window, only this one isn’t so cute because he’s so strong that his “light” taps break the window and Lois cuts her feet.

Superman asks the Cadmus folks to meet him at the tree city of Habitat, which has been in ruins since Doomsday rampaged through it, because at least he can’t do any more damage there. I wonder if they ever explained how it went back to normal in future issues. Did the Hairies rebuild it? Did it just grow back? Zatanna?

The Parasite had been captured in S.T.A.R. Labs since way back in October 1991. In this issue we’re told that Westfield “acquired” him from S.T.A.R., and of course the first thing he does is pump him full of super-energy and let him kill an employee. He almost kills Big Words of the Newsadult Legion, too (it would have been pretty funny if he had and then suddenly started using big words).

One thing that bugs me about this issue is how casually Lois reveals to Superman that, oh yeah, Lex Luthor Jr. is a clone of Lex Luthor Sr., meaning that his greatest enemy isn’t really dead and had been pretending to be a friend for years. That’s a big deal! Superman’s like “sorry, I’m too swole to care about this right now.” I’m also iffy about the part where she says she implicated Luthor in his trainer’s attempted murder; he DID murder her, but then aliens brought her back to life. Is “attempted” the correct legal term in that case?

What I do like is how the creative teams have handled Lex’s slow transition from smooth Australian philanthropist to full-on supervillain as his body and mind deteriorate due to the Clone Plague. The issue ends with a frail Lex (in some sort of medical gown that looks like his Pre-Crisis mad scientist suit) meeting with Clawster of the Underworlders to give him bombs and weapons to use not just in Cadmus, but in all of Metropolis, because if he's dying from the Plague then he wants to take it with him. It’s fitting that just as he’s starting to look like the classic Lex, he suddenly has an excuse to behave like him too.

Patreon-Watch:

This appropriately swole post was made possible (and partly previewed) by Superman ‘86 to ‘99′s Pals, Aaron, Chris “Ace” Hendrix, britneyspearsatemyshorts, Patrick D. Ryall, Bheki Latha, Mark Syp, Ryan Bush, Raphael Fischer, Kit, Sam, and Bol. Join them here if you wish: https://www.patreon.com/superman86to99

And now, more from Don after the jump!

Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):

We start with the cover, and it’s an interesting one. A common complaint about Jon Bogdanove’s style is that the superheroic bodies have impossibly huge muscles, with tiny little pin heads. So it’s on some level a little “meta” that we see this hulking, veiny version of Superman from this artist with a rep for exaggerated physiques. There was also something about the pose (and slatted office window) that reminded me of Jerry Ordway’s incredible cover to an early Adventures issue, though I think the similarities are unintentional.

Once we get into the issue, we are thrown into a shooting war between Cadmus and its own creations, and no one seems to draw the misbegotten Underworlders with as much panache as Bogdanove. There’s an interesting thatching sort of ink technique we see on Guardian in that first page, which had previously been used only on Steel, to indicate a metallic chrome finish. But clearly, Janke enjoys this inking style, so we see it a little more often now.

Page 2 and 3 we’re treated to a large splash page, featuring our gargantuan Superman outside Lois’ terrace door. Though this particular spread has a lack of comparative context for Superman’s size, apart from his swollen musculature, the pose indicates discomfort and monstrosity. Bogdanove also excels at a very cute Lois in a Margot Tenenbaum-style nightdress. The next few pages, Superman’s bizarre physicality is even more flaring, as his limbs really do appear as though they’re inflated.

As we return to Guardian battling it out with the Underworlders, the “Thing”-like texture of Clawster’s face is well-drawn. Then later, while Superman is himself at Cadmus, he cuts a very Conan-like figure (and in case anyone was wondering, it appears it isn’t just his limbs that have swollen—yipes!). [Max: It’s true, his neck does look pretty swollen too.] A page later, the shine on Parasite’s transparent cage is a nice touch. A little later, as the energy transfer begins, we get some nice Kirby-crackles.

I like Lois’ sophisticated driving look as she’s pulled over for yet more “The Net” style persecution by Luthor. Speaking of, his twisted and sickly pose on the last page is a really good bit of gesture, as he’s looking even rougher than the last time we saw him.

STRAY OBSERVATIONS:

I must admit, even with how familiar I am with these stories, I find myself straining to remember just why Superman’s power level is surging like this. I remember having a theory as a kid that the black and silver recovery suit from the Return of Superman storyline was to blame. That it was designed to funnel as much solar energy as possible in order to restore its wearer to full strength, and it kept doing so despite Supergirl’s molecular reassembly of the suit? Am I close? Why is this happening? [Max: I kinda like the explanation from last issue blaming that big blast of Eradicator-filtered kryptonite at the end of ‘Reign,’ mainly because it’s such a cool moment and I like that it had consequences.]

Perry White is awfully chill about such an insane headline adorning his beloved newspaper. I might have thought he’d be the one “apoplectic” rather than the publisher. It does feel a little bit unlikely that the paper could get so widely printed and distributed with no one along the line raising an eyebrow at the intentionally goofy headline.

I feel like the state trooper’s assertion that Lois had been “driven to drink by people’s reactions to the article (she) wrote about Mr. Luthor” is a reach. And a mouthful.

It’s helpful that we are reminded that Lois has an inside informant about Luthor, which will come to matter in the issues ahead. [Max: I think this might be the first mention of Lois’ current informant, which makes sense since she knows her previous one got thrown off a bridge by superpowered hitmen, so she has to be careful about this stuff.]

#superman #louise simonson #jon bogdanove #dennis janke #underworlders #project cadmus #guardian #rambeau #clawster #paul westfield #newsboy legion #habitat #frank berkowitz #parasite #acme siphoning coils #women-slaying space-alien clones

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stephstars08 · 11 months

Text

Still Alive ~ Chapter Eight

Ethan Landry x Reader

Warnings: Adult Language, Violence, All Angst, Trust Issues, Blood, Weapons, Death Threats, Character Deaths, Trauma, Anxiety, Parent Issues, and BIG CLIFF HANGER! (Sorry if I forgot any!)

Word Count: 2,337

Author’s Note: Hello Everyone! I can’t believe Sunday will be the last chapter of this story! I enjoyed writing this and that’s why I mentioned about doing a second book. I’m trying to get a good plot together for you all but I know it will be awhile since I have other ideas I want to write for you all and post. This chapter has a HUGE CLIFFHANGER SO YOU ARE WARNED! Next and Final chapter will be posted on Sunday! Next Week I will be taking a break from posting since I want to catch up on writing and also update my account a little bit! Stay tunned for any updates that will be coming soon!

Y/N quickly turned around and pointed her gun at the person who called her name. “Detective Bailey?” Y/N said a bit confused and surprised to see him standing there. “Woah easy, put the gun down.” Detective Bailey told her in a calm tone. “Why are you here?” Y/N asked him in a stern tone not backing down. “I got a call to come here.” Detective Bailey told her. “Please, put the gun down.” He added but she still wasn’t budging. She remembered what her mom and Sidney told her, don’t fucking trust anyone. Before she could say anything, she saw Ghostface come running behind Detective Bailey. “WATCH OUT!” Y/N called out going to shoot Ghostface but before she could pull the trigger Detective Bailey kicked her in the stomach making her drop the gun. Y/N fell to the floor holding her stomach while Detective Bailey grabbed her gun and pointed it at her.

“What the?” Y/N said trying to catch her breath again confused and surprised by what Detective Bailey just did. “Surprise Y/N.” Detective Bailey said as his lips turned into an evil smirk. “Nice job, kid.” He said to Ghostface. “What?” Y/N said looking between Ghostface and Detective Bailey as she continued to hold her stomach that she knew is starting to bruise. Detective Bailey gave Ghostface a nod. The person took off the mask to reveal Quinn which made Y/N’s eyes go wide.

“Heyyy, Y/N.” Quinn said in a teasing tone as she waved her knife at her. “How? You fucking died!” Y/N said in complete shock. “Kinda, didn’t.” Quinn said looking over at her dad as she took off her black gloves. “Why are you two doing this?” Y/N asked them in a stern tone. “Because your bitch of a friend killed my son.” Detective Bailey answered her with a dark look in his eyes. At first Y/N had no idea what the fuck he was talking about till it hit her. “You two are Ritchie’s family.” Y/N said looking between Quinn and Detective Bailey with a surprised look in her wide eyes. “Look at that, the bitch is smart.” Quinn hissed glaring at Y/N with disgust.

“We will get our revenge on Sam but first I need to kill you to get my other son on our side. I know him finding out about you would make him let out his dark side seeing how much he cares about you. You were first on my list, but of course you made me do something I didn’t want to do.” Detective Bailey told her with anger in his tone. “What the fuck are you talking about? I didn’t make you do anything!” Y/N said defending herself getting frustrating and annoyed. “Quinn.” Detective Bailey said to her. Quinn walked out of the room for a couple minuet and then came back holding Ethan.

“Ethan!” Y/N said standing up on her feet but before she could step towards him Detective Bailey grabbed her. “Woah, where do you think you’re going?” Detective Bailey taunted her holding her tightly. He had her back pressed up against his chest. “Glad you could finally join the fun, son.” Detective Bailey said to Ethan which made Y/N’s heart rate speed up. “Son?” Y/N said looking at Ethan with confusion in her eyes. It hurt Ethan to have Y/N find out this way. To be honest, he didn’t want her to find out the truth to protect her. He also thought if she knew the truth, she would want nothing to do with him. “Tell her! Tell her your big secret!” Detective Bailey told his youngest child in a demanding tone. “No!” Ethan hissed glaring at his dad with a dark look in his brown eyes that was actually scaring Y/N. She’s never seen that darkness in his eyes but when she did it made her think about the dark eyes that were in Ritchie’s eyes which helped her connected the dots. “TELL HER OR I’LL BLOW HER FUCKING BRAINS OUT!” Detective Bailey threatened gripping Y/N tighter which made her groan out in pain. He put the barrel of the gun to Y/N’s temple making her shake in fear. “NO!” Ethan yelled as he struggled against Quinn’s tight grip on him. “Then, I would start fucking talking!” Quinn hissed in a warning tone as she put her knife against her brother’s throat.

“My real last name isn’t Landry, it’s Kirsch.” Ethan confessed looking away from Y/N’s strong gaze. “You’re Ritchie’s brother.” Y/N said in a surprised tone as she started as him with glassy eyes. He’s told her everything, but it didn’t cross his mind to tell her that he’s related to the guy who was dating the psycho chick that murdered her dad. But it all started to come together though. He looks like Ritchie, but I guess her feelings for him pushed those thoughts away. She wanted to forget about Ritchie because of everything he put Sam through.

“He’s also helping us.” Quinn said with an evil smirk. “What! No, I’m not!” Ethan snapped as he quickly looked over at Y/N. As he looked into her eyes, he knew she didn’t know who to believe since her feelings were all over the place. “Y/N, I am not a killer! You know I would never hurt you or the people you love. Please believe me!” Ethan begged her as his eyes started to water up. “Y/N, I lo- “Ethan started to tell her, but Quinn cut him right off by stabbing him in the back multiple times with her knife. “NO!” Y/N screamed at the top of her lungs as she watched Quinn throw Ethan to the floor.

Y/N somehow got out of Detective Bailey’s tight hold so she could get to Ethan, but she didn’t go far because Detective Bailey shot her in the side knocking her down to the floor. Y/N let out a painful yell as she held her bleeding side. She looked over at Ethan who was lying on his side breathing heavily. She started to crawl over to him but got stopped by Detective Bailey putting one his feet onto her back. “What’s the matter Y/N? You should know how we are feeling and why we are doing this.” Detective Bailey said to her in a taunting way. “You got revenge on Amber for killing your father so now we’re going to get revenge on Sam for killing Ritchie.” Detective Bailey added which made her crawl in her skin. “Fuck you!” Y/N hissed in pain. “Wow, good comeback.” Quinn said with a scoff as she looked between Y/N and her brother. “Did you really think that I wanted to stab my only brother! Another reason why we should fucking kill you!” Quinn hissed glaring down at Y/N with fire in her eyes and pointing her bloody knife at Y/N. It made Y/N furious how they are blaming her for what’s happening to Ethan. No wonder he wanted nothing to do with this fucked up family. “Enough talk! Now be reunited with your daddy.” Detective Bailey hissed pointing the gun at the back of her head again.

“Hey dipshit!” Y/N heard a voice call out. She felt Detective Bailey’s foot off her back. When she looked behind her, she saw Sam fighting Detective Bailey. She turned back around to see Kirby fighting against Quinn. Y/N locked her eyes on Ethan who still hasn’t moved. Y/N ignored the pain in her side as she continued to crawl the rest of the way to him. She cared more about him than she did herself. When she finally got to him, he was groaning in pain. “Ethan, stay with me.” Y/N said to him as she put one of her hands onto his cheek. “Don’t worry about me.” Ethan told her in a weak tone. “What?” Y/N asked him in confusion. “Go help Sam and Kirby. I’ll be fine.” Ethan told her as his voice got softer with every word that was coming off his lips. They heard a painful scream.

When Y/N looked up she saw Kirby laying on the floor with Quinn hovering on top of her pulling her knife out from Kirby’s side. Y/N looked around the room for Sam, but she was nowhere to be seen, same as Detective Bailey. “Shit!” Y/N hissed as she looked around for something to use as a weapon. “Y/N!” Ethan said getting her attention pointing over to a brick. Y/N grabbed the brick and quickly ran over to Quinn hitting her in the head as hard as she could knocking her away from Kirby. Quinn stood up and held her now bleeding head.

“You psychotic bitch!” Quinn hissed glaring at her with dark eyes. “Speak for your fucking self!” Y/N hissed back. Quinn ran over to her and start swinging her bloody knife at her, but Y/N kept blocked the silver blade with the brick. “I don’t know what you fucking see in Ethan. He’s always been a fucking disgrace to the family.” Quinn snapped at her. “Why? Because he’s not a fucking killer like your neglective father and pussy ass older brother.” Y/N snapped back sticking a nerve on Quinn. “SHUT YOUR WHORE FUCKING MOUTH” Quinn yelled out in anger pushing Y/N into one of the glass cases which earned her a hit to the mouth by the brick when Y/N threw it at her. Y/N hit her bleeding side against a glass case making her drop to her knees and groan out in pain.

When Y/N hit her with the brick she dropped her knife and fell to her knees. The knife landed near Ethan, so he used all his strength to get to his knees and grab the knife. He crawled towards Quinn and stabbed her in the back like she did to him making her yelp in pain. Because of how weak he was she was able to grab the knife back and overpower him. Quinn stabbed him in the side making him yell out in and fall back down onto the floor.

“Hey, Quinn!” Y/N called out to her. Quinn turned around to see Y/N pointing the gun Kirby gave to her earlier with Sam standing beside her. While Ethan was distracting Quinn, Sam finished Detective Bailey grabbing the gun back and giving it to Y/N so she could finish Quinn. “Your daddy just reunited with your man baby of a brother.” Sam said in a baby tone taunting Quinn. Quinn started to scream as she charged towards Y/N with her bloody knife. Y/N shot Quinn right through the forehead killing her instantly. Quinn fell straight to the floor. “Always got to shoot them in the fucking head.” Y/N hissed remembering the advice her dad and Sidney gave her tossing the gun onto the floor.

“I got Kirby, you get Ethan.” Sam said quickly, running over to Kirby. Y/N rushed over to Ethan noticing his new stab wound on the side was just spilling blood. “Fuck!” Y/N hissed putting both hands onto his side to help stop the bleeding. “Y-Y/N” Ethan stuttered looking at her with pain in his drained brown eyes. His eyes were also hooded because he was using the all the strength, he had to keep them as open as he could. “Shh, don’t talk. It’s all going to be okay.” Y/N hushed him trying to stay as calm as she could. “You’re going to be alright. We’re going to get you help.” Y/N reassured him but was also reassuring herself as well. “I-I-I c-can’t.” Ethan stuttered in pain. “Yes, you can!” Y/N told him as hot tears filled her eyes.

She’s not going to let Ethan die. Out of all the hell she’d been going through these past couple of days he was the one that was right by her side and helped her through it. He’s her safe place. She’s not going to let his family win. This is exactly what they wanted. They wanted her to feel pain. They wanted her to feel guilty for what they did to him. They wanted her to blame herself just like Sam was blaming herself for everything that has happened.

“I need t-to tell y-y-you.” Ethan stuttered, not being able to finish the sentence he was trying to speak due to the pain taking over his whole body. “You can tell me after we get out of here.” Y/N said taking one of her hands off his side and putting it against his wet cheek that was mixed between sweat and tears. They both had tears rolling down their faces, but Y/N was wiping his away with her bloody hand that had a mixture of her blood and his all over it. She started to panic when she felt his body start to go limp.

“No, no, no.” Y/N said in panic. “Ethan, stay with me.” She told him but his face was starting to lose color. Her heart was dropping as his eyes were starting to close. “No, please keep your eyes open.” Y/N cried putting both hands back onto his side putting as much pressure as she could. She couldn’t feel her body at all because of how scared she was for him. She didn’t even feel the pain in her side that was still bleeding. All that was on her mind was him. “ETHAN!” Y/N screamed out as she continued to hold onto his limp body. Paramedics quickly made their way over to her after they helped Kirby onto a stretcher. Sam was going to follow Kirby but saw that the paramedics were having a hard time pulling Y/N away from Ethan. Sam ran over to Y/N and used all of her strength to pull her away from Ethan’s lifeless body. “NO!” Y/N screamed out as she finally let Sam hold onto her so the paramedics could aid to Ethan. “They got him.” Sam reassured her by pulling her into a hug. Y/N cried as she watches them work on Ethan who she was scared that was gone.

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