#i’ve never been so viscerally angry at an ad before in my life
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wishing all draftkings ads a very die in a fire kind of night
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Tangled (Javier Peña x reader)
Pairing: Javier Peña x gn!reader
Word count: over
Warnings: lots of cursing (reader has the mouth of a sailor), a little ~steaminess~, mentions of canon typical violence/getting shot, sexual tension
Summary: You and Peña were no strangers to being at each others throats but this argument went a little different than any other had.
Notes: This was cliche and self indulgent but I loved it and I hope you do too. Let me know your thoughts and opinions!! (also probably not going to turn this into a series but it isn't impossible ig)
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You charged towards the file room, feeling every ounce of your body flooded with anger as Murphy trailed after you, pitifully trying the stop the damage that was just about to occur.
"It didn't come from a bad place!"
You sporadically came to a halt, turning on your heels and pointing a finger right in Murphy's face, who had nearly crashed into you at your sudden movement. "Don't you dare try to justify this!"
Murphy's face was crumpled into a hesitant type of acceptance, still following you as you continued walking towards the file room, your anger radiating even in each harsh step you took. Once you reached the door, you slammed it open and nearly crashed it into Murphy as you threw it shut again, your eyes trained on the man you were directing every angry, foul thought at.
"Javier Peña, you fucking asshole!" you yelled, your pointer finger now directed at him as he turned to face you. You felt even angrier when he appeared to look at you tiredly at first, face twisted into an expression that perfectly read 'What now?' It didn't change until he registered your rigid body language and the way your face was a shade darker and your brows that were scrunched up.
Then his face dropped slightly and he looked over your shoulder at Murphy, who looked like a kicked puppy with the way he seemed to cower behind you. "You told her?"
Murphy winced slightly, trying to shrug away his concerns but his voice coming out empathetic. "She kind of interrogated me."
"Yeah. Y'know, because interrogations are part of the job!" you spat, eyes shooting venom at the brown-eyed DEA agent that stood in front of you.
He dropped the file he had held in his hand back in a box, placing his newly unoccupied hands on his hips and sending you a plain look. "Listen, it was nothing-"
"You know what else is part of my job, Peña?" you interrupted, allowing him no room to throw around pitiful remarks and false explanations of why what he did was okay. "Let me tell you since you have clearly forgotten: part of my job is catching the bad guys. Meaning I am fully capable of being on the field and getting my hands dirty!"
You took in a deep breath, your whole body feeling like it was on fire from the rage coursing through your veins. Peña let out a small sigh, rubbing at his face and his mustache as he looked at you through half-lidded eyes. "I know."
You let out an agitated huff, throwing your hands up and looking over at Murphy, as if saying 'get a load of this guy'. You turned back to the DEA agent, clasping your hands together. "Let me get this clear then. You are aware that is part of my job. And that this fucking case has become my whole entire life. Yet you neglect to notify me that tomorrow you are going to arrest one of these motherfuckers and don't put me on the God damn team!"
You probably should of quieted down. Surely people could hear you outside the thin walls of the room you were in but you paid no attention to that. Hell, let them gather outside the door and listen to how much of an asshole Javier fucking Peña was. It wasn't like they hadn't heard you two bicker and yell at each other before - it was practically a daily occurrence. You were always at each others throats and the smallest thing could tick you guys off but today was different. Today your anger was completely justified and directed at the exact right person.
"Why don't we all calm down and talk this over calmly?" Steve gently tried to suggest, always the voice of reason during times like these. Sometimes you would entertain his ideas but today was not one of those days.
"Fuck off, Murphy!" you snapped.
Peña redirected his attention to the blond-haired agent. "Give me a minute."
"Oh, you are going to try to magically explain this one away?" you ridiculed as Murphy left the room quietly, shutting the door gently and leaving you two alone.
Javier looked back at you, looking calm as ever and unaffected in every way. It only made your blood bubble even more and as he spoke, you felt your whole body clench up. "You need to calm down."
You hissed at that comment, literally hissed. "Oh, fuck off! You have no right to tell me to calm down. If somebody did this to you, you'd be tearing into their ass and acting like a bitch."
Javier couldn't argue that point, knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that not only was it true, but there was no way he could convince you it wasn't. It also was probably the worst thing to say in this given situation, always was something that tipped you off.
"I mean, the fucking audacity you have is unbelievable. Truly impressive." you started to ramble, still sending a deadly glare his way. "You think you are hot shit because you are Javier Peña and you are a DEA agent and the fucking man whore of Columbia. But I am just as good as you, Peña. Hell, I am probably fucking better!"
"You are right."
You froze as you heard his agreement, biting your lip as you tried to detect whether or not that was meant to be some sarcastic play to rile you up. But it appeared genuine which only confused you further. "Then why am I being excluded from extremely important events?"
"It's dangerous." Peña answered plainly, adding no additional details as if that was enough.
You scoffed, tilting your head at him. "No shit, Peña. No offense but no one becomes a DEA agent because it is a safe, secure job. So that doesn't explain why I wasn't included in this."
Peña shook his head, leaning against the rack of files as he looked back at you. You wanted to force him to look away, his stare making you uncomfortable but there was no way you were backing down. "It does. This one is particularly dangerous and I don't want you involved."
Your eyes widened as you took in this new information. "Oh, so you think I can't handle myself?"
"I never said that-"
"I can handle myself, Peña. I am a fucking adult and not to sound cocky, but a hell of a fucking agent. I am capable and I am strong!"
"I know."
"And I can handle this mission."
"I know."
"Then why the fuck did I have to find out from Murphy that I am not joining you guys tomorrow?" you yelled, feeling your body become slightly fatigued from all the anger but you still stood straight and tall.
"Because you care too much and you'll get yourself killed if that means nailing these guys." Peña said plainly. No hint of emotion or manipulation. Just an honest answer to an honest question.
You found yourself for the first time not feeling angry but slight bamboozled. It felt like the rug had been pulled under your feet. You were standing across fucking Javier Peña, who you were pretty sure had never seen take a single day off. "That is the most hypocritical thing I've ever heard."
Peña nodded. "Okay."
You rolled your eyes, feeling once again angry by the dismissal. "Well fuck off because I spoke to everybody and I am on the team tomorrow."
You began to turn towards the exit when the man firmly stated, "No."
You turned back around, an eyebrow raised. "Excuse the fuck outta me?"
"I'm in charge tomorrow and you aren't on." Peña said, a sliver of annoyance eeking out of his words as he looked back at you with a stern glare.
"Fuck off. If I want to go, I'll go." you fired back, arms crossing over your chest defiantly.
Peña stepped closer to you until he was a couple feet away, his voice lowering to a menacingly deep level. "I don't want you on tomorrow."
Your eyes were practically shooting bullets in his direction. "I know you don't fucking like me Peña, but stop acting like a school boy and get your head out of your ass."
"Maybe you are the one with your head up your ass, agent." Peña cooly said.
You tried to ignore the way he was looking at you (and the way you could smell his aftershave from here) and put your hands on your hips. "Fuck you, Peña. You don't want me on tomorrow because I am a better agent than you, you selfish prick."
"That isn't it." Peña said with a chuckle, shaking his head as if you were saying the stupidest thing he had ever heard.
"It fucking is, isn't it? You don't want me strolling into your operation and doing the job better than you. Can't have your huge fucking ego tarnished by me!"
"That is not the reason why!" Peña shouted back, feeling himself lose his temper slightly.
This was the Peña you were used to, the one you egged on and led into a battle of cruel words and hateful glares. "Oh, fuck off. That is absolutely why!"
"Maybe, just fucking maybe-" Peña cut himself off, his chest now heaving as he copied your pose, hands on his hips and body stood straight.
You couldn't help the small grin that grew on your face. "What is it, Peña? Say it. Don't punk out now when things were just getting interesting."
"You are a child." Peña spat back.
You chuckled harshly. "Look in the mirror before you start throwing insults around, Peña. Now what were you going to say?"
Peña stared back at you, your eyes locked together in a visceral manner. "I don't want you to fucking die."
You couldn't help the throaty laugh that erupted from your very core, your head thrown back as you looked away from him for the first time to try to gather your composure. "Oh, fucking please! Spare me. You have never given a shit for me!"
Peña shook his head, looking slightly deflated as he looked away from you. "Fuck off."
"Oh, don't act like that. I am just supposed to stand here and believe that this whole time you've secretly cared about my safety and you don't have me on the operation tomorrow in order to keep me safe?"
Peña looked back up at you and you nearly wavered from the look in his eyes. You couldn't handle it if it were the truth, which the look he gave you said it was, so you continued on doing what you did best. "I don't need anybody to protect me. Certainly not you, Javier Peña."
"I'm not trying to protect you."
You lifted up a hand emphatically. "So you didn't not put me on this because you don't want me to die?"
"Fucking hell, you are so frustrating." Peña yelled back, face red and eyes throwing daggers as he stepped even closer to you.
You didn't dare take a single step back. You would show no fear or weakness. "And you are such a walk in the park? I forgot about how the man-whore of Columbia was always just a pleasant-"
You were cut off by Peña lunging forward and for a split second you thought 'Oh, shit. I'm gonna have to kick Peña's ass.' That was until you felt a pair of rough, chapped lips press into yours mercilessly and a pair of calloused hands grab at the side of your face.
You stood still for a solid few seconds, your brain seeming to short-circuit until it slowly registered the undeniable truth of the situation: Javier Peña was fucking kissing you.
Well then push him off of you!
Except you didn't. For all intents and purposes, you should have. You should of shoved him off of you, yelled at him for trying to pull his 'sex god' card on you, and maybe even delivered a striking slap to his face, just for dramatic effect. But you didn't. You stood there completely still until eventually your hands reached for the collar of his jacket, roughly pulling him in until he was pressed so tightly to you that you didn't think there was an centimeter of distance between the two of you.
You felt him turn you, pushing you back until your back hit the same file cabinet he had been leaning against earlier. Your lips finally caught up with the rest of you, lips fighting dominantly against each other in a frantic battle. It probably wasn't the prettiest kiss but holy shit, you couldn't think of a time you had been kissed like this. The kiss was so striking but also so passionate, both of you fighting each other in the most deliriously addictive way. You couldn't ignore the smallest voice in the back of your brain asking you why you hadn't done this way earlier.
Eventually your tongues danced against each other, begging for even the smallest taste of each other like you were both addicts craving even the slightest taste from the bottle. His hands drifted away from your face to your hips, clutching them roughly and tightly but not hurting you in any way. Just gripping hard enough for you to feel them and feel the emotion.
Eventually, after what felt simultaneously likes hours but also mere seconds, Peña pulled away and holy fuck, how did he look so good? His lips were puffed and red, slightly wet from the sloppiness of the kiss. His eyes were hooded and looking at you in a way he had before but you had never been able to place, always mistaking the lustiness for hatred (and hold up, had it just been lust this whole time?). His jacket was still clutched tightly in your hands and you should of let go. Anyone could walk in and see him standing up against you on a shelf with your faces red and chests heaving but you couldn't even bother to care, your brain still reeling and your body betraying you, yearning for more.
"I'm going tomorrow." you said, still slightly out of breath.
Peña sighed, his warm breath fanning over you and smelling slightly of mint gum and stale cigarettes. "I know you are."
You nodded, glad to see his slow acceptance creep in. You slowly released the jacket, looking at how it had crinkled from how tightly you had pulled him to you. He backed up slowly, one small step at a time as his eyes still traced each others faces.
Part of you wanted to reach out and kiss him again, fight with him again in the most delicious way but the door opened and you both turned to see the tall, blond-haired agent you had both become closer with than you initially thought possible.
"Have you guys killed each other?" he asked, trying to joke but also hesitant to with how foul your mood had been.
You desperately pulled away from the shelf and shook your head, though not to answer him but in some desperate attempt to try to shake away the evidence of what just happened (despite the fact that it was imprinted on your mind). "No. I'm going tomorrow."
Murphy shared a weary look with Peña who just gave a short nod and began to walk towards the exit. "She comes. If she gets shot, its not my problem."
You and Murphy both watched him slip past, moving out of the room and down the hall, away from you. Murphy twisted his head to look back at you, shaking his head. "Based off his behavior, I'd say that went well." he sarcastically mumbled.
You tried to chuckle but it sounded fake and hollow, your mind too preoccupied. "Yeah. Super well."
Murphy gave a roll of the eyes, used to the two of you being frustrated with the other as he slipped away from the doorway. You followed him as you made your way out of the room, the room where you still comprehend what exactly had happened in it. "You must of really went after each other this time."
You nearly choked at Murphy's quip, your mind taking a moment to realize he was speaking rhetorically about your arguing. He had no way to know the violent dance your lips had done or the way you both had perfectly expressed arousal and hatred with your tongues alone.
You just hummed, pushing past Murphy to head to your desk so you could work and just forget what had happened. Forget it because it meant nothing.
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Whumptober2020 - Day 7
Day 7 of Whumptober and Part 7 of the Oof!au. This is.... rock bottom, everyone. On the plus side: no where to go but up. On the downside....this is where Anakin remembers how to really hurt Obi-Wan, after being distracted for a long time.
Basic information: Post Order 66 Vader-Captures-Obi-Wan AU. Past/eventual Codywan. One-sided Vaderwan. Eventual happy(ish) ending.
WARNINGS: Abuse of a prisoner, mentions of torture, mind controlled into killing people, mentions of non-con, character death (not main characters). PLEASE consider the warnings before you read. Dead dove, do not eat, etc. This is the lowest we go. It’s VERY low.
No 16. A TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, VERY BAD DAY
Forced to Beg | Hallucinations | Shoot the Hostage
Obi-Wan laughed, shakily, when he woke up again in the cell. The sound just slipped out, and something about the tone of it made him clench his teeth shut, swallow it back. It soured in his chest, held tight within him as he breathed raggedly, trying to find balance and--and succeeding, after too long a moment.
He thought about leveraging himself off of the floor, but could see no point to it. He pulled his legs up, instead, making himself small, shifting to wedge himself further into the corner.
All the wounds were gone. Every single one of them, wiped away again by the med-droids. The sudden lack of them was jarring, confusing. It made everything that had happened feel more like a dream. Like a nightmare.
But even his nightmares - foul as they were - never managed to be so viscerally horrible. He stared at the far wall, trying very hard not to remember the way Cody - it wasn’t Cody, it hadn’t been Cody, not really, just his body used as another way for Anakin to rape him - had shoved into him, held him down and--
He bit his tongue until blood flooded his mouth and then he swallowed it, grounding himself on the pain and the nauseating taste of salt and copper. He hadn’t had many pleasant memories to keep him company, during his exile. He’d barely dared allow himself to remember softer touches, promises of what they might do after the war, wants bubbling between them…
Once, he’d imagined taking Cody to his bed, after - after everything. When there were not so many responsibilities on them. When he could be sure, utterly, that it was what Cody wanted, not just rank, or - or anything else. He’d imagined kissing Cody softly, taking their time, sharing touches that didn’t hurt at all, and-- Anakin had taken that hope and made it something foul and horrible. There’d been no kisses, there’d been only - only pain and --
Pain and, he considered, swallowing blood, his mind looking desperately for anything else to focus on, the off-rhythm tapping of Cody’s index finger against his hip. It had been the only thing he could focus on that didn’t hurt, taking himself out of his own head, there in Anakin’s torture chamber.
The tapping had made no sense, not in the room, when horror had driven thought from Obi-Wan’s head. But...but he had time to consider it, further, staring at nothing, remembering despite all of his best efforts.
Memories crawled into his head, recollections from the war, from hunkering down beside Cody behind a makeshift barrier, gesturing instructions, preparing to spring out on the droids closing on their position, Cody knocking his fingers against the top of Obi-Wan’s thigh in the same pattern and--
And they’d developed the short-hand language themselves, at first just to kill time when they were stuck on one miserable world or the other. It had made sense to have signs of their own; the Separatists were always cracking Republic codes. Obi-Wan thought, with the benefit of hindsight, that had probably been intentional on Palpatine’s part.
So, they’d made their own language to speak silently in battle, to communicate plans and ideas quickly.
Obi-Wan sat up, his heart lurching in his chest, all at once, as memory shoved together the facts inside his head, leaving him gasping.
Because Cody had been tapping code onto his hip, their code - the 212th’s code - the language not even Anakin had ever learned. “No,” he’d said. “No,” over and over and over and over, against Obi-Wan’s skin.
Obi-Wan lurched to his feet with nowhere to go, bile burning up the back of his throat, his heart clenched hard in his chest. He did not know what had been done to the troopers. He’d been afraid to hope it could be undone. But-- but Cody remembered something. And he’d said “no,” over and over again. He’d talked to Obi-Wan. He’d--
He was in there, somewhere.
And that changed everything.
Obi-Wan stood there, breathing heavily, and tried to determine what he was possibly going to do next. He tried to remember if he’d - he’d told Cody it was alright. If Cody were in there, if he’d been tormented, too, had Obi-Wan said the right things? Had he said anything? His memories were a blur of pain and confusion. But he thought he had. He held onto that thought, tightly, as he tried to plan his next steps.
#
There was not much Obi-Wan could possibly do. He did not know where Anakin had gone and did not much care. He braced, every time a trooper entered the room, recalling Anakin’s last words, but…
None of them made any move to touch him in such a way. He wondered if the troopers had simply not relayed Anakin’s orders, or if the very wording just made no sense to them in their current state. What did they know of joy, he wondered, watching them file in to feed him.
Still, he tapped out, quickly, “Thank you,” on Cody’s thigh, when they fed him, and felt him go still all over for a moment. And it was enough to kindle the failing sparks of hope inside Obi-Wan’s chest.
Cody was in there, somewhere. They were all in there, somewhere.
Obi-Wan would get them all out. Because if Cody had retained some piece of himself… There was no reason to believe it wasn’t true for the rest of them. Others had tapped against his skin, he recalled, shivering as his thoughts raced. They were still in their minds. Somehow.
And like hell was Obi-Wan going to leave him men to suffer this un-death, this un-making of all they were. He’d sworn to protect them, long ago. He’d failed in so many of his vows and duties. He wouldn’t fail that one.
#
Obi-Wan had not managed to escape by the time Anakin returned. He braced himself as the troopers came for him, pulling him to his feet and hauling him through the base, wondering what new horrors Anakin had devised to unleash upon him.
Anakin had left the viewscreen open, again. The contact turmoil of Mustafar filled the room with angry, red light. It was a reminder, every time, of all of Obi-Wan’s mistakes and failings. He had failed to keep Anakin from falling to the Dark. And then he had failed to take the final, necessary step there on the edge of the lava.
He’d paid for his mistakes, but so had the rest of the galaxy.
He wouldn’t fail again, if given the chance.
He shook those thoughts aside as Anakin said, “I do hope you’re going to be more reasonable this time, old man.”
“I doubt that,” Obi-Wan replied. Talking still hurt. And he was no longer sure if his voice would ever return to its normal state. “I think you rather enjoy having an excuse to inflict pain, don’t you? If I didn’t provide you with one, you’d have to go to all the trouble of manufacturing a reason to hurt me.”
Anakin made a sharp sound, turned half-away and snapped, “Get on your knees.”
Obi-Wan sighed. He wondered why they had to keep engaging in this song and dance. They both knew he wasn’t going to kneel under his own power. But perhaps it brought Anakin whatever twisted kind of joy he could feel, in his present condition, to hold out the illusion of choice. Obi-Wan said, waiting for the pain, “I won’t.”
Anakin nodded, which was a surprise and a change from their usual script. He swept away from the open window, stalking over to his throne and sitting. He said, “I thought you’d say that, Obi-Wan. But I think you’ll change your mind. I’ve had an epiphany, you see.”
“Oh?” Obi-Wan asked, arching an eyebrow. “Perhaps you’ve realized--”
“2224,” Anakin interrupted, and Obi-Wan worked to keep his expression still and calm as the unbroken surface of a lake. So, it was to be more of this particular torment. He tried to keep the revulsion and horror off of his face, tried--
“Draw your blaster.” Obi-Wan blinked, startled. It seemed unlikely that Anakin intended to actually kill him. Death would mean an end to whatever enjoyment Anakin drew from torturing him. And merely making the threat without any intent to carry it out would… defang him.
He said, lifting his chin, “I’m not going to beg for my life.”
Anakin lifted his chin, just a little, mask ever unchanging but pleasure in his voice when he said, “Oh, I know that.” And then he waved a hand, lazy, and added, “Shoot 4574.”
Something froze inside Obi-Wan’s chest. He jerked to look, turning in time to hear the blaster shot, to watch Trip sway on his feet and then just - just collapse, down and back, smoke curling from his temple. Cody had shot him cleanly, at least he hadn’t suffered, more, but--
“Stop!” Obi-Wan cried out, the word a rasp through his damaged throat. He looked back at Anakin, wide-eyed. “What are you--”
“Shoot 6762 next,” Anakin said, hands gripping the edge of his throne, leaning forward a little, and Obi-Wan couldn’t--he wasn’t even getting time to do anything to stop it, watching another one of his men fall. “Now 34--”
There was no thought to dropping to his knees. Obi-Wan hit hard, not even bothering to try to steady himself. It hurt, but it was a distant, far away kind of pain. “Ah,” Anakin said, pleasure and satisfaction dripping off of his tone.
“Ever the Jedi,” Anakin said, and Obi-Wan heard him stand but could not look away from Cody, standing there blank-faced, the blaster still up, pointing towards Bones, who was just standing there, waiting to die. “Even now. Even with the Order completely and justly destroyed. You’ve always been weak like this, haven’t you? I was working with the Zygerrians, of late. It reminded me. I wonder how weak you are, really?”
Obi-Wan looked up at him, breathing raggedly. He said, “Don’t hurt them.”
“I will do as I wish,” Anakin said. “2224--”
“No!” Obi-Wan shouted, as best as he could, his voice was still wrong. “I’m--”
“Put the blaster against your head.” And Obi-Wan froze, his heart lurching sideways in his chest, agony sweeping through him. He turned, helplessly, watching Cody lift the blaster and snug the barrel against his temple without any evidence of hesitation. The world shifted, terribly, under Obi-Wan, his gut lurching.
From somewhere far away, Anakin said, “Pull the--”
“Please, don’t,” Obi-Wan gasped out, the words dragged out of him. “I’m kneeling. Please.”
Anakin hesitated and shook his head. He sounded… disgusted when he said, ”Look at you. Begging for the life of this thing. Even after what it did to you.”
Obi-Wan rasped out, “He didn’t do anything to me. You--”
He cut off as fingers clenched into his hair, dragging his head back, forcing him to look up into Anakin’s dark mask. “It beat you almost to death,” Anakin hissed, “it forced itself on you. Didn’t it?”
Obi-Wan’s heart beat against his ribs, uncomfortably fast. The threat of the blaster against Cody’s head echoed between each word Anakin spoke. And the truth would not serve him, in that instant. It wouldn’t serve Cody. Obi-Wan swallowed and lied, “Yes.”
Anakin’s grip tightened briefly in his hair, Anakin’s breath hitched, tellingly. He shifted a little closer, a looming shadow, and his voice had gotten raspy when he said, “Call me by my name.”
And Obi-Wan weighed the lie against Cody’s life, for less than an instant, because it was no contest. He stared up into his own reflection, knowing he’d do whatever was necessary to keep Cody’s finger from pulling that trigger, ever again, and said, “Lord Vader.”
“There,” Anakin said, satisfaction curling around the word as he reached out, cupping Obi-Wan’s cheek, “that wasn’t so hard, was it? All the pain you went through, just to avoid two little words. It wasn’t worth it, was it, Obi-Wan?”
Obi-Wan’s gut was hard and cold as rock, but he kept his voice steady, lying, “No.”
“I like you like this,” Anakin said, voice rumbling. “Agreeable. On your knees.” He stroked his thumb up, across Obi-Wan’s cheek. “But I’m not sure I’ve been convinced to spare 2224, here. It's defective, you know. Keeping it around is a drain on resources.”
“Please,” Obi-Wan said, because he did not need the Force to read this situation. He’d been in the hands of sadists more times than he could count, the power mad and and the power hungry. And he knew Anakin, better than anyone in the galaxy ever had, perhaps. “Please, Lord Vader, don’t kill him.”
Anakin made a little sound, thoughtful. “That’s the best you can do?”
Obi-Wan’s breath caught, just for a second, something breaking in his chest. It felt like his heart. “I’m begging you,” he said, and heard Anakin make a surprised, thick sound. “Please.” And he swallowed, tipping his head forward, as much as he could with Anakin’s fingers in his hair, “Please, spare him.”
“I don’t know,” Anakin said, tugging him forward, just a little, taking his hand off of Obi-Wan’s face, reaching for his armor, instead, Obi-Wan’s stomach turning over as nausea surged up his throat. “I’m not convinced, yet.”
“Please,” he said, his voice steady through sheer force of will as he made himself wet his bottom lip, knowing where this was going, seeing the terrible conclusion like the edge of a cliff, one he had no choice but to run over, because the alternative was letting any more of his men die, and he wouldn’t do that. Ever. “Let me convince you.”
And when it was done, when Anakin released his hair and let him slump down, gasping for breath, his mouth aching and his throat sore, his vision blurry, Anakin said, “I suppose that’s good enough. For now. You’ve always used your mouth well. Put the blaster away, 2224. And get him cleaned up. Bring him to my quarters when he’s...presentable. I wish to celebrate my victory properly.”
Anakin strode away then, cloak snapping, head high. He’d always been so smug, after a victory. Obi-Wan shuddered, shaking all over, waiting to be hauled to his feet. Nothing happened, for a long moment, long enough for him to look up, though he did not want to look into Cody’s face, at the moment, shame curdling in his gut at what he’d done--
Cody was staring forward, blaster still against his head, his free hand down by his side, finger jumping, tapping out, out-of-rhythm, “No, no, no, no, no.” There was blood, running down the side of his neck, and horror kicked over fresh and new in Obi-Wan’s gut.
“It’s alright,” Obi-Wan blurted, his heart shattering a bit more in his chest with each beat. But-- but his heart had broken to pieces before. He’d kept living. “Cody, please, put the blaster down, please, don’t--”
Obi-Wan jerked when two other troopers grabbed his arm, hauling him to his feet, where he swayed, feeling disoriented and dizzy, sick. Cody had not moved at all, by the time the troopers dragged Obi-Wan through the door, past the bodies of their dead brothers, who they didn’t even regard. “Cody! Don’t! Please!”
Obi-Wan hung onto the sight of him as the droids cleaned him up, as troopers dragged him back to Anakin’s rooms - not his throne room, but - but what appeared to be his actual quarters. There were troopers in the room. Lined up along one wall. A single trooper across from them, blaster drawn, finger on the trigger. Anakin looked him over and said, his voice thick and rasping, “Get on the bed.”
Obi-Wan thought about a blaster pressed against the side of Cody’s head, about Padmé, about the slaughtered younglings, his family, his men, the only people he had left, who needed him…. And he turned, looked at the bed, and said, “Yes, Lord Vader.”
#whumptober2020#no.16#forced to beg#clone wars#fic#non con#torture#abuse of prisoner#mind control#dead dove do not eat#oof!au#my writing#codywan#vaderkin#dark fic#please mind the warnings#they're there for a reason#character death
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On Translations
Once again, I’m just plain incensed by dumbasses who think it’s okay to firstly, steal someone else’s hard work and secondly, think they’ve got some right to edit that person’s work because they think they’ve got a better grip on English (not true btw) - It didn’t happen to me (well, as far as I know) and I’m not in the Guardian fandom and I don’t personally know the person who’s dealing with this ridiculous shit, but oof am I angry after seeing the tweet.
Just saw on twitter that some asshole stole a translator’s works (Guardian, Chinese to English) and edited it - Yes it’s just like the MDZS saga a few weeks ago when some white person who doesn’t have any Chinese language knowledge, tried to ‘improve’ translations done by another person who actually knows what they’re doing in both Chinese and English - And then put in on Wattpad with a ridiculous letter and intro where they said: “Great things can be made greater” to explain why they edited the English of the original translation.
“Great things can be made greater,” said the thief.
“I hope my actions will be appreciated,” said the thief again.
Like wow, once again, the audacity - There’ve been extensive arguments on translations since the MDZS saga a few weeks ago and obviously the fan who took ExR’s translations and ‘made them better’ stupidly stepped on a landmine by fucking with the MDZS fandom that has a longer history, more resources and clout than the amount of time she’s been exposed to MDZS via CQL, and got bitch-slapped by the rest of the fandom where there exists a majority of fans knowing clearly what to do and not to do.
Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of all fandoms, especially smaller ones - The user i saw is a translator for Guardian and the mofo 1. Stole their translations 2. Edited the translations to ‘better english’ 3. Wrote that they don’t know who did the original translations but “they know where to find me” *cue my eyeroll* 4. And after op commented to say please credit at the very least in May, they’ve been ignored so far - but luckily they’ve got some supporters as well to help report the mofo.
Aside from the ridiculous thievery (not crediting, blatantly lying and stealing, being an arrogant, indecent person stuck on that high horse) of course, the “I believe that great things can be made greater” is a fucking load of bullshit in this instance, and I mean taking someone else’s translations and adding your own spin to it because you think you’ve taken tests in English as a first language in school all your life (fuck off, a lot of these translators did too), that you’ve got some superiority over English or because you think it reads funny?
Granted, most fan translators don’t put up flawless translations (once again, these translators are FREE LABOUR), but you get it for free and you don’t have to (and can’t) read the original text, so suck it up.
Moreover, the disgust that I feel at the claim that the thief’s work is now ‘greater’ is extremely visceral - It’s not a greater piece of work because the thief stole it, period. No one asked for the thief’s help.
(In case you guys are curious the stolen post on Wattpad is here: https://my.w.tt/7dehLj7D56 and if you’d like to report just follow the instructions)
On Chinese to English translations:
1. If you don’t have good grasp of the original language, you have no right editing the translated work after, regardless of language. Until you can clearly understand the original idioms, context, characters etc. or have at least lived with the language for a substantial part of your life, honestly, just stop, you’ve got no right!
Sure, some translators aren’t as good as you like them to be, but the argument is always, well, you wouldn’t even have this minimal translation if they didn’t do it, so yay you’re like a few sentences and words closer to the text than you were before. If it’s really that bad, hopefully there are better translations and you can ignore the one you’re looking at, but the same rules apply across all translations!! Don’t disrespect the translator (especially when they’ve done nothing wrong except try to give you access to more content).
2. For Chinese, it’s even worse because the language is known for its hidden nuances and complexities within just two to four characters that, when translated into English, can sometimes take up to two long sentences to explain. That’s why sometimes shit reads funny. It’s not that these translators can’t do English, but Chinese to English acrobatics is beyond your comprehension, hell sometimes it’s beyond translators’ comprehension, so thanks for editing something you’ve got no idea about. This user Bee made a very good argument thread IMO about this on Twitter which I suggest people read
3. Adding your edits to a translated piece of work especially without permission or discussion with the translator, honestly who the fuck are you to do that? Either work your damn ass off by painstakingly translating the original and then editing it however you like, or just... enjoy the free content. Chinese BL novels (in this instance and as in many instances i’ve seen) and some of these translators have been around for longer than you’ve been in the fandom, so suddenly when you have an interest in the content, in a culture and language that you’ve never seen before, are unfamiliar with and have zero knowledge about, you think that as a fan you now have the right to edit someone else’s work that was already done correctly?
The fact is if the translator wrote a bogus line in the English translations, you wouldn’t have known, and when you upload it as your own and ‘improve’ it, you would be a joke, but you didn’t read the original text did you, so what makes you are any sort of authority to edit the translations?
4. Of course this is not to say that non-Chinese speaking people can’t enjoy the same content or have excellent, poignant discussions and understanding over the content, but honestly a lot of translations don’t capture 100% of a Chinese novel because the nuances are just that complex, and translators do their best to convey it regardless - This is why RESPECT FOR THE TRANSLATOR IS IMPORTANT. And I don’t mean simply paying lip service and typing “we respect all translators for their hard work on this work”, and then disrespect it entirely by not crediting, by the simple act of editing without permission etc.
Respect their interpretation and translations, because it can differ from translator to translator translating the same sentence (and people who don’t speak the original language want to compete with that, I don’t understand?!)
5. Honestly, considering how people are still arguing on the semantics of the Bible for example, not only in its original language but also in English alone - if people can’t agree on every sentence of the holy text and what each sentence means to different people, fan translators get a fucking pass
6. I read in Bee’s threads where someone disagreed with their argument of ‘only people who understand the original language can translate and edit’, saying that it’s okay if the editor doesn’t have a grasp of the original language - I understand that yes, someone else’s English might truly be better (for e.g. actual editors but also please don’t proclaim that you’re one just because you think the translator hasn’t lived with English for most of their lives or whatever), but even then, the editor has to work really closely with the translator because the translator is the primary source of the translation i.e. they know exactly what is going on in a particular sentence in their heads that may not have been translated fully, so how can non-Chinese reading editors truly understand the translated text on its own, editing in silos?
7. Perhaps in actual publishing houses that deal with official translations, this is a fallacy that is ever-present and editors do that anyway without understanding the original text (not sure about this, I’m bringing up the point for consideration, hypothetically putting this out here), but my issue with ‘editors’ in the fan translations space is that they come off sitting on some high horse because they think they’re better in English than you are (which of course yes, might be true, but then read points 1-6 again)
8. A thief is a thief, don’t put up an open letter or disclaimer explaining your motivations. It’s plain and simple, you stole someone else’s work, claimed it for your own and are riding on the great (sometimes not so great but still great, if you get what I mean) work that the translator did. You don’t get to claim ownership for any part of it, even your edits. And once again, “original work belongs to the translators” without actually naming the translators? Fuck off.
9. God, I hate Wattpad and Instagram (okay sometimes Twitter but Twitter seems to be a halfway point) - The Sanctuaries for Lazy Content Thieves Where The Platform Endorses Their Shitty Behaviour
10. Aside from translations, I’ve also seen assholes stealing like shitposts and jokes - These are the hardest to prove as well and it’s almost impossible to claim ownership when someone steals your jokes. Thieves only wish they had as creative a brain as some of you (didn’t happen to me but to a mutual) do. The audacity. The audacity! if the work was actually done and paid and recorded, if TurnItIn.com was available for fandom posts, these thieves would be out of gas.
11. Fan translators are not obligated to answer to any of their readers when it comes to why they translated something a certain way. You don’t like it or don’t agree with it, simply ignore, close the tab and go find another translation you like, it’s that simple. Nowadays readers 1. Threaten/Diss the translator directly and rudely 2. Steal the work 3. Add their own spin on it without understanding the original content and say: Yay! Look at this I made it so much better so give me some attention
*****
The point of this post is not to claim ownership over any fandom or content just because translators or Chinese-speaking/reading people in the fandom know the content better. It’s also not to say that non-Chinese speaking/reading people can’t enjoy, understand, have great discussions over original Chinese content, because just from MDZS alone you can see that they can. Of course there are also individuals who might not be able to speak the language but are familiar with Chinese culture etc. because they’ve studied or lived it well, or maybe they’ve actually watched decades of Chinese drama to be able to analyse it properly now, all that’s awesome.
Also, I’m all for people who are learning Chinese (or any language for that matter) to translate something as practice. That’s great, that’s good, that’s to be admired!!
It’s non-Chinese speaking/reading people who claim they know the original content better than translators without any discussions, claiming some superiority over the content because they think the translation is not done well enough without doing any of the ground work that I really have an issue with (and also the fuckers who steal of course XD).
*****
And unfortunately I had too much time on my hands today and got pissed off after seeing the tweet so some of you have to read through this drivel XD
#translations#guardian#mdzs#rambles#stealing#again XD#not me this time#but then again i keep seeing my stolen shit so it's pent up anger#HAHAHAHA#you'd think i would have learnt#but i also think it's important to get angry each time it happens#even if it's tiring and futile?#if in 100 complaints only 1 gets answered#then that's 1 less mofo and thief who got away#you know?#idk sometimes
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A Little Mischief (Sofi + Thire): Chapter 4
Summary: Here it is, my lovelies! At last, Chapter 4. This was a tough one for me to write, for some unknown reason. Please enjoy about 6,000 words of smut and added gratuitous fluff.
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Sexiness ahead ft. some light bondage, NSFW and 18+, ALSO there is the aftermath of what basically is battery but also could be considered sexual assault.
CHAPTER 4
A hand was stroking her hair. It felt amazing, compared to the way the rest of her body ached stiffly - right now her left hip was completely numb. Right on the edge of sleep and waking, she thought it must be Thire. He’d always loved her long hair, loved running his hands through it when she wore it down. Last week she’d found out he like pulling it in bed...
The hand stopped stroking, but it wasn’t Thire’s voice she heard.
“It’s time to go home for a while Sofi,” the soft voice said, “you need to shower and eat something.”
When she wrenched her gritty eyelids open, she finally had her answer.
A slight woman was leaning over the little cot set up by Thire’s bacta tank, an imposing red-armored figure looming behind her. The woman had to be Mouse, if Fox’s posture was any indication. Before her brain was fully operational, she laughed a little at Fox having his wife come and collect her, like she was some sort of emotional ticking time bomb. From what she understood of their relationship, they pretty much came as a matched set. So really this shouldn’t be much of a surprise.
“‘Mokay. I’ll stay here.” She glanced back up at the tank and the vitals readout, making sure he was still there, still alive. Usually she stared at the tank until she could see his chest rise and fall until she let her eyes close. Unwilling to leave him, she snuggled herself under the blankets a little farther.
“Sofi, you had crackers for dinner last night.” When Sofi reopened her yes, both Mouse and Fox both looked profoundly unconvinced of her ability to take care of herself. “When was the last time you went home?”
She wracked her brains to try and remember. Thire had been in bacta for...three days now. Or was it four?
“At least I ate something.” Mouse sighed and Fox shifted impatiently. Sofi watched his helmet tilt up, almost imperceptibly, to watch his brother floating in bacta. He was probably just as worried as she was. He and Thire had known each other for years. Maybe they hadn’t been close on Kamino, but now they were as close as batchmates.
“You can come back later, but let’s get you a change of clothes at the very least.”
Sofi looked down at her dirty scrubs peeking out from under the hospital blanket. There were still little smears of his blood on them and the utterly exhausted part of her brain almost made her laugh at it. She’d been spattered with blood too when she first met Thire. She felt - and probably smelled - like the angel of death. Maybe a shower would do her some good.
“Okay,” she acquiesced, “but I’m coming right back afterwards.”
“That’s fine,” said Mouse, “Fox will stay with him until you get back.”
Sofi managed to get home okay, after all, she’d had some rest. But she didn’t dare let herself lie down on her bed or the couch for fear of falling asleep again out of pure, eviscerating exhaustion. Showering was the acceptable alternative that would perk her up a bit, to wash some of her worry off as well as the grime. The searing heat of the spray helped to work some tension out of her muscles, cramped from her constant perch on the cot next to Thire’s tank.
Mouse was right, she did feel better after showering. Gulping down some water, Sofi pondered when she’d have to go back to work. Paid time off was limited and she still wasn’t sure when Thire would be able to leave the hospital. Fortunately, he was young and healthy, in his prime, so to speak. That he had going for him, and also the particular Mando stubbornness that she supposed came from Jango Fett. Kaminoans certainly didn’t seem like the most tenacious of people.
Sofi glanced at the inviting cushions on her couch. A little nap couldn’t hurt. She’d only been getting snippets of sleep the last few days, waking at every little voice and beep. A few hours couldn’t hurt. I’ll just rest my eyes, she thought, and slipped into sleep.
Hours later she was wrenched out of sleep by her beeping comm. Thire was coming out of bacta.
She rushed back to the hospital, anxious and excited. Fox was still there with Thire, as promised, bucket off and standing ramrod straight beside the tank. Nurses and med droids milled about, prepping the room.
“Commander,” she greeted, sidling up to the tank. She pressed her hands to the transparisteel, studying Thire’s unconcsious form for any signs of trouble.
“Ma’am,” he replied. Thire had told her so much about his brother, his vod as he called him. Commander Fox was a formidable man, but Sofi knew from Thire that his hard exterior hid a softer center. Not that she would ever mention it.
“You can call me Sofi, if you like,” He smiled down at her.
“I’ve heard a lot about you, Sofi,” said Fox.
“Likewise.” Together they watched the bacta slowly start to drain, inching down gradually. Nausea rose up in her gut as she waited.
“What the hell happened to him, Fox?” She didn’t bother with rank, not caring much for formality at this point.
He sighed, somehow looking even more burdened than usual. It was easy to see how Mouse would soften his edges, even him out a bit.
“We had a tip on a being-trafficking situation down in the lower levels. One of the hut’uune set the place on fire to cover the evidence up...from what Stone told us, it sounded like he was in a hostage situation with one of them. He saved a woman but the trafficker shot him.”
Tears prickled in her eyes, not for the first time that day. She knew she shouldn’t be angry at him for taking risks, but she was; wanted to tell him how much of a self-sacrificing idiot he was, but she couldn’t. He wouldn’t be the Thire she loved without his caring nature.
--
It was slow going after leaving the hospital. Sofi didn’t think she’d ever had a worse patient in her entire career. After insisting that he be discharged with her, she’d brought Thire to her place so he could have some peace and quiet. He repeatedly insisted that he was fine to go back to work, despite being at death’s door mere days ago. Truthfully, he didn’t even seem that happy to be alive.
He’d never raised his voice at her before, but now he was as testy as a wounded animal; she felt like she was constantly tiptoeing around his varying moods. It was exhausting. The worst part was that he wouldn’t let her help him. Sofi practically had to beg him to let her put bandages on, even though they both knew he couldn’t reach.
Confronting the problem head on seemed the best option after a week of him shutting her out. Surgery and bacta had taken care of most of the critical damage, but the immobility and energy needed to heal had taken a lot out of him.
“Thire?”
“Hm?” He didn’t even look up from his comm.
“Why won’t you let me help you?” She tried putting her hand on his forearm but he shook it off, though he finally looked her in the eyes.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, “I’m here, aren’t I?” Irritation showed plain on his face, still drawn from recovery.
“You know that’s not what I mean,” she said; she prayed he’d understand, “Thire, I saw you come into the hospital. I saw how bad it was. Even with bacta, there’s no way you’re back to one hundred percent.”
“You don’t know me, then. Because I’m fine. I honestly don’t even know why I’m here.” He threw the covers off of himself in frustration.
That hurt. But she wasn’t entirely surprised. She’d get to the bottom of this, fix whatever was going on with him and they’d be back to normal.
“Maybe you want to talk to someone about it?” she suggested.
That was apparently entirely the wrong thing to say. He glared at her, face hardening. She’d really upset him now, she could tell by that look on his face, the way he jerked and turned away from her so she couldn’t see it.
“I’m fine,” he ground out, still facing towards the windows, “Actually, I’m better than fine. I’m going back to the barracks. I need some alone time.”
“Are you sur-“
“- I’m not one of your patients, Sofi. Stop treating me like I am!” The tone in his voice shut her up and she watched him awkwardly put on his blacks and lower body plates, breathing harshly. The upper ones were long gone, tossed aside in the back of an ambulance somewhere, slicked in his blood.
She just sat there on the bed, too shocked to cry, staring at his back as he left her flat, walking stiffly through the pain and slamming the door behind him. This was nothing like the Thire she knew. It was hard to be upset with him, but it was like his personality had changed overnight and he refused to talk to anyone about it, least of all her. She could feel him pulling away and felt like there was nothing she could do to stop it.
--
Rare was the moment that Thire truly felt afraid. In the last week, he’d had two. One, when the certainty had come over him that he was going to die, and second, when he realized he lived but was gravely injured. Possibly irreparably. Civilians didn’t know about decommissioning, and his fellow clones only whispered the word, even as grown men. He and his brothers had grown up with the constant visceral terror of not being good enough and never being seen again, being stolen away in the night. Regular children had terrors of imaginary monsters, but for the clones they were real.
Which was why he couldn’t let anyone see, even though he knew that the Kaminoans couldn’t touch him here. That fear had been so real and raw for the majority of his life that it was something he just couldn’t snap himself out of. His brothers would understand. They were the only ones who could and would protect him.
All Sofi’s constant ministrations had done was make him feel like a child again. A terrified child. He cabbed it back to 300 Republica and stiffly made his way to his bunk, ignoring the stares from his brothers at his sweaty face, bucket under his arm, straining to keep it together until he reached his bunk. No one dared confront him. When he did arrive, he thanked whatever privileged bastard decided to give them private rooms before he limped to the fresher and started puking his guts out.
He kept having dreams about the hospital.
------
The next two weeks passed in a blur. Somehow they felt like the longest two weeks of his life, and other times he wasn’t sure how that much time had passed since he’d seen Sofi. Two weeks was the longest they’d gone without speaking in the entirety of their relationship. He’d composed messages to her, but hadn’t had the gett’se to send them, to apologize for his di’kutla behavior.
Being babied hadn’t helped his anxiety about his injury and like a coward, he couldn’t bring it up to her. To his displeasure, his anxiety had only worsened since his grenade injury in the beginning of the war. The medic then had told him he was lucky to come out of that still walking straight, which had resulted in him having daily panic attacks for weeks. He sighed. Since he’d stormed out of her place two weeks ago, Sofi hadn’t contacted him once. Not that he expected her to - he fully expected her to be pissed, and she had every right to be.
Which was why he almost didn’t answer her text. He knew he wasn’t mad at her, he knew that. It was his anxiety talking. He also knew their relationship was over. How could Sofi ever want him back after the way he’d raged at her. She deserved to be with someone who was as vibrant as she was. Still, his heart ached to see her again, hear her witty banter, see the way she smiled at him when he was doing something mundane and thought he couldn’t see. All of it.
He’d received a cryptic text from her number asking to pick her up, signed by one of her coworkers whose name he didn’t recognize.
Sofi was sitting on the curb with a cup of caf, wearing a paper scrub top. He was too scared to ask what had happened to the one that she had been wearing that matched her bottoms. His blood boiled at the implication. He may not have been there to witness what happened, but he could sure as hell connect the dots.
“I got your text.”
“I didn’t text you.”
“Well someone did.” A long pause stretched between them. Sofi sat, sipping her coffee, looking for all intents and purposes extremely bored, while he stood in front of her, watching, waiting for an explanation. It didn’t help that his guilt was eating him alive and she wouldn’t - or couldn’t - look at him.
“Surprised you even answered, Thire.” Her voice was flat, alarmingly so, her face smooth and expressionless. This was nothing like the Sofi he knew. He wanted her to rage at him, scream or curse - something. An ice pack rested over her right palm, dripping a puddle onto the duracrete.
“The text said something happened.” Thire’s worry was growing the more she wouldn’t look at him. She just sipped her coffee like nothing in the universe was wrong, like it was morning and they were still together and he’d run down to the corner shop for two cafs, black.
“I don’t kriffing know,” she said, irritation plain, “ask the asshole who texted you. My cab is coming in five minutes and I just wanna go home.”
“What happened to your hand?” Her eyes flicked down to the appendage as if she had forgotten it was there.
“Nothing.”
“Can I look at it?” he asked carefully. She shrugged. Taking that as a yes, he crouched down in front of her slowly, though he wasn’t sure she would even notice him. He moved the ice pack and a livid bite mark met his eyes, right in the meat of where her thumb met her palm. A human bite mark. Thire clenched his teeth.
“You gonna tell me who did this?” he asked, trying to keep the anger out of his voice. Dark almond eyes met his, almost black in the darkness, reflecting the speeder lights passing by. He braced his hands on the armor covering his thighs
“Patient tried to get fresh with me. Ripped my top, tried to shove his fingers in my mouth. I pushed his face away and he bit me.” He watched her look at her hand and poke at the bruise like the appendage belonged to someone else.
“That’s battery, Sofi, you should press charges!”
“It’s not that serious, Thire.”
“Half your hand is black and blue.”
There seemed to be a lot of shrugging going on tonight. She repeated the movement, still staring straight forward.
“I just want to forget about it.” The crack in her voice was the only thing that stopped him from pushing her further.
“Fine, but I’m taking you home.” As if in response, her cab pulled up and Thire talked to the cabbie, flipping him a few credits for his time. Fortunately, she mounted his speeder bike behind him without argument and held onto him gingerly, touching the least amount of surface area as possible.
She let them into her apartment, moving slowly towards the bedroom and he followed, unsure of what he should be doing, or even if she wanted him there. Sofi finally settled on the edge of the bed and Thire joined her.
“Has stuff like this happened before?” A shrug. Yes, then. She didn’t seem to want to elaborate, so he didn’t press her. But it didn’t surprise him.
“Go shower and change and I’ll sit with you.” She didn’t fight his suggestion and rose, stiffly grabbed pajamas out of her drawer and slid into the fresher. A half hour later she was still in there and Thire was starting to get concerned.
He knocked softly on the door, with no answer and Thire could hear that the shower was still running. He knocked louder. Maybe she’d fallen or passed out or worse and the last thought scared him enough to open the door to check on her. Sofi was huddled in the corner of her shower, arms wrapped around knees, head resting on top of them, so still she looked frozen as the water from the shower poured over her.
Thire was a little scared to approach after what had happened earlier, unsure of how comfortable she’d be. He stripped his armor plates off and clambered in the shower with her. The water was still hot, soaking his blacks in a matter of seconds, wetting his hair until it plastered down to his face; instinctively, he sat and wrapped his arms and legs around her huddled form. Normally obstacles and insults rolled off her back like nothing - her unshakeable confidence was one of the things he loved most about her, but this - this was different and it scared him.
For a moment her body tightened, relaxing after a beat, wet head coming to rest on his shoulder. He held her for a while in silence, letting the water fall over them.
“Cyar’ika, let’s get you changed.” She nodded in response and squeezed his arm a bit, as if to reassure him she was okay. He turned off the water for her and she wrapped up in a towel while he shed his soggy blacks. Fortunately, he kept a few pieces of civvy clothing at her place which were still strewn on a chair in the corner. They donned their sleepwear in silence and she let him curl up behind her in bed, like old times. After a few minutes, neither of them were asleep and Thire couldn’t hold back any longer.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” he said. She squirmed and readjusted so that she was facing him in bed, hand on his face, softly stroking his cheek.
“There’s no way you could have known, stuff like this happens more than you think,” she whispered, “I don’t need you to protect me.”
“I know. I just wish I had been,” he continued, “-and I know I was wrong when I left.”
“Me too.” She paused, looking down at her bitten hand. He took it in his, finding that he needed it more for his reassurance than her comfort. “I’m sorry I didn’t call. I knew you were mad and I wanted you to have the space you needed.”
“I don’t even know how many times I wrote and rewrote messages to you. I was just too afraid to send them,” he said, forcing himself to continue, “...the reason I blew up at you...you didn’t do anything wrong. I was scared.” He choked out the last word. Here he was, a Commander, pride of the GAR, admitting he was terrified. How he hated it.
“I know,” she admitted, “I could tell by your reaction, but I didn’t want to press.”
“I’m sorry.” Thire hung his head, he had to get this out, or else he would never be able to tell her. “When we were young, training, there were rumors that if you were defective….the Kaminoans would decommission you.”
“Decommision?”
“Kill us.” His bluntness astonished him, but it was the truth. “That’s why I get anxious when I’m sick or hurt. Not because of you.”
“I forgive you.” She brushed a kiss across his lips, and he noticed tears in her eyes again. “And I’m sorry too. I’m sorry you had to go though that.”
“Forgiven,” he replied, returning the kiss and pressing her to him so that they were flush.
“I care that you’re alive. Even if we’re not together,” whispered Sofi.
“Do you want to be together?”
“Yes,” she said, “Do you?”
“More than anything,” he replied.
---
Thire and Sofi sat in her kitchen, happily sipping caf and eating savory pastries from Ordo’s - their usual Sunday morning routine. He met her eyes over the top of his mug and smiled.
“I want a baby, Thire.”
“What?” His eyes went a little wide but he was able to keep his reaction somewhat under control, except for the fact that he choked slightly on a bit of pastry.
“With you.” His watery eyes considered her, sitting across the table from him, a perfectly placid expression on her face.
“Yeah, I gathered that.”
She gave him a little pause to think about it.
“And I don’t want to wait. You’re it, Thire. I knew on our second date. And then you got shot and it just put everything into perspective.”
“I get that.” He considered it. A baby. “I feel that way too. I love you, Sofi. If it was legal I’d carry you to the Senate Building right now and marry you on the spot.”
“What do you think? About what I said.”
He considered her proposition. A baby. Fatherhood had always been an abstract concept to him, having never had one himself. But in the past year, he’d let himself consider the notion once or twice. Okay, maybe more since he’d met Sofi.
“I think I’d like to. Try at least and see what happens.”
“Good, because I’m overdue for my birth control hypo and I want to fuck you so bad right now.”
Per usual, she managed to drop his jaw to approximately the level of his knees. That was his Sofi, always direct. She never did anything by half.
“Take your clothes off and sit down,” she commanded, nodding towards the bed. He raised an eyebrow slightly but complied. She knew he liked it when she was a little bossy in bed, and today was no exception, if the state of him was any indication.
She stripped her clothes off in front of him, slowly, backing away when he reached out to touch her.
Thire was obviously feeling better, because the look in his eyes was hungrier than she’d ever seen it. Oh, this was going to be fun. She made her way over to her closet to where Thire’s pile of discarded clothes still sat. He’d gotten in the habit of leaving his civilian clothes at her place, but never got in the habit of folding them. When he left, she hadn’t had the heart or energy to get rid of them.
She bent to search through the pile, giving him quite the show and he practically growled. But he stayed put on the edge of the bed, slowly stroking himself as he watched her.
Finally she found what she was looking for. The worn leather belt he’d worn on their second date. She strolled lazily back to him, belt in hand, and grabbed his wrist, yanking his hand off himself. He got the idea pretty quickly.
“Can I tie you up?”
“Hells...yes,” he replied. She pushed him back so he was lying flat, arms above his head and used the belt to strap his wrists together. The muscles in his arms looked delicious like this. She traced her hands down them and sighed.
“Too tight?” He shook his head no.
“Pretty,” she remarked, “Be good and stay still for me, Thire.” He interrupted her before she could start in on him.
“Sit on my face. Want you to come first.” Her core clenched, and she smirked at him. “Please,” he begged, smirking back at her. The little shit.
“Well since you asked so nicely.”
She straddled his talented mouth and he licked into her, circling her entrance with his tongue, pressing it into her. He knew exactly how to drive her insane, even without using his hands.
“Ah…” he nosed up to her clit and she swore under her breath, closing her eyes against the pleasure and gripping the headboard. Already, her legs were starting to shake, but he was relentless, grinding his tongue on her clit with maddening pressure until she was the one panting and begging and then she came with a breathless sigh.
When she finally came down from her high she bent to kiss him, tasting herself on his lips, slipping her tongue in his mouth, careful not to touch his cock yet. Sofi liked seeing - and hearing - him desperate for her.
“Should I give you what you want?” He just groaned in response as she finally took his cock in her hand, stroking gently. By the look of the muscles in his neck, he was certainly desperate.
“I guess I’ll take that as a yes,” she said, centering herself over him. Thire gained a little composure back and their eyes met. Gods, she was crazy about him. She’d never felt safer or more cared for in her entire life - she loved him and she loved him so kriffing much - and looking in his eyes now he saw her feelings mirrored there - in the deep glowing brown of his eyes, the tiny smirk tugging at the corner of his lips, trusting her completely.
Without breaking eye contact, she took him inside her fully, just pausing for a moment and reveling in the feeling of their bodies joined together. His hips gave an involuntary jerk, pushing father inside and rubbing her clit against his abdomen and it spurred her to move, riding him until she was breathless again. Somehow he’d freed his hands, because suddenly she felt them in her hair and he was tugging her down to kiss him.
She could feel him getting closer now, and she let him take the reins, allowing his warm calloused hands to grip her hips and thrust up into her, deep and slow. Together they found a rhythm and Sofi lost herself in him, listening to his breath come harsher and harsher, feeling his grip on her hips tighten until he came with a groan, pulling her hips down onto his as he filled her.
Resting her hands on the hard planes of his chest, she stilled, curled over and catching her breath. Warm hands stroked her thighs and rearranged her onto her side, facing Thire, whose stamina was decidedly better than hers. He wasn’t even breathing hard anymore. Languidly, she tipped her chin up for a kiss and snuggled into him, deciding to stay in the moment for just a few more moments before they started their day.
------
[2 months later]
The speeder thrummed under him, a fitting companion to his buzzing thoughts. Sofi had been acting strange that morning. She’d never been much of a morning person, but this morning had been different.
For one, she had Ryshcate for breakfast. One of her new coworkers sent the sticky Corellian pastry home with her a few nights ago and she’d eaten two pieces with her caf this morning. Second, she’d practically booted him out the door, bouncing on the tips of her toes like she was late for work. Which she wasn’t, he knew. It was her day off.
Something was definitely up.
Even though she knew they were trying to get pregnant, Sofi was still nervous staring at that stupid stick lying on the fresher counter. Pretty much every friend she knew had at least one scare, including her, and those three minutes waiting for the simple little test to develop had probably been some of the longest minutes of her life, though nowadays they were second to those minutes waiting for news after Thire had gotten shot.
She’d splurged on a little more expensive test, for no reason at all except that she felt hopeful. They’d only been trying for two months, really she didn’t expect it to happen this soon. People tried for years sometimes without any luck, and she’d just gone off her hypo. The elderly woman who owned the shop down the street, Hellah, had given her a soft knowing look when she had taken her credits. Sofi had bought some other little things along with the tests so she looked less suspicious - why, she couldn’t know - but at least she had some chocolate now if she needed it.
It was way too early to have any major symptoms. She was just late. Really late. Thire was working and she didn’t want to take a test with him there, for whatever reason her brain had conjured up. They’d both obviously contributed, but for some reason this felt private. Secret even. Before now, a pregnancy test was always something you hid from men until there was something to tell, so they didn’t have to worry.
He’d get all excited and then she didn’t want to see his disappointment if the test was negative. So she’d sent him off to work with caf and a kiss on the cheek and rushed to the little corner store as soon as he was gone.
The test bleeped insistently and she could hear her heart beating in her ears all of a sudden. Why are you so nervous? You’ve taken tests before. It doesn’t really matter what the test says, anyway. Even though she knew what she wanted it to say. But they hadn’t been trying for that long, she didn’t even know why she was doing this. She stopped trying to bargain with herself and just looked at the kriffing test.
Pregnant :)
Pregnant, she was pregnant. Holy kriff. She stared at the window for a moment, trying to let the word sink in. That was fast. Thire was gonna lose his mind. After they’d talked a few months ago, he’d been a lot more on board than she thought.
The revelation kept hitting her in waves. She didn’t feel much different, which was the weirdest part. And she’d never felt so intensely happy and insanely terrified at the same time. Her head hit the wall behind her.
Now she just had to tell Thire somehow.
------
Thire’s eyes were glued to the sono screen and she laughed softly. He had never been exposed to this side of life before and it was kind of sweet to watch his reactions. He also hated hospitals, so his nervous energy was out the roof, but Thire put on a good face for her. She had purposely picked a clinic far away from her work, far away from prying coworkers and Thire’s traumatic memories. He’d never seen a sonogram before and kept asking the tech questions.
Sofi, on the other hand, was used to seeing sonos. Scary ones. The emergency ward used them all the time, and rarely for this, but when they did it usually revealed something horrible. She half expected to see a lacerated liver show up, or other worse things she didn’t want to think about. But what she did see was even more shocking than that.
She gasped and Thire broke his searing eye contact with the monitor. Thire was apparently beginning to catch on, as his face was approximately a hand’s length from the screen. This was completely new to him, but he always caught on incredibly quickly. Lately she’d sneaked peeks of what he was reading on his datapad before bed and it was always dry, statistical obstetrics manuals. It was no wonder he’d been a little grim and nervous before this appointment.
“What?” he asked, “What is it?” By his panicked tone, it was obvious he’d done way too much reading after she’d broken the news, because now he was worried about every tiny thing that could go wrong. She turned to the sono tech.
“Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?” Sofi asked grimly. The tech laughed a little, fiddling with the sensor on her still-flat stomach. Thire was still looking oppressively somber and reached out to place his hands over hers.
“It’s definitely what you think.” She smiled kindly and pointed at the screen. “Heart here,” said the tech, touching the screen, then adjusted the sensor, “and a second here.” Oh gods. Thire squeezed her hands in his. Twins. Their relationship was still full of surprises, it seemed.
He was looking down at her like she’d hung all the stars in the galaxy and she couldn’t help but start giggling incredulously. Thire’s deep laugh joined in with hers and the sono tech smiled and looked away, letting them have a little moment to themselves.
--
“Isn’t two good?” he asked, more confused than he’d been since he was a cadet. He didn’t know anything about medicine, and he was trying to learn as fast as he could. The twin chapter hadn’t come up yet. He supposed he was lucky Sofi knew enough for the both of them. More than enough, he sometimes thought.
She tended to be anxious about illness and injuries, even more so after he got shot. Maybe she’d want to stay home for a little while when the baby - babies, he corrected himself, still a little stunned - were little. Her doctor sent them home with approximately a million pamphlets and Sofi got about as many blood tests.
He thanked the maker he was a man.
“No Thire, in this case two isn’t always better than one,” she sighed, “but I’m still happy.” She squeezed his hand as they walked together out of the clinic.
“Me too.” Looking down at the little black and white flimsi, he studied the two little beans. “Look at them! They’re so small.” Two. Two babies.
The Coruscant Guard has been exposed to more than regular troops. The first time he and Stone were on patrol and saw a pregnant humanoid, they thought something was seriously wrong. But now he was used to it, and was secretly glad that he wasn’t the one who was doing the hard work in this situation. Because it made him a little green to think about how two babies were going to fit in one person.
#A Little Mischief#my writing#gen writes#OC: Sofi#Commander Thire#CC-4477#CT-4477#Commander Thire x OC
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Title: Fireworks
Relationship: Todoroki Shouto x Yaoyorozu Momo
Chapters: 3 of 4
Rating: G+
Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26685007/chapters/67766576
So...I went overboard. This was first going to be a one shot, then turned into a 3 part piece and now its 4 chapters!!!
Shout out to all my betas for this work: FlourChildWrites, Emberstork, Crazyelf2018 and C’s Melody.
Also, thank you so much Mardimari for the adorable art! I wasn't able to include it in the actual story because it's a gif, but please check this adorable art out!! Mardimari
XXXXX
“SHOUTOOOOOO!”
Shit.
Shouto spun around, his gaze landing on his father’s six-foot-four frame marching across the crowded square. Hawks trailed behind him; they were both dressed in their hero uniforms.
People on the street parted to let them pass through.
Shouto tsked under his breath. It was just his luck to run into his old man when he was in a hurry.
Their relationship had gotten marginally better over the past year. His father wasn't the overbearing and cruel tyrant Shouto remembered from his childhood. But there was still a sharp tension between them, an invisible wall that Shouto wasn’t ready or willing to tear down. No matter what Midoriya’s theories were about Shouto waiting for the right moment to forgive his father — that hypothetical day still felt like it was a long way off.
He didn’t trust that man, Todoroki Enji.
Shouto kept waiting, watching, preparing for the day that the old Endeavor would emerge and burn everything down. And he felt more viscerally aware of that fact as he thought of Yaoyorozu being locked away by her own controlling parents.
It made him angry just thinking about it, and Shouto glowered up at his father. “I don’t have time for you, old man,” he snapped, debating if he should just make a break for it. The anxious churning in his stomach, urging him to get to Yaoyorozu in time, seemed to only be adding to Shouto’s foul mood.
He took a step around his father. "If you don't have anything important to say, I need to get going."
“Shouto.”
A large hand clasped on his shoulder, stopping him. Shouto looked up sharply. His father's bright turquoise eyes narrowed as he studied him.
“What’s gotten into you?”
Shouto's chest tightened in irritation and he glared, but his father's hand didn't loosen on his shoulder.
People on the street were stopping to stare. If he took any longer then he would never get to Yaoyorozu in time.
Shouto swallowed his building anger. “I need to get to Aoyama," he said finally, in a tense voice, hoping his father would take a hint and drop the conversation.
"What's in Aoyama?" Hawks asked suddenly, staring at him curiously.
Meddling bird.
Shouto gritted his teeth. It wasn’t as if he really had anything against him.
Hawks was a good hero and more importantly, got under his father’s skin — a trait Shouto genuinely appreciated — but not today. He needed to get going. The ride to Aoyama and back would take the full two hours. And that was only if everything went right, which, so far, didn’t look like it was going to be the case.
"A friend," he bit out, avoiding Hawks' gaze. “I need to get to her before the fireworks start.” He reached up and brushed his father's hand off. "That’s why I don’t have time for this.”
He pushed past his father. The interruption had cost him precious time. Shouto still needed to get to the train station and get a ticket. He hoped he wasn’t too late.
“Shouto, wait!” Hawks called after him.
Shouto paused, his hands curling into fists at his side. “Wha—”
His voice broke as his body jerked backwards. He twisted his head quickly to look behind him, and his eyes widened. Dark red feathers darted through the air, lacing together on his back, and forming auburn wings.
“You have someone important you want to meet, right?” Hawks asked. Shouto’s gaze darted back towards him in shock. The number two heroes’ yellow eyes glittered in the fading summer light. “At this hour, it’ll be hard to get anywhere in this crowd. This way will be much faster.” He gave a thumbs-up, and a strange tingling sensation filled Shouto’s stomach.
He swallowed.
Someone important.
Was Yaoyorozu someone important to him?
He had never given it much thought. Certainly, he admired and looked up to her. She was a good friend and fellow classmate, an outstanding hero in training. But, did that make someone important?
His stomach clenched. Midoriya and Iida were his friends too, but would he call them important? Probably. Yet, this felt different. Shouto didn’t know if he would race across Tokyo to see fireworks with them.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Shouto knew he wouldn’t. He felt like he was on the verge of grasping some vital concept that had been eluding him. Emotions he wasn’t used to felt stuck in his throat like hot glue. They were the same feelings he got whenever his mother asked him about Yaoyorozu.
His heart pounded in his chest. The answer was right at the tip of his fingertips, but Shouto couldn’t grasp it.
“Hawks,” his father snapped, glaring down at the shorter man, his mouth opening and closing several times as if he couldn’t find the words. “What’s the meaning of this?”
Hawks turned towards Shouto’s old man and smiled innocently. “Relax, papa, I’ve done this before. It’s perfectly safe.”
His father's face turned bright red. “Pa-papa?” he sputtered.
If it had been any other time, Shouto would have gained immense satisfaction at seeing his old man’s face turn different shades of crimson.
But he needed to get going.
“Yaoyorozu residence," Shouto said quickly, his chest constricting. "In Aoyama. Near the shopping district,”
Hawks looked back at Shouto, and grinned, his expression turning playful. "Don't worry, I'll get you to your important princess."
Shouto almost choked, but pushed the thought to the back of his mind. He didn't have time to think about Hawks' strange responses. His heart pounded in his chest.
Suddenly, Hawks snapped his fingers and the wings stretched out behind Shouto. They beat against the air as Shouto's body rose off the ground. Dust puffed into small clouds off the street as the wings pulled him upward. He felt multiple pairs of eyes on him as people stopped to gasp and stare.
His heart rose in his chest; a flicker of hope rushed through him. He could make it; with Hawks’ help, there was still a chance he could get to Yaoyorozu in time. Shouto raised his head and met Hawks’ eyes. “Thanks.”
Hawks smiled, and for once, it looked genuine. Then the dark red wings beat once, then twice. Then he was airborne and racing across the sky.
XXXX
Enji rolled his jaw as he watched his youngest son fly up into the fading summer light.
“Hawks,” he ground out. His voice wavered with barely contained fury as he turned back towards the shorter hero. The flames on his beard intensified in anger. “I want an explanation.”
Hawks hummed in the back of his throat. “Relax.” He tilted his head back to look up at Enji from the corner of his yellow eyes and grinned mischievously. “I just want to score a couple of points with my future brother and sister-in-law.”
Enji choked. “Br-brother-in-law?” he sputtered, shock dousing his anger. It felt like the shorter hero had flown up and slapped him in the face.
Hawks laughed. “They’re going to owe me big for this!”
Enji stared at him, stunned.
Brother-in-law?
Sister-in-law?
Hawks couldn’t – he didn’t mean Shouto? Did he?
Wait! And what did he mean by ‘in-law.’ Enji only had two other children: Fuyumi and Natsuo. Hawks wasn’t implying... Was he interested in one of them?
Natsuo, he thought, had a girlfriend, so Fuyumi…?
No.
He couldn’t get distracted. Fuyumi and Natsuo were both smart. And they were old enough to make their own decisions. It was Shouto he had to worry about.
This had to be one of Hawks’ jokes, but if it wasn’t…Was his youngest son really interested in someone?
Enji felt his internal body temperature shoot up as his parenting mode activated.
No!
No dating! Girls were off-limits, at least until after high school. They were a distraction. He needed to focus on his career and strive to be — Enji caught himself.
No.
He couldn’t be like this. Enji had promised to change. He swallowed his temper and curled his hands into tight fists at his side.
It was Shouto’s life. If...if he wanted to see someone — even though he was still too young — Enji would do his best to support him. He wouldn’t say anything to him about having a girl — girl...he gritted his teeth. He couldn’t even get the word to form in his mind.
“Endeavor-san, we better get going,” Hawks said, cutting through his thoughts.
Enji started and turned towards the number two hero. His eyebrows furrowed. “Where are you going?” he growled as he watched the other hero walk towards the crowd of people. The usual expansive auburn wings on his back had been reduced to tiny stubs.
Hawks looked over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow. “To grab a taxi, of course. My feathers can’t carry two people all the way from Aoyama when I'm this far away. We need to go meet them.”
Go meet them…
He might meet the girl, his future daughter-in-law. Enji’s blood pressure spiked. No. He didn’t know that. He needed to stay calm.
Enji drew in a deep breath and willed himself not to combust into flames as he slowly followed after the infuriating, meddling bird-hero.
XXXX
It was almost eight. The fireworks would be starting soon.
Momo’s hands tightened around her knees as she sat perched on the window ledge and stared despairingly out over the busy Aoyama streets. Outside, the sky had become an inky midnight blue accentuated by the blinking, multi-colored lights of the city.
Down below, ant-sized people and cars were packed along the roads and sidewalks. The designer store, Hermes, across the street was open, and she could see carefree shoppers browsing about through the floor-length windows.
It seemed everyone in Tokyo was out tonight — except her.
Momo leaned her head against the glass of the window. She needed to stop feeling sorry for herself. Her mother had a valid point. Ever since starting high school, Momo hadn’t had a chance to visit her father abroad like she’d done regularly back in middle school.
And to be honest, Momo couldn’t even remember the last time she had seen him… Christmas? That was over six months ago.
Was she really so selfish that she’d prefer to spend time with her friends over her family? Hadn’t her mother taught her better? Blood was thicker than water. Family was the most important.
Her toes curled. Honestly, she should be excited to get to see her father. Momo wanted to be excited to see him. But all she felt was a resounding hollowness in her chest.
What a spoiled child.
Momo sighed and stood up and went to lay on her bed. Her hair fanned out around her on the silken sheets. She had taken it out of the intricate bun her maid had helped her with earlier. There was no point in keeping it up if she wasn’t going to see her friends. And part of her argued she should summon the energy to get up and change out of her crimson yukata. But she couldn’t quite bring herself to take it off yet. He had chosen it for her.
Her phone buzzed on her nightstand.
Momo sighed and closed her eyes but didn’t move. It was probably the group chat, everyone posting pictures, forming new bonds, and making memories while she was locked up like some princess in a tower.
She frowned. Even for her, that thought was a bit dramatic. It wasn’t like her parents had actually locked her door or even forbade her from going. It was only a request to spend time together as a family.
Besides, even if that were the case, and she were locked away, this wasn’t the kind of situation a hero could save her from. If Momo wanted to be saved, she would have to–
Her eyes snapped open, and Momo sat up as realization struck her. She wasn’t a princess; she was a knight, a hero in training. If she wanted to be saved, she’d have to stand up for herself.
But would her mother hate her if she didn’t go to dinner with her family?
Momo’s stomach clenched, and she felt her nerves start to aggrandize. She shook her head and brought a hand up to clench over her heart.
Even if this made her a bad daughter, Momo had done everything to make her parents proud; surely she could make one selfish request? They couldn’t hate her for asking, could they?
And it wasn’t as if she was going to spend time with people she wasn’t close to. These were her comrades, her precious classmates. They weren’t related by blood, but in a way, they were just as much her family as her parents were.
Momo cut off her thoughts as she slid to the edge of her bed. She drew in a deep breath and stood. Nothing was gained in life without taking a chance. Surely, Momo could summon enough courage to at least try.
She was the ‘Everything Hero.’ Which meant she could make anything possible. Besides, Momo had fought the League of Villains, helped rescue Bakugo, stood her ground against engineered Nomus. How scary could it be to summon the courage to ask her mother if she could go see fireworks instead of having a family dinner?
She licked her lips and swallowed over a dry throat. If it were Todoroki, he would do it.
Todoroki…
Her hands curled into fists at her side. She had planned the whole night to ensure her classmates had the best time possible, but Momo couldn’t deny that she had wanted to see him. The boy she looked up to and admired the most, she had wanted to be with him tonight and see the fireworks again.
‘I’d like to escort you again.’
That’s right, if it were Todoroki, he wouldn’t give up this easily. If it were him, he’d find a way to meet everyone. And if it were a reverse situation, she’d be the one telling him or any of her other classmates to find the courage to come meet everyone. So she couldn’t be a hypocrite now and not try.
It may be scary, but Todoroki would tell her to believe in herself, as he had during their midterm against Aizawa. He may not be here physically to say those words, but that didn’t mean she was suddenly weak.
This was her battle. Momo wasn't a frail princess; she was a knight, a warrior about to fight her own battles.
Her hands trembled slightly as she opened her door and stepped out into the hallway. Their dinner reservation was for eight-thirty. Her mother would still be in her room getting ready.
Momo swallowed and then straightened as she began down the hallway towards her parent’s room.
She could do this. She couldn’t let herself give up this easily.
All she had to do was explain to her mother, clearly and consciously, that she had planned the whole festival event with her classmates, had made promises to her friends, and then ask her parents for permission to attend.
It was simple, and yet her legs felt like jelly as she stopped in front of her parent’s door and knocked. Her mother’s silvery voice responded from inside.
Taking a deep breath, Momo opened the door.
Her parent’s room was a mirror of her own but larger. A king-sized bed sat in the middle of the room, two white Italian nightstands standing guard on either side. White, engraved dressers adorned each wall. And, in front of her, her mother was seated at a beautiful ivory vanity, lipstick in hand. She caught Momo’s eyes in the mirror as she entered and smiled.
“Oh good, I’m glad you’re ready.” Her mother turned her attention back to the mirror and uncapped the lipstick. “You look adorable in your yukata, dear. I’m glad you didn’t change.”
Momo’s throat felt tight, and she swallowed, straightening up. She could do this. “Mother, I-I would like to request your permission to not attend dinner.”
Her mother's hand paused as she pressed the lipstick to her mouth; her dark eyes met Momo’s in the mirror, and her expression flickered with confusion. “Momo? Is something the matter? Do you not want French?” she asked, capping the lipstick again.
It could have been her imagination, but Momo thought she could feel her mother’s disappointment already radiating through the room. Her hands and the back of her neck felt cold. And part of Momo wanted nothing more than to turn around and run away. She hated disappointing her parents. She’d gladly fight a Nomu over having this conversation.
But she couldn’t give up; she had to be brave and stand her ground.
Momo shifted on her feet and took a deep breath to calm her rapidly beating heart. “I’d like–I’d like to see the fireworks with my friends…please.”
Her mother frowned. It was a graceful pout on her lips, and Momo’s stomach instantly twisted with guilt.
Her mother put the lipstick back down on the counter and turned to face her. “I thought we discussed this. Next winter, we’ll go see the New Year’s fireworks in Paris.”
Momo swallowed. She could hear her heart pounding in her ears. “I know.”
Her vision was turning blurry, and she sniffed, willing herself not to cry. If she cried. everything would fall apart. Her parents would think her spoiled; they wouldn’t take her seriously. “I know–I know you wanted to have dinner as a family, mother. But, seeing my comrades and classmates is important to me. I would like your permission to go meet them.”
“What’s wrong, dear?” A deep voice suddenly sounded from the bathroom, and Momo’s chest tightened. Her father stepped into the room, looking between the two women as he fastened the monogrammed cufflinks on his shirt.
Her mother stood up from her vanity. “Momo doesn’t want to go with us,” she said, her expression hurt.
“Momo?” Her father’s eyes flickered to her. “Is that true, dear?”
Momo bit her lip and met her father’s stare. The need to cry was growing stronger. She curled her hand over her heart. “Father, I–I know I haven’t seen you in such a long time, but I planned tonight with my friends. I wanted to make sure everything went perfectly, and everyone had a good time and…and--” She hiccoughed, and the tears she had been trying to hold back began to leak down her cheeks.
She had ruined it. Momo was supposed to be strong and lay out her points clearly and concisely, but she had failed. Her parents would never let her go now. Her mother would purse her lips and tell Momo how unladylike she was being—how selfish and petulant she was acting.
For all her efforts, she’d still miss the fireworks, and she’d miss seeing Todoroki…
But then, her mother did something she wasn’t expecting.
As the tears ran down Momo’s face, the older woman cried in alarm and rushed to her side. Wrapping her arms around her gently, she held Momo to her chest. “Momo, dear, I didn't realize you felt this way. You should have told me it would make you this upset.”
Momo stood pressed to her mother’s chest in a mixture of shock and fear. She could feel her tears staining her mother’s blouse but didn’t know what to do. It had been a long time since her mother had last held her like this.
Momo hiccoughed again as the shock subsided, and the worry and fear settled in. “I’m sorry, mother. I’m sorry. I just-I just really wanted to go. I was looking forward to it all summer. I know that makes me a horrible daughter, I’m sorry —”
“Hush, don’t apologize.” Her mother smoothed back her hair. “I didn’t realize how much this meant to you. This isn’t anything to cry over. Maybe we can make it up to you?”
“When does the firework show start?” Her father asked.
Momo sniffed. “In an hour.”
Heavy footfalls grew closer. “Then, you can’t be stalling.”
Momo pulled away from her mother and looked up, eyes wide.
Her father stopped in front of her and reached up and laid his large hand on the top of Momo’s head. His expression was softer than Momo could ever remember. “Go have fun. I’ll ask my secretary to reschedule my flight, and maybe we can have breakfast as a family tomorrow morning? How does that sound?” he asked softly as he removed his hand and stepped back.
“Dear? Are you sure?” Her mother asked quickly.
Her father nodded. “Momo doesn’t want to hang out with two old people.” He winked at her.
Momo’s lips twitched. “Thank you, father.” She let go of her mother and pressed up on her toes to kiss his cheek.
He smiled and patted her shoulder. “I’ll call a car to take you. You better hurry though, the roads are packed.”
“Come here, Momo, dear.” Momo smiled shakily as her mother led her to the vanity and sat her down. “Let me at least do your hair. I won’t have time for anything fancy, but we should at least put it up.”
Momo’s lips trembled as she watched her mother pick up a brush. She had done it. She had fought for herself and created her own miracle.
She would get to see the fireworks with everyone.
She would get to see Todoroki.
XXXXXX
Shouto’s body jerked as his feet hit the pavement, and he stumbled slightly, catching his balance.
People looked over curiously, but Shouto ignored them as he studied his surroundings. Tall, modern buildings made of steel and glass rose up all around him; their windows full of luxurious brands Shouto had never heard of before. He hoped he was in the right place.
A sign on the street corner read ‘Aoyama’, and Shouto felt his heart stutter with relief. He had made it.
There was an abrupt prick along his shoulder blades. Shouto glanced back as the red feathers began to dissemble, darting away into the night, presumably back to Hawks.
Shouto felt his stomach drop in disappointment as he watched the feathers disappear. He couldn’t deny a small part of him had imagined Yaoyorozu’s expression when she saw the wings. It was a silly thought. Shouto shook his head, clearing the image from his mind. He sent another silent thanks up to Hawks and then pulled out his cellphone.
According to Jirou’s text, Yaoyorozu’s building was across the street. He felt his stomach clench slightly as he stared up at the glass skyscraper with gold detailing. The building was tall with at least thirty floors.
He knew Yaoyorozu was rich, but it was hard to wrap his head around the fact that her family had a penthouse in Aoyama, the richest area of Tokyo. He’d just have to do his best. He curled his hands into fists at his side and headed towards the door.
A security guard sat at the front desk, reading a newspaper. He looked up as Shouto entered.
“How can I help you?” he asked slowly, looking Shouto over.
“I’d like to go to the Yaoyorozu’s.”
“And you are?”
“I’m a friend of their daughter.”
“Do you have an appointment?”
Shouto’s shoulders stiffened, but he tried to keep his face impassive. “No, but it’s important,” he bit out.
The security guard frowned. “I can’t let you up if they aren’t expecting you,” he said dismissively, turning back to his paper.
Hot anger curled in Shouto’s chest. He was tempted to snap at the security guard but bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself. It wasn’t the security guard’s fault; he should have planned better. Shouto thought if he just showed up, everything would work out.
But... he was so close; he needed to think of something.
Ding.
The elevator doors slid open, and a tall, beautiful woman and man walked out. Shouto did a double-take. The woman almost looked like an exact replica of Yaoyorozu, except with blond hair instead of black. Could it be…?
“Yaoyorozu-san.” The guard said, getting up and bowing formally.
“Yaoyorozu…” Shouto repeated, and then his eyes narrowed as he looked behind the couple. “Where’s Momo?”
The woman blinked, clearly taken aback by his brisk attitude. “Momo-chan?”
“You’re Yaoyorozu Momo’s parents, right?”
The man — presumably Yaoyorozu’s father — frowned. “Yes…”
“I’m Todoroki Shouto, her classmate,” Shouto said hurriedly, then as an afterthought, bowed slightly. If they were anything like the Yaoyorozu he knew, it would be difficult to get them to help without trying to be at least a little polite.
“Oh,” her mother stared at him, “I’ve heard of you. Endeavor-san’s son?”
The security guard made a slight strangled noise behind him, but Shouto ignored him. “Yes,” he forced himself to say as calmly as he could.
Something in the woman’s expression flickered. She folded her hands in front of herself. “I’m sorry, Todoroki-kun. Thank you for your effort, but our daughter is not here.”
“What?”
“You just missed her,” the man said. “She went out. Was there something you needed from her?”
Shouto blinked then dropped his head and smiled softly to himself. He should have known Yaoyorozu would get away on her own. She was always stronger than she seemed.
“No. There’s nothing.”
“If you hurry, you should be able to get back in time and meet her.” Shouto looked back up at Yaoyorozu’s father. There was a softness in his expression that Shouto wasn’t used to. And Shouto suddenly felt guilty for jumping to conclusions. He had been so worried for Yaoyorozu and assumed her father was like his, but it seemed her parents weren’t anything like Todoroki Enji.
Thank goodness.
“I wish we could give you a car, but we only have two in Tokyo.”
Shouto shook his head.
“It’s okay, thank you.” He bowed, before hurrying back into the street, his hand already pulling out his cellphone to text Jirou and Kaminari that he was on his way back.
He had to hurry.
Yaoyorozu was trying her best to reach everyone.
He couldn’t keep her waiting.
XXXXX
The car was stalled in bumper to bumper traffic.
Momo’s eyes darted towards the clock on the driver’s dashboard. Eight-fifty. Ten minutes until the fireworks.
Her fingers twisted together anxiously in her lap, and Momo drew in an unsteady breath, willing her heartbeat to stay calm. She was almost there. There was no need to panic.
Outside, pedestrians dressed in yukatas and cute summer outfits packed along the sidewalks as if it were rush hour on the Tokyo subway. All that was missing was the train master pushing people into place.
Momo swallowed and turned her attention away. It was only making her nervous.
She ran her hands over her thighs, smoothing out invisible creases in her yukata. In the back of her mind, Momo wondered if this was how Cinderella felt on the way to the ball. Had she been excited, having escaped her evil stepmother’s house, or nervous and scared that it would all fall apart before the twelfth chime?
Momo forced herself to lean back against the plush leather seat. If only she hadn’t forgotten her phone on her nightstand, she wouldn’t be so anxious. At least then she would have been able to text Jirou that she was on her way. She sighed. It had been so incredibly unlike her to forget anything — most of all her phone. But, then again, the whole night had been unusual and so unlike her.
Momo’s hands tightened in her lap. She still couldn’t believe she had stood up to her parents. And more than that, it still felt surreal that they had let her go. They always were so proper and expected so much from her. Sometimes she forgot that they loved her as well.
The thought warmed her, chasing away some of the anxiety clawing through her chest.
Momo bit her lip. She couldn’t let herself get down. She had conquered her first hurdle. She had done everything in her power to make it out tonight; she just needed her luck to hold out a little while longer.
In the distance, a loud boom sounded. Momo looked up sharply, her breath catching in her chest, but the tall buildings surrounding either side of her family’s car blocked her view.
Her chest tightened. No, they were almost there! She couldn’t give up. She had come so far–
“Young miss.” Momo glanced to the front and caught the driver’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “The traffic is bad. I don’t think you’ll make it in time if we wait...”
Momo nodded stiffly. “Thank you for your help,” she said hurriedly, opening the car door.
A loud whine went off as she stepped out onto the street, followed by another echoing boom that shook the air and reverberated through her chest like a shockwave. She didn't remember it being this loud last year, but it also meant that she was close.
Momo curled her hands into fists and began squeezing through the crowd. Her heart pounded in time with the crackling explosions.
Oh, how she wished for the hundredth time that she had her phone. Now all she could do was pray to Kami-sama that everyone was at the viewing spot she had chosen for them on the bridge. If she could just get there and meet up with everyone, then everything would be okay.
Her geta sandals clicked on the pavement as Momo hurried through the crowd, apologizing as she pushed past families and young couples. The air was thick with the tang of gunpowder and the heavy heat of summer.
On either side of the street, stalls had been constructed in perfectly even rows for the festival. Momo didn’t stop to look at what each booth contained as she ran towards the bridge.
The back of her neck was hot. And Momo could feel her yukata begin to stick to her as beads of sweat ran down her neck. Her side ached slightly, but she ignored it as best she could.
Almost there.
The booming continued in thundering sounds that made her heart race. The sky was dark gray with smoke. Between the buildings and tents, she could see flashes of color as multiple explosions went off.
If it were possible, the crowd seemed to grow denser. She apologized and pushed her way through. Her heart pounded frantically against her ribcage.
Almost there.
Almost there.
If she could just get to the bridge, everything would work out.
She turned around a corner and froze, her chest clenching almost painfully as she stared down the street.
The lights had flickered back on. There was no other sound besides people laughing and chatting happily as they walked towards her.
No.
Momo’s knees buckled.
The fireworks were over. She had missed them.
A sob caught in her throat, and Momo swallowed it back heavily as she tucked into a side alley. She walked down the narrow street and slid behind a metal exit stairway, where no one could see her. Then she stood there, feeling empty.
All her efforts. All her planning and praying was for nothing. Kami-sama hadn’t been on her side.
She curled her hand over her chest as she drew in deep breaths. The sound of people’s shoes and laughter filtered through the narrow alley as the crowd started back towards the stalls and the rest of the festival.
Her chest tightened painfully. Momo drew in a sharp breath and dropped her head to hide her face as her eyes started to burn.
It was from the smoke and running in the heat, not because she was going to cry, she told herself. Ladies didn’t cry, especially not in public.
Momo had done her best. She had defied her own expectations and stood up for herself. She had gotten all the way out here, and surely—if she searched—she’d be able to find her friends. They were probably still on the other side of the bridge, just minutes away, still excitedly talking about the fireworks.
Momo blinked as her vision blurred. She wasn’t upset. Disappointed, yes. But she was going to swallow her feelings and then go meet her friends. She couldn't let them see her acting like this. She’d only ruin everyone’s evening if she did that. Intruding on everyone's happy memories with her selfishness.
Momo's breath hitched. Besides, she couldn’t be upset over something this small, it wouldn’t make sense.
She didn't need to see the fireworks.
She didn't need to see them with Todoroki Shouto.
She didn’t—
“I wanted to see them.” She choked over a sob. “I wanted to see the fireworks.”
“Then, I’ll show them to you,” a deep, familiar voice said.
XXXXXX
Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed. I don’t think I’m all that great at fluff, but I’m really proud of this piece. All comments and feedback are welcome!
P.S. For anyone wondering, I’m still working on Ashes of Love and War. I’m trying to finish up this arc before posting again, but it is not abandoned. :)
#todomomo#todoroki shouto x yaoyorozu momo#todoroki x yaoyorozu#todoroki shouto#Yaoyorozu Momo#My writing#My Story#fireworks
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@caughtaghostsomehow reblogged your post A lot like ‘Us’ (Part-26) and added:
I feel so goddamned sorry for Sam. He was ready to listen to Jess's advice and at least try to rekindle whatever he had with his wife but then Meg put this idea in his head that he's hurting her and he's not gonna let it go unless he hears from her lips that she wants him in her life. And who knows when that's gonna happen? She probably already noticed him being distant and she has no way of knowing what caused it so how would she even talk to him about it?
And poor Max... I know Sam feels awful with what he's doing to him but he feels it's necessary so that his wife and son don't end up even more hurt but holy shit it's really not going well. I know Max is hurting too and I definitely understand why he's angry with Sam. And Y/N is probably worried about the boy as well... She got a message telling her he's fine but come on... She's probably wondering what happened suddenly that Max didn't come visit. It's an all around messy situation with literally everybody getting hurt in the process.
Yeah, she’ll eventually notice... I mean there’s only so much Sam can do to keep them apart. She’s bound to get suspicious at some point. The problem is that everyone is going off half information here- for the reader it’s hard facts that she doesn’t know and in Sam’s case, it’s the emotions.
I was taken aback by 2011 Sam... His wife leaving changed him into a completely different person. I like how we get to see him notice that people are reacting to him differently but the fact he hadn't noticed before? I knew he was incredibly hurt when she left but fuck, this did him a lot more damage than I originally thought. He's so... Calloused. And sharp and intimidating. A real stereotype of a lawyer. Also... The fact he didn't do pro bono cases? You managed to convey so much about Sam in that period of time in only just a few sentences and it's incredible. I wonder what would've happened if he never met Max... If he'd stay this way or manage to overcome the pain he's been living with on his own.... Max really did save him.
This was what I was telling you about? Him becoming dispassionate and insensitive. And the only way to actually know you’ve become a heartless person is to see yourself through other people’s eyes. He wasn’t gonna wake up to some divine intervention telling him, ‘hey you’re a jerk now!’ Thank you so much for saying that! I thought that might be the best way to put forth how different he was because we’ve all seen him being so careful for James’s pro bono and it was an independent case.
Hmmm... I’ve given it some thought and I think he’d let his anger for the reader fester any more than that, and he hadn’t found Max when he did, maybe the change would have been permanent. If he’d met her later in life, instead of the anger he was feeling at the beginning of the series, he’d have felt utter contempt and hatred. Now THAT would have been angsty :P
A brief mention of Chase because I like him more and more with every chapter 😁 I can see why Sam and him became friends. And Stacy! She seems genuinely lovely, I feel so sorry that she had to deal with Sam's mood swings.
Hahahaa I like how everyone (my beta, that is) saw all that chaotic good energy went like, ‘Yep! Checks out! That’s definitely Chase’ I mean you guys don’t even have a doubt! Yup, Stacey is pretty cool. There’s very little of their interaction outside of the memories, but, it all adds something to the story.
I had a feeling that Max never really had proper parents but this still hurt to read. The fact that a maid cared for him because no one else would... And he was literally hiding in the closet when his parents were murdered. They didn't deserve that title but still, I'm so glad he didn't actually see it happen or find their bodies... Poor baby.
Max has gone through so much in such a short life I had to stop and take a breather while reading. No wonder everyone falls in love with him when they meet him, he's such a sweet boy despite all the pain life brought him. I'm so glad he found a real family in Sam... They really ended up saving each other.
No, he didn’t. Sam’s right about that bit- how Max had no clue what parents were supposed to be like. He had to go through extensive therapy, but because he was that young, he didn’t understand a lot of the emotional trauma he experienced (thank God!) only the physical trauma became an instinct. And yeah, it’s actually good that he was ignored, because otherwise he’d have been in that room and either seen the murders or worse.
I think that bit brought down Sam more than anything from his callous high. That a kid that small, having suffered through so much bullshit could still be that nice... he was an adult with sensibilities. I’m glad they ended up finding each other, too! He’s been a pleasure to write.
That moment when Sam saw the emptiness in Max's eyes and almost had a panic attack... Jeeze that hurt. I know he had his wife before his eyes when he saw that little boy's expression and the fact that he had this visceral of a reaction remembering that time? My heart is breaking. I wonder if Y/N was already working then... Or where she was in life. I have my own head canons about that but I'll only tell you if we don't end up finding out a bit about her past too 😁
I also love how Sam interacts with Max. I love that he treats him with kindness and speaks to him gently but doesn't dismiss his intelligence. He can clearly see the boy is incredibly clever.
You caught that, huh? ;) You smart, smart girl! I was contemplating whether to refer to the reader explicitly in that part, then let it slide. I mean, sure he could go off being the heartless lawyer, but it’s because he is hurting SO much inside and burying it. One time he slipped and allowed himself to remember, the pain was staggering.
Ummm I think the reader was in college for Pre-law in Texas and working part-time. I think. We’re not getting anymore of the reader’s backstory... just a vague timeline of her academic/ professional achievements. You’re free to spin your own headcanons. They’ll probably be more on point than mine XD
I don’t know much about parenting, but I do believe that’s how you should treat kids- with respect. Maybe Sam’s attitude as a dad was what helped Max heal the most.
So this is probably why it became his favourite book, huh? I wonder how many times Sam read it to him. Something in my heart definitely tightened when Sam had to stop reading cause the last time he probably opened that book was when he read it to his wife... Oh that hurts.
I breezed through this chapter, Ana, I need more like now 😫😂
But seriously, I loved it so so so much. I'm so happy were getting to see more of Sam's life after she left and Max's story. I can't wait for the next chapter, I wanna know everything 😁❤❤❤
Yep yep yep! Nothing there is coincidence. Sam didn’t remove the book from his phone cause he just couldn’t bear to do it. And Max probably started associating the book to the first safe place he’s ever known- Sam presence. Also, YOU CAUGHT THAT! Sam’s pause! You’re in MY HEAD! While you’re there, please help me with that design brief as well :P
THANK YOU SO MUCH, Ria! I swear your reblogs add years to my design brief ridden life. Next chapter is a slightly bigger bomb ;) I can tell you now that you’ll like that one, too, if you liked this!
I love you so much <3
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oh hey, here’s a playlist from 2017 that I realized wasn’t on my website with the rest of them and that I totally wasn’t thinking about because there’s actually a part two that has never seen the light of day that may or may not be incoming
notes on my website and also under the cut
As I write, I like to build playlists for all my characters and, occasionally, will make playlists as a character as well. These playlists are part of my writing process and I take them far more seriously than anyone should. Sometimes the playlists come together instantly and effortlessly and sometimes I play around with them for months. As such, there are a fair number of cast-offs that never make it onto the final, official playlist. That's what this playlist is.
So here we are: all the songs that nearly made it on to the character playlists but got cut for various reasons. Those reasons tend to fall into one of a few categories:
There wasn’t space / another song was serving a similar purpose
The song was right for the character but not right for the character at the beginning of their story (which is what most of the playlists are)
The mood/genre/tempo of the song was out of place in the playlist
I discovered the song after the playlists had been put together.
All my playlists are very specifically ordered, so adding or removing songs after their publication is more or less impossible. Instead, I would throw songs into this B-Side playlist as they appeared, meaning that, unlike most of my playlists, the order here is random (aka this playlist has NO flow). Here is a list of where they would have gone had they made the final cut. The characters are listed above the tracks, with a link to the playlist in question.
A/N, 2020: These are the B-Sides specifically from pre-Season 4. Back in August of 2017, I did a sticker giveaway to see what folks would guess about which songs were for which characters - these annotations were published after that giveaway and thus, there's some reference to how people guessed!
WADSWORTH
1. “Heavy Metal Lover” - Lady Gaga
This is a Wadsworth song through and through in terms of style and swagger. There just wasn’t space for it.
But would you love me if I ruled the world
DAMIEN
2. “Reaper Man” - Mother Mother
This is a song that was recommended to me as a Damien song by tumblr user kalgalen and I am actively mad that I didn’t know this song before making Damien’s playlist. The style, the lyrics - everything about this song is Damien. And it actually fits perfectly after the opening track but by the time I was made aware of it, it was too late.
Oh yeah, I’m an ugly mess/not in the face, but in the head - regardless of how attractive Damien is, this is something he thinks. God, what an edgelord line this is.
Oh yeah, I got no choice/got no choice/but to love myself - I mean, it’s just all there.
A/N, 2020: this song eventually made its way onto a playlist - my playlist for A Neon Darkness, Damien's book.
CHLOE
3. “Her Morning Elegance” - Oren Lavie
I love that this song really conjures a visceral image to your brain - it paints such a vivid picture. It’s delicate, but determined. I think Chloe sometimes moves through her world separate and observing and that’s what this song is.
There’s also an amazing music video that I think Chloe would watch over and over again.
I got a lot of submissions guessing that this was a song for Sam and I really see that too. It fits well with the aesthetic of her playlist and the theme of fighting for your life everyday definitely resonates with Sam, as does the “Nobody knows” lyric. But the lyrics are also about being out in the world, which is something Sam doesn’t do but Chloe wants to continue to do desperately, despite her ability making it difficult.
CALEB/ADAM
4. “Blue and Yellow” - The Used
This was a song suggested by my sister for Caleb and Adam because of the colors involved and also because The Used was a band we both listened to a lot when we were emo teenagers like Adam. Ultimately, this song feels very dated as early emo and didn’t quite fit musically on any of their mixes, either in-universe or not.
And it’s all in how you mix the two/and it starts just where the light exists/it’s a feeling that you cannot miss/and it burns a hole/through everyone that feels it
5. “Stupid for You” - Waterparks
This is another song that was recommended to me, this time by a tumblr user and it is absolutely perfect. I didn’t even realize that there was pop punk being made like this anymore, so I was delighted.
You’re yellow, I’m natural blue/let’s get together and be green like my insides - I mean??? Couldn’t have said it better myself
Also, the refrain of “stupid for you” fits perfectly with the “I’m the guy who’s been so stupid about you that it broke my fucking super power!” I mean, I clearly ghostwrote this song.
ISO: the tumblr user who suggested this song. I have scoured both of my blogs to find the ask to no avail so if it was you, please raise your hand.
Both of these songs would go on a Caleb/Adam ship mix if such a thing existed. But in fact, both their mixes are in-universe and, while one of them might put this on a mix now, it would have been way too vulnerable of a thing to put on one of those earlier playlists. I've linked to their second in-universe mix - the quite lovey one that Adam makes for Caleb.
MARK
6. “Time Machine" - Robyn
This definitely felt a little too on the nose for Mark, so I went with “Hang With Me” instead. But Mark loves Robyn and would love the DeLorean reference in this so it was very tempting. It’s also a song all about making impulsive decisions, which Mark definitely does a lot, but in classic Robyn style, it’s such a bop despite the serious lyrics. That balance fits Mark perfectly.
7. “F U” - Miley Cyrus
I know this song is about someone cheating, but it is such a good angry-fuck-you song that I can’t help but think of it in the context of Mark’s feelings towards Wadsworth. Having missed the heyday of pop borrowing from dubstep and the increasing use of internet slang, I think Mark would have gotten out of The AM and fallen hard for this song. I imagine many an afternoon before Joan gets home from work just angry dancing around the living room singing along to this.
SAM/MARK
8. “Someone to Fall Back On” - Jason Robert Brown
This is 100% Sam singing to Mark about being his knight in shining armor. Sam is hard on herself - doesn’t realize her own strength - so the self-deprecating lyrics really work for her. It didn’t make it on the playlist because it felt like it was a little further down the line in their relationship - somewhere around Episode 40.
I’ll take your side/if I’m the only one/I’m used to that/I’ve been alone/I’d rather be/the half of us/the least of you/the best of me
I got a lot of guesses for Frank on this one, which completely fits. He’s quite a bit more confident in his abilities than Sam - if he thinks he can be your knight, he’ll say so right from the get-go.
9. “Can’t Get Started With You” - Ella Fitzgerald
This is pretty self-explanatory. It didn’t fit with the very particular structure that I created for the Sam/Mark playlist and it also felt like a later stage of their relationship. That playlist was them falling in love and wanting to be in the same time; this song is getting close to that but then getting pulled apart again, first by Damien and then by the difficult realties of actually trying to have a relationship. If the previous track is end of Season 3 for them, this is a Season 4 song.
A/N, 2020: it certainly is a Season 4 song, because it actually ended up going on their Season 4 playlist.
DAMIEN/MARK
10. “Elvis Ain’t Dead” - Scouting for Girls
So…this is a reject from an as of yet published playlist. I know - not fair. Think of this as the free square on a bingo sheet. In the course of writing Season 3, I was motivated to make a playlist for a relationship that was becoming increasingly interesting to write. While this playlist could certainly be seen as a ship playlist, I have no intentions to ever put these characters together in a real way, but their dynamic was so compelling that I wanted to explore it. I will eventually release the playlist because it’s one of the best I’ve made, but I didn’t want it influencing anyone’s reaction to the end of Season 3. Loose lips sink ships.
I wish it was me you chose/Elvis ain’t dead/and you’re coming back
Okay, okay, I won’t leave you hanging because a few people actually guessed this one right - it’s from a Damien/Mark playlist. This is actually one of three unpublished Damien mixes - for whatever reason, music is the fastest and easiest way for me to connect to him. He really brings out the playlist-making skills in me.
A lot of people guessed that this was Agent Green which I absolutely love. Poor Owen.
A/N, 2020: I didn't link to the playlist originally, but it exists now! To this day, I think it's some of my best work.
ROSE
11. “Carolina” - Harry Styles
This was mostly rejected because I felt stupid having two songs called “Carolina” on one mix and Sara Bareilles trumps Harry Styles (as much as I love him). But in style and content, this really feels like a Rose song.
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#41
9.4.2020 - 9.8.2020
At age 5, sometime in the summer of 1983, I went to my first Mets game. I know they played the Montreal Expos. I’m pretty sure George Bamburger was still the manager. Tom Seaver was on the team. I do not know if he pitched that game. But I know I saw him pitch on tv as a Met that year.
My early childhood from that point forward was consumed with baseball (and cartoons) until about 1989 when the Mets were bad again. They just got worse until I went to college, but I still watched. I couldn’t watch Mets games in college, so I mostly forgot about baseball. I graduated in 2000 and came home to the Mets and Yankees in the Subway Series. And I was back in it.
The Mets predictably lost, and it was the worst because the Yankees were dynastic, but something else happened. After raising me as a Mets fan, my father outed himself as a Yankee fan.
My dad was born in Brooklyn in 1950 and raised in Sheepshead Bay, which is close to Coney Island. Story goes he asked my grandfather to go see the Dodgers and was told “next year”. That was 1957. He never got to see the Dodgers in Brooklyn. They, and the New York Giants, moved to California before the 1958 season. This is pretty fucked up. And though I never asked him while he was alive, it would make no sense for my grandfather to have claimed he didn’t know the Dodgers were leaving. It was the biggest news in Brooklyn.
For 4 years, there was only one New York team. The Yankees. They won the World Series in 1958 and 1961. They lost the World Series in 1960. The Mets first season was 1962 and promptly set the record for most games lost in a season, in the modern era. The Yankees beat the San Francisco Giants in the World Series that year. In 1963 the Yankees lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers, but who could root for the Dodgers after they left Brooklyn? That was traitorous. In ‘64 the Yankees lost the World Series to the St. Louis Cardinals. They were terrible after that.
In 1967, Tom Seaver debuted for the New York Mets. They were still the worst team in baseball. In 1969, led by Seaver, the Mets were champions. My dad, by this time in college, became a fan.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in tracing his sports allegiances, it’s that he’s a bandwagoner. We never watched hockey, but for some reason had 4 copies of an Islanders record from the early 80s. We never really watched football, but he did like to watch the Cowboys. Why wasn’t he a Giants fan? Or a Jets fan? It never really made sense.
The entire reason we went to that game in 1983 was my dad got tickets from work. The owner of the company he worked for had box seats about 10 rows behind the third base dugout. We would go once or twice a year and my dad would complain about traffic. We went to Game 1 of the 1986 World Series. I still have my ticket. It was a big moment for me, having just turned all of 9 years old. It’s still a big moment for me. We sat 6 rows from the back of the stadium and couldn’t see anything. But we were there.
I never had reason to believe my dad was anything other than a Mets fan. And then, there I am, freaking out in 2000 as Benny Agbayani hands the ball to a fan in the stands because he thought there were three outs, and my dad is outing himself further as a Yankee fan with every moment.
I don’t remember when this took place, but I know it happened. I was so angry I was raised a Mets fan. But it went something like this:
Why would you do this to your child? You know how bad they are. You read the paper. You never bothered to tell me the Yankees won the World Series in 1978. I could have gone through life as a carefree Yankee fan, not ever having to know the intricacies of the game, and never beating myself up in the years they weren’t competitive because they’re the fucking Yankees! They always come back.
At that point, I couldn’t give up the Mets. For the damage being invested in their losing had done to me, and for what it would continue to do to me. For 20 years until I left New York, I probably watched 150 games a year, whether on tv or at Shea. I didn’t just double down. It became all consuming. And gut wrenching. Hey! You had a shit day at work! Let’s agonize over this garbage team and argue with the tv announcers every day. As I bounced from apartment to apartment, job to job, there would always be the constant, soothing misery of the Mets.
The 2000 baseball season had been my introduction to Tom Seaver the announcer. Keith Hernandez too. I actually got to see him play. He was the quintessential first baseman. Now I got to listen to them regularly. Along with Ralph Kiner, Gary Thorne, and Howie Rose, they were fantastic. They talked about the game like a coach should talk about the game. Every game, regardless of how bad the team was, became a clinic in “How to Baseball”. I loved it.
In 2006, the Mets got their own broadcasting network and consolidated the announcing team. Ralph Kiner’s health had declined over the years and he would only return on home Sunday games. Fran Healy and Tim McCarver were finally, mercifully gone. Seaver left too. He had gone into winemaking in ‘05 and wanted to pursue it full time. Taking over play-by-play was radio announcer Gary Cohen. He had been Bob Murphy’s understudy and was a familiar pick. Keith Hernandez stayed and fellow 80s Met Ron Darling was added as well. They’re still in the booth today, and they’re fantastic.
Seaver would show up from time to time. There was never a down, dull moment with him. You’d get an adrenaline rush just listening to him.
I’m going to say something controversial. I hated Shea Stadium. It was a nasty, ugly place. But there’s one thing about it that CitiField just can’t replace. The entire stadium was built from concrete blocks and it was very closed in. Each entrance to the seating area from the concourse was like its own little tunnel into another world. You come out of the darkness and into the light of the greenest field you’ve ever seen. I got goosebumps and would nearly be on the verge of tears, every time I walked through, from that first game in 1983, until they tore the place down at the end of the 2008 season.
I did make sure to be there at the last game. It was terrible. The Mets needed to beat the Marlins to get into the Wild Card and it didn’t happen. Then we waited seemingly forever for the post-game ceremony to begin, absolutely fuming that we had been duped by this shit team again. Finally, things got started. Mets greats were announced. And Tom Seaver and Mike Piazza closed the centerfield gate together, formally closing the book on Shea. It was a good moment even though the season ended terribly.
We moved to California two years ago. This was my opportunity to finally get rid of the Mets. I was determined to do it. I started watching A’s and Giants games. I even started watching Dodger games. At the start of the season, I was set to ride the A’s and Dodgers all the way to a California World Series. Then COVID hit. The season was cancelled. I lost my job. School was cancelled. Bad news increased exponentially. And when the baseball season finally started in July, my wife said she wanted to watch the Mets. She wasn’t going to give me a choice either.
We met in 2006. She had moved to NYC the previous year and kinda bandwagoned her way into Yankee fandom. Because why not. She was really a football fan anyway. One of her previous boyfriends was apparently a huge Cubs fan. She says every time they lost he’d be upset for days. Which, historically, is a tough place to be as a Cubs fan. As we dated and got closer she saw just how many games I would watch on a yearly basis. It’s a lot.
She got used to me pacing around, guitar in hand, yelling at the TV. She studied for the bar exam through this. One time, I forget what was going on, she’s reading flashcards and I had taken issue with something Gary Cohen said. And I hear quietly, “don’t argue with Gary!” I can still hear the inflection in her voice in my head. I turned around and started telling her why I disagreed with him and her only response was “did I say that out loud?” Gary, Keith, and Ron were hugely important to not only her tolerance of my baseball tv domination, but also her appreciation of the game. She only knew Ralph Kiner as this cute old man. And every so often, Seaver would come back and she’d see me well up with visceral feelings.
I cried when Ralph Kiner died. Around 2014/2015 I wrote a blog titled “The Common Sense Mets Fan”. At the time, I was convinced the Sandy Alderson administration would right the team and keep the Wilpons at bay. I was wrong. Anyway, here’s what I wrote:
On the last day of the season, as usual, Gary Cohen said goodbye to Ralph Kiner. But there was something different about it this time. There was fear in Gary’s face, as though he knew this was his last opportunity to sign off with Ralph. I had seen hints of it in years past, but never like this. Sadly, Ralph passed today, I hope peacefully.
As a Mets fan, this is like losing a grandfather or great uncle. Ralph had always been there. From his stories about Elizabeth Taylor to his willingness to argue advanced metrics and hitting style with Keith Hernandez, he was ever present in the Mets broadcast booth. I’ll never be able to hear the game again the same way. Thank you, Ralph.
At the time, I said to my wife, “the next time I cry about the Mets, it’ll be when Tom Seaver dies.” This was before their 2015 run. Before the Wilmer Flores incident. Before I was sitting on my couch with a 1 year old, watching them in a World Series, as I did my best impression of Randy Quaid from Major League. I refused to allow myself to enjoy the success of the team because I knew they would lose. It was just a matter of when. And of course, they did lose to the Kansas City Royals. But they got a lot further than I thought they would.
When MLB decided to move forward with a truncated 2020 season, I was reluctant to watch. It’s not safe for anyone involved and seems to be all about corporate greed. But of course, like moths to a flame, we watched. And as I mentioned, my wife said, “we’re watching the Mets.” I didn’t want to. But she was right. In a year like we’ve never seen before, Gary Cohen, Ron Darling, and Keith Hernandez did something, and are doing something, nobody else is. They gave us levity and calm. Led by Gary, they are unafraid to address the news of the day while knowing the escape they provide. The BLM t-shirt moment was unparalleled. And unfortunately, they’d have another day to provide calm the next week.
As you well know by now, George Thomas Seaver died last week. He had contracted lyme disease years ago, while working in the vineyards. For some people, lyme goes undiagnosed for years while doctors treat the symptoms without putting it all together. This seems to have been what happened to Tom. It progressed with complications and he developed Lewy Body dementia. His family announced his retirement from public life and the Mets announced they would erect a statue to him outside of CitiField. They changed the address of the stadium to 41 Seaver Way. But in true Wilpon Mets fashion, still no statue.
Finally, last week, Tom died due to complications from COVID. I was sitting on the couch, watching some random baseball game and reading Twitter. I saw the Baseball Hall of Fame announcement on Twitter, exclaimed “oh no!”, and went upstairs to be alone for a minute. My wife was on the phone. She ran upstairs to see me sitting with my head in my hands and asked what happened. I told her and then told her how stupid I felt for letting this get to me. And she said, “yeah, but you said after Ralph died this would happen”.
Our son came upstairs to see what he was missing. I told him. He said “who’s that?” And we had a long talk I think bored him. And it’s then it hit me what had happened. As I’ve detailed in the past 4 pages of text, Tom Seaver meant a lot to me, even though in my experience as a Mets fan, he was really just a peripheral character. I saw him on the field a couple of times. He was talked about. He was an announcer for a few years, and he’s mostly been out of the spotlight for the past 15 years. Here I was, having a visceral, uncontrollable reaction to a childhood figure I never met. How the fuck were people who actually knew him going to keep it together?
They couldn’t do it. Gary and Ron did their best. Apparently, Keith’s mom also had dementia, and he lost it. There was a lot of silence during the game. A lot of big sighs from Keith. A lot of on air hurting. It was gut wrenching. I saw an Ed Kranepool quote that said, “this was a terrible ending to a horseshit year.” And it’s only September!
At this point, nearly a week later, it’s difficult to remember where I saw it. But here it is. The reason I’ve spent all this time spilling my guts about a guy I never met. Tom Seaver was a beacon. He wasn’t just someone who had a talent and pursued it. He was constantly trying to reinvent himself and pursue that passion, whether he was good at it or not. But even moreso, he was a positive influence on everyone around him. I’ve never heard a story about Seaver fighting with anyone. He wanted to be Rembrandt with a baseball. And he wanted to lift people up around him.
I feel isolated and alone. There’s not much I feel like I can control. I can get out my thoughts, I can be a good husband and a good father. I can explore my music. And I can use the latter to pull myself out of the former. That’s what Tom would tell me to do.
#new york mets#tom seaver#ralph kiner#brooklyn dodgers#new york yankees#baseball#41#sny#shea stadium#citifield#gary cohen#keith hernandez#ron darling#bob murphy#randy quaid#major league#mlb#mike piazza#howie rose#gary thorne
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Trollhunters Fanfic AU idea: Heartstone Sun
A stupidly long ramble about themes I’m obsessed with. Warnings: mentions of people getting eaten, other horror elements, redemption speculation, and pontificating about hatred, dehumanizing propaganda, and the cycle of abuse (and an idea of how to break those three things). I’d love to write this if I can figure out how to do it justice, but that may take a while. Criticism is welcome; I can’t hone an idea to proper sharpness if I don’t see its dull spots.
What if the sun is actually a Heartstone - like The Great Gramma of all Heartstones (in this solar system, at least)? And was placed under an enchantment/curse by a prehistoric human coven that Had Enough because trolls outclassed humans in pretty much every arena, and people were getting eaten with impunity by extremely durable apex predators that laughed at their sticks and slings and fire? It's not like trolls really needed to eat humans - these mofos were powered by the sun (and could probably do crazy magic with all that excess power, to boot) - they just like how we taste.
Though perhaps humans also have a knack for passively absorbing Hearstone energies, and that's what they used to essentially poison the Heartstone against Trollkind? And that same passive absorption is why humans make good supplements for trolls who don't have a Heartstone to rely on, as shown in the comics? Since trolls couldn't gain Heartstone energy directly from the sun during the night, if they were injured and/or had a hankering, they'd have to eat creatures that still could. So maybe trolls tended to mostly eat people at night back then when they needed a quick boost because they couldn't get sunlight? And perhaps this contributed toward a more intense, visceral fear of the dark in humanity's evolution - like our common fear of the dark, but on steroids?
Gunmar's comment about "They try to make the night brighter. They fear the darkness," not only speaks to real human fears of the dark, but a mentality that was essentially beaten into Pleistocene-Era humans by impossibly strong and scary opponents (though I love the idea of some troll groups teaming up with humans and having various mutually-beneficial symbiotic shenanigans).
You could see all manner of behavioral, instinctive differences in these humans based on that. From a death-like, numbing paralysis intended to spare them the agony of their last moments, to an overwhelming itch to hide when it grows dark, to a need to sleep in groups for protection, etc... I imagine most beds in most cultures would be in hidden places within a house. Some cultures might even develop "false bedrooms" as traditional parts of their home to trick trolls or evil spirits that are more inclined to hunt with stealth.
This is partly inspired from a weird experience I had one night where I got this sudden, intense fear, and I've never experienced it since, and I still can't figure out what caused it. But some part of me felt a hostile presence in the woods by the house, and I knew it was far too powerful to fight, and I had the overwhelming urge to shut off all the lights, quiet everything that was making noise, and huddle in a closet until whatever it was passed. "Don't let it know you're here," kept playing in my head. I imagine being a human in this AU, especially in the Bad Old Days, would feel a lot like that.
After the Sun Curse (but before humanity regards trolls as myth), I imagine a common survival rule would be: Travel by day (when trolls can't, or at least have a harder time of it), and hide by night (so you don't run into them; if they find you, make them work for it, don't give yourself away).
Humans in this AU love to fancy themselves apex predators not simply as a power trip, but a denial of their true position in the food chain as prey. They can lie to themselves all they like, but their instincts remember and know better.
So to give humanity a fighting chance, this prehistoric coven developed a powerful spell to make the sun toxic to trolls, which would allow humans safety under the sun, which until then, had been a main source of power and sustenance for trollkind.
As an unforeseen catastrophe of apocalyptic proportions, much of trollkind's lore at the time was lost as they scrambled to deal with this development. Their cultures had to adapt, and new lore and methods of dealing with this catastrophe overtook lost histories (mostly verbal at the time). There was very little evidence left of how the sun was cursed, or that humans were behind it - the coven responsible did their utmost to destroy any sign or record of what they did, knowing that such information would rally trollkind against humankind. And even if trolls were weakened without their most sacred life source, they were still a dangerous enough threat that, if they could cooperate with each other, they'd surely wipe humanity out.
They almost succeeded in destroying all knowledge of it, but a certain tribe connected to a certain Heartstone found out, and their resulting fury at this act of desecration gave rise to Gunmar the Black.
This curse would be a deep source of anger and resentment at humanity for having stolen not only trollkind's ability to roam freely on their own world (which they were the dominant species on), but for poisoning a vital and sacred life-source. This is what Gunmar would be talking about when he talks about 'taking back the surface lands'. It's not just propaganda to him, it's his peoples' birthright, and it was stolen from them, and he emerged to set it right. This coven may have acted out of self-defense, but what they did was an unforgivable act of desecration. Gunmar and his Gumm-Gumms would still see it that way, but over time, as humanity loses their knowledge of trolls and turns their attentions toward each other, the rest of trollkind moves on and adapts and forgets their hatred, or their history of having once owned the world. The Gumm-Gumms are still angry about an ancient injustice, and the rest of trollkind, now believing themselves to have always lived underground, sees this 'take back the surface lands' talk as warmongering propaganda against a group that is seen as relatively ridiculous and tasty, but now off-limits depending on who follows the Pact.
While on that note, I imagine Gunmar would find the Pact outrageous and absurd. Humanity has no end to hold up in return, it's basically a heavy restriction on trolls who have already had so much taken from them. It's adding insult to injury, and that any troll would agree to it galls him to no end.
Before the curse, trolls ate fleshlings because we taste good and are satisfying sources of indirect Heartstone energy. Now, Gumm-Gumms also eat humans as an act of rebellion and punishment for what their ancestors did.
CHARACTER PROFILES:
JIM
I love Jim. But I think I'm going to handle him a bit differently in this AU than how he is in canon because I see an opportunity to say something important and relevant to a possible theme of this AU, and I'm not sure canon Jim would really be up for that.
I love the warm, nurturing, gentle side of Jim, and how he likes taking care of his friends. I love how he loves cooking for them, which is the quintessential nurturing act. I love how protective he is of his friends and his mom, and how even though he has made mistakes, he makes those mistakes with protective intentions. His heart's in the right place. This is the side of Jim who looks at Rule #2: Always Finish the Fight, and says "No," and spares Draal's life, and takes care of Chompsky instead of 'taking care of him', and risks precious time to go back for Nomura. This is the Jim I love, and the side of him I want to focus on in this AU.
And that side of him (it seems to me) clashes rather loudly with the other side of him that refuses to apply Rule #1 to Strickler in favor of rebellious mouthing-off, and treats the deaths of his enemies with sassy quips.
With regards to my attitude about that last part, I blame Faramir from Lord of the Rings. His brief monologue about 'the enemy' was formative for me. He fought to protect his people, and in doing so, he had to kill other people. And he didn’t hide from that fact. He had the strength and honesty to both do what he had to do, and to acknowledge that tragedy. He didn't try to diminish their deaths, and I cannot stress enough how important that is to me to see in a protagonist. So in this idea, Jim can be sassy in some cases, and he will kill if he believes he has to, but #2 is a last resort, and when it comes to that, he won't lie to himself or diminish what has happened.
Seeing someone as an obstacle or problem is a crucial step in making it easy to hurt or kill them, and it's one of the goals of particularly dangerous forms of propaganda: dehumanize the enemy. It's a perspective shift that makes fighting easier, but I believe it's one of the very worst lies we can ever tell ourselves or each other.
Acknowledging someone as a person, and not an obstacle or a problem, is (potentially) a powerful way to break the perception that you yourself are an obstacle or problem. If you want a chance to see someone’s relatability/"humanity", you first have to show yours. And they won’t always see it, and even if they do, they won’t always care – you might be hurt or killed anyway. But I think this re-framing is a crucial step in non-violent conflict resolution (in particularly intense cases). It’s risky as hell, so it’s not very popular, but when successful, it broadens perspectives and opens new paths in their minds. And I think that's a powerful and worthy theme; one that Jim could champion. A better way to Finish The Fight.
GUNMAR
In this AU, Gunmar has plans that stretch far beyond the Eternal Night (which, in this AU, would instead be a cure for the curse). From his perspective, he's trying to piece the world back together after several Apocalyptic-Grade Disasters. He's bitter and stressed, but he has stayed tenacious and ambitious despite millennia of warfare, failure, and being forgotten by the vast majority of the world while trapped in the Darklands. He's trying to lead his people out of a bad situation and restore their birthright, and he's annoyed and angry with the significant number of trolls who accept the current status quo when they could have so much more.
Because Gunmar emerged from a corrupted Heartstone and doesn't seem to have parents (perhaps no tribe/clan/colony? I love the extra-spooky supernatural vibe it grants him) I like the idea of him wanting his own tribe. He had a son whom he seemed to care for, and their regard for each other was the one and only thing in canon (in my mind) that elevated Gunmar. I'd like to capitalize on that in this AU. Gunmar was born tribeless, as a symbol of trollkind's general animosity toward humanity, but he obviously doesn't want to stay tribeless. He wants to establish his own line; he wants to create a future for his descendants to thrive in. His ultimate goal isn't so much about putting humans in their place as it is about giving his own people the prosperous future he thinks they deserve. To those who follow him, he's not their tyrant; he's their hero. His aggression is largely directed at humanity, but his goals are NOT human-centric after all.
Gunmar’s backstory (in canon) fascinates me. He was born from a Heartstone that had been transformed by the trollish population’s animosity toward humankind. I think this was supposed to reflect the classic Evil Corruption you see in a lot of fantasy, and leans on a kind of Victorian notion of "bad breeding" and the idea that because he emerged from evil conditions, he is evil by nature. But I think it’s more interesting to look at it as a wound, because that gives his anger a sharper sense of purpose that I think it otherwise lacks. Gunmar manifested from a rift between two populations, and has used the hatred that formed that wound to try and heal it – by taking the surface world and devouring the impudent humans who stole it. The method of devouring them didn’t simply develop because we taste good – it’s also a punishment, born of that same hatred, that says: “You thought you were better, but you are lesser. You wanted a vaunted place for yourself at great cost to us, but your true place is as nothing more than our food. This is what you deserve for trying to shut me and my kind out of our own world, and poisoning something sacred against us.” (referencing the curse on the Heartstone Sun, not the Killahead Banishment, which would come much later).
That may seem to him like a perfectly reasonable way to fix what he sees himself as (both literally and symbolically) born to fix. But even if all his dreams were to come true, that hatred would persist throughout the myriad abuses he would inflict upon humanity (if he’d bother to keep us around as livestock and/or slaves), and long outlast the last of the human population. It would linger, it would continue to fester, and it would be poised to be unleashed upon whatever other sufficiently threatening group crosses trollkind next. After all, that method ‘worked’ on humanity.
But you don’t quench hatred or fix abuse by indulging it. You fix it by learning (and accepting) the truth: no one is a mere obstacle, object, problem, or hated symbol. You did not deserve the abuses you suffered, but re-creating them and re-living them will not put you in control of them or absolve you in any way. (Though the temporary illusion of control may become addictive, it will remain fleeting and false). Abuse, if you let it define you, begets abuse. If Gunmar had achieved all his goals, sooner or later, he’d see his own reflection in a human born of the horrors he inflicted, and of the hatred humanity would have for him and his kind. This human would not see trollkind as anything other than a problem that they were born to solve, just as Gunmar sees humankind. But this would not surprise him at all, because that’s how Gunmar already thinks humans see trollkind. It’s easy to hate someone if you think they hate you. And it would not matter who would win that conflict, because the hatred and abuse would survive to be re-created and re-lived and inflicted on whoever the winner meets next. Nothing would be learned, and no one would heal.
I don’t know what would show Gunmar the truth, much less in a way that would matter to him. But in keeping with Jim's best tendencies in avoiding Rule #2, I think it's necessary for Jim to make the attempt in this AU. Whether or not this would result in Gunmar getting a redemption arc doesn't exactly matter - this is really about Jim's efforts to be the best guardian he can be for two interlinked worlds with a lot of bad blood between them, and I want to do those efforts justice. I don't currently know how, but I have some idea of where to start.
I think two key parts of non-violent conflict resolution are convincing the other party that 1) you care about the same thing they do, and 2) you either can make it easier to achieve, you see a better path to achieving it, or you may be able to improve the final outcome beyond what they originally thought or hoped was possible.
In this case, the goal for both sides is to heal that ancient wound between trollkind and humankind. It’s the plan that everybody disagrees about. Protagonists and antagonists (often, but not always) both ultimately want the same thing – they just disagree about what that’s supposed to look like, or how to achieve it.
Currently, I think that to truly heal, trolls and humans have to come to terms with each other. This is no small undertaking - it would change the world irrevocably - and might never be fully achieved, even after centuries of dedicated work on both sides. A healthy relationship (regardless of it’s nature) isn’t something you achieve and consider Done; it’s dynamic, it’s lived, it requires constant attention and respect, and the acknowledgment that it may change irrevocably as life throws its weird curve-balls. Most of all, it requires a dedicated effort to understand the other person. The surest way to kill a positive relationship is to allow oneself, during times of hardship, to slip into the mindset of seeing that person as an obstacle, problem, or symbol, rather than continue the effort of trying to understand them or why they’re acting difficult. And that’s just taking failing positive relationships into account. Consider all the hardship that comes from starting from a mindset of seeing people as obstacles or problems, and you could see hate-crimes between the populations. Now consider how many trolls and humans may interact with each other as they try to move forward together, and you can get some idea of how easily everything can fall apart, back into the same attitudes that led to the same wound that Gunmar manifested from.
And that’s not even touching on how trolls would have to watch their strength and their tempers around delicate little humans (even the ornery ones), and how humans would have to put a certain amount of trust, patience, and good faith in a group that was, in the past, known for eating them (and that still thinks they taste delicious). It will be easier for some than for others, but for those others, it may feel impossible.
I’m not saying it can’t be done. I believe it’s necessary and worthwhile. But I also believe it’s important to not downplay how difficult it would be. It would be stressful, it would come with times of crisis and doubt, and some might give up entirely, and it would be up to the rest to persevere despite the inevitable tragic incidents; to be brave, and not take such incidents as proof that peace is impossible. “Fear (if you don’t let it rule you) is but the precursor to valor.”
There would be hate-crimes (committed by both sides) between the groups. And there would be heroes (from both sides) rushing in to stop them. And there would also be vigils, gatherings of both humans and trolls, in honor of the victims who couldn’t be saved in time, and in solidarity, in honor of the peace they’re working for together. And I think, in that act of mourning and solidarity, therein lies their victory.
Love and grief are some of the most powerful, relatable (rather than ‘humanizing’ which is an embarrassingly ironic and limited word, especially in this context) emotions out there. And I think it’s that relatability that has the power to reveal people as more than obstacles or problems.
I doubt witnessing it would cause every Gumm-Gumm to reconsider their stance on humanity, much less Gunmar himself, but it could be a little step toward a better path; a seed of doubt – a check to keep them honest when they try to tell themselves tales of what humans and troll ‘traitors’ want, or deserve.
Another thing I imagine might challenge Gunmar’s perceptions has to do with the Decimaar blade. At first, I wasn’t sure what it’s supposed to symbolize in the show other than as an explanation for why anyone would follow someone so careless with their lives. It would also explain why no one assassinated him while he was weakened and starving in the Darklands. (Curiously, no one else seemed to be starving, and I’m not sure what to make of that. I think I missed something important.)
At first, I thought the Decimaar blade symbolized the ultimate hatred/abuse: it enslaves, it wipes out its victims' identities; it turns people into objects to be used by their master, and obstacles to be rid of by their enemies. There’s no loyalty involved, no sacrifice – nothing of meaning that is gained from willing service is preserved. It is simply the use of others – abuse made manifest. In that, I saw the Decimaar blade as an extension of Gunmar himself; a symptom of the conditions of his birth. The cruel irony here was that he had the power to turn his own people into the exact, flat, threatening (obstacles/problems) monsters humanity expected them to be. So from this, Gunmar wasn’t just born from trollkind’s hatred, but humanity’s, too. And just like with abuse un-dealt with, un-treated, he perpetuates it.
And then I learned that the Decimaar blade was won from Orlagk, so there goes that idea. Or at least the part of it being a part of Gunmar. But somehow now, I feel that helps it fit even better; I don’t currently think the Cycle of Abuse starts with Nature (in the whole Nurture vs Nature argument). I currently think abuse (in all it’s myriad forms, intentional or not) is inherited. Gunmar may have emerged from hateful conditions, and he may have inherited a direct metaphor for coercive abuse, and he may pass it on, but it’s not truly a part of him. Therein lies a little glimmer of hope that he might eventually see it for what it is - what it's doing to him and his people (who he was born to protect and provide for as a leader) - and reject Decimaar not only as a weapon, but as a way of thinking.
I'm a sucker for redemption arcs. I'm not sure I can give Gunmar one, or if I should even try. But I think in this, Jim has to make the effort to try to understand Gunmar and what he wants, and to convince him that there is a better way. Whether this version of Gunmar (eventually - I imagine it wouldn't come easy if it happens at all) takes him up on it or not, I don't know.
IF I go for it, though, I want to do it justice. Redemption is not about forgiveness or acquittal. Redemption is about climbing, no matter how far you’ve fallen, and even if you can never reach the top, you can still try to give others a boost along the way. Redemption (just like a relationship) isn’t achieved; it’s lived. And it doesn't necessarily mean joining the Good Guys. You won't see Gunmar Reformed agonizing about all the blood (human and trollish) he has spilled, or asking "Haven't I redeemed myself?" Gunmar Reformed (at least the way I'd hope to write him) may still have a great deal of contempt for humans in general, but he has learned enough about them that he can no longer see them in simplistic terms. He may privately think on What Could Have Been had he changed his perspective sooner, but he doesn't have the time or patience to dwell on regrets - the world is still hecked up, and he still has work to do (although the nature of that work has changed dramatically). I imagine if Gunmar changes his plans, he'll chase his new objectives his own way. The Trollhunters might have occasional, tenuous, scary, and unpredictable alliances with him when their goals align, but it might be a stretch to call them allies - a lot has happened, both sides are still angry with each other, but they've come to an understanding and have a degree of mutual respect, and can demonstrate enough good faith in one another to surprise each other. Gunmar will still have all his old ferocity, he'll just be channeling it in a new direction.
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Fic: Speaking Derekish
Title: Speaking Derekish
Rating: G
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Prompt: Derek deserves nice things, for Sterekbingo 2019
Wordcount: 1501
Summary: Stiles discovers a few things about Derek as he stops paying attention to the words Derek is saying but looks for what he’s meaning. He discovers a whole new language.
“And then he was cursing because he never agrees with anything I say, he doesn’t get that..-”
“Derek doesn’t curse, dude.”
Scott stopped talking to look at Stiles who, to be honest, hadn’t been paying that much attention to what his best bud had been ranting about. Because let’s face it, it was either about a Lacrosse game, about Allison, about how hard life was to be with a huntress or hating on Derek. Stiles cared, he really did but his busy mind was only capable of paying attention for so long before it would drift. The whole cursing thing had caught his attention though while Scott frowned at him with that adorable ‘I don’t get it’ look. “What?! Yes he does, he curses all the time.”
“Nope.” He popped the P with exaggeration as the other boy’s frown only deepened. “Pretty sure he doesn’t curse.”
“You’re delusional.” Scott decided on and with a huffed whatever, went back to the topic he had been on while the young Stilinski resumed his thinking. Was he delusional? He had been sure the Hale didn’t curse all that much. He stuck with idiot and moron, said frigging instead of fucking and the exclamation to indicate surprise was a standard ‘Oh my God.’ Stiles noticed these things, you know. However, he wasn’t as sure as he could have been so this warranted some closer investigating for sure.
* * *
Of course, he attacked this new mystery with the same gusto as always, keeping notes, drawings, scribbles and if possible, snapshots. Over the weeks he was watching the local sourwolf closely, with the sole purpose of catching him on cursing, only….there’s so much more to notice. Once he stopped reacting to the words and only paying attention to them in a literal sense, stopped having emotional responses to their stunted communication because he was more invested in what the words were, things started to shift.
There was no surprise about Derek’s pretty horrible way of communicating, because he barely did it and if he did, it was thrown out as blunt as possible with lots of glares, snark and eyebrow movement. Raised by wolves, Stiles had joked once, which he was starting to regret now. He knew, deep down he knew, Derek wasn’t good at any of this because he had lost his parents at sixteen and hadn’t been able to be raised into normal skills after that. Too busy to deal with all the personal trauma, everything had been halted, which is why the older man probably kept gravitating towards teens even now. He was barely out of his teens himself with his emotional maturity. No, what really started to be visible was the way Derek did communicate like he was raised by wolves. Visceral instead of oral and once Stiles had discovered it, there was no unseeing it. He had researched wolves, okay, pack behavior and such. And Derek wasn’t like them, wasn’t raised human, he was raised werewolf. To him, they were probably the weirdos with their chatter and behavior.
Derek didn’t curse, Stiles had been right with that. But he growled and snarled and looked so darkly at people, that it was understandable the others thought he DID curse. He didn’t do it out loud with words, yet everything about the way he said things would suggest cursing was involved, internally. So much cursing.
For all his not touching and growly snarls, he was unknowingly very touchy. Small touches on shoulders or necks, small shoulder bumps and light grazes. Something people wouldn’t notice unless they were paying attention to it, Derek especially did it with Isaac. And everything coming out of Derek’s mouth was pretty much focused on keeping the pack safe, protection, defense, attack mode. The bluntness made more sense because the focus wasn’t on being social or nice, it was about keeping everybody alive one more day. And Derek said it best when he wasn’t saying it at all. It was easier to read him now, Stiles paid close attention to the head tilts, the eyebrow movements, the way his body held itself, it was a language all on its own. A sad language which was constantly misinterpreted by the others, completely ignored and disregarded because they all only heard his angry words. And he couldn’t help himself, he started thinking back on past interactions, on what he all had missed himself. A whole freaking lot, that’s what. It made him feel sick to his stomach because he was supposed to see shit like that, and how could he have missed out and probably hurt somebody who...maybe was a friend? Maybe. The answer was simple. He had missed it because Derek never made much of an effort to let others in, to explain anything which included himself.
Not again.
After another grueling pack meeting which had ended in discontent faces all around, Stiles lingered behind as the others left, Derek giving the frowny face when he noticed. “What.” He barked out and the teen wondered if proper infliction and use of question marks in a sentence were about as absent as Derek ‘s eyebrows were in shift to werewolf.
“I’m sorry.” Stiles said and the frown turned into surprised eyebrow raising because the other man clearly didn’t follow why the human felt the need to be sorry.
“For...”
Again, what was with the not asking questions as they should be asked? “For what happened with Gerard, Scott making you give the bite and how we all ignored you after.”
The questionable eyebrows went slightly pinched in Derek Hale’s classic bitch face of ‘what the fuck are you even on about, Stiles’. Yes, he had added his own name to that look because he had noticed he seemed to brought it out, a lot. In this case, it was an understandable look because the whole Gerard thing was a while ago and nothing in the meeting of today even hinted towards that moment so Stiles could understand why Derek felt like he was missing out on a whole conversation predating this one.
“You’ve been reading your diary.”
Stiles snorted amused at the snark Derek throws his way with the proper amount of shading the wolf was capable of handing out. It was one of the reasons why he hated and liked spending time together, the quips and bickering was a thing between them. “No, I’ve been reading you.”
While the human had been expecting the raising of walls and shutting of gates and Derek just balking at the idea of getting this personal, he did none of that. He sighed and nodded in understanding, some tension bleeding away. “So that’s what you’ve been doing the past weeks.”
“Dude! I...-” Spluttering at being caught all this time, he felt a little insulted he hadn’t been as smooth about it as he thought he had been. And then he felt guilty, and why even would he feel that now, fuck Derek Hale and his secret language he could now read. Yeah, he felt guilty for being creeper and probably making Derek all kinds of uncomfortable with his close observations. But come on, Derek was a creeper all the time too so...maybe not as guilty.
“Look, it’s all your fault for not using words like normal people but then I realized you’re not normal people, you’re like normal werewolf. Which still doesn’t excuse you because you need to learn to use words, Derek but I realized too that I missed out on a whole plethora of Derek speak and I should have seen it sooner. What you all did, what Scott did to you with the whole non-con bite after you saved his life because of Freakazoid Argent Mom. We fucked up, no, scratch that, I fucked up because the others don’t really speak your language but I should have so….I’m sorry.”
Derek had listened to the onslaught of words with this weird blank look on his face, as if he couldn’t follow what just happened. And then his face crumbled into this whole pained look and Stiles knew what was about to leave his mouth. The whole ‘I deserved it’ spiel the older man was so good at. Because he truly believed he didn’t deserve anything nice and acted like it, and they all had enabled that behavior all this time, using him as the scapegoat because he didn’t behave as the rest of them.
“Nope, no, you don’t get to say that. I’m onto you now and this….” He motioned to the blame face Derek was sporting. “This isn’t going to work on me again. Dude, I totally speak your language now and it’s going to be awesome! You and me, bud, we’re going to be getting along now, yeah?”
“Like you give me a choice.” Derek huffed.
“No way. I’m going to be the best friend you ever had and you’re not getting rid of me now, I’ve got your back. Which is a very nice back so it’s not really that much of a crime to have.” Right, maybe he should have taken his meds so he would have had more of a filter. Derek didn’t really react much to it, which Stiles now knew meant he liked but didn’t know what to do with it, yet.
“Stiles….”
“Yeah buddy?”
“Don’t call me dude.”
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The End.
Summary: Kamilah and co. win the war against Gaius but at great personal cost. Fifty years have passed since their pyrrhic victory when a stranger, looking exactly like the woman they lost, enters their lives. Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5.
Anya stepped hesitantly into the apartment, feeling as if she was an intruder.
Well, technically she was currently intruding in Kamilah’s apartment.
She’d only noticed ten minutes ago that she had accidentally kept the amphora she’d been studying. It, much like most of what Kamilah owned was unlabeled and she’d spent the better half of the day consulting with former colleagues and professors in order to properly identify it so that she could then catalogue it with a description.
Kamilah had given her access to her personal collection a few weeks ago but Anya had never forgotten to put the artefacts she worked with back to their original locations. Until now.
So here she was, feeling like a thief even as she sought to return the vase. There strangely hadn’t been any overt security systems in place and Anya had easily been able to enter the apartment. She wondered if Kamilah had preemptively added her to the system.
Her heart raced furiously not just because she was in her boss’s private lodgings but because she was holding a priceless artefact in her arms right now. The vase was in exquisite condition and Anya couldn’t stop herself from marvelling at each artefact she dealt with.
Delicately placing the box with the amphora onto the floor, Anya took a glance around the living room. It was impeccably decorated with the same elegance that Kamilah so effortlessly carried and as expected, there was a multitude of ancient artefacts adorning the walls and shelves. If she had been in anyone else’s apartment, she would have doubted their authenticity but Anya knew with a deep certainty that these were all authentic. She supposed that was the perk of owning a major financial corporation.
Anya spotted a conspicuously empty space between two other jars on a shelf near the back of the room and with the tenderness of a mother, she placed the amphora back to its original place. Taking her gloves off, Anya let out a sigh of relief, allowing herself to revel in the pure history of the room. Amongst these ancient artefacts, Anya felt right at home.
She herself had no past that she could remember but here, here was an entire civilisation’s life history condensed into items that its people had once used. She never felt quite right in the world as the lonely, amnesiac orphan Anya Altomare, but it was comforting to lose herself in the grounded history of countless others.
Suddenly, the slightly ajar door to the right caught her eye and even as Anya told herself that she needed to leave, she found herself walking in.
With the large bed taking up the centre of the room, this was most assuredly Kamilah’s bedroom and Anya soaked it all in. It was spacious and filled with that lavender scent that always emanated from Kamilah.
After the dinner that night, Anya hadn’t seen Kamilah and even though they’d only known each other for just under a month, she felt herself missing the woman’s presence.
Her fingers trailed over shelves that seemed to be filled with an eclectic mix of books, imagining Kamilah doing the same, until she came to a stop.
At the corner of the room lay a beautiful wooden chest and crouching to examine the paintings on its side, Anya realised with a gasp that this was a canopic chest. Its sides were adorned with understated and yet undoubtedly elegant depictions of the creator god Ptah, holding all three of his symbols: The Was sceptre, the Djed pillar, and Ankh.
As if something had taken over her body, Anya felt her arm slowly move to lift the top of the chest, too fixated on its contents to care that she was touching an artefact with her bare hand.
All that lay inside was a single ivory branch and yet Anya felt herself recoil with a visceral intensity, frantically scrambling away from it.
In her frenzy, Anya’s back bumped against the bedside table and she heard the small thump of something falling onto the carpet. She panted, trying to regain control of her furiously racing heart and turned away from the strange chest and the abomination it held.
She focused on the culprit of the sound, picking up the fallen picture frame only to feel her heart stop. Trembling, her other hand rose to touch the picture as if to convince herself that it wasn’t an illusion.
Because in the photo were two women, one of whom was Kamilah.
She looked relaxed and happier than Anya had ever seen her, even as she frowned in faux exasperation at the woman by her side. Her eyes belied her disapproving frown, filled with such tender adoration that Anya could barely believe this was the guarded woman she’d worked for for the past month.
The other woman was clearly the taker of the photograph, her arm outstretched as she kissed Kamilah firmly on the cheek with closed eyes. Chestnut melted into honey blonde waves around her face and she wore a glittering, golden dress that looked more expensive than anything Anya had ever owned.
But there was no doubt that she was Anya.
—-
Kamilah entered her apartment and even though the security system had alerted her to Laia’s presence, she felt her breath catch at the sight of the angry woman sitting on her bed.
She’d suspected that Anya was Laia from the very beginning but she hadn’t allowed herself to hope, she hadn’t really allowed herself to even think it was possible. She’d been so determined to prove that she wasn’t her.
But now that she knew this was truly Laia, that Laia had been so near her this entire time, Kamilah felt unbidden tears pool in her eyes as she held herself back at the door.
“Are you okay?” Anya asked, concern overtaking her fury and she walked towards Kamilah, her hand instinctively raising to wipe away her tears only to pause uncomfortably in the air.
Anya nearly wanted to laugh; the woman in the photograph had clearly been close with Kamilah and yet she couldn’t even do this. She pulled her arm back to her chest and with her fury rekindled, Anya stared unyieldingly at Kamilah.
“Why do you have a picture of us in your bedroom?”
Kamilah did not answer, her eyes still focused solely on Anya as if she were devouring the sight of her, and Anya began to pace.
“I mean, I lost my memory from the car crash so I don’t remember any of my life before I was eighteen. But I know I lived in England. How could we have ever met? How could we have known each other? I mean, I must have been in high school, and you were however old you were. That’s so messed up!” Anya rambled agitatedly, wringing her hands, “But even past that, if we did somehow know each other, why didn’t you say anything?! Why didn’t you tell me the moment we met?!”
“Have you just been waiting for me to remember you? Well, I’m sorry to break it to you but I’ve spent the past five years trying to regain what I lost and I still don’t remember a single thing. If you’ve been waiting for the girl in the picture, she’s gone. She’s never coming back!” Anya shouted before her face contorted in pain, “God, do you even know me?”
Large flames flared out from the candles in the room before dying as abruptly as they had appeared and Kamilah stared at Anya achingly, feeling as if her heart was shattering all over again.
“I’m sorry,” Kamilah whispered but it was at this moment that Serafine entered the room, having noticed the sudden burst of light.
“Sera?!” Anya exclaimed in disbelief and Serafine gave her a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
“I know everything’s confusing right now but do you trust me?” She asked, slowly coming towards Anya with her hands outstretched.
And even though Anya felt like she was ready to explode from the sheer force of everything she was feeling, this was Sera, who had been there since the moment she’d woken up in that too white hospital room, who had comforted her whenever living simply seemed too much for her.
Anya nodded and at this, Serafine raised her hands to Anya’s head.
A second passed and nothing seemed to have happened when the younger woman suddenly faltered forward. Kamilah rushed to catch her in her arms and Serafine [promptly disappeared from the room although her departure went unnoticed by the two women.
“Are you okay?” Kamilah asked huskily and her worry grew as the woman in her arms didn’t move.
But then...
“Kamilah?” she whispered and now Kamilah was the frozen one.
Laia looked up, tears spilling freely down her face as she raised a shaky hand to Kamilah’s cheek, “I never thought I’d see you again.”
And Kamilah melted and she kissed Laia fiercely, passionately, desperately as if they were the only women who existed in the universe. Hot tears intermixed as they lost themselves in each other, their bodies moving together in motions that were at once familiar and yet new as they sought to reclaim each other in the purest of ways.
—-
Their bodies remained intertwined even as the heat of their passion finally ebbed, and although Laia sleepily nestled into Kamilah’s chest, Kamilah had never felt more awake. Her eyes soaked in the sight of the woman, committing each precious little detail to memory, and even blinking was too long a time to not see her. She relished the solid weight in her arms, the undeniable proof that Laia was really, truly here with her after fifty long years, and Kamilah knew that she would wait a hundred times over if it meant she could be with Laia again.
This time together now was precious beyond what words could express and each second seemed to pass by too quickly.
“What are we going to do now?” Laia whispered quietly. These words were almost enough to remind Kamilah of what was waiting for them outside of their precious space in time but Kamilah refused the beckoning call of reality; she needed to hold Laia for just a bit longer.
And truthfully, there was only one answer Kamilah could give her, only one thing she knew for certain.
“Whatever it takes to keep you with me.”
—-
Despite Kamilah’s best efforts, sleep came for her and she awoke in terror when she found herself alone in her bed. She frantically scanned the room, unable to accept the possibility that the last night had been but a dream. Relief washed over her when at last, she laid eyes upon Laia at the other side of the room. But then she saw what Laia held in her hands.
And Kamilah realised she had not known true fear until this moment.
She leapt out of the bed, embracing Laia and taking away the stake in one smooth motion.
“I won’t let you die for a baseless theory,” she murmured fiercely, past the point of trying to hide her desperation.
“She’s getting stronger in me Kamilah,” Laia said sadly, pulling back slightly from Kamilah’s embrace.
“Screw them all,” Kamilah hissed, “Let Rheya try to rise. I’m not giving up on you. I’d let thousands of people die before I gave up on you.”
At this, Laia simply caressed her cheek.
“No, you wouldn’t.”
Although her voice was soft, the words pierced Kamilah to her core. How could Laia so unwaveringly believe in her? Kamilah had committed countless atrocities before, and none for a reason as good as this. Surely she could do worse if it meant Laia would stay alive...
But Laia was right. She was different from the woman she had been in the past, a woman who had been willing to sacrifice others for her own satisfaction. It was due to Laia, but she was fundamentally changed.
Kamilah’s voice broke, “I can’t lose you again. Not when I’ve only just found you.”
Laia smiled tearfully at her, “You’re the strongest woman I know.”
And Laia grabbed the stake, thrusting it into her chest.
A primordial shriek split the air but Kamilah couldn’t seem to hear anything, couldn’t register what had happened.
A single pained gasp escaped Laia and suddenly the world seemed to start again, everything happening too quickly. The ivory wood of the branch soaked into a deep crimson and matching streams of blood gurgled out of her mouth.
And once more, Kamilah was holding the dying body of the woman she loved.
She shook her head dumbly, tightly clutching Laia in her arms. She’d spent two thousand years on this Earth and yet when it mattered most, she was completely and utterly powerless.
Laia let out a series of stuttered gasps, her mouth desperately trying to form words as her body went into shock, unable to make sense of the damage it had incurred.
“I, I wish I could have shared that life with you.”
(“If we kill Gaius? If he’s finally out of my life, once and for all? I think… I’ll live. At last. I’ll finally, truly live…. And I’d like to share that life with you.”)
And thinking of that bright future they had once envisioned, the beautiful, love-filled life they could have had…
Kamilah wept over Laia’s cool body.
—-
A/N: To the anon: I’m sorry 😅 . This was the ending I imagined from the beginning. In consideration for your heart, I did try thinking of possible alternate endings but I couldn’t think of one. Actually, I guess you could imagine Kamilah Turning Laia since there’s nothing really stopping her from doing that. Huh. Well, for the sake of my ending, I’m just going to say Laia needed to die in order for Rheya to die lol.
I needed to get this out of my system so I could focus on my exam so I don’t know if I did it the justice it deserved but I hope you enjoyed the story! Even though I was really excited for the last scene, I had a hard time deciding what Laia’s last words would be / how to end it and I honestly just gave up.
The italicised quote is from BB2 chapter 15.
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Wreck: Chapter 3
Nero stepped through the door of the apartment, studying the almost untouched state of the place.
Nothing had been moved or changed since they left for their mission. The pillows from the sofa were still strewn about with little regard. The same pairs of shoes and boots littered the entry way with none being added or removed. None of the dinning chairs had been moved to what he could see. Even the rhythmic drip of the leaky kitchen faucet, which could be stopped with just a tug of the cold water handle, still continued on with no interference.
Nero cautiously tread through the apartment, looking for any sign of life. Only to come up empty handed.
No one answered the phone when he had called from the hospital earlier that morning. When he called Lady and Trish they answered within moments. When he called Patty and Morrison, they both answered within 5 rings. Dante was a dick and let his phone ring until the last second, and Kyrie missed it but immediately called him back.
It didn’t worry him too much, none of them were good at answering the apartment phone anyway. It was when he received no answer from the van’s phone that made him worry. Nico was always one to give him shit for breaking the third ring rule, to the point where they dropped it and just had Nero call her. Nico never didn’t answer the phone in the van, she would always drop whatever she was doing to answer it if no one else did. Communication was key in their line of work, and Nero’s had been one sided for days.
He walked over to the land line that sat on an end table in the living room, he cleared all the missed calls and voicemails that he left and listened to the ones not from him. Some were scams, some were from Patty wanting to leave an excited welcome home message for (Y/N). He smiled at her cheerfulness, wishing he had such a positive outlook on life.
His attention was pulled away by a loud clang coming from the garage door. His brow knit together curiously as he followed the noises. As he approached the door, he could hear more clangs and crashes, like tools being discarded haphazardly. He could also pick up a few swears spoken in a familiar southern drawl.
He carefully opened the door, like he was almost afraid of what was on the other side. The door slowly fell open, creaking on it’s aged hinges. Almost immediately his senses were bombarded with a smog of cigarette smoke and rust. His eyes started watering as he stepped deeper into the garage, waving his hand in front of his face to waft the stench away, to no avail. He took note of the numerous empty and crushed energy drink cans littering the floor. He carelessly discarded them with his boot as he shuffled through the mess.
His view of the garage was mostly obscured by the massive van sitting in the center, the neon Devil May Cry sign was shut off the dull lettering reflecting the mood of the space. The body of the van was covered in scratched and gashes through the metal frame, some panels of metal just barely hanging on. The hood was propped up, and the drivers side door was open, allowing him to see through the front row to the other side, where he heard the continued cursing coming from.
“Damnit!” a quiet voice hissed from the other side of the van.
Nero stalked around the front of the van, cautiously peeking around the vehicle to the crouched form on the ground. The mess leading to the garage door was nothing compared to the trash pile Nico had nested herself in.
With a lit cigarette in her mouth, Nico stared annoyed at the decimated passenger side door, or what was left of it. Around her were several open cans of liquid sugar and alcohol. Many tools were also strewn about the concrete floor, with no order or system to speak of. Nico -despite being the crazy grease monkey she was- always kept her work space and instruments organized, only really getting messy when she was using a select set of tools for a project. But this? Nero has never seen so many wrenches, pliers, cables and ratchets scattered across the ground.
That wasn’t even to describe the state Nico herself was in. Her hair was greasy and unkempt, messily tied back rather than pushed back and fluffed up like it normally was. Her clothes, which were never really clean in the first place, were covered in grease and what Nero worriedly suspected was some blood too. Her face was haggard, devoid of any positive emotion, the skin around her eyes was sagging and dark and her eyes were blood shot and hazed over.
She lazily took a drag of her cigarette, tapping the loose ashes away to the floor with little thought, which was probably insanely dangerous to do next to an almost armored vehicle. She didn’t even turn to regard the white haired devil hunter, probably not knowing he was even there.
“Nico?” Nero prodded carefully.
“Hey, Nero,” she replied still not turning her head. Her voice was low, slurring with clear exhaustion.
Nero leaned his body against the open hood of the van looking down at Nico as she kept staring at the damaged door frame.
“What have you been doing?” he asked not wanting to bring up the missed calls just yet.
Nico puffed on her cigarette, exhaling another cloud of tobacco into the confined space, just adding to the awful smell permeating through the air.
“Working,” Nico replied simply.
Nero sighed before kicking a discarded can across the room, the sound of the aluminum bouncing around concrete ringing out throughout the garage. He looked back to Nico, who hadn’t even flinched at the sharp loud noise. The silence that followed grew more and more in awkwardness as the seconds ticked by. Nero pursed his lips, looking for the right thing to say. It was obvious Nico was in no mood to be snarky or partake in small talk. Her face and general demeanor was a clear, “don’t fucking talk to me,” sign. It sent a sense of unease through Nero’s system, seeing what was basically the opposite of the Nico he knew.
“(Y/N) is doing fine. She woke up last night and she’s okay,” Nero explained.
“And you just left her there? Alone?” Nico snapped, suddenly becoming more visceral.
“I waited until she woke up and then told her I was coming back here,” Nero said growing slightly annoyed at her accusatory tone, “I tried calling you, several times, but you wouldn’t pick up.”
“Well I’m sorry! But I’ve been a little busy here!” she snapped at him, her voice growing louder, more laced with venom as she spit her excuse towards him. She removed the cigarette from her lips, extinguishing it on an ashtray placed on the floor near her. She stood from her spot on the ground wobbling a little as she turned her back and walked away, running her hand through her messy hair.
Nero felt a little anger growing in his chest as he raised himself from the hood of the van to stand up straight. He crossed his arms over his chest, his broad shoulder tensing.
“You constantly got on my ass for not picking up the phone fast enough. even when I’m out hunting demons, but when I’m calling from the fucking hospital to tell you how our friend is doing you just give me silence!” Nero yelled.
Nico spun around, almost fast enough for her red glasses to slide down her nose. She had rage in her tired eyes as her chest moved with her angry huffs. Her boots slammed against the floor as she cleared the space between them in only a few strides. Their chests were mere inches apart when Nico poked her finger into Nero’s sternum.
“That’s because you’re a dumbass who can’t keep track of time! Meanwhile, I’m back here working on something really fucking important, but I guess not to you!” Nico yelled in his face, her breath reeked of tobacco and a cocktail of disgusting smelling things with an absence of toothpaste or mints.
Now it was Nero’s turn to huff and puff in anger.
“Do you have any idea how disappointed she was when I told her you hadn’t even picked up the phone or bothered to come and see her in the hospital?” he asked his voice slowly raising, “She was out of it for three days and not once to you even bother to call and ask if she was okay!”
He jerked away from Nico’s accusatory poking before continuing his rant.
“Patty was able to stop by, Lady called the hospital asking if (Y/N) was okay, but I called the van directly and you didn’t even pick up. You answered me once and the hung up after I said she was alive. Do you know how much that hurt her? Do you even care?”
“OF COURSE, I CARE!” Nico screamed, “You think I don’t care about her? Or what happened? You think that I’ve had even a wink of sleep these past few days? You think I’ve done anything but worry and work on this god forsaken van!?”
As she screams, she started lashing out flailing her arms in rage and kicking the side of the van several times, like it would help anything at all. Nero saw how she squeezed her eyes shut, barring and grinding her teeth as her breathing became more ragged with each violent action. Her knuckles turned white as she clenched her fists tight, trying to hold back an even greater rage she was feeling. Nero worried for a moment that she would hurt herself as she continued to beat on the van, hurling expletives and ravings at it like it had slighted her grandmother.
Nero let her flush all the anger out of her system, watching as her attacks on the vehicle slowly decreased in power and volume. Her breathing was all over the place, gasps and uneven pants replacing her curses and insults. She leaned her forearms against the side of the van, her back hunched and the top of her head pressed against the cold and abused metal. Her back shook with her uneven breaths, and Nero saw the little droplets that fell to the garage floor at her feet.
“So that this never happens again,” she said, her voice hoarse, shaky, unsure yet determined.
“What?” Nero asked softly, not picking upon the context during her tirade.
“I’ve been working…” she started, trailing off as her voice shook, “So that this never… happens… again.”
Nico raised her head to look at Nero. Her whole face was red and splotchy, her cheeks were stained with tear tracks, and the lenses of her glasses had fogged up. Her face contorted with sadness, anger, and what looked like guilt. She pulled herself away from the van turning her head as to not look at Nero. Her arms crossed around her body, hugged herself tightly. Nero had never seen Nico so vulnerable and insecure before.
Nero’s whole posture had relaxed as he stepped towards her. As carefully as he could muster, he encircled his arms around her, holding her close to him. He felt her burry her face into his chest as her sobs continued. She didn’t unwind her own arms to return the gesture, just letting Nero hold her as she cried. One of Nero’s hand rested flat against her back, while the other cradled her head closer to him. He hushed her as she cried trying in vain to calm her down.
“It’s my fault,” she hiccupped, “It’s all my fault.”
“That’s not true,” Nero replied sharply.
“I wasn’t paying attention, I should have seen the damage. I shouldn’t have gone for that jump.”
She continued sobbing into Nero’s wine red sweater.
“I should have stopped or slowed down. If… if I didn’t go for it, she wouldn’t have fallen out… It’s my fault she got hurt. A-and I saw her… I saw her fall and I didn’t do anything. Even after I stopped I-I just stared...”
“There was nothing you could do,” Nero explained, his voice soft ginger as he stroking the mechanic’s back calmingly, “There was nothing anyone could do. It was already too late. I should have seen the demon on the side, but I didn’t. I should have seen her fall, but I didn’t. No one knew that she wasn’t safe anymore. But it’s okay now, she’s alive, she’s healing. All we can do now is be there for her, right?”
He felt her nod against his chest, letting out a few more hiccups as she reached up to wipe the stray tears from her eyes. Her breathing began to even out, slow and deep and her shaking subsided.
“She’s not mad at you,” Nero said, “She doesn’t blame you. She was just upset that you didn’t come to see her. She was worried about you.”
“Was she upset when she woke up because of how bad you smell?” Nico teased, laughing through the last of her hiccups, “You smell like you crawled out a demons ass.”
“Oh, and you smell like a field of roses,” Nero smugly replied.
“Gross, you flirting with me?” Nico asked.
“Just for that…” Nero said, as he began to smother Nico into his sweater as she fought against him cackling.
They both fought against each other laughing as Nero refused to let Nico go to breath. It was rare they both had something to mutually laugh at together. They both just liked taking to piss with each other and really only laughed together when (Y/N) told a good joke on the way to or from a mission.
Eventually Nero relented, releasing Nico who returned the sentiment by calling him an asshole and punching him in the chest, which did little to hurt him. He laughed and humored her by raising his hand to where her fist connected. They giggled like kids together, their laughs slowly dissipating, and an uncomfortable silence fell over them.
“We should both clean up and get some rest, it doesn’t look like you’ve slept, and I’ve been crashing on a hospital couch for three days. We can go see (Y/N) later, she’ll be thrilled to see you,” Nero said, laying a hand on Nico’s shoulder.
She nodded and understanding smile graced her freckled cheeks before fading just as fast as it appeared.
Feedback is much appreciated :)
#dmc#devil may cry#dmc5#devil may cry 5#nero#dmc nero#nico#dmc nico#reader#nero x reader#dmc fanfiction#dmc fanfic#devil may cry fanfiction#reader insert#angst
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Plot bunny bit me so I popped out a second story for yesterday’s prompts.
@madatobiweek Day 2 prompt: Blind Tobirama
Pairing: MadaraTobirama
Word count: 1835
Rated: G
Summary: Madara helps Tobirama try something new and the results aren't at all what either of them expected.
Follow the link or read it under the cut!
KO-FI and commission info in the header!
Love At A Glance
“Are you ready?”
“Is it possible for one to ready oneself for such an experience?”
He could feel Madara glaring at him just as the man always did and it added a flavor of normalcy that immediately calmed him, loosening the muscles he hadn’t realized were tensed in his shoulders. Surprisingly gentle hands brushed under the sides of his jaw and traced the edges of his tattoos where they disappeared under his collar.
“Don’t be snarky,” Madara scolded him. “I’m being very nice to you right now.”
“Noted. I suppose I shall be appropriately grateful afterwards – if you make a good showing of yourself.”
“Are you disparaging my skills?”
Tobirama snorted. “Let me experience them first; I’ll disparage them afterwards.”
He grinned at the sound of teeth grinding together in frustration. Even after several years together there was no better fun to be had than winding his husband up and listening to the many varied expressions of irritation. Madara was far and away the most expressive person he’d ever met other than his own brother. It was the freedom of those emotions that drew Tobirama to him initially, the way his outside perfectly reflected his inside where chakra always told the truth.
Most people thought it must be easy to lie to a blind man. Those people always seemed to forget Tobirama’s deep connection to the chakra networks running through every living thing, the way he could listen as no one else could because he didn’t have whole other source of input to confuse his idea of the truth. He loved his partner first for never trying to conceal his own emotions and second for the sheer beauty of how well he resonated with his own chakra. Lies will wear on a person, Tobirama had found, and after years and decades of lying as all shinobi do he found there were very few who maintained harmony with their own chakra as time marched on.
His husband would be a powerful man long after everyone else’s chakra began failing them, a symptom widely attributed to old age.
“Are you paying attention to me?” Madara demanded.
“No,” he admitted blandly. “I’m distracting myself with disgustingly sappy thoughts and a little bit of chakra theory.”
“Of course you are. Well stop. I need you to hear me.”
“Yes dear.”
Madara huffed but his fingers remained gentle in their hold. “It’s important that you don’t move because a single shift in the wrong direction could break the flow and I want the transition in and out to be as seamless as possible. What I’m giving you is no more than a memory so you won’t be able to interact or change anything. There will be movement but if you focus in the center–”
“You,” Tobirama interrupted him.
“Indeed, me. I will be in the center.”
Nodding slowly, Tobirama took a deep breath. “Anything else?”
“I think we’ve covered everything else a hundred times but if you forget everything else just remember that I can still hear you and I can stop anytime you want me to.”
“Okay.” The fingers cupping his jaw stroked him one more time and he smiled warmly.
“Ready?”
“Yes.”
It felt like an invasion, albeit a gentle and welcome one. By the descriptions he’d heard from many people he thought it might be compared to the sensation of having a genjutsu cast when you know it’s coming. Madara’s chakra poured out from where he knew the man’s eyes were, the Mangekyo Sharingan formation spinning wildly, and Tobirama experienced it only through his internal senses as waves of his husband’s presence sank in to his own ocular nerves and then-
And then.
He was going to be seasick. Tobirama squeezed his eyes shut tight but it made no difference, as Madara had promised it wouldn’t, for the vision around him did not stop moving. Nothing made sense. The world was a mix and all too much and he wasn’t sure whether the movement was the problem but he wanted it to stop.
More than that, though, he wanted it never to end. He understood so little but Tobirama forced his poor confused mind to focus and to memorize in a way he’d never had to before, as many details as possible filed away to keep as precious treasures from this day forward. This was a gift he could never possibly repay. Surely nothing he could ever dream of would mean as much as what Madara had offered so freely, an offhand idea over dinner one night now made glorious and terrible reality.
They had agreed beforehand on something short but a handful of seconds felt like forever in both the best and worst ways before finally Madara's voice whispered soothingly that it was all going away. Relief swept through him when the vision faded and his world returned to the same darkness he had lived in for more than thirty years, something bittersweet clinging to the edges of him as he fought to recall the details he didn’t even understand. Fingers combed through his hair and touched his face and he realized he was crying.
“Are you alright?” Madara asked. He nodded. “What was it like?”
“Terrifying,” he admitted.
Not the answer his partner was expecting, judging by the startled hum. “It wasn’t anything bad.”
“I didn’t understand it. My mind didn’t…doesn’t know how to process any of that. You know I was born blind so I’ve never seen color and I’ve never seen movement and I know–” Tobirama stopped the flow of words when he realized it wasn’t only his words that had begun to shake. His body was trembling like a leaf.
“Come here.” Madara gathered him close and continued to comb through his hair, waiting patiently until he was able to continue speaking.
“I know that it was you but I don’t…know…what that means. The shapes meant nothing because I’ve never seen a human with my eyes before. And it’s so bright! How do you concentrate when the world is so bright? With so many colors!” Tobirama forced himself to draw another breath. “Is that color? How many colors were there? W-what ones? Your hair…is…black?” He thought he could remember someone mentioning that once, something not many people would describe out loud when most could tell with a single glance.
A rustle and a brief kiss were his answer. “Yes, my hair is black. Can you guess what you were seeing or would you like me to tell you? I gave you a few hints when I decided on the memory but…”
“No, I wanted to guess. There was a lot of the same color I think. And it was moving. Another color through it? And I know that was you in the center so all of that color was…hair. Your hair. Were you brushing your hair?”
“Yes.” Only one word but it sounded like a floodgate. Madara's chakra wavered and suddenly Tobirama was aware that he wasn’t the only one overwhelmed with emotion.
Unsure of what else to say, he said the truth. “You’re beautiful.”
“How can you say that when you just said you didn’t even really understand? You don’t have any comparisons!”
“I don’t need to understand.” And coming from him that was saying a lot. Tobirama reached up to brush at the hair he had just seen for the first time, the beloved face he’d never known until today. “It was you. That’s all I need. I don’t…I don’t think I want to do this again. If the only thing these eyes ever see is your face then I’m fine with that. Vision is a little terrifying when I’ve gone so long without it. It’s just not a part of my world.”
“Well there’s no need to be so sappy about it,” Madara grumbled and he gave a shaky laugh.
Out of all the many possible outcomes to having his husband’s unique Mangekyo pattern grant him a brief moment of sight in the form of a shared memory, he never would have expected to find himself so viscerally terrified. Now that he was taking a few moments to calm down he thought it was probably an instinctive reaction to his brain being inundated with so much information that it simply wasn’t trained or even equipped to process. He’d meant what he said, he didn’t think he would ever want to repeat this, but he was glad that they’d done it. Knowing Madara's face was an experience he could never regret.
And more than that it was something that would have stayed in the back of his mind for the rest of his days, a small niggling wonder forever pulling at his curiosity. What was it like to see? From the moment Madara mentioned that he thought his own Mangekyo could help Tobirama experience what the rest of the world lived with every day he was helpless to do anything but accept that gilded offer lest his own imagination spiral out of control.
“Thank you,” he said after a few minutes of simply holding each other.
“Don’t thank me for scaring you,” Madara grunted.
“Would you prefer I be angry?”
“It would feel a bit more normal,” His husband admitted.
Tobirama couldn’t stop himself from chuckling. “Ah, right then. How dare you be the most important part of my life and make every day together a gift? I demand recompense.”
Listening to Madara splutter indignantly and shout at him for ‘doing anger wrong’ Tobirama breathed out the last of the tension in his body. In his mind he brought up the confusing image that had been granted to him for such a brief time and tried his best to recall the details. Not much about it made sense to him even if he did know intellectually which parts corresponded with his knowledge of human anatomy. He still tried his best because that was his husband. For the first time in his life he had a face for the name, so to speak, and Madara's face was the only one he had ever seen. Would ever see. That was special in ways he couldn’t hope to put in to words.
Doing his best to hold that image in his mind as he lifted his face more towards his partner’s, Tobirama decided that the room was indeed getting a little too sappy and, of course, the best way to break the tension would always be to get Madara riled up again. He’d known the man long enough to know how to do it with two simple sentences.
“I’m glad you didn’t insist on showing me my own face. I’d have gone doubly blind, I’m sure.”
Madara's enraged shrieking that he was beautiful and perfect and not allowed to saying anything against that was music to his ears. As long as he had his hearing and his sensing, able to feel the sincerity of his husband’s emotions, Tobirama was just fine with his lot in life.
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The 100 Highlights - “How We Get To Peace” (5x08)
Hey everyone! Sorry for the long wait for this highlight post. I was out of town visiting family for a week and didn’t get a chance to rewatch the episode until today. And, unfortunately, I am about to be swapped for the next ten days (at least) so you can probably expect the 5x09 highlight post to be pretty late, too.
... And the 5x10 recap.
But anyway - super excited to get into this episode! Hope you enjoy my thoughts. :)
Feel free to read up on the previous posts in this series here.
“I’ve seen the horrors we inflict on each other in the name of survival, colonel. God knows I’m as guilty as anyone, but we’re on the brink here - on the edge of an abyss I’ve stared into before - and I can tell you, having sacrificed the few to save the many more times than I care to admit, eventually, the few becomes the many. The ends don’t always justify the means and if you don’t know that by now, after everything you’ve been through, then you’re just as bad as Octavia, and we’re already lost.”
At first I was a bit thrown by Kane’s speech here because Charmaine’s move was, objectively, very politically savvy (and it seemed a little out of place, considering Kane was the one who implied that if Charmaine got rid of McCreary she wouldn’t have to be concerned about resistance anymore but whatever) but - in retrospect - I do see the value in it. It seems to reflect what Bellamy and Clarke do later in the episode to Kara Cooper (which was honestly SO fucked up guys, like, holy shit). And the line was well delivered too. Very dramatic.
I kind of like this Vincent guy. Hm. Seems too nice to be a cannibal/serial killer. Speaking of which, are we ever going to see him snap? Maybe in 5x11 ... and that’s when we’ll get Abby telling the story of what happened in The Dark Year. :o I’ve cracked the code fam
Echo suggesting that they kill Zeke made her more familiar to me. Her character arc seems pretty on track (based on this episode) with what I have already speculated and I expect that we’re going to see her facing some issues with her old methods soon (maybe next episode?). I did like how they have set up her character arc in this episode.
I’m really enjoying that they have Indra teaming up with our mains this season. It’s an interesting dynamic, to see her interacting with characters besides Octavia and Kane this season and I am really enjoying it.
LEMME TAKE A MOMENT TO TALK ABOUT ZEKE PUTTING HIS HAND IN FRONT OF RAVEN PROTECTIVELY K
Listen, I know that their relationship has no base to it and they barely know each other and their connection doesn’t even really make sense *realistically* but I really, really LOVE Raven and Zeke’s dynamic. Lindsey and Jordan have fantastic chemistry and they look so good together and Zeke and Raven’s personalities/intellect complement each other so well. Also, this is a television show so lack of development DOESN’T MATTER, especially considering Zeke hasn’t killed Raven’s family or ex boyfriend or anything which - if you ask me - is a definite bonus! I just loved that little detail of him looking out for her, despite being angry (and having every right to be) because he feels protective of her and can’t really explain why just yet.
Also, I am in no way delusional enough to believe that the writers intentionally paralleled Bellarke and Zaven in this episode but this moment was visually extremely reminiscent of Bellamy jumping in front of Clarke in 2x09 ... so that’s a plus.
Everything involving Raven and Abby in this episode was just the most gut-wrenching, fam. Raven’s concern over Abby being threatened by Diyoza and her determination to protect her and Abby lying was just ... a Lot. It shows how far gone Abby is and added some new stakes to her addiction. I think it was important to show how Abby and Raven’s relationship will be affected by this.
“Your mother would be proud, Monty.” I wonder if anyone has told Monty this before, and how much he probably needed to hear it. In all that had happened, I forgot that Kara Cooper and Monty come from the same station on the Ark, and that they have probably even known each other for a long time. I never would have guessed that I would love seeing them interact so much but their scenes in this episode were so cute? Cooper laughing at Monty’s jokes about getting lit was the scene I didn’t know I needed. Leave it to The 100 to humanize the Worst character in the episode they get killed
THE ORIGINAL MURDER TRIO IS BACK AND AT IT AGAIN
I have to admit, in a kind of sick way I liked that we had Monty, Clarke, and Bellamy back at their old shenanigans again? Like, this felt like an indirect callback to Mount Weather, where they all committed mass murder together. This time, they’re trying to prevent that from happening again. It’s weird to see how their old allegiances and perspectives have shifted from that moment - and yet, they all continue to cooperate with each other.
“What’s one more, right? We’re all murderers.” OOF MONTY I FELT THAT
“We’re talking about taking one life to save hundreds.” “Really? Then let’s kill Octavia.” I literally yelled DRAG HIM at my screen when he said this lmao. Monty had ALL the lines in this episode. Like, damn, I love that he is questioning Bellamy and Clarke’s decisions in this, how they just revert so easily back to their same old methods. It’s refreshing to see.
And also, he’s RIGHT. What Bellamy and Clarke are doing is so fucking twisted. They are literally killing someone in the most grotesque manner and framing them for something they didn’t even do all in order to avoid killing someone else - the person who forced her to commit the atrocities she has in the first place. Let’s face it: Cooper is easy to hate but the only reason she is the way she is is because of the system that Octavia created, the game Octavia forced her to play. And yet, they won’t kill Octavia, because of their own selfish wishes. It is absolutely fucked up and I am so glad that Monty called them out on their bullshit.
I really loved Murphy looking at Clarke’s drawing of him and Emori chained to the rocket from 4x08. It was a nice detail (and parallel to Season 4′s corresponding episode) and callback to include. Here’s hoping that we get to see *cough* other characters looking at pictures of themselves that Clarke has drawn. You know ... no one in particular.
“Tell me what we’re looking at.”
“I don’t think we’d see it the same way, but all right. That’s where the trading post will be. And next to it will be a farm, and a workshop, and a mill ... And a real medical center, for Abby. To the south, there’ll be homes dug out of the ground to preserve the trees, and at the center, there’ll be a well, a place for people to gather, talk, debate ideas.”
“And a school with a playground where kids can blow off steam and bitch about their teachers and kiss under the bleachers. My kid.”
LET ME TALK ABOUT THIS SCENE !!! I LOVED THIS SCENE.
I think this is the very first time (with the exception of Briller and the chickens) where any character has explicitly voiced their greatest wishes for the future, how it looks in their mind. And it’s so fucking tragic because you can just visualize it so clearly, but it feels so far away. That future doesn’t seem possible. It’s so melancholy and I love how Ian and Ivana delivered their lines in this scene.
Also, soft!Charmaine is EVERYTHING. Her line about the school and the teenagers “bitching” and making out and doing regular teenage thing was just so ... normal, it was honestly startling to think about. That’s the life that the hundred should have had - that they’ll never get now. I love the baby storyline so much (and I never thought I would like a pregnancy storyline but I do) because it humanizes Diyoza in so many ways.
The music in this scene was gorgeous and matched the tone so well, I honestly started tearing up a little bit don’t @ me. I have a really big feeling that this discussion will come up again - either because we’re going to see this vision completely destroyed, or because we’re going to see it come to fruition. With the space travel theory, I do kind of wonder if we might get an “epilogue” of sorts for the people who stay behind on Eden, where we see Kane and Diyoza’s vision has come true (and maybe they’ll both even be there). It would be like a farewell to the characters who remain on Earth. I think it would be beautiful. (But that’s all assuming that the space travel theory is correct.)
As mildly annoying as it was that Kane literally named Diyoza’s baby for her (wtf Kane???) I did appreciate the symbolic purpose of naming her child “Hope”, especially considering the episode title “Pandora’s Box”, in which hope (aka. Kane/Baby) was the last out of the bunker and then flew away with Eligius. It’s a nice follow up to that little piece of mythology.
In a way, Kane, Abby, and Charmaine are delivering Hope (literally and figuratively) to the people. Which is also why I believe that they may all remain behind in Eden at the end of this season as we see our mains (ie. Clarke, Bellamy, Raven, etc) take off into cryo sleep, officially saying goodbye to all of them forever. (Goddamn I’m already crying and the season finale hasn’t even aired yet? THe fuck)
Also side note to talk about how vindicating it was when Kane was judging Charmaine the entire episode about her damn notebook (”names of the people you killed?” stfu) and it turned out to just be a goddamn list of baby names and defense strategies. Sit the fuck down, Mark.
I present to you: the creepiest fucking shot this show has done. And yet, I really liked it? Showing Cooper’s reactions by shooting through her helmet was a really well done creative choice. It was so trippy and it made her death feel so visceral and real. It honestly kind of sickens me to watch this scene, tbh.
On another note, I cannot BELIEVE how many stomachs Jason has forced me to watch explode this season .. the audacity ...
Emori establishing healthy boundaries is ... EVERYTHING. It’s so important for the writers to have addressed the toxicity in their relationship in this way.
“Trouble in paradise?” I kind of love that McCreary says this to Memori because it is exactly what Murphy said to Clarke and Finn in 5x06 after the massacre. That’s some sweet kind of karma right there
Everything about Raven and Abby in this episode was absolutely devastating. Lindsey and Paige both killed this scene - the emotions were so real. Lindsey did such an amazing job portraying Raven’s hurt and rage - I could feel her emotions so viscerally.
“Don’t you talk to me about pain.” If anyone deserves that line, it is Raven. She has been through hell and back and has had to be so strong for so long. I really liked that line.
CLARKE SITTING ON BELLAMY’S BED IN HIS TENT. Man, I would LOVE to see how that scene went askskqisks
Also, Clarke comforting my poor baby just like old times ... *sigh*
Although I have some reservations with the dialogue in this scene, I do appreciate the sentiment. Despite everything that has happened, Bellamy and Clarke still have such an understanding of each other. They forgive so easily - it’s practically second nature at this point. While I hated how Jason Rothenberg-y Bellamy sounded when he called Clarke a “mama bear” it IS nice that he is acknowledging the role that Madi plays in Clarke’s life. I feel like he finally is starting to understand just how crucial she is to Clarke, and recognizing that he felt the same way about Octavia. It gives them something new to connect over. Also, I’ll never turn down Bellarke being soft with each other.
Plus, have you ever seen a softer smile than Clarke Griffin’s? Cause oh boy am I not over that. She looks so fucking bashful when she looks up at Bellamy I can’t deal gotDAMN
“The worms were already loaded in the rover, so. What was Cooper doing there?” Marie’s delivery in this episode was SO good. God, she’s so creepy and she’s Killing It.
“Careful, big brother, or I’ll think you helped her and we’d have enough prisoners to settle this in the ring.” LISTEN. I WANTED THE EVERLARK AU SO FREAKING BAD CAN YOU IMAGINE WHAT NEW MEANING THE WORD “TOGETHER” WOULD HAVE HOLY SHIT
But also, Bellamy’s desperate looks/protests were A Lot in this scene. He really can’t fathom losing Clarke again. His and Clarke’s tragic looks towards each other just really fucking hurt - they’ve been here before. And last time, they didn’t see each other for six years.
“Keep Madi safe. Promise me.” “I promise.”
GOD. CLARKE LITERALLY JUST GAVE HIM FUCKING CUSTODY OF HER CHILD UMMMMM HOW ONE DOES FUNCTION??? She trusts him so much i’mma cry. Also, his called out promise. He sounds so wrecked, but he needs her to know that he will keep Madi safe, needs her to have that comfort, just in case he never sees her again. Don’t Touch Me.
“Did he hurt you?” Protective!Zeke is always a plus but I’d be lying if I said that this scene didn’t immediately remind me of Bellamy asking Clarke the same damn question in 1x10. God, these unintentional Blarke parallels are really coming for my life huh
“Have you ever loved someone so much that no matter what they do to you, or themselves, you take it?” “Mom or dad?” “Mom. Drank herself to death.” I loved that Raven has finally found someone she can open up to. Feels Good, feels Organic. But also this scene came for my LIFE it was so angsty and so good. Raven breaking down absolutely ENDED me (and Zeke comforting her ... someone call 911). I really loved how they made the parallel between Raven’s mom and Abby - it just made the previous scene all the more devastating. So often it feels like the writers on this show forget about these characters backstory and I’m so happy to get these little callbacks every once in awhile.
“The answer is yes.” The fact that Raven and Zeke have this new unexpected thing to relate about is A Lot. I felt this scene deep in my bones.
Plot twist: Abby dies because she is eaten by Vincent, and her withdrawal symptoms are just a red herring to keep us on our feet. ;)
“So much for The 100.” Hello, favourite line of this episode. Y’all have no idea (NO IDEA) how much it means to me to hear a reference to the heart of this show again, especially from Bellamy. He hasn’t forgotten, but it appears that Miller has. Wow. I felt that one.
“I can’t let you kill Clarke, O.” NO YOU CANNOT
“Here we go again. Pleading for the life of a traitor ... who you love.” DO I NEED TO SAY ANYTHING ABOUT THIS LINE HONESTLY Y’ALL ALREADY KNOW WHY IT ENDED ME
BELLAMY’S FUCKING FACE JOURNEY HOLY SHIT. THEY FOCUS ON HIS FACE FOR SO LONG AND YOU CAN JUST SEE - YOU CAN SEE - HIS INTERNAL STRUGGLE. GOD.
I totally overlooked this the first time I watched it but I love how Bellamy tells Octavia that HE made a deal with Diyoza. Clarke has already been sentenced to death and still, he’s protecting her. He won’t let Clarke get hurt for the deal she made - instead, he takes the blame. I just love him a lot fam.
Bob and Marie’s acting in that final scene was SO FREAKING GOOD. Both of them killed it. It was so devastating.
“My sister, my responsibility.” While I was predicting before that this line would happen if Bellamy had to kill Octavia, the fact that it came back in the same context (with Bellamy having to protect others from Octavia, rather than the other way around) was so perfect. I love when writers take old lines and give them new meanings and that’s exactly what they did with Bellamy’s old mantra. It was so powerful.
AND HE DID IT ALL FOR CLARKE. HE CHOSE FUCKING CLARKE. I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO SAY???
So.
That was a wild ride.
Hope you enjoyed reading my take on 5x08 and my favourite parts! Looking forward to the next episode in a few days. See ya then!
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On the Importance of Anger
I have been feeling very angry the past couple of days. Not a cute, woke-up-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-bed kind of grumpiness; but proper, full on, unadulterated rage. Up until a few nights ago I had been feeling incredibly content. I had just celebrated my 21st birthday, finished my first big uni assignment before my break started, and had been keeping myself busy with the task of putting down self-tapes for my agent to stockpile until work in the acting industry (hopefully) picks up again. I was thriving in my little bubble, and things were looking good for life post-Covid-19.
And then it happened. As surely as I fell asleep happy as ever on Monday night, I woke up on Tuesday morning seeing absolute red. I was fucking mad. I wanted to yell at people and drop crockery on the floor (in a destructive way, not a celebratory one like the way my Greek relatives do). I went for a run for the first time in a month, hoping to somehow expel my rage through physical force. It felt very strange and I couldn’t comprehend this new feeling, as anger is not really a word in my emotional vocabulary. Sure I’ve had my moments, my tantrums, my teenaged screaming matches with my dad over not letting me drink at a party even though everybody else is. But true anger? True anger (anger as visceral as this) is not something that I’m familiar with.
I feel most women can relate to this. Anger is not an emotion that we’re encouraged to indulge in, much less exhibit. Yes, in the last century we have a come a long way from the bubbly, one-dimensional housewife. But I believe in society’s subconscious, women are still expected to be mainly docile creatures, stoic at times but never outwardly enraged. This is a massive juxtapose to our male counterparts. Men are allowed to get angry, men are supposed to get angry. We watch men yell and scream and hurt each other and think nothing of it. Men are aggressive, men are tough, men are ‘rage’, and if they’re not then there’s something wrong. We glorify male fury in such an intense way that it does huge damage to both us and themselves. Thankfully, we now better understand this ‘toxic-masculinity’, and I see people all over the gender spectrum actively engaging in ways to eradicate it. But since we are encouraging men to break down and let go of the societal and cultural barriers that force them to be ‘tough’, I believe that women have the right to be taking some of this newly spared anger into themselves.
Feeling such an intense and almost painful rage towards something I couldn’t understand initially terrified me. Did I have an undiagnosed brain tumour? Was I about to turn into one of those people who you just steer clear of because you never know how they’re going to react? I had no idea. On the first day, my thought process was completely muddled and confused. After my run, I brooded around the house in my dressing gown and socks, sourly watching ‘Friends’ for most of the afternoon to try and take my mind off things. I wasn’t used to anger, I hadn’t dealt with it before, and feeling something that prompted me to actually go outside and engage in high intensity physical activity surely wasn’t a good thing. After a long bath and some ice-cream cake (which had no calming effect), I decided to ride it out.
Waking up on Wednesday morning was an entirely different experience. I was still just as angry as the day before, but it felt really fucking good. It was like the fog had cleared and I was thinking with the most clarity that I’d had in a very, very long time. I embraced the anger, I relished in it. I went for a run and with each thumping step felt my body heave and pulse with the rage that just 24 hours ago I had been trying so desperately to push out. I sung and I laughed and I danced to Die Antwoord (I wish I could say something cooler like Violent Soho, but apparently raging Mia is a big fan of zef). I cursed myself for ever self-victimising and making myself feel any less than what I was. I went for a walk with a friend and openly expressed how I was feeling and what I was thinking. No concealment, no censorship, just complete, brutal honesty. We went for a swim and the water only made me feel better. The ocean; a menacing, violent, angry force itself, welcomed me into its swell of chaos with crashing waves and windy skies. I wasn’t apologising for anything, I wasn’t trying to justify, I just let myself be.
After eating dinner, watching TV, and allowing myself to partake in the age old activity of swearing at people on the news (a past time best suited to my dad and not something I’ll be doing again in future), I fell asleep. When I woke up this morning, I felt new. Something within me had changed in the last 48 hours, and although I know I still have more growing to do as a person, a weird break-through had been made. I was feeling more myself, and I was feeling empowered.
Now, over the last couple of years I’ve really come to hate that fucking word. Whenever I hear “empowered”, “empowerment” or “empowering”, I usually wince in fear of an ad for G-strings or an influencer talking about her new boob job. These words have all become commercial tools used to reel women in and make them buy and do things that in most cases are quite the opposite. It’s sad that feminism has lost the handle on a word that is so integral to it’s movement, but today is the first time in a long time I feel that I can use it without a price tag.
I know this is by no means a ground breaking realisation, but it is only now that I really understand just how important anger is to be empowered as a woman. Anger is really fucking empowering. For women, in order for us to grow as individuals and as a force united, we need to let ourselves feel that same, pure, unadulterated, visceral rage that we have forced men to indulge in for a millennium. Every once in a while, we must kick and scream and cry and yell and punch the metaphorical wall and let ourselves just fucking be. We must curse the earth that we walk on and howl at the sky above. We must let it pour out of us in waves and consume the space that we hold until every last droplet has dried up. And then, after we can breathe again, we come back.
I’m sure that many older women will read this and laugh, well aware of the power that this anger holds, remembering themselves experiencing the same epiphany that I am right now. Our fore-mothers have been telling us for ions: in books, in song, in film, in fight.
It is only now that I can hear.
Mia Evans Rorris, 2020
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