#maybe somebody really should want to save the world. sure it's horrible sometimes but there are so many people
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I've read that article about the romanticization of the Darkling and while I absolutely understand people who are pissed off/sad and I agree that it's shitty, I find LB's attitude towards Darkles stans very funny in a "girl what are you doing" sort of way because it's so petty like I've never heard of a bestselling author writing a portion of their fans into their books as a crazy cult before, it clearly hit a nerve
I'm new to the fandom but the feeling I get is she wrote something problematic ten years ago and became very embarrassed about it afterwards so she turned on the fans that liked it as a way to absolve herself. Especially since fandoms in general have become a lot more focused on discussion of what constitutes healthy/acceptable relationships to write about. And in a way I get it I had a huge Twilight phase in high school and afterwards I was super embarassed about it because of how problematic and cringe it was. But now with distance and more maturity I'm able to both still see why it was problematic and also why I was drawn to it (mostly the very unhinged representation of female desire) and like...it's really not the end of the world and no it never made me believe that breaking into somebody's room at night to watch them sleep was actually ok in real life lmao. This feels so obvious to me but apparently it needs to be said.
(More under the break this is turning into an essay, I've been thinking of this a lot recently)
And of course it's good to have these discussions about how historically romance tropes have echoed social dynamics of men's shitty behavior being romanticized and excused. But these days they often are so simplistic and focused on chasing clout that they become this weird new puritanism and moral panic about oh now women are reading novels it's going to make them hysterical or something
So you have these weird assumptions that you can't like a character and also be critical of their actions, or enjoy certain parts of a character and not others, or wish they were written differently and like them more for their potential (which I'm sure stings a bit for an author lol) - it assumes that if you like a character it means you would approve of their actions in real life, or that people just stupidly reproduce whatever they see on TV. That tendency to treat fictional characters like real people is the thing that actually worries me, to be honest, because it indicates a lack of distance and critical capacities regarding how stories are used and received. But people - fans and authors - are so scared of being called out as problematic and harassed for it that they're going to shy away from any nuance.
And yeah I think that it's good that standards of what constitutes an ideal relationship are evolving and becoming more feminist and communicative and all that and we definitely need more of that. But not all fiction has to be aspirational! Sometimes you just want to read about fucked up shit, because it's cathartic or fascinating, even healing at times because with fiction you are absolutely in control and can choose when to close the book. Toxic relationships in fiction can have an appeal specifically because they go to extremes of feeling that we don't want to go to in reality, in exactly the same way as horror movies or very violent action movies - which I don't see a lot of people besides fundamentalist Christians argue that they turn you into violent psychopaths (and that feels very obviously sexist). And for women, who are often taught growing up that love is the purpose of life, the "saving someone with your ability to love" can be a power fantasy in the same way that being a buff superhero who saves the day with their capacity for incredible violence can be a power fantasy for men. Still doesn't mean those women are going to fall in love with actual murderers or that those men are going to start beating up people at night. And love is scary, and weird, and weirdly close to horror at times, with all the potential for loss of self and being vulnerable and overwhelming feelings and potential for being horribly hurt and it should be possible for stories to explore that without anybody screaming about how this is going to Corrupt the Youth or something
And I mean I get it LB wanted to write a cautionary tale for teenagers, but it just did not work for reasons a lot of people have already written about - the fact that the Darkling is the leader of an oppressed minority and is the only one with a real political agenda to end that oppression in the first trilogy, the fact that he helps Alina come into her own power while her endgame LI is someone she keeps herself small for, that she's shamed for wanting power after growing up without any, a generally very wonky conception of privilege, and a lot of other stuff with yucky regressive implications to the point where stanning the villain actually feels liberating and empowering which is a surefire sign that the narrative is broken (unless it's a villain focused story lmao). But of course that Fanside article makes almost no mention of the political dynamics, it's all about interpersonal stuff which is an annoying trend in YA, there are those massive events happening in the background but it's made all about the feelings of the hero(ine) ; war as a self-development quest (which is kind of gross). Helnik is kind of an example of this too - I like them, I think they're fun ! But Matthias spends a big part of the story wanting to brutally murder Nina and her kind, and he mostly changes his mind because he finds her hot. Like you don't feel there is some sort of big revelation that his entire moral system and political framework is completely rotten ; it's all better because of feelings now.
As a teenager that kind of sanctimonious bullshit would have annoyed the hell out of me ; I read those books in my early twenties and I found the ending so stupid I wouldn't have trusted any message or life lessons coming from them. And I liked reading/watching dark stuff as a teenager, as a way to deal with the very intense inner turmoil I was dealing with - and I turned out fine ! Meanwhile I've seen several times women in very shitty relationships being obsessed with positive energies and stories ; they were so terrified of their life not being perfectly wholesome they ended up being delusional about their own situations.
Like personally I think the Darkling is a compelling, interesting, alluring character and also a manipulative, murderous piece of shit and that Alina should get to punish him (like in a sexy way) - but he's also the end result of centuries of war, oppression and trauma and reducing that to "toxic wounded boy" feels kind of offensive ngl ESPECIALLY since the books don't offer any kind of systemic analysis or response to oppression beyond "the bad guy should die" and "now the king/queen is a good guy our problems are solved!!!!"
In Lives of the Saints, we see how Yuri is abused extremely badly and almost killed by his father, and so when his father dies when the Fold swallows Novokribirsk, he thinks the Starless Saint has saved him. Later in KoS/RoW he's turned into this fanatic who explains away all the Darkling's crimes. The other followers talk about how the Starless Saint will bring equality for all men. Then the Darkling comes back and actually thinks his followers are pathetic, which feels again like a very pointed message to his IRL stans. Which is absolutely hilarious to me. Like oh no, if he was real he would not like you and think you're pathetic ! Yeah ...but he's not. Real. Damn right he would not like the fics where Alina puts him on a leash. I'm still going to read them. What is he going to do about it, jump out of the page ? Jfjfjjdhfgfjfj
Anyway I think the intended message is "assholes will use noble political causes for their own gain and to manipulate people" and "being abused/oppressed is not an excuse to behave badly." Which. Sure. But that's kind of like...a tired take, honestly ? A big number of villains nowadays are like this ; either they've been bullied as kids, or they're part of an oppressed group, or they have "good ideals but too extreme". This is not surprising because a lot of mainstream heroic narratives present clinging to the status quo as Good and change as chaotic and dangerous. And like sure in real life people often do bad shit because they're wounded and in danger. But if you want to do a story like that, you have to do it with nuance, talk about cycles of violence, about how society creates vulnerable people to be exploited, about how privilege gives you more choices and the luxury of morals, etc. The Grishaverse does not have this level of nuance (maybe in SoC a little bit but definitely not in TGT). So it kind of comes off as "trauma makes you evil" and "egalitarianism is dangerous" and "if you're abused/oppressed you're not allowed to fight back". And ignores the fact that historically, evil generally comes from unchecked privilege.
I guess my point is that there are many things I like about LB's writing, she knows how to create these really exciting character dynamics, and the world she has created is fascinating. But these stories are not a great starting point for imparting moral lessons. And her best characters tend to be, at least in canon, the morally grey ones. I hope one day she'll be at peace with the fact that she wrote the Darkling the way she did and leave his fans alone but in the meantime I'm just not going to take this whole thing seriously I'm sorry
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Time Travel
Requested on Quotev
Pairing: Kevin x Tennyson!reader
Genre: Angst, Fluff
Characters: Kevin, Y/N, Ben, Gwen
Words: 2367
A/N: Y/N is Bens sister.
Description: When Y/N is kidnapped by a time traveller for revenge, its up to Kevin, Ben and Gwen to save her.
Being the sister of Ben Tennyson wasn’t the easiest thing in the world. You're always getting used as leverage or kidnapped by his enemies and sadly, you were becoming to get used to it. However, things became more complicated when you struck up a relationship with Kevin. Both of them would get into fights together about who would be the one to save you. These fights had become more and more frequent over the past few weeks and you had had enough.
“I’VE HAD IT! You both are acting like children! Fighting over who gets to save me! Has it ever occurred to you that you wouldn’t have to if you bothered to teach me self-defense, eh?” You stood up from the sofa and glared at the both of them before storming towards the front door.
“Where are you going?!” Both Kevin and Ben stood up and began to walk towards you. You glared at the both of them . “Somewhere where the both of you aren’t!” You slammed the door behind you and began walking towards your car. You had no idea where you were going to drive to but you needed to clear your head. Sliding into the drivers seat and turning the ignition, you placed your foot on the accelerator and gently eased onto the road.
You slid into the parking lot of Mr. Smoothie and turned off the ignition. You rested your head against the steering wheel and let out an agitated scream. “Why can’t they just realise that both of them can work together?! They don’t always have to fight each other!” You stayed in your car for a few more minutes before getting out and walking towards the entrance of Mr. Smoothie.
A bright blue light engulfed the parking lot. Confused, you turned around and scoped out your surroundings whilst signalling your location on your plumber’s badge. Footsteps sounded behind you and you whizzed around, hands up in front of you for self-defense. A loud laugh rumbled throughout the air as a man, a little taller than you, walked out of the shadows.
“Really, Y/N? You think doing that is going to save you?” The man towered over you in an attempt of intimidation. You stared up at him, unfazed. “No, but I know that my brother, the wielder of the Omnitrix, his cousin, an anodite and my boyfriend, an osmosian, will travel to the ends of the earth to find me and kick your ass.”
The man let out a growl before grabbing your shirt in his fists and lifting you up to his eye level. “That osmosian is the reason I’m here. A long time ago, he took something….someone dear to me. I’m going to do the same to him.” A loud cackle invaded your ears as the blue light surrounded you once more, engulfing you and whisking you away.
Ben and Kevin were still bickering with each other after you left. They were stood toe to toe with each other, both of their nostrils flaring with frustration. “She’s my sister, Kevin! Of course I’m going to want to save her!” “What about me?! I’m her boyfriend! She relies on me to keep her safe!” Ben opened his mouth to answer but was interrupted by his omnitrix flashing. He rolled his eyes and twisted his omnitrix, a green map showing up. “It’s Y/Ns coordinates. Why would she be sending us this?” Ben and Kevin both looked at each other with fear in their eyes. “Tennyson, get in the car now!”
Kevin sped around the streets of Bellwood until he reached your coordinates. He got out of the car immediately and looked around, Ben following his lead. “Y/N!” In the distance, he seen you in the man’s clutches being engulfed into the blue light. Kevin ran as fast as he could, Ben following behind, but he was too late. You disappeared right before his eyes and he was too slow to save you.
He sunk to his knees and punched the concrete beneath him, over and over. “Kevin, stop!” He kept going, anger and frustration striving his punches. Ben pulled him up and slapped him across the face. “Snap out of it, Kevin! You’re not going to be able to help her if your hurt!” Kevin closed his eyes and nodded in understanding.
“Now, we need to figure out who that man was. He seemed to have some sort of travelling powers.” Kevin’s eyes widened in realisation as Ben kept talking about the plan to get you back. “Tennyson, shutup. I know who’s took her.” Ben tapped his foot against the floor as he waited for an explanation. “It was a long time ago, back before I met you guys. I was crazy with power. Somebody set a bounty on this guy so I went after him.”
Ben nodded, signalling Kevin to keep talking. “I went to his house and knocked on the door. As soon as that door opened, I absorbed silver and punched whoever was in front of me. I looked down and saw that I had killed his wife. She was dead instantly.” A small tear ran down his face as he remembered how horrible he used to be. “His name is Larry. He’s a tech genius and he’s been after me for years, but I’ve always been one step ahead of him. Larry built time travel tech so he could find me in any time, anywhere. He’s finally caught up with me.”
Kevin held his head down in shame as Ben walked towards him and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “You’re not that guy anymore Kevin. You’ve changed. We will find a way to get Y/N back from him, I promise.” Kevin nodded his head in appreciation. “I think that the first port of call should be Gwen. She’s got that big spellbook so maybe There’s one about time travelling.” Ben agreed and they both walked back towards Kevins car.
You groaned as you regained consciousness, a pounding headache attacking you. You tried to hold your head but found that your hands were tied tight to the arms of your chair, the same with your feet. Taking a deep breath to calm your quickening heartbeat, you looked around the room to try and find something that would help you get free.
You seen a large nail sticking out of a pillar across the room and smiled. You began to scrape your chair towards it, relief filling your body, when the door in front of you swung open causing you to scream. “Do you really think you’d be able to escape me, Y/N? We’re not even in the same year anymore. There isn’t anywhere that I wouldn’t find you.” Larry walked behind you and pulled the chair back to its original position.
“What do you mean we’re not in the same year?! How is that possible?!” Panic began to fill your body as his words sunk into you. Your chest began to heave as your breathing became heavy. Larry stepped in front of you, kneeling down to your height. “I’ve developed technology that helps me travel through time. I’ve been trying to catch up to Kevin for years but I’ve never been able to make him suffer, until now. You’re the most important thing in his life, Y/N, and I’m going to take you away from him, just like he did to me.”
Confusion washed over your features. “What do you mean? Who did he take from you?” Larry stood up and took a deep breath. “He came to my house looking for me, and found my wife. He killed her and left her body for me to find. I held her in my arms and vowed to get revenge on the person that murdered her; and that is exactly what I am going to do.”
“No! He’s not like that anymore! He’s changed! He’s a good man! Please don’t do this!” Tears began flowing down your cheeks as he came towards you with a tray of torture tools. A smirk washed over his face as he took a small knife from the tray and lunged towards you.
Ben, Gwen and Kevin had gathered together all of the ingredients from the spell. “Surely with all this time travelling he’s been doing over the years, there’s got to be consequences. He can’t just travel through different years and not expect anything to happen. Time has got to catch up with him sometime, right?” Kevin and Gwen rolled their eyes as Ben rambled on.
“Hey, Gwen. Thank you for doing this. I know it’s going to take a lot out of you and I just want you to know how much I appreciate this. Y/Ns the most important person, and knowing that somebody has her because of me….it breaks me apart inside.” Gwen looked up at him and smiled. “You don’t need to thank me, Kevin. We all love Y/N and we’d do anything for her. We will get her back.”
Kevin leaned down and hugged Gwen. “Now, guys, how in the hell are we supposed to know what year she’s in? I don’t think there’s any sort of map that tells you something like that.” Gwen carried on mixing the ingredients together whilst looking up at Ben. “There isn’t a map, but there is a spell. A very easy one, actually. All I need is something of hers.”
Kevin reached into his pocket and held out your plumbers badge that had fell out of your hands. “Will this work?” Gwen nodded and took the badge, pouring the ingredients over it whilst chanting out the spell. Her eyes began to sparkle pink with her anodite power as the spell progressed. Ben and Kevin stood back against the wall as the room was overcome with power.
In a matter of seconds, Gwen was gone and the room was empty apart from the two boys. “Alright, I think it worked. Now, where would Larry be keeping Y/N?” “His house. It’s the perfect place for him to get his revenge. Me going back to the scene of the crime to make me suffer, it’s got to be there.” Ben headed towards the door. “Then what are you waiting for? Let’s go.”
Both of the boys ran as fast as they could towards Larry’s house with Kevin leading the way. He rounded the last corner and stood in front of a stone house, dark and forgotten. Ben eventually caught up with Kevin and rested his hands on his knees, catching his breath. “Are you sure they’re in there? It looks abandoned.” A scream erupted from the house, which they both identified as yours. Kevin was the first to head towards the house, opening the door with one kick and running towards your screams. Ben followed quickly behind, his omnitrix ready for battle.
Your screams became louder as the boys headed deeper into the house. “Hold on, baby, I’m coming.” They stopped when they came to a wooden door underneath the staircase. Kevin and Ben looked at each other before shoulder barging the door open.
Your eyes widened as the door was busted open. However, you let out a breath of relief when you seen Kevin and Ben standing in front of you. Kevin began to move forwards toward you but was stopped in his tracks by Larry holding a small blade to your throat. “Stop right there, Kevin. If you take one more step, well, I suppose you know what will happen next.”
You and Kevin both locked eyes and you could see the worry consuming him. You nodded slightly, signalling you were Ok. “I’m alright, Kevin. Don’t worry.” You winced as the blade was pressed harder against your throat. Kevin tensed up as he seen you in pain. “How does it feel Kevin? Knowing that the person you love is going to die, but there is nothing you can do about it.”Kevin took a step forward. “I wouldn’t know because that’s never going to happen.”
At that moment, Ben lunged at Larry as Kevin ran towards him. The knife was knocked out of Larry’s hands as he hit the floor, leaving him defenceless against the wrath of Kevin and Ben. Larry crawled back until he hit the wall. “Please, don’t hurt me. I don’t want to be in anymore pain. I just wanted you to know what I felt when you took away the woman I love.”
Kevin knelt down in front of Larry, a slight smile on his face. “I’m not going to hurt you, Larry. That’s not who I am anymore. But I am going to leave you with the fact that you could have caused me that pain and you failed.”
Kevin stood up and ran towards you withBen following close behind. He knelt down in front of you and untied your legs whilst Ben untied your arms. You fell into Kevin’s awaiting arms, a small groan of pain escaping your lips. “I’m so sorry this happened to you, Y/N.” You shook your head and gave a small smile. “You don’t have to apologise, Kev. You weren’t to know that he was going to take me.” Kevin brushed a few strands of hair away from your face and brushed his thumb across your cheek.
You could see that there was still worry and shame evident in his eyes, so you leaned up and placed a sweet and gentle kiss on his lips. “You’re not that guy anymore, Kevin. You’ve changed for the better and I am not going to blame you for anything that happened back then because it wasn’t the true you.”
Kevin gave you a beaming smile and kissed you, this time deeper and more passionate. “Erm, guys. Don’t you think we should get home before you start doing any of that?” Both you and Kevin laughed before he lifted you in his arms and carried you out of the door.
“I’m glad you guys were finally able to work together to save me.” Ben and Kevin both looked at each other with small smirks. “Yeah, don’t be expecting it every time, sis. One of us is always going to be more protective of you.”
#kevin levin imagine#kevin levin fanfiction#kevin levin x reader#kevin x reader#kevin levin#ben 10#ben 10 ultimate alien#ben 10 alien force#ben 10 universe#ben 10 fanfiction#ben 10 imagine#ben tennyson#gwen tennyson
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I feel like there is a need to write down why so many people hate Sylvanas so much, me included. Maybe you can’t stand her too OR you love her and you don’t understand why the hell people can hate such an amazing character. Here is why. And I will try to write this down logically as possible. No “hur dur I hate her because she is a bitch!”. No, I will put down all things so you can understand. And one sad disclaimer... it’s not the character’s fault.
WHY WE STARTED TO LOVE HER
Sylvanas showed up in Warcraft III as a Ranger General of Quel’thalas. She was protecting her country for quite some time when Arthas attacked Eversong Woods in order to get to Sunwell and resurrect Kel’Thuzad as a lich. Sylvanas paid with her life and her soul to protect her people and her country. She was made banshee and was forced to do things against her will and serve the Scourge she hated. But she was still plotting her revenge, didn’t give up until the moment came and she took the chance. She reclaimed her body back and almost killed Arthas, and took over Lordaeron City. Then she took over the undead slowly freeing from the Lich King’s grasp and gave them a place where to stay, becoming their Queen. And since then, she was planning to kill the Lich King for good.
That’s why we loved her (I never did, I will explain that later why). She really kicked his ass. She slapped the Scourge in the face. She never gave up and was doing everything to achieve her goals, her revenge. There are not so many such strong female characters, so resolute. She was not good but also not evil, she was shady, she was not the boring good guy. So why the hell people hate her? She is perfect! Let’s go to what happened during and after WotLK... Because here it starts.
WRATH OF THE LICH KING
As I said, many people adore Sylvanas since Warcraft III. But they don’t understand the character is not the same. She was never good, she was an anti-hero, that’s the fact (the Ebon Blade are also anti-heroes and they are not bad, they just do necessary things to keep the Scourge in check). She was doing everything to take revenge on Arthas. And everything means that she had no problems walking over corpses of her allies. Causalities because of my fault? Pfft! No matter as long as the piece of trash sitting on the Frozen Throne will get what he deserves!
This was pretty much visible after Wrathgate when Varimathras and Putress tried to take over Undercity and Alliance and the Horde saw what she is doing inside the city. Still fine, it was in character, she was doing EVERYTHING to take revenge on Arthas. Everything. That’s why she existed, why she kept going. Even back then, I didn’t hate her. She was still a very well-written character. This is what a character in her position would do.
But once everything was done, the Lich King was taken care of, she realized there is no point in her existence. She saw the Lich King was not destroyed. They only replaced him. So she threw herself from the Icecrown Citadel and fell on saronite spikes, the only thing that could definitely kill her.
And she ended up in a dark place. And the pain she felt was not like anything she felt before. It was the most horrible, the most inconsolable place. But val’kyras came down to her and sacrificed for her to get her back. Now we know what happened as we progress in the Shadowlands but... let’s say this was the beginning of the end for a good character Sylvanas once was. This was a start of cliché, inconsistency, and a great example that good characters should be allowed to go and leave so they can be remembered as a good characters.
WHAT CHANGED
Look, I came to WoW really late. I was playing on WotLK free servers as I could not afford to pay for official servers. But I knew the story in WotLK and I was still pretty ok with Sylvanas. I don’t remember hating her this much. She was well written.
It was Cataclysm Firelands patch when I finally could come to official servers. And Sylvanas was already doing pretty shady and disgusting stuff. I played Forsaken starting quest line so I know. Raising undead like the Lich King did? No problem for her. She even said she is like Arthas but she is working for the Horde (she never cared for them anyway, it was just more beneficial for her). What happened in Gilneas was not alright. Who gases the whole zone and making it inhabitable? Alright, let’s say Horde was expanding and Gilneas was next to Lordaeron. Alright. But back then, I finally dove deep into lore and I’ve noticed many people are really devoted to Sylvanas. It seemed almost like a cult. And every time I asked people, why they love this psyhopathic banshee, they were like: “She is my Queen! I love her, I would die for her! She is cool, she is taking care of us, she has a good heart!”
Something was amiss here... I couldn’t understand this. I couldn’t see what they saw. I saw a shady, ruthless and careless psychopath who is using her loyal subjects to save herself from something. And many people believed it even in BfA. Me and my friend had to show them excerpts from short stories where she say that “once they were arrows in her quiver, now they are bulwark against the darkness”. They couldn’t believe they loved Queen would not love them back!
But hey, still, I wanted to understand why people love her. I would understand if it would be still Warcraft III or WotLK, that’s fine. But Cata? Legion? BfA? Shadowlands?
So I started reading all books, short stories where she was. Articles about her. I tried to catch the glimpse of why people loved her: the majority told me she is still good and has a good heart and she is an amazing person. But I didn’t see it. Maybe I am stupid and I don’t understand, I am missing something... So I kept studying, trying to see anything good in her, I was failing. I saw a character falling more down into a pit full of anger and hate. Her loyalists said she was an amazing creature, loving, caring.
And the more I was told by people that she is caring and she has a good heart, the more I was getting disgusted and angry because the more I was reading about her and the more her loyalists told me, the more I saw what Sylvanas is: inconsistent character.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH SYLVANAS
In one book she was written like this. In another book, she was written like that. In one quest it was like this, then it was like that. In one expansion she behaved this way, in the next expansion, it was that way. She was doing more and more twisted things and her loyalists kept telling me she has a good heart. My frustration was growing to the point I could not stand her. It felt like I’ve met the person I knew was torturing her friends but when I met them, they told me with bruises on their faces and definitely mentally abused that she is amazing and it’s not her fault, she is just misunderstood and I should love her too.
When she killed Liam Greymane, loyalists were like: “I have no clue why Genn hates her so much! That stupid dog should die!” Yeah right, somebody kills your son and destroys your home, you have no reason to be angry, it’s ok.
She burns down Teldrassil and they said: “Why Tyrande wants to kill her? I hope Sylvanas kills her first!” Sure, somebody burns down a city with thousands of innocent people, it’s fine, let them go, no hard feelings. And sometimes these people are able to justify her actions with: “But this is fantasy! There is different morale than in real world!” Please, guys, never ever write a story. Never touch it. You will end up like Steve Danuser making characters to behave like idiots and without emotions. Stay away. Please. Do world the favor.
I was trying really hard. Trying to figure out what kind of character she is. Find a pattern. Because you can write a chaotic character and still find a pattern and it can be still a consistent character. But Sylvanas? I felt more and more that not even Blizzard knows what to do with her, how to write her... she felt more and more inconsistent and out of place with every expansion. And you know what? That happens to characters which are kept in the story longer than they should. If character losts a meaning of their existence, there are only two options: you either let them go or you have to find them a new meaning. And in case of Sylvanas, the second option led to a narrative disaster.
We were told by Blizzard: “Don’t worry! Everything falls in place! It makes sense what she does!” But after the Sanctum of Domination finale? It was a big fat lie...
Before I come to the cinematic, let me tell you what made me hate her beyond every possible measure: her fandom.
HITLER HAD A GOOD HEART!
In Legion, she was doing shady stuff. But in BfA? She became a Hitler. She burned down Teldrassil because... IDK she snapped and wanted to show one elven archer that you can kill hope? And what kind of catapults she had has reach 20 km? What kind of catapults can burn down incredibly big tree SOAKED in water with thick bark. Was that azerite or... no, I am not gonna get angry. And I won’t even start with the b*shit Blizzard pulled: “Look, just because Sylvanas is right in front of Teldrassil doesn’t mean it was her who burned it down!” They had to lie to us to look that they can create a better story than what it actually is.
She destroyed Undercity so Forsaken lost their home. Is this how you take care of your subjects if you are loving and caring? I think not.
And with her actions, millions of souls from the whole cosmos are going right into the Maw for eternal suffering. And why? Because she was scared. Because instead of thinking about herself and trying to change, she rather schemed with the god of death... who was responsible for her misery. And even teamed with Kel’Thuzad, who was reason of her fate in the first place! And yet, after all this, after mass genocide, destroying souls, millions, maybe billions of souls are suffering because of her... and you can still tell me there is still good in her and she deserves redemption arch... And with love say: “She got us into this, she will get us out of this <3 ^_^” So somebody is making everybody suffer and some people are like “Ooooh it’s fine, I support her! I bet she will realize what she is doing and she will save us!” Would you say the same about Hitler? That he was misunderstood, he was trying to fix something that’s why he murdered millions of people? I am just asking what kind of people her loyalists are in real life.
I have a question... would you still love her if she was a man? Or decomposing undead? Or if she wouldn’t be sexy elf at all? If she would be ugly? I think we all know the answer (disclaimer, beautiful people are not always kind and nice, what a surprise). I bet she would be already killed or hated by majority of the community at least two expansions back. Why Garrosh had to stand trial for war crimes and Sylvanas doesn’t? To be honest, I never liked Garrosh, I hated him, but I never hated him as much I hate Sylvanas. He was at least consistent to his very last moment. But I am fed up by the fact that everybody keeps excusing what she does just because she is a sexy elf. This is not character I can respect. How can you say about such character that she is cool when you know she is commiting genocide? Let’s replace her with ugly elf and let’s see how many of you will still love her.
If you love her because she is a crazy homicidal maniac and you want her to do evil stuff, go ahead, nothing wrong with you, it’s fine. You love her because you think that she has a good heart and she is sending millions of souls into hell because she wants to help us? Take your pills and think twice before going on date with a manipulative person who will use you, beat you but will tell you they love you so much while cheating on you. Thanks.
If you are lying to yourself that she is good and has a good heart because you are afraid you wouldn’t like her anymore as a bad guy, then you love illusion you made around her, not the character itself. And you should seriously think if you really love the character if you need to change it that much in your mind to keep loving her.
GRAND FINALE
“If they are gonna give her redemption arch, I am gonna puke.” Many people told me, they would not. They are not gonna do it. She is beyond redemption, she is antagonist, period. Guess what, they did. The cheapest way possible.
Blizzard kept telling us everything will make sense in the end, why she did all these things. But it did not. And it only confirmed my greatest fear: Sylvanas is an inconsistent character since Cataclysm.
Sylvanas was afraid to go to the Maw. So she got an amazing idea. Let’s free the god of death, the malevolent creature trapped there because for sure he is suffering just like me, and injustice was done to him. He is the reason of my suffering because he made Helm of Domination and Frostmourne, that’s why I was killed and I am like this? I am sure he is a good guy, in the end, let’s remake reality so there is no life and death! That guy must be pretty ok. Oh wait his job is to torture souls? No, I don’t believe he is bad.
So when Jailer gets all he wanted, ofc he say that he will remake all reality and everybody will serve. And Sylvanas realizes: “Oh my, he is just like the Lich King! I didn’t want this! I will never serve!” Even she served him for the past few expansions. And suddenly she sees he is a bad guy. Suddenly.
And then, Jailer gives her half of her soul back... So... this is the explanation? She was doing all this because she was not whole? Is this an excuse for genocide? Now we will all feel sorry for her? Tell her it’s ok, you were not yourself?
I am saying this all the years and I will say it again: the Ebon Blade are order full of those with a fate like Sylvanas. The whole order. Multiple characters suffered under the Lich King like her, lost themselves, were made to kill their friends, their families. And they, too, took revenge on him. But instead of going crazy and trying to hurt everybody because they were hurt, they tried to help and protect people. Maybe they are missing part of their souls too. But are they running around, burning innocents, committing genocide? No. So please, the is no excuse, she was aware of what she was doing. I am not buying this and for sure this won’t make me feel sorry for her. It was her choice. You can be depressed and hurt into the very core and still decide not to be homicidal maniac.
Another annoying thing is, Blizzard kept telling us she is a master strategist and she is highly inteligent. Would a highly inteligent person try to help somebody responsible for her suffering? Being ok with them? There was not shown how come she is ok with the Jailer! Look I thought she is smart but after the cinematic, she does not look like that.
What was her plan anyway? Did she believe such creature won’t betray her, he won’t dump her? I was hoping he will dump her and kill her. That would be the only ending fitting for the character. I didn’t want another Kerrigan, I didn’t want redemption arch for her... I was hoping I will finally like her as a villain. Now I can’t... there is no way I will like her ever again because Blizzard probably can’t do just evil characters. There always must be something behind, some explanation why they are like this. “I was good this whole time!” And I am tired of this... Suddenly I like Garrosh because he was an asshole but he was consistent. He had a good ending. He “died” like a boss.
THEY SHOULD HAVE LET HER DIE
And I mean it. If they would let her go after WotLK, it would be a good ending for her. Tragic end for the tragic character. She fulfilled her purpose and she would be remembered as a good consistent character. But she is making a lot of money, many people love her (not anymore, even people who liked her hate her now and her fanbase is getting smaller) so Blizzard decided they have to milk her as much as possible.
I think everything good should come to an end. “You would either die as a hero or live long enough to become a villain.” In this case “You would either die as a good character or live long enough to become inconsistent and annoying character.” And it happened.
Remember how people were angry how Thrall is getting a lot of attention in Cata? Haha, good old times. How about Sylvanas in 3 expansion cinematics (and some side cinematics like Reckoning, etc) and 2 expansions fully focusing on her (and some other expansions where she is a lot too). How about the 15th figure in a row. And 4th Blizzcon art. And I can keep going.
Metzen had favorite characters... but they were never overused as much as Sylvanas. Vol’jin was warchief for 1 expansion where he did nothing and then he died so she could take lead in story. So many characters are forgotten, pushed down so she can be on the spotlight. And I am sick of it. This is not single player, this is MMORPG. The world feels ridiculously small thanks to this, we have more characters than Sylvanas + 5 characters they keep using and recycling all the time.
And keep using Sylvanas and putting her into the spotlight all the time did not help. You can start hating character you liked before just because you have enough of them and you want to see other characters. This world has a big potential. So many characters are unused because of Sylvanas. Because the lead narrative designer loves her so much that he had to make her the main character of WoW and doesn’t care there is a whole world to take care of. And he does the worst job possible. Because he tried to make her complicated and complex and in the end he was just trying to make it look like that but it didn’t work out. It was just inconsistent. It didn’t fall in place.
Her plot armor is so laughable and it’s the most annoying thing about Sylvanas. How characters around her are so stupid and dumb so they can let her do such stuff (hello Horde in BfA). The whole universe and Blizzard especially is protecting Sylvanas of any harm. How can you like such character when it behaves like Mary Sue? I didn’t want to see cinematic how she comes and beat up really powerful guy without any issues. You know how interesting would be if Four Horsemen managed to arrive earlier and they wouldn’t know if to fight the Lich King or Sylvanas? No, Blizzard wanted to show lady Sylvanas Plotarmor.
And the worst thing is, I feel like Shadowlands are my last expansion in WoW. This is where the story ends for me. And I know that many characters won’t get resolution, many story arcs will never close because they’ve put too much effort to work on Sylvanas and ignore other characters. So many characters could have met. Lore in Shadowlands could have been expanded about The Scourge, death knights, rune magic, etc... it did not.
So no, Sylvanas is not one of the best characters created. If this is the best WoW can muster then there is nothing to be proud of. We would have good or better characters if Blizzard tried to work with more characters and give them space and a chance to develop. But we will never have them because Sylvanas took the spotlight.
Sylvanas for me is the character who will be put on guidelines on how to not use a character. This character will be perfect for DO NOT character development guidelines. And the whole story of WoW at least in BfA and Shadowlands is a great example of how to destroy the world with an amazing setting and characters.
I hope I’ve made this clear why many people hate her. Because it’s much more complex problem. This character was misused, written horribly, overused, was given a poor and cheap story arch, made look stupid and it no longer makes sense. And on top of that, many characters will never get a resolution, many storylines won’t be finished because all story was focused on her and not on the world. World which was supposed to be “everybody’s story” was made story about Sylvanas. Just because she sells.
Good job Danuser, I hope you are happy.
Tl;Dr: Sylvanas is inconsistent since Cataclysm because Blizzard tried to make her complex character artificially and failed horribly. She should have died after WotLK and never made Warchief. They should have let her go so we can remember her as a good consistent character
P.S.: I am not native speaker, sorry for grammar errors.
#Sylvanas Windrunner#World of Warcraft#wowlore#wotlk#wrath of the lich king#shadowlands#battle for azeroth#Legion#the Jailer#lich king#lore
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could you do the prompt "you look awful" with alastair and lucie? (platonically ofc)
Writing fanfiction instead of doing my homework checkkk ✌️
Characters: Lucie and Alastair (Platonic)
Prompt: “You Look Awful”
Lucie didn’t remember the last time she had cried. Maybe it was because she submerged herself into her pride and joy, “The Beautiful Cordelia”, whenever she was sad. And she could do whatever she wanted when she wrote. Nothing was out of reach. She could make the villains lose and the hero win every, single time. She took comfort in knowing she could do the opposite, should she wish to. In her stories, nothing happened without her consent.
But in real life? The rash reality was that she couldn’t fix anything with a swish of her quill. She couldn’t erase somebody’s death and she most certainly couldn’t bring anyone back to life. Lucie wiped away tears with the back of her hand.
Whatever was the point in having the power of resurrection, the power to command the dead, when she couldn’t bring back to life a measly spider, let alone the life she truly longed for?
Perhaps it was for the better, Lucie thought. If she had the power to bring people back to life, what would stop her from bringing back lives lost tragically? Barbara, Oliver, all of their lives mattered as well…
Or maybe it was what she deserved. For having the audacity to dream that for once in her life, she would be the hero. She wouldn’t be James’ little sister. The second Herondale child. The one without inherited powers.
She shouldn’t be jealous of James; his life was beyond difficult. But Lucie still felt that the only people who marked her significance were her family. And even then, she didn’t feel important. She felt like a side character to a main character’s story. Only interesting enough when they are in the shadow of the character that really matters.
She couldn’t escape her problems this time. Not through writing, at least. Her frustration was a harsh wave pulling her mind farther and farther away so that she couldn’t muster up the ability to write but a sentence. Tears started flowing vigorously. What was she without writing? How could The Angel be so cruel as to take that away too?
“You look awful,” she heard someone say.
Lucie looked up at Alastair, who was staring at her, but not unkindly. He sat down next to Lucie on the floor.
Lucie quickly turned away, ferociously wiping a tear away. “It’s nothing. You don’t have to stay here, Alastair. You probably have better things to do.”
“My sister’s soon-to-be parabatai is on the floor of a hallway, all alone, crying over something that is clearly not nothing; I’m not leaving.”
Lucie turned back to look at him in confused wonder. She’d never thought Alastair would care whether she was sad or not. Of course, she knew he was protective over Cordelia, but never did it cross her mind that Alastair would care enough about her to stay and see what was troubling her.
“Are you alright, Lucie?”
James would have demanded who had made her sad and then proceed to hunt that person down with his band of Merry Thieves, leaving Lucie alone in the process. Could that be why Lucie didn’t cry much? Because it was never about her and always about who made her sad?
“Lucie?”
Lucie shook her head as a means of clearing it. “Yes, it’s okay.”
“You don’t have to talk about it, but it’s alright to be sad.”
Lucie didn’t really know what to say. That was also something she’d never been told. Why is it that being sad was wrong? Every now and then, was it alright to feel sad?
“My mother taught me that phrase.” Alastair said, looking at the wall in front of them. “I sometimes have difficulties accepting the fact that sadness isn’t always negative and that there is not always a reason behind it. Sadness is the same as happiness, except that it has the potential to drown you if you feel too much of it.”
“I like the sound of that. Even though it’s a bit morbid. It—it is like a good kind of morbid.”
“A good kind of morbid.” Alastair said, half to himself, with a smile. “We should coin that.”
“Oh, yes. I am sure we can make a club and get many people to join.” Lucie said.
Alastair continued smiling. Lucie didn’t see Alastair smiling much, but she thought it was nice to look at. It was clearly not practiced; his smile was crooked and strange, suggesting that the facial expression is rare enough for him that it’s a bit awkward, but there was something about the smile of someone who doesn’t smile much that makes it charming.
Alastair Carstairs was interesting. Lucie had always thought so. He felt much older and was always so mature. Not like Charles was; Charles acted the way he did perhaps to spite them, or because they were his practice subjects for when he was to be Consul. Alastair was mature because it almost seemed like he was forced to. Alastair didn’t seem to enjoy being mature, it was like it was an unwanted gift that was thrust upon him and he was forced to keep it.
Lucie shook her head once more. She was tired of secrets and though Grace wasn’t as horrible as Lucie thought she was, she didn’t keep good company. Lucie felt useless; she wanted to help with something.
“Alastair, do you want me to talk to Thomas?” Lucie asked.
“What?” Alastair said, paling.
“I’ve been friends with Thomas for longer than anyone, save Christopher; he’ll listen to me. I’ve been thinking, and it seems a bit foolish to be angry at you. Yes, you did something horrible, but you were young. I know Uncle Gideon and Aunt Sophie as well, and they’re not ones to hold a grudge over something like that, especially if you apologize.”
Alastair just stared ahead before he said, “don’t worry about me right now, Lucie. This is about whether you are alright or not.”
Lucie looked at him sadly. “I am alright. And I would rather talk about you. Alastair, you’re like one of my tragic book characters.”
“What?”
“It’s better if you don’t ask questions.”
Alastair shrugged.
“The point is,” Lucie continued. “You seem like you’re afraid to be happy.”
Alastair made a noise in the back of his throat.
Though James always liked to tease her for not knowing when to keep quiet, Lucie didn’t elaborate. For once, Lucie let the words speak for themselves. She looked at Alastair as he slightly furrowed his eyebrows, lost in thought.
“I’m doing this for Thomas as well.” She whispered after a while.
“Thomas hates me.”
“He doesn’t.” Lucie said firmly. “He desperately wants to hate you, but he can’t. He knows he’s being dramatic.”
Alastair scoffed.
“It’s true. I’ve known Thomas my entire life, and I understand him enough to know that if you apologize—and I mean truly apologize— and he sees you regret it, there’s not a single reason as to why he wouldn’t forgive you. He may be stubborn, but when it comes to this, I think he’ll understand.”
There was a solemn quiet in the hall. For someone passing by, it would seem as though the boy and girl were mourning or were just told terrible news. In reality, however, it was the quiet of gears turning, of minds contemplating, wondering.
“They seem so kind.” Alastair said quietly.
“Who?”
“Gideon and Sophie. I’ve never witnessed two people who don’t have a single ounce of… bitterness towards anybody.”
Lucie nodded. “They’ll like you.”
“I very much think you’re lying.”
“No, I’m speaking with all the seriousness in the world. They believe in the power of change; all of the Lightwoods do, because they themselves are proof of changing for the good.”
Alastair looked at his shoes. “It’s a bit ironic. I come to help you, and instead you help me.”
Lucie smiled to herself. “Oh, but you did help me.” Because Lucie didn’t feel completely useless. Nor did she feel like a failure. She was helping Thomas and Alastair and she could think of nothing better to make her feel better.
Tagging: @livvyheronstairs @hitheresomeoneusingthus @celias @tsccreatorsnet @atla-lok143 @aceofjesper @autumnangel20 @julemmaes @rinadragomir @cupcakesandkittens @youngreckless
If you want to be tagged in future fics, please let me know!
#alastair carstairs#lucie herondale#tsc#tlh#tlh fanfiction#tlh platonic fanfic#um idk what else to tag this as#I suck at this part#Alastair and Lucie#Carstairs#herondale#yeah that's the best I can do#sorry#oh wait#tsc fanfic#okay now I'm done
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Hey there! So I said I was half tempted to post some mk fanfics, so i did *nervous jazz hands*
Basically just some subscorp, fluff with very little plot, basically Hanzo has a restless night and decides to drop by the Lin Kuei temple for some comfort in his lover, Kuai Liang. Also includes Hanzo feeding Kuai, because Kuai is such a workaholoic that when he has time to eat he forgets to. I’m a sucker for lovers taking care of each other 🥺😭 like literally the file name for this fic was “oops all fluff” lmao
Oh, and a few puns because back when I rped as Kuai, I had this whole thing going on where he makes more puns than he should be allowed to and i got too attached to it as a hc lol
well hope y’all enjoy cuz all i want is some gotdamn happy subscorp
Kuai Liang took a deep sigh as he laid back in the snow. Far past midnight, many of the students fast asleep, but not the Grandmaster himself. No, instead he was laying in the snow, bare of any clothes save for his briefs. His clothes were neatly folded in a pile by him as he laid, now closing his eyes. The thoughts were vanishing, nothing but emptiness in his mind. It was a new form of meditation he had picked up, becoming one with the snow. It was always when the ice began to coat his body as he let go of himself and his grip on the world that he knew he had succeeded in his meditation session.
Sometime into his meditation, he heard in the distance the sounds of snow crunching. Someone was approaching. He opened his eyes and sat up to prepare himself for a potential visitor. But when he looked around, he saw nobody, only the footsteps. Perhaps just a student wondering, looking for something to do to tire themselves out. He laid back down, then closed his eyes after a few thoughtful blinks. And there they were again, the footsteps, snow crunching and packing under the weight of somebody approaching near. Next he heard the slow scraping of metal, and that was when he rolled over and stood up to face his visitor.
“Your hearing hasn’t failed you quite yet,” Hanzo teased as he sheathed his katana. He was without his armor, just casual clothes as it was late, but he still carried his weapons on him, just in case. “But still, that was too close.”
Kuai smiled sweetly as he faced Hanzo. “Hearing is one of the most important senses. These ears will never fail me. But I felt my timing was amusingly dramatic no?” The cryomancer stepped forward to Hanzo, arms open. Of course Hanzo opened his arms and they united in a tight hug, cold and warmth meeting, fulfilling the temperatures each other craved. “It is wonderful to see you again, Hanzo. But why are you here? It is quite late.”
“I was having another restless night, I wanted to see you...” Hanzo let go of Kuai just slightly, just enough to see his face while still holding him. “Why were you laying in the snow? Is your cryomancy not enough to keep you cool?”
“I was meditating.” Kuai answered. "You are free to try it with me, if you're interested."
Hanzo looked down at the snow, then back up at Kuai. "I worry I may melt the snow."
"You are quite hot, you make even me melt." Kuai winked at him, causing Hanzo to blush lightly.
"Is that another pun of yours?"
Kuai had an awful cheeky smile. "Perhaps.” The cryomancer let go of Hanzo to retrieve his clothes he left on the ground and began to at least put on the pants. Sweat pants, just to emphasize it was the Grandmaster’s leisurely hours.
“You can still meditate if you please,” Hanzo offered.
“And what would the fun be in having to pretend you’re not here with me? I would much rather spend time with you.” Kuai took a hold of Hanzo’s hand, once again the cold meeting hot, and out in the snow it caused a subtle steam from their strong hands holding each other. Then Kuai gently pulled Hanzo guiding him towards the doors. “Come inside with me, I will prepare you some tea.”
“Perhaps I can make you some food, too.”
“You needn’t, Hanzo. Not if it is making you go out of your way.”
“I want to feed you, my snowflake. I know you forget to eat sometimes when you get so caught up between work and your own personal time.”
“A fair point.”
“When was the last time you had eaten?” Although it sounded like Hanzo was scolding Kuai, he really wasn’t. He wasn’t mad at all with Kuai, it was just his worry for Kuai’s well being coming out in how he naturally expresses it.
“Lunch time, about… 6 hours ago.”
“Do you not feel hungry?”
“I suppose I do now that you mention it. I suppose I can’t ever say no to your cooking, I do enjoy it.”
“Good,” Hanzo huffed.
Inside the temple was much warmer, something the Grandmaster always made sure of every night for his students. While he was a cryomancer himself, and he understood some of his students were also cryomancers, there were plenty that were not. The nightfall’s cold would be far too bothersome if they tried to endure it in their sleep, and a warrior without proper rest is a vulnerable one. It was even warm enough for Hanzo to notice, giving him a cozy vibe, which he didn’t mind at all given he tends to like it warmer… Except for when holding Kuai.
Kuai took Hanzo around to the temple’s large kitchen, and let go of his hand just to begin preparing to boil the water for their tea. In the meanwhile, Hanzo looked around at the options of foods to work with for him and his lover. Something meaty, of course, since there were tons of meat stored and ready for cooking. Much of the Lin Kuei’s diet consisted of meat, it was easiest to obtain, as animals were more abundant than anything agricultural. What they did have besides meat was always received by the Special Forces to help them maintain at least some semblance of a balanced diet. Very nice of them.
“What do you plan on making, Hanzo?” Kuai asked.
“I am thinking of kushiyaki. It should be quick enough to prepare,” Hanzo answered as he began to pull some meat, labeled ‘game’, out of the fridge.
Kuai loved hearing Hanzo’s Japanese. He could literally just be listing various foods in their Japanese names and Kuai would be head over heels for his lover’s mother tongue. “What is kushiyaki, dear?”
“Kushiyaki is like the yakitori, except that it can include non-poultry meats on it. Usually it is only meat on it, but I suppose some vegetables would benefit us.” It probably didn’t count as kushiyaki then, rather than a regular grilled kebab.
“Would you like some help preparing the meat?” Kuai asked, already drawing a knife from a drawer. “I can hardly cook, but I am quite skilled in cutting.”
Hanzo nodded. “I would appreciate that.”
And together they chopped the meat into cubes and rectangles. They cut off enough for five skewers, part of Hanzo’s plan. Of course, this was unnoticed by Kuai Liang until Hanzo had already flavoured and spiced them and began to put them on the skewers. “Hanzo, we may have to make another one to even the amount.”
“No, my love. I am only going to have one, maybe two. I want you to eat the rest so you are eating enough.”
“Hanzo,” Kuai muttered as he felt the love and care from his love. “Are you sure?”
“I am.” Hanzo set down some bell peppers and carrots on the counter in front of Kuai’s cutting board. “Now please, help me chop the vegetables. You seem to have quite an abundance of peppers.”
Kuai took a few peppers, and with a new knife began to cut them. “General Blade warned us the harvest would be plentiful that shipment.”
“You do know if you ever need produce, I can supply you with some, right? My temple has a garden with plenty of vegetables.”
“Indeed, but I do not want to take from your supply for ours.”
“Our clans are allies, Kuai. We must help each other.”
“I cannot disagree with that, but I do want you to take care of your clan.”
“Just as I take care of you?” Hanzo teased as he leaned in to kiss Kuai’s cheek, then continued on to set up the grilling process of their food.
“I have no idea what you are talking about.” Despite how deadpan his tone was, he was very clearly joking. “But of yourself, what made you so restless tonight?”
Hanzo closed his eyes for a moment and sighed deeply. “Nightmares, I suppose.”
Kuai frowned with deep sorrow for Hanzo. “I am sorry to hear that.” He knew that they both suffered deeply from trauma, from all the fighting, protecting Earthrealm, their past feud, their own hardships through life and death as revenant and wraith, and their losses through time. They really had gone through it all, and then some. Nightmares were just a side effect of the trauma, one they both suffered from, sometimes together. “Did you need to talk about it?”
Hanzo thought about talking about it, but shook his head. “Not this time, thank you.”
“Very well then.” Kuai gave Hanzo a tight hug from behind and sighed. “Regardless, I am always happy to be here to help you, and I am glad you have come over here for comfort. I will always welcome you here, my love.”
“Thank you, my snowflake…” Hanzo did straighten himself from his vulnerable position, and instead began to help Kuai put the meat and vegetables onto the skewers so they could grill them.
“I almost dare to ask if you can cook those yourself, but alas you had already set up the grill.”
“You seem to have an affinity for my hellfires cooking your food.”
Kuai smiled. “It leaves a taste of love.”
“You are a sap.” But of course, it was one of the traits Hanzo loved about Kuai.
As their food cooked, the tea had successfully boiled. Kuai began to place the chamomile tea bags in, to turn it into tea. That was when a horrible pun came to mind. “Hanzo, how do you make holy water?”
“I would not know.”
“You boil the hell out of it.” That cheeky smirk again that showed the self-proclaimed pun-master was proud of another crack of a joke. Of course, it was always adorable, the way Kuai actually thought these puns were humorous.
Typically Hanzo didn’t like puns, they were cheesy and cheap, but Kuai was the only person allowed to make puns. He shook his head with a small touch of a smile. “You are adorable, Kuai.”
“I take pride in being the only one allowed to make puns around you.”
“Good. Though I still would not have thought of you to be the one to make such jokes.”
“Cage may have had a slight influence.” Kuai Liang gently touched along Hanzo’s forearm with his cold finger tips. “It’s easy to make puns when you’re as cool as I am.”
Hanzo huffed a small snicker. “You are certainly cooler than Johnny Cage, I will give you that. ”
“How generous of you, Hanzo.”
“I can say plenty more nice things about you, my dear snowflake.”
“And I, about you.” While the chamomile tea was finishing boiling into the water, Kuai grabbed a lemon from the fridge to chop it in half. A strong squeeze poured lemon juice right out of the lemon and into the tea kettle where it boiled into the tea, then back into the fridge it went when it was no longer of use. Next was the honey, which he had to retrieve from a jar within the pantry. As he set the jar down, he looked over at Hanzo. “You know,” Already Hnazo knew a pun was about to come, it was that damn set up. “I’m not sure if honey is needed in this, since you’re already ‘sweet’ enough.”
Okay, that pun may have got Hanzo blushing lightly again. “Yes… Well… Not as sweet as you.” Oh Hanzo, bashful at sweet praises, just as he had been with his wife a very long time ago. He tried to carry on, returning to the task at hand. He took the skewers off the grill and set them down onto a plate. With the tea finishing just in time, Kuai poured them both a cup, and the settled at one of the kitchen’s islands to consume.
Together they ate and drank their teas, discussing their lives and what they had been up to. Kuai had plenty of new stories about his dragons, and the ghosts he’d been noticing at the temple. Hanzo spoke of his students, the gardens’ new blooms, and a new training regiment he had started. But what they both had in common was missing each other. Kuai could fly over on his dragon any time, Hanzo could hellport any time, but alas it was about their scheduling. They missed each other deeply, they missed each other’s quips, touches, shared pain and healing and comfort, each other’s languages of love. All of it. They were both Grandmasters of their own clans just wanting to forget about the world to be with each other.
Which eventually led Hanzo and Kuai in front of the door of the Grandmaster's bedroom. Initially it had just been to walk him there, and Hanzo had planned on leaving to return to his own temple, but Kuai pulled Hanzo in as he entered his room. "You should stay the night here, Hanzo. I think the both of us could use a night together."
"I should return to my temple, I do not want to be leaving my students without word of where I am."
"My dear, they know of our love, and they know you have slept here before. They will take the hint in the morning when you return."
"I suppose. I just worry if something is going to happen while I am gone."
Now Kuai realized what Hanzo's nightmares were about, what caused his restlessness. He was having nightmares of losing his clan once again. He was having those traumatic memories of losing them before. Kuai Liang sighed. "I will not force you to stay here or there. But I promise you, they will be okay. I understand your fears, as a Grandmaster myself. When I leave, I get worried my clan will be attacked and slain. We worry because we care, and we care for them as deeply as we should be. But alongside care, we must provide them with trust. We must be able to trust that they can fight for themselves and protect each other, should they be attacked. I know your students will be safe, because they have been taught by the greatest warrior I have ever fought in my whole life. Nobody compares to you, Hanzo.” Hanzo reflected on Kuai’s words. Funny, he felt the same way, that Kuai was his toughest opponent, so surely the Lin Kuei must be great, too. “And as well, Hanzo, I’m unsure if you noticed but one of my students is at your temple for the night. We’re not the only ones visiting each other. Should anything go wrong, I’m more than certain she’d come home to alert us.”
“I was unaware of your student staying at my temple. That does help to know, I suppose... But you are correct in your words, I need to give them trust that they can protect themselves.” Hanzo looked at Kuai’s large bed, noticing one more blanket on the bed than before, and a rather thick one, too. A significant difference that warmed his heart. It meant Kuai was seeking warmth in his sleep, attempting to reach the same warmth of the pyromancer. “It seems I should sleep with you tonight anyway,” He noted as he lifted the blanket.
“I find myself sleeping better with a bit of warmth, it reminds me of you,” Kuai confessed as he sat down on his own bed.
“I find myself needing at least a fan on when I sleep,” Hanzo also confessed. “The cold grounds me when I start to get too nervous.”
“We truly do complete each other.”
Hanzo began to start taking off his own clothes, as well as leaving behind his weapons all onto a neat pile on the floor close to the bed, so Hanzo may retrieve them in the morning. Then he got in bed with Kuai, and as he got comfortable Kuai was already holding him, admiring the natural warmth of Hanzo rather than the blanket.
“Do you feel well enough to sleep again, Hanzo?” Kauai asked.
Hanzo nodded. “I think I do.”
“Good, I’m glad.” Kauai closed his eyes with a sigh, and started to feel himself drift to sleep. “Sleep well, Hanzo. Wake me up if you need anything, I won’t mind.”
“And I hope you sleep well, too.” Hanzo hesitantly closed his own eyes. And together, in each other’s arms, in each other’s elements, they both fell asleep together.
#mortal kombat#subscorp#kuai liang#scorpion#sub zero#aaaaa my first time posting fanfic here 😳😬#posting fanfics to try to work up my courage tho lets fucking gooo#also i dont apologize for any hcs or portrayals except yes i do dont kill me
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Warnings: Mentions of fights and blood.
Word count: 3.1k
A/N: It’s finally here! I’m going to do a taglist so send me a message if you want to be added!
@guess--monster
Masterlist Next Chapter->
You have waited years for this moment, five to be exact yet now that you were parked in front of the prison your best friend was locked in, the place that he had been living in all these days since that fateful night your body was completely glued to your car seat.
Your hands had only left the steering wheel to turn off the car's ignition and your eyes were frozen on the boring looking building placed in front of you. Sighing, you reached up with one of your shaky hands to brush some of your hair out of your face, calming down had been impossible since this morning, in fact, you were sure it was a miracle that you hadn't suffered a heart attack yet. You could feel your heart pounding against your ribcage and you knew it would beat even faster as soon as you stepped out of the car.
Your mind was not better, there were a million questions running through it, echoing in your concerned thoughts. Would he remember you? How would he react when he saw you? Did he change or was he still your Jongho? And the most important question out of the thousands you kept coming up with.
Was he mad at you?
He was locked in that cell and wouldn't get out of it for a lot of years thanks to you. What happened that night had only been your fault yet Jongho took advantage of your shock to save you from the horrible fate that would have awaited you in court. No matter how much you and the best lawyers you had found for him fought for his freedom, his reputation as a gang member and the sins he committed for that night were stronger than the truth nobody believed and put your best friend behind bars for an eternity.
Jongho had every right to hate you even when you were here to get him out of this prison.
The plan didn't have any details yet, you only had the objective and even though you believed your life would totally change once your best friend was out of that cell he now called home you couldn't stop thinking it would be worth it.
Jongho deserved to be free, he deserved to live his life.
"Come on…You can do this" You whispered to yourself, finally opening the door to get out of it as you grabbed your purse "You owe him your life, you can't back out of this now"
Your voice shook as much as your hands did, you knew you couldn't walk inside in this state but fear was taking control of your body. The fact that you were planning to set Jongho free when the law said he should be locked up for more years than he could survive made you a bit paranoid. It was completely impossible that somebody would guess your plan on your first day at work but who were you trying to lie to? You've always been a good girl, rules were never broken by you and now, all of a sudden, you were planning an escape plan for your imprisoned best friend Jongho.
You were way out of your comfort zone.
"Identification please" The guard's voice who was standing on the other side of the fence snapped you out of your thoughts. Your eyes travelled up to him although you couldn't see much of his face thanks to the blue cap he was wearing.
"Uh yeah, sorry" Your voice shook a little as your hands instantly fished into your purse, getting your wallet and your ID out so he could check it.
He looked down at it before looking at you once again, now that he was entirely sure you were the same person in the picture, he signaled for his mates to open the fence and let you walk inside and deeper into the lion's dent.
"Have a nice day" He said with a small smile, nodding his head once in a greeting way as you walked inside. Too nervous to speak again, you only glanced his way and nodded back, fearing that he would somehow guess your intentions based on the tone of your voice.
With the sound of your high heels clicking against the pavement, you tried to take deep breaths as you walked into the prison, ready to face your best friend after so many years and ready to get him out of there as soon as you could.
In one of the hundreds of cells that were inside the building, Jongho laid on his bed, staring up at the ceiling.
Everyone had warned him of all the dangers that hid in prison. Psychos waiting to kill you, corrupted cops that wouldn't miss the chance to ruin your life, the lost of friends that were either murdered by somebody else or by themselves, the homesickness….But nobody had warned him about boredom and how dangerous it was for the mind to repeat the same exact routine one day after another. After his first four years locked up he needed some changes or his sanity would start to get damaged.
"I heard someone new is coming to work here" Min Yoongi, Jongho's cell partner commented out of nowhere. He was not much of a talkative person, Yoongi only started a conversation when his own thoughts got too scary for him to handle and he needed a distraction.
He didn't tell you this of course but Jung Hoseok, one of his closest friends, liked to gossip too much and sometimes useful information about other inmates slipped from his lips. Jongho had always been smart enough to keep his private information for himself.
"Oh really?" Jongho didn't care too much, the people working in this prison were as nice as….Let's just say they weren't nice at all "New guard?"
"New nurse" Now, Yoongi was one of the few people that always managed to hear about everything people talked about. No matter how quietly you talked, how secretive you were, he was always there listening, it was obvious why Hoseok was his closest friend, Yoongi was a fountain of gossip "Jaehyun, the guy from cell 67, hurt the last one so bad during a check-up that the poor guy ended up being too scared to come back to work"
"He was an asshole so whatever Jaehyun did, the guy probably deserved it" He muttered shrugging, keeping his eyes on the ceiling as they talked "Let's hope this one is better"
"I heard she is a girl, so she might be a bit more sensitive" Yoongi added, sitting up straight on his bed.
"A girl?" Jongho frowned, turning his head to move his eyes away from the ceiling and back to Yoongi just to make sure he wasn't just fucking around with him.
"Crazy right?" Yoongi scoffed "With all the pervs that are locked up in here I bet she won't last too long"
"Or maybe she is a badass and kicks all our asses" Jongho said with a small smirk, making Yoongi smile too in amusement "Who knows?"
Little did Jongho know that the nurse they were talking about would be you and that you were only a coward with a mission disguised as a badass.
“So this is where you will be working” The guard, whose name you hadn’t had the pleasure to discover yet, that had been guiding you through the facilities mostly showing you the areas that were empty of inmates, stopped once you reached the nurse office “Though, I would recommend you to bring a book or something to entertain yourself”
Your eyebrows arched up, curious at his advice “Not to many patients to deal with?” You asked with a polite smile. Not that you were disappointed by that, you had only wanted to work in this place to get Jongho out somehow, not to treat some people that could snap your neck before you blinked.
“If it’s a good day you won’t get any visits” He answered, hands in his pockets, relaxed as the two of you chatted. He didn’t seem to be looking forward to going back to his work and showing the newbie around seemed to be the perfect excuse to avoid that “Unfortunately, there are bad days too” He sighed tiredly, hinting that he had been present in more bad days than he would like.
“What would you define as a bad day?” You asked hesitantly, you weren’t sure if you really wanted to know what he considered a bad day. You were at a prison after all.
“Someone getting stabbed, beated to almost death, strang-”
“I think I get it now” You interrupted before he could keep listing horrible events that you didn’t even want to think about “I hope you all don’t go through bad days too often”
The guard smiled sympathetically “That depends on how well these guys want to behave” The two of you stayed silent for a second, it was obvious that the conversation topics between the two of you were slowly coming to an end despite his insistence of keeping the chatting alive “Don’t worry about your safety though, most of the guys here wouldn’t hurt you and the ones that possibly would are never left alone, a guard will stay with you if they think you could be at risk” You nodded at this information, partly glad at that.
Prisons were no joke and truly dangerous people were locked up in here, murderers and rapists were something you would have to deal with if you wanted your plan to go well. Although this kind of worried you, Jongho had been sentenced because he murdered somebody and even though newspapers made sure to let the world know that the life he ended that night was not an innocent one, he was still considered a murderer and a gang-member. Would they leave him alone with you if he ever needed medical assistance? Because if they didn’t, you were royally fucked.
“That’s a relief” You said with a small smile, hand going up to your chest as you let out a small sigh “I was a bit worried about that, I’ve never worked in this kind of…” Your voiced died down a little, not really sure about how to refer to this place without sounding scared as fuck or insulting “Kind of place”
“Don’t worry, the inmates behave most of the time” Not going to lie, the fact that they didn’t behave all the time wasn’t surprising but that didn’t make it less scary. The guard opened his mouth to say something else but a static voice coming from his walkie-talkie interrupted your conversation, signaling him that it was about time for him to come back to his real work. Throwing a small smile your way, he picked up the device and muttered a quiet ‘On my way’ before turning his attention back to you “Well, I’ll see you around miss” He said with a friendly smile, nodding his head as his feet started walking backwards “Good luck on your first day!”
You nodded, standing outside of the infirmary until he disappeared around the corner. Left alone in that hall you truly didn’t know what to do with yourself, despite his reassurance of the guards protecting you from any danger you couldn’t help but feel a little intimidated by the idea of having to treat inmates. Jongho better not be mad at you or you would beat his ass.
Sighing you finally opened the door to what would be your work space for as long as you needed to perfect your plan and the situation didn’t improve. Nobody had told you what had happened to the last person that abandoned this position but by the blood on the wall poorly cleaned you could slightly guess what had happened.
“The things you get yourself into” You whispered to yourself, dropping your purse on the desk as you walked deeper into the dusty room, eyes scanning your surroundings and purposefully avoiding the blood stains on the white wall.
“That’s exactly what my mom tells me whenever she visits”
You were startled by the new voice coming from behind you, hands instantly going to your chest where your heart was pounding incredibly hard against your ribcage and breath getting caught in your throat, good thing you hadn’t been holding something like your phone or you would have dropped it for sure.
When you turned around to find the source of your almost heart attack, what you found standing there didn’t make it less scary. Your first inmate patient was standing by the doorway and by the lack of guards around him, you guessed he wasn’t considered a threat.
“Sorry I didn’t mean to startle you”
He was tall, like ridiculously tall. This guy was probably three head taller than you and even though it probably wasn’t his intention, his height only made him more intimidating for you. Although, the way his smile seemed shy and his eyes darted away from you gave away that he was being honest. His hair was blond and looked fluffy, how his hair managed to look better than yours in a place like this was a mystery but if you two would have been in a totally different situation you would have asked about the products he used.
This wasn’t the time to think of that. Dumbass.
“It’s alright, you just interrupted my daydreaming session” You said with a small smile in return, forcing yourself to relax and not be so on edge. Just because he was in this place didn’t mean he would try to kill you whenever he got the chance. “Can I help you?” He nodded to your question, less tense now that you had visibly relaxed and decided it would be a good moment to walk into the room too, always keeping his distance with you. He was probably conscious of your nerves and didn’t want to freak you out.
“I’m Mingi or inmate 2356 but you know, since numbers are difficult to remember you can call me by my name” His little presentation mixed with the friendly smile that stretched the corners of his lips upwards brought a smile of your own to your face.
“Well, nice to meet you inmate 2356” You joked with a smirk, leaning back against your desk as you crossed your arms on your chest, keeping down the bubbly chuckle that threatened to spill from your lips.
“Damn, she’s good with numbers, what do I do know?” He joked back, laughing quietly as he fidgeted with the hem of his orange clothes. “Let’s start all over again, my name is Mingi, nice to meet you” His smile widened when you finally chuckled, if his objective had been relaxing you in his presence then he had done a pretty good job.
“Nice to meet you Mingi” You said amused, not scared of him and his height anymore as your eyes travelled down his figure, searching any wounds that you could treat or anything that told you he was sick but to your surprise, nothing was found “You look fine to me, what can I help you with?”
“Well, you can say no if you don’t want to but I used to help the last guy that worked here, you know, we all have to study or work in here and since books were never for me I worked my way to the Infirmary!” He said with a proud smile, one that kind of make you think he was cute “So I was wondering if I could keep learning and helping you out, I promise I won’t mess things up and that I’ll take this seriously”
The way he kept saying that he wouldn’t mind if you rejected him but also kept lowkey trying to convince you made your smile even bigger. He seemed to be a nice guy and you honestly wouldn’t mind having some company around, it would surely make things a bit more difficult for you and Jongho but maybe if he even showed he could be trusted, you could tell him your true intentions and plans. Mingi could be helpful for sure.
“Okay, having some company sounds nice” You accepted, uncrossing your arms and getting ready to clean the room a little and organize everything on the shelves. There was so much work to do and so little time to keep friendly chatting with Mingi.
“Thanks God, I really didn’t want to go back to painting classes” He mumbled while watching you, pulling the sleeves of his uniform up so he could start helping you out in whatever you were planning to do at the moment.
“I’m assuming you weren’t born to be the next Van Gogh?” You asked chuckling, hearing how Mingi snorted.
“These hands were made to make many things but paintings are not one of them for sure” He answered and even though your eyes weren’t on him right now, you could hear the smile on his lips.
“I hope they were made to heal people” You teased.
“Were they? We’ll see” He said in a light tone obviously joking “So what’s your name? Since you don’t have a number I can easily remember” Mingi muttered teasing you about your greeting earlier, making you smile again.
“My name is (Y/N)” You simply said.
Mingi froze in his place, his smile only getting wider as he turned around to look at you. He had been having the feeling that he knew you as soon as he walked in the infirmary but he hadn’t been able to guess the reason why you were so familiar to him. Now that you had said your name, Mingi remembered how many times his friend had spoken about you, how easily was to make him smile whenever he remembered your shenanigans and oh god, let’s not talk about the picture he had in his cell of the two of you. Sure you looked way younger but Mingi was sure you were her, you were Jongho’s girl.
“Wait, your (Y/N)?” He asked genuinely surprised, making you stop your rearranging of the medicines that were on the shelves to turn around and look at him.
“I just told you” You snorted, not really getting why he was asking that.
“I can’t wait to tell Jongho you’re here” He said smiling warmly.
“You know Jongho?” You asked surprised, eyes glued to his face.
“Of course I do” He said as if it was the same obvious thing, pointing to the tattoo on his wrist “We were in the same gang”
#kpop#kpop story#kpop fanfic#kpop fancfiction#ateez#ateez smut#ateez angst#ateez fluff#ateez x reader#ateez seonghwa#ateez yeosang#ateez yunho#ateez hongjoong#ateez mingi#ateez wooyoung#wooyoung#wooyoung smut#wooyoung fluff#wooyoung x reader#ateez jongho#jongho#jongho x reader#jongho smut#jongho fluff#jongho angst
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To Chip Away
Read on AO3
Summary: Suki's spent a lot of time excelling at acting like she's fine. She's a leader; it comes with the territory, and pretending to be fine after escaping the Boiling Rock is just the next logical step. They've all got bigger problems, anyway. Still, it turns out she's not fooling Sokka quite as well as she'd hoped.
It takes Sokka a while to notice Suki’s gone, which he’d prefer to attribute to her stealth skills rather than his own failings. He’s let his guard down a little at the Air Temple, has stopped mentally doing headcounts every couple minutes, although he maybe should resume those with the way people keep disappearing on them (if he and Zuko had been the last ones missing, surely they could be forgiven, since they’d come back with more people than they’d left with).
Either way, he’s halfway through talking to his dad when he looks around at some point and realizes she’s not with the group. “Did you see Suki leave?”
Hakoda takes a second to catch up with the sudden about-face in the conversation, but then he says, “Don’t think so. She can’t have gone far, though, the flying bison’s still here.”
“He has a name, Dad. Did you forget Appa’s name?”
“There have been quite a few new names to keep track of, and aren’t you trying to find your girlfriend?”
Sokka nods. “I’ll be back, I still wanna hear about Kallik spitting on Fire Nation troops.”
“That’s pretty much the whole story,” Hakoda says, but Sokka’s already up and heading off to find Suki.
His dad had been right, there weren’t a lot of places she could’ve gone without some serious climbing, and only a few were out of view from the space where they’d set up camp. There’s a ledge, though, high enough up the cliffside trail that someone could remain unseen, and that seems like as good a guess as any. He follows the path up, sticking close to the cliff wall and, spirits, he’s not particularly afraid of heights, but he still wishes the Air Nomads had built these paths a little wider. Not that they’d needed them, of course, but it would’ve been nice.
He crests the hill, only a little winded, and finds her there with her back to him, staring off into the distance. She doesn’t seem to hear him at first, so he kicks a pebble against the rock face because startling someone on a mountain ledge doesn’t seem like the world’s best idea.
She turns at the noise, already on high alert, and then she relaxes. “Sokka.”
“Hey.” Sokka comes to sit next to her, swinging his legs over the side of the ledge and ignoring just how nervous that makes him. Like with the paths, there’s fear of heights, and there’s a much more reasonable fear of falling miles to your death, and he’s not really ashamed to say he has a healthy dose of the latter. “Just came to check on you. Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Of course I am.”
“You don’t have to be.”
“I’m fine,” she says, the words a little razor-edged.
But if Sokka doesn’t press, no one else is going to, and it seems like someone needs to. “You were in prison.”
“And now I’m not in prison. So I’m fine.” She’s trying hard enough to be convincing that Sokka almost gives up and believes her, except that he remembers holding her, kneeling on the floor of that cell, her breath catching in her throat and her tears soaking the shoulder of his stolen guard uniform. That, and the fact that she’s out here alone in the first place.
“Alright, fine. I won’t keep bothering you about it, I just… I don’t want you to feel like you have to keep it to yourself, you know?”
“I don’t,” she says, but there’s something in it that tells him to let the quiet stretch out between them, and then she shakes her head a little. “Maybe I do. I don’t want to start breaking down now if I’m not sure I can put myself back together fast enough.”
“You’re not doing it alone.”
“I’m not used to that. Or- I don’t know. It’s different.”
Sokka tips his head and asks, “What do you mean?” and he thinks maybe he knows the particular kind of loneliness she’s talking about, but he can’t be sure.
“I was never alone when I had the rest of the Kyoshi Warriors, but I was their leader, you know? I didn’t want to seem like I wasn’t sure of myself because I wanted them to be able to trust me. And I guess they shouldn’t have, but…”
“They absolutely should trust you, are you kidding me? They couldn’t have a better leader.”
Suki looks away, pulling her knee up to her chest and rubbing at a barely visible smudge of dirt on her shoe. “I couldn’t protect them. Not that they can’t protect themselves, I know they can, but I should’ve- I don’t know, I should’ve fought harder. There had to have been something.”
“I know you, okay? I know you would’ve done everything you could, and they know that too, probably even better than I do.”
“I guess,” she says, but she might as well not have said it at all with how little conviction there is behind it.
“I’m serious, it’s not your fault. Losing to Azula and her friends is pretty much a rite of passage around here. They’re scary.”
“I love the way they fight, actually. It was nice to have it not directed at us for once when we were trying to escape.”
“Yeah, I’d kind of like to learn how to throw knives now, but that’s a whole other thing.”
She’s quiet for a minute, looking at something or nothing off in the distance, and then she says, “Do you know me?”
It’s an unexpected step back in the conversation, one Sokka hadn’t been ready for, and he can’t say it doesn’t sting a little. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t mean that in a bad way, I promise. It’s just that sometimes it feels like I’ve known you forever, but then I total up the days we’ve actually spent together and it’s not very many.”
“Well, yeah, but sometimes you can just… get people.”
“I know.” She shakes her head. “Maybe I’m overthinking it. It was just a weird thing to realize.”
“Well, short time or not, it was enough that you knew I’d find you,” Sokka says, but a half-second later he’s seized by doubt. “Unless… that wasn’t true.”
“I meant that. I wasn’t about to lie to you when you were in the middle of trying to rescue me. It’s just a little more complicated than that.”
He reaches out for her hand, lacing his fingers through hers. “So tell me.”
Suki’s expression goes unreadable for a second, back to staring at the horizon, but then she says, “I believed you’d come for me. I really did. But there were bad days when I thought… I don’t know. I guess I wondered if I’d ever make it outside again, because even if you did try to rescue me, so much could’ve gone wrong. Sometimes I almost hoped you didn’t come because I couldn’t watch you die.”
“I was always gonna find you. No matter how long it took.”
“I know. But some days I hoped you didn’t, because then I could keep believing in something. If you got killed trying to rescue me… that would have been it.”
“That’s…”
“Yeah, it’s dark, I know.”
“No, I mean- well, yeah, it is dark, but I get it.” And he thinks he does. He thinks he’d feel the same way, honestly, if it was Suki or Katara or his dad or anyone else risking their lives to save him. It’s something he’d never voice to the rest of the group, too much to put on the people he tries to protect, but it feels safe in the space between the two of them. “I can’t imagine not having anything to do but sit there and think about that.”
“Can’t say I recommend it,” Suki says, and she’s clearly trying to keep her tone light, but it’s not working all that well. There’s too much strain in her voice for that.
“If you wanna tell somebody about that, I know a guy.”
“Oh yeah?”
“His name is Wang Fire. He’s the personal therapist to the Avatar.”
“I don’t know the backstory there, but I’m gonna guess it’s you in disguise,” Suki says, with just the faintest hint of a smile.
“You… would be absolutely correct. But in my defense, I rock a good fake beard.”
Suki makes a show of studying him. “I think I like you okay without it.”
“Okay, well, I’m a little hurt. But the point is, I’ve got two functioning ears and nowhere else to be.”
Suki turns her eyes to the horizon again instead, swinging her legs so her heels kick back against the stone. “I don’t know what there is to say, honestly. I sat in a cell and I tried not to lose my mind. I tried to keep some structure at first, and I’d do some training or try to plan an escape or whatever, but it wears you down after a while. I’d have entire days of just staring at the ceiling trying to remember how to even feel like myself.”
And yes, okay, logically Sokka knows that he hadn’t known where she was, but that doesn’t mean the guilt of not breaking her out sooner doesn’t make it feel hard to breathe. He wants her to keep talking, though, because hopefully getting it all out will do some good, so he just squeezes her hand and waits for her to continue.
“The other prisoners didn’t mess with me or anything- one of them did tell me they thought it was cool that I was an enemy of the state as a teenager, so that was kind of funny- but we weren’t exactly friends, either. It was just… really lonely. I’ve never spent that much time away from the other Warriors, let alone completely on my own.”
“I really can’t imagine. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not like it’s your fault.”
“If I ever figure out something better to say in a situation like this, I’ll let you know. Probably become world famous for it, honestly. I think there’s a real market.”
“Don’t forget me when you’re a celebrity.”
“I could never.” Sokka hesitates for a second, unwilling to shatter the little bit of lightness in the conversation, but he needs to ask the thing he’s been too afraid of. “Azula said- she said something about you being her favorite prisoner. She made it sound like she’d- I don’t know, hurt you, or at least was out there being horrible to you. Was that true, or was that just to throw me off?” Suki hasn’t mentioned it, sure, but maybe it was the type of thing that was too awful to talk about. That’s what it had been in his nightmares, at the very least.
Suki shakes her head. “She was messing with you. She wasn’t pleasant when I got captured or anything, but I didn’t have information she wanted. Once she figured that out, I wasn’t worth her time, and she definitely wasn’t going all the way out to the Boiling Rock for my sake.”
Suddenly, Sokka can breathe a little easier. “I really hoped, just- it’s Azula. Even Toph doesn’t know when she’s lying.”
Suki frowns. “Is Toph… supposed to know when she’s lying?”
“Oh, right. You weren’t there for that, but yeah. Turns out she can tell when someone’s lying because their heartrate picks up.”
“Didn’t know that was possible, but that’s kind of just an everyday thing at this point.”
Sokka sighs. “Tell me about it.”
They sit in silence for a little while longer, but this time there’s less tension to it, not nearly as much hanging in the balance and waiting to be spoken. Maybe Sokka does feel less like he knows the girl next to him than he used to, but maybe that’s not a bad thing, because if he’s lucky he’ll get to know her. He has to believe they’ll have time, after the war. He has to believe they'll make it until after the war.
“Thanks for coming to find me,” Suki says after a while.
“Feel any better?”
“A little.”
“For what it’s worth, I still think you’re the coolest, bravest, toughest person I know.”
She tips her head onto his shoulder. “You’re sweet.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Oh yeah? When?”
“Uh. By you, right now.”
“You’re also ridiculous.”
Sokka turns and kisses the top of her head. “I can live with that.”
#suki#sokka#sukka#atla fic#atla#it's ME back with another fic no one wanted but that I am going to give you anyway#suki was a teenager in prison and I will address that or die trying#also I already did sukka comfort in one direction so now we're uno reverse carding it
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Hi! Idk if it’s too late for the Drabble requests, if it is then please feel free to ignore this!!! But I wanted to ask for some majima/nishiki? Either before or after nishiki goes apeshit, I’m really not picky. I just love the idea that they interacted after their fight in yakuza 0! Especially since I feel like their situations are kind of similar, even if how they coped was...very different lol. Thank you 🥰
Thank you so much for this request~ I LOVE majima/nishiki as a concept, especially in that nebulous ten-year-period where Kiryu’s gone, it’s really fun to think about. This is like a beginning of a fic where they both go entirely off the rails and turn the entire Tojo Clan upside down, I hope you like it!
The thing is, Majima should leave this well alone. He knows he should. Shimano had as good as told him to leave this hornet’s nest alone, with one quirk of his eyebrow, and Majima’s nothing if not an obedient dog. But the thing is—it wasn’t an explicit order, and he feels the itch of his conscious twinging inside him, the same part of his heart that starts bleeding every time he sees a lost cause, everytime he sees somebody pure and good, bleeding out from the injustice of the world.
He wishes sometimes that Yasuko and Saejima had been stoned-hearted people. Maybe if their internal voices guided him away from this, Majima wouldn’t drag himself into quite so much trouble, saving beautiful people with puppy-dog eyes.
But he had loved them for their love. Their open, bleeding hearts had taken him in, and he’d destroyed them, and now Majima will destroy himself over and over, to repay even an ounce of their kindness into the world.
So even if it’s a bad idea, even if it’ll destroy him and probably Nishikiyama too, he walks up to the newly crowned patriarch at the Tojo HQ. Nishikiyama’s leaning over the scenic bridge staring at Chairman Sera’s koi pond, so, with a casual, dangerous saunter, Majima drawls, “Ya ever hear that story about why koi fish are so damn red? It’s ‘cause they drank the blood of the battlefield to grow all big and strong. But they ain’t never satisfied with that, so they just kept swimming.”
Nishikiyama looks up from the pond, eyes narrowed, body tense, as if he’s one misstep away from simply bolting. Cute. He’s got something of a survival instinct, then.
“...that’s sakura, Majima-san.” he says, finally, turning his gaze away from Majima and back towards the koi. “Sakura trees are buried over the battlefield, and their blossoms are stained red with blood, because they absorbed that blood.”
“Haw?” Majima demands, with a scowl. Well, maybe not that much of a survival instinct. He’d slap one of his family members down for that kind of backtalk. But Nishikiyama’s not a subordinate anymore. A Patriarch in his own right—no matter how stupid Majima thinks that decision was. “Then wassa myth about koi, then?”
“Koi swim up the waterfall, endlessly, futilely.” Nishikiyama says, a bitter curl to his mouth, and he reaches into his jacket, pulls out a cigarette packet. He pauses, as he’s about to tuck it away, and offers one to Majima, stiffly, as if he’s not used to having to think about it. Majima accepts, pulls out his own lighter, and lights them both up. Majima makes sure to aim the ash away from the pond though. He doesn’t abide by littering, and he respects Sera too much to fuck up his shit.
“Seems like a waste of time, don’t it?” Majima asks, low and amused. “Shouldn’t it just swim wherever the fuck it wants to?”
The cigarette smoke makes Nishikiyama’s taut face a little more hazy, blurry, relaxed. Younger too. Majima had thought his becoming Patriarch at 25 had been a transparent move on Shimano’s part, an admission of his own weakness, an admission of how he was dependent on Majima’s mercy, an easy bribe and reward and leash all at once. Even though Nishikiyama’s 27, he seems younger than Majima had been, back then, and the move to make him Patriarch only shows the weakness of Kazama’s hand more clearly.
No wonder Shimano’s gloating so much. Any way you cut it, trying to replace Kiryu with Nishikiyama is a futile decision. But still.
Majima remembers the man who’d fought him in the bar seven years ago, eyes blazing and skin glowing. Not Kiryu, not by a long shot. But something different, something bright in its own right.
Nishikiyama looks at him, confused and puzzled. “I—what the fuck do you want?”
Majima grins, wide and mad and crazed. “Just seems a waste, is all. Dogs are chained, leashed, but koi can swim anywhere. Why try for the waterfall when the ocean’s just as wide?”
Nishikiyama blinks for a moment, and then scoffs, puffing out a breath of resigned, irritated smoke. “Koi are stupid. Can’t hold more than one or two thoughts in their heads. What space do they have for dreams of the distant ocean?”
Majima’s enjoying this, he can’t help it. Kiryu’s never had much patience for the metaphor, but Nishikiyama’s willing to hold this conversation in a space away from where either of them have to admit what they’re doing. It’s refreshing, sometimes, to dance above the lie, an electrifying, terrifying thing. Majima leans his elbows back against the edge of the bridge, turning away from the fish, to tilt his gaze upwards towards the overcast sky.
“Even if yer gonna do something pointlessly, endlessly, ya gotta dream. Doesn’t the koi dream of becoming the dragon? Does it want it? Or is it just doin’ it because it thinks it should?”
Nishikiyama looks away. “Does it matter?”
“It’s the most damn important thing in the world.” Majima says, seriously, and he thinks about who he’d be if he hadn’t had the dream of Saejima and Yasuko and their happy family to tide him through the Hole. He’d let the madness into his soul, he’d had to change in order to survive. But the dream had kept him on the right track. He knows more than anybody, how important it is to hold steadfast to it.
But that’s always been his problem. A loyal dog, too loyal for his own damn good. Once he gets his teeth into something, he can’t ever let go.
Nishikiyama looks down, a stray strand of hair falling down into his eyes. “The ocean just seems so far away.”
Majima snorts. “Then it’s gotta find something’ to tide it over. Somethin’ smaller, something closer. Dream small first, and then ya’ll get better at it. And ya can dream big. Dream about the freedom of the wide ocean.”
There’s a loud booming laugh from the other side of the garden. He and Nishikiyama both glance over, to where Shimano seems to be making some big joke with the Shibata and Kumigawa Family heads. A reminder of how dangerous this game Majima’s playing is. He rolls his neck out and tries to look as infuriating as possible. Nishikiyama, not nearly as stupid as he portrays himself to be, curls his shoulders inwards, as if annoyed, but there’s a thoughtful edge to his gaze anyway.
“Didn’t think you were the type to dole out advice like this, Majima-san.” Nishikiyama says, puffing out some smoke.
Majima cackles, loud and amused. “Gotta switch it up sometimes. Get you all soft and mushy, and then I’m gonna attack out of nowhere, when yer least expecting it.” He fiddles with his sleeves, just long enough to flash Nishikiyama the knife he always has on his person. Nishikiyama’s eyebrows rise, but he doesn’t react, not like Kiryu would have.
“And I suppose the hand that holds the leash is close by.” Nishikiyama says, coolly, something of a smirk touching his lips as he looks away from Shimano and back towards Majima. “The dog’s never thought of turning backwards?”
“Don’t bite the hand that feeds you, amiright?” asks Majima, lazily, but he feels his heart start to beat a little faster, as Nishikiyama tugs at his own tie, loosening it a little.
Nishikiyama’s eyes lid, and he looks somewhat torn, conflicted. Has Majima hit a sore spot here? Has Nishikiyama got second thoughts about hitching his wagon to Daddy Kazama? Ha. Majima’s been <i>there</i>, too. He understands that much. Nishikiyama licks his lips, stubs his cigarette out against the side of the bridge. “What if it’s stopped feeding you? What then?”
This is the problem with metaphor. So easy to get lost in it. Nishikiyama’s difficult to read, not like Kiryu, who’s an open book, whose every expression gives him away. Majima doesn’t know what their conversation is about anymore. Are they talking about Majima and Shimano? Or Nishikiyama and Kazama? Or more dangerously, are they talking about both?
“Shit if I know! Wonder how long a fish can go without food? ‘Cause a dog’s got patience. It’ll wait forever. It’ll wait until it dies.” Majima whispers, quietly, so quietly he’s not even sure he’s saying it. Majima’s in this for the long game. No matter what, he has to survive, like the bleached, wizen plum tree in the back of his yard. Only one person can kill him, and neither Shimano nor Kiryu nor Nishikiyama can get in the way of that.
This is dangerous. Nishikiyama’s dangerous and he’s playing a dangerous game. Turning away from your expectations is one thing, but betrayal is entirely another. Majima shouldn’t bite. He knows the consequences of betrayal. It has been burned into his bone marrow, he is a creature shaped entirely by betrayal’s fallout. But he’s a stupid thing, and the naked plea in Nishikiyama’s expression is maybe the only thing in the whole world.
He’s always been a sucker for beautiful, broken things.
“I’ve been hungry my whole life, Majima-san.” Nishikiyama whispers, and his gaze has moved down to Majima’s lips, still closed around an almost-burned-out cigarette. Nishikiyama’s tongue flickers out over his lips, leaving them wet and shiny in his wake. “I don’t know how much longer I can go.”
Majima shuts his eye and thinks. If this goes wrong, they’re horribly fucked. The Hole will be nothing compared to what Shimano will do to him now, now that Majima is in a place of real betrayal. If this goes right, on the other hand....
When he opens his eyes, Nishikiyama’s still looking at him. Majima pulls the cigarette out of his mouth, and puffs the smoke out, straight into Nishikiyama’s face. To anybody looking, it would be an act of pure antagonism. But Majima whispers, “Wait a little longer, then,” and it is a promise shared between the two of them. Two left-behind, shattered things, desperately trying to survive. Trying to find meaning in a world devoid of it.
...this is madness. But he’s the Mad Dog of Shimano. Madness is his specialty. The ocean in which he thrives. He’ll join hands with Nishikiyama, against his better judgement, and throw himself into the whirlwinds of chaos, of forging a new path entirely.
#majima goro#nishikiyama akira#yakuza#magikarp ship#rgg#i had a few more requests in my inbox but this is the last one i'm gonna do#gotta get back to writing spiraling downhill#but this was SO fun to indulge in
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Okay, I'm reading Chap18, and I really hope this comment won't hurt your feelings because I love your fic and I really just want to understand why you wrote it this way, but I have to tell you that for the first time I've been disapointed with Diamants AU. I already felt it was going this way with Daphné, Arthur, Vallès, Emma and Alexia being LGBT, but I kind of felt betrayed with the Yann/Alex thing, and now I'm sensing Manon and Daphné will be together at some point too and ...(1)
...I don't understand why you made all your characters LGBT. I get that they are under-represented in most of the books and shows, but with Diamants I'm kind of feeling like being staight is a bad thing, like it's either boring or you're juste an asshole. I've always loved Skam because it shows that very different people can be friends and help each other no matter their religion, sexuality... and this kind of felt like the only reason they stand together is they're all LGBT (2) and I guess this comes from personal experience but that would have been so much more powerful to have straight people being as much invested in this war as the others. Honestly I don't see the point of Yann, Alex, Emma, Manon or Arthur not being straight, for me it doesn't bring more to who they are. This really feels like they would be nothing if they were straight. So I juste wanted to ask you why you decided this? Again, really hope this won't hurt you... (3/3)
hey anon. So, I’m going to assume this comes from a place of good faith and a sincere desire to understand, and explain my choices. That said, I do have to say that even though it didn’t really hurt me (it mostly made me laugh), it did make me a little angry too, because there are a lot of harmful implications in your messages.
1) First of all, about you “not seeing the point” of making certain characters LGBT. This functions under the assumption that there needs to be a reason for people to be gay, bi, trans, etc - and that straight people are the default. That is...really not great. People are gay in real life, for no reason whatsoever. If you don’t go to writers asking why they made their characters straight if there is no reason in the story, you shouldn’t do this either. Characters can be queer without it being a big part of the story - it’s just a part of them, and the idea that they have to ‘deserve a place’ in the narrative through their gayness (often through a deeply tragic arc full of suffering to Educate Straight people) is deeply heteronormative, and fucked up. LGBT people are not in a story to make a point, they’re there because they exist. Yes, some of my characters have arcs that are deeply entangled with their sexuality and struggles with it. Some are not. When it comes to Yann and Alex, I didn’t think too much about it, I thought it would be funny and unexpected and give some good shenanigans. Sometimes that’s all you need.
2) As for turning a majority of the canon straight characters LGBT : listen, in the end, this is my fic, and I do it because I want to. I’m bi and my life is full of queer people. This is my normal, this is what comes naturally to me, and what I find interesting to write about. I set out to write a James Bond parody with some deep character exploration, it’s meant to be a very transformative fic. I have no obligation to stick to any Skam ‘guidelines’. I am also not aiming to write a particularly realistic story, if the secret mobster conspiracy didn’t tick you off already. The ethos of fic is to make canon your playground and to let your imagination go wild. That said, this trope you’re probably used to, of having one or maybe two queer characters and not more in any given story, I would say is the less realistic one. In real life, LGBT people often tend to cluster together, often before they even realize their sexuality, especially as they get older. But a lot of mainstream media is afraid of that because they don’t want to alienate their straight audience, so they don’t show it. I have no such compunctions. Your message seems to imply that there is a limit to how many gay people there should be in a story and I find that deeply offensive. There is incredible relief, peace and power to be found in community, especially after being struggling so much with your sexuality, like Lucas did for instance. I wanted to show that joy in this chapter, and how it plays a part in him slowly letting his walls down.
3) I notice you don’t mention Imane. She’s straight, she’s super invested in this war, she’s neither boring or an asshole, in fact she’s probably the most important character in the fic after Lucas and Eliott. She’s badass and amazing and complex and if you don’t feel she counts as ‘good straight representation’ I find that slightly odd. Is she too ‘other’ for you that you would dismiss her like that ? Also, Basile is straight lmao. There’s plenty of straight people in this fic. And plenty of people who have incredibly different life experiences ; sexuality not being the main one doesn’t change that.
4) I do find it sort of silly that you reduce the characters’ reasons for fighting to being LGBT after I spent like 400k words proving otherwise. Like - Lucas wants to avenge his mother, Eliott wants to take down his father, Imane wants to avenge her father, Daphné wants to steal jewels, Alex and Emma are bored, Alexia’s a good friend (and also bored lol), they’re trying to stop horrible people from doing horrible things, their trajectories are layered and complex and if you tell me that can all be boiled down to ‘they’re gay’ I kind of wonder if you’ve paid attention to what you’ve read at all.
5) All that said, a majority of my characters being LGBT does have a symbolic point. It’s an opposition to the world of the Shadow, which is deeply sexist, heteronormative, homophobic, and macho. It represents how questioning your sexuality can be deeply liberating and often put you at odds with the general structures of power and oppression in society and lead you to question a lot more and find people who want to fight with you. Being LGBT can (but not always) make you more politically conscious and that’s a beautiful thing that deserves to be celebrated. And in general, being a minority makes you more aware of inequality because it’s simply your daily life. So it makes perfect sense that most of these characters who fight against symbols of horrible systemic oppression would be marginalized in some way or other. Straight/cis/white/rich/abled/etc people simply have less reasons to question the status quo. I have sat through so many action movies where all-straight heroes save the day ; I’m sure you can sit through the opposite for once. If you can’t, maybe it’s a failure of empathy or imagination on your part.
6) Imagine growing up and never seeing, around you or on TV or in books or movies, someone who shares your sexuality. Or if you ever see somebody like you, they will be a joke, a punchline, deluded, instable, doomed, or worse, a predator. Imagine the sort of damage that does. Imagine that when you finally find some correct representation, you have to make do with crumbs for years. Imagine it gets slowly better, but it’s still overwhelmingly tragic, or incorrect, or stereotypes, or only told after the story is over, or you’re always the best friend, always the minority, the point of interest there to educate, always there to struggle, never the epic breathtaking romance, never centered, never allowed community and to see yourself as the norm. In the best of cases, your identity is more or less ignored. In the rare cases where you find good representation, shows get cancelled prematurely, or your faves never get as much screen time as the straight ones, or storylines get botched because somehow writers think showing queer characters happy has no value. Imagine then you decide to take matters in your own hands and write the sort of queer utopia that makes you truly happy - the one where you’re surrounded with people like you and you don’t have to constantly feel isolated and otherized and you’re badass and don’t have to take any shit and your love story is the epic one that gets centered and you have friends who understand and share your experience. And then imagine someone, instead of taking a deep breath and going back to like, 99% of all media ever made, randomly comes to you and tells you they feel ‘betrayed’ because in this one paltry little fic you wrote, their mainstream experience is not centered like usual. Tell me, how would that feel ?
Again, I don’t bear you any ill will, but your message comes across as ignorant and very entitled. I am open to feedback and criticism but writing a story full of LGBT people is one thing I will never feel sorry for. There are a shit ton of fics out of there where those characters are straight, not to mention canon. If you feel ‘betrayed’ by the amount of queer characters in my fic, then I’d say you have some biases you need to examine. It reminds me of all the times I’ve heard people say that they ‘like gay people but only if they’re not too in your face’ (lol that was my sister, so fun) - this implication that queer people should know their place, never show their difference too openly, accept being a minority in all spaces, need to ‘deserve’ their spot, center straight people’s needs, etc etc...is deeply harmful and toxic.
If you can’t understand all this, then my writing is probably not for you.
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Happy Holidays from the Library! (and Jeep)
Hello friends! Thank you for the love and support and concern you have shown me. My personal blog got a bunch of dm’s and asks telling me about how happy they were that I was putting in the effort to fix the tags and keep the Library going and it’s been a wonderful gift to me.
But today is Christmas Eve and I didn’t want you to head off to your family’s without a little gift from me!
This post is going to be a list of my favorite Christmas fics, all true recommendations and not just an update on the latest fics like usual. These are all fics that made me laugh, cry and just truly enjoy the holiday season. You might recognize a few so be sure to tell me the ones you love as well!
This is gonna be quite the list, and I try not to be a total ass, so the fics are under the break :) - Jeep
In no particular order, Jeep’s Sterek Holiday Favorites -
When You Stop Believing in Santa You Get Underwear by owlpostagain (7,817 | 1/1 | T)
There are some salvageable things though. A virtually untouched heavy slate sign that says, engraved in an ornate script that confirms at least one person in the Hale family had a sense of humor (Stiles has a horrible suspicion it might have been Peter), When You Stop Believing in Santa You Get Underwear.
The Natural Binding Properties of Pine Sap by uraneia (4,296 | 1/1 | T)
Derek saves a nymph from being somebody's Christmas decoration. As a reward, the nymph grants him a twig of mistletoe.
If Derek had known the mistletoe would come to life and goad him into kissing people at random, he might have tried to refuse.
I Just Want You For My Own (More Than You Could Ever Know) by yodasyoyo (16,062 | 4/4 | T)
“What is with that sweater, dude?”
Derek ducks his head to look at it, abashed. “Uh- Mrs Hernandez knitted it for me. It’s an early Christmas gift.” He smooths it down self-consciously.
Stiles cocks an eyebrow.
“What? She’s my neighbor and sometimes I-” Derek trails off. Stiles’ other eyebrow rises to join the first, and Derek sighs. “Sometimes I help her carry her groceries."
Of course he does. One day maybe Stiles will stop being in love with Derek Hale, but today is not that day.
A Hale for the Holidays by rlnerdgirl (38,095 | 1/1 | E)
“I sent you a Christmas card that got sent back to me. Did you get a new apartment?” his dad wonders. The question is all suspicion and little anything else.
A flicker of an idea sparks. It’s not nearly formed well enough for him to say, “Yeah, actually,” and when he follows that with, “I moved in with someone,” he wants to punch himself in the face. He’s living with someone?!
“You’re living with someone?” It’s the same voice and tone as the one in Stiles’ head, just thirty years older.
Two things keep Stiles from bashing his face onto the table: there’s a steaming cup of coffee in the way and, more importantly, his dad will definitely hear. Someone passes by in front of him and a semi-familiar book cover catches his eye. “Derek Hale,” he muses, and stops. No. That wasn’t meant to be out loud.
Gingerbread by slythatheart (16,572 | 1/1 | T)
Stiles is offered a Christmas wish, and there's only one thing he can think of to wish for.
A Christmas Hale by Captain_Loki (14,298 | 1/1 | M)
His mouth began forming the word 'no' in a knee jerk reaction, but it died on his lips when he actually looked at Stiles. There was no pity in his face, no sense of moral obligation or charitable intent, he looked...earnest and nervous and so much the sixteen that he was. He realized with a jolt that had his stomach twisting into something that felt nothing like anger that Stiles wasn't asking for Derek's sake.
sometimes fate is like a small snowstorm by thepsychicclam (8,145 | 1/1 | M)
In a coffee shop two days before Christmas, Derek meets Stiles. Despite neither of them being interested in relationships, they spend an unforgettable evening together, but then part ways. During the following years, Stiles competes in the Olympics, Derek tours the world - and neither of them forget. Then twelve years later, two days before Christmas, Derek finds Stiles in that same coffee shop.
With A Little Christmas Magic by Ashabadash (10,669 | 1/1 | T)
AU: Stiles is jobless this Christmas and as a last resort, is stuck playing one of Santa’s elves at the mall. The job is a bust, and Stiles isn’t really in the Christmas mood, until he finds salvation in the Starbucks at the food court, not only in hiding from kids, but in one very sexy barista named Derek.
Real life isn't a movie (life doesn't make narrative sense) by dearericbittle (dutchmoxie) (11,586 | 1/1 |T)
Somehow accidentally insulting a hot guy in a coffee shop leads to pretending to be his boyfriend in front of a house full of werewolves. Stiles Stilinski is living his best life and making the most of his Hallmark movie moment.
All The Way Home (I'll Be Warm) by GotTheSilver (11,535 | 1/1 | M)
Stiles is standing there, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot, and Derek doesn’t want to see him disappear into the apartment opposite without a promise to see him again. “Do you—would you like something to drink? Coffee?”
“Uh, yeah, sure.” Rubbing his hands together, Stiles nods and looks over his shoulder. “Can you give me a minute to get changed? I’ve got snow melting in places that I don’t want it to be melting.”
Derek laughs at the look on Stiles’ face and nods. “Knock when you’re done.”
If Derek watches Stiles until the door closes, that’s no one’s business but his own.
Jingle Grouch by aggybird (3,262 | 1/1 | G)
Derek the Grinch has a crush on Stiles the Snow Elf.
All I Want for Christmas (Is You) by blindinglights (9,284 | 1/1 | E)
Derek meets Stiles in a department store while shopping for his family, after seeing a little girl crying for her Dad on the floor. They part ways and Derek doesn’t think he’ll see Stiles again. Beacon Hills may not be that big, but it still doesn’t mean he’ll ever run into Stiles, because that’s just not how Derek’s life works. Despite what Erica tries to tell him whenever she can, that sometimes fate can happen, Christmas miracles, whatever, it won’t.
Home for Christmas by mikkimouse (6,613 | 1/1 | T)
"Derek," Dad said with a warm smile. "Glad you could make it."
Derek nodded seriously. "Of course, Sheriff."
Stiles felt the pieces slot together in his head. "Wait, you called him?"
"Technically, Melissa called him," Dad said.
"Ha ha. What's he doing here?" Stiles turned to Derek. "Seriously, what are you doing here?"
Derek held up his keys. "I'm here to take you home."
how you doin’? by decideophobia (6,768 | 1/1 | T)
“So,” Derek says eventually, because he feels awkward and uncomfortable, “how you doin’?”
Mistletoe's Overrated Anyway by stilinski (8,263 | 1/1 | T)
Derek remembers a hyperactive eleven year old with a buzzcut and an irritating habit of getting underfoot - his memory doesn’t lend to the lean, doe eyed brunet in his hallway; he’s talking on his phone and scowling something fierce but Derek’s mouth goes dry at the way Stiles runs long fingers through his hair.
“Coffee?” Derek asks abruptly, turning to look at Laura. “There’s a fresh pot. Cora’s gone out on a last minute supply run - is, uh, Stiles staying?”
“I offered your wonderful hospitality until he can find a flight to take him home,” Laura says, following him back into the kitchen and leaving Stiles in the hall. “I know you have the space, and it seemed a shame to leave him stranded. Nobody should be alone on Christmas.”
lube and determination by bleep0bleep (4,873 | 1/1 | E)
It's a holiday classic: homesick boy wants to make a pumpkin pie while studying abroad, boy realizes the only place to find vegetable shortening is a sex shop, and boy makes fool of himself in front of other boy.
Last Christmas (I gave you my heart) by jadore_hale (4,532 | 1/1 | T)
“W-what is this?” Derek couldn’t even begin to get his mind around this current situation.
“My Christmas gift to you, nephew.”
Peter pushed the guy towards him, and Derek hastened to catch him before he fell face first on the floor.
“I’d like you to meet your soul mate.”
Don't Call Me Buttercup by ElloPoppet (15,830 | 1/1 | T)
Isaac wants to do Secret Santa. Derek is bad at gifts. Stiles helps, and also practices making Derek uncomfortable with awful, cutesy pet names along the way.
Derek secretly loves the pet names. Oh, and he loves Stiles as well.
Well, I hope you guys enjoy some of my all time favorite holiday fics and that maybe you find a new favorite of your own! Thank you for your love and patience while I try to figure everything out with the tags. You guys are truly the best and I wouldn’t be here without you.
I wish you the best for this hectic time of year and that maybe these fics can keep you occupied from crazy family members.
Happy Holidays and best wishes for the new year,
Jeep
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Ash goes to Edenhall to find Yaag during the destruction of Cocoon.
Warnings for light swearing, injury and blood, mentions and discussion of death, and an overall glum mood.
Also some endgame spoilers for the first FF13 game.
"What the hell..." Ash found herself whispering as she looks down at the sight below her. From her airbike, she could see the full view of Eden.
Or, well, what was going to be left of Eden, that is.
Her eyes went wide in horror at all the Pulse beasts, the crushed buildings, the civilians crying for help. This is horrible...
Too much had happened too fast, and she hadn't quite had a chance to process it all. But it finally hit her. Eden was being destroyed. This was likely the end of Cocoon.
She had gotten the report of Cid Raines being dead not too long back, and it still felt surreal. The idea of him once being a Cocoon l'Cie was just as jarring. Him being appointed to Primarch too.
l'Cie or not... He was my friend. And now he's gone.
All she could hope for now was her family and Yaag making it out alright, but one of those seemed a lot more likely than the other. Yaag had left in the Proudclad, hoping to protect Edenhall all by himself.
That idiot...
PSICOM soldiers were still pursuing the Pulse l'CIe after their appearance earlier that night, but she was not a PSICOM soldier. She had a different goal.
She was going to find Yaag and make sure that she didn't lose anyone else.
“I guess Edenhall is my best bet...” She takes a deep breath and flies towards the heart of the city on her airbike.
~~~~~~
Ash never had much experience with on-field work. Or any of this. She wasn't a soldier, and nor did she want to be, but she did help PSICOM. She helped them defend Cocoon, and even helped with the Purge. Maybe not personally with the weapons, but it was some of her intel that led to the Pulse l'Cie hunts. Who was to say that she wasn’t as bloodstained as the soldiers themselves?
Edenhall, the heart of Cocoon, was off-limits to the public, save for some higher-up officials. She had never gotten a chance to go, but she knew that Yaag had multiple times to meet with the Primarch. Even images of the inside weren't revealed to the people. The Sanctum, in their own words (Cid had given her the intel), saw the people as nothing more than cattle.
She was grateful to the fal'Cie for everything they had provided her. A comfortable home, warm food everyday, an education in multiple fields, everything she considered to be "hers" was all because of them. The education system of Cocoon worked in such a way where anybody could pursue their areas of interest and have it fully paid for, and that only helped cultivate her passion for learning.
It was difficult for her to open her eyes to the truth. Even now, there were some blank holes, but what she had gathered was that the fal'Cie weren't right. Whatever happened to humanity, even if it was their downfall, should be all because of humanity. Not some self-proclaimed god with an ego as large as Cocoon itself.
She had felt this way for many years, but meeting with the Cavalry, learning who they really are, and talking to Yaag when he's not working had only solidified her opinion. Yaag had believed that perhaps the fal'Cie's rule would be best for the present and future prosperity of Cocoon, that maybe the Primarch wasn't entirely horrible. Somebody in his position couldn't afford to have doubts.
After all, he was the officer in charge of orchestrating the Purge, the massacre of all those innocent people in the name of Cocoon's peace and betterment. It was then when his hesitation to oh-so blindly follow the fal'Cie grew.
Ash flew into the building through a large hole in the roof, maybe caused by some kind of winged monster. It's not that she couldn't fight, she just didn't have much experience, so hopefully she could avoid confrontation.
Hopping off of her bike and grabbing her bag of essentials, she runs deeper into the building. It was large, and she couldn't help but feel small. Her footsteps echoed in empty halls, now cluttered with debris and things of the such.
Near the pale walls, however, she spots crystals. She stops, slowly approaching it. "It's... It's dead." And a Cie'th, no less.
She shakes her head, stepping away. She had to keep going. She needed to find Yaag. She had already lost a lot, and she wasn't going to lose him too.
When a l'Cie, a human chosen by a fal'Cie, failed to fulfill their Focus before their brand reaches stage 13 and is fully developed, they're done for. They turn into a Cie'th monster and are forced to roam the world while wallowing in their own failure. If they did fulfill their Focus, then they'd slumber eternally as a crystal. Although Ash had heard things of crystalized l'Cie coming back to life hundreds of years later.
Regardless, it seemed to be a lose-lose situation.
She thought back to Cid. And the Cavalry. His Cavalry. She had always agreed with their cause, and it would be a lie to say that she hadn't assisted them sometimes. Especially before the Purge. They were all a team back then.
Perhaps not to the point of betraying PSICOM, but she a small part of her couldn't help but wish to see them prevail. What could be better than a free Cocoon?
She was sure that Yaag has caught on, but he didn't seem to say much. From what she had gathered, they were old friends. Apparently they went to school together.
Ash always liked seeing Yaag as happy as he was when he was with Cid. Well, happy was a questionable term. Cid always had a way of getting under Yaag's skin, and Ash found it somewhat entertaining. Yaag wasn't the easily flustered type, so Cid's slight teasing was always a blast in her eyes.
Cid was a l'Cie, made one by Barthandelous.
Or something. The details were fuzzy. The truth had only come out recently. They all thought he was human.
He must have felt terrible and filled with nothing but pure dread. He had both the power and the supplies to make his dream of a free Cocoon reality, but... He couldn't do that when he was just another slave.
"Rest well, my friend." Ash mutters, shaking her head. No use dwelling on what's done.
This is a new beginning. I need to move on.
As Ash ran through seemingly endless grand halls, she saw more and more Cie'th. "There were never this many l'Cie. Only the six... And Raines. But he's done for." She added with a sigh.
"So who could all these people be? The only people tasked here were that one PSICOM elite squad..."
She gasps in horror as realization hit her.
"No..."
No, no, no, no, no... Please no...
She looks at her hands and notices how much they're trembling. She tries to steady her breathing. "The only ones with the power to do this are the fal'Cie, but they wouldn't. They wouldn't..." She tried to tell herself. But they would, and she knew that well. She just didn't want to believe it. She'd known that for so long, but this was horrific.
"Yaag... This didn't happen to him, too... Right..?"
She gulps, taking a deep breath.
And let's hope that this doesn't happen to me either.
Ash turns around to keep moving, but abruptly stops upon hearing static in her PSICOM issued communication device. I thought communication lines were done for... Thank goodness.
"This is... This is PSICOM Director Rosch.." The voice rasped out, and she gasped. Yaag! He's alive!
"Attention all PSICOM and Guardian Corps units." He took a shaky breath, "Suspend l'Cie operations. I repeat, suspend l'Cie operations. All units should focus their efforts on evacuating the civilian population." He pauses.
Ash's eyes go wide at the order.
"I do not issue this order as an absolute. You are free... to make the choice." He seemed to rush the last part, as if it pained him to even speak. All she heard after that was something falling to the ground. And then more static.
"Director? Yaag? Please, come in!" She called, but nothing came through.
Shit.
~~~~~~
"Stay alive. We'll see you when it's over." Is all the blond l'Cie, (Snow Villiers, if Yaag's memory proved correct) said before leaving.
Yaag clutches his side, and he can feel the blood soaking into the black leather of his clothes. His ears rang, the pain in his head nearly unbearable.
It all hurt so much. His left leg was numb. He would move it, perhaps adjust himself into a more comfortable position, but he knew that would be more than a stupid idea and would only cause him more pain.
All he could see was the pale walls of the hall, blurred and unfocused. These halls where he had walked so many times. All in the name of protecting Cocoon.
Yaag thought back to Ash. She would like it here, wouldn't she? Perhaps she wouldn't be too great a fan of Sanctum business, though. He chuckles, a bitter and raspy noise. That was always his department.
She had often expressed how the military, let alone the Sanctum was not for her. Funny, considering how things ended.
He would be leaving her behind, but what could he do? He was helpless, bleeding out onto the floor of Edenhall. He drank his last potion in the battle against the l'Cie. Shockingly, they spared his life. But from his current situation, he realized that he was probably going to die anyway.
Yaag thought back to his mother and father. His father was PSICOM, through and through. Just like Yaag. His mother was Guardian Corps, but she had perished in battle when he was a teenager.
He remembers the day vividly.
The rivalry between PSICOM and GC was always intense, and he had heard that his parents were no exception. His father had once spoke about how he and his wife absolutely despised each other at first.
Clearly that didn't last long.
Yaag thought back to the way his father seemed to light up when speaking about his mother. "You have your mother's eyes..." A rare look for a man known for his serious demeanor.
Ash had often talked about how serious and intimidating Yaag could be, too. Perhaps it ran in the family?
How did he even end up here...? He had always wanted to join PSICOM, and not just to follow in the footsteps of his hero, his father. He wanted to protect people. Ever since he was young, he had always feared the fal'Cie. Humanity was ruled by them, and it frightened him. Humans such as himself were so small and pathetic in their hands.
It made him feel less small, telling himself that he's fighting for the people rather than the fal'Cie. He remembers the words he uttered to himself before what he assumed would be his final battle.
"This is for humanity. Nothing else."
The main purpose of the PSICOM division of the Sanctum military was to fight threats from Pulse. It was what they specialized in. Yaag knew that he could do all his drills in his sleep, but it turns out that it still wasn't enough.
He didn't want to stop the Pulse l'Cie. Of course, he didn't have a choice. They were a threat from Pulse, after all. So the responsibility of seeing them through to their executions fell onto his shoulders.
He felt strongly about wanting to stop them at first. It was what the people desired, but it seemed that his views had grown over time. He realized that perhaps he was on the wrong path all along. Everything he used to feel so strong about then just felt stupid now.
But all of his doubts, his slight hesitation, none of it stopped him from going through with the Purge orders. None of it stopped him from having all those civilians murdered in cold blood because of him.
A soldier's duty was to follow through with their orders regardless of what their thoughts, and he understood that.
A pawn of the Sanctum, a pawn of the fal'Cie. That's all he was. All the fear he had as a boy came flooding back.
He can feel the blood trickling down his forehead.
"This is... my punishment, isn't it?" He gasps for air, "Very well,"
After everything he had done, all the blood spilt under his orders, this is what he deserved. He had lived fighting for Cocoon, and would die having fought for it until the bitter end, even if it was all a lie. He knew since the very beginning that it was all fake. But he had fought for it regardless. All he did was for the people.
Or so he told himself.
He smiles.
"I accept it..."
And with that, Yaag lost track of time, dizzy vision turning to black.
~~~~~
Every single one of the hallways, all once illuminated by Phoenix through large, glass ceilings, seemed to lead to one door. It was so quiet. It felt easy to ignore the absolute apocalypse happening just outside, all within the city Cocoon proudly called its finest.
She looked up at the door, and then back down again. If not here, then...
By her foot is another Cie'th, but this one still seems to be alive. Barely, with it's body half crushed by a pillar, but it was reaching to her. She crouches down, gently touching the cold crystal of its body, "... You're hurting, aren't you?"
She takes a closer look at the beast, and within all the crystal was the face of a soldier, twisted and contorted with pain. She knew quite the handful of PSICOM soldiers since she was always hoping to make new friends, and found this face to be quite familiar.
No...
Her heart ached, so she figured that maybe her best bet was to put it out of its misery. If she were to help it, there was nothing it could do to become human again.
All of the Cie'th bodies she had seen throughout Edenhall weren't branded. They were made Cie'th by the fal'Cie by not giving them a Focus, yet still making them l'Cie.
That's cruel and disgusting.
It was said that Cie'th didn't think nor feel, but she didn't think that was the case. This one seemed sad and alone.
She reaches for her blade.
"I'm so sorry."
~~~~~~
Putting her blade away, she gently pushes open the doors. Small chunks of white had been floating through the air ever since the portals from Pulse had opened, but the effect seemed to be heightened as she traveled deeper within the building.
As she pushes the double-doors open, she's met with a cloud of black smoke. She coughs, but pushes through regardless. All of the rooms she had been to so far had been huge, but this one was much bigger than the rest. Intricate patterns ran across the floor, which seemed to be a bridge above the ground floor, and in the center was the ruins of a huge machine.
It was the Proudclad, Yaag's personal airship and normally his weapon of choice aside from his trusty sword. Destroyed, it was barely recognizable. The black smoke was coming from it.
Ash's eyes drift over to a body laying face-down next to it.
She could recognize that black uniform from a mile away.
Before she had a chance to register her own thoughts, she was sprinting towards him. She crouches down, gently turning him around so she could see his face.
"Yaag!"
He was unconscious, his face covered in his own blood. His uniform was in tatters, pristine and dark fabric covered in dirt and grime and blood and god-knows-what.
For a moment, Ash feared that she was too late, but he was still breathing. Barely. His side was drenched in his own blood, and Ash stared at her now-red hand in horror.
"Oh my..."
She was already on-edge, but seeing him like this broke her heart. What if she hadn't have found him? Then what?
Ash digs through her bag, "I know I have Phoenix Down somewhere..." She rummages through the inner pockets and triumphantly pulls out a tuft of Phoenix Down. First-aid wasn't her expertise, but hopefully she could wing it.
(Get it? Wing it?)
Perhaps Ash would have laughed if she wasn't freaking out. She holds the glowing feathers to his body, and was relieved to see that they had worked, fading into thin air. Legend had it that the feathers of a phoenix allowed a lost fall to be returned to its body, and she had thanked her past self for buying some extra from her local terminal.
In her arms, Yaag stirred. Ash let out a sigh of relief and gently brushed his bangs out of his face. She pulled out a spare cloth and began dabbing at the wound on his forehead, wiping away all the blood.
Yaag groans, silvery eyes fluttering open.
"Ash?" His own voice sounded foreign to him, and all he remembered was being ready to die after a hard-fought battle against the l'Cie and even his own soldiers, now turned Cie'th.
"Yeah. You're not getting rid of me that easily." She whispers, giving him a gentle smile. He tries to push himself up into a sitting position, but he found himself clutching his side and unable to move his left leg.
"Damnit."
Ash helps him up, propping him up against the remains of his own ship.
"My... My apologies... You shouldn't have to see me like this.." He says through gritted teeth, but Ash places a finger to his lip.
"Nope. None of that. I'm not taking any of it. I'm here to take care of you and get you to safety."
"You... You always have been there to save me. Thank you."
Yaag whispers. It's all he can manage, and Ash leans forward, giving him a small kiss on the scar on his forehead. That had always been her favorite spot to kiss him, and even though he was barely alive, he still found his heart fluttering.
That's right. She had been there for him when he had gotten shot in Palumpolum as well. It seemed like ages ago, but it truly wasn't that long ago.
So much had happened so fast.
"I'm just doing my job. Don't try to force yourself to talk, okay? You're really beat up right now." Her hands go to take off his coat, but she stops,
"May I?"
Yaag nods, and she starts by unlatching all the straps that ran across his chest before undoing the buttons on the coat below, slipping it off his shoulders. She was careful to not accidentally hurt him. That was the last thing she needed right now.
His bare chest is no new sight to her. In fact, it's one of Ash's favorite sights. Firm muscle carved by endless battle experience, long-healed battle scars, the wounds from the gunshots in Palumpolum. But even so, Ash gulps at the sight of the wound on his side and the bruises running across his body. “They really did a number on you, huh?” And Yaag couldn’t help but agree.
Ash never was fond of the sight of injury, and that was made even more clear by how much her hands shook as she tended to his injuries. .
Yaag shakes his head (or at least, tries to), "You don't need to. Just allow me." He tries reaching for the cloth, but his hands tremble and it pains him to even move. Pathetic...
"You are in no state to take care of yourself right now. I'll be fine. Just, uh, focus on staying awake for me, okay?"
Ash pulls out a few more supplies from her bag. Not only did she try to stay prepared for any possible situation, but she had become close friends with many of Yaag's soldiers, and she knew just how dangerous their jobs could get, so she tried to carry extra healing supplies.
She starts tending to his wounds as best she can. She's not great, not by a long shot, and her constantly squirming at the sight and lack of experience only made it more difficult, but she tied a knot in the bandages she wrapped around him and buttoned his coat back up.
Yaag's vision shakes, but he tries to keep his breathing steady. Ash pulls out a flask and pops it open, holding it to Yaag's mouth. "Drink it. It's a spare potion."
Yaag nods and gulps the liquid down. He can already feel himself becoming more awake at the sweet taste. He feels guilty that she has to see him in such a pathetic state, but can't help but feel grateful nonetheless. She had saved him. Again. She truly is my everything, isn't she?
"Do you think you can walk?" She asks, and Yaag takes a look at his good leg. "I think I can manage."
"Alright. I'll be right back, okay? Gonna go grab my bike. It was a long walk here."
Ash gives him a smile, and he tries to smile back for her as best he can. She runs out of the room, and comes back only a minute or two later. She's panting, but hops off of her airbike and back next to him.
Yaag attempts to push himself up from the ground, but he pathetically crumbles back down like a sack of rocks. He mentally curses himself. He couldn't afford to be this weak.
Ash wraps an arm around his shoulders, and he's thankful for the support. He's a good head taller than her, so the position was a bit awkward, but he managed to pull himself back to his feet thanks to her help.
"We're almost there, Yaag..."
She says, helping him limp over to the bike. Helping him onto the seat, Ash then sits down.
"You doing alright?" She asks.
The numbing of the potion had begun to wear off, and Yaag found himself unbearably tired. But he needed to stay awake. He was pretty sure his leg was broken, and clearly his left arm was not in its best state either. His head hurt. Ah, probably a concussion, He softly groans, resting his head on Ash's shoulder.
"Will be... alright. But what of my... my soldiers?"
"Really is always about work with you, huh?" She chuckles, "They're working on relocating the populace to Gran Pulse, just like you ordered."
Yaag nods.
"But you can worry about all that later. Just stay awake. Some of your - No, our - people set up a medical camp nearby." She puts her hands onto the handles of the bike and begins driving, her pace slow.
Ash can feel Yaag's gentle breathing on her neck, and she's glad. She's so glad. "I love you a lot, you know."
"... love you too." He mutters, "Was... prepared to die... Thank you."
Ash smiles. "I don't want to lose you. Ever." She stops, just feeling the weight of his body against her, his gentle breathing tickling her neck, "Save your strength though."
"Mhm..."
Ash kept driving, but she always made her to check on him every once in a while.
"...'alk to me." Yaag whispers.
"What was that, my dear? Did you say something?"
"Talk to me. I want to... hear your voice... Need to stay awake."
"Oh, of course!"
~~~~~~
Ash finishes her story about some of her school days just as they arrive at the camp. She opted for a fun-filled story instead of their current events, not wanting to overwhelm him. He chuckles.
I could listen to her all day...
"Alright. We're here." Ash parks her airbike, stepping back onto the ground before reaching for Yaag, helping him down as well. He held her as support, trying to keep his weight on his good leg.
Ash clears her throat, her tone firming as she addresses the PSICOM team, "Hey, everybody." She puts the hand she wasn't using to support Yaag up, "It's Ash. I've got Director Rosch with me, and he's not looking good. Do your thing."
Yaag gives the medics a firm nod as they carry him away into a tent, and Ash watches him leave before taking a deep breath.
Welp, no time to rest.
"Hey, Ash." Says one of the soldiers standing guard around the area. Monster attacks would be more frequent now that they didn't have the luxury of being protected by the fal'Cie.
"Heya!" She grins at him, grabbing one of the spare guns they kept around, "I'm going to go help some of the people near the relocation area now. Look after the Director."
"Stay safe, Ash. The Director'll rip me apart of anything happened to ya." The soldier laughed, "And he's already intimidating enough as is."
Ash chuckles, thinking back to when she first met Yaag. It was hard to even stand in his presence without feeling absolutely terrified. They’d come a long way since then.
"No kidding." After giving the soldier a friendly high-five, she turns around.
"See you!"
Ash leaves to return to her trusty bike.
"I'm no soldier, but it's my responsibility to help the people." She says to herself as she sits down, grabbing her keys.
Regardless of what happened, she knew that she had to do the right thing.
#yaag passes away at the end of the game but!! not in this reality#however in the reality in which he does#ash is the one who finds the recordings he left behind that are mentioned in the novels and brings them to ryg's attention#but not here!!! i quite like how this one came out hehe! was a lot of fun :) i really like these two#yaag my beloved!! i'll do something fluffy for them sometime i swear#thank you so much for reading!!! :D!#me x the boys
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There’s a new group of villains on Fear The Walking Dead.
Well not entirely new. These are the same people who’ve been scrawling “The end is the beginning” everywhere. The same people with the submarine who are looking for Morgan who took the Magical Key from the bounty hunter way back at the beginning of Season 6.
I admit, I’m just kind of tired at this point. Tired of all the bullshit and bad writing and the tedious characters and the predictable stories. Tired of the parade of mediocre villains. Bone weary. And yet here I am, still reviewing this damn show.
Let’s take a little walk down memory lane, shall we?
TV’s Greatest Villains
At the beginning of Season 5, after the Most Horrible Villain Of Any Walking Dead Show was taken care of at long last, we got a new group of bad guys who . . . just wanted their warehouse back? And directions to an oil refinery?
Truly, these were now The Most Horrible Villains Of Any Walking Dead Show Ever.
Logan (played by a woefully underutilized Matt Frewer) was the head honcho of these bad apples and he fooled Morgan’s group into flying a plane they didn’t know how to fly far, far away to help some strangers in another part of the vast continent of Texas. Then he . . . moved back into his warehouse! The bastard.
After half a season of trying to fix the plane so they could fly back across the Pacific Ocean (which we all know separates the two halves of Texas) Logan tries to pretend like he’s a decent guy and fools the Morganites into showing him where the oil refinery is. Dastardly Logan! Then, just when Morgan and Logan decide that their names are similar enough that they might as well be friends, the Rangers show up!
They show up on horses with rifles and expertly kill Logan and every single member of his crew but for reasons (reasons!) they spare Morgan and the Morganites. It turns out that Logan was working for the evil witch queen of Lawton, Virginia—Truly The Most Horrible Villain Of Any Walking Dead Show Ever (Seriously). She is so evil that she kills the people working for her, who helped lead her to the oil refinery, and spared some people she didn’t know who weren’t loyal to her at all for reasons.
Yes, you heard me. Reasons! You don’t get to know the reasons. That’s not how scripts work. Scripts are supposed to be confusing, opaque and riddled with plot holes and inexplicable character choices.
Anyways, Virginia and the Rangers with their horses and their cowboy hats and their idyllic Texas aesthetic become the new Big Bads sometime in the second half of Season 5. Morgan and Friends make a PSA documentary to make sure anyone wandering from gas station to gas station is able to know who to call (GHOSTBUSTERS!) if they’re in trouble (which, like, yeah it’s a zombie apocalypse) because Morgan really wants to make up for all the bad things he’s done and so do all his friends.
Virginia is very mean, though, and so she makes a PSA, too, and that pisses Morgan off so bad that he takes his people far, far away to an abandoned Western-themed park-town filled with zombies and they make another PSA on the way that’s even more amazing and magical but a dude dies making it, marking the Best Walking Dead Death of All Time in the process. Seriously a dude decides it’s so important to film a selfie shot for the PSA that he dies when a bridge that’s collapsing surprisingly collapses! And then everyone is very sad!
Then, uh, after a spell at the new town that has no resources or water because it’s a theme park town instead of a real town, Wes and Alicia paint some stuff and June and John Dorie get married and Daniel plays some guitar and sings and Frank Dillane is like “Holy shit I’m so glad I bailed on this show” and then Virginia comes because Morgan calls her because instead of walking somewhere else they decide they should call the Evil Witch Queen Of Lawton so she can rescue them by splitting them all up (even Skidmark the cat!) and then the season ends with Morgan getting swarmed by zombies but don’t worry he’s still alive and they’ll tell us as much in a trailer that comes out before Season 6 because AMC is criminally addicted to spoiling their own shows for no reason on social media and . . . and . . .
Somewhere between Season 5’s finale and Season 6’s premiere AMC and showrunners Ian Goldberg and Andrew Chambliss must have put their heads together with Scott Gimple and decided that the Rangers and Virginia were actually super dull villains, just like the last few villains (I skipped the whole Vultures plot because they were actually so stupid they put the stadium under siege but still let Madison and co. go out scavenging because somehow they never read the Siege 101 manual or something).
Anyways, for reasons that must be obvious by now, somebody must have pointed out that Virginia is not a very good villain after all, partly because she’s just not that convincing but mostly because she made a goddamn copycat PSA and someone thought that was actually a cool story because there is no God and life’s not fair and this is also why we can’t have nice things, son.
And they must have realized that the Rangers are a like a cartoon version of what might happen in Texas after a zombie outbreak (just compare this clown show to the far more realistic Vatos gang from Season 1 of The Walking Dead). All these realizations must have felt strangely repetitive after what I can only imagine were similar revelations about Martha, the Vultures and Logan. So many revelations, so little useful insight or meaningful changes!
The Believers
In any case, they had June kill Virginia after a weird series of events that also saw one of the only good characters left on this godforsaken show get killed by yet another brat, and came up with The Believers, a group almost entirely inspired by The Monkees. These totally realistic folk live underground where they grow crops and embalm zombies and talk about how you need to be able to “see” when you look at this one creepy zombie they have entwined in vines in their basement. They’re led by a guy named Teddy played by John Glover who must really be down on his luck to take a role on this ridiculous show, though he’s actually creepy as a villain so that’s something. But no, I’m not going to feel any hope or optimism because fool me once shame on me, fool me again and George W. Bush, man. He has something to say about this.
Wes and Alicia and Al and Luciana all find their way to these people. I honestly can’t remember how they found them, but they show up to scout things out. They get interviewed like we’re back in Alexandria. Things go bad when Wes runs into his long-lost brother and ends up killing him after a scuffle over a gun. Wes’s brother has had a little too much of that Kool-Aid if you know what I mean. Wes isn’t too shook up about it. Remember when the entire brothers Dixon conflict between Merle and Daryl played out over the course of one single episode of The Walking Dead? Yeah, me neither.
Luciana says stuff because she’s still on this show for some reason. She says stuff a few times and people say stuff back to her. Al checks an embalmed zombie with a helmet on thinking it might be her lover girl from Season 5, because you totally embalm zombies with their helmets still on, but it’s not. Boy I was really worried there for a second!
Alicia sets the embalmed zombies on fire so they can get away and the others escape but Alicia doesn’t and then she has to have a whole entire conversation with Teddy and it’s pretty damn awkward when she tells him “You wanna kill me? That’s not gonna happen.”
Teddy’s like “whoa damn I was going to kill you but now that’s not going to happen crap” and Alicia’s like “So there, Teddy. You jerk face with your crazy-man beard.”
He knows something about Madison somehow. And he wants to “save you, Alicia” but “I don’t need saving” she tells him and then he talks in more cryptic circles. Teddy’s been looking for someone like Alicia for a long, long time and she’s like “listen old man at least I got some lines this episode!” which, to be fair, is true.
THE END. CREDITS ROLL.
Verdict
Yes, I am clearly mocking just about everything about this show. But I didn’t come up with this crap. I didn’t come up with Martha and the ethanol, or the plane and the beer-balloon, or Totally Pointless Logan, or Ginny and her boring ass cowboys. Maybe Teddy will be a better villain than all these. To be fair, he is a better villain already in a lot of ways. Then again, the bar set by the Vultures, Martha, Logan and Virginia is not very high. It’s so low, it’s less a bar and more of a speed bump.
So while Teddy is far more intriguing than the rest, and it’s even possible that Glover’s brief appearance here in this episode was better than the sum of all the other villains in this show since Season 4, I imagine they’ll find a way to screw him up also and then, as soon as he’s worn out his welcome, replace him with some other group of bad guys. The Shouters, a group of post-apocalyptic crazy people who wear zombie faces and shout at each other really loud, led by a bald woman named Alphapha.
Here’s the thing.
We need more than just Good Guys vs Bad Guys. There are other struggles to work with in fiction. Friction between the group that causes realistic, compelling internal strife. Survival against the elements and just the struggle of surviving in a world laid low by a pandemic, maybe without creature comforts like walkie-goddamn-talkies. Or perhaps a compelling story about a survivalist group at odds with a Native American tribe over water rights, whose intertwined family histories are marred by murder and revenge, where our heroes find themselves torn between both sides of a bloody fight they know very little about.
Yeah, what a notion.
Like I said at the very top of this review, I’m tired. I’m tired of Fear The Walking Dead. I’m tired of the same crap happening over and over again, another absurd bad guys who ultimately make the same fatal choice: They mess with Morgan Jones. NOBODY messes with Morgan Jones.
Maybe Morgan can make a PSA about how mean and delusional Teddy is and then Teddy can make a PSA about how The End Is The Beginning, Actually, Morgan You Twit. It’s just all nonsense at this point and it has been since the end of Season 3. We aren’t dealing with actual stories about real people. We’re watching a cartoon with two-dimensional cartoon villains and a bunch of uninteresting flat characters. Except a cartoon would be more fun.
What is the point of this show now? It’s like a goofier version of The Walking Dead, which also suffers from too many villain groups at this point and too many characters but not this level of crappy writing (usually).
Let me predict the plot for the remainder of Season 6 and likely part of Season 7 if AMC is actually going to let the current showrunners continue driving this show into the ground:
Teddy wants the key from Morgan so he can use it to activate the nuclear bombs on the nuclear sub that’s in the middle of Texas (because Texas, you recall, is separated by the Pacific Ocean which has dried up because ZOMBIES and the sub is there now). He wants to nuke the planet because he wants to save everyone because they’re weak probably. From this nuclear wasteland, new life will spring eternal and his cult—well protected in their underground parking garage with their cute little gardens—will be the new rulers of the world. Or at least of Texas which—we know because of geography class—accounts for approximately 57% of Earth’s land mass.
Look, I’m sorry. I’m really truly sorry but if this show continues to be a joke I don’t know why we should take it seriously. A mocking review if only fitting for a show that continues to make a mockery of itself. AMC has the resources and the wherewithal to produce a better zombie show and quite frankly audiences deserve one. There was nothing fundamentally awful about “The Holding” so I’m honestly not fully sure why I’m in such a snarky mind frame, but there was nothing very good about, either, and it’s just plain as day to me that they’re already falling into the same traps they keep falling into over and over and over again. Meet the new bad guy, same as the old bad guy. It’s all so predictable.
Because they don’t really learn from their mistakes, or because even if they do they just don’t know how to course correct. That’s the problem when you just don’t have much talent but nobody steps in and says “enough is enough!”
Because seriously, my droogies, enough is enough already.
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28. noceur - one who stays up late
Persona 4 | Souyo | Rated T
(Pre-relationship, a bit of hurt before the comfort)
—
On his first night back in Tokyo after his whirlwind year in Inaba, Souji stayed up waiting for midnight, staring at the old hand-me-down TV set in his bedroom.
Nothing happened, of course. The TV didn’t hum to life on its own; no one showed up on the screen; nothing broke the suffocating silence except his own heart’s punctuated pounding. He even reached a hand out to see if it would break through the plane of the dusty screen. It didn’t.
He was relieved in a way, but in another way, he wasn’t.
He speculated as to why that might be for the next five hours as he tossed and turned in bed, alternating between staring at the ceiling, the walls, and the pictures of his friends from Inaba that lived on his phone.
The vague answer he eventually came up with was that he wanted the impossible; everything his heart desired the most was beyond his reach: he wanted to be back in Inaba; he wanted to rewind time and relive the past year (minus all the horrible parts, of course); and he wanted to have his Partner by his side.
A week of this nightly torture—waiting for a Midnight Channel that wasn’t going to appear and then overthinking every aspect of his past and future for hours and hours while miserably waiting for fitful sleep to come—went by. He had never felt more exhausted, not even after his biggest battles in the TV World.
He didn’t want to be needy, but on night number eight, he finally broke down and called Yosuke.
“I don’t really know why I do it,” Souji said after explaining his fixation on waiting for the Midnight Channel.
“Maybe you’re hoping your soulmate will pop up?” Yosuke joked. “If you’re lonely, I’m sure there’s plenty of girls in the city who would love to help you out with that!”
Souji grimaced, starting to regret having called Yosuke.
He loved Yosuke, of course, but the fact that he loved him was one of the problems. He loved him a lot, probably too much.
Souji had always been bothered by Yosuke’s comments about Souji being some sort of chick magnet. He still couldn’t figure out why so many girls in Inaba had been interested in him, and the interest had unfortunately never been mutual, which led to a lot of guilt and awkwardness on his part.
But back then he loved Yosuke, and only Yosuke.
Well, that was still the case, which is why a significant portion of his sleepless nights was dedicated to feeling hopeless about that whole situation. His best friend, who apparently thought Souji should alleviate his loneliness with any city girl who would bat his eyelashes at him, loved him as his Partner but was never going to love him back romantically. And that was the worst kind of loneliness—he missed Yosuke on so many levels it was physically painful. He missed his physical presence by his side; he missed their routine that they’d grown so accustomed to; he missed a shared future he had imagined but that they would never actually have…
“I promise I’m not waiting for my soulmate to appear,” Souji said dryly.
“Hey, there’s no shame in wanting that! It’s kinda nice to think there’s somebody out there just for you…”
Souji pulled the phone away from his face for a moment to heave a heavy sigh; this conversation was going to make him sick to his stomach.
Bringing the receiver back to his mouth, Souji attempted to keep things light: “The only person who’s shown up on the screen is my own reflection, and I sincerely hope I’m not my own soulmate.”
“Well, personas are like souls, and you have multiple… and hey, aren’t your Oberon guy and that Titania chick married? Maybe you are your own soulmate!”
“Please, Yosuke, no…” Souji groaned. “Oh, and by the way, their marriage seems shaky at best, so that makes it even worse.”
“I’m just kidding, man! You’re not your own soulmate.”
“Well, now I’m not sure,” Souji said dismally, wanting to bury his face in his pillow.
“Chin up, Partner. Anyone would be lucky to have you as a soulmate.”
Souji scoffed, noting that the exhaustion was causing his normally rock-solid filter to slip. “You really think so, Yosuke?”
“Of course! Yosuke Hanamura’s partner could never be less than the best!” Yosuke stated proudly.
Souji gritted his teeth, somehow filled with both annoyance and affection.
After a too-short moment of contemplation, Souji blurted out: “I think I know why my soulmate’s not showing up on the TV.”
“Uh, because it hasn’t rained, and you’re not in Inaba, and that whole thing was just a rumor to begin with?”
Souji felt a distinct wave of anguish rise up in him, and while he was hoping for something more articulate, all he ended up whining out was, “Yosuke…”
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
“I don’t want some soulmate to show up,” Souji said frustratedly. He wanted Yosuke to be his soulmate, and if soulmates didn’t exist, he still wanted Yosuke. “I want… Damn it. When you said anyone would be lucky to have me, I wanted that to include you! I wish… I wish that included you.”
Fuck, Souji thought. What the hell did I just do? Maybe he won’t get it. Of course he won’t get it. But just in case, how should I play it off—
“It did. It… it does.”
“What?” Souji asked as his mind tripped over itself and its plans to divert Yosuke’s attention from his accidental confession.
“It… included me,” Yosuke said softly, but then he suddenly declared, “E-especially me!”
If Souji’s mind had tripped over itself before, it was now tumbling down a long staircase, picking up speed and headed for a disastrous crash landing.
Souji was about to ask for clarification, but then Yosuke started yelling a series of clarifications about how he missed Souji so much and how he had been miserable ever since he left town and how he just wanted to be with him…
Then Yosuke started hiccuping and crying, and Souji just about lost it, because how dare anything make his Partner cry, but also wow because that wasn’t a rational thought…
Before, Souji had very much desired a night of restful sleep, but this time when he didn’t get it, he didn’t mind one bit.
He and Yosuke stayed up all night talking to each other, clarifying things and confessing things, crying and laughing on and off, wistfully reminiscing and frantically trying to figure out when they could fit in a visit to see each other asap, so they could say these things in person and so they could hug each other so tightly they would break each other’s bones and so they could kiss the stupid smirks off each other’s stupid faces…
As the sun rose and Souji batted at his curtains to keep the offending sunlight out, the two of them started their long goodbyes.
Then Yosuke suddenly said, “Hey, before you go… sometimes I wait for the Midnight Channel too. I’m scared something’s gonna pop up again, but I’m even more scared of missing something and not saving somebody who needs to be saved. I’m guessing that’s part of why you do it too. But I definitely wasn’t watching and waiting for my soulmate to appear. I didn’t need to, because I already had you.”
Souji had thought he’d run out of tears by now, but here they were again, hot and trickling from the corners of his eyes.
“Is it too soon to say I love you?”
Yosuke laughed in delight, and then he was hiccuping again.
“No. I… I’ve been wanting to hear that… for a long time.”
“I love you, Yosuke.”
“Partner… I love you too.”
After they finally hung up, with solid plans for Yosuke to shirk all else the following weekend and come to the city, Souji had the best sleep of his life, paired with dreams of Yosuke that were so pleasant he couldn’t have written them himself.
He didn’t wake up again until that afternoon when Yosuke called to tell him he’d bought his train ticket and that he couldn’t wait to see him and that he hadn’t slept a wink because he was so excited and because his persona had been freaking out all day and that he loved Souji, more than anything.
#souyo#persona 4#yu x yosuke#souji x yosuke#fanfic#my writing#noceur#livefreeordie13#prompt fill#ask box fic#ficlet#fluff#romance#hurt/comfort#pre-relationship#insomnia#dorks in love#finished all my asks i guess i have to work on wips now sigh#will post on ao3 later
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Justice League #2 (1987)
I didn't know Orgazmo was in this comic book.
Once again, I'm surprised by how quickly an old comic book I read years ago gets to some of the stories I think of as major story arcs. These pseudo-Marvel heroes on the cover are the precursor to The Extremists whom I remember as major antagonists to this team. I don't know if The Extremists appear any time soon though. First, the Justice League have to deal with these peaceniks. Only after they've become allies with Blue Jay and Bald Thor and Brown Scarlet Witch do the Extremists finally come to destroy Earth.
The issue begins with Kevin Maguire going, "Look at these lips. You like these lips and this mouth. Well, you're gonna get lots of them! Even Maxwell Lord gets some lovely pouty face slugs!"
I'm sorry for referring to lips as "face slugs."
Batman's main goal is to get to the bottom of how Doctor Light became a member of his League. He'd already hired Black Canary so why would he need another woman in the group? Isn't a ratio of eight men to one woman good enough?! I'm counting Oberon in the number of men just to make it seem even more lopsided. Although Doctor Fate has already ditched (and will become a woman soon anyway, right?!) so, not including Oberon, that makes the ratio six to one! Getting better! Plus add Doctor Light since she was on the cover and has somehow forced her way in, a ratio of six to two! That's three to one if you reduce it! Which is practically one to one if you squint and put your fingers in your ears and go, "Nyah nyah nyah! Everything is already equal! Why are women fighting for more than they already have?!"
Anyway, my point was: Fucking Batman. What a monster!
I wouldn't think a sleeveless vest with a wacky collar layered on top of a turtle neck with elbow length white gloves would look so cool!
I prefer to concentrate on Guy's outfit rather than his misogyny and lack of intelligence and terrible haircut.
In this issue is an advert for the all new Dr. Fate four issue mini-series by Giffen and DeMatteis. So that solves the mystery of why he was sort of included in the first issue. He was basically a commercial.
Jack Ryder's gossip television show has been trying to portray the new Justice League in a negative light because that's the kind of reporting that gets eyeballs and raises revenue. Maybe if people's lives weren't so boring, they wouldn't eat up all that hot take drama shit from people like Jack Ryder and Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham. I suppose I shouldn't wonder how rational people watch that shit because most people, rational or not, are just looking for somebody to repeat their inner views back to them. And Fox News has honed that ability to a razor edge. Sometimes I imagine Sean Hannity doesn't believe the stupid shit he comes up with but then I remember my high school and college friend Soy Rakelson and I think, "Oh yeah. He actually believes that shit."
I recently found this letter by Soy from our college paper. It's been in my head since 1994 when I could not fucking believe he wrote it. Poor, poor discriminated Soy, self-declared "Defender of Western Civilization."
One small note about Soy: maybe a month or two after Trump became president, he quietly disappeared from Facebook for good. I won't speculate on why but I suppose if I spent some time trying, I'd probably come up with his actual reasoning.
After Guy throws another tantrum that has to be quelled by Batman, Doctor Fate gets a scene of his own! I guess he didn't completely disappear from the comic book. At least not yet. Although, if Doctor Fate sticks around for a dozen or more issues, I'm going to feel even more shitty than I already feel about my memory.
Doctor Fate visits some purple haired guy who sees everything as gray and warns him to take back up his destiny. I don't know who it is. The only purple haired character I remember is Pariah. But what is his destiny other than to watch worlds burn? Also, he has other selves across the world reaching into people's souls. Is he Jim Corrigan? I have no idea!
Meanwhile, Blue Jay, Wandjina, and Silver Sorceress (whose costume is brown), from Earth-Marvel-Parodies (or some other new world, I suppose. In 1987, there was just one Earth left, right?), are busy dismantling Bialya's nuclear arsenal. Bialya is one of DC's evil countries. Sometimes you don't want to write a story that exists in a gray world; you just want pure black and white, good and evil. When that's the case, you have the heroes battle Bialyans!
Blue Jay and friends are here to rid the Earth of all their nuclear weapons so as to save it from the fate that befell their homeworld. The leader of Bialya sees an opportunity for mischief and power and the destruction of America, so he greets them with open arms.
Rumaan Harjavti, the leader of Bialya, teams up with Blue Jay and Friends to help guide them to other nations who have nuclear weapons that need to be disposed of. The first country he sends them to is Israel. Probably because it's close by and not because he has ulterior racist motives. Guy Gardner hears the news and is thrilled because he gets a boner imagining a world where only Ronald Reagan has control over a nuclear arsenal.
When he first mentioned Ronnie, I thought it was a mistake. I forgot how old this comic book is!
Batman is all, "We're going to stop these peaceniks from making the world a safer place!" Because if there's one story that can't be told enough it's the one where we all learn a lesson about how the ends do not justify the means, no matter how amazing the ends will be and how messy the means are. I suppose the ends justify the means if the means are compassionately thought out and done with respect for all parties' opinions! So maybe sometimes the ends justify the means? Or does the statement not work that way because the point is that you can't just make that blanket statement. Like, do you murder five million people to save one little girl's life? Probably not! Or do I have it completely wrong and everybody thinks the ends do justify the means? Anyway, Batman doesn't think world peace should be achieved through the destruction of other people's dangerous property. It's basically the same story that season one of Stargirl just told. The Injustice Society of America wants to make the world a leftist dreamscape but at the cost of 25 million lives or something. And the Justice Society is all, "Well, we really like your manifesto. We agree with all of these points. But maybe the cost is too high?" So in the end, I was left supporting the Injustice Society of America because I guess I believe the ends do justify the means?! Also, I'm fairly certain I don't like a quarter of the population so good riddance? But also maybe the entire season of Stargirl was some sort of anti-leftist parable about how you have to let people come to their own decisions about saving the world because forcing them to get on board is rude and it's better if climate change destroys the world than to force one person to believe that manmade climate change is an actual thing?
I had philosophical whiplash by the end of Stargirl season one. One character is all, "Murder is wrong!" and then goes and murders somebody and another character is all "I need revenge because this monster killed my parents!" and then he gets all merciful and lets Solomon Grundy go so he can kill other parents and the Injustice Society is all, "We'll kill indiscriminately to make the world a better place for our rich white kids!" and then their all, "A lot of rich white people's kids are going to die from our plan but that's okay because they're not ours." Also, the worst part of the show, the part of the show that I cannot forgive, is how they introduced us to Doctor Mid-Nite's sad owl back at the abandoned JSA headquarters and Luke Wilson is all, "Yeah, he's just waiting for Doctor Mid-Nite to return. It's sad, right? He just hangs out here alone super sad." And then Beth becomes the new Doctor Mid-Nite and you keep expecting the owl to befriend her but the owl never appears, ever again. Every episode, when the sad owl didn't appear onscreen, I was reminded of the sad owl. So every minute of every episode, I kept thinking, "Is the owl going to befriend Beth now?" And nothing. The season ends with the sad owl still super sad and all alone and fuck the writers and showrunners for that. I suppose they couldn't afford a CGI owl after ejaculating all of their CGI money on the five minute Solomon Grundy fight.
I just digressed so much I need to take a shower.
Guy and I are in 99.5% agreement about the dismantling of nuclear weapons. That last bit is where he thinks the U.S.A. should get to keep theirs.
Everybody treats Guy Gardner like his argument isn't even worth listening to but they're all wrong! They're just treating him like a dumb jerk! Sure, I agree that the Justice League just can't take it upon themselves to rid the world of all nuclear weapons. I mean, do I?! Hmm. I'm not so sure I do agree with that! If Superman really cared about Earth, shouldn't he martyr himself by becoming the biggest criminal in the history of the entire world by destroying all nuclear weapons against the will of every nation that has them?! There are plenty of other planets in the DCU that he could go live on after becoming a giant Earth menace! Can't he even make that small sacrifice for the safety of his homeworld?! And if his actions cause some kind of horrible repercussions that cause the world to spiral into chaos, he can probably just blame Batman.
Silver But Really Brown Sorceress questions if what they're doing is right. Bald Thor says, "In the end they'll thank us. And even if they don't, at least they'll be alive to hate us." See?! That's what I just said about Superman! He should totally take that bullet! That was not a tasteless George Reeves joke and even if somebody read it that way, it's been like a hundred years since his death!
Blue Jay and Friends tell each other their origin story as they remember how their world was destroyed by nuclear weapons and how they decided to interfere with everybody else's lives because of it. I think their origin was supposed to make me see their side of things and feel empathy for them but it totally made me rethink their position and now I totally think they need to be stopped. Because I was fine when I thought the argument was "Destroy all nuclear weapons to save Earth." But I dislike the argument, "Something bad happened to me and now I have to make sure it never happens to anybody else no matter how annoying I make myself!" It's like when somebody's dumb kid gets hit by a bus while riding their bike and then they have to get a law passed making it illegal for busses to run over kids and to name the law after their kid and to get politicians who support the law because it doesn't really change anything (being that busses running over kids was probably already frowned upon if not illegal) but it's good press and makes it look like they're doing something. Then after the dumb law is passed, the parents of the dumb kid can say things like, "My baby didn't die in vain!" Even if that's totally untrue and their baby did die in vain and the law never actually makes the world a better place at all.
Guy rushes in to stop Blue Jay and Friends all alone but fails because writers can't reward brash arrogant heroes who are mostly just big jerks. It would be unseemly.
So far, I've liked the bits with Captain Marvel but I'm still weirded out that he's a little boy in a grown man's muscular body.
Blue Jay and Friends fly into Bialyan airspace and the Justice League have to back off. But they'll get another chance to stop Blue Jay and Friends next issue when Blue Jay and Friends try to disarm Russia!
Justice League #2 Rating: B+. It gets too complicated when super heroes bump up against the wall of political conflicts. When Batman points out that the Justice League can't chase Blue Jay and Friends into Bialyan airspace without creating an international incident, some readers might start questioning how super heroes can act even within the borders of one specific country! Surely every time they commit their vigilantism, they're creating a domestic incident! Don't make me start asking questions about the fundamental nature of masked people doing whatever the fuck they think is justice without the consent of any kind of laws or political powers, comic book! This is too heady for my tastes! I guess the whole point is to eventually have the Justice League backed by the United Nations so that the reader can think, "Okay, right. So they have the authority to do whatever they want now if I'm willing to believe the United Nations has any real authority at all!" And then the reader goes on to prove the moon landing never happened and that Project Cloverleaf rains human excrement down on our heads on a daily basis for some kind of Nazi experimentation.
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Last one! I swear! Prompt #97 with Lucie and Matthew
Yessssss!! I love Matthew and Luciee!!
Prompt #97: “I need help.”
Characters: Matthew Fairchild & Lucie Herondale (platonic)
Lucie’s fingers hovered over her typewriter as she racked her brain for a word. It was on the very tip of her tongue, she could practically taste the word, and yet it still wasn’t there. She squinted her eyes in hopes that the word would come but she had no such luck. Lucie turned in her seat, placing her forehead on the back of her chair.
“Matthew?” She asked the blond boy reading on the couch behind her. “Do you remember the name of that period before a flood? The one from the bible?”
Matthew looked pensive for a moment, and then wrinkled his nose.
“Ante—” Lucie said, remembering only the beginning of the word.
“Ah,” Matthew said after a while, snapping his fingers. “Antediluvian.”
“Yes! That’s the word! You’re the greatest reverse dictionary, Matthew!” Lucie said, quickly typing out the word.
“How ironic that I remember a term from the bible, while I myself am drowning in my own sins.” Matthew remarked.
Lucie stopped and turned.
Matthew was turned away from her, looking out the window, so that all she saw was his side profile. Though his stoic expression made him seen unreachable; uninviting even, Lucie was strangely reminded of Uncle Henry. The way there was an emotion hidden behind those dark, emerald eyes, a secret hidden in them so very deep, you would drown before you could reach it. Different from Henry, however, Matthew’s eyes danced for show and never for the sake of joy. She could make out his near invisible freckles in the sunlight, how they made constellations across his concave, button nose. Individual strands of his hair caught in the light and took on a white color. Lucie couldn’t help but think of the times she had used the color in her novels: white that signifies purity and innocence. Yet, all she could think was how Matthew’s shoulders were always ever so slightly hunched, how his smile rarely reached his eyes. The sheer perfection of his face that left girls flustered and adults charmed. Many didn’t look deeper into the bottomless eyes that cried for help. How could you when the sunshine from his smile made it nearly impossible to see his pain?
Lucie, however, was a writer. She always looked much deeper than the surface.
“You should really consider joining the Townsend’s musicale, Matthew. You are a wonderful actor, after all.”
Matthew turned his face, looking at Lucie with a bemused smile. “How would you know, Luce? I’ve never acted in front of you, nor have I tried it except for once when I was perhaps fourteen years of age and even then, it was a horror.”
“Nonsense, Math. You act in front of me all of the time.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The way you always act like you’re alright, when everybody who cares can clearly see you’re not.” Lucie said, her sudden seriousness cracking like a whip.
Matthew stopped dead. When he spoke, he did so quietly. “What makes you think I’m not alright?”
Lucie got to her feet, annoyed. “Oh, please. You cannot simply sit there and lie to me. I know there’s something the matter, and I’ve asked you about a million times about it, only to have you turn me down each time.”
“If I keep turning you down, perhaps you’re just being delusional.” Matthew said through his teeth.
“Or maybe, it’s yourself who is delusional, pretending you don’t need help, meanwhile trying in every way possible to get somebody’s attention so that they might help.”
“Trying to get somebody’s attention?” Matthew said incredulously.
“Yes. More specifically, your mother’s. Don’t look at me like that, Matthew, you know it’s the truth. You drink partly because it makes you forget but also because you so desperately want Aunt Charlotte to come and tell you to stop.”
“And does she?”
“No.”
“Then answer me this, if you know everything, why would I keep drinking if I knew my mother wouldn’t do anything about it?”
“Because that doesn’t change the fact that you need help. Did you honestly believe I wouldn’t realize you drink more when she’s around? When Jamie’s around?”
Matthew put his hands on his head. “Stop, Lucie. I don’t want to hear your absurd theories anymore.”
“Say it, Matthew. I’m tired of trying to ‘save’ you when you don’t want to save yourself. I’m not going to chase around, praying you’ll listen this time.”
Matthew looked like he had just been slapped in the face. He tensed, building a wall against himself. His hair became golden in the soft sunlight seeping through the window, making him resemble what Lucie could only describe as a greek god; perhaps Achilles, the demigod that saved thousands, but couldn’t save himself.
Then, Matthew sunk down on the chair as though in defeat. Just as Paris had done, she’d found his weak spot. The one place where his invincibility was non existent. His walls came crashing down and Lucie was reminded of a puppy on the street; hurt, alone and frightened.
Matthew took a shaky breath before speaking. “Fine, Lucie. You want to hear me say it? I’ll say it: I need help. I need help, Lucie.” His voice cracked. “There are days when I lay in bed and wish I had never woken up and they have been coming more frequently.
“I’m tired of pretending everything is alright, I'm tired of burying my sorrows in alcohol. I’m tired of lying to my family and my parabatai and my friends and you too. I’m so tired and yet when I try to fall asleep at night, rest never comes because my sins are weighing me down so much that I can’t slip into unconsciousness without feeling them on my chest, not letting me breathe. Most nights, I suffocate and I feel like I’m going to die. I don’t want this, Lucie. Please, I beg of you, help me.”
Tears slid down her eyes matching Matthew’s. She crossed the room and sat down beside him, holding his hand in both of her’s. “What’s wrong, Math? Tell me and I can help you.”
Matthew reached over and wiped one of her tears despite the heavy stream falling down his own face. “No, Luce. You can’t help me with this. There’s nothing you can do. This is something I have to fix on my own.”
“Then let me be here for you.” Lucie said, breaking eye contact for the sole purpose of leaning over and wrapping his arms around him. He seemed to freeze before his arms came down and embraced her tightly.
“I’ll be here for you, Math. I’ll make sure you walk through this cave and into the light, and if I can’t be the one to lead to, at least I’ll be there, standing next to you until you make it out.”
Matthew mumbled something, perhaps a thank you, and they embraced for what could have been an hour or two minutes. Matthew’s hair tickled her cheek and she was yet again reminded of a puppy or a small child, at such loss of the vast world, and in desperate need of an embrace or a kiss on the cheek, to know that everything will be alright.
“Everything will be alright, Math.” Lucie said, kissing his cheek and embracing him until the sky turned a gradient of pastel blues, pinks and oranges. The day was ending, but sometimes you need to end a horrible chapter before you can start a new one and work to make everything better again.
Tagging: @celias @hitheresomeoneusingthus @rinadragomir @tsccreatorsnet @atla-lok143 @youngreckless @autumnangel20
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#matthew fairchild#lucie herondale#matthew and lucie#tsc#tsc fanfic#the last hours fanfiction#matthew and lucie platonic#matthew fairchild fanfic#lucie herondale fanfic#the last hours#tlh fanfiction#tlh#chain of gold#chain of iron
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Funny/random 6
—
Gladion doesn’t know what to expect when he gets an emergency call from Hau at 4 a.m. in the morning. He’d been barely awake when he picked up the phone, but he recalls the distinct buzz of chatter and laughter in the background of the call and what had sounded like Ilima cheering on to someone that, if Gladion is to trust his instinct and previous experiences, will surely be Moon.
When he reaches Melemele, still half asleep and wearing clothes that don’t match in colors, shirt wrongly put with the front on his back, he hears Hau laughing hysterically at a secluded point of the beach as Moon seemingly builds a cage made of bricks around Ilima’s barely conscious form. She’s about at shoulder’s height when Gladion gets to her.
“What–” Gladion sputters. Moon turns to him, innocent and unknowing. “What exactly are you doing?”
“I’m building a cage.”
“A cage?”
“A cage of bricks.”
“And cement,” points Hau out, earning a soft nod from Moon who, unfazed by Gladion’s presence, dabs a thick layer of cement on the brick and slaps it on top of another. “Ilima and Moon made a bet.”
The Champion (who would surely lose her job if Kukui caught her red-handed) shrugs nonchalantly. “Ilima was all like ‘I bet you can’t cage a Pokémon in’ and I told him that’s abusive, so we resorted to cage him instead. We had to drag him here ‘cause he passed out the second we sealed the deal.” Moon wags her eyebrows. “He’s not gonna see it coming.”
“He literally won’t see if you cage him in. You’re not even leaving a gap for him to see through, dude.” Hau shakes his head. “Building him a cage is fine, but he’s gotta breathe somehow.”
Gladion, trying to shake the spoors of sleep off his organism, frowns at the two. “How is that worrying you and not the fact that he won’t be able to leave?” Both Hau and Moon shrug, either ignorant or too drunk to care. “Where did you even get all this from?”
Moon finally stops building, brick on her hand dripping with wet cement. “Did you know the mall is rebuilding its entrance because of that bad storm last week?” Gladion shakes his head. “I didn’t either until… an hour ago. Maybe a little less.”
Gladion watches her build with uncanny calmness. Maybe he’s too tired to care, maybe it’s the way the moonlight shapes her or how the murmur of the waves washing at his feet tranquilizes him, but it’s hard for him to complain about something that, legally speaking, the victim can’t prove he saw. On the basis of law he’s innocent and Moon’s the criminal.
Which he means he should get her to drop all those tools that she somehow knows how to use.
“Moon,” he says her name calmly, coughing the raspiness of sleep away. She whips her head to him, eyes bright and at attention. “Drop the brick and walk away. Slowly. I’m scared you might trip in your state.”
“I’m fine. I’m not drunk.” The spite in her voice would be credible if it weren’t for the light daze glossing her eyes. “I’m a very professional Champion doing Alola a favor. This should count as community work.”
Gladion turns to Hau, as though he will convince her, but the young Kahuna shrugs and sighs. “Tried my best earlier. She’s not gonna let it go. That’s why I called you.” He gets on his feet. Moon pays no heed to his departure. “Maybe she’ll save the tourists from Ilima’s weird flirting. He says he does it unintentionally but I think something’s fishy there.”
“I fell for the charm when I began my Island Challenge,” both men turn to Moon, blinking in surprise. “I got some dignity. He deserves it for making me lose my cool. He’s got this sway of his words that could turn stones pink.”
Hau nods solemnly. Gladion stares at her like she just grew another head out of thin air, surprised. The other snickers, knowing that Moon won’t hear them, deeply focused on her task.
Gladion narrows his eyes at him. “Don’t cry about it, my dude. She’s well over it.” Hau regards the scene one last time, wincing as Moon slaps a brick on so hard it nearly shatters. He turns to the President once more. “I thought I could take advantage of that thing you two got goin’ on–”
“We have nothing going on.”
“Sure, whatever you say. Anyway, I thought I could ask you to take her home since I honestly can’t. I’m so drunk I don’t know how I’m even awake, man.” He points at Moon with his thumb, grinning. “She’s a handful and I got work tomorrow. I’m passing her on to you. Don’t do anything funny to her.”
Gladion swings his eyes to her, watching her nonchalantly work on her little masterpiece, and then looks at Hau. “What do I get out of this?”
“Moon is really cute when she’s hammered.”
“She’s cute every day.” Gladion is so tired he might as well let that slip. It’s not like any of these idiots is gonna remember anyway.
“She’s also super honest and you might get you two’s feelings and all that stuff on the road.”
Gladion thinks this through for two exact seconds.
“Deal.”
Hau animatedly shakes his hand with Gladion’s, then stalks off along the beach. “Take care of her! Good luck, dude!”
Hau also falls face-first into the sand but Gladion doesn’t stay to pay attention to that, and instead walks towards Moon with all the time in the world, quietly watching her work.
“Are you aware this is a little bit illegal?”
“Under what law?”
“Under rationality’s law,” he mutters. That gets Moon to stop, as she calmly sets the brick on top, but it doesn’t stick to the wall. “Do you realize that when Kukui finds out about this, he will give you a colossal earful?”
Moon grins. It’s full of teeth and devoid of good intentions. “He doesn’t need to know. And even if he did, this is my very own masterpiece, I’ll have you know.” Moon pats the cage in what could be closest defined as kindness and fondness. “This is my mark. My heritage for the world to take. It’ll outlive all of us.”
“You’re a famous Pokémon trainer, a Champion, and yet you decide that this is your remarkable feat in history?”
The way she blinks at him leads him to believe she’s genuinely confused. “What’s wrong with that?”
“Let me phrase it another way,” Gladion clears his throat, choosing to entertain her for a little longer. “Do you realize that you won’t remember any of this tomorrow and that Kukui will realize this was yours and will force you to take it down brick by brick?”
“Why would he know?”
Gladion simply points to the bottom of the cage. “You wrote your name with a Sharpie.”
Moon huffs. “That could be somebody trying to incriminate me.”
“It’s your signature. You even drew a small Rowlet.” Gladion narrows his eyes at the scribbled owl. “It looks too horrible to be the work of anybody but you.”
Moon rolls her eyes, yet stops her work to contemplate her options. “If Ilima wakes up and sees himself free and uncaged, he’ll think I’m a coward and that I didn’t stick to the bet.”
“Don’t you think it’d be much better if he thought you’re the rational Champion we all love and not insane when drunk?”
Her eyes widen and a lovely grin curls her lips, much more teasing and amazed than intoxicated. “Aw, you love me? Really?”
That seems to be doing the trick, and it’s not like she’s going to remember any of this tomorrow so he chooses to be truthful, nodding. “Yeah, I’ve loved you for years now. You’re just too dumb to see it.”
“Well, I can see it now!”
“You’ll forget about this tomorrow, Sherlock,” he mutters, very much disgraced that her delight by his declaration is but a side-effect of her intoxication. “C’mon, I’ll take you home.”
Sighing as she pouts, he brings an arm down to her waist and another under her legs, proceeding to carry her away. Moon instantly complains. “Hey! We were having a lovely conversation and I’m busy with my descendants’ heirloom!”
“You won’t remember any of this tomorrow and it’s not like you mean any of what you’re saying right now,” Gladion laments, walking across the beach, making a sharp turn to the right. “You can sleep if you want. We’ll be there in a bit.”
Much to his surprise, Moon has gone quiet. He refuses to look down lest he gets distracted by the image of something that would be romantic if it weren’t for how drunk she is. Gladion sometimes wishes Arceus wouldn’t bless him with moments like these where things are going great at the wrong time.
After a few minutes of silent walking, she presses her cheeks on his chest. “I’ll make an effort to remember this.”
“It’s mathematically impossible for someone as drunk as you to remember all that happened tonight.”
“I’ll beat the odds and make an effort. If I don’t remember, you can always tell me tomorrow,” her words are muddled at the end by the yawn she lets out, all before shifting in his arms. “Just… Just you wait, Gladion. I’ll get you to say that again, you hear me? That way I can tell you how I feel too.”
Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to tell her again in the future. People say drunk people are honest. Maybe she’s being honest. She’s always honest, after all.
Gladion smirks to himself. “Sure. I’ll be waiting.”
“Good,” she yawns again. “That’s what I like to hear…”
And she falls asleep like that. Her breath evens out and she goes silent, making Gladion stop in his tracks to check if she’s actually asleep.
Under the opportune light of a lamppost and his shadow, she looks at ease and comfortable, peacefully asleep even if his arms are (or should be) anything but comfortable. Her lips are parted slightly and her brow is no longer tense in apprehension and false euphoria, but softened and calm.
Chuckling, he presses a kiss on her forehead and keeps on walking to her house, smiling all the while and silently wondering how Ilima will get out of the trap Moon had built around her.
But oh well, that’s not for him to worry about.
—
[Prompt list]
#lonashipping#gladimoon#request#this turned into 400CQ Moon real quick and I'm living for it#asking me to write funny lonashipping means me writing 400CQ Moon#at least regarding her characterization#I'm flattered you think I'd be able to write something funny LMAOOOOO#thanks for requesting <3333
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