#my long term partner has the same name as my father who killed himself when I was like two
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Hi, how are you? Your blog is amazing and your recommendations have already allowed me to read wonderful stories, so thank you so much! I wonder if you could suggest me any cherik fics of them as detectives? I remember reading one a long time ago, but unfortunately I don't know the name and even less the synopsis. Thank you in advance for your help.
Thank you so much @remember5novemberv for your kind words. I'm so sorry this took me so long but I hope you enjoy this list. There are some excellent detective AUs in this fandom so you're in for a treat.
Cherik Detective AUs
Their Mouths Always Lie – keire_ke
Summary: Charles adheres to most police protocols like they are a personal code of conduct. Erik gets things done and over with, for better or worse. Raven knows what she's doing, most of the time. The serial killer kills, regardless. Police AU.
Guilty by Association – Reagan
Summary: While investigating the homicide of a John Doe who he suspects might've been murdered while working the streets as a prostitute, Detective Erik Lehnsherr finds an unexpected ally in a hooker named Charles who seems as determined as he to solve the case. As they become more deeply involved both with the case and each other, there's just one thing that Charles neglects to mention -- that he's really an investigative journalist, one quickly convinced that what they're dealing with is more than simple murder. cop!Erik, fake-hooker-slash-reporter!Charles, Modern AU.
Incy Wincy Spider – Tawabids
Summary: Erik Lehnsherr is a renowned homicide detective, with his husband Charles at home and his partner on the job, Moira MacTaggert. When a twisted serial killer starts targeting mutants, Erik and Moira are the perfect team for the job, especially since Erik himself is the mutant poster-boy of an NYPD trying to improve their image.
But what they don't yet know is that the serial killer is an old soul out of Erik's past, and his next move is to pull Charles into his web.
The Theory of Partnership Dynamics – Pangea
Summary: “Detective Lehnsherr, how wonderful to see you out on the job!” The fed in the front greets him as they draw nearer. He’s shorter than the other two by a full head, and he’s beaming at Lehnsherr as if completely undeterred by Lehnsherr’s paint-peeling scowl.
“What do the feds want?” Lehnsherr asks bluntly.
“You know I can’t tell you that,” the fed answers cheerfully. Then his gaze lands on Alex, and, impossibly, his grin gets even brighter. “Did you get a new partner?"
“No,” Lehnsherr says through his teeth while at the same time Alex says, “Yes.”
Charles’ Killer – luchia
Summary: When detective Charles Xavier finds himself hunting down a vendetta-driven serial killer, it doesn't take long for him to realize he's in over his head. It only takes a little longer for him to realize his killer is, too.
Demoted – JayPendragon
Summary: Erik Lehnsherr is a detective-specialist with the NYPD Mutant Tactical Unit, ready to help out where his skills are needed. Or he would be, if he and his partner hadn’t been demoted. For the next four months, he is patrolling the Lenox Hill precinct with Azazel – if he doesn’t die of boredom first.
One night they are called in to investigate a potential case of domestic violence, yet the tenant assures them he is both alone and unharmed. However, there is something about this Charles Xavier that compels Erik to follow up.
Watching the Detectives – Clocks
Summary: Detectives Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr are good friends and colleagues. However, when they go undercover at a Christmas party to nab a prime suspect, Erik keeps reminding himself to stay professional and ignore feelings of unexpected jealousy.
Oh, Sinnerman (Where you gonna run to?) – TintagelCastle (orphan–account)
Summary: Erik Lehnsherr is one of the best homicide detectives in New York. From small time stabbings to high end mob hits, Erik (and his equally scary partner Logan) makes sure all the bad guys get caught, searching for the final clue to nail his mother's killer. As a string of murders draws the net ever tighter on Erik's life's work, he needs to catch the nightmare of his past whilst continuing to be the darling of the Force...
And so what if he's completely in love with the British guy on Forensics? Who's he ever going to tell?
Wrap up my bones – waifornight
Summary: Damaged detective Erik Lehnsherr is grimly searching for a serial killer whose victims all have extraordinary gifts. But without any clues or leads he and his partner Logan are in the dark. Until Charles Xavier, abducted by the killer, escapes. Together Erik and Charles must confront something far darker than either of them had ever imagined.
Alternate Universe loosely based off the crime movie Kiss the Girls.
I’ll see your heart (and I’ll race you mine) – sirona
Summary: For Kriminalhauptkommissar Erik Lehnsherr, this case will change everything.
Paralyzer – Yahtzee
Summary: In 1965, Erik Lehnsherr has infiltrated the NYPD for his own purposes -- but his powers make him a brilliant detective. Yet that's not why FBI agent Charles Xavier has sought him out. It's because the mysterious killer they're both trying to find is murdering people like them: other mutants.
Their search for a madman binds them together. Their inner demons may tear them apart. But the greatest danger comes when the killer they're looking for looks back.
Wrap up my bones – waifornight
Summary: Damaged detective Erik Lehnsherr is grimly searching for a serial killer whose victims all have extraordinary gifts. But without any clues or leads he and his partner Logan are in the dark. Until Charles Xavier, abducted by the killer, escapes. Together Erik and Charles must confront something far darker than either of them had ever imagined.
Alternate Universe loosely based off the crime movie Kiss the Girls.
The Long Bright Dark – lachatblanche
Summary: Ten years ago Detectives Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr closed the case on a grotesque series of murders that continue to haunt them even in the present day. When they are pulled in for questioning a decade later, they finally have confirmation of something that they have both suspected for a very long time - that there is unfinished business for them to take care of and that the case they thought they had closed so very long ago is in reality still all too open.
A True Detective AU.
Finding North – ClarkeStetler, Goosenik
Summary: Charles and Erik are (loosely) friends with benefits. They don't share personal details, last names, or anything concrete about their lives. This is ruined rather spectacularly when Charles gets recruited by the Mutant Apprehension Division of the FBI. Surprised is a bit of an understatement for their reaction to finding themselves partnered up and sent out on cases with the team.
Closer (to God) – dsrobertson
Summary: Se7en/The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo AU-ish.
Political journalist and editor, Erik Lehnsherr, has just lost £150,000 in a libel case against businessman, Kurt Marko. Down on his luck and in need of money, Erik is approached by the Metropolitan Police’s Detective Inspector Charles Xavier. Well-known for his investigative journalism, Erik is asked to help in the search for a serial killer in return for £200,000 if the killer is caught.
Wrapped up in murder, religion, and sex, Erik gets more than he bargained for.
Homo Sacer – unveiled
Summary: In a not too distant future, Detective Erik Lehnsherr meets Charles Xavier: street magician, former academician, and telepath.
One Good Day – troll_under_the_bridge
Summary: One case which is going to turn Charles' world upside down, while he struggles to pacify his boss, investigate murders and come to terms with the mess his life has become.
Playing With Fire – professor
Summary: Charles is a detective determined to catch a serial killer.
If the serial killer doesn't catch him first.
Hold on or let go – aesc, pearl_o
Summary: Teenage telepath Charles Xavier takes a job as a consultant, working with prickly police detective Erik Lehnsherr. Charles is used to being on his own and taking care of himself; he has no reason to think that his relationship with this stern, icy man is going to change any of that. (Also known as: Tough Little Baby Telepath.)
MCIS: First Case – Pookaseraph
Summary: Erik Lehnsherr considers himself a great MCIS agent, and he puts up with a lot from his boss - Moira MacTaggart - in the name of solving crimes against mutants, but he's not so sure about this new empath, Charles Xavier. Their first case together will test Erik's patience, but doubtless be the beginning of a brilliant friendship.
MCIS: Fathers, Sons, and Brothers – Pookaseraph
Summary: Alex Summers has a single case that he has obsessed about ever since coming to MCIS two years ago: Su-M-94-0708-0034, the murder of Christopher and Katherine Summers, and the presumed kidnapping and possible murder of Scott Summers. Very little evidence was found at the time, but hopefully a new team - and new leads - can shed light on the case that left Alex an orphan.
When the Crazies come to town – Chinchillaatthedisc0
Summary: Erik is a surly detective with zero people skills who has just been assigned the murder case of Kurt Marko. Prime suspect? Charles xavier. Who's no where to be found.
My old man is a bad man – faerie_ground
Summary: Sebastian Shaw dies at two am in the morning with a dagger embedded in his forehead. Detective Erik Lehnsherr is on the case, and the number one suspect is the recently widowed Dr Charles Xavier, Sebastian Shaw's husband.
Deep Cover – Subtilior
Summary: Omegas in heat? The perfect whores. Sebastian Shaw? The bastard who kidnaps them for his Hellfire Club. Erik Lehnsherr? A hard-boiled detective who's been on the Hellfire case for months. The catastrophe that unfolds when he goes in on retrieval and finds Charles Xavier still writhing in a Hellfire bed? .... Deep Cover.
A Murder of Ravens – AbandonedWorld
Summary:Charles Xavier is wrongfully accused. Erik Lehnsherr is a top-notch homicide Lieutenant who stumbles upon the case of a lifetime: a serial killer targeting mutants–and only mutants. Charles bides his incarceration waiting on a miracle, reciting Poe's timeless gem in effort to retain his sanity...
Note: Unfinished
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The Psychological Horror Manhwa “Killing Stalking” is not a Romance, but an Emotional Series Depicting the Codependent Relationship Between Two Ill Individuals
Content Warning!!: contains mentions of sexual abuse (rape) and mental illness.
Killing Stalking is an immensely twisted webcomic series, mainly popular within the Yaoi community for its boy on boy focused plotline. The story follows characters Yoon Bum (Bum), a shy, scrawny young man with a haunting past filled with abuse, and Oh Sangwoo (Sangwoo), a younger man who also has a quite damaging upbringing but masks it perfectly with his vibrant, extroverted personality. After being saved from a rape attempt during his time serving in the military, Bum develops a crush on his saviour, Sangwoo, from which an unhealthy obsession starts to arise and he eventually finds himself locating and breaking into the man’s home one day when he’s out. When he does, he discovers a terribly injured woman being held captive in his basement, and with further evidence, soon comes to the realization that his crush is actually a serial killer -- hence the name “Killing Stalking,” as Sangwoo kills and Bum stalks. For a very specific reason though, Sangwoo decides not to kill the man that had been stalking him, and instead holds him hostage in his custody. From here, the story goes into exceeding depth of the abnormal, toxic, and manipulative relationship the two form during their time spent together. By just the mere description of it, it’s a bit concerning to know that a large portion of readers still support Sangwoo and Bum’s relationship. In other words, they believe they truly loved each other and that the story was not only horror fiction but a romance as well. One could easily come to this conclusion by basing their relationship on the few parts within the novel where they showed affection towards each other -- for example when Bum allows Sangwoo to hug him to sleep when he suffered through the night, or my personal favourite, when Sangwoo buys Bum a stuffed frog keychain after finding out that he had an affinity for such creatures. But we cannot simply dismiss the underlying factors of their relationship because of some cute things they did that made our heart melt -- Sangwoo still abused Bum at his leisure which makes those moments quite meaningless in the sense of it all. What Sangwoo and Yoonbum shared can’t be classified as “love,” because even with their peculiar bond and endearing moments, the psychological damage they both endured played a bigger part in the way they perceived each other.
Many toxic relationships start out lovely and glamorous until the couple have become comfortable enough to start revealing some bad habits, but in Sangwoo and Bum’s case, they were already off to a bad start, as the reason they remained with each other was solely for reasons pertaining to their poor mental health.
At the time Sangwoo saved Bum in the military, Bum still suffered from Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) -- a disorder he inferrably developed due to the fact that he grew up being constantly physically and sexually abused by the people around him. People with this illness may easily develop an infatuation for a person who shows them even the least bit of care; It can reach the point where they begin to idolize them and see them almost as a perfect human being -- which is exactly how Bum viewed Sangwoo after he helped him to escape a rape attempt. The likely specific term for what Sangwoo was to Bum is a Favourite Person (FP). To an individual suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder, their FP is everything -- their self-worth, identity and emotional dependency all rely on this one person, making them the center of their lives. In contrast to this sincere fondness, the only reason Sangwoo kept Bum alive was because of the man’s resemblance to his late mother -- the one person in his life who he truly loved. While his father was abusive and negligent, his mother tried her best to care for her son even while her own mental stability wasn’t so great either. Even though it was implied that he was responsible for the murder of both his mother and father in high school -- getting away with it scotch-free because of how perfectly executed his plan was -- he still shared a special bond with the woman, allowing her existence follow and continue to torutue him mentally as he grew older. When he saw Yoonbum, he felt as if she had been somewhat resurrected, or at least he could pretend so by dressing him up in his mother’s clothes and making him cook and do the chores; He also played the husband role by abusing and assaulting Bum just as his father did to his mother -- mostly just out of his own nature. Sangwoo had his own issues, “mommy issues,” and he initially needed to keep Bum alive so he could fulfill his own longing desires. Knowing the man’s character though, things wouldn’t end there and instead headed down a very gruesome and frightful path.
The very reasons that the two were drawn to each other we’re even more evident the longer they lived under the same roof. While Yoonbum continued to recall the perfect image he had of Sangwoo in his head, Sangwoo continued to manipulate the man in order to satisfy his own needs. A healthy relationship cannot be based on deceit, because one person will end up victimized instead of loved.
Oh Sangwoo is a sadistic sociopath with a history of kidnapping, abusing, raping and torturing innocent people, and because of his illness, he shows feels and shows no remorse for his actions and even proceeds to kill off his victims as they pleaded in objection. What some people don’t understand is that when Sangwoo met Bum, the only reason he treated him differently was not because he thought of him as special, but because he had a personal agenda that included making Bum think that was the truth and that he was indeed the favoured victim among many. It’s no surprise with the man’s manipulative personality that he would enjoy planting a lie in Bum’s head to make him stay and continue to do as he says, and this is confirmed whenever he returned back to his old destructive habits even after showing the man acts of affection. Yes, Sangwoo spared Bum’s life, clothed him and fed him, but as their bond grew, his narcissistic attitude was still more apparent than ever.
Upon meeting Bum for the first time, Sangwoo didn’t hesitate to aggressively break his ankles to prevent his mobility, he left the man within the dark confinement of his basement for a certain period of time before letting him out only after he had gained his trust. He made him sit in a chair to wash dishes and make dinner because he could no longer stand. Sangwoo also constantly dragged Bum down with derogatory words and statements every chance he could get, this included calling him a “retard,” and referring to him as a “disgusting” and “filthy” human being. As confirmed by the author, Sangwoo is also heterosexual, which is further proved by the homophobic remarks he made towards a significantly older man who was sexually attracted to him while murdering him with Bum’s aid. This fact alone is another one that should justify a strong point that demonstrates the true hostility of their relationship -- Yoonbum never gave his consent to have sex with Sangwoo, nor did he allow it to happen because “he wanted it.” He specifically used phrases such as, “No,” “Stop,” and “It hurts,” implying that sometimes there was no mutual agreement when they had sex and Sangwoo had actually raped him several times.
People with Borderline Personality Disorder have been reported to have difficulties seeing the faults in their partner -- this explains why Bum still held on to him. He chose to stay when he had the chance to escape, and with tears rolling down his face from excruciating pain he still told Sangwoo he loved him. In a scene where Bum is left alone with the police as they investigate the suspicions they have surrounding him, he questions them saying, “Could you kiss somebody like me? Could you love somebody like me?” As he believes nobody but Sangwoo could answer yes to those two questions, convinced that Sangwoo really does have feelings for him. It’s saddening to know that the poor man had successfully been lured into a trap, and because of his mental health it would be much harder for him to realize it.
To the readers that think, “Sangwoo and Yoonbum needed each other,” -- You’re not completely wrong. They did need each other in the way that they found somewhat of a saneness from each other’s presence, each using one another to each other’s benefit. But being together at the same time built on their insanity, as the presence of Sangwoo’s mother seemed to grow even more prevalent with Bum, who resembled her, also in the picture, and Yoonbum growing so unhealthily attached to Sangwoo that he constantly feared of abandonment and turned the sociopath into the only source of his happiness. They needed each other, but not for the right reasons. They were attached to each other, but there was no love, otherwise it would reflect throughout the story. One of the most debate-worthy scenes that challenge this fact is when Sangwoo is reported by an old lady in the hospital, the one that had ended his life, that he was calling out Bum’s name throughout the night as he lay in his deathbed. Those were his final words, and Yoonbum’s final word was also Sangwoo’s name before he was very well implied to have been hit by a car while he chased an illusion of the man he “loved.” Even I almost felt that this was solid proof that even through the tough and terrible of their relationship, deep inside, the two really were in love but could not express it in the right way due to their mental health issues -- after all, what someone makes of their final moments before death is much more meaningful than most of what they've done in their life entirely. But I came to realize that the only way I could support this relationship would be if they had met in an alternate universe where they did not suffer from such dreadful childhood trauma that made them into the hurting individual they had become before meeting each other. As difficult as it is for me to picture the two with different partners, it would be best if the two had not met at all as they only fed into the severity of their conditions.
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Will’s vs. Hannibal’s Ways of Expressing Love
The fact that Hannibal loves Will and is in love with him is openly stated in the show several times. Will’s feelings, on the other hand, are more ambiguous, which is why some viewers often doubt whether Hannibal’s love is reciprocated. I think that exploring the ways these two men experience and react to love can explain the varying degrees of their openness about it.
I’ll put TLDR right here: Hannibal is more open about himself and his feelings, including love, hence he doesn’t have many challenges with admitting it. Will is closed off, stiff, and emotionally repressed, so he expresses his feelings in a much more subtle way.
Let’s start with Hannibal. Details about his past are scarce, but we know that he admits to loving two people throughout his life, his sister and Will.
E3 of S3.
*Bedelia: What your sister made you feel was beyond your conscious ability to control or predict … I would suggest what Will Graham makes you feel is not dissimilar. A force of mind and circumstance.*
*Hannibal: Love.*
Undoubtedly, Hannibal’s love for Mischa was traumatic and unhealthy. He loved her so much that he ate a part of her body after she was killed, devastated by this loss. But it was still love that made him feel all the related emotions, so Hannibal has some experience with it. From what we know of him, he has a very broad mind. He despises limitations and overcomes them, and he is not ashamed of who he is. He isn’t embarrassed to cry in the opera or to be the first to stand up and applaud; he delights in stereotypically ‘feminine’ hobbies like cooking and clothes selection; he draws fan-art and openly expresses his admiration when it’s due. For this reason, Hannibal doesn’t have many problems with expressing love either.
Upon meeting Will, he is immediately drawn to him. He sees him as his potential partner and decides he wants to try and build a family with him as early as E2 of S1. That’s when he starts planting the idea of Abigail being their shared daughter in Will’s mind. He does the same to Abigail, urging her to see him and Will as her parents, even giving her shrooms to evoke the desired associations (unsuccessfully since Will doesn’t come to dinner). So, Hannibal acknowledged his pull/infatuation with Will from the very start, and he acted on it right away.
It’s not 100% love at this point, but Hannibal still easily follows his emotions. He doesn’t stop to consider how strange it is to want a family with a man he just met; he doesn’t agonize over the idea of how his life has more risks now that he allows another human being to know him. When these feelings progress at the end of S1/start of S2, Hannibal is finally taken aback. While he never planned to leave Will in prison and it was a part of his plan, he still didn’t expect to miss him so much — he admits it to Bedelia, looking forlorn, in E1 of S2. He repeatedly pines for Will by sitting in front of his chair at the time of his supposed appointment, glancing at the clock despite knowing Will is not going to come. This is a shift to an actual love, but Hannibal still doesn’t fight it. On the contrary, he embraces it, and he spends the entire S2 doing repeatedly romantic gestures for Will. Namely:
1) Protects Abigail to reunite Will with her later.
2) Shares a part of himself he doesn’t seem to have ever shared with anyone else. He talks to Will about Mischa, reveals his views on murder and God, acknowledges he cared about Abigail, and shows vulnerability. He shares his teacup ritual with him, which is something precious and deeply personal.
3) He digs up fake Freddie’s corpse and decorates it as a way of courting Will (as directly said by Alana).
4) He draws a fan-art of himself and Will as Achilles and Patroclus.
5) He is ready to abandon his well-established life in Baltimore and reputation to run away with Will. In Hannibal’s view, no one truly suspects him and there is no evidence against him, but Will is in danger. So he’s willing to discard everything he’s been building for 20 years for him.
Finally, he calls Will a loved one more or less directly in E13 of S2 (in fact, he implies that they both love each other).
*Hannibal: Do you know what an imago is, Will? … An imago is an image of a loved one buried in the unconscious, carried with us all our lives.*
*Will: An ideal.*
*Hannibal: The concept of an ideal... I have a concept of you, just as you have a concept of me.*
Will hurts him with his betrayal, and Hannibal still finds himself unable to kill him. He is openly crying in the finale, admitting how Will hurt him, breaks his (and his own) heart by killing Abigail, and flees to Europe to start a new life. But things don’t go as he hoped they would. Bedelia is not a worthy substitute, and Hannibal is increasingly slipping into a self-destructive state because of his love for Will. He kills Anthony, who was an improved copy of Will, and turns him into a Valentine heart for him. Again, this is a very explicit and open emotional action. Hannibal doesn’t hide his feelings. He’s an emotional wreck with Bedelia in E3, and as they are talking about Will, he admits he’s in love with him.
*Hannibal: You cannot control with respect to whom you fall in love.*
Bedelia points out his self-destructiveness.
*Bedelia: You're going to get caught. It's already been set into motion … I know exactly how I will be navigating my way out of whatever it is I’ve gotten myself into. Do you?*
After Hannibal keeps spiraling and kills Sogliato, she adds: *You're drawing them to you, aren't you? All of them.*
Hannibal gets so self-destructive over Will that he lets Jack beat himself almost to death, not even attempting to fight him. The first words he says to Will after they reunite in E6 are:
*Hannibal: If I saw you every day forever, Will, I would remember this time.*
He’s a romantic. The courtship, the Valentine heart, the romance — Hannibal did have some struggles, but overall, he accepts these feelings and isn’t afraid to act on them.
When Will pulls a knife in E6, Hannibal classifies it as another betrayal. This is where he decides to kill and eat him in the hope to put an end to this misery (which is what he and Bedelia discussed back in E3). However, even blinded by another heartbreak, Hannibal tries to save Will at the same time. He knows the police are coming and he puts off the moment of sawing for as long as he can, first fussing over Will and his wound, then waiting for Jack, then doing everything slowly as hell.
Everything changes in E7, when Hannibal faces the real risk of losing Will and comes to terms with the fact that a hope of life with him is better than life without him. So Hannibal carries Will home bridal-style, takes care of him, waits for him to wake up and writes formulas to reverse time. He directly tells Will that Will won, and that he, Hannibal, is at Will’s mercy.
*Hannibal: Your memory palace is building. It's full of new things. It shares some rooms with my own. I've discovered you there. Victorious.*
He gives himself up, sacrificing the freedom he’s been fighting for back in E2 finale, in the hope that one day, Will is going to come back to him. After this, Hannibal is all about Will, with all his heart. Throughout the second half of S3, he says things like, *“I gave you a child. You are family, Will. Was it good to see me?”*, etc. He agrees to risk his life by agreeing to Will’s plan, knowing he’s planning something but not knowing what and if he’d die in the process. In E13, Hannibal says:
*Hannibal: "No greater love hath man than to lay down his life for a friend"* and shields Will from the bullet. Later, he allows Will to push them both down, and he stays with him afterward.
Conclusion: Hannibal is very accepting of himself, so he doesn’t undergo severe challenges on the path to acknowledging what he feels for Will. He knows what love feels like because he felt it for Mischa before, so he embraces loving Will pretty quickly, even though he doesn’t know how to best approach it at times. That’s why we get direct and explicit confirmation of his feelings several times.
Now, on to Will.
Unlike with Hannibal, there is no evidence that Will has ever experienced love before (at least love for people). We know he had a father and was lonely as a child.
E4 of S1.
*Will: We were poor. I followed my father from the boat yards in Biloxi and Greenville to lake boats on Erie.*
*Hannibal: Always the new boy at school? Always the stranger?*
*Will: Always.*
His choice of words indicates that his relationship with his father wasn’t all that good (for instance, *I followed my father* instead of *My father and I had to…*). So, it doesn’t look like Will ever had meaningful connections. More than that, he says:
*Will: There’s something so foreign about family. Like an ill-fitting suit. Never connected to the concept.*
We can suggest that he doesn’t know what love is or how it feels like. From E1, we know he isolates himself because he hates himself for who he is: he understands he’s different, that there is darkness in him, but he desperately tries to subdue it and deny this fact. He’s rude, twitchy, and unhappy, but like Hannibal, he understands the extent of his loneliness only upon meeting him. That’s when he tries forming relationships with others.
Will’s relationships with Alana and Abigail are a good indication of his problems with love. He wants to be with Alana because he needs to feel normal. In 99% of cases, he remembers about her only when she comes to seek him out first. He kisses her for the first time at the moment of particular vulnerability, fearing that he’s finally losing his mind (in E8). When Hannibal calls him out on it, Will doesn’t deny it and semi-nods. He actually had to agree with it verbally according to the script.
*Will: I feel unstable.*
*Hannibal: That’s why you kissed her. A clutch for balance.*
*Will: Because I’m losing mine.*
So, it’s not that Will feels romantic love for Alana — he uses her because he desperately needs to feel like everyone else. Alana is a pretty, smart, normal woman who fits this goal perfectly. He doesn’t allow himself to be genuine with her unlike he does with Hannibal, to whom he opens up.
Will confesses to Hannibal that he loved killing Hobbs in E2, which got him down and made him panic. Hannibal supports him, and Will keeps coming back to him. He talks about everything important with Hannibal, opening parts of himself that he guards from everyone else. Will asks Hannibal to look after his dogs as early as E4 — he doesn’t have other friends, and he’s already focused on Hannibal. He buys into an idea of having a family with him and Abigail, which is amazing for Will, who has just said he could never relate to the concept of family.
When Will buys a gift for Abigail in the same E4 and freaks out, Hannibal asks him:
*Hannibal: Feeling paternal, Will?*
Will’s reaction is instant and defensive:
*Will: Aren’t you?*
Hannibal easily says “yes”, which disarms Will. This is a great contrast between them: Hannibal isn’t afraid to talk and acknowledge his feelings while Will is embarrassed of them and shies away from them. In fact, this is a repeat of their conversation in E2.
*Hannibal: You saved Abigail Hobbs' life. You also orphaned her. It comes with certain emotional obligations.*
*Will: You were there. You saved her life, too. Do you feel obligated?*
Again, Will deflects. He’s wary of emotions, especially of admitting them out loud.
Will shows a hint of romantic interest in Hannibal in E7. He brings him a bottle of wine out of blue, but unfortunately, he stumbles upon the party Hannibal is preparing. Hannibal invites him to stay, but Will says he won’t be good company. He’s shy and awkward, smiling nervously and dropping his gaze in embarrassment. Then we have this lovely line:
*Will: I’ve got a date with the Chesapeake Ripper.*
So, in S1, Will makes considerable emotional progress. He realizes he wants a family after all, and while he makes several half-hearted attempts to court Alana, he’s mostly focused on Hannibal and Abigail. He opens himself up to Hannibal, receives official guardianship over Abigail with him, arguably flirts with Hannibal (like in the wine scene above), and covers up murder to protect their family. But then Hannibal betrays him. Will doesn’t know his reasons yet, but this betrayal plunged him into darkness, bitterness, and new stage of emotional repression. It’s worth mentioning another point of Abigail here: in the end, Will doesn’t know her. He spoke to her only several times, and even fewer times were genuine. He loves the idea of her, and this idea was introduced by Hannibal, not by Abigail’s presence. It’s Hannibal who forced Will to confront his need to love and be loved.
In S2, Will is incredibly conflicted. He acknowledges to Hannibal that he hurt him, tries to kill him via Matthew, but when he recognizes that Hannibal wants him as a friend (as spoken in E7), his attitude changes. Will doesn’t plan to forgive him, he’s still angry at Hannibal for killing Abigail (which is his biggest conflict, as evident from his talks with Hannibal himself and Freddie), but now, he can’t bring himself to harm or betray Hannibal.
He gets his first chance in E7, after being released from prison. He threatens Hannibal with a gun and has a perfect chance to make him pay, but he doesn’t. Instead, he conspires with Jack and decides to cultivate co-dependency, creating an environment where only he “and the fish exist” (E8). What does Will do to start? He makes himself physically attractive, grooming and dressing prettily. It’s a seduction on all levels, and Will plans to use emotions to hurt Hannibal back. At the same time, Will admits to being confused over what he feels for Hannibal.
E8 of S2.
*Will: I envy you your hate. Makes it much easier when you know how to feel.*
E9 of S2 (talking about trying to kill Hannibal with Margot).
*Margot: Did he have it coming?*
*Will: What do you think?*
*Margot: I can't say that I know.*
*Will: Neither can I.*
He spends the rest of the season lying to both Hannibal and Jack, unsure whose side to choose, too lost in his own feelings to make sense of them. At the same time, he has a dream where Hannibal calls him beloved in E9. It shows that Will contemplates the idea of love in relation to Hannibal. In E10, Will tries to fantasize about Alana as he’s having sex with Margot. However, he sees the image of Wendigo near the fireplace, Wendigo who he’s used to associating with Hannibal. Two interesting things (copied from my other meta): first, Will actually sees Hannibal’s room and consequently, he sees himself in it (or he sees their rooms united). Second, he sees the Wendigo near Hannibal’s fireplace. Fireplace has many meanings, including passion, sexuality, home, family, and resurrection. It emphasizes the sexual and romantic subtext of this uniquely shot scene, where people destined to be together have sex with the wrong partners. Will’s vision begins to contract, focusing on Wendigo: he is having an orgasm at this very moment, imagining the Wendigo’s face very close, approaching him. Still through the misty eyes, he tries to focus on Alana again, but his gaze moves up to Wendigo above her, as if he can’t help himself. He and Hannibal reach orgasm first, with Alana and Margot following them. So, Will dragged Hannibal into his sex fantasy. It’s both symbolic and physical: he tried to imagine Alana just like he tried to have a relationship with her before, in S1, out of his desire to be normal. But his attention is inevitably drawn to Hannibal, who’s his “real deal”.
Based on this scene, it’s underlined once again how Will struggles with emotions. Even in the safety of his own mind, in his own fantasy, he tries to think of Alana but still ends up with Hannibal. Will is always fighting himself and who he is. He refuses to accept his darkness just as he refuses to admit he loves Hannibal. It’s the essence of who he is, denial is his second name.
Among the important moments, there are Will’s words to
Hannibal:
*Will: You are right. We are just alike. You are as alone as I am. And we are both alone without each other.*
So, Will accepts the bond with Hannibal, and at this stage, he even has the courage to voice some of his emotional thoughts. His progress is slow, but it’s there.
In E11, Will has a nightmare. He sees a burning corpse of ‘Freddie’ in a wheelchair, a symbol of his betrayal of Hannibal, and he hears his own increasing screaming. It’s easy to interpret, knowing the context: Will feels guilty for lying to Hannibal.
When Margot loses her child, Will feels renewed anger at Hannibal. He fantasizes about killing him and gets to realize his fantasy with Mason’s help in E12. But at the last moment, Will changes his mind and chooses Hannibal. He does the same thing in E13 by calling him. When he sees him, he doesn’t even try to point a gun at him: he asks why he didn’t leave as he was supposed to, and he even leans forward to accept the knife, accept the punishment for betrayal.
So, Will chooses Hannibal over Abigail, for whom he wanted justice; over his and Margot’s child, for whom he wanted revenge; over Jack and Alana, who were his only semblance of friends; over his own confusion and desire to be normal. For someone as emotionally stunted as Will, it’s huge. It proves that he loves Hannibal and is willing to compromise all other relationships he has formed as well his own beliefs for him (while Will is dark, he tries to fight it because he doesn’t think people like them are normal). Is it romantic? Will’s dream with the word “beloved” and his sex fantasy, as well as his acceptance of the idea that he and Hannibal were Abigail’s fathers (which makes them partners) imply that yes, romantic feeling is a part of it.
Hannibal’s romantic feelings became explicit in S3, and so did Will’s. But since Hannibal is more open and self-accepting, his were discussed out loud while Will’s were mostly portrayed silently, implied, and alluded to.
Will builds a boat to sail and find Hannibal, which is pretty romantic by itself. He spends his time in Hannibal’s house, in the kitchen where their bloody break-up happened, imagining Abigail near him. When Alana comes to find him, he asks her to leave. He’s cold and indifferent toward her — she’s not what he wants, and he’s not interested in even friendship with her. All he wants is to mourn his lost family with Hannibal and Abigail. Again, Hannibal is Will’s priority.
Will imagines his perfect world as the one where he and Hannibal killed Jack together. This scene is intercut with his Mizumono memories, namely, with Hannibal's face that emerges every time he moves yet another part of the engine. This is a vivid demonstration of Will trying to repair what is now broken. When Jack asks him why he called him, Will is indifferent and genuine:
*Will: I wasn't decided when I called him. I just called him. I deliberated while the phone rang. I decided when I heard his voice … I told him to leave. I wanted him to run … Because he was my friend. And because I wanted to run away with him.*
That’s a big admission for Will. This is the first time he openly acknowledges Hannibal as his friend in front of another person. Chilton calls Will and Hannibal’s interactions a “flirtation” in this episode, which once again points us in the romantic direction.
The entire E2 of S3 is dedicated to Will’s love for Hannibal, where he argues about it with himself in the form of imaginary Abigail. This is another proof of Will’s problem with emotions in general and emotions for Hannibal in particular. He can’t just think to himself as normal people do — no, he can’t admit how much he loves Hannibal this. Instead, he imagines Abigail and talks to himself through her to make it easier. He berates himself for lying.
*Will/Abigail: We were all supposed to leave together. He made a place for us. Why did you lie to him? He gave you a chance to take it all back, and you just kept lying.*
Will is reverent about Hannibal; he keeps talking about him over and over again.
*Will: This isn't Hannibal, it's just where he begins. Beyond this, far and complex, light and dark, is the vast structure of his mind. A thousand rooms, miles of corridors. Everything he remembers, wonderfully and fearfully reconstructed.*
Will goes as far as lies at the place where Hannibal’s Valentine heart for him was, reconstructing this image and trying to feel close to him. The heart comes to life the moment Will touches it, which is romantic. Will says:
*Will: A valentine written on a broken man … I do feel closer to Hannibal here. God only knows where I would be without him … He left us his broken heart … He misses us.*
He looks on the verge of tears, so Hannibal’s gift touched him. Will is overcome by emotions. At this very moment, his more frightened side suggests that Hannibal is also playing with him.
*Will: Hannibal follows several trains of thought at once without distraction from any, and one of the trains is always for his own amusement.*
We know it’s not the case, especially here, but Will has trust issues and a low self-esteem. He’s worried that Hannibal’s feelings for him aren’t as strong as he thinks they are, which is why he’s not sure how to react himself. He asks himself, *“You still want to go with him?”* and replies, *“Yes.” He wonders about what life they’d have if they left.
*Will: What if no one died? What if we all left together? Like we were supposed to. After he served the lamb. Where would we have gone? … In some other world.*
Pazzi comes and tells Will that he hopes they’ll catch Hannibal together.
*Will: What makes you think I want to catch him?*
Later, Pazzi says:
*Pazzi: He let you know him. He sent you his heart.*
E2 ends with Will scaring Pazzi and telling him, *“You don’t know whose side I’m on.* Then he tells Hannibal he forgives him, which is also a huge step in his direction.
This entire episode proves that yes, Will loves Hannibal. Considering how he isn’t awkward from receiving a Valentine or hearing that Hannibal gave him his heart, Will shares the romantic aspect of Hannibal’s feelings for him. He regrets not running away with him and their daughter, he places himself on the floor where the heart was to feel closer to him — this is such a rich romantic subtext that it’s practically text. Especially for Will, who remains so conflicted and emotionally restrained all the time.
Will’s attitude changes after seeing Chiyoh. He becomes more bitter. Considering how dark he is in these scenes and how he constantly compares himself and Chiyoh, he likely sees her as someone Hannibal was supposed to love but easily abandoned. It makes Will draw the parallels between them, and he starts to doubt that Hannibal loves him, that his “broken heart” has any authentic meaning. That’s where he starts thinking about killing Hannibal again. He still says:
*Will: I’ve never known myself as well as I know myself when I’m with him.*
This line also speaks volumes. Hannibal gave Will a precious gift of understanding himself; he showed that he could accept him, and Will is drawn to it. Will admits the depth of their connection to yet another person. Then he makes a firefly from Chiyoh’s prisoner, a tribute that is clearly done with Hannibal in his mind, considering the style and the central topic.
Chiyoh sees right through Will’s emotional constipation. She implies that he should “kiss” Hannibal rather than keep being “violent”:
*Chiyoh: I told you, there are means of influence other than violence.*
She kisses Will then, thus showing him what others means exist. He doesn’t get it, though, since he responds to her kiss despite not feeling anything for her, and she pushes him off the train, likely admitting he’s a hopeless case.
Meeting Jack, Will tells him that a part of him will always want to leave with Hannibal. This is yet another declaration from him. Will isn’t scared of the consequences — he speaks of his feelings openly now. It’s a great development of his character.
But the feeling of doubt about Hannibal likely resurfaces further after Will sees that Hannibal replaced him and Abigail with Bedelia in E6 (hence his hatred for her since that moment). He mocks her alibi and then leaves to reunite with Hannibal. The following moment was deleted, but it still discloses some of Will’s romantic feelings:
*Will: I looked up at the night sky there. Orion above the horizon and, near it, Jupiter. I wondered if you could see it, too. I wondered if our stars were the same.*
From the words that did get into the episode:
*Will: You and I have begun to blur ... We're conjoined. Curious if either of us can survive separation.*
Will doesn’t just admit the bond between them, he elevates it the level of soulmates, implying they are one and the same. It’s also a declaration of love in his language. But love doesn’t stop Will from being vindictive, hurt, and angry, so after meetings with Chiyoh and Bedelia that affected his perception, he pulls out a knife as he and Hannibal are walking together.
There is a brain-sawing disaster after this and E7, where Will looks done and tired from the madness and his constant attempts to figure Hannibal out. He does bite Cordell before looking at Hannibal, seeking his approval; he uses “we” pronouns when speaking about Hannibal with Alana. One example:
*Will: You helped Mason Verger find us.*
So, he still sees himself and Hannibal as a team, but he’s still tired and bitter, so after everything is over, he hurts Hannibal by saying he doesn’t share his appetite and by attacking him emotionally.
*Will: I miss my dogs. I'm not going to miss you. I'm not going to find you. I'm not going to look for you. I don't want to know where you are or what you do. I don't want to think about you anymore.*
This is all personal and emotional. It sounds like a break-up, which is exactly how Bryan Fuller and others referred to it. When Hannibal leaves and Jacks arrives, Will puts on his glasses, an indication that he’s hiding again.
Fast-forward 3 years. Will is married now, but from the very start, we see that this marriage isn’t all people usually expect it to be. The first scene shows the family apart. Molly and Walter have gone fishing, which is something Will loves. He had dreams about teaching Abigail how to fish, but he doesn’t go to do that with his family, preferring to stay alone instead. It’s the first hint that his heart isn’t in this relationship, that he’s too hung up on the past to move forward and make new happy memories.
Jack came to drag him to Dragon’s case, and Will makes it look like he’s reluctant. At the same time, he doesn’t send Jack away, even though we know from the past that he has no qualms being frank when he wants to. More than that, he asks him not to show pics to Molly, but when they have dinner, Will deliberately leaves the house with Walter, leaving Jack and Molly together. At night, when Molly’s asleep, he crawls out of bed and goes to read Hannibal’s letter. He doesn’t tell the truth to Molly about himself and his dark urges, about everything he has done – Molly clearly has no idea who he truly is, considering how she jokes about his ‘criminal mind’ in later episodes and how Will immediately closes himself off from her. He never initiates physical touches with her; he doesn’t return her “I love you”, which is an even bigger indication of his lack of commitment. Will is emotionally stiff with Molly for the most part, and the only times he laughs with her or shows any emotion is when they are talking about superficial stuff in the former case and when he’s furious after Francis’ attack in the latter one. Other than that, there is no closeness or honesty.
Another point of Will’s inability to express or even give his love to someone is in his scene with Walter in E11. This child, his step-son, has just been attacked by a serial killer with his mother. His mother was hurt and they barely escaped. Will doesn’t hug him or offer him paternal emotional comfort; he’s very awkward. All he says is, “You're both safe here,” which is something an officer might say but not a father. Will was much more emotional in his fantasies about Abigail.
This is what Will says about Walter’s reaction to Jack:
*Will: He read about me in a Freddie Lounds article. I had to justify myself to an eleven year old.*
He’s resentful and not emotional. He doesn’t say, “I had to justify myself to my son!” – he distances himself from him. Will is cold. He has expressed his feelings for Hannibal at this point in rather poetic ways, but he can’t be bothered to do this for his wife and his son.
He treats Hannibal in a very reserved fashion too, in comparison to how he acted 3 years ago. However: first, there is the fact that he came to visit him in the first place. Will didn’t need his help, we saw very clearly how he managed to easily reconstruct the crime scene the night before. It proved that his mindset is in a good shape, so he didn’t need Hannibal’s assistance. But it’s Hannibal he requested to see right away.
Will distances himself from him by calling him “Doctor Lecter” and insisting that he’s more comfortable the less personal they are. His eyes glisten, though, and he can’t look away from Hannibal. The impersonal approach doesn’t last very long, too, and soon, they are talking like they always did. Hannibal accuses Will of marrying for false reasons.
*Hannibal: How did you choose yours? Readymade wife and child to serve your needs. A stepson or daughter. A stepson absolves you of any biological blame. You know better than to breed. Can't pass on those terrible traits you fear the most.*
Will doesn’t bother to deny it, though any man would have been offended, particularly if he truly loved his family. In Will’s case, from the experience and all the precedents, silence = agreement.
In E10, Will seeks Bedelia out. He acts catty and jealous, targeting her personal connection with Hannibal.
*Will: You didn't lose yourself, Bedelia, you just crawled so far up his ass you couldn't be bothered.* - personal, targeted against Bedelia's attachment to Hannibal.
*Will: You hitched your star to a man commonly known as a monster. You're the Bride of Frankenstein.* - personal, attack with romantic connotation. Bedelia catches up on it and mocks him:
*Bedelia: We've both been his bride. Have you been to see him?*
*Will: Yes.*
*Bedelia: Haven't learned anything, have you? Or did you just miss him that much?*
*Will: Have you been to see him?* - personal again. Will wants to know if Bedelia is keeping contact with Hannibal.
*Bedelia: I've seen enough of him. I was with him behind the veil. You were always on the other side.*
*Will: Something we should talk about.* - again, personal. It's all personal, which is why Bryan and Hugh called them Hannibal's jealous bitchy exes. Will is palpably jealous and he shows his resentment to Bedelia openly.
Later, we have some more romantic references.
*Bedelia: My relationship with Hannibal is not as passionate as yours. You are here visiting old flame. Is your wife aware of how intimately you and Hannibal know each other? … Your experience of Hannibal’s attention is so profoundly harmful yet so irresistible, it undermines your ability to think rationally.*
So, there is romantic text, parallels between Hannibal and Will’s wife, and Will doesn’t deny any of this again. He keeps coming to Bedelia because she’s the only person he can talk about Hannibal to without being watched.
After Hannibal sends Francis after Molly and Walter, Will spends about a minute being angry with him. Then he accuses Hannibal of staging a competition between him and Francis. It is startling: Will spent months, years mourning the loss of Abigail who he didn’t even really know personally, yet he forgets the gravity of what happened to his wife and won very quickly. He leaves Molly and Walter and tells Bedelia that they are finished. One traumatic event, and Will left. It coincides with something very important that happened here: after this, Will finally figures out Hannibal is truly in love with him. So he goes to Bedelia to discuss it with her.
*Will: Is Hannibal in love with me?*
*Bedelia: Could he daily feel a stab of hunger for you, and find nourishment at the very sight of you? Yes. But do you ache for him?*
Will is predictably silent. Obviously, if the answer was no, he would have said no. But he struggles because like we established, he has issues with expressing emotions. He only managed to start referring to Hannibal as his friend openly in this season, opening up about some of his feelings, but he’s not ready to go this far. It would be absolutely out of character for Will to say, “Yes, you know, I’m in love with him! Thanks for helping me see it.” Every confession Will makes is preceded by struggles and heartbreak. But he’s going to reply to Bedelia’s question, only not explicitly-verbally.
Will sets up Chilton and then comes to allegedly say good-bye to Hannibal. He lies several times in their conversation (about Chilton and Molly with Walter), so all his words are automatically suspicious. Regardless, he destroys Hannibal emotionally and walks away. Personally, I believe he was already planning to break him out, so he was playing it up for cameras and also taking a chance to hurt Hannibal for everything again. But whatever his plan was, what happens next is that Will conspires with Francis against Jack, Alana, and the FBI. They agree to break Hannibal out together. Will lies to Jack and then gets to ask Hannibal for help. He’s being flirty and manipulative in this scene.
*Will: I need you, Hannibal … You're our best shot, Hannibal. Please.*
He’s smirking, he leans close to Hannibal, he sends him a flirty look from under his eyelashes. Will is thoroughly enjoying himself, and he does it best when he has some excuse to hide behind.
Later, he lies to Jack and Alana again, leaks info to Francis (who nearly killed his wife and son), and gets many officers killed by proxy. He tells Bedelia the truth that he doesn’t “intend Hannibal to be caught a second time.” He also implies that he’s going to let him go free, which is why Bedelia should pack her bags.
*Bedelia: Can't live with him. Can't live without him. Is that what this is?*
This time, Will agrees, although in his way.
*Will: I guess this is my Becoming.*
For Will, Becoming was always connected to his feelings for Hannibal because accepting himself and his darkness meant being free to escape with Hannibal.
*Bedelia: You found religion. Nothing more dangerous than that.*
In E3, it was stated that love is a God (you can find more here https://www.reddit.com/r/HannibalTV/comments/7w54dg/lovegodreligion_s3_parallels/), so it’s possible to say that religion = love in this context. It certainly makes sense. Will is accepting himself and his emotions, and the trigger was establishing for sure that Hannibal is in love with him.
Will and Hannibal drive to the cliff house. When Hannibal asks Will if he intends to save himself by killing them both (Hannibal and Francis), Will replies:
*Will: I don't know if I can save myself. And maybe that's just fine.*
This is the first time he confesses that he might be incapable of killing Hannibal. Predictably, when Francis comes, Will can’t handle seeing Hannibal killed, so he reaches for his gun.
Will and Hannibal work as a unit and protect each other. Hannibal is shot, nearly strangled, thrown onto the ground, and he is still weakly holding on Francis' leg to prevent him from going after Will, even though it leaves him in an open and vulnerable position — Francis does kick him in the face with his other leg. There is fierce determination on Will's face as he stands up despite the pain and runs to save Hannibal. They act in synch, consummating their relationship.
Then, Will admires how blood looks on his hand and repeats Hannibal’s words:
*Will: It really does look black in the moonlight.*
He remembers the words Hannibal said to him weeks ago in one of their endless interactions. A bit earlier, he perfectly recalled the words Hannibal told him *years* ago, back in the middle of S2.
*Will: I understand that “blood and breath are only elements undergoing change to fuel your Radiance." Hannibal said those words. To me.*
So, Will remembers everything Hannibal told him. He stores these memories. It’s a small but still important proof how important Hannibal is for him.
At the cliff, Will finally accepts the truth.
*Hannibal: See. This is all I ever wanted for you, Will. For both of us.*
We know what Hannibal wanted: a Murder Husband. What does Will say to this?
*Will: It’s beautiful.*
This is a loud “yes” to Bedelia’s question about his feelings. Will acknowledges, accepts, and admires them. He doesn’t feel awkward, as he would if he knew Hannibal is in love with him but didn’t feel the same. No, he reaches forward to embrace him, and such physical contact from Will is mind-blowing because he almost never does it. He clings to Hannibal, puts his head on his shoulder, touches him as if he wants to melt with him. Then he gives the fate a chance to stop both of them or to set them free. They fall into the ocean under the Love Crime song, another romantic element.
Water symbolizes reborn, and post-credits scene indicates that Will and Hannibal have paid a visit to Bedelia and are in the process of eating her while she’s hiding the fork to stab one of them as he approaches. The deleted epilogue to the series shows that they are in perfect harmony now.
**Conclusion**: Will has passed through a long, painful journey. He went from hiding from emotions and deflecting to not denying and carefully acknowledging them. We don’t hear words “love” or “in love” from him in relation to Hannibal because Will is not that kind of person. He doesn’t use these words freely, and for him, every small emotional step is a struggle. He tried to deceive himself and other numerous times; he tied to deny the truth and manipulate his own mind, but with each season, his feelings for Hannibal became more and more explicit. Will reaching out for physical contact, Will saying “It’s beautiful” are his way of saying, “I ached for you. I love you.”
This is a story of mutual love and obsession, about soulmates, about unique type of connection that few people share. It’s not about Hannibal falling in love and Will not feeling the same. Their feelings are equally strong, but they express them differently, particularly as Will’s are tied to the acceptance of his own darkness.
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what is this hakoda zuko arranged marriage you speak of? i am intrigued
okay so the long story short is that it’s a slight rebuttal of a popular post that is very fun but i find like... unrealistic in a really intriguing way like, how would this ACTUALLY play out. I’ve talked about it at length in my server a few times, and it’s one of those AU’s -- like the genderbend zukka ATLA rewrite or the zukki fic that starts with sokka failing to assassinate zuko -- that lives rent free in my head and I’ve written a couple thousand words for.
tw for like VERY unrequited zuko in love with hakoda and the inherent comedy of sokka being in love with his fire nation stepmom.
so here’s hakoda, chief of the southern water tribe, happily not-married to Bato. and here is a more balanced war, where the north and the south are actually allies, rather than whatever the fuck they were in ATLA. Yue already has a fiance and the Northern chief refuses to remarry. that leaves hakoda responsible for biting the bullet and doing a political marriage even though, as he points out at length, he is an elected official and if he stops being elected it’s no longer a marriage with the chief of the south pole. intelligently but mostly selfishly motivated (yue’s fiance is his nephew, after all) pakku points out that its not like the fire nation knows... that. the fire nation is dumb. ozai’s stupid.
faced with such inarguable points hakoda stiffens his upper lip, pre-emptively ends things with bato on the understanding that if this is another kya situation they’ll get back together and that he’s still the most important person to him but the tribe comes first yada yada, and deals with katara throwing the mother of all tantrums. it is slightly softened by the fact that in return for him marrying the fire nation noble, a thing everyone can agree isn’t traditional, the north has finally agreed to train katara. she heads out before the wedding, in protest but also so as to not cause an international incident.
(on her way, she’ll find aang. with the war less dire, katara will be sympathetic towards his desire to live without committing violence, even if she deeply can’t relate. they’ll have a hot girl romcom summer of self discovery and coming to terms with the dichotomy between duty and love as they become master benders. at some point they pick up toph. they ARE a throuple.)
sokka meanwhile is like.. not cool with it.. but ? kind of relieved? like. he’s the eldest kid. he’s 18, and he’s been a man of the tribe as far as legalities for several years. it would have been entirely understandable if his dad had asked HIM to do it. he had his emotionally crushing romance with yue, and as much as he was like ‘im kind of a prince’, he finds he doesn’t actually want some of the responsibilities and demands that would bring. yue’s life sucks.
back in the fire nation, zuko never demanded a quest and never went on it. he’s spent years hardening into something that, while brittle, can survive the pressures of the court around him. he still has his scar. he still wants his father to love him, but he knows by now that it’s not something he’s capable of earning. he watches his sister, never the most stable person, start to have complete breakdowns of sanity once she hits puberty, and helps her cover for it and receive medical treatment on the down low. he’s the heir, but he lives knowing that if he was ever in a position to inherit his choices are to abdicate or have the baby sister who he raised kill him and destroy herself and the country in the process.
when he realizes the plan is to marry azula off rather than someone more reasonable-- mai is RIGHT there, for fucks sake-- he doesn’t realize ozai’s true intent is to fuck this up through malicious compliance and false shows of good faith. he panics, and does the zuko thing: he blurts out that this is unacceptable and immoral and she’s only 16 and Ozai sees the true opportunity for two birds with one stone. send zuko, let him piss someone off so badly he gets killed or divorced, and he gets rid of zuko from the line of succession permanently. there are those who are incredibly attached to teh idea of a firstborn for firelord, and it’s been a constant thorn in unpopular ozai’s side to nto be able to name azula his heir apparent without costly rebellion. but if he can taint him in the mind of the fire nation so much that birthright is easy to supercede-- yeah. this’ll work PERFECTLY.
so zuko is sent to marry hakoda, chief of the water tribe.
literally NO ONE was expecting it to be a member of Ozai’s immediate family. besides the fact that his oldest child is half hakoda’s age and his brother has 20 years on hakoda, it would have been sus as fuck - the treaty is not favorable enough to grant that kind of secession of interests. it becomes quickly apparent that this young man -- hakoda reminds himself of that repeatedly. not kid. not kid. young man. don’t think of him like a kid, it’s hard enough on both of us already. -- is not a horrible threat. he’s scared shitless and shakes with what he thinks is bravado. he’s desperate to make the marriage work. he’s desperate to not go home. he’s got a giant fucking scar on his face from where the fire lord punished him for some grievous but unstated offense.
zuko “daddy issues” fire nation sees his husband to be and, despite being scared shitless, immediately begins to soften a little. like... he’s not nearly as scary as he thought he’d be. his face can be stern, but it just as easily breaks into huge smiles, and his eyes are crinkled with laughter. he’s incredibly handsome. and his biceps are. his biceps. are. his hands are...
like. zuko thinks. okay. maybe. maybe his marriage duties. won’t be so horrible as he thought. maybe he’s ready for this. and he knows what to expect, Uncle had discreetly provided him the means and the contacts to acquire an intimate education in the whirlwind of activity that was the two months before leaving. and like, once he’d gotten past the nerves, it was often even... good? or at least... not bad? he thinks that even if hakoda isn’t a professional expert, he has a certain.... je ne sais quoi, if you will.
((DILF DILF DILF DILF DILF DILF DILF DILF DILF DILF DILF DILF DILF DILF DILF DILF DILF DILF DILF DILF DILF DILF DILF DILF DILF DILF DILF DILF DILF DILF DILF DILF DILF DILF DILF DILF DILF DILF DILF DILF))
sokka sees his new stepfather and immediately falls in love because he’s that kind of dumb bitch. (the core of this au is that i cant breathe thinking about sokka falling in love with his hot young stepmom his age who his dad doesnt even want to fuck. like. i CANT. sokka masturbates to ‘hand caught in the washing tub’ fantasies which are even more absurd for requiring zuko to be DOING LAUNDRY. i find it so funny.)
bato watches them at the wedding feast while hakoda is very clearly trying to treat zuko as an Equal Adult Partner and mostly managing to seem like someone having a serious conversation with a seven year old about the game they’ve made up. zuko is clearly enamored with it, soaking up the attention, blushing and doing his best to Bravely Flirt, which at one point includes awkwardly attempting to feed Hakoda by hand. bato has to excuse himself to have a teary eyed giggle, hoping that Kya is in the spirit world looking down and laughing with him. he can’t resent the kid even a little bit, when hakoda is sitting there looking so incredibly fucking befuddled as to what he’s supposed to do with this star struck infant he’s legally wed to
anyways all of this... is very funny. their wedding night... is less so. zuko does not take the rejection from hakoda very well, especially because he’d been caught wanting. HE’S the one who should be rejecting hakoda. and he catastrophizes almost immediately about his potential value to the water tribe, his future treatment, that endless inescapable freezing cold loneliness is the good ending for him here... hakoda, meanwhile, drops zuko off at his home, reassuringly informs him that there’s NOTHING else expected of him and he will be well taken care of, and books it to bato’s. bato refuses to let him in on grounds of ‘you can’t sleep under the same shelter as me on your wedding night to that kid, have a fucking brain’, and he ends up crashing at sokka’s.
sokka, who had KNOWN that his dad wouldnt, but also upon seeing zuko and zuko’s awkward flirting was like... but how COULDNT he???? sokka is relieved.
the core of this fic is that i find it endlessly hilarious for zuko to try and seduce his husband while sokka simps around zuko and bato tries to be heartbroken or betrayed but mostly ends up with a giant case of hysterical schadenfreude. but the thing that CLINCHED it for me, like THE scene. several years after being married, settled into their life. they’re partners and they see each other as people. and zuko just fucking snaps one night
he just kisses him, desperate and clawing and climbing and maybe a little drunk. he knows hakoda is going to push him away, maybe even hit him, but he doesn’t care anymore, he doesn’t care. he can do anything he wants to him as long as he just-- finally does something. zuko is 21 and married to the surface of the sun and the surface of the sun jr is his best friend and clearly in love with him-- so clearly not even zuko can miss it-- and like. listen. listen. zuko is not a patient person. but he’s been patient for this. he waited and he matured and he is a fucking amazing husband and he wants this, he wants him. he wants to be wanted.
but hakoda doesn’t push him away. hakoda doesnt yell at him, or hit him. hakoda gentles the kiss into something soft and closed lipped. he pulls away slowly, and his eyes are so sad for zuko, so pitying. he strokes his cheek with the back of his hand so gently. he says, I’m sorry. I don’t want you.
and zuko daddy issues fire nation swallows
and he nods
and he leaves, even though its his own fucking house
and he knows he’s never going to be good enough
like FUUUCK i am OBSESSED WITH THAT
#long post#lmao i am NOT fucking main tagging this#op#asked and answered#i just want zuko to fall in love with hakoda and for hakoda to gently reject him#noncommittalhum
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... May I ask you about the slow excruciating progression from Meng Yao to Jiggy?
also paging @holdmycaffeine and @cadencekismet, who asked me for the very same, and @acutebird-fics, who is my partner in crime deep philosophical discussions about these characters, and a great deal of this messy essay is informed by those
Tl;dr: JGY is a multifaceted character and the author struggles not to lose her mind trying to find the right words to describe that. Literally every single point of this rant is up for discussion, begging for it even, so please don’t hesitate to engage me, but, like... tomorrow, maybe. After I sleep it off.
Meta I used or referenced: THIS ONE explaining how JGS deciding to give him the name GuangYao is all kinds of wrong | THIS ONE talking about the red bindi-like Jin forehead dots, among other things | THIS ONE about his capacity for evil and his own recognition thereof
-
Alright, without any fancy preamble, here goes. Honestly, whenever I think about JGY for more than three seconds, it becomes painfully evident that there are two wolves inside me at all times - one wants to spend tens of thousands of words exploring his narrative, his choices, his abilities and his failings, his capacity for violence as well as his capacity for love...
And the other one just likes to call him a gremlin in chief in a fancy hat, and doesn’t want to go much further than that. I’m going to try and feed them both.
The thing that pisses me off about Meng Yao is just. The fact that he doesn’t stay Meng Yao, and we get to watch it happen in slow motion. You get a tiny little twink-ass kid who suddenly finds himself adopted into the Nie by the Sect Leader himself, and this is Meng Yao, the son of one of Jin Guangshan’s many mistresses, who doesn’t have a whole lot going for him aside from that, at that moment - his cultivation, weak. His opportunities, nonexistent. His dick, small. His political savvy, only just starting to show itself.
And this guy gets the chance of a lifetime presented to him on a Qinghe-silver platter. Like, we can argue about book canon and try and decide if he did anything at all to make NMJ notice him, but show canon makes it all the more hilarious (again, please refer to this gem of a post for a level of humor I’m sorely incapable of) - you’re seventeen, and the Batman of the cultivation world picks you up and elevates your status across swathes of societal norms, to a level you previously could have only dreamed of.
It’s interesting to me to try and imagine if this was the moment that Meant Something - in the grand scope of things, of course it did, because it started MY on the road to JGY, but also to Meng Yao personally, in terms of what he believed he could comfortably achieve. I do not for a second believe he started out wanting to murder people to reach his goal, or that he even had a good goal to begin with - being accepted by his father, maybe. Murdering the (at the time) greatest villain in the world, becoming a renowned spy, landing an incredibly beneficial sworn brotherhood, et cetera et cetera? I mean, the kid has wet dreams, but no way do they reach this far at this point in his life.
But so many things about him are unclear. Show canon changes his timeline, in that he met NMJ before he met Lan Xichen, and even accompanied NHS to the Cloud Recesses. Either way, his stint with the Nie is incredibly personally important to him. I firmly believe he loved and admired them, in his own way. He certainly flourished under NMJ’s tutelage and approval, but in the end, his motivations, his entire raison d’etre, clashed with NMJ’s too much. To Meng Yao, who’d gotten kicked down those infamous Koi Tower stairs for daring to ask for his father’s attention, murdering a guy for slandering him and his mother was a natural outcome of being slandered his entire life, and finally having had enough - to NMJ, it was unforgivable.
But this still isn’t where Meng Yao becomes Jin Guangyao, and it begs the goddamn question - how much of what JGY was perfectly willing and capable of doing to stay in power, had been present in Meng Yao that entire time? You see him make excuses that someone who isn’t NMJ, with his incredibly staunch morals and black-and-white view of the world, might have even accepted, but instinctively, you know - making excuses is just how it’s going to be with this guy.
Because Meng Yao, as well as Jin Guangyao, lies, and he is damn good at it. He is so good at it, that he lies his way to the very top of the Wen, all the way to Wen Ruohan’s side. His lying is what enables him to become Jin Guangyao. And like any good liar, he doesn’t only lie to the people around him - he also lies to himself.
And I can’t blame him, because - been there. Lying to yourself becomes absolutely necessary, when you want to keep everyone else around you believing in a mask you wear. You need to start believing it, at least a little bit, at least sometimes, for it to work.
At this point, you’re probably wondering - but Annie, what about the time he spent a year sheltering Lan Xichen? Did he lie then? Was he not just Meng Yao, a poor but cunning bookkeeper, then? I’m getting there, I swear. Slowly and in a roundabout sort of way, because honestly, I don’t know how I can start talking about the LXC of it all, without it turning into a novel.
Because whichever way you twist it, whatever canon you choose to follow, one constant remains - A-Yao’s feelings for Lan Xichen. I’m deliberately not calling him Meng Yao or Jin Guangyao, because it’s these feelings that divide the two, but also ultimately unify them, fatally so. But we’ll get there.
In one version of events, Meng Yao travels to Cloud Recesses at the behest of NMJ, and falls in love with a statue made of jade there. In another version of events, they meet during something LXC only describes as ‘the shame of a lifetime’. Both of those events lead to Meng Yao sheltering LXC, hiding him, saving his life and those precious Gusu Lan texts.
Whatever version of events you choose to see as the right one, one other truth also remains - Lan Xichen offers freely and without asking that which Meng Yao has had to struggle to attain, that which has been denied to him time and time again, based only on the circumstances of his birth: respect. Lan Xichen never looks down on him, never brings up his origins, and instead extends him respect and dignity in a way only he is capable of - no fucking wonder Meng Yao admires him. No fucking wonder, when this amazing guy, this perfect pristine handsome number one young cultivator, looks at him, smiles at him, and actually sees him, son of a whore or not.
No fucking wonder Meng Yao loves him, and Jin Guangyao continues loving him. No fucking wonder he never means to hurt him, but does so anyway.
But here’s the thing - lying to yourself to make things work only gets you so far. Do I think Meng Yao spends restless nights in cold sweat dreading who he’s becoming, thinking about all the lives he’s taken to further his goals? Absolutely not. Do I think he does good things, often even great things, because it helps him feel better about himself? Do I think he both loves Xichen and keeps him around because it’s beneficial to him, having the Lan Sect Leader in his pocket, but also personally speaking, having someone who so firmly believes in the goodness in him? You bet your overly adorned murderhat I do.
And frankly, reducing Jin Guangyao to one or the other - coldblooded murderer or a man plagued by his own insecurities, helpless and trying to be kind in a world that’s so evidently against him - is doing a character like him a huge disservice. You have to consider all sides, if you want to truly understand him. Hell, I myself am by no means claiming to truly understand him! He pisses me off daily, and I’m writing this stream-consciousness-y thing because he simply won’t shut up in my head.
This kid makes Choices, and here’s the catch - he doesn’t regret a whole lot of them. If anything, I’d like to think he regrets going along with his father’s plans for so fucking long before finally realizing that avenue won’t bring him what he seeks. Killing Jin Guangshan, by the way? Very sexy of him, that I’ll admit. Guy was a pig.
But even the obviously Good Choices he makes? Building those damn watchtowers? Letting Mo Xuanyu stay at Koi Tower? Seating Qin Su by his side at that same throne where his shitty father entertained concubine after concubine? (Frankly, please make up your own mind as to whether he was lying or telling the truth about learning about Qin Su being his sister before or after they’d consummated their marriage, I’m choosing to believe that he hadn’t known.)
How much of it really happens out of the goodness of his own heart, and how much of it happens because he wants to improve his own reputation, kintsugi away the minuscule cracks in his own image until he’s once again a perfect picture of Jin gold? Is he himself even capable of telling the difference, recognizing where his good intentions end and his desire to look out for number one begins? When you spend so much time crafting your own perfect mask, in your own head as well as others’, the lines blur real fast.
I think ultimately, he craves respect as much as he does pity, and those two never mesh well - the cultivation world never truly accepts him, his father certainly never truly accepts him, but Jin Guangyao is not Wei Wuxian, he can’t just look at all of these perceived injustices and slights, all of this gossip and slander, and say ‘Whatever’. No, Meng Yao takes one look at the world standing against him so very vehemently, and decides to fight it, fight tooth and nail for his place in it, until he comes out Jin Guangyao on the other side, gilded and pristine, ascending the stairs of Jinlintai to exact his revenge on anyone who dares not accept him.
The Guanyin Temple, in a way, is a perfect little vignette of his character - we observe him wildly oscillating between seeking out the aforementioned respect and pity, confessing boldly and laughing loudly one second, and pleading on his knees and clutching onto Lan Xichen’s robe the next. To him, that night, and everything leading up to it, is a series of footholds - the ground begins crumbling under his feet when he learns of the letter, and he has to act fast.
He buys himself time, excuse after excuse, thinking on his feet, and here’s the thing - he’s not necessarily the best at that. Anymore. Up until that point, until the letter and Qin Su and WWX turning up, everything is going according to plan, and his plan at this point is, frankly, correct me if I’m wrong, sitting pretty at the top of his golden tower and making sure the truth about him never comes to light, which... Well, we all know the truth has a nasty way of coming around when it’s least convenient for you.
And I think Jin Guangyao (not Meng Yao) is, at that point, unused to being inconvenienced. Everything he ever does, he calculates, he twists the public opinion of himself, he twists individual people’s opinions of himself, to suit him - nothing unexpected ever happens anymore, because he’s played the game long enough to foresee most things. Nie Huaisang beats him at that same game, not because he has a huge plan spanning decades of his own, but because he’s good at improvising, kicking the hornet’s nest and then knowing where to direct the fallout - but that is another essay all of its own waiting to happen.
For now, I feel like I need to wrap this up before I lose my mind. Personally (and please feel free to challenge me on this any time), I don’t feel like there’s a single defining moment, or even a handful of them, traumatic or otherwise, that irrevocably turns Meng Yao into Jin Guangyao. Sure, being kicked down the literal stairs leading to a better place for you a handful of times will have you feeling some kind of way. Sure, serving a maniacal warlord while playing an impossibly high-stakes game of spy poker will leave a mark or two. Sure, your sworn brother spitting in your face the very insults you’ve been hearing your whole life and never learned to shake off, will make one more vestige of patience inside you irrevocably crumble to smithereens. But.
Your whole life, you work very, very hard. You know to put your head down and get your hands dirty, but you also know that sometimes, the best way out of a hairy situation is turning on those puppy eyes and appearing just a smidgen weaker, a smidgen more frightened and helpless, than you actually are. And if, when you actually tell the truth and people still don’t believe you, lying becomes easier, becomes, eventually, so easy it feels as natural as breathing? Well. Might as well use that particular skillset to sneak your way through a war, am I right? Might as well use it to build yourself a nest among the very vultures who resent you, and whom you resent, and make sure that they have to respect you.
In the end, to me? Jin Guangyao is the guy who jumps from person to person, from callout to very personal callout, there in the Guanyin Temple, just to stall for time, just to regain some sort of foothold in the situation - he’s the guy who probably views losing an arm as a necessary sacrifice, shakes it off and still gets to work from there.
Meng Yao is the guy who wants to take his mother with, and who asks Lan Xichen the one question he’s dreaded knowing the answer to his entire life - not ‘will you stay and die with me?’, but the one that hides beyond that.
Is this what devotion is? Respect? Love? Is there, at this moment in time, enough of all of those things in your heart that you will, in fact, stay and die with me?
When Lan Xichen says yes, without words but still loudly enough to be understood without a doubt, Meng Yao is relieved, while Jin Guangyao is vindicated.
When Lan Xichen says yes, neither version of A-Yao needs to hear any more than that - the seventeen-year-old boy shooting a shot way above his station and loving a statue made of jade, who wants Lan Xichen to survive, and the man wearing the wrong name and the title of the first Chief Cultivator of his generation, who wants Lan Xichen to live with the weight of all his mistakes and misgivings, are both, for once, in accord. They’re both happy, and they both make that final push to save him.
In conclusion, if there even is one to this jumble of random thoughts... Jin Guangyao and Meng Yao are one and the same. Aspects of one can be found in the other, but neither feels remorse about his choices. Both of them, in turn, are capable of amazing things. Both of them are, in fact, capable of decidedly horrible things. One builds a wall around the other so thick, so impenetrable, you only catch glimpses, and only the ones he allows you to see. One learns very quickly that vulnerability is dangerous, unless employed proactively, and the other one perfects the craft.
Both of them believe they are perfectly justified in their actions. Both of them believe their own line of reasoning, their own excuses. Both of them want to be loved, for very different reasons, or for the very same ones, at the end of the day.
Both of them aspire to greatness, Meng Yao some vague idea of it instilled in him by his mother teaching him to believe his own worth, Jin Guangyao a more concrete vision of it, always one step ahead, one step higher up those gilded stairs. Both of them are willing to excuse a whole lot to reach it, too.
And when Jin Guangyao finally stands in Koi Tower, properly this time, wearing that coveted golden peony, wearing that red zhushazhi and a much nicer version of the hat his mother always told him to wear, but also wearing the wrong fucking name, one that barely gives him a spot in the family he belongs to by blood?
All he needs to do is take one look in the mirror to see Meng Yao staring back, always there with him, always ready to remind him where he came from. He’s seventeen years old, and he just buried his mother, and somewhere out there, the rest of his life awaits. His smile is all dimples, and that, too, they have in common.
Time to get to work, Meng Yao suggests, and Jin Guangyao agrees.
#jin guangyao#the untamed#mo dao zu shi#so this is..... a thing.#honestly I'm. i can't say that eloquence was my primary goal here#can't really even be sure WHAT the primary goal was#but this is now a thing that exists so take it off my hands I suppose#while I go make some hot chocolate and think of bunny rabbits and rainbows for a while#to cleanse my palate#Anonymous#ask#jgy#my meta
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Male!Werewolf (Rhys) x Human! Reader (Modern AU) 3
PART 1 - PART 2
Male monster x human reader
Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing Part 3
“There is no way I’m doing that.”
“Ah come now, sugar.” Rhys had been sat on your bed when he had told you the announcement: the prospect of meeting his parents and other brothers had been spoken about since after you had gotten together, but you didn’t think the motion would be so… extravagant.
“You didn’t tell me it was going to be this extra, Rhys.” You sighed, heavily, pinching at your nose as you searched through your wardrobe for anything that could make you look presentable. A cocktail party, something you didn’t think Rhys would ever introduce you to.
“It’s just for one night, babe. And then, when it’s all over, we can go back to yours and have as much pizza and movies you want.” He grinned toothily, his brown eyes winking your way. “How does that sound?”
“You’re terrible, you know that?” You exclaimed over your shoulder playfully. “I don’t even think I have anything appropriate.”
“You can dress down for me if you want.”
“Rhys, this isn’t helping.” You quavered, “I’m meeting your parents! I need to make a good impression.”
“Look, they’ll love you for who you are, no matter what you look like.” Rhys smiled, standing up and coming to hug you from behind, wrapping his muscular arms protectively around your waist.
“You mean it?”
“Of course, sugar. I don’t want you getting overwhelmed by this.” He kissed your cheek tenderly, the warmth coming through his chest radiating through your back. “I appreciate you coming with me though.”
You leant further back into his chest, “You mean it?”
“These events always bored me, and my old man always asked when I would bring back a girl for him and mom to meet, but I never did nor ever want to show up. This is something I want to do now, not just for my dad’s sake.”
You smiled at that, grateful to be able to do this for him. “Then, I hope they like me.”
“They will,” he nuzzled into your cheek, “just like how I do.”
-
“So you’re parents’ names are?”
“Atticus and Eleanor.”
“And you have four brothers - Nicholas, Theo, Marshall and Jackson.”
“Correction: Nick, Marshall then Theo and Jackson.” Smiled Rhys, as he turned the steering wheel to the left, coming off the main road and down towards the secluded and private narrow road. You were staring out the window, shifting your dress to cover your legs as best as you could as you watched the tall trees pass. “You didn’t tell me you owned a private house.”
“It was my grandfather’s, he gave it to all his children to come to for celebrations and whatnot. It’s just used more often by my pops than his other siblings. The Hawthorn manor, something that has been in our family for two centuries.”
“I didn’t know that.” You pondered. His family is big but I didn’t know they were rich. The manor was a piece of grandeur in his family’s name, and it certainly was something of glory: its high walls and stone marble were glossed in onyx, with high foliage that grew over the bricklayers with its bright red double doors on display. “It’s beautiful.”
“Not as beautiful as you, sugar.” Rhys was dressed to the max in a borrowed dark blue suit and black tie, his hair swept back and gelled back as his hand came to wander and squeeze your thigh. “If we weren’t going to this, well—I don’t think we’d even make it out the house.”
“Just keep an eye on the road, silly.” You playfully said, averting your gaze in which Rhys noticed, his deep chuckle always seemed to calm your nerves. “You’re gonna do amazing, babe. I know it. Just remember, deep breaths.”
You did as told, breathing through the nose and out through your mouth, in and out, until you could say you were slightly calmer. “Oh shit, we’re here.”
The driveway wasn’t really a driveway, but more like a small acre in a field: large enough to hold four grand cars as large as the BMW Rhys drove: all marbled and glossed black and leather-bound seats, you didn’t know what you were walking into.
You stepped out and walked over, arms linked to the door as Rhys gave the knocks to the red entrance, the sound itself seemed to reverberate through the outside of the manor than inside, but it was still all too impressive.
The doors opened suddenly and outpoured the two people Rhys held some tolerance for. His parents were similar in height and dressed accordingly to the occasion: reds and blacks of silk dresses and ties, their dark hair sprinkled with occasional greys throughout, their olive skin still youthful to make them look to be in their early 40s than late 50s.
“Rhys, you look well,” His mother was dressed beautifully in reds with a long-sleeved maxi dress and her lips being the same crimson shade, her hair pulled back into a neat bun. Her eyes landed on you with the unexpectant warmth that radiated like the sun, “you must be the special someone?” Her tone was welcoming, caring.
“That would be me, yes.” You sheepishly announced, before Eleanor took the initiative and embraced you tightly in a welcoming hug. “Welcome, my dear. It is so nice to have a new face around here.”
“You’re the one who’s got our boy’s head doing cartwheels?” Rhys’ father, Atticus was presenting himself with a beaming broad smile, his large hand coming to shake yours tightly and all too enthusiastically. “My future daughter-in-law will be the needed asset to this family.”
“If you would, dad, I don’t think we want to spend the evening in the cold,” Rhys informed with a roll of his honey-brown eyes. Eleanor took you by the arm as she took your coat to hang up.
“Finally, another girl to keep me company surrounded by these men.” She chuckled to herself, her eyes full of mirth. “You will like Rhys’ brothers, they take after my humour, not that old dog’s.”
“Hey, I’m still here.” Atticus jested with a wink, his crow’s feet creased. “Come, we can begin now that everyone’s here.”
You took a glance back to Rhys, portraying an ‘I’m sorry we were so late because I couldn’t curl my hair properly’ to which he looked back with an, ‘It’s okay, it’s still beautiful nonetheless.’
“Our guests have arrived, boys!” Eleanor announced, the reception room was extravagant with Corinthians that would put their Greeks to shame. There, from their spots turned the four men awaiting the final guests, all ranging in different heights and forms.
“Boys, come say nice to Rhys’ girlfriend. Be kind.” Eleanor warned, flashing a sympathetic smile as she hurried to collect more glasses for the two of you.
His brothers were all tall compared to Rhys, maybe the second to youngest, Jackson was an inch taller than Rhys, but Nicholas was and foremost the tallest, followed by just two inches, Theo, then Marshall.
“I didn’t know you were bringing a girl round?” Jackson announced first, grinning from ear to ear as he looked at Rhys’ body language and facial expressions, “A pretty one too.”
“Look, you can go find one for yourself to bring here,” Rhys kept his tone oddly calm for this intrusion, gripping at your hand securely, “we’re a thing.”
“So, you marked her?” Marshall looked you up and down with a single glance, his nostrils flaring momentarily. “I see no mark.”
“Nor do I smell her claim.” Jackson sniggered.
“You’re making her uncomfortable, Jack.” Theo came to push aside Jackson, smiling warmly to you in return. “Forgive us, we must look like animals tonight.”
“Hardly ever.” Retorted Rhys with a click of his tongue.
“I’m sorry,” you interrupted, feeling slightly aware that what they were talking about was making you uncomfortable, “what do you mean by claiming.”
“A wolf claims their mate when they find the one,” Nicholas joined in the conversation, leaning over to smile almost considerately. “It’s what wolves do when they care for their partner.”
“I see.” You could feel the tension build with the silent back and forth glares that Rhys was sent to his older brother, the sudden realisation and disappointment in knowing that you hadn’t been marked by Rhys yet… or would you ever be?
“I’m gonna get another drink. This is killing me.” Marshall slipped past, walking straight to the bar as Eleanor came back with two drinks of champagne in her hands. “Our finest, though it does go a bit to Jack’s head.”
“Funny.” Pouted Jackson, “I’m sober enough to see this night through.”
“Like last time was any better.” Nicholas seemed distracted elsewhere, his eyes always drifting in the room. “Summer of last year was an awful one.” Theo sighed dramatically, “For me.”
“We had a great time!”
“You set dad’s car on fire. And I had to clean up your sick.” Theo addressed as Jackson shrugged. “Okay—but we still had fun.”
“Come, Theo, you gotta help me with bringing up more bottles.” Eleanor grinned as she beckoned the kinder of the Pearson brothers away, leaving now just the four of you to idle chatter.
The champagne couldn’t go down your throat any faster.
You didn’t know whether the tension building between Rhys and Nicholas was already ready to burst, but when you had looked to the oldest Pearson brother, you had been surprised to see his hardened gaze on you already. He regarded you with a curt nod, before saying your name clearly.
“Nicholas.” You acknowledged him coolly. “You already met Nick?” Jackson addressed, eyeing the two of you up with suspicion. You regarded Nicholas with a small glance to find him already staring back at you. “Not on the best of terms, but yes.”
“I wasn’t in my best of moods, but I can say myself, I was acting like a dick,” Nick confessed earnestly. “No hard feelings?”
“None at all.”
“Good, I wouldn’t want to get awkward with you, since seeing you with Rhys makes him happy.”
“I didn’t think the day would come,” Jackson grinned, “he’s like a lovestruck puppy.”
“I’m still fucking here, Jack.” Gnarled lowly Rhys, his voice resorted to sounded two tones deeper than usual, almost imperceptible. “I’m sure your little girlfriend doesn’t want to hear you swear so much, Rhys,” Nick added, smirking thinly.
Rhys snorted through his nose as he gave you a final regretful look before storming off, saying under his breath of needing some more to drink. “My apologies for him, he’s always... struggled with expressing proper emotions.” Nicholas simply added whilst Jackson continued sniggering at the affair.
“Maybe to you, but not me.” You finally added, your brow furrowed, now angry to see how bad it could get being both the youngest and forgotten one of the family. “Yeah, he isn’t perfect, but who is? I like him just how he is, and I know that he cares for me.” You addressed to the both of them: Jackson’s laughter and jeering quietened, whilst Nicholas continued to stare at you as if you were the main hideous attraction to a circus.
“Now, I don’t know about you, but I want to enjoy my evening.” You pressed the champagne glass into your bottom lip, whilst finally, Nick was first to have a broad smile appear on his face as if your words had inspired him the most, his laugh a gentle and deep timbre. “You know, I didn’t think at first I’d like you, but you surely changed my mind.”
“How so?”
“You’re like him a lot, but that warmth and empathy you have is what maybe none of us showed much to Rhys.” He placed his large hand upon your shoulder, the warm startling hot in his palm. “I hope he sees himself how good you are to him.”
You couldn’t respond at first, but Nicholas’ words were merely earnest, as he collected his younger brother and dragged him off by the shoulder. “Come, Jack, let’s go find the others. Have a good evening.” He left with nothing else to say, leaving you more than confused and surprised by his change in his words. “What in the fuck?”
-
You had found him on the second floor on the balcony that you didn’t think would be accessible to them all, but here he was, staring out idly at the view that outstretched for acres.
“Hey, I knew I could find you here.” You smiled as you came to cradle you from his back, his back tensing from your touch as you leant into him, silently thinking to yourself as you took in his lack of words or movement. “Are you okay, Rhys?”
“I’m sorry about them, sugar.” He confessed, his voice hoarse and low, “I wanted to impress you and show them how good we were together, but all they did was mock and leer, mock you as much as my love for you.”
You removed yourself when you heard that certain word, the one word that made your stomach flutter and head spin. “You… you love me?”
“I know it’s shit, and I didn’t want to confess like this either.” He laughed dryly to himself, his eyes downcast. “I wanted to make it official too, you becoming… my mate.”
Mate. The word was innocent enough but it brought you to do somersaults in your mind, and your grip around his waist loosened enough to make Rhys assume you were reacting negatively to him. “You’re scared of me, aren’t you?”
“No, I just—I didn’t think you wanted to do this, not now.” You soothed, relaxing when his head rested against your forehead, his eyes closing in relative peace. “I didn’t want to pressure you into anything, not until you were comfortable with me.”
“Rhys,” you calmed him, “I’m with you until the very end. I… I love you.”
His eyes had opened when you confessed the three words to him, his honey-brown eyes so wide in realisation, yearning only for you. “I love you too, sugar. So much.”
He captured you lips rougher than you had expected, his fingers threading through your tresses, pulling you closer to him, the heat of his body and familiar scent of him was all you wanted and you needed.
“Shall we get out of here, babe?” He had asked with a full beam on his face when he had pulled away from you, the low growl reverberating through his chest like a soft motor.
“You want to ditch your family?” You had laughed, pulling him closer to you as he kissed from your jawline to your neck. “I mean, they won’t be looking for us now, and we can finally get that pizza and chill night in.”
You kisses him again, more passionately and rougher than the first time, pulling back to look him in the eyes as you felt the calmness lull you to competition. “I can’t say no to that then.”
-
Support me on Ko-fi!~
#Werewolf boyfriend#werewolf oc#male werewolf#werewolf male#rhys the werewolf#male monster#male monster x reader#part 3#exophilia#monster story#monster exophilia#werewolf exophilia#human reader#monster oc#male werewolf x human reader#modern au#monster modern au#nicholas pearson#the pearson family#marshall pearson#theo pearson#jackson pearson#rhys pearson#awkward family dynamics#like wow#this is awkward#buries oneself in the sand
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Linked Universe Zeldas
So last December I decided to draw my idea for the Zeldas on a whim. Found the WIP recently and decided to finish it.
Also, I typed up all my headcanons for them because I have a lot. They are below the cut.
And I put down nickname ideas, because I'm bad at naming things, and I think the LU discord has already decided on a set of nicknames that they like. Personally, I really dislike most of those though.
❖Corresponding Link: Four
o Age: Teen, just older than Four. Not a major difference, just enough that she can tease him about it.
o Status: Officially still holds the title of princess, acts more like a queen. Her father is extremely protective of her, but after Vaati he conceded that he couldn’t protect her forever. Since then she has been learning to fight, forge (not good at it), and taking over more and more responsibilities from her aging father
o Nickname ideas: Light, Picori, Force
o Fighting style: Mostly fights with a sword and shield. Has extremely strong innate light magic. (light force, although weaker now) Doesn’t necessarily know how to focus it yet (magic bomb, some healing). If you are going to be on the battlefield stop running around like that.
o Current relationship to Link: Best friends, practically siblings. When they were kids there was definitely some major crushing going on. Then everything with Vaati happened and things got… complicated. Neither she nor Link really knows what type of romance they want for the future. They still play lots of pranks on people. She helps keep him stable on the days when his colors get a little too wild.
o Random stuff: Hyperactive and cheery. Always something new to see or learn and she wants to do it. hates sitting still, she is always moving somehow (got turned to stone). Top is hers; Link made the sword (gift), rest is extras from four’s parts (stolen). Hair is naturally extremely curly, lets it down for formal things, tied up for adventuring. Helped four get back to functioning as Link after being four people. Will attack him to get him to take care of himself. Is taller than both four and wind.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
❖ Corresponding Link: Hyrule
o Age: At least a hundred. Was 18 when she was cursed to sleep, no one is exactly sure how long she was asleep.
o Status: Was a princess before falling asleep, offered the crown once woken up. Really over being royal. Link helped her get a job and lodging on a farm at the edge of Hyrule. Really likes that.
o Nickname ideas: Legacy, Farmgirl, First, Ancestor.
o Fighting style: Healer. Lots of bandages to patch everyone up. Doesn’t like to fight, but will stab a man if the need arises. The world is cruel, be kind. Has weak magic, a little bit of healing, and lots of prophetic. Knows the best places to hide on a battlefield.
o Current relationship to Link: They are good friends. He checks up on her from time to time, and she makes sure that he always has a place to rest and relax in safety. Their world is a little bit of a mess, everyone needs a support system.
o Random stuff: Has insomnia. Afraid of not waking up. Extremely wise, or maybe just world-weary. On tense but good terms with current queen Zelda of Hyrule. Forgives her brother, has come to terms with her fate. Taciturn and calm, probably depressed. Extremely sensitive to dark magic. (like an old burn wound) Dislikes people who use it to forcefully get their way. Doesn’t outright hate the principle of it, but will actively shy away from the presence of it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
❖ Corresponding Link: Time
o Age: Adult, mentally/physically the same age.
o Status: Queen of Hyrule. She is married and has a daughter.
o Nickname ideas: Destiny, Sheik, Queen, Lyre/Harp (what is that thing?), Sage.
o Fighting style: Fights mostly with magic. Uses the harp to play songs (ironically fights like HW sheik) has basic sheikah skills. Has only been training to fight for a short time, is still fairly physically weak. One of the most proficient magic users all round. Can take down the basic mooks, but won't last long against a bigger enemy. Knows how to fight alone.
o Current relationship to Link: Strained. Not OOT sheik. Is MM Zelda. Only knows link as the boy who showed up to save the day, then left. Has had occasional interactions, she visits the ranch, he works with the guard. Only in the past year or two, she has had dream glimpses of the alternate timeline. She knows that she and link killed Ganon side by side, that she helped link disguised as sheik. Does not know about the seven years or most of the trauma. Basically, seen like five cutscenes and nothing else.
o Random stuff: Prophetic dreams. Knew she would be leaving on a quest. Kingdom is well set up to work in her absence. Loves her family, is an idiot who doesn’t know the importance of checking in via letters for anything other than politics. Snobbish, proud, put too much stock in titles. Best manager, not a great leader (doesn’t have the personal skills for it). Sees the world as extremely black and white.
❖ Corresponding Link: Twilight
o Age: Young adult.
o Status: Newly coronated queen, has been running the show for a few years now, it's just barely official
o Nickname ideas: Dusk, Dawn, Shadow
o Fighting style: Uses mainly rapier to fight. Also, a great archer. Because of temporarily sharing a soul with Midna, has access to powerful twilight magic. Not as strong as Midna, still strong. Has goddess magic (channel through weapons). Tries to hide twili powers mostly since it's “dark magic”, but only technically. She knows it's not true dark magic and really just wants to avoid a lecture (does not get along well with time’s Zelda). Knows her way around the edge of a battlefield.
o Current relationship to Link: They barely know each other. Only really interacted through saving the world things. Then they went separate ways. She considers Midna a sister and wants to slap both Midna and Link for not realizing they like each other. Once she knows Link better, she will probably tease him a lot.
o Random stuff: Unlike most of the other Zeldas, sees the world as being mostly shades of grey, rather than stark black and white. Somber and stoic. Secretly a massive gremlin. Has a few habits picked up from Midna's soul along with the magic. Is awkward around ‘normal’ people. Has spent almost her entire life in political settings. One of the best politicians. Rather open about her feelings, it's just small and easily missed. Feels guilty for the troubles that befell both Hyrule and the twilight realm. Hates having to stand back unable to help. Screw rules she is going to help.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
❖ Corresponding Link: Wild
o Age: 118-120ish(?) I don’t know how long it has been since the events of BOTW.
o Status: Technically queen, currently is focused on rebuilding Hyrule. Has no intention to take up the throne any time soon.
o Nickname ideas: Scholar, Architect, Champion, Urbosa, Scientist, Little Bird.
o Fighting style: Not a great fighter but she is learning. Decent with a sword. Gets a crossbow from twilight and then makes her own out of sheikah tech. (currently has no magic and good riddance). Learning to navigate a battlefield.
o Current relationship to Link: They are good friends, but it's awkward. Neither of them are totally sure how to act around the other. Basically, either gremlin adventures, or awkward small talk. Past the first road trip, only interact a few times a month. She is caught between trying to mourn her knight and accepting her new hero. Cooking shenanigans.
o Random stuff: Loves learning new things. Can and will study and find the effects of every plant. Knows poisons, antidotes, elixirs, potions, and everything else. Still trying to come to terms with everything that happened. Frequent nightmares. Claustrophobic/minor insomnia. Knows all the languages. Loves studying sheikah tech, and finally gets the chance to as much as she wants. Hates the castle. So many things change culturally over 100 years and she has no idea what to do. Awkward, but sincere.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
❖ Corresponding Link: Wind
o Age: Teen
o Status: Technically the queen. Hyrule currently consists of a single town on the mainland, and lots of plans. Queenish. Anjean is teaching her how to politics.
o Nickname ideas: Name is tetra that’s it.
o Fighting style: Uses a pirate saber as well as the phantom sword. (IDK if spirit tracks is part of Wind’s story, but I was not passing up the opportunity to give tetra a massive sword). Decent archer, and can channel light magic into weapons…. most of the time…... It’s a work in progress. Also has general goddess magic. Big explosion of light. Knows her way around a battlefield
o Current relationship to Link: Serve on a crew together. Best friends and partners in crime. There is a lot that needs to be done to start a country, they will do it together. It’s not going quickly. They keep getting distracted. Why do paperwork when you can steal things.
o Random stuff: Smol. Link hit puberty and got a growth spurt. She did not. Not a politician, this child should not be in charge, whose idea was it to let a pirate child run a country. Great leader. All the social skills. Shoot first… that’s it. Sassy. Trying her best to be a good princess and live up to her lineage. It's hard. There is no book. Feels like she is letting everyone down. Hates big birds. Occasional nightmares. Really hates being cold. (turned to stone)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
❖ Corresponding Link: Legend
o Age: Older teen
o Status: Queen. Has ruled for a while. Amazing support system. They regularly keep things running when she gets kidnapped. Good relations with all surrounding countries.
o Nickname ideas: Maiden, Sage, Hilda.
o Fighting style: Doesn’t. Pacifist. She can attack with light magic, chooses not to. Healing magic, team buffs, defense. Just because she doesn’t fight doesn’t mean she will let her team die. Strongest support magic. Does not know her way around a battlefield.
o Current relationship to Link: Good work friends. They get along well enough. No massive personal relations. She asks him for help with killing monsters, he asks her for help with laws. It works for them. Occasionally they will get lunch together and catch up. (aka make sure he didn’t get himself killed.) Can use telepathy to contact Link at any time. Keeps it to emergencies only. Because he finds it massively annoying, and a little creepy.
o Random stuff: Massive romantic. Currently single. Misses being able to gossip with Hilda. Kind and compassionate. Does not stand for injustice. Will forgive until the end of time. Just because she is kind does not mean she is weak. Strong-willed. Good politician. Loved by her people, even if Ganon has attacked like five times. Ganon is the only person on the list of people she would happily shank. So much paperwork. Give the girl a break. Keeps craft supplies on her for long imprisonments. Scrying magic, and a little bit prophetic.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
❖ Corresponding Link: Warriors
o Age: Adult. Older than warriors, younger than time or his Zelda.
o Status: Queen of Hyrule, and commander of its army. Her Hyrule has been in turmoil for a while even before the war with Cia.
o Nickname ideas: General, Commander, Tactician.
o Fighting style: Best fighter. Can use all the weapons. Summon a bow or rapier of pure light magic. Strongest understanding of how the goddess magic works with weapons. Mostly fights as Zelda (basically her gameplay style), still uses her sheik disguise sometimes (ironically fights similar to smash bros sheik because of extensive sheikah training.) Lives on the battlefield.
o Current relationship to Link: They work seamlessly together in battle and are friends outside of it. They haven't actually known each other very long so it's awkward sometimes. She still has to occasionally remind him that she doesn’t need a title. If they were two kids in a village then they would probably date. But they are not, and things are complicated. Duty to the kingdom comes first.
o Random stuff: Best makeup. Amazing, if ruthless, politician. Best historian. Blunt. No time for crap. One of the best leaders doesn’t have the pure charisma to outdo warriors though. Resting B Face. 90% of soldiers are scared of her. Comes across as harsh, rude, cold. Really, she is just a bit awkward and hides behind a mask. Can’t do people, can do basically anything else. Minor prophetic magic.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
❖ Corresponding Link: Sky
o Age: Old teen/young adult. Older than Sky.
o Status: Technically the queen, but Hyrule hasn’t been founded yet. Officially goddess Hylia reincarnated. She doesn’t go around flaunting the title, but sometimes the memories of Hylia she gained will overwhelm her. Full goddess mode. Doesn’t stand for dark magic.
o Nickname ideas: Hylia, Sun, Swallow.
o Fighting style: trained at the academy and knows how to fight with a sword. Not a good fighter. massive bursts of power usually win her fights. Sometimes she can channel a little bit of her power, but usually, she just gets overwhelmed by all of it. General goddess magic, cannot channel through weapons. Thinks she does, but in fact, does not know her way around a battlefield
o Current relationship to Link: Do I need to explain? These two are head over heels. Sappy love birds all the way. Childhood friends. Everyone is surprised they're not engaged yet.
o Random stuff: More adventure-ready style to reflect working on founding Hyrule. Fierce and determined. Kind. But she will get her way. Struggles to balance her mortality and newfound divinity. Feels bad that Sky had to fight for her. Loves her bird. Beautiful singing voice. She is trying her best but is in fact very bad at being an adventurer. Good at sewing. Loads of people skills, working on leadership skills. Best with children. 6th sense type prophetic magic. (aka see a shot before it is taken, but not a coming calamity.)
That's it. Congrats on making it to the end. You get a cookie. 🍪
#linked universe#linkeduniverse#legend of zelda#princess zelda#zelda#loz#LoZ Fanart#long post#headcanons#my art#shekorla#sorry discord#yall are great#dont like almost all of the nicknames
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Wizards Hearts Recs: Secret Relationship
Wizards Hearts was a four-month-long Drarry reading fest. Players were given a playing deck of 52 tropes, and were asked to find 52 different fics to read and comment on to fill their decks. To prevent the same few fics from being read, fics were restricted to only being used for the game three times before being considered ineligible for further points. The tropes and submissions list can be found here.
Check out the masterlist of fics for this trope below the cut!
Goodness and Justice Have Dwelt in Your Heart by violetclarity
Rated: Mature
Words: 1952
Tags: Secret Relationship, Dark!Draco, Angst
Summary: “But sooner or later you would regret having consecrated your love to me, for you do not know my soul.” // An upside-down remix of Wolves and Lambs Look Not by LowerEastSide.
Read on AO3
📜 just tell me when it’s alright by M0stlyVoid
Rated: Explicit
Words: 23,002
Tags: Secret Relationship, Rimming, Oral Sex, Anal Sex, Forced Orgasm, Possessive Behavior, Jealousy, Bite Kink, Bruise Kink, Light Dom/sub
Summary: Harry’s been fighting tooth and nail for any bit of normalcy he can get his hands on. He’s sick of feeling like something’s wrong with him, tired of feeling different. He thinks he’s finally gotten to the root of it, and has settled into a routine that makes him happy. Naturally, that’s when Draco Malfoy walks back into his life and upends it once again. Has Harry bitten off more than he can chew with his former rival?
❤️ Read on AO3
📜 fine i'll hold my breath / til i forget it's complicated by teatrolley
Rated: Not Rated
Words: 10884
Tags: Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, there's a lot of shagging, and a lot of unresolved emotions, because these two dudes are idiots, but we love them, and they love each other, Oops, its complicated though, OR IS IT
Summary: Harry and Draco become friends with benefits, and Harry thinks it's more complicated than it actually is
❤️ Read on AO3
📜 The Difference Between a Cat and a Comma, Or, The One Where McGonagall Has Sass by shilo1364
Rated: Teen and Up
Words: 18600
Tags: Mentor Minerva McGonagall, Hogwarts Eighth Year, background Ronmione, Transfigurations, HP: EWE, Pre-Slash, Pre-Relationship, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Friends to Lovers, Coming Out, Secret Relationship, Humor, Fluff and Humor, No Smut, No Sex, Ginny is Harry's best friend, harry is annoyed at Ron and hermione, Harry/Draco and Ginny/luna double-date, Inspired by a Tumblr pun, Thestrals, tea with Hagrid, Transfiguration (Harry Potter), Tie-Switching, Great Hall Relationship Reveal
Summary: Eighth year at Hogwarts is going to be boring. That's what Draco Malfoy thinks when the Wizengamot makes attendance a condition of his pardon. After all, after letting Death Eaters into the school, failing to kill his headmaster, and being forced to serve a homicidal madman, how could finishing up his education *possibly* be interesting?
Answer: a coveted Transfigurations advanced study position, Minerva Mcgonagall's surprising fondness for him, Thestrals, tea with Hagrid, tutoring Harry Potter, Granger and Weasley's excessive PDA, and the perplexing nature of sleight-of-hand double-dates with Harry, Luna, and Ginny. And then, of course, there's righteously indignant (if misinformed) Weasley, Draco's own insecurities and flair for dramatics, and a long-suffering Kingsley Shacklebolt.
❤️ Read on AO3
📜 Parseltongue, Quidditch, and Smut, Oh My! by cassie_black
Rated: Mature
Words: 14392
Tags: Fluff, Smut, Sexual Content, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Parseltongue, Secret Relationship, Angry Sex
Summary: Hot boys, ball games, and snake talk! (A very late Christmas present for the lovely nursedarry!)
❤️ Read on AO3
📜 Still Life by orphan_account
Rated: Mature
Words: 3011
Tags: London, POV Harry Potter, i guess!!!
Summary: N/A
❤️ Read on AO3
📜 I'll Tell You A Secret (Just Don't Tell) by nerakrose
Rated: General
Words: 18331
Tags: Coming Out, Domestic, Fluff, Cute, Community: trope_bingo, Curtain Fic, Secret Relationship, Car Accidents, But no one dies, HP: EWE, Forced coming out, Muggle Life, Draco Malfoy in the Muggle World
Summary: Harry and Draco are living a fairly normal life with a fairly normal relationship, except for the part where it's, well, secret.
❤️ Read on AO3
📜 Code-Cracking For Gryffindors by Saras_Girl
Rated: Teen and Up
Words: 4065
Tags: N/A
Summary: Harry should know better than to conceal mysterious body art from dorm-mates who pay no heed to what happened to the cat.
❤️ Read on AO3
📜 Too precious to share by slowroad
Rated: Mature
Words: 1667
Tags: Romance, Fluff, Humor, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Established Relationship, Secret Relationship, HP Fluff Fest 2020
Summary: Harry and Draco are several months into their eighth year at Hogwarts. They have been in a relationship for a while now, but no one knows about them and they are happy to keep it that way.
❤️ Read on AO3
📜 On The Couch by Frayach
Rated: Explicit
Words: 26035
Tags: Desperation, Soul-Searching, Passion, Therapy, Voyeurism, Infidelity
Summary: It’s a Mind Healer’s worse nightmare to lose a patient to suicide, but Mind Healer Nick Nichols can attest to the fact that a murder/suicide is even worse. If only Dr. Freud had come up with a sure cure for love.
❤️ Read on AO3
📜 Curiosity, Wonder, Spontaneous Delight by cloudings
Rated: Explicit
Words: 114710
Tags: Hogwarts Eighth Year, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, but its more like, enemies to friends with benefits to lovers?, Enemies with benefits?, Porn, Blow Jobs, Accidental Voyeurism, Voyeurism, Scars, Masturbation, Masturbation in Shower, Fantasizing, Flirting, if it seems like there are too many gay characters in this I say fuck you, Getting Together, coming to terms with sexuality, Sexuality, Bisexual Harry Potter, Gay Draco Malfoy, Lesbian Ginny Weasley, Improper Use of the Imperius Curse, Dry Humping, Making Out, Secret Relationship, Sneaking Around, Draco Malfoy Speaks French, as he should, Drinking, Partying, Jealousy, Anal Sex
Summary: After Harry hears some rumours about Malfoy, he becomes more and more curious until he just has to get some answers. Malfoy is more than prepared to give him anything he needs, just as long as he gets something back in return. Harry’s not sure why he’s surprised that it’s something moderately illegal.
In which Ron continues to get far too many eyefuls, Hermione has had quite enough with everybody, and Harry’s not sure why enemies to friends to friends with benefits isn’t enough for him.
OR
Harry becomes incredibly curious, and somewhere along the line ends up accidentally falling in love with Draco Malfoy. Because of course he bloody would.
❤️ Read on AO3
📜 Twist of Fate by Oakstone730
Rated: Teen and Up
Words: 302209
Tags: Canon up until Epilogue, Triwizard, Book 4: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Redemption, Forgiveness, Angst, Memory Loss, Secret Relationships, obliviate, secret boyfriends
Summary: Draco asks Harry to help him beat the Imperius curse during 4th year. The lessons turn into more than either expected. A story of redemption and forgiveness. Pairings: HP/DM (Slash) Timeframe: 1994-2002 Goblet to 4 yrs post-DH EWE Rating T for language, high angst, content.
❤️ Read on AO3
📜 Breakin' the Rules by orpheous87
Rated: Teen and Up
Words: 3146
Tags: Implied Sexual Content, H/D Sex Fair 2020, Auror Partners, Auror Harry Potter, Auror Draco Malfoy, Gay Draco Malfoy, Bisexual Harry Potter, Secret Relationship, Blood Loss, Blood and Injury, St Mungo's Hospital, Fluff, Coming Out, Happy Ending, Hurt Harry Potter, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE
Summary: Harry and Draco are Auror partners. They're in a relationship that they've been forced to keep secret due to relationships between Aurors being forbidden. Harry is okay with this, as he hasn't come out to anyone other than Draco, but after a mission goes awry, their relationship is exposed.
❤️ Read on AO3
📜 Little Talks by Femme (femmequixotic), noeon (noe)
Rated: Explicit
Words: 11351
Tags: N/A
Summary: Draco's been shagging the Head Auror for months now, and he's sure it's just a fling. Until Harry asks him to a Quidditch match, that is, and things go horribly wrong.
❤️ Read on AO3
📜 You Look the Way I Feel by yourdifferentoctober
Rated: Explicit
Words: 108693
Tags: Hogwarts Eighth Year, Mental Health Issues, Getting to Know Each Other, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Hand Jobs, Blow Jobs, Semi-Public Sex, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Top Harry Potter, Orgasm Delay/Denial, First Time, Praise Kink, Bottom Draco Malfoy, Snogging, Slow Burn, Slow Build, Enemies to Lovers, Sexual Tension, Falling In Love, Jealous Harry Potter, Possessive Harry Potter
Summary: Draco returns for his eighth year at Hogwarts in an attempt to salvage whatever he can of his future. His plan: sit as many N.E.W.T.s as possible, distance himself from the Malfoy name, and keep out of trouble. Of course, with his father on trial and at risk of unthinkable punishment, not to mention the anxiety-fueled "episodes" that have been plaguing him since summer, the school year doesn't go so smoothly. Especially when Harry Potter keeps seeking him out.
❤️ Read on AO3
📜 Magnetism by Queenie_Mab
Rated: Explicit
Words: 26028
Tags: Illustrated, Chaptered, Adaptation, Rimming, Anal Sex, Veritaserum, Bad Poetry, Bets, Drunk Sex, Drunken Confessions, Blow Jobs, Mistaken Identity, Bottom Harry
Summary: Muggle Romance Novelist Draco Malfoy is exiled in the Muggle world after the war, but as fate would have it, the chemistry between him and Harry Potter draws them together, no matter how much Draco resists.
Adapted from the manga/anime, Gravitation by Maki Murakami
❤️ Read on AO3
📜 In Secret by Rei382
Rated: General
Words: 2119
Tags: Secret dating, Secret Relationship, Christmas, did I ever say how much I love arthur?, No I did not?, well now is my chance
Summary: Harry and Draco are secretly dating. At least, they think it's secretly.
❤️ Read on AO3
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La Fiesta Tech and other unfortunate decisions 1: Greek House powered by hatred (Tank and Johnny)
After my last post about my general play style for university in TS2, here I come with something more specific! (aka a blog that promised to be about gameplay is finally posting gameplay)
I ran 35 Sims through college at once - the 8 Strangetown and Pleasantview teens, La Fiesta Tech premades, plus student bin families from the other two universities. In this post I’ll focus on one of the households, what their general experience was and what are my headcanons about it.
Now, I don’t have the save file anymore. The neighborhood succumbed to corruption just a rotation after, so I restarted. It was a learning experience and now I know to run HoodChecker after every rotation and to batbox gossip memories frequently. However, I’m over it and enjoying my new hood even more, I just thought I write a short disclaimer that these bits won’t have any mentions in future posts. But my interpretation of the characters still stands and doesn’t change regardless of save files.
Anyway, let’s get down to business!
...to defeat Academic Probation.
When Johnny Smith signed up for an assignment to establish and lead a Greek House of his own, he was overjoyed. Even more so when he saw the name "Grunt" as his assigned partner.
Founding a Greek House with Ripp? AWESOME!
But... the Grunt in question wasn't Ripp...
No. It was the a**hole Grunt. They’ve already been living in one dorm (with like 14 other people) and the place was a battleground.
To be fair, Johnny and Tank didn't just fight and nothing else. Yes, fighting was like 90 % of how they usually spent their time together but there was something else...
Chess.
In this particular game Johnny had become surprisingly fond of chess and frequently rolled the want to play it.
Chess has always been Tank's favorite game.
They played quite often and it was one of the rare times they were having fun together and actually talked instead of yelling.
But are a few games of chess enough to earn one forgiveness for a teenhood of nastiness and abuse?
In Johnny's eyes rightfully not.
He had to admit the a**hole is quite chill when he's not being a total d*ckhead but that didn't change anything about the fact that Tank had been terrible to him for no good reason ever since forever and he hated him for that.
Those feelings... weren't completely mutual.
College was Tank's awakening. He found himself away from his father, away from prying eyes that would judge him for not being perfect and for the first time in his life, he felt quite free.
And empty. And alone. He realized he had no friends and that the only person who truly liked him was his father and he would most probably stop if he ever learned of Tank's inner world.
He decided it was a high time for a change.
But habits aren't easy to break, especially if they're the only thing you know. Tank had never learnt to relax around people, never learnt to talk to them just to get to know them, never learnt to express himself, never learnt how to make friends.
Why, he had never needed to! They would have been a weakness, an unmanly stain of lollygagging on his consciousness. He was taught that friendships form themselves on the battlefield and it's a waste of time to try to create them otherwise.
It was quite awkward when he started approaching Ripp in attempts to mend their relationship. Tank has hurt Ripp in the past, he actually treated them quite horribly, fueling his own confidence from being the older, bigger, stronger one and from their father approving of such behavior.
Their father has never said it out loud but it has always been simply there that Tank was the superior one. More obedient, stronger, faster, more masculine. Smarter, even! How could Ripp with an attitude like theirs, with their lousy academic results even compare to by-the-book and hardworking Tank?
Yet it was Ripp who was seemingly happier, like they didn't even care about father's disapproval or the pressure of being the offspring of a venerated general. Tank realized he admired them for that. They did things Tank wouldn't even dream of. They didn't hide who they were.
Forgiveness... forgiveness isn't easy to attain. But Tank was determined to try anyway. At the very least he would stop causing any more harm to his sibling in the future.
It wasn't that straightforward with his new alien roommate, though.
Johnny was special. First he despised him because his father taught him they were inherently dangerous and invasive, they needed to be driven away. But that got quickly buried under memories of aggression and hostile experiences. It was by all means Tank who started it and Johnny was only fighting back but that didn't matter deep in Tank's head, his brain had connected Johnny to unpleasant, awful things regardless.
But he was also the most... attractive person Tank knew. Tank couldn't help himself. He wished Johnny Smith wasn't an alien, so they could've been friends right from the start. He was athletic, even more than Tank, was interested in the same sports as him and was damn good at them, he has always had good grades without seemingly having to study that much, and all around, he would make such a worthy friend!
Friend. Was that something Tank sincerely had on mind when he fantasized about Johnny? (And did he do that a lot!) No. Not at all.
Ripp has long been out, proud and loud about their orientation, not denying they liked boys and girls and anything in between and beyond, and the general was giving them dirty looks and deprecating remarks for it. He wasn't outright punishing them, mainly because he expected nothing more from Ripp and knew his middle child was simply "a weirdo" but Tank was sure his reception would be even worse if he came out.
He was supposed to be the good son, after all. The heir. He was not supposed to think or do or, by the Watcher, be something his father considers perverted and unmanly. He could only imagine the horrible things the general could say to him and the thought alone was enough to make him shudder.
Once again Tank simply didn't understand Ripp. They liked girls, so the world didn't even had to know that it's not all there is to it. They could've just find themselves a girlfriend and not face any judging generals. That's what Tank would do!
But he couldn't. He wasn't like Ripp. He only ever felt attracted to other men and male-presenting people. There was nothing he could do, no way he could force himself to be any other way.
And nobody knew. Not even that girl from their high school that Tank asked to prom so that he didn't look weird. They were on amicable terms but they weren't even friends, they just helped each other out so they didn't seem like outcasts to the whole school on the prom night.
He remembered his father being elated and encouraging him to invite his "girlfriend" for a dinner soon, so he could meet the fine young lady that might just one day become his daughter-in-law.
Tank had to tell him that it unfortunately "didn't work out" and that he "needs to focus on his studies and training anyway" and the general then praised him for it.
Little did he know that his favorite son, even back then, was not only gay but had a hopeless crush on an alien boy.
Every time Tank tried to interact with Johnny and be nice to him, he got reminded of his feelings he was so ashamed of and of his fear of his father disavowing him, so he said something mean instead or didn't talk to him at all.
The only exception was chess.
Sometimes, when a game neared its end, they spoke. And they talked... casually. It was awkward and cautious but it was a conversation and it felt... good.
Playing chess with Johnny became Tank's guilty pleasure. (even worse than watching make-up tutorials on SimTube!)
Being forced by the assignment to live together for six semesters was equal parts a living hell and a dream come true.
They had a small house on La Fiesta Tech premises that they were to transform into a lively Greek House.
"This place looks like shit and smells like a prison cell. Or vice-versa?"
"You got everything you have for free, Smith. Stop bitching."
Johnny sighed and opened up a book. "Says someone whose loaded dad literally sent him money for this house."
"I thought your family was also well off. Is that incorrect?"
"We have a financial situation called None of your business, Grunt."
"Sorry for asking like a normal person."
"Nothing you do is 'like a normal person'."
...
"I quit! You're unhinged, Smith!"
"Tell me something I don't know."
"I found a knife under your pillow!"
"You found -what? Why the f*ck were you looking under my pillow?!"
"I was just changing the sheets. I did mine, so I thought I'll do yours, too!"
"Why the f*ck would you change the sheets on MY flipping bed?"
"Because you are a disgusting manchild and it stank."
"I was gonna change them tonight! And, guess what!"
"What?"
"YOU also have a knife under your pillow!"
"I don't!"
"Yes, you do, liar."
"How do you know that?"
"I saw you put it there yesterday, you galaxy brain. The question is, why the hell do you have a f*cking knife under your pillow?"
"Why do you, Smith?"
"Because I live with your ass. I sleep better knowing you can't just murder me in my sleep. Now you tell."
"Same. I've slept with a knife under my pillow ever since grade school in case a robber got to our house. I won't stop now that I live with YOU!"
"..."
"I won't kill you. I'm not a freak! Killing is wrong, even if it's parasites such as you. And, besides, I'm not stupid. If you turned up dead, I'll would be charged immediately, even if I didn't do it."
"So why do heck do you think I would kill you, Grunt?"
"I... don't know."
"Anyway, were you for real? Are you quitting? We fail this assignment but I'm chill with that if it means getting rid of you."
"No, no! I'm not going anywhere until we pass. I'm not a quitter! But if you want to quit, I'll respect that and be glad this circus is finally over."
"Fine. Are we getting pizza for dinner tonight?"
...
“I invited my family for a lunch...”
“Alright. I’ll be in the library. Or the gym. Haven’t decided yet.”
“No.”
“No?”
“I want you to be here, Grunt.”
“Why? So you can all make fun of me?”
“Stop being so defensive. I want you to be here, so you can just chill with us. And my folks are gonna know you’re actually... okay.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“And if you hang out with mom, dad and Jill, you’re gonna know they’re okay, too.”
“That’s not how this works. I can’t just act like we’re friends now and everything’s peachy.”
“Well, who said that? Maybe that’s exactly how it works. You never know until you try!”
“If anything goes wrong-”
“Nothing’s gonna go wrong. It’s not that deep. We’re been living together for nearly three f*cking years and had a sh*tton of time to talk. In fact, I already told them you’re my friend now.”
“I thought we agreed we wouldn’t use the F-word!”
Johnny laughed. “What? F*cking? F*ck? C’mon! Your dad can’t hear us!”
“No, the other one. The FR-word.”
Johnny rolled his eyes and grinned. “Go friend yourself!”
“Okay, I’ll stay for the lunch. I’ll go get my tuxedo...”
“Please don’t.”
Reaching a truce was a painfully slow and slowly painful process. Sometimes Johnny wondered if there’s even a point. Sometimes Tank wondered if it wouldn’t be better just to focus fully on his studies and forget that Johnny existed.
But they had to live together, they had to work together organizing parties and happenings in order to grow the Greek House. They had to speak. And when the exams drew nearer, the only person who was available for evening study sessions was usually the other.
What did they study anyway?
Tank rolled the want to major in Drama while Johnny studied Political Science. Tank has never told his father the truth of what his field of study is and knowing his father has access to the university's statistics and probably could fact check that in Tank's house there lives a Drama major and a PolSci major, he pretended he's doing Political Science and Johnny is the one majoring in Drama.
When the general came for a visit to attend Tank's graduation, Johnny played along with his lie.
The relationship between Tank and Johnny improved drastically over the three years. They still weren't exactly close friends but were healing with a prospect of a friendship further along the way.
Were they romantic with one another?
No. Johnny reciprocated Tank's attraction and maybe something could happen in the future but Johnny fell in love autonomously with somebody else.
With a different Grunt, to be exact.
(typing angrily)
Anyway, even though Tank's crush on Johnny ended up futile, it was still a great experience for him.
In college, Tank Grunt really flourished, despite the initial struggle. He realized a lot about himself and started working on his social skills and repairing his relationships.
He also found a friend in none other than Ophelia Nigmos and she became the first person he ever came out to.
Plus, he was the most academically successful Sim of the whole 35 students I played, being the only one who graduated with a flawless 4.0 GPA.
Unlike Ripp, Tank returned back to live with their father and Buck for the time being. He was expected to enter the army and needed a place to be. Moreover, the general was vocal about choosing him as the heir who inherits the Grunt house someday, so it was simply right for Tank to go back and live there.
Was it? Wasn’t it?
Tank was definitely having second thoughts.
He didn’t wonder anymore if military was the right career path for him. He knew it wasn’t.
But was he ready to let the world know who he really was?
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Season 5 ep 10 - Mercy shall follow me
Old Pippin and Bonnet discuss their plans to get Bonnet’s record expunged and get custody of the plantation-owning toddler, Jemmy. Old Pippin is a lawyer evidently, but clearly a bad one because when he asks Bonnet to be compensated for his legal efforts he allows Bonnet to tell him “you’ll get some money somewhere down the line on the condition that the desired outcome of my complex plan is achieved.” That is not good billing practice, old Pippin!
Also your client is talking about bumping off people who stand between him and his money, so maybe read between the lines here. Old Pippin is getting swindled in the short term and probably getting dead in the long term.
Oh, no! They’ve dressed Ian up like some sort of Quaker! He interrupts a very Outlander conversation of “this man we are dealing with is a shady character and he may try to double cross us.” “Yes, that is very likely to happen, but let’s not bother to make any kind of contingency plan about that likely outcome, because .... I don’t feel like it?” “Ok” “ok”
Claire tries to get a new syringe made in Wilmington. But some malevolent force tdb is watching them
The girls go to the beach and have very forced dialogue about whales. The pod of whales does not inspire them to stick close together.
Roger begins to feel more macho about killing Bonnet, who does not show up to his pre arranged meeting with the Fraser’s Ridge lads. Just as well. Roger isn’t very good at fighting still.
Bonnet has gone whale watching as well it turns out. Brianna is thwarted by an unloaded pistol and gets kidnapped. They are on Bonnet’s private island. “My son’s father is Roger Mackenzie” she sneers. Why are you always dropping everybody’s full names, girl! That is what got you into this mess. You gave Bonnet your full name, address, social security number, and return envelope at your visit to the jail, which has put all this into motion.
Brianna grabs a fire iron, but then does nothing with it. Instead she puts on a fancy dress, deciding to play the long game I guess. Bonnet wants a lesson in table manners, but alas, this is not Pretty Woman. Now Brianna gets clammy about this sociopath knowing the names of everyone she holds dear.
Brianna opens some boring book about farming, but begins reciting Moby Dick from memory. I’ve never been inclined to read Moby Dick, so I can’t say for sure, but I assume she is paraphrasing and changing the story as she goes and she doesn’t start out in the first person. Will she snare Bonnet in a literary trap? She keeps this going for 200 pages?!? Sounds absolutely exhausting. Seems very elaborate just to provide some moral framework for this villain to perhaps take to heart. What is her end game? He will change his ways because of this cautionary tale about a sea captain?
Is Bonnet duping her? Sea Nightmares and an orphan backstory? Seems very crafted to elicit sympathies and get her to let her guard down.
The prostitute breakfast maid would suggest they are not so isolated as “private island” might suggest. Brianna’s problem is that she assumes Bonnet is dumb.
Maybe he is a little dumb and mostly weird? I can’t quite figure out if he is clever or devious without being clever (if that is possible). Does he really believe in this fantasy with Bri? Everything we know about him thus far suggests no, he wouldn’t be naive enough to believe a woman he has kidnapped at knifepoint will be his loving life partner, but the scene is telling us yes, this is his belief.
Very brief sex with the breakfast tray prostitute seems a bit of an unhinged choice. I do prefer it when the villains are clever. That’s why Randall and Sandrigham are god tier Outlander villains and Geillis and that snooty French duke are not. I find this whole episode very perplexing. Bonnet is effective as a villain, not just because he is ruthless and violent, but because he is canny and has skill at manipulating people’s sympathies and ambitions to achieve his own goals. It seems strange that he leaves himself open completely to that same kind of manipulation with Bri who is not particularly convincing when she tries to play up the romance farce. Would he really be so fooled by her motivations?
It’s all very strange, as it seems like they should be having a battle of wits and deception, but it all falls away and we have only what we first start out with: captor and captive.
Jocasta is up to some scheme. She orders old Pippin to dole out her fortune to every person under 40 at Fraser’s Ridge. Old Pippin is the worst criminal. He is practically bursting out of his chair in outrage as she bequeaths pound upon pound until he screeches “you can’t give away my money!” Jocasta got him to admit conspiracy in under two minutes.
Thank beezus for Ulysses. He comes in to asphyxiate old Pippin when he gets pillow happy with Jocasta’s face. A beautiful voice and charming company aren’t his only talents. We now know the glory of Ulysses’ biceps. Looks like old Pippin is swindled in the short term and dead in the short term.
Seems Bonnet is trafficking stolen women. He decides to sell Brianna to a sea captain. Was this his plan all along (if so, why the charade?) or a pivot following the failure of his original plan? On the beach they are intercepted by the Fraser Gang. Roger catches up to Bonnet while everyone else hangs back (???). Roger lands a punch on Bonnet, which the editor makes us watch twice. This very generous editor also bestows the gift of slow mo on Roger’s scuffling.
I’m sorry. They are planning to put Bonnet on a boat to sea? Like you have rifles. Have you learned nothing? Just shoot and be done with it. Oh, now Brianna wants him to go to trial. Why why why. You want to trust politicians?
Bonnet does get sentenced to execution. By drowning, but nobody sticks around to watch? Oh wait, Brianna turns up with a rifle to do what she could have done on the beach???
#outlander#episode recap#brianna#outlander roger#jocasta#roger mackenzie#outlander season 5#stephen bonnet#claire fraser#jamie fraser#outlander s5e10#outlander 5x10#the one where Brianna paraphrases 200 pages of Moby Dick#brianna randall#outlander Ulysses#mercy will follow me#mercy shall follow me
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Finale Reaction- 2 months later
In the wee hours after the Supernatural Finale, after tossing and turning in my bed, I got up and wrote this... this was before I was actually active on Tumblr and I never thought I would share this because I was too self conscious. I deleted it shortly after I wrote it because it brought me so much pain to relive it. I have since watched the Finale again and have come to terms with it and I felt it was a good time to share my thoughts. I hope that my words may bring other people comfort who feel the same way. Thanks for reading :)
Alisha
P.S. Sorry so long, I was feeling things and the words just kept coming and coming
___________________________________________
I don’t blog. Never in my life have I sat down to tell the world about my feelings in such a manner. I may contribute on message boards and social media comments, but I never thought anything was worth my time to spill my guts into the ether when I am near certain that not a soul will read them. But here I am. I have to write because if I don’t get these thoughts out of my head, I am going to go full on insane.
That ending was bad. It was a disservice to the 15 years of an incredible show that was not only genre bending it was cultural norms bending.
I could mention the various tropes that this ending (and the previous episodes) invoked, but I am not well versed in them and would never want to do anyone a disservice with a comparison that wasn’t apt.
The buildup up of each character arc and then the glaring lack of conclusion for said character arc was laughable.
To say I am disappointed is an understatement.
To say I am heartbroken is an understatement.
I am destroyed.
I am destroyed that the two men who have been with this franchise since day 1 wrote and directed an episode that they thought was the perfect ending. They thought this is what their devoted fandom wanted.
I am destroyed that the lead actors signed off on this script and went so far as to call it their favorite. I realize Jared was the only one calling it his favorite episode. Jensen admitted he had reservations about the episode and needed the wise words of creator Erik Kripke to accept it. I do have to say that taking the word of a man who left the show 10 seasons ago and hasn’t been involved in all the plot lines and inner workings since season 5 is probably not the best idea. I could be mistaken about the extent of Kripke’s involvement, but I am fairly certain that I am right in my assumptions.
Dean spent 15 years (probably more) of his life feeling unloved, unworthy, self-conscious and convinced that his life had but one purpose and that purpose would ultimately be the death of him, and he had made peace with that.
He is given a best friend, potential love interest, who helps him to see that he is more than that, so much more than that. He is selfless, he is caring, he is a lover, not a killer. His friend’s soulmate’s sacrifice is the catalyst for him believing that all these things are true. He even takes the step of admitting out loud that he knows he has changed. He knows that his life is worth living to the fullest and appreciating what he has every day and honoring those they have “lost along the way.”
To then kill him during a routine hunting trip in which the boys are up against a vampire nest they could take down in their sleep. What could possibly have been the purpose for that? To show that once they were no longer God’s little play toys their lives were expendable? WHY?
Dean, arguably the greatest hunter in the SPN universe, was taken out by a fucking rusty piece of rebar, and instead of trying to call for help and get the man to a hospital (not sure it would have helped) he has his final monologue, the one he has been due for the latter half all of Season 15. He died scared, in pain, and sad.
Dean goes to heaven, and its not the heaven we have been told of in the past where you are living in your memories. Its truly life after death and its wonderful. He meets Bobby again and told that various people in Dean’s and Bobby’s life are close by. His parents live down the road. His father, who was never confirmed to be but was most likely an abusive bastard, lives just down the road with his mother. Wonderful. (WTF?) He gets confirmation that Cas is out of the empty and he smiles, nothing more. He sees baby and goes for a drive, not to find Cas and thank him for his ultimate sacrifice, but to just drive. I like this part because we see a happy, content Dean, and we finally get to hear Kansas’s “Carry on Wayward Son” (DONT GET ME STARTED ON THE LACK OF THE ROAD SO FAR AT THE BEGINNING OF THE EPISODE). I just wish Dean’s path to heaven had been a little easier on him.
Dean deserved better.
Castiel, the selfless angel who just wanted to find purpose in his life and ultimately found it in death. He dies never being told that he is loved, after countless times of professing his love to his found family. The angel who sacrificed himself to the Empty, a horrible place of unspeakable torture, to protect the man he loves. A man who, mere days later (in my mind anyway), arrives in heaven after being killed in a gruesome accident, rather than fulfilling his destiny that Cas fought so hard to protect. Some sacrifice. It turns out that Cas is saved by the Empty from Jack, but we don’t get to see his joyful reunion with Dean, the man he loves.
Cas deserved better.
Sam is left to live this life without his brother, and potentially the love of his life because the writers couldn’t be bothered to confirm Eileen’s re-existence after Chuck’s rapture. He has a family, and he grows old (mind you with REALLY bad makeup in a show that is known for their incredible makeup/special effects departments).
He seems to be happy, but you can tell something is missing. We come to see that he raised his son to be a hunter. He raised his son in a life that, at the outset of this show, he was desperate to get out of and live a normal life. Perhaps he no longer believes that anyone can live a normal life knowing what is out there. *EDIT* Looking back I don’t believe he raised his son to be a hunter, just gave him the tattoo in case.
He names his son Dean, because of course he does. He has a wife who we see from a distance and is never given the clarity if it is Eileen or not. He finally dies after what looks like a slow and painful illness and is sent to heaven.
In heaven he meets up with Dean. This was lovely. The two of them meeting again after so long, for Sam, that is. Dean only had to seemingly wait for a few hours.
Sam deserved better.
For a show that had the potential to go out on a historically significant high, this is disappointing, to say the least. The story had the potential to end with 2 brothers who have sacrificed so much and saved so many people, find a happy ending. Not only that but find a happy ending with a deaf partner and a gay angel. If that isn’t breaking barriers and bending norms, I don’t know what is. I really would like to know what prevented this from happening. Be it the CW from restricting them or maybe the absolute lack of originality from the writers, I am curious as to their reasoning. Maybe it was COVID. Maybe because they couldn’t have those two actors physically on set due to protocols, they didn’t want to shortchange them by having them appear otherwise: disembodied voice, phone call (DONT TOUCH ME) or even a flashback… hell STOCK FOOTAGE! I don’t know and I clearly can’t imagine the reason.
I realize that there is nothing that can be done about this episode now and that accepting it and moving on is really the only way forward. But the legacy this show has left, and its lasting impact on me and my life, cannot be ignored. I was looking forward to indulging in past episodes of this show for the rest of my life. It is going to be a long time before I can watch an episode without anger and resentment towards what I know to be their eventual end. That, to me, is unforgiveable.
I don’t expect anyone to actually read this because I do not have any followers. I have never blogged in my entire life and was only recently introduced to the online fandom, but I needed to write this. I needed to share the impact that this episode had on me. I do hope that it does reach those in the fandom that may have similar feelings and are able to use my words to help express how they are feeling. We can move on, and we will move on, but we need to do it together.
I know that there are people who, if they read this, would shake their head in disbelief that I became so emotionally invested in this show that watching a bad ending would take such a toll on my mental health.
To them I say, imagine this… The Pittsburgh Steelers (my favorite team, they can imagine their own) have an incredible season. A season where they saw a myriad of highs and lows. Veteran players making incredible comebacks, rookie players coming in to their own. Season ending injuries that lead to the next man stepping up and contributing in ways they weren’t sure possible. Now imagine they make it to the Superbowl and after 3 tough quarters, in which they played their best, getting better with each quarter, they lose it in the final minutes. All that blood, sweat, and tears for nothing. Now imagine that was their last season and the Pittsburgh Steelers are no longer an NFL team. They are done. No “we’ll get ‘em next season.” No “it’s just a game and there is always another one”. Just done. Their entire franchise, for a brief moment in time, reduced to those final minutes where they failed to win. Devastating. Of course, in the long run that is not what they will be remembered for. I mean, after all, they have won 6 Lombardi trophies, and no one is taking that away from them. But the sting will remain for a while. *EDIT* This was as close to prophecy as I will ever get, the Steelers did all of the above until the playoffs, but THANK GOD, there will be another season.
If I can’t make you understand with a sports metaphor than I will never make you understand.
I love this show and this loss is devastating. I do hope that it is remembered for more than their last-minute loss. I hope it is remembered for the joy and acceptance that their fandom felt with each episode, for the laugher on set and the gag reels. I hope it is remembered for the individual players who gave it their all. I know it will be, but for me personally, this sting is going to last for a while.
#Supernatural#spn#dean winchester#castiel#sam winchester#eileen leahy#series finale#season 15 episode 20#damn you dabb#damn you singer#destiel#supernatural
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Love’s Descent into Madness
Dethronement (Chapter 3/3)
Word Count: 3627
TW: Graphic depictions of violence, gore, decapitation, and major character death
Happy holidays!
I hope everyone likes the ending because writing this was suffering. Winter decided to come early this year and I absolutely hate the cold so a lot of this was written with numb fingers. The past few days have also been tiring and, because I wanted to get this out before Christmas, I had to pull an all-nighter to finish this and rewrite it to make it look pretty so this was a sleep-deprived fic.
Okay, so I have some things I need to explain:
First off, that line about Ayano needing to apply herself more to her schoolwork was actually a reference to a piece of fanart I saw of Saeru (in disguise as Kenjirou) helping Ayano with her homework and subtly taking digs at her the whole time. I just thought of it while I was writing that paragraph and thought it'd be a neat reference. I can't find the Tweet but I'm hoping someone has a link to it!
Second off, that instance of Kenjirou almost ruining Saeru's plan is a bit of foreshadowing to another Kagepro fic I'm in the works of writing. It may not be the next Kagepro fic I write but it IS coming.
Thirdly, the whole meaning behind Azami not being able to die but still being killed. I know it sounds like the "People die when they are killed" meme but let me explain. I needed to think of a way Azami could still die but without anyone telling me "She's immortal, she can't die" so the way I went about it is, the Queen Snake was what let her be immortal. Because that was the snake that, in my fic, marked her as a god, she couldn't die. Once she gave that snake to Marry, she lost her god status, bringing her down to our level. However, because she was still a Gorgon, I made it so that she couldn't die by natural causes, I.E. starvation, sleep deprivation, etc. She was now an immortal mortal, meaning she couldn't die from natural causes BUT she could now be killed. I don't know if this makes a lot of sense but this is the best way I can describe it.
Finally, the ending. It only occurred to me when I was writing the build-up to it that I wanted to make it a sort of dark twist on Kagepro's themes of moving on after a loved one's death. Saeru decides to move on after Azami's death but he regarded her as dead years ago and was the one to kill her. I don't know if it worked the way I wanted it to but I tried my best.
I'm happy this didn't take that long unlike another past project of mine and I hope everyone who's read this enjoyed it!
Read on AO3 | Read on DA | Support me on Ko-fi!
The never-ending world, or the Daze as it was now called, had undergone many changes over the years. It was only natural since it was ordered to swallow up any unfortunate souls that were unlucky enough to die on August 15th and the world needed to accommodate for its ever increasing number of occupants. Yet there were some things that never changed, no matter how much time had passed. Absence truly did make the heart grow fonder.
He was in very familiar territory. Casually strolling through the dark woods revealed a large clearing where a small decrepit house stood. The moon’s radiance acted as if it were a spotlight, shining down upon it to let him know she was here. It may be an inferior replica but there was no mistaking it. Saeru was home.
It had been several years since his departure from the Daze. The rest of his siblings were gone, having ventured out to the real world in their human vessels and he couldn’t blame them for leaving. Who’d want to stay in a place where the only company you had was a good-for-nothing has-been of a queen? That’s why he followed the example his four siblings set and escaped when the opportunity presented itself. He really wanted to thank them when he had the chance.
The body he left in was a person by the name of Tateyama Kenjirou. A hardworking teacher and devoted family man, he and Saeru met when he and his wife were caught in a landslide. Saeru promised to bring her back if the man allowed him to reside in his body and he accepted his terms of the bargain. That was how their unlikely partnership began, union between human and snake.
It felt simply amazing to have a body to control. While it had taken him some time to adapt and familiarize himself with human behavior, he nevertheless reveled in it. No longer was he a snake relegated to devising plans. He had the means to carry them out himself and no one would be none the wiser. At least, that’s what he believed before a certain idiotic girl proved him wrong.
He had to give her some credit. Not only did she figure out most of his plan just by reading her father’s research but she learned of his existence all due to a small yet sloppy mistake. If she only applied that amount of effort into her schoolwork, then she wouldn’t have been as stupid as she led herself to believe. There was, however, one thing she didn’t take into account.
She thought killing herself would stop him from going after everyone. What she didn’t think about was the advantage her death would give him. One less person to worry about ruining his plan and she left behind a perfectly traumatized helper. The damn brat was like putty in his hands; a few convincing threats to his precious “family” and a deal with the devil was made.
But then the dear old professor kept butting into his business. There were several times over the past two years where he came out because he wanted to spend some “quality time” with the remainder of his family. There was one instance he could recall in which his plan was almost thwarted but Saeru was able to take back the reins. It was too easy to pull the wool over his partner’s eyes and trick him into thinking he was dreaming. It wasn’t like he was lying to him, he was just using the information he knew about humans to his benefit.
Today was when his plan was truly enacted. All the necessary people had arrived, including his traitorous sibling. Konoha, as they were now called, seemed to have forgotten what the humans did to their real family all those years ago and had allied with them. Their compassion for them had its perks, though. It only took one well-aimed bullet to strike them down, leaving them open for a permanent takeover.
The resulting bloodbath was nothing short of marvelous. Having a body, especially one such as his, meant much more fun and creative ways to play with his toys. Spines breaking as they hit concrete walls and organs hitting the floor with a wet slap was like music to his ears. He even ripped out a pathetic shut-in’s throat with his bare hands just because he could and it was oh so enjoyable to hear him choke on his own blood. Too bad it was over all too soon.
The crybaby brat was left as the sole survivor. He knew what she was capable of and she was the essential component. Yet, he couldn’t help feeling a small sort of kinship with her, which he found funny. He was, in a way, her subject and she his queen but it felt as if they were equals. Perhaps, if he had her powers, he too could rewind time to the point he would’ve taken a different path. To spend more time with the one he loved above all else… That was a dream best left in the past.
He decided to leave her be so she’d be able to mourn her losses. He needed to use the little time he had to take care of unfinished business. He fled from the scene by going through the portal she created in the midst of her despair.
He found himself in what seemed to be a white void. The floor beneath him rippled when his feet touched the surface and he realized he was standing on water. His reflection stared back at him when he cast his eyes downward. The body his sibling graciously gifted to him allowed him to change it however he wanted and he liked the changes he made. A vessel specifically tailored just for him was such a wonderful thing and it was a shame to have to give it up.
A pair of small black horns stuck out of long dark hair tied into a braid. Black scales painted the edges of his face and eyes, trailing down his neck before concealing themselves under the layers of clothes. He kept his red eyes and fangs from when he was a snake so he’d still be recognizable. Blood coated his hands and stained the only article of pristine white clothing he wore, which he hoped would intimidate his prey. She’d never see this coming.
Finding an exit out of the void was simple. All he had to do was take a step and he was in an entirely different place. There were an endless amount of stairs and corridors leading to doors, most of what he could see on fire. The heat was surprisingly pleasant as he wandered around the seemingly limitless labyrinth. It was then he spotted a tangle of black hair with a sliver of red hastily entering one of the doors. With a rush of adrenaline running through his veins, he ran towards the door. It had been so long since he played his favorite game of cat and mouse.
He chased her through many areas of the Daze. One was of a ruined city where the setting sun gave way too many shadows for her to hide in. Another was of an urban landscape, not unlike a major street intersection, where there were dozens of blood splatters decorating the asphalt. It was after he cut across a nighttime city he arrived at his destination.
Mother was inside. The house she and her wretched human “family” lived and laughed in for the few years they stayed there. It was fitting for her and him to settle their issues in the same place their troubles began. She’ll regret leaving behind the ones that truly loved her.
He walked up to the house. Overgrown grass crept over the foundation and ivy crawled all along the flaky walls. There were broken shards of glass inside the windows, which would make it hard for trespassers to sneak in without alerting anyone. Parts of the roof had collapsed inward and the front door was hanging on by a thread. Mother’s really let the place go, hasn’t she?
He stopped just before the door. How did he want to approach this? She had to know he was here so there was no need in being stealthy. He then did the next best thing, which was to kick the door down till he was inside. He smashed through it, reducing it to mere splinters. That was easy.
The room he was in now was the same room he proposed the idea of creating this world to Mother. It was empty, save for a few pieces of overturned furniture scattered about the place and debris from the roof. Moonlight shone down from above, illuminating the room, though it wasn’t necessary. He could see perfectly well in the dark, despite the limitations of his “human” body.
There were two doors that stood in front of him. Beyond them were bedrooms, one being that brat Shion’s and the other Mother’s. It was a coin toss as to which room she was hiding in and he hated wasting time with trivial matters like this. Besides, even if he did end up picking the wrong choice, she wouldn’t get away undetected. His hearing was almost as good as hers and she knew that.
An idea sprang into his mind to try luring her out. He stood at the wall separating the two rooms, wound up his fist, and punched it. The sheer power in the hit caused a crater to form in the wall as dust sprinkled down from the ceiling. He heard something fall from behind the left door and a sharp intake of breath. The corners of his mouth curved up as he tried to fight back a laugh. There she was.
Keeping his excitement in check, he pushed open the door. Inside the room were the remains of a bed with two nightstands on either side of it and an empty window over to the right. He didn’t need the light coming in from a hole in the ceiling to see her. Mother sat in a corner of the room, her whole body shaking.
She hadn’t changed at all. She still had the same cascade of raven hair tied up with a red ribbon, the same black dress. The same red eyes resembling his own were now staring at him in pure fear. It must’ve been quite the shock for her to see Saeru walking around and being able to express his moods in a more effective way. She’d finally know how much and how deep his feelings ran.
“It’s been a while, hasn’t it, Mother?” he asked, putting on a fake smile.
When she didn’t respond, he continued on with, “Nothing to say to me? Not even a welcome home? I know the last time we talked was years ago but I thought you’d still have some love in your heart for me. But I guess not.”
She still hadn’t said anything. He was getting rather annoyed at the silent treatment, even if it did bring him a modicum of amusement. Does she really think staying quiet in this situation will save her? Well, he had a way of making her talk and he deserved to brag about his accomplishments.
“If you can’t already tell, I paid a visit to the real world,” he said, noting the sudden pique of interest. “It’s changed so much since our time out there. I’ve met so many interesting people during my trip, including the kids my siblings are inhabiting the bodies of. I even got the chance to meet your successor, what was her name again? Ah, right, Marry.”
He saw the quick flash of anger across her face as she asked, “What did you do to her?”
“You can rest easy,” he replied, his temper beginning to flare up. “I haven’t laid a finger on that crybaby brat’s head. She’s all right, physically, at least.”
It was then her eyes wandered down to his blood-soaked hands. Gone was the anger as horror came to replace it at the grisly sight. He wondered when she’d notice that and he was pleased to know her reaction was how he predicted it to be. Her imagination had to be running wild with all the ways that blood got on his hands. The temptation of telling her his gruesome acts was there but this was more fun.
“Her mind, though, must be forever scarred,” he said with a dissonant smile. “I imagine her heart shattered to pieces after I killed her friends.”
“Why are you doing this?!” she demanded, her teary eyes full of fury. “Why must you hurt me so?”
All the fun he was having at her expense evaporated. Was she being serious? Did she really have the gall to ask why he was doing all this? Maybe it was time to remind her of the fault she held in this.
“I think the better question is, why did you choose them over us? Why did you abandon us?” He crouched down and rested his cheek on his hand.
“What are you talking about? I never abandoned you or your siblings! I tried my best to have the two most important things in my life get along without any issue.” She gestured to him with her hand. “You were the only one who had a problem with it!”
His eyes narrowing, he asked in indignation, “How could you expect me to not have a problem with it? How could you forget all the pain, all the suffering, all the torment the humans dealt on to you? How could you run off with that man and bear his child after everything they’ve done to you?”
It was at this point she stood up. He did as well, noticing the hard glint of stubbornness in her eyes. He already knew what was coming and he didn’t want to hear the same old, tired speech.
“Tsukihiko was different. He was kind to me, he cared for me.” She put a hand on her chest, where her heart was. “He loved me. He was treated the same way I was so---”
“So you thought you and him were the same? Please,” he interrupted, scoffing at the ridiculousness of the thought. “You and that man were never the same and you know why? He was but a mere mortal and you a god. You will never belong with the humans, no matter how much you try and forget that fact.”
“What do you want from me? An apology, is that it?” she asked, exasperated. He wanted much more than empty platitudes.
“What I want is for you to understand exactly how much you’ve hurt me.” He took a couple steps toward her, causing dust to rain down on top of him. “You refused to heed my warnings, took that brat’s side over mine, and you tried to leave me behind in this world. Who does that to someone they once claimed to love? Someone whose only crime was loving them?
“You’ve become the very thing you’ve never wanted to be.” He locked eyes with her and gave voice to all the pain and scorn he felt. “You’re a monster.”
It was as if he stabbed her through the gut with a knife. Tears spilled over as she fell to her knees, holding her head in her hands. It was bad enough for the humans to call her that when they knew nothing about her. It must’ve been like a betrayal to hear that come from someone she once considered to be her closest friend. Still, he got a dark sense of satisfaction seeing her break down. It served her right to feel only a fraction of the pain he’s dealt with for years.
“And yet--” he paused as she looked up at him-- “despite everything you did to me, I still love you. I was created to serve you and be with you for however long you wanted but I grew to genuinely love you. How could I not?”
She withdrew further into the corner after he stepped closer. The question he wanted, needed to ask leapt into his mind. A simple yes or no question and whatever her answer was would determine what he’d do next.
“It’s because of my love for you I ask,” he began, paying close attention to her face, “if you still hold some fondness for the humans. Do you still love your family?”
Without any hesitance in her voice, she replied with, “Of course I do. I’ll always love them. Tsukihiko, Shion, Marry…I love them all from the bottom of my heart.”
That was the answer he feared to hear. Her saying that proved to him she was too far gone and needed to be put out of her misery. They took everything away from her, from her happiness to her sanity. It’s because he loved her he’d be willing to give her the sweet release she deserved.
He started walking towards her. She tried to crawl away from him but found herself cornered with no means of escape. A wicked grin split across his face as he came into the moon’s silvery ray of light. He stopped just short of her, towering above her small, trembling form.
“What are you going to do to me?” she asked, scared for her life. “Whatever it is, I can’t die.”
“Oh, Mother…” He knelt down in front of her and cupped her cheeks. Her scales were smooth to the touch as he wiped away her tears. “You’re right in that you can’t die. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be killed.”
His smile growing ever larger, he said, “You lost your immortality the moment you passed on your crown.”
Her eyes widened in horror as his hands slid down to her neck. He could feel her pulse thudding against his palms, his slender fingers wrapped around her throat. She softly whimpered and he leaned in close. He whispered into her ear his final words before her denouement.
“Goodnight, Mother.”
It wasn’t hard to crush her windpipe. Her nails dug into his arms in a desperate attempt to fight back but he merely brushed them off. He knew she was close to death when her eyes started to roll to the back of her head. Then he had an idea to end this in something more similar to his style.
Her skin began to tear apart as he pulled her head up like a weed. The sound of her neck breaking echoed in the empty house. He finally ripped her head off her shoulders, blood pouring out of the stump as he stood up. Her body slumped onto the floor, the moon’s light reflected off the crimson pool.
Mother’s bright red eyes were now dull and lifeless. Her mouth lolled open and what little saliva she had trickled out of the corners. He could see just a sliver of her vertebrae sticking out of the bottom of her neck. He untied the ribbon holding her hair up, wiped the spit away with his sleeve, and shut her eyes. Her dark tresses felt soft on his skin as he touched their foreheads together.
“We’ll be together forever, right, Mother?” he said with a depraved smile before crazed laughter spilled out of his mouth like a stream.
It was only a matter of waiting now before time was reset. How far back it’d go, he didn’t know. Even if it was as far back to the beginning, he’d remember the events of this loop an do them again. He’d do them again and again to his heart’s content and no one would be able to stop him.
The only thing he wouldn’t commit again was his act of matricide. It was a one time thing and it was done to give him “closure” or whatever the humans called it. Mother warped into someone he didn’t recognize and he needed to accept that the person he knew had died a long time ago. At least he’ll always have his memories of her kept close to his heart.
It was time to look forward and move ahead to the future. Whatever the next summers brought, he was sure to enjoy every last bit.
#airi's writing#snake of clearing eyes#azami#fanfiction#kagerou project#canon divergence#violence tw#gore tw#decapitation tw#major character death tw
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Blue Lions Translation Chapter 3
Okay, these things take a long time for me to put out, because I mostly get my translation vibe on in the evening. And I work most evenings these days.
If you really enjoy my work and can afford to throw some spare change my way, here is a link to my ko-fi account.
My comments in italics
Starting out with the Exploration Dialogue, cause the mission briefing scene is the exact same for all houses.
Exploration
Dimitri
Dimitri: Even when there's no chance to win, there are situations where you simply have to draw your sword and fight.
Dimitri: However, this case seems far too excessive... Lord Lonato is not that much of a fool.
Dimitri: … If he had enough allies to make his rebellion a decisive one, it would be a different matter of course.
[Choose: Allies?] and [Choose: What do you mean?]
Dimitri: … Ah, no.... it was an idle thought. It's just, there's definitely something suspicious about this.
Dimitri: Even if we are only dealing with the aftermath, something unexpected can always happen. Please make sure to be thorough in your preparations, Professor.
English has Dimitri refer to some vague preparations already being in place in his first sentence, whereas the Japanese more clearly refers to them only being supposed to be there for the aftermath.
Dedue
Dedue: His Highness is strong. However, no matter how skilled, if he takes to the front lines, anything may happen to him.
Dedue: … He is a great man that Faerghus absolutely cannot afford to lose.
Dedue: I wonder if the church understands this.
Two things to point out here about how Dedue refers to Dimitri here. First he uses あの方 (ano kata) for him, which is very polite and respectful way to talk about someone in the third person. 方 (person, in this case) is the more polite form of 人 (hito), which can also mean person, but usually in a more human/man/woman kind of way. Now Dedue uses 方 twice in this sentence and that is to refer to Dimitri also as an お方 (okata), which again is a highly respectful term. Suggested translations are often gentlemen/lady, though the connotations obviously don’t fit in this case. Too bad the English translation didn’t incorporate this moment of fanboyism. :(
Felix
Felix: … Catherine, huh? Her excellent technique, the sword she wields....
Felix: Hm... Apparently, she hides her past so thoroughly, it seems not even fragments of it are known.
Felix: I suggest you also make her your sparring partner. She is strong... likely stronger than even you.
Ashe
Ashe: …...
Ashe: Professor, there has to be some mistake. The thought that Lord Lonato would be raising an army is simply...
Ashe: … He didn’t say anything even to me.
Sylvain
Sylvain: Professor, did you see Felix around? He's always had a habit of vanishing the second I take my eyes off him.
[Choose: I saw him at the training grounds] +Support with Sylvain
Sylvain: Well, just as I thought. Sorry, Professor. Thanks for helping me out!
[Choose: I saw him at the dining hall]
Sylvain: Oh, is that so? Sorry, Professor. … At any rate, he must be eating there by himself, I am sure.
English is simple (which just has him go “Right, it’s meal time”), but I feel the Japanese line implies that he was planning on inviting Felix to eat with him and is disappointed to be told he already went ahead.
Mercedes
Mercedes: I heard rumours regarding Lord Lonato. They say he is a very kind and gentle lord.
Mercedes: I really wonder why such a kind man would suddenly raise an army...?
Mercedes: Ah, by the way, Professor. Didn't you work late again yesterday? Pushing yourself isn't good for you.
Mercedes: People who stay up late will have a ghost rise up from the bottom of their well and... Just kidding.
I am sure everyone is familiar with Japanese ghosts and their association with wells. Most famous of the older stories is probably Okiku.
Annette
Annette: This time we have to help out the knights, correct? Could that mean...
Annette: … Ah, no, I am sorry! It's just, someone I am looking for might be among the knights.
[Choose: Is he a knight?]
Annette: Yes. If he is here, most likely... it's just a possibility, he might also be among the monks.
Now I am imagining Gilbert with a tonsure.
[Choose: It would be nice if you could meet him] +Support with Annette
Annette: Thank you so much, Professor! I'll definitely catch him someday...!
Ingrid
Ingrid: I simply cannot understand why His Highness would allow someone from Duscur at his side.
Ingrid: 4 years ago, they committed treason by killing the king and slaughtered all of the innocent soldiers and knights accompanying him.
Ingrid: Even if His Highness forgives them, I cannot do so... ever.
Ingrid interestingly uses the term 弑逆し (shiigyakushi) here, which refers to killing your own lord or father. This would imply Duscur was already some kind of vassal state to Faerghus, but from what we know Duscur was independant before the Tragedy. (I checked the books in the library on this in Japanese) Feels like a weird inconsistency.
Scene: Into the Fog
Dimitri: Being able to accompany “Thunder Catherine”, famed for her bravery... haha, it is quite an honour.
[Choose: Thunder?] and [Choose: Thunderbird?]
Okay, this is a bit of a word joke that the English decided to skip out on entirely rather than come up with an alternative. So Catherine's relic is simply named “Thunder” (雷霆 raitei) in Japanese, netting her the nickname “Thunder Catherine”. The first response would simply be Byleth wanting to clarify this. The second response implies they also didn't even listen too closely to Dimitri and heard something different: Thunderbird ( 雷鳥 raichou)... or better known to us as the real life bird species “ptarmigan”, whose Japanese name uses the kanji for thunder and bird. Sadly, this slip up doesn't change any dialogue and the localization didn’t have a joke here..
Catherine: Hm, you don't know? This is “Thunder”... It is one of the Heroes' Relics.
Catherine: A very long time ago, the goddess granted her power to ten heroes... It took the form of these Relics that were passed down to their descendants.
Catherine: Although tempting, there won't be a chance to swing Thunder this time. After all, our duty is to deal with the aftermath.
Sidenote, but Catherine uses the pronoun “atashi” for herself, which is typically considered extremely girly or even childish. It is also written in katakana, which makes it stand out more and implies a “rougher” pronounciation.
[If Ashe is alive]
Ashe: … Why would Lord Lonato start such a reckless uprising?
Catherine: Shouldn't you be the one with more details on this, Ashe?
Ashe: I don't understand. He didn't tell me anything about this...
Dimitri: … I am sure Lord Lonato didn't want you to get involved in his revenge.
[Choose: How are Ashe and Lord Lonato related?]
Ashe: Lord Lonato adopted me and raised me like he would a true son.
Another interesting side note: Japan didn't do what we consider adoption for a big part of it's history. Rather, it was mostly common to do for those without a male heir. One way had them finding a suitable husband for their daughter (usually one without an inheritance of his own), then adopted their new son-in-law into the family, so their name could be passed on. The other way involved adopting a distant relative.
What this means is that Japanese media often handles adoption plots a bit weird from what we know. So Ashe is super formal when talking about and to his ostensible father figure, as well as his role as a commoner being far more emphasized than his adoption by nobility. Japan really isn't as gung ho about “Blood doesn't matter” when it comes to family as the western world is. The relationship between adoptive kids and parents often feels more like a benefactor with his beneficiary.
Ashe: He was also a kind, great man. And yet still... This must have something do with my adoptive brother...
In relation to the above, the term Ashe uses to refer to Christophe here is more commonly seen when adressing one's brother-in-law.
[Choose: Revenge?] or [Continuing]
Catherine: Hey, Byleth. Do you know about the Tragedy of Duscur?
[Choose: I've heard about it] and [Choose: I have no idea]
Catherine: Well, it's the name of an incident from 4 years ago, where the King of the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus was killed by the people of Duscur, but...
Dimitri: ...I do not mind. Catherine, please continue.
Catherine: Lord Lonato's son, Christoph, was executed by the church on charges of being involved in the incident.
[Choose: The church executes criminals..?]
Catherine: From the church's perspective, in place of the still chaotic kingdom, we passed judgement that did not exceed the doctrine.
[Choose: Why was the king targeted?]
Dimitri: …......
Catherine: It was known that King Lambert planned to implement large scale reforms and he had a lot of political enemies.
[Continuing]
Catherine: … Whatever the truth, since then, Lord Lonato has held a grudge against the church.
Catherine: No... it would be more accurate to say that he has a grudge against the church and the one who handed him over to the church...
Church Soldier: Report! The enemy is drawing closer! There is no way to avoid them!
Church Soldier: The enemy forces were much greater than expected and because of the mist, they managed to slip through the knights' siege on them!
Catherine: Oh... Byleth, our mission has changed. Everyone, prepare for battle!
During Battle
Skipping most of Catherine's dialogue
Dimitri: There's shouting coming from within the fog... it appears the knights have already started the battle.
[Reacting to killing militia]
Ashe: Even the townspeople were sent to battle...!? Lord Lonato... why would you...!
Dimitri: Ugh... I am sorry... This is not something that can be forgiven... !
In English Dimitri seems to target this last bit at the civilians, but to me this here sounds more like he is directing it at Lonato for sending them into battle.
Ashe vs. Lonato
Lonato: Ashe... stand aside. I have to defeat the wicked ones! Without fail!
Ashe: Lord Lonato... please stop this now! Why would you do something so reckless?
Lonato: Rhea is an infidel that deceives the people and blasphemes against the goddess. With a cause this great, we surely possess the divine protection of the goddess.
Ashe: Even if you say that, all of this is wrong. How could you mobilize even the townsfolk!
Lonato: … In that case, turn your blade against me without hesitation! I cannot turn back at this point!
Dimitri vs. Lonato
Lonato: I deeply apologize, Your Highness... To think I would come to cross swords with you...
Dimitri: … Lord Lonato. I sympathize with your resentment to an extent.
Dimitri is being extremely formal here, using the pronoun “貴公" (kikou) to address Lonato. It's a very archaic term (aka. Samurai old), normally used by men to refer to other men that are equal or below them in rank. He is already pretty formal usually, but this shows he turns it up a notch when dealing with kingdom affairs.
Dimitri: I have no wish to take you down, but... I apologize.
Lonato: Your Highness... For my son, for the sake of the people, I simply cannot stop here.
Lonato: If it is your wish to stand in my way, then I can only force you aside...
Scene: A Harsh Reality
[If Ashe is alive]
Ashe: ... Why did something like this happen. Even though Lord Lonato used to be such a kind man.
Ashe: The townsfolk were all such good people too... And yet, these people... I killed them.
Ashe: There was nothing... There was nothing else we could do. I know that, but I... !
Dimitri: ... Please, don't push yourself, Ashe.
Ashe: ... I apologize for making you worry.
Ashe: ... I will take a moment to assess the situation in town. I just hope my younger siblings are okay...
[He leaves]
Dimitri: … For me this was also the first time I fought against citizens. I did it, even though protecting them is my duty.
[If Ashe is dead]
Dimitri: There were militiamen among the enemies. … For me this was the first time I fought against citizens.
[Continuing]
[Choose: It was an unavoidable sacrifice] and [Choose: That's just reality]
Dimitri: … These people were neither knights nor soldiers! They were not just people to be... killed.
Dimitri: No... I am sorry. It is not right to blame you.
Dimitri: Indeed, if we had not killed them, many more citizens may have lost their lives in the future.
Dimitri: I can understand this logically. But still... Hey, Professor.
Dimitri: In any era, the people in power always fight and howl at each other for the sake of some greater cause or to avenge the lives that were trampled upon.
Dimitri: Still... can any loss of life be forgiven, so long as you hold up the two words saying “Greater Cause”?
In Japanese, it's 'the two characters' that make up the word 'taigi' (greater cause).
Dimitri: Lord Lonato did not raise his blade out of self-interest, but for the sake of the justice he dedicated himself to.
Dimitri: Maybe if we didn't cut them down like that, we might have found some other way together...
Dimitri: I ... have to think that. Though maybe you’ll just tell me I am downplaying it and laugh at me.
[Switch back to Catherine with some dialogue common to all routes]
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My Take on the First 3 Episodes
Let’s talk about Fugou Keiji for a second because I’ve been dying to talk about it.
After waiting practically 5 months, the long-awaited third episode finally aired. I remember back when Fugou Keiji was first announced the hype over Daisuke took over the internet. Good looking? Check. Rich? Check. Parted black hair? Check. Nonchalant? Sign me up. I also gave into the hype; heck, who wouldn’t? He’s practically the whole package; my dream man so to speak. The Jumin Han of another dimension.
Disclaimer: This discusses the only 3 episodes out at the moment and as new episodes come out I’ll most likely just create new posts so everything here isn’t really definite so to speak? My theories and beliefs are just based on the first 3 episodes so they may not be the most accurate thing out there.
Disclaimer #2: This is me just rambling on so things may not be in the best order so please bear with me (it’s mainly just my thoughts on how our 2 main characters have developed so far and any theories that I have)
Once the first episode aired, I was absolutely hooked on both the synopsis and the characters. Two detectives working together despite having completely different beliefs? Imagine the drama that would unfold!
Haru Kato, our main detective, would put his life on the line in the name of justice, taking extreme measures to uphold his humanistic values. The first episode heavily emphasized this idea. He insisted he take part in the entire bomber mission even though he wasn’t apart of the First Division. Ranks mean nothing in the face of human lives. Once he and Daisuke, the richer half of the duo, closed in on the van bearing the bomb, without any hesitation he jumped onto the van only to warn the driver inside, who happened to be a thief. This seemingly innocent civilian’s life was in danger: they had no right to die from a terrorist attack. He knew well of the dangers as there was only a minute left until the bomb detonated, yet his morals took over. If nobody is going to save her, he must do it. Would he have still done this if he knew that the driver was a thief? We can’t be so sure yet.
Even in episode two Haru’s traditional values prevail as he continued to pursue Isezaki, the smuggler in question, despite being exhausted and practically lifeless. The first two episodes really painted Haru as this character who is willing to go to the extreme and literally kill himself for the sake of others. His work method basically revolves around these old-school techniques.
Kanbe Daisuke lies on the opposite side of the spectrum though. He is far more materialistic and uses his wealth to buy his way through every situation. In need of a car? Just buy it from the prince of the Abura Emirates. A tower is affiliated with a smuggler? Just buy the tower and do whatever you must. He marches to the beat of his own drum, refusing to cooperate with Haru and even ignores his complaints. Haru is very clearly repulsed by Daisuke’s ways as he views it as though he’s cheating at life. Using money instead of working hard? Pathetic. Daisuke, on the other hand, just doesn’t seem to understand Haru’s views. Why go through all that trouble when you could easily solve it through a few million bucks? He doesn’t necessarily value human lives in the same way that Haru does either. As seen in the first episode, he almost ran over a mother and her son if Haru hadn’t intervened. But Daisuke’s character is far more complex in my opinion.
This is where my theories come into play. I suspect that something happened in Daisuke’s past that caused him to lose trust in others or even respect for other humans if we could go to that extreme. The series began with Daisuke playing the piano while saying:
“I had a father, and I had a mother. I believe I had a happy childhood. However, ever since a certain day, everything had changed.”
This led me to believe that maybe possibly his parents died from a tragic murder or anything that would cause him to lose sympathy or care for others. Or any type of sad backstory for that matter. Maybe this is why someone of his rank and wealth even decided to join the police/detective force in the first place rather than selfishly indulge in his wealth.
Anywho, the first episode really helped build my theory. This is especially notable at the end as Daisuke is driving the prince’s car up the bascule bridge to push the cleaning van with the bomb. He smirks that devilish smile that we all swooned over the first time we saw it as the van crept closer to the edge of the bridge. Once Haru jumps out of the car to save the “civilian” inside, Daisuke’s facial expression changes to a much more soft, almost confused expression. A few minutes later when Haru is hanging off of the bridge, Daisuke watches Haru helplessly hang. He’s the one who decided to help the civilian, now he’s suffering the consequences. Why help him?
Episodes 1 and 2 really helped to establish the contrasting personalities and mindsets between Haru and Daisuke, which I really enjoyed. The fact that our two main characters are as different as night and day made the show much more comedic, which I absolutely enjoyed! The subtlety in the expressions too: stunning. *chef’s kiss*
The third episode elaborated on their personalities and really added a sort of “depth” to them. Oh boy was this episode chaotic and full of new information. This is the episode where we see their first step towards true partnership, Haru’s backstory, and even met grammy Kanbe. Let’s dive into it.
The episode started off with Daisuke, Haru, and Suzue visiting the Kikuko, or Daisuke’s grandmother. As of right now, it’s still unclear whether Suzue is Daisuke’s fiancé or sister, but either way she was in no way the focus of the episode. Daisuke seems much more submissive towards his grandmother, a side of him we’ve yet to see. This is even prominent in the opening song as Daisuke is seen smirking alongside the other members of the Modern Crime Prevention Task Force (MCPTF) yet he has a much more neutral face around his grandmother. Is it out of respect? Quite possibly. He is much more composed (even though he always has been) and compliant, furthering my case. Back to my theory, maybe his grandma raised him after his parents died and that’s where his respect grew from. The possibility is always there.
It’s also noticeable that Daisuke seems much more irritated towards Haru as in practically any screenshot from these first few scenes you could feel the pique radiate from him. Daisuke even gave Haru the stink eye a few times before Haru ratted him out to his grandmother (harsh). Whatever happened in Hong Kong must’ve been brutal, but it really helped throw a curveball in their relationship.
After that bop of an opening, it’s revealed that Haru is sitting next to a student facing lots of difficulties early on ranging from his sister’s bad health to failing his college entrance exam. Haru very clearly sympathizes with this kid as he also failed his first college entrance exam, and heck who wouldn’t feel bad for a kid going through this much stress? Imagine the absolute grief Haru felt when he found out that it’s that same kid who held a woman at gunpoint later on. When calling Kamei later on, Haru shouted:
“No! Don’t tell him. Absolutely not.”
Considering his relationship with his fellow peers, we can safely assume that he’s referring to Daisuke. At this point, we know that Haru doesn’t trust Daisuke at all. Like not even a sliver. That rich boy help him? No sir. No thank you.
This scene also unveiled the tension between Haru and the First Division. Haru and Hoshino are clearly not on good terms as they speak formally to one another, almost as though they weren’t partners a few years back. A flashback plays soon after and its revealed that all went downhill when Haru misfired and ended up wounding one burglar and killing one innocent civilian (who held a gun at Haru most likely out of fear; I mean, who wouldn’t be scared in such a situation). This ultimately led to his demotion to the Third Division. Lots of drama. Lots of tears. This backstory revealed exactly why Haru is unable to shoot anymore: his past trauma is to blame.
Haru still clearly cares for Hoshino though. When he and Daisuke listened in to the First Division’s call line, Haru practically prayed that the perp wouldn’t get shot, for both the sake of morals and for his friend. His “friend” is mentally incapable of shooting anyone and the perp just “isn’t a bad guy.” Haru is revealed to be an even greater advocate of morality and humanism than we previously thought. Even though this college student was hosting a stand-off, Haru refused to believe that he was any less human and hoped to find a way to prevent him from approaching death’s doorstep. So, to answer the question from earlier: yes, Haru would still save the thief if he was aware of it. He values human lives to the point that the First Division had the audacity to say that he “has no right to be a police officer.”
Daisuke listened closely to Haru’s wishes and worked to make them come true. He worked to find a way to bring the perp down without any bloodshed and practically did anything to conform to Haru’s wishes, ranging from allowing him to use HEUSC to setting off smoke rockets to prevent the perp from getting shot by the police. When the First Division chief insists that Haru shoot the perp, Haru is clearly hesitant. What if things go wrong again? No, why should he shoot him when he wants him to live? Should he just throw away his morals in the midst of panic? Haru is shown to try to reason with the perp and just couldn’t bring himself to shoot him. Maybe there will be some development in the future? Who knows.
Daisuke later on bribes the perp by stressing he’ll pay for his sister’s surgery in order to resolve the actual reason he decided to host the stand-off in the first place. Daisuke obviously did it for the mission and maybe he didn’t feel remorse whatsoever (heck who can tell what Daisuke is thinking) but I have a feeling that as the series progresses Daisuke will start to do these acts of kindness not only for the case but also out of authenticity. The perp seems intimidated (possibly by Daisuke’s lifeless expressions) and gives in and the day is saved! The third episode formally wraps up with another unforgettable bop.
The takeaway from the entire episode is that Daisuke started cooperating with Haru and even allowed him to use HEUSC. Was this because he had a change in mindset? Or was he just following his grandmother’s wishes? Personally, I believe it’s both but leaning towards the latter. Daisuke, as mentioned before, has a different kind of respect for his grandmother and would submit to her wishes. Since she said “don’t trouble your coworkers,” he decided to work with Haru rather than just alongside him. She also insisted that Haru help coach Daisuke, so once again, he’s following her orders. However, I do believe that Daisuke is rather curious about Haru’s lifestyle. They are quite different as a matter of fact. He wanted to understand how Haru could easily put his life on the line for other people and maybe even wanted to change himself. That’s unlikely considering it’s only the third episode, but that possibility is still there.
But I strongly believe that Daisuke had a change in mindset, even if it may be small. He jeopardized his life and walked towards the perpetrator only because he trusted Haru’s words: “He isn’t the type of guy to kill.” Maybe Daisuke did this only to follow his grandmother’s wishes. Maybe he did this out of sheer trust. Maybe he did this to try to better his relationship with Haru (the chances are, yet again, a bit low). Nonetheless, he still put his life at risk and this was one small step in their partnership (and one giant leap for fangirl-kind). That’s not to say that their relationship isn’t still iffy. Whenever Haru starts to speak in the car, Daisuke just puts the pedal to the metal and drives off into the distance.
Personally, I enjoyed this shift in character in Daisuke in the third episode. I've seen many comments regarding how it's sudden that his character changed, but I felt as though it made sense (as explained above). I see where they're coming from as we were robbed from the Hong Kong trip, and it’s evident that something happened in Hong Kong that caused a shift in their characters; however, I felt as though the third episode put emphasis on the fact that Daisuke is changing whether it be by his free will or his grandmother’s, or both.
In conclusion: I cry over pretty boys so much to the point that I wrote an entire review on them.
EDIT: So it’s been confirmed that we’re going to learn about what happened in Hong Kong in a drama CD. All I can say is yes
#i have nobody to talk to fkbu about#my solution: write an essay#harusupremacy#i actually enjoyed writing this lol#fkbu#fugou keiji#the millionaire detective#balance unlimited#fugou keiji: balance:unlimited
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RobStar Week 2020-Tamaran
Welcome back to day 3 of RobStar week *distant sound of applause*
If you’re new to my RobStar posts, I will warn you. They are all connected. So PLEASE go read the other two days before coming here to read day three’s posting! This one is extra long for no reason, it really got away from me and the next thing I knew I was 3,000 words deep.
Here is the link to my FF.net post: (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13635654/3/RobStar-Week-2020-All-Works)
Happy reading!
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“Okay, you go this. Just push the button and you’ll be in contact with Galfore.” Robin muttered to himself as he paces the ops room. This is his only chance to do this before the other’s came back from the mall. Raven was in charge of making sure everyone was out of the tower until Robin was done with his mission.
His pacing stopped when his communicator buzzed.
You have 1 hour before I end up killing Beast Boy.
Robin groans, letting his head fall back before typing back to Raven.
Just keep everyone out, I’ll be done soon.
He shoves his communicator back into his utility belt and makes his way back to the main ops to start a transmission to Tamaran’s Grand Ruler.
The screen dances with gray and black dots before a the sharp image of a large deeply tanned man appeared before Robin.
“Greeting, young warrior.” Galfore’s rough voice cheered. He has not aged since the last time Robin saw him five years ago when Starfire was betrothed to Gigrdsklechhh.
“Grand Ruler, Galfore. How are you?” Robin replied.
“I am well, Robin. I am surprised to hear from you. Is everything alright with Princess Koriand’r?” Galfore strokes his long auburn beard.
Robin nods but hesitates.
Galfore notices his nervous demeanor. The usually calm leader continuously pulls at his collar, feeling as if it’s more tight than usual. His tan complexion heated with small drops of sweat pooling on his forehead.
Robin stops his fidgeting and takes a deep breath, “I’m calling for your advice and also for your permission.”
Galfore quirks his bushy eyebrow, curious as to what this earth warrior has to offer. “What is your predicament, Robin.”
“Given that I’m not from your planet, I’m not well versed in your traditions.”
Galfore smiles, understanding where this conversation is heading. “Which traditions does your interests lie.”
“Umm, well…” Robin straightens his shoulder and clears his throat. “I would like to marry Starfire.”
“Ah! Glorious! I am pleased you are to betroth my bumgorf!”
Robin sheepishly grins. “I, um. I want to do it right. Is there any Tamaranean traditions I need to know for a proper proposal?”
Galfore gave him a strange look, not quiet understanding what he is asking “How do you mean?”
Robin sighs, knowing this was going to be difficult to explain.
“On Earth, when a person chooses to marry their partner. He or she has to ask formal permission from their partner’s father or guardian. From there, if they are given permission, the man or woman is to plan a proposal.”
“I am unfamiliar with the term, please elaborate further.”
“Right.” Robin chose his words carefully. “A proposal can range from a small gesture to a grand gesture. But during the proposal, you are to offer a ring.”
“What is a ring?”
“It’s a piece of jewelry. It is a symbol of tying your destiny to another person for the rest of your lives.” Robin reaches into his utility belt and pulls out a red velvet box.
He opens it to show Galfore. It wasn’t a simple ring, but something he had created himself for Starfire. It was a radiant cut diamond with a weaving white gold band of sapphires and emeralds. He used the same diamond from his mother’s ring and created the band with Bruce a few weeks back. It was indestructible. She could wear it and not have to worry about it breaking during battle.
“My, how fascinating. And she wears it?” Galfore was really inspired by the Earth traditions of marriage, far different than the trials of Tamaranean traditions.
“Yes, she would wear it on her left ring finger.” Robin pointed to his ring finger to show Galfore.
Galfore smiles, “In Earth terms, yes. You have my blessing. But for Tamaran’s traditions, you must prove your worth to marry my bumgorf, Koriand’r.”
Robin squared his shoulders, ready to take on whatever it is to gain the right to marry Starfire.
“Whatever the trials, I’ll do them.”
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After the Titans came back from the mall, Robin told Starfire he needed to speak with her.
Three years of dating made them realize they wanted to move their relationship forward, but they also wanted to keep close to the team. Cyborg had helped them to renovate the third floor of the tower to be an apartment for them. Only Starfire and Robin were allowed on this floor.
Once the elevator doors open, Starfire flies over to the living room and sets her bags on the coffee table. She kicked her boots off and takes a seat on the black sofa. Robin goes across the room to strip his face of his mask, tossing it onto the kitchen counter, and walks over to Starfire. He settles down next to her, taking her hands in his.
“Something has come up and I need to go to Gotham for a few weeks.”
Starfire green eyes glowed with concern, “Is your K’Norfka the O-kay?”
“Yeah, he’s okay.” He smooths her thick hair behind her ear and cups the side of her face. “He just needs me to help train Jason. That’s all.”
Okay, maybe that’s not where he’s really going. But he made plans with Bruce to cover for him while he was away on Tamaran. He gave Bruce a call after Galfore went into extensive detail as to how to be a proper suitor for his bumgorf.
There are three trials he must go through with Galfore to be proven worthy:
1) Hunt in the Tamaranean jungles with Galfore to prove he can provide for Starfire.
2) Train with the Tamaranean armies and prove to be a strong warrior.
And finally,
3) Climb to the highest mountain by himself and leave a gift to X’hal, their deity, blessing their betrothal for eternity.
Starfire frowns but nods in understanding. “May I accompany you?” She was hopeful, but then a sad look pass across Robin’s blue eyes.
“Sorry, Star. The team is going to need you here.” Star pouts and pulls her hands away from him.
“When are you to go?” he could hear the disappointment in her voice, but it’ll be worth it.
Robin wraps his arms around her waist and pulls her between his legs, and reclines back. Starfire lets out a long sigh and snuggled into his chest. She could hear his heartbeat quicken; when they first started dating, she never understood why his heart rate would increase when she was close to him. He found it endearing when she asked him if his heart was going to ‘Do the exploding’, but lead to a funny explanation about human anatomy.
“I have to leave tomorrow…”
She shifted so she was laying on top of him, wrapping her arms around his torso.
“I will miss you the much.” A single tear trails down her cheek. Robin brushes it away and places a tender kiss on her forehead.
“I’ll miss you too, Star. I’ll be back before you know it.”
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It has been a month since Robin left on his voyage to Tamaran. On arrival, Galfore welcomed him back to the royal palace and led him to Starfire’s quarters. He was to stay only for a few days before starting the betrothal trials. He changed out of his uniform and was given formal Tamaranean attire.
During his first trial, Robin had to adapt to the rough jungles of Tamaran. The once tropical planet was bare and arid, but certain parts had survived war and maintained their wildlife.
Robin and Galfore spent two weeks hunting in the jungles of Tamaran. Robin had to adapt to a way of life that was completely foreign to him. He had to attack and kill animals he hardly understood the names of.
Galfore was proud Robin was able to keep up with the hunt, moving as he moved, using spears to kill from a distance with ease. Deep down, Galfore knew Myand’r would be proud of the young man fighting for his daughter’s hand.
After the hunt was over, Galfore bestowed an armband to the young warrior. It was a symbol of survival, matching the silver band that lies on Starfire’s right arm.
After a few days his next trial was to begin. It gave him enough time to catch up with the other Titans to see how everything was going back in Jump City. He made sure to only call and not video chat to prevent Starfire from seeing where he was. They spoke for hours, but knew it would be awhile before he’d speak with her again. He made sure to tell her he loved her and turned off his communicator.
The second trial was one Robin looked forward to. He knew that Tamaranean fighting style was different than the multiple forms of fighting he learned from Bruce. And the ability to learn a new fighting style from the warriors of Tamaran was an opportunity he will take for granted.
He just didn’t realize how intense it could be.
Having Bruce as a teacher was tough, he never let up and made sure to use every ounce of Robin’s energy when they sparred.
But this. This was much different.
He was awakened before the orange sun of Tamaran would rise, the light purple skies welcomed him to the day. He was sent to the lower level of the palace where the Tamaranean warriors would line up and wait for their general. He was to train with the new recruits. Most were young men and women who were about 16 years old. Much younger than Robin, who is in his early 20s.
Day after day they would line up, get called to do different drills and then set out to guard the palace until night fall. Some days were harder than others, but Robin pushed through the tough days knowing that it would lead him to Starfire as his fiancé.
Well, as long as she says yes.
After two more weeks of warrior training, Robin grew to appreciate his fellow warriors. He was able to pick up some Tamaranean words and hold basic conversations with everyone. By the end of training, you were to go head to head with a fellow warrior to prove yourself worthy of the royal army.
Robin was paired to face Karras, he was a bit older than Robin. But with everything he’s taken in the last few weeks, Robin knew he could take him. It wasn’t a fight until the other opponent was down, it was a fight of endurance and skill.
In the end Robin and Karras were an equal match, Galfore had declared them both fit to be part of the royal army. Karras and Robin were bestowed with a green gem cuffs. It was a symbol of the royal family and of warrior status. It was to be worn with pride.
A few more days passed before Robin was to make his hike up the highest mountain to bestow a gift to X’hal. He prepared by gathering necessities Galfore said he was allowed to bring. He was granted one sack containing a canteen, food, a knife, a change of clothes, and the item to be a gift to X’hal.
The next day Robin set out to the journey to the top of the mountain. Word has spread of Robin’s journey and most of the Tamaraneans had gathered to see him off. It wasn’t everyday a human asked for their crowned princess’s hand in marriage. Nor was it common for someone to make it this far in the trials.
Galfore placed his giant hand on Robin’s shoulder and said a Tamaranean prayer before sending him on his way. The further he got up the mountain the less he could hear the chants from the people below. Galfore had mentioned that the journey from the top of the mountain and back would take a week. But that is with little to no stops along the way. But Galfore had faith that Robin would be back sooner than later.
During his time up the mountain Robin began to plan his proposal to Starfire. He wasn’t sure if he should make a grand gesture or something small and intimate.
Around the end of the third day, and after running away from some wild beasts, he saw the orange sun set behind the mountain and the moon take its place. From where he walked along the path, he could see the stars.
‘The stars called out to their princess to follow them around’
Deep in his heart he knew Starfire was staring at the same stars he was that night.
Instead of sleeping, he knew he could push himself to make it there before the next day. He watched the stars was they seemed to come closer and closer to him as he hiked up the mountain. By the time he reached the top, there was a soft glow coming from the horizon. One by one the stars started to fade away, but as he opened his sack to pull out his gift to X’hal, he swore the stars stayed a second longer as he placed his gift on the mountain top.
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Starfire laid on the roof watching the stars start to slowly illuminating the sky. There were a few clouds slowly moving by, covering the moon in passing. Over the last few weeks she was only able to speak with Robin a handful of times. It was nice to hear from him, but it was nothing compared to having him there, with her on the roof.
Over the last few years, even before they started their relationship, this was their place. Whenever either one of them needed to be at peace, the roof was their first thought in mind. They could spend hours just talking and looking at the stars. It was also no secret that Starfire enjoyed being kissed thoroughly under the stars, Robin picked it up after a rather heated moment that almost went too far.
But with Robin gone for almost more than a month, she found herself on the roof more than she’d like to admit. She remembers Robin mentioning something that always made her feel at home when he was not near.
“If I’m never around, always remember to look up to the stars. Because no matter where I am, I will always be staring at the same stars as you.”
It was a comforting thought, and what got her through these past few weeks without her lover.
Lost in thought, Starfire didn’t hear the footsteps walking towards her on the roof. As the hidden figure got closer, they took note of how beautiful the alien princess looked under the moonlight. They decide to take a moment to take in their appearance before making their presence known.
“Starfire?”
Starfire’s heart swelled at the voice and immediately shot off the ground and flew into Robin’s awaiting arms.
“Robin! You have returned!” She felt powerful emotions course through her body. She couldn’t help but tear up knowing her boyfriend has returned home. He wraps his arm tight around her feeling his throat tight with emotion, not realizing how much he truly missed his girlfriend.
“I missed you too, Star.” He pulls back to properly say ‘hello’ with a long lingering kiss. After they part, Starfire takes note of how Robin is a little different.
“Robin, you seem to be the tan.” She raises her hand to his cheek confused by his darker skin tone. She knew Gotham to be a city plagued by clouds and terrible rain.
Robin takes a deep breath and pulls away from Starfire. He takes hold of her hand and walks over to the edge of the roof. He wouldn’t have believed someone if they told him he’d be standing in the same place he told Starfire he loved her. That in the same spot, he is about to create a new memory with her.
“I wasn’t in Gotham,” he starts. He could see the confusion passing in her eyes, but she stays quiet. “I was on Tamaran.”
This confused her greatly, “Why did you go to my home planet?”
“Do you remember that day Raven took you and the team to the mall? And I stayed behind? Well, I had arranged a transmission with Galfore that day. I had to ask him for some advice.”
Starfire cocks her head to the side, not quite understanding why they were conversing.
“I wanted to know more about how Tamaraneans ask for another’s hand in marriage.”
Starfire gasps.
The realization finally hitting her as to why Robin was gone for so long. Why he lied about going to Gotham and instead going to Tamaran.
“You…you completed the trials?” Her voice full of hope.
Instead of answering, Robin unzips his blue hoodie to reveal his silver arm band, his green gem cuff, and the necklace of X’hale.
Tears pour down her face as she realizes what was about to happen.
Robin removes his mask, revealing his equally watery eyes and pulls a box from his pant pocket.
“Princess Koriand’r of Tamaran. I have hunted the wild beasts of the deep jungles of Tamaran. I have trained as a warrior of your royal army. And I have offered X’hal a gift to bless our betrothal for all of eternity.”
Holding onto he left hand, Robin gets down on his left knee and asked the most important question known to man.
“Will you do me the honor of being my wife?”
He opens the box to reveal the ring to Starfire. She’s never looked more beautiful to him. Her auburn hair drifting in the wind, her bright green eyes shining from her tears, and her smile, radiating as bright as the stars in the sky.
“Richard…I accept you offer of betrothal.” Robin feels the tears fall down his face as he takes the ring out of the box to place it onto Starfire’s ring finger. He quickly gets up to pull her into a tight hug.
“I love you so much, Star. I want forever with you.”
Starfire kisses Robin with her entire being. All the love she has for him poured into this singular moment, wanting to remember this forever.
She pulls away and rests her forehead against his, “I love you too, Richard.”
The newly engaged couple stays on the roof for a little longer, enjoying the moon and the stars.
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Came up with some spec about Bellarke, Octavia and the list after this photo was released recently. I’m sure plenty of people thought about this a long time ago, but here I am.
(Octavia stans, you might want to look away, because I’m going to be judging her as fairly as everyone else)
Notice how Octavia’s 5th on the list? That’s interesting!
Abby, Jackson, Jaha and Raven are clearly the first 4 because they were all part of the inner circle of leadership AND they have essential skills that would be needed to run and maintain the ship during the time jump. We know that simply being in the inner circle and having these skills wasn’t enough to qualify, cause you also had to be one of the best at what you do, which is why Monty didn’t make the list (he was a good engineer and her friend, but he was only an apprentice 😞), and you also have to be healthy and not appear to be at risk of future health problems, which is why Harper didn’t make the list, even though she was a good guard and a then healthy young woman, and the list was supposed to be weighted towards young women who could have children.
We should also note that Kane isn’t on it, which could be a production oversight because he seems like someone who should be there at first glance, but if we’re assuming within canon that every person was deliberately chosen, then I imagine that he didn’t make the cut because, while he was Abby’s partner, and a father figure to Clarke and Bellamy, AND was the Chancellor and one of the best leaders and diplomats from Skaikru at the time, he was most definitely not a healthy young woman with essential skills like medicine or engineering, and they already had Jaha to fill the leadership role, who was also an engineer, therefore pragmatically the better option even though Kane was definitely closer to and more well-liked by the inner circle, not to mention, at least from my perspective, more liked by fans cause of his character.
So looking at the list in the sad but pragmatic way the show definitely wanted us and the characters to view it, there isn’t a lot of fair logic in Octavia being on the list AT ALL, let alone 5TH! This is purely from a logical standpoint. This was season 4, Octavia wasn’t even living in Arcadia anymore, and she was going through the dark time of being Skairipa, openly having few loyalties, and Skaikru definitely wasn’t one of them. She was Kane’s bodyguard briefly and knew about Praimfaya but, from my perspective, didn’t seem to care about protecting herself or the human race from it, at least in comparison to everyone in Arkadia, who were searching and working high and low for a solution EVERY DAY!!! This was Octavia at one of her loneliest and darkest times, and she definitely wasn’t on good terms with Clarke and Bellamy. Even if she had been, logically, she was a poor choice because she did not have any essential skills that would be necessary inside the bunker, so pragmatically, placing her on the list was wrong and unfair when someone else with essential skills would have been a far better choice based on the criteria we’ve gathered.
So why did she make it on the list and why was she so high up?
We can guess why. It was a no-brainer for Bellamy, and while we don’t know whether Clarke would have debated with him about it, we DO know that she was insisting earlier that HE would be one of the people inside. They clearly decided on whom in their inner circle would be inside first, so I can imagine Clarke trying to be fair and pragmatic by gently telling him all the reasons I pointed out above why it isn’t fair to put her on the list, as I’m sure they had that conversation when they had to decide that Monty didn’t qualify. But I can also imagine her not giving it a second thought, writing Octavia’s name down immediately because she knows that there’s no way in Hell he’ll let her put him on the list if his sister isn’t also. Either way, we can be pretty damn certain that Octavia was only on the list because Clarke loves Bellamy and would do whatever it took to make sure he lives, even though it comes at the price of another, likely more qualified life. She definitely didn’t write her name because she’s her friend, because I don’t think you can exactly call them friends when they haven’t seen each other since they left Polis, and their relationship was more like that of cordial or old allies rather than friends at this point. Clarke was far closer to Monty at this point than everyone else outside of Bellamy, and yet she was able to decide not to write his name, so we know the strength of her resolve. It’s only where Bellamy’s concerned that she falters, her cold yet necessary pragmatism being weak against her love for him.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen it and it definitely isn’t the last. Hell, we see this exact scenario heightened to the max when she can’t pull the trigger in 4x11! It’s basically the same! In a moment where the fate of the human race hangs in the balance, Bellamy is risking it all to make sure Octavia survives, and as much as Clarke believes she must, she can’t bring herself to lose him for the sake of their people. She couldn’t choose to save two more qualified members of Skaikru against making sure Bellamy lives, and can’t save all of Skaikru from potentially being slaughtered - essentially killing the entire human race since none of the Grounders knew how to run the bunker - at the cost of Bellamy’s life, of taking his life herself.
So... WOW!!!!! That’s love, people! And Octavia is damn lucky that Clarke loves her brother more than anyone else, more than the value of the human race, because it seems almost certain that she would not have made it inside if Clarke didn’t love him enough to risk what was believed to be the last of the human race to let him save his sister. It’s the same reason Clarke didn’t kill or attack Octavia when she was a danger to Madi in season 5. Clarke had good reason for thinking it was the only way to stop the war and protect her daughter, and I have no doubt she would have gone through with it. Except that Bellamy said no, and even though she tried to rationally convince him that it was necessary (in the same way I expect she did if she’d have first tried to convince him that she can’t go on the list if that scene had happened), she let go of that plan and didn’t push, later apologising for even suggesting it. He easily accepts, saying that he probably would have done the same thing if she were anyone else, which leads into another sweet moment about the heart and the head and mumma bears 🥰.
And then later, we see the ultimate table-turn of Octavia’s position in Bellarke’s love; while Octavia is definitely still alive at this point in season 5 because Clarke loves Bellamy, she’s then poisoned because Bellamy loves Clarke! This was the most shocking moment of truth for their relationships at the time, both Bellarke’s and the Blake siblings’. While anyone could probably tell long before this moment that Bellamy loves Clarke more than Octavia, it had never been so explicitly clear until this moment, when Bellamy’s not only choosing her over his sister, whom he basically raised and has always loved the most until Clarke came along, but is actually risking her life for her! This decision is monumental! No one, absolutely NO ONE, had ever come before Octavia for Bellamy, and definitely not his girlfriend, because while he did challenge her, he didn’t and clearly wouldn’t have risked her life for Echo. But he did for Clarke! Clarke was and is more important to him than everyone and everything else! It’s so significant that the infamous “traitor who you love” line happened right before this, IN THE SAME SCENE! He couldn’t deny it or confirm it with his words, but his actions said it all! He loves Clarke, he knew it before he came in that room even if he couldn’t admit it to himself, that’s why he was clutching that algae bar. He wouldn’t hurt her or risk her life for anyone or anything before this, but for Clarke, he made a choice and he made it knowingly. It does suck that Clarke may never fully know that loving her is why he did it, but season 6 more than cleared up any doubt about their feelings for each other, and it firmly established where Octavia falls now.
She’s his sister, still someone he loves more than almost anything, but also a separate person from him, someone he won’t prioritise when she isn’t treating him with respect, and undeniably less important to him than his soulmate, which I believe is the way it should be.
I’m so excited for season 7! I can’t wait to see Bellarke finally sort things out and be together like they’ve wanted to be for so fucking long! And I can’t wait to see Octavia okay, reunited with her brother and her sister-in-law (basically), and finally finding happiness. They all deserve it.
#bellarke#clarke griffin#bellamy blake#octavia blake#The 100#the 100 season 4#the 100 season 5#the 100 season 6#the 100 season 7#4x03#4x11#5x08#Speculation#analysis#the list
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