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kayura-sanada · 2 years

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How Dark Road Destroyed the Last Vestige of Good KH Storytelling, or, alternatively, Why, As a Huge Fan of Birth By Sleep, the Kingdom Hearts Series Should Have Ended With Kingdom Hearts 2

So firstly, I will say that followers of my blog have seen me lose my mind to all of this before, and some of these followers have outright asked me to rant about this, so here I am. The summaries they've sent me (because I have no intention of losing hours of my life to this) were long, and since this is going to be long enough, I will only be referencing what they told me instead of posting it all, because... guys, it's a lot.

Obviously, there are going to be spoilers here. A lot of them.

I honestly don't know where to start, so I'll start where a couple of these summaries started: Xehanort's childhood.

First, I need to admit here that I don't care. Nobody needs to know the backstory of a character who has spent thirteen games torturing teenagers. But here we go.

So Xehanort was a kid being raised on Destiny Islands - information we already had - but he was born in Scala ad Caelum. And his guardian was actually our player character from UX! Guys. This alone is going to be a long rant.

Firstly, again, let dead people stay dead. I don't know about anyone else, but I never expected nor wanted my character to show up in the storyline after UX. There's no need for that.

But! Apparently there is! Because my character, who has already been demoted to 'parental figure' - a position about as useful to the player character as it was to Sora's mother - had memories. And because Xehanort is so sensitive, he dreams those memories.

Guys, this is so much, and it's all bullshit.

Suddenly the greatest contribution our player character can say to have given is helping make Xehanort evil. We are, after all, responsible for the source of information that leads Xehanort to the decisions he makes in the future. Our character exists just to accidentally screw over everyone in the future? Excuse me? May I just delete my damn character, then?

But also, let's dig into this 'sensitive heart' bullshit that Xehanort suddenly has. It's something he and "Baldr" (it's fucking Luxu, and of course Nomura thinks he's clever by naming him after the most well-known god of light in any pantheon, sigh, sorry but God of War is bringing out its second game, you are not going to use Norse mythology better than God of War, Nomura, shove off) apparently have, just like Sora. Only we've seen countless signs of Sora having a sensitive heart. There have been no signs whatsoever of Luxu or Xehanort having the same thing. Not once! Not once! But suddenly Xehanort is such a nice guy it left him vulnerable to falling to darkness.

So really, he didn't fall to darkness because he wanted more power, or because he wanted to find out what happened during the Keyblade War to the point where he was all right killing Ven and Aqua and taking over Terra's body against his consent, oh no! It's not because he willingly made himself a heartless or studied hearts until he created nobodies out of himself and a bunch of innocent people, including children and young teens, oh no! And it certainly wasn't because he manipulated a fifteen-year-old into sending his world to darkness or trying to use said teen's body to kill his friends, oh no! It was because he is just too kind and sensitive to others' hearts.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, I have spoken before on how obvious it is that Nomura likes Xehanort, but never in my life did I think I would see the day when he would take the characteristics that make up his main character and Gary Stu them into his fave. But here we are.

In fact, due to these changes, we ourselves, our own player characters, now exist as angst fodder for Xehanort. We exist for Xehanort's pain.

(And in fact they're talking about a game focusing on our player character, or something? So we really will exist for Xehanort, and our main story will be about how we affect him. Ugh.)

(Also, a prequel of a prequel? Please, someone stop Nomura.)

And it seems Ephemer also existed for Xehanort! Because now Xehanort has a lineage. And that always seems to happen when bad writers want to write stories that span generations, doesn't it? Everyone has to secretly be related to everyone else, because only a handful of people exist in the world, and only those descended from those people could ever be important or make history.

(And this makes me highly uncomfortable, thinking about how Ephemer randomly cameo'd in KH3. Is that now all about Xehanort, too?)

Not to be That Person, but the idea that someone is inherently meant to be an important hero, based on nothing more than their ancestor, only to fall to darkness because they have such a sensitive heart and were made vulnerable to the darkness... didn't Star Wars already do this better? With a character that hasn't been known as absolutely awful for over a decade, by the way.

Just saying.

But sure! Luxu and Xehanort are both just so kind, so sensitive, that they fell to darkness. Because they were such good people. Being that good made their hearts weak to darkness, and that's why they fell. Sure.

(Again, nevermind everything they've done that would explain how they fell, or the goals Xehanort explicitly stated he had over the course of the games that also would explain why he fell. Nope! He did all of that because he was a good guy.)

In fact, of all the things he did, one was to save Ven from Vanitas. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, the thing we feared to be true really happened! Vanitas is an evil being of darkness, and Xehanort saved Ven by splitting them apart. In fact, the only reason he even went to Ven was because of those pesky, pesky dreams our main character accidentally gave him by being so close to his heart. (I just can't; this has never been a thing before despite Kairi's heart having been inside Sora's; Sora never remembered any of Roxas' or Ven's memories, Xion was somehow forgotten entirely despite being close to Axel and Roxas, but sure!!!! Sure!!!!)

So according to Birth By Sleep, Vanitas was a part of Ven's heart, and Xehanort even told him flat-out to use more darkness, then got rid of him because he didn't have enough, abandoning him to die on Destiny Islands, then siccing the very creature of darkness he'd created from Ven's heart back on Ven in order to create the X-Blade, but apparently! Apparently this was all for Ven's sake! He was saving Ven that day! He did it all to save Ven from Vanitas, even though he then sent Vanitas to attack Ven again! It's not a retcon at all! This! This is good storytelling!!!

And yes! This means that Vanitas is a two-dimensional creature of pure evil, because again! All darkness is bad! And all light is good! The best kind of storytelling!

So how is it that we all know how amazing and special Xehanort is? Perhaps it was something so obvious that people knew when Xehanort was born and perhaps there was a prophecy about it!!!

A prophecy. No. Specifically, another fucking prophecy. And it's from the very useful Book of Prophecies, which included a story about a traitor that was absolutely accurate and not a self-fulfilling prophecy (do you get the pun??? DO YOU?!?!?!) clearly created by a hack writer who hadn't thought far enough ahead to choose who was going to be the bad guy! So the answer is 'nobody! Except darkness!'

But yes! Another prophecy! This time about the prophesized child who's going to unite the villages worlds and bring peace! (It's nothing like Naruto don't bother trying to compare.) And it turns out that everyone thought the person who became a villain was actually the prophesized child, but it was actually the main character all along! (Stop comparing; they're nothing alike.)

But in reality! Not only was Xehanort considered the child of prophecy and thus taken from Scala ad Caelum to Destiny Islands to protect him (Sleeping Beauty? What?), but he also acted out in order to fulfill the prophecy and bring peace!!

That's right! I was right in my previous rants; Xehanort opened Kingdom Hearts, destroying countless worlds and torturing and killing countless innocent people, all in order to save everyone!!! He sacrificed himself to open Kingdom Hearts so he could end the existence of Darkness (you know, that thing that exists in everyone's hearts, but is now also a race of thirteen Super Evil Creatures that have no feelings and are evil, this is nothing like KH2 don't compare) and bring peace to the World! Also Eraqus knew all about this, and though he felt like Xehanort's methods were too extreme, he swore to always be there to bring him back just like Axel did with Roxas and Xion but in a less interesting way and thus wasn't murdered but willingly sacrificed himself! Yeah!! That's it! Xehanort didn't actually kill his friend at all, he's such a good guy actually!!!

So it was egregious enough that Eraqus chose to side with Xehanort at the end, thus ignoring everything Xehanort had done not just to him, but to his students he purportedly cares about, but now it turns out he was never really on his students' side at all! He was always on Xehanort's side, despite the huge fights and the blatant distrust and the animosity that seemed obvious in Birth By Sleep; no no!! Eraqus has always watched out for Xehanort (doing a bad job of that in the process, lol) and was apparently okay with being killed? Perhaps even went with it? Who knows, but yeah, solid friendship brotherhood whatever. (Or, as much of fandom sees it, romance. Have fun, guys; definitely not my cup of tea, but have at. Only fandom can fix this fustercluck.)

So really, with this all said and done, Xehanort has never been a bad guy! Ignore everything he did in previous games, because it was all due to his being super sensitive to others' hearts, just like Sora apparently but with absolutely zero foreshadowing, which led to him being vulnerable to outside forces, which is what darkness is, nothing to do with one's inner self or one's own emotions or goals or anything, no, darkness is an evil entity with its own mind, you can't help falling to it (unless you're Terra, fandom's still going to say Terra falling to darkness was all his own fault somehow). And everything he did was actually in sacrifice for the greater good! He's just so misunderstood, you guys. Really you should love and pity him.

I have more to say about this bullshit but I am Tired and this should be enough of a rant to keep you all satisfied for now. This is so bad it's somehow worse than Kishimoto's writing.

Suffice it to say, Xehanort should not be suddenly made to be a good guy who's just misunderstood and has been Trying His Best. Darkness should not be a physical entity that exists as some evil boogeyman to erase all fault or responsibility from people who fall to darkness. Scala ad Caelum shouldn't exist. The reveal of Kingdom Hearst shouldn't have been so underwhelming. It's nothing more than a lead-in to more UX nonsense, ffs. Union X should never have existed. Hell, Birth By Sleep, in bringing such wonderful characters and in-depth, complex ideas about light and darkness, should never exist in the same universe as this bullshit. The storyline was only marginally cohesive through KH2; afterward it became a tangled mess. (Hell, KH2 tangled it quite a bit with Roxas, but at least that storyline reached a conclusion, too, with Roxas' and Namine's existences shown to match between Sora and Kairi.)

If Kingdom Hearts ended with KH2, it would have been remembered as a weird, interesting story with engaging characters and a fun plotline. Nothing deep, but a great experience nonetheless. Instead we have this - a storyline you can't follow logically and characters so twisted and contorted, not just around each other but around their own selves, that you can't straighten them out anymore. It's so bad. I officially gave up on Kingdom Hearts after the third game, but I am truly, honestly telling people that it's better to just step away from it entirely.

I might write my own version of Kingdom Hearts one day, but if I do, it will look nothing like the original, because I demand cohesion in my narratives.

To anyone still following Kingdom Hearts, good luck. You're going to need it.

#kingdom hearts #nomura critical #long post #VERY long post #dark roads critical #spoilers #dark road spoilers #kh dr spoilers #it's so bad #it's SO BAD you guys #a couple of people in this world played dark roads and then chose violence #toward me specifically haha #but thank you guys so much for caring about my insane opinions (or just enjoying my loss of sanity)#enough to let me know what's been happening #honestly it makes me feel good that I got out of the fandom when I did #I clearly dodged SEVERAL bullets

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pinkoptics · 3 years

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AU-gust 2021 Prompts

4. Dancing

(Soooo it’s almost October… but that’s okay, right?)

Who wants some Dadneto feels? Who wants pining Erik?

If you do you’ve come to the right place!

Charles is nanny to Wanda and Peter, who’ve lost their mother, Magda. Erik is living a half life as an overworked single father, feeling the loss of his wife. Charles brings them back to life. This is the moment Erik realizes he’s desperately in love with Charles.

This exists in the Nanny Fic verse, but stands alone as a sort of prequel. You don’t have to have read Nanny Fic for this to work.

~2300 words

Erik knew the exact moment his heart had gone into free fall. One second in time when everything had crystallized, when notions and feelings that had been vague or easily ignored all shifted into place and could no longer be so easily denied.

Everything had been hard for so long, work especially, or completely, as work was virtually all he did. His entire existence boiled down to a desk, in an open space office, downtown. He got to work early, always early, trying to eek out the extra time needed to get caught up, even though he never quite succeeded in doing so. The day was spent in a haze of stress and tension, trying to meet unmeetable deadlines, and failing. He, and the rest of the team, would get scolded like school-children, belittled, until all the metal in the office vibrated imperceptibly. Imperceptibly because he needed this job— the stable pay, the incredible benefits, the mutant friendly culture. In the end, they all stayed late, too often, too late, to make up for the aforementioned deadlines. Overtime? Never. It was their fault, their incompetence, after all.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

It was no way for anyone to live, because it wasn’t a life. It was an existence, maybe, barely, but not a life.

Wander and Peter deserved so much more.

Every day he missed his kids. It was an ache like a stone in his shoe, but lodged instead in his heart, and he could see no way to remove it. Quitting, finding something else, it wasn’t an option, not in this economy. So the ache was always there. Always always always. When he finally did get home, he was tired. So fucking tired. He tried. He really did. He rallied as best he could for them but, at best, they got half of him because he was living a half life. Worn down, worn out, nothing left.

They had already lost one parent.

Magda.

Forever.

They barely had half of the other.

At least they had Charles.

Thank god for Charles.

His gratitude for the man and everything he did for him, for the twins, was staggering.

He shouldn’t have been able to afford a full day nanny/tutor after the education system had shut their doors on two young, volatile, mutants who couldn’t control their powers. Charles had swept in and hadn’t balked, like every applicant before him, at what Erik could pay. It was such a non-issue, Erik hadn’t looked a gift horse in the mouth, and had hired Charles on the spot.

Every day since, he had left them in Charles’ capable hands and, every day since, he had come home to bright smiles and happiness, to little people bursting with the need to tell him what adventures they’d gone on that day. There was joy, laughter and stability in the Lehnsherr household again. How could he be anything other than staggeringly grateful?

That’s all it was, gratitude, or so he told himself, until he couldn’t any longer.

When he ran his powers over his watch that lightning-strike evening, he was getting home around what should have been the tail end of dinner time. Charles stayed when needed, Charles cooked, even though contractually he was obligated to do neither. Erik paid him overtime, of course, but each day the clock ticked past 5:00 he half-panicked that when he finally made it through the door, Charles would throw his hands up and say ‘enough is enough,’ balking at yet another 12 hour day and justifiably disappearing from their lives forever.

Erik thought they would be seated at the table, finishing up— once again finding himself missing dinner, missing that precious time where he could talk to them, share a meal, share their day. If it had been a bit earlier, if he’d been on time, he usually found them finishing up their studies. Though he’d seen both many times already, he never failed to boggle at his kids sitting politely to dinner, or engrossed in whatever lesson Charles was offering that day. His kids — Peter especially — sitting. Engrossed. Learning. Sitting. They’d come farther, faster, under Charles’ care, than they had in an entire year at school. He was a miracle worker.

Today, however, he saw neither. They weren’t eating dinner, as expected, or even watching TV, as they did if he was particularly late. They were…

Dancing.

Well, Wanda and Charles were dancing, Peter was moving around the room erratically, random bursts of his incredible speed, that sort of resembled dancing, if you squinted. The control was itself incredible and something he never could have dreamed of before Charles. It was also incongruous because the music was— a waltz? Or, something like it. Erik wasn’t particularly versed in ballroom music.

Wanda and Charles, unlike Peter, were dancing in time to the music, in the proper way. Wanda was perched atop Charles’ feet in the manner small children sometimes did. She was smiling up at Charles with bright eyes, and Charles was smiling back with just as much warmth. The reddish glow that signified the use of her powers was escaping from her hands, though she didn’t seem to be using those powers in any way he could discern. She just seemed… happy.

“1, 2, 3, 4. Yes, just like that Wanda, you’re doing splendidly!”

Her smile got wider.

They turned about the cleared out living space and he came into Wanda’s line of sight. “Papa!” She leapt out of Charles’ grasp and surged toward him, tackling his long legs hard enough to knock him back a step. “I’m learning how to be a Princess, a real princess! Like they have where Charles is from!”

Peter stopped just short in front of him, after another burst of extreme speed, startling him back another step. Erik wasn’t sure he would ever get used to it. “I’m the court jester!” he announced, proudly.

Erik laughed, “Of course you are.” The warmth of their happiness began to chase away the weariness, the cold ache ever present in his chest, and replaced it with something else.

“We had a tea party!” Wanda went on and gestured to the kitchen table, where the remains of little tea sandwiches, cakes and biscuits were strewn about, along with a teapot Erik didn’t recall owning. “It was so fancy!”

Peter speeded to the table, knocking into it, and nearly upended the contents. He picked up a tea cup. “We held it like this! It was so silly.” He held out his pinky finger in that cliched way.

“Watch me dance!” Wanda all but plowed back into Charles, who winced as she stepped back onto his feet with just a bit too much force. He bore it in stride and picked back up where they had left off. “Do you see, Papa? Do you see? I’m dancing just like a princess.”

Erik reached out and stroked her hair as they passed. “Du bist eine Prinzessin, Bärchen.”

Peter began “dancing” erratically again. “I didn’t want to be a prince.” He crinkled his nose in distaste between bursts of speed. “Jesters are way cooler than stinky princes.”

Wanda did not respond but held her head higher, more haughtily.

Erik felt suddenly, wildly, close to tears.

As they made another pass, Wanda gasped and released Charles, lunging at Erik again. “Papa! You and Charles can be the King and Qu—” Her face screwed up in momentary confusion. “—King. We can have two Kings, right?”

“Of course. Whatever you want.”

With that settled, she went on. “Then, the kings should dance too!”

Erik’s eyes immediately flew up to Charles’, who looked just as taken aback by the sudden suggestion as he.

“Oh Bärchen, I don’t think—”

“Papa, the kings have to dance too!” It was a statement of inarguable fact. The sky is blue, the sun shines every day, the kings must dance. Peter stopped to nod his agreement.

Erik sidestepped. “The king could dance with his princess.”

That earned him 5-year-old exasperation. “Why don’t you want to dance with Charles? That’s silly. He can teach you. C’mon Papa!” She physically nudged him in Charles’ direction. Catching Charles’ gaze, he shrugged his shoulders helplessly. “It appears Princess Wanda has spoken.”

Charles’ face was alight with amusement. “Yes, it does appear that way.” He straightened his shoulders and extended his hand. “May I have this dance, sire?”

That hand was warm, when Erik placed his own on it, and soft. When those same hands settled on Erik’s upper back and waist, the heat seeped through the thinness of his dress shirt. He hadn’t been this close to anyone, hadn’t been touched, not since… All at once he wanted both more and less, to fall forward and pull back.

Charles was no less beautiful this close up— blue eyes still sparkling with amusement, a quirk to his very red mouth projecting the same emotion, a loch of his unwieldy hair falling playfully across his forehead, a sprinkle of barely there freckles across his nose. There should have been flaws. With their nearness, Erik should have been able to pick them out, but he couldn’t find a single one.

“Papa!” Wanda jolted him back to the room. “You’re not dancing!”

So they weren’t. Feeling very caught out, warmth rose to his cheeks. Blushing? Was he blushing? Erik didn’t blush.

“Have you waltzed before?”

“No.”

“Like this.”

Charles was gentle. He lead with authority, but

somehow managed to be gentle at the same time. It seemed to sum up everything he had learned about the man, watching him nurture his children back to life. After a few awkward steps and bumping knees, Charles’ lead was easy to follow and Erik found himself gliding across the floor in no time at all.

“You have a natural grace,” Charles murmured, as they turned about the room.

“Hardly. You’re an excellent teacher.”

“No.” The word was said with surprising firmness. “You’re very fluid, you feel the music. Musicality like that cannot be taught. Not easily. Certainly not this quickly.”

Something burned in Erik’s chest at the words, at the sincerity behind them. The feeling took a moment to recognize, but it was pride. When was the last time he’d felt proud about anything he’d done? The warmth spread, trickling outward from his chest, from where Charles’ hands were still pressing against him. Could he feel it too, through the small, open space between their bodies? He felt like he could.

Around them the kids danced too— Peter in his manic way, Wanda with an invisible partner.

He wanted to drop his forehead to Charles’, wanted to disappear in his warmth, his kindness, his care. Experiencing this small taste of it, he suddenly, desperately, wanted more— wanted to be the object of the same support, encouragement and comfort his children received. A nanny no longer, but a father to his children, a partner to him. All at once, he could see it so clearly, what it would be like if Charles didn’t leave at the end of each day. If he stayed, if they were…

Oh god.

To not be alone in this.

He couldn’t think the word.

To be whole.

He shouldn’t think the word.

To be a… family.

In that moment, he wanted it so badly he could scarcely breathe. He was gripping Charles too tightly now. He knew he was. But, he couldn’t stop. It said everything he couldn’t and absolutely shouldn’t— please don’t go, please stay, please be here with us.

We love you.

I love you.

The clarity of it was striking. You’re Charles. I’m Erik. I love you. Please stay. Now. Always.

Striking, real, clear, but terrifying.

He let go. Too fast.

“Are you all right?” The concern on Charles’ face deepened the ache that had taken hold with such fierceness in his chest.

He wasn’t. He hadn’t been. Not for a long time. But, for an awful moment, he thought that he could be. With Charles, he could be. “Fine,” he ground out, unused to losing his composure so completely. “I’m fine just… tired. It’s late, isn’t it? I’m sure you want to be getting home.”

Was that…? No. He was projecting. Surely, he had not seen a fleeting burst of disappointment in Charles’ features. The man was nodding. The children were protesting.

“You know I’ll be back tomorrow.” Charles chided as he bundled them into a group hug which Erik had to restrain himself from joining.

“Can we play princesses—”

“And jesters!”

“—again tomorrow?”

“Of course, your highness.” Charles stood and gave them both a bow. Wanda giggled and curtsied in return. Peter bounced. “Until tomorrow then.” His gaze flicked from the children to Erik. “Have a good night, King Erik.”

Erik swallowed. It was painful. “And you, King Charles.”

When he was gone, Erik was half nibbling, half tidying the remains of the tea party, trying to ignore the prickling behind his eyes, trying to dispel every last feeling Charles had provoked, trying to banish every last thought and box up every last ridiculous hope. Wanda sat at the table watching him. She did so with eerie quietness for awhile. So lost in his own thoughts, he startled when she finally broke the silence.

“I like Charles, Papa. Do you like Charles?”

The way she looked at him, boring into his soul and past his defences in a way entirely too reminiscent of her mother, he knew the answer was in someway important, someway meaningful.

“I— yes, Bärchen, I like Charles.”

She nodded and having apparently received the desired response, she hopped off her chair and went to pester her twin.

Somehow he knew the word they had both meant wasn’t like, but love. A word neither of them dared say aloud. The people you loved, especially when you loved them most… they didn’t always stay. They could be taken and it hurt in a way you could never fully heal from. Maybe if you held back, maybe if you didn’t give it all, maybe they wouldn’t go.

Erik gave up on his tidying and slumped into one of the kitchen chairs.

He couldn’t be with Charles.

Could he?

If this has perked your interest in the original fic here is the link to Nanny Fic:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12898845/chapters/29467485

8 chapters. Unfinished. Not abandoned.

#cherik #dadneto #charles xavier #erik lehnsherr #cherik fanfic #pinkoptics fic #augustwritingchallenge

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queenlilith43 · 3 years

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Alrighty so here is my stupid, stupid theory about the Wicked Powers and the Eldest Curses.

I'm adding a keep reading option because everyone will thank me for this later. And it contains serious Eldest Curses and Last Hours spoilers. (YES. I will drag Chain of Iron into here because I want to.)

So I want to talk about what I think the antagonists in the Wicked Powers and what will happen because of it. And how the antagonists will show up.

So who do I think the antagonists are? Whelp, here's the list:

Thule people

Faerie court drama

The Cohort

Lucifer + other permanent threats

I'm going to explain the antagonists and what I think will happen. I will explain how much of a problem I think they will be.

Thule

Well, Janus is going to be in there. He had established himself as a villian from Ghosts of the Shadow Market. He's what Jace could have been if he had stayed under Sebastian's power. That is to say, a very evil Jace.

Janus had been tasked by the Seelie Queen at the end of Queen of Air and Darkness to find actual Jace Herondale. Do we want Jace kidnapped? NO. Will this cause problems? YES.

Thule as a world is a problem. Part of it leaked into our world in QOAAD, causing the warlocks to start to turn into demons. (Including a very cute purple poodle that was Malcolm Fade.)

Shadowhunters can't use their weapons and runes in this world. I wonder if it was able to influence the Shadowhunters in this world enough to stop that.

And Sebastian is still alive in Thule. We know how much of a problem he is. If he ends up in our world . . . We should be worried.

I think Thule can be a problem. It might be a huge problem. It all depends on how easily the main characters can deal with Janus.

I personally want then to deal with Janus and Thule by just yeeting him into a Portal. I can imagine Kit doing that and then dusting off his hands.

If someone can get rid of Thule easily, things will be fine. If Thule isn't dealt with early on . . . Everyone is screwed.

Faeries

We have met the First Heir of the courts. Also known as Kit Herondale. We also have the Seelie Queen, who is very evil, ruling over the Seelie Court. Along with that, Kieran is ruling the Unseelie Court.

And as we know, the Seelie Queen made Janus try and find Jace. So she ties into the Thule plot.

I feel like there is going to be some major faerie drama. Kit is going to have to fight to unite the courts, whether he wants to or not. It is his destiny to do this.

The faeries wouldn't accept Kit as their king, because he's mainly a Shadowhunter. (As we know, Shadowhunter blood breeds true.) I am hoping Kieran emerges as the king of the new courts and is able to have a good life with Cristina and Mark.

Kit is going to have face his faerie side and the powers that come with it. I'm going to love seeing his character develop through all this.

The faerie court drama is going to be in there, and part of Kit's character arc. It is needed, and if Kit and Kieran get rid of the Seelie Queen fast we might not even have to THINK about dealing with Thule.

However, this plot will need at least two books to resolve itself. That means Thule and the faeries will be involved. I'm going to touch on Thule at the very end again.

The Cohort

Ugh, I hate these guys. Especially Zara, who is the one person everyone in the fandom wants dead.

Considering what the Cohort represents and everything that had happened, they are going to reach new heights of evil. That was already in the playing cards, but I just KNOW they'll be worse than we thought they were going to be.

And the Cohort is trying to hurt the Downworlders. Alec is over there, trying to help them, but the Cohort loathes him for that.

I really don't know how important they will be. But when I talk about what I believe a main plot will be, and how Shadowhunter-Downworlder relations factor into it.

Lucifer

This one is where the Eldest Curses ties into the Wicked Powers. And this is what I think is going to be the main antagonist after a certain point.

Before you question me on this, hear me out.

The Shadowhunters have always known they will face an end to the world. It's been an idea since the very first book, City of Bones.

Jace talked about how there were more demons coming in every year, and less Shadowhunters to fight them. This was in the FIRST BOOK. And of course we had bigger fish to fry, but it's an idea that stuck with me.

I feel like even in the Infernal Devices series everyone knew there would be a demon threat so great the world could end. It wasn't as obvious, because Mortmain wasn't an antagonist that posed a large problem. His clockwork monsters were easy to defeat, and it was in Britain, which is technically an island. So they couldn't go they far unless they hopped on a boat and sailed around the world. Along with Mortmain just being a mundane.

In the Last Hours, the idea of a demon threat that could end the world is even more real. In Chain of Gold, we had to deal with demons that attacked in broad daylight, something that had never happened before.

And there was Belial, who might be planning something that messes with their weapons. (Although he won't get far. He's a terrible, even laughable villian who is being set up like this for future reasons.)

Now we have Lilith, who is a danger to this world. With Cordelia as a paladin, Lilith could have enough power to mess with the world. It's more real, but with this being a prequel, we know things will be fine.

Back to the main series, the Mortal Instruments. In the latter half of the series, Lilith shows up, and mentions her past. And this includes Sammael.

Sammael is a Prince of Hell. He poses a threat to the world. He is the one who weakened the wards in the first place with Lilith to let the demons in.

Thankfully, Simon turns Lilith into salt. We don't have to deal with her, but the threat and the demons she knows remind us how fragile this world is.

After Lilith, we have Sebastian. His demons blood makes him unstable, and he created this army of Endarkened Shadowhunters. But was his existence a threat to the fabric of the universe itself? Not really.

It could think our world, but not in the way an actual demon could. He is powerful, but Sebastian loves in pain. The demon blood in his veins weighs him down, and he has weaknesses. Clary defeated him once, and she can deal with Thule Sebastian later.

The Dark Artifices introduced the concept of the world ending. Not with Malcolm, but with Thule. Thule was a real Hell dimension, a place where the demons have taken over. A ruined world, and one where Sebastian rules over the land with an iron fist.

The only way Sebastian was able to rule over Thule was because Lilith showed up at just the right time. And strangely enough, it was shortly after she was lost from our world. Coincidence? Well, it could be, but knowing these books, it probably isn't.

In the Eldest Curses, this idea was introduced just a little on the first book. Asmodeus was there. It was a flash of it, but it seemed like the demon threat was mentioned.

The second book mentioned that idea again, with Sammael showing up. That's right. Sammael, the Once and Future Devourer of Worlds.

He really seemed to show the threat of demons. The way that no matter how hard the Shadowhunters would fight, the demons would win in the end. It said in that book Sammael would destroy the worlds in the end, no matter what.

And oh my god the epilogue. He had all the Princes of Hell in a room. And now, they are going to summon Lucifer.

Why do I think Lucifer will be outside the Eldest Curses? Because he is important.

In the folklore (my inner Swiftie is showing) Lucifer is the angel who started the rebellion in Heaven. He looked into the face of God, and turned away into the darkness. He is a force to be reckoned with.

But what happened to him? We haven't even heard of him in the Shadowhunters universe until Chain of Gold, where he was confirmed as a Prince of Hell. At first, I thought Sammael was Lucifer, because that is one of his names.

But they're two different demons. And one is more powerful.

Because Lucifer hasn't even been mentioned before, I think his sudden existence is going to be in the Wicked Powers, along with the rest of the Princes of Hell.

Belial is being set up as this whiny, sexist demon to make the other Prince of Hell so much WORSE.

The Wicked Powers is supposed to be a threat that the Shadowhunters have never faced before. And the LITERAL DEVIL? Yeah, they've never dealt with a force like him before.

But the only way the Shadowhunters can defeat the demons once and for all is by teaming up with the Downworlders. It's been hinted at. When the Shadowhunters and Downworlders work together, they are able to fight the demons off.

This is where Clary's Alliance rune comes in. Her rune, binding the Downworlders and the remaining Shadowhunters together, and they will fight.

The Cohort is going to hate this. But it's the only way to deal with Thule (which I'm going to talk about in another post) and Lucifer is with the Downworlders.

And Magnus if ping to be important. Every time Magnus is there, the Shadowhunters win.

But one my other theories is that Magnus dies. Because this is the end, and Magnus is in every single book. So for him to die, it would mark the very end.

So I guess Magnus would fight bravely in the battle and then die, to make an end to these books.

Any thoughts on this? Please reblog!

#the last hours #the wicked powers #tsc #chain of iron #the eldest curses #its crackpot time now #chain of iron spoilers #the shadowhuter chronicles #tlh #tec #magnus bane #alec lightwood bane #alec lightwood #magnus lightwood bane #clary fairchild #kit herondale #kieran kingson

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fantasyinvader · 3 years

Text

Beat Binding Blade tonight

So, right off the bat I'm going to admit. I abused the arena and save states. This is a really, really hard game. And while I enjoyed it, I'm going to give three things I didn't like about it.

1)Enemy reinforcements arrive at the end of the player phase, and can attack during the enemy phase. That is unfair, especially when I assume that parking a unit on the spawn point will prevent them (It doesn't) or my healer just happens to be in the area. I like difficult games, but when I fail at something in those I want to feel like it's my fault for doing so. When I die in Bloodborne or lose a unit in Fates Conquest, I'm willing to accept it because I felt it was fair (plus I'll just restart the chapter in Conquest anyway). I could have not died if I had played a little better. This game was not fair when it did that.

2)The supports. A lot of the stuff about the characters is locked away in their supports, since this is one of the old Fire Emblems where it throws units your way because it's assuming you didn't reset the game when one died. They don't get cutscenes to be important, and with only five supports per character (barring if one dies, then any unit that had supports with gets those supports back). And even then, getting an A rank doesn't pair up any units except for Roy. So you don't get to play love doctor here, it's only really there for the stat boosts. But in the case of my boy, he needs those supports in order for his character to fully come through.

3)I can take 8 units into the final battle, and they're the only ones who get full ending cards. Everyone else just gets a single line. Kinda weak if I use someone like Fir for most of the game, but bench her at the end to give Rutget Durandal.

Even with my cheating, I still enjoyed this game. Mostly for the story. When Fire Emblem first appeared in Smash Brothers Melee, as a kid it instantly caught my attention. Roy and Marth just looked so cool with their swords and armor (true fact: My favorite design for Link is the Skyward Sword design, simply because it has chainmail under the tunic. I get it, the tunic is iconic but SS's Link just looks practical), and I preferred Roy because I though his fully-charged shield breaker hurting him was cool. I even keep a Cipher card of his in my wallet for good luck. I wanted to know what Fire Emblem was, what kind of game it was. My friend showed me a screenshot of the upcoming GBA game in Nintendo power, which I got for the following Christmas (sadly, I didn't get Sacred Stones as I got a PS2 the following year). I loved that game, but the idea that I was playing as Roy's father always was a bit of a sour point for me. It's because of that game when I got a 2DS a decade later, because I wanted to game but kept getting pulled away from my console, I eventually went back to Fire Emblem.

And, I'm going to admit, Binding Blade hurt me because I played Blazing Blade first. It really did. I mean, Hector dies early on, Lyn is presumably dead hell a lot of my old comrades probably died in this war, Eliwood's wife dies shortly after they are married while Eliwood is more useless than ever, the kid I saved in Bern becomes a genocidal maniac, and the fact that the characters of Blazing Blade kinda caused this to happen by releasing the seals on the Legendary Weapons in their own quest... It kinda bugs me that the Legendary Weapons I used in Blazing Blade are in their trap filled storage places. Like, who returned them there? And if I have characters from that game returning in Binding, I find it strange they don't comment on needing them again. But this is a case of the game trying to be a prequel to a story that wasn't written with it in mind.

But at the end of the day, one thing just kept popping up in my mind. Binding Blade is the antithesis of the Crimson Flower route from Three Houses. I know they said Genealogy of the Holy War was an inspiration, but I can't help it. I've seen so many people try to praise that said route as some sort of denouncement of the rest of the franchise. That it's about putting power in the hands of the people (it's not) instead of having some Lord be the good king. Granted, the Mandate of Heaven seems like it's a running theme of the series, so without understanding what that is I can understand why people don't grasp what that part of the message. But Binding Blade, it just hit so many things on the nose that I needed to say something.

So without further adieu, I'm just going to bring up a few points.

With Regards to Humanity

It's interesting how both Zephiel and Edelgard come at this from different angles. Sure, they both lead wars of conquest across the entire continent, and I'm guessing Zeph didn't tell his troops what he was planning on doing once he won so there's likely a level of deception going on there as well. He really doesn't care for his fellow man, and the game goes out of it's way to show us why. Hatred, greed, or even selling out your people in the name of self-preservation. The game doesn't shy away from showing us any of this, saying that it's wrong and thus why Roy has to kick some guy's arse. Zephiel knows this, but in Edelgard's case? She's out there fighting for absolute power, destroying anyone who won't bend the knee to her while those who do out of self-preservation like House Gloucester are rewarded for it.

In essence, Edelgard is everything Zephiel saw wrong with the human race, she is why he felt we needed to go extinct. The very things he condemns humanity for are the things she reward. Zephiel would have actually handed over power to those he felt deserved it if he had won, whereas Edelgard is demonstrably shown to hold onto power until near the end of her life. One wants humanity dead, the other wants all the dragons. They even oppose each other in their classes. Edelgard is based on the red emperor archetype, she wears red, her class is the heavily-armored Emperor and her weapon of choice is an axe. Zephiel is a king, armoed but wearing purple and he uses a sword in battle.

Even if they both have screwed up history with their family's due to their father's inability to keep it in his pants, they're both presented as villains despite being ideologically opposed which goes to show with Fire Emblem the method IS the message.

Ancient Wars, Super Powered Weapons and Lies.

War of Heroes vs. The Scouring. The former is an event where the full details are shrouded in mystery, up to the player to piece together the clues and figure out the truth for themselves...or in Crimson Flower's case, ignore the truth and act out in your ignorance.With Binding Blade though, when the truth starts coming out, it hits hard. I mean, right from the beginning of the game we're told man was the one who broke the peace by attacking the dragons, but then we learn that those legendary weapons messed up the environment, resulting in dragons needing to use human forms only to be slaughtered by man. Dragons were blamed for the environment, the people who used those weapons were revered as heroes. We don't know why mankind launched their attack, but we do know that they weren't able to slay the Demon Dragon, one who had her soul destroyed in order to control her, because the Heroes felt sorry for her. It's making dragons out to be the victims here, much like the dragons in Three Houses. But Crimson Flower only serves to demonize them, acting like they can't understand humanity when the dragons in that game are a lot closer to humans emotionally than the ancient dragons in Elibe.

The Elites in comparison weren't heroes, and that lie has been confirmed as Rhea trying to make peace.

The good ending for Binding Blade is being able to save the dragon whose soul was destroyed, whereas Crimson Flower ends with slaying a dragon after you've spent the entire game triggering her (and is the ending that leads to oppressive rule under Edelgard, in addition to the only ending without sunlight. What? You thought you'd get the good ending when her final boss theme was playing on the last stage?). Also, you need all the Legendary weapons in order to unlock the final stages, which all play into the big mystery. Crimson Flower requires the player to not understand that the world-building was done to support fighting against Edelgard instead.

Merits of a leader

Let's not beat around the bush here, Roy will not carry you through Binding Blade. His bases are low, and while he has good growths he is unable to promote until the very end of the game. Even then, you need to save the Binding Blade's usage to ensure you get the good ending. Roy is also very unsure of himself, thrust into a position of leadership despite his young age. But look at what happens when he succeeds, he manages to overcome the odds and take down the mightiest army on the continent. At the end of the game, he's shown himself as more than capable of leading. Not to mention, he also believes that humans and dragons can live together, even seeing this in Acadia (and if Ninian was his mother, he's unknowingly proof of this as he is 1/4 dragon himself. May explain his poor bases). If he marries Liliana, he even becomes a King for likely much of the same reason Byleth does in SS/VW (most leaders are dead following the war, plus combining his territory with Ostia which had already taken over Lyn's land after she abdicated/married Hector). Roy learns the truth as already established.

Compare this to Crimson Flower Byleth. Byleth leads the Black Eagle Strike Force, but credit for it goes to Edelgard. Byleth never gets any recognition for this, no position of authority despite proving themselves, instead that goes to Caspar Jenkins of all people, and ends the war continuing to fight TWSITD from the shadows to support Edelgard's regime. And if you read between the lines, Edelgard is NOT a good leader, resorting to bribes, threats, cronyism, secret police, propaganda, and even TWSITD's support and later stolen tech in order to maintain her rule. Byleth lost whatever emotional development they got from White Clouds during this route, once again becoming the Ashen Demon, and is even willing to let themselves die if they can't keep their “humanity” in check showing a distaste for their own draconic heritage (showing humans and dragons can't live together in this timeline). They didn't grow into being a leader, they devolved into being Edelgard's unthinking muscle. Byleth never learns the truth in this route, falling for Edelgard's manipulations resulting in them losing Enlightened One/Nirvana status.

Not to mention, Heroes Relics have really low weapon levels. In theory, they can be used by anyone but only safely by those with Crests and most fully with a matching Crest. Legendary Weapons, on the other hand, can be used by anyone with an S rank in their type. Your characters have to EARN the right to use those things and you'll need them to deal with all the Manaketes during the final level, whereas Relics aren't exactly that level of broken.

Honestly, seeing the ending of Binding Blade and Idunn recovering put at least one tear in my eye. Crimson Flower's just made me feel like the game was calling me an idiot (which considering the Nirvana/Enlightenment thing, it kinda was). I would love if Binding Blade got the Echoes treatment, or even if they just did a GBA collection for the Switch. But after all these years, one thing is as certain now as it was when I was a kid.

In this house, ROY'S OUR BOY!

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sun-daddy-yoriichi · 4 years

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Your yoriichi story was really interesting i loved the idea of the s/o as an upper moon demon, and theres really not that much yoriichi content out here :( can i ask for a continuation of the one you did, but more on their relationship before the s/o was turned into a demon? Thank you!

At first I didn’t really know what to do with this, but I think I found a way. Also yes, there isn’t a lot of Yoriichi content on tumblr (or anywhere tbh), so I’m happy to be the one to post more! I’ll do more Yoriichi in the future, as well.

It’s shorter than I wanted it to be. Please forgive me, lovies!

▃▃▃

Warning(s) : Mentions of blood and character death, angst, spoilers for the manga

Yoriichi Tsugikuni x Reader : Chase the Sun (Prequel)

From day one, Yoriichi was incapable.

He had failed, as a son, a brother, as a Demon Slayer. The only person he hadn’t failed was his wife, who was brighter than anything he had ever laid eyes on. Brighter than the sun, even. Yoriichi loved her with every fibre of his being, treasuring every second that she continued to live by his side. Of course, she was a Demon Slayer, which meant that her chances of dying were even higher, but it didn’t matter to him. She was his pride and joy. His everything.

There was nothing he wouldn’t do for her, no matter how risky it ended up being. After all, he had to prove to her, and himself, that he was capable of being a suitable husband for her. In his eyes, such an amazing woman could have someone so much better than him.

“You’re back already! That was quick!”

Stepping off of the engawa, (Y/n) ran to greet her husband at the gates of their estate. The quiet autumn air set the peaceful scene perfectly, as she pulled the man into a crushing embrace.

Luckily, her husband was already used to this kind of treatment, returning the hug calmly. Being Demon Slayers, they seldom saw each other outside of the occasional mission together, and even then they were subordinates, rather than a couple. Still, Yoriichi made the most of these short moments together, knowing that sooner or later, one of them would be called out to complete a mission.

Like today, of all days.

“Are you leaving right now?” Yoriichi asked, brow furrowing slightly, the only way you would know that he was irritated or annoyed. Sadly, you sighed, nodding.

“I got called out for a mission right before you got back. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologise,” he hummed, warm hand placed on top of your head, “I’ll see you when you get back, then.” Of course, it was disappointing, having to he separated for so long, but he would survive. After all, his wife was strong. She would surely finish this mission, and come right back to him.

If only his gut didn’t tell him otherwise.

He wished his instincts weren’t always right.

It was a week later when his Kasugai sent him to look for her, seeing as (Y/n) had not been seen since she first went to seek out the demon.

Yoriichi would have loved to believe that she was fine, possibly patching her wounds up somewhere safe. Perhaps she found a Wisteria House to stay in while she was recovering, or she had forgotten to write to him while she was away. There were any number of possibilities that he would have loved to believe, had it not been for the fact that she was still missing.

The forested mountain that she had disappeared in were vast and confusing, but there were only so many places were a demon would nest. Somewhere near a large gathering of people. There was a town on the other side of the mountain, so there was no doubt in Yoriichi’s mind that she was somewhere near him.

And then he noticed the smell of blood.

It was weak, at first, before he noticed it, an it grew stronger. This stretch of woods was dark and clammy, the moisture in the air sticking to his skin uncomfortably. If anything, Yoriichi wanted to find his wife, and take her home as fast as he could, so that he could shake off the dreadful feeling in his chest.

He followed the scent of blood to a dilapidated estate, the gate cast open, hanging from its hinges like it could collapse at any second. The estate itself looked as if it hadn’t been lived in - or taken care of - for years. No doubt the building itself would succumb to mold or water damage soon enough.

Even so, Yoriichi took a step inside, face screwing at the smell of blood that had suddenly become so much stronger.

(Deep down, Yoriichi knew that it would have only been a matter of time until something like this happened. But he didn’t think it would be so soon.)

(He had failed to protect every one else that he loved, anyway. Why would you be any different, being a Demon Slayer?)

Stepping through the house gingerly, Yoriichi tried to convince himself that his mind was playing games. Several times, he almost fell through the floorboards, not noticing that they were water-worn and weak. They couldn’t support his weight. The entire house was a hazard, but he had to search for you. If not for your sake, his own.

He followed the odour of blood throughout the house, finally resting his eyes upon what seemed like all the blood in one’s body, strewn across the room. It had splattered across the rotten floors, and covered the delicate rice paper of the shoji in crimson. Not all of it was yours, Yoriichi knew, as he could smell the distinct scent of demon in the room, coming from the blood soaked wood.

The demon had died in this room, and you were nowhere to be found.

Somber, Yoriichi followed the trail of blood outside, to the engawa. Surely, it would lead him somewhere. To you, even. It was far-fetched, and Yoriichi didn’t want to give himself the hope that you had survived the demon attack. By the looks of it, you had run into an Upper Demon Moon, and it had simply been too much for you to handle at once. He didn’t blame you for losing. You were strong, but he knew many Demon Slayers who had fallen to the Demon Moons. If only you weren’t apart of them, perhaps…

In the end, Yoriichi found nothing. Not even a corpse. Rather, the trail of blood ended quite like he had found it, with a thick spatter of blood, and nothing more.

And with that, Yoriichi knew. Knew that, no matter what, he would always be incapable.

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shakespeareanwannabe · 4 years

Text

Strange Comforts

Santiago ‘Pope’ Garcia x OC

Summary: A sequel to ‘Protective Instincts’ and a prequel to ‘Best Laid Plans’ (I wish I could link them here but I’m still figuring that stuff out). With T-minus 10 weeks to go before the baby arrives, Pope discovers that it’s the little things in life that bring the most comfort. *This one’s not based off clarke’s wonderful headcanons, but it’s set in the same universe so that’s where the credit goes!*

Warnings: Pregnancy fic, swearing, references to smut, references PTSD, references to therapy

A/N: Hi everyone! This is part three of who-knows-how-many of my Dad!Pope series. I’m still looking for a series title, and I’m trying to figure out how to create a masterlist for this so I can put them in order for y’all. I hope you enjoy! I loved reading your comments for the last two! Please let me know if you want to be tagged in future installments!

***

“…and, unless someone else wants to share, I think we’ll wrap up for today,” the kind-eyed therapist addressed the group of veterans, shooting a small glance towards Pope out of the corner of his eye.

True to his word, Santiago had been attending group therapy sessions for the last six months, his first session taking place exactly a week after Bex had told him the good news. Will had highly recommended this therapist, having gone to see him himself when his fiancée had left him, and hoped he could shed some light on Pope’s issues so that he wouldn’t walk out on his pregnant girlfriend next time things got hard.

And Pope had been attending the sessions. Listening to what other veterans said, the issues they were going through, it helped. Sure, both Frankie and Will had been fairly vocal about the problems they ran into while trying to adjust to civilian life, and Pope knew that Tom had had massive difficulties when they forced him to retire, and Benny’s issues were plain to see even if he didn’t talk about them, but those were his friends, his brothers, his family. They had all seen the same shit, so, clearly, they would have similar issues. But hearing random strangers, Marines, and Rangers, Navy and Military and Air Force men and women speak about seeing IEDs everywhere, and drinking to forget, and panicking at the sight of blood was…strangely comforting. The only problem was that Pope could never bring himself to speak.

He wanted to. God knew he wanted to. He needed to be okay. For Bex and the baby, for Frankie and Charlie and Mateo, for Benny and Will, for Molly and the girls, and, most importantly, for himself. So he could stop feeling like a major fuck up in every aspect of his life, so he could feel deserving of the life he had inexplicably been blessed with. But whenever he would try to open his mouth, he froze. How could he possibly talk about the shit he had done in the name of freedom? Was there a way to talk about his instincts shutting his emotions down without coming across as a cold-hearted bastard? Why did his tongue stop working whenever he tried to talk about how deathly afraid he was of screwing up this baby’s life, Bex’s life, their life together as a family? How deathly afraid he was that he had already screwed up Frankie’s, Will’s, and Benny’s lives? How he had nightmares of when Tom had died?

Santiago used to think he was a brave man, but now he felt like a coward. He could face down armed sicarios and terrorists without batting an eye, but he couldn’t talk about his emotions to save his family. It was complete and utter bullshit in his mind.

“Alright everyone, I’ll see you next week,” the therapist dismissed the group and Pope shot to his feet, beelining towards the coffee station.

Everyone else stood around talking, chatting about their daily lives or the weather or whatever, but Pope focused on mixing his coffee. He used to take it black, but then Bex started teasing him that only psychopaths took their coffee black, so he started mixing milk and sugar in instead. He liked it, but he needed it to be perfect.

“You actually drink this swill?” the therapist came up behind him and chuckled.

Pope cracked a smile. “I’ve had worse.”

“Haven’t we all,” he murmured. “Question Mark.”

Santiago shook his hand. “Pope.”

“You’re Ironhead’s friend, right?” Pope nodded. “Damn…he’s told me some of the crap you guys have been through. Sounds like holy hell.”

“Something like that, yeah.”

“Shit, man. No wonder you don’t talk during these meetings.”

Pope felt himself flush. “I mean…you know…”

“Hey, it’s fine. This is a no pressure situation. You just had me curious is all. Either you get people who don’t stop talking, or people who never talk in these sessions. But you…you always look like you want to talk but think better of it.”

Pope shrugged. “It’s like you said. Holy hell. Got used to not talking about the bad stuff.”

“So, what changed?”

Pope smiled softly, his eyes taking on a far-off look. “My girl’s pregnant.”

“Congratulations, man,” Question Mark slapped him on the shoulder.

“Thanks…” Pope shook his head slowly, sadly. “I almost screwed it up. Hell, I’m half convinced that I did, and this is all a dream. But when she told me…”

Question Mark was already nodding. “All of your training went haywire? Started imagining the worst?”

Pope cocked his eyebrow grimly. “Basically.”

The therapist nodded understandingly. “I get that. Same thing happened to me when my wife got pregnant with our third. Despite the other two being great kids, something about my last tour made me think that I’d screw the pooch with the new one. Checked myself into a hotel for a few days and drank myself silly until my brother-in-law showed up and told me that my kids were asking about me. That sobered me up pretty quick.”

Pope grinned grimly. “It was my buddy Catfish for me. Called me and reamed me out, and if Ironhead has told you anything about Fish, you know that he’s not the type at all. But it shook me enough to get my ass back to my house and beg for her forgiveness.”

“But you still sometimes think it’s all a dream?”

“I always thought guys like me don’t get the happy ending.” Pope sipped his coffee and shrugged. “But I’ll take it and run with it. She’s the best thing in my life. I’m not gonna let her down again.”

Question Mark smiled and dug into his pocket, pulling out first his wallet, then his card from his wallet. “Listen, Pope. I know how it can feel trying to talk to a room full of strangers. It sucks sometimes. If you ever want to chat, just one on one, give me a call. I’d be happy to help.”

Pope sucked in a deep breath and took the card. “Yeah, man. That would be great. Thank you.”

“No worries, man. Just, do me a favour?” Pope nodded. “Remember that you deserve this, okay?”

With a final clap on the shoulder, Question Mark moved away and began chatting with another member of the group.

Pope guzzled down the rest of his coffee and threw out the cup, heading home after a successful session.

***

Bex giggled to herself at the soft sounds of cursing and arguing emanating from the spare bedroom as she stirred the pitcher of lemonade.

Frankie, Benny and Will had come over to help Pope put together the furniture for the nursery and, based on the echoes she was hearing, it was not going particularly well. She had abandoned her rocking chair in favour of making the team refreshments after Benny had let loose a string of impressive swear words in two different languages. At approximately 30 weeks pregnant, laughing as hard as she did while listening to Ben swear himself blue in the face just made her have to pee, so she dismissed herself knowing that if she didn’t she would have to endure a lifetime of teasing.

“Just a sec!” she called out as the doorbell rang.

Slow and steady footsteps descended the stairs as a call of “I got it, babe!” echoed down the hall. Rebecca came around the corner with her tray of lemonade and potato chips as Pope handed over a few crisp twenty-dollar bills to the pizza delivery guy.

“Thanks man, you have a good day,” he smiled as he closed the door.

“Mmm, what’d you get?” she inhaled deeply. She’d gotten pretty lucky with the cravings so far, but she would not deny that pizza sounded pretty damn good.

“Got us a meat lovers, got you a pepperoni and pineapple since I know you’ve been on a sweet and salty kick lately.” Pope opened the smaller box to reveal the steaming, cheesy pizza and Bex felt her mouth begin to water.

“Have I told you today how much I love you?” she asked, placing her tray of snacks on top of the pizza boxes Pope was holding out to her.

He smirked at her, his eyes drifting up and down her body slowly. “You told me several times this morning, but I’ll never stop you from saying it again.”

Rebecca felt herself flush at the memory. Those second trimester hormones had hit her hard and seemed to be lasting a good long while, and Pope was certainly not complaining. His girl was stunning. She was always stunning to him, but that primal part of his brain told him that she was even more stunning when she had a belly full of his baby. Her bump was prominent, her tits were bigger and more sensitive, her skin was glowing, and that alpha male voice inside his brain crowed every time he woke up to her beautiful face and growing belly that it was all because of him. He had knocked her up and, thank God, she had decided that she loved him enough to want to raise a family with him. She was achy and uncomfortable, but she loved him and wanted his kid, and that meant more to him than he could ever say. Luckily, with the influx of hormones the past few months, he had been able to show her instead.

He watched as she slowly climbed the stairs, taking care to stay a few steps behind her just in case.

“How’s it going up here anyway?”

Pope groaned. “I don’t get it, baby. I can field strip any gun you put in my hands blindfolded. All of us can. How the fuck is this stuff beating us?”

Bex giggled softly as she entered the nursery and absorbed the scene in front of her. What she wouldn’t give for her phone right now so she could take a picture. Benny sat in the middle of the floor, looking like he was about to cry; crib pieces scattered around him. Will was leaning against the wall with a tired hand over his eyes, a half-assembled dresser beside him. Frankie was sitting in her abandoned rocking chair, cap pulled low over his eyes. He looked like he could be asleep, if only his leg wasn’t bouncing up and down anxiously.

“Soups on, fellas,” Pope announced, prompting the team to abandon their projects for paper plates piled high with pizza slices and tall glasses of lemonade.

Bex smiled fondly at her family as Pope, Benny and Will sat against the far wall underneath the bay window, the three men examining the assembly directions for the crib like they were preparing for a siege.

Frankie held out his hand to offer her the rocking chair but she shook her head. “If I sit in that thing any longer, I feel like I’m gonna turn into a grandmother instead of a mom.”

Frankie cracked a small smile. “Fair enough…” he scanned the room quickly before meeting her eyes again. “Do you want me to go grab a chair from the kitchen?”

Again, she shook her head. “The floor is good, Frankie.”

“You sure? I can—”

“As long as you promise to help me up when I inevitably need to pee, I’m positive,” she chuckled.

“You got it, kid,” Frankie held her hands to help her gently lower herself onto the hardwood floor before throwing himself down beside her. “How ya feeling?”

Bex shrugged as she bit into her deliciously sweet and salty slice of pizza. “You know, I’m actually alright. I know I’ve gotten pretty lucky, but I thought this whole pregnancy thing would be a lot tougher.”

Frankie nodded kindly as he chewed on his own slice. “I remember how Charlie was when she was pregnant with Mateo,” he reminisced. “Couldn’t sleep more than ten minutes at a time, constantly had to pee, had to wear these ugly compression socks. She handled it like a champ for the first 30 or so weeks, but by the time he was finally ready to make his entrance, we were both ready for her not to be pregnant anymore.”

“Yeah, she mentioned that,” she murmured. When Frankie had raced over to calm her down after Pope had left, one of the first things he said was that he and Charlie would be there for them, no matter what. And they had been. Charlie in particular had been Bex’s lifeline. She had been so kind and understanding, helping Bex get set up with an OB/GYN, lending her pregnancy and parenting books, and just letting her bitch and cry whenever she needed a female shoulder to cry on. “She said she got to a point where she would’ve given anything to just get Mateo out.”

Frankie nodded. “Oh yeah,” he sighed. “The week before he was born, she was not sleeping. Her emotions were all over the place, she wasn’t hungry, she couldn’t sit still, and she would get angry at me for the littlest things. It got to the point where I didn’t recognize her anymore, you know? Like, where did the woman I love go?”

Bex reached over and rubbed his shoulder comfortingly. “That must’ve been tough.”

Frankie shrugged. “Like I said, she handled it like a champ. And I sure as shit wasn’t about to complain when she was in labor for the better part of three days.”

Bex whistled lowly. “Three days…Jesus…”

“I’m sure it won’t be that way for you,” he backtracked quickly, playing with the back of his cap as he ducked his head. “I dunno the statistics or anything but…”

“Hey, hey, Frankie, chill. It’s okay.” She pulled his hand away from his hat and ran her hand up and down his arm. “You feeling okay, Frankie? You seem…on edge.”

Frankie looked across the room at his brothers, deeply entrenched in the assembly directions, before sighing. “She’s pregnant again,” he whispered.

A bright smile crossed her face. “What? Oh my god, congratulations!” She reached out and wrapped her arms as best she could around his shoulders.

“Thanks…” he sighed.

“Do you…did you not want another baby?” she asked, confused at his dismal attitude. Frankie had been the one to talk Pope off the cliff, telling him how great fatherhood could be. And it was clear through his interactions with Mateo that he was an amazing father. He was one of those dads who flourished under the responsibilities of parenthood, who saw taking care of their child as a joy and a privilege, not as a job or as babysitting. If there was one thing Rebecca knew for sure, it was that Francisco Morales was a family man through and through, so she was a little surprised at the dread in her friend’s eyes. She had expected Frankie to be more…enthusiastic about having a second baby.

“Of course, I do, Bex, I just…” Frankie groaned, doffing his cap for a moment to run a stressed hand through his hair before redonning it. “I’m making jack shit right now at work, and Mateo is almost three, and the pregnancy was so rough on Charlie last time…I just…I can’t let my family down.”

Charlie shuffled herself closer and wrapped her arm around Frankie, leaning her cheek on his shoulder. “You won’t…” she murmured softly. “Yeah, this kid was unexpected but you and I both know your wife. She wouldn’t be having a second kid if she didn’t want one. Plus, you both know what to expect now. Hopefully she’ll have an easier time this go around, but you also know the signs and what kinds of questions to ask. And yeah, Mateo is young, but that’s okay. You guys can start teaching him responsibility early and, if they both end up being too much, call Benny to take Mateo.” Frankie cocked his eyebrow and Bex laughed. “Well, I was gonna say call Santi, but we’re gonna be a little busy ourselves. Benny’s energy can match a three-year-old easily though.” Frankie chuckled and wrapped his arm around his best friend’s girl. “As for money,” Bex shrugged. “I know Santi could use some help managing the security firm. He wanted you to partner with him anyway, and he’s still holding out hope that you’ll join him, so why not?”

Frankie nodded slowly. “I could help him out a couple of days a week and still teach flying lessons. Yeah, that could work. I’ll talk with him and see what he says.”

Bex chuckled as she shifted uncomfortably. “It’s not gonna be much of a conversation, Frankie, trust me. He’s been hoping you’ll take him up on his offer. Don’t tell him I told you, but he’s missed working with you.”

Frankie smiled softly as he watched Pope grab Benny in a headlock while Will shook his head slowly. “Yeah, I missed him too.”

Bex shifted again and Frankie stood, gently helping her stand, recognizing the signs immediately. The two watched the MMA fighter and the security firm director wrestle on the floor for a minute before Will was able to separate them.

Bex turned to Frankie and smiled. “If you really missed him, can you do me a favour?”

“Anything for you, kid,” he smiled back at her.

“Stop fucking around and help them build the damn furniture please. I know you put together all of Mateo’s furniture on your own, so please, put them out of their misery.”

Frankie’s loud bark of laughter startled everyone. He wrapped his arm around Bex and gave her a quick squeeze. “Sure thing, kid. Hey, idiotas! Let’s get moving. We want this stuff ready before the baby’s first birthday, okay?”

***

Pope sighed contentedly as the golden rays of the setting sun illuminated the dust particles dancing in the air. These moments were quickly turning into his favourite nightly ritual.

The radio droned lowly as he sat in bed, dressed in a pair of shorts, with Bex sitting reclined against his chest. He had just finished applying coco butter to her skin, and now his hands were resting gently on her belly, waiting for their kid to make their presence known.

Bex took a deep breath, allowing the air to escape through her lips as she cuddled further down into bed, resting her head just above her boyfriend’s heart. She loved these moments too, when it was just the two of them. No museum breathing down her neck, no art classes to teach, no security emergencies calling him away from her. Just the two of them, bonding with the baby that was nestled safely within her.

Sometimes, Santiago would talk to the baby when they sat like this. He’d tell stories about his childhood, about their relationship, about the kid’s future aunts and uncles. Sometimes, he would play classical music on his phone and direct the speaker towards her belly. Sometimes, he would talk to her, sharing his thoughts and fears, tell her about the things that he wanted to do with their kid when they were old enough. Most of the time, he would just hold her in silence and wait for the kid to kick or roll inside of her so he could feel it.

“The nursery looks really nice, babe,” she mumbled drowsily, wincing slightly as her skin bulged out against Pope’s palm, the outline of a tiny foot appearing for a brief second.

“That’s all you, sweetheart,” he replied, pressing a gentle kiss to her temple as he soothed his hands up and down her swollen stomach. “The Hundred Acre Woods theme is stunning.”

Originally, Rebecca had wanted a jungle theme for the nursery, but Pope had borderline begged her to do something else, literally anything else, that wouldn’t remind him of crouching in the Colombian jungles next to Tom the day before everything went to shit. So, he hadn’t complained when she announced that she was going to Disney-fy the kid’s room with a mural of the Hundred Acre Woods and all of Christopher Robin’s friends.

“I made it pretty, you made it functional,” she yawned, shifting slightly to lie on her side, her left arm wrapping around his side as she nuzzled into his chest.

Pope snorted. “Yeah, once you convinced Frankie to stop being a prick.”

Under Frankie’s direction, all of the furniture was put together in less than an hour. The solid oak crib, dresser/changing table, shelving unit and rocking chair pulled the room together nicely, and the white bassinet sat in the corner of their bedroom, waiting to be put to use.

Rebecca smiled sleepily. “Not my fault you three didn’t notice that the one dad in the group was sitting around twiddling his thumbs.”

Pope grinned down at her. “We make a pretty good team, huh baby?”

She lifted her droopy eyes to him for a moment and smiled brightly at him. “Forever and always, my love.” She ran a gentle hand over her belly and sighed happily. “You’re stuck with me now.”

It suddenly struck Santiago how badly he wanted that to be true. What wouldn’t he give to wake up next to this beautiful woman every day? To be allowed to love her and spend as much time in her presence as possible? To raise their child together and be a family? To grow old with her by his side?

He ghosted his hand down her side and gently picked up her left hand, running his thumb over the knuckle of her ring finger as she drifted off to sleep.

“Not yet I’m not, mi amor,” he whispered. “But I want to be. If you’ll have me.”

He gently shifted them down the mattress, curling up behind her and resting his hands lovingly on her belly as he settled in to sleep, taking comfort in the knowledge that everyone he loved was safe in his arms that night.

Tags list (open): @darksideofclarke, @writefightandflightclub, @eternallyvenus, @rae-rae-patcha

#santiago pope garcia x oc #santiago pope garcia #triple frontier #triple frontier fanfic #fanfiction #oscar issac #frankie catfish morales #pedro pascal #dad!pope

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pandapupremade · 4 years

Text

Danger (Part 1)

WORDS: 1,304

WARNINGS: Mentions of explosions/evil plans basically

in case u wanted to know context of the Sympathy fic I did yesterday, I’m writing a prequel tihngy. this is part 1 and doesn’t feature much Self shipping (though it references my ship with Quackerjack and @sphearts‘ insert Patch), but pls know the next parts will. reblogs also appreciated!!! I had a lot of fun w this ;w;

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The Fearsome Five were once more up to something very dastardly. When weren't they? But it seemed today that in that warehouse just off town, not all members of the group were feeling so dastardly. A nervous Bushroot tapped his leafy hands together as he looked over the crate in front of him, one that wires were extending from.

"Are we sure this is such a good idea? I -I m-mean...There's - there's just - there's innocents down there, you kn-know?" He shook his purple-foliaged head and frowned. "Oh, I c-couldn't bear to destroy the poor things...N-not so gruesomely..."

Bushroot's concerns fell on deaf ears, of course, and in fact his words were met with a laugh from Quackerjack, who was dangling upside down from the rafters for whatever goofy reason. "Since when do YOU care about the civilians, bush brain?"

"W-who said anything about people?" The scientist almost seemed offended, "You know I'm talking about the plants! The - the - the trees! The f-flowers! They're all blooming at this time, I couldn't stand it if they..."

"Are you having second thoughts?" Came the voice of Liquidator, poking up from a puddle on the floor, "Tired of destroying your family trees? Not to worry, the Liquidator will set things right! Lots of water for lots of plants, right?"

"Uh, I-I guess..." Bushroot nodded, but still seemed tense. "A-anyway, Quackerjack - don't think you're one to - to talk. You're the one with a f-family at home. Shouldn't you be worried about them? What if they get caught in the explosion - bet you'd be pretty bummed then...!"

"Please, they know to stay out of any destruction zone!" replied the jester with another laugh, "Well, except Patch - but who knows where they go....Maybe your plants oughta do the same...You know...Make like a banana and split! Hohohohoooo~!" As he said banana, he pulled out Mr. Banana Brain, because of course he did.

"Just better hope they don't get in the way again," Megavolt sneered. "They're always so unpredictable...But then again, so are you."

"Hohohooo!"

"Which one of you idiots is making Quackerjack a fool of himself again?" growled a new voice, and one that shot chills down each Fearsome member's spine. Negaduck had finally arrived. "Or is it just Quackerjack being a fool all on his own? Either way, his laughter is getting on my nerves."

"Oh, goody!" Quackerjack grinned from above. "Boss is back! Great to see you, Negaduck! Buddy, ol' pal!"

"Yeah, yeah, roll out the red carpet." Negaduck waved his hand with disinterest. "Is everything in place, boys? 'Cause if it's not..."

"The Liquidator has a 100% satisfactory guarantee! Indeed, you, Negaduck, will be pleased - or your money back!" The watery dog seemed a bit too cheery considering all this talk of explosions...

Negaduck shook his head. "I'll hold you to that, you walking infomercial..." But at this, Megavolt spoke up, "But Boss, you didn't give us any money, so we can't exactly give it back..."

"Well, your life can repay any debt, don't you think?" He tapped his foot on the ground. "I mean, really, that's what you're gonna give me anyway if you losers screw this up."

"That's our Negaduck! Always so forgiving..." Seems like even the concept of dying a bloody death as punishment for failing sounded like a fun time to Quackerjack. "Anyway, boss..." He dropped down from the ceiling and landed directly in front of Negaduck now, "I've got a question for you, if you've got the time..."

"I don't have the time." Negaduck tried to walk past the insolent clown, but Quackerjack quite literally bounced back to front and center.

"It'll only take a second! See, Bushroot and I were just having a civil little conversation -"

"Nothing civil about it," huffed Bushroot in the background.

"9 out of 10 reviews give that conversation a thumbs down," added Liquidator.

Quackerjack snorted. "Anyway, it got me wondering if YOU have any ties that could be -"

And then, his beak was grabbed quite cartoonishly to shut him up. Negaduck was obviously unamused. "No, Quackerjack. Unlike you, I don't need a family to keep me stable."

"Yeah, you only need a chainsaw," chuckled Megavolt.

"Bingo. And frankly, I don't even need that. Any weapon will do, yeah?" Negaduck let go of Quackerjack now, but walked past while purposely stepping on the guy's foot. (Though this backfired, because there was a honking sound effect and that just annoyed the boss more.) "If that's all you nubs needed, then let's start the operation."

"Aye-aye, sir!" came the chant of his cohorts. Negaduck would walk towards the earlier mentioned crate, which with the little help of a button on a remote he had, opened to reveal a computer inside. On the screen was a map of St. Canard in neon green color, and Negaduck began to type in some coordinates from a sheet of paper - one that he'd somehow taken from Megavolt when the rodent wasn't looking.

"And...we...are...good...to....Eh?" His finger paused over the last number, "No, wait a minute, that ain't right..." He back spaced and tried again. Still no.

"Somethin' wrong, boss?" asked Megavolt.

"The coordinates I'm inputting on this detonator...They're nowhere near the correct ones." He glared at Megavolt. "Where did you set up the bombs?"

"On the south side of -"

At this, Negaduck's eyes narrowed. "The SOUTH side? You LOSER, you can't even follow orders right...I said the NORTH would be destroyed..."

Megavolt stared, and became increasingly panicked. "W-wh-wha? W-well, it shouldn't be too big a difference! A-after all, it's still just a threat, r-right? Not like we won't get our point acro-"

"That's not the point, you dolt! There's some stupid art convention going on in the South Side of town, and I wanted to specifically avoid that area!"

Silence.

"Uh....Why-" began Bushroot, but he quickly retracted his inquiry as Negaduck shot a nasty look at him. "Th-that is....We can just set the bombs up elsewhere, right?"

"Yeah, and it's gonna take all day! Forget it, this plan was a failure...And it's not my fault, I'd like to say..." Negaduck crossed his arms. "Quackerjack and Megavolt can be in charge of defusing all the bombs."

"Hmm...Is it really such a big deal?" Quackerjack smiled in a way that sorta said he was about to cause trouble, "It's just strange you'd care so much about a little setback that you'd cancel your whole plan...Not even a Plan B...."

"Y-yeah, that's - that's right!" chimed in Bushroot. "We should just go ahead with it, already!"

"Act now, and the Liquidator can wash away YOUR worries, with a bang!"

"It will SURELY shock you!" beamed Megavolt.

"Will you all be quiet?! I'm sick of your puns!" Negaduck snapped, "You're all so...useless!" Well, this was getting nowhere fast. Soon, in a comedic fashion, the Fearsome Five became the Fumbling Five - everyone started arguing, and in the midst of it...Somehow, probably when nobody was paying attention, that last digit got put into the detonator.

"Forget this," Negaduck growled, "I'll just have to..." And then he noticed the timer. "W- No! Oh, for the love of -" Everyone watched as he rushed to the computer and began trying to stop the detonator. "UGH! YOU IDIOTS!"

The others looked at each other. Then at Negaduck. Then at each other. And as they ran away so as not to meet his wrath, Liquidator shouted out another quote of "Act now, the offer ends soon!"

"Oh, more than that is gonna end...." But there was no time to worry about that with the clock ticking. He gripped his hat in a stressed manner, yanking on it to try and calm his nerves. But he couldn't stop the detonator - he'd specifically planned that so that Darkwing couldn't screw things up...What irony!

But why did he care about that art convention? Well, as he rushed off to try and find a certain someone, he wondered that himself.

#⚡💞 Stinky Ducksband (Negaduck)#🌿💞 Tragic Blossom (Bushroot)#💧 Liquidator (Platonic)#🦆💞 It’s Playtime (Quackerjack)#🌩️ Megavolt (Platonic)#kermitwriting #🃏🪀🦆 DoraPatchJack (Ship)#ok 2 reblog

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cuthian · 3 years

Text

Unfinished Business Chapter Two

Hi.

Remember when I said this was gonna be a short prequel? One chapter, two tops?

Yeah. Apparently I lied.

There's gonna be a third chapter: a Luke chapter 😉 This chapter is all Reggie, so I hope you guys enjoy!

I do have a few warnings: - the chapter definitely earns an M-rating for (implied) sexual acts and language - there is a scene depicting homophobic language and parents being shitty - Reggie has a panic attack and stops breathing for a second before the boys calm him down.

Exercise caution where needed, darlings.

Much, much love, Annaelle

PS Eternal thanks to my darling Juulna, who still doesn't know what's going on with these himbos, but continued beta'ing for me anyway. 😍 I'm nothing without you, darling.

PART TWO -- REGGIE (MARCH 1994 - MAY 1994)

EARLY MARCH 1994

“Is there something going on between you and Alex?”

Reggie’s head snapped up and he stared at Bobby, who looked back with an unreadable expression. They stood, waiting in line at the nearest pizzeria, and Reggie hadn’t expected anyone to pick up on the minor tension between him and Alex, and if anyone would, he certainly hadn’t expected it to be Bobby.

“No,” he squeaked, and then cleared his throat. “No. We just…”

He shook his head and started again, trying to come up with a believable lie. “It’s stupid,” he said, “We’ve just been spending a lot of time together, what with Luke… occupied.” The mere implication of Luke’s most recent infatuation with a girl he’d met in detention left a bad taste in his mouth, but… well, it wasn’t exactly a lie, was it?

He and Alex had been spending a lot of time together, even after Reggie had confessed his feelings towards their other best friend—towards Alex’s ex-boyfriend—but things were different now.

Alex hadn’t really been as open with Reggie since he’d confessed how he felt, had been notably more tense around Reggie, despite promising that there was nothing that would push him away, and Reggie didn’t know how to bridge this new gap in their friendship. It wasn’t like he could just stop loving Luke—if that was an option, he would’ve taken it in a heartbeat—so he didn’t know what to do.

“We just had a stupid disagreement,” he continued, smiling lightly at Bobby. “It’s fine, we’ll work it out.”

Bobby looked away for a second, and he looked conflicted, confused, before he said, “You’d tell me if you guys were…” he sighed and added, “if you guys were… more, right? I mean, you know I don’t care who you date, right?”

Reggie stared. He’d thought he and Alex had been sneaky, all this time, but if Bobby had picked up on it, then obviously they hadn’t been so very good at it.

“We’re not,” he denied quickly. “Just a stupid argument. I’ll talk to him, promise. It won’t affect the band.”

“That’s not—” Bobby began, but then it was their turn to order pizza and the conversation was, mercifully, dropped. Reggie kept up a steady stream of inane chatter as they waited for their pizzas and as they walked back to the studio, desperate to keep Bobby’s mind off of him and Alex—or worse, him and Alex and Luke—and as soon as they walked in, let himself be dragged off by Luke, who wanted to show him the chorus for their newest song ‘right now, Reggie, come on’.

It was easy to let himself be sucked into Luke’s orbit, to imagine that Luke was smiling at him because he felt the same way, to ignore the weird way Alex looked at him now, and the idea that Bobby could see right through him. “This is great,” Luke crowed happily when Reggie suggested a different pace for the chorus of his new song, slinging an arm around his shoulder. “Thanks, Reg.”

Reggie, who was doing his level best to not burst into flames at the casual affectionate contact, squeaked, “No problem,” and then fled to the couch, where Alex and Bobby had already started on the pizza. He snatched two slices of whatever pizza was nearest and stuffed as much of it in his mouth as he could fit.

Luke, thankfully, didn’t seem to think this was out of character at all and just laughed, setting down his guitar before he joined Reggie and the others on the couch.

“So,” Bobby said once they’d finished off the pizzas. “I saw Clare from Coconut Teaszer yesterday. She’s gonna talk to her friend at Juvee and Circus Disco, see if she can call in a favor to get us a gig there.” He grinned and continued, “She said if we can get those and they go well, Teaszer’s manager might be willing to give us a regular gig—we could save up for a professional demo, finally.”

“Sweet!” Luke exclaimed, leaning halfway across Alex to bump his fist against Bobby’s.

“Bobby, that’s awesome,” Reggie grinned, patting his shoulder, and he could tell Bobby was preening a little under all the attention. “How’d you convince her? I thought she didn’t like our sound.”

“I can be persuasive,” Bobby smirked, self-satisfied, and Reggie wrinkled his nose a little. It wasn’t that he didn’t approve of a little flirting to get ahead here and there—they’d all done it at some point—but somehow he didn’t think flirting was what Bobby was implying.

“Oh, gross, Bobby,” Alex whined, falling back against the cushions. “Are we stooping that low, really?”

“Hey, I don’t see anyone else getting us an opportunity like this,” Bobby said defensively.

“Guys, guys,” Luke cut in before Alex could snap back and turn it into an argument. “It doesn’t matter, okay? All that matters is that this is a great opportunity for us, for the band. This could be the springboard that we need to jump into the big leagues.”

“Yeah,” Reggie nodded enthusiastically, because he didn’t want Alex and Bobby to start fighting, and Luke was right—it didn’t matter.

Alex didn’t say anything, but he frowned and crossed his arms over his chest, and Bobby very pointedly looked away from him, and no amount of chatter from either him or Luke could save the night. It was only a few minutes later that Bobby told them he had to work the next day and left, leaving Alex, Reggie and Luke sitting in awkward silence.

“I wanna hang out, guys, but I’m supposed to be meeting Charlie later,” Luke finally said awkwardly, rubbing his hands together, looking at both him and Alex with a pleading expression.

“Yeah,” Alex said curtly. “Fine. Go ahead.”

“Jesus,” Luke turned and frowned at Alex. “What crawled up your butt and died?”

“Nothing,” Alex snorted. “I’m totally fine with Bobby sleeping his way to the top and you cancelling band practice last minute so you can go make out with your newest girlfriend and pretending it’s all fine.” He finished with a sneer.

“Alex,” Reggie whispered, but Luke had already jumped to his feet and was stalking towards the door.

“Fine,” he spat angrily. “Fine, be like that.” He grabbed his jacket and backpack up off the floor and slammed the garage door shut behind him.

Reggie sat, stunned, for a few minutes before he turned to Alex. “What the hell, man?”

Alex heaved a sigh and shut his eyes, leaning his head back against the couch. “Don’t, Reggie.”

He sounded exhausted.

“What’s going on?” Reggie asked, scooting closer to Alex and carefully reaching out to put a hand on his arm. “You’ve been… off for weeks. Since I told you about—”

“It’s not that. Not everything is about you,” Alex snapped, and Reggie reared back in surprise.

Alex never snapped at him. He sassed and teased and he was sarcastic as hell, but he never snapped. Reggie must not have realized just how strained things had become between them and he felt like an idiot for it.

“I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely, scooting away again, looking away from Alex. “I just wanted to help.”

Alex swore under his breath, and Reggie winced a little. He didn’t do great with people being angry around him, and even though he knew Alex would never even dream of hurting him, knowing he was angry made Reggie feel nervous and twitchy and he didn’t like feeling that way around Alex.

“Reg,” Alex said, softer, and Reggie instinctively flinched away when Alex’s hand fell on his shoulder. Alex pulled away as though his hand had been burned, staring at Reggie with wide, startled eyes. “Shit,” he swore again, “I’m sorry, Reg, I didn’t—I didn’t mean to snap at you.” He exhaled roughly and shook his head. “My parents have been… pushy lately. About conversion therapy, getting a girlfriend, going to college… It’s been a lot, and I—I took it out on you guys. On you.”

He lifted his head and smiled weakly. “I’m so sorry, Reg. I didn’t mean to make you think it was you.”

Reggie wanted to just accept that, wanted to smile at Alex and tell him it was okay, but instead, the words that came out of his mouth were, “I thought you hated me. For… for what I said about my feelings for Luke.” He sounded more upset than he had meant to, and Alex made a soft, concerned sound.

This time when Alex reached out, Reggie didn’t flinch away, but the tension didn’t leave him until Alex folded him up in his arms, pressing his face into Reggie’s hair. “I’m sorry,” Alex muttered. “I’m so, so sorry. I don’t care that you fell in love with him too. I don’t wanna argue with you. I truly am sorry.”

Reggie exhaled shakily and wrapped his arms around Alex’s middle, leaning into him.

“It’s okay,” he conceded. “I’m okay. I just…” He swallowed thickly, ducked and pressed his nose in the crook of Alex’s neck. “I thought I screwed everything up.”

“No,” Alex whispered. “No, you didn’t.”

Reggie nodded against him. “Are we okay?”

“Yeah,” Alex huffed, his breath ruffling Reggie’s hair. “Yeah, Reg, we’re okay.”

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LATE MARCH 1994

Reggie didn’t like drinking.

He didn’t.

The only time his dad ever raised a hand at him was when he’d been drinking, and Reggie had made a promise to himself to never get tempted, but then Bobby had shown up to practice with a bag full of liquor that he’d taken from his parents’ liquor cabinet, complete with a grin, and both Alex and Luke had been so enthusiastic that Reggie hadn’t wanted to be a downer.

Alex had babysat Maggie for him like four times this week and Luke had been super stressed about getting bigger gigs, his parents pressuring him about college and his girlfriend, who didn’t like how much time he spent with them. Even Bobby’s parents had been on his case non-stop about getting into a good university and not wasting his potential on their band.

They probably needed a drink and Reggie wasn’t going to be the one to keep them from it.

He’d only had one drink himself, and it’d made him feel all warm and just a little fuzzy, and if that was what drinking was, he wouldn’t mind. After they’d all reached an appropriate level of inebriation—Reggie had no idea what that level was, but the other boys all seemed to agree that three drinks was it for them—Bobby walked Luke home, and Reggie watched them laugh and giggle as they walked away.

Alex stood behind him when he turned, cheeks flushed pink and his pupils slightly dilated. “Walk you home?” he asked, holding out his hand and grinning, chewing on his lower lip. And Reggie was very stupidly in love with his other best friend, but he’d always been a little sweet on Alex too, and—

Well…

He knew that Alex smiled when he was kissed, that he liked to be held when he fell asleep and that he giggled when Reggie scraped his teeth over his earlobe.

He was in love with Luke, but this thing he had with Alex was also real.

“Yeah, okay,” Reggie chuckled, his insides going warm and squiggly when Alex honest to God giggled as he looped his arm through Reggie’s. They set off for the short walk to Reggie’s house, swaying lightly across the sidewalk as they walked.

“You know,” Alex said, slinging his arm around Reggie’s shoulder and drawing him closer. “Maggie asked me to marry her yesterday.”

“What?” Reggie exclaimed, laughing lightly, though he didn’t resist when Alex pulled him closer again.

“Yeah,” Alex laughed. “I had to explain that I didn’t like girls. Although I promised that if I ever changed my mind, she’d be the first girl I’d tell and give a chance.”

Reggie laughed. “I’m sure she was thrilled with that.”

“Eh,” Alex hedged. “She’ll get over it.” He tugged them to a stop and leaned in to press a lingering kiss to Reggie’s cheek. “I think I prefer her brother anyway.” Reggie swallowed thickly, and turned his head just a little, their noses brushing together.

“Good,” he whispered, brushing his lips across Alex’s in a barely-there kiss.

Alex swayed after him when he pulled away, eyes still shut, and God, Reggie loved him. Not like he loved Luke—not with the same breathless longing that he felt when he looked at Luke, not with the same burning desire that threatened to consume him when Luke smiled at him—but it was love nonetheless.

Alex’s eyes fluttered open again and he smiled, wide and happy, pressing his palm to Reggie’s cheek. Reggie kind of melted into the touch, swaying back towards Alex despite being in the middle of the sidewalk, only a few feet from his house, where just about anyone could see them. “I know you’re in love with Luke,” Alex said quietly, and he was so close that Reggie could feel his breath on his lips. “But I’m going to kiss you anyway.”

“Oh,” Reggie breathed, leaning in to rest his forehead against Alex’s. “Okay. Yes. Please.”

Alex chuckled lightly and leaned in to press their lips together, running his hands down the length of Reggie’s back. Reggie shuddered and kissed him back, pressing into Alex’s embrace as much as he could, relishing in the easy comfort of Alex’s touch. “I don’t wanna stop,” he admitted in a rush when Alex broke the kiss, slipping his arms around Alex’s shoulders. “I know I love Luke, and I don’t know if that’s going away anytime soon, but…”

“Yeah,” Alex whispered, leaning in to press a flurry of small, soft kisses to Reggie’s cheeks, nose, and lips. “I get it. I don’t wanna stop either.” Reggie leaned into the kisses, allowing Alex to soothe the frantic energy within him, slanting their lips together again as soon as Alex tried to lean back, shivering a little when Alex slipped his—cold—hands up under his shirt.

“You know,” Reggie chuckled when Alex leaned back to gulp a few breaths, “My house is right up there. With my bedroom. I’ve got a bed and everything.”

“Yeah,” Alex grinned. “You gonna invite me in?”

Reggie smirked and bit his lower lip. “I think I might.”

-----------

Reggie smirked when Alex shoved him down onto his bed and unceremoniously plopped down on his lap, wiggling enticingly on top of him, pressing his palms against Reggie’s shoulders and grinning cheekily at him. Reggie barked a laugh and let Alex push him down until he rested on his back on the bed, fingers trailing down Alex’s torso until they came to rest on his hips.

“Tipsy you is handsy,” he chuckled, grinning up at Alex in delight.

“Shut up,” Alex laughed quietly, pressing his thumb to Reggie’s jaw to tilt his head up for a kiss, moving back a little on his thighs when Reggie moved to sit up again. “Just can’t keep my hands off of you—you’re too sexy.”

Reggie tried—tried so hard—not to blush at Alex’s words, but he could feel his cheeks heat up nonetheless, lips parting as he tried to figure out a way to say something smooth in response to that. “You can’t say stuff like that,” he whined, dropping his head forward to rest against Alex’s collar bone, and wrapping his arms around Alex’s waist.

“Aw, but you blush so pretty when I do,” Alex teased him playfully, poking at the ticklish spot just below his ribs that no one but Alex—and maybe Maggie—knew about, and Reggie yelped.

“Alex!” he exclaimed, jerking away from Alex’s questing fingers as much as he could with the other boy still perched on his lap and determined to make him produce the sound again.

“Shhh, be quiet, Reggie,” Alex laughed triumphantly, “We can’t wake up your mom and your sister.” And Reggie couldn’t—he couldn’t do anything other than writhe with laughter beneath him, falling back onto the bed in a desperately futile attempt to escape Alex’s relentless quest to make him laugh.

“Stop, stop,” he gasped breathlessly, tears of mirth rolling down his cheeks as he struggled to catch his breath between chuckles. “I give. You win.”

“Good,” Alex smirked, settling himself on top of Reggie with an elbow on each side of his head, and Reggie had to focus to keep his entire train of thought from becoming derailed by the feel of Alex’s body pressed along his own. “Now be quiet and let me decide if I wanna kiss you again.”

Reggie hummed contentedly and tilted his head up, pushing his lower lip out into a pout until Alex relented and leaned down to press a kiss to his lips. Reggie grinned against Alex’s lips and dug his fingers into Alex’s hair—he was probably going to get it cut soon, it was longer than Reggie had ever seen him wear it before, and Reggie was going to take advantage of the longer coupe for as long as he damn well could—to drag him closer, licking up into Alex’s mouth as the other boy moaned against his lips.

The triumphant feeling only lasted for a second though, because it didn’t take long for Alex to get with the program enthusiastically, and Reggie thought it was entirely unfair that Alex knew to scrape his teeth against Reggie’s lower lip like that, the way that made him shiver all over and melt into a puddle beneath Alex’s steady weight.

“Alex,” he whined when the kiss broke, both of them gasping for air, Reggie’s fingers—the ones that weren’t locked in Alex’s hair—grabbing uselessly at the jean jacket that Alex was still wearing.

“Yeah, Reg,” Alex breathed harshly, grinding down and sending red-hot arousal rushing through Reggie’s veins. “I know, sweetheart,” Alex whispered against his lips, and Reggie’s brain—kind of—shorted out—

“Oh,” Reggie choked, slipping his hand down to dig his fingers into the meat of Alex’s ass. “That’s new.”

“Yeah,” Alex chuckled lightly. “Want me to stop?”

“No, dear God, don’t you dare stop,” Reggie groaned as Alex sat up, entranced by the graceful way Alex moved to get his jean jacket off and tossed aside, swiftly followed by his shirt, the light coming in through the window glinting on the gold chain around his neck.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Alex quipped cheekily, but before Reggie could say anything snarky in reply, Alex was on him again, and Reggie would say something, but Alex’s tongue was in his mouth and he was pretty sure he forgot how to think—much less talk—altogether when Alex’s chest rumbled with a moan against his fingers, his tongue sweeping against the back of Reggie’s teeth.

He keened when Alex’s fingers tugged on his hair, shooting sparks of pleasure down his spine, dragging his head to the side and breaking their kiss to mouth his way down Reggie’s jaw and neck.

He paid particular attention to the little spot just beneath Reggie’s jaw that had him practically melting into a puddle beneath Alex, the sensation of Alex’s lips against his feverishly hot skin and the solidness of Alex’s body pressing into him, surrounding him almost too much—but also not nearly enough.

“You’re being—” He gasped as Alex scraped his teeth across his earlobe, fingers digging into Alex’s biceps. “—you’re being really unfair.”

Alex laughed huskily against him, and Reggie shivered but pressed back into the touch when Alex’s hand slipped down from where his fingers were tangled in Reggie’s hair to cradle the back of his head. “It’s not unfair unless I don’t finish what I started. Don’t worry.” He shifted, pushing one leg between Reggie’s and pushing up, dragging his teeth across Reggie’s bottom lip teasingly. “I plan on following through, sweetheart.”

Reggie moaned, clutching at Alex as the other boy pushed his legs open to settle himself between them, lips occupying Reggie’s in a downright filthy kiss. Reggie couldn’t bring himself to care about the noise and the possibility of his parents finding them anymore, because Alex was between his legs, pressing up against him, and he could barely remember how to breathe.

God, Reggie adored him.

He groaned against Alex’s lips when the other boy rolled his hips down, slipped one leg up and around Alex’s hip, and slid his hands down to the edge of Alex’s waistband and then up, marveling at the fact that he could feel Alex’s warm skin beneath his palms and could feel the twitch of Alex’s muscles as he dragged his blunt nails across Alex’s back.

“I’m not done with us,” Alex panted when the kiss broke, teeth scraping across Reggie’s collar bone before he soothed over the abused skin with his tongue as he ground himself against Reggie’s painful hard-on. “I don’t care that you love Luke. I’m not done with us.”

“Me either,” Reggie croaked, feeling unexpectedly overwhelmed when he realised that he was with Alex, that Alex wanted this, him, too.

Still.

Even after Reggie had told him about his feelings for Luke.

Even though they weren’t actually in love.

Even though he didn’t think either of them actually had any idea what they were doing together.

“Me either,” he repeated, before pulling Alex down to kiss him again, grinding up against him. “I’m not done with us either.”

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

Reggie woke the next morning when he felt something flutter lightly across his forehead, then his nose, his lips, his chin, his collarbones, blinking in confusion before he realized it was Alex, gently tracing his fingers across Reggie’s face and upper body. He stilled for a second, and Alex froze before Reggie relaxed and leaned into Alex’s touch.

“Hi,” he whispered hoarsely when he rolled his head to the side to look at Alex.

He wondered, when Alex remained quiet and unreadable for a long, tense few minutes, if last night had been a mistake. They’d crossed a line they hadn’t crossed before, that they’d never meant to cross when they first kissed, and though Reggie had been so sure that they were on the same page, that Alex knew that Reggie cared about him so much, he was a little worried that maybe Alex had been more drunk than he’d let on last night.

And then Alex exhaled shakily and slid his hand down, coming to rest on Reggie’s bare waist. “Hey,” he finally said, sounding quite sleepy still, offering a tight smile when Reggie shuffled a little closer.

“You okay?” Reggie said quietly, reaching out to pat his hand on Alex’s bicep.

“Yeah,” Alex nodded. “Yeah, just…” He looked down and smiled wryly. “Trying to figure this out, I guess.” Reggie swallowed thickly, eyeing Alex nervously—he didn’t look like he regretted much of what they’d done and said the previous night, but then Alex always had the best poker face out of all of them.

“It wasn’t bad, right?” Reggie asked quietly, looking away from Alex, because he wasn’t sure he wanted to see the potential rejection on Alex’s face, not after Reggie had dared to hope that maybe… maybe he and Alex could figure out what they could be together.

“No,” Alex whispered, and Reggie’s head snapped back up to look at him.

Alex was smiling softly, expression open and fond. “You scare me sometimes,” Alex admitted. “Because I think… I think it’d be so easy to just get caught up in this. In us.” He swallowed thickly and ran his fingers through Reggie’s messy hair, and Reggie’s eyes fluttered shut for a second. Alex chuckled quietly and added, “I don’t want us both to end up with a broken heart, Reg.”

“I don’t ever wanna break your heart,” Reggie said urgently, pressing his hand to Alex’s cheek.

Alex smiled sadly. “I don’t want to break yours.”

“Then we just won’t,” Reggie said optimistically. “We can just… we can just try. And if it’s not working anymore, we’ll just be honest about it.” He looked at Alex pleadingly, rubbing his thumb across Alex’s cheek. “Can’t we just try?”

Alex huffed a breath through his nose, tipping forward to rest his forehead against Reggie’s with a small smile. “Yeah, okay, Reg. We can try. Does that mean we’re telling Luke and Bobby too?”

Reggie froze.

“I—” he choked. “Is it okay if I’m not ready for that?”

Alex nodded lightly. “Yeah, Reg, that’s okay. But,” he continued thoughtfully, “We can’t just keep lying indefinitely.” He ran his hand down the length of Reggie’s back and Reggie shivered a little as the move dislodged the sheet and exposed his bare skin to the cold morning air.

“I don’t want that either,” Reggie said. “I don’t like keeping things from Luke either.”

“So you’re going to tell him how you feel?” Alex asked.

“No, not yet,” Reggie shook his head. “But… maybe. When I feel less like I’ll break when I say something and he doesn’t feel the same way.”

Alex’s eyes darkened a little and his lips turned down into a frown, but he nodded in understanding.

“On a happier note,” Reggie said brightly, pressing into Alex with his entire body, “I am much less sore than I was last time.” He grinned when Alex’s cheeks flushed immediately and his hand tightened on Reggie’s bare hip. “Must mean we did something right this time,” Reggie finished.

“Oh, yeah, it’s gotta,” Alex snorted, but when Reggie leaned in to kiss him, he kissed back slowly and deeply. Reggie let Alex nudge him back until he was flat on his back again, Alex leaning over him, one hand on his hip, Reggie’s fingers tangled in Alex’s hair.

His lips were incredibly soft and still tasted faintly of the cherry liquor he’d drank last night. Reggie sighed happily against Alex’s lips and sank into the kiss, sliding his leg up over Alex’s to pull him closer. The feeling of fabric startled him though, and he leaned back to pout at Alex. “When did you put on pants?” He reconsidered and then said, “Why did you put on pants?”

Alex chuckled and whispered, “I didn’t wanna run to the bathroom naked. What if I’d run into your parents?” He grimaced and added, “Or worse, Maggie.”

Reggie snorted a laugh and nodded. “Okay, fair enough.”

Alex grinned down at him and pressed one more kiss against Reggie’s lips before he tapped at Reggie’s hip. “Come on, put something on. Everyone’s going to be up soon.” Reggie pouted and then smiled when Alex groaned, before he gave in and kissed Reggie again.

Reggie smiled when Alex pulled away, and he inhaled deeply, taking a second to, you know, remember how his limbs worked before he managed to roll out of the bed and onto his feet. He grabbed the nearest pair of sweatpants and tank top and shimmied them on, spinning around with his arms spread wide to grin at Alex.

“Better?” he asked teasingly.

“No,” Alex smirked, leaning back on his hands, blatantly eyeing Reggie up and down, and Reggie could feel Alex’s eyes burning on his skin. “I preferred you with less clothing.”

“You told me to put something on,” Reggie pointed out, raising both eyebrows at Alex.

Alex grinned and pushed to his feet, approaching Reggie with a kind of predatory gleam in his eye that Reggie had never seen before and that—that did things to his insides. “Jesus, Alex,” he groaned, “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Why not?” Alex asked playfully, reaching out and tugging Reggie to him by his hips.

“It makes me wanna do really inappropriate things,” Reggie admitted, framing Alex’s face in his hands when Alex wrapped his arms around Reggie’s waist. Alex just raised an eyebrow at him, and really, that was a challenge if Reggie ever saw one—he never could resist a dare. Alex huffed a mildly surprised breath against his lips when Reggie crashed their lips together again, but Reggie could tell he was smiling too.

And then Reggie’s bedroom door swung open.

They jerked apart, eyes wide and slightly horrified, but the damage was done, and Reggie’s dad stood in the doorway, large and imposing and frozen in shock.

“Dad,” Reggie choked.

It was like the sound of Reggie’s voice unfroze his father, his pale cheeks flushing with anger and his entire face twisting into a nearly unrecognizable, furious expression that Reggie instinctively flinched away from. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, boy?!” he hissed dangerously, and Reggie knew that tone, knew that when his dad spoke like that, it was time to hide in his room and to make sure Maggie was asleep or wearing earphones.

But Alex was right behind him and his dad was blocking the door and there was nowhere to hide.

“Dad,” he tried, and he hated how small and weak his voice sounded, how scared. “It wasn’t—”

“How dare you do this to our family?!” his dad roared, and Reggie flinched back, bumping into Alex, who steadied him with his hands on Reggie’s upper arms. That, evidently, was the wrong thing to do, because Reggie’s dad stormed forward and ripped Alex bodily away from him, shoving him so hard that Alex nearly tripped over the various items of clothing they’d carelessly thrown around the room last night, barely able to catch himself on the side of the bed.

“You,” his dad hissed, and Reggie watched in horror as his father loomed over Alex. “You’re so lucky your parents are prominent members of the church. They will hear about this and I will make sure that they know you defiled my boy.”

“He didn’t—” Reggie tried, “Dad, I’m—it’s not—”

“This isn’t about you,” his dad screamed at him, and Reggie recoiled again. “Do you think you’re ready for this kind of lifestyle, boy? Do you think anyone will want to employ you? Do you think they’ll employ me and your mother? All of our trouble will be on you! What do you think they’ll call your sister if they know about you, you stupid boy? She’s gonna lose her friends—parents won’t let their kids play with her now, this is gonna follow her forever!”

Reggie winced and hunched in on himself—was he being selfish? He’d never… he’d never considered that what he did might have ill effects on his family—on Maggie.

“This is more than just you,” his dad spat disgustedly. “This affects us all, you spoiled, selfish, ungrateful little faggot!” He glared at Reggie and Alex both and then hissed, “Get out. Get your stuff and get the fuck out—and don’t you dare come back. You have five minutes to get out. Don’t you darken our doorway again.”

He shot one more venomous glare at them and then stomped out of the room, slamming the door so hard it rattled in the frame.

Reggie let out a shaky breath he hadn’t known he was holding, staring at the door. He didn’t even realize he was breathing erratically until Alex pressed a hand to the center of his back and said, urgently, “Reg, calm down. We have to pack your things, okay, really fast. We can freak out later, but I need you to focus right now. Please, Reg.”

Reggie’s eyes fastened on the red mark on Alex’s arm. “He hurt you,” he whispered hoarsely, reaching out trembling fingers to touch Alex’s arm. “Alex, he hurt you.”

“No,” Alex sighed, “No, Reg, I’m okay, I promise. It’s probably not even going to bruise.” He took Reggie’s hand and squeezed it. “Grab a bag, okay? Put your clothes in there, as many of them as you can fit. I’ll get your school things and your guitar.”

“Alex,” Reggie choked when Alex tried to pull away, and Alex exhaled sharply before ducking down and pressing a hard, brief kiss to Reggie’s lips.

“We’re okay,” he insisted. “Now get your things, okay? Can you do that for me?”

Reggie nodded shakily.

“Good,” Alex smiled shakily. “Good.” He pressed one more kiss to Reggie’s forehead and then pulled away, leaving Reggie swaying in place, cold and disoriented for a couple of seconds before he managed to do as Alex asked and got a bag, pulling open his closet and stuffing as many clothes in there as he could.

When the bag was full, stuffed with jeans, socks, t-shirts and underwear, Reggie turned to Alex, who had Reggie’s bass slung over one shoulder and his bag with school books and materials over the other.

“Come on,” Alex said quietly, holding out a hand. “Let’s go.”

Reggie stared at him for a beat and then, slowly, feeling like he was making an irreversible decision, took it, and let Alex lead him out of the house.

-----------

Later, Reggie couldn’t remember much of the walk to Luke’s house.

He knew that Alex, at some point, had moved the book bag he was carrying to his other shoulder and had wrapped an arm around Reggie, tugging him close, and that Reggie had sunk into the warmth of him eagerly, because he was dressed in sweatpants and a tank top and flip flops, and Alex wasn’t even wearing a shirt, just an unzipped hoodie he must’ve shrugged on as they were leaving, and it was still cold outside.

He knew that he had, at one point, tried to talk, but that his mouth just didn’t want to form the words.

Alex had understood anyway.

He knew that he’d suddenly found himself on Luke’s front porch, Alex’s arm still around him, when Mrs. Patterson opened the door in her bathrobe, looking confused and then horrified to find them standing there in their pyjamas, bags in hand and tears still burning in Reggie’s eyes.

She had ushered them inside immediately, and Reggie knew that she was asking them things, that Alex was answering, but he felt like his head was under water and all sound was muffled.

He let himself be led to the couch and relinquished his death grip on his bag when Alex pried his fingers open, and when he looked up he could see Alex’s lips moving, could tell that he was talking to him, that Alex was probably scared and confused and hurt too, but he couldn’t—

He couldn’t breathe.

What was he supposed to do now?

He couldn’t go home anymore. He couldn’t go home. He was barely eighteen, he hadn’t even graduated yet—Sunset Curve was nowhere near successful enough to support him.

What was he going to do?

And then someone’s warm palm was burning on his cheek and when Reggie looked up, Luke was right in front of him, brow furrowed in concern, Alex hovering anxiously just behind him and—and—

“Hey. Hey, Reggie. Look at me.” Luke was talking, and though he still sounded like he was miles away, his voice managed to penetrate the haze of static white noise that encapsulated Reggie’s entire world. Luke smiled when Reggie looked at him, and Reggie vaguely thought that if he could still breathe, that smile would probably take his breath away all over again. “Yeah,” Luke grinned. “Okay, hey, buddy. Take a deep breath for me, okay? You’re not breathing right, Reg.”

Reggie thought that was probably a bit of an exaggeration, because he was pretty sure he wasn’t breathing at all, so how could he not be breathing right?

“Reggie,” Alex pleaded, rushing forward to kneel in front of him, next to Luke, his voice piercing through the white noise as his hand landed heavily on Reggie’s knee. “Breathe.” Reggie obeyed before he thought about it, inhaling sharply, dizzy with the sudden rush of oxygen, and swayed in place for a single heartbeat before he tipped forward into Luke and Alex.

They both caught him, as he had known, instinctively, that they would, their arms wrapping around him and holding him steady, and Reggie broke.

He burst into tears, pressing his face into the crook of Alex’s neck, fingers clenched in the back of Luke’s shirt too, to keep him close, where Reggie could feel him and hear him and smell him, because he couldn’t bear the thought of either of the boys being any less close than this, being anywhere other than right here with him, warm hands rubbing soothingly over his back and their voices melting together in a wordless, reassuring murmur.

“We’ve got you,” he heard Luke mutter as his hand swept up and down Reggie’s back. “We’re here, Reg.”

Reggie had no idea how long he cried, but slowly, his tears tapered off, and his body relaxed in his best friends’ arms, and he kind of drifted into a light doze. He barely registered being moved back onto the couch, refusing to loosen his grip on Alex, who didn’t stop running his fingers through Reggie’s hair.

“What happened?” he heard Luke ask quietly, rubbing his thumb over Reggie’s ankle soothingly.

Alex’s chest rumbled a little under his cheek, but it was soothing, and Reggie kept his eyes closed, relaxing into them as much as he could. “I stayed over,” Alex said softly. “I’d had a little too much, yesterday, and I didn’t want to walk all the way home, so I stayed. His dad’s always been a little weird around me, but I guess when he walked in and saw us hugging, he lost it. Called Reggie a fag and…” He paused and Reggie was just aware enough to press into him a little more, to move to comfort even though he wasn’t even looking at Alex. “... It was awful, Luke. He’s probably gonna tell me parents God knows what too, but—”

“Shit,” Reggie heard Luke curse. “Shit, Alex, I’m sorry.”

“Nothing we can do now,” Alex muttered. “Besides I think Reg got the worst of it, not me. My parents already knew I was an incurable homosexual, in their words. This probably won’t change much for me, but…” Reggie hummed under his breath when Alex tugged very lightly on his hair. “He can’t go home.”

“Yeah,” Luke whispered. “We’ll figure something out. My dad’s driving over to talk to Reggie’s dad, to see if he can pack up his stuff, at least.”

Alex exhaled shakily. “Well, that’s something.”

They fell silent, and Reggie relaxed further into them, the steady beat of Alex’s heart under his ear lulling him deeper and deeper into a doze until he eventually managed to fall asleep.

He was with Alex and Luke. He was safe.

They’d figure everything out.

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

MAY 1994 (SATURDAY)

There was something different in the way Alex kissed him, these days.

It was like… like his heart wasn’t in it anymore, like he was just going along with whatever Reggie wanted, and Reggie hated it. Alex was distant, was pulling away from him, and Reggie didn’t know what had triggered it, what had changed to make Alex go from desperately affectionate in the wake of Reggie’s dad kicking them out, to… to this.

Before, whenever Reggie would look at him, Alex would catch his eye and grin back at him or wink at him; would smile the same kind of smile that he smiled right before he’d lean in to kiss him, and Reggie would have to look away so he wouldn’t have to explain to Luke or Bobby why he was blushing.

Now, whenever Reggie managed to catch Alex’s eye, Alex would wince and look away or pointedly gaze at Luke or Bobby instead, and Reggie…

Reggie would feel like an idiot.

They barely spent any time alone together anymore, and Alex hadn’t managed more than a perfunctory peck on the lips unless Reggie reached out for him first; he’d hardly made any sort of move towards Reggie at all.

He wondered, as he curled up on the little bed they’d put together in the loft, if Alex had just grown tired of him, of them, or if he’d decided he couldn’t deal with Reggie not being over Luke yet, or if he’d just decided that they weren’t working anymore.

Reggie shivered.

He didn’t want Alex to break things off so soon after they’d decided they wanted to give things a real shot. He didn’t know how they’d gone from an easy, effortless relationship that they’d kind of tumbled into, to this… this strained connection that felt like it was seconds away from shattering if Reggie pushed too hard, too fast.

He missed the simplicity of their relationship before, missed how sure he’d been that if he reached out for Alex, that he’d find Alex reaching out for him too. Missed kissing Alex and making out with him and having sex and sleeping together—

He missed Alex.

And that was ridiculous, because Alex was right here; he hadn’t stopped spending time with him and the others, but the simple intimacy Reggie had gotten used to had vanished as if overnight, and he was afraid that he’d done something to make Alex pull away.

He heaved a sigh and let himself topple backwards into the pillows and sheets, staring up at the ceiling blankly. The band, thankfully, was doing really great—they’d gotten bigger gigs, and even a few specifically advertised as Sunset Curve that had a turnout they hadn’t quite expected, and it’d helped Reggie keep his mind off of Alex (and Luke).

Most of the time anyway.

He’d gotten really good at keeping his mind off Luke, made easier by Luke hooking up with every pretty girl—and the occasional guy—that fluttered their eyelashes at him, but he’d been so focused on Alex for so long that he didn’t know what to do with himself now that Alex wasn’t there.

“Hey man.”

Reggie startled and nearly rolled off the loft, eyes wide as he looked at Luke, who’d just appeared atop the ladder. “Jesus,” he groaned, heaving himself back to the middle of the bed. “Warn a guy, Luke.”

Luke snorted a laugh and crawled onto the bed too, kicking off his shoes and wedging himself into the narrow space beside Reggie, pressing their sides together. “Didn’t feel like going home,” he explained, nudging his shoulder against Reggie’s. “And I feel like you and I haven’t spent time together in ages.”

They really hadn’t.

Reggie had made sure of it because he couldn’t act normal around him. He kept getting lost in Luke’s eyes, kept catching himself staring at Luke’s lips while his best friend was talking, gravitating towards him even when he was trying not to—

He didn’t want Luke to pull away from him too, just because Reggie couldn’t keep himself in check.

“I guess we haven’t,” Reggie admitted quietly. “We’ve both probably been busy.”

Luke winced a little and Reggie turned his head to look at him quizzically. Luke frowned and said, “Yeah, I’m sorry, I’ve—” He heaved a sigh and shrugged. “My mom’s been putting a lot of pressure on me about college, and I just wanna focus on the band now that we’re actually getting somewhere, and it’s—it’s been a lot.” He smiled at Reggie and Reggie’s heart did some kind of funny flop in his chest.

“Right,” Reggie choked. “That sucks, man. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well,” Luke sighed. “She’s not gonna let go and neither am I, so…”

Reggie bumped their shoulders together and offered Luke a sad little smile. “Still sucks.” He wished there was something else he could say, a way he could make this easier for Luke and his mom, but he knew that this was something they’d have to work out themselves too.

This had been brewing for years, ever since they’d started the band.

Luke sighed and rolled onto his side, tucking himself close to Reggie, his nose pressed against Reggie’s neck and his arm slung around his waist, and Reggie was terrified that Luke would hear the way his heart was racing, terrified he’d realize Reggie was holding himself just a little too stiffly even as he folded his arms around Luke in return.

“You cool if I crash with you?” Luke muttered against Reggie’s skin, and Reggie shivered.

“Yeah,” he squeaked, ignoring the little flutter in the pit of his stomach at the thought of getting to spend at least eight hours pressed up against Luke like this. “Yeah, anytime.”

Luke hummed happily, and Reggie smiled stupidly up at the ceiling, relishing in the soft weight of Luke’s body as he leaned against him. Before he could second guess himself, he leaned down and pressed a kiss to the top of Luke’s head, slipping his arm around Luke’s shoulders, waiting for Luke to start talking again because he’d known him long enough to know Luke wasn’t done yet.

“She just doesn’t get it,” Luke muttered, splaying his fingers out on Reggie’s chest, absent-mindedly rubbing the fabric of Reggie’s shirt between his fingers. “She still thinks this is just… just… a hobby. A teenage obsession that I’m gonna grow out of.” Reggie swallowed thickly when Luke accidentally rubbed his fingers over Reggie’s nipple, which hardened immediately beneath the innocent touch, and briefly lost track of what Luke was telling him.

“...just so focused on college, and building a regular career and she doesn’t get that I don’t want that, and I hate that she doesn’t get it, she’s my mom, I love her, and I want her to understand—” He broke off with a barely muffled sob and buried his face against Reggie’s throat again, and all Reggie could really do was hold him and hope that Luke knew Reggie wasn’t going anywhere.

“It’ll be okay,” he whispered against the top of Luke’s head, rubbing his hands over Luke’s back and arms. “You two are gonna work this out, I know it.”

Luke was quiet for a while after that, and Reggie almost thought he’d fallen asleep when Luke whispered, “She hates everyone I date too. I can’t do anything right anymore. She hates the band, she hates whoever I date, she hates my grades, she hates that I don’t want to go to college. It’s exhausting.”

Reggie bit down on his lip, waiting for Luke to tell him more, as he tried to squash the little spark of jealousy that ignited in the pit of his stomach at the idea of Luke actually liking someone else.

“It’s just…” Luke hesitated. “I hate how tense I am every time I go home.”

Reggie swallowed and rubbed his hand through Luke’s messy hair, smiling a little when Luke groaned and then went boneless against him. “Maybe don’t bring up the actual amount of people you’re messing around with to your mom,” he suggested, taking care to infuse nonchalance and sarcasm in his tone—Luke needed Reggie to be supportive, not jealous of said aforementioned people.

“Yeah,” Luke snorted. “Like I’m bringing those up around mom. Or my dad. I know they’re okay with it, with me, just… they don’t really understand that either. I just—I want them to get me.” He unsuccessfully tried to stifle another sob by pressing his face against Reggie’s neck, and choked, “Why can’t they just get me? Why is that so much to ask?”

“I dunno, Luke,” Reggie whispered, and his heart squeezed painfully as he thought about his own parents, about his father, who had kicked him out without a second thought, about his mother who hadn’t lifted a finger to stop him, about his little sister who barely had a clue why Reggie had abandoned her. “You got me, though. And Alex. And Bobby. We get you.”

“Yeah,” Luke whispered hoarsely, tightening his fingers in Reggie’s shirt. “Thank God.”

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

MAY 1994 (WEDNESDAY)

Reggie managed to corner Alex after rehearsal when Bobby and Luke left, grabbing him by the wrist and dragging him back inside the studio. Alex, to his credit, didn’t struggle when Reggie dragged him back in, and looked at him with raised eyebrows as soon as Reggie closed the doors, almost like he was saying “well, what now?”

“You’ve been distant,” Reggie blurted, and Alex’s eyes widened minutely before he schooled his expression into a cool mask of indifference.

“No, I haven’t,” he said, but his voice went up a little higher at the end, and Reggie knew he was lying immediately. Alex, it seemed, realized that too, because he heaved a sigh, his shoulders slumping as he pushed his hands into the pocket of his hoodie. “Okay, maybe I have,” he admitted.

“Why?” Reggie demanded, pushing forward, pressing his hands to Alex’s shoulders. “I thought we were—I thought we were okay. That we were trying, you know?”

“Yeah,” Alex breathed, looking down. “Yeah, we were. Look, Reg—”

Reggie abruptly stepped back. “Are you breaking up with me?” His voice was shaking and he didn’t like how hard the idea of Alex actively wanting to stop everything between them was hitting him, even though he’d been… he’d been kind of prepared for it too.

“Reg, we’re not even really dating,” Alex said, and that—that really wasn’t what Reggie had expected.

“Oh,” Reggie choked. “We’re not?”

Alex heaved a sigh, running his hand through his hair. “Okay, look,” he said slowly. “I know I said—I know I said that we could try, that I didn’t care that you were still in love with Luke… but it—it hurts. Seeing you look at him like that when… Shit, Reggie.” He shook his head and Reggie felt vaguely nauseous. “I don’t know if I can do it anymore.”

Reggie sucked his lower lip between his teeth, chewing on it anxiously as he took a few steps back until the backs of his legs hit the couch and he sank down onto it.

“Why didn’t you just tell me that?” he asked quietly, looking up at Alex helplessly. “We promised.”

Alex heaved a sigh and then moved to sit beside Reggie. “Look… After your dad, I know we were… I know I let myself get so caught up in this, in us, and I—” He shook his head again and looked down at his hands. “Reg, I want to give us a shot, I really, really do, but I feel like you can’t do that. Not really, not while you’re in love with Luke, and I don’t want to force you to get over that. I know how hard it is, but—”

“No, hang on,” Reggie interrupted, holding a hand up. “Why do you get to decide how I feel?”

“Reg,” Alex tried, but Reggie jumped to his feet, actually a little angry at Alex for just presuming.

“No,” he said harshly. “No, you don’t get to decide who I love more—yes, I’m in love with Luke, but that doesn’t mean I don’t… that doesn’t make what you and I have any less real, Alex, I thought… I thought you knew that.”

Alex looked up at him, eyes wide and lips parted.

“Alex,” Reggie sighed, deflating. “Alex, tell me you know that.”

Alex swallowed thickly and looked down. Reggie exhaled shakily and dropped back onto the couch beside Alex, reaching out to put a hand on his thigh. “Alex,” he said quietly, rubbing his thumb over Alex’s thigh soothingly. “What’s really going on?”

“I got you kicked out of your house,” Alex blurted, and Reggie blinked. Of all the things he’d expected Alex to say, that hadn’t been one.

“What?” he whispered.

“You were kicked out because you were with me,” Alex said again, a little wildly, “and I know how hard it’s been on you, not being able to see Maggie, and—” He looked down and exhaled shakily before he took Reggie’s hand and entwined their fingers. “Reg, I don’t want you to resent me.”

Reggie blinked again.

“Why would—Alex,” he shook his head and turned, curling one leg up and underneath him so he was facing Alex directly. “Look at me,” he told Alex, squeezing his hand hard when Alex didn’t comply. “Alex, look at me.” Alex heaved a sigh, but did as Reggie asked and mirrored his position.

Reggie smiled tremulously and reached out, touching Alex’s cheek lightly. “I need you to listen, because you’re being a massive, massive dumbass, and that’s coming from me.” Alex grinned despite himself and Reggie smiled back. “I am never going to blame you for what my dad did. You took care of me after, when I was a mess, when I could barely even remember how to breathe, you made sure I was somewhere safe, you—” Reggie leaned in and pressed a brief, hard kiss against Alex’s lips. “Nothing that happened was your fault.”

He smirked when Alex chased after his lips when he pulled away, but didn’t give in and lean back in right away. “I meant it,” he said quietly, leaning their foreheads together. “I meant it when I said I wanted to try. And I’m not over Luke, and I know that’s hard for you, and I’m sorry. But I’m trying. I’m trying.”

Alex nodded shakily. “Okay. I’m sorry, I—it’s okay. I wanna try to.”

“Yeah?” Reggie whispered.

“Yeah,” Alex smiled, before fitting his hand around the back of Reggie’s neck and pulling him in for another kiss, deeper and hungrier than the first. It was easy, to let loose and lose himself in Alex’s eager touch and the slide of their lips, easy to let Alex draw him closer, so close Reggie was practically in his lap, fingers curled in Alex’s hair and the drummer’s firm hands in his hair and on his waist.

Reggie rolled his hips against Alex’s and Alex moaned against his lips, a deep, wanton sound that abruptly reminded him that they were on the couch in the studio and that the garage door didn’t lock.

Slowly, he leaned back, barely able to bite back a groan as Alex tightened his hold on him, digging his teeth into Reggie’s lower lip and his fingers into the back of his neck.

“Slow down,” he chuckled. “I just don’t want to do this on the couch.”

Alex pouted, but conceded the point wordlessly, and Reggie grinned, pressing a single, lingering kiss to Alex’s lips before disentangling their limbs and getting to his feet. “Come on then,” he smiled, offering Alex his hand to pull him up from the couch. “We got a perfectly good bed up there.”

“Good,” Alex hummed, letting Reggie pull him to his feet and slipping his arms around him. “I got plans.” He pressed a kiss to Reggie’s lips. “I’ve missed you.”

Reggie grinned and took Alex’s hand again, their fingers slotting together neatly.

“Me too, ‘Lex. Me too.”

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

READ IT HERE:

Start from the beginning:

Becoming a Memory, Becoming a Treasure:

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

Unfinished Business:

(1) (2) (3)

Or read it HERE (BaMBaT) or HERE (UB) on AO3 :D

#Alex #Reggie #jatp #Luke patterson #ruke #Alex/reggie #Julie and the phantoms #Julie and the himbos #bambat #unfinished business

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avengersobsession · 4 years

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SPOILERS FOR STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER.

...

TROS.

Four weeks later. Anybody still care what I think?

Okay, anything I think needs to be tempered by this: I went in spoiled. For just about everything. Not intending to, but I saw the biggest spoiler accidentally (KR dies) and I couldn’t deal with any ambiguity on that one, so I hunted down every spoiler hint available to see if that was true. And I disliked almost everything I heard—Palpatine’s return, Rey Palpatine, Ben’s death, very little Rose. I was so, so, so prepared to hate everything (except the promise of Reylo and a Reylo kiss—take what we can get). I went into the theater thinking, “Ugh. Let’s get this over with.”

Fellow Reylos, I loved it. Maybe that was because I was spoiled? I maintain and will maintain that Palpatine’s return was dumb. I also maintain Palpatine lied. But my attitude to all the things I didn’t like was, “Well, if they were gonna do this...they did it as well as it could be done.”

Dumb: Palpatine’s return. Reality: Opening with Kylo Ren stalking across the system to confront the old geezer, cutting through everything in his path like a cold joyless bastard? Saying, “Fuck nosferatu here, imma go get Rey and overthrow this guy and rule the galaxy with her”? Ohhhh yeahhhhh.

Dumb: Retconning Leia as a Jedi at this late date. Reality: Leia being a Jedi Master, training Rey, having her own lightsaber? OHHHH YEAHHHH. I’ve been wanting Jedi Leia since Empire.

Dumb: Going after a MacGuffen as a main plot (again). Reality: A fast-paced multi-world quest featuring Rey/Finn/Poe with funny snarking (“You were a spice runner?” “You were a stormtrooper?” “Oh, we gonna do this now?”), Chewie as a true companion at risk, Lando’s return, Rey cooing over babies, Kylo showing up here and there through the force bond to freak out and interrogate Rey, funky hidden sand caverns, Rey healing scary space snakes...guys, this was all levels of OH YEAH for me. It was fun, it was exciting...it felt right for Star Wars, what can I say?

Dumb: Shafting Rose. Reality: ...there was so much going on already! You couldn’t fit any more people on the Falcon without it turning into...look, there’s a MST3K episode of the movie Lost Continent where the party of 6-7 prepares to head out on the expedition. “Are we ready?” “I’m good!” “Can’t wait to get out there.” “Yeah, let’s go.” And JoelandBots riff, “Everybody get a line?” That’s what it would have turned into. I wish there had been more time for her but I also recognize her major story arc was completed last movie. She was not treated disrespectfully here but there just wasn’t enough time. (Us MCU Hawkeye fans are all looking at Rose Tico fans saying, “what are you, new?”)

Dumb: Rey Palpatine. Reality: STILL DUMB. I’ll say more later.

Dumb: Hux: “I’m the spy.” Reality, still dumb, but his “I don’t care who wins, I just need Kylo Ren to lose,” is pure Kylux subtext. Bitter exes, so sexay.

Dumb: Ben dyi— okay, wait. Not dumb. A very real potential outcome for this story. Honestly, I never thought JJ Abrams meant Kylo to live after he became a patricide. I DIDN’T WANT THAT THOUGH. I wanted Reylo and Reylo wedding dress and Reylo babies on parents’ hips and gahhhhhhh. And yet? This is not a bad death if there had to be death. Unredeemed Kylo Ren = bad death. Stray blaster because sometimes people just die for no reason = bad death. Redeemed Ben who is tried and executed = bad death. But this is a narratively understandable death. Fuck, it would have been really, really hard to have happily ever after with the war criminal/patricide/genocide First Order leader, wouldn’t it’ve? This is the guy who cost the deaths of his father, his uncle, and his mother just to SLOW HIM DOWN, migod. They could have worked around it, yes. As my S.O. says, “there was never gonna be Poe-Finn-Rey-Ben poker night, ‘k?”, but we could have had Ben and Rey go off together, create a new Jedi training temple and never mention the name Kylo Ren again. It. Would. Have. Been. So. Beautiful. But he was redeemed, he was Ben again, he was lovely, he was brokenhearted, he gave his life to save the Jedi Rey who was the woman he loved. AND HE SMILED AND WAS GLAD TO GIVE IT. Oh, my heart. Reylo 4evah.

Okay, the good that was not dumb at all:

-Who said this was paced badly? It was so exciting! What did you want, sitting on couches? There’s a reason the prequels are all but disavowed.

-KYLO STALKER-CHASING REY. Ah ha ha. Oh. Oh my god, every beautiful horrible line of his. “The next time I see you, you will take my hand.” “The only way you’re getting to Exegol is with me.” TAKING THE NECKLACE omigod that was the sexiest moment in the whole goddamn series. I was so expecting him to say, “I’m a NICE GUY, why don’t you want me?” next, ah ha ha. Really, it was just so characteristic of the post-rejected TLJ Kylo that absolutely had to be. He had tried being nice, no, really—“You’re nothing. But not to me.” Ah ha ha, oh, KYLO, you beautiful idiot piece of trash.—now he’s going to turn the screws. And Rey, going for the lightsaber every time to make it a fight because she doesn’t want to talk to his stupid stalker ass. It. Was. Perfect.

-C3P0 not being a prick! He was prissy and annoying and actually funny this time around, but he put away the everpresent dickishness this time. Wow. Best Threepio since...ever, maybe.

-Doing what they could with Leia. I have craved Jedi Leia forever so I’m forgiving what should have actually felt like “too little too late.” And I’m never going to get over her achingly lovely embrace with Rey.

-Han. Han. Han. I don’t even love Han nearly as much as Luke and Leia and I’m still enraptured with this moment. Does everybody get that in TFA, Han walked out on that bridge with his son knowing he was very possibly going to his death? At the hands of his own son? That when Kylo said, “I don’t know if I have the strength to do what I need to,” Han fucking knew that he was warring, that what he wanted to do was kill his father so that he would have committed an act so heinous he could never never go back to the light? That Han knew that? And gave him his life willingly because he was ready to take that chance Kylo would not do it, but also that in killing him it might haunt Kylo and help him turn back later? Han is not an idiot. And he’s that much of a loving father. So when we got to the echo of “...to do what I need to,” it was that turning point that Kylo was at last feeling. YAYYYYY.

-New characters. I liked them! They were engaging and had intriguing presence.

-Rey Skywalker. Okay, some of you hate this. But I’m more than fine with it. The Skywalkers have been the most important people in her life: mother, father, soulmate. Why shouldn’t she claim it and refuse to let the line end with the dead? Though I would have been equally happy with, “Just Rey.”

-Force dyad. You know what that means? That means in TFA when Kylo says, “What girl?” it is subtextually possible that he already knows what girl—the dyad part of him he’s always felt. Ooooooooooooooooh.

-Passing the saber via forcebond. God, I wish I hadn’t been spoiled for that one.

And now, it’s time for:

(Note. I’m not telling you it IS this way. I’m telling you this is my headcanon and I’m sticking to it.)

-So Palpatine’s alive, sort of. In him are the spirits of ten thousand Sith or whatever, which he can wield, but he’s still a walking corpse.

-He’d prefer to possess the body of a great force-user but they’d have to allow it, ritually. Kylo Ren would be good for this, but he could also be a useful ally. Meantime the Jedi Rey presents a threat. Kill her, she’s out of the picture, good enough. He could have her body to possess if he turns her, though.

-So if Kylo Ren finds him, he’ll make an ally of him and tell him to kill Rey.

-If Rey finds him, though, he’ll convince her to turn. How? Rey doesn’t want power. He’ll give her the one unshakeable thing she wants. A family. A lineage. A destiny.

-His “I don’t want to kill you, I want you to kill me,” “you are my granddaughter,” lines are just that: lines. He shows his true colors later when he snarls, “a worthless scavenger cannot inherit the dark side.”

Liar, liar, Mustafar on fire. Her parents were filthy junk traders. Rey of Jakku. Rey Nobody. Rey Skywalker because she adopts it. There’s my truth. Pbbbbbthhtttpbbthhht.

#reylo #sw tros #tros #star wars spoilers #star wars #bendemption #kylux #palpatine lied

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helbertinelli · 3 years

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i agree on the ahsoka thing. TCW have hyped her up so much, they basically made her the reason for anakin‘s downfall. even though her character didn’t even exist in the prequels or originals.i like ahsoka as well but i do think she got way to much screentime and that they nade her way more lmportanr than she had to be. this isn’t her story.i don‘t mind that anakin had a padawan, even though for me it never really made sense that the council gave him one. especially since they knew he struggled with attachment and they didn’t trust him all that much. but i can tell that they pushed padme aside to make room for ahsoka and that just isn’t right. the most important thing for anakin is and always will be padme (and his children).disney i going to hype up ahsoka once again because of her own show. I want to be excited for the kenobi show and for ewan and hayden. but disney will screw this up. everything will be about fanservice and not the actual story and facts, just like TCW, which basically became the ahsoka show, especially in season 7.

TCW was mostly about Ahsoka’s journey though with the war happening around it though and I didn’t mind that. Disney could never truly capture The Clone Wars as it was presented in the 2003 series or in comics, because they want their material to be extremely kid-friendly. I don’t mind the Clone Wars cartoon being about Ahsoka. I liked her in the show and they did a good job to develop her. I liked that Anakin got to have an apprentice and I liked that she became independent from him.

I don’t think they made Ahsoka the reason for Anakin’s downfall, but it was weird to me that Vader is mad at Ahsoka in Rebels (I haven’t finished the show completely, I’m on season 3) that she left him... because why would that matter? It wouldn’t have changed a single thing if Ahsoka would have stayed. I think it was in the novel for ROTS where they say something like it was an easy decision for Anakin when he weighed the entire Jedi Order against the life of Padme. So Ahsoka staying with the Order wouldn’t have changed anything for him. He would have had to kill her too along with the others or have her escape because, for him, the decision was always easy. It was always more important for him to save Padme than to not kill the entire Jedi Order. That’s what I don’t like and understand, because Vader accusing Ahsoka of leaving him is implying that Ahsoka was way more important to him than she was. Based on what we know about Anakin, if there was a ranking of the important people in Anakin’s life (who were alive at the time) it would be 1. Padme, 2. Obi-Wan, 3. Ahsoka. So really, Ahsoka staying with the order or leaving the order, wouldn’t have affected Anakin in the end at all.

One thing I disliked about TCW is that having Anakin always with Ahsoka kinda made it seem like his relationship with Obi-Wan wasn’t that important anymore, and that his relationship with Padme wasn’t that important anymore. Like I know the show wasn’t about Obi-Wan or Padme or even Anakin, but it kinda gave me the vibes that to Anakin, Ahsoka is way more important than Obi-Wan. And of course Padme was sidelined because she’s not a Jedi and this doesn’t really bother me that much. The only thing that bothers me is that they kinda tried to make it seem like Ahsoka is the only one who could have saved Anakin and that she was everything and after she left the order his life fell apart.

I liked Ahsoka in TCW a lot and I found her cool in some parts of Rebels too (although it was weird that Vader accuses her of leaving and it was weird that she was basically on par with Vader’s skills when they fought at the Sith Temple) but I think Disney is like trying to cash-in on her too much and they’ll ruin her. She doesn’t need to be in everything, but it seems like that is the norm right now. I’m worried about her getting her own series too because I know they’ll ruin a lot of stuff (that might have already been established) about Anakin and Vader and who knows what else.

#anonymous #ask #Anonymous

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dyadsaber · 4 years

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A New Reylo Shipper Reads the TFA Novelization Part 4: In Which I Refuse to Believe that the Han and Leia I’ve Known Since I was Eight are That Awful at Parenting or Relationships, and I Have Feelings About a Scene With Rey in a Chair

Full disclosure: I am an old fan. I saw Star Wars for the first time in 1989 because my mom took me to see Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in theaters, I thought Indy was the Best Thing Ever, and mom decided I was old enough for Star Wars, too. I was 8. I saw Phantom Menace in theaters the month before I graduated from high school. So I’ve had ideas about what Han and Leia are like as people for the vast majority of my life.

I have spent a lot of time and mental energy trying to wrap my brain around the way that Han and Leia and Luke act and make choices in the sequel trilogy so that I can enjoy the things that I actually LIKE about the sequels. (And I like a lot, or I wouldn’t have a Reylo blog or be writing about this novelization.) Some of it, I can come up with explanations for. They are sad explanations, but I can get my brain to buy them instead of screaming THIS PERSON WOULD NOT DO THAT. But the way that this novelization was going to have Han and Leia talk about Ben’s fall to the Dark Side in the scene where they meet up again is NOT ONE OF THEM.

OH YE GODS THIS MAKES ME SO ANGRY. (I’m going to swear a lot below…)

When Han and Leia see each other again, we find out how long it’s been since they’ve seen each other…

Husband and wife stood regarding each other for the first time in years.

YEARS? Really? My first question when I read this was, how many years? Apparently, various supplemental timelines reveal it has supposedly only been seven years since Ben turned to the Dark Side and Luke’s temple was destroyed, which means Ben was, what, twenty three when shit went down? I have issues with this as well. All of the other clues we’re given point to him being younger. This is a glaring example of “no one cared about these characters as much as the fans did and so people weren’t careful with the timeline.”

Getting back to the issue of Han and Leia not seeing each other for… an unspecified at this point number of years, I get that what happened was traumatic. I get that it probably took a toll on their relationship, but having Han just say “screw it” and fuck off with Chewie, and Leia just… keep on keeping on has always smacked of lazy writing to me. It feels like Abrams didn’t want to have to DEAL with the messy questions about how Han and Leia would be with each other if they had STAYED TOGETHER and dealt, sometimes well, sometimes poorly, with the loss of their son. So he was just like, “NOPE THEY SPLIT UP ISN’T IT SAD?” And it IS SAD, but the Han who CAME BACK even when there was no reward in it for him, whose last words before being FROZEN IN CARBONITE were “I LOVE YOU,” and the Leia who WALKED INTO JABBA’S PALACE TO GET HIM BACK would not be like this. I can see them trying to work through their grief together, and then Han just needing to get away for a while, or them agreeing to focus their efforts on finding their son and turn him back in the areas where they each most likely to have an effect, BUT NO. They just… split, and we don’t even get a lot of backstory about exactly how that went so we can understand the emotional arc for these characters. DUMB. I CALL BULLSHIT.

And speaking of HORSESHIT CHARACTER ASSASSINATIONS…. Here’s some extra stuff Han says that wasn’t on screen.

“He’s gone, Leia. He was always drawn to the dark side. There was nothing we could’ve done to stop it, no matter how hard we tried.”

This is longer than what he says on screen. His line here in the film is “We lost our son. Forever.” And the longer version pisses me off SO MUCH. How would HAN know he was always drawn to the Dark Side, unless Luke and Leia were TELLING HIM that’s what was happening? (Possible, but this doesn’t read like Han reminding Leia of things she told him already, and I don’t like what that theory says about Luke and Leia making Han afraid of his own kid.)

I know on-screen Han says something about “even Luke couldn’t help him,” the stuff about THERE IS NOTHING WE COULD HAVE DONE just makes me FURIOUS. Is this supposed to be COMFORTING to Leia? Like, “Well, we did our best and it’s not our fault he turned because that was always gonna happen”? WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK. Han is not that much of a fatalist. He tries to tell himself that Ben is gone for good NOW, which is understandable, but “there’s NOTHING WE COULD HAVE DONE IT WAS ALWAYS HOPELESS?” No. Get out of my house if you’re talking that level of shit about Han.

And then there’s THIS CRAP ABOUT LEIA, AND I’M GONNA BLOW A GASKET LOOKING AT ALL OF THIS AGAIN.

So, when Leia says “it was Snoke” in the film, Han doesn’t react much, and to me, that scene on screen reads like Leia is reminding Han of something they both already know, but in the novel, she apparently… just… never mentioned Snoke to Han, and she KNEW ABOUT HIM ALL ALONG?

“Snoke?” She nodded. “He knew our child would be strong with the Force. That he was born with equal potential for good or evil.” “You knew this from the beginning? Why didn’t you tell me?” She sighed. “Many reasons. I was hoping that I was wrong, that it wasn’t true. I hoped I could sway him, turn him away from the dark side, without having to involve you.” A small smile appeared. “You had—you have—wonderful qualities, Han, but patience and understanding were never among them. I was afraid that your reactions would only drive him farther to the dark side. I thought I could shield him from Snoke’s influence and you from what was happening.” Her voice dropped. “It’s clear now that I was wrong. Whether your involvement would have made a difference, we’ll never know.”

So you are telling me that LEIA FUCKING ORGANA had a CHILD with a man (and married him? Are the new canon ones even married? Does it even matter? IT DOES TO ME.) and then hid a REALLY IMPORTANT FACT ABOUT THEIR SON from that man because she thought… Han was too impatient? And she thought he wouldn’t be able to handle it and would make it worse? And so she just… hid it from both of them and tried to deal with it on her own? The more I think about this, the angrier it makes me.

One of the things I love about Star Wars is how much we get to see characters leaning on each other, both physically and metaphorically, and being part of a team that supports each other. It’s one of the reasons I hate the way that the sequels separate people and have characters that have spent their whole arcs looking for connection ending up on screen alone at the end. (I know Rey’s not staying on Tattooine, but the fact that the last time we see her, she’s by herself was a choice that makes me mad.) ANYWAY… The idea of Leia deciding she has to struggle with this BY HERSELF (and maybe with Luke? Who even knows?) and ON PURPOSE cutting Han out of the loop entirely is just… stunningly out of character. It’s another one of those writing decisions that makes for good angst and terrible characterization if you know ANYTHING about Leia, in my opinion.

And I refuse to believe that this next line is anything other than a need for this information to be gotten across to the audience in an extra clear way. This is Han’s response to all of the above, I think.

He had trouble believing what he was hearing. “So Snoke was watching our son.”

So this confirms it. THIS is DEFINITELY the first time Leia even MENTIONS Snoke manipulating their kid to Han. The implication here is that after Ben turned, Leia let Han roam around the galaxy for seven years, BY HIMSELF, NOT KNOWING THAT THEIR KID HAD BEEN FUCKED WITH BY AN EVIL DESSICATED PICKLE? SHE LET HIM KEEP THINKING THAT BEN’S TURN WAS JUST BECAUSE THERE WAS SOMETHING INNATELY WRONG WITH BEN AND NOTHING MORE? DUMB. Canon not accepted.

I need to go watch this scene in TFA, with all of its flaws, to cleanse my brain of this stupidity.

Oh… one last thing that is not nearly so rage inducing, but gets to one of the things that annoys me about the prequels. (This is a little later when Han is leaving.)

He put his hands on her shoulders, and thirty years fell away in an instant. “Leia, there’s something I’ve been wanting to say to you for a long time.” Fighting to hold back tears, she put a finger to his lips. “Tell me when you get back.”

On the one hand this is kind of sweet, but on the other LET HAN SAY I LOVE YOU, ABRAMS YOU TEASE. Let Leia say “I know.” You LOVE cheap callbacks to the original trilogy, and this wouldn’t have even been a cheap callback because it would have made sense for the moment and the characters. I would have bought it. I would have paid a high price for it. I’m tired of characters not telling each other things (FINN IN THE LAST MOVIE OMG). I know it’s a way to up the tension, but it just reads as lazy writing here to me, especially now that I know that this is the last time we get to see them speak to each other, and there’s really no REASON she shouldn’t let him say it.

And now… some feelings about Rey in a chair.

First, let’s get this out of the way… What Kylo Ren does here is NOT GOOD. Like, “this made me remember all the reasons I was so resistant to shipping them” levels of not good. But then I remembered that I’ve been fangirling over REALLY TERRIBLE PEOPLE since Jason Isaacs stepped on screen in The Patriot in theaters (Go look it up. I’m really old, ok?), and I ship pairings that hurt each other WAY more permanently than Rey and Ben do, and I got over my misgivings. (Half of one of my OTPs canonically killed the other half in a fit of anger, and she STAYED DEAD. I still ship them because this was a stupid writing decision.)

What I think is so eerily fascinating about this whole scene, both on the page and on screen, is how… weirdly direct and honest Kylo is the whole time. And it’s not just honesty (but I’m going to scream about that a lot), it’s… how careful (for him) he is with her.

So I knew this was going to be a ride of a scene when the very first time he talks from Rey’s PoV, we get…

“In Kylo Ren’s voice there was unexpected gentleness.”

Was it also understanding and tall? (That will never stop being funny to me… sorry.)

And THEN, when she asks about her friends, he’s like (paraphrasing here) “Well I COULD tell you they all died…”

“But I would prefer to be honest with you from the beginning. You will be relieved to hear that as far as their current status and well-being is concerned—I have no idea.”

This matters a lot to me. And it solidified my belief that he THOUGHT he was telling her the truth about her parents in TLJ when he said they were “nothing” and that they abandoned her. He MUST have been acting on an incorrect assumption that he arrogantly assumed was true because, that this is the important bit, he never knowingly lies to her... I really wish that honesty line had made it into the film.

And the fact that he thinks RIGHT FROM THE BEGINNING that this is going to be the beginning of an ongoing relationship where he would even CARE about establishing trust… just makes me laugh at the presumption on his part, but also makes me want to be like, “Ok, so you’re kind of right but also hilariously wrong because this is NOT GOING TO GO HOW YOU THINK.” Mostly I just enjoy simmering in the dramatic irony of it all.

And then he takes his mask off because Rey called him a creature in a mask, and that probably hurt his feelings or something.

“In itself the narrow face that looked back at her was not remarkable. It was almost sensitive.”

And this is where I became even more convinced that… maybe casting hadn’t happened for all the parts yet? But ADF had descriptions of types they were looking for? Because if there’s one thing that Adam’s face is pretty much ALL THE TIME, it’s sensitive (and holy crud expressive). No almost.

Also, if Adam had been cast, this bit:

“If not for the intensity of his gaze, Ren could have passed for someone she might have met on the dust streets of Niima Outpost.”

Would have read more like: “If not for the intensity of his gaze, his ridiculously good looking hair that probably took a whole team of stylist droids to maintain, and the fact that he was tall as a tauntaun, he might have passed for someone on the street.” But I digress.

So this next line of his is from a really awful moment that should not have made me smile. But… he’s not even angry, here. He’s just exasperated, and that fight on the Death Star they have in TRoS made this extra amusing. (Not that anyone who’s read this far is going to be on my case about this, but I know how problematic that line is! I know how problematic this whole scene is! Not an uncritical consumer of media here, just having fun reading with a shippy lens!)

When she maintained her silence, he almost sighed. “I can take whatever I want.”

The old " Well, I guess we're doing this the hard way" sigh. I can SEE IT.

And then, one of those unique to the novel lines that I somehow didn’t know about before reading the book that just STOPPED ME IN MY TRACKS when I got to it.

“I would have preferred to avoid this. Despite what you may believe, it gives me no pleasure. I will go as easily as possible—but I will take what I need.”

HOW DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS. I mean on the one hand, have a “not as much of a jerk as you could have been” gold star, but on the other hand, for KYLO “I HAVE A TEMPER AND GET WHAT I WANT REN” to have the intention to tread carefully with her and to CARE enough about what she thinks about him that he SAYS IT? WOW.

Thank you for coming to my talk, “Kylo Ren ALWAYS Cares What Rey Thinks of Him: A Thesis Presentation by Me”

So he tries to get into her brain again, and we get this: (I can’t tell whose PoV this supposed to be from. It’s Rey all around this point, but it doesn’t make sense that it would be her here, and ADF can’t hold a consistent point of view in this novel to save his life, so… it makes more sense to me that it’s Kylo’s PoV.)

“And hesitated. What was that? Something there. Something unexpected.”

Loneliness would not be unexpected. He wouldn’t be surprised by that. It makes sense that the original intent was this is Kylo sensing her ability to use the Force, but if there was ANY pre-planning of the bond at all, this would have been a moment where he’d be able to sense it. (I now want to be directed to any and all articles of behind the scenes discussion of the bond and who first decided it was going to be A Thing. Was that just Rian Johnson?) No matter what happened from a Doylist perspective here, what happened from the Watsonian perspective is that Kylo went fishing in his other half’s mind and stepped right into their one-in-a-million connection in the Force and was like, “WHAT IS THIS???”

So we’re going to skip over the part of Rey crying because that does terrible things to my soul that I don’t have words for. (I may ship Reylo now, but I loved Rey on her own from the second she stepped on screen in theaters.)

This moment, though… this is so telling.

“Rey—you’ve seen the map. It’s in there. And I am going to take it. Don’t be afraid.”

Geez this is so him. Frustratingly so. I see why they cut it for the flow of the scene and to make him scarier but WOW. “I’m going to do what I want, but YOU DON’T NEED TO BE AFRAID. Here let me comb through all of your insecurities and worst memories AGAINST YOUR WILL while you’re strapped to a table, ok? WHY ARE YOU SCARED?”

Honestly, the fact that he even thinks for a second that “don’t be afraid” is going to be AT ALL HELPFUL OR EFFECTIVE in this situation just goes to show how… weirdly out touch with normal people he is. (“Ben Solo Learns How to Be a Person and Not Something Out of Nightmare” is a fic trope I will read and write forever.)

Then there’s that “SOMETHING” again…

‘Ah, he thought to himself. Something there, of interest. Not the image of the map. That would take another moment. But definitely something worth investigating.”

WHAT IS THIS? It would be easy to say, “He’s just sensing her Force capabilities, or the bond,” again, but we’ve already seen him have that reaction. This reads like he’s specifically sensing another MEMORY, but we don’t ever get what it WAS before she pushes back. (Probably reading too much into this, but OF COURSE I AM. I’ve written seventeen pages of reaction to this nonsense so far, and I show no signs of stopping.) Anyone want to put forward wildly speculative theories as to what it was? I’ll start: He’s very specifically sensing her memory of Ben falling to the Dark from TRoKR, and it’s drawing his attention because it’s a memory of HIM.

And now for Round 1 of “Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better.” Rey pushes back and finds herself in Kylo’s mind.

A look of amazement replaced the fear on Rey’s face as she discovered herself inside his mind. Stunned at the realization, she found herself inexorably drawn to—to… “You,” she heard herself saying clearly, “you’re afraid.”

DRAWN TO WHAT, ADF? To his vulnerabilities? To the place in his mind that correlates to the place in hers that he went poking at? I mean, that makes sense, an it would be instance #1 of Rey replicating what Kylo did because… he’s the example of Force use she’s GOT at this point, and it makes sense that she would be unconsciously doing what he did. (So really… he accidentally taught her a lot… just saying.)

And finally, just kind of love this description of caught-flat-footed Kylo Ren:

“In the corridor, a stunned Ren found that he was breathing hard. That in itself was unsettling. He did not know what had just transpired in the holding cell and, not knowing, was left uncertain how to proceed.”

She… raised my breathing rate? I’m???? Having??? A??? Feeling????? Or wait have I been having a feeling this WHOLE TIME AND SHE JUST POKED IT???? WHAT IS GOING ON??? What do I DOOOOOO????? Oh good a stormtrooper needs to talk to me. Time to NOT THINK ABOUT ANY OF WHAT JUST HAPPENED FOR AS LONG AS POSSIBLE.

Rey clearly had the one brain cell the dyad shares between them for this scene, and for a long time after.

That was WAY longer than I meant it to be, but… thanks for reading! I’d love to know what people think. I feel like I walked into a party late and want to talk about ALL THE THINGS people were screaming at five years ago.

#reylo #dyadsaber text posts #tfa novelization #the force awakens novelization

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perspective-series · 5 years

Text

Exposed Perspective (10)

By: @arc852 and @hiddendreamer67

Warnings: Slight fear, and talk of erasing memories

THIS IS THE THIRD STORY IN A TRILOGY. READ “A Third Perspective” AND “Switched Perspectives” FOR THIS TO MAKE SENSE!

(Check the reblog for the links to the previous chapters and the TWO prequels!)

———————————————————————————————

Virgil woke up the next morning, bright and early. He grabbed the bag he had packed the night before, a small bag that didn’t have much in it. He then climbed out of his room and sent one last look down at it. He sighed. He would miss his home but at least he didn’t have to leave his friends behind.

Speaking of, he heard a bit of shuffling in Logan’s room and waited patiently in the hall, near the wall, for Logan to come out.

“Good morning, Virgil.” Logan greeted, hiding a yawn behind one hand as he emerged, having not slept long. Logan knelt down, offering Virgil a hand. “Breakfast?”

“Sounds great,” Virgil said, climbing onto the offered hand.

Logan stood up, stepping carefully over the hole in the floorboards. His landlord wouldn’t thank him for that, but at this point, it felt as though trying to repair it himself would just be foolhardy. Logan made his way to the kitchen, setting Virgil down on the counter.

“Coffee?” Logan offered, already starting up the pot.

Virgil tilted his head, looking at the strange thing Logan was setting up. Of course, he had seen it many times before but never when it was on. He had no idea what it did or what coffee even was. “What’s coffee?”

“Oh, right.” Sometimes Logan forgot just how different Virgil was from himself. “Well, it’s a caffeinated beverage that can provide energy to the drinker. Quite addicting, but very useful for staying awake.”

“Oh, then um, yeah, I guess I’ll try it,” Virgil said with a shrug. He could use the extra energy for the move.

Logan nodded, popping in some toast as well for a more filling breakfast. Once the pot beeped, Logan took it out and poured a mug for himself, setting it down next to Virgil so that the borrower could get some as well.

Virgil took out his tinfoil cup and scooped a bit out. He blew on it before taking a taste. The bitterness was unlike anything he had ever tasted before and it was almost too much. But Virgil found that he almost sort of liked it? Kind of? “It’s...interesting.”

“It’s bitter, but it’s more for a specific function than necessary pleasure.” Logan lifted the mug to his lips, taking a sip of his own. The toaster dinged, and Logan put the two pieces of toast on a plate. He pulled a jar of crofter’s jam from the fridge, beginning to spread it on one slice. “Do you want jam on yours? Or another condiment?”

“Jam’s fine,” Virgil said, taking another sip of the coffee. He was already starting to get used to is. And he could feel himself being more awake than before. Weird, but cool.

Logan put Jam on the second slice as well, taking his own piece in hand before sliding the whole plate closer to Virgil.

“I found a few possibilities for a new residency,” Logan explained, taking a bite. “I suggested to Roman via text the four of us go scope them out today.”

Virgil nodded as he ripped a piece of toast off and took a bite. He hummed at the flavor of the jam. No wonder Logan liked it so much.

“...I wish we didn’t have to do this.” He said after a few moments of silence.

Logan glanced at his smaller companion, then at the apartment around them. “It certainly is not ideal.” Logan agreed quietly. “But, certainly preferable to any other outcomes.”

“I can agree with you on that,” Virgil said, taking another bite of his food. He wanted to be as far away from Dee and any other humans that now knew about him.

“How are you feeling, by the way?” Logan asked, having never fully gotten a rundown of Virgil’s injuries. He certainly looked different, if only due to his new haircut.

Feeling Logan’s eyes on it, he ran a hand through his hair. “I’m fine. I didn’t get much other than this haircut and a few bruises from his grip.” Virgil shivered as he remembered being wrapped in those fingers. “I think Patton got it worse. Dee...Dee seemed to take a lot of blood out of him.” Virgil couldn’t help but feel guilty about that since it should have been him that had blood drawn from.

“I see.” Logan frowned, noting this in the back of his brain. He would have to help keep an eye on Patton for any abnormal behavior and suggest methods to ease Patton’s recovery.

As Logan pondered this, there was a knocking at the front door.

Virgil snapped his head over to the door. “You think that’s Roman and Patton or…?” Virgil bit his lip, worried that it could be Dee or another human looking for them.

“I’m not sure.” Logan set his mug on the counter, approaching the door cautiously. He peeked through the peephole, eyes widening when he saw an unfamiliar figure. Turning back to the kitchen, Logan gave a motion for Virgil to hide.

Virgil tensed and quickly hid behind the coffee pot, heart racing. He barely dared to breathe as he listened.

“Can I help you?” Logan asked, quite on edge and barely opening the door. With the door open, Logan could see there was actually three individuals on his doorstep. One was Thomas, who looked almost as confused as himself. The next was a suited individual with colorful hair, standing to Thomas’ right. The final individual was right in front of Logan, wearing a bright orange beanie and the same suit as the other.

“The name’s Joan, Special Victims Unit Officer.” The individual leaned closer, grinning and sticking out their hand. “Hi, how ya doin’?”

Logan slowly reached out his own hand. “Logan Sanders.”

“Oh, we know who you are.” Joan shook his hand eagerly. “You’re harboring a borrower, aren’t ‘cha?”

Virgil tensed, shaking as the unfamiliar voice confirmed they knew he was there. And did he say something about an officer? Had Virgil been right? Had the government gotten involved and was looking for them? Virgil felt panic start to seize at his heart and mind.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Logan quickly pulled his hand back, ready to shut the door, but Thomas’ voice stopped him.

“They saw the tapes, Logan.” Thomas shifted on his feet. “I...I think they’re here to help.”

“What?” Logan frowned.

“We’re a very special Special Victims Task unit,” Joan explained. “We deal with any crimes involving borrowers.”

“Including covering up whenever someone screws up and tries to expose them to the world.” The other suited member finally spoke up.

“Oh, that’s Talyn by the way,” Joan explained, pointing to their partner who gave a wave.

“I think we can trust them.” Thomas insisted.

“I like this guy, he gets it.” Joan nodded, jabbing a thumb at Thomas.

“How do I know this isn’t some elaborate ruse?” Logan squinted at them.

“Well, if we really wanted to get in there, we could just wipe your memory and push right past.” Talyn got closer, standing on their tiptoes to look Logan in the eye. “But we’re trying to be civil here, so do the right thing and let us in.”

Virgil shook as he fell to a seated position up against the pot. He didn’t care if they were here to ‘help’ or not, he didn’t want any other humans around him. But he had a feeling this encounter was going to happen whether he liked it or not.

“Wiping a memory is not actually possible,” Logan observed. Talyn frowned at him, pulling out some sort of rod and holding it in front of his face.

“Wanna bet?” They threatened.

“Okay, let’s not do that,” Joan advised, pushing the rod back down. “Not at least until we’ve found Virgil.” Joan now pushed back Logan, into the apartment. Talyn walked inside with a glare at Logan, and Thomas followed.

“They came to my apartment first,” Thomas explained. “They asked where you guys were.”

“And why did you tell them?” Logan spoke out of the corner of his mouth, looking peeved.

“I couldn’t lie to a federal officer!” Thomas insisted. “Besides, I really think they can help us. They’re the ones that took down Remy’s video.”

“...what?” Logan looked at the agents in a new light.

“Yup, that was my doing.” Talyn looked proud of themselves.

Joan cupped their hands around their mouth. “Virgil! Where are ya, buddy?”

They knew his name?! Like hell Virgil was going to come out to their calling. He stayed where he was, hoping Logan or even Thomas would get to him first. Anyone but these other humans.

“...he’s in the kitchen,” Logan admitted, and immediately Talyn whirled on him.

“How dare you.” Talyn hissed. “What, you think you can help us just because you’re human?”

“I, ah, yes?” Logan took a step back, thoroughly confused.

“It’s all part of borrowing etiquette 101,” Joan explained, pulling out a book. “It’s considered an act of disrespect to out a borrower. A borrower should be in control of when and to whom they are revealed.”

“Oh.” Logan glanced at the book, feeling both sheepish and intrigued. “May I see that?”

“Sure thing!” Joan nodded, handing it over. Logan began to leaf through the pages.

“...I’ll go get Virgil.” Thomas offered, heading towards the kitchen.

“No grabbing.” Talyn insisted.

“Yup, already knew that one.” Thomas nodded, giving them a brief look before leaving the room. He looked around the counter, not spotting the borrower.

“Virgil?” Thomas whispered, coming closer to it.

“Thomas?” Virgil stood up on shaky legs, revealing himself as he walked out into the open. He had been listening the entire time and while he was slightly mad at Logan for revealing where he was, what the agents said only confused him. Were they actually here to help? It couldn’t be that though, right?

“It’s me.” Thomas smiled, laying down his palm for Virgil. “Uh, there’s some people here who want to see you but um, I think they might actually want to help?”

Virgil bit his lip and after several moments of hesitation, he got onto the offered hand. “...Just don’t let them take me.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got you,” Thomas promised, bringing Virgil close to his chest. He held the borrower there protectively, putting his extra hand up as well.

“Ah, there you are.” Joan’s volume decreased slightly but their tone did not, a sure sign they were trying to be easy but not condescending on Virgil’s ears. “Virgil, it is an honor to meet you. My name is agent Joan, and this is my partner agent Talyn. We are here to help you.”

Virgil shifted more into Thomas, looking at the new humans warily. “...How?” He asked hesitantly.

“We help relocate borrowers whose identity has been compromised,” Talyn explained, coming over as well. “We wipe human’s memory of you and find a new suitable borrowing home far away from the incident for an extra layer of precaution. Of course, if you prefer there’s also a borrower base back home in Area 51 where some of our old borrower friends have built a community.”

Virgil blinked. “There...is? H-How many times has this happened?”

“Quite often.” Joan nodded sadly. “Modern surveillance systems aren’t exactly borrower-friendly.”

“Oh.” Virgil looked down. The thought was sad but if these humans actually helped them… “And why do you help borrowers? Why haven’t you revealed our existence and made us pets or science experiments or whatnot...unless you do perform tests on my kind and this is some sort of ruse to get me to come back with you so you can do that to me!” Virgil’s breath became erratic as the thought sent him into a panic.

“Okay, y’know? Perfectly valid questions.” Joan put up their hands in surrender, taking a step back. “It may sound strange, but not all humans are actually evil. Talyn and I actually found borrowers ourselves when we were younger, but unlike what’s going on here we actually treat borrowers as people.”

“Wait a second.” Thomas frowned. “We treat Virgil like a person.”

“Sure you do.” Talyn squinted suspiciously at him.

“Rule number 33.” Logan recited, still diligently reading. “Prolonged hand-holding is to be kept to a minimum, and only for as long as necessary. Lingering is considered an offense as you are limiting the borrower’s freedom through manipulation of an act of kindness.”

“...oh.” Thomas glanced down at his hands, realizing how long he had been holding Virgil. He moved over to the coffee table, setting Virgil down on it sheepishly. “I’m sorry Virgil, I didn’t mean to.”

Virgil blinked. “No, Thomas, you’re fine.” He glanced at the book Logan was reading. It was a great rule, of course, but not at this moment. Virgil was perfectly comfortable with his human friends holding him for a while. As long as they put him down when he wanted to be put down, of course. Which they were usually good at doing. He turned towards the agents.

“I do know that not all humans are bad, just most of them,” Virgil explained. “Because Thomas is right. He, Logan and Roman all treat us like people.” Well, of course, not at first. But they were in a good place now.

Talyn sat down next to the coffee table, leaning in and speaking in a hushed tone. “Are you just saying that?” They asked. “We know it can feel like you have no escape, but that’s why we’re here. You don’t have to stay captured by these humans any longer.”

“Hey, we wouldn’t do that!” Thomas exclaimed, before remembering the time Logan had indeed put them in a cage. He winced, looking at Logan. “Er, anymore that is.”

Logan’s fingers tightened around the pages slightly, clearly overhearing their conversation.

“We can erase their memories as well,” Joan explained, coming over to sit next to Talyn. “If you think you will ever have any trouble with them, even just in the future, say the word and we zap ‘em.”

Virgil’s eyes widened. “No!” He yelled, hating the thought. His friends had come so far, especially Logan! All that learning going down the drain would just be awful. “They’re my friends and I won’t let you erase their memories! Or take me away from them!” Virgil yelled, taking a step away from the two agents.

Talyn and Joan blinked, looking at each other briefly.

“Oh, so this is one of those cases.” Joan nodded in understanding.

“We’re not gonna take you away from your friends,” Talyn said earnestly. “We just wanted to make sure you were actually alright.”

“And, y’know, not being held against your will.” Joan shrugged.

“...Oh,” Virgil said, a little embarrassed by his outburst now. “Well, thank you for that.” He supposed these agents really were doing some good and helpful things for borrowers. They were even listening to him.

“Also thank you for not erasing our minds,” Thomas said feebly.

“Indeed.” Logan nodded in agreement, looking perturbed as he closed the book. The idea of losing any of his memories was quite troubling.

“Well, then, in that case, we’ll just get to work rehousing all of you,” Joan said, standing up.

“We were actually already planning on moving out to the next town over,” Logan explained.

“You were?” Thomas furrowed his eyebrows, having not been informed of this.

“...we meant to tell you.” Logan gave a half-hearted shrug.

“Where’s Patton?” Talyn asked, looking around.

“He should be with Roman,” Virgil said, not feeling bad about revealing that information now that he knew they were here to help.

“Alright, let’s go get them then.” Talyn stood up.

“Rule 72.” Logan recited. “All borrowers should be involved in discussions pertaining to life-changing events such as a move or a reveal, so as to give every borrower a voice.”

“You catch on fast,” Joan noted.

“Can I see the book?” Thomas asked, looking eager.

“By all means.” Logan gave it to Thomas, then set his palm down for Virgil.

Virgil got onto the hand without hesitation, once again looking up at the book Thomas now held. “Who made that?” He asked to Joan and Talyn.

“A couple of agents back in the 50’s made the original,” Joan explained as the group migrated upstairs. “But the newest copy was compiled by yours truly.”

“With yours truly helping.” Talyn piped up, looking proud.

“Huh. Well...it seems like a really helpful book.” Virgil complimented.

“It comes in handy.” Talyn nodded.

Joan paused once they had reached the front door, knocking on it.

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takaraphoenix · 4 years

Note

Harry Potter for the Ask Game 😂

Thanks for playing, let’s see how much I can fill for this one... xD

Top 5 favourite characters: LUNA LOVEGOOD, Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy, Fred Weasley, George Weasley

Other characters you like: Cho Chang, Cedric Diggory, Sirius Black

Least favourite characters:the Dursleys, DOBBY, Dumbledore

Otps: Harry/Draco/Luna, Fred/Harry/George, Neville/Ginny, Luna/Ginny, Cedric/Harry, Remus/Sirius

Notps: Harry/Ginny, if we’re gonna stretch to the prequels then definitely Newt/Tina, honestly probably a lot more but I can’t think of any right now

Favourite friendships: Harry & Luna are legit my favorite dynamic, Harry & Hermione and damn I wish I would have gotten to see that Ron & Harry friendship book-readers keep claiming but the movies really didn’t sell it much...?

Favourite family:the Weasleys

Favourite episodes: doesn’t have episodes xD

Favourite season/book/movie: The Order of the Phoenix

Favourite quotes:uuuh I got none

Best musical moment: FINALLY SOMETHING WITH AN ACTUAL MUSICAL. *^* Okay, so, quite clearly one can not pick just one. But maybe Harry Freaking Potter? I just, I love A Very Potter Musical and A Very Potter Sequel a whole lot *^*

Moment that made you fangirl/boy the hardest: mmh, honestly, when rewatching, every time I fangirl the hardest when I first get to see Luna ^-^ (can’t believe she only joins the plot in the FIFTH movie >_

When it really disappointed you:that Luna only joins in the fifth movie like seriously :D”““ also every time I hear how Ron is actually a far more likable character in the books??

Saddest moment: WHEN THEY KILL SIRIUS. THOSE BASTARDS ;-;

Most well done character death:uuuhm yeah no. I got nothing, I don’t find the deaths very... convincing or well done and honestly, most make me actively angry because of the avoidability

Favourite guest star: David Tennant! Does that count as a guest star??

Favourite cast member: Helena Bonham Carter

Character you wish was still alive: SIRIUS BLACK. Seriously, JKR beat Harry down in so many different ways. It... It really wasn’t necessary to give him his godfather and then kill him off. The series would have worked just fine if Harry had gotten to live with Sirius past book/movie five :D”““

One thing you hope really happens: I’d love a TV show remake, to be honest? A season per book, fixing the things that they screwed up, including more character development - seriously, Luna joins in the fifth book, but what’s nearly worse is that Harry’s endgame love interest who was in it since movie 1 has had less interactions with Harry in FIVE movies than Luna did in that one movie, like c’mon. A TV show would give so many opportunity to flesh dynamics and friendships and characters out better

Most shocking twist: uuuuh that they tried to sell Snape off as a good guy?? That was shocking because I still don’t find it very convincing :D”““

When did you start watching/reading?: I started reading the series back when the first book was first released ^^

Best animal/creature: Hedwig

Favourite location: I mean Hogwarts?

Trope you wish they would stop using: beat-down protagonist :D Seriously, the double-dead parents was already a lot, the evil overlord trying to constantly murder him, the abusive aunt and uncle, the bullying cousin, the CONTINUOUS abuse like seriously they could have gotten him out of there after he joined Hogwarts, then the bullying from a teacher like what the fuq and good gods when it finally looks as though he could catch a break... Harry’s new godfather gets killed off... it’s just... so... much

One thing this show/book/film does better than others: I mean, there clearly has to be something, otherwise it wouldn’t be so... all-consuming...? But... personally, I genuinely can’t put my finger on it; it never sucked me in the same way it did with others from my generation ^^°

Funniest moments: most things the twins do :D

Couple you would like to see: I was very pleased when the movies changed things to Neville/Luna in the end, but like... I don’t really have any ships I’d WANT to see, aside from “gay it up”, because seriously

Actor/Actress you want to join the cast: uuuh I got nothing

Favourite outfit: the outfits are kind of all rather ridiculous? Probably Hermione’s Yule Ball dress??

Favourite item: the map or the cloak

Do you own anything related to this show/book/film?: no, I don’t

What house/team/group/friendship group/family/race etc would you be in?: Ravenclaw

Most boring plotline: THE FUCKING CAMPING TRIP. I swear there was no need to split that final book into two movies you coulda cut two hours of camping trip out of it, that is such a boring-ass drag it was mind-numbing

Most laughably bad moment:I... can’t think of one right now

Best flashback/flashfoward if any: were... were there flashbacks? Beyond the “look at how Harry’s parents got killed” and “look at Snape getting bullied”? Because I don’t think so and I don’t really dig either of these

Most layered character: Hermione?

Most one dimensional character: I mean thanks to the movies not really taking time to flesh most characters out... the majority, really...? Let’s say Vernon, because I think he was just as flat an abusive bully in the books

Scariest moment: okay so for me, as a smol child reading those books, absolutely Chamber of Secrets with the voices in the walls. I had nightmares and was scared of fucking WALLS for MONTHS

Grossest moment: can’t think of one?

Best looking male: Draco?

Best looking female: Luna?

Who you’re crushing on (if any): not really, no

Favourite cast moment: I don’t really care for these things ^^°

Favourite transportation: mmmh the teleportation through fireplaces probably?

Most beautiful scene (scenery/shot wise): I really don’t know

Unanswered question/continuity issue/plot error that bugs you:HOW THE EVER LOVING FUCK DOES FANTASTIC BEASTS FIT INTO ALL THIS SHIT. The first one was still fun, but then we get fashionable young Dumbledore to join the plot and suddenly there is ANOTHER Dumbledore who was never mentioned before and got to pose as Creepy Kid From The First One?? And why would kind, sweet Queenie mind-rape Jacob and join the bad guys and also wait did the bad wizards predict WWII was going to happen and like the bad guys yeah? Becaus ehonestly WWII is a solid call-out for humanity and where the ever-loving fuck is all of this going I have a headache, I just wanted to see a sheepish ginger collecting Pokémon magical creatures, not this hot mess

Best promo: I really don’t pay attention to these things

At what point did you fall in love with this show/book: never. I mean, I don’t dislike it - I regularly rewatch the movies, am literally right now rewatching them with my adorable Draco-fangirl girlfriend - but I never fell in love with this franchise

IN DEPTH FANDOM QUESTIONS

#Harry Potter #In-Depth Fandom Ask Game #send me asks #Anonymous

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tisthenightofthewitch · 5 years

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Ghost: A chat with Tobias Forge; is an instrumental album in the future?

Tobias Forge of Ghost has had an incredible year and it just keeps getting better. We were fortunate enough to speak with him about albums and arenas shows.

Ghost has been incredibly busy in the last year and a half. Between a new Cardinal, a new album, three dead Papas, a new Sister Imperator, multiple Chapter videos, three tours and two singles, all that’s missing is a partridge in a pear tree and Ghost has a holiday song to add to their repertoire. Tobias Forge, the leader of the band, is the busiest of them all adding countless interviews to the list of to-dos.

Given that information, we were extremely grateful when he agreed to talk with us for a bit to chat about Seven Inches of Satanic Panic, the differences between theater and arena shows and the chances of a full instrumental Ghost album.

The Interview

1428 Elm: Thank you so much for taking time from your very busy schedule to talk with us. Congratulations on the new single! Can I ask you what inspired those two songs? Any particular artists?

Tobias Forge: I can’t really talk about it that much. It’s 50 years old and I’m 38. I am personally a big fan of this style of music. I’ve always been.

1428 Elm: Would you say that Papa Nihil had any particular artists in mind when he did this music?

Tobias Forge: I don’t think he wrote anything but I think that the songs are very much in line with what was going on at the time. I definitely believe that he was influenced by the rock movement in the later 60’s. But it also does have sort of a Motown feel at times, so it wasn’t as psychedelic as some other bands were in 1969. They still had that mid-60’s sort of cheerfulness to it that for the most part was gone by then. Things got kind of darker in 1969.

1428 Elm: I can definitely see that. While “Kiss the Go-Goat”‘s theme is said in the lyrics, what would you say that “Mary on a Cross” is about?

Tobias Forge: I would say that a lot of music from that time because essentially the parent generation in the 60’s, were the people that were in their 20’s who were born in the 40’s, and their parents were born in the early 1900’s. So, the parents’ generation of the 60’s were extreeeeeemely conservative.

That’s why you have all these very subtle, sometimes not so subtle references because we’re familiar with the lingo, but back then it was very hidden from the parent generation who didn’t know what Mary Jane was for example.

Rolling Stones “I pledge myself to Mary Jane,” stuff like that. There’s so many innuendos, codes, like “Back Door Man,” “A Whole Lotta Love.” The 60’s was completely fused by playing with the lyrics just because they couldn’t rock it out. And I like that, I find that very interesting. And it takes a certain skill. Yeah, so that one, as most things from that time, has a subtle meaning.

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1428 Elm: With psychedelic rock and almost pop influence rock added to Prequelle, are there any other genres that Ghost would like to experiment with? The dream genre that could be melted with Ghost’s sound?

Tobias Forge: I think we’ve sort of touched upon most of the things, most of the genres that I liked. You can just balance it in a different way, maybe. I guess the only thing that we haven’t really done and I’m not sure if that could be a Ghost album, but is more like soundtrack, orchestral music. I like that a lot. I like when bands have a string arrangement for a song.

At least, if you have that in the background it sort of makes the song swell. But I’m not always super buzzed about a big orchestra and full heavy metal being played together at all times. There’s a lot of symphonic rock from the 90’s and 2000’s, a lot of them and it just becomes too much. It’s such a dense soundscape as is and you also add a full orchestra as well.

It sounds dramatic but not a whole lot of room to breathe so I’m not sure if I would make orchestral arrangements, like full orchestral that I would have the whole band playing along with it. It would be paced out differently. I listen to a lot of 70’s prog rock from Italy and a lot has orchestral music, very experimental.

1428 Elm: Would you ever consider a full instrumental Ghost album?

Tobias Forge: Absolutely. I love instrumental music. I always entertain having instrumental tracks. In the future, it may be 1 out of 10 but it’s always nice.

1428 Elm: You guys made the saxophone cool again with “Miasma.” You’ve talked on the next album about Ghost going back to its harder roots. Is there a past album looking back that you’re wanting to emulate or get that same emotional feel from?

Tobias Forge: No, not really one album. I always say that each new album is like a reaction to each of the previous so since like Prequelle is not a hard rock or heavy, heavy metal album, the natural reaction to that will be to write something that isn’t, I don’t want to use the word soft, it will be different from Prequelle.

The same way Prequelle was different from Meliora etc. I’ll write a record that we don’t have yet because otherwise what’s the point? But I definitely have an album in mind with slightly more rippage [chuckles].

1428 Elm: Past albums have very strong themes and then the music takes you on a journey. Do you already have the theme in in mind?

Tobias Forge: Yes.

1428 Elm: I know you can’t say (damn!). Even from one tour to the next, your performing locations have changed quite a bit. How was the energy performing a stage show in a theater different than that of performing in these massive arenas you’ve been doing lately?

Tobias Forge: For me, the three most important things are:1) is that we can bring the same production to every place even though technically the arena might not be dramatically bigger than playing in a theater because we’re not playing the round. We’re not playing to arena capacity.

So technically, sometimes, if the capacity of the area might be similar to a theater, which is like 3200 people or something, but the main difference is that we can have the stage. With very few exceptions, regardless if you live in a small market, the little town that no one plays in, you will get the same show as they would get in New York City or LA, which is very important for me. I think it’s extremely important that if you pay money to see it, you should get the same thing.

Which leads me to: 2) when we play the theaters, there was a constant day to day basis, “Oh, you can’t use pyro. We can’t do confetti. Oh, by the way the curtain doesn’t work. Oh by the way we have this big theater production here so the stage is part occupied.” So we had to change the set almost every day.

I am not a big fan of surprises. I don’t like that at all. I want everything to be identical every day just because the show gets better if it’s done the same way, more of less. There’s wiggle room for a human touch on the show; of course the show gets different if you have 30 ft of stage one night and then there 6 ft of stage and it’s like that every day.

It does make a difference on the band because you have to move differently. These are details, I’m talking shop here in a way that people might not think about.

1428 Elm: This is extremely interesting!

Tobias Forge: Back in the day, American hockey rinks were smaller than European ones because of the action. Americans like action, so the rinks were smaller which led to more fights, more physicality. If you came to a European rink, they were bigger which was harder for anyone used to an American rink. Same thing goes for us and the stage.

One of the most important things, I absolutely HATE sitting crowds. Not on the bleachers or if you’re sitting on the side, that’s fine. You always want the most energized and enthusiastic people standing in the front. One big, big, big downside for theaters, in my opinion, is that they have seats all the way up to the stage and that really screws up the energy of the show.

Because you want people in the front who are supposed to be there. You don’t want people who can pay for it. You don’t want someone in the front sitting, eating popcorn. It becomes really awkward in terms of being in front of the crowd.

1428 Elm: As someone who went to two different shows in two different cities, I like to eyeball the crowds to see the difference and it’s shocking to see from one city to the other just how different the crowds can be and it makes a difference.

Tobias Forge: Oh yeah and it really does differ from city to city. And that’s one thing when we were repeatedly doing the theater circuit, which has its upsides don’t get me wrong. I definitely prefer theaters but a lot of that city temperament was sometimes lost because of the theaters because you ended up having the front section that were generally the people who were economically the ones that could pay for it.

It’s a Friday night and you come to a city that’s known for a vibrant crowd and still you have people in the front who act like they’re watching a movie. They are sitting back and then you have the people who are wanting to rock out and they are ten rows back. But unfortunately that’s part of the economics of theaters and that’s why I was very adamant about moving away from theaters.

Luckily the promoter felt, let’s try it and see how it works out, and I think the upsides are vast. I’m just happy that we’re able to bring the same show and you get the energy in the show and it feels way better now.

1428 Elm: Well the show looks incredible and I hope you have an amazing rest of your tour and a good rest in 2020 since you all have been go go going for quite a while.

Tobias Forge: Yes, well, there’s a new record so there’s not a whole lot of rest but it’s certainly paced in a different way.

Tobias was an absolute delight to speak with. If you are like me and want to have a fully instrumental Ghost album one day, let the band know your support. I think it would be an amazing change to the Ghost formula.

1428ELM.COM

#Tobias Forge #Tobias Interview #The Band Ghost #Ghost Band #Cardinal Copia

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jesterlady · 4 years

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Rise of Skywalker review

After Watching Episode IX for the second time, I feel like it’s finally time to make my feelings known regarding the sequel trilogy and to vent some of the negativity by getting it down in somewhat rational fashion.

If any one recalls the 6k I wrote on Avengers Endgame, you’ll know what to expect.

Now it’s been a while since I saw either Ep VII or VIII, so my memory is likely rusty on details.

My feelings on this trilogy in general have been extremely negative. It’s interesting, but after I saw Force Awakens, I actually had a very positive reaction at first. It felt like a Star Wars movie (following the New Hope formula). But after a while, even before Last Jedi came, I realized that I actually was disappointed, not necessarily in the movie as a movie or the new characters, but the direction the whole trilogy was likely to go.

I must confess a great deal of this feeling probably arose from watching Clone Wars and Rebels in the meantime and becoming very caught up in those time periods and what they represent for Star Wars. And that’s just it…the sequel trilogy takes what came before, what those people bled and died for, and basically said it didn’t matter. They didn’t actually save the galaxy. The victory at Endor has become incredibly cheapened by the First Order’s existence…and it doesn’t even matter that apparently it was Palpatine all along so it’s suddenly very connected in a haphazard fashion.

They could have told a much more interesting story about the struggles of rebuilding a galaxy. They could have had the same characters, they could have had the same arcs (terrible ones mostly), and the galaxy could still be in danger. But starting off with a brand new evil empire like destroying the old one didn’t even matter, not even letting Han and Leia stay together…like, that’s just creating drama for the sake of drama. We have to destroy everything that was built before, because we’re really unoriginal and don’t know how to create new stories or build on top of a good foundation.

Say what you like about the prequels (I am a fan in general) they had a very cohesive story, building toward a single point. The sequels…did not.

Now, we must all acknowledge the elephant in the room. That of the atrocious planning and divided directional control that went into making these movies. I don’t know what Disney was thinking! The MCU for all its faults is a cohesive whole. With a franchise infinitely more popular and lucrative and with a fraction less of the movies, you couldn’t pull off having a story that makes sense?

And I’ll just say that even if JJ didn’t like what Rian did with TLJ, basically completely doing a 180 and trying to go the other direction, was selfish. It destroyed further rather than fixed the problem. I don’t have anything else to say, other than the lack of unity is probably the ultimate problem after the initial direction in the first place. I didn’t really approve of TLJ. The Rey/Ben parts…sure, but the slowest chase scene known to man and completely superfluous side ventures to a gambling planet were utter drivel. So it’s not that I’m a Rian vs JJ person. I think the lack of unity and that they both screwed with each other’s narratives is the problem.

Anyway, we’re here to talk about TROS. (And how about that, coming up with a title that is super confusing since we already have Revenge of the Sith. I guess that’s ROTS…but come on!

So…this will be fairly chronological but as I get deeper into character arcs and plot points, it will delve all over the place.

The intro of a Star Wars movie is usually fairly jarring. We’re dropped into the middle of a situation and all we know is three paragraphs long, to tell us what’s going on and what happened. But this felt even more jarring than usual.

Suddenly knowing Palps is alive in the credit titles is so off course. Knowing he was alive at the end of TLJ would have been preferable, leaving us time to stew over how he was still alive and giving them time to come up with something more coherent than the absolute zero explanation we were given. The return of an essential character/villain like that deserves way more gravitas and planning than the shock value we were presented with. The idea of him being alive is not so shocking to those familiar with the EU, but that was explained and explained well, whereas how long he’s been planning this, Snoke, the ships, how…it’s all completely ignored and I guess we can come up with explanations on our own. So…is Snoke his clone? Or a part of him? How many Snokes were there? There are so many questions regarding their relationship…how it relates to Kylo/Ben, how it relates to Rey, how it relates to their bond, but I’ll get more into that later. And more on those ships.

Pretty sure a blow no one can be faulted with is Carrie’s death. If she had been alive, I have to believe so many things would have been better. She uttered the only sensible line in the movie…never underestimate a droid. Something everyone else went on to ignore even though droids made the whole movie possible. Ugh. I do think it’s funny that since TFA we’ve all been told to call her the General now…no more princess cause princesses are apparently weak, but she was suddenly a princess again this movie.

The Jedi texts, I’d like to know more about that. Very plot device-y really, if you think about it. All this info about new and improved powers and places and things and considering how much lore we know as an audience who actually have been exposed to when the Jedi were still around, opposed to Luke onward…it’s just an excuse for story. Same thing with the Sith wayfinders and that dagger. I guess you could make the argument for Palps having them made after ROTJ, but…that makes no sense. But it’s the only thing that makes sense since how could anyone make a dagger the exact shape of a crashed Death Star before it crashed? But the Jedi texts…super old texts…reference the wayfinders. And it was already in the vault of the crashed DS. All I’m saying is that doesn’t make a lot of logical sense and someone needs to explain it to me. And to stop making mysterious keys and clues to things. It makes sense the Sith loyalist would have it since he needed to go back to Exegol to deliver Rey, (though he had clearly already left Jakku and killed her parents, so was he just going back to say, oops, I messed up? Palps clearly got the message somehow) but maybe it would have been better for them to keep all the Oracle stuff in and explained all this stuff properly. Like I’m confused about Palpatine’s plan and he’s usually the master of strategy.

Okay…Poe is so unlikable in this movie. And he really doesn’t have an arc. Maybe a little one, struggling with the burden of leadership. But he mostly seems to be there to argue with people and be rude to Threepio. This is a waste of a good character. He was barely in TFA, he was a total mess in TLJ, and here he’s just a jerk. I got nothing good to say for him. Which is a shame because he could have been awesome.

We will talk about Rose and her complete lack of presence. Up front, I never cared for Rose in TLJ…didn’t see the point of her. She brought nothing to the story in my opinion and whether she was supposed to be a love interest for Finn or to symbolize hope or just be representative of WOC, I don’t know. But her being shifted to the sidelines of this story is a blatant statement of disrespect. The actress has been very publicly discriminated against online and instead of taking care of her, the director and studio pretty much stated they agreed with that by what they did with her character. Aside from that…makes zero sense for someone who was so built up and had such a big part in TLJ to be so downplayed and have her story just stop in the middle. It’s bad storytelling. Especially while you’re bringing in a troop of new female characters to do…what? Basically things Rose could have accomplished and would have made more sense doing.

Along the lines of pointless things…what is the point of the Knights of Ren? They were so built up…such an ooh, scary prospect and they play zero role in this. They have no point. They have no purpose. We know nothing about them unless we hunt for backstory in comics and things like that. But you shouldn’t have to do that to understand the point of someone in a movie. I’d also just like to point out, if they’re really Force sensitives who were Jedis in training…maybe? Then they should be a lot harder to defeat and why don’t they have light sabers? And…why are they the Knights of Ren if there isn’t at least a discussion about what their leader is doing when he comes to Exegol. Like they’re just trying to kill him from the second he enters. I’d be like…hi, boss, so why aren’t we killing the girl…or something like that. And if they’re the Knights of Ren, his…family for lack of a better term, people who trained with him since boys, I’d like to think he at least would have some compunction of striking them down…would try to reason with them first. They might still be brainwashed like he was, but he would know that better than anyone. I don’t know if that makes sense, but that’s my knee jerk reaction. A waste of possibilities.

Want to talk about another waste? Hux! Never liked him and his Hitler youth attitude, but really he was not important in this trilogy, like at all. DG is too good an actor to not have his talents used better. He, Phasma, and Kylo were built up as this villain trilogy to stand against the Rey, Poe, Finn good guy trilogy, and basically none of them got any kind of development other than Kylo. I knew Hux was the spy and I believe it is funny that he is the spy solely because he hates Kylo so much, but other than that…he was a waste of space. Better to have him finally rise and become the commander he’d always wanted to be instead of Pryde suddenly being there and being all evil and competent for some reason. Having him be significant for having followed Palpatine before would only actually be significant if we had seen him serve Palpatine before. It’s just another instance of this brand new character suddenly taking the place of an established one for no reason.

We can talk about Finn now. Finn, who also suffered from lack of actual character arc and purpose in the movie other than running after everyone and being worried about them. The whole Force sensitive thing is old news…we all knew about it a long time ago. And this way of revealing it…such poor methods! As far as I know the only reason you’d start thrashing around and declaring you never told someone something is because it is going to be a declaration of love or like a super big confession of guilt. I mean, that’s what they wanted us to think by keeping it in suspense for so much of the movie and it’s just…not that big of a deal. Like it’s not a surprise, it’s not a death confession topic. It was just stupid.

As for the idea that he only left the First Order because of the Force, well, that just implies that only Force sensitive people know right from wrong and can make moral decisions…it’s just not a good message. Now whether Jannah’s whole platoon is Force sensitive is not clear, but it’s strongly implied. And the fact that it’s what he wants to have told Rey is also not clear. Like you have to figure that out (possibly with online help), it’s not inherent in the narrative. Also…could have been told to Rose, Jannah not needed. In fact, this whole storyline would have actually made much more sense and been better if it’s something Finn had been dealing with in TLJ and perhaps came with an army of defectors or been out convincing people this whole time. Potential storyline wasted. Plus…for someone who’s an ex Stormtrooper, watching Finn run down hallways and strike down troopers is pretty insensitive and OOC if you ask me. Just a super bad way to take the character. And he really didn’t do that much else other than be the main person who does the thing that destroys the thing so everyone else can do the main thing they’re there to do.

Wow, and can we talk about Threepio’s treatment in general and in this trilogy in particular? I will be the first to admit that Han and Leia especially weren’t all that great to him all the time. But it was how they would have treated anyone, I think. Poe particularly just laid into him all the time for no reason, even after he sacrificed himself for them. Like…just really made me mad at Poe and really mad at everyone the whole movie. It appears that Threepio, one of the two original droids of the whole franchise, gets the least respect out of any of them. With all the fanservice going on, you’d think he’d be treated better. I love the HISHE part where he talks about taking a last look at his friends and it certainly ain’t none of this trio! You want to talk about underestimating a droid! I know he’s not everybody’s favorite and I’m probably biased, but if we’re ranking droids in the SW universe, which we all do, Threepio’s not at the top for me either. That spot belongs to Chopper. But I’m still going to accord Threepio the respect and dignity he deserves for seniority if nothing else. Because he tries so hard and no one ever thanks him for it. I like BB8 and all, but he goes under Threepio and R2 both in ranking! And let’s not forget if not for a droid’s knowledge of Exegeol (so convenient) and the way to get there, you resistance jerks are all toast, so respect!

Zorii, Zorii, Zorii, frankly another superfluous new character. But I liked her best out of all of them. I can see that little something something with her and Poe and I think it would be cool for it to flourish now that the war’s over and they can put the really convenient past and betrayal behind them. Poe being a spice runner isn’t bad but isn’t good either. It’s just convenient, because they suddenly needed black market stuff. Also…like how’d she survive? Really. Because it’s such a big deal for her to have gotten that thingamajig and it’s not like people have warning when the bad guys blow up your planet. There is no evacuation time.

I’ve mentioned her a bit so Jannah, again, other than it’s cool there are more women in the galaxy, just took up screen time for other characters to develop. Were they trying to insinuate she could be Lando’s daughter, because that makes zero sense! And why all of a sudden he’s champion of finding the lost families of the galaxy is super weird. Also, it was cool to see him flying the Falcon and all, but did he really add anything other than gravitas from the original trilogy? I’m usually a huge fan of fanservice, but I didn’t really feel like a fan being serviced. I felt like someone constantly having nice things thrown at me so I won’t notice the murder being done in the other room. A nice shot of Wedge, too.

So many extra resistance people always there. Like I love Dom, but why was he there?

But talking of other people really who the heck is Maz? I mean she just shows up out of nowhere and knows everything about the Force and the Jedi and people’s pasts and what their decisions are and we don’t have a clue why. Like who is she? How does she know these things? Where does she even come from? Like why does she talk about Leia trying to reach Ben and why does she smile when Leia dies, what does she know that we don’t and why?

I guess now for the really hard stuff. Rey and Ben.

They were the only ones who really got developed and even then, I think Ben got robbed out of his ending.

So Rey’s heritage. Being a Palpatine, very disappointing. If there’s one good thing I liked about TLJ it was the idea that you didn’t have to be part of some great bloodline to be special in the Force. The Force doesn’t care who your parents are. Most of the great Force users we know have literally nothing to do with who their parents are. If anything, it has more to do with their lineage of training. So JJ basically saying screw that idea and forcing Rey into that was very disappointing. And apparently electricity is very genetic…Dooku aside, of course! It also implies the Dark side in her is because of the Palpatine heritage. But the Dark Side of the Force exists for a reason, for balance, and provides something important to the galaxy. It’s already proven even the Lightest of users and bloodlines have that pull.

Rey has been alone and searching for family this whole time. Having someone to belong to was important to her. But…the message of her finding a family and joining one, I think is a lot more important than her finding out her past and heritage. Just being Rey at the end instead of having to say she was Rey Skywalker or Rey Solo would have made more sense! Of course…I also think Solo makes more sense for her anyway given her connection with Han, her training with Leia, and her bond with Ben. She did train under Luke as well, granted, but she had more Solo connection than Skywalker. They just wanted the cool name. But also doesn’t make sense since Palps calls Ben the last Skywalker in the movie as well. But whatever, I don’t really care.

Let’s talk about this whole dyad in the Force thing and the grand plan. Because I can’t logically reason it out myself.

So Palps apparently has a plan to bring Rey to him as a girl so he can have her kill him and his spirit can go into her body and he can reign through her because his old body is like super fried and the clone thing ain’t working so hot. Doesn’t happen, but he’s also working on his other plans to corrupt Ben and bring him to the Dark side, under the influence of Snoke, to do what? Like what is his plan there apart from just general evil and revenge and nasty stuff? But all along there’s apparently been this Dark prophecy against Ben (and we all know Palps is the manipulator of the Dark). Luke said Leia gave up her Jedi training because she sensed that at the end of that journey was her son’s death. You’d think then they’d honor that sacrifice by not killing him, but whatever.

Palps created or controlled or was at the back of Snoke (however he was at the back of Snoke) and so he’s pulling the strings during TLJ. He knows everything Snoke knows. So if Snoke created the bond between Rey and Ben, then he’d be very aware of that. So how does the whole dyad thing work? Because it’s made very clear Palps doesn’t know about the dyad, otherwise he likely wouldn’t have tried to do the dark ritual/strike me down plan first when it would have been so much easier to get them both together to drain them.

So…have they always been a dyad from birth? Was the dyad created separate from the bond when Snoke created the bond? A Light balance to the Dark bond? Regardless of how, clearly they are one soul and connected more powerfully than anyone else in generations.

But Palps and his plan…he tells Ben to kill Rey. What was he actually trying to do since it’s clear he didn’t want Rey dead?

My only thought is that he thought Rey would actually kill Ben and thus give in to her Dark side and be more ready to be Empress…

But Leia’s sacrifice and all of that still confuses me. Palps said that Leia interfered with his plans.

Now in that fight Rey was the instigator, was the one trying to wreak damage (freaked out by her vision and revelations, I’m sure) and Ben was the one winning that fight. Like he was going to win until Leia stopped him. But was he going to kill her? Because I think it’s pretty clear that Ben has never wanted to kill Rey even if he was trying at first before the bond really started. Either way, Leia stops him from doing something and Rey stabs him instead. Then Leia dies and snaps Rey out of it. Was it the reaching out to Ben or the death that Palps was talking about interfering with his plans? Because again…he didn’t want Rey dead at that point.

I don’t know. Having a fleet full of ships hidden for how long, when did those weapons go into place, who’s manning the ships? Because apparently there’s the regular First Order fleet still out there conveniently being taken down by the rest of the galaxy after this fleet burns, so have these recruits just been sitting out there, chilling at Exegol for years, waiting for this order and attack? Total side tangent and question really, but it all makes no sense.

Leia’s death…so much speculation on why her body didn’t vanish until Ben died. There has to be something significant there and I’d really love to know if it’s a future plan or if it was part of the original end of the movie since clearly it was changed. Maz smiles, remember. Also…is she somehow giving her life for Ben’s to bring him back? She’s clearly a Force Ghost at the end of the movie.

Okay…so Han memory. I did like that and I did like that Ben could get absolution from his dad and have that be the final thing that turns him from Kylo to Ben. I wasn’t sure I could forgive Ben ever after TFA. I cried so much and I was so mad. That’s Han Solo, y’all. HAN FRIKKING SOLO. I mean how do you even kill Han Solo?

Granted, I think we were all robbed of a story where Han and Leia are a united front raising their kid and trying to protect him from danger, but that’s just me. I mean we could have had The Mummy 2 in space, guys. ROBBED! Someone write that AU, please.

And can we just talk about Adam Driver’s acting for a moment? I mean, the boy is phenomenal. He goes from being one person to being a completely different one effortlessly. From the moment he throws the light saber in the sea, his mannerisms and physicality is so different. It’s amazing. Kudos to him. Absolutely. Oscar worthy! He does it without having any lines whatsoever apart from ‘ow.’ And I like Ben Solo and I’m sad we didn’t get to see more of him. He’s so Han’s boy, so Han’s boy. Love that! He’s an awesome character in his good boy sweater. (Love the sweater and while we’re on the subject, could him and Chris Evans have a sweater off with the good boy sweater and the white knit sweater please?)

Hey, Luke got to raise a X Wing finally. That’s the kind of fan service I’m talking about.

One of my favorite parts of the movie actually was the whole Jedi from the past bit. Mostly because I saw my boy Kanan getting his recognition and rightful spot as one of the great Jedi, up there with Obi Wan and Anakin and Ahsoka! I also loved Ahsoka being there and the other Clone Wars greats. Really cool. I do kind of wish they had included Ezra, too, but that’s just me loving on my Space Blueberry! And wishing James Arnold Taylor who put so much into Obi Wan could have at least done Plo Koon since Ewan took his place as Obi Wan. Either way, that was the only homage and respect paid to the other two trilogies and the Star Wars legend in general. The only acknowledgement of how much sacrifice and history went into this franchise before now.

Now…can Rey kill Palps now and not have his spirit go into her because he’d already made himself revitalized with their dyad energy or was it because no ritual had been done? Just wondering. Or was it a loophole since all she did was defend herself and his own lightning killed him?

There’s a lot about energy and healing and the Force in this and so you can speculate all over the place about what the rules are. (You’d think in the Clone Wars healing each other would have been a thing!) And since we’ve never deal with a dyad before, we don’t know how it works. But it really kind of feels like even with how drained both of them were after Palps took their bond…it either should have been returned to them when he died or their combined energy should have been able to keep both of them alive. Or something. Two in one means connection and honestly, I feel like both of them should have died or both of them should have lived.

I know a lot of people think it was the perfect end for Ben because he redeemed himself (like Anakin) and there would have been no place for him in the galaxy after all the evil Kylo had done. (Much less if you read the comics!) But I’m a sucker for a redemption story and I think the hardest punishment always is to face your past and work through what you’ve done instead of taking the easy way out of death (not having to actually atone). I think it’s a beautiful potential for forgiveness and grace and realizing none of us can really save ourselves.

And whatever you think of Kylo/Ben or his ending, it’s clear something was changed at the last minute. There’s a whole lot of editing done on that last scene when he revives her and they kiss and on Tattoine. There are apparently screen tests people swear they saw where he didn’t die. I won’t go into the scene analysis some Reylos have, but jaw moving and talking on Rey shots that were cut, it looking more natural for her to have been pulling him back up rather than him falling down, it looks like his hand is the one in the burying lightsaber scene… He was obviously supposed to live at some point and why they changed their minds, I don’t know. He is one of the most popular characters and they lost a cash cow when they killed him off. Silly idiots.

As far as Rey goes, I also think that’s terribly unfair, to give her the connection she’s been yearning for her whole life and instead of giving her a future, you stick her back on a sand infested planet, sliding down in a parallel to TFA, and burying the past sabers, and being alone. I know she’s still got friends and stuff but I think she won’t know her new place in all of this and she’s going to feel very lonely.

Also, where did the yellow saber come from? Did she cleanse Ben’s saber? Did she find a new kyber crystal of her own? Come on now…don’t be mysterious and weird. Normally I can take mysteries being unsolved if great care is taken to resolve relationships and characters and this trilogy and story did neither, so no love from me.

As for shipping them. I didn’t really through the first two movies. I was curious to see what would happen, but I could have gone either way. I did ship them after this one. I do love two broken people finding solace in each other. And I think there is such potential there for these characters and as a relationship that could have been done so much better and wasn’t and that’s what is the saddest thing of all.

I really have an urge to write an AU…Luke Skywalkers’ Academy for Sensitive Younglings (title patent pending) and rewrite the whole stupid thing. I fear I have neither the time nor inspiration for that. But I would dearly love to see awkward teenage versions of these characters growing up and learning and being stupid and given a chance to become the best versions of themselves. My vision of the future.

Probably in another 30 years there will be a fully formed, all ready to go evil Empire that no one has done anything to stop anyway…

So there we go. I probably have more to say but that’s all I got and that’s with taking notes!

#star wars #spoilers #text post

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