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ijuststareatstuffhereok89 · 6 months

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*SPOILER FIC FOR LOKI S2 FINALE*

Do not read until you have watched or are otherwise ready to be spoiled. THIS IS YOUR WARNING!

Idunn & The Golden Apple

In the village of Time’s Ridge, they say when a little girl is sacrificed, she is adopted by the gods and granted any wish she makes. When the orphan Idunn is driven over the side, she blinks and finds herself before a mysterious entity known as the God of Stories. Luckily, in order to gain his favor, she brings a small sacrifice of her own before his glowing throne.

Characters: Loki, OFC (child), cameos of Thor and Mobius Genre: Tragedy, Comfort, Found Family Word Count: 3.3k Content Warnings: SPOILERS FOR LOKI S2 FINALE!, Loki gives off dad vibes, child sacrifice

This time, the annual sacrifice at Time's Ridge was almost a scandal. Woeful Idunn was only ten-years-old.

She stood on the precipice, overlooking the glowing green abyss she’d once played beside thoughtlessly, unaware at the time that it was about to become her grave. Her thick red hair was woven into two braids, laced with daisy blossoms. Idunn was wearing a gray frock meant to symbolize her mortality and humility, she kept her hands in the pocket of her simple, tattered pinafore, her left hand curled around a small ball hidden away.

Instead of weeping like most sacrifices did, Idunn was choosing to go with at least a little dignity (not that anyone was there to be awed by her maturity--being an orphan, no one really cared how she looked anyway). Perhaps she wasn’t even all that upset about being picked by the Leader to die on behalf of Time’s Ridge. A less-brained individual might be flattered by being selected.

Of course, Idunn knew better. The only reason she was here was because no one would miss her.

The green glow of the bottomless pit was somewhat new, and that was when The Ritual began, some two generations before Idunn was born and left to die by a helpless mother. No explanation was given, but the green aura of the trench appeared, and suddenly: the perpetual storms plaguing the fields ceased. People stopped disappearing mysteriously…at least until things began getting worse again. Then, only a few years before Idunn was born, a child fell into the trench and disappeared, but time and the weather stabilized again, and so it was accepted that only the gift of a child’s wish brought personally to whatever god watched over Time’s Ridge, the sad little village at the end of the universe, would bring safety back.

It was always such an honor to be picked to die, until it was your turn. Then, if you were fortunate enough to have a parent of means, your only hope to live to see the following year was to have them bribe the Leader to pick someone else.

“Idunn, Blessed Daughter of Time’s Ridge!” The Leader began his ceremonial monologue, which was surprisingly ho-hum for being the prologue to child homicide. “Today, you are being sent into the Higher Worlds to seek out aid for our small community--”

I’m not waiting for this, the little girl thought. Let’s just get it over with. I have nothing to stay for. She covertly pulled the golden ball from her pocket and held it up, slowly turning before the crowd.

“May I eat before I jump?” she asked. Gasps rang out.

“Where did she get one of those?” someone called out.

The Leader smiled sadly, shaking his head. “You may, Little Idunn. Though I am not sure as to where you found one. But be aware, silly girl, even one of those won’t save your conscious life now.”

Idunn twisted her lip, looking at the golden apple in her hand, shrugging and taking a large bite. The taste was as if the Creators themselves invented the perfect sweet. The crisp skin snapped between her teeth, and the delicious juices felt almost like a cool, gentle tea rolling over her tongue.

I just hope the weird peddler who sold it to me was right, Idunn thought bravely, looking down at the apple as the bite mark she made instantly healed itself, creating a perfectly full piece once more.

A bolt of lightning broke overhead, causing the little girl to jump backwards, startled, her courage failing her for the first time.

“An honorable sacrifice should not be afraid of a little lightning,” mocked a cruel adolescent from the crowd.

Idunn looked back over her shoulder at her glowing tomb. “I’m not overly fond of what follows,” she replied, deciding to turn around, the juices and magic sugars from the golden apple beginning to fall into her stomach and move around inside, warming her core.

Work quickly, work quickly…come on…

She breathed in and raised her voice, which boomed many times larger than her petite body would suggest she could utter. “I hate you all, and I would live forever with no guilt at all if it meant each one of you got to fall into the pit in my place. I hope the timeline frays and swallows you all whole!”

The disapproving murmurs from her assembly of executions gave her a small pinch of satisfaction. One last victory for the condemned. She couldn’t delay it any more when the cruel Leader signaled for the pounding, rhythmic drums to sound.

Fine, even if this is it for me, I don’t want to be here anyway.

The only regret Idunn had in the moment before she fell forward into the abyss was that she was born in Time’s Ridge, a place so afraid of the shifts in time and space that were otherwise so natural around their realm that they would throw children off cliffs in order to make the gods happy.

Gods, Idunn thought. Good thing gods aren’t real.

Idunn decided not to give the Leader the satisfaction of reciting the poetic Final Prayer of the Sacrifice, and instead did a graceful twist of her small body, her red braids flying about her face and standing out even in the twilight suns, falling over with just enough time to wave goodbye to the village before meeting her fate at the bottom of a fraying timeline’s abyss.

The little girl felt the sensation of falling…more falling…even more…then a blinding green light followed by the feeling of being lifted by a thin arm or branch---

Gods aren’t real. Gods aren’t real. Gods aren’t real. Gods aren't--

Infinite branches of time, universes, were binding Loki to his throne amidst a sea of green matter and light, where he would be sitting until time itself decided to rip his duties from him and end existence.

That…that would be soon, right?

Worse than the eons that were beginning to pass before his eyes without him, promising adventures he would never have, romantic nights he would never see, were the whispers, the noises. Loki could hear every spoken voice in every timeline, but they were all a low, maddening hum that rang in his ears as he sat, legs apart, in his supernatural throne room, nothing but the years for company. Of course, the voices of those he knew in life were the loudest and hardest to hear.

And he was hungry. So. Damn. Hungry.

Even Gods needed to eat, but what was there to find in Loki’s palace of emerald and gold, buried underneath countless layers of timeline branches, ensnared in the prison of Yggdrasil? Loki couldn't die of starvation, but the hunger pangs would frequently send surges of pain through his core, out his arms, and as a result, a few timelines would flicker for a moment before regaining normalcy. It was likely these places would only see inclement weather or a few years of time skipped over as a result.

It was painful, but the only way Loki could check on his few allies was through the branches tying him to his noble seat. Sometimes, he would follow the sound of Mobius’ slow voice and find his favorite timeline: where Mobius was happy, retired, living with his adult sons and their spouses and children on a cabin by the beach (three jet skis and an ATV in the garage, of course).

He smiled as he saw OB’s TVA manuals and novels being stored away in a timeproof capsule for posterity, ensuring his legacy. The little man was never taller.

He’d even caught a glimpse of Thor from time to time, and Loki had spent countless hours following him from afar as he traveled with a small band of space brigands. He even managed a chuckle upon seeing what Thor was getting up to: “Father would be embarrassed…and that music is terrible.”

Not that it mattered.

He was forever burdened with glorious purpose, just as he’d prophesied as an arrogant youth. Now, I’m gloriously burdened, Loki thought. He nearly smirked at the poetic irony, or perhaps it was justice for his past transgressions that fit the same meter. A Loki with freedom would have enjoyed the twist for what it was.

A tear formed at the corner of his left eye at the thought. Forever. Here. No food or love or friendship to keep his heart from slowly eroding away with the millennia.

Suddenly, the branches around Loki’s wrists began shaking, writhing in his grip, as if a blustery wind disturbed them. He looked up, his eyes following one of the timelines furthest away from his immediate sight: a gray and lethargic piece of the Tree of Life. As the other tendrils of time began shaking furiously at some invisible disturbance, this branch suddenly exploded into a thread of white hot light before curling in on itself and returning to its original state.

Loki attempted to get to his feet, but he was still bound by the thousands of other timelines he protected. No matter, the odd shift in the air quickly subsided, at least until a brief ‘pop’ was audible from somewhere ahead of Loki’s line of vision, buried behind the twisting strings of time.

“Odd,” analyzed the God of Stories, “but amounting to nothing.”

Alas, he was wrong. For almost immediately after his declaration that the anomaly was of no concern: a small, high voice cooed from beyond the branches.

“H…hello?”

Loki felt his heart still, his skin cool, and a strange current in the air moved about the green chamber, rustling the hem of his cape where it met his boots. It was the first time since he took his place on the throne that it did so.

No, it’s a trick.

“HELLO?”

No one, no mortal could survive being here. It’s why it had to be me…

“Is there someone here?”

No, that’s certainly another’s voice.

Loki dared to hope after all this time. He opened his mouth to reply…but nothing fell out other than a few sharp notes and breath. Had it been so long since he’d used his vocal chords?

Out of the tangle of time streams before Loki, a diminutive, pale figure stumbled over herself, gripping something yet unseen in her hand, wearing a disgusting, dirty gray slip. A little girl, no older to existence than a spring lamb.

Norns, it’s a child!

“Is this heaven?” the little girl asked, brushing a fiery red braid from her shoulder and walking hesitantly into the throne room. “Or somewhere else?”

Loki’s mouth hung open, but his words still somehow failed him.

“Are you The Creator, or some God? Are you real? I didn’t think you would be. I guess I’m glad you are.”

The questions were pouring out of Idunn’s mouth so quickly that Loki was reminded of himself as a child, when he’d ask his mother one too many questions.

“Maybe I should--”

“Who are you?”

Idunn was so startled at the Green King’s first successful words to her, she leapt backwards, tumbling over a branch that her ankle met by accident. Loki nearly attempted to rise again.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m Idunn,” said the girl, regaining composure remarkably quickly.

“...Loki.”

A moment of awkward silence went by before Idunn took another step back toward the throne. “Are all those a part of you?” she asked, her thoughts as aimless and unorganized as any ten-year-old’s.

Loki looked up into the time vines, feeling smaller and more alone than ever in the surreal presence of this little creature who’d managed to survive an entrance into open time without being torn into tiny threads and scattered across space.

“I suppose they are.”

Idunn sighed, shrugging and positioning herself at his feet. “I didn’t know gods were real. I thought they were just an excuse to--”

“--oh, gods are real, little one--”

“--get rid of me.”

Loki fell silent again, this time stunned at the bluntness of the child, and the darkness of her admission.

“What kind of miniature sorceress are you, Miss Idunn?” he asked, his voice starting to lighten in an attempt to alleviate the child’s fears. “Your powers must be fearsome if you stand before me now fully intact.”

“I’m not a witch,” Idunn conceded. “They just chose me for the sacrifice this year, and I had something to help myself survive.”

Loki didn’t know what part of this distressing declaration to address first. “Sacrifice?”

Idunn nodded, looking about the branches above her head, pointing to the one that was still recovering from the intrusion. “Time’s Ridge. They call it The Village at the End of the Universe. They sacrifice a child every year to stop the storms.”

The God of Stories was aware of the histories of many of his burdensome tethers by now, but even Time’s Ridge was a mystery to him.

“Sacrifice?” he repeated as the oblivious blatherskite before him went on, her fears quickly alleviating into a more normal enthusiasm that suited a youth her age.

“Yes,” affirmed the girl, “but the night before they took me to the abyss, a strange man came by my cell window and offered me this.”

She showed Loki the golden apple, causing his jaw to drop again. The girl was unfamiliar, but the apple was unmistakably Asgardian. A rare delicacy, the Golden Apples of Asgard gave the Gods their eternal youth and immortality. Every god had a single one on their person, for sometimes one could find themselves pulling back from the edge of oblivion by virtue of one bite.

They were so rare because they were so difficult to cultivate. Any one mistake during the process would render the apples lethal to even the Allfather. The only grower Loki knew to be alive was an elderly Asgardian somewhere out in the cosmos. How he made his way to this little urchin teetering at the edge of everything and knew to offer her the last apple in existence, Loki couldn’t even guess.

“Did he say where he got that?” Loki’s eternal hunger suddenly caught up with him again upon seeing the golden apple in her small hand.

“No. All I can remember is that he was very strong and handsome for a peddler. Only other thing I can remember is that he was blonde. Oh, and he had a big hammer with him, too. I think he was looking for me directly, like he knew who needed this.”

Loki’s cold skin shot back into a warm heat that made two more tears stain his cheeks.

Idunn looked regretful. “Oh, no, I didn’t mean to make you cry! Did you want a bite?”

Loki looked sadly off to his sides. “I cannot eat. I cannot let go of even a single one of these timelines, little one. I couldn’t hold an apple or a spoon.”

The child looked from Loki to the apple, and back. “So then I’ll help!” she said as simply as if it were the answer to 1 + 1.

Before the god could protest, or even ask, Idunn had taken it upon herself to climb Loki’s throne and sit in his lap, holding the unbitten apple before his lips. “Don’t you want--?”

Loki didn’t wait, his hunger overriding any sense of decorum, and accepted a large mouthful of fruit, almost unhinging his jaw like a snake to consume as much sustenance in a single crumb as he could. As a result, Loki had accounted for half of the apple with his bite. Idunn giggled at Loki’s accomplishment.

The food was not only the single most delicious morsel of food he’d ever consumed, but he felt it travel down to his stomach before warmly blossoming, artificially filling his stomach for the time being. The pains subsided almost immediately, and a surge of energy filled Loki’s veins.

Then, something remarkable happened that he didn’t expect. The timelines glowed gold instead of green for a moment, and each one that was even remotely loose or frayed was repaired and made stronger than it had been before. Small orbs of gold began appearing above their heads, looking as if golden apples were growing on the branches of the World Tree. Idunn gasped.

“Pretty!” she whispered. “I didn’t know these could do that!” she declared excitedly, looking down at the apple.

“Nor I,” said Loki, his gratefulness to the strange girl present in his tone. I wonder if this is affecting the beings within?

“Do you have children?” asked Idunn, suddenly. Loki shook his head, his large, horned diadem nearly whacking the girl off her perch.

“No. Do you have…parents?” he asked hesistantly in return.

“No. No one wanted me.”

Loki’s heart went out to the child. “I know the feeling.”

Idunn sighed. “Why do you think they picked me to jump at Time’s Ridge?”

Loki looked sadly down at the apple in Idunn’s fist, already repairing itself.

“I’m alone,” Idunn continued. “I had to come here in order to save everyone else while they move on with their lives without me. No family, no reason to expect to find one.”

Norns, am I looking into a mirror? Loki smiled, feeling an odd new sensation one could only describe as paternal. “Perhaps…when two unloved, unwanted people find each other, there’s a family to be found there, little one.”

Time passed, how much neither the entombed god nor the condemned child knew, but this was because neither cared. It was here that The God of Stories was able to share his own tales for the first time, and once he and Idunn moved past the initial shock of discovering one another here, in the darkest and least likely of places, his long stretches of details quickly became libraries’ worth.

Idunn may have been young, but her maturity was at least partially Asgardian. Loki suspected her heritage could have been closer to his own peoples’ than one would expect of one of the lowly residents of the edge of time. As such, Loki found his paternal instinct toward Idunn grow, and as infinite measures of time began to pass, he began encouraging her to eat and rest in between stories and songs. After all, she was only as immortal as the apples made her. She was not a god, nor a full Asgardian.

Before long, Loki felt compelled to say what had slowly begun to creep into his mind once she appeared: it’s so wonderful having someone to talk to.

Instead, he addressed what he least wanted to. “Idunn,” he said. “Unlike myself, you are free to leave here at any time.”

She sighed. “Are you tired of me now?”

He quickly denied her with a sad face and a headshake. “I suppose I just wanted to inform you that you could probably enter any one of these timelines and find a better world to live in than the one you knew…and the one that is here.”

Are you mad? thought Idunn. Why would I leave you, the first person to ever listen to me?

“No, I think I’ll stay here a while. You need someone to help you eat, and I need…”

Loki smiled and completed her thought. “...a glorious purpose?”

“Exactly.”

She nodded. “As long as I have this, and as long as you won’t tell me to jump off a ridge, then I will be here for you, King Loki.”

“Sweet daughter Idunn,” Loki whispered in relief, “just know one final thing: please don't call me King Loki.”

Idunn giggled and threw her arms around Loki’s shoulders in an embrace of perfect love and trust. For the moments she couldn’t see his face, Loki allowed the tears to fall freely.

Thus, the Goddess of Youth took her place alongside the God of Stories, giving him the strength and companionship he needed to hold reality aloft on his shoulders for however long the whims of fate would have him there.

For as long as she stayed there, Loki never knew loneliness again.

Yeah, this fic is basically "a wild daughter appears!" like Thor: L&T was for Thor, but Loki just can't and shouldn't be alone on top of the multiverse like that. Come on, y'all.

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rantceratops · 4 years

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Why Dick is NOT a Resentful Twat: An Evidence Backed Rant by TheRantDragon.

*cracks knuckles*

I have been dying to tackle this one all day. This is legitimately FUN for me, I am enjoying myself. I came home from work, I sat down at my computer, and I started compiling my list of points and evidence. I am beyond ready to debunk this asinine fucking fan theory.

And for those of you that DON’T know what fan theory I’m talking about, it’s as crazy as this: Somehow it was apparently gathered that Dick is resentful towards Wally and Artemis’s romantic relationship. That because his s3 Fever Dream takes place very obviously sometime right after Artemis joined the Team in Infiltrator, and because he and Wally’s relationship was supposedly “strained” in s2 because of Artemis being undercover, that means that Dick is resentful because he either 1) is jealous of their romance because it means Artemis is “stealing” all of Wally’s time/friendship from him (I am legit rolling my eyes so hard right now, I wish I could film it), or 2) he secretly has romantic feelings for Wally.

This is all complete bullshit, and I am here today to show you, in extreme detail, with a shit ton of pictures and gifs straight from the show to back it all up, why this is the dumbest theory I’ve witnessed on this hellsite.

Please, proceed under the cut with the knowledge that it will be long and sarcastic and also I’m a bitch. :) I’m also going to warn you that if you remotely ship *raught or *ird*lash in a “canon” sense, you might want to skip this. By all means I support and respect people shipping what they like, but my philosophy is that I don’t have to respect the ship itself, just the people who do the shipping of it. I refuse to respect any ship I don’t like(I don’t expect anyone to respect my ships), and I don’t have to and I’m not obligated to.

These points are not in any specific order.

Point One

So, I’m actually going to start this off with an oldie, but a goodie. If you will, my friends, go back in time to early Invasion. Depths had just aired, and there was another theory going around then, that I feel the need to address first. This might feel a bit unrelated, but remember that I am debunking the notion that Dick is resentful toward Spitfire for ANY reason, so I feel it needs to be addressed first.

This theory, which was a shipping theory, was that Dick was in love with Artemis or otherwise had feelings for her, and that this was all part of the drama fueling into Dick and Wally’s supposed “strain”. He gave her mouth-to-mouth when he “didn’t need to”, he looked at his old picture of them wistfully in the warehouse, he looked away from Artemis and Wally’s last kiss because it was “painful” due to him being jealous.

None of this was true, and never was.

“Dick gave Artemis mouth-to-mouth even though it was “unnecessary”. He did this because he wanted to “kiss” her.”

Okay, but Dick giving Artemis mouth-to-mouth was 100% necessary. They were trying to sell a death here, really sell it because the entire mission hinged on the success of her death being believed. How unbelievable would it have been for Dick to just sit there and watch his friend bleed out and die, instead of trying everything he could to save her life? Regardless of whether CPR would have been the appropriate thing, the point is that if she had stopped breathing, CPR would be the obvious option in a last ditch effort. He needed to try everything to make this look good.

“Dick looked all wistfully at that picture of he and Artemis in Depths and said ‘We’ll laugh about this some day’, he clearly has feelings for her.”

No. First of all, Dick probably has a fucking framed version of that picture because of how damn funny it is. It’s his ultimate Artemis troll, and in case y’all forgot, they are very good friends (and oh, believe me, that is a topic I will get into). I hardly think looking at a picture of a fond memory with a friend automatically means romance. Secondly, this entire scene served two purposes. The first was to continue to try and fool the audience into believing that Artemis had truly died (it got me, I was crying up until she came out in the warehouse, not even gonna lie here. It got me GOOD). The second was to show the sense of guilt that Dick was feeling. He had literally asked Artemis to basically throw her life away; to fake her death, to fool all of their friends and family into thinking she had DIED. This is serious fucking shit, this isn’t something to just shrug off. (I am not saying that Artemis did not make her own decisions here, because she did, but this whole entire plan was Dick’s idea, and he is the one who asked her, thus putting the guilt he felt upon his shoulders). So outside of the audience reasoning for the picture, it was meant to show his guilt. “We’ll laugh about this someday...” Will we laugh about this someday too? Will this all be funny later, when things are okay? Can we still laugh and be okay even after what I’ve asked you to do?

“Dick looked away when Wally and Artemis kissed, even Kaldur noticed! He obviously has feelings for her and it hurt for him to watch, and this is definitely really feeding into his strain with Wally!”

Uh, no. Again, this all ties back to guilt, and general respect. Kaldur is not looking at Dick, Kaldur is turning his gaze away as well, to offer them respect. They are about to part from each other for god knows how long, and Artemis and Kaldur are both going into the lion’s den, where anything could fuck up at any time and leave them surrounded by enemies hundreds of meters below the ocean. Of course it’s common fucking courtesy to look way and give your friends some mild form of privacy. Dick is also looking away largely out of respect, but his feels lightly tinged with that guilt I already talked about. Guilt at what he’s asked her to do, of what he’s asked her to leave behind, of how his best pal will have to roll with the punches and act devastated that his girlfriend is dead. And honestly just guilt at seeing two people, both whom are his GOOD friends, and who happen to be pretty fucking solid and in love with each other, part ways for god knows how long.

Point Two

Dick cherishes childhood/the past/the good old days. This is made extremely obvious, especially throughout Outsiders. I bring this point up as part of debunking the notion that the era of Dick’s fever dream somehow means that he feels resentment towards Spitfire; that by going back to a point before they were together, that means Dick specifically misses those days before Artemis started “taking up Wally’s time” (huge eye roll again).

This is expressed mostly through a few quotes, that I will list here, and you can go listen yourself if you feel the need to.

“Oh maaan...I hate being a grown-up.” - Expressed during the Outsiders episode “Rescue Op.”. This is in response to Dick questioning why Brion and the others went and did the thing they were told NOT to do, to which Conner and Megan proceed to remind him of the Cadmus incident while also obviously implying as well all the times the Team broke the rules as teenagers. I think this quote speaks for itself.

“Kinda like old times, huh, Wall?” -During Dick’s hilarious adventures with the Harpers during the Outsiders episode “Private Security”. (That episode is a goddamn national treasure). While obviously this moment is largely meant to focus on Dick’s deeper issue of avoiding his problem and not having Wally around to knock some damn sense into him, I do think this is also fairly an indication of how much Dick misses the old days/latches onto them. This one is more specifically related to Wally, but it doesn’t remove from my point.

And of course the biggest one here, is the actual Fever Dream itself. Dick misses the old days, when the Team was young and new and everyone was at the top of their game. When his best friend was alive and well and goofy as ever and they were all having FUN with the hero gig. Things hadn’t gotten so dark yet. I will tackle this more thoroughly in and of itself later, but it also is relevant in this section.

Dick very deeply clings to the “good old days”. He MISSES his early days with the Team.

Point Three

Now, let’s talk about Artemis and Dick’s friendship. I already think that the fandom doesn’t appreciate this friendship enough as it is, but this fan theory leans toward straight up disrespecting not only Dick’s friendship with Wally, but his friendship with Artemis as well. I’ll start off by saying that I am not remotely arguing that Dick’s friendship with Artemis is a Wally-level for him (no one is Wally level, that’s his best bud <3), but I think it’s made incredibly obvious that they care deeply about each other in many ways throughout the series. They love each other.

My point here is that insinuating that Dick “resents” Spitfire because Artemis supposedly “steals” all of Wally’s time is just so fucking gross. That, at its core, is asserting that Dick resents Artemis herself, which is just plain fucking false. Now I will show and tell you WHY that is some blatant fucking bullshit.

The simple fact that Artemis and Dick are the OG badass no-powers heroes of the Team.

The entirety of Homefront. Seriously, go re-watch it in case you have forgotten how amazing it is and how amazing their friendship is

Three little moments in episodes right after Homefront, indicating the two have grown closer following the events in that episode: Dick and Artemis both helping each other with the attacking monkeys in Alpha Male; Artemis having clearly gotten some re-breathers from Dick after Homefront to add to her arsenal; Artemis and Dick sparring at the beginning of Humanity (and Artemis kicking his ass).

Dick specifically choosing Artemis to go undercover with Kaldur because he knows how capable she is, and how much he trusts her.

Dick and Artemis’s quiet conversation while waiting for the Comms Satellite to launch in Depths.

Dick specifically seeking out Artemis as part of his Team for the Markovia op, because he knows how capable she is, and how much he trusts her.

Dick and Artemis’s playful “Tigress”/”Nightwing banter on the beach in the Evolution episode.

Dick placing a comforting hand on her shoulder when Artemis explained her decision to live a normal life with Wally in the episode Influence. (ah yes, solidarity, compassion, and comfort! Truly the most resentful of gestures!)

Artemis and Dick’s touching moment shared for Wally after the events of the Fever Dream.

And just a couple of bonus images of their friendship:

( ^ look at them fucking hamming it up XD <3)

There was literally zero indication that Dick harbors any sort of resentment toward Artemis, which would have to be the case for the argument against Spitfire, considering the resentment itself would have to start with her coming into Wally’s life. There is nothing but love, friendship, trust, and understanding between these two. There is not even a fragment to suggest otherwise. So no, this does not stand.

Point Four

Dick ships Spitfire. How could he resent something that he very obviously supports? There’s no shipper goggles here, we have several instances in the series itself that either blatantly or insinuates that Dick is fully aware of and in support of them.

-First of all we have the whole exchange between he and Wally in Infiltrator. He’s clearly noticed the tension as they all have, and while this isn’t a major one, I think it still stands. “You might cut her some slack. It was her arrow saved your butt against Amazo.” I’d also argue that, upon listening to Dick’s voice when he says this to Wally, that his appeasing inflection indicates that he’s trying to help clear the air between them, to give Wally a reason to chill and give her a chance. It might not be for romance purposes just yet, but he clearly was trying to help them become friends and ease the tension.

-The most blatant quote from Bereft: “Yeesh, get a room!” in response to them arguing with their faces close and being generally fairly obvious to anyone with eyeballs/ears.

-In Failsafe, Dick knowingly, if regretfully, uses Wally’s feelings for Artemis to keep him moving forward. He sees how badly Wally reacts, is able to easily discern from past moments between them and from Wally’s reaction itself, that he has some pretty deep feelings for her. We’ve already seen evidence that Dick is supporting of it through his teases, and the fact that he realized he’d have to feed Wally false hope about her to keep him moving shows that he’s not blind to it by any means. Dick felt awful about it; he does not say anything specifically about anyone on the Team to BC in his therapy session, but everything is still addressed as a whole, as he does talk about “sending (his) friends to their deaths” and being like Batman with his drive to finish the mission, etc.

-Again, Dick showed respect(and guilt) and looked away when Artemis and Wally kissed in Depths.

-And lastly and probably most importantly: the Fever Dream itself has nods to early Spitfire, and it came straight from Dick’s own brain. He’s not an idiot, he knows they liked each other and what they would mean to each other. If he had some kind of true resentment about it, don’t you think that in addition to not being so chummy with Artemis in s2 and s3, that he would have, idk, imagined the Team WITHOUT Artemis completely? Come the heck on, people. This is so goofy. (”Oh, hey, the new girl. I’m gonna keep my eye on her.” “We heard that!” // “Jected! She owes me one!” “You know I can still hear you?” “Dang it!” These two quotes are quite literally references to Infiltrator itself, wherein Artemis tells Wally “You know, I can still hear you!” when Wally says he’s not going to give her the satisfaction.)

Point Five

The Fever Dream itself. This isn’t even going to be a massive section because it doesn’t really have to be.

The point of the Fever Dream taking place in what was clearly post Infiltrator, was that it was before Failsafe. Before Infiltrator, nothing super crazy traumatizingly bad had happened to the Team yet. It wasn’t arguably until Home Front, Revelation, and Failsafe that shit started getting deep. They lost Kent in Denial and that probably didn’t sit well with Wally, it was one of the first losses they had experienced besides the woman the boys failed to protect in the tie-in comics. But ultimately Failsafe is the biggest thing that happened to them; it ruined them, it left lasting scars, it wasn’t fun, and being a hero was supposed to be fun back then. They knew it was responsibility too, I’m not saying they didn’t, but... they were kids, and it felt cool to be doing the stuff they were doing.

I don’t think there’s really any specific reason other than that. Early Team was good days, when everyone was happy. It was “All aster, no dis”. To me this is extremely obvious.

Point Six

Perhaps an even shorter point but one that desperately needs to be said because imo it alone is enough to derail all this horseshit.

This fan theory, once again I must reiterate, is basically saying that Dick either resents Spitfire/Artemis because it strained he and Wally’s friendship somehow, or that Dick has some hidden romantic feelings toward Wally. In claiming this, you are flat out choosing to ignore that Dick himself is basically a respectful player in s2 onward. It is made NO secret that he dates a LOT of women, all of which he respects and enjoys the company of and ends things nicely with, because he just loves women and sex (literally a Greg answer, of which I will grace you with shortly).

Are you trying to tell me that Dick resents Wally having a loving, deep, dedicated, solid, fucking loving ass relationship, and yet himself goes around being with a bunch of women and eventually winds up in his OWN deep long-term relationship with BABS? What kinda fucking hypocritical BULLSHIT y’all trying to pull here?

This point alone is enough to destroy this entire stupid ass theory.

(”Dick Grayson is a perfect gentlemen who love sex. He keeps a strong friendship with his many, many ex-GFs.” This was from a raunchy q&a done with Greg that included some of the other characters/relationships as well. And honestly that is THE most perfect description of s2-onward Dick that I’ve ever seen. “A perfect gentlemen that loves sex.” This is literally him.)

Final Point

I’m honestly just gonna stop the *ird*lash part of the theory in it’s tracks right here and now.

Now, anyone can ship whatever the hell they like, I am NOT disputing that, nor telling people they have to ship what I ship. What I AM saying though is that *ird*lash is not a thing in canon, so a fan theory based around some secret romantic feelings for Wally just isn’t going to work. Now, you can imagine whatever you like in fanon and fanfiction that’s cool! Fanon/fanfiction is always there to have your back (hell, I rely on it every day since 2013 with Spitfire because as of right now Wally be dead! *shrug*).

But the fact of the matter is that not only does the show dispute this pairing, as both boys are in dedicated relationships with other people canonically, neither Dick nor Wally are romantically inclined to each other in the creator’s eyes.

(”Well, what really precludes it, I suppose, is that I don’t think either of them are gay. But everyone is entitled to their opinion.” - Greg) And he’s blessing people to have their own opinions and use fanon too!

In Conclusion

Dick is not and never has been a resentful twat/bad friend, and this theory made me puke a little in my mouth from the first moment I heard it. I’m inclined to say that having a bit more respect for Dick might be wise.

#ranty rants #ranty is a bitch #yj meta #yj #otp: when we're alone #spitfire #ranty's meta

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gasp-iwrotesomething · 4 years

Text

Four Minutes Too Late (SFW)

Summary: MC had four minutes to bring him back; what she thought to be enough time. She was horrifically wrong. Now, after returning home numb from her failure, MC’s heart chips at the last note he left for her... and she wishes she could sock him one last time.

Word Count: 1,928

Genre: Angst (SFW)

Warning(s): MAJOR SPOILERS FOR CAL S2, EPS 10-12, mentions of death, a bunch of angst

A/N: Here’s an alternate version of the finale of Cal North’s season 2 where the resurrection fails and MC reads the note he wrote to her. The idea of this is right up my alley for severe angst so enjoy this heartbreaking fic as much as you can.

Also inspired by the this post by @official-alex-cyprin.

MC couldn’t keep still.

Despite the numbness infecting her body, MC’s legs continued to carry around the room as she paces restlessly. How could she rest? Cal was dead. He was gone and he would never come back. MC had repeated that a thousand times over in her head at this point but somehow, after stating this in the space and comfort of her room, it still rattles her from the inside out. First with her heart shuddering and crying with the truth at hand, then the tears that prick her eyes goading her to actually cry. I failed. I failed him. And he had to suffer the consequences. She shuts her eyes against the intense waves of guilt and frustration and sadness that all lap at her, tugging and knotting her heartstrings sordidly. As morbid as it sounded, it was true; no one could convince her otherwise. Cal had sought her out specifically--asked for her assistance and utter trust--and relied on her to do her part. Bring him back to life. But she didn’t. MC tried with every ounce of her being to focus on breathing life back into him, conduct CPR until his chest moved, stab the adrenaline shot into his heart until she could feel the dull thump of it against her fingertips... But nothing happened. Thirty seconds passed--nothing. Then a minute--nothing--then two, then three, then four until Wrath had to pull her away--drag her back into reality and relay the message that it was too late. Cal was gone.

MC collapses backwards onto her bed as more guilt swamps her. What about Avi? The little boy had no idea what Cal had been planning and now that the plan failed, how in the hell would the troupe be able to break the news to him? He was so small and pure and spared from the hard travesties of life; with Cal there to raise and monitor him, Avi never had to experience loss or true grief. And now he had to face all of those inevitable feelings with the loss of his legal guardian--the person who he saw everyday and who he loved most of all. Avi would experience grief from the person who had gone through hell and back to assure that Avi never went through the past he had lived through. That shred of happiness was gone; stolen right from under his feet like it was nothing--like Cal was nothing. That, more than any other revelation MC experienced, is what tears her heart into ribbons. She couldn’t wash her mind clean of the last moments of Cal’s life--the look of regret and longing. The feeling that there was something that should’ve been said--something that should’ve been shared between the two of them. It was almost a physical thing wedged between them, thickening the air and wrapping around them like a blanket of urgency. MC recalled how she wondered if they’d ever break that silence between the two of them; wondered if this was the last fragment of regret she’d have to tote for the rest of her life if she failed.

And she did, and now the blanket was hopeless around her shoulders.

MC heaved a quavering sigh. How was she supposed to live with that? Live with the fact that she never got to tell him how she felt? That she never gave him the chance to speak his heart? Was that even a possible thing to do? The answer is turbid, unable to be fruitful to her aching chest, and she palms the tears gathering in her brown eyes. Was Cal’s death really her fault? Of course it was--she had been in charge of resuscitating him after all. And that wasn’t even the most morbid cluster of the guilt buzzing within her rib cage. MC had seen him take his last breath, felt the last essence of life leave his body; she had seen the blue of his eyes dull as they closed for the final time. She watched him sip the venom and she felt his heart slow and then stop against her hand. MC had felt his blood on her fingers, felt the lively warmth of it as Cal stilled and passed on to wherever he was destined to go. She had been the last thing Cal saw right before he died. The thought sickens her. Though it should be beneficial to her consolation process, it just made her want to bend the rules of reality and rewind time. I shouldn’t have been the last person Cal saw: it should’ve been Avi. It should’ve been Avi, for god’s sake!

Cal loved Avi more than anything and to pass without seeing him again--for the last time? MC couldn’t even fathom the prospect of it, her pulse twittering in her chest painfully. But Avi watching Cal die wasn’t something that should’ve happened; he’s a kid, he doesn’t deserve to have that mental image ingrained in his head for the rest of his life. MC retracts her wishes almost as fast as she forms them. Cal wanted Avi to live a life devoid of the sinister life of being a demon hunter--he wanted him to grow up a way that Cal didn’t get to. Avi seeing Cal dead didn’t align with Cal’s moral compass or even his goals for Avi. The least MC and the troupe could do was carry on his intentions and raise Avi just the way he did; to be a kid without a care in the world. MC presses the heel of her hand against her closed eyes. If only I had enough time... I could’ve prevented this whole fiasco. I could’ve saved Cal and he could be with Avi right now, happy and safe. We could break the wall between him and I and spread our feelings out on the table--be truthful with one another. MC descends into a spiral of ‘what if’s’, picturing a life--a reality--where Cal and her could be together. Where everyone was happy--where no grief or loss or Cal-lessness existed.

Then she bolts upward as she remembers the note Cal had left for her.

MC’s heart races and trips and stumbles in her chest. For an earth-shattering moment, MC isn’t weakened by her everlasting grief; there’s just anticipation and giddiness, a storm of butterflies whisking around her belly. The note! How could I have forgotten about the note?! She mentally slaps herself for her idiocy and then rummages through her pocket, producing the envelope with the tiny, pleading writing scrawled on the outside. He had been so adamant that I don’t open this if it does work... what did he want me to see? The curiosity fluttering through her heart becomes more belligerent as her fingernail shimmies under the flap of the envelope, sliding to the left and summoning a gentle ripping sound to fill the air. It’s most tense during the long and surprisingly robust sound; as if mirroring the rhapsody of patter her heart sings. The flap flutters loose, gifting MC with access to the contents within. A note with a yellow tinge peeks at her from over the ‘v’ of the envelope. There it is. The note Cal wants me to read now that he’s... MC’s internal monologue fades off as the knot in her throat tightens--how was she supposed to read the note and not break down? Just thinking about the deceased gunslinger has her heart aching like it did when he had passed--more specifically, when the four minutes passed on.

She slips the note from its bed of ivory white paper and carefully unfolds it, her heart beating so fast as if it was about to break free from her chest. She had no idea what would be inside--what Cal would’ve wrote--and what exactly would it change? Unless it was some voodoo spell that could resurrect Cal if she recited aloud, MC doubted that the contents would do anything to heal the tear that still scathed her. The paper unfurls in her hands, inviting her eyes in, giving passage to the few words that were scrawled in big yet careful letters.

I want to kiss you.

MC doesn’t move. In fact, she stills, her brown eyes traveling over every curve and line like it would all disperse into something else--something she didn’t even know. The realization thwacks her once it comes and as soon as it does, MC’s mind whirls with the implications--the possibilities. Cal wanted to... kiss me? A roll of warm emotions uncurl within her--like a long elegant carpet stitched in the classic style of a quilt--and her hand instinctively rises to her chest. So he had feelings for her too. All along, Cal had-! MC wanted to punch something, preferably the gunslinger himself, for leaving her with a dream that would never be. A dream that died along with him that night. With a shaking sigh, MC laughs--first lightly, then louder, hoping that letting it out would alleviate the pain that crowded her rib cage. It doesn’t, to say the least; all it does is heighten the urge to cry to the point where she’s laughing and vigorously scrubbing the tears gathering in her tear ducts. Now she looked like some kind of lunatic from a generic horror film--laughing and crying like she’d never known what a normal emotion felt like. Of course Cal would leave me hanging like this; why did I expect any sort of relief? But there was relief--relief that the connection between them wasn’t just a thread visible to only MC (and the rest of the troupe), but was also tangible to Cal as well. Maybe she should’ve been content with that; able to melt into a sense of giddiness that they both had feelings for one another. That there was an understatement between them of more. Maybe that was enough. But it’s not enough--god, why can’t it be enough? She was selfish to not be happy with the last thing Cal left for her--that was her first instinct--but how could she? She had been shown a future that she’d never get but had always wanted.

MC slumps. She didn’t know how to feel about this anymore. Should she cry out of joy or cry out of misery--out of grief? MC didn’t even know if there was a right answer to that. For a moment, MC stares at the note, unable to do anything else. Then, tentatively, MC raises the piece of paper up to her lips. She kissed the note gingerly as if it were Cal's mouth, her heart full yet so empty. In her mind, she wonders how the kiss would be between the two of them. How Cal reacted, how he tasted, how his breath smelled, how soft his lips were, how warm her chest would grow... The curse of his absence settles into her fantasies and her heart ripped apart again--torn. She’d never be able to kiss him--never, no matter how much she wished otherwise. All MC could do was hope that wherever Cal was right now, above or below, that he felt the kiss.

Heard her heart's mournful orchestra and knew that it played for him alone.

Knew that she felt the same as he did for her.

That Cal knew that she wanted to kiss him too.

And that she would if she could--a thousand times over until his mouth never knew what it felt like to be unkissed.

“I’m sorry,” She murmurs softly, that hope that he’d hear it a flower flourishing in the ecosystem of her heart.

“I’m so, so, sorry, Cal.”

~FIN~

#cal north #sin with me #lovestruck voltage

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imaginemarcothephoenix · 4 years

Note

Imagine Marco being a mother hen in the moby dick (please? / I really don't know if I write that right ~sorry / Ps. love your tumblr S2)

Ask box is open!

“You’re working yourself too hard,” Marco says calmly. “This is the seventh time you’ve pulled something this month, Namur.”

“We’ve had a busy month,” Namur yawns, stretching his arm slowly and wincing when it pulls on the strain. “There’s been more people falling overboard than normal and the stress levels have risen since Pops’ last doctor’s visit.”

“I know,” Marco sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose and feeling exhausted as he fills out a new slip. “You’re on bed rest for the next three days and if I see you out of bed for anything other than meals, you’ll find that time increasing.”

“That’s not fair.”

“I’ve already had Thatch sedated because he hasn’t slept in a week and Ace is on thin ice, do you want to test me?”

Namur frowns, “You know you don’t have to worry about all of us. We’re adults.”

“You’re my siblings and I love you, but none of you know how to take care of yourselves,” Marco grins when Namur scoffs. “You are as bad as Pops, all of you. Now go and rest or I will tie you to one of the beds in medical and you will stay there.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“You say that like I’ve never forced someone to relax before. Now go, I have another appointment.”

“Fine,” Namur sighs, grinning when he stands. “Thanks for caring.”

“That’s what siblings do.”

Marco waits for the door to close behind him before stepping into the next room and frowning at the jug in Whitebeard’s hands, “you aren’t supposed to be drinking.”

“It’s just a little bit son. No one ever suffered from drinking.”

“That’s a lie. People die from drinking all the time. From liver disorders and over drinking. Why are you still trying to convince me otherwise?” Marco states, taking the jug from him and resisting the urge to roll his eyes when he finds it mostly empty. “Pops, who is your supplier?”

“I have no idea what you speak of son.”

“Pops.”

“Marco.”

Marco sighs, rubbing his face tiredly and setting the jug as far from Pops’ bed as he can. He’ll take it out of the room when he leaves, just like he has the last few times, but only after clearing the rest of the room.

“You’re not helping your health, Pops. I thought we were agreed that you were going to listen to my medical advice, not ignore it.”

“I don’t remember any such promises,” Whitebeard laughs, wheezing as he leans back against his pillows. “You’re overbearing sometimes, Marco.”

“I’m a doctor, your doctor,” Marco points out, writing down the information on the life support devices. “I’m trying to keep you around longer.”

“Thank you, son.”

Marco grins, “You’re welcome. Now, let me check your lungs.”

written by: mod S

#marco the phoenix #opfanfic #whitebeard pirates #iloveyaois2

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citrinekay · 4 years

Text

prompt from Rococoa on AO3: post s2, Bill and Holden get trapped in a confined space together and it turns out Bill's intensely claustrophobic (or any other situation where Bill's faced with a phobia), Holden talks him through a panic attack, and Bill comes away with new empathy and respect for Holden.

The victim’s girlfriend lives in a decrepit, red brick skyrise building in downtown Chicago with ten flights of stairs in between them and her apartment. Though the local police had already questioned the young lady weeks ago, Bill and Holden thought it best to go back over the fine details now that they have more information and they have a few questions the detectives hadn’t thought of.

Bill warily regards the archaic elevator with the metal fencing that pulls across the rickety metal doors. The space is no more than a five-by-five foot box with laminated particle-board wainscotting and fake gold gilding on the metal panels at the top. The interior smells like stale cigarettes, body odor, and a few other things Bill doesn’t care to identify.

Holden frowns as he balks. “What’s wrong with you?”

“This thing looks like a death trap.”

“You really want to climb ten flights of stairs, be my guest. I’ll take my chances.” Holden says, entering the elevator without hesitation.

Bill clenches his jaw, and steps hesitantly into the elevator behind him. Holden selects the button for the tenth floor, and stands back as the doors grind shut with an ominous squeal. The box lurches into motion, and Bill can all but hear the cables protesting as it drags them laboriously towards their destination.

Lowering his head, Bill braces his shoulder into the back corner of the elevator to support the dizzy sway in his stomach. Anxiety grips the back of his neck in a cold, unrelenting fist as the elevator travels at an excruciatingly slow pace past each floor. A cold sweat breaks out under his clothes, and he shoots a narrowed glance upward at the indicator above the door that lights up as they pass each floor.

When they finally reach the tenth floor, the doors grind open, and Bill lurches away from the corner to bat the metal caging open. He steps out into the narrow hallway, and draws in a deep breath of air that doesn’t smell like the inside of a coffin.

“What’s your problem?” Holden asks, bewildered as he passes Bill in the direction of the girlfriend’s apartment.

“I’m fine.” Bill grunts, “I think it was just something I ate.”

“Okay.” Holden mutters, shooting a skeptical glance over his shoulder. “It’s this way.”

Bill follows him down the hallway to the girlfriend’s apartment. The young lady is home, thankfully, and she answers all of their questions after offering them both something to drink. Bill accepts her offer of a glass of water, and uses it to cool the dry clutch of lingering nerves in the back of his throat.

Throughout the rest of the conversation, he shoves down the dire sense of panic that had followed him from the suffocating confines of the elevator, and by the time they leave the apartment, he’s gotten himself under control.

As they approach the elevator again, Bill mentally kicks himself.

Pull it together. It’s a goddamn elevator for twenty fucking seconds.

Smothering his nerves, he steps into the elevator ahead of Holden, and leans back against the wall. Holden calmly glances around at the ugly decor and matted carpeting as the doors whine shut again, and the cables protest before dropping them into motion.

Bill closes his eyes as he feels his stomach drop right along with the jagged inertia of the elevator. The pressure on his temples starts back up again with that inescapable feeling that he’s slowly being carried below the earth into a small, dark space that there’s no way to get out of.

He shoots a glance up at the floor indicator. Nine, eight, seven, six, five. CLUNK.

Bill’s chest nearly explodes with horror as the elevator cables jolt as if it had caught up on something jagged. There’s a brief pause right before the whole death box begins to fall, dropping at a much faster rate than he’s certain is normal.

He doesn’t have time to panic before the elevator falls through the next four floors in the space of a few seconds and lands with a bone-jarring crash. The impact causes Bill to slide down against the wall while Holden, who had been standing freely in the center of the elevator, falls backwards into him.

They collapse to the floor with a grunt, and Bill shouts, “Fuck.”

“Shit. Are you okay?” Holden asks, clambering up from Bill’s lap with wide eyes.

“Fine.” Bill grunts, dragging himself to his feet. “I told you this thing was a fucking death trap.”

“It went up just fine.”

“Well it didn’t go back down just fine.”

Holden turns to jab at the button to open the doors, but to no avail.

“Shit.”

“You can’t be serious.” Bill mutters. “We’re trapped in this thing?”

“Just calm down.”

“Don’t tell me to fucking calm down. You’re the one who said you’d take your chances.”

“You can’t seriously be blaming me for this.”

They stare back and forth at each other for a long moment before he lets out a sigh, and rubs a hand over his forehead. “Fuck. No. I’m sorry.”

“Okay, let’s think.” Holden says, glancing around the elevator. “There must be some kind of panic button.”

Bill’s heart slows down as his brain quickly realizes the fall hadn’t killed them, but the establishing baseline turns out to be something close to a sick, drumming palpitation that’s only a margin calmer. He leans back against the wall again as his chest constricts, the small vein of panic he’d endured on the ride up exploding into a perforated well that floods out every other logical thought. His skin feels cold and clammy even as a wave of heat rolls down his spine, and his breathing picks up.

“Ah, here we go.” Holden announces, triumphantly, his voice cutting past the dull roar in Bill’s brain. “See, panic button.”

He jabs the red button at the bottom of the floor selection, and the elevator gives out a shrill ring.

The sound is doing nothing for Bill’s burgeoning panic though he knows it means help might be on the way.

Holden presses down on the button again. “Someone has to be hearing this.”

Bill feels his knees go weak while the corners of his vision narrow with prickling, black stars. A numb, tingly sensation grips his extremities until he can hardly feel his hands clutching at the grimy wall behind him. His knees go weak, and he sinks down toward the floor before he can give himself another mental kick to pull it together.

Holden turns around just as he crouches down, a frown knotting his brow.

“Are you okay?”

“I … I’m fine.” Bill whispers, his voice sounding thready between ragged breaths.

“You don’t look okay.” Holden says.

“No, it’s … I’m … I’m-” The words stagger from Bill’s chest, but the breaths are coming too hard, and the sound of his own wheezing gasps are filling up the last bits of logical space inside his brain. His instincts are screaming that he’s dying, or at least suffocating to death very slowly - no amount of mental kicking or assurances could tell him otherwise.

Bill sinks to his backside on the floor, and braces both hands over his face in an attempt to block out the elevator and it’s small, dingy walls which seem to be closing in on him with every second that passes.

Holden drops down to his knees in front of Bill, and gently grasps his wrists to pry his hands away from his face.

“Bill, look at me.” He says, his voice perforating the dull roar in Bill’s mind.

Bill cracks his eyes open. He draws in a hitched breath, but every attempt at catching his breath seems to only result in faster, deeper wheezing.

“Look at me.” Holden says, pressing closer, “Listen to my voice. You’re hyperventilating. You need to breathe. I know it feels like you can’t right now, but you can do it. In through your nose, out through your mouth.”

Bill nods, trying to focus on what Holden is saying, but his heart is pounding right out of his chest and he feels close to passing out.

“That’s it.” Holden encourages softly, “Keep looking at me.”

Bill struggles to pull a breath in through his nose and succeeds in getting a small gasp of oxygen, but his chest quickly collapses again with a painful shudder. It feels like his heart could tear right out of his chest, but that’s the least of his worries. His mind is racing with persistent, terrified thoughts, screaming out from the dark recesses of his brain that he’s going to die. This whole death trap is going to collapse and kill them.

“Slowly, slowly.” Holden says, his voice soft and deliberate. “In and out, okay? In and out.”

Bill nods, trying to focus on slowing down his breathing.

“Here.” Holden whispers, tugging on his tie and unbuttoning the top two buttons of his shirt. “That’s better. Come on, lean forward.”

Bill wheezes as Holden drags him forward by the elbow to put his head between his knees.

“Keep breathing.” Holden murmurs, his hand slipping past the lapel of Bill’s jacket to measure the rise and fall of his chest. “In through your nose, out through your mouth.”

Bill closes his eyes, trying to shut out the sense of impending doom the tight elevator walls are giving him. He focuses on Holden’s voice, the gentle touch of his hand. The pressure right above his heart is grounding, pulling the panicked thudding back down into reality, a signpost that this little box isn’t going to kill them.

“Good.” Holden murmurs as he feels Bill’s chest begin to rise evenly again. “Count them in your head with me. One, two, three, four …”

By the time Holden gets to ten, Bill feels the crushing grip in his chest slowly release, and his brain begins to emerge from the panicked haze. He sucks in deep breath through his nostrils, and exhales them slowly past his lips, relishing the taste of oxygen returning to his lungs.

He gradually opens his eyes to see Holden kneeling in front of him, his face no more than a few inches away. His eyes, glazed with concern, hold onto Bill’s with a silent sympathy.

Bill looks down, and realizes he’s clutching Holden’s hand to his chest. He carefully extricates his fingers, and looks away from Holden’s worried stare, ashamed with himself.

“I think it’s over.” Holden whispers, giving his chest a pat.

Bill nods, not looking up. “Yeah, I’m fine. It’s fine.”

Holden retreats as Bill’s voice hardens defensively. He climbs to his feet, and braces his hands against his hips.

“If you had told me you’re claustrophobic, I would have taken the stairs. Gladly.”

“I can handle it.” Bill says, pushing his hands underneath of him in an attempt to get up. “Most of the time I don’t have an elevator trying to fucking kill me.”

“Hey, don’t try to stand.” Holden says, putting a firm hand on Bill’s shoulder. “Your body just released a huge amount of adrenaline. You’re going to feel weak and shaky.”

“Holden. I said I’m fine.”

Holden takes a step back, but Bill lapses to his backside on the floor. His mouth feels dry as cotton, and his limbs are jittery with spent adrenaline.

“Take your time.” Holden says, “You might feel like this for the rest of the day.”

Bill frowns as he watches Holden pace the elevator, his expression reserved yet strained with concern. In the midst of the panic attack, he hadn’t considered Holden’s own struggle with his episodes - his lonely struggle. He’d never been present to witness one of Holden’s attacks, let alone comfort him through it the way Holden had just done for him.

Bill swallows hard. “Let’s just get out of here.”

Holden rings the panic button again before letting out a weary sigh. He shuffles over to where Bill is sitting, and lowers himself to the floor beside him.

“I think we’re just going to have to wait it out.” He says, tilting his head back against the wall and glancing over at Bill. “Sorry. Are you going to be okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s under control.” Bill says, reaching into his pocket for his cigarettes.

Holden crosses his arms over his knees, and stares straight ahead as Bill lights his cigarette and takes a slow drag.

Bill smokes, casting surreptitious glances out of the corner of his eye at Holden’s stoic profile. His chest squeezes, this time not out of fear or panic. The flinch is more of an ashamed response to his own selfish opinions of Holden and his panic attacks, the way he’d spent weeks viewing it as some kind of personal shortcoming that could have been avoided.

Finally, Bill lets out a sigh. “I think I owe you an apology.”

“Why’s that?” Holden asks, casting a curious glance over at him.

“I’ve never … Before today, I didn’t know.” Bill says, quietly. “What you’ve been going through since Kemper and Vacaville.”

Holden’s gaze drops to the floor, and he purses his lips. “The first time, I thought I was having a heart attack and dying. The second time, I knew that wasn’t true, but it still felt like it. You know, the worst part about having a panic attack is being terrified that it’s going to happen again - over and over again.”

Bill pinches his cigarette harder between his fingers, watching ashes trail faintly towards the carpet.

Holden draws in a deep breath. “Eventually, you learn to anticipate it, and protect yourself from situations that could trigger one; but it can happen anywhere at any time.”

“What can you do?” Bill asks, quietly.

Holden gives a shrug, and morose smile. “Plan for the worst.”

The superintendent and the building handyman arrive fifteen minutes later to pry the doors open. Both men apologize profusely when they realize their ancient elevator had nearly injured two FBI agents. Bill tells them sternly to get the thing fixed or better yet, replace the entire dysfunctional unit.

Once they’re back out on the sidewalk, he stands still to breathe in a deep breath of fresh, clean air.

Holden walks ahead of him to the car, seemingly unperturbed by the entire incident. Bill wonders if that just means he isn’t claustrophobic, or if he’s become so jaded that such a stressful encounter barely touches the stratospheric bar of his own panic disorder any longer.

He catches up to Holden on the sidewalk beside their car.

“Holden.”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.” Bill says, “It could have been a lot worse.”

Holden musters a smile. “You're welcome. I don’t think you have anything to worry about as long as you stay away from tiny elevators that should have been decommissioned in the sixties.”

Bill chuckles. “Yeah. Thanks.”

Holden ducks into the car, and Bill slides behind the wheel to drive them back to the precinct. Their conversation turns back to the case as they speed down the freeway, windows open to let in the fresh breeze. Bill figures they won’t talk about it again because that’s what he prefers and he knows Holden respects him; but maybe, in the future, the silent understanding will continue. Bill doesn’t like to be indebted to anyone, and he quietly hopes that he can find a way to repay Holden someday soon.

#bill x holden #mindhunter #my writing

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nemrut · 4 years

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Epic Seven - Hunt 13

So, I want to build fast Hunt 13 teams. I saw the recent-ish guide videos of Mango, YDCB and jttai for Wyvern in particular. I also perused some guides on sites like Yufine.co or reddit. It used units I liked and It was rather elegant.

The problem was two fold:

1. While I have all the units in question (Sigret, SSB, Singelica and Karin), two of them were not ready mola wise.

2. I very much did not have the necessary gear for Sigret, who requires a very good rage set. The only rage pieces I have are those given as rewards and most of them were not levelled.

The mola issues are annoying but at the end, ultimately solvable. Molas are a patience thing, as we get a strict amount every week and month. True, there are the occasional outliers and lucky drops from the world boss, but generally, if you wait long enough and do not spend molas otherwise, you will have enough in a month or two. Again, annoying I guess I should have enough to max Sigret’s S1 and S3 in a few weeks.

The gear issue is much more annoying. In order to be able do Wyvern 13 I need a ready supply of rage set pieces so that means....an Azimanak 13 team. The kicker there of course is, that the units for that team also require rage sets to be able to reliably and quickly do the job. The saving grace there was, a lot of the units were ready with regards to molas. Currently running Bellona, Vivian, LQC and Watcher Schuri. The only one who needed a few molas was Vivian’s S2 in order to have the necessary damage to kill the first wave with Bellona before LQC and W.Schuri blow their load on them.

The current problem is, that it is still not reliable. It is missing a bit of damage and LQC keeps skipping turns at one point before Bellona can apply the def break on the boss. Of course, the win percentage can never be more than 85% because there is always a 15% chance for every enemy to resist a def break debuff and with that just not die and then ultimately wipe your team but my current team has like a 1 in 5 chance of beating it at all. If it works, it is a one minute run, which is neat because it is relatively quick but it needs improvement.

One problem with LQC is, well, her passive CR increase when she receives a critical hit. That is a bit of a problem because it adds an RNG element into the very exact speed order. If she gets hit and critted, well, she then attacks before Bellona which then means she wastes her S3 before def break or target were applied. I don’t really know if there is a solution for that. My LQC already has no speed on her items and I can’t really make my Bellona any faster at this point. Maybe I can squeeze like 2 or 3 speed out with gear which hits a bit less hard but if LQC is attacked twice by the creeps, that jusut means it will happen regardless. Unless I somehow roll godly speed gear somehow, I don’t think that aspect of RNG can be eliminated which means I would have to replace my LQC with another single target dmg dealer. Now, I guess I could use Yufine but Yufine definitely needs Rage set there.

I might try it when I have more gold again. I used 20 million gold yesterday for crafting weapons and switching gear around, meaning I am almost broke at this point so need to gather some more money again.

While I was at it, I also tried a Banshee 13 team. Going with Bellona, Vivian and Yufine there. So far, that doesn’t work. Banshee 13 is a different beast because she needs to die in one hit or she will split into the four smaller units, meaning that a quick run will be impossible at that point.Azimanak and Wyvern don’t have the problem in that way. Yeah, they need to be killed quickly as well, but they can take a few hits before their mechanics are triggered whereas Banshee has a much lower threshold. So a team needs to set up the condition for massive dmg and then one-shot her. Bellona and Vivian clear the first wave of creeps, Bellona applies target and def break and Vivian still applies her atk buff. That’s when Yufine goes and hits with her S3 but mine does not do enough dmg to kill her at this point. I kinda regret not building Baiken because she can get away with worse gear as she attacks twice due to her two attack chain. But at this point, that would mean maxing her S2 and S3 and I am just not ready to do that. I already had to spend a few molas on Vivian, might spend a few more to max her S2 and make her an actual option to cleave in PVP. Then I have to build Karin and Sigret, who also require a lot of molas. I just can’t juggle building so many units, especially since they will all be for PVE.

But it is something I kinda want since my current Hunt teams just take so long and even there, it is no guarantee.

Anyway, building these one minute/one-shot teams is really fun, even if it is really difficult and requires insane gear and a lot of molas and some very specific units. Am still a long way off, unfortunately.

#epic 7 #epic seven #hunts #banshee 13 #wyvern 13 #azumanak 13 #pve

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miss-m-calling · 4 years

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Rare Pairs 2020 letter

Canons requested: American Gods (TV), The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Starred Up, Witchblade (TV), 킹덤 Kingdom (Netflix)

Dear writer,

Hello and thank you for writing for me. I’m very excited to read whatever you come up with.

Without further ado…

Requests:

American Gods (TV)

Laura Moon/Mad Sweeney

I ship it. Yes I do. They had me at “gimme-my-coin-dead-wife”-flicks-him-into-wall. The snarky road trip was the best thing I never knew I wanted until it happened, and I adored every second of it, not to mention the upped shippiness in S2. They’re both such assholes and so fascinating, even if they start to mellow toward each other a bit, and all the gods/magic/resurrection stuff swirling around them begs to be explored further. Also I love love love how their dynamic is about equal parts spikiness, pathos, and humor (they’re funny! and the canon doesn’t shy away from putting them in ludicrous situations), and it weaves seamlessly between those three. Plus she’s half his size yet can and does beat him up with literally one finger, and then there’s the angst of he having killed her, feeling really guilty about it, and then bringing her back. And the way that their New Orleans adventure makes clear they have feelings for each other (S1 was more one-sided Sweeney -> Laura) but neither wants to admit it. And and and… yeah, I just love them. Canon-specific DNWs: Sweeney dying/staying dead (at least permanently), Laura as Essie’s reincarnation/descendant or a reincarnation/whatever of Sweeney’s wife from back when he was a king in old Ireland (or a lot of focus on those relationships), either Laura or Sweeney as an inanimate corpse in a smut scenario

My prompts are a combo of prompts I had after I binged S1 and others I added throughout S2. Even if some of this is addressed or hinted at in canon, feel free to diverge – canon divergences and canon-adjacent stories are my jam!

-Please give me either missing scenes from the road trip (if you can work in a divergence, that’s great - for example, I like Salim, but if you want to have him boot Sweeney and Laura to the curb and go off on his own, or Sweeney to boost his taxi before Salim catches them, or whatever else to have those two alone, go for it!), or a divergence from either season (instead of going to Ostara, they go where? to see whom? about getting Laura resurrected. Or things go down differently in New Orleans, or Cairo, or anywhere else) or something about these two post-canon.

-Laura discovers (how? you decide!) that Sweeney gave her back the coin after their accident – whatever happens next, some punching may be involved. (If nothing else, Mama-Ji mentions that the coin is now in Laura’s heart, and we saw Sweeney place it on her ribcage after the accident, whereas it was originally in her gut like she’d swallowed it. Laura might ask herself how the hell it moved.)

-Wednesday’s big war finally comes, and “don’t you dare die on me [again], you asshole” is a line either Sweeney or Laura (or both) might say to each other.

-Laura asked “What does Wednesday have to lose?” and the answer is…? (Yes, give me that sweet poetic justice. One possibility, though not remotely the only one, but as of S2E3 Laura is technically a god-killer...) Or later when she straight-up says she’s going to kill Wednesday, but is warned to bring power with her when she does, how does that work? How else might she damage Wednesday or ruin his plans, just in case she can’t actually kill him?

-At the end of S2, Laura hoists Sweeney’s dead body over her shoulders and strides off, seemingly leaving Cairo, Shadow, and all of it behind. Tell me what happens then – does she use Baron Samedi’s potion to bring him back, and whose is the blood filled with love she uses (does she still bleed? You could get creative here, worldbuilding is also my jam)? Does her/his coin play a part – and how come the coin still “powers” Laura despite Sweeney’s death? Does she bring him back another way, maybe figuring out how to keep herself around and be able to give Sweeney back his coin? Does he come back like she did, more undead than alive, or does his godhead, however depleted, help with that? That still leaves Laura to be fully resurrected too… Or does something completely out of left field happen – surprise me!

-Possible divergences from “Treasure of the Sun”: Sweeney manages to kill Wednesday, and then Laura rolls up, and then…? Or Laura rolls up and makes like Mama-Ji told her – destroys some motherfuckers? Or Sweeney gets killed temporarily but Laura brings him back, or brings herself back, or does something else with the Baron’s potion, and is Sweeney’s blood the one filled with love, or can we interpret voodoo spells in a non-literal way? Or what happens with Gungnir hidden in Sweeney’s hoard? And definitely how do they deal with each other once they meet up in Cairo, given how they parted in New Orleans (I don’t know what hurt more to watch: Laura deflecting at the diner, or Sweeney rambling drunkenly about her when Shadow finds him, or later on telling Shadow with such desperate sincerity to keep her away from Wednesday)?

-Or how about a wild divergence from the last several episodes? Sweeney and Laura manage to settle their differences (ahem, more fucking, on this plane of reality, might help) and don’t part ways before leaving NOLA. Or they roll up in Cairo separately but at the same time, and confront Wednesday together, and neither of them die (or die more, in her case). Or they’re there together when the police nearly raid the house. Or they have Wednesday (the ultimate cause of Laura’s death) and Ibis (a death deity) and Bilquis (a love/death/life deity) on hand, surely they can concoct some kind of resurrection thingamajig for Laura, and if they have to twist some divine arms then so be it. Or or or…?

-Wednesday told that luckless cop that Sweeney had been against the big gods’ war from the start, and while Wednesday lies, what if Sweeney decided much sooner to say to hell with Grimnir and his war and his having Sweeney kill random people? I’m guessing Sweeney too drank three glasses of mead so he can’t back out without dire consequence – but he does have a fierce, dead woman in his corner.

-They go to some as-yet-unnamed old god (feel free to bring in whatever mythology you want) in order to bring Laura back to life. Between Sweeney’s mouth and temper, and Laura’s mouth and temper, it doesn’t go well. Now one or both of them are in big magical trouble with a pissed-off deity and have to get themselves/each other out of it. Speaking of other deities, I really enjoyed their brief canon interactions with Ostara, Anansi, and Mama-Ji, and I’d like to see more of that, especially Ostara’s polite yet over-it attitude, Anansi very obvious over-it attitude and his dramatic flair, or Mama-Ji being one of the few capable of giving Laura pause.

-All the petty, ridiculous ways in which Sweeney’s bad luck manifests itself make me laugh (can’t help it, won’t even try), and I’m down for more variations on that theme.

-Sweeney and Laura fighting together, like they did on Mr. Town’s train of torture. Whether it’s a bar fight of their own making, or the big gods’ war they find themselves embroiled in, or something else entirely.

-Things happen and Laura finds herself in the position to throw Sweeney under the bus but also help/save him, and while he knows it’s only karma (he did kill her way back when), he can still be pissed off about it – how do they navigate this?

-Related to that, the Baron said: “In death is her true love, but she betrays him also.” If that meant Sweeney, or can mean Sweeney in the future (I don’t like destiny-wills-it stories, and they’re definitely not there yet, but they could maybe get there at some future point, and even then It Would Be Complicated), was the betrayal Laura rejecting him after the loa ‘fuck them,’ or is it something that hasn’t happened yet, and if so, what?

-Laura gets fully alive again, but traces of her (un)dead state remain – what are they, how does she cope, what price did she/he/they have to pay for her resurrection, and how does their relationship change? I’d especially be curious how it would work if they’re already a sorta-maybe-item and then she’s alive again and it’s weird in a new way.

-For reasons I’ll leave up to you, Sweeney and Laura have to stay put in a single place for a while and end up essentially cohabiting, regardless of what their relationship is at that point. Take “cohabiting” as literally or as creatively as you want – in any case, I’m sure it will be marvelously disastrous and amazing. If the place they have to stay happens to be NOLA, all the better, I find everything about that city fascinating. Or, if you wanted to use book canon, Laura and Sweeney (rather than Shadow) are the ones who have to spend time living in Lakeside and deal with its creepy Norman Rockwell-ness and with Hinzelmann.

-Slight or major AU from the opening of “The Ways of the Dead”: Laura has hitchhiked with Sweeney instead of going off in a huff with Wednesday, or she otherwise gets to New Orleans sooner, and she and Sweeney tear up the town together. Gimme bar fights, carnival shenanigans, all the food and drink porn, backstage craziness with the Christian rock band (Sweeney seems to have a backstage pass on a lanyard around his neck when Laura finds him)… Maybe they even cross the paths of some loa and it doesn’t get all angsty (for what it’s worth, I think the reason the sex magic didn’t bring Laura back to life was because she couldn’t accept the truth(s) revealed during the astral-plane sex and just ask Sweeney to prick his finger for the potion – instead she defaults straight to “this is all Wednesday’s evil plan” the morning after – not because the loa fucked them over). They were actually getting along nicely in those first couple of scenes in NOLA, only ribbing each other a little while still being their grouchy selves, before they got to Le Coq Noir. I wouldn’t have minded seeing some more of that.

-AU from the end of “The Ways of the Dead”: they still have their big fight (which was amazing as well as painful) or some variation thereof, but they don’t split up. (Maybe the reason is as mundane as Sweeney refusing to get left behind or they have a shared ride out of town, or maybe the more time passes the less Sweeney can afford to be far from his coin – or maybe the coin needs him close by to work at full capacity.) And then what?

-All the old gods hide their true appearance to an extent. A situation arises in which Laura sees Sweeney’s true, or at least old, self (I’m thinking of his surprise!poignant monologue about when he used to be a king, and him in full Celtic warrior mode in the S2 flashbacks). Or Wednesday’s war ends in victory, meaning the old gods again get belief, worship, and sacrifices. How does Laura, the ultimate skeptic even when she’s on the other side of the mirror, react? How does this new knowledge and new reality change her opinion of/attitude to Sweeney? Or to flip that around, if Sweeney were again relevant and believed-in, would that actually change his bad attitude and fix his issues (my guess is it would be complicated)? On that note, Sweeney’s decline from Lugh to king to leprechaun was more sketched in than really explored in canon, ditto I didn’t really get why he couldn’t seem to remember his own history except in snatches (the curse that made him a bird/madman of the woods?) – I’d love to see more about it and his (not) dealing with it, or with a reversal of that decline. Eorann told him long ago to adapt and change with the times – but what does that mean after humpteen centuries in a rut and becoming used to always feeling angry and unappreciated?

-The power of names, since they never use each other’s in canon: for all his “dead wifeing,” there comes a time when Sweeney (has to) call her by her actual name, and that’s a tricky moment for them to navigate. Or, Mad Sweeney is not his actual name, and true names have great magical power and so must be kept secret; Laura discovers or learns his name, from someone else or from himself; what does she do with that knowledge? Or, Sweeney gets to say “cunt” in a situation (sexual or otherwise) where, not only does Laura not peel his lips from his gums, but she finds that she can’t object, even though she knows that he knows that he’s getting away with it.

-So far in canon, it’s pretty clear that Sweeney has a lot of complicated but sincere feelings for Laura. Laura is still pretty focused on Shadow (or rather her idealized vision of Shadow and what their relationship might yet be), whom she seems to equate with her own lost-maybe-to-be-regained life, although that’s starting to change at the end of S2. For one thing, she’s starting to soften toward Sweeney as she realizes he’s doing things for her that are not all about getting his coin back (and her sparring match with Wednesday in “Muninn” as well as Shadow refusing to be called puppy anymore in “Moon Shadow” may finally force her to accept that her relationship with Shadow died alongside her and Robbie on that road in Indiana). Not to mention the shared truth revealed in “The Ways of the Dead” (bullshit was that just Laura’s truth!) and how Laura flips out rather than deal with it and Sweeney can’t spit out that it mattered to him either, or how obviously cut up she is about Sweeney’s death despite refusing to admit it. Tell me the story of how Laura stumbles her way to feeling – and acknowledging that she feels – more complex, maybe kinder or softer, really annoying for her blunt-force-trauma-personality things about Sweeney and about the notion that her dynamic with him is different from the way she tended to use men for her convenience without really letting them in in the past. Also I’m pretty sure that even if they can admit they feel the same – or sorta in the same ballpark – about each other, their relationship would still run on a lot of conflict, and I would so be here for it.

-On that note: in “Munnin” it also becomes clear that Laura has, without realizing it herself, started to rely on Sweeney. The “I trusted you” line made me think, whoa she’s too furious to catch herself doing it but this is huge for Laura, and the fact that she goes off with Wednesday (!) basically because she’s mad at Sweeney because she thinks he’s prioritizing his debt to Wednesday over her… Yeah, I would like to see that explored some more and/or to see Laura and Sweeney get to a point where they trust each other and rely on each other, and know it and accept it, however difficult the getting there and being there may be for them.

-Sweeney has this intense need to see himself as a brave person and someone worthy of the world’s respect – but his past and his long experience as just a leprechaun have chipped away at that. Add the guilt of having been the instrument of Laura’s death and then all the pesky feelings he develops for her, and it’s a lot. Obviously his final actions in S2 are his trying to reclaim that courage and nobility of old (also to spite Wednesday, who’s messed both him and Laura up), but I would love to read about his character development under different circumstances, where Laura is there all the way, as opposed to them parting ways and meeting up again multiple times like in canon.

-And since I’m on the subject of Laura, you know how she’s not actually an abrasive bitch all the time to everyone? And when she is, the people on the receiving end of it sometimes richly deserve it, or very occasionally they push back (ILU, Mama-Ji!), and anyway it’s refreshing to see a female character who defaults to confrontational and doesn’t bother flirting and accommodating others for the sake of social harmony? As much as I enjoy watching her rip into people (ahem, Sweeney), I also love it when she acts differently, like her genuine interest in getting to know Salim and her joy in seeing him again in S2, or her running passive-aggressive battle of wills with Wednesday. Her beginning to feel sympathy for Sweeney and her anger and disappointment when she feels let down by him are a part of that, and I’d love to see all that explored more. Nuance! Give me all the nuance and seeming contradictions in both Laura and Sweeney’s characters!

-Sweeney and Laura get drunk and wake up married. Or some sex and/or blood resurrection spell results in basically an unbreakable marriage bond, whether it also secures resurrection or not. Or marrying the dead keeps them (sorta) alive. Or being married makes it possible for them to share magical/supernatural abilities. They’re both pissed about it, but secretly having to make it work may not be the worst thing that’s ever happened...

-My perfect AG spinoff would basically be Sweeney and Laura tooling around America, looking to get her resurrected (whether they succeed or not is up to you), stealing ever more ridiculous vehicles, arguing/fighting and having those pesky moments where vulnerability and genuineness creep in – and fucking. So yessiree I’d be down for porn, including “it’s technically necrophilia/zombiesex” porn, including a canon-divergent first time, or their second time, or all the later times after they had their first time in NOLA in canon.

-If you wanted to throw in some worldbuilding, maybe something exploring living death. Magical bargains. What kind of favor did Sweeney do for Ostara that would be worth her bringing someone back to life as repayment? What other powers might Sweeney have – or have left from when he was Lugh? How long can a dead wife keep going before she’s “soup”? What other superhuman abilities might dead!Laura have? Can the dead do magic? What even are the rules governing and the limits of different beings’ magical abilities? For example, why can’t Sweeney just take his coin back, or why does Laura gain super-strength as part of her undead package deal? Is the hoard in the same space as the behind-the-scenes accessed through the merry-go-round, or it’s a different place? Why does the coin seem to start to “run down” the longer Laura has it? Why did Wednesday need Laura to kill Argus when he killed Vulcan himself just fine? What happens with Gungnir now it’s in the hoard – can only Sweeney get to it, has it been transformed somehow (it’s now the treasure of the sun), etc.?

If it helps your inspiration, you can find some of my meta and lots of tag-burbling about these two here. I have read the book though I remember it only in bits and pieces, and while I prefer the show characters and the fact that they get thrown together, you can use or riff on book material if you want, though I’d prefer a story that isn’t just a retread of the book. With reference to one of my DNWs, for this canon, describing Laura’s physical decay is totally fine. Also, Shadow/Laura don’t interest me except as a part of Laura’s backstory (so if your story wants to include Laura figuring out or having already figured out that pinning all her hopes on Shadow to make everything right is unrealistic, unfair, and not how it works – by all means, go for it!), and Shadow/Sweeney interest me not at all.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (TV)

Lenny Bruce/Miriam “Midge” Maisel/Susie Myerson

Lenny Bruce/Miriam “Midge” Maisel & Miriam “Midge” Maisel/Susie Myerson

I’m here for Midge’s adventures in the intoxicating, foul-mouthed, and often-frustrating world of comedy, so her dynamic with Susie and Lenny is where it’s at. I just love the interactions between these three, and between every pair combination among them: Midge and Susie bantering and swearing and tits-upping even when they irritate each other, Midge and Lenny bringing the pathos as well as the humor, and Lenny and Susie both being hardened old pros with still a little glimmer of starry eyes. I am good with either V-shaped triad/poly or hey, Susie (whom I absolutely read as gay) might find a way to be good with a full-on triangle… And as much as I like the comedy inherent in the characters, I also love that they’re all three, each in their own way, messed up people and dysfunctional to various degrees. So yeah, I just want Midge to hand the kids over to her parents, ditch Joel once and for all, marry (interpret that as literally or as loosely as you want) both Susie and Lenny, and for the three of them to ride off into the sunset to make comedy history. Canon-specific DNWs: anything above M rating, pairing any two as a / couple with the third as a & hanger-on, and while Lenny can still be his RL messed-up, drugged-up self – albeit the gentler version the show gives us – it would be good if he didn’t kick the bucket a handful of years down the line.

Most of these prompts are from before S3 dropped – feel free to work with canon or diverge however you see fit, I am all caught up now:

-Does Susie manage them both? Does Midge open for Lenny on tour? Does he open for her??? Or they become equal stars on the comedy circuit?

-Maybe Lenny joins Shy Baldwin’s tour, or they run into him while touring Europe or the US, or after Shy fires Midge, Midge and Susie cobble together a Midge-only tour of America and keep crossing Lenny’s own touring path, and they all tool around, and yes I would love as much period detail and geography porn as you can throw at me. And while Lenny and Midge have seen the world, Susie hasn’t – her reaction to different foods, languages, customs, landscapes would be spectacular to witness. Especially if “different” is someplace as close to New York as Jersey or Connecticut, or someplace as far away and different as, say, Japan.

-If they do go to Europe, somehow or other they also tour the Soviet Bloc. Cue culture clashes, getting followed (or thinking they’re being followed) by the secret police, getting hammered on vodka and herring and pickles, and then when they get back to the States, the Feds grill them. It’s all dead serious, and Midge and Lenny refuse to take it as seriously as they should, while Susie is trying but the whole thing is really pissing her off…

-Lenny’s burned out, and Midge is just getting started. This dissonance may or may not find some sort of resolution. One thing’s for sure: Susie has limited patience for both Lenny’s depression and Midge’s need to make everything pretty.

-Instead of going to Joel for a no-way-is-that-closure fling after the Steve Allen Show taping, Midge goes to have a drink or seven with the two people who have, in their own ways, always been there for her and never let her down.

-Midge goes on TV again, this time as the star: longer set, prime time slot, dressing room, the works. She’s dying of nerves. Lenny and Susie coach her through it.

-More radio work to make ends meet in between gigs: hilaribad period ads, hilaribad radio drama, running all over town to be on time, getting paid in all kinds of dubious merch…

-Midge and Susie head out west to make it big and stay with Lenny once they’re in Los Angeles, and it’s marvelous (ha ha) and disastrous in equal measure.

-More of Susie being the hypercompetent manager we saw especially in S3! (And please don’t dwell on her gambling problem, I was not a fan.)

-They all three get drunk, maybe with a hint of sadness if it’s the holidays (you can ignore my DNW about holidays, but please let that be just the background, not the lynchpin of the story) or someone’s birthday, and there’s a bar fight, running from the cops, eating greasy food at ass o’clock, and possibly kissing, not necessarily in that order.

-One or two or all three of them get arrested/have court appearances all over America and have to bail each other out, or find someone to bail them all out, or secure legal counsel – you get the drift. Or all three of them are trying to explain to a single lawyer what happened, talking over each other, the two pros not being able to resist landing zingers and Susie not being far behind, and the lawyer just getting more and more confused.

-They get in trouble some other way – offended patrons, surly management, shitty hotels, tour bus breaks down in the middle of Wyoming – and have to have each other’s backs because no one else will.

-Three-person road trip or tour, and only Susie knows how to drive. So Midge decides to learn, right then and there. And Lenny… Lenny may or may not be too lazy/hungover/lying about not knowing how. There’s supposed to be a rotation so everyone gets to stretch out on the back seat for equal lengths of time, but you know the system doesn’t work too well in practice. Also, they play games in the car to while away the time, and they do it their own way of course: I spy, cows on my side, yellow car, never have I ever, 20 questions, or riffing on whatever’s playing on the radio…

-They sit down to watch the moon landing (you can move it up a bit so it’s not happening a whole decade after S2) – by which I mean, Midge is all gung-ho about the moon landing, and Lenny and Susie are like whatever – and things don’t quite go to plan, but a good time is eventually had by all.

-It’s Yom Kippur again, and Midge wants to do the whole production: synagogue, breaking fast, the lot. Lenny and Susie would rather eat glass. Midge gets her way, of course. Does she decide to bring Susie and Lenny home to meet – or meet properly – her parents??? I bet Abe and Rose’s reactions would be something to see. (This too is an exception to my DNW about holiday settings – I just want stuff to get as crazy as it did the two times we saw Yom Kippur celebrated on the show, and for everything to still somehow turn out relatively OK.)

-Midge and Lenny have cheered each other up when the going got extra rough. I want for Susie to be especially down in the dumps – maybe her boozehound of a mother died and Susie took it worse than she does in canon, maybe some asshole told her she’s a shit manager and got her right in her insecurities – and Midge to rope Lenny into trying to cheer her up. And for Susie to fight them every step of the way but still be glad they care enough to try.

-Inspired by Susie’s brother looking just like her, by which I mean she and he and their sister look nothing alike, and by Lenny’s “she’s my mother” quip about Midge at the TV studio and then his “let me introduce my wife or maybe my sister” in Miami – Midge, Susie, and Lenny pretend to all be blood relatives, or mafiosi, or spies, or something else they’re not, while out in public, say in a restaurant. Just to be assholes and see how long they can keep it going before they break character or people figure them out, or call the cops, or something. There’s totally a bet on who corpses and breaks character first. Or, nice hotels ca. 1960 weren’t very big on letting unmarried couples, let alone threesomes stay in rooms together – pretending to be family might make that easier; forgetting what they’re meant to be to each other, or mixing up their backstories might make it harder. Or they’re just trying to save money by only getting one room, there’s only one free room in the hotel, or any other screwball reason you can invent.

-Lenny and Midge do a (comeback) tour of the Borscht Belt, and all the Steiner Mountain Resort guests (especially the gossipy old hens from the beauty salon) and staff go to see them – and heckle.

-Stuff happens and they end up performing at some hole in the wall place where no one knows who they are (or no one believes it’s really those people they’ve seen on TV) – tough crowd, but a good workout for the two comics, and if Susie gets to threaten to rip off someone’s head, all the better.

-Lenny and Midge honing their routines – and maybe developing a double act – and Susie being all “oh my fucking god, what the fuck!!! … They’re actually good. I’m so proud.”

-Sharing a bed with two other people is an ongoing project: who sleeps (or refuses to sleep) in the middle? Who gets up during the night and why? Who starfishes across most of the bed? Who snores, and how does this get handled? If alcohol or pot have happened, how does that affect the sleeping arrangements? Also, Susie and Lenny witness and react to Midge’s beauty routine, ‘nuff said. Or, for various reasons one person after another ends up decamping to another room/bed/couch, but it doesn’t help them get much sleep or even stay there very long (this is inspired by my love of Shirley Jackson and her short story/humorous essay “The Night We All Had Grippe”).

Starred Up (2013 movie)

Oliver Baumer/Eric Love

Yes I do ship it, I do, I do!

Ahem. Don’t get me wrong, I liked what the movie did with the father-son relationship and its influence on both men’s character development – but I really wish they hadn’t got Oliver out of the action before the story’s climax (not like that!). The final denouement with Love father and Love son was great, as was the hint at the end that Eric learned something in anger-management group and has a support network that will help him a lot. But. I would have wanted to see more of the intriguing dynamic between Eric the intelligent, semi-feral, yet not-incorrigible, young thug and Oliver the educated, dedicated, kind yet aware of his own potential for violence (what was he on about with “I need to be here”?), slightly older counselor. They had me at Oliver’s “I want him” and Eric later telling his father that Oliver’s a better man than Love Sr. Also the not-flirting and the push-pull in the scene when Oliver picks up Eric from his cell - yowza!

For this canon, my dubcon DNW does not apply.

Prompts:

-I would love to see Oliver return to holding his group in prison, so the two of them can interact more, either in the movie’s immediate aftermath or years down the line, as it’s implied that Eric will be serving a long sentence. Give me more scenes from anger management or the ribald, honest, free-flowing conversations in group, either with the other men present (I liked Hassan and Tyrone especially, among the group members) or a one-on-one session.

-An oblique or open-but-undramatic admission/declaration that they both know there’s something there, even if they don’t know what to do with it. Or, one or both of them knows exactly what to do with it, and the push-pull that would result from that.

-Dirty talk: used for arousal, as a defense mechanism, as a form of flirtation. Eric using slurs to assert dominance, and Oliver not letting him hide behind profanity, when he can use colorful language to express emotion and/or sexual interest. There could definitely be some verbal taunting/flirting about who wants/is eager to do what or is good at doing something. There may be some sniping comments about logistics and (lack of) condoms and barebacking and what men get up to in prison. There probably wouldn’t be deep discussions about sexual identity.

-An emergency in the prison requires a lock-down, so Oliver gets temporarily stuck in Eric’s cell or another room with only Eric for company. Things get porny and/or emotional.

-Eric is eventually released (you can handwave this so it happens soon after the movie or have it happen years later) and crashes with Oliver while he adjusts to the outside world. You guessed it: things get porny and/or emotional.

-How do they get to the point where both can cross that line from friends/whatever the hell they are and become, to lovers? (There’s Eric’s personal history and general discomfort with vulnerability, plus all the ways prison sex can be or make things complicated, and if it helps, I headcanon Oliver as either gay or bi and at least somewhat closeted, at work especially.) Who initiates and “directs traffic”? How does their always-contentious dynamic shift during and after sex? Is the sex an isolated (series of) occasion(s), or a progression/escalation over multiple encounters (how would I love especially an escalating series of encounters, let me count the ways)? Eric might seem like the logical initiator and/or dominant partner as well as using the possibility of sex to manipulate and exert control, but then Oliver might (or might not!) surprise him and is definitely the one more in touch with himself as well as aware of his custodial duty toward the men in the group.

-At some point in their intimate relationship (probably not right at the start, and probably not in prison, though if you can make it happen in prison, more power to you!), Oliver decides he’s going to take his sweet time and make Eric fall absolutely apart with pleasure, while using dirty talk to both arouse and empower Eric to own his desires – by that point, Eric is in a place where he can let that happen and enjoy it, even if he still talks tough.

-Role reversal: Oliver as the con (jittery, shut off, sticking out like a sore thumb in prison with all his fancy learning, yet no pushover) and Eric as the newbie counselor (kid from the wrong side of the tracks made good? Youthful hoodlum turned around his life, now trying to help others via tough love and lots of swearing and maybe a bit of manipulation when called for?)

Witchblade (TV) Sara Pezzini/Danny Woo

I used to love this show back in the day, and loved it again in all its hokey gloriousness when I rewatched it recently. Sara figuring things out and being a principled badass, but maybe out of her depth with the Witchblade, and her dynamic with Danny, whether he's a ghost or alive, it’s all catnip to me. Sara is not extremely quippy, she has a job to do dammit! and don’t look at her vulnerable side, just don’t look at it!, and I love that about her (she’s much harsher in S1, after Danny’s death, than in S2); ditto that Danny is somewhat softer than she is, but still can hold his own thanksverymuch (well, when the plot doesn’t require him to get nabbed by bad guys) and has a bit of a deadpan snarker side too. I’d love something that plays around with their canon dynamic from either season, or uses canon as just a starting point. Some of my prompts lean dark or horror-y, so don’t be shy about going there; I’d also enjoy a story in which the Witchblade itself ends up not being very significant (say, they start to investigate a possibly mystical case and then nope, plain murder). Canon-specific DNW: Irons and any version of Nottingham appearing (you can mention them if you need to).

Prompts:

-The Witchblade is more parasitic than symbiotic, and instead of Sara learning to control it, its feeding on Sara affects her more and more over time. Or, the visions and dreams ramp up into full-blown paranoia and/or disassociation. The Witchblade's POV, maybe (it is sentient)? Asking for help is the hardest thing for someone like Sara, but what are (more than) friends for? I’d also enjoy a dubcon scenario (exception to blanket DNW) where Sara really shouldn’t be having sex when her head is all messed up by the Witchblade’s influence, but... well... they do. The Witchblade canonically enjoys violence and bloodshed perpetrated by its wearers, so it stands to reason that it might lower other inhibitions too.

-Witchblade v. mythological monsters. In S1, even with everything else that's going on, Sara absolutely scoffs at the possibility of vampires. So of course I want: Witchblade v. vampires! The scarier and more feral, the better. Or, it's implied that the Witchblade was forged from a meteorite, so it's basically an eldritch artefact from outer space. Yes, please lean all the way into the Lovecraftian tropes! (The moon is turning red, the Old Ones are back, it’s the end of the world as we know it, but Sara’s got her partner by her side.) Or something from Chinese mythology, so Danny can kick extra ass. Or, for a silly take on Chinese culture: Sara and Danny in the world of Big Trouble in Little China, another old fave of mine, the entire plot of which revolves around… a woman with green eyes and an unwanted connection to the supernatural.

-The Witchblade has a reputation for abandoning its wearers just when they need it the most. True to form, it slips off of Sara’s fist, leaving her and Danny to save themselves with good old-fashioned guns, fisticuffs, martial arts, and of course having each other’s back.

-More of the psychedelic-ness in many of Sara’s fight scenes, where now she’s a woman in a leather jacket with a gauntlet on her arm, now she’s a knight in armor! Now her opponent is human, now he’s a wolf-shaped spirit of evil and hatred! Playing around with the characters’ senses and perceptions – yes!

-Instead of seeing only Danny and needing him to play intermediary for Sara to talk to other ghosts, the Witchblade makes Sara see ghosts all over the place, and it's getting to her. Ghost!Danny may or may not help with that. Or, ghost!Danny is basically always around, whether Sara can see him or not. He manifests when Sara is masturbating, and you can't really feel guilty if the ghost of your dead partner whom you’ve always had a thing for helps you out, and anyway you’re probably going crazy and none of this is real, so it doesn’t count anyway... right?

-Case fic/stakeouts and banter. Flirting to pass the long and stressful days at work. Quick and guilty sex because Danny's married. Slow and intense sex if handwave he's not married but “oh noes we’re partners, we shouldn’t be doing this, but somehow we keep doing it anyway.” Hooking up in the car. I've always headcanoned that they had a thing pre-canon which ended for Reasons, but they both kinda wish it hadn't, hence the hand kissing, and the “I can’t even touch you,” and the coffee bringing/stealing, etc. So feel free to play around with that.

-Undercover as married, undercover as a gangster and his moll (LOL at Sara as a moll, or have Sara as the gangster and Danny as her lieutenant/enforcer/arm candy), undercover as “they think we’re fucking, better fake it real good for the people listening in, oops shit got real fast, careful don’t say each other’s real name or you’ll blow your cover.”

-More timey-wimey shenanigans with the Witchblade. Maybe it allows Sara to manipulate time more than once. Maybe she starts doing it way too often, throwing the continuum out of whack (something non-linear would be very interesting). Maybe she and/or Danny remember some or all of what happened in S1. Something about all the multiverse versions of them, possibly splitting off from a dramatic moment. Time loops and feelings are a combustible mix.

-Apart from the super obvious shippiness, what I like about S1 especially is how Sara rolls with the weirdness the Witchblade has brought into her life, instead of reaching for rational explanations. More of that (I can't think of a better way to put it), and double extra brownie points if alive!Danny figures out at least some of what's going on with Sara's bracelet and somehow gets in on the action. Maybe a Danny saves the day divergence? Or how about a loophole that allows a man close to the Witchblade's wearer to wield it temporarily, but There Is a Price to Pay.

킹덤 Kingdom (Netflix)

Prince Lee Chang/Seo-bi

I fell so hard for this show. So hard! The beautiful production values, the wonderful cast, how the characters develop, how the show slowly but surely unfolds one reveal after another and packs so much into two short seasons, all the period detail, the genuinely tense action scenes, the moments of humor and intense emotion, the intertwining of political intrigue and zomg! really scary zombies, how the zombie outbreak works on multiple levels both literal and metaphorical…

I love the brave, kind-hearted, but sheltered prince, whose whole life has been so privileged yet shadowed by the possibility of death if he loses his position as heir, learning what it means to actually rule and lead people, to protect them and be protected by them in turn. And I love Seo-bi the fearless, dedicated, selfless physician, who notices things and figures things out regardless of whether this annoys the people in power. I love how instantly and fiercely loyal she is to him (not just because he’s the crown prince, but because she’s seen how brave and altruistic he can be) and how he immediately takes her advice and experience seriously despite her being a woman and a commoner in this super-hierarchical setting. Also, I love most of the cast (not a huge fan of Chancellor Cho, but he is an effective antagonist), and would be delighted to see any of them in fic too. Especially the loyal and funny and badass Mu-yeong (he was loyal, despite the Haewon Cho clan’s blackmail, and if you want to diverge from canon so he lives, I would not mind that at all), the even more badass and wounded and snarky Yeong-sin (or is that “Yeong-sin”???), Chang’s sparky, exiled uncle several times removed, and the terrifying and frankly unhinged young queen are my favorites. I even have a soft spot for that mostly-useless coward Cho Beom-pal, but really, they’re all great and I would love reading about them too, or just about the prince and the lady physician – whatever works!

Finally, before I get to prompts, I know a bit about the Joseon period, but we’re talking the bits and pieces I remember from a college class, and what I’ve read on Wikipedia and picked up from this and other Korean movies and shows. I know a bit more about some of the cultural background, like the Confucian values, the social stratification and feudal system, the gender segregation among the aristocracy, the wars with Japan, but again – my knowledge is limited. So if you want to teach me stuff about Joseon, go for it! If you want to invent or handwave stuff, as long as it fits the canon’s mood and broad cultural parameters, go for it! And if you want to treat me to some worldbuilding, period detail of any kind, and/or costume porn, definitely go for it. Canon-specific DNW: anything above M rating for sex (violence is fine).

Prompts:

Zombie fighting anything! Learning to survive in a society that’s rapidly breaking down, having to transcend their habitual social roles and challenging each other, anything! Maybe one of them teaches the other to hunt, or to make herbal medicines, or to fight with a sword, or heck, to cook or clean dirty clothes. (FYI I wrote most of these prompts before I was quite done with S2, and the time-skip took me totally by surprise. So while my prompts ignore Chang renouncing the throne, I’d also be down for the untold adventures of the former prince and his traveling companions, as Chang learns how to be just regular folks and they pursue clues about the resurrection flower, or for your take on what happens in S3. Use whatever works for you in my prompts in any way you want!)

Figuring out how the zombie infection continues to evolve and/or working together to find a cure beyond dunking the infected in water – whether that means to destroy large numbers of the undead, or to develop an antidote, or to cure and bring back those afflicted. One plot detail that really struck me: more experimenting with zombies, like Chancellor Cho started to do, might also hold the key to a cure?

Political intrigue anything! Having to fight zombies and/or factions at court with both friends and unexpected allies (not gonna lie, I would have loved to have seen the young queen unleashed on some zombies, even if that did not make her the prince and Seo-bi’s ally).

More road trip/survival/battle goodness – maybe Seo-bi offers Lee Chang some advice while they’re navigating their new situation, or she witnesses him developing his leadership muscles, and it brings them closer together than before. Or maybe a moment of humor, relaxation, or quiet affection on the road or in between zombie-slaying, especially if it catches them both a bit by surprise. Or one of them gets a non-zombifying injury (nothing too gruesome or life-threatening, please!) and the other one has to care for them – extra points if Seo-bi is injured and the prince kind of bumbles through the most basic things so she has to talk him through her own treatment. Or nightmares/being triggered by something, like we saw both Chang and Seo-bi react at the sounds of zombies growling and people screaming in S2E5.

We have seen Seo-bi insist on staying loyal to the prince, and Lee Chang rely on her repeatedly to the exclusion of all his other people – give me a situation in which he has to make clear his own loyalty to her, as a part of both his becoming a better leader and as a step in advancing their relationship. Or, there comes a time when Seo-bi really pushes against the rules of what someone like she can and cannot say or do to/around a crown prince – we’ve seen Lee Chang refuse to stand on his dignity to the point where so many of his interactions with commoners would end in the commoners’ death, but I imagine even he has his limits, and that kind of clash can only drive this dynamic forward!

Canon divergence in which Seo-bi gets sent to the capital and assigned to be the personal physician to the petulant, frustrated prince we meet at the start of the show (handwave the gender segregation and impropriety). She knows her place, but she also does not suffer fools or male nonsense. Sparks fly, social conventions get tested, zombies may or may not happen, and a new mutual understanding is born.

Canon divergence from the scene in S2E2 when Seo-bi finagles her way to being allowed to see the prince and he instructs her to resurrect Ahn Hyeon – what if instead of that, they came up with another plan of escape? Or maybe Lee Chang sending Seo-bi to spy on the queen goes a different way than in canon? And really, anything that requires those two to pass secret messages while grabbing each other’s hands and staring intently into each other’s eyes is A++ with me!

One theme which emerges gradually, and I really loved, is people having to compromise their principles to survive and ensure the safety of those they feel loyal and/or obliged to: Ahn Hyeon agreeing to turn the sick villagers into zombies, dear Mu-yeong having been a spy but also protecting the prince all along, Seo-bi resurrecting Ahn Hyeon, Lee Chang instructing her to do it as well as his thousand-yard-stare after having to finish off what’s left of his father… I’d love to see more such compromises, how their consequences ripple out, and the emotional fallout.

In addition to zombies, other magical and/or supernatural events and creatures start to appear in Joseon. If you want to bring in something from Buddhist mythology or Korean folklore, please do, and any and all worldbuilding would be awesome.

Post-canon something in which Lee Chang is king, possibly of only a part of the country (maybe a zombie-free enclave, or a part he won in a civil war against the Cho clan or a cadet branch of his family), and Seo-bi is there as his advisor, physician, and unofficial chancellor. Gimme policymaking to deal with the lingering zombie issue, and assassination plots, and servants/guards/ladies in waiting gossiping like it’s their real job, and all the palace intrigue!

Kind of related to the previous: even as a “spare” prince, Lee Chang can’t marry a commoner. Would he ever think to offer Seo-bi to become his concubine? I don’t think she’d go for it, and he might realize it, but maybe I’m wrong! Or maybe being intensely platonic/sublimating at each other is as good as it gets for them, and they’re kind of okay with that. Or they get married in secret and have to be very careful not to let slip anything by word on gesture in public, or not to let Seo-bi get pregnant. Or, y’know, one day or night on the road or in a fortified town, in between scavenging for supplies and fighting zombies, they decide to bone just because their lives are weird enough now to forget about propriety and all that jazz for an hour.

Role reversal: Seo-bi is the sheltered, willful princess fearful for her position (especially since she’s a woman as well as the daughter of a concubine only) and Lee Chang is the proper yet willful provincial physician. Do they meet as in canon, or under different circumstances (maybe she must flee the court to escape assassins, accusations of treason, or an arranged marriage, with or without bonus zombies)? How would their dynamic be complicated (and made awesome of course!) by the gender reversal? Also, burning question: does Princess Seo-bi already know how to fight (because she forced Mu-yeong to teach her back at court, of course), or does she have to learn once zombies/brigands/insurrection/whatever happen? And does Physician Lee Chang know one end of a musket or sword from another, or does he need rescuing at some point?

I realize that some of these prompts could work as well (better?) as a no-zombies AU, and that’s fine if you want to take it in that direction. Just so we’re clear. :-)

Likes:

I love pre-canon, canon, post-canon, canon-divergent, and missing-scene stories. I love character-driven and plot-driven stories equally, and I love fics which mix humor and angst/serious business when appropriate for the canon.

I love stories about characters at work and play, group dynamics, family dynamics (including constructed families), professional partnerships, friendships, alliances, rivalries, intimate couples (new lovers/first times as well as long-term/established couples), UST-ridden couples who are not just UST-ridden but connected in other ways too, etc.

I love irony, snark, humor as well as angst arising from the characters rather than the plot crowbaring it in, linear, non-linear, and 5+1 stories, hopeful endings, happy endings, bittersweet endings, worldbuilding, competence, spiky characters who keep their jagged edges and spikiness in adversity as well as when their lives are going well, square-peg-in-round-hole characters, characters who are their own worst enemies as well as those who can get over themselves when the occasion calls for it, characters with conflicting values which may or may not be reconciled/resolved, characters who treat each other with respect and as equals even if they hate/annoy/can’t stand/love to dislike each other.

I especially love workplace stories (this can mean anything from an actual workplace/casefic/procedural setting to anything that revolves around the canon world in which the characters live) in which the characters are competent and dedicated to the job, and while they may not be exactly friends and they may well irritate one another, they still manage to rub along to get the job done and maybe even grow to care about one another (much to their surprise and sometimes reluctance/discomfort). Or, if they can’t get along, show me why not and what’s preventing them from finding common ground.

In terms of ship dynamics, I love (where it fits the characters) banter, competitiveness or antagonism shading into attraction (this tension need not be resolved), oh-god-why-did-it-have-to-be-you-what-did-I-do-to-deserve-this, bickering yet loving couples, characters who are serious about their romantic interests, characters who think they are much better at flirtation than they actually are, characters forced to work together only to prove much more compatible than they initially assumed, fics which mix an exploration of characters’ professional and everyday lives with shipping. A dynamic I cannot resist is shipping a couple who are incompatible in some important way (they are ideological enemies, cop and criminal, spies from opposite sides, one betrayed the other or they betrayed each other), and while they love and want each other they’re also not willing to change sides or surrender/compromise their identity for the other’s benefit, and how they might (or not) make their relationship work anyway.

I don’t have any very specific likes for smut, other than smut fitting the characters – show me how their canon dynamics spill over into the bedroom (or other place of congress). I also like sexual scenarios that subvert expectations a little and surprise the characters themselves (e.g., the person who’s usually quiet or more passive taking charge, the more aggressive person goes with it possibly snarking or commenting on it as long as they can). And I like sexual scenarios that contain an element of competition, antagonism, oh-god-this-is-a-bad-idea-but-we’re-going-for-it-hammer-and-tongs, not wanting to admit feelings or show vulnerability except oops it happens anyway, whether the characters acknowledge it or not, or just people getting way more into it or being more affected by it than they thought they would. When it fits the characters and their canon dynamic, you also can’t go wrong with we-both-wanted-this-for-forever-and-now-we-both-know-it-so-here-we-go-diving-in-headfirst. For het and/or slash, oral, vaginal, anal incl. pegging, manual (ifyouknowwhatImean) – it’s all good. You can go as veiled or as explicit as you like, but please avoid excessive medical jargon – I don’t find a lot of mention of “penis” or “clit” sexy.

DNWs:

MPREG, A/B/O, knotting, D/s, kinks, incest, underage, genderswap/genderbent characters, xeno, non-/dub-con, torture and abuse (this and non-/dub-con can be mentioned if the story needs it, but please don’t dwell on it in loving detail or subject any of my requested characters to it), dwelling on bodily fluids (mentions of gore/blood and come are fine), toilet humor, character bashing, issuefic, gender/sexuality/race/ethnicity/religion/ability/identity headcanons, unrequested ships, soulmates and soul marks, major character death (meaning my requested characters being or staying dead by story’s end - Laura Moon can remain undead), serious illness or injury, pregnancy and children, holiday or wedding setting/theme, secondary characters shipping the main pair like it’s their job, reference to RL current events, 1st/2nd person POV, unrequested crossovers or fusions, AUs which have nothing to do with canon

#dear author letter #rare pairs 2020

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rocinawanda · 5 years

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The 100 6x09

Watching this episode for me was a rollercoaster of emotions my goodness.

Starting with Octavia, her entire plot in this episode was the tagline of season 6 ‘face your demons’ she clearly wants to be redeemed and we got the Octavia VS Blodreina fight which hopefully means that Octavia is now on a better path. I cried seeing Lincoln again his death still hurts probably the most painful of the entire show. Still didn’t get much about the anomaly and Diyoza hasn’t returned yet but I still have hope.

The whole mothership plot wow. Okay first, THEY WOKE INDRA YAY I have missed her and am glad she’s back to help. Abby and her delusions she crossed that line in the last episode and of course Kane wouldn’t be okay with it and their relationship wouldn’t feel normal anymore. Abby has been so blinded every time she says we can go down to the ground and live in peace I roll my eyes because she has no idea what the hell is happening down in Sanctum.

RIP Kane :( i’m sad, whilst my love for his character drained during his arc in season 5 i’m always sad to see a key initial The 100 character that was introduced to us in season 1 die. Every season has one S1 - Wells, S2 - Finn, S3 - Lincoln, S4 - Jasper, S5 - Jaha/Monty/Harper, S6 - Kane. rip to them all. I cried during his floating scene, I didn’t really see it coming that he would choose it so quickly but I understand it.

Whilst my emotions were sad in regards to all of the mothership plot, the bellarke plot had me screaming at 9AM. Before I even get into it CLARKE IS BACK MY BABY GIRL I COULD CRY Josephine gave her control because otherwise she would have died but I don’t care about the reason I have missed her so so much.

But omg okay when Jo!Clarke had that mini seizure Bellamy was so worried and when he learnt that Clarke could hear what they were saying oh my. My mind went wild but he did promise he wouldn’t let her die and he didn’t. Jo!Clarke delving into Bellarke’s relationship stop it yes they go back and forth and they would make sure that the other is safe. Bellamy’s “tell me about it” when saying bellarke’s relationship is nuts had me laughing so hard. He looked so happy when Clarke came back and she didn’t want to leave him I almost cried but at least he has the keys now so I hope he unlocks himself and gets safe. I thought with the bike she might go back for him because I don’t know what he’s gonna do walking around the woods. We’ll see in the next episode.

No Madi or Sanctum in this episode but i’m sure we’ll see them next week I’m excited and nervous. Plus Clarke is on her way to Gabriel and I did pick up on him mentioning that the drug(?) thing he gave to Octavia was initially used by him and Russell to try to see if ‘traces of the hosts minds remained after resurrection’ so that may be able to help her. Hopefully.

#the 100 #the 100 cw #bellarke #what you take with you #6x09 #josephine lightbourne #abby griffin #rip kane #marcus kane #clarke griffin #bellamy blake #octavia blake

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elshopper · 5 years

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Wish You Were Here

Hi, so I wrote something - shocking right? I’ve been sitting on this one for what feels like forever, so I felt like it was just time to post it... no time like the present! It’s multi-chaptered, and I’ve only posted the first, but I wanted to share it on here just for kicks and giggles. Long story short, this is canon compliant with s2, but once s3 stuff kicks into gear I’m just gonna call it a future AU.

Wish You Were Here

Rating: T

Ch. 1 WC: 6,839

Summary: It’s a quiet summer evening in 1989 when all the shit festering in Hawkins comes back from the dead after about 5 years of normalcy. After a tip that his worst nightmare is on the first bus back into town, Jim Hopper sets his paranoia-fueled back up plan into motion – to get his daughter as far away from the threat as fast as possible.

Only he knows his daughter, and he knows she would never leave her family to deal with the mess she felt like she made. So, he enlists the help of the only other person he is entirely confident would die to protect her if he had to – her boyfriend.

Anxious Mike Wheeler and a reluctant El Hopper embark on a road trip with no end in sight, on the run from the bad men that still haunt both their dreams. With this, they are forced to confront the darkness barreling toward them – supernatural or otherwise – and defeat it one last time.

Read on ao3 here, or down below!

Chapter 1: The Night Shift

June 12th, 1989 – 7:08 PM

As the night grew on, Hopper felt as if the stale yellow lights in his office were buzzing just to annoy him. They were blinking too. Not in any type of peculiar way, just in the way that pissed him off. It set his teeth on edge, but it was his fault that he had paperwork to finish. If someone would have told him about all the paperwork before he went to the police academy, he might have chosen another path in life. So, he blamed his current suffering on himself.

In an effort to refocus (and to avoid reaching for those emergency Marlboro Lights he kept in his bottom left desk drawer), Hopper stood up to stretch his legs. A few steps around the office couldn’t hurt him. He found himself roaming aimlessly in-between the tables and chairs, peeking onto other peoples’ desks. He looked at the pictures and calendars and flyers that adorned the paint-chipped walls. There were smiling families. A couple of posters for lost pets and bikes.

Above Flo’s desk, there were groups of pictures of the station at holiday parties past, dating back decades. The faces were faded and some of them were now course with age and experience. Some of the people had cycled through, moved away, retired, passed on. As he thought to himself about what ever happened to that George McDermott that graduated two years above him and joined the force when he moved to New York, he noticed something. Hopper wasn’t in a single picture until about four years ago.

He had been to these holiday parties in the past, and hell, they usually sucked ass. Someone always overcooked something, the Secret Santa gifts were always disappointing (somehow, Hopper always ended up with a coffee mug and a fresh pack of cigarettes), and he was always surrounded by the people he worked with – the people he didn’t want to be around in his free time. So, he would stop by, drop off his gift (a 12 pack of Budweiser) and pick up his coffee mug, and get on with his night. That came to a stop though, around five years ago.

For the snapshot of Christmas ’87, all were gathered around Powell, who was showing out for the girl he chose to drag along with him whose name Hopper didn’t even bother to catch at the time. He had a pair of sunglasses on, and a cap on sideways. Rolling his eyes, Hopper’s focus shifted to the back-right corner where he was standing. El was standing on her tip toes to the left of him so that she would be visible in the back row, a cheap Santa’s hat sat lopsided on her head, smiling as big as ever. He remembered when Flo brought the developed pictures a couple of weeks after, how he had to bite back a few tears. It had been the happiest he’d seen her in a long time.

Christmas ’88 was a similar story, except this time El was held piggy-back by Steve Harrington, just so that she was tall enough to hold the mistletoe over an oblivious Powell, who had his arm around a different woman than the year before. Hopper stifled a laugh, and crossed the room.

Those few steps led him to the corkboard that hung to the right of the entryway. There were always notices from officers, the occasional wedding invitation, a couple of baby pictures, along with a picture of a cheeky Harrington at his graduation from the police academy. He smiled at that, remembering the party afterword Steve had thrown. El had begged him to go, and he reluctantly let her, and pretended not to notice when she and Will came home smelling like whatever cheap beer kids were into these days. He didn’t even ask.

Next to that was the newest edition; the edges of the freshly developed image were still crisp and flat unlike the rest. This was the picture he was most proud of, the only one in the office he had proudly hung himself.

Standing in front of a red velvet curtain, El had the biggest smile on her face. She held her newly-received high school diploma out in front of her, the black graduation cap slipping off to the side of her head just a little. As Hopper remembered, she had tried all day to pin that damned hat to her head, when in the end she just tossed it during the ceremony. She was pretty peeved about the whole thing, but Mike Wheeler had made sure to take her picture under the “Hawkins High Class of ‘89” banner that hung above the stage anyway. Hopper was really glad he did.

The phone rang.

It made him jump, just a little. The shrill bell cut through the air like a knife, reminding him exactly where he was. A second ring.

“I’m comin’, I’m comin’,” Hopper said, to no one in particular.

Probably those damn Petevsky kids out doing god-knows-what.

“Hawkins Police Department, this is –“

“Jim?” the voice on the other line shot back before he could finish his sentence. Shit. He really hoped that voice didn’t belong to who he thought it belonged to.

“Uh… yeah. May I ask who’s calling?”

“Jim, this is Murray Bauman,” the voice said.

It all came flooding back to him then. The last time Hopper had seen or heard of the likes of him was in ’84, when he had written him a check…

“…for your trouble.” Hopper said, slipping the envelope into Murray’s hands. After taking a quick look inside, Murray slipped it into his interior jacket pocket.

“Oh, Jim, that’s really not necessary, you know – “

“I know you’re going to keep your nose out of my town.”

“Seeing as the case is closed, yes,” he replied. “But if you hear anything about that Russian girl…” he trailed, a knowing, teasing smile on his lips. Hopper loathed it.

“Yeah, yeah, and one more thing,” Hopper said, taking a step closer. “Keep an eye out for a Dr. Martin Brenner for me, would you? If he shows up anywhere, for any reason, you call me.”

Murray nodded.

“I see.”

“I can’t imagine you’d hear anything, but just… do it. Understand?”

“Won’t be a problem,” Murray said, with a sleazy smile, before sneaking back off to his van and disappearing down Main Street. Never to be seen or heard from again…

“Bauman?”

“I have an update on your target.”

“My target?” What target…

“I’d assume you’d rather not discuss this over the phone?”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” he answered, trying to sound casual, but instinctively checking his surroundings and reaching for that bottom left drawer.

“I’ll be with you in 5,” Murray said, and just like that the line went dead.

Hopper took in a deep breath. Surely that call wasn’t about who he thought it was about, although he had no idea what else it could be. After years of nothing, he thought for sure he was really dead. He had every reason to believe so.

El maintained that all through her high school years. Any hesitation from Hopper about seeing a movie or going shopping at that damned new mall was met with an eyeroll and a brash reminder…

“He’s dead, remember?” El said, curtly, her eyes flashing dark, but just for a second. “I have nothing to worry about, neither do you.”

That memory felt cold and distant. He had believed her. He felt like, out of everyone, she would be the one to know. He didn’t want to ask questions, to press any further. Especially about that, about him. If she felt safe, then she was. Simple as that. On that logic, the past five years had gone by pretty smooth.

The more the silence continued, the more the lights above him buzzed, the more Hopper stared at El’s graduation picture on the corkboard… the more frantic his thoughts became. They whizzed around in his brain, and he slowly but surely lost the ability to control them. He reached for that emergency cigarette box in his bottom left drawer, lit up, and waited.

With each passing second, Hopper could only feel more and more regret. And why, he wasn’t entirely sure.

(Did El really think he was dead?

Or was she just lying to make him feel better.

But, she wouldn’t lie… would she?

Unless, she was lying to make herself feel better…)

But, none of it mattered now. His mind jumping from place to darker place, he took another drag of the cigarette.

He planned for this, he remembered. He never thought it would happen, but he had planned for it anyway. He had always been paranoid, he had just pushed it away, to the far corners of his mind where it was lying in wait – ready to reach out and grab him.

Another drag.

He should have seen this coming. He should have known. Hopper was slipping, spiraling internally – his heart rate matching how fast he was thinking about his next step, when –

Tap tap tap tap tap.

Hopper jolted, putting the butt of his cigarette out in an old cup of coffee and rushing to the door.

When he opened it, he saw the exact same annoying little man he had known five years ago. Not a thing about Murray Bauman was different, sneaky look in his eye and all.

“What is this business about ‘my target?’” Hopper asked, trying to sound like he hadn’t been meditating on the matter in the excruciating minutes between his phone call and Bauman’s arrival at the station.

“Dr. Martin Brenner. What. A. Case!” Bauman replied, walking right past Hopper and into his office as if he was returning back home from a long day at work.

“At first, I thought you gave me something just to keep me busy.”

Hopper stared at him as if he had gone insane (which he may or may not have) as he tried his best to mask all the thoughts that were swimming in his brain. Murray was completely unphased, slamming down a large stack of files and folders in front of him on the nearest desk. He started to rifle through them while keeping eye contact with Hopper and pressing on.

“Or maybe he was just some old hack from the old Department of Energy Lab that you wanted to make sure got the axe in ’84 during that… uh… mass casualty. I knew I had heard that name before.”

He stood still, and could only nod his head in response.

“But then…”

The space between what Murray had just said and what he was about to say seemed absolutely infinite.

“I heard some chatter.”

Murray opened a green file, and fished for a piece of paper, still moving at a pace that almost made Hopper’s head spin. How on earth could he know anything in this mess?

“About a year ago. A Dr. Martin Brenner. In New York! Now, I thought ‘that’s a pretty common name’ but then they mentioned something about him being in the WPP and that was obviously a huge red flag.”

“The WPP?”

“Witness Protection,” he answered without missing a beat. Everything he said seemed rehearsed, like he had spent the entire car ride over perfecting every line.

“Long story short, your guy is back on the grid.” Bauman said, finally coming to rest with his papers. Hopper felt his blood pressure rise even further (if that were possible), and his lungs ached for another cigarette, bit his feet stayed nailed to the floor. He was stuck.

“The grid? What do you mean by the grid?” Hopper asked, his voice hushed, despite the fact that no one was around to hear them. Force of habit.

“I mean, I have your guy.”

“You have him?” Hopper asked tentatively.

“He’s in Indianapolis. Here!” Murray passed him the green folder. “Here are his flight records.” He shuffled some more papers out of his interior coat pocket. “And here are copies of the record for the hotel in Indianapolis he’s been living out of for… eh… about a week now.”

Hopper studied the coffee stained, crumpled up papers, and lo and behold, there he was. Along with his flight records, there was a photo ID image plastered on. Staring back at him was Martin Brenner’s face, still cold as ice. The years the years had worn it down, the lines were deeper and the look in his eyes was even more distant. But it was him, Hopper knew it was him.

“He’s been in hiding, as far as I can tell.” Bauman kept on. “Since ’83. Maybe ’84.”

Hopper sifted through the papers, his expression hardening with every passing moment.

“I’ll be damned,” he muttered.

“Maybe he’s been living under an alias. No way of tracing that, unless of course, we have the alias.” Murray laughed at his own words, but Hopper couldn’t be bothered. In fact, he wasn’t really listening anymore. The gears in his head were turning, dusting off thoughts in a corner of his mind he never dreamed he’d have to visit again.

“You’re sure.” Hopper said. It wasn’t really a question.

“Beyond a shadow of a doubt.” Bauman answered, smiling. Pleased with himself.

It made Hopper’s stomach churn, but he forced a smile and a nod.

“Well, it’s been really nice to see you, Bauman. It really has. But, I have business I really should be tending to,” he said, moving towards the door to show Murray back out to the parking lot.

“Business? It’s an empty office. It’s almost 8:00!” Bauman responded, backing out the door. He laughed as Hopper pressed him towards the humid summer night from wince he came.

“Yeah, in the middle of summer. Kids are out of school…” Another step, and Murray was back out the door, still facing him. The yellow light from the office shining off his glasses.

“I’ll get out of your hair,” he said, with that same, slippery smile.

“Thanks, Bauman,” Hopper said, trying his best to sound sincere.

“If you can ever find it in your heart to repay me, I’m still looking for that Russian girl…” Bauman said with a wink. Hopper would have shut down his reply with a hasty denial for the hell of it, but he had already shut the door. In fact, he was already deep within his office, fumbling around for a little brown lock box. Damn it all if he had lost it. He never thought he’d need it, so he hadn’t taken great care in making sure he remembered where it was… how stupid that had been.

As he shuffled though the depths of his drawers, he picked up the phone on his desk and dialed home without even looking up.

“Hello?” the voice on the other end rang out.

“Joyce,” Hopper responded, “Listen.”

“Hey! How’s the night shift going? “she teased.

He figured the answer to her question would come the longer she stayed on the line.

“I need you to meet me up here. Its urgent.”

“Why? What is it?” her tone wavered, switching almost immediately to worrisome. He didn’t want to trouble her over the phone.

“Just get up here. Please?”

“Do I need to bring the k– “

“No,” Hopper cut her off. “No, don’t tell them you’re coming to meet me, just slip out. Can you bring the wagon?”

Just as she answered yes, Hopper’s hands finally landed on that little brown lock box. Sifting through his giant ring of keys and cursing himself, Hopper looked for the right fit.

“Come on,” he grunted, shaking the key as he turned it. Once the lock clicked open, he breathed a small sigh of relief. Miraculously, everything was still there, just as he left it. He almost laughed to himself… He had actually thrown this whole plan together a couple of years ago, it was a fail-safe. A last resort. He took a deep breath.

This is never going to work.

After a few moments in the silence, lost in his thoughts, staring at El’s picture on the cork board, and waiting to hear Joyce’s tires on the pavement outside, his answer hit him.

Unless…

June 13th, 1989 – 3:36 AM

It wasn’t a good night of sleep anyway.

Despite how painstakingly average the day was, Mike had felt like something was just… off. And what really pissed him off was that he couldn’t figure out exactly what it was.

It had been a scorcher, with the temperatures “projected to be the 2nd highest on record!” Holly so promptly informed him as he cranked up the AC in his car on his way to take her to the pool. He had rolled his eyes, only to be met a bright red sunburn by the afternoon.

Max had been there today, off of work. She and El had opted to spend the majority of their time by the pool gushing over some new novel that had hit the shelves the week before. Not that he minded. Will was there too, albeit he arrived a little late. He told Mike to put sunscreen on, and he didn’t listen.

They sat around in the sun it crept down below the tree line, which was when he drove El and Will back home just in time for Ms. Byers to offer him a seat at the dinner table – one he would have to politely decline. He knew his dad was cooking out tonight for God-knows-why. So, he had to be home. No funny business.

Shockingly enough, dinner was uneventful. More talk about college this, and responsibility that. Mike stared blankly at his baked beans. Still, despite having an alright day, something felt off. Like a picture being just a little off center when you get it developed.

“Michael, your nose looks red.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Did you put sunscreen on?”

“No, I forgot.”

“Responsibility, Michael…”

“I know, I know.”

And that had been it.

But still he tossed and turned, only finding sleep in rare patches of the night. He wasn’t having any nightmares. He didn’t have anything to be nervous about… that he knew of. He still felt weird, nevertheless. He would call El, but he didn’t want to bother her about it – whatever it was – if she was asleep. He would see her tomorrow, they were going to grab dinner on Main Street. If he still felt weird then, he would tell her.

When he woke up for what felt like the zillionth time around 3:00, he thought he would radio El, just in case. Maybe she could tell him why he couldn’t get to sleep. She always did a good job of clearing his mind anyway. He would apologize, but he really wanted to hear her voice.

He tried twice, and didn’t get an answer. Static. He sat his walkie back on his bedside table with a groan into his pillow. What was wrong with him?

His mind was still wrestling with unconsciousness when he heard what sounded like a soft knock at his window.

Mike sat up, blinking. His clock shown 3:36. It had been about 12 minutes since the last time he checked.

Tap…

…tap…

…tap

This time it was a little more defined, more urgent. There was definitely someone at his window.

That’s why El wasn’t answering, he thought. She was just on her way over.

It wasn’t a far bike ride, she came over sometimes when she couldn’t sleep… maybe she had been feeling just as off as he was.

Throwing himself out of bed and rubbing sleep out of his eyes, Mike shuffled over to the window.

Where he expected to see El’s face was just the empty, foggy glass. The faint yellow light from the nearest street lamp unphased by anything blocking light. What on earth had been making that noise? Whatever it was, he couldn’t see it. Mike was now fully awake, adrenaline pumping through his veins and his palms starting to sweat. He could feel his hair sticking to his forehead.

There’s a good chance this is a nightmare, Mike reminded himself.

But it wasn’t.

More timidly than he would care to admit, he stepped towards the window. In a last-ditch effort to protect himself, Mike grabbed a dusty, old toy light saber from behind his bed – it hadn’t been touched in years, probably. Mike opened the window with the end of the light saber, and it creaked up slowly.

In the silent summer night, he heard a whistle.

That was when he swallowed his childish fear and stepped up to the window, and he was relieved (and then scared all over again) to find Hopper in his driveway, leaning up against the hood of Will’s mom’s car.

“Is… is everything okay?” Mike whispered out into the night. “What are you doing here?”

All Hopper did was nod at him, signaling for him to come down and meet him. Something was wrong. Mike wordlessly backed up a couple of steps, and made his way towards Nancy’s old bedroom – her window was right over the garage, and ever since she had moved out for college, Mike had made sure to use that window to his advantage.

Within a minute, Mike was standing in front of Hopper in his pajamas, breathing a little too hard to be proud of himself for making it off of the garage roof unscathed.

“Oh, so that’s how you sneak out of there. And I always thought you just jumped.” Hopper said, whispering.

Mike rolled his eyes in response.

“What are you talking about?” He was painfully aware how much he sounded like a liar. “I don’t sneak out of the – “

“Listen, kid, I’m not in the mood.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

Hopper smelled like cigarette smoke. That, to Mike, was the giveaway that something was really wrong. There was a reason he felt off. He wasn’t going insane. He swallowed.

The only person who ever kept Hopper from smoking was El, and if she were here, she would really let him have it about how she could smell it on him. The more confident a communicator she became, the more she would whip the cigarette in Hopper’s hand into the nearest cup of liquid with a flick of her head.

Mike could see the scene in his mind perfectly, at dinner a couple of years ago when Hopper came back from the store with a box in his right hand and a shopping bag in his left.

“Those are bad for you.”

“I know, but what really matters is that you don’t –“

“Have you ever heard of second-hand smoke?”

El finally coaxed him to quit, argument after argument. Mike figured he snuck the occasional smoke every now and again, but he didn’t want to be the one to tell her that.

Back in the present, Hopper sighed, his eyes trained on the driveway where Holly’s chalk drawings painted the pavement.

“I need to ask you a favor,” Hopper said, his eyes unmoving from the faded sunflowers and rainbows.

Mike took a quick breath.

“Is El okay?”

“Yes,” he responded, annoyed. “She’s in the car.”

Mike looked past him to see El, asleep in the passenger seat, hugging the pillow that sat between her head and the leather.

“She’s asleep.”

“I can see that.” Mike responded. “Why? What are you doing here at 3:00 in the morning?”

Hopper took his right hand and moved it up to rub his brow. He closed his eyes for a brief moment before standing up all the way off the hood of the car and moving away from it, like he didn’t want El to hear, even though they both knew she was a heavy sleeper.

At full height, Mike was proud to say he was almost as tall as Hopper. Almost.

“Look, I don’t really know how to ask you to do this. So, I’m just gonna…”

An agonizing pause.

“…start talking.”

Mike stared blankly ahead at Hopper, waiting to hear what he had to say. Was he skipping town? Taking El on a vacation without telling her? Dropping her off? None of his ideas made any sense, so he chose to listen instead of guess – a pretty rare occurrence, he figured. He chalked it up to being startled out of bed a few minutes prior.

This still could be a nightmare, Mike reminded himself. Although, he feared he was wrong about that too.

“In the event of anyone… finding us, I always had a backup plan. Ever since El started school. Just in case. I saved up some cash, made some false papers, untraceable license plates and car registration. Just because I was so… paranoid.” Hopper swallowed.

Mike nodded.

“The plan being to just get her out of town while I deal with things, with people. You know. Make sure she was as far away from them as possible. I dunno. Send her with a map out west to the middle of nowhere for her to hide out for a second.”

“And then, I actually got to know her. I know how her mind works. The way she thinks through her problems. I know how stubborn she is,” he stifled a small laugh. “And I know, without a doubt in my mind, that she would never leave any of us here to fight any battles for her…”

Mike nodded his head again, ignoring the way his pulse quickened as he listened to Hoppers words. He pushed away the questions in the back of his mind (Who do you have to deal with? Where out of town? For how long?).

Hopper nodded this time, finishing his thought as he met Mike’s eyes.

“By herself.”

Mike’s eyes narrowed. Hopper continued.

“I’ve gotten some information that they, um…” he trailed off, almost like he was evaluating whether or not he really needed to finish that sentence. “I really need you to take her out of town. Just for a little while.”

Mike was dumfounded.

“How long is a little while?”

“Just until I can take care of things.”

“Take care of who?” Mike took a step closer, and the volume of his voice rose too. Hopper shushed him.

“Why don’t you let me worry about that.”

“Where am I – “ Mike started. “Where are we supposed to go?”

“I feel like it’s best if you don’t tell me.”

“What?” Mike spat, a little bit louder this time. “I mean… what! Do you realize how crazy this sounds? You just want me to just drive off and not tell you where I’m going?” He felt the words just falling out of his mouth. “You think I’m a terrible driver!”

“Geez, and I thought you’d be excited,” Hopper snorted, but it was cold. Forced. Mike wasn’t nervously laughing though. Not this time.

“Kid,” he started. “Please. I swear, this is our best bet.”

Mike wasn’t so sure.

Maybe it would help if Hopper would tell him what this perceived threat actually was. Or maybe it would make more sense if their friends tagged along too – isn’t there strength in numbers? And he was surprised Hopper picked him in the first place… what sane father sends their daughter off in a car with her boyfriend in the middle of the night to not tell them where they were going?

This is some kind of test, Mike thought. One glance at El, still passed out in the passenger seat, and her bag in the back, made him think otherwise. Dammit.

As far as he knew, aside from the occasional nightmare and her fear of loud storms, El was doing just fine. Just normal. She made it through high school. She had a family. Hopper adopted her. She had friends. Mike thought that fixed a lot – if not all – of her problems. And she hadn’t caught any attention from suspicious neighbors either. Everyone in town believed she was Hopper’s kid – transferred to his custody from her mother in the city. People whispered, but not for the reasons he feared. Just bullshit reasons.

Monsters and darkness and other dimensions were things of the past, and if Mike was being completely honest, they didn’t even feel like they actually happened. The only thing that reminded Mike that El had any type of superpowers was her blatant refusal to get up and change the television channel. All of the circumstances in which he met El in the first place just didn’t feel real. They never talked about it. He didn’t like to think about it, and neither did she.

Mike wiped the palms of his hands on his flannel pajama pants.

This was the first time – in a really long time – that he had to confront just how different El really was. He always felt like they would talk about it someday. He wanted to know what happened to her when she was a kid, even though he knew it would just make him sick. He was still curious, and he figured that one day she would be ready to tell him about it. He didn’t think that day would be coming anytime soon.

“I will take care of explaining to your mom.”

Mike barely registered that Hopper was still talking to him.

“Just sneak back in your house and grab a bag and pack as much as you can.”

Mike still didn’t move, his fingers twitching and his eyes trained on one particular pebble on the driveway.

“Try to be quick, and don’t wake anyone up.”

Mike’s eyes moved back up to meet Hoppers’ but he still didn’t make any moves. Hopper leaned back against the hood of the car, and pulled out a box of cigarettes and a lighter from his pocket. Mike watched, a slight disapproving grimace on his face.

“Do this for her, okay? She needs you to.”

He lit it up, and took a drag.

“Just doesn’t know it yet.”

Ten minutes later, Mike yawned as he traipsed back across the driveway, fully dressed and duffle bag slung over his shoulder. Hopper dropped his cigarette butt on the driveway and pressed it with the sole of his boot. He motioned Mike around to the back of the car.

“These license plates are new and registered under a fake name. That shouldn’t be a problem for you since you would never speed past a state trooper and get pulled over, but just in case…” Hopper whispered.

Mike rolled his eyes. “I’m not going to get pulled over.”

Hopper didn’t even bother to respond, passing Mike a thick and worn manila envelope.

“In here are some false ID papers, and some cash to get you through.”

“How much money is in here?” Mike asked.

“A little over…” Hopper stalled. “ten thousand.”

Mike’s eyes flew open as wide as he’d ever felt them go.

“DOLLARS?” he whisper-yelled. Hopper shushed him.

“Yes.” The confirmation didn’t lessen Mike’s expression. “To be used for food, gas, and cheap places to stay only, you got that?”

“Yes sir,” Mike answered.

“My spare pistol is in the glove compartment.” Hopper said. “You remember how to use that one, right?” He didn’t stop to hear Mike respond. “There’s a box of ammo in there too. Emergencies only.”

“Of course,” Mike said. He could hear his voice shaking.

Of course, he remembered shooting cans out behind Hopper’s old cabin a couple of winters ago. Just in case, he thought at the time. It sent a shiver through him to realize – that just in case feeling in the back of his head that made him ask Hopper to teach him to shoot a gun was probably the same one that made Hopper save up all this money and forge all these papers.

Shit.

“Just, take the car, pick a direction, and drive. There’s a map in the console.” Hopper continued on, almost like he had practiced this speech in the car on the way over. “Don’t tell me where you’re going. Don’t tell any of your friends either. Don’t call them. Don’t write to them. The more people who know where you are, the easier it will be to find you. I’ll tell them what they need to know. Understand?”

Another nod, and after a second of thought…

“Wait…” Mike started. “How are we going to know when it’s okay to come back?” If it’s ever okay to come back?

Mike looked wistfully off in the direction of his house, thinking for the first time of what his mother was going to think. What Holly was going to think. He didn’t even want to know what his dad was going to think.

“Every Sunday, at 7:30 eastern time – mind the time changes – I’ll be talking.” Mike’s forehead creased in confusion. “You tell her to come find me,” Hopper said, and Mike remembered. “I’ll let you know when it’s safe to come home.”

“Okay,” Mike said, nodding his head. “Okay.”

It wasn’t okay.

“My mom…” Mike trailed.

“I’ll take care of it. I’ll take care of her.”

“When El figures it out… when I tell her why we’re leaving town… she’s going to want to come back,” Mike said. To his surprise, Hopper actually stopped to listen. Nodding, as if he knew Mike wasn’t done talking. “She doesn’t want you to deal with… anything, anyone… alone. She wants you to be safe. So do I.”

No one wanted to keep El out of the grasp of bad intentions more than Mike. Maybe with the exception of the man standing in front of him, Mike thought, even though they sometimes disagreed on just what that looked like.

All events of the past 20 minutes considered, Mike was pretty sure keeping El away from whatever threat was headed towards Hawkins was probably for the best. And, if he was being honest with himself, he knew what the threat was. Who the threat was. What convinced him, finally convinced him, to climb into the front seat of the car and put it in reverse was that Hopper agreed with him.

“I won’t come back until you say it’s safe,” Mike said. Hopper leaned into the window.

“Even if she tries to make you?”

Mike nodded.

Hopper shoved Mike’s bag in the backseat next to the one he’d packed for El (the bag was actually Will’s, Mike noticed) and closed the door as quietly as he could. The passenger seat was still. Mike envied her. He was a shitty sleeper, and she would probably miss the end of the world.

“Don’t let her be too mad at you for too long,” he said, an uneasy laugh escaping him as he did. “You’re doing the right thing.”

Without another word, Hopper passed the envelope through the window.

“Be smart with that money.”

Mike nodded again.

“I will.”

“And the gun is for emergencies only.”

“Yes sir.”

“And be safe, will you?”

As he shifted the car into drive, Mike watched him take a pack of cigarettes out of his back pocket and light it up. Mike was waiting for him to turn and saunter off in the direction of his house, which was really only a few blocks over and to the left. He had the route memorized like the back of his hand, and he laughed to himself just a little remembering the day that Will told him they were moving. They were all moving. Together. So close.

But then, he remembered where he was. What he was doing.

Hopper stayed put, watching the car drive out of the cul-de-sac. Mike watched him take a drag through the rear-view mirror, and once he crested the hill, Hopper was out of sight. For some strange reason, Mike breathed a sigh of relief. A loud one too.

El shifted in the passenger seat at the noise, causing Mike to whip his head around waiting to meet her eyes. Instead, she sighed in her sleep and hugged her pillow even tighter to her torso and brought her knees in closer. Figuring she was cold, Mike fumbled with the air conditioning with one hand while shakily driving out of the neighborhood with the other.

He couldn’t help but watch her sleep in between lengthy glances at the road ahead of him. She looked so peaceful and so blissfully unaware. Part of him wanted her to stay that way for as long as possible. He knew, once her eyes opened to focus on the dawn of a new day, she would have questions for him that he couldn’t answer. Not without her getting angry at the response.

He knew she wouldn’t be happy knowing Hopper was left alone to deal with whatever mess she felt like she created. She would want to go back, demand he turn the car around, give him the cold shoulder for a few hours.

She had spoken to him before about it, the guilt. After some time passed, she would tell him about her nightmares – of tunnels, dark and spooky forests, and the Upside Down. With time, all those faded away and became shadowy memories that no one dared speak of – as if speaking about it would bring it back into their reality. What really bothered her after all this time was the guilt, she would say, with tears in her eyes.

El’s steady breath was starting to cause the window to fog. Mike smiled.

She felt the guilt when Will had to go to the doctor. When she saw the pictures of Barbara Holland in Nancy’s old room. When Max woke up from nightmares filled with screaming monsters. When Will’s mom sat on their porch in the mornings, distant and lost in thought about Bob Newby. She had even felt it when Ms. Henderson went on and on about their lost cat from a couple of years ago.

It was because of this that Mike tried his hardest to keep his most violent and real nightmares to himself. Sometimes, in the silence of the middle of the night, he could still hear Bob’s scream.

It was everywhere for her. Everything – every inconvenience – made her feel at fault. Mike spent a great amount of mental energy focusing on ways to convince her that wasn’t true. Because it wasn’t. Every time he tried, she always thanked him for being supportive and patient. But Mike still had the sneaky feeling that she was just saying that so he wouldn’t waste anymore breath. He knew she felt horrible for the damage she caused. Even though she didn’t mean to, and all the wounds in Hawkins were healing.

He mindlessly took a right at the red light on Elm, and decided it was time he start focusing on where he was actually going.

He knew the streets of Hawkins like the back of his hand. He’d never driven that far outside the town, so passing the Hawkins city limit sign felt a little like space travel.

He always knew he would leave someday, or at least he hoped he would. Mike knew his departure for college was coming up soon. August 27th, he reminded himself. He’d been dreading it, if he was being completely honest – it being saying goodbye to El. Not like he didn’t have a way to talk to her or like he’d never see her again. But, still. That didn’t mean he was super eager to see her standing in his rear-view mirror in the same way he had just seen Hopper about 15 minutes ago. But, just like a lot of their past and childhood traumas, Mike and El just felt it best if they just didn’t talk about it at all.

He never pictured leaving Hawkins like this. In the middle of the night with his one duffle bag in the back. His sleeping and unsuspecting girlfriend in the passenger seat.

Oh God, this isn’t kidnapping, is it? I’m not going to jail, right?

It was then that Mike decided his brain was a little too worn out for all this deep thinking. So, he just kept his eyes on the road and listened to the very small and distant sound of the radio.

At the next stoplight, his headlights bounced off the red and blue marker for Highway 30.

Good enough for me, he thought to himself. We’ll end up somewhere sooner or later.

He wasn’t even one hundred percent sure where Highway 30 would take them. But that was the point, wasn’t it?

Merging on to the dark and deserted highway, Mike chose to take advantage of his quiet time while El snoozed all curled up in her pillow to figure out exactly what he was going to say to her when she woke up and realized they were about 400 miles away from home.

Blinding him, another bright green sign caught his attention.

INDIANA HIGHWAY 30 TO PLYMOTH, VALPARAISO, CHICAGO

Chicago it is, Mike thought to himself, glancing over at El, still passed out cold.

El’s going to love Chicago.

AN: I have it all mapped out from here, I just have to write it.... wish me luck on my first chaptered fic! lol, hope you enjoy <3

#stranger things #mileven #stranger things fic #stranger things fanfiction #mileven fic #st #mike wheeler #eleven #hopper #writing things #marty writes #lookee i did something!!!!#hope u like it :)

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jads1000 · 7 years

Text

Steroline Appreciation Week (#scaw17) The Snow Globe Part 2

Continued from here X

Writing this has made me feel super emo. I tried to combine all the elements of Steroline I love (friendship, teasing, angst, romance and passion). It’s basically a trip from S2 to S8 and I hope you all enjoy it.

***

Approaching her doorstep, Caroline let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. After being locked up and tortured by a pack of werewolves, all she wanted was a hot bath and a lot of junk food. Stefan followed behind, concern dripping off him, his shoulders tense with anxiety. As bad as her ordeal had been, it could have been much worse if it hadn't been for the Salvatores and creepy Dr Martin. She shivered as she pulled her key chain from her pocket. Behind her, she sensed his footsteps pause obviously waiting for her to open the door. Then she heard it.

A stifled chuckle.

Was he laughing at her? Because if he was, she was about to kick his ass, hero hair or not.

She spun around to see Stefan's grin smooth out into his more standard earnest face. "What was that?"

"What was what?" He replied, the picture of innocence.

"See, I thought I heard someone laugh and we both know that's not really your style." Her eyes narrowed. "Is being burned with vervain and shot with wooden bullets amusing?"

"No, no, no." His own eyes widened in horror. He gestured at the key in the door as yet unturned. She gave him a 'wtf?' look. "You said it was a shit gift!"

Dangling down was that damn snow globe. After having misplaced her keys several times recently, she had resorted to attaching them to something big and ugly. Funny how she never had that issue since. "It IS a shit gift, but because I am gracious, I will admit it has it's uses. Still, I don't know if I'll ever forgive you." She turned to Stefan who was grinning from ear to ear like she was the most amusing thing in the whole world. Just for a moment, she forgot the existence of vampire hating werewolves and psychotic doppelgangers.

"I'll take useful."

"Oh, shut up!"

***

Stefan had passed a fitful night on the Forbes' family couch. He was grateful to Caroline for putting him up after Elena moved into the boarding house to avoid by murdered in her own bed by Jeremy. Still he wasn’t looking forward to having to discuss their sire bond revelation with his brother. Stepping out of Caroline's en suite shower, he picked up the towel she had left him and wrapped it snugly around his hips. It didn't leave much to the imagination, all Liz's bigger towels must have been dirty. He moved into her room to start dressing.

Caroline's room was pretty and feminine. To say she was a neat freak was an understatement. Stefan hadn't really been in here before and interested to see what secrets her boudoir might give up. In one corner, there were several shelves containing cheerleader trophies, commendation medals for various good deeds and a suspiciously home-made certificate declaring her third grade hopscotch champion. Caroline Forbes really was multi-talented. In pride of place, her Miss Mystic Falls trophy twinkled and next to it, hung on a small hook, was the snow globe key chain from his one and only attempt at Secret Santa.

His heart fluttered in his undead chest.

Why would she still have this given how much she hated it?

He ran his fingertips over the rounded surface and for the first time in weeks, he smiled.

***

Stefan and Caroline stood watching the burning log shed. Even as a ghost, Enzo was a royal pain in ass.

"I have a secret for you."

Caroline mesmerised by the fire was stumped. "What?"

"I have a secret I never told Elena." Stefan grinned. "Aside from the ‘dirt on your cheek’ thing."

"Okay." She looked dubious.

"You remember that Secret Santa gift?"

She rolled her eyes at him. "How could I forget!"

Stefan looked chastised. "I had a completely different gift for you, but Damon being Damon ruined the whole thing."

"So not a snow globe then?"

Doubt etched Stefan's face. He had always figured that someone as whimsical as Caroline would love such things, maybe he didn’t know her so well. "It was a snow globe, it was just a better one." He went on to describe the pretty, glass globe and where and when he had got it. At the mention of Lexi, he glanced away as if wishing to hide his sadness from her.

"It's okay to miss her. Damon may be your brother, but he's also a complete dick."

"I'm no better than him."

"Duh, you're a 1000% better."

"I killed Enzo."

"Your brother left him to die in a fire." Caroline cocked her head to one side. "Anyway, I don't want to talk about Enzo or Damon, who is this Disney character you associate with me?"

"Tinker Bell." He replied simply.

"I've never seen Peter Pan."

"Disappointed it wasn't Cinderella?" He teased. She narrowed her eyes. "Tink is misunderstood. People see her as impatient, jealous and impetuous." She frowned at him and opened her mouth to protest. "But it comes from a place of love, she would do anything for her friends." He smiled at her. "And she has really cute shoes."

She punched him on the arm. "You're so annoying."

He smiled. "I just can't believe you've never seen the film. Youngsters of today, don't know you're born.” And then, even though, he really didn’t want to, he added “Come on, let's go check on Damon and Elena."

***

Spending an afternoon watching movies with her mom had been one of Caroline's favourite childhood things to do. Now Liz was dying, Caroline was desperate to make as many memories as possible. Stefan had dropped off a couple of DVDs from his collection, along with some chocolates and popcorn so she decided that given how miserable the weather was that was what the two of them would do. Liz was installed on the couch, tucked under a blanket. She looked pale and worn, the fragility of life etched across her features.

One of the movies Stefan had picked was Peter Pan. Curious, she popped in the DVD in the DVD player and snuggled up next to Liz.

"This takes me back." Her mom commented. "I know it's a cartoon, but it's kind of dark. Do you really want to watch it?"

"Wouldn't be Disney otherwise. Besides..." She looked away coyly. "Stefan once told me that Tinker Bell reminds him of me."

Liz made a strangled noise, half way between a snort and a gasp.

"What?" Caroline demanded. “She’s an icon!”

"Nothing. Let's just watch the movie." Liz passed her daughter the popcorn and they settled down to enjoy the film. "He's nice, Stefan. I mean for a vampire."

"Well your comparison is Damon so..."

"Still, he made us dinner the other night, he cleaned up and loaded the dishwasher. I don't think your father ever did that."

"He's trying to get in your good books." Caroline scoffed.

"Ask yourself why he's doing that." Liz glanced over. "He likes you."

"He's my friend, that's all."

"I don't think that's true. He cares about you Caroline and when I'm gone, you're going to need someone there for you."

"I don't want think about that."

The movie continued to play. Tinker Bell appeared on screen, jingling her bells and never once uttering a single word.

"I'm going to kill Stefan." Caroline complained.

"I thought you might." Smiled Liz.

***

Caroline didn't know how long she could keep up this book club ruse. Her Nook kept her from having to explain the physical lack of books to Alaric, but even with vampire healing, her eyes were constantly red and puffy. Stefan had been gone for six long months, the twins were exhausting and Ric was frankly as much use as a chocolate teapot. Which seemed to be the default setting for most new dads, but then he had a knack of making dusty academia seem like the hardest job in the world. For all his 'you can't explain what you love' bs, she suspected Klaus had never changed a diaper in his life.

Stefan, however, would have been different. She was certain of he would have got up in the night, warmed bottles and changed diapers even the really disgusting ones. He would have decorated the nursery and child proofed the house with bitching and moaning about needing easy access to a crossbow.

She opened the glove box and took out the pile of letters tied in a red ribbon and the snow globe. The key chain was a comforting weight in her palm as she handled the envelopes. She desperately wanted to open them, to indulge in his words, but part of her was too scared to admit he was gone. What if he told her that he no longer wanted her, that he was in love with someone else. By not knowing, she could live in her fantasies of a perfect life with the perfect man.

Turning the globe upside down, she focused on the swirling white flakes. This stupid tacky gift brought her closer to Stefan, easing the ache in her heart. It gave her the reminder he had promised her all those years ago.

Home, it reminded her of home.

***

"Put me down."

"No, I said I would carry you over the threshold and that's what I'm doing, damn it."

"It's not like we're getting married, I'm just moving in." She squealed.

"Well, Caroline. It is a slippery slope. Just go with my old fashioned, traditionalist ways." He gently set her down, smiling.

She grinned back at him. "So, you want me to be a prim Victorian lady?" She batted her lashes coyly at him before looking demurely away.

In a flash, she was pressed up against wall, Stefan's hands firmly planted on her hips as he raked his dark eyes down her face, settling on her lips before, meeting her eyes once again. "Definitely not." He growled. Hungrily, he pressed his lips to hers as one hand snaked up her body and into her curls. The jokey atmosphere dissipated, replaced by desire.

"I need to unpack." She murmured initiating another kiss.

"That can wait until later." He groaned back and whisked them upstairs.

A few hours later, Caroline was curled up, content in Stefan's arms, planning where all her stuff was going to go. There was some decent closet space and Stefan had cleared some shelves for things she wanted to display.

"I can hear your mind whirring."

"Shut up."

"It's getting late. May I suggest we take a shower together and I’ll help you unpack tomorrow?" He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

She shot him a thoughtful look. "There's just one of thing I need first."

Stefan hoped that it was some sexy nightwear, preferably short and sheer that he could get his teeth into, literally. He wasn't prepared for her to open up a bag and slide out the snow globe. She proudly placed at eye level, front and centre of the shelf. "You've still got that?"

"Of course." She replied incredulously. "Now let's get that shower."

***

"I understand." She paused in her message. "I will love you forever." She broke down, sobs wracking her body. She didn't want to get back into the car. She didn't want to be 'safe'; she wanted to be with Stefan. But she did understand. He would always choose to die if it meant protecting others, that was just him. Stefan the Hero, Stefan the Martyr. The things she both loved and hated about him.

She rooted through her handbag to find the one thing that always gave her hope. When she couldn't locate it instantly, she started to panic. Then her fingers met the cool plastic right at the bottom of her bag. Only it felt slimy.

She pulled the key chain from her bag to see it cracked and broken. The contents had leaked out and the snowflakes no longer danced. She knew, then, her home was gone.

***

Two hundred years later

The sunlight shone through the window waking Caroline. There she was, in her old room at her mom's house, laid on her old bed, dressed in a short black dress with low black pumps encasing her feet. Shards of memories flooded her brain - the crackle of magic, the screams of vampires as they were felled, the sharp spike of wood between her ribs and the warmth of Ilya Bennett’s arms as the world finally faded to black.

To die protecting one of Bonnie’s distant relatives that was a pretty good way to go.

So, this was peace.

She was surprised. She expected to wake up in Salvatore Mansion her home for the past two centuries. She got up, smoothed her dress and took a look around. The room was obviously old fashioned, but warm, neat and stuffed with childhood memories. Her eye was instantly drawn to the snow globe, hanging on its little hook. She welcomed it like an old friend taking it in her hand and fingering the smooth surface.

There was a knock at the front door, the sound of knuckles on wood could only mean one person.

She raced down the stairs and paused at the bottom.

Standing at the door, no curtains to obscure him, was Stefan, a large toothy smile on his face. She turned the door knob, smiling back at him.

"Caroline.” He said warmly, taking her hands in his. "I see you found it."

"Well, obviously." She replied, holding up the gift.

"Who would have thought Heaven would have a Quick Stop?" He grinned, brushing his lips against hers.

"Shut up." She murmured as she pulled him into a deeper kiss.

She was home.

The End

#Steroline #steroline fanfic #scaw17 #steroline drabble #Stefan Salvatore #caroline forbes

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rangergirl3 · 7 years

Note

Some people are saying the s1 and s2 shiro was a clone as well as s3's. What do you think?

I’m so glad you asked. :-)

I think that the S1 and S2 Shiro was not a clone, if only because that sort of mind-flip trick would be more Inception-like then what VLD seems to be going for.

(Not that I think there’s no basis for that guess, but I just don’t believe that it is the case here).

As for S3’s Shiro, oh, man, there are so many possibilities here. Here’s my personal take on it.

*rolls out whiteboard with complicated and criss-crossing lines of theories on it*

So NOT ONLY do we have canon confirmation that Voltron itself is able to cross over into alternate realities (Slav was onto something in S2, that’s for sure now) BUT ALSO now we have confirmation that other alternate realities exist side-by-side with the ‘real’ one. Also, we hear it from Keith that (one of) the Black Lion’s powers is teleportation. This really makes me think that our real Shiro got teleported somewhere the Black Lion thought would be safer, and honestly, I don’t believe for a single tic that the Black Lion, out of all people (or sentient robotic lions) would think that a Galra ship was a safe place for its Paladin.

Remember how the Black Lion kicked Zarkon out of the astral plane right before he would have killed Shiro in S2? Yeah, no, I just don’t think that Black is going to shuffle her Paladin to an enemy ship, no matter how much Zarkon was messing with her and/or Shiro’s mind at the time.

Okay, okay, so now back to who - or what - we’ve seen in S3. First of all, I feel so, so, so bad for this guy. I’m just going to call him Kuron, like the rest of the fandom seems to be doing. What follows is only my own guesses/opinions, so please don’t take this as 'fact’, it’s just my current ongoing theory of what is going to happen. :-)

I think that Kuron was created during one of Haggar’s experiments - maybe when she took Shiro’s right arm. (I mean, she’s evil and sort of nuts, so yeah, that would fit into what she’d think was a clever idea. Maybe like wanting more of this 'Champion’ to create an army with, look, I don’t know, she’s evil.) Anyway she makes this clone as a backup and once Zarkon is defeated she instigates a protocol to take down the Paladins - or maybe Lotor does, which would be like him. It seems this entire Kuron protocol only got off the ground around/after the time Lotor notices the Voltron team isn’t working seamlessly together, that their leader isn’t in control.

So, my guess is that our original Shiro is off in an alternate reality somewhere - possibly the very same one that the team was in for a little while. Somehow he’ll get back into our own reality, and either right before/during/after that event Kuron is going to get mind-controlled by the evil guys and try to either sabatage the team or kill them outright. (Look, the guy even said he had a 'weird headache’. If that ain’t foreshadowing I don’t know what is. Also the hair and wardrobe changes simply scream 'this is not Shiro and we are in for a major shitstorm in the immediate future’ to all my spider-senses.)

However, Kuron is, in a lot of ways, very similar to Shiro, so in the end, the mind-control doesn’t work, is broken, or is otherwise interrupted. My personal guess for Kuron’s fate is that he will, in some way, die saving either the team or the original Shiro, and it’s going to make all of us fans really really sad, and simultaneously glad that the real Shiro is back in action.

Whew. That was a long answer to your question. Hope you enjoyed it, anon! :-)

@antisocial-avocado @avidbeader @zenthisoror @maychorian @genius-prettyboy-momfriend-yoon @fractalabomination @havetoomanyfandoms @reborn-imagines @jpnpr @jenasisity @thegalrahobbitofplanetgalifrey @violetbrock @erzatscarlett and everyone else!

@voltronluvr5 @noisypaintersong

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her-majestys-watchdog · 7 years

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I don’t believe Sebastian is bored for a second when spending time fulfilling his contract with Ciel, otherwise he would have ended it years ago. I think Ciel’s humanity fascinates him. Ciel also looks up to Sebastian as an adult figure – that is clear just from the amount of influence Sebastian has on his life choices and behaviour. They make a hell of a team. (3)

As I said, I believe Ciel's humanity fascinates him and transforms him (particularly his demonic aesthetics). So when faced with such vulnerability and fondness as I read from this picture, I can’t help but wonder what they both feel, and how Sebastian in particular will move on after the end of the contract.

Will he even remember Ciel a hundred years from then on? Will he sometimes reminiscent those times when such humanity fascinated him? After all, he is an all-knowledgeable and all-capable thousand+ year old demon, yet Ciel still manages to surprise him in the best of ways. (5)

idk maybe it's just me, but I don't think Yana spent 10 years developing their relationship to such complexities for it to mean nothing to the plot... the end of the manga (and their contract) will probably depend on how they feel about each other. That's why I wasn't quite so appalled by the "demon Ciel" in S2 (though that's another story really). Anyway, that's it! :)

Oh! Maybe I might add that I believe that despite the rough surfaces, Sebastian deep down genuinely likes Ciel and spending time with him. They're the Dumb & Dumber of Kuroshitsuji. And Ciel is just a hissy cat who is using Seb for his warm milk :p

My reply: Hi anon! I can’t tell if part of your ask is missing but this is all that came through so I’ll roll with it. This post might get a bit long so I’ll put it under a cut! :)

“So when faced with such vulnerability and fondness as I read from this picture.”

This picture? I’m not sure what you refer to!

I don't think Yana spent 10 years developing their relationship to such complexities for it to mean nothing to the plot... the end of the manga (and their contract) will probably depend on how they feel about each other.

That’s an interesting idea I like that! You are probably right, I could imagine that some situation will occur that requires Sebastian to act in a manner he would have not usually acted, but due to his time with Ciel he chooses differently. Or something like that.

That's why I wasn't quite so appalled by the "demon Ciel" in S2

I agree ugh! To have Sebastian despising Ciel so much basically undermined one of the main themes of Kuroshitsuji. Since the manga revolves around their relationship (platonic of course) to taint that after we’ve watched them grow across the narrative feels really unsatisfying - we want them to be a good team. Though I don’t believe they’re “friends” (their relationship is more complex than that) I do doubt Yana would ever follow S2′s example, phew.

yet Ciel still manages to surprise him in the best of ways

Yeah I love that a lot, it’s so interesting! One of Sebastian’s lines in the newest chapter was about this, it’s always fun to see how this contract with Ciel continues to alarm him.

Sebastian deep down genuinely likes Ciel and spending time with him

Yeah I’d say so! Though I don’t think Ciel feels the same way back due to their power imbalance. Not to say Ciel cannot control Sebastian, but his ways of controlling the demon are often self-detrimental or trivial in comparison to the things Sebastian could do to him. EG: Ciel can make Sebastian’s life a living nightmare, he could ruin the flavor of his soul, he could waste time and postpone his revenge, but nevertheless if he steps out of line he will die and he has no power to ever change this.

Conversely, I like to believe that Sebastian is leashed and this could kill him but only because he allows it... so his enjoyment of the contract is pretty demonic! As to be expected.

#ask #Anonymous

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asherlockstudy · 7 years

Text

John is always right: A Sherrinford Hope-ful Meta

A theory about Mycroft, Sherrinford, Eurus and Moriarty that fortunately turned out very S2-ish.

I have made it somewhat clear that I wasn’t exactly excited after The Lying Detective, aside from the crime case of Culverton Smith which was certainly one of the most thrilling of the show.

One of the worst aspects of it was the unveiling of the secret Holmes sister, Eurus. I have trouble finding her convincing as an evil psychotic sibling and even more trouble to understand why she haunted the brothers’ minds even when they were kids (”there is an East Wind coming, it’s a story my brother told me when we were kids”) or why she seems to be justified for her wrath (”seeks out the unworthy and plucks them from the earth”). There is a lot more I don’t like or understand but I decided to roll with it until we see what happens in TFP.

What’s worse is that the show seems to point at the direction of another Holmes sibling, Sherrinford, and it becomes dangerously implied that this fourth sibling might be Moriarty. I can’t analyze again why this is a terrible possibility but let’s just say in short that if Moriarty is a fourth sibling, the plot becomes significantly weaker with all the brother and sister drama additions and all the old scenes between Sherlock and Moriarty become suddenly very uncomfortable to watch. Moriarty’s former characterization also suddenly loses a lot of depth and credibility.

So, I tried to check if there is a way Eurus is truly the secret bad sister and Moriarty is still biologically unrelated to the three siblings that actually seems probable and I came up with the following theory that fits and is also perhaps my last hope:

John, as usual, is the conductor of light.

John usually picks some stuff before Sherlock does but he misses a detail or doesn’t realise the importance of his conclusion. He sees but he does not observe. Some examples:

John assumes Sherlock’s archenemy is probably a pining, jealous man in love. His only mistake is that he thinks it’s Mycroft. He fails entirely to consider that Mycroft might be a relative of Sherlock’s.

John assumes the killer in ASIP tries to talk the victims into killing themselves. He’s right. What he misses is the context of the dialogue - Jeff Hope didn’t try to make these people want to kill themselves, he lured them into trying to save themselves and kill him.

John thinks a code must be an important clue for the solution of the THOB case. He’s right, he just found a non-existent code.

So, John usually thinks of something but he waves it off as wrong until Sherlock brings it back and re-evaluates its importance. Sherlock in TAB admits (over the dead sister’s grave) that John is always right.

Let’s see now John’s always right moment in TLD.

Jesus! A secret brother!

But Eurus, rather irritated, mocks John for never getting that it could be a secret sister instead of brother. Hopefully then, there is no secret brother locked in a tower.

But...

there is a track called In The Tower. And surprise, surprise we can hear it when Eurus reveals her true (?) identity. Yet we don’t see a tower. A tower or something similarly looking is what we expect to see according to the Setlock of the Final Problem. Since I am crap at digging things from Setlock, I think it’s this one?

St Catherine’s fort by the Castle beach. Play a bit with the words, remove that Cath- and you get Sherrinford by the Tower beach. Okay. Let’s accept that the most probable case is that Mycroft has Sherrinford secure in there.

Can this be Eurus? It simply cannot. Eurus is out, having fish and chips with Sherlock and then cosplaying either as Faith Smith or John’s therapist. Yet Mycroft claims he gets regular updates about Sherrinford, when Lady Smallwood asks him if he speaks to them... Now, “regular updates” doesn’t sound very personal - it seems Mycroft calls to a place and gets information about “Sherrinford” who / which is secure. He seems totally unaware of a danger approaching his brother in the face of their sister.

So Sherrinford and Eurus are not the same person. Who is Sherrinford? Or what?

I think we can now safely assume that.

So Sherrinford indeed is Moriarty. But that’s not his name. Sherrinford is a code name used so that people won’t understand who they are referring to. Might as well mean there is a traitor in the Government / Secret Service. In any case, they are being extra cautious, they keep Moriarty trapped in this place and they refer to him by a codename inspired by the place. Which means that Sherrinford is not another brother’s name.

Moftiss remained loyal to the canon - Sherrinford was not a brother, but the original name ACD had thought for Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock is Sherrinford.

I.AM.YOU.

In conclusion: Jim Moriarty is alive, NOT A RELATIVE and Mycroft keeps his survival secret from Sherlock, perhaps because he fears Sherlock’s obsession would make him seek him out. Perhaps he keeps it secret from everyone except Lady Smallwood. I always thought Sherlock knew that Jim didn’t really die on the rooftop, but I said in this post that he then had Molly and Mycroft track him down. Possibly, when they did find him, Mycroft lied to Sherlock that Jim had died in his effort to escape. I don’t know.

But perhaps Mycroft keeps it a secret for one more reason: Moriarty’s association to Eurus. So, well done John, you got a sibling and a tower.

If we accept that many things they told us are simply true and we go back to TRF, Mycroft told John that in his despair to understand what Moriarty wanted he indulged in giving him information on Sherlock’s past. Then, mysteriously enough, Moriarty arranged a crime in which two siblings were kidnapped and poisoned. What are the odds?

The most probable thing is that at the same time he looked for Eurus and found her. Perhaps Eurus was living free but completely alone, detached from both her brothers. Or perhaps she was imprisoned for some reason and Moriarty set her free - he broke in Pentonville prison in TRF, didn’t he? Of course, Mycroft was informed about it but it never reached the news because there are some privileges when you are the Head of the Secret Service.

But Mycroft got terrified. Moriarty had now access to both his brother and his sister. I think this fits my theory that Mycroft let Moriarty play with Sherlock on the rooftop under some threat and that’s probably that Jim would kill his sister otherwise. Because Moriarty never intended to kill Sherlock up there, so Mycroft at least would not risk his brother’s life and would save his sister.

And Jim did what he knows best.

Had a platonic affair with her. Just like he did with Molly and Kitty Reily. Sherlock deduced that Eurus was in a relationship that however wasn’t physical / intimate for a long time or at all. Eurus looked a bit distressed at that. Remember: a disguise is always a self-portrait. Just like in Jim from IT’s and Irene’s case, Sherlock deduced parts of the truth about Eurus, not Faith. If it was Faith Smith, why on earth would she live in a tiny, poor house and be isolated?

By the way, look at the shadow of Eurus’ boyfriend.

Yeah, well. The nose and chin look different, but the hair and the head shape definitely look like Jim’s. They used a look-alike actor, just to not make it obvious.

That was the live-in Moriarty mentioned in TRF. Sherlock’s own sister. Everything was planned since then.

So Jim then started poisoning Eurus’ mind about her brothers and her past, drove her into seeking revenge for whatever had happened. Eurus seemed a bit surprised at Sherlock’s kindness. Probably Moriarty described him as a horrible person. Also, Sherlock deduced that her boyfriend didn’t notice she was harming herself which, he concluded, meant they were no longer together. Because he’s Sherlock and he always cares. Eurus replied that it was a very sweet way of thinking which means that the truth was Moriarty had noticed the scars but simply didn’t care to do anything about it. Well, of course she didn’t have scars as a therapist so they had all faded, but Eurus perhaps gave Sherlock hints of what her past had been like by faking she had. As she tells us in the end, Eurus wanted to see if Sherlock would get all the clues - and she was disappointed when he missed the biggest one: MISS ME?

Sherlock assumed Eurus ended abruptly the relationship because it wasn’t intimate but he didn’t deduce it was Eurus’ initiative. He simply assumed it. However, the relationship could have ended because Jim faked his suicide and then was arrested. It is very probable that Moriarty played the Richard Brook persona to her too. He made her believe that Sherlock was harming him for his own purposes and gave her instructions on how she would take revenge for him, if he died. Or they were just an evil “couple” and Eurus takes revenge for Moriarty. Moriarty brought her in contact with Culverton (who probably had asked help how to kill people without being noticed) and Culverton gave Eurus his daughter’s letter as a payment to Moriarty’s services.

Whatever is the case, Eurus believed Sherlock killed Moriarty or was responsible for his death and decided she should finally take her revenge for everything that had happened. They created the MISS ME video together before Moriarty “died”. She most likely believes him dead. That’s why she assaulted John instead of Sherlock himself - an eye for an eye. I bet this was Jim’s idea as well :P

Because don’t forget: She said she kept this letter for three years which probably is around TRF.

So that’s it. Eurus is Moran. Sherrinford is the code name for where they keep Moriarty, St Catherine’s fort..Jim Moriarty is Jim Moriarty.

Tagging a few people who might be interested: @lisagemeni , @ervagworld, @dammitsully

#bbc sherlock #jim moriarty #johnlock #sheriarty #mycroft holmes #eurus holmes #sherrinford #tld #the final problem #east wind #setlock #jimlock #trf #eurus is moran #st catherine's fort #meta

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miss-m-calling · 5 years

Text

Het Swap 2019 letter

Requests:

American Gods (TV) – Laura Moon/Mad Sweeney

Black Sails -- Miranda Barlow/John Silver

Good Girls -- Beth Boland/Rio

Firefly -- Jayne Cobb/Saffron, Jayne Cobb/River Tam

Dear writer,

Hello and thank you for writing for me. I’m very excited to read whatever you come up with.

Requests:

American Gods (TV)

Laura Moon/Mad Sweeney

I ship it. Yes I do. They had me at “gimme-my-coin-dead-wife”-flicks-him-into-wall. The snarky road trip was the best thing I never knew I wanted until it happened, and I adored every second of it, not to mention the upped shippiness in S2. They’re both such assholes and so fascinating, even if they start to mellow toward each other a bit, and all the gods/magic/resurrection stuff swirling around them begs to be explored further. Also I love love love how their dynamic is about equal parts spikiness, pathos, and humor (they’re funny! and the canon doesn’t shy away from putting them in ludicrous situations), and it weaves seamlessly between those three. Plus she’s half his size yet can and does beat him up with literally one finger, and then there’s the angst of he having killed her, feeling really guilty about it, and then bringing her back. And the way that their New Orleans adventure makes clear they have feelings for each other (S1 was more one-sided SweeneyàLaura) but neither wants to admit it. And and and… yeah, I just love them.

Please give me either missing scenes from the road trip (if you can work in a divergence, that’s great - for example, I like Salim, but if you want to have him boot Sweeney and Laura to the curb and go off on his own, or Sweeney to boost his taxi before Salim catches them, or whatever else to have those two alone, go for it!), or a divergence from either season (instead of going to Ostara, they go where? to see whom? about getting Laura resurrected. Or things go down differently in New Orleans, or Cairo, or anywhere else) or something about these two post-canon.

-Wednesday’s big war finally comes, and “don’t you dare die on me [again], you asshole” is a line either Sweeney or Laura (or both) might say to each other.

-Speaking of other deities, I really enjoyed their brief canon interactions with the likes of Ostara, Anansi, and Mama-Ji, and I’d like to see more of that, especially Ostara’s polite yet over-it attitude, Anansi very obvious over-it attitude and his dramatic flair, or Mama-Ji being one of the few capable of giving Laura pause.

-All the petty, ridiculous ways in which Sweeney’s bad luck manifests itself make me laugh (can’t help it, won’t even try), and I’m down for more variations on that theme.

-Sweeney and Laura get drunk and wake up married. Or some sex and/or blood resurrection spell also results in basically an unbreakable marriage bond, whether it also secures resurrection or not. Or marrying the dead keeps them (sorta) alive. Or being married makes it possible for them to share magical/supernatural abilities. They’re both pissed about it, but secretly having to make it work may not be the worst thing that’s ever happened...

-My perfect AG spinoff would basically be Sweeney and Laura tooling around America, looking to get her resurrected (whether they succeed or not is up to you), stealing ever more ridiculous vehicles, arguing/fighting and having those pesky moments where vulnerability and genuineness creep in – and fucking. So yessiree I’d be down for porn, including “it’s technically necrophilia/zombiesex” porn, including a canon-divergent first time, or a second/later time after they had their first time in NOLA in canon.

My two canon-specific, really strong DNWs for this pairing are this: Sweeney doesn’t die (at least not permanently), and I’m not into Laura being Essie’s reincarnation/descendant or – as fanon suggests and canon sorta maybe hints she may be – some sort of reincarnation of Sweeney’s wife from back when he was a king in old Ireland. Reincarnation/“new love looks like old love”/“lost love found again” plots bore me, and I don’t enjoy ships that hinge on characters being somehow destined to be together. Characters having agency is also my jam. Anyway I’m certain that Laura would have neither time nor patience for the notion that Destiny Fate and All That Jazz threw her together with ginger minge, and even if it were technically true, she’d still want this relationship to work on her terms – and Sweeney obviously has a problem with Laura’s cheating, her relationship with Shadow, her personality (though he also recognizes they’re alike in many ways), and all that maps onto his anger and sadness over becoming irrelevant over time, so it’s not just about Laura. So yeah, let them be their own (grumpy, spiky, dysfunctional) people, and let Laura’s dynamic with Sweeney not be shaped solely by his past and his issues.

Black Sails

Miranda Barlow/John Silver

I fell into this canon head-first and found myself with a special fondness for this ship, although they never really interact in canon at all. I definitely see it as an early seasons ship, not just because Miranda was, you know, alive, but because the early Silver was the ever-scheming trickster with a smile and a smart-allecky comment always up his sleeve, ever ready to lie, cheat, steal, and murder to his best advantage, yet already with glimpses of a capacity to care about people other than himself. What I’m saying is, he was fun to have around in a way the later Silver somewhat lost as the price of his character development.

We know Miranda has an eye for a handsome man. I suspect S1-2 Silver totally would bed the captain’s woman if he thought he could get away with it or it could be a way to manipulate Flint, only Miranda is smart and pragmatic, has a core of pure steel, and can see right through Silver, which I’m convinced she would. Unlike Flint, Miranda has done her grieving and she’s so ready to move on and feel alive again. Not saying that Silver would become another great love of hers, but they could have fun. He’d make her laugh. After years of Flint’s moods, Silver would be so easy to get along with. The sex could be great and not angsty or merely dutiful. He’d inevitably find an angle to play, but then Miranda’s no stranger to maneuvering around and with people, so maybe she’d find that his manipulative ways are half the fun. They might even fall in love for real, though that’s not a requirement, and I definitely don’t think love would be the same as absolute trust in this case. (Also I’d appreciate it if you didn’t make the relationship revolve around their shared fixation on Flint, or focus on Miranda’s angst about Thomas or the legacy of Thomas/Flint. These can be mentioned, but I’d prefer that doesn’t hijack the story.)

Prompts:

-Flint sends Silver to Miranda with a message or on an errand, and thinks nothing more of it (or possibly he wants Miranda’s assessment of how much he can trust the “new cook”). But then Silver and Miranda are intrigued by each other and start finding excuses to see each other again. Bonus points if they orchestrate encounters in a way which allows them both to pretend they don’t actually want to see each other again, it just happened, sometimes things just happen but now that they’re both here they might as well take advantage of this opportunity, etc.

-S2 divergence: James dies at Charles Town, and Miranda lives. Silver may or may not lose a leg. Silver and Miranda have to assume at least temporary leadership of the crew in order to get everyone safely back to Nassau. Do they become pirate co-captains or lady captain and her quartermaster? Do they dissolve the crew and try for a different life? Do they make a play for the Urca gold, after Silver confesses his double-dealing to an angry, grieving Miranda (Jack maybe doesn’t capture the gold, it’s still up for grabs, or if Jack does how does that play out)? I mention lower down I’d prefer no angsty sex for these two, but in this scenario I could see any sex that may happen being, at least at first, angry and angsty, but also conducive to emotional healing.

-Actual witch!Miranda. I mean storybook witch, with a cauldron in which she brews that invulnerability potion for Flint and possibly some broom-flying, rather than a Wiccan or another kind of real witch. Maybe she needs a human participant or human-sourced ingredients for some of her most powerful spells, and since Flint isn’t really comfortable with magic Miranda decides that the new ship’s cook will do, only magic has a way of binding people together more closely than they intended. Or maybe she attempts to bind a familiar, hoping for a cat or a bird, and the magic picks Silver, much to her (and his) initial consternation? Maybe Miranda doesn’t really know what she’s doing, she used to dabble in London but hasn’t tried making a spell in years and has none of her books of magic with her, or she’s heard the crew’s rumors about her and decided to give this whole magic thing a go, and oops it actually works! Either way, there would definitely be snark and “if I give you X for a spell, what’s in it for me?”

-Flint respected and cared about Miranda, but also kept her waiting on the sidelines while he did stuff. Gimme Miranda and Silver at a point where they trust each other, maybe not completely, but enough that they can scheme together, where she is impressed by his quick wits but she’ll also tell him when one of his plans is likely to go wrong in XYZ different ways. Then, obviously, they execute a plan/heist by drawing on their combined skill sets.

-Fucking someone is easy. Sleeping the night through next to that person is hard.

-Speaking of which: sex. With or without plot. In the bed, in the kitchen, in Nassau, on The Walrus when the rest of the crew is on shore-leave, or a stolen moment during the journey to Charles Town. First times, later times. Any position is good, I’ll just mention a couple possibilities: Cunnilingus with a side of mind games. Pegging. Fingering (of either by either). Intense (emotionally and physically) PIV. I could see them both initiating sex and wanting to “direct traffic” at one time or another, both wanting to keep up a front but then being ambushed by actual emotion and vulnerability. Let it be happy and giggly, or passionate, or playful, or unexpectedly tender, or seemingly casual and then very emotional and heartfelt – just please don’t let it be angsty.

-Miranda discovers she likes to get her fingers in Silver’s hair during sex, both gently and not. He likes it too, which is not to say he’ll necessarily admit he likes it.

-Sexual role-play: the demure lady abducted by a wicked pirate, only it turns out the lady’s resistance is symbolic at best. Who gets to play the lady and who the pirate is entirely open. If Miranda’s the lady, I suspect early seasons!Silver’s attempts at being menacing and dominating may make her break character for a giggle – and if Miranda’s the pirate menacing the demure and naïve, er, young gentleman, I’ll just say that I think she should wear Silver’s clothes (after washing them or making him bring a spare set).

Two canon-specific DNWs: whatever you end up writing, please don’t kill off Miranda or imply she dies “off-screen.” Let her live to fuck Silver another day. Also, I love Flint/Miranda in all their angsty glory, and I love all the intense, complicated emotion of Flint & Silver and the potential of Flint/Silver. I know I said not to make the fic revolve around Flint’s influence on their lives, but I’m fine with Flint in a walk-on role, if you want to write that. I don’t see him making too big a fuss, Miranda definitely treats her brief affair with the pastor as her business and her business alone – I can see Flint being exasperated that Silver hanging around Miranda is now a thing, or suspicious of Silver’s intentions but also trusting Miranda to handle it.

Good Girls (TV)

Beth Boland/Rio

How do I ship them, let me count the ways! I sat down to watch a fun, silly, caper show and ended up with all these feelings. I also can never resist an older woman/younger man, opposites-attract pairing, especially if it turns out that the opposites which are attracting also have way more in common than seemed apparent at first, while still remaining fundamentally different people with possibly-incompatible lifestyles. I love that while Beth can’t keep her crush hidden at all, Rio’s a very cool customer but at the same time has zero chill when it comes to her. I love how their comfort level with each other grows throughout the first two seasons, but they also both suck at communication and tend to just do their own thing or take what the other one will do for granted, and there are moments or periods of real ugliness punctuating their dynamic (like when Beth sets Rio up and he shoots Dean, or how she handles their “breakup” and he retaliates with the dead body and messing with Beth’s head, and then of course the S2 ending). There are definitely feelings on both side, they’re just really inconvenient feelings, given who she is and who he is, and they’re mixed with the lust and the illicit thrill of danger. For one thing, Beth has had a pretty obvious crush on Rio since the start, and he has pretty obviously found her intriguing at least from when she talked him out of killing the three women. For another thing, when she got out of the biz, Beth acted like she couldn't imagine how he’d cope without her to launder his money, so there’s a weird kind of misplaced protectiveness. It’s not Twue Wuv, but it’s not just sex either, as she told Dean in order to hurt Dean and because she knew he would understand that as her motivation. He wouldn’t be able to understand that she feels alive in Rio’s world. And it's not Twue Wuv for Rio either (he also doesn’t seem like the monogamous kind), but it’s not just the thrill of sex with someone so different from his usual pick of women. She takes him more than a little for granted, he has tended more often than not to underestimate her. It's capital-C Complicated. Plus every single episode makes me laugh, makes me gasp or scream, deadly-serious situations veer into humor and back again, and I also enjoy that the UST wasn’t flogged past its sell-by date, but also sex didn’t magically smooth out all of the very real complications between them (and I refuse the showrunner’s suggestion that “King” was the end of the ship – contentiousness and chemistry will keep me fed for a long time).

I love Beth for basically the same reasons why she drives me up the wall: her boldness and recklessness, her giddy joy in being baaaaaaad, her compartmentalization fu, how easily she switches from devoted mom to smooth criminal and liar, how the boundaries of her two lives are starting to blur yet she still seems to fundamentally believe in her own invulnerability. Some consequence of her extracurricular activities or other is going to bite Beth hard one day, and I’m here for it, just as much as I am here for Beth to continue to over-rely on her privilege and just sweetly bulldoze her way through any and all problems. I cheered when she finally admitted that she finds the thrill and the stress of the criminal life fun – it’s not an addiction, it’s a choice willingly made, she’s had control over many of her interactions with Rio. She’s not a victim in this, and Rio’s not her personal villain. Beth wants power and control, but the dirty work still gives her pause – she needs to own all that. Plus I keep thinking of Rio’s line about how nobody’s going to shoot up Beaver Cleaver’s house – Beth’s bubble is going to have to burst somehow, and not in a way she can handwave as no big deal, as she’s done till now, even after shooting Rio! Also, her tackling crime like it’s just any other household chore, keeping funny money in a storage box under her bed and whatnot, delights me.

And I kind of love the way Rio starts out, for both Beth and the audience, as this irresistible-because-dangerous, snarky, dark object of desire (and affection), and then we gradually learn more about him, but there’s still so much to learn. He obviously loves pushing Beth’s buttons, still plays his cards very close, and seems to be working out why the hell he let this suburban lady get under his skin so much. He didn’t need all these complications in his life! He was doing fine before Beth (and Annie and Ruby), and now he runs around Detroit playing mind games and stealing back baby blankies from crack houses! There’s a lot going on with him, and one thing Rio is, he’s the guy who owns his choices in a way Beth still refuses to own hers. My only certainty from the S2 ending is that Rio will mess with Beth in every way he can, in retaliation, whether he’s in jail or not, as well he should. (On that note, let me also mention that I, like Beth, love the edge Rio has, the constant undercurrent or potential for violence – the soft!Rio fanon bores me, unless his soft moments come with the snarky and the sexy and the dangerous and the manipulative because he is so fucking manipulative and I love it, and the putting his own interests first even while wanting Beth around, and the he-has-people-of-his-own-to-look-after, and the not-here-for-your-convenience-alone-Elizabeth, etc.) So yeah, I know that these two may never fully make it work, and it’s highly unlikely they’ll get anything remotely like an HEA, but I’m here for the wild ride and all the ways they can be both great and terrible together.

I wrote most of these prompts before the S2 finale aired, so please feel free to do missing scenes, or divergences, or write a fictional S3, mix and match – whatever works for you, grit and angst and contention or giggles and capers and some contention anyway because come on it’s them! Oh, and about Annie and Ruby: I like them both (Annie especially is a riot even if she’s even more reckless than Beth) and I love the three gals’ banter, so if you want to include them in the story that’s cool, whether as participants in Beth’s schemes or as people pushing against her overconfident recklessness, just please don’t have them only talk about Beth/Rio. As for Dean, the writers go way out of their way to make him sympathetic in late S2, but he’s a weakling and a liar, and while they need to co-parent, he needs to not be married to Beth anymore. Oh, and about Beth and Rio’s respective kids – if you want to include them in whatever you write, that’s fine, but please don’t make the kids a huge or central part of the fic.

Prompts:

-Canon divergence from the S1 cliffhanger: Beth shoots Rio (non-fatally), or Beth shoots Dean to get him to shut up and because she just found out he faked having cancer (he may or may not die), or even Rio takes the gun off Beth and shoots her (flesh wound only), and then what happens? Or how about a divergence from S1E9, where Beth doesn’t interpret “Go home, Elizabeth” as a threat, though her feelings may get hurt by the rejection?

-When the title of the last S2 episode was first announced, I imagined that “King” might mean Rio goes to prison, briefly or not, and then Beth either has to step in and prevent his entire organization from falling apart (and maybe Rio’s lady lawyer helps her out but some of Rio’s other associates and his guys don’t take kindly to her stepping in), or some new big bad moves into Rio’s territory and Beth has to confront them, but they have no desire to indulge her like Rio does or to be her friendly neighborhood gangbanger. Obviously that’s now totally a divergence, but I still want it!

-Speaking of the S2 ending, you can totally do a wild divergence! I’ve read some interesting theories about how that scene wasn’t all it appeared to be (Rio and Beth were in cahoots and he’d taught her how to shoot him non-fatally, Rio wanted to have a video of Beth shooting Turner so he could hold it over her but he can totally work with how it worked out too -- although honestly I’m not even sure S2 ended in Rio’s loft with the cameras! -- etc. etc.), so if you want to play with that or do something entirely different so they never wind up with Turner and a gun at (presumably) Rio’s loft, go right ahead. But at the same time…

-I’m actually OK with the S2 ending, provided of course that Rio lives and, um, eats her heart in vengeance while she realizes she still has a lot to learn, because them crashing into each other is where it’s at. The part that jarred me wasn’t Rio trying to force Beth’s hand in order to reassert dominance and show her she can’t ever get out clean, nor Beth shooting Rio in a moment of rage, but rather her still claiming he’s solely responsible for everything that happened and him calling her a bitch again. So if you want to write me S3, I’m here for it with bells on! Beth as king but uneasy lies the head etc. (not to mention she thinks she’s all badass because she shot Rio but the truth is she still underestimates the reality of the world she’s stepped into)! Beth acting like it’s all good but actually being guilt-ridden about shooting Rio! Her reaction to realizing he’s alive and likely coming after her! Beth’s finally his equal in crime and he’ll have to grudgingly respect that! Hate sex and rival ship-piness! Rebuilding trust – or can they! Beth visiting him in prison and stuff getting complicated! Rio coming after her, whether at Turner’s behest or for himself, and stuff gets even more complicated! Their figuring out they have to work together, for both business reasons and because it seems Turner is still all about getting Beth at any cost and is prioritizing that over getting Rio himself! Gimme all of it! Or you could have Beth shoot Turner, or Rio shoot Turner, or hell Rio shoot her non-fatally then kill Turner… I’m here for it all.

-“Just like we practiced,” he says like it ain’t no thing, but I need to know everything about it! I was starting to wonder whether he’d ever teach her like he said he would… One possible suggestion: that time Dean let those idiots steal Beth’s money, and she’s hanging with Rio in her backyard arguing about the proper word for underpants, they just got back from early morning target practice. Or how about a 5+1 story, with the +1 possibly being the S2 ending?

-Or, have Beth do one of her “I did something”s to Rio as the starting point of an adventure.

-When they’re talking outside of Jane’s dance recital, it becomes pretty clear that Rio and Beth have used absolutely all of her kids’ activities and appointments as a cover for “business meetings,” or at least he’s had to figure out her schedule pretty well in order to find her. What would their burner-phone calls or text exchanges look like when they need to arrange a meetup, with Beth needing to reschedule or running late, and Rio having limited reserves of time and patience, despite indulging her on the whole? And what if the tables turned sometime, because it’s not like his kid doesn’t have dentist’s appointments and playdates and whatnot? Plus wouldn’t Rio hanging around the dentist’s and princess birthday parties and suchlike attract at least some attention?

-Rio’s still angry and distrustful of Beth after S2E9 – both for trying to bail from the business and for using him as she did for sex and solace – but something or other happens and Beth’s the only person he can go to when his operation gets blown or raided by the Feds, or someone nearly kills him, or some other shit goes down. Now they’re basically on the lam together, and there are thrills, chases, building back trust, snark, sex… Plus it would be nice if he actually took the time to teach her, like he said he would back in S2E2, instead of blowing her off or just assuming she’ll have the common sense not to, say, walk into crack dens unarmed.

-Or flip that around: Beth handles a ‘book club’ situation her way (think Boomer in the treehouse, funny money under the bed, Googling how to kill someone or how to remove blood stains from carpet, burying a dead body in the backyard) and Rio needs to roll with it. The humor potential is really high here. Also I don’t think Rio’s ever witnessed Beth’s knack for lying and spinning some story on the spot, and he should, his reaction would be interesting to witness.

-Or how about if Beth had actually told Rio about the Dean situation in S2E9, and they could still get laid (oh please!) but they could also figure out a way to handle Dean and Turner and everything together. You know, actually communicate and be awesome rather than terrible together?

-Capers! The plotting, stealing stuff, and chases kind, not the kind you eat. I love this show’s silly, this-shouldn’t-work-and-they-make-beginner-mistakes capers, like the two grocery store stickups or the payday loan robbery/kidnapping. I’d be down for Annie and Ruby to play a big part, and if Rio were involved in the planning and execution, things probably wouldn’t go too pear-shaped, but you never know – the gals’ tendency to improvise is a wild card. Or they plan and execute a caper of their own, something goes sideways, and they need Rio to help them, which he doesn’t do for free or without some serious snark and psychological payback (remember when they discussed why Rio’s having them kill Boomer, and Beth automatically said “to torture me”? Yeah.)

-Moments when shit isn’t actively hitting the fan and they can just relax at the bar or the backyard picnic table, have a drink and shoot the breeze, flirt and snark – and maybe even slow dance one time. (This might work especially well as a 5+1 story, if you’re that way inclined.)

-Rio has a job for Beth, and for once she doesn’t go off script – but something goes wrong anyway. A double cross, or a shootout, or a police ambush, or just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. When she can’t rely on her charm and knack for lying to get her out of a jam, but has to follow Rio’s lead and/or play by the rules of his world whether she likes it or not, how does Beth handle the situation, not by simply bending everything to her will so she can keep everything nice and neat and just the right amount of dangerous to thrill but not inconvenience her? Basically, what would have to happen for Beth to finally stop calling it ‘book club’ and accept what Rio told her ages ago: she’s a criminal who also happens to be a mom, and she needs to act like it?

-On that note, I kind of want Beth to have to kill someone (for real, because she so did not kill Rio gimme a break). Not someone like Annie, or Ruby, or Stan. A business rival of her and Rio’s, or a cop/Fed that’s on their tail, or Mary Pat, or a key witness against Rio, or hell even Dean (oh the angst! The guilt Beth would feel!), so long as it wasn’t under duress like the S1 cliffhanger or spur of the moment like when Mary Pat killed Boomer. Beth was ready to blow away Boomer back of the Fine ‘n’ Frugal that one time. I want her to have to finally cross boundaries she’s been able to dodge or have someone else cross for her till now, and really get her hands dirty, and deal with all the moral iffiness of it but also the full implications of what being a boss bitch requires, and what it means to be squarely on Rio’s side of the fence.

-These two navigate some pretty deep waters without ever spelling out what this thing between them is, but it is very clearly A Thing. Gestures can speak louder than words, like when Rio got Jane’s dubby back and sent it to Beth so she’d know it’s from him, but he could also deny it if he wanted to. What kind of gesture could Beth make to make clear that she’s in, in every sense of the word, even if naming what all she’s in would be too complicated, scary and/or dangerous?

-The game of twenty questions in Rio’s loft turns out porny when she refuses to leave when told, and none of their issues get resolved thereby, but still. Things turn porny, and probably emotional because these two have always sucked about separating business from everything else that’s between them, ‘nuff said.

-Tell me exactly what all they did (and thought and felt) in Beth’s bedroom between that swoony kiss and Beth’s post-coital kiss-off. Exactly.

-Beth and Dean’s divorce is finalized and/or Beth decides to grant Dean primary custody (because Dean is a weakling and a douche, but he was right about Beth’s other life endangering the family), and then she calls Rio looking for a distraction or to convince herself she’s totally fine about such a massive and irrevocable change in her life. Last time she pulled a stunt like that, they wound up in her bedroom, and everything was vulnerable and intense, and then feelings got hurt, and trust isn’t easy to rebuild. What happens this time?

-We’ve seen Rio’s life through Beth’s eyes – how does her life, including her ‘book club’ shenanigans look like from Rio’s world? Extra double-dipped brownie points if Beth gets to see how her life looks from the other side.

-One contrast between them I enjoy especially is the differences in how they speak, and I would love to see that played up in fic, which is all about words. Or, for an actual prompt: a situation arises in which Beth has to (maybe badly, maybe not) imitate Rio’s way of speaking, or vice versa.

-As amusing as I find the idea of his actual name being something as preppy as Christopher, let’s say that’s not Rio’s real name either. What is it, and under what circumstances might Beth learn it? And under what circumstances might she call him it, given that she’s never yet even called him Rio to his face, and he of course always uses her full name as both a goad and a verbal caress?

-Beth’s fantasy about Rio smashing up her bedroom is my favorite scene of the entire show so far (followed closely by their confrontation in Rio’s loft, the resolution of the S1 cliffhanger, and the zinger-filled food-court scene with the three gals pitching their big-box-store money-laundering idea to Rio). Beth’s fantasy is both funny and sexy, says tons about what she finds attractive about him, and even taps into the inherent ridiculousness of sexual fantasies without parodying it. What other fantasies does she have about him? What fantasies does he have about her? I’d be all for a (parallel) masturbation fic too!

-“Damn, mami, you’re good at this.” Please work that line into a fic and have it refer to a porny or non-porny situation (or both!).

-Enforced road trip! Crime stuff happens, neither Rio nor Beth are too keen on the idea except they’re both intrigued by the possibilities, they have to get in a car together and go chasing a pill shipment or money gone astray or whathaveyou, and there’s playing the silent game as well as deep conversations, roadside diners and motels, gas stations and shootouts, actual communication (or not – they can keep avoiding important conversations, that works too) and orgasms. Gimme!

-Rio leaves the country to escape the long arm of the law, and Beth goes after him even though she’s safe, and he’s not necessarily thrilled to see her at first. Exotic travel, probably-criminal shenanigans, and all kinds of sexiness ensue. (Look, when she got out of the business in S2, she acted like she couldn’t imagine how Rio would cope without having her around to launder his money and mess his shit up. If she thought she might never see him again, she’d panic, make her kids lunches and leave Dean an activities calendar for the foreseeable, throw some stuff in a wheelie bag, and take off at a moment’s notice.)

-While I’ll happily read whatever porn you might decide to write for them, I have a bit of a craving for one scenario: within an established relationship (whether they call it that, or more likely continue to not define it but they both accept that sex is something that’s going to happen regularly between them going forward, or even them being enemies/business rivals after S2 but still fucking occasionally), first-time anal sex. I can’t imagine it’s something Beth has done much, or ever, but she has a bold streak a mile wide, does our Beth, and I also can’t imagine it could be anything less than very emotional as well as scorching hot with these two involved.

-An exception to my blanket DNW about unrelated AUs: Beth and Rio in a time loop/Russian Doll-type scenario (so many possibilities to fuck up – or just fuck – but also to gradually (re)build trust) or Beth and Rio in a zombie apocalypse. For the latter, let’s assume everyone’s kids are safe, don’t let Annie, Ruby, or Stan die, Dean can die or not. I just really want Rio and Beth to have to rely on each other when it’s life and death and probable end of the world, despite all their issues and differences.

Firefly (TV)

Jayne Cobb/River Tam

Jayne Cobb/Saffron

Opposites attracting - or should I say colliding (and being really annoyed about it), but also more-similar-than-they-seem-at-first colliding! Capers! Either of the women out-deviousing Jayne, whether he realizes it or not, even as he’s trying to out-devious them. The humor and/or crack potential is especially high here.

For Jayne/River, I can see a lot of potential in accidental/fake marriage, woke up married, and marriage of convenience tropes. Pair that big, not-always-lovable lug Jayne with Ultimate Cloudcuckoolander with a dark and troubled past River, and sparks are bound to fly. If you can find a way to mix in some sort of a caper – either involving the Firefly crew’s ongoing criminal shenanigans or the Tams’ flight from the Alliance – that would be especially sweet. They’re doing it in order to be able to claim an inheritance, or to pull off a job, or even to protect River (and Jayne says he just wants a payday).

For Jayne/Saffron, I’m thinking of something post-canon when they meet again, and we get to see even more of Saffron’s mad skills and maybe learn a bit more about her, and Jayne is in waaaaay over his head - but he kinda likes it. At least Saffron is a handful *waggles eyebrows* in a different way from Mal and Zoe’s constant slight distrust of Jayne.

Jayne flirting with betraying his new mate has potential, and the woman getting the upper hand seems a given in that dynamic (poor Jayne will live in a constant state of not knowing what hit him).

Likes:

I love irony, snark, humor as well as angst arising from the characters rather than the plot crowbaring it in, linear, non-linear, and 5+1 stories, hopeful endings, happy endings, bittersweet endings, worldbuilding, spiky characters who keep their jagged edges and spikiness in adversity as well as when their lives are going well, square-peg-in-round-hole characters, characters who are their own worst enemies as well as those who can get over themselves when the occasion calls for it, characters with conflicting values which may or may not be reconciled/resolved, characters who treat each other with respect and as equals even if they hate/annoy/can’t stand/love to dislike each other.

DNWs:

MPREG, A/B/O, knotting, D/s, kinks, incest, underage, genderswap/genderbent characters, xeno, non-/dub-con, torture and abuse (this and non-/dub-con can be mentioned if the story needs it, but please don’t dwell on it in loving detail or subject any of my requested characters to it), dwelling on bodily fluids (mentions of gore/blood and come are fine), toilet humor, character bashing, issuefic, gender/sexuality/race/ethnicity/religion/ability/identity headcanons, unrequested ships, soulmates and soul marks, major character death (the exception is Laura Moon in American Gods dying so she can become undead), serious illness or injury, pregnancy and children, holiday or wedding setting/theme, secondary characters shipping the main pair like it’s their job, reference to RL current events, 1st/2nd person POV, unrequested crossovers or fusions, AUs which have nothing to do with canon

#dear author letter #het swap 2019

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miss-m-calling · 5 years

Text

Rare Pairs Exchange 2019 letter

Requests:

Laura Moon/Mad Sweeney (American Gods TV)

Miranda Barlow/John Silver (Black Sails)

Oliver Baumer/Eric Love (Starred Up 2013 movie)

Dear writer,

Hello and thank you for writing for me. I’m very excited to read whatever you come up with.

Requests:

American Gods (TV)

Laura Moon/Mad Sweeney

I ship it. Yes I do. They had me at “gimme-my-coin-dead-wife”-flicks-him-into-wall. The snarky road trip was the best thing I never knew I wanted until it happened, and I adored every second of it, not to mention the upped shippiness in S2. They’re both such assholes and so fascinating, even if they start to mellow toward each other a bit, and all the gods/magic/resurrection stuff swirling around them begs to be explored further. Also I love love love how their dynamic is about equal parts spikiness, pathos, and humor (they’re funny! and the canon doesn’t shy away from putting them in ludicrous situations), and it weaves seamlessly between those three. Plus she’s half his size yet can and does beat him up with literally one finger, and then there’s the angst of he having killed her, feeling really guilty about it, and then bringing her back. And the way that their New Orleans adventure makes clear they have feelings for each other (S1 was more one-sided Sweeney->Laura) but neither wants to admit it. And and and… yeah, I just love them.

-Wednesday’s big war finally comes, and “don’t you dare die on me [again], you asshole” is a line either Sweeney or Laura (or both) might say to each other.

-All the petty, ridiculous ways in which Sweeney’s bad luck manifests itself make me laugh (can’t help it, won’t even try), and I’m down for more variations on that theme.

-My perfect AG spinoff would basically be Sweeney and Laura tooling around America, looking to get her resurrected (whether they succeed or not is up to you), stealing ever more ridiculous vehicles, arguing/fighting and having those pesky moments where vulnerability and genuineness creep in – and fucking. So yessiree I’d be down for porn, including “it’s technically necrophilia/zombiesex” porn, including a canon-divergent first time, or a second/later time after they had their first time in NOLA in canon.

Black Sails

Miranda Barlow/John Silver

Prompts:

-Fucking someone is easy. Sleeping the night through next to that person is hard.

-Miranda discovers she likes to get her fingers in Silver’s hair during sex, both gently and not. He likes it too, which is not to say he’ll necessarily admit he likes it.

Starred Up

Oliver Baumer/Eric Love

Yes I do ship it, I do, I do!

Prompts:

-An emergency in the prison requires a lock-down, so Oliver gets temporarily stuck in Eric’s cell or another room with only Eric for company. Things get porny and/or emotional.

Likes:

I love irony, snark, humor as well as angst arising from the characters rather than the plot crowbaring it in, linear, non-linear, and 5+1 stories, hopeful endings, happy endings, bittersweet endings, worldbuilding, spiky characters who keep their jagged edges and spikiness in adversity as well as when their lives are going well, square-peg-in-round-hole characters, characters who are their own worst enemies as well as those who can get over themselves when the occasion calls for it, characters with conflicting values which may or may not be reconciled/resolved, characters who treat each other with respect and as equals even if they hate/annoy/can’t stand/love to dislike each other.

DNWs:

MPREG, A/B/O, knotting, D/s, kinks, incest, underage, genderswap/genderbent characters, xeno, non-/dub-con, torture and abuse (this and non-/dub-con can be mentioned if the story needs it, but please don’t dwell on it in loving detail or subject any of my requested characters to it), dwelling on bodily fluids (mentions of gore/blood and come are fine), toilet humor, character bashing, issuefic, gender/sexuality/race/ethnicity/religion/ability/identity headcanons, unrequested ships, soulmates and soul marks, major character death (the exception is Laura Moon in American Gods dying so she can become undead), serious illness or injury, pregnancy and children, holiday or wedding setting/theme, secondary characters shipping the main pair like it’s their job, reference to RL current events, 1st/2nd person POV, unrequested crossovers or fusions, AUs which have nothing to do with canon

#dear author letter #rare pairs exchange

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