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softersinned-arc · 2 years

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@boywebbed said: ❝ if it’s about to rain shouldn’t you be closing the windows? not opening them? ❞ he's smiling though

The house upstate is always quiet. Even when she’s there, the cats weaving around her ankles and music perpetually playing, the house is quiet. It’s rare that anyone knows the house exists at all, given how removed it is; it’s rarer still that anyone can associate the house with her; it’s rarest of all that she brings anyone here. And perhaps sharing this space with anyone is foolish, and perhaps it’s even more foolish considering that she’s sharing this with someone she met through work, considering that her work brings her into contact with the most deceitful and untrustworthy bastards alive, but... well.

She likes Peter. He’s funny. He doesn’t mind giving her a hard time. He always has a cigarette ready as thanks for loaning him her lighter, no matter how many times they both insist they should quit. When he needed somewhere to lay low, where better than here? Heaven help her; they’re friends, and in a line of work in which friendship is all too often a ruse at best. She knows better, for sure, but the cats are weaving around his ankles now, too, and he seems to have made himself at home, eating his way through a bag of chocolate-covered espresso beans and looking in her closets to steal back a jacket she’d borrowed and conveniently forgotten every time he’d asked for it again.

The house likes having people in it, she thinks. The house used to belong to a family with children and grandchildren and an aunt who lived in the addition she uses as her studio; Astoria hasn’t bothered scrubbing all the crayon and marker off the walls in the guest rooms, too charmed by their presence to want to change much. The house seems to warm more with Peter’s presence in it, which would irritate her if she didn’t think that she, too, was starting to warm. Considering the life she’s chosen, friends are few and far between, and she doesn’t have any regrets but there are times when she thinks that the loneliness might overwhelm.

She hears a satisfied ha! from the hallway and she forces herself not to smile, and when she returns to the living room, he’s sitting on her sofa, wearing the jacket and offering up the proudest (read: smuggest) smile she’s ever seen him wear. When she calls him an asshole it’s delivered with something dangerously bordering on affectionate. The bag that once contained the chocolate is empty, and he scoots over to make room for her so she can climb on, legs tucked under her as she faces him, her back to the arm of the sofa and her cup held in her lap. But even that doesn’t last, and she looks out the window behind them and beams before setting the cup into his hands and turning to open the window.

One breath in confirms it. “It’s about to rain.” The excitement in her voice is almost child-like; she leans over him to open that window, too, and Peter raises an eyebrow in amusement.

“If it’s about to rain shouldn’t you be closing the windows? Not opening them?” He’s smiling though, and when Astoria turns back to him and plucks both cups from his hands, he doesn’t argue, and he follows suit when she empties her pockets of anything that might get damaged — her phone, her car keys, a business card they’ll no doubt need sooner than later.

The sky bursts open just as she’s moving the screen out of place, and the rain comes in a downpour, sudden and loud enough that she has to shout to be heard once she climbs through. She sticks her hand into the house for him to take, wiggling her fingers expectantly.

“You know you have a front door, right?”

“Come on,” she insists, before she adds, “I’ve seen you in skin-tight latex. Wet tee shirt contests should be nothing.”

She sees, rather than hears, him laughing at that, and he peels off the jacket and tosses it to safety before taking her hand and following her out. The thunder that booms out sounds like it’s right above them, but she hardly cares; she opens her arms wide at her sides and tips her head back, grateful for the summer warmth that means it’s still a comfortable enough temperature even soaked to the bone. The cats are sitting on the back of the couch, looking out at them with the kind of derision only cats can manage, but she barely notices.

When she looks over at Peter, he almost seems peaceful, standing stock-still under the downpour. “Perks of living in the middle of nowhere,” she calls, and he turns towards her with a grin. For a moment she thinks she can see who he was when all of this started, before he started landing himself in life-or-death scenarios and needing to go temporarily on the lam with his business partners. “You can play in the rain without getting run down by a cab driver.”

Bad enough that someone knows how to find her. Worse, even, that when she hits a patch of slick grass and falls back on her ass, laughing the whole time, Peter’s holding a hand out to pull her back up. She’s starting to think that might become normal for them. She’s starting to think she might be okay with it.

#boywebbed #i. here's the truth from my red lips. ( answers )#(i hope he pushes her into some mud c: )

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honeybunnybeez · 3 years

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If you want to you could write some C! Dream being soft around reader?

Secluded Cabin's and Gentle Touches

♡Pairing: Dream x GN!Reader (with hints of platonic!GN!reader x Tommy and Tubbo)

♡Genre: Fluff

♡Format: Fanfiction

♡Summary: It's not uncommon for Tommy and Tubbo to bring people over to your place so you can help calm them down after a prank, but today they seemed to drag by a familiar face that you have yet to properly spend time with. Lucky for you, he seems to be longing to talk to you as well.

♡Au Setting: Au where the war never happens but tensions are still high.

"Get back here!"

Despite the voice ordering them to stop, Tommy and Tubbo continued to run like their lives depended on it, and to be fair, it kinda did in this situation. Wet hands stained in different coloured dyes served as proof of their crimes and a green hooded man wearing an awfully smudged looking mask makes it clear who their latest prank victim was.

"What were we fucking thinking!?" but a laugh at the end of his yelling as he dodges Dream's outstretched hand makes it clear that Tommy doesn't regret his life choices at all.

"I don't know!" Tubbo on the otherhand, was starting to regret his involvement in the prank. His legs were starting to ache and his chest began to burn as he slowly became exhausted. A wild chase like this isn't exactly new to them but Dream's persistence really makes it hard for a person to catch a breather between runs. "Tommy, where are we even going!?"

Tommy opened his mouth to respond but a trail of scattered lanterns and torches answers Tubbo's question for him. Tubbo lets out a knowing, "ooooh!" And uses whatever remaining energy he can to keep up with Tommy, knowing exactly what his friend had in mind.

In the distance, they can see you sitting on your porch, playing with a parrot you had managed to tame while out searching for cocoa beans. Relief washes over them when you lock eyes with them and start jogging over with your bird in tow, a worried expression evident on your face.

They're quick to hide behind you when they get close enough, clutching the back of your shirt while trying to catch their breaths to answer your questions as to who they were running from this time and why.

"Dream-" is all Tommy can manage to wheeze out before he's coughing up a lung and swearing again.

"Ah," honestly, after knowing the pair for a good few years now, just mentioning a name gives you a pretty good idea of the type of prank they pulled and the danger they could be in. Thankfully, Dream wasn't a major threat, to you at least.

"Alright, alright, go hide in the house quickly and don't come out until I tell you guys to. If I die, make sure to take care of the farm animals and bees for me."

"Bless you, (y/n)."

"Your sacrifices won't be in vain, we promise!"

You give them a joking salute and urge them to go inside quickly, informing them that you can hear Dream approaching closer. Once the boys were safely inside, you tried your best to look as natural as possible with the limited time you had to adjust yourself. When Dream arrives, you can see that he's just as tired as the boys are thanks to the chase, though his stance continues to be tense as he frantically looks around for them, fists clenched tight until his knuckles turned ghost white.

"Fuck, where did they run off to?"

"Not gonna give a stranger a kind hello after walking onto their lawn with murderous intent?" You and Dream weren't really strangers per say, you had to meet up with him when you moved into the server after all, but due to conflicting schedules and how often Tommy and Tubbo dragged you away whenever he tried to make conversation, you two didn't know each other all that well. That doesn't mean that you didn't want to try though.

When Dream realizes where he was and who he was talking, he's quick to adjust his mask and hoodie to make himself look somewhat... presentable, as presentable as he can look with sweat marks and a messed up mask at least.

'Why did those two have to run up to your house out of all places,' Dream mentally whines to himself, clearing his throat and giving you a single awkward wave as he walks up to you.

"Hey, (y/n). I didn't know you lived in this part of the server," that was a lie. Dream did know where you live, he knew where everyone did but it would be a little creepy to just put that information out there, wouldn't it?

"It'd be a little weird if I just started screaming out my address to random people on the streets, wouldn't it?" You try to joke, earning a little laugh from Dream.

"Okay, yeah, you got me there."

You pat an empty spot beside you on your porch step, inviting Dream over for a bit of rest and he accepts your offer gratefully, practically slumping beside you as he suddenly feels just how tired he is.

"Love the new look you gave your mask by the way," Dream groans at your teasing and pulls at his hoodie strings, hoping to cover his whole mask with his hood. He's glad you can't see his face right now because he can feel his cheeks practically burning at the fact that when he finally gets a chance to talk and get close to you it's when he's a sweating tired mess who looks like a wreck at best.

"I'm going to kill those two when I find them," he mumbles under his breath.

The slam that follows within your home could not have been more terribly timed.

"What was that?"

"Must be my wolves," you lied through your teeth, knowing damn well that your actual wolves were sleeping in your bedroom, "they learned how to open doors recently, I think they're messing around at the moment."

While he's distracted, staring at your window to check what's going on inside of your home, you're quick to read through your most recent private messages on your communicator.

Tommy: HE'S HERE!

Tommy: (Y/N), WHY AREN'T YOU TELLING HIM TO FUCK OFF!?

Tommy: Fuck this, we're hiding in the kitchen.

Tubbo: We're making a run for it through the back.

Tommy: We'll hide in your barn like runaway children.

Tubbo: Isn't that what we technically are right now?

Tommy: (y/n), we're making a fucking run for it if you don't answer us in 3 seconds.

Tommy: 3!

Tommy: 2!

Tubbo: We'RE OUT! I REPEAT, WE'RE OUT!

"Yup," you pop your P a little at the end, annoyed yet amused at the string of frantic messages still continuing to pop up on your communicator as they make their escape, "definitely my wolves causing all of that chaos."

Dream knows that you're lying from the way you read through your messages but he doesn't say a word about it, choosing instead to take this golden opportunity to get closer to you without worrying about anyone getting in the way.

"Not really how you thought the day would go, huh?"

You can't help but laugh and shake your head, "Not at all, I thought it was just going to be another boring day with my bird, but hey, I'm glad you showed up to make it a little more special."

"Really?" Dream hates how happy he sounds to hear you say that, but he'll beat himself up over it another time.

"It's not everyday you see Mr. WasTaken himself visiting your humble home, now is it?" Oh, or maybe he won't.

"I guess not, that really should change, shouldn't it?" You can hear the little grin in his voice as he realizes the game your playing.

"It really should, but a quick heads up would be good, unless you'd like to deal with said 'wolves' I mentioned earlier."

He chuckles and shakes his head, mentioning how he's more than aware that those two 'wolves' of yours would probably rip him apart if he ever visited you unannounced.

It isn't long before you invite Dream inside, offering to help clean his mask as an apology on the boys's behalf. He claims that he doesn't mind but he would rather not take his mask off in front of you when he hasn't gotten to know you all that well.

"You don't have to remove it if you feel uncomfortable, I'll just wipe away whatever I can with a cloth, but if you're still hesitant, I'd understand."

He takes a moment to consider your offer, trying to see if you have any other ulterior motives. It's not that he doesn't want to trust you, he does, but sometimes you just have to be a little extra cautious even with people you like. Sensing no ill intent on your part though, he relaxes himself once more and accepts your help, letting his hood finally loosen and fall back to ease your process.

Your actions are incredibly comforting to Dream who can't help himself from leaning into your touches every once in a while. He watches you with his fullest attention as you wipe away the mess on his mask with a damp cloth. He loves how focused you look while doing so, taking in every little quirk you may have while you concentrate. His little crush on you that he's harboured ever since he saw you running around the server can't help but grow every second you give him your attention.

There's a certain draw to you that Dream can't fight off no matter how hard he tries, you just manage to hold a certain power over him and that was evident by the fact that he completely lost interest in continuing his hunt for Tommy and Tubbo even after finding out that they were still most likely on your property. Dream was a persistent man, he was never one to simply drop something with no proper reason at all. There was just this appeal to you that he couldn't describe and he was desperate to find out what it was about you that made him act differently than he normally would.

"Okay then, that's the last of it," he has to stop himself from letting out a whine when you pull your hands away from his mask, he wants to say something to try to get you to continue on longer but decides against it, not wanting to seem desperate. His eyes don't leave you even after you pull away, watching you rinse off the dirty cloth before throwing it into what seemed to be a bin filled with laundry. When you return to sit by his side, he can't help but swallow a bit of his pride to rest his head on your shoulder. It's a big risk to take, but at least he has an excuse for his actions if he ever needs it.

"Tired, Dream?"

"Mhmm," he feels himself melt when you let your fingers run through his slightly sweat damp hair, clearly unphased by the state of it much, to his joy.

"You wanna rest here for a while? I'm sure you could get a good nap in before leaving."

"That depends, can I still use you as my pillow?"

"Not like I have anything else to do for the rest of the day, knock yourself out."

"Then if you'll excuse me," his head is quick to leave your shoulder to instead rest in your lap and the blissful sigh he lets out escapes his lips before he can even stop himself. You just feel so comfortable to him. "I'm gonna drift off, wake me up in an hour or so, will you?"

You let out a hum in response and it isn't long before you start to see Dream's body go slack, his breathing now steady and deep as he slowly falls asleep. It's quite endearing seeing Dream act so affectionately towards you, something you certainly didn't expect from a guy who carries himself with a subtle wave of authority, but you definitely weren't complaining as you continued to play with his hair once again.

Dream would never tell a single soul about it, but this was quiet possible the best sleep he's gotten in years, if he even tried to sleep at all to begin with. The thought to just slow down and relax is never really on his mind, his head always spinning with things he has to do. However, with you, he's glad to know that he can look to you for comfort from now on, something he now realizes is rather hard to find on the server. It pains him to know that he'll have to leave in just a few moments but for now, he'll take what he can get from you and maybe, if you let him, he'll be sure to return your sweet gestures tenfold one day.

A/N: Hello, everyone! I am so sorry for being absent recently, I know the writer's block excuse can only go so far but- yeah ^^' I'm so sorry again for everything and I'm sorry if this isn't what you were hoping for anon! Thank you so much for the rquest and feel free to request it again if you want me to remake this to hopefully suit what you wanted. Anyways, I hope you all have a good day and thank you so much for reading!

(Requests are open and anon is on!)

#mcyt x reader #mcyt imagine #dream smp x reader #dream smp imagine #dream x reader

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shihalyfie · 3 years

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Daisuke and Ken’s dynamic, and what Ken does for Daisuke in return

Everyone in the main 02 cast can be said to be a little surface-deceptive in some way, and so, even with Daisuke and Ken as the relationship at the forefront of 02′s story, there’s still more going on behind it than first glance would initially make you suspect. It’s all too easy to just take the surface reading and decide that Daisuke is some kind of saint whom Ken is singularly dependent on for his happiness (which would really be quite the unhealthy relationship), or, worse, shove them into the stereotypical BL tropes just because they’re the two at the front, even though the story practically went out of its way to depict them as unusual characters who don’t fit into those kinds of boxes as easily.

Even though it wasn’t stated outright in words, Ken did a lot for Daisuke in return, and there’s a lot of layers to their relationship to each other both in the series and in going forward after it.

What Daisuke does for Ken

That Daisuke and Ken have very “complementary” personalities goes without saying, but this applies to both their surface demeanors and what lies beneath them. Daisuke has an abrasive surface demeanor and a tendency to get defensive, but isn’t actually very assertive at all; on the other hand, Ken is more polite and ostensibly “soft”, but is significantly more assertive than Daisuke is. This also means that, while it would of course be foolhardy to pretend that Ken could easily shrug off all of his trauma, it’s also conversely reductive to shove the two of them into boxes where Ken is a constant crybaby angsting over everything bad that’s happened to him while Daisuke’s the only ray of sunshine who can get him out of it. A lot of Ken’s strength in the series is self-supplied; he of course does end up needing the others’ support at times, but extreme readings like this really don’t give the kid enough credit for how good he is at gritting his teeth and pushing on without anyone prompting him.

The initial problem, however, is that Ken is too assertive about the wrong things at first. Like, say, in 02 episode 26, when he assertively says that he’s going to...recklessly chuck himself into an exploding reactor! For the third quarter of the series, Ken deliberately tries to keep his distance from others, and is very clear and open about his reasons why: in his mind, it’s his responsibility, and the others shouldn’t have to be involved. He doesn’t want their friendship, he doesn’t even think he deserves their friendship, and here’s Daisuke going “okay, yeah, but that’s stupid, shut up and let us help you.”

Adventure and 02 have a strong thread of driving it home that “doing things on sheer principle eventually becomes pointless when it gets in the way of being practical” -- and Daisuke, being a simple-minded and “straightforward” person who doesn’t overthink things, is basically there to keep Ken’s focus back on the proper picture. Because yeah, Ken can attempt to do things like frame things in terms of whether he “deserves” all of this, or “whose responsibility” this all is -- but the fact of the matter is that Daisuke and his friends want to do something and help instead of being sitting ducks about it, Ken’s practically not going to be able to do this alone, and, well, that’s the base of their first Jogress in 02 episode 26! Ken says outright that his goal is to do something to help, but then decides that “helping” should involve suicidally chucking himself into an exploding reactor, and Daisuke, hearing out Ken’s troubles, reminds him that him dying there won’t actually help the way Ken wants to help, because it won’t leave him alive to do all of the other things he wants to do and will hurt his family even more just when he was starting to repair things with them -- and as much as this extremely suicidal plan might temporarily spare the others from dying in an explosion, Daisuke would have to live with the guilt of letting Ken go off to die like that, so it won’t make him happy either.

So in other words, while Ken’s trying to sort out his complicated feelings of guilt, shame, and sense of responsibility, Daisuke’s there to keep his head on straight and remind him when he’s about to run himself in mental circles. Ken would have easily spent the rest of the series trying to make up for what he did even without Daisuke’s help, because he’s such a strong believer in “the right thing to do”, but his way of going on about it would have involved him staying in isolation out of a perceived sense of responsibility, endangering himself out of a sense of self-sacrifice, drowning himself in self-blame and feelings of regret, and, eventually, not addressing the very gaping hole in his life that he very much needs emotional support from others right now.

One thing particularly interesting about the Japanese version of 02 is that, for nearly the entirety of the second half of the series, Ken only refers to Daisuke as “Motomiya”, which is surprising given the fact that he employs given-name basis with the others quite quickly. Ken eventually does commit to “Daisuke” after the series in almost all post-02 material, and this image fits the two so well that pretty much every doujinshi artist has caught onto it despite it not being there all that much in the actual series, but it really took him a while; what gives? (Daisuke himself committed to “Ken” from surname basis “Ichijouji” starting in 02 episode 39.) Well, the important distinction is that Ken dropped the honorific with him from very early on -- meaning that he did want to approach Daisuke with a little bit of casual bluntness in a way beyond the distant respect he treated the others with, but at the time, going straight to buddy-buddy on given name with no honorific at all would have been a bit too much for him, and it comes off as him almost deliberately giving off a sense of distance. Why?

Ken didn’t have too much of an opinion on each individual kid in the group until 02 episode 8, when he developed a particular hatred for Daisuke for “ruining his pride” and decided to emotionally torture him a bit. Then, come 02 episode 25, this same kid approached him with no sense of grudge whatsoever, and presents him with a completely different way of seeing things: “whatever you did in the past, you’re clearly trying to help now, which means we’re now on the same side, so we should work together.” It’s pragmatic; it’s extremely pragmatic, and it’s not like Daisuke was working off of blind optimism and trust as much as he observed, very practically, that Ken was clearly trying to do better now and that therefore they should work together and make use of it. This kind of thought pattern is completely alien to Ken’s “I deserve/don’t deserve this” mentality at this point of this series, and by all standards of his own logic Daisuke should be one of the people who hates him the most, and yet -- nope!

By the time of their Jogress, Ken of course understands that Daisuke’s trying very hard to communicate with him, and thus they develop a sort of rapport -- but they’re not quite friends yet at the level of truly being “comfortable” with each other, because most of the second half of the series involved circumstances where Daisuke was helping Ken through a very emotionally hard time. It’s only at the point of the Christmas party in 02 episode 38 when Ken can really think about having these kids as real friends in terms of socializing and not just people who are willing to work with him in his penance journey. It’s enough that Ken’s able to admit that he wants the help of Daisuke in 02 episode 44, when beforehand he’d been trying to keep everyone out of what he’d perceived as his business. And, as Ken’s slowly more exposed to Daisuke’s way of life and its influence on the rest of the group around him, he comes to understand that maybe having a “close friend who can support him” isn’t that bad after all, since it’s not like these friends are just being “open-minded” towards him; they really are there to support him and his actual feelings and welfare, not just “cutting him slack” because he’s helping.

And so, with that, once the crisis is resolved and all is said and done, Ken finally truly accepts Daisuke as his friend and moves him up to given-name basis (no honorific!). This is most prominently shown in Diablomon Strikes Back, where their interactions are now removed from the question of Ken’s former actions and his emotional problems, and it turns out, they’re still good friends in the sense that friends are. As in, people who laugh together, hang out together, converse with each other casually; even if they are working together on the same thing for the duration of the movie, it’s not such an emotionally tense situation that you could chalk their interactions up to sheer necessity. With Daisuke’s help, Ken was able to move on from all of his past hangups, and the two of them became able to enjoy the moment of “now” like normal children.

What Ken does for Daisuke

Daisuke may be simple-minded enough to not have deep-seated concerns that eat at him every day, but that doesn’t change the fact that he was a bit socially maladjusted during the early parts of the series. Namely, being really insecure and prone to getting defensive whenever he felt he was being made fun of. Those kinds of things were what was most likely to get Daisuke to “lash out” at others, because he slips into his worst bouts of these whenever he’s lacking in validation.

Daisuke was, undoubtedly, improving over the course of the series, with him slowly starting to become more assertive by the time of 02 episode 20. It’s incorrect to say that Ken was the only person who could truly help him with this; 02 is a series about a group dynamic after all (even if the Jogress pairs are the most instrumental in helping each other), and it would be a pretty unhealthy relationship if one person were so dependent on another to even remotely function. But starting in 02 episode 22, when the crisis is momentarily resolved and everyone’s not sure what to do, Daisuke’s feeling of being third wheeled by Takeru and Hikari shoots up right at the moment everyone’s feeling a bit lacking in purpose. Two episodes later, Miyako immediately stages an intervention to help keep his mind off of things, and she’s arguably even the most comfortable with him at this point in time.

It’s not that Daisuke isn’t improving, nor that his friends aren’t trying to help, but, well...emotionally sensitive as Miyako can be, she’s also a bit all over the place herself and sometimes needs restraining; Hikari may be assertive, but she’s pretty obviously apprehensive about shutting Daisuke down too bluntly, and Takeru being so hard to read and evasive about everything means that Daisuke can’t really tell what he’s thinking or understand his intentions; Iori is younger and is restraining himself, so he still won’t cross certain lines with Daisuke. So as you can see, they’re all doing their best, and they’re not doing a terrible job of it either; hell, the rest of the series involves them maturing into people who can better interact with and support each other, so their own relationships with Daisuke are likely to improve even well after the series ends. It’s just that, especially at this point in the series, there’s definitely room for an extra person to fill a certain niche that’s got a gaping void here, begging for someone who’s assertive and put-together enough to regularly keep Daisuke in check, yet also willing to be properly straightforward with him to the extent that he doesn’t have to feel insecure about their intentions. Hmm, who could that be?

Although “the priority of reaching out to Ken” eventually becomes enough of a distraction that it certainly takes Daisuke’s mind off potentially feeling insecure, as we start to see more “casual” interactions between Daisuke and Ken, we see that Ken actually fills in a lot of the gaps that had been so sorely missing in this group dynamic for a while. Forward-thinking as he is, Daisuke’s simple-minded way of going at things has its drawbacks in that he’s not very smart or good at thinking, but Ken is the opposite, being intellectually analytical and much more thoughtful overall, and since Daisuke is the kind of person who defers to others when they’re better than him at something, Ken being right next to him means that he can give him a hand in making important decisions he can’t by himself. This is especially so in Diablomon Strikes Back, when Ken’s role is largely keeping an eye on Daisuke and making sure he’s not a loose cannon -- something he’s very capable of doing -- but also simply being there as a springboard whom Daisuke can comfortably approach and talk to, since Ken is such a mild-mannered, straightforward person who won’t set off his overly defensive tendencies as easily.

That doesn’t mean that Ken is completely above teasing him, of course -- a lot of post-02 material in fact makes sure you understand that he’s not just some soft-hearted saint and can be quite the snarker when he wants, since his increased comfort level with Daisuke means he’s now able to poke at him here and there, even doing something as mean as dumping all of the Christmas shopping on him (the character songs and other related in-character material lie in questionably canonical territory, but that kind of punchline is not unreasonable to imagine given their respective personalities). But, overall, he sets the right tone for Daisuke to have a friend he’s able to be around regularly and receive support from, and to fill in that niche of his casual interactions so that Daisuke can have some more solid grounding in his life.

It’s also a testament to how much Ken himself had changed in terms of becoming the kind of person who could handle Daisuke like this. When the two of them first “met” in 02 episode 8, while Ken was still fully under the influence of the Dark Seed, even if we were to put the part about him being the Kaiser aside, this sort of person would never be able to become a good friend to Daisuke. This episode had Daisuke put him on a pedestal -- someone he’ll never be able to be as good as, whom he looks up to as an “idol”, much like the way Daisuke has a tendency to instinctively put himself down in uplifting others. Thus, it was a negative relationship for both of them; Ken being put on a pedestal that ultimately made him uncomfortable, and Daisuke contributing to putting him there in the first place, and taking it extra personally when that pedestal was shattered. But then, Daisuke himself (and, ultimately, the rest of the group) became able to treat Ken like the “normal person” he wanted to be, with no pedestals, simply considering him as a friend with his own feelings and needs; as a result, being this sort of “normal person” making friends through his true personality and desire to support others meant paved the way for him becoming the one person who was best equipped to deal with the very difficult-to-handle Daisuke.

Incidentally, in terms of Kizuna: considering how 02 was such a series about everyone becoming people who could fundamentally interact and communicate better with others, it stands to reason that everyone’s relationships with each other would uniformly improve even after the events of 02, and you can see better interactions between everyone that go beyond just the Jogress pairs. Ken’s clearly able to interact with more of the people in the group in a much more casual manner than he did in 02 itself, and it’s made an important point in the drama CD that Daisuke took everyone’s incidental advice to heart, not just Ken’s. However, advertising material still prominently features the two as a pair, and although part of this is of course due to marketing, Ken is also the one who gets the final words in extracting his “promise” from Daisuke in the drama CD; the official website also calls special attention to him being the one to accompany Daisuke on his ramen outings, even though the one depicted in the drama CD and movie was planned to involve everyone in the group. There are multiple indications that Daisuke himself has learned to become somewhat less defensive and prone to insecurity compared to himself in 02, and it seems that this was accomplished via Ken still actively putting himself in a role of checking on him and making sure he feels properly supported in all of this.

#digimon #digimon adventure 02 #motomiya daisuke #ichijouji ken #daisuke motomiya #ken ichijouji #shihameta

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cora-vizsla · 3 years

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Cabur Chapter 6

Rating: Explicit (18+)

Word Count: 4.3K

Warnings: Fluff, talk of parents dying, angst, some more fluff, Super fluff?, questions (I can’t be specific or it will give it away), armor, smut, lots of smut, degradation kink?, definitely praise kink, dirty talk, sex, teasing, more dirty talk, finish up with some fluff.

A/N: Hi! Two chapters in two days? Yep. My plan is to get out a chapter or two each weekend when I have time to break from school a bit. This is moving the plot along some more and if smut isn’t your thing, skip the last section. You won’t really miss much other than complete filth. Thank you to everyone who has commented, liked and shared. I appreciate all of you!

The hectic schedule you had expected never happened. You were sure that Paz had talked to the Armorer about your episode. Instead of getting angry with him you were just relieved. It wasn’t something you necessarily wanted to talk about, but you believed him when he said everyone else felt that way at points as well.

Your days were relatively easy. You worked out, sparing with some of the younger warriors. You liked teaching those less experienced than you. It was also nice when they taught you something or asked a question that you hadn’t faced before. Teaching was learning too. When you weren’t sparring or teaching, you watched Paz. He was skilled in everything he did. You recognized his bark and harsh words from being on Dins ship together and it dawned on you he really did just want to help you back then.

As much as you enjoyed working with the younger warriors, your favorite part of training had to do with the smallest ones in the tribe. When you were younger you hated working with the younglings and foundlings but that had quickly changed. There were some very promising warriors within the group that you had brought from the village and it made your heart swell. They were stronger than you ever expected they could be. Thomas had even expressed that he wanted to take the creed when he grew older. It would take time to see if that is what he wanted truly but either way he felt like he belonged.

Once training and play training was over, Paz often went to meetings with the elders about security and hunting trips. He had yet to actually leave on a trip, but he was skilled at figuring out where to send people. You wondered if him staying behind was due to you or the fact that he was now one of the eldest warriors. Either way you liked being able to fall asleep next to him every night.

Your time was much more open. You had been gone away for a while and even before that you were new. It was an adjustment period for you being back and being around others who actually knew you. It became overwhelming at times, but no one was upset when you would need to get up and leave the room or excuse yourself from a group too large. You knew that if you had been exposed more to environments like this and less of what your biur had shown you, you would have come back after your helmet was removed. You didn’t regret it, but you saw things so much clearer.

When you walked up to the nursery, Lahta was already waiting for you with an excited smile. You opened your arms allowing her to run and jump up for you to catch her. You nodded at the caretaker who chuckled at the girl’s attachment to you. You were asked daily when you would be speaking the adoption vows to her, but the right time just hadn’t happened yet.

“You’re early today! I woke up. Then we ate. Then I waited and waited for you!”

“You didn’t play with the others?”

“No! They all just want to be warriors like Paz.”

“You don’t?”

“No.”

“What do you want to be?”

“There was a woman who came in and poked all of us and listened to our chests. She was nice and wore a helmet like you.”

“The medic?”

“Yes! I want to be like her. I want to help people. Everyone else can go out and fight the bad guys and I’ll stay here and help people if they’re hurt or don’t feel good.”

“I can speak with her and see if you can shadow her every now and then. Would you like that?”

“Oh yes! I can help her just like everyone else helps! You think she would like me?”

“I think it would be impossible not to like you, ad’ika.”

The girl squealed and hugged onto you tighter. You walked by the kitchen and the bag you had requested was sitting by the door. You slung it over your shoulder and continued walking until you walked outside into the sunlight. Your new home was much nicer and safer than Navarro had been, thankfully. You set Lahta down and she ran out into the grass laughing.

“Cabur! It’s so pretty outside!”

You pointed over to a few trees and she ran over, waiting for you. Once you made your way over you set the bag down and sat down, leaning against a tree. You pulled out snacks and fresh fruit.

“Cabur! I love fruit!”

“I know you do, sweetheart. That’s why I asked the kitchen to set some aside for you.”

“Wow. You’re the best! My mama used to get me fresh fruit all the time.”

“You don’t talk about her much.”

She shifted uncomfortably while she popped a few pieces in her mouth. She chewed, thinking, and finally swallowed the mouthful when she was ready to answer.

“I don’t want to upset you.”

“Upset me? Sarad’ika why would I be upset?”

“Because I see how upset you get when Thomas says something about the village.”

“How do you see that if you can’t see my face.”

She sat up straighter and didn’t move. Her back was straight, and she was looking straight ahead with her hands in fists on her legs. After a few moments she slumped back down and started digging through the fruit.

“You get stiff like that. They’re all dumb and don’t know you like I do. I know what you’re feeling though.”

“I see.”

You watched her dig through the fruit until she glanced up at you. She offered you the bowl, but you shook your head, thanking her for the offer.

“I never see you eat, Cabur.”

“I eat around Paz.”

“You take your helmet off with him?”

“Yes. He is my riduur.”

“So like.. your husband?”

You nodded again and Lahta hummed.

“Is he the only one you can take it off in front of?”

“Any children I may have.”

“Oh. Your babies will be lucky to be able to see your face.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I bet, you’re beautiful. That’s what Paz calls you right? Me-shuh-luh?”

You chuckled and nodded.

“Mesh’la. Yes. That means beautiful.”

“Well, he is smart sometimes and if he says you’re beautiful then you must be. When you have babies, they will be beautiful like you.”

“Mandalorians adopt children too, you know.”

Lahta looked at you and sat up. You saw excitement and what you thought was longing come across her face. Her body slumped back down quickly, and she made herself busy with the bowl again.

“Talk to me, sarad’ika. What are you thinking of?”

“I m-miss my mama. She was beautiful too. She was strong and always knew the right answer for everything. She was a lot like you.”

Her voice was small, and it broke your heart to see her so sad.

“Do you not talk about her because you’re afraid I’ll be upset you miss her?”

She nodded meekly.

“Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum.”

“What does that mean?”

“I am still alive, but you are dead. I remember you, so you are eternal.”

She sat in silent for a few moments before looking back up at you.

“So, even though they are gone if I think about them, they are real?”

“Yes, sweetheart. Right here.”

You reached over and poked her gently in the chest. She giggled and finally smiled.

“You will never hurt me by remembering your family. You are honoring them. I am honored that you have compared me to such a strong and important woman to you.”

“She would have liked you a lot. She would have been happy you brought me here.”

“I’ll always make sure that you are safe, sweetheart.”

She smiled at you fully and stuffed more fruit in her mouth. You decided at that moment that you would ask for her permission to adopt her. Your biur had not been as loving as you wish they had been, but that shouldn’t stop you from loving Lahta. She had seen so much suffering and pain in her short life. If you could give her just a bit of happiness then you would.

“Lahta, I have a ceremony that I must go to tonight. Would you like to go with me as my guest?”

---

You stood in the middle of the room trying to stay still. You were nervous but in a good way. Paz stood towering in front of you like normal. Lahta was sitting to your left letting her legs swing while she watched. The armorer was laying out your new armor with Paz’s signet on the shoulder pieces and chest.

“Little one, do you know what we are doing today?”

The Armorer asked Lahta with no malice. The girl chirped back a no and continued swinging her legs.

“Today is a very important day. Today Clan Vizla grows larger formally and a warrior is gaining her signet. It is a very big deal for a warrior to earn new armor and become part of such a historied clan.”

“Wow! I’m so lucky to be here.”

You looked up at Paz and knew he was smiling back at you. He started pulling your chest armor off gently, handing it over to the Armorer as it was unattached. He slowly moved to each piece and took them off. Once everything but your helmet was laid out next to the new armor, he started placing all the new pieces.

Your new armor was heavier. It didn’t bother you, but it was much better fitting which shouldn’t have surprised you. The armor you had been wearing had been passed down to you. Paz paused when he held the first piece with his signet on it and placed his hand over it once it was attached to you.

Having your armor replaced by your riduur was one of the most intimate things you had done. He placed each piece on you with absolute care. When he knelt down in front of you to place your leg pieces you gently placed your hand on the top of his helmet. It was an honor for a warrior to kneel in front of their love, let alone placing new armor on them.

“Little one, you must move behind her back now so you cannot see her face. Come stand with me.”

She jumped out of her seat and stood directly behind you quietly. Paz reached up and pulled your helmet off you gently, moving to set it next to your new one. You stayed facing forward and you heard Lahta whispering to the Armorer about your hair. You smiled up at Paz as he stood in front of you with your new very bright helmet. You placed your hands over his as he slid it onto you, pressing his forehead to yours once it was on fully.

“You look beautiful, cyare.”

“Thank you for placing my armor, ner riduur.”

You turned to Lahta and she clapped and squealed again at your armor. She walked over and you dropped to a knee so she could touch it. She ran her hand over the signet on your chest and smiled.

“You’re so bright now!”

“I am.”

“I can see my reflection! Wow. Thank you for letting me be here. I wouldn’t even recognize you!”

You laughed and felt Paz move over to your old helmet. He came behind you and knelt next to you, holding the helmet loosely.

“Lahta, there is a reason I asked you to come with me.”

“There is?”

You nodded and Paz held out the helmet to her. She took it tentatively in her hands and turned it, so she was looking at the visor.

“We want you to have it.”

“Me!?”

You chuckled at the shock on her face and nodded again.

“You do not need to wear it. That will always be your choice to make. However, we would like you to be the newest member of Clan Vizla.”

“Clan Vizla.. like.. your..”

Paz put his fingers under her chin, so she looked up at him.

“We would like to be your biur, if you would allow us to be. You would forever be our family.”

“What if.. what if I don’t want to wear a helmet?”

“You would still be one of us. Your decision to take the creed or not does not change our love and care for you.”

She stayed silent as she looked back down at your old helmet.

“It is your decision to make, sweetheart.”

She clutched the helmet to her chest as much as she could. You saw that she had tears in her eyes as you tucked her hair behind her ear.

“Can.. can I call you mama?”

She looked at you through her wet lashes and you nodded.

“If that’s what you wish.”

She looked over a Paz, a little surer of herself.

“Can I call you papa?”

He rumbled out a laugh and nodded.

“Of course, sarad’ika.”

She chewed on her bottom lip and nodded.

“I think.. I would like that very much.”

You reached out for her and pulled her closer so you could place your forehead against hers. She giggled at the motions and hugged the helmet closer to her chest.

“Ni kyr'tayl gai sa'ad.”

“What does that mean?”

“I know your name as my child.”

Her face lit up and Paz moved so he could do the same.

“Ni kyr’tayl gai sa’ad.”

“Kih Vizla. Please come here.”

She looked over at the Armorer and walked over, still clutching the helmet to her chest. The Armorer slipped a necklace over her chest and set the Vizla signet on her chest gently.

“You will now and forever be known as Lahta Vizla to our tribe. You are family to your biur and everyone else alike. You will honor us just as we honor you.”

“T-thank you.”

The Armorer then walked out of the room, holding your old armor in her arms. Lahta walked back over and stood in front of you and Paz, trying to hide a smile.

“Let’s go back to our home.”

“Our home?”

“Yes, sarad’ika. Our home.”

---

You let Lahta wander around checking things out while you made up a bed for her. You had let her know she was welcome at any point but if there were any times, she wanted to sleep in the nursery that was okay too. You didn’t want her pressured either way nor did you want her to be separated all the time from the other kids. Eventually you both would be out on missions and she needed to feel like everyone was her family.

“Mama?”

It took you a few moments to realize she was speaking to you, but you turned around to see her standing in the middle of the room. You walked over and sat down in front of her, making sure you were at a comfortable level with her.

“Will you and papa need to leave?”

“Sometimes, yes. We’re both warriors. Eventually there will be missions and hunting trips that we need to go on.”

“And I’ll stay here?”

“Yes. Ad’ike stay here until they are of age to start going on hunts.”

“And you’ll.. you’ll come back?”

You pulled her onto your lap and wrapped your arms around her.

“Of course. No matter how far we may go we will always come back to you.”

She snuggled into you and kept tracing the different pieces of beskar.

“I think I want armor when I’m older.”

“You have plenty of time to figure that out.”

She moved her hand up to the bottom of your helmet and stopped. She gently touched your cowl and pulled it, laughing when there was skin.

“I’ve been telling you for cycles, I’m not a droid.”

She laughed and looked up at you. You could see she wanted to ask you about your helmet and you suddenly felt nervous. Taking it off in front of Paz was stressful enough and he had already seen your face. It was a huge show of trust but Lahta was trusting you too. You saw Paz standing at the door with his arms crossed watching you. With a steadying breath, you pulled your helmet off and looked down at Lahta.

Her small hands tentatively touched your cheek and you shut your eyes. You were used to Paz’s rough hands, not the delicate hands of a child. She ran her fingers across your cheeks, you nose and eyebrows. You smiled when she giggled and opened your eyes back up.

“I was right. You are beautiful.”

“Thank you, sweetheart.”

“Thank you for letting me see you. I wondered what you look like since you showed up.”

She reached up and played with your hair as Paz came over, sitting next to you. He pulled his helmet off and set it next to yours. Lahta’s eyes widened as she looked at him. She moved over to him and touched his face gently just like she had yours. She smiled and leaned forward, pressing her forehead to his. Paz smiled fully.

Seeing the two of them connected pieced together something in your heart. You had been so afraid to welcome her into the family you had built with Paz, but she was the missing piece. You had never felt so much at home until you had the two in front of you.

---

The moment Lahta had fallen asleep in her room, Paz basically dragged you into your shared room. He had shut the door and locked it now that you weren’t alone before practically ripping your new armor off. Once he had you down to absolutely nothing, he started worshiping your body. You swore that he kissed every inch of your skin before finally kissing your mouth.

He lifted you easily to move you onto the bed more. You watched him remove his own armor much quicker and less gently than he had always removed yours. You noticed it often how careful he was with you and reckless with himself.

He quickly moved so he was towering over you, caging you in with his arms. He looked down at you, devouring you with his eyes before pressing his lips against yours. You both groaned when you wrapped your legs around his waist.

“How are you already so fucking wet for me, mesh’la.”

“Always ready for you, Paz.”

He groaned again when he lined himself up and pushed himself inside. You gasped at the intrusion, used to him working you up much more before finally taking you. You couldn’t find it in you to complain. The passion swirling between both of you was intoxicating and that was exactly what you needed. What you both needed.

“Seeing you in your new armor. Wearing my signet. F-fuck.”

You ran your hands down his back, gently scraping your nails against his skin. Paz snaked an arm under your lower back and started pounding into you harder. You cried out, slapping your own hand over your mouth.

“Shh, cyare.”

He looked down at you and smirked, grinding himself into you.

“Oh! Paz, stop it! Y-you’re t-trying to-“

You moaned out as he hit a particularly deep part inside of you. He chuckled when he put his hand over your mouth, helping you stay quiet but doing nothing else to slow down how hard he was pounding himself into you.

“Quiet, cyare. You’re going to have to learn how to take my cock and stay quiet.”

You whimpered as he pushed you further towards your climax.

“Such dirty sounds you make being split open by my cock. You like that don’t you? You like making all these filthy sounds as I pound you into the bed.”

You nodded against his hand and whimpered, unable to form a coherent sentence. You were starting to clench around him which made him growl and increase his thrusts.

“So good for me. Such a good girl. You take my cock so well. Fuck you were made for me. You were made to be under me. Cum for me, cyare. Let me feel how much you love me.”

You cried out and he tightened his hand around your mouth. He continued slamming into you while the waves washed over you. You whimpered when he abruptly pulled out of you and flipped you over onto your hands and knees. He swiftly slammed himself back into you and pulled you, so your back was pressed against his chest.

“Did you think I was done with you?”

You nodded with your head tilted back to rest on his shoulder. He chuckled darkly as he started to thrust up into you.

“Not even close. By the time I’m done you aren’t going to be able to walk, cyare.”

One hand shot up to your mouth to muffle you while the other wrapped around your waist, holding you tight against him. He was fucking you so hard that all you could do was cling onto him. The room was filled with the sounds of his skin slapping against yours and your muffled cries.

“So small in my arms. Look how easily your body molds to mine.”

When your body started to tighten up again, he growled and bit down onto your neck. You sobbed as you came undone. He murmured your name against your skin when he tightened his arm around your waist. He slowed down, languidly thrusting into you as you whimpered. You felt boneless but could still feel how incredibly hard he was inside of you.

“Fuck you’re soaked. You okay?”

“Y-yeah. I’m okay. I’m t-tough remember?”

You let out a breathless laugh and felt him smirk against your skin.

“Well, if you can still be a brat then I obviously haven’t fucked you hard enough.”

“Yeah I guess you ha-“

He cut you off by abruptly slamming himself into you.

“Keep yourself quiet. Can you do that for me, princess? Can you control yourself?”

You nodded and bit down on your lip. He snaked his now free hand down to rub small circles over your throbbing clit. You turned your face to bury it into his neck as he dragged out another climax. You felt tears start to sting your eyes as he continued to rub you even though you felt overstimulated and completely wrecked.

“P-paz. Paz please. Please.”

“Please what, princess? Tell me what you need.”

You stifled a sob as he worked you towards another orgasm. He was still slamming himself inside of you and everything felt like too much.

“Tell me how much you love my cock, mesh’la. Tell me how much you love when I split you open.”

“F-fuck. I l-love you f-fucking me. I l-love when your c-cock is d-deep inside of me.”

He growled and sped up his movements. You hiccupped out a sob and felt yourself getting so close to release and prayed to everything that he was too.

“I-I love it when you c-cum in me. P-paz p-please. P-please I’m yours. I’m a-all yours.”

Paz growled loudly and bit down on your shoulder, pushing you directly over the edge you had been on. When you clamped down on him, he finally spilled inside of you, stilling deep inside of you. Your legs were shaking as he held you close to him.

“Fuck you are so perfect. I’m the luckiest man in the galaxy.”

When you couldn’t find the energy to respond to him, he slipped out of you and gently laid you down on the bed. You focused on catching your breath as your body continued to shake and spasm from all the attention you had received. You felt Paz lay next to you and gently run his hands up and down your back.

“Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”

“No. No my love, I’m okay.”

“You would tell me, right?”

You turned your head to look at him and gave him a sleepy smile.

“Of course, Paz. I trust you and that means I trust you would stop if I needed you to.”

“Good. I don’t ever want you to feel unsafe with me.”

He pulled your spent body closer to him and peppered kisses across any bit of skin he could get to.

“You’re so beautiful, cyare. I’m so lucky to have you in my life. I love you. Stars I love you so much.”

“I love you too. Thank you for saving me instead of letting me die.”

He chuckled and kissed your temple.

“It’s me who should be thanking you. You saved me in ways that I’m not even sure I completely understand.”

You hummed in contentment and nestled into his warmth.

“Let’s spend forever figuring it out together.”

He chuckled deep in his chest.

“Deal. First, let’s get you cleaned up.”

“I don’t think I can walk.”

He laughed and scooped you up after wrapping a towel around his waist. He carried you quickly into the refresher and set you down on your feet.

“Good thing you have a strong riduur that can carry you when you need it.”

“If my riduur wasn’t so damn strong I wouldn’t need to be carried.”

He laughed fully and pulled you in for a kiss.

“The moment you give me a legitimate complaint is the moment I’ll take it easy on you.”

You giggled and smiled at him.

“Deal.”

Cabur Tags:

@finnisrioting @computeringturtle @mrsdaamneron

Permanent Tags:

@mapplestrudel @cannedsoupsucks

If you would like to be added/removed please let me know!

#paz vizsla #paz #paz vizla x reader #paz vizla x you #paz x female!reader #paz x reader #paz x you #star wars #fanfic

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jubilantwriter · 3 years

Text

Of Blood and Static

?̩̲ͯ̚ͅC̉̏̿̒̓͐ͮ͝͏̢̫̭̫͚̜h̦̩̼̝̳͎̹̎̊̿́͐ͮͬ͑̚4̩̞̮̝̊̂͊̈͗ͨ̚͡p̲̻̯̏̃̀t̰̦̙̥̟̺̥̤̓̔͆͛͢͜-̦̠̹͎͎͖̾̂͊?̙̼̱̩̬̏̅ͫ̐̂P̜͉̦͉̲ͨ̃̇ͥ͠r̫̲̰͚̙̫̔̂̒̅͋̐̎̄͟͟0̮̱̅̑͟l̡̘̭̤̹̝̪̱̹̑̈-͉̙̣̘̬̮̗̱̌̆͛ͪ̾ͯ̇̀̕͠?̸̜̩ͭͪͮͭͧ͟͝E̙̤͈̲͋̋́p̨̭͕ͬͪ̕1̺̰̳̣̌̀͝͠!͕͔̘̯͎͍̈́g̼̳̙̯̱̟͉̀̄ͫ̈̋͌̏͝-̜̖͉̰ͫ͡?̩͚̍̀͝: All my love, your Dearest Friend.

(AO3) (First) (Previous)

...Summary?: (He rolls the sheet of paper back up and smiles, stowing the message away in his pocket. Perhaps it was meant for him. Perhaps not. But there's only one way of knowing for sure.

The screen reveals to him the distant figure of a rowing man approaching the beach much sooner than usual. So the march of time continues. A new beginning? Or the end of the line?

Perhaps, he thinks as the screen shuts off, perhaps those questions are best left unanswered.)

Word Count: 2712

////

The Lady is used to the loops. The pieces fall together in her hand, the puzzle complete as she sets it aside to focus on another one. The mirror in front of her, pieced together by all the broken shards from all her past lives, reflects back a her that looks nothing like the monster she often sees reflected back in her quarters. Instead, the her she sees is of a young girl in yellow, defiant, desperate, but hopeful. The Shadow stares at her in the mirror and nods. She nods back, and the mirror is put aside, whole and complete.

They are so close. So close to completion. The Caretaker joins her side as they both gaze over the crowd of Guests. Her hand hovers over the crowd of gluttonous monsters as he takes her other hand and squeezes. The Ferryman had whisked away all the children from the Maw, taking them to a new haven where no one can harm them. The nomes had already gotten a head start in building the start of a settlement.

She never got to see a blur of a blue boy in this loop.

A smile hides behind her mask as the monsters below her scream and screech in terror as she culls them for all their worth. The Maw groans as it creaks, but she pays it no mind.

As they fall over one by one, she looks up towards the entrance of the Maw.

Soon, she thinks. Soon. They'll see him again.

(-)

The Thin Man is tired of the loops. So tired, in fact, that when he finally breaks from his spell the Tower had over him (for so long, so long he had been hurt, pulled apart, ripped apart, smothered, made a monster, a horrible, real monster), the first thing he does is reach out to his beloved friends. The Lady had sobbed - it truly had been that long, hadn't it? - showing a weakness he hadn't seen since the very first loops when they were still completely new to this. Then the Caretaker followed, his appearance a welcomed one as he recalled the mumbled conversations between them when the Caretaker called for him without the presence of the Lady.

There was no real expectation that the Caretaker would remember him, given the lack of contact they've had. But alas, the man in blue cried as well, placing his hand on the glass and whispering out so very tenderly:

"It's about time I got to meet you again. How lucky I must be to be the one who lives to see you once more?"

The reunion had been sweet, words spoken through tears even if his were silent. A charm lays in his suit pocket next to a sailor's cap and a short message. The energy it exudes steals from the Tower and feeds him just enough that he can keep his mind all his own. It had been a struggle. A fight. An endless scream that resonated in the Tower that only he could hear.

He recalls all the memories he had of receiving that charm from the man behind the door after he delivered that package on a whim.

"I'll give this to Six once I save her. If I can't always protect her, at least this thing might do it when I fail her again." Over and over again, he'd repeat that to himself as he wore it on his back like a shield. Funny how it protected him instead of his intentioned Six. But that's what friends are for, huh?

...Friends. There was a time when, as an adult, he thought that the concept of them was nothing more than a lie. How wrong he was back then. How happy he is that he was proven wrong. Loops and loops of fighting, of enacting useless revenge upon useless revenge, of never-ending self-inflicted suffering and anger and regret-

They were always both at fault. It wasn’t always her fault, as much as he so arrogantly used to believe. It’d taken him so long to realize how wrong he was. How the pointless arguing and accusations did nothing to free them. It was, after all, his fault that the loops began in the first place, wasn’t it?

All he wanted was to save her. The Tower twisted his desire and created a never-ending cycle of blame and anger and victimization. Took his desire and twisted it into a desperate vision of wanting to be her hero, her savior - so he became the villain to his hero counterpart. A fantasy created by his own hands in order to forget the origin of why the loops were created in the first place.

(How he failed her over and over and over again and he’ll never forget how she died in his arms because he was too stupid, too idiotic as a child, dragged in by the Signal’s tune and taking the place of the original Thin Man, and it was his fault his fault his fault-)

But now he’s the one being rescued. His fantasy is broken like an axe against a music box, and the one who wields is not one, but two people. Perhaps the real key to their freedom had always been to save him from himself. From his delusions of being the hero, of being the protector of everyone. Because in the end, even a protector must have someone else to protect him.

The door in front of him opens. He knows his part by heart, but this time.

This time it will change.

He smiles as he breaks out of his prison and into the open air. Two children cower just beneath where he stands.

One final chase before the finale.

He slows time and begins his slow walk towards the doorway.

His final chase, and he gets to pick where the finish line is.

(-------)

The Caretaker is aware of the loops. Not quite at the level of the Lady or the Thin Man, but aware enough that he can feel the weight of them on his shoulders. He knows that he was never meant to live. That much he can be sure, the phantom pains of something tearing his neck apart spiking up every once in a while, the nightmares of a child in yellow tearing him apart still plaguing him through his years. He used to question why he's suddenly a part of the loops in this way, but he figures that the knowledge is long since gone, or at the very least, very buried in the recesses of the Lady's mind. A part of him wants to know, to understand why he's suddenly here when he wasn't before. But the other part of him wants to leave it be, knowing that unburying that truth may lead to unsavory discoveries.

At least, for now.

Whatever curiosity he holds has to be put aside for another time, for when they're all away from this horrible hull of a boat. His dream of fully running away from this accursed place is finally coming to fruition as they walk past the deceased Guests and down to the drop-off area. The Ferryman has one last delivery to the Maw. One last visitor before they can finally leave this wretched place.

Dying in the Maw is the last thing he wants, after all.

The Lady fidgets besides him, all elegance tossed to the wind as she waits for a boat to dock. He nudges her gently and smirks when she sends a glare back at him. The mask on her face always felt disingenuous to him, but he never remarked on it despite all the times she wore it. Perhaps it was to make her feel safe, or to hide whatever ugliness she saw in herself. But after all they've been through, it's only a matter of time before she takes it off.

Quietly, he takes her hand and gives it a squeeze.

Just like when they were children. Like when she would look up at him from under her hood, eyes barely shadowed as they shimmered with something unspoken. She was undoubtedly annoying when they were younger, always causing some sort of trouble that he had to drag her out of, but there was something about how she held herself as a child that always had him wanting to protect her from things she couldn't fight back against. Maybe it was how she clung to him after waking up from a nightmare, silent as she stared at a wall wide-eyed, seeing something that he could never. Or maybe it was how she screamed the first time she saw him jump into the water when he first showed her the depths of the Maw. Terrible things happen to children all the time, but having her sob and pound at his chest after he swam out of the water made him wonder just what happened to her that she became this way?

Maybe that's why he stuck around so long. He could have left long ago, but...

She squeezes back, tight and desperate with a smidgen of fear.

If he'd left, she would have been left with no one once again. Thin Man or no, she'd be the same little girl who was hunched over the body of the previous Lady, so full of hurt and desperation and hunger, so ready to make all the wrong choices that he couldn't help but reach out and take her hand.

Everyone needs a little guidance every once in a while.

The sounds of chains hefting a boat up grabs their attention.

Steadily. Without pause. The Ferryman with his sagging face appears, and a man in a sharp suit and fedora is seated just behind him. Long limbs carefully remove themselves from the boat, and he bows slightly to keep his head from brushing the ceiling. The Ferryman nods and makes his descent silently as RK looks up at the man with stolen breath.

Oh.

So this is how he looks from beyond the screen. All the entries in his notebook failed to prepare him for actually meeting the Thin Man in person. He’s impossibly tall and thin and absolutely towers over the two of them, but he holds himself in the most docile way possible. The way he holds himself is completely different from Six - all soft around the edges and nervous to be judged. RK nearly reaches out to take his hand and comfort him. Absolutely amazing how a tower of a man manages to give off the least threatening aura between the three of them.

Almost shyly, the man removes his hat to reveal a full head of hair and an awkward expression. He looks to Six and then to RK with a small smile.

(Ridiculous! To think he’d been locked away in the Tower for so long, twisted and broken into something that didn’t resemble him for loops - it makes RK’s blood boil. But also- he gets it now. Oh, does he get the numerous entries about the Thin Man now. Oh, how he gets it now.)

Never has RK been so happy to be alive to see this day. It was all worth it. A small smile graces his features as his vision blurs happily.

Finally.

(------)

Six doesn't care for the loops as she removes her mask, finally, tears streaming freely as she returns the little smile that Mono had given her.

He looks younger than she expects - true, there are a few wrinkles here and there, but with how he spoke and how he presented himself in the past, she imagined a weary, beleaguered old man to appear before her. He must be as old as them, but he looks just as young as Six parades herself and RK to be. An inkling for the cause is at the back of her mind, but she truly does not care for it. Instead, she reaches out a hand and takes his.

So warm and familiar. A comfort she once took for granted, but will no longer. Fingers longer than her hand squeeze hers in a grip she'd nearly forgotten.

"...Hey," he whispers, voice crackled by the static as a sob breaks her voice. It's deeper than she expected, but the smoothness of it comforts her like a soothing lullaby. She smiles through her tears as she looks back up at him.

"Hi," she whispers back, and the corners of his eyes crinkle up with how bright his smile is. "You must be hungry. Why don't we get a meal ready for you?"

Mono nods back, his other hand already taken up by the warmth of RK's as they lead him through the Maw.

It will be the final meal this Lady of the Maw will ever serve, but it will be warm, and filling, and everything unlike the previous meals she's served before. And they will laugh, and converse, and enjoy each other’s company. Maybe she will take some meat off of RK’s plate, and he’ll act like he’s upset, but he’ll be secretly glad as he focuses on the fish instead. Mono will undoubtedly be confused but entertained by the bickering as RK will try to convince her to eat vegetables, to which she will aggressively decline. And then RK and her will press him to eat more, enjoy more, as they scoop more onto his plate than he can possibly eat, and he’ll try to decline, and maybe he’ll cry a little bit, but he’s happy, he’s happy and not alone and surrounded by warmth as they care for him.

Perhaps the Chefs will be happy to cook a real feast for once, even if it may be the last they will ever cook. Perhaps Roger will be able to bask in the sounds of happiness on the Maw, never to have to clean up after sobbing children or disgusting Guests ever again. Perhaps perhaps perhaps.

And when they finally finish their meal, they'll be able to step out into the warm sunlight together as nothing more than friends with names rather than titles. And it will be the last of the loops they'll have to face.

Their ends mark the beginning of a new start. With hands warm and never empty, they look to the sky together and bask in the sunlight of their newly gained freedom. For however long their existence may last, at least they’ll be able to share their final moments together with a smile and a laugh.

(000000)

Six wakes up on a beach, a body curled up beside her. Nothing of consequence plagues her mind as Mono gets up and stretches beside her, paper bag stowed away in his pocket. A different hat sits atop his head, its tattered ribbon flowing down between them.

"Oi ," says a voice, one that was introduced to them last night when they first arrived, "you guys okay?"

"Yeah," Mono says with a smile, still bashfully hiding his face away from RK. The boy in blue hugs a nome to his chest and nods in response.

"Okay, well, there's food if you guys want any." He jabs a thumb in the direction of the other children. Six nods in response, and watches as he trots off to meet with the others, stopping only once to look back at them curiously.

"So, Six," Mono begins, already standing up and dusting himself off, "what do you wanna do today?"

She grins, because there's nothing to worry about for now. Her mind is free of those haunting feelings, those weird senses of deja vu, of familiarity when familiarity is not warranted. The boy in blue is the last of the familiar feelings, but it is a warm one, one she doesn’t want to let go of. Hopefully, they’ll cross paths soon enough for her to explore this feeling.

Her stomach growls, but nothing of consequence follows.

"Eat."

"Sounds good to me!"

Mono offers her his hand and she takes it. Not once does she have to fear letting him go. She squeezes his hand, a familiar reassurance as he squeezes back.

Nothing of consequence plagues her mind.

She smiles, blissfully unaware of what the future has in store.

And for once, she feels as though she's allowed to be happy.

#little nightmares #little nightmares 2 #ln lady #ln thin man #ln runaway kid #ln six #ln mono #AAAAAAAAAA IT'S FINALLY DONE #ALL THESE WEEKS AND THE TITLES FINALLY CULMINATE INTO THIS #WHO IS THE SENDER??? WHO IS THE RECEIVER??#THE HINT MAY BE BURIED IN THE CHAPTER TITLES THEMSELVES!!#PERHAPS EVEN IN THE... FINAL CHAPTER CHAPTER??#oh and lmao the story is done too #SERIOUSLY THO #thanks all who stuck with this long tale!!#can you beLIEVE this was originally supposed to be a compilation of silly moments only between the lady and thinny?#can you BELIEVE i almost posted this as one whole oneshot???#i would have been skinned alive LOL #but seriously thanks everyone for sticking by me!#i have a couple other fics up my sleeves for this au #duno when they'll be finished but #i hope i do finish them! the adventures of the adults and kids are not over yet!#not completely at least #thanks for everything once again everyone!

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votederpycausemufins · 3 years

Text

I promise you by the end of this chapter, both of the bots are being held in the arms of someone. who those people are... uhhh well you better read the chapter. it is definitely no one bad.

@petrichormeraki @helleborusangel

Tubbo struggled against the ropes that tied them to a chair. He had been put in a room with someone else, but it was still too dark to see. He wasn’t sure if Ranboo was still there, but Tubbo was face to face with the screen that matched Dream’s mask. With the bright light, it was hard to distinguish the rest of the form from the dark room, but Tubbo could just make out the shape of the body.

From the short time he had known the pair of bots, he was pretty sure this was Grumbot. He tried to say something, but the cloth in their mouth made it tough. Still, he watched as the screen tilted from the robot tilting its head, so Tubbo tried again. He kept repeating a single word over and over until it was understood, then the robot moved and suddenly Tubbo was squinting their eyes as the room filled with light.

It took a moment for their eyes to adjust, but when they did, he finally got a good look at the robot. A large crack was on the screen with a dent near it on the monitor. There were also similar dents on other places of the robot’s body. The buttons that had been on the robot’s chest had been torn out and the light next to them was also cracked. There were three holes in a line on the robot’s side where something had pierced it, sparks occasionally appearing through them. Finally, the normally clean body was covered with burn marks and mud and other things.

Tubbo couldn’t help but feel sad for him. Obviously he’d been stuck with Dream and the admin hadn’t been caring for the bot. And that made Tubbo’s heart hurt. He had listened to Dream and ended up exiling Tommy just when they had all come up with a different plan. He had been so upset at Techno for what he had done that he ended up leaving Tommy to something like this. It was a miracle he was even willing to still be around Tubbo.

The sound of a snort made Tubbo look around. He couldn’t tell the source, but there was the sound of cloven hooves lightly clopping on the ground and moving closer. Tubbo smiled sadly when Michael finally came into view, then tilted his head as the ziglin grabbed Grumbot’s arm. Grumbot turned to look at Michael, who was spooked a little and pulled away with a squeal to hide behind the chair Tubbo was stuck in.

Tubbo wanted to comfort Michael, but couldn’t really move to do that. He tried pulling against the ropes again, but then paused as the light from the screen flickered in front of him. He watched as the image was changing to how the bot’s face normally looked, like he was trying to get back to normal, but eventually the screen was back to just a smile. Still, that alone gave Tubbo some hope for the bot. He tried a bit more, and it started to feel like one of the bindings was coming a little loose. He started focusing on that one arm, but then froze when something touched it. A small snort then came from the same area and Tubbo was able to watch out of the corner of his eye as Michael used a toy sword to help cut the ropes. Since it was a toy and not that sharp, it took a bit, but finally the rope snapped.

Tubbo was glad to have their arm free and pulled out the fabric gagging their mouth. Once it was gone, he pulled Michael into a one armed hug. “Good job Michael! I’m sorry I was gone so long. I’m sure you missed me.”

Tubbo talking seemed to get someone’s attention, because now the person in the other chair was moving, muffled noises coming from them. “Can you try to help them out too?”

Michael nodded and went over to the other person as Tubbo continued to free themself. Once he was, he went over to help Michael with the other person, who Tubbo instantly recognized. They were easily able to get the ropes off Tommy, but instead of a cloth or rope preventing him from speaking, a metal shackle of sorts was covering his mouth. “Sorry, I don’t think we can easily get that off.”

Tommy nodded in understanding before looking over to Grumbot, Tubbo following his gaze. The robot was still just standing there, having done nothing to prevent them escaping. “Tommy, I don’t want to leave Michael here and I’m not sure I can lift Grumbot. Can you carry him?”

Tommy nodded and attempted to pick the robot up, but he was met with it pulling an axe out and attacking him. A muffled yell came from Tommy and Tubbo pulled him back. “Okay, not picking him up then. But I don’t want to just leave him here.”

Tommy held up some of the discarded rope and formed it into a lead. He held it up to Tubbo as a suggestion, making Tubbo reluctantly nod. “I guess that could work, though I wish we had a better option.”

Tubbo helped tie the rope around Grumbot’s waist and then let Tommy have the other end of the rope before picking Michael up. “I’ll message the others that we have him.”

Tommy nodded and Tubbo pulled out their communicator to send a message. He was almost done with it when someone spoke, making him pause. “I. W-w-w-want. M-my. D-bzzt.” Tubbo looked up, seeing that the voice had been Grumbot, whose face was currently back to it’s mustachey self.

“Your dads? We’re trying, don’t worry.” Tubbo attempted to comfort the bot by patting him, but Grumbot just flinched away and Tubbo pulled their hand back. He then finished up the message and sent it. “Let’s go. I’m sure Grian will see it in a moment.”

Dead plants were strewn about and anything the red plants weren’t touching were instead coated in a thin layer of mycelium. Everyone was injured enough that they lay on the ground from the wounds. The person who got them to that state was currently staring up at the red egg-shaped plant in the corner of the cavern, blade in hand. “Were it under any other circumstance, I may have said yes, but a mother protects her children.”

The sword was stabbed into the egg a multitude of times until the attacker was absolutely sure it was dead. Around them, the people who had been affected by the egg seemed to be coming out of a bit of a daze. Bad sat up, rubbing his head and opened an eye to see the egg killer in front of him. They bent down and then stood back up holding Jrumbot. “This is mine.”

“Wh-Hey! You still can’t just take him like that!”

“Hmm, I assumed your care for him was simply due to the control of the plant. I see I assumed wrong.” They brushed a hand over the remaining vines on Jrum. “Hmm, these will be removed after he has woken up and I can see how he is doing. I wouldn’t want them to have taken a host.”

“What are you talking about?”

“There is a chance the plant may try keeping itself alive through the plants growing within this child. It should not be too much of a problem to remove once they have awoken. But that will require waiting.”

“Wait, so are you one of Jrum’s parents?” The demon spoke and slowly stood up. “Why are you only getting here now?”

“As far and the child is concerned, I am not, and yet am. The one I use as a host is one of their parents. We have a reluctant alliance as we both want to protect. However, I cannot do much more than this, so the spores from my mycelium will not cause you any trouble.”

The demon looked over at the dead egg. “How did you kill it without getting yourself killed?”

“It was weak. The host I have taken is very strong. A lineage of death and Watchers trained as admin among other things. It is disappointing to see a child of such a person fall to an organism such as this. Now, the previous question of the delayed arrival. Time has been distorted and what was a few days has become a few months.”

“That’s a thing that can happen?”

“Yes. It is more common of an occurrence than one may think.”

Then Jrum stirred before waking up with a slight yawn. “Dad?”

“Almost.”

Jrum looked up at the one holding him then frowned. “Oh… I was asking for my new dad.” And he crossed his arms.

“You must answer some questions first. First of all, are you able to change the color of your screen?”

“Yeah, but why would I?”

“Change it to blue, then you may change it back. This is simply a test.” Jrum rolled his digital eyes, but shifted everything to a blue hue before changing back. “Good. Now you are to ignore this threat, but if you hear a response to the threat, please inform me. Is that understood?”

“Why should I?”

Bad leaned over to make sure he could be seen by Jrum. “They’re just making sure you’re doing okay. Can you please tell them if you do?”

Jrum nodded and then the threat came, the grayish-purple of their eyes spreading out from the sockets. “If you still hold any control, you will come to regret it as you are infected from the inside out and you experience every minute bit of pain that you caused others even unintentionally.” Then the growth receded and they spoke again in a calmer voice. “Did you hear anything?”

Jrum shook his head. “No. Is that good or bad?”

“Very very good.” Bad answered, which made Jrum smile.

“I will be able to remove these remaining plants with little harm, but it may take a while and I will need to go dormant once more while they are killed.” Bad opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off. “I will return to remove the spores when they have completed their work. They would just cause more damage if they remained in a being such as this.”

“Alright, good to know.”

The main vines around Jrum’s antenna were pulled off and discarded to the floor. Then a kiss was pressed to the bot’s forehead before the grayish-purple color disappeared from the eyes and were replaced by Grian’s normal eyes. “Hoo boy, how much did I miss?” He looked around at all the dead flora. “My guess is a lot.”

“I’ve just gotten a message. Someone has found and recovered Grum. We should find them before the admin attempts to take him back once more.” Xannes spoke, having received the message with his helmet. “I’m attempting to as for- Hmm, that is concerning.”

Mumbo looked over to the hacker. “What’s wrong?”

“I received a message with their coordinates, but also their current predicted end coordinates. They were sent by a name of someone not in the group. Also their group includes Tommy, who is most definitely the one currently next to you in bed, meaning his hels version is there instead.”

“Can I ask who’s in the group?”

“The one to send the message is Tubbo. They say they are with Tommy, Grum, and someone by the name of Michael.”

“Can you stay here and watch over Tommy? One of us needs to stay and I-”

“Yeah yeah, go see your kid.”

Mumbo nodded and made sure Tommy was tucked in well before getting up and following the coordinates that had been messaged to him as well. He had absolutely no idea how much time he had, so he ran a bit before using his elytra to get into the air and hope to find the group.

He was getting to the point something had happened to them or he had missed them when Mumbo spotted the bright green of Tubbo’s shirt. He did his best not to crash while landing and then caught up to the group. “Hey! Tubbo! Grum!” Tubbo stopped walking to turn around meanwhile ‘Tommy’ started to move faster. “Hey! Get back here!”

Tubbo turned to look at Tommy trying to escape with Grumbot while the robot did nothing to struggle. He quickly set Michael down and ran forward to grab the rope around Grumbot and start pulling the other way. In a few moments, Michael was at Tubbo’s side attempting to help, though he had trouble actually grabbing the rope. When Mumbo reached them, he took his sword out and sliced the rope, causing everyone else to fall from the lack of tension.

“Tommy! Why were you trying to take Grum away?” Tubbo asked.

“Because that’s not Tommy. He’s currently unconscious in bed. This must be Theseus.”

“Oh.” Tubbo looked over at the copy whose eyes shifted back to a brown color. “Why were you trying to take Grum?” Theseus tapped the metal around his mouth. “Why didn’t you just ask earlier. Grum, are you able to take that off his mouth?”

Grum nodded and walked over to Theseus and hesitantly removed the shackle before his arm was grabbed by Theseus. “God that was easy. I’m trying to take him because I know Dream is after him, and this time I’m not letting any of you getting in the fucking way. Two times was enough.”

Mumbo started to move forward, but an axe was put to Grum’s neck. “Look, right now this is the only thing letting people respawn. If he dies, that won’t happen. So I wouldn’t move closer if I were you. Look, all I’m going to do is use this piece of scrap metal as bait and then get out of here with the admin, if you can even call him that anymore with this thing being the console. In fact, speaking of. I’m guessing it could just teleport him here. Can’t you?” Theseus looked down to Grumbot, who nodded. “Alright. Do it.”

Mumbo and Tubbo winced as some sparks flew out from Grumbot as he processed the request. In a few moments, Dream had appeared right in front of Theseus and he let go of the robot to grab him instead. “Finally! Took long enough!”

Mumbo immediately ran over to Grumbot and picked him up, holding him close. “Hey don’t worry. We’re going to get you home and fix you up.” Mumbo whispered comfortingly as the bot trembled in his arms.

Theseus smacked Dream with the dull part of his axe head, cracking the mask he wore and knocking the admin out. Theseus held Dream by the fabric of his hoodie, just letting him hang there. “Now I’m sure you want me out of here. Send me to the hels dimension of this place or else.”

Mumbo could feel as Grum stiffened up and some sparks shocked him, but a moment later Theseus and Dream were gone. The redstoner had hoped that once the admin and Grum were in different universes, it would help the bot, but he still looked the same, stiff and trying to remain emotionless. “Let’s get back to EX.”

#hermit!tommy au #hermit!tommy #tubbo #michael_beloved #grumbot #hels!tommy #grian #mother spore grian #jrumbot #badboyhalo #the blood vines #mumbo jumbo #evil xisuma #tommyinnit

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vfdarkness · 3 years

Text

AVFD Script - S2EP03 The Forgotten Man

[[Intro]]

You’re at a bus stop and your bus is late.

Finally, it pulls up, you step aboard, and for a brief moment…

the driver’s facial features - their eyes, nose, mouth are in all the wrong places.

As you stare, their face quickly rearranges itself to appear more normal. More human.

The door closes. There’s no one else in the vehicle.

You need my help.

[[AVFD intro music kicks in]]

This is A Voice From Darkness.

[[AVFD intro music fades out]]

Hello, this is Dr. Malcolm Ryder, parapsychologist, here to help you with all problems paranormal, supernatural, and otherworldly. And we have a wonderful show planned for tonight. There’s two national alerts for the state of Florida - one for the panhandle, and another for the everglades. After we go over these we’ll explore one of the strangest roadside attractions in American history. And of course we’ll finish our show with the phone lines open so you, our listeners, can call-in. But first, let's get to our national alerts

[[National Alerts music starts]]

A sinkhole has appeared in the middle of Kelson Ave in Marianna, Florida. The hole’s depth is currently unknown however twenty feet down, stone carvings of faces appear. The carvings continue for as far down as anyone can tell. Each is unique yet is made to grotesquely express either the emotion of fear or that of delight. A spelunker descended into the hole to gather information about its depth. Two hours into his descent contact was lost and he was pulled out. When he resurfaced he was said to be in a daze. He removed his harness and immediately jumped back into the hole. Please be careful while driving on Kelson, Ave in Marianna, Florida.

Our second national alert is for the Florida Everglades. The Singing has returned to the wetlands. All those in the area are advised to wear hearing protection for at least the next 72 hours or until otherwise instructed. The source of The Singing is unknown but is said to compel all who hear it to walk into the wetlands and be devoured by the creatures there-in. Again, please wear hearing protection if you’re within earshot of the Florida Everglades.

And that’s all we have for national alerts this evening.

[[NA music fades out]]

Next up we have Today In Odd America, where we’ll discuss a manifestation that once haunted every corner of this land. And afterwards we’ll open the phone-lines.

[[Today In Odd America]]

Today in Odd America we find ourselves across the highways of our country. Forty four years ago today marks the last known visit to a roadside attraction commonly called The House of Narcissus. No physical evidence of this place exists. It was never found in the same location twice - yet hundreds of oral testimonies swear to its existence. Tonight I will cobble together disparate accounts from those who claim to have toured the fabled roadside museum. My hope is this will paint you a picture of what the experience was like for those who wound up touring a space dedicated completely to themselves.

“I was driving down Route 8,” Maise Bridges stated to the Columbus Dispatch in 1955. “It was late and dark. No other cars were on the road. Then I saw it - a billboard illuminated by a single dim light that read: Know Thyself, Next Exit. No other words. But next to them, taking up the entirety of the right side was a painted picture - of me. Unmistakably me. Done in a sort of… Norman Rockwell style I suppose. I just… What was I supposed to do? Of course I took the next exit.”

All descriptions of The House of Narcissus begin this way. A strange billboard on a lonely road, mere seconds to decide to take the exit or not. Oddly, there are few confirmed cases of those who saw the billboard and kept driving. It’s impossible to say if that says something overall about human nature or merely the people The House chose to manifest for.

“I was overwhelmed when I first drove up to the house,” Curtis Johnson said to the Louisville Times in 1948. “I’m not ashamed to admit it, but I might have cried a bit. I mean the place was just, just magnificent. Out there, in the middle of this grassy field, in the middle of nowhere there’s this small piece of heaven, you know? I didn’t feel like I was about to tour some cheap-o roadside scam where they show you a mannequin in a five dollar gorilla suit and tell you it’s Bigfoot. I felt like I was home. Of course I rushed right outta my car up to the door. Why wouldn’t I? I was home.”

Descriptions of the museum are typically left vague. Abstract. At least when describing the exterior. Visitors will speak of the joy they felt upon seeing the house. Often they’ll say a sense of nostalgia or homecoming overwhelmed them. However no one was ever able to give a single concrete detail of what The House looked like. How many stories were there? What color was the siding? What the house looks like remains a mystery to this day. But there’s much agreement about its interior. At least in some respects.

“There’re no employees, no turnstyle to go through, nothing like a museum or roadside attraction typically has. You just go in the front door, and you’re suddenly there - in the first room. It’s filled with photographs along the walls. They were all of my family, friends, neighbors, teachers, former classmates, folks from my church, employers, co-workers. People I might have talked to only once in passing. None of these were photos I took or remember anyone else ever taking. None are in any photo album I own,” said Judge Michael Harvester in 1972, when he called into the KIRT radio station of Olympia, Washington.

The Photo Gallery is always the first room visitors find themselves in. Under each photo is a brass plaque, on which a single sentence is etched: the last words said by whomever is touring the house to the person featured in the photograph.

Even this first room can be disarming to a visitor. As Judge Harvester said: “You don’t realize how many people you speak to, thinking you’ll do so again, but then never do. It adds up over a life. It really does. I didn’t look at all the pictures, or read all the plaques. I had to stop after awhile. I saw one in particular… the last words I said to an old neighbor of mine, lived a few houses away from the place I bought right after law school. Me, him, and some of the guys down the block would get together to play poker twice a month. Last thing I said to him, ‘I’ll see you in a few weeks.’ I don’t remember what happened after that. I guess the poker game fell apart. I don’t think either of us moved, I don’t remember us getting into any fights. But I never spoke to him again. And that’s just one example. People like to call that first room the photo gallery, and that makes sense, I guess. But that’s not what it is. It’s a monument. A monument to lost relationships.”

Most visitors to The House expressed regret coming there at all after visiting this first room. Unfortunately, the way they entered disappears after entry - replaced by a wall filled with photographs. Once you enter, The House forces you to continue through the rooms. That is, if you wish to leave.

“The second room was a full scale replica of my childhood home,” said Sara Lopez to the San Diego Tribune in 1966. “All five rooms of our house back on Balboa Avenue. “I went through the cabinets in the kitchen. The dishes… they were identical to ones we had. There were these little hand drawn designs on them. They’re abstract, hard to describe, but the plates in that museum. They matched perfectly how I remembered them. It was impossible.” Most statements regarding the second room share similar amazement at the level of detail on even the most insignificant items - stains on the carpet, entryways scuffed and dirty from children’s shoes. “What really got me about the second room, “Sara Lopez said, “were the smells. The kitchen had this overwhelming odor of garlic and cumin, spices my mother put in everything. The carpet near the entryway smelled like wet dog. Our lab, Daisy, would run through our neighbors sprinkler then come inside, right to that patch of carpet, and roll around. Little things like that, I’d forgotten about completely. Hadn’t thought of in years, but suddenly a million memories came rushing back to me.”

The average visitor reported spending somewhere between four to five hours in The House of Narcissus. There were outliers of course, in both directions. Some, after seeing the photo gallery, ran through the other rooms without lingering. Others claimed to have spent days and only left when they were near dehydration.

There are dozens of other rooms in The House. Too many to go over tonight. But I’ll end by stating what’s in the only obligatory room, the last room. The room with the only way out.

At the very end of a long hallway is a plain wooden door with a small sign above that reads: What if…

Inside is a small movie theatre. There’s a single red cushioned seat in the room with the perfect view of a small screen. To the right of the screen is a door with an exit sign above. The door will not open unless the visitor sits down in the chair and watches, truly watches and listens, to the film that plays in that small theatre.

“On the day of what was supposed to be my wedding I called my best friend - my bridesmaid. I cried and I gave her the awful job of telling my husband-to-be I’d changed my mind,” said Tonya Blanton to the Sante Fe Dispatch in 1958. “I was living in Minneapolis at the time. Born there, was to be married there, figured I’d die there eventually too. I don’t know what overcame me. But I got in my car and drove. Found myself in New Mexico and started a new life. My parents were furious. And I never spoke to the man who was to be my husband ever again. He sent me a letter when I’d settled in Santa Fe. I wasn’t brave enough to open it. But in that last room. In that last room of that awful house - a film played. It showed what my life would have been had I stayed in Minneapolis. I won’t… I won’t say what all I saw. What all I missed out on. All I’ll say is I know I made the wrong choice. I’ve thought about that every single day since visiting that terrible place.”

Tonya Blanton is not a unique case. Chicago journalist Studs Terkel in his book The American Road: An Oral History devoted a chapter to The House of Narcissus. He conducted over twenty interviews with those who'd toured the roadside wonder. When asked if they could change places and live the life they saw in that last room - would they? Every person he interviewed said they would.

The House of Narcissus only existed for some sixty odd years. The last known visit occurred in 1977, outside of Spring Green, Wisconsin. “People say I must’ve burned the place down or something,” Buddy Palmer, the last recognized visitor, said to the Madison Gazette in 1980. “I didn’t, I swear,” he went on, “but if I had some matches and kerosene on me, would I of? Sure thing. No one should ever be forced to watch the movie that plays in that last room. I’ll think of that picture the rest of my life. I’ll know I messed up early on and I’m not living my best, happiest life. You know how hard it is to get out of the bed in the morning with that hanging over you? Sometimes that movie plays in my dreams. I usually gotta call in sick to work the next day when it does. I just can’t stop thinking about it. The rest of the place too… it’s just... Just too much.”

For those of you listening to this while driving alone, rest assured, you’re unlikely to see a billboard with your own face staring back at you and the words: Know Thyself, Next Exit. But in the rare chance such an event occurs, please consider my advice: don’t take that exit. Just keep driving. There are some truths about ourselves perhaps better left unexplored.

And now back to our main show.

[[TIOA music fades out]]

ACT II

RYDER

And we're back and we already have a caller on the line. Why don't you tell us your name and the nature of your supernatural problem.

RENE

Hello, Malcolm. I was wondering if we'd ever get the chance to speak again.

RYDER

(uncertain)

I don't recognize your voice. Have you called into the show before?

RENE

A few times, yes. And we met once or twice in person.

A beat.

RYDER

Who is this?

RENE

My name is Rene Dupont. And though I've explained this to you before, I will kindly do so again. I exist with a peculiar condition. People can rarely retain memories of me. Not in any form. As this conversation gets to a certain point, I'll begin to vanish from your mind as well as most of your listeners. If you try to write down anything about me during this call, you'll likely only produce gibberish or the vaguest of details.

RYDER

I've read case studies of similar situations. There was a man in Utah-

RENE

(interrupts)

Yes, yes.

Nathaniel Cotwell who lived in a small town that couldn't create new memories of him past the age of eight. And so as an adult they'd still treat him as if he were a young boy. You studied him and Sarah Pullman of Butte, Montana who went missing one night in the woods. When she found her way home again, her family had completely forgotten her.

A beat.

RENE

The few times we've spoken, you've wished to demonstrate knowledge of people who've existed with Memory-related ailments and those are your two most common examples.

RYDER

It seems we have spoken before. Mr. Dupont-

RENE

Please, call me Rene. No need for formalities. We're old acquaintances after all.

RYDER

Yes. Of course. And why have you called into the show tonight, Rene?

RENE

There's been a man following me. Repeatedly.

A beat.

RYDER

(realizing what he means)

And of course that's a difficult task to accomplish, as it's so hard to remember you.

RENE

You're correct. I am Anonymity Incarnate. But there's a man in a grey suit who seems to have found my scent. A further detail about him: he's missing one of his fingers. I'll let you guess which.

RYDER

Why is The Traveling Salesman after you?

RENE

I called you in search of an answer to that very question.

RYDER

In all likelihood he wishes to strike a deal with you. That's why he seeks anyone out. That, or to kill them.

RENE

Let's assume the former for the moment: what sort of deal would he want to make with me?

RYDER

I have no idea. Perhaps he needs information from someone. But he doesn't want this person to know they've given their secrets up. I imagine with your talent that's something you'd be good at.

RENE

Before the wall was destroyed in '89 I was employed on both sides doing something akin to what you just suggested.

A beat.

RYDER

Then that might be what he wants. Or perhaps something more... metaphysical.

RENE

Such as?

RYDER

Your ability to be forgotten. Julian already has some power over memory, but not that.

RENE

Could he really take that from me?

RYDER

Not take. Trade. The Salesman doesn't steal, Rene, but his deals are often one-sided, exploitive, as he'll neglect to tell you pertent information before you agree.

RENE

So he wouldn't really be taking something from me so much as he'd be giving me the gift of being able to be remembered.

A beat.

RYDER

That's a dangerous way of viewing such a deal.

RENE

Dangerous for you, perhaps, but of great advantage to me.

RYDER

It would be dangerous for the whole country for The Traveling Salesman to be easily forgotten. One of the few weapons we have against him are the memories of devastation he's brought about by the deals he's made. The only reason anyone ever turns him down is because his reputation precedes him. Take that away-

RENE

(interrupts)

I have the means and resources to go to many other countries. Julian Holloway can have this one.

RYDER

You'd potentially sacrifice hundreds of millions of people to-

RENE

(interrupts)

To be remembered. And yes, I would. This "talent" of mine came to me when I was young. For most my life I've been unable to have a meaningful relationship with another human being.

To even have an extended conversation. What's my name?

RYDER

Rene...

Malcolm searches his mind for the surname.

RYDER

Rene Dupont.

RENE

You're close to forgetting already, Malcolm Ryder.

A beat.

RENE

If I made a deal with your friend for him to take this power away, you'd never even know.

RYDER

The Traveling Salesman is not my friend.

RENE

If your former friend might help me where no one else could before, including yourself, then I would take him up on his offer.

RYDER

That is if he even wants to help you. He could be searching for you, as I already said, to kill you.

RENE

And why would that be his objective?

RYDER

There are limitations to his power. I don't fully know what they are, but I know they exist.

RENE

Again I ask, why would this necessitate him wanting me dead?

RYDER

Because you possess power in one of his realms - Memory and Dream. And if you have more power than he does, and if he can't use you, or your power, towards his own ends, he'll want you dead. You're a liability otherwise.

A beat.

RENE

You're bluffing. Trying to stoke fear in me so I stay away from him. So I can't make a deal. If what you said was true, your friend Charlotte Price would be dead.

RYDER

Charlotte has found ways to take care of herself. She's forged alliances with things even Julian fears. Have you done the same?

A beat.

RENE

What you're telling me is that I need leverage before I allow Julian Holloway to try and offer a deal to me.

RYDER

That's not what I'm saying at all. Under no circumstances should you attempt to make any deal with him.

RENE

That's not what I took away from this conversation. Thank you so much, Malcolm. As always, you've been helpful.

RYDER

No, wait-

Dial tone.

A long pause.

RYDER

There was someone on the line just now. I swear there was.

I have notes I made, most are illegible which isn't like me. Of what I can read: Shadow, Mirror, Flesh, Spirit, and Dream. I tried to write Memory but it seems my hand was unable to. Odd...

A beat.

RYDER

I think we'll end the show there tonight. I'd like to play back the recording of the past several minutes. See if I can see what I'm missing.

A beat.

RYDER

But if you're experiencing anything supernatural, paranormal, or otherworldly, please feel free to call in next time on A Voice From Darkness.

[[AVFD outro music fades in and out.]]

#a voice from darkness #avfd #malcolm ryder #rene dupont

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unfortunatelysirius · 4 years

Text

DATING HARRY POTTER AS A HUFFLEPUFF WOULD INCLUDE:

NOTE: Hey, apologies for going AWOL. I’m back to ruin fanfiction.

❁ Oh Merlin, there’s a lot of stereotypes about Hufflepuffs. They’re pushovers, they’re losers, they’re cowards, they’re useless, they’re lousy at duels—all sorts, none of it really true. Even the Golden Trio was guilty for thinking it! Ah, Hufflepuff, seemed like the lesser House from afar.

❁ Then Harry met you.

❁ Harry only knew what his friends told him of Hufflepuffs. Hermione didn’t really have an opinion, just that she barely saw their work ethic and suspected they spent a lot of their time with the kitchen elves. Ron was bold with his, claiming they didn’t have a courageous bone in their body. With a lack of any real friends from Hufflepuffs, Harry didn’t disagree.

❁ One day Harry saw you sneaking into the restricted section of the library. You went undetected and looked like you’d done it hundreds of time when you snagged a book Harry couldn’t read the name of then went on your way. Harry was baffled. The only indication of who you were was the yellow tie he saw before you went dancing into the night. And Hufflepuffs? They didn’t seem like rulebreakers and risktakers.

❁ Harry told Hermione and Ron about what he saw and neither of them believed him. So he honestly believed he was seeing colors and the person that stole a book was from another house, not a Hufflepuff. But his curiosity got the better of him so he looked at every person he saw to see if they matched the figure he saw that night. The figure was lithe and limber, able to not make a sound.

❁ Not looking for a Hufflepuff in particular really failed him… none of the other houses had someone with behavior even close. Then again, he didn’t get a chance to truly analyze the figure before it was gone. He was grasping for straws with what little he had to go on, but he was just so damned determined to find out who it was. The figure was graceful and if he had to go with a fifty-fifty, he wanted to say the figure was a girl. Yeah, he’d go with that to cut down half his prospects.

❁ Harry had you in his Transfiguration class. He didn’t give you the light of day until one fateful class period when you got up to hand in an essay and Harry’s eyes followed you up the aisle. You were light-footed and quick, a grace to you unmatched by the identity-less night thief. That’s when he hit him—you were the culprit and he wasn’t imagining things about a Hufflepuff tie!

❁ He confronted you after class. It didn’t go so well. You didn’t like the idea of him seeing you take a book and tried to play it off like you’d never do such a thing; sadly for you, the Chosen One was chosen in what he’d “let go.” That was one of the few things he wanted to pursue. It became a cycle: you tried removing yourself from his radar, he reappeared to interrogate you, you’d threaten to hit him with a knee-locking spell, he’d back off and it started again. He was cute and aggravating, neither so good together. You grew frustrated and Harry? He was like a damn dog trailing after a slab of meat.

❁ Finally after weeks of enduring him following you wherever you went, you had finally had enough. You slapped him in the face and told him to bugger off before you turned him into a toad. All these threats aside, you thought maybe he’d leave you alone if you were to outright say it, but Harry hadn’t gotten his answers yet—and as a bloke who’d investigate his heart out for the right price, nothing could break his stride… or his pride.

❁ Ugh, how was he not bored yet?

❁ You gave him an ultimatum: if you told him the name of the book you stole and why you even took from the restricted section in the first place, he needed to forget you existed and stop being your shadow. Harry agreed. The two of you went somewhere alone and out of earshot from his nosy buddies and anyone else who loved to overhear things they shouldn’t, and once there, you told him your motivations. You needed a book on the history of dark magic because you were learning how to withstand Dark Arts curses in the case the war tried taking you as a casualty. You explained how your father was killed when you were a month old because of dark magic and you didn’t want to have that happen to you or your family again.

❁ Harry could see this was personal so for once, he was pretty serious (but not serious Sirius). And to your shock, he apologized for basically being your stalker. Then to your immense displeasure, he informed you of something else: he didn’t want to forget your existence.

❁ “What the bloody Hell, Harry? We agreed to this!” you cried out in protest.

❁ The arsehole didn’t look fazed.

❁ Harry very suavely told you he fancied you and for the last few weeks he was only following you around because he felt leaving you alone would make you never give him the time of day again. Truthfully you probably never would have—he was a Gryffindor and Gryffindors did ridiculously stupid things and acted like bastards half the time. All houses had their flaws but Harry was many things: brave, oblivious, mad, and arrogant. A lot of those traits were none you particularly fancied yourself… but upon Harry’s confession, you could see yourself looking past all that.

❁ You agreed to let bygones be bygones and give Harry a chance to show you that he was more than your weird stalker/frenemy… Would you regret it? Yeah, probably. If he drew his friends into messes that were potentially lethal, you sure as hell would get the same bewildering stories to tell your future children.

❁ Good thing Hufflepuffs were badasses, too.

❁ Story aside, the two of you are a power couple.

❁ Oh, who thought a Hufflepuff couldn’t be powerful? Slytherins, Gryffindors? Well, they’re wrong.

❁ You’re an absolute beast at magic and yeah, Harry’s the Chosen One, but you’re only the tiniest bit beneath his level; he’s got the title but a match-up between you and Harry is not something anyone has the balls to face.

❁ You guys are the cute, playful couple and the warriors-on-their-way-to-battle couple.

❁ Your favorite place to go on dates to is the Three Broomsticks for Butterbeer and to people-watch. Harry’s a nosy Norman and likes to eavesdrop (and secretly, you’re not so opposed).

❁ He can be shy. He’s confident most of the time, then there’s these moments of vulnerability where he’ll go on self-pity tirades that he doesn’t deserve you and he hates putting you in danger. Cute of him to worry, but you’re a badass, remember? It’s up to you to remind him you’d leave if you really wanted to, but sometimes it’s good to let him see that himself. Bad bitches do what they want when they say they want.

❁ You hate Cho Chang with a passion when she starts making eyes at Harry. If you didn’t value your education or fear Umbridge, you’d relinquish any dignity you have left and start a cat fight.

❁ Harry’s loyal and sweet. You’d think he wouldn’t be, being the cocky prat he is at times, but damn, he knows how to defy expectations. When the two of you are together he has no eyes for anyone but you.

❁ He says, “I love you,” first. Big surprise.

❁ He’s a really passionate lover. Like, really passionate. He doesn’t give off the vibe, but man, oh man… he’s got moves.

❁ Harry truly takes every predisposed thought you had of him and basically shoots them all to Hell—just as you do his expectations of Hufflepuffs.

❁ Perfect match made in Merlin’s cauldron, huh?

❁ Nah, perfect match made in Hell.

234 notes · View notes

oneunexpected · 3 years

Note

Gregor+friendship headcanon, and Hamnet+sad headcanon 👀😭💕

This got REEEEEALLY long.

Gregor + friendship headcanon:

-He doesn’t know what to do about Larry and Angelina when he gets back to the surface.

-the lie his family settles on is Lyme disease: they say both Gregor and his dad contracted it while camping back when the “miscommunication” between his mom and dad occurred (read: the first time Gregor and Boots fell), and it’s had chronic implications for the both of them.

-it makes it easier to explain why they decide to move in with his uncle in Virginia, too.

-he wants so badly to tell the truth. SO badly. But he’s unwilling, because if they believed him... what then? What do you do when your 12-year-old friend disappears and comes back a war veteran? And even then, what if they got too curious and sought out to find the Underland? Gregor can’t risk it.

-even though he figures it’s for the best, he always regrets it a little.

-after Gregor moves, they play video games together online. It’s a good way to stay in touch. That way, they spend some time together virtually, and any discussion outside of game strategy is relegated to the simple catch-up stuff: what projects they’re up to in school, how their families are doing, wild rumors they’ve heard. It helps everything feel a little more normal for Gregor.

-when he met Larry and Angelina, it was back when he was young enough that kids just made friends with whoever. By the time he gets to Virginia, though, friendships are made a lot more through clubs and mutual interests. There are plenty of random people who reach out to him when he first moves, though, concerned about the new kid, wanting to make sure he felt welcome. They’re all nice. Some of the friendships stick, some don’t. He fits in well enough with the band kids, though band’s inherently clique-y format makes it hard to break in at first. By high school, the scars on his legs are flat enough that he joins the cross country and track teams. Sometimes people question why he always wears long sleeve t-shirts, even in the sweltering heat, but they never push him past his generic excuses. He also joins the school robotics team. Between the three, he has lots of friends across the school.

-he’s not particularly close with many, though. His closest friends are a clarinet player, one of his track relay teammates, and a kid who was always cracking jokes in biology when they were stressed about upcoming tests.

-everyone knows there’s something a little off, but none of his friends mind that much. He’s kind, he’s clever, he’s a great sax player, he’s fast, and once again, he’s really kind—so who cares if he’s mysterious as hell.

-that changes when he loses control of raging and breaks a guy’s nose in the hallway during his 8th grade year. His fairly large circle of somewhat shallow friendships shrinks significantly—but those he’s closest to stay loyal, and they do their part to make sure he’s not ostracized. “Honestly, man, he had it coming,” says his friend from bio.

-it all makes things a little easier for Gregor. There’s still so much he’s healing from. There’s still so much that limits him. There’s still so much he misses, both in New York and the Underland. And it can be so alienating. But when he’s playing in a jazz ensemble, or when he’s at someone’s birthday party, or when he’s crammed into a car with some cross country buddies headed to get some fast food after a particularly exhausting practice—it’s all a little easier.

-sometimes, though, even the good moments hurt when he remembers just how different their lives are from his.

-he visits Larry and Angelina the summer before his senior year, and even though their video game shenanigans are few and far between by then, he’s relieved by how easy it is to be around them. They cover lost ground fast, fueled by their excitement to see one another. Angelina’s working as a stagehand on Broadway for the summer. Larry’s mom just bought him a new drawing tablet and he shows Gregor what he’s been working on. They spend hours just catching up and laughing. They’ve grown apart, sure, but the affection remains.

Hamnet + sad headcanon

Nothing I could headcanon would be sadder than actual canon, so I hope it’s alright if I take an alternate approach here:

-When he disappears, nobody asks Susannah how she’s doing that much.

-Maybe they think she’s removed from it, sequestered away in the Fount. Maybe her physical distance just puts her out of sight, out of mind.

-Maybe they think she’s too immersed in Howard and Stellovet and the twins on their way to really feel it.

-Maybe it’s because Judith and Hamnet were just so close. For Judith, it’s like losing a part of herself. “He was a part of me, too,” she sobs to York one night.

-Maybe, just maybe, it’s because she’s the eldest: she’s supposed to be the strong one, the caretaker, the first to sacrifice.

-Judith knows she has to stay strong. She is a queen. Her weakness is her people’s weakness, and losing their best commander is a vulnerability enough in itself.

-but she’s so angry, angry at her husband and her mother for organizing the attack, angry at her father and herself for not doing anything about it, angry at Hamnet for leaving her, oh, she’s furious at him.

-it doesn’t take long to strip the anger back. When you do, there is only the grief.

-when the baby is sleeping, when her husband is sleeping, she slips down into the abandoned nursery where she and Hamnet and the others her age were once cared for and wails.

-after a few weeks, she visits Susannah. They cling to each other in Susannah’s drawing room until the early hours of the morning, at first in silence, until Judith finally says, “I think I was too passive.” Susannah wants to laugh—everyone always said she was the passive one of the three.

-after that, it’s like a dam has broken. (Ooh, poor choice of words.) Susannah tells stories of when the twins were really little. There’s the time when Susannah was trying to feed baby Judith mashed sweet potatoes and Judith bit her, which had their mother in stitches of laughter even as she tried to scold Judith, the time four-year-old Hamnet refused to leave Susannah’s side during a festival because he was afraid of the people in costumes roaming about... there are many stories. Judith chimes in with her own. They laugh and cry and laugh and cry.

-the elephant in the room is the injustice of the attack itself. Neither one of them knows how to navigate it, but it fuels their confusion and it fuels their grief.

-Their father doesn’t know how to navigate it, either.

-Vikus knows he is culpable. It’s his job to make sure Regalians stay true to their word. It’s his job to balance out Solovet’s tendencies. It’s his job to look out for his children’s well-being. He’s failed. He’s complicit. And his son is gone.

-he knows, on some level, that the part of him that’s in Hamnet is what drove his son to leave. It’s what drove him insane in the first place, and it’s the reason he tried to save the drowning gnawers that day, too. Vikus doesn’t know how to sit with that knowledge. If his son was more like Solovet, maybe he would have lived.

-it wasn’t an easy birth. Solovet lost way too much blood and the twins were just so small when they were born. Even then, when her mind was clouded by hypovolemic shock, she couldn’t stand to see the doctors whisking them away. When she came to, someone had laid the twins in her arms, where they slept peacefully. Vikus beamed at her from a corner of the room. She was so, so proud.

-she never knew fear quite like she did when Mareth brought Hamnet home and he couldn’t recognize any of them. Couldn’t even speak. She never let on how scared she was, of course, but she felt it nonetheless. She was disappointed, too.

-when they received word Hamnet was missing, Solovet was immediately giving orders. “Check every route out from the city. Locate and interrogate every guard on duty last night. Send word to the Fount and Troy.” Find him.

-she knew they wouldn’t. He was too clever for that. As she goes to sleep that night, there’s a cold weight pressing in on her sternum. He could have been great, she thinks. He was so close.

Thanks for the ask! Headcanon meme found here.

#mmmmmm I really wanna develop the Vikus/Solovet clan more but it’s SOOO hard. so little characterization for Susannah or Judith #gregor the overlander #the underland chronicles #headcanon #gregor #angelina #larry #hamnet #susannah #judith #vikus #solovet #answered

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mrfeenysmustache · 3 years

Text

Cold

Written for @sesskag monthly prompts.

January's prompt: cold

Summary: Inspired by a tumblr post theorizing that Sesshomaru may be wearing makeup. I can’t find that post anymore or I would link it.

Can also be read on AO3 and FFN

The air in the cave was dry and warm despite the storm raging outside, but Kagome still felt stiff.

The sky had been dark and heavy all day, threatening at any moment to break open over their heads. A cool wind sliced through the hot summer humidity, whipping their hair into their faces and chilling their skin. They watched with wariness as the clouds churned above them, laced through with lightening and the distant rumbles of thunder.

They’d agreed to continue their journey as they were in a mountainous region with plenty of little caves to shelter in, but they were all on edge thanks to the charged atmosphere.

And then chaos struck.

A band of demons attacked for the shards and their group was quickly split up in the fighting. Kagome was shocked to find herself fighting alone with Sesshomaru when she’d previously been walking with Sango, but he’d long since proven himself a trustworthy ally so she did her best to offer support with her own powers and watched in awe as he took care of their opponents with quick, efficient ease.

And then the rain started.

Thick sheets of freezing rain dumped from the sky and soaked them through to the bone. Kagome panicked for just a moment when she couldn’t see through the downpour, but then a strong arm closed around her waist and she was airborne. She immediately relaxed upon recognizing the aura of her previous battle partner, and he quickly found them a suitable cave for hiding from the rain.

Her relief soon gave way to awkwardness.

She was completely alone... with Sesshomaru. They’d all joined forces some time ago in their seemingly endless search for Naraku, and in that time Sesshomaru had gone from enemy, to reluctant ally, to steady companion. They had what she considered, and hoped he did as well, a tentative friendship. They spoke here and there of things from her time, his life outside of the spider hunt, and even asked each other for advice and clarification on the children they’d adopted from each other’s respective species.

But Kagome was still nervous to be too casual with him, afraid of offending his aristocratic sensibilities by lowering anymore formality than she already had.

She was regretting that right about now as she stood and fidgeted with her hands while he gathered sticks from the dusty cave floor for a fire.

“If you have dry clothing to change into in that pack, you should change into them now. There is a small chamber in the back of the cave you can use for privacy.”

She said a quick prayer of thanks that he wasn’t looking at her to see they way she startled at the sound of his voice. She pressed a hand to her racing heart and looked around, spotting her overly stuffed bag against the cave wall. She snatched it up and scurried into the little stone alcove that was just deep enough to grant her the necessary privacy to change. Once dry and free of her wet clothes she felt much more comfortable, especially at the sight of the crackling fire in the center of the cave. It chased away the rest of the chill and lit the tiny shelter up with warm, golden light.

She sat down near the flames and relaxed further as warmth and comfort suffer her entire being, then she looked up at Sesshomaru sitting on the other side, intent on thanking him for helping her to shelter and building a fire when the words died in a garbled mess in her throat.

“What are you doing?!” She screeched, and he lifted one brow in question, but continued to remove the top half of his clothing.

“Would you rather I sat in my wet clothing?”

“I... I... uh-“ she clapped her hands over her flaming cheeks and looked pointedly away from his bare chest. She hadn’t even thought about the fact that he wouldn’t be as fortunate as she was to have so many extra clothes on hand. It would be really rude to ask him to sit there in wet clothing just because she was embarrassed.

‘Get it together Kagome, you’re an adult now, you can handle sharing a cave with a naked male.’

But when he started on removing his hakama she panicked again.

“WAIT!”

She rummaged through her bag and pulled out the fluffy robe she’d added in sometime in the last two years to wear after bathtimes during the colder months and handed it to him. He sniffed at it and then raised a brow at her in question.

“Its... kind of like a Yukata? People wear them after baths and things.”

He nodded and slipped the robe on, tying the belt around his waist before divesting himself of the rest of his clothes and Kagome breathed a little easier, though he did look a little funny in her fuzzy bathrobe.

He sat down in front of the fire and began ringing his soaking hair out. She felt a pang of guilt that she’d allowed her nerves to keep her from seeing that he was still absolutely dripping in rain water.

‘He killed those Youkai, grabbed my bag, got me to safety, AND built a fire. I’m not being a very good friend right now...’

“Here Sesshomaru-sama, I have a towel you can use. It’ll work better than just ringing it out.”

She met his gaze bravely despite her still pink cheeks as she offered him her towel and he nodded gratefully, pulling it over his head and rubbing it through his hair.

Kagome returned to her place on the other side of the fire and contemplated getting her books out to do some studying, but then Sesshomaru’s hand entered her field of vision holding out her now damp towel.

She took it and smiled up at him, but then his face made her gasp in alarm.

“Sesshomaru-sama! Your stripes!”

He blinked and his hand raised to his cheek.

“My stripes? What about my-“

“No not those, the ones on your eyes.. they’re gone!”

His brow furrowed in confusion for a moment and his head tilted just barely to the side.

“You speak nonsense miko. I do not have stripes on my eyes.”

Her jaw dropped and she gaped at him a moment.

“No eye stripes? How can you say that? They’re the same color as your cheek stripes! They go just across your eyelid!”

“Ah, those. Those are not stripes.”

“Then what are they? Where did they go?”

“They must have come off on the towel. They are much the same as what the slayer has on her eyes.”

Kagome stared blankly at him for several seconds, and then shook out her towel, examining both sides thoroughly until she found what she was looking for.

Two red splotches streaked across the white fabric in a way so familiar she couldn’t deny it no matter how incredible the whole incident seemed.

“Makeup?! Sesshomaru-Sama, you wear eyeliner? This whole time it’s been eyeliner?”

“I have never heard it called thus, but it is an apt enough description.”

“Huh.” She stared at him in disbelief for a moment before simply sinking back to the cave floor.

She eyed him and he looked very strange with nothing on his eyelids. She snorted at that thought.

‘He’s sitting across from me naked in a bathrobe and it’s his lack of eyeshadow that’s making this so weird. Go figure.’

“Do you.... need a mirror to put more on?”

“Thank you miko, but my supply is with Ah-Un.”

“I see. Does it... mean anything? The makeup, I mean.”

She had a hard time looking into his eyes as she spoke to him. It was like a classmate getting contact lenses after wearing glasses their whole life; it looked like him... but wrong.

He shrugged elegantly and spread his clothing a little closer to the fire to dry faster.

“It is not uncommon for those in my station to wear such facial adornments. My father inherited the practice from his father. My mother adopted it when they married. They both passed it on to me.”

“Oh... is it always the same color?”

“It does not have to be, but that’s the color my mother prefers. It is she who supplies it to me.”

“Oh interesting...” Kagome replied, once again eyeing her bag. Somewhere in there was a set of colorful eyeliner pencils she’d bought, intending to gift them to Sango. She’d known the red on her slayer friend's eyes was some sort of makeup, and she was going to ask if the new colors would be something sango would like, but the opportunity presenting itself to her now was too good to pass up.

‘And I can always buy more next time I go through the well.’

“Would Uh... would you be open to trying some new colors tonight then?”

“Come again, Miko?”

Instead of explaining, she dug through her bag until she found the pencils and held them up triumphantly, expecting that to be sufficient explanation. She was rewarded with a flat look of annoyance.

“Am I supposed to know what this is?”

She giggled and then moved around the fire to sit nearer to him, taking out one of the pencils and handing it over for his inspection.

“They’re eyeliner pencils. This is how people in my time would color our eyelids like you do. I have several colors in here if you want to try! I can even do it for you the first time!” She chirped happily, confident he would not take her up on that particular offer.

Her world fell out from under her when he handed the pencil back.

“Very well. I will allow it.”

“S-say What?!”

“I have never used such a device before miko, so I will allow you to demonstrate.”

“Uh.. Okay, that’s fair enough. Any particular color you’d prefer?”

She held out the package and he looked it over carefully before using his claws to gingerly pull one out and hand it to her.

“Green? That’s unexpected. But okay, I can do it. I’ll need you to stay seated and close your eyes, okay Sesshomaru-sama?”

“Hn.” He responded and tilted his face up, and Kagome had to take a deep breath to calm her once again racing heart.

She was struck by the realization that she’d never seen him this close before. She’d always found him beautiful in a very distant sort of way, but this close up he was positively stunning. His face was relaxed and trusting, and she felt touched that she’d made herself someone he could let his guard down around; his lashes were long and dark against his cheeks, and his chiseled jaw and nose were softened by skin that seemed too perfect and unmarred for such a battle hardened warrior.

Her hands fluttered around his face a moment before she found the nerve to force herself to touch him, resting one hand against his cheek to steady his face while she poised the other over his eyes. With as steady a hand as she could manage she pressed the tip of the pencil to his lid and pulled it across. A green line followed behind until she reached the end of his eye.

She switched sides and finished off the other eye, making sure they matched and that one line wasn’t longer or thicker than the other, and then she smiled in accomplishment that this whole thing hadn’t turned out to be a disaster.

“Alright Sesshomaru-Sama, I’m done.”

His eyes opened and her breath caught. The firelight reflected back at her, illuminating the otherworldly gold of them in a way that left her stunned. They looked just like a diamond she’d seen once during a trip to the mall as a child, it was large, clear and yellow, and it reflected a million pinpoints of rainbow light just the way his eyes were doing now. They shimmered and swirled and the only thought they left in her head was that she can’t believe she’d ever thought of these eyes as cold.

She cleared her throat and took a step back to give herself some space to breath, turning away to pull her mirror from her bag.

“H-here you go, you can use this to see. It’s very, very different from usual, but I have to say, the green look really nice with your eyes.”

Her cheeks warmed again but she met his gaze resolutely before he looked into the mirror at his reflection. He turned his head from side to side and examined her work then hummed under his breath in approval.

“This color is pleasing.”

“You can keep the pencil then. You can have all of them if you like.”

He took the package again and looked them over, drawing out another one.

“Your turn.” He said, gesturing for her to sit in front of him.

“Uh, pardon?”

“Sit Kagome, this Sesshomaru will return the favor.”

“Oh, you don’t have-“

“Sit.”

She did as told, swallowing down the explosion of butterflies that threatened to swarm up her throat and choke her.

She’d spent far too long isolated with the inhumanly beautiful Lord of the West, she desperately needed to rain to stop so she could get some fresh air.

He tilted her chin up gently and her eyes fluttered closed. She felt him press the pencil to her forehead, and in just a few moments he bid her open her eyes and look in her mirror.

She gasped again when she found that he’d drawn on her brow a purple moon that matched his own perfectly.

She looked back up at him in confusion, and found him staring back with a small but soft smile.

‘Oh my...’

She had a feeling that there was a meaning she was missing, but she decided she wouldn’t worry too much about that for now, this day had already been too much.

She looked back at the reflection of her new moon and grinned.

“Thank you Sesshomaru-sama.”

They relaxed into comfortable conversation, shared some travel rations from her bag, and then finally the storm broke just after Sesshomaru was able to redress.

Mere moments after the last drop fell from the sky, Inuyasha and the others came racing through the entrance, a million questions about what had happened and if they were safe. “What the hell happened to your face?!” Inuyasha shouted incredulously at his first look at his brother, but when Sesshomaru simply stared at him he huffed and rushed them all outside to hurry on their way.

She hugged her friends in greeting, shouldered her bag, and slipped the package of makeup pencils into Ah-Un’s saddle bag.

They were set to go, a few last rays of sun to spend finding a camping spot, and Kagome was ready to set off with an extra spring in her step.

#skmpjan21 #sesskag monthly prompt #SessKag #sesskagfanfic #sesskag oneshot #sesshoumaru #sesshomaru x kagome #Kagome

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shihalyfie · 3 years

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I’m a diehard 02 fan who does not want a reboot and never wanted a reboot, and here’s why

This is one of my few editorial-esque pieces, but this is something some friends and I have been discussing for a while, and given what’s going on right now, I feel like this needs to be said at some point.

Sometimes I feel like there’s a really massive gap between what 02 fans want (especially diehard ones) and what people think 02 fans want. I'm not saying that media should only be catering to hardcore fans, and if more casual fans of 02 or people who simply just happen to have a stake in the full franchise have their own opinions on what they wanted to see out of 02-related media, that’s perfectly fine, and they have a right to have those expectations. What I’m mainly writing this about is sentiments that talk about how Toei is apparently doing 02 a disservice or sweeping it under the bus by not rebooting it (which basically comes with an implication that giving it respect would mandate it being rebooted just because Adventure was), or talking about how doing a reboot would please 02 fans just by giving their favorite characters more rep. (Although, I suppose the simultaneous reveal of an actual 02-related movie kind of killed any grounds for claiming that the lack of a 02 reboot meant sidelining 02. You can’t really claim that they’re sidelining 02 when they’re making a whole movie, after all...)

Of course, I don’t claim to speak for every single 02 fan out there (so if you’re a 02 fan who doesn’t agree with anything I’m about to say, I apologize and hope I don’t sound presumptuous), and I highly doubt I represent the mainstream, but I felt I should input my perspective as a 02 fan who’s friends with a handful of other 02 fans, who have discussed this extensively and all have the same feelings on the topic, and why it’s kind of frustrating to keep hearing this kind of thing from people who assume that all fans of something should want to see more things that resemble them by default without any more nuance to it.

It won’t actually improve much that’s worth it

I’m going to be blunt about it: I think more people who supposedly want this 02 reboot are people who hate or dislike 02 than people who actually are fans of the series, because they’re doing this under the sentiment that “this was a bad series, so a redo would improve it.” You can especially tell because a lot of people acting like a reboot is in 02′s best interest are the same people being scathingly critical of the current Adventure: reboot right now, so you can see that this kind of mentality comes from people who clearly understand that a reboot won’t necessarily be something everyone likes all that much, and thus believe 02 is so unsalvageably bad that you couldn’t possibly make it worse. So you can probably understand why I’m not exactly patient with this kind of take.

If we are to be charitable, though -- if this sentiment comes out of a genuine feeling that 02 had missed potential that could be addressed by the reboot -- I want to ask everyone if they really believe that this theoretical reboot would be a net improvement, especially one that’s worth all the time and effort involved, and even more especially given the writing style that the current Adventure: reboot is employing. You don’t have to claim it’s a perfect series or anything to understand the sentiment that it held up enough by itself to not necessitate a whole anime series being made to do another take on it.

Something I would like to remind people who love to claim that 02 is such a despised series is that it made around 89% of Adventure’s revenue at the time it aired, and despite those who despise 02 being very vocal on the Internet, the actual mainstream tends to be very positive about it, especially in terms of anything to do with Ken (whom most reasonable people will agree had a character arc that deserves acclaim). So in other words, if you want to do a reboot, most likely you would want to do it without offending the base that likes the series already, right? (Especially since, you know, recent events have proven that upsetting the real-life 02 fanbase is actually a pretty inadvisable idea...)

Here’s the thing: Once you filter out most of the “scapegoat” reasons people tend to criticize 02, the one that’s generally the most agreed upon is how disorganized the plot gets in the second half. So this so-called ideal situation reboot would supposedly iron out all of the messy plot writing and make use of the “wasted potential” the series had -- but 02 was way more than just a narrative storyline with characters walking around in it, and when it comes to the reasons people were so drawn to it, they’re tied to the series themes about regrets and making up for the past, and about the unreasonable pressures that society places on children. That, and also the most important one, the central theme of human relationships, and the charismatic and well-developed (yes, really) characters. The so-called “messier” second half of 02 was full of payoff for a lot of what was set up in the first half in regards to its themes, and a lot of its subplots or character flairs are packed in really small nuances that are easy to miss on the first watch.

What this means is that 02 is a series that works off of a lot of delicate balances. Adventure could be “rebooted” because everything was very clear-cut and straightforward, which meant that you could change almost everything about the plot and still relatively adhere to the primary points of “kids gain self-awareness through a journey in another world”. (Like, I really hate to break it to those who put Adventure on a pedestal, but this is mainly possible because Adventure doesn’t really have much of a plot besides “defeat enemy” followed by “defeat bigger enemy”...) In the case of 02, everything regarding the story is, for better or for worse, much more deeply tied to the plot, the narrative behind the Kaiser and the traces of psychological horror laced into everything, and the second-half evolution mechanic, Jogress, has a lot to do with the developments related to the human relationships narrative. Moreover, a lot of the reasons that people call it “bad” for are deeply tied to the exact same reasons a lot of people like it -- that its takes on certain topics were heavily nuanced and unconventional, meaning it could cover ground that most media wouldn’t go anywhere near -- and so the series loses too much of its identity if those aspects are removed, even if it ostensibly seems like “streamlining” it.

So if you mess with one thing, a lot of it falls apart -- and in fact, considering the writing style that the Adventure: reboot is using right now, it’s hard to imagine that applying it to 02 would make it any better. Actually, it seems like it wouldn’t address any of the grievances anyone has with it to any substantial degree, and it’d be more likely to axe all of the stuff that were integral to 02′s identity, like the social commentary, or the heavy focus on human relationships, or the unusual sort of character nuance it employed, and...basically, we go back to the same question: is this actually worth it?

02 itself was about not having this kind of sentiment

The main reason most 02 fans get upset about the 02 characters not being included in Adventure canon-related things that should rightfully include them is that, quite simply, they’re part of the canon! In fact, most 02 fans like Adventure too, so they like the way 02 built on Adventure’s worldbuilding, and moreover they’re attached to the web of relationships between the Adventure and 02 groups -- 02′s additions to Adventure’s worldbuilding and the nature of what it established around the neighborhoods of Odaiba and Tamachi were not only added on but also deeply entangled with what was established before, so you can’t just act like none of it exists!

So this also means that once we’re talking about a completely different universe, absolutely none of this applies and there’s no expectations to adhere to any of this. The 02 quartet doesn’t exist in this universe? Cool.

Funny thing about 02: one of the biggest themes the story revolved around was “not getting caught up in the past, and moving forward with what you have instead,” so it’s probably pretty understandable that a lot of people who like 02 would be the type who wouldn’t be fond of rehashing stuff too much (and even more so it involves 02 itself), especially since being okay with 02 as a sequel likely means being okay with change in general. To make something really new out of it, you might as well...actually make something new out of it, or cover some truly new territory, instead of bothering with this whole reboot business, you know?

One thing you might notice about a lot of 02 fans is that they’re not actually all that fond of the idea of canon putting the group through more massive suffering or emotional ordeals after 02 compared to most. I mean, I think it’s pretty normal to enjoy your favorite characters going through emotional trouble, but the aversion to it often tends to be much stronger than usual, regardless of what country’s fanbase we’re talking, and even the official staff for Kizuna seems to have somewhat recognized that the 02 group is most in its element when in the context of fun and silliness. All things considered, this probably isn’t particularly surprising when you take into account the fact that “just being able to hang out with each other as casual friends at all” was considered such a blessing, and such a difficult goal to reach, that there’s a natural aversion to seeing them go through more emotional suffering again. The new trailer for the upcoming movie seems to have Daisuke in a relatively good mood (and even then, “please don’t make it too emotionally vicious for them” is a pretty common plea).

So if you want to talk about rehashing all of their old problems, seeing it all over again is just not very fun. It’s like holding Ken’s sins over his head again, even if it’s in a different universe; it just doesn’t feel right when the series itself endorsed the best possible outcome for these kids to be “to live happily and at peace with themselves, no matter what happened beforehand”. They worked so hard to get out of it, so to decide we have to do this entire rodeo again for the sake of doing it again, instead of trying something new is...well, it’s not that appealing of an idea, I have to say.

The real-life impact would be intolerable

It’s no secret that the 02 hatedom is a bit uncomfortably vocal about it, but what tends to be really frustrating about it is how many of them love to dunk on the series based on misremembering it. It’s fair that, if you don’t like a series, you probably wouldn’t want to watch it again, but as someone who’s spent a lot of years unpacking all the little details in the series and noticing that it’s much deeper than it initially seems on the surface, it’s honestly annoying to see “criticism” of the series that’s actually just dunking on it based on details that are genuinely factually incorrect (it’d be one thing if it were a question of subjectivity, but no, so many of the insults 02 often gets are based on things that legitimately did not happen in the series).

In the end, I admit that 02′s penchant for ridiculous subtlety probably worked against it a bit too much, and I’ve already covered its impact on how the series gets misread a lot. Thing is, this kind of subtlety was a thing in Adventure too, and it all leads to the unfortunate effect that a lot of people tend to forget what actually happened in Adventure if they haven’t seen it for more than a few years. With the current reboot right now, you’ll see people saying that certain characters are the same as they were in the original series, even though in most respects they’re actually the opposite -- because a lot of said people only remember them by the surface characteristics that seem to be similar.

So when you look at 02, and consider the fact that even official media -- including the official American English dub and V-Tamer -- has been a bit too prone to not handling Daisuke’s character tastefully and reducing him to traits that make him easy to dislike, you might realize that handling these characters improperly runs an extremely high risk of actually turning them into the flat, unlikeable characters that people tend to accuse them of being -- imagine Daisuke where his entire character is about fixating over Hikari and being impulsive, or Miyako being nothing but self-centered and selfish, or Iori being genuinely stoic and missing the nuances of constantly holding his emotions back. And making it worse is that this would basically solidify these negative perceptions of the characters even further -- because people, especially those inclined to hate the series, would take it as further evidence that the characters have always been like this, reflect it back on the original, and everything would really just become a miserable experience. (Those who are particularly inclined to be malicious against 02 would probably even claim a reboot to be “better than the original” no matter whatever it is, because of the belief that 02 is so incredibly terrible that literally anything would be better than it.)

It’s not my business to dictate other people’s opinions, but it’s already been a frustrating twenty years of dealing with this kind of thing, so of course I’m not going to be enthusiastic about the idea of putting up with more of it...

#digimon #digimon adventure 02

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b-else-writes · 3 years

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the tiger shark and the sun

New chapter posted for my Star Wars/Avatar the Last Airbender-RebelCaptain fusion AU! Feat: Jyn calls Obi Wan an old fart, Jyn tells Luke and Leia to stop being melodramatic about becoming evil, dragons, and me ranting about the “evil sexy matriarchy” fantasy trope.

Read on AO3 | Read from start

Pairings: Jyn/Cassian, minor Han/Leia and Baze/Chirrut, random minor background pairings

Rating: T

Summary: Star Wars/Avatar the Last Airbender fusion AU. The Fire Nation, under Fire Lord Palpatine and Lord Vader, has been at War with the world for the last twenty years. When Jyn Erso lands on his doorstep the day Cassian, last southern waterbender, is assigned to protect the Avatar, she seems just another obstacle in ending the War. An obstacle he would willingly remove. For exiled firebender Jyn, the Avatar is her last way home - and to her hostaged father, never mind her own conscience. But as their paths keep crossing, and the Avatar needs all help in saving the world, Jyn and Cassian find they are more alike than they ever thought possible.

Snippet under the cut!

Jyn woke with a start, rapidly trying to figure out where she was. She was lying on a straw mattress in a stone room. The early morning light filtered in through a low window. On the ceiling were carvings of circling sky bisons.

Slowly, her memory returned. Jyn sat up, taking in the small room in Hynestia, the Western Air City. Cassian and Kay were nowhere in sight. He had removed her bracers and her boots sometime after she’d fallen asleep, and left then. But there was a dent on the mattress from where he’d been. She could still smell him – and his horrible lizard – and she gave herself a moment to imagine a world where someone like her…

She hastily shoved the thought aside. Another, more pressing concern than her unrequited feelings had emerged. She was supposed to teach. Jyn buckled on her bracers and slid her boots on quickly. She combed her fingers through her hair, repining the bun, and set about finding Enfys.

It took her a surprisingly short time to get around: the entire city seemed to have been developed and built for easy accessibility, with lifts, railings, and maps everywhere. Enfys, after she’d shown Jyn her room, had said she was going to the temple. Jyn found her and Luke curled up on the temple floor, fast asleep.

Jyn crouched and poked her. “Wake up!” she hissed.

Enfys groaned, red braids falling in her face. “Jyn, it’s only dawn…”

“Enfys, I need your help.” Luke made a noise but continued to snore. Jyn pursed her lips. “I’ll make you those wheat pancakes with dates and honey you love,” she said in her sweetest voice.

Enfys cracked one eye open. “We don’t have honey or dates.”

“I brought a jar as a peace offering,” she admitted. There was a pause. With a groan, Enfys extricated herself from Luke’s arms, pulling her cape on. Luke made a little grumble and rolled over. Jyn refrained from commenting as Enfys trailed after her to the central atrium. Enfys was perfectly liable to turn it right back on her.

As Jyn got the ingredients out from her satchel on the war balloon, Enfys asked, “So, what’s the issue?”

Swallowing her pride, “How did you teach the twins?”

There was another long pause. “You didn’t think this through at all, did you?” Enfys said, covering her mouth with her hand. Jyn glared. “I’m not laughing, I’m not!”

“I hate you,” Jyn said, swatting the date jar away from Enfys’ grip.

“No, you don’t,” Enfys said happily, dipping one finger in the honey jar and licking it. Jyn crouched to light the cookfire. It took a moment for the flame to appear on her fingertips. She frowned, but Enfys continued to speak, refocusing her attention. “Well, for me it was simple – I just followed how I was taught by my mother and aunts and elders. I already had a lesson plan ingrained in me.”

Jyn shook her head, feeling her pulse race, though it had been a decade since Master Jorus had backhanded her to perform better. “That…is not going to work.”

Enfys’ face clouded over. She stood from her perch and began to help Jyn, brushing her hands against hers. “Well, then, start simple. Like how to produce fire. And go from there. Basic punches and blocks, you do that a lot, don’t you?”

“They’re called fire fists.”

“My mistake,” Enfys said, her eyes sparkling with mirth, “Fire fists and fire kicks and fiery-ness and aallll that.”

Jyn bit back a smile, extending the plate with honey-drizzled wheat pancakes. “For her highness, the Queen of Mon Cala.”

Enfys immediately grabbed it, digging in with a moan of delight. “One of the few things from the Fire Nation worth saving,” she said, her mouth full of food.

“What’s the rest?”

“Don’t fish for compliments,” Enfys said easily, making Jyn grin. As Baze and Chirrut came in, Enfys added, “Just remember to be patient.”

“I am a beacon of patience.”

Enfys laughed. “I meant with yourself, Jyn. You’re doing something new and difficult. So be kind to yourself as you figure it out.”

She sighed, resting her head against her best friend’s shoulder. “And yet you won’t share your portion with me?” she asked, fighting down her own rising panic.

“You’re impossible,” Enfys laughed, giving her a kiss on the cheek. “Now eat up for your first big lesson, Master Jyn.”

Jyn stretched and popped out her muscles. She, Luke, and Leia stood in a beautiful courtyard of cream and white clay and wood. She imagined it must have been a communal space when Hynestia had still housed Air Nomads. She didn’t like dwelling on that too long. She could still feel…something clinging to the place. Fire child, they whispered, stroking her face and hair, this is what your people did.

She would have preferred pure hatred, but she felt that was not their way. It would have been easier than guilt. Especially when she saw the sadness in Enfys’ eyes.

Jyn focused back on the twins. Both wore expressions of trepidation, Leia in particular throwing her suspicious looks. Jyn tried not to take it too personally. “Have either of you ever firebent before?”

They exchanged a look. “Once,” Luke said, shifting a little, “We… we burnt Cassian by accident.”

Multiple statements immediately became clear in Jyn’s head. She pushed aside her own empathy for Cassian – and her instinctive urge to get angry on his behalf. Cassian held no grudge about it. Patiently, she said, “Most firebenders accidentally burn themselves or others when they’re starting out as children. It’s…normal.

“Alright then, let’s see what fire you can produce,” she said, folding her hands behind her back. Keep patient. Don’t be like Master Jorus. Don’t be what the Air Nomads know you could be. The summer heat touched the scars on her arms.

Exchanging another uneasy glance, the twins sank into a low hot-squat, good form, and punched.

A puff of smoke came out.

“That’s it?” Leia glared. Jyn resisted the very powerful urge to groan. “Let me demonstrate,” she said. Her muscle memory was so honed that Jyn didn’t even need to think. She sank and punched, sleeves billowing.

She produced a tiny gasp of flame.

Leia began clapping. Jyn scowled. “Don’t patronize, you know what it’s supposed to look like,” she grumbled. Jyn punched again. She slid into various forms, again and again. Only wisps of flame. “What in the…”

“Maybe you were never as good as you thought you were,” Leia said, grinning slightly.

“Oh, you’re hilarious,” Jyn snapped, trying in vain to produce more flame.

“Maybe it’s the altitude?” Luke suggested, though he didn’t look convinced. Jyn stared at her hands. Her inner flame felt cold and dull in her chest, despite the sunlight pouring over her skin. Sól, give me power, she thought, but none came.

Her firebending was gone. Somewhere, she could feel Master Jorus laughing.

The group sat around the cookfire, eating and chatting. The summer days were long, Chirrut knew. He could still feel heat despite the dinner hour. Baze had passed him his bowl, their fingers brushing. He smiled, gripping Baze’s fingers momentarily and grounding them both.

He heard Jyn clear her throat to speak. “There’s…a problem. I’ve lost my firebending. Well, not lost…but it’s weaker now and I can’t figure it.”

Chirrut considered as he munched. Bending was inherently spiritual, something that many had now forgotten, preferring to use as a blunt instrument. Jyn had never struck him before as someone who wanted to look within herself.

“Maybe it’s because you changed sides,” Cassian spoke up. Chirrut’s seismic sense could feel Jyn immediately perk up and orient towards him. Oh, young love. “Your firebending used to come from anger and desperation. Now you have none.”

“So, what? We piss Erso off?” Han asked, poking Erso with his sword butt.

Jyn kicked him in the shin. “Cut that out! It’s not an option.”

“What you need is a new source,” Chirrut said. “And by that, I mean an old one. The original. For earthbending, the first earthbenders were the badgermoles. When I was young, I ran away and hid in a cave. A blind child was better off gone.”

He still remembered the pain and fear as he had fled Jedha’s orphanage, stumbling through the crowds of people out into the scorching, shifting ground he had learnt was sand. Finding his way into the Catacombs. Surrounding by the dead, as he imagined he would soon become.

The Spirits had other plans. There had been a great crunch of rock, and a soft, wet snout had nosed him. They had recognized him as one of their own. “The badgermoles are also born blind. I learnt earthbending as an extension of my senses. Earthbending is not a martial art – it is a way of interacting and moving through the world, and that is the form I taught Luke and Leia.”

The wonder he had felt as he began to feel the world expanding outwards beneath his palms and feet. The grubs and creatures that lurked beneath the desert sand. The hardy plants that nourished from the earth. The secret oases. The possibilities that had exploded to him. His only regret was that it was no help to non-benders and other benders, but Chirrut was nothing if not stubborn. He had tried to help them too, as a Guardian of the Whills.

“Firebending isn’t like that,” Jyn said quietly, standing up and pacing.

“But surely you must know who the original firebenders were,” Enfys said, “I learnt from my Tribe, but the first airbenders were the sky bison. That’s influenced our bending to use gliders to fly, to our culture!”

Jyn walked over to Chirrut. He felt the same turmoil of his childhood self, in her. “It won’t work. The first firebenders were the dragons, and they’re extinct. There’s no other way.”

Baze squeezed Jyn’s hand. “There is always another way.”

Jyn was silent for a moment. When she spoke, he felt the vibrations. There is something she is concealing. “We’re not far from the island of Dathomir. The witches of Dathomir were said to be the first to learn firebending from the Dragons. They were killed off thousands of years ago. You still hear stories, but there’s no proof their society still exists. We might find something. Otherwise…”

“Sometimes the shadows of the past can be felt by the present,” Chirrut said. Several of the group shifted uncomfortably.

“We don’t have much of a choice,” Luke said, “Han, can we borrow the Falcon?”

keep reading

#rebelcaptain #rogue one #jyn x erso #star wars #jyn erso #cassian andor #atla #au: atla #zutara #my fic

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heloflor · 3 years

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They’re gay, Orton

AO3 Link

“Hey ! Don’t do that ! I don’t have a time machine to go back and un-die you.”

“And if you get hurt, I don’t have one either !”

“Aww. That was touching.”

Note : Just a little drabble I wanted to make because, when I think of the crossover, it never fails to make me laugh to see Orton comment on how cute Cavendish and Dakota are with each other, only to make Doctor Zone and Time Ape brothers in his show. Orton is a guy from the 60s with no gaydar whatsoever and I find this hilarious. On that same note, I also went back to see how Time Ape is described in “The Doctor Zone Files” and it’s pretty interesting how he’s a “transchronological being” who chose his current form. So this fic is a very short thing that covers both these ideas.

Despite what the title and summary may indicate, this fic takes place when the group of adults just got stuck into the timestream and is more focused on Cavendish and Dakota than Orton (making titles and summaries is hard, alright).

(And regarding something in the fic, yes I know Dakota knows the word “peculiar”, as we see in “School Dance” for example; but I wanted to make a “Dakota doesn’t know complicated words” moment for once.)

This fic also goes into the direction of what I wrote last time, with Cavendish and Dakota being married but hiding their relationship due to homophobia from the past.

Enjoy !

Vinnie was bored.

He didn’t know how long they’ve been stuck in the time-stream, he didn’t know if there even was a point of wondering it. But what he knew is that he wasn’t going to be able to just sit there in silence for much longer. He needed some form of stimulation. Something, anything that could busy his mind.

He looked at the man facing him. Balth was messing with their intercommunicator, surely in an attempt to get them out of here.

“Hey.”, Vinnie tried to get his attention.

“One moment. I’m trying something.”, the taller man grumbled, getting more and more frustrated with the device.

Vinnie sighed. “Maybe I should just sing the zoo song.”, he murmured.

“Please don’t.”

“Why not ?”

“I don’t want to spend all eternity listening to the same two verses.”, his husband explained, putting the communicator away.

“Aw come on ! It’s a good song !”, Vinnie playfully replied. Balth didn’t budge and only looked more annoyed. “Besides, it makes me happy. Unlike the way a certain someone just keeps complaining.”, he continued playfully.

“Hmph.”, Vinnie immediately regretted his words as he noticed the hurt in Balth’s eyes along with the anger he was conveying.

“Hey, I’m sorry.”, he took Balth’s hand in his. “Y-you know I didn’t mean it like that. I don’t hate it when you complain. Well, it’s a tad annoying…but you get the point.”, he shrugged.

His husband nodded, making it clear that he understood. His eyes, however, kept looking between their joined hands and the man sitting next to Vinnie. Orton was scribbling again, stopping for a second to give the pair a glance before going back to his writing, only to freeze and look at the two again.

“Something on your mind ?”, Vinnie couldn’t help but ask the man.

“Oh. I’m sorry.”, Orton replied, almost looking like a child who was caught eavesdropping. “It’s just that the two of you have such a peculiar relationship.”

“Pecu-what ?”, the shorter man asked.

“Peculiar.”, Balth explained with an eye-roll. “It means strange but fascinating.”, the taller man turned his attention to the future TV star. “What makes you say such a thing ?”

“It’s the way you two act.”, Orton explained. “Since I’ve met you earlier, you kept arguing about anything and everything. But you always manage to keep working with each other and get along, as if all those arguments never happened at all.”

“Huh. I guess we do argue a lot.”, Vinnie commented while glancing at his husband with a smile. The taller man, however, was still focused on the other man. And was it just Vinnie, or did Balth looked tense, almost afraid ?

“It’s funny to see such a friendship.”, Orton continued. “It’s like the two of you were brothers.”

“B-brothers ?!”, Balth spluttered.

Vinnie couldn’t help but chuckle at the idea, not helped by Balthazar’s reaction. In all his years of time-travel, he and Balth had been called a lot of things. But acting like brothers ? As in biological brothers and not brothers in arms ? From someone less than two centuries away from their time-period ? That was new. Vinnie had to admit, he would never stop being surprised by how oblivious people could be in the past, no matter how close to his present they were.

“Actually,”, Vinnie decided to correct. “we’re marr-“

“Yes, just like brothers !”, Balth interrupted, laughing awkwardly. Vinnie could only frown as the taller man silenced him with his hand. “After everything we’ve been through so much together, it’s like we always knew each other !”

“Yeah.”, the shorter man grumpily continued after removing Balth’s hand from his face. “And you should really tell your wife how great of a brother in-law she has.”, Vinnie tried to keep a relaxed tone, though he couldn’t help but glare at the man.

Balth returned his glare but stayed silent. From the corner of his eye, Vinnie could see his husband playing with his ring, his fingers slowly rubbing the metal.

“Can any of you help me with this ?”, Professor Time suddenly interrupted. He and his platypus friend were trying to push one of the cabinets of the time-machine.

“I can help !”, Orton replied as he stood up.

Once the other men were all out of earshot, the remaining pair had the same thought. Balth grabbed Vinnie’s arm and their face came closer.

“This man is from the 60s.”, Balth half-shouted half-whispered. “We can’t just go around telling him about our relationship !”

“He’s a nice guy !”, Vinnie argued.

“Just because he’s helping us now doesn’t mean he will be fine with two men liking each other !”

“But what if he does ? And if he doesn’t, so what ? He sees us as his friends. If he cares for us, he can realize that there’s nothing wrong with it and that we’re just normal people ! And what if he doesn’t think about it because it’s not a thing for him ? Because that doesn’t mean he’s against it !”

“Dakota.”, Balth took a deep breath, seemingly deflating. “Listen. The world is in grave danger. We might be the only people left who aren’t plants. If we tell Orton about us, we might cause a divide in the group. And we can’t afford that right now !”, after a quick look at the taco stand, he took Vinnie’s hand in his, gently rubbing it with his thumb. “We need to keep our relationship a secret from everyone. This is the safest thing we can do, especially with what’s happening right now. We simply cannot risk it.”

“…”, Vinnie sighed. “I hate it when you’re right about this.”, he pulled away, crossing his arms. “Alright, I won’t tell him. But that doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it.”

“I don’t expect you to be.”, his husband replied with a more compassionate tone.

When Orton came back to the table, he looked at the pair curiously but didn’t make any comment. He simply sat back, his head on the table. And that was the end of it.

Vinnie was still feeling a bit angry. If there was one thing he couldn’t stand about his marriage, it was the need to hide it just because of what some people might do to him. To Balth. But at least he learnt to live with this lie. And Balth was much more affectionate when they were in the present, making the whole thing bearable.

…And now that this entire talk was done, and with the two men at the table having the same idea to try sleeping, he yet again found himself with nothing to do but be bored.

-----

After what felt like forever, they finally got their hands on some time juice. Thanks to the strange way the time-stream worked, the group somehow found the moment Vinnie got the clocks into it. Now they were almost on their way to 1965, waiting for Professor Time to fuel his time-machine.

“We are finally going to have a chance to get rid of those pistachios once and for all.”, Balth said not without relief, echoing Vinnie’s thoughts.

“Yeah.”, the shorter man replied. “And it’s about time too. If we’d have stayed stuck here several days, I would’ve started running out of those.”, forgetting about the time-period of the people around him, he took his testosterone doses out of his pocket.

“Since when do you carry those with you ?”, Balth commented.

“For a while now, in case it runs out.”, Vinnie elbowed his husband. “Looks like you’re starting to rub off on me.”

“It’s about time.”, the taller man replied with a small smile.

“Wait.”, Professor Time suddenly interrupted, the time-juice container in hand. “Why do you need to take hormones ?”, the professor gasped. “Does that mean you’re-! Wow, the future must have great surgeons, I never would’ve guessed !”

“Thanks.”, Vinnie couldn’t help but chuckle. While the man with the annoying voice definitely wasn’t the portrait he made of the great hero who invented time-travel, there was still some pride in seeing the great Professor Time compliment him.

“They sure do.”, Balth replied as well, putting a hand on Vinnie’s shoulder. Whether it was in jealousy from seeing his hero compliment someone else or in protection due to what the professor may have grown up to believe about men like him, Vinnie couldn’t tell.

“Wait. What are you referring to ?”, Orton asked.

“Oh. Uhhh.”, Vinnie and Balth shared a look, and the shorter man didn’t miss how his husband immediately tensed. But now that the TV star heard, it would be rude not to answer him. “H-how to explain it simply…”

“Just do it like you were telling it to a child.”, Balth suggested in a lower voice. “You like children, right ?”

“Yeah. Yeah ok. Alright.”, Vinnie cleared his throat, his attention back on Orton, a man who was definitely not like a child. He felt Balth let go of him. Not helping, he mentally grumbled. “You see…when-when I was a kid…let’s just say I didn’t look like I do know. I mean, of course I grew up and changed but, ahem. Look, let’s just say that, when I was born, I wasn’t born a boy. I-I looked like a girl.”

“You were born a girl ?!”, despite his tone, Orton looked more fascinated than repulsed.

“Noooot exactly. I always was a boy. But when I was a kid, I, well I guess it was like I was trapped in a girl’s body. Everyone thought I was a girl, and for a while, I thought I did too. But I always wanted to look more like my brother. I often tried to wear his clothes and do things like him.”, Vinnie found himself smile at the memory. It was such a long time ago…”Eventually, I realized that I was a boy. So when I became a teenager, my oldest brother made sure I grew up like one. And here I am now.”

“So you were born with a different body, like a woman’s body, but chose to become a man ?”

“I wouldn’t say I chose but, yeah I guess that’s the main idea.”, Vinnie shrugged.

“Fascinating. I’m not sure I understand everything about it but…”, the TV star started writing in his notepad again. Vinnie hoped it didn’t mean bad news for him.

“You don’t have to understand it.”, Balth interrupted, his hand back on his husband’s shoulder. “The only thing to understand is that Dakota is a man, in both mind and body.”

“Oh you sure would know that.~”, the shorter man couldn’t help but joke, earning a glare from the taller man.

“Alright gang !”, Professor Time interjected as he got back to the counter. “The time-juice is in. And this time, we’ll have enough to go in and out. 1965, here we come !”

Note : For those curious about my headcanons : Dakota has three siblings, two brothers and one sister. Also the brother mentioned for the clothes is two years older than Vinnie, which is mostly why Vinnie went to him to get some clothes since it wouldn’t be that big on him. Also also, Vinnie is the youngest of the siblings (he’s the baby bro and he sometimes “hates” it, mostly because he has no-one to tease/coddle like the other three do, especially the two oldest).

This is the first time I not only write about a trans character but also made the fact that they’re trans be a subject of discussion; so I hope I did ok on that front.

And speaking of which, for those wondering about that too : I don’t see Heinz as a trans man. He’s definitely a crossdresser, and I completely understand why people see him as trans, but personally, I don’t really see it. So him being completely fine with Vinnie is less about him being able to relate and more about him being a decent person.

And one last thing : yes, Vinnie “””“”fully””””” transitioned. Hence the “both in mind and body” part (and my god does this sound transphobic when said like that…and that’s coming from someone who’s enby and wants to transition to male). So while I doubt that I’ll ever mention what Dakota has in his pants, don’t expect me to write something in which he falls pregnant or is able to.

Thanks for reading !

#Milo Murphy's Law #mml #Vinnie Dakota #Balthazar Cavendish #Dakavendish #Heinz Doofenshmirtz #Orton Mahlson #trans Vinnie Dakota #my fanfics #mml spoilers ???#not really #but who knows #if I did something wrong in the representation #please don't kill me #tell me I messed up #but spare my life

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hamliet · 3 years

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I think your blog is one of the best out there. Maybe becuase of this , maybe because of your awesome takes... I find it hard being in the fandom. And I wanted to share this very unpopular opinion. The more it goes on the more I wonder : how did Enji turned into this? Most of all in fandom tends to justify touya because he’s the result of Enji’s abuse. However Enji isn’t a natural born abuser. I’ve read and saw plenty: he has not manias of control. He accept easily his wife to leave him (he wanted to build an house for her and since Shoto’s accident he hadn’t forced himself on her). He wanted an heir, true and he was more neglecting (which is a form of abuse). But many time were found evidences in studies neglecting parents have issues of their own. Which can be found in their original family and / or society (if no mental illnesses are implied).

This made me wonder. I love Japanese culture , novels and society. And one of the most recurrent theme , especially some decades ago, is the high pressure people are exposed. It was and sometimes still is a nichilist model in which you die or fly and sometime you can’t hope to Rise once again when you fail. For example the concept of “you need to go at a go prek to get in a good university and find a good job” is often depict and put to extreme in many media. This inspire even books in which families are up for anything to push their children and they are under great pressure. Since Enji seems a not so bad man per se, has no mental illnesses , the only thing left is his immense obsession that must come from something. And the fact that in society a man must be successful... I think here it is.

The fact he can’t express his feeling correctly for the most of MHA , neither he can’t read them at the point of being perceived “with no compassion at all” comply the stereotype of the father with way too high standard , this can’t come from nothing. It’s not hard unreasonable thinking he was most likely pressured as much when younger , and that broke him at some point (which is a recursive theme in many others novels). This doesn’t justify him, but it might explain why he ended up like this.

But while everyone seems to be able to... forgive dabi , justifying his doings becuase of how he was raised while condamning 100% Enji. However the lingering theme of my hero’s villains is that they aren’t a monster , they’re turned into one; and society played a huge role. I don’t stand for Enji’s actions (who would) but ultimately? If all villains were broken by society at some point (being AFO the only exception for now) why can’t be him too? Broken by a society that demands from heroes to be perfect , to never be weak, even through total desperation? Society even made a joke of all might who gave his life entirely and part of his organs for Japan. Rather than only condemning Enji for his doings , much like is doing with Dabi, the spotlight should be society again.

He did wrong. Terribly wrong. and now everyone is ready to crucify him. But how society taught him better ? How society perceive heroes as humans , how far they can be weak and fails and not be blamed? Like father , like son. Touya is the result of his family , I think it should be considerated Enji was the product of a corrupted society. Which never correct itself , never tries to change... they just discard heroes and villains alike just for not being “perfect”.

Hi! Aw, thank you for your kind words <3

So, I’ll break this down a bit, because I think this discussion needs a lot of nuance. I agree society affected Enji, but I don’t quite think that a victim of society is remotely comparable to being a victim of parental abuse.

To start with, I fundamentally disagree with the notion that abusers are born, and hence don’t buy that Enji is somehow different (or better) because he wasn’t born that way.

To note, I talking specifically about physical/emotional/spiritual domestic abuse, not about sexual abuse (and I don’t wanna talk about that because it’s not relevant here, so no one send me asks about it, thanks).

Abuse is a description of an action and its affects. I’ll quote @linkspooky’s meta on Hawks last week: abuser is not a bad word, it’s not just something that bad people do. It’s an unhealthy relationship dynamic that even good people, even sympathetic people can participate in. It’d be great if we could just do a genetic test and determine if someone is an abuser (actually it wouldn’t be great; it’d be dystopian and terrifying), but that’s not how people work.

However, “abuser” is seen as a bad word, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing (nuance/abuse is horrific and takes such a toll on people that I’m glad it is given serious weight in some respects, although imo it’s overemphasized in fandom places and underemphasized in real life) and I’m not getting into good/bad/pluses/minuses of linguistic connotations here.

Hence, I would actually categorize what Rei did to Shouto as abuse, and I do think the story indicates she was neglectful towards her other children. However, I have never labeled her an “abuser” because of the negative connotation as is clear she is not a repeat offender and Shouto doesn’t even blame her--he blames Enji, and I don’t think that’s an incorrect assessment either. It’s complicated. Abuse victims can be abusers at the same time as they are victims (ask many a kid of an abusive dad what their mom was like; at best if they didn’t intervene it’s usually neglectful and often people go no contact with both parents). People we love and care for can participate in abuse.

Mental illness is also complex in its relationship to abuse. Mentally ill people are far more likely to be victims of abuse than perpetrators, and mental illness doesn’t make someone predisposed to being a bad person. Mental illness does affect how I see Rei’s actions, because she was clearly out of her mind at the moment she burned Shouto’s face; at the same time, mental illness doesn’t erase harm done even if the person can’t be held super culpable. Enji on the other hand was not mentally ill in the same way; he was able to think logically and separate right from wrong even within society (because society clearly still views beating your kids as bad).

It’s actually not really accurate to say that Endeavor didn’t try to control Rei and just let her go--he put her in the institution to keep her away from Shouto, which may have been motivated of course by trying to protect Shouto, but was more likely “trying to protect his masterpiece.” Rei instantly regretted what she had done; Enji didn’t show regret until after Kamino. Also, Shouto himself views it as taking their mother away, not as protecting him. In fact, he sees it as removing his protector and leaving him with just the abusive dad. Plus, Rei’s doctors probably wouldn’t have let him see her. So I absolutely do think Enji is a control freak.

For Enjii, there’s no indication of prior trauma besides just not getting what he wanted. But, as you say, I do think Enji was absolutely a product of society--culturally, though I’m not qualified to comment on that, and within the manga’s own framing of that culture. However, while Enji is a product of society, he is not framed with the child framing that is present around Touya; hence, why he’s not a victim in the same sense. He was an adult when he started doing bad things, capable of reason, as far as we know and there’s no indication this isn’t the case. He was ~20 when Dabi was born, so that means he was looking for a quirk marriage at the very latest by 19. That’s like starting your career as an administrative assistant and being pissed you’re not CEO like, a year after starting! That implies that he had a sense of entitlement at a very young age, entitled to the point of believing kids were not full people but instead extensions of himself to ignore, beat up, and cast aside as he pleased. Every aspect of Enji’s personality screams of toxic masculinity as well.

Also, almost every person who has ever done something wrong (and those who haven’t!) is a product of their environment as well as of their genetics, but I wouldn’t classify everyone as a victim--even though technically I suppose they would be, but the connotations are just not particularly fitting--and I wouldn’t call Enji one. Enji might be a product of society, but his kids are victims of a deliberate choice he had to be a terrible parent. Society sucks, but we don’t choose it and it doesn’t choose us in the same sense a parent chooses to treat their kids a particular way. So, rather than saying Enji’s a victim of society, I think it’s more of society reaping what they’ve sown in terms of their #1 being revealed as a mass abuser; it’s karmic.

So to return to his character and Enji is also a representation of toxic masculinity--that is why for me personally, his crying this chapter actually resonated. Like, I think it was well-framed in that his victims didn’t feel sorry for him and he cried before he knew they were coming, and while I get that people think he has no right to cry (as Rei and Natsuo said!). I see why people interpret that as manipulative, and while I absolutely think it was self-pitying, I also personally see it as human and realistic, and perhaps as a slight chipping away of the toxic masculinity that he embodies. We’ll see. I’m still no fan but that was the first moment in his redemption arc that struck me as sincere.

#Anonymous #abuse tw #endeavor

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sleepymarmot · 3 years

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I think Martin’s stance in the argument in MAG 194 was consistent with the opinions he’d voiced before.

Long post with a lot of quotes under the cut.

Martin’s Mindset

1) Killing avatars is good even if they seem nice (the line Martin draws is at killing a child):

172: [Jon: I don’t think he’s evil.] Oh, yeah, sure; he’s probably a really kind, benevolent ruler of a hellish fear prison.

173: Wh, What about the Avatar? I know you said it didn’t change anything, th-the domain would still exist, but at this point I don’t care, alright? Anyone who’s chosen to spend their apocalypse tormenting children – God, you need to end them. Now.

174: Why not [kill Simon]? Because he was nice to you? Because he was charming, because he was fun?

174: You’re removing evil from the world.

2) Making new avatars is not good:

184: [Jordan: What is this?] [Thin-lipped] Yeah, I’m curious about that myself.

184: [Jordan: Why?] Good question. Jon? Care to enlighten us?

184: [Jon: Didn’t want to just watch you suffer.] It’s what you’ve been doing for everyone else. It’s what you’re expecting him to do.

3) Being at peace with one’s existence as an avatar is bad:

185: Would he enjoy it? (...) Leave him.

186: But I can’t keep existing like this at their expense. It’s not… it’s not right. Whatever happens with Elias, W-with the rest of the world… I can’t live on the misery of others.

186: I get it, okay? I can’t decide what happens to them. But… I just might be able to decide what happens to me. And… And if it comes down to it…I’ll get John to destroy me like the others.

4) Being the one to decide who benefits and who suffers is a terrible responsibility:

185: [Jon: I’m sorry I put you in that position.] No, you were right to. That’s… that’s a lot of power to have to deal with. Lot of responsibility.

“And what? Replace them with new avatars from the people who don’t want to?”

Martin was very enthusiastic about killing avatars, yes. But the reverse? Not really. Both times the idea of turning the Watched into Watchers came up, it was Jon’s initiative. 184 is self-evident, but even in 185, where Martin is the one to make the decision, it’s Jon who asks him:

Inspector: You’ve got to help me! Jon: Martin? What do you think? Martin: What? Jon: I decided about Jordan. This place is from your past.

“I saw the kick you got out of making them scream for once”

I think this part of the argument caught many of us off guard. We all remember how much Martin pushed Jon towards killing avatars despite Jon’s discomfort, ethical dubiousness and practical pointlessness of that endeavour. But Martin isn’t simply projecting his own feelings onto Jon -- he did enjoy that too, this did not come out of nowhere this week:

166:

Helen: Oh, hello! In a better mood, are we? Feeling more secure now you’ve learned how to kill? Jon: Something like that.

Martin: I don’t see why you were being so coy about it – Jon: Because I’m ashamed, Martin. Martin: Ashamed?! Jon: Yes! Ashamed of the fact that I just – destroyed the world and have been rewarded for it, the fact that – I can walk safe through all this horror I’ve created like a… fucking tourist, destroying whoever I please. The fact that I… enjoyed it, and… the fact that there are so many others that I want to revenge myself on!

169:

Martin: John, is there another way? Jon: I mean – sort of? Maybe? Martin: That turn. You – You took a hard turn after the roots back there; I knew that was a thing! Why are we here? Jon: It’s just – when you said – Martin: Jon, why have you taken us here? Jon: Jude Perry. This is where Jude Perry rules. Martin: That’s the one who burned your hand, isn’t it? Jon: Yes.

Jon: I want revenge on Jude Perry. I want to… smite her. Make her feel what – What all her victims felt.

Jon: I’m here for you, Jude. To end you. Jude: (...) You’re bluffing. Jon: You know I’m not. You’re already afraid. Jude: Oh, I see. I get it. You finally get a sniff of power, and the first thing you do is try to settle some old scores. Play the big man; get off on good old-fashioned petty revenge. Jon: I’d have thought that was a mindset you would appreciate. Now, feel it. All the terror and pain you’ve inflicted. Jude: Oh, piss off – Look, look. Wait. Right? I’m sorry, okay? I shouldn’t have burned your hand. Jon: No. You shouldn’t have.

171:

Martin: Why didn’t we go after the landlord guy? In the tenement. (...) Jon: It didn’t seem worth it. I didn’t – hate him like I hated her. He never hurt me.

174:

Jon: I just – This whole… avenging angel thing, I, I’m not – It doesn’t feel right. Martin: It seemed to feel right when we were avenging all the wrongs done against you. Jon: I know. I, I, I know, alright? But well – That’s kind of the problem; I, I have all this – power, and, and I want to use it to try to help, but I – I don’t know – I mean, I do. I-I’ve done so much damage, and – and anything that might help to balance that is – But killing other Avatars is, is not – I, I don’t think it makes anything better. I think it just makes me worse.

“You weren’t meant to enjoy [Kill Bill] this much!”

Initially, Martin enthusiastically suggested killing avatars because he thought it would improve the world:

166:

Martin: Th, This isn’t like it was before! We’re not talking about innocent bystanders in cafes here, Jon; these things are – th-they’re just evil, plain and simple, and right now they’re torturing and tormenting everyone! If you want to stop them and have the power to, then – then, then yeah, let’s do it, let’s go full Kill Bill!

169:

Martin: It’s not just your revenge though, is it? Destroying her… it would help all those people in there, wouldn’t it? Jon: Maybe? It’s… Like I said, I can’t see the future. It wouldn’t free them, if that’s what you’re asking. ‘Free’ doesn’t really exist in this place.

Jon: She’s gone. Martin: The fires are still here. Doesn’t look like much has changed. Jon: No. I suppose not. Martin: Let’s just get out of here.

171:

Martin: Why didn’t we go after the landlord guy? In the tenement. Jon: Arthur Nolan? Martin: Yeah. He’s still there, right? Jon: After Jude, th,the fires – I,I didn’t want to put you through anymore. Martin: Don’t do that. Jon: What? Martin: Don’t use me as an excuse. Jon: I-I’m not. I just – It didn’t seem worth it. I didn’t – hate him like I hated her. He never hurt me. Martin: But all the people inside. Jon: Killing Nolan wouldn’t have made it stop. It would just leave it – unsupervised. Martin: John – we are doing good, right? Making things better? Jon: I don’t know if that was ever an option.

173:

Martin: We’ve got to help them. Jon: How? Martin: I – I don’t know! I’m not the one who’s supposed to know everything, alright? There has to be something we can do!

Martin: Wh, What about the Avatar? I know you said it didn’t change anything, th-the domain would still exist, but at this point I don’t care, alright? Anyone who’s chosen to spend their apocalypse tormenting children – God, you need to end them. Now.

Jon: You see? Martin: See what, John; what am I supposed to see? That you don’t want to kill a – thirteen year old kid? Big revelation. Jon: I don’t know what you want me to do. Martin: I want you to use your power. I want you to help them; I want you to make things better! Jon: There is no better anymore. Martin: You keep – saying that, and I hate it! Jon: I keep saying it because it keeps being true; you know that! Martin: What I know, is that leaving children here is – (struggles for words) i-it’s inexcusable; it’s monstrous! Jon: Martin. Tell me what you want me to do, and I will do it!

Martin: Let’s get out of here. Jon: If you’re sure. Martin: The sooner we get back to the Archives, the sooner we can put a stop to this. All of this. They just – They’ll just need to hang on a little longer.

174:

Martin: You’re removing evil from the world. Jon: I, I’m not though, am I? The tenement fire is still burning. The mortal garden is growing wild. The carousel –

Hypocrisy?

As we see in the quotes above, both Jon and Martin were swept up by the feeling of newfound power and the idea of revenge. For Jon, pessimistic about the state of the world and personally hurt by some of the avatars they encountered on the road, it was mostly about personal vengeance. Martin, on the other hand, doesn’t have such a painful history with the avatars whose domains they pass, and the lack of Beholding-sourced knowledge and despair allows him to hold onto a false hope, making this an ideologically driven crusade.

With this in mind, let’s go back to 194:

Martin: I know what it’s like to be powerless. A-And I know you do too. And I also know what it’s like when you get a taste of– wh-when you’re finally able to–

Jon: What happened to “Kill Bill”? Martin: You weren’t meant to enjoy it this much!

These lines sound a lot like regret. Maybe I’m overestimating Martin’s level of self-awareness here, but it seems he has realized they both got drunk on power, and he pushed Jon in a direction he shouldn’t have. Unfortunately, in the heat of the moment he puts all blame on Jon instead of taking responsibility for his own actions. Let’s hope that he apologizes later!

To be entirely clear, I think that the way Martin consistently treats Jon like a gun instead of a person in this subplot is in itself a problem. When Jon is ashamed of enjoying vengeance too much, Martin doesn’t like it; when he lets himself enjoy it, Martin disapproves too as we now know. Let’s look at three crucial points in the storyline side by side:

166:

Martin: Sure. Okay, that’s – I mean, that’s really not that complicated, John; I don’t see why you were being so coy about it – Jon: Because I’m ashamed, Martin. Martin: Ashamed?! Jon: Yes! Ashamed of the fact that I just – destroyed the world and have been rewarded for it, the fact that – I can walk safe through all this horror I’ve created like a… fucking tourist, destroying whoever I please. The fact that I… enjoyed it, and… the fact that there are so many others that I want to revenge myself on! Martin: …No; No, I actually think you’re good on that front. Jon: What? Martin: Yeah, I, I, I think we should go for it, get our murder on! Jon: Sorry, what? Helen: Yes, Martin! Martin: Th, This isn’t like it was before! We’re not talking about innocent bystanders in cafes here, Jon; these things are – th-they’re just evil, plain and simple, and right now they’re torturing and tormenting everyone! If you want to stop them and have the power to, then – then, then yeah, let’s do it, let’s go full Kill Bill!

174 (I left in some of the unofficial transcript’s stage directions to keep the picture clear):

Martin:That’s enough. John? Jon: Uh… yes? Martin: Do it. Simon: Uhh… Do what? Martin: Kill him. Jon: Uh – Simon: Hang on. Can he do that? Martin: (forceful) He can, and he’s going to! Simon: Oh! Right! Seems a bit rude, to be honest. Jon: Oh, oh… okay, um. Martin: Jon? Jon: J-Just give me a moment! I, uh, I – Simon: I-In fact, yes! You know what? I’ll, I’ll probably just be going, then – I, I – I’d prefer to keep existing, if it’s all the same to you, uhm – Martin: J-Jon! Jon: I – Simon: (fast) Been lovely chatting to you! Good to see you guys. Feel free to pop by again when you’re feeling less, um, murdery. Martin: (yelling) Jon! Simon: Byeee! Martin: You let him go. Jon: (weary) Yeah. Martin: Why? Jon: Because, uh… uh – Martin: (cutting him off) Why did you let him go, John?

194:

Martin: I know what it’s like to be powerless. A-And I know you do too. And I also know what it’s like when you get a taste of– wh-when you’re finally able to– Jon: That’s not what this is! Martin: I’ve been out there with you. I saw the kick you got out of making them scream for once. Jon: What happened to “Kill Bill”? Martin: You weren’t meant to enjoy it this much!

Looks like Martin assumed Jon’s desire for vengeance to be righteous anger. And didn’t like the realization that Jon’s murderous urges -- or his own, in Oliver and Simon’s cases -- are something darker, more personal and irrational.

Conclusion

When Martin had pressured Jon to act, it was done out of hope and idealism (misguided or not, we’ll see). He didn’t simply want Jon to do something -- he wanted him to make the world better. Call it naive, wilfully blind, unfair to Jon -- I’ve had my own share of frustration with Martin this season -- but he has had a very specific and consistent agenda. Sometimes both Jon and Martin are motivated by a personal grudge -- Jon against Not!Them and Jude and Jared, Martin against Oliver and Simon -- but overall, Martin thinks that this quest removes evil from the world.

What Jon proposes in 194 goes against all of Martin’s beliefs and wishes:

The total amount of evil is not reduced

New avatars are created

Jon appoints himself the one and only ultimate judge

By giving in to the Eye:

Jon lets it have what it had wanted all along, lets it win

Jon abandons morality for power

Jon abandons humanity and Martin for the inhuman evil happiness he can’t help but crave

Accepting this is at least as bad as doing nothing at all -- and perhaps even worse.

So I don’t think Martin’s being particularly irrational during the argument. Some of the things he says may be unfair, harsh, even cruel. You can say it was hypocritical of him to accuse Jon of enjoying the killing spree too much, since he was the one who proposed it and kept pushing Jon towards it with great enthusiasm. His “I forbid it” may be naive and childishly petulant, and this mindset might lead him to making bad choices in the future. But I don’t think he was projecting his own feelings onto Jon, or pulling arguments out of nowhere.

#the magnus archives #tma spoilers #mag 194 #martin blackwood #blah blah blah #finished the post right by the time everyone has already moved on. typical

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