#presumed dead and stuff you know the drill
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I'm on my nth re-read of books 1-4, and I keep finding new things to be delighted by, on top of the old reliable lines that make me giggle every time. Like in book 4:
“Yeah,” said Harry, whose success had overdosed him with optimism. “Hey, think about this: you reckon I can just Banish the water and walk down?”
“Oh, bless, he thinks he’s Moses.”
How does (presumably pagan-ish or non-religious based on holiday celebrations) Draco know about Moses? Does he think Moses is a wizard??? I mean... he DID accomplish several miracles with a big stick. Any of the implications here make me cackle
Oh this is awesome, I've been wanting to talk about this for ages: I think wizards know what the Bible is! And Christianity, and Judaism and Islam, and I think there are practicing members of all of those religions (and more!) in the Wizarding World. Here's why.
The Bible (Old Testament specifically — Draco's references lean towards the OT because that's the broader cultural referent, it's the common glue of the Bible/Quran/Torah and if wizards know any Abrahamic text, it's that) is a huge, ubiquitous, world-shaping cultural text that was thousands of years old before the International Statute of Secrecy. The date of 1692 for the SOS means that any muggle culture before the 17th century is fair game, even if it's not accepted by wizards. So that's why I think atheist/agnostic/pagan wizards should still have at least referential familiarity with it.
The fact that wizards celebrate Christmas (NOT Yule, although obviously in Lionheart they do both) tells me that there is at least vestigial religious belief in the population. Expressions like "Merlin" in place of "God" tells me that wizards probably have a different relationship with it — Merlin's generally treated as a kind of prophet? — which is giving "splinter sect of Christianity defined by the emergence of Merlin as a separate prophet for wizards," but I'm not gonna spiral too far into that headcanon, because this is a lore analysis post. But that's my working idea, here.
The first-order response to the "what about magic?" problem is: Not everything that happens in the Bible can be explained by the Harry Potter magic system. Water into wine, sure. Resurrection? Impossible, as far as 99% of wizards know. Harry Potter is the only person we know of to be fully resurrected, and even he's never technically full-dead. Moses parting the Red Sea? I mean, we can imagine spells that would do it, but think about how much water is in the fucking sea! We don't see anything of nearly that scope happen in the series. And what about manna? We know for a fact that you can't use magic to make food!
But let's sidebar that, and drill down on what you can explain. Water into wine. Curing the sick. Okay, cool. There's still a big difference between "established in-universe ability that has been ritualized and turned into technology" and "literal miracles." Walk on water? Sure, you could probably perform a spell for that. But does Jesus? Do we know, for a fact, that he had a wand, or that he cast a spell? Had the spell for that been invented yet? Are you even sure he was a wizard? Can we prove it? Moreover, would it matter?
This leads me to my bigger point about the nature of religious belief: if you believe the dude's divine, having magic doesn't change anything, right? Because he's still the son of God. Christians don't believe Jesus was divine because he performed the miracles; they believe he was divine and so performed the miracles. There are many different IRL-theological stances on how much of the supernatural stuff in the Bible "actually happened," and you can be a skeptic about the scientific facets while still subscribing to its broader philosophical and religious claims about God.
Even if you take Jesus and other Abrahamic characters out of the question, there's still a place for religion in wizarding society, because of the afterlife. With the exception of ghosts (who by their account have never been fully "dead," and so don't know it) and inferi, the relation between the wizarding world and the afterlife is a one-way conduit. That means there's still plenty of room for wizards to adopt religious beliefs specifically about the afterlife, and religion would still play a social role in defining how people approached those topics.
Finally, the pagan elements of the Harry Potter series read less to me as an espousal of sincere religious conviction and more as a ritualistic vestige of prehistorical magical practices. Since the universe's magic draws heavily on pagan ceremonies — especially in the realm of potions/herbology/magical creatures — ironically, I can't imagine paganism as a religion in the universe of Harry Potter. Like, it's just straight-up true! It would be like starting a religion around meteorology, or chemistry. There's no element of mystery or divinity involved for faith and belief to fill in the gaps; you know how magic works, and you can be good at it.
What JKR did with the magic system — apparently on accident — was to textually validate huge volumes of pagan practice without invoking any of the associated spiritual or religious beliefs. And since we live for seven years in the mind of a competent, practicing wizard who does tons of magic without seeming to believe in any particular god at all, I have to infer that you don't need to. Rowling has, again, likely not on purpose, built a universe whose central conceit is: "what if the pagans were just straight-up right?" and revealed the answer to be: "well, then it wouldn't be paganism anymore."
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Mister Franky, ex train engineer turned farrier and horse breeder. unfortunately he names both his trains and his horses after the Battle Frankies line…you kind of have to figure out which is which
#finally. REAL assless chaps#cowboy au#franky#one piece#fanart#my art#my au#i had to give him chaps because this is a cowboy au so i compensated by giving him the biggest most ridiculous chaps ever#AND i left him ass out because you know he wouldnt have it any other way#anyway ironically franky doesnt rlly ride horses in the cowboy au. ill give u 3 guesses as to why#ok LORE TIME!!!!#he and iceburg both were prodigies under Tom#instead of getting hit by a train though (unfortunately no cyborgness in this au) they were attacked#corrupt law enforcement and the like#franky got sliced up bad#presumed dead and stuff you know the drill#iceburg went on to be mayor of a pretty substantial rail city#water 7 ofc#cos there was a good ol watering hole nearby (lake)#Franky went on to make his own small group of bandits#known for stealing horses and robbing trains#very much thesame HOWEVER i make franky and iceburg reconnect as brothers becos i like them
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I think ya'll know this by now
Zipper: Nia is a perfect cinnamon scone who’s never done anything wrong in their entire life!
Daniel: Never done anything wrong?! They set a city block on FIRE!
Zipper: A party is a celebration of a life, bringing people together to let the guest of honor know how much they’re loved. Daniel has done so much for us. This is our chance to do something for them.
Summer: By forcing them to have fun at a party that they don’t want to be at?
Zipper: I knew you’d understand.
Mars: We need a diversion. I say Moony gets naked.
Summer: No.
Mars: I could get naked.
The squad: NO!!!
Kitty: Zipper, don’t go picking a fight with Ness. Don’t forget, they’re powerful, they could make life difficult for you.
Zipper: Wow, I wonder what it'd be like to have a difficult life.
*the Squad at Disneyland, in the teacups*
Kitty, Nia, and Ness: *spinning a little and talking*
Mars, Summer, and Zipper: *flying past them, spinning as fast as they can, screaming*
Daniel, texting: Don't worry, I have your phone! Text me when you're gonna come get it!
Ness, barging in: Syphilis!
Summer:
Ness:
Summer: Pardon?
Daniel: *gets a text* Oh! It’s Nia.
Mars, excitedly: Did they get me the stuff?
Daniel: Yeah, they say they got you the clown costume, the power drill, and 12 gallons of blood.
Mars: Wow! Where’d they find 12 gallons of fake blood?
Daniel: You wanted fake blood?
Mars:
Daniel: I’ll go call Nia.
Ness: Capitalization is the difference between "I had to help my uncle Jack off a horse.." and "I had to help my uncle jack off a horse.."
Nia: Accidentally indulged in too much ‘free time’, turns out I’ve been reported missing for over six months and presumed dead by most local and national authorities.
Daniel: They can't make me admit France exists, right? Legally, that's not allowed.
Daniel: Sure, if France was REAL I'd say I liked it.
Daniel: But who's to say.
Summer: I think France isn't real.
Maddie: Summer, you've been to France.
Summer: And???
STARING
@shift-dreamr as Kitty
@shiftingwithmars as Mars
@vyliie as Summer
@romanoffshifting as Daniel
@realitycanbewhateveridesire as Ness
@theshifterbear as Nia
@maddies-chronicles as Maddie
@moonyshifter as Moony
Me as Zipper
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The witchling and the god [Loki x Witch!Reader] Chapter 24
Summary: The Avengers were looking for someone to help Loki fit in with the team. To become socially acceptable, so to speak. He had been given the choice of sitting in a cell in Asgard or serving some sort of community service probation on Midgard. The Avengers and Shield both felt that as long as Loki was on Earth, he should be under supervision. This is now your job. Why? Because you’re a witch. You’re not sure why this qualifies you, but here you are, giving it a shot. What could possibly go wrong?
Tags: Witch!Reader, Magic, Witches, slow burn, everybody lives in the tower, character development, Loki‘s redemption, Stephen Strange is a friend, Loki and Stephen are frenemies, Tony Stark is a good bro, kids love Loki, Tony has stupid nicknames for everybody, eventual smut
Main Masterlist | Series Masterlist | Read it on AO3 | Previous | Next
Chapter’s Note: Loki knows exactly what you need. Beta by @zaria-04
Chapter 24: Resting
Back in New York, you directly go to Tony while Loki searches for his brother.
According to Jarvis, Tony is in his private lab and you ask the A.I. for entrance. It is granted and shortly after you take the elevator to a floor that has no button. The doors open with a soft 'bing' and you stand in Iron Man’s workshop.
There are several suits lined up at the walls, presumably older models if you go by the numbering on the small plaques above them. You spot some classic suits in his trademark colors of red and gold like Mark VI, but also some different designs like the black and red Mark XXII, that reminds you of War Machine's design.
On the tables there are several parts of arms and legs, partly disassembled, between a lot of circuit boards and cables. Some other pieces look like futuristic prototypes.
It's exactly like you had imagined Iron Man's workshop to be.
Tony sits at a table in the back, welding circuit boards together one-handed. His left arm hangs in a sling. A small robot stands next to him, slowly handing him one tool after another with a soft beeping sound. It seems to be the wrong ones more often than the right ones.
As you step up to Tony, he pushes up his welding goggles and you see that his face is filthy with oil and grease.
"Are you alright?" you ask with a nod towards his injured arm.
"It's nothing. I don't know why everyone insists I wear this thing. It just bothers me when I'm working." The robot pushes a small file in Tony’s hand and hand. "Thanks buddy." He puts it on a small pile with other tools he doesn't need right now. The robot beeps happily. "He is basically useless, but it makes him happy if I take the stuff," Tony explains to you in response to your questioning look.
"I need to recharge my magic, but I can heal that in a few days," you offer for his injured arm because that's the least you can do after everything the man did for you. "Or Loki can. He's better at healing magic anyway." He had healed you after your visit to Club Enchant and it had looked effortless.
Tony darts you a long glance. "No offense, but no magic on my body. I'll sit this one out." And by that he means he will take the sling off as soon as his arm no longer hurts with every little movement. "So, is your brother okay?" he asks you.
You knew this question was coming. After all, that's why you're here. Still, it's hard for you to talk about it.
"He's not dead." You don't want to add a yet. Josiah said he will survive and you're trusting his word. Still, the image of an unconscious Gabriel with his burnt skin and the cross on his forehead is burned into your mind.
"I'm sorry that happened."
"Yeah." Your voice is small and you're suddenly in a hurry to get out of here, to be alone. "Anyway, I'm still pretty worn out, so I'm gonna head to my room and fall face first on my bed. Just came by to tell you that we're back."
Tony seems to notice your mood and doesn't stop you. "Sure. You know the drill: tell Jarvis if you need anything."
You merely nod and leave the workshop only a few minutes after arriving.
"To the suite?" Jarvis asks you in the elevator, but you shake your head.
"My floor, please."
Your room feels safe. It's been a roller coaster ride of emotions and incidents since the Avengers returned from their mission, and only now do you have time to take a breath and sort out your thoughts.
Your room is the same as you left it in a hurry two days ago: the teleportation circle you drew with the Sharpie on the floor is burned into it. Now a permanent way to Canada is formed. Useless - since Gabriel’s house is destroyed. You make a mental note to buy a cheap carpet to put over it.
You sit on the edge of your bed, falling backwards.
Everything turned out fine.
That’s a mantra in your head. You try not to think of any other possible outcome, of all the ‘what if’s. For everything else you have to wait until Gabriel wakes up. If he wakes up.
You shake your head.
When he wakes up.
You close your eyes. You will take the next few days easy: cure your magic muscle hangover and replenish your supplies. Sleeping, take out food and maybe a bath. It does sound like heaven. Anything to distract you and to take your mind off things.
A knock on your door makes you sit up with a groan. You don't feel like having visitors, but on the other hand, anything that distracts you is welcome.
You open the door and immediately take your groan back. Loki is standing in front of you, in his hands a bowl with snacks. He greets you with a kiss on your temple.
"I was wondering if you want to watch one of your Midgardian television series. We still have to finish that one with the inaccurate portrayal of dragons."
"Uh, I'm still feeling sore. Not sure if I can concentrate on a show." Apologetically, you look at him.
With a wave of his hand, the bowl is gone and he holds a bottle with liquid in his fingers instead. "How about a massage to loosen up your muscles then?" he asks. It‘s obvious he just wants to spend time with you. And who are you to deny him this simple request? You are grateful that he is here for you and open the door wider to let him in.
"That sounds great."
Loki looks at you, a mischievous grin on his lips. "In order to give you a nice massage, you will have to lose some of your clothes."
"How convenient," you reply, amused, while pulling your shirt over your head. "But I think it‘s just fair if you lose some as well."
You step up to him to help him with your request. Anything to take your mind off the last days.
Loki offers no resistance and shortly after stands shirtless in front of you. You gently stroke over his fair skin, which always seems a little cool no matter the temperature around him. Your fingers wander up to his cheekbones, caressing him. He lays his hand over yours and turns his face to kiss your palm.
"Unless you have something else in mind you want to do." His voice is low and promising.
You‘re acting like you think about it – and you really do. "Maybe later," you then decide and brush a gentle kiss on his lips. "I could really use that massage."
Taking a step away from him, you strip down to your underwear. With a bit of swinging your hips you walk to your bed and plump face front onto it.
“You may start,” you mumble into the mattress.
"Temptress." Loki chuckles and follows you. He climbs over you before pouring oil in his palm and rubbing his hands together. "Relax, Witchling."
To have better access to your skin he straddles your hips, careful not to put too much weight on you, and settles his hands on your shoulders to begin the work.
You let out a soft noise at the feeling.
"Hm, nice and warm," you mutter.
He presses his thumbs on the first knot he comes across and you know you are a goner. All the stress, the anxiety and the struggle of the last days start to fall off of you.
Loki works his way down your back and it feels so good, the massage. You didn‘t expect any different from the Asgardian, until you feel warm lips on your spine. He‘s kissing your back, gently, almost worshiping each spot that he touched.
You close your eyes fully, humming a noise of appreciation and enjoying his treatment. His forceful and demanding side are completely gone. You wonder how you got so lucky to have this kind and attentive man at your side, who seems only interested in making sure you‘re comfortable and feeling good.
Loki continues to massage your lower back, leaving a trail of kisses, even daring to nip at your skin every now and then.
Warm, strong hands glide over bare skin, kneading here, pressing there. Breathing patterns reveal the twinges and the pleasure, until those hands reach the small of the back beneath him.
“You‘re beautiful,” Loki murmurs.
You let out the softest of moans as you feel his hands reaching your butt, your panty gone in a flash of magic.
He gently pulls your leg apart to make a little room and his fingers move between them. You bury your face in your arms under your head. You wouldn't be surprised if he had planned this mischief from the beginning, but it feels too good to complain. Like heaven.
You lift your hips a bit to give him better access and his oily slick finger enters you.
It doesn't take long before you move your hips in time against his fingers, your moans muffled by the sheet of the bed.
He builds you up. His other hand pampers the rest of your body, kneading your butt, your thighs, playfully scraping your spine. His fingers seem to be everywhere.
He takes you straight over the edge.
You catch your breath and turn around to finally look at him. Loki holds your gaze, while he purposely takes his time to lewdly lick your juice from his fingers.
When he’s finished, he smirks and leans down, ghosting his lips against yours, but never fully kissing you. His breath is fanning against your face. He moves his head down and drags his lips lazily down your neck before finally kissing the skin there.
You giggle, because it‘s a ticklish spot, but you take his face in your hands and pull him up, to claim his lips with your own, pouring all of your affection into the kiss.
“Keep your legs spread, pet. I’m not done with you yet,” Loki purrs. “I want to taste more of what I’ve done to you.”
You groan at his confession and your knees fall apart. You’re happy just the way you are, satisfied and ready to enter a blissful sleep. But Loki’s offer is tempting, to see what else he has in store. You’re compliant in anything he has planned for you.
He grins wide and presses another quick kiss to your parted lips, before making his way slowly down your body. He’s taking his time, stopping at your breasts to give them the attention they deserve, rubbing your nipples teasingly.
Then he finally dives down.
Another moan leaves your mouth when you feel his wet tongue dipping in your most sensitive parts. It’s hot and wet and perfect.
Loki pulls away all too soon, face covered in slick, wiping it with the back of his hand, like an animal that just devoured its prey. He crawls up your body, pulling you in for a kiss. You whimper as you taste yourself on his tongue.
His hand slides down slowly from its place on your side, grabbing your thigh. Loki's cock slides between your legs and begins to rub up and down between your still soaked folds, the tip stimulating your clit.
You moan as he pressed the tip against your entrance.
"What do you want me to do?"
It’s a mean question, because it forces you to use your brain instead of just surrendering the sweet bliss of lust. You frown, searching for the right words. It’s not fair that he suddenly forces you to think.
"Wreck me. Make me forget.”
Loki smirks. Once the words escape your lips, he pushes in, not stopping until every inch of his member is buried inside of you. The two of you moan in unison as he begins to move, yours being louder than his from all the attention you already got from him.
Every stroke of his fingers comes slow and purposeful, building the heat in your stomach. Every kiss drips with love against your sweaty skin, full of unspoken promises. Every move of his body in yours is deliberate, wringing every last drop of pleasure he can coax from your body.
He is the kind of lover you dreamed about, committed to pleasing you above all else, making you feel everything again and again and then once more for good measure.
Breathless little moans fall from his lips, warm panting against your skin with each sharp snap of his hips. Closing your eyes, you mirror his movements, clinging to him, desire rippling up your spine. Breath suddenly punches from your lungs, you tumble headfirst over the edge with a low, satisfied moan.
“There you go, that’s it,” he whispers encouragingly, sucking the smooth skin on your shoulder as you tremble in his arms, spiraling further and further.
You hope you never stop falling.
He follows you shortly after.
Through the haze of the deep serenity he studies your face as he lays beside you. Your eyes are closed, your hair tousled, and a blush colored your sweaty cheeks. You are beautiful.
He moves his hand over your warm, flushed skin and brushes a strand of hair behind your ear, before pressing a long kiss against your forehead. Slowly, as you re-find your energy or maybe the control over your muscles, your hand comes up to cup his jaw, your eyes opening ever so slightly. Your thumb brushes over his cheek and he leans into the touch.
He smiles, being truly and utterly happy for the moment, and the two of you doze off. The warmth and security of his arms and gentle aftercare make you fall even harder for the God of Mischief.
_______________________
Tag List: @lokisgoodgirl @lokixryss @itsybitchylittlewitchy @yokshi-unbeliebubble @fictional-hooman @elennair @all-envy-suyu @purplekitten30 @elisadmaggiore @nothing2113 @baebeepeach @ceo-of-stfu @moonlightreader649 @ronipiamka @fluffybunnyu @ninjarose23 @ozymdias @huntress-artemiss @thedistractedagglomeration @rosaline-black @sofi786 @moonlightreader649 @paetonnn @eldriidd @r4inlov3r @eleniblue @eleniblue @maeisonline @marvel-love24 @sinsandguilt @kalinaselennespeaks @ohtellmelove @eleniblue @msrawog @hyojin-2579 @just-someone11 @marygoddessofmischief @fall-myriad @melavoris
#loki x y/n#Loki x reader#loki layfeyson x you#loki laufesyon x reader#Loki x you#imagine loki#the witchling and the god#imagine marvel#mcu prompt#loki odison x reader#marvel x reader#mcu x reader#loki fanfction#slow burn#loki odinson#loki laufeyson
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Congratulations!
Oh and also...with Asra, that lovely little thing UGH!, I wanted some angst...like their alpha finds out that they were dead and Asra was not there for them...actually he had left them alone to travel, if it was me I would be angry, he was my their alphas bestfriend before their relationship builds and he had left them alone...I just need to yell at someone, sorry but these weeks have been really stressful for me and I need to take it out! Also *whispers* you are the best!
@bluetooththereptile : Hmmm "You left me behind, why should I trust you?"
Thank you!! So, the reader is angry at Asra hiding stuff and leaving them? I can do that!
"You're leaving again."
It wasn't a question, you knew the drill at this point. You were sitting in the middle of the night in the corner of yours and Asra's living space. You'd been feeling a sense of dread all week, and tonight, you couldn't sleep.
You were glad. Because you'd caught Asra tiptoeing downstairs and writing a note, presumably explaining his soon-to-be absence, against the kitchen counter.
Asra jumped at your voice, obviously having missed your presence in the darkness.
"You're here! I-"
"Where are you going?" you cut him off, wanting to skip the whole sing and dance and get straight to the information. Maybe it was the exhaustion, maybe it was the frustration, but either way, you weren't in the mood for his bullshit.
Asra hesitated at you tone, but quickly covered his expression and smiled at you. Yo loved his smile, but it wouldn't work on you today.
"I won't be gone long-"
"That isn't what I asked."
Asra stopped talking at your second interruption. You could see that he was beginning to understand the situation he was in. You weren't playing around. Distantly you could smell his scent taking on a nervous tinge. Good. He deserved to feel even a sliver of the anxiety he always caused you by leaving you behind.
"You know I-"
"'Don't like leaving you'," you mocked, finishing the sentence you'd heard so many times before. Asra's eyebrow twitched. You were starting to get on his nerves.
"Stop interrupting me, I'm trying to explain-"
"But you never actually explain anything!" you burst out, patience wearing to nothing. Your voice was loud, uncaring about the neighbours who would likely be asleep. "It's always 'I'll be back soon', 'Don't worry about me' or 'I wish you could come with'. You never tell me what you're doing or where you're going or give me a reason why I can't come with!"
"Please, stop shouting," Asra said, eyes closed like he was in pain. "I'm sorry, but please, if you could just trust me-"
"But you always leave me behind, why should I trust you?!"
Asra reeled back as though he'd been hit. In the new silence, your erratic breathing was more obvious than ever. You were furious.
Asra opened his mouth but you held up a hand to stop him.
"Stop," you begged. "Just don't, I can't hear your excuses right now."
You walked past him, slapping away his outstretched hand and pointedly ignoring his hurt scent. Right as you reached the doorway, you turned back to him only long enough to give your parting words.
"Just leave, Asra, and don't bother with the stupid fucking letter."
And with that, you briskly walked into your bedroom and slammed the door, heart and head pounding in equal measure. You listened for the tell tale sounds of him leaving before you collapsed onto your bed. Maybe the tears would come tomorrow, but right now you were simply too exhausted.
Tomorrow.
You could deal with everything tomorrow.
#2500 followers event#asra#the arcana#asra x reader#angst#asra x mc#a/b/o#omegaverse#omega!asra#alpha!reader#alpha!mc#hcs
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more stefan/andrew au? the last one was fucking amazing
(following on from pt 2 kinda following canon a lil bit but imagining their relationship panning out earlier than it did in the series? Fab)
Part 1 / part 2
-
“Andrew?” Neil was woken up by Seth’s pissed-off, tired moan. “Get the fuck out of here, you fuckin’ freak.” Neil heard the rustling of covers and Andrew’s footsteps coming into the room. “Yo, hey, are you deaf?!” It’d been a couple days since the incident in Columbia, and Andrew and Neil hadn’t really spoken since then. Coach had tried to get them to make up when Neil came back to his apartment, but his attempts futile. They’d only had a short conversation before Andrew got bored and left. All Neil got from Andrew’s lot since then was hostility and cold shoulders. Now, in the middle of the night, Andrew was breaking into the room of the three people he actively seemed to hate the most. Neil pretended to sleep, until he felt weight on the rungs of the ladder on his bed, and hands on the back of his T-shirt. Andrew practically pulled him off the bed, immediately waking him up from any bit of sleep he had left in him.
“Car. Ten minutes.” Andrew didn’t lower his voice for Neil’s half-asleep roommates. “I don’t like waiting.”
“I don’t care.” Neil retorted back in a hushed voice. “Leave me alone and let me sleep.” Andrew got real close to Neil’s face. The dim light of the moon outside the window showed Andrew unsmiling face. He was presumably sober, and Andrew sober was a much scarier sight than him being medicated and violent.
“Ten minutes.” He repeated again, matching Neil’s volume, hazel eyes burning a hole through Neil’s natural blue. Andrew put a finger to his lips and switched to German. “This is the only chance you’ll get.”
Neil had almost forgotten he’d spoken to Andrew in German in Coach’s apartment. He was startled at the sudden language change, and obliged when Andrew finally left the room. He got dressed underneath his covers as best he could, and decided against putting in his contacts, before jumping down off the top bunk.
“Bring that monster around here one more time and you’re moving out.” Seth groaned, but fully meant what he said. He turned around to face the wall and through the muffle of a pillow, Neil heard him say, “Now fuck off.” Matt, sleeping like a rock, was snoring on the other side of the room, totally unphased and undisturbed by Andrew’s swift entrance and exit.
Andrew was alone at his car when Neil pulled the sleeves of his hoodie over his hands in a desperate attempt to stay warm, the door of the dorm building shutting behind him. It was freezing outside, and Neil hadn’t realised it was literally the middle of the night until he saw a clock in the hallway reading an early 3:54am. The wind blew leaves across the parking lot with a whistle and a rustle, the dry fall leaves swirling around like tiny twisters on the tarmac. The campus was silent, on the night of a weekday, so Neil didn’t expect anyone to be out. Yet here Andrew was, leaning on the bonnet of his car with a cigarette between his lips, smoke quickly disappearing in the biting wind.
“You never answered my question on our little night out.” He spoke through the smoke, as Neil approached closer. “We’re going for a drive.”
“Do you ever sleep?” Neil’s voice was groggy from his own interrupted sleep. Andrew didn’t answer, instead flicking away his cigarette and sitting into the drivers seat. Neil walked around to the passenger side and sat in. When he tried to warm his hands on the hot air Andrew had blowing through the air-con, Andrew turned the heat off. Neil was sure if Andrew was medicated he would’ve laughed, but he instead opted for watching the road as they drove in silence. Neil sat back and tried his best not to fall asleep. His head bumped about on the headrest as they drove, and every time his eyes started to close, his sleep cycle begging him to come back to rest, Andrew would snap his fingers in his face or lay a punch down on his thigh. After a short drive, they pulled up into the empty lot of some National Park Neil didn’t know the name of. He was too tired to pay attention to the signs, but figured Andrew wouldn’t bring him to a park to kill him or let him go. Andrew was a man of truth when he wanted to be; He wanted to know why he was on the run and Neil didn’t have the energy to argue.
“Why are we here?” Neil asked at the same time Andrew said “What brought a runaway to Oakland?”They both paused for a moment, but Neil knew Andrew wasn’t going to answer his question until Neil answered his.
“It was the first place she wanted to stop.” Neil spoke through a yawn. “The others before there made her too paranoid. It was the first time she felt like she could close her eyes and actually sleep without feeling like she was…” He thought about his words for a moment. The last conversation they’d had, he told him he was on the run, but Andrew already knew that. Neil thought he’d got through to him by giving him half-honesty, telling him his parents were dead. He never brought up Riko, or his family, instead choosing the option of trying to appeal to Andrew’s inner child, who remembered Stefan. It was a stupid choice, and Neil knew that the second he chose it. “She could sleep without feeling like she had a target on her back.”
“Did you kill her?” Andrew said it so casually it felt like murder was something so normal, like eating lunch or going for a walk. Like asking if he killed his mother was just like asking if he liked the taste of garlic, or if he was having a good day.
“No,” Neil answered. He’d been thinking about what he would tell Andrew about his life since he seen him in Arizona. Who was he before Oakland? Where did they go? Who was he running from? “Riko’s family did.”
And suddenly Andrew was interested. His face was a mixture of disbelief and boredom. Neil told him his manufactured version of the story; that his parents were killed by the Moriyama family, and that they’d been on the run since the execution of his Father. He kept out the part about the Butcher of Baltimore, or the fact that he was actually still alive, but Andrew’s mind was at work as Neil told the story. If he didn’t look awake before, he did now. Neil spoke for an hour, maybe less, maybe more, flowing from story to anecdote to answering questions that Andrew slipped in whenever he wanted. Neil answered it all with mostly-truths, redacting the stuff Andrew simply didn’t need to know. Neil was a runaway, his family were in some bad business, but Neil was the only one left.
“I really didn’t think you could get any more stupid, yet I am constantly surprised.” Andrew tutted as he shook a cigarette out of the packet, into his hand. He rolled down the window on his side and smoked out of it, seemingly unbothered by the wind that just blew the smoke back into his face. “You knew who I was, but you knew Kevin too? How forgetful do you think people are?”
“I don’t know,” Neil told him honestly. “I just- We were so young. I met Kevin years before I met you. I just didn’t think I was important to anyone.” Andrew laughed a laugh that wasn’t really a laugh at all. It was the sound of dismissal, as though he didn’t believe a word that spilled from Neil’s tired lips. “I didn’t think I’d ever be particularly memorable or mean anything to anyone. That was the most important thing to my mom.”
“What, being unimportant?” Andrew didn’t look at Neil as he spoke.
“Being forgettable.” Neil sighed, thinking about his mother’s words that had been drilled into his head. If you’re too interesting, you’re asking to be killed. Be boring. Be normal. Be forgettable. “You fucked that up for me.”
“See, you keep blaming me,” Andrew shook his head as he took a drag from the cigarette that had been half-smoked by the wind. “I didn’t fuck up your life, Abagnale, you did.” Neil didn’t get the reference, but he didn’t ask either.
“I don’t mean it’s your fault. You didn’t do anything,” Neil tried correcting himself. “I couldn’t help it when I was around you. And all I could do every second of my days after Oakland was blame you because I couldn’t deal with the fact that I let you in. Everything I learned, everything I’d done, you came along and turned the place upside down because I just had to know you. I had to.”
“Why?” Andrew looked at him with that same uninterested look he usually had, when a medically-induced smile wasn’t spread across his cheeks. “What made me any different to the hundreds of other kids I’m sure you met on your travels, hmm?”
“You were real.” Andrew scoffed. Neil frowned at that and shrugged his shoulders. “We’ve been through this. Don’t waste my time getting to know me if you just want me to run. You want me to get lost in the park, is it? Is that why you brought me here?”
“Nothing better than some honesty with a view.” Andrew tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “How do you expect me to trust you when you’ve spent your whole life a liar? Be mad if you want, but I’m much less gullible now, you see. Once a liar, always a liar.” Neil sent Andrew a look as he hovered his hand over Andrew’s. When he just stared at it, Neil brought Andrew’s hand up to his collarbone where was a small, raised, pink scar sitting just above it.
“The motels phone.” Neil spoke quietly, as if Mary would hear, as if she was waiting to jump out from behind the car to take him and beat him again for letting his guard down, for being unforgettable. “It was the first thing she could grab when we got into our room. I never told her your name, and she beat me harder for it. I never wanted to let her anger ruin your name.” Andrew dropped his hand from Neil’s grip.
“Pretty unintelligent to take hits for someone you thought you’d never see again.”
Then Neil said, “I knew I’d never forget you.” Andrew tensed up at the almost-promise, and the memories came flooding back for Neil like a tsunami sweeping over every other thought he had. “I wouldn’t. I couldn’t.” Neil almost reached out to touch Andrew before he remembered the boundary Andrew had set that night in Columbia. Neil didn’t have a right to touch him anymore, and he knew Andrew noticed as Neil’s hand lifted and then hesitantly fell. “Tell me something I don’t know about this Andrew. I’ve told you my life, tell me yours.” He gestured to Andrew, sat across from him with an almost-frown on his face and a thinking mind hard at work.
“This Andrew doesn’t give a shit about what answers you think you deserve.” He looked Neil up and down. “I don’t owe you anything.”
“Why doesn’t Nicky know you’re gay?” Neil asked, instead of waiting for him to come up with something himself, it was much easier to get honesty from Andrew by prompting him. Neil watched as his jaw tensed for a second, thinking about the answer.
“Nicky is too involved in being the gay cousin to un-assume.” Andrew barely lifted his shoulders in the form of a shrug. “He hasn’t asked.”
“Why don’t you tell him?”
“I don’t ‘come out’,” He brushed off the thought with the flick of his wrist and a roll of his eyes. “I don’t fuck women in my spare time. Who cares?”
“Yeah, sure, but-” Neil had started to speak when Andrew cut across.
“At least I’m out to myself,” He nodded towards him. “You, on the other hand? Was it just Stefan who was into it or is the unnamed you just in denial?”
“I’m not, like…” Neil hated the sexuality question. It was confusing and messy and Andrew and Andrew and Andrew. “There was no one after you. It’s only been you.”
“By choice or by mothers hands?”
“Neither. Both?” He wasn’t sure how to answer. “The foxes are the first people I’ve let get somewhat close since then. That’s the truth. I haven’t wanted to. I’m just not interested in anyone.” The except for you part was silent, but he knew Andrew had somewhat heard it when he sat back, one hand on the steering wheel, the other arm resting on the door, as he took a deep breath that he tried to hide. Neil wasn’t even sure he was still into Andrew like that, because they were so young, after all. Andrew was still experimenting, and they never spoke about those kinds of feelings. They were friends who kissed each other because they wanted to know what it felt like. They kissed each other because maybe they thought they liked it. Maybe they’d have to do it again just to be sure. But that was so long ago, and so much had changed. Neil had had a crush on that Andrew, but this one? He wasn’t so sure. This one was harsh and mean, angry and unmoving. This one had been hard-boiled by life and wasn’t going to crack any time soon. He didn’t know if he felt things anymore. He didn’t know if Andrew was capable of a crush, or a kiss, or a simple, electric touch of fingers to skin.
Without a word, Andrew had switched on the ignition and idled the engine for a moment before pulling out and starting on the drive back to campus. Neil didn’t say anything else, he only rested his head on the window and watched as the morning sun slowly lit up the night sky, the dark navy blue taking over the black sky so slowly it was hardly noticeable.
He had pulled into his usual parking spot not long later, still not looking at Neil or speaking at all. He stayed still in the drivers seat after switching the engine off. Neil took that as his cue to leave. Matching Andrew’s silent treatment, he got up and shut the door without a word. Andrew had rolled down his window again, another cigarette already stuck between his lips. He watched as Neil walked around the car before he tapped the outside of his door twice to catch his attention. Neil spoke before he could.
“Give me a chance.” The wind blew his hair off his face, reminding him how cold it was, and why he should’ve worn a jacket. “Let me stay. I don’t have anything else.”
“Don’t be fooled into thinking I trust you.” He hung his hand out the window finally looking Neil in the eyes again. “It’s a matter of time before your egg timer runs out. Make use of it while you can.”
“I’ll bury Stefan forever, if you ask.” Neil offered in payment for the sudden change of heart in letting him stay, in cleaning his hands of the idea that Neil was after Kevin, or that he was a threat. “Say the word and we start fresh from today.”
“I don’t care,” Andrew took a long drag, one that felt like it was centuries long, like the sun would be up by the time he finished. He blew it out and raised his hands. “Kill what wasn’t real. Prove to me what was.”
Neil wasn’t sure what that invitation meant, but he didn’t ask Andrew to keep speaking. When they broke eye contact, he knew then Andrew wanted him to leave. Neil didn’t look back, heart racing, practically ready to burst out of his chest by the time he reached his dorm room. He opened the door as quietly as he could, careful not to disturb his peacefully sleeping roommates, and he crawled back into bed to try get some sleep before the practice scheduled for the morning. Instead of counting sheep, battling restlessness like a fight for his life, he thought of Stefan. He thought of the heart of Nathaniel that had gotten wrapped up in his blond hair and tiny frame. Neil fell asleep thinking about who he used to be, and what parts of that were real. What parts could he keep? His mind spent its last morsels of energy on dissecting Neil Josten, to make him feel a little more real.
The next time they saw each other outside of practice was when Kevin started coming to find him late at night to go to the court and practice together. Neil realised quickly he was going to become a night owl as a Fox, but it still took him a while to adjust to the late nights and early starts. But him and Andrew kept their distance; they didn’t speak if they didn’t have to, and their conversations were kept to a line or two each. They played their first match of the season, and Andrew had sent out shots for Neil like they were capable of working together. Then there was Kathy Ferdinand’s show, at which Andrew had hands all over him, holding him back from killing Riko on live TV. He had made a deal to protect Kevin, and then he was being psychically held back from doing so. Neil did what he couldn’t, and stood up to Riko, a conscious effort to gain his trust, to prove he was on the side of the foxes. Then there was that touch, that simple, light, barely-there touch, and Neil knew he’d won. He’d earned Andrew’s trust, at least for a moment, but that was all that mattered.
When Andrew ever-so-kindly reminded Neil later that Riko would find out about him, the original “Neil”, as easily as he’d strolled onto that stage to sit across from Kevin, there was no choice but to run. He couldn’t imagine any other option. His entire body went into fight or flight, and he struggled to sit still as Andrew held his collar and told him to stay.
“Why?” Neil asked, throat dry, hands shaking, after Andrew offered him protection for the year if he promised to stay. It was funny to imagine, as if there was anything he could do against the actual, guns-blazing, internationally dominating mafia. “Why would you help me?” Andrew laughed, and just about caressed Neil’s jaw in the most non-affectionate way possible. Neil felt his touch leave blood on his skin, but he didn’t flinch. Andrew was manic, and didn’t care. He looked as if he didn’t even feel the pain of a glass-shattering punch, and was actively enjoying the chaos that the morning had brought with it.
Andrew didn’t give him any sort of an answer until later that night, when he stepped into Neil’s space and told him to remember the feeling; Neil couldn’t run anymore. He had given his word to Andrew that he would stay, and as much as he had started to hate the Present-Day-Andrew-Minyard, he trusted him as a man of his word. Neil had killed the parts of Stefan that were untrue; all that was left was the real emotion he felt when he looked at Andrew. He was an asshole, but he was Andrew, and Neil trusted this five foot blond boy with his life. Perhaps it was crazy, perhaps he was officially, undeniable, finally signing his name on his death wish, ticking down the hours until his past caught up. Whereas running was his old line of defence, his current one was Andrew. Andrew was an unlit fire suddenly gaining embers, and Neil knew it was dangerous to let that fire grow. Especially when Andrew leaned over in Eden’s, crackers on his tongue, a drink in his hands, and whispered in German;
“Mommy’s not here to hurt you anymore.” Neil snapped his gaze towards Andrew, who was coming up on his high, speaking to Neil but watching the crowd on the dancefloor. His breath at Neil’s ear sent shivers up his spine, goosebumps on his arms. “My hands are open to have your back. Give it to me this time.”
#idk if this is bad#I can’t be subjective about my own content anymore#straight up I’ll delete it if someone tells me it’s bad lmao#andreil#Andrew minyard#Neil josten#andreil au#tfc#aftg#the foxhole court#all for the game#aftg fic#tfc fic#as per usual send an ask if u want more/have a specific Andrewstefan prompt
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some lore for @doomzday-zone on GUN, Babylonians, and Black Arms
Babylonians
based on real life Babylon & the Bible story of their tower (trying to build their way up to heaven and were punished by God through changing their languages and appearances that forced them to spread out and populate the Earth)
alien genie species that were very humanoid in appearance
extreme gear experts: their technology from thousands of years ago still outperforms modern day tech from Tails, Eggman, and even Wave (who is presumably the best Extreme Gear mechanic in the canon)
their spaceship was Babylon Garden, and by using the arcs of the cosmos (which control gravity) they travelled through the galaxies collecting treasure
when they passed Earth, something interfered with the arcs of the cosmos and they made the decision to scatter them in the atmosphere and "fall from grace"
they settled and meshed with the earthlings and supposedly mutated to look more like them thorough crossbreeding and evolution and whatnot (why the rogues look like normal mobians and not humanoid pointy birds)
they wish on stars in the hopes that an arc of the cosmos or perhaps even a spaceship from their home planet is here to take them home (which invented the idea of wishing upon a star)
because of their crimes, it is said that the gods buried their ship (babylon garden) as punishment for all they stole. which gods, you may ask? i'd say gaia and chaos, but that's for you to decide.
a similar (floating) island exists in the sol dimension (Sky Babylon)
Black Arms
their home, the black comet, passes earth every 50 years. it seems to be sentient or at least living, and is also a method of transportation
these aliens are a hivemind species controlled by their ruler, Black Doom
Black Doom lets Gerald Robotnik (more on him later) use his dna for Project Shadow in exchange for the chaos emeralds in 50 years time. calling bs, Gerald made the eclipse cannon so Shadow could destroy the black comet in the future!
Black Doom wants to use the earth to control its lifesources and allow his hive to feast on and enslave them.
There are a lot of variations of the Black Arms (though they all start off as larvae) but the most curious one for me are the Black Oaks: given the name. The Metarex Dark Oak comes to mind, but Sonic X is a different canon so I'll only allude to yet another connected alien species 🥵
Black Doom is a master of chaos control, so for some reason this alien is naturally tapped into chaos energy to the point he always uses it regardless of his proximity to a chaos emerald or the master emerald (but he does need them collected by Shadow)
The species was mentioned on a wall inscription in sa2
There are successors to Black Doom & the species after Shadow defeats them in the archie comics (where Eclipse came from) so feel free to look into that if you want archie lore
G.U.N.
Military force that were supposed to protect the Space Colony ARK
After the artificial chaos creatures "escaped" and wreaked havoc, the government got more restrictive and eventually pulled the plug on Project Shadow: ESPECIALLY after gerald sent them emerl who had caused destruction too
GUN shot up the ARK yada yada, Maria is dead, Gerald is executed, Shadow is in stasis, you know the drill
The Commander was a kid on the ARK who knew Maria and swore revenge on Shadow, and eventually did try to kill him (sometimes forgives him depending on the morality path)
there's not much else besides Gerald-specific lore and some Archie stuff!
#bsc canon lore#sonic analysis#sorry this took longer than expected i kept blanking lol i'm a bit tired#i can say more if u want#or if anyone has questions send an ask#i can also post project shadow lore but y'know not now
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Chapter 1 - The Unknown Muggleborn (Harry Potter Various x Reader)
3rd Person POV
(M/n) (L/n) walks out of her boyfriend's vacation home in London, her daughter - (Y/n) - propped on her hip and gets into her car.
It was Halloween of 1981, also her daughter's second birthday and (M/n) was going to visit her friends, James and Lily Potter, as well as their son, Harry.
The brown haired man watches his girlfriend fondly as she gets into her car, then walks over to her window. He leans into the window, ruffling his green eyed daughter's hair and the little girl giggles. (Y/n) playing with a little stuffed black and white kitten and makes it walk on her father's arm. The kitten had been a gift from her dad for her birthday, and her father had a birthday button pinned to his daughter's shirt.
(M/n) leans over and presses a kiss to her boyfriend's lips and ruffles her boyfriend's slightly spiky brown hair.
"Do you want me to come with you?" asks the brown haired man.
"Tony, I'll be fine," (M/n) says, a loving glint in her eyes.
"Okay, I love you," Tony says, leans out of the window and (M/n) drives off, (Y/n) still giggling in the back seat.
About half-an-hour later into the drive, (Y/n) lets out a cry as she drops her stuffed kitten. (M/n) glances in the rear-view mirror as tears streak down her daughter's cheeks.
Then (M/n) fixes her gaze back on the road and slams on the brakes, the car skidding to a stop a few feet from a cloaked man. The figure turns to look at the car and slides a long piece of wood from the pocket of the cloak.
(M/n) glances back at her daughter, who had gone silent, (M/n)'s green eyes wide with alarm, the young girl completely forgetting about the stuffed kitten on the floor.
(M/n) lets out a scream as the car door blasts open and the figure points the long bone white stick at her. Then, the cloaked man's gaze shifts back to (Y/n) and (M/n)'s silvery green eyes fill with terror.
"Don't!" (M/n) cries as the cloaked man shifts the piece of wood on her daughter. "Stop!" she calls again and the cloaked figure's wand shifts back to (M/n).
Though she was terrified and wanted to run, she knew she couldn't leave her daughter for this man to kill. And it's not like (M/n) didn't know who the cloaked figure was, either, for she knew exactly who this was - Lord Voldemort.
Lord Voldemort - the wizard who was known for killing hundreds of muggles, witches, and wizards alike.
(Y/n) begins to cry at her mother's screams and Voldemort, (M/n) lets out a cry and goes to draw her wand, but Voldemort shoots a jet of green light, at her, instantly killing her.
Voldemort points his wand at (Y/n), the two year old girl's eyes crossing at the stick pointed at her. There is a flash of red light and (Y/n) falls unconscious, a strange hourglass shaped mark on her neck.
Voldemort leaves, the car still running, (Y/n) unconscious in the back of the car, and (M/n) dead in the front seat.
A few minutes later, (Y/n) comes out of her unconscious state, and begins to babble for her mother, but when she doesn't get a response, she begins to cry.
The young girl's cries alert a woman passing by and the woman opens the door of the car and the brunette looks in horror at the mother, a hand moving to cover her mouth.
(Y/n)'s cries grow louder at the sight of the stranger, the young girl just wanting her mother and father, and her stuffed kitten that she could still see on the floor.
The brown haired woman looks back at (Y/n) with gentle eyes, and the young girl's cries begin to grow quieter until they stop, her eyes wide.
The woman opens (Y/n)'s door and hands (Y/n) the stuffed kitten from off the floor, and (Y/n)'s green eyes stare into the woman's clear green eyes.
The brown haired woman unbuckles (M/n)'s seat-belt, and pull out her wallet.
"(L/n)," the brunette whispers and (Y/n) looks towards the front, her tiny hands messing with her stuffed kitten. The green eyed woman looks through the purse, trying to figure out the girl's name. "(Y/n)."
At her name, (Y/n) meets the woman's gaze, her lip quivering. The brown haired woman unbuckles (Y/n) from the car and cradles the young girl in her arms.
The brown haired woman turns off the car and walks with (Y/n) back to her house, the woman instantly being met by her husband.
"Jean, darling, what's going on?" A brown haired man asks, looking in concern at the young girl in his wife's arms.
"Tom," Jean - presumably the woman - says softly, "her mother's dead."
The man - Tom - looks at the girl, who is still clutching her stuffed kitten, with a saddened look in his eyes.
(Y/n) catches sight of a little girl with bushy brown hair playing with a book in the living room floor. (Y/n) babbles something and the bushy brown haired girl looks up, babbling something unintelligible back.
(Y/n) reaches her arms towards the other little girl, and Jean sets (Y/n) down by her two year old daughter and the brown haired girl reaches her hand out for the stuffed kitten still clutched in (Y/n)'s small hands.
The two girls don't pay attention to the conversations behind them as the two girls begin to play with the little kitten.
Tom and Jean call the police, reporting the dead woman and the young girl that Jean had taken out of the car.
The next day, Mr. Dursley finds it harder to concentrate on drill that afternoon, and when he leaves his building at five o'clock, he is so worried about the voices he had heard earlier. He is so worried that he walks straight into someone just outside the door.
"Sorry," he grunts, as the tiny old man stumbles and almost falls. It is a few seconds before Mr. Dursley realizes that the man is wearing a violet cloak. He didn't seem upset at being almost knocked to the ground.
On the contrary, his face splits into a wide smile and he says in a squeaky voice that makes passersby stare, "Don't be sorry, my dear sir, for nothing could upset me today! Rejoice, for You-Know-Who has gone at last! Even Muggles like yourself should be celebrating, this happy, happy day!"
And the old man hugs Mr. Dursley around the middle and walks off.
Mr. Dursley stands, rooted to the spot. He had been hugged by a complete stranger. He also thinks that he had been called a Muggle, whatever that was; he is rattled. He hurries to his car and set off for home, hoping he isn't imagining things, which he had never hoped before, because he didn't approve of imagination.
As he pulls into to driveway of Number Four, Privet Drive, the first thing he sees - and it doesn't improve his mood - is the tabby cat he'd spotted earlier this morning. He is sure it is the same one; it has the same markings around its eyes.
"Shoo!" says Mr. Dursley loudly; the cat doesn't move. It just gives him a stern look. Is this normal cat behavior? Mr. Dursley wonders. Trying to pull himself together, he lets himself into the house, determined not to mention anything to his wife.
Mrs. Dursley had had a nice, normal day. She tells Vernon over dinner about Mrs. Next Door's problems with their daughter and how Dudley had learned a new word - "Won't!". Mr. Dursley tries to act normally. When Dudley had been put to bed, he goes into the living room in time to catch the last report on the evening news:
"And finally, bird-watchers everywhere have reported that the nation's owls have been behaving very unusually today. Although owls normally hunt at night and are hardly ever seen in daylight, there have been hundreds of sightings of these birds flying in every direction since sunrise. Experts are unable to explain why the owls have suddenly changed their sleeping pattern." The newscaster allows himself a grin."Most mysterious. And now, over to Jim McGuffin with the weather. Going to be any more showers of owls tonight, Jim?"
"Well, Ted," says the weatherman, "I don't know about that, but it's not only the owls that have been acting oddly today. Viewers as far apart as Kent, Yorkshire, and Dundee have been phoning in to tell me that instead of the rain I promised yesterday, they've had a downpour of shooting stars! Perhaps people have been celebrating Bonfire Night early -- it's not until next week, folks! But I can promise a wet night tonight."
Mr. Dursley sits frozen in his arm chair. Shooting stars all over Britain?Owls flying by daylight? Mysterious people in cloaks all over the place? And a whisper, a whisper about the Potters...
Mrs. Dursley comes into the living room carrying two cups of tea. It's no good. I'll have to say something to her, he thinks. He clears his throat nervously, "Er - Petunia, dear - you haven't heard from your sister lately, have you?"
At he had expected, Mrs. Dursley looks shocked and angry. After all, they normally pretended that she didn't have a sister.
"No," she says sharply. "Why?"
"Funny stuff on the news," Mr. Dursley mumbles. "Owls... shooting stars... and there were a lot of funny-looking people in town today..."
"So?" snaps Mrs. Dursley.
"Well, I just thought... maybe... it was something to do with... you know... her crowd."
Mrs. Dursley sips her tea through pursed lips. Mr. Dursley wonders whether he dares tell her he'd heard the name "Potter." He decides he didn't dare. Instead he says, as casually as he can, "Their son --he'd be about Dudley's age now, wouldn't he?"
"I suppose so," says Mrs. Dursley stiffly.
"What's his name again? Howard, isn't it?"
"Harry. Nasty, common name, if you ask me."
"Oh, yes," says Mr. Dursley, his heart sinking horribly. "Yes, I quite agree."
He doesn't say another word on the subject as they go upstairs to bed. While Mrs. Dursley is in the bathroom, Mr. Dursley creeps to the bedroom window and peers down into the front garden. The cat is still there, staring down Privet Drive as though it is waiting for something.
Am I imagining things? Could all this have to do with the Potters? If is does . . . if it gets out that they are related to a pair of - well, I can't bare to think about it.
The Dursleys get into bed, Mrs. Dursley falls asleep quickly, but Mr. Dursley lies awake, turning it all over in his mind. I can't see how Petunia and I can get mixed in anything that can be going on, he yawns and turns over, it can't affect us . . .
How very wrong he turns out to be . . .
Mr. Dursley might have been drifting into an uneasy sleep, but the cat on the wall outside is showing no sigh of sleepiness. It is sitting as still as a statue, its eyes fixing unblinkingly on the far corner of Privet Drive. It doesn't so much as quiver when a car door slams on the next street over, nor when two owls swoop overhead. In fact, it is nearly midnight before the cat moves at all.
A man appears on the corner the cat had been watching, appearing so suddenly and silently you'd have though he'd just popped out of the ground. The cat's ears twitch and its eyes narrow.
Nothing like this man had ever been seen on Privet Drive. He is tall, thin, and very old, judging by the silver of his hair and beard, which were both long enough to tuck into his belt. He is wearing long robes, a purple cloak that sweeps the ground, and high-heeled, buckled boots. His blue eyes are light, bright, and sparkling behind half-moon spectacles and his nose is very long and crooked, as though it had been broken at least twice. This man's name is Albus Dumbledore.
Albus Dumbledore doesn't seem to realize that he'd just arrived in a street where everything from his name to his boots are unwelcome. He is busy rummaging in his cloak, looking for something. But he did seem to realize he is being watched, because he looks up suddenly at the cat, which is still staring at him from the other end of the street. For some reason, the sight of the cat seems to amuse him. He chuckles and mutters, "I should have known."
He finds what he is looking for in his inside pocket. It seems to be a silver cigarette lighter. He flicks it open, holds it up in the air, and clicks it. The nearest street lamp goes out with a little pop, he clicks it again - the next lamp flickers into darkness. Twelve times he clicks the Put-Outer, until the only lights left on the on whole street are two tiny pinpricks in the distance, which are the eyes of the cat watching him. If anyone looks out of their window now, even beady-eyed Mrs. Dursley, they won't be able to see anything that is happening down on the pavement. Dumbledore slips the Put-Outer back inside his cloak and sets off down the street toward Number Four, where he sits down on the wall next to the cat. He doesn't look at it, but after a moment he speaks it it.
"Fancy seeing you here, Professor McGonagall," Dumbledore says. He turns to smile at the tabby, but it had gone. Instead he is smiling at a rather severe-looking woman who is wearing square glasses exactly the shape of the markings the cat had had around its eyes. She, too, is wearing a cloak, an emerald one. Her black hair is drawn into a tight bun, and she looks distinctly ruffled.
"How did you know it is me?" she asks.
"My dear Professor, I've never seen a cat sit so stiffly."
"You'd be stiff if you'd been sitting on a brick wall all day," answers Professor McGonagall.
"All day?" Dumbledore asks. "When you could have been celebrating? I must have passed a dozen feasts and parties on my way here.
Professor McGonagall sniffs angrily.
"Oh yes, everyone's celebrating, all right," she says impatiently."You'd think they'd be a bit more careful, but no -- even the Muggles have noticed something's going on. It was on their news." She jerks her head back at the Dursleys' dark living-room window. "I heard it. Flocks of owls... shooting stars.... Well, they're not completely stupid. They were bound to notice something. Shooting stars down in Kent -- I'll bet that was Dedalus Diggle. He never had much sense."
"You can't blame them," replies Dumbledore gently. "We've had precious little to celebrate for eleven years."
"I know that," says Professor McGonagall irritably. "But that's no reason to lose our heads. People are being downright careless, out on the streets in broad daylight, not even dressed in Muggle clothes,swapping rumors."
She throws a sharp, sideways glance at Dumbledore here, as though hoping he is going to tell her something, but he didn't, so she goes on. "A fine thing it would be if, on the very day You-Know-Who seems to have disappeared at last, the Muggles found out about us all. I suppose he really has gone, Dumbledore?"
"It certainly seems so," says Dumbledore. "We have much to be thankful for. Would you care for a lemon drop?"
"A what?"
"A lemon drop. They're a kind of Muggle sweet I'm rather fond of."
"No, thank you," answers Professor McGonagall coldly, as though she didn't think this was the moment for lemon drops. "As I say, even if You-Know-Who has gone -"
"My dear Professor, surely a sensible person like yourself can call him by his name? All this 'You- Know-Who' nonsense -- for eleven years I have been trying to persuade people to call him by his proper name: Voldemort." Professor McGonagall flinches, but Dumbledore, who is unsticking two lemon drops, seemingly not noticing. "It all gets so confusing if we keep saying 'You-Know-Who.' I have never seen any reason to be frightened of saying Voldemort's name."
"I know you haven't," says Professor McGonagall, sounding half exasperated, half admiring. "But you're different. Everyone knows you're the only one You-Know- oh, all right, Voldemort, was frightened of."
"You flatter me," says Dumbledore calmly. "Voldemort had powers I will never have."
"Only because you't too - well - noble to use them."
"It's lucky it's dark. I haven't blushed so much since Madam Pomfrey told me she liked my new earmuffs."
Professor McGonagall shoots a sharp look at Dumbledore and says, "The owls are nothing next to the rumors that are flying around. You know what everyone's saying? About why he's disappeared? About what finally stopped him?"
It seems that Professor McGonagall had reached the point she was most anxious to discuss, the real reason she had been waiting on a cold, hard wall all day, for neither as a cat nor as a woman had she fixed Dumbledore with such a piercing stare as she did now. It is plain that whatever "everyone" was saying, she is not going to believe it until Dumbledore tells her it was true. Dumbledore, however, is choosing another lemon drop and does not answer.
"What they're saying," she presses on, "is that last night Voldemort turned up in Godric's Hollow. He went to find the Potters. The rumor is that Lily and James Potter are -- are -- that they're -- dead. "Dumbledore bows his head. Professor McGonagall gasps. "Lily and James... I can't believe it... I didn't want to believe it...Oh, Albus..."
Dumbledore reaches out and pats her on the shoulder. "I know... I know..." he says heavily.
Professor McGonagall's voice trembles she goes on. "That's not all.They're saying he tried to kill the Potter's son, Harry. But -- he couldn't. He couldn't kill that little boy. No one knows why, or how,but they're saying that when he couldn't kill Harry Potter, Voldemort's power somehow broke -- and that's why he's gone.Dumbledore nods glumly."It's -- it's true?" falters Professor McGonagall. "After all he's done... all the people he's killed... he couldn't kill a little boy? It's just astounding... of all the things to stop him... but how in the name of heaven did Harry survive?"
"We can only guess," says Dumbledore. "We may never know."
"What about (M/n) and her daughter (Y/n)?" McGonagall asks tentatively. "I remember (M/n) saying that she was going to take (Y/n) over to see the Potters."
Dumbledore bows his head again sadly, and Professor McGonagall's face seems to fall even more.
"Not them too," McGonagall says sadly.
"Her daughter lives," Dumbledore says.
"Well, where is she now?" McGonagall asks.
"She is currently living with Muggles," Dumbledore answers. "The Muggles' daughter is the same age as (Y/n), and will most likely attending Hogwarts at the same year."
"Why not take her to her father?" McGonagall asks curiously.
"Nobody knows who he is," Dumbledore answers. "Just that he's a famous muggle, and (M/n) decided to keep his name off (Y/n)'s birth certificate as to not draw unwanted attention from others."
"At least young (Y/n) is alive," McGonagall says softly.
Professor McGonagall pulls out a lace handkerchief and dabs at her eyes beneath her spectacles.
Dumbledore gives a great sniff as he takes a golden watch from his pocket and examines it. It is a very odd watch. Twelve hands but no numbers; instead, little planets are moving around the edge. It must have made since to Dumbledore, though, because he puts it back in his pocket and says, "Hagrid's late. I suppose it was he who told you I'd be here, by the way?"
"Yes," replies Professor McGonagall. "And I don't suppose you're going to tell me why you're here, of all places?"
"I've come to bring Harry to his aunt and uncle. They're the only family he has left now."
"You don't mean -- you can't mean the people who live here?" cries Professor McGonagall, jumping to her feet and pointing at number four."Dumbledore -- you can't. I've been watching them all day. You couldn't find two people who are less like us. And they've got this son -- I saw him kicking his mother all the way up the street, screaming for sweets. Harry Potter come and live here!"
"It's the best place for him," says Dumbledore firmly. "His aunt and uncle will be able to explain everything to him when he's older. I've written them a letter."
"A letter?" repeats Professor McGonagall faintly, sitting back down on the wall. "Really, Dumbledore, you think you can explain all this in a letter? These people will never understand him! He'll be famous -- a legend -- I wouldn't be surprised if today was known as Harry Potter day in the future -- there will be books written about Harry -- every child in our world will know his name!"
"Exactly," says Dumbledore, looking very seriously over the top of his half-moon glasses. "It would be enough to turn any boy's head. Famous before he can walk and talk! Famous for something he won't even remember! Can you see how much better off he'll be, growing up away from all that until he's ready to take it?"
Professor McGonagall opens her mouth, changes her mind, swallows, and then says, "Yes -- yes, you're right, of course. But how is the boy getting here, Dumbledore?" She eyes his cloak suddenly as though she thinks he might be hiding Harry underneath it. "Hagrid's bringing him."
"You think it -- wise -- to trust Hagrid with something as important as this?"
"I would trust Hagrid with my life," said Dumbledore
"I'm not saying his heart isn't in the right place," says Professor McGonagall grudgingly, "but you can't pretend he's not careless. He does tend to -- what was that?"
A low rumbling sound had broken the silence around them. It grew steadily louder as they look up and down the street for some sign of a headlight; it swells to a roar as they both looked up at the sky -- and a huge motorcycle falls out of the air and lands on the road in front of them.
If the motorcycle was huge, it's nothing to the man sitting astride it. He is almost twice as tall as a normal man and at least five ti mesas wide. He looks simply too big to be allowed, and so wild - long tangles of bushy black hair and beard hiding most of his face, hands the size of trash can lids, and his feet in their leather boots are like baby dolphins. In his vast, muscular arms he is holding a bundle of blankets.
"Hagrid," says Dumbledore, sounding relieved. "At last. And where did you get that motorcycle?"
"Borrowed it, Professor Dumbledore, sir," says the giant, climbing carefully off the motorcycle as he speaks. "Young Sirius Black lent it to me. I've got him, sir."
"No problems, were there?"
"No, sir - house was almost destroyed, but I got him out all right before the Muggles started swarmin' around. He fell asleep as we was flyin' over Bristol."
Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall bend forward over the bundle of blankets. Inside, just visible, is a baby boy, fast asleep. Under a tuft of jet-black hair over his forehead they can see a curiously shaped cut, like a bolt of lightning.
"Is that where - ?" Professor McGonagall breathes.
"Yes," answers Dumbledore. "He'll have that scar forever."
"Couldn't you do something about it Dumbledore?"
"Even if I could, I wouldn't. Scars can come in handy. I have one myself above my left knee that is a prefect map of the London Underground. Well - give him here, Hagrid - we'd better get this over with."
Dumbledore takes Harry in his arms and turns towards the Dursleys' house.
"Could I - could I say good-bye to him?" asks Hagrid. He bends his great, shaggy head over Harry and gives him what must have been a very scratchy, whiskery kiss. Then, suddenly, Hagrid lets out a howl like a wounded dog.
"Shhh!" hisses McGonagall, "you'll wake the Muggles!"
"S-s-sorry," sobs Hagrid, taking out a large spotted handkerchief and burying his face in it. "But I c-c-can't sand it - Lily, (M/n), an' James dead an' Harry and (Y/n) off ter live with Muggles -"
"Yes, yes, it's all very sad, but get a grip on yourself, Hagrid, or we'll be found," Professor McGonagall whispers, patting Hagrid gingerly on the arm as Dumbledore steps over the low garden wall and walks to the front door. He lies Harry gently on the doorstep, takes a letter out of his cloak, tucks it inside Harry's blankets, and then comes back to the other two. For a full minute, the three of them stand and look at the little bundle; Hagrid's shoulders shake, Professor McGonagall blinks furiously, and the twinkling light that usually shines from Dumbledore's eyes seem to have gone out.
"Well," says Dumbledore finally, "that's that. We've no business staying here. We may as well go and join the celebrations."
"I'd like to visit the place where (Y/n) is staying if that's alright, Professor Dumbledore," McGonagall says softly.
Dumbledore nods, clicks the Put-Outer, and places his hand on McGonagall's arm.
There is a loud pop and the two are standing outside a brick house. There are windows lit and the front door is open, leaving the screen door the only protection from the outside world.
Through the door however, the two see two young girls, one with (H/c) hair and the other with frizzy brown hair, playing together.
"They seem to get along well," McGonagall comments.
"They do," Dumbledore agrees. "I believe it is best to keep (Y/n) here until she returns to the wizarding world."
"I do have a question Dumbledore," McGonagall says. Dumbledore turns to her and nods for the professor to continue. "Was Voldemort trying to kill (Y/n) as well? If so, is she as powerful of a witch as Harry may turn out to be?"
"I do not know," Dumbledore admits. "If she as well survived a killing curse," Dumbledore pauses, as if collecting his thoughts. Then he changes what he was going say, "Harry defeated Voldemort by surviving a killing curse. (M/n) was killed before Lily and James. If (Y/n) also survived a killing curse, why did she not defeat Voldemort as well?"
"Maybe Voldemort was not aiming to kill young (Y/n)," McGonagall offers.
Dumbledore nods as though agreeing with the Professor, though he had his own thoughts running though his head.
Word Count: 4482 words
Tell me if you guys liked this first chapter and also if you can figure out what this is a crossover of.
So yeah, I'll see y'all soon!
Love,
Kaitlynn ❤️😍
#hermione granger#harry potter#fred weasley#george weasley#ron weasley#fem reader#hermione granger x sister reader#harry potter various x reader
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The Further Folklore of Supernatural
Here’s a little more folklore meta in light of how season 15 has been playing out if anyone is game. I genuinely thought that Moriah would be the end of the folklore stuff and tossed out “Folk the Author” as an “epilogue,” so this is probably less of an addendum than it is a waymarker as I try to continue to parse these themes into the last seven episodes.
Welp. *waves hands at everything* THIS is not how anyone expected 2020 to go. Things got a little bit big and I stopped thinking about Spn in light of needing that energy elsewhere. But I also don’t want this crapfest to ruin how I fan my favorite show, so here I go again. I will attempt a TL;DR, too!
If you’ve read my old “folklore” analysis here about how I think fairy tales and all their baggage fit into Supernatural season 14, you know that I believe Castiel has stepped into a Sleeping Beauty type story, and that coincidentally a few themes and symbolism from Snow White kept popping up around Dean. (I hold Sam to be a Protagonist in the modern “literary fiction” sense of the word, but emotionally, thematically, and narratively he’s always been a little inaccessible to me. I finally understood him when the death-of-the-author plot surfaced, and I’ll get to Sam eventually here. And Jack, there’s a little Jack in here, too.)
If you would rather have the TL;DR than read several thousands of words about how folklore and myth *might* be abstractly connected to an American genre show, all I can say is that I tried. The textual support is all in the folklore posts. This is as succinct a summary as I could fabricate. At least I’m not gonna talk about Sam and bricolage and freeplay! This is an almost completely theory-free post! If you don’t want to read or don’t need a refresher and just want to know how this has been working in 15, you can scroll down to “END OF TL;DR”.
So, to catch up, I’m not talking about the folklore and mythology that this show has always relied on for plot and MOTWs. I wasn’t drilling down into urban legends like Hook Man or world folk monsters like shtrigas or pishtacos. By “folklore” I mean the study of storytelling tropes and tale types that have been with us for ages. One of the many subtexts of the end of the series. I’ve been tracking this because I think it’s fun to see how fairy tale imagery and mythology might layer preconscious suggestions into the text of the show. I personally think it was loud enough to be seen easily, but more than likely viewers felt unsettled, felt cheered, or felt like they knew what was coming? I’m curious to know. Anyway.
When we found out that Kelly Kline was going to name her baby “Jack” waaaaay back in season 12, things started chiming. Jack and the Beanstalk. Jack the Giant Killer. Jack Tales. Jack is a powerful Western character, sort of a cross between a noble hero and a trickster, featuring in stories that often blur lines and boundaries. He is both the poor man’s youngest son and the equal to King Arthur’s heir. Jack is both everyman and extraordinary. Jack is so cool, I wish I had more time to parse that but his qualities are not subtle in the text/subtext, anyway.
But back to my half-crack reading of seasons 14 and 15.
Once upon a time in Supernatural, there were two fairy tales being told. Both fairy tales are found all over the world and in many forms, but they all can be grouped together because they all contain shared elements of the same basic plot or shared themes, and these two in particular are sister stories. So when I mention “Sleeping Beauty,” I’m talking about lots of different versions of the folk tale, and the same for “Snow White,” which can be found in one form or another in storytelling traditions all over the place. It is both helpful and irritating that these are both Disney movies, too.
Jack makes an allusion to Sleeping Beauty in 14x03 The Scar while talking to Castiel-- it’s the kind of subtextual flash that in and of itself means little and proves nothing, but then beginning with The Scar we got three stories in a row that dealt with “sleepers” of some sort-- Lora in 14x03 doomed to die because of a witch’s spell, Stuart in 14x04 Mint Condition in a coma because of a ghost attack, and Sasha’s father in 14x05 Nightmare Logic under the spell of a clever djinn. It’s powerful subtext, like a soft light that bathes these episodes in the color of fairy tale and makes Jack’s Dramatic Swoon at the end of Optimism all the more Dramatic-- subtext amplifying the plot. Jack goes to Heaven, but is eventually cornered by the Shadow, who wants him in the Empty where he will sleep forever-- the Shadow being an entity who has claimed the husks of dead angels since their inception and thus implies a “curse” laid on Jack from the moment he came into being-- but Castiel, who is ever a thief in oh so many ways, makes a bargain with the Shadow and essentially takes over the consequences of Jack’s Sleeping Beauty story (hence my rarely used but hilarious tag “Castiel Thief of Endings.”)
Now that we know from 14x20 Moriah that the Shadow and Billie the Reaper are, if not allies, at least working together when Jack is awakened in the Empty, does that mean that Castiel’s deal is still on the table, or has that fate been thwarted? *pounds table* Was Jack’s death and Chuck’s rise as a “greater threat” in 14x20 enough to shift Castiel’s ending? It’s the kind of subtextual question that lends tension to the narrative and it’s what I am here for.
Well, speaking of thwarted expectations, Dean’s arc was being shadowed by a Snow White tale type. We all know Snow White but why don’t I sum it up anyway, since Disney messed up the folktale ending lol. Snow White is cast out of her home by her jealous stepmother (and echoes of the stepmother’s magic mirror show up in 15x02 Gods and Monsters) who sends her huntsman to kill her; the dude can’t do it and turns the girl loose in the forest instead. Snow White joins a band of outsiders who live in the forest-- in the Disney movie and the Grimms’ tale they are dwarfs, in some versions she happens upon a band of robbers-- and they love her very much and we presume she’s safe for the rest of her life; Michael mysteriously turns Dean loose to join Sam’s gathering of hunters, however we know, like Stepmom, Michael is still out there. The stepmother finds out that Snow White is actually alive and contrives to kill her herself. Eventually succeeding, Snow White appears to die and is usually laid to rest in a crystal casket/glass coffin. Her stepmother’s machinations have _stolen her agency_ (further paralleling Dean’s possession by AU!Michael.) A Handsome Prince stumbles upon Snow White, is besmitten with her, and he asks her protectors if he can have her, as one does. Leaving the Disney adaptation aside, Snow White awakens when whatever item that has caused her death-like state is dislodged (piece of apple in her throat) or removed (magic corset) or withdrawn (poisoned hairpin) by her protectors. Snow White is a story about the community of the dwarves of band of robbers or adopted family caring deeply for her, and when Dean starts making his own crystal casket, the ma’lak box, in which he will ride out eternity in tormented symbiosis with Apocalypse Michael, he has to rely on his family to help him see the plan through. However, here’s where Jack-- who is as much a chaos engine as his surrogate father Castiel if not more so-- steps in and ruins the ending. Jack smites Michael. Dean Winchester is saved. Again. To put the final nail in the coffin, so to speak, Jack later destroys the ma’lek box entirely.
That was quite the surprise ending… for one of the stories.
Was the end of season 14 the end of the Sleeping Beauty theme, also?
END OF TL;DR
I quit writing about “folklore” for a while, but that doesn’t mean it stopped being a theme. It just stopped being fun to write about as the story got more and more dark, and when it transmuted into two parallel themes of “folklore” or storytelling by the people versus Death of the Author--or storytelling by a lauded authority-- and there was so much angst about the boundaries of Chuck’s powers, I just wanted to sit back and enjoy that. I did distill my thoughts about Sam’s new arc in the DotA plot, which I thought would subsume the folktale themes but hey, we still have folktales around, too. I mean, we have Sam and we have Dean, and we have two “literary” subtexts, or maybe rather two subjects about the nature of story, something that I thought was a little bit of a surprise.
Storytelling was a Feature of 15x07 Last Call, both in the sense that Lee and Dean swap new stories and tell old tales of their adventures together as they catch up, but also in the sense that we got additional “text”-- hints of a backstory where John and Dean hunted with Lee in that swampy long-ago “Stanford era,” and again we get storytelling when _Lee recounts how he ended up keeping a marid in his basement_. There is also an allusion to the Thousand and One Arabian Nights in that episode that I yelled about in a meta that I never put on the interwebs, but the “marid” is in a specific tale in many editions of that collection, and thus calls in not only a different folktale tradition but the concept of a framed/nested narrative, which I believe will be important to understanding the last episodes of the series, but that’s an aside. In 15x08 Our Father Who Aren’t In Heaven, Castiel _tells Michael the story_ of how everyone ended up where they are now to convince him to help. And Michael and Adam’s allyship, if not friendship, was probably the best subversion of any “storytelling” expectation we’ve ever had on this show. Belphagor set us up for “room full of crazy” or something, but, no. We got symbiosis.
That almost sums up how I’ve been viewing the last “era” of spn. This wasn’t in the master post, but I shouted a lot about underworlds before 15x09 Purgatory 2: Return to Purgatory, and then stopped shouting because I had to ferment for a while. Also, as has been mentioned, the world turned to crap. But talking to other meta writers during the ramp up to the resumption of the season helped me realize just why this reading of myth to folktales to literature feels so right.
Underworlds and Otherworlds…. Everybody has crossed into an “underworld” or three in Supernatural, it’s really nbd. It was actually surface-level plot in season 13. By the time 15x09 rolled around, our heroes are just, like, strolling in and out of “sealed off” Hell after doing a level one spell and chilling with Billie in the Empty and even that Purgatory trip didn’t have the same feeling of danger that, say, crossing into the AU did. But also, we’re at the point where subtext is leading us to a _satisfactory_ ending. Where before we had serial text, like a cumulative tale type-- “The House that Jack Built”-- which just kept adding more and more plot, we’re hurtling o’er the apex of Freytag’s pyramid now and things are getting loud.
But they’re also getting very shifty.
I wrote a little bit about Sam Winchester successfully reviving Eileen in 15x06 Golden Time and the “Orpheus and Eurydice” symbolism of him keeping his back to her. (I’m not linking it because it’s so, so rough.) But because Sam is not an underworld hero, not completely-- I see him as a modern Protagonist coming to terms in a psychoanalytical model with things like mortality, fallibility, and mastery-- maybe bildungsroman, even -- he was able to subvert the tragic ending of the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice because it is not “his” story. But if I were pressed to find a mythic or folk tale type to measure Sam against, I could. I would probably sideye “the sorcerer’s apprentice” trope (ATU 325-The Magician and his Pupil :D ) which began as a poem that entered European folklore on different fronts. (and weirdly, that story was also Disnified in Fantasia. That’s probably more my own limitation as a gen x american lol than anything coming from the writer’s room.)
Dean got his moment in Purgatory where he was able to finally come to grips with his anger and heal the rift between himself and Castiel because Purgatory is a different kind of underworld. Dean is a successful threshold-crosser, having crossed that boundary out of Purgatory before, but in 15x09, his prayer to Castiel is all a subtextual evocation of doing the emotional and mental work of therapy, which Sam, as a modern protagonist, is usually caught up in. The mythic hero also deals with mortality, failibilty, and mastery, but in different terms. I hope I’m doing an okay job peeling apart these nuances that I’m seeing.
Since Castiel accompanied Dean to Purgatory, and in the past made his own wildly successful incursion into and out of Hell with Dean’s soul, and was the one in The Trap who actually retrieved the Leviathan blossom, Castiel counts as an underworld hero, too, but you can pull the lever and send the tumblers spinning again and make him a fairy tale character in that he has made this Bargain with the Empty which is both in the “modern” tradition of subverting a fairy tale, and the tale type “deal with the devil.” Or he could be seen as a modern protagonist in that he’s lowkey grappling with questions of selfhood and identification. “I am an angel of the lord.” “I am no one.” “It’s Steve, now.” “You are nothing.” “I am an angel.”
We even got an episode that playfully explored the concept of “hero” by subverting our expectations (Sam and Dean were rescued by, of all people, an upgraded Garth.) It was called The Hero’s Journey, after the Joseph Campbell book about mythic heroes.... !!! Like, what??? !!!! I didn’t even have anything to say about that episode, it just rocked. The “meta” was just all out there in plot, like the olives and boiled eggs in a 1950’s gelatin recipe.
Some of this slipperiness in the subtext points right at the study of folklore and the (admittedly Eurocentric at first) efforts to transform a “soft science” into something approaching scientific rigor. The Aarne-Thompson-Uther folktale index is today a codifying or cataloguing tool, with which anthropologists and literature scholars can line up stories based on the motifs found within them-- it is useful for cataloguing tales, making comparative studies, and for trying to trace these stories back through human history to find the One First Story of that type, for instance the ur-story that led to Snow White. When did people first start telling that tale, where, how did it spread, and why are we still telling it today? The danger in using the ATU index is that by stripping a story down to it’s bones, we lose the story, if that makes sense. The beauty of using the ATU index is that you find many, many more interconnected stories. It’s sort of a paradox. Some scholars criticize the ATU, claiming that one could take a random selection of these motifs and shuffle them to create a story and, you sort of could? That’s the beauty of the system.
So that brings us to Jack. I feel like Jack, as in Jack of all Trades, is anything that the narrative needs him to be. As far as I can find, “Jack” is not a “tale type.” He shows up alongside any number of them-- sometimes as a trickster, sometimes as a hero, almost always as a kind of slippery character. In the first folklore post, I invested many words in exploring Dabb’s obsession with threes-- AU Michael asks three beings what they desire, asks his human victim to guess his name three times, then we follow three sleeper stories, and so on. The original TFW was three people. But Jack makes four.
What is Jack’s story going to be?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
And speaking for a sec about the origins of myth and folklore-- what about ALL OF THE OTHER PEOPLE in the world? Are they lowkey churning the matrix of reality on their own and generating their own content, like Becky and her AO3 stories and mackettes?
*¯\_(ツ)_/¯ intensifies*
It all just feels so good at this point, even the peril that I feel surrounding Castiel.
I *think* this will be the last of the longform metas before the end of the series. I mean, I can only hope so. I’ll drop some stuff about individual episodes that might be applicable as I rewatch, and I might clean up my post about Last Call and drop it on here, but I just wanted to kind of hold this up as a mile marker before the Final Seven air.
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The Wanted (Revised Hurloane Fic) -- Ch. 7
“They had nearly as many names as they had stories told about them. Ram. Raven. Red. Devil. Deputy. Outlaw. Short ‘n Long. Ghosts of the Rapids.”
Hurley’s a bounty hunter, the Raven is an outlaw, and the desert is a lonely place.
(The 50k+ Old West Hurloane AU Where Hurley Becomes A Thief Too that no one asked for. Updates every Friday. Edited and reposted from an old version of the story–more significant changes to come in later chapters. T for non-graphic violence and discussions of death/injury/trauma.)
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Both of them reached town by the following night, after seeing the steady approach of the buildings in front of them for hours. They all looked the same. It seemed, somehow, that they should have changed, since everything else had in the meantime.
Hurley had told her that they had some supplies they could give her before they left, if she wanted them. It sort of shocked them when she agreed to wait. Nobody's around, she'd said, and even if they were, there aren't many who'd know me at a glance without the mask on. If you can sneak me in, I'm there.
Nevertheless, she insisted on waiting right inside their little house while they gathered the stuff, presumably so she could ensure that they wouldn’t sneak out and call on anybody to come and catch her. They couldn’t expect a complete lack of doubt, after all.
When they had everything, they came out to find Sloane with her hands tucked beneath her arms, shifting on her feet. "Hi. Are you feeling okay?"
"Good as I can be, I'd say. This is sort of a den of vipers I'm in here." She grinned at her laconic way, but her gaze kept flicking to the windows like a trapped insect flying into the glass. Even in the poor light, they shone, alert. She was ready to bolt into the night and evaporate into the blackness outside, if needed.
"You're gonna be alright. No one's even around this time of night, usually."
"Yeah. I mean, it's fine, it's not like I'm..." Sloane trailed off as she looked into the pouch that Hurley had passed her. "Holy shit, how much did you give me?"
"Kind of a lot. I hope you can carry it all."
She pulled out the lantern by its heavy metal ring to look at it, wide-eyed. "I can't take all this. It's yours, isn't it?"
Hurley shrugged. "I got my house here. And the general store and even my neighbors. I can get whatever I need. You're gonna be out in the middle of nowhere for gods-know-how-long. I want you to be ready."
With a scoff, she said, "I've been alright out there with far less, believe me." She looked down, in thought. Suddenly she appeared still, really still, rather than simply poised to flee. Then she turned to Hurley, and there was that soft glance again. She looked bared. "But...but thank you. And hey, something to remember you by, yeah?"
"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?" they asked with a smirk.
"Well, truth be told, I'm not sure I could make myself forget any of this if I wanted to."
"I don't think I want to. I'll..." They rubbed their neck. It wouldn't do either of them any good to say they would miss her. Thrusting their regrets out into the open would change nothing. "I just hope you're going to be alright out there."
"Desert's where I've always done best," she said with a small shrug. "I'd rather be out there than in a town that wants me dead."
"Right. You sure I can't...put you up somehow? I could hide you at my place for a couple days. Just to recover, after the time we've had."
"Nah, much too risky." Her chest heaved with a breath, and then suddenly her grin returned. "But hey, that truce of ours can only last so long, huh? Might run into you again one of these days when you're trying to catch me."
"Oh, so you're scared of me now?"
"Given that you're almost the only one who's managed to lasso me so far? Think I have a right to be."
Hurley chuckled, then bit their lip. "I mean, I hope at this point you know I wouldn't do that to you again. I...the truce doesn't have an expiration date, you know?"
"Well, we'll see."
For another moment, they stared at her solemn profile, turned toward the outside. Soft streaks of bright moonlight touched the smooth curves of her cheekbones and prominent nose. It softened her edges, made them vague. It seemed that at any moment her form could fade from view altogether, become just as intangible as the light. All of her was precious, something Hurley hardly ever had a hope of seeing again in their lifetime. The thought made them weak in the way that hunger made them weak, a scraping at the lining of their belly from the inside.
Before they could dwell on the feeling, she took one step forward. Hurley waited. They felt like they might frighten her off if they made a move. Sure enough, when she didn't see them move, she raised her hand in the air, then brought it down gently onto their shoulder.
Nothing happened.
After several moments of silence, they finally cocked an eyebrow at her. She said, "Um." They felt increasingly hot despite the falling evening temperature as she gave them a couple little pats on the shoulder. "Take...take care of yourself, alright?"
They laughed lightly. "Oh, Sloane..." They paused, then put their hand over hers and squeezed lightly. "I wish nothing but the best for you, you know that?"
"Yeah, alright." Her mouth was practically pressed into her shoulder. "So...bye, then?"
"Yes."
Both of them stood there.
After a beat, Sloane seemed to remember something suddenly and pulled her hand away. "Right, uh, I'll just--"
It didn't happen grandly. There was just the unassuming sound of pebbles in the street skittering under the leather of a shoe, hardly louder than a whisper. It would have been wholly unremarkable were it not the only sound aside from that of their own voices. They whipped around and took a moment to comprehend the situation now in front of them, materialized out of the darkened alleyway. There was a slight figure, and his gun was pointed Hurley's way, and they were almost startled for their own sake before they realized that he was aiming high.
Lil' Jerry looked at Sloane like a kid would look at some fantastic zoo animal.
"Geez," he said slowly. His nasal voice was full of the same wonder that they saw in his eyes. "I heard you were pretty bold, Raven, but coming back here is so stupid I've gotta be impressed."
Sloane's hands scraped against the wooden wall at her back. It seemed that she intended to claw into it, searching for a way to secure herself to the hard facade. The muscles in her jaw moved and bulged. She said nothing. There was that same look in her eye from a few weeks and a world ago, when she was a different person to them and they were a different person to themself. She looked as she had when they had first caught her, in the raw moment when she was open as a new wound before hardening. She was made of fear, as, they now knew, she had been then.
Jerry flicked his head toward Hurley, then, as though they had just popped into existence in front of him. "You're alive?"
That was a good question. Was this really happening? Judging by the way their hot heart was trying to drill its way straight out of their ribcage, it seemed so.
"You know, you could've just brought her to the jail," he said, sounding irritated. "I dunno how the hell you managed to drag her back here, but you might quit playing the hero now and trying to do everything yourself. You know, I wouldn't have even come to help if I hadn't seen the lamp on in your win--"
"What are you doing here?" they blurted. "How did you even...did Bane come back with--"
"Bane? You know as well as I do that that man's got a hide like an elephant. Nothing could kill him, hardly." He shook his head. "You know, he wanted to go back and look for you after that storm. We managed to convince him he was crazy, given he could hardly breathe after we got caught out in it." As if on cue, he coughed.
"He's alive," Hurley whispered, thinking it was to themself. "He's here." Then, quickly, they looked over at Sloane and found her looking right back at them, taking her eyes off the gun for the first time.
"He is, no thanks to you." He had already grown bored with Hurley, it seemed. He was turned away from them again, and the curl came back to his lip. He took a few steps toward Sloane. "Listen, I'll make you a deal. I let you have all the credit for bringing her back, so long as Bane knows I'm the one who actually brought her to the jail." He was right up against her now, and it was with a relaxed slowness that he pressed the barrel of his revolver up into the soft flesh just behind her chin, underneath the tongue. Her head tilted up until her neck was fully exposed and she looked down at him like a frantic mustang, flaring nostrils, white-eyed. She looked all around for an exit route but kept bringing her gaze back to the gun. They could feel the ice of the metal on their own skin like a phantom pain.
He pulled cuffs out from the back of his belt and the jangle of them was like frantic bells and this wasn't how it was supposed to go. The two of them hadn't traveled this far for it to end like this, and it would not, could not.
"S..." They started speaking before they knew what they were saying. Rattle of metal in their ears. "Stop it. Stop it!"
Then there was a single great bang and, next to Jerry's feet, a hole in the floor with a starburst of black around its edges. Sulphur-scented smoke got in their eyes.
She was staring at them. They tried not to look back. They focused on their line of sight as they stared down the barrel of their pistol at the man in front of them.
"Hi, Jerry," they said politely. "Yes, I'm alive alright. Do me a favor and drop that weapon, okay?"
He blinked. He blinked again. They couldn't really blame him. "What're you--"
"It's gonna be fine. Just back away from her."
"Why..." He looked between them and Sloane. They saw him thinking about turning the gun on them.
"Jerry," they said with a sigh, "don't. You know I'm quicker."
He did know. He shook his head fast to try and dislodge the knowledge. "You wouldn't--"
"I wouldn't?" They took one measured stride forward. Of course they wouldn't. It was all bluff. But all they needed was for him to believe it.
He didn't seem to, entirely. But there was more of fear than suspicion in him, more of an instinct to quit while he was ahead. That was one of the few things they'd always liked about him. It took him only half a second more to drop the gun and raise his hands.
"Thank you." They turned to her then. "Sloane, come here."
She took another slack-jawed moment to react, looked at him once, and then went over to Hurley. They pressed the grip of the gun into her hand. Her fingers were loose, and she nearly dropped it before pointing it at Jerry. Her form was terrible. They bound his wrists as she held the revolver on him.
They thought about dropping him inside their house, then thought better of it. They had to be sure someone would find him in the morning--they wouldn't have left him tied for days. So they dragged him the extra feet to the sheriff's office, where, amidst his cursing, they threatened some and apologized more and ultimately left him locked in a utility closet. Then they walked away so fast they might as well have been jogging, blew right past a waiting Sloane outside, and pressed their forehead against an outside wall in an attempt to cool it, wondering exactly what it was that they had just done.
"Hurley." Sloane's whisper was loud, full of urgency. "What was that? Why did you do that?"
"I don't know," they said from inside their hands. This was the aftermath of a dynamite blast. It had happened in a moment, and now there was no way to retrieve the fragments that had been scattered to the winds. No fixing this.
"You don't know?!" Sloane let out an incredulous huff. "Hurley, do you have any idea what you just did? To your whole life? Come sun-up, it's open season on you. Fuck, they even know what you look like." The longer she went on, the more she sounded almost angry. She kept making sweeping gestures with her hand at nothing in particular, at everything, at where "they" lurked. "Gods almighty, Hurley, they're gonna hunt you! They'll come after you with--with dogs--"
"I'm aware, Sloane!" they snapped back. "I've been 'them,' in case you forgot. I'm not an idiot."
"Well, shit, then what were you thinking?!"
"I..." They stopped. They hadn't thought, really. It had been like pulling their hand from a hot fire. There was no time to think about why they did it. They just knew they had to. It felt like self-preservation, even though it hadn't been themself they were protecting back there. "I guess I just got to liking you when you weren't in chains, and I didn't like the idea of you being back in them."
She visibly jolted, took a step back.
For awhile, neither of them said anything. Finally, they shrugged. "I just did what I thought was right."
Even her steps were hushed and gentle as she padded back over to them. She looked at them a long time. "You really did do that for me, didn't you?"
They chuckled a little ruefully. "Well, yeah. I don't think it's going to benefit me a whole lot, at least."
They saw the corner of her mouth lift by degrees. It was far more than her usual, tight-lipped, mischievous grin. She was open-mouthed and open. They had indeed done what they felt was right.
It lasted only a moment. She cleared her throat and said, "We've got to get you out of here."
"'We?'"
She had half-turned around, but paused to look back. "Well...if you're willing to come." More assertively, she went on, "Just so you could lie low for awhile, until the fuss around here dies down, and then, I don't know, figure out what to do as you go, I guess. Seems like kind of your M.O. Anyway, I got a bit of experience running from authorities, as you might recall, and my assumption is you could use some help with--"
"Sloane?"
"Yeah?"
They snorted, blinked away the hot prick in their eyes. "Of course. If you'll have me, of course." They went up to her, then stopped short. "Can I hug you?"
"Oh...fine, but fast. I want to move."
They did, and her arms stiffened as she wrapped theirs around her. But only a little.
She slid out of their grip before long. "I'm going to get ready to leave,” she muttered. “You get what you need. I’ll be back soon.”
"Sloane?" Hurley went to grab her hand as she turned away, but pulled back at the last minute, only brushing the thin fingers. "Be careful, alright?"
There was a snort in response. "You got a lot of fuckin' nerve telling me that, after that stunt of yours." But she could be seen smiling through the night.
What she had commanded them to do was easier said than done. They had a lifetime and then some of trinkets and heirlooms that they had brought back from their first home. None of them had value, because back then, right before they'd left, anything worth anything had had to be sold. Only the priceless things had been left untouched. These were what they had carried with them where they went, despite their weight.
They didn’t know how to prioritise. Everything was of equal worth to them. When they imagined leaving something behind, choosing their sister’s old doll over the tin-type of their mother, they imagined erasing the memory attached to the abandoned item. They couldn’t possibly prioritise their memories.
But Sloane would tell them that they couldn’t take all of it regardless. Sloane traveled light.
They came outside, bag full and eyes wet, to see her creeping their way with an already saddled horse.
"Did you steal that?"
"No, I wished upon a star."
"She's so pretty!" Hurley let the horse smell their hand and rubbed under her chin. "What's her name?"
"I tend not to name them. Sometimes I have to leave them behind with no notice. I don’t like getting attached.”
“Oh.”
“Anyway, you ready? Or do you need to do anything else?"
“I…” They gripped the strap of their bag until their knuckles hurt. “No. No, we have to leave.”
They were hardly on the horse’s back before Sloane started off. They went and went.
It astounded them when their head began to nod forward, at least as much as a person half-asleep was capable of being astounded. Being bounced in the saddle by the horse's trotting underneath them, with the thoughts of what they had just done nipping at their heels, they would have thought that the adrenaline would make them immune to exhaustion. But after maybe an hour of riding, the town that had been receding from them all this time had fallen off the edge of the earth, disappearing from the precipice of the horizon, so that they could believe it had never existed at all. They felt the swirl of thoughts in their mind finally condense and settle into something thick and heavy at the base of their skull, weighing them down. The dull thudding of hooves in the sand had the effect of waves washing up repeatedly, endlessly.
They must have begun to slump noticeably, because the horse's hoofbeats slowed and quieted. "You tired?" Sloane asked.
They barely bothered opening their mouth to slur, "A little." They were leaning back in their seat. Idly, they realized that they were warm, and that that, more than likely, was why they were able to sleep.
The horse stopped. Behind them, Sloane shifted and moved away a little as she shuffled around, and suddenly their makeshift backrest was gone. They caught themself before they could fall all the way backward. "I kept telling you not to keep watch the whole night and let me have a turn," she muttered as she reached for a rope at her side. "No wonder you're exhausted now."
They watched her hands slip under their arms and loop the rope around their waist. "What are you doing?"
"That's so you don't fall off." She passed the cord behind her back and knotted it in front of their belly, binding them quite literally at the hip. "You ever slept on the go before?"
"No, not really."
"Well, try it. I'm gonna keep riding through the night. You can just rest."
"What about you?" they asked around a yawn. "You're gonna get tired."
"I'll be alright. I've slept fine the past couple nights. Anyway, I've got to stay up. I'm the one who actually knows where to go." Out here, without fire, there was no light. They could not see the face of the woman inches from them as she craned her neck towards the squat mountains to the east, with a silhouette blacker against the black sky. As their eyelids drooped, everything blurred. They became unaware of where she ended and the sky began.
Then she turned toward them and got huffy. "Sleep, dammit."
"Okay," they mumbled, and fell back again but did not hit anything hard.
Hurley could not be sure how long the pause was before they felt her exhale into their thick hair. She gave a soft, short "Hyup" to the horse, and the rhythm began again, as fast and steady as before. They faded quickly.
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Ashamed
Summary: Could I request one where Eddie is ashamed of the scar on his chest from Pennywise and that he refuses to take his shirt off for any reason until Richie confronts him and tells him that the scar is a reminder of his bravery and he takes Eddie's shirt off and kisses it?
A/N: I hope you enjoy and I’m so sorry it took so long! I’m a bit behind on my request but I promise I’m trying to finish request every day so to everyone who has requested stuff, I promise it’s coming!
warnings: there’s a sex joke in here, and a sex reference (not graphic at all)
Eddie has contemplated before on hanging up a towel over the mirror any and each time he’s in the bathroom by himself. He’s never executed the plan, Richie’s too observant for that too work and would notice but straight away, leading to questions Eddie’s ashamed to answer, but whenever Richie is away on tour or a show, he’ll prop the towel from one side to the other, obscuring the view of his chest.
He’s never been very confident in his appearance, but he wasn’t hyper aware of it like he is after the Pennywise accident either. He didn’t have to be. For years Myra smothered him with her self-presumed love and adoration, picking out the clothes he wore and buying all the creams and aftershave she treasured, and Eddie followed her in those things without stopping and thinking about what he liked and how he wanted to sell himself towards other people.
Once, he was gifted a perfume bottle from one of his coworkers, a secret Santa gift, and when he sprayed it on to go to work the next day, Myra picked up on the change and gave him a piece of her mind. She reamed Eddie about not remodeling himself to be accepted by his peers, not mulling that maybe the Eddie she prepared and drilled every morning was not the real Eddie. There were threats being ushered, like Eddie cheating on Myra and switching perfumes to galvanize his mistress, and no matter how many times Eddie tried to reason with her, she was dead set on the idea.
He tossed the bottle out that same day, immensely guilty that he gave Myra grounds to question him. She was right after all, Eddie was married, and he didn’t have to make anyone happy except his wife, not even himself.
Post Derry him is happier. So fucking happy he gleams and elates every morning awakening in Richie’s arms, or the other way around, nosing behind Richie’s ear to get that one little inch closer, turning off the alarm and dosing an extra hour, work suddenly coming second for once in Eddie’s life. Richie had that effect on him, made him long to be near him twenty-four/seven,
But he also feels worse, and that can be tracked back to the long, vertical scar smacked in the middle of his chest. It’s starts in the mornings, but in a stand offish way, the insecurities bubbling on the edge of his mind loud enough that Eddie knows they’re there, but not so ample close that Eddie nitpicks and examines them, yet.
And at first it wasn’t even that bad, Eddie mostly enthralled with moving his stuff in and out of houses, and fitting as much RichieandEddie time into their shared schedule to gain back what they lost over the years, the underlying doubt and terror every time he caught a glimpse of the scar background to the best moments of his life.
It only really became a problem the first time Eddie and Richie made love to each other, and Eddie refused to take of his shirt. The pleasant, hot and vastly attractive sight of Richie’s slightly pudgy stomach and thighs, and his clean, smooth chest Eddie could run his fingers over and not bubble once incited a deep meekness and carved him hallow. Emptied by the idea that he’s horrific and undeserving of the adoration so blindingly clear in his boyfriends eyes.
Most off all, the scar is reminiscent on the clown trauma, proof that Pennywise maintains some sort of power over him, in comparisons to his friends and Richie, who moved on with their lives. It distinguishes him from the group, and not in a good way. In a way that shines a bright neon spot over Eddie’s head, accentuating his cowardness.
The reflections displayed in the mirror exhibits his slip up, his idiocy to entertain the idea of him being strong enough to defeat Pennywise all on his own, he wants nothing to do with it. The scar tissue puckers up his skin and his disgust is so deeply rooted that he didn’t even bother to check up on it for months after Derry, to assure it didn’t fester.
So no, Eddie doesn’t conceal the glass whenever Richie is home, but what he does do is strip down everything except for his shirt when slipping in the shower, towing the shower curtain and tossing the shirt out, rumpled on the floor, via the small slit.
The wrinkles in his shirt agitate him, but are a small price to pay for preserving his sanity and spirits. In the shower he resolutely does not look down at all, his eyes trained on the ugly pattern of tiles Richie claimed came with the house when he bought it, but Eddie suspects he just really fancy’s it.
Eddie always neatly packs his new shirt on the countertop, effortlessly accessible from the lavatory so he can dry off and pull on his shirt without drawing his own attention to his chest.
Stowing away his insecurity is a weight he’s been holding over his own head, so dangerously close to imbalance and tumbling over that Eddie feels shifting his attention from it slightly will let it all crash down on him. Because Richie has a tenacious personality, and once he catches a whiff of it, he’ll cling to the smallest straws to get to the bottom of it.
The schedule Eddie’s built has never been interrupted before, Richie knowing, or at least being tricked into knowing, and understanding that the bathroom serves as Eddie’s sanctuary, a place for being alone and restocking and regrouping his overactive mind. The interference in the schedule is Eddie’s own wrongdoing, for glossing over the fact that they had a dinner party to attend to, and dragging out his time in the bathroom for way too long plus forgetting to grab a change of clothing.
He only addresses the issue at hand when the shower runs cold and he’s bordering on being late, contemplating his options with his hands resting on his hips. Richie always sings a derivative of a song before entering a room, transforming the lyrics in a way that fits in Eddie and Richie’s life, as a substitute for knocking as that’s boring according to him, but Eddie discerns tiny snores emerging from the living room, so Eddie hurriedly dries off and dons his underwear, training his eyes down casted to not look at the mirror.
He wastes a long time debating on what to wear, matching multiple t-shirts to the pants he has elected to wear, unbeknownst that the snoring in the other room has ebbed away. This is an important business meeting with Richie’s new manager, one that will lift up his spirits and encourage him to fly solo, writers free, and Eddie can’t afford to mess this up. He’s scrutinizing an oxford-button-down forest green shirt, analyzing if there’s a spot on the fabric or if it’s a trick of the light.
Hearing the caroling a smidge too late, Eddie has no time to slip in the shirt before the door cracks open, Richie’s wild curls sticking out in every direction and his pants too low, pulled down from the movements he slanders during sleep.
‘I was about to call the ambulance and ask them to assemble a rescue mission’, he quips, feet padding the carpet of the bedroom lazily.
The weight Eddie’s been bearing up dislodges and veers menacingly to the edge, a gust away from keeling over the edge.
‘Get out’, Eddie says calmly the first time, contorting his body so his upper torse is veiled from Richie’s observation, the button-down serving as a shield of sorts. ‘Get out’, he clamors, a panic attack lurking in the shadows and prowling on his burst of utter panic.
‘Eds’, Richie says perplexed, his eyebrows contracting, his droopy eye more squinted than it is with his face slacked.
‘Get out, I don’t want to see you’, Eddie hisses, witnessing the decay of Richie’s happy face, teetering away backwards and back out in the hallway.
Eddie swallows, the door obstructing his outlook on Richie, and appareling his shirt so fast it tears around the sleeves, pretending he didn’t hear that. His instincts lure him to hide under the covers and wait for the whole thing to blow over, but his comments hurt Richie and his instincts were formed his primary years, while living with his mother, so he does the exact opposite.
‘Rich’, he groans, eyeing Richie leaning on the counter, his body jutting out, dancing on his feet and shelving the cleaned dishes.
‘Richie stop.’ Eddie plasters himself against Richie’s back, fitting so perfectly like puzzle pieces, like a riddle so complicated that’s been solved. He hooks his chin over Richie’s shoulder, kissing the underside of his jaw.
‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have yelled.’
‘No it’s fine, it’s my fault. I need to learn how to knock. I didn’t mean to agitate you.’
‘You didn’t agitate me. I know I say you do all the time but somehow everything you do is endearing, not irritating.’
‘Careful Eddie Spaghetti, you’ll give me a big head.’
‘I can do that tonight if you’d like?’ Eddie teased, the tight knot in his heart uncoiling at the rumbling of Richie’s laugh.
Richie rotated in his arms, front to front, hugging Eddie back in equal fierce as Eddie did too him.
‘Forgive me?’
‘That depends my good follow, however shall you atone me?’ He released Eddie with one arm, using his hand to tap his chin thoughtfully. ‘Hm, perhaps with a reason as to why?’, his British accent lacing his words.
‘Rich, I really don’t want to talk about it.’
‘Come on,’ Richie pleaded, pouting with his bottom lip. ‘How can I help if you won’t tell me what’s going on?’
Eddie sighed, his arms cave in and the weight collapses down upon him. ‘I just don’t want you to envision this’, he says, unconsciously smoothing down his shirt on the spot his wound is located.
‘Envision what? You?’
‘No’, Eddie explains miserably, ‘I mean the scar, the disfigurement.’
‘Eddie’, Richie gently chuckles, ‘I don’t give a shit about that.’
‘That’s because you haven’t seen it yet. It’s so ugly and,’ Eddie interrupted himself, unwinding from Richie to give himself some breathing space. Being near Richie is intoxicating, but he needed to think clearly.
‘And what?’ Richie pries.
‘How much of a coward I am okay? I don’t want you to look at me and realize how much better you can do.’
‘Eddie, do you honestly believe you’re a coward?’
‘Yeah.’ Shame flooding the tips of his ears, making it harder to engage the conversation, when all Eddie wanted was to leave and go the this dinner.
‘Like I told you down in the sewers, you’re braver than you think, Eds. I’m the one who aimed higher and scored the jackpot.’ Richie asseverate.
‘You keep saying that but I’m the only one idiot enough to get injured.’
‘That’s no true, I strained my leg muscle.’ Richie states, twisting his leg, reliving the memory of the shards of affliction lodging in.
‘Seriously, maybe you’re the only one that got hurt, but you survived. Who in the world can claim there’s so badass that they lived through being shish kebabbed? By a demon from outer space no less.’
‘No one I guess.’
‘No one, erase the “I guess”. Give yourself some credit.’ Richie says firmly, outstretching his arm and then thinking better of it. ‘Can I touch it?’
‘Richie,’ Eddie hesitated, eyes flitting around the room as if to plan his escape.
‘I’ll be really gentle. And if you don’t like it I’ll pull back straight away.’ The soft tone settles Eddie somewhat, and with a hesitant nod, Richie slowly inches closer. He goes so leisurely, as one would approach a feral kitten, but Eddie keeps the parallels to himself, Richie will tease him relentlessly for it.
Eddie expected Richie to slide under his shirt from the get go, but all Richie does is pet his chest on top of the shirt, mapping out the area and feeling where the scar is located.
The area is strangely sensitive, a reason why Eddie has to douche it softly as opposed to the harsh scrubbing he’s used to doing to every other part of his physics.
Only the barely-there, soft touches of Richie’s fingers pawing, tickles Eddie, realizing a breathless hum as he gets acquainted to Richie and him converging in that spot.
Eddie giggles, Richie steadily ongoing his ministrations, until the notion borders on too much, and he plummets to his knees.
He kisses top of the blemish, all the way to the underside, blowing a raspberry there as if the normal kiss wasn’t ticklish enough.
Eddie cackles, halfheartedly shoving Richie backwards, his worries fizzling out into the night. The smooches leave a trail of slobber from Richie’s mount, wilting spots on his blouse Richie’s manager will discern him in.
‘Richie stop, you’re going to ruin it and we have to leave soon.’
‘Nah, I cancelled.’
‘You cancelled? Why?’
‘Because the love of my love, my Eddie Spaghetti, my Eds, gave off the impression he was in a pretty foul mood.’
‘Was I that obvious?’ Eddie grumbles, fingers racking lovingly trough Richie’s curls.
‘No, I just have a knack for you. Anyways I rescheduled.’
‘Oh Rich you didn’t have to do that. What is she going to think of you?’
‘I don’t care. Look, if she’s striving to be my manager she best believe that my career always come second. You’re my number one priority, no matter what.’
Eddie’s eyes turn bloodshot, blinking rapidly to contain the upcoming flow of tears. Richie presses a final kiss, then resurfaces upwards, a lopsided grin grazing his face.
‘You’re not going to take it off?’ Eddie inquires fretful, not sure what he wants the answer to be.
‘No, later, when you’re more at ease. But Eds, I need you to know, I’m going to look at it, and all that will be going on in my mind is holy fuck. That scar is symbolic for how strong and daring you are, and how glad I am to have you here breathing with me. That motherfucking clown tried everything, and he still couldn’t kill you. You know why? Because you’re a stubborn little basterd, and also indestructible. And I love you so much.’
The taste of salt explodes on Richie’s tongue, surprisingly, he hadn’t got a clue he was crying in the first place.
‘Great, good job idiot. Now look at us, two blubbering idiot sniffling in a kitchen’, Eddie grumbled, but he was smiling so wide the dimples in his cheeks were distinguishable.
‘I love you too.’
#reddie#reddie imagine#reddie fluff#My writing#the loser club imagines#it chapter two imagine#richie tozier imagine#eddie kaspbrak imagine#Richie x Eddie
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I woke up mad and have been mad all day so let’s discuss the disrespectful absurdity that was Bellamy’s death on the 100 some more.
JRoth’s tweet really pissed me off a lot. Ultimately, he’s not wrong when he says the 100 has always been a dark show about hard choices and what people would do to survive. It’s just that I don’t think any of that played into Bellamy’s death at all. I’ve been thinking about all of the other major character deaths across the seasons and how, even the ones I hated and have massive issues with, still somehow seem more respectful to the characters than what he did to Bellamy. Keep reading for the rant:
Season 1 - Wells (and to an extent Charlotte)
Wells - Wells is a bit of a tricky one since it happened so fast and I know there are people still upset about it. But it set the tone for the show, the tone that JRoth is so proud of and referencing for Bellamy’s death. But I think you can get away with a shock value death in season one to kick things off. They also set up the situation fairly well, playing up just how harsh things are on the ark, that most of their parents had been floated. I can understand how Charlotte, who is just a child, reached that conclusion, especially with Bellamy’s maybe misguided advice (although that’s clearly not what he meant). I also don’t know that there was really a place for another presumably male lead in season one alongside Bellamy and Finn. So I get it. But also, Wells still had a chance to repair things with Clarke before he was killed. She discovered the truth and knew that he lied to protect her. He didn’t die with her hating him. It was a truncated arc, but it was something.
Charlotte - And arguably, Charlotte’s death kind of needed to happen. There wasn’t really any way for her to continue on with them after what she’d done and at least it was her choice, however tragic it all was.
Season 2 - Finn and Maya
Finn - As with Wells, Finn’s death is something I think you can get away with and can be viewed as edgy in an early season. It’s upping the stakes and reminding you that this is a show that will put these characters in impossible situations. And they still had a male lead left in Bellamy, plus Murphy and Jasper and even a character like Miller were rising in the ranks and there to fill in the gaps. Plus a whole host of new characters. Killing Finn was a gutsy move but one I could respect. They took him down a dark path and instead of absolving him for it because he was a main character, they made him pay for it. But unlike Bellamy, Finn realized what he did was wrong. He couldn’t live with the guilt. He couldn’t live with the way Clarke was looking at him. He knew the truce with the Grounders was important and he knew he was the key. He made the choice to give himself up. He had agency. He got to have one last escape attempt with his friends, say his goodbyes to everyone. And even still, they let him die with some amount of dignity rather than being tortured to death. And Clarke killing him worked in a way her killing Bellamy doesn’t. What he did was directly tied to her. Only she could forgive him in those final moments. There were multiple episodes of build up to this death, it was the story of the whole episode it happened in. It was expected but also a bold move for the show.
Maya - This was a death about hard choices and survival. The audience had grown to like Maya throughout the season, seeing her stand up for what was right and going against her own people. She didn’t deserve the end she got. But Clarke and Bellamy and Monty were put in an impossible situation and it was either the lives of all their friends and family or death in a very inhumane way because the mountain never would have stopped. And the way it was set up, with us and them watching Raven and Abby being drilled into, the choice was painful but clear. And it had been building to this moment for an entire season.
Season 3 - Lexa and Lincoln
Lexa - Lexa had arguably one of the most controversial deaths on the show. And I know there were behind the scenes reasons for it with the actress having another show to film. I don’t know how much availability she would have had. I don’t know how necessary it was to remove her from the narrative. I don’t want to get into it I will just assume for these purposes, that she had to be killed off. And I’ve always said with respect to Lexa, that I didn’t mind that they killed her off, it was how they did it. But compared to Bellamy’s death, even her controversial one feels less disrespectful to the character. It may be worse due to lesbian death tropes and that’s a larger issue, but in terms of the show story, I don’t think it was as bad. First of all, she was only a character for a season and a half. Second, her death directly affected the plot that had been hinted at all season and carried out in a major way through the rest of it. Now I hate that she died immediately after having sex by a stray bullet from a guy who should not have been holding a gun in the first place. I hate it. I would have much rather she went down fighting or stepping in front of a bullet for Clarke or something. But at least she got to finally resolve things with Clarke. They reconciled. They said they loved each other. She knew was was going to die at the end and she got to have her final moments with Clarke. Clarke got to do the whole may we meet again speech. Despite the issues, it was a beautiful moment.
Lincoln - This death has always been the one that pissed me off the most. Again I know there were behind the scenes issues and he also had another show. Again I don’t know how much filming availability he would have or how necessary his death was. Again, let’s assume it was because people can’t just go off somewhere else for a new start on this show. But I still always hated how he went out, being executed in the mud. He should have gone down fighting at the very least. However, even more at the very least, because that’s what we’re getting into here, Lincoln did die because he was defending his people. That’s the bare minimum here but at least he had that. He was true to himself. I hated that he didn’t really get a final moment with Octavia, but hey, at least she was present. Extremely low bar but still, better than Bellamy’s death from a writing perspective.
Season 4 - Jasper (Roan, Illian, Luna)
Jasper - Jasper’s is a sad tale. He spent two seasons basically completely depressed after the events of season two. There really wasn’t anywhere else to take his character at that point, so I understood and was ready for him to go. It made sense as an end for his character and he got to go out on his own terms and not take the spot in the bunker of someone who truly wanted to live. He got to have his final moments with Monty. It was a good end for him.
Roan, Illian and Luna - I wouldn’t call them major characters per say, perhaps Roan and Luna but we got to know all of them fairly well. They were expendable characters for the most part but they at least got to die fighting for their people and that’s a respectable way to go out.
Season 5 - Jaha, Monty and Harper
Jaha - Jaha was a character who did go down a sort of cult path. It probably would have been easy to kill him off in season 3 as a result of that. And if it had been a high stakes, last resort, have to kill Jaha to get to ALIE to save everyone, I could have respected that. But they didn’t. They let him survive that. They let him see the error of his ways. He spent season four determined to save his people from what he helped to unleash. He didn’t do it in the right way but even then, finally, in season 5, he was redeemed a bit, helping to maintain the peace in the bunker and helping Octavia gain control. And he had Octavia and Marcus and Abby there at his end. It was fitting. He got to say his goodbyes.
Monty and Harper - I was very sad to say goodbye to them but they went out on their own terms. They got probably the happiest ending out of anyone on this show. They got to live their lives how they chose and be together and having a son. And they did all of that while finding a way to give their friends, their family, their people a fresh start. And they got to say goodbye, albeit through video, but it was touching and lovely.
Season 6 - Shaw, Kane and Abby
Shaw - Shaw was another one that was killed off because he had another show, which is fine. It sucked for Raven and it was sad the character only got one season. Although considering the seasons that followed, I think he should count himself lucky really. But again, he died helping out his friends and Raven. It was a sacrifice and he knew what he was doing.
Kane - Again, another person who had other commitments. And they did some weird body swap stuff to extend his time a little longer. But I loved that they had actual Kane there at the end anyway to say goodbye to Abby even if it wasn’t really him that she was seeing. It was a nice touch, and a better way to say goodbye to the character. He also chose to let go. It was on his terms and he got his goodbye with Abby. And there were good parallels to floating both men she loved.
Abby - I’m not fond of the way they killed off Abby since she was basically dead once they took over her body. So that was unfortunate. But at least prior to the body swapping, she did have that last scene with Clarke where they kind of reconciled. And if I recall, she had some last moments with Jackson and Raven too. And those matter.
Season 7 - Diyoza and Bellamy
Diyoza - By season seven, I’m honestly kind of over major character deaths. I don’t really want them. I just want to see these characters that I love survive all of the trauma of the show and find peace, but I understand that I’m never going to get that. It’s fine. I was sad to see Diyoza go, but her sacrificing herself for her daughter, for the people who became her family, kind of “for all mankind” to use a phrase I hate now, was a fitting way for her to go out since she was introduced to us as a terrorist. And she got to say her goodbyes. This is clearly an important theme for me.
Bellamy - And then we circle back to my rage. Bellamy kind of took the path of Finn in a way, or perhaps his season 3 arc, which he didn’t really pay for so much. Not the way Finn did anyway because all of a sudden Blood must not have Blood. Plus, Pike was the rightful scapegoat for all of that. But this season saw Bellamy get caught up in yet another man’s bullshit idea of what was right. That was frustrating enough, but I guess it was somewhat in character. It’s just all the more frustrating because the Second Dawn/Shepherd nonsense is just that, nonsense. His sudden anti grounder status in season 3 were motivations that made at least some sense. He’d been fighting them since day one basically. They betrayed them at Mount Weather, which meant they had to kill everyone there, which meant he lost Clarke. And then Echo’s betrayal killed his three episode girlfriend, Gina. Plus Pike was a man he’d respected on the arc. The motivations always felt fairly thin to me since Gina was so minor, but overall, they make sense.
This season has been all over the place. The storylines have been mostly nonsensical. The nature of the different timelines meant that there were many episodes where we had to backtrack to fill in gaps, which meant the story was basically at a standstill for the whole middle of the season. We have zero sympathy for Bill and his cult followers. They’re not interesting. The Mount Weather people were brutal and doing terrible things, but I understood their need to survive. These Second Dawn people don’t have that same motivation. They’re fine. And so much of it is driven by the flame, which Bill wants for selfish reasons along with the stupid key code. He wants to know if there’s any of his daughter in there, which goes against all his teachings and what he’s trying to suck Bellamy into. And all of that is really just to set up a spinoff no one is going to want to watch at this point anyway after all of this. It’s kind of insulting.
And we see all of this Bellamy development in one episode late in the season and then he just betrays all his friends and family. He only shows the slightest hint of questioning. He just flat out tells Echo she doesn’t matter more than the cult. He doesn’t even have a scene with just his sister. He gets one good scene with Clarke but then is like “eh torture her it’s fine”. And then we get to this episode, where he barely interacts with his friends that he’s with. They spend most of the episode rolling their eyes at him and mocking his clothing choices. They set up the stupid sketchbook in a rushed little scene with Madi and Clarke just so in the last thirty seconds Sheidheda, who my god should be dead now (Indra I’m looking at you), can say “hey check out that book”. And Bellamy picks up this book that we’ve seen like once or twice earlier in the season that was fairly inconsequential then. We don’t even fully understand what’s in it that’s so crucial that Bellamy can’t show Bill. And that’s what Clark shoots him for? Really? And shoots to kill? Which was highly unnecessary to get her hands on that book. And then she didn’t even take the stupid book in the first place.
So Bellamy Blake, main male lead of the series, hero and leader to his people, gets murdered by his closest most trusted friend, his person, without getting to realize that the cult stuff was bullshit, without getting any chance to redeem himself, for a book that really doesn’t even seem to matter. And he dies alone. None of his family or friends are around. No one is reciting the may we meet again speech. He never got a final scene to reconcile with his sister. He never had any real final moments with anyone else. He just disappeared in the first five minutes of the premier, showed up eleven episodes later, a brainwashed cult follower and that’s how he died. That’s frankly bullshit. And a massive disservice to his character, to Clarke’s character, to the show. And the fact that they barely had Clarke try and shake him out of his brainwashing. The fact that his friends just mocked him instead of trying to help him. It’s just not what this show was built on. It’s not. It’s one absurdity after another. It’s insulting.
And the fact that every other character I’ve listed here at least got something, some kind of minor positive to their passing but Bellamy got none of those things?! Not fighting for a cause or a people the audience is rooting for or siding with. And no final goodbyes with the people he loves. Even Clarke only did her crying once she went through the stupid portal. I’m just mad. I should feel devastated by his death, but at least feel like he died for something. He died for nothing and that’s the saddest part of it all.
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Different - USWNT x reader
I silently groan when I see Christen and Becky are the ones picking me up. But I plaster on a fake smile and walk over to them, "Hey guys! I missed you so much". They weren't every impressed with my act. Christen had her arms crossed with an eyebrow raised at me, "Hm yeah what to talk about why some of us got a call from your school the other day".
I may have gotten in trouble at school for fighting. My teachers aren't very impressed with my homework or grades either. Mainly because I haven't done the homework.
I shrug crossing my arms over my chest, "Not really". Becky sighed tiredly, "Kid I thought we talked about this. You need to stop getting in trouble at school". I narrow my eyes at the two women in front of me, "It's not like I'm trying to get in trouble in school. You make it sound like I'm trying to get in trouble". "Well are you?" Becky asks. I scoff at their assumptions, "No I'm not". "Well then what is it?" Christen asks running a hand through her hair. I stretch and fake a yawn, "Look I'm tired after my flight. I just want to get to the hotel and sleep". The two of them share a look but nod. "Don't think this conversation is over" Christen says pointing at me before we start to walk to the car. When I get into the back of the car, I just put on my earphones not wanting to talk to either of them at the moment. I could see from the corner of my eye them glancing at me either over their shoulder or in the car mirror.
When we pulled into the hotel I jumped out of the car and drag my bags into the hotel. I quickly get my key from reception and go to my room. When I get to my room I had just dropped my bags at the end of the bed when the bathroom door opens. I turn around to see my best friend walk out towards me, "T!". I wrap by best friend in a vice grip hug. "Hey Y/n how are you?" She asks pulling away. I shrug, "Eh fine I guess". Tierna looks concerned but drops it. We send the rest of the night talking and catching up seeing as we haven't seen each other in a while. I enjoy tonight knowing once I see the rest of the team the older players are going to have a talk with me.
XXX
T and I made it down to breakfast the next morning. And I did everything in my power to ignore the veterans who were staring holes into the side of my head. I sat with the younger ones on the team knowing they wouldn't have found out about my school troubles. I didn't feel like eating so I just kinda pushed my food around the plate and no one seemed to notice I think. After breakfast we all load up onto the bus and head to training.
I was able to avoid the veterans up until Kelley dragged me away to warm up with her and Alex. Kelley passed me the ball as she started talking, "So how you been Y/n?". I just trap the ball and pass it to Alex, "Fine". Again I see Kelley and Alex share a look then look at me, "Kid we've heard about what's happening at school". I roll my eyes, "I'm surprised the whole team doesn't know". "Look Y/n what's got you getting into all these fights? It isn't like you to be starting fights. And why aren't you doing your homework?" Alex asks obviously concerned. I shrug but before I could say anything Jill calls a start to training.
The start of training was fine. But then it wasn't. They coaches introduced a new drill and I just couldn't understand it and I think it was obvious to everyone that I just couldn't get it. But it was also clear that Jill wasn't happy with me after messing up for the 5th time, "Cmon Y/n get your head in it!". I clench my fist as Rose and Lindsey gets past me for what feels like the millionth time. As the drill went on, I could feel myself getting more and more frustrated to the point where I went in for a harsh tackle against Mal. While the girls went to check to see if Mal was alright Jill marched over to me, "What is up with you today Y/n! You knew that tackle wasn't safe yet you went for it anyway! Your done for today! I will talk to you later!" I rolled my eyes and stalked over to the sideline. I quickly grabbed my stuff and walked off the pitch. Out of complete frustration I threw my water bottle on the ground and continued on walking until I felt a hand grab my shoulder, "Woah you alright Y/n?". I yanked my shoulder out of Abby's grip, "I'm fine! Just leave me the hell alone!". Not bothered to wait for the end of practice I decided to walk back to the hotel.
XXX
I haven't left my room since this morning's incident. When I got back I went to the hotel's gym to work out and relieve some stress. When I got back to the room I knew I needed to try and do some homework even if it sucked majorly. Later on T came in but didn't say a thing just got her stuff and took her shower. When she was done with her shower she grabbed her phone and it looked like she was texting someone, "Hey we have lunch soon. You ready?". I just continue to look at my poor attempt at my homework, "No I need to finish a load of homework". I could hear T walk beside me and put her hand on my shoulder, "Maybe you should take a break and get food". I shake my head taking my eyes off the work in front of me and looking at her, "No I just need to get this finished. I'm not that hungry anyway". T looks conflicted but ultimately nods, "Okay well you can always come down if you change your mind okay Y/n?" I just nod looking back at the page in front of me. "Call me if you need anything" T called back before walking out of the room. When the door shuts I slouch back into the seat with a loud sigh running my hand through my hair glaring at the book on the desk. Why does none of this make sense!
XXX
Mal's Pov
Everyone was chatting amongst each other when Tierna walked in. Without Y/n. The minute Tierna sat down all the older players attacked her with questions. "T where's Y/n?" Christen asked. "She's doing homework in our room. I tried to get her to come eat but use said she wasn't hungry" T explains. "So she's doing her homework now?" Becky asks to which T tilts her head in response, "What do mean now?" Carli sighed, "We got a call from Y/n's school. They said she's been getting into fights and she hasn't been doing homework". "What?! That's not true! Y/n does do her homework I always see her doing her work in our room" Tierna defends. "Yeah she's right. We always hang out in their room so we can talk while Y/n does her homework" Rose says. Now everyone looked utterly confused, "Then why isn't she handing it in? And it still doesn't explain why she is getting into fights" Kelley asks. "Yeah the only time I've ever seen Y/n act like that was today when she tackled Mal" Abby sighs. "It's weird that she didn't come down to eat either" Sam says leaning on her hand. "Why is that weird? She's probably just not hungry like she said" Alex says confused at what Sam is implying. "Well it just seemed to me that she didn't really eat much today. It looked like she just played with her food instead of eating it" Sam explains.
Everyone at the table is silent as they proceed what we just talked about. I get up from my seat turning to T, "Can I have your room key?". "Why?" I just shrug, "Just want to go check on Y/n see if she's alright". Tierna shrugs and digs her hand around in her pocket before producing her key to me. I thank her and just tell her I'll leave the door unlocked for her to come in if I'm not back down. I get to Y/n and Tierna's door and knock. When I hear no answer I use the key to get in. Just as I walk in I hear something getting thrown across the room and hits what I presume is the wall with a thump. When I walk further into the room I'm shocked at what I see.
Y/n has her back to me but she's standing beside the desk which is covered in sheets which look like they have a lot of crossing out done on them. I can also see Y/n's English book slumped against the wall which is what I'm guessing Y/n threw at the wall. "Y/n" I whisper gently behind her careful to try and not scare her. I hear Y/n sniffle and wipe her eyes quickly, but when she turns around her eyes are very red which is a dead give away that she was crying, "Oh hey Mal. I didn't hear you come in". I hold up Tierna's key card, "I asked Tierna for her key". She nods quietly before dropping her gaze, "I'm sorry about today. I didn't mean to hurt you". I just shake my head, "It's fine. We all have bad days. You just got frustrated". I can see Y/n nod slightly but still doesn't look directly at me.
I sigh and move to in front of Y/n, "Y/n what's up with you?" Y/n finally looks at me. "Christen and the others told us about you getting into trouble at school. Why aren't you handing up homework when we always see you do it at camp? And you never get into fights. What's happening Y/n?" That's when she finally breaks. Y/n just bursts out sobbing unable to hold back the tears. I'm quick to bring her into a hug as she cries into my shoulder while I run her back soothingly. After a while the sobbing eventually subsides and she just holds onto me tighter. After a while she finally speaks, "I can't do it Mal". "Can't do what Y/n?" "I can't understand anything. Every time I look at the work it gets all jumbled up and confusing. It doesn't make sense!" She cries into my shoulder. "The homework?" I ask to which Y/n nods into my shoulder, "It's just every time I try to do work and understand it. The words and letter get jumbled and confusing and I can't make any sense of it. Teachers said I wasn't trying hard enough and that I should focus more on school than chasing a ball around. And when the other kids found out I was failing they started to bully me about it. They started bullying me about my grades then they started saying why would they want someone as ugly, fat and dumb on the national team and At first I ignored them but it just kept coming and coming until I just cracked and I hit them". "Have you tried telling the teachers this?" I question. She nods, "They just think I'm making trouble thinking I'm above everyone because I play soccer with the national team. None of them will listen to me!".
We just stayed like that for a while with Y/n clinging onto me while I just hugged her. I cant imagine what she's going through. She's getting a hard time from her teachers thinking she's slacking off because she playing soccer when she just doesn't understand. She's getting bullied for it as well. And to top of all off the team were getting on her case for it. We were like that for a bit before the door opened and the team walked in. "Hey you were taking a while so we- hey what's wrong?" Tierna asks once she realises that Y/n. Y/n starts to explain everything she told me and it was easy to see that a lot of the older players were feeling bad for how they acted.
"We're so sorry Y/n. We were accusing you of not doing work and getting into fights when it wasn't even your fault" Christen apologizes. "It doesn't matter" she shrugs. "It does matter Y/n have any of the teachers talked to you about it" Julie exclaims. Y/n play with her fingers, "My English teacher noticed that I was having trouble with reading and spelling and other stuff so she said I may have dyslexia. So she got me tested. I only got the results before I came to camp". "You know there's nothing wrong with being dyslexic Y/n" Tierna reassures.
That sets her off
"You don't understand! You don't know what it feels like to feel dumb every single day. To not understand work that others find simple to learn. Then to be bullied because your not going to be able to go colleges like Stanford or other great colleges because of this disability. Be bullied and shamed because I don't act and look like the rest if you!" Everyone stares at hee and you can see it in their eyes. Some stare at the 17 year old with pity while others have tears gathering. T is the first to recover again though, "Y/n having dyslexia doesn't mean your not smart. It just means you have a different way of learning. Dyslexia doesn't define if your smart if not. You know Albert Einstein?" She nods as Tierna takes her hands in her own, "Well he was dyslexic. Along with so many other successful people. People all over the world have it but we're still able to excel. So don't think it's your fault that you can't do the work. The teachers need to understand that maybe you just need a bit of extra help or they need to explain it differently". "And about the bullying. They bully you because your still in high school yet your already doing big things with the national team. They are jealous of how good you are at soccer so they target you where you aren't so good. And you don't need to look or act like us. Your Y/n L/n, not Alex Morgan, not Christen Press and not Kelley O'Hara and thank god for that because I don't think we could handle two Kelley's" Alex jokes.
The team laughs while Kelley pouts but eventually joins in laughing. "I'm sorry. I didn't hand in homework because I thought it would be better not to hand it up rather then them think I was stupid. I didn't want people to think I was different". "Y/n just because your different doesn't mean anything. I'm sorry that we were hard on you without thinking there was something else going on. From now on if you ever need help with homework or need one of us to check it just ask" Christen says. "We're always here to help you Y/n. We're family" Tierna's tell her. Y/n's eyes start to get teary as she pulls Tierna into a tight hug which turns into a group hug and Kelley and Emily jump on them. The rest of the night we told Y/n to take a break from the homework and that we would all help her tomorrow. So decided to have a movie night in Y/n and Tierna's room. Kelley and Emily somehow smuggled in snacks. We decided on some Disney film and Y/n snuggles in between Tierna and I. I think after today everyone was just glad to know Y/n was okay.
Okay I'm back! Honestly I don't know how I feel about this imagine. I was given a prompt and I'm not sure if this is what they wanted and I think this isn't as good as it should be but it's done. Also I know the struggles with dyslexia because I have it (which may explain any spelling mistakes or mixed up words you find in my writing). But the major thing about I was I only found out when I was 14. And I always found school tough up until that point and teachers just thought I didn't have a clue until I was on a pitch playing sport. It wasn't until a teacher recommended that I go get tested that I found out I was dyslexic. And in one way it was a relief and also not. I thought that because I was dyslexic that I wasn't as smart as other kids and I felt like had to work twice as hard just to keep up. I honestly was told by a teacher that I should focus on important stuff like school instead of playing a sport that won't do anything for your future. But once a teacher realised what was going on they helped me improve in school and now I'm actually confide when I hand in homework and stuff. So if you do have dyslexia like me, being dyslexic doesn't mean your dumb or incapable of learning, it just means we have different way of learning. I was scared to admit I was different to my friends but now they actually help me if I need it. Hope you enjoyed. Until next time, bye!
#uswntsoccer#uswnt woso#uswnt x reader#uswnt imagines#uswnt imagine#uswnt#Mal Pugh#tierna Davidson#christen press#kelley o hara#alex morgan#becky sauerbrunn#Tobin heath#lindsey horan#emily sonnett#rose lavelle#julie johnston#julie ertz
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RWBY Volume 8, Chapter 1 Thoughts and Opinions
HELLO, INTERWEBS!!! At long last, we are back with more RWBY, and with it, more RWBY Thoughts and Opinions! After the absolute roller coaster that was Volume 7's cliffhanger finale, I can not imagine the insanity that awaits us this Volume. So, without further ado, here are my various thoughts and opinions on Chapter 1 of RWBY Volume 8, "Divide"
SPOILERS BELOW:
Hmm, starting off with a mysterious woman scrubbing floors, and...wait, is that...no...
I really like the way they juxtapose Cinder scrubbing with her scratching the chair. Very symbolic.
Yick, something about organic architecture just gives me the willies. I mean, is the whale aware that they double as a building complex? Can they feel the diabolical ongoings of it's rib cage? Creepy stuff.
Oof, outright taking credit for grabbing the relic, Cinder? Yeah, no way that's going to bite you in the ass.
Oh my. Mercury, Emerald, AND Hazel have new looks this season. I'm sure I'll warm up to them eventually, but right now Emerald's and Hazel's aren't really doing this. For Hazel, the outfit is all right, but the hair is a bit boring compared to his originals. Mercury's is ok, but is it just me, or is he basically wearing Yang's V4-6 outfit? I mean, it works, but still.
"Without you, I am nothing." That...didn't sound like the first time she's said that. It almost sounds like something Salem's drilled into her head for years. Cinder may be irredeemable in my opinion, but I do love a good tragic backstory.
You know, I guess would make sense for the crater to be the slums area. Can't imagine living directly under a floating landmass would be considered prime real estate.
Ooh, this old man has badger paws. I don't think we've seen that kind of Faunus trait yet.
D'aaww, Nora gave Oscar a soft hug rather than her usual glomp. So cute ^-^
I'm interested in how Oscar not telling them about Oz is going to play out.
Ok, their is a lot going on in this bar-base worth talking about, but for some reason I am fascinated by the picture of (i'm assuming) the founders in the background. What interesting designs they have. I feel like they have a story, and I would like to hear it.
Penny's dejected demeanor is giving me all of the feels Q_Q
Not sure how I feel about the rift forming between RWBYJNRO, though I guess we'll have to see where it goes. At least we have people like Jaune playing mediator.
I will say, though, I look forward to seeing Ren and Nora apart. As much as I love them as a couple, I'd very much like to see them operate as individuals.
God, Ironwood trying to manipulate Penny like that.
And there it is. Ironwood has truly revealed his true feelings, and his motivation for his attempt to launch Atlas. He isn't making a tactical retreat in order to form a new plan altogether. He's abandoning the fight altogether, leaving Remnant to die so that he and Atlas can live. It's funny, he wanted to avoid becoming Lionheart, but he was a coward too.
"Everything that follows will be on your hands". That motherf-
You know, we don't see a lot of corpses on this show, do we? Penny got better, Amber's screentime ended as she died, Roman got eaten, Pyrrha got an express viking funeral, etc, and a lot of others were only corpses for seconds before we never saw them again. They did a good job selling how proper dead Clover is here.
Ok, I don't know squat about Hospital layouts. Is it normal to have the morgue right outside of an emergency room? I mean, I guess it saves some travel time should things go wrong, but still, seems like a great anxiety generator for the patient, especially with both rooms having windows. "That's where I'll be going next."
I like the new metal arm. The fact that you can see all of the internal stuff makes it feel like it was quickly put together for the sake of urgency, while still looking cool.
Man, that rendition of "Hero" in the background. Chilling.
Is Winter getting a new look already? I must say. I like the look of the braces, and the ponytail is a vast improvement over the bun.
JESUS H CHRIST IRONWOOD!!! I THOUGHT HE WAS GOING OUT THERE TO ARREST THEM!!! THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN A PRETTY BIG FASCIST MOVE, RIGHT!? HE JUST SHOT CHAD JAMES IN THE FACE!!!
What really interests me is everyone's reactions. Elm and Marrow are incredibly shocked, Harriet and Winter share their little look of doubt, and then there's Vine who just...doesn't react at all. Either that or it's all in his eyes, which we can't really see from here. Either way, not a huge reaction from him. Methinks the Ace-Ops and Winter might be starting to doubt the horse they bet on.
I find it interesting that Salem doesn't know how the Relic works, but then I suppose it makes sense, seeing as Oz probably placed them into the vaults almost immediately after finding them, so this is probably the first time she's even seen one in person..
Ok, OP time, and buckle up, guys, gals, and nonbinary pals, because this one is going to be a doozy.
-First off, the song sounds pretty good, but it seems like it's going to go through the same cycle as the rest where it doesn't do too much for me at first, but has me headbanging like a metalhead by the end of the volume
- Mantle glitching out between peaceful and wartorn is a wonderful effect. Definitely fills you with a sense of dread.
-The individual shots of Team RWBY are absolutely gorgeous. Conceptually, it's the standard "where we started and where we're at", but the composition is worthy of a chef's kiss. I think I've found my new wallpaper.
-The Ace-Ops appearing on Clover's pin is nice, but what I find interesting is Harriet and Qrow appearing back to back, especially with Harriet looking so angry. Is Harriet going to double down on her loyalty to Ironwood and go after Qrow?
- It seems Robyn is going to be Qrow's main source of support this season, though the bars seem to suggest they might be in custody for a while.
-Oscar seems to be in Salem's stronghold, which doesn't bode well for our farmboy, also, WHY DOES SALEM HAVE DEMON WINGS!? Emerald's Volume 5 illusion wasn't this scary looking!
-I feel like their's symbolism showing Team RWBY's weapons paired together like that, but I feel like it's too early to say what of. Looks pretty, though
-Ren and Nora standing so far apart. It hurts my soul! Interesting how, while Ren looks away, Nora actually turns towards him.
-I didn't notice Winter's change of expression/outfit before passing by Weiss. She went from looking confident and slightly condescending to full with doubt.
-Not a lot to say about the quick shots of Whitley and Willow other then the fact that they both look worried. The image of the Schnee Snowflake shattering, however, is VERY interesting.
-I'm always a sucker for some good ol' chess symbolism. I find it interesting that while Salem's pieces dissolve into creatures of Grimm, Ironwood's simply dissolve, leaving him alone. Perhaps shooting a fellow councilman in the face right in front of his inner circle doesn't play out as well for him as well as he thought it would.
- Speaking of the classics, also gotta love me some reflection artwork. Watts seems to be working behind Pietro's back while Pietro (presumably) works to get Amity running, while secretly worrying about Penny, whose reflection cracks, possibly symbolizing her resolve. I worry for her.
- The snowflake turning into a flower petal in Ren's hand, while a similar petal passes Nora by. I don't know what this means, but I'm intrigued.
- It seems Ruby and Yang won't be completely be at odds, judging by the look they give each other before going into the action shot.
- Hmm, while Cinder pulls a Za Warudo on the fight scene, you can see a dejected Emerald and a pissed off Neo, still moving, among the heroes. Interesting...
-Almost as interesting as Cinder grasping her Grimm arm before being engulfed in flames. Perhaps Salem pulled a Wormtail's Silver Hand with that arm.
-Is this the first time we've seen the Staff of Creation in it's entirety? I remember wanting to include it and the Lamp in my RWBY Vol 7 spritesheet, but couldn't find any images of it's bottom half. I like the little jewel on the bottom.
-Wow, CRWBY went full Kingdom Hearts with the heroes falling through the ice, and I absolutely LOVE IT! This op has some of the most gorgeous visuals the series has ever seen.
-HAPPY EVER AFTER
HAPPY? NEVER AGAIN
Daaaaaaamn, that's awesome. It kind of reminds me of a line from Red Like Roses Part II, "This bedtime story ends with Misery Ever After". It's incredibly haunting.
-Almost as haunting as the sketchy art style that flashes in between the words, particularly the part that shows Penny's eyes going red before the rest of her does. Did we predict Watts hacking Penny a volume too early?
-The final shot of Crescent Rose alone stuck in the snow. Damn. The theme of this op seems to be "foreboding as all hell"
Damn. Damn! DAMN! This was, without question, the best OP RWBY has ever had. By, like, a lot. The visuals were some of the best the show has ever had to offer, the foreboding is through the roof, and the symbolism is incredibly clever. I don't envy them when it comes time to make Volume 9's, because this will be a very tough act to beat. I am so happy to have RWBY back, and I am both excited and terrified to see what this show is going to do next.
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RWBY Volume 8, Chapter 1 Thoughts and Opinions
HELLO, INTERWEBS!!! At long last, we are back with more RWBY, and with it, more RWBY Thoughts and Opinions! After the absolute roller coaster that was Volume 7's cliffhanger finale, I can not imagine the insanity that awaits us this Volume. So, without further ado, here are my various thoughts and opinions on Chapter 1 of RWBY Volume 8, "Divide"
SPOILERS BELOW:
Hmm, starting off with a mysterious woman scrubbing floors, and...wait, is that...no...
I really like the way they juxtapose Cinder scrubbing with her scratching the chair. Very symbolic.
Yick, something about organic architecture just gives me the willies. I mean, is the whale aware that they double as a building complex? Can they feel the diabolical ongoings of it's rib cage? Creepy stuff.
Oof, outright taking credit for grabbing the relic, Cinder? Yeah, no way that's going to bite you in the ass.
Oh my. Mercury, Emerald, AND Hazel have new looks this season. I'm sure I'll warm up to them eventually, but right now Emerald's and Hazel's aren't really doing this. For Hazel, the outfit is all right, but the hair is a bit boring compared to his originals. Mercury's is ok, but is it just me, or is he basically wearing Yang's V4-6 outfit? I mean, it works, but still.
"Without you, I am nothing." That...didn't sound like the first time she's said that. It almost sounds like something Salem's drilled into her head for years. Cinder may be irredeemable in my opinion, but I do love a good tragic backstory.
You know, I guess would make sense for the crater to be the slums area. Can't imagine living directly under a floating landmass would be considered prime real estate.
Ooh, this old man has badger paws. I don't think we've seen that kind of Faunus trait yet.
D'aaww, Nora gave Oscar a soft hug rather than her usual glomp. So cute ^-^
I'm interested in how Oscar not telling them about Oz is going to play out.
Ok, their is a lot going on in this bar-base worth talking about, but for some reason I am fascinated by the picture of (i'm assuming) the founders in the background. What interesting designs they have. I feel like they have a story, and I would like to hear it.
Penny's dejected demeanor is giving me all of the feels Q_Q
Not sure how I feel about the rift forming between RWBYJNRO, though I guess we'll have to see where it goes. At least we have people like Jaune playing mediator.
I will say, though, I look forward to seeing Ren and Nora apart. As much as I love them as a couple, I'd very much like to see them operate as individuals.
God, Ironwood trying to manipulate Penny like that.
And there it is. Ironwood has truly revealed his true feelings, and his motivation for his attempt to launch Atlas. He isn't making a tactical retreat in order to form a new plan altogether. He's abandoning the fight altogether, leaving Remnant to die so that he and Atlas can live. It's funny, he wanted to avoid becoming Lionheart, but he was a coward too.
"Everything that follows will be on your hands". That motherf-
You know, we don't see a lot of corpses on this show, do we? Penny got better, Amber's screentime ended as she died, Roman got eaten, Pyrrha got an express viking funeral, etc, and a lot of others were only corpses for seconds before we never saw them again. They did a good job selling how proper dead Clover is here.
Ok, I don't know squat about Hospital layouts. Is it normal to have the morgue right outside of an emergency room? I mean, I guess it saves some travel time should things go wrong, but still, seems like a great anxiety generator for the patient, especially with both rooms having windows. "That's where I'll be going next."
I like the new metal arm. The fact that you can see all of the internal stuff makes it feel like it was quickly put together for the sake of urgency, while still looking cool.
Man, that rendition of "Hero" in the background. Chilling.
Is Winter getting a new look already? I must say. I like the look of the braces, and the ponytail is a vast improvement over the bun.
JESUS H CHRIST IRONWOOD!!! I THOUGHT HE WAS GOING OUT THERE TO ARREST THEM!!! THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN A PRETTY BIG FASCIST MOVE, RIGHT!? HE JUST SHOT CHAD JAMES IN THE FACE!!!
What really interests me is everyone's reactions. Elm and Marrow are incredibly shocked, Harriet and Winter share their little look of doubt, and then there's Vine who just...doesn't react at all. Either that or it's all in his eyes, which we can't really see from here. Either way, not a huge reaction from him. Methinks the Ace-Ops and Winter might be starting to doubt the horse they bet on.
I find it interesting that Salem doesn't know how the Relic works, but then I suppose it makes sense, seeing as Oz probably placed them into the vaults almost immediately after finding them, so this is probably the first time she's even seen one in person..
Ok, OP time, and buckle up, guys, gals, and nonbinary pals, because this one is going to be a doozy.
-First off, the song sounds pretty good, but it seems like it's going to go through the same cycle as the rest where it doesn't do too much for me at first, but has me headbanging like a metalhead by the end of the volume
- Mantle glitching out between peaceful and wartorn is a wonderful effect. Definitely fills you with a sense of dread.
-The individual shots of Team RWBY are absolutely gorgeous. Conceptually, it's the standard "where we started and where we're at", but the composition is worthy of a chef's kiss. I think I've found my new wallpaper.
-The Ace-Ops appearing on Clover's pin is nice, but what I find interesting is Harriet and Qrow appearing back to back, especially with Harriet looking so angry. Is Harriet going to double down on her loyalty to Ironwood and go after Qrow?
- It seems Robyn is going to be Qrow's main source of support this season, though the bars seem to suggest they might be in custody for a while.
-Oscar seems to be in Salem's stronghold, which doesn't bode well for our farmboy, also, WHY DOES SALEM HAVE DEMON WINGS!? Emerald's Volume 5 illusion wasn't this scary looking!
-I feel like their's symbolism showing Team RWBY's weapons paired together like that, but I feel like it's too early to say what of. Looks pretty, though
-Ren and Nora standing so far apart. It hurts my soul! Interesting how, while Ren looks away, Nora actually turns towards him.
-I didn't notice Winter's change of expression/outfit before passing by Weiss. She went from looking confident and slightly condescending to full with doubt.
-Not a lot to say about the quick shots of Whitley and Willow other then the fact that they both look worried. The image of the Schnee Snowflake shattering, however, is VERY interesting.
-I'm always a sucker for some good ol' chess symbolism. I find it interesting that while Salem's pieces dissolve into creatures of Grimm, Ironwood's simply dissolve, leaving him alone. Perhaps shooting a fellow councilman in the face right in front of his inner circle doesn't play out as well for him as well as he thought it would.
- Speaking of the classics, also gotta love me some reflection artwork. Watts seems to be working behind Pietro's back while Pietro (presumably) works to get Amity running, while secretly worrying about Penny, whose reflection cracks, possibly symbolizing her resolve. I worry for her.
- The snowflake turning into a flower petal in Ren's hand, while a similar petal passes Nora by. I don't know what this means, but I'm intrigued.
- It seems Ruby and Yang won't be completely be at odds, judging by the look they give each other before going into the action shot.
- Hmm, while Cinder pulls a Za Warudo on the fight scene, you can see a dejected Emerald and a pissed off Neo, still moving, among the heroes. Interesting...
-Almost as interesting as Cinder grasping her Grimm arm before being engulfed in flames. Perhaps Salem pulled a Wormtail's Silver Hand with that arm.
-Is this the first time we've seen the Staff of Creation in it's entirety? I remember wanting to include it and the Lamp in my RWBY Vol 7 spritesheet, but couldn't find any images of it's bottom half. I like the little jewel on the bottom.
-Wow, CRWBY went full Kingdom Hearts with the heroes falling through the ice, and I absolutely LOVE IT! This op has some of the most gorgeous visuals the series has ever seen.
-HAPPY EVER AFTER
HAPPY? NEVER AGAIN
Daaaaaaamn, that's awesome. It kind of reminds me of a line from Red Like Roses Part II, "This bedtime story ends with Misery Ever After". It's incredibly haunting.
-Almost as haunting as the sketchy art style that flashes in between the words, particularly the part that shows Penny's eyes going red before the rest of her does. Did we predict Watts hacking Penny a volume too early?
-The final shot of Crescent Rose alone stuck in the snow. Damn. The theme of this op seems to be "foreboding as all hell"
Damn. Damn! DAMN! This was, without question, the best OP RWBY has ever had. By, like, a lot. The visuals were some of the best the show has ever had to offer, the foreboding is through the roof, and the symbolism is incredibly clever. I don't envy them when it comes time to make Volume 9's, because this will be a very tough act to beat. I am so happy to have RWBY back, and I am both excited and terrified to see what this show is going to do next.
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Episode 8: Family Friend
Things are getting intense.
SPOILERS
0:16 - Martin has a nameplate that reads “Dr Martin Whitly” in his home office. That is maybe the most egotistical, narcissistic thing I have ever seen. Seriously. WTF Martin.
1:14 - So this phone in the basement has a different phone number than the rest of the landlines in the house? Seems odd. I guess Martin set it up as a business phone so it needed to have a different number?
1:21 - This conversation is really cool. Malcolm is scared - you tell by the way his voice cracks a little at 1:22 and by his eyes in the beginning of the conversation. However, you can also see that Malcolm has been trained by the FBI to be an investigator. Listen to his interview skills. He’s calm, professional, and he’s speaking in careful, calculated sentences. It’s impressive. I’d really like to see him in this position more often. Another really interesting part of this scene is Jessica’s reactions in the background she looks positively terrified. She’s hugging herself and looking around in horror. I’m not sure we’ve ever seen her this frightened.
1:23 - So Watkins has been watching Malcolm right? For how long? Because he recognizes Malcolm’s voice. And presumably he recognized Malcolm’s face at the junkyard? Creepy.
3:35 - Ainsley is going through the interview footage with a disturbing amount of admiration and joy in her eyes - while her bf in unconscious because her dad orchestrated a stabbing during her interview. Also though, is she editing the video footage? Seems like that’s not in her job description?
4:40 - I love everything about the initial moments when we see Gil, JT, and Dani enter the Whitly house. First of all - Jessica is clearly still shaken and terrified. Secondly, Gil (even though he does look concerned for Jessica) looks so comfortable in that house. It really makes you wonder how many times he’s been there over the years because honestly, the house Gil was almost murdered in shouldn’t be a place he feels comfortable in. Finally - JT and Dani. hahaha they walk into the room with faces that are clearly trying to hide how awestruck they are by how rich the house is. JT actually has an expression that I’m interpreting as “Damn. Rich people have a lot of weird useless crap.” AND look how Jessica’s demeanour immediately changes from terrified to welcoming, considerate hostess the moment she sees JT and Dani. That is the result of years of rich people manners being drilled into her as a child. I’m sure of it.
5:12 - Look at the way Malcolm looks at his Mom as she pours a drink. He’s a mixture of exasperated, concerned, and embarrassed that her alcoholism is being so blatantly exposed.
5:24 - Malcolm giving the abridged house tour to Dani and JT is awesome. He’s clearly trying to make them feel a little more comfortable in a world they aren’t used to while simultaneously trying to make clear that he doesn’t love the fancy house - it holds bad memories and he’d trade it in for a life without trauma. Also - Dani’s reaction is perfect. She’s trying to make Malcolm just as comfortable as he’s trying to make her. I love it.
5:50 - How come this bald, black, police officer dude doesn’t have a name yet? He’s had speaking parts in most of the episodes. At this point he’s practically part of the team.
6:15 - Gil checking up on Jessica is super sweet. ALSO the irony of keeping a gun in a hollowed out copy of War and Peace is hilarious.
6:50 - Another Gil and Malcolm moment to fuel my heart. Also - Gil looks exhausted. Can someone please give this man a vacation? He does nothing but worry about our shaky-handed boy, Jessica, the Team, and Ainsley. Seriously - Gil needs some time off.
7:21 - So it’s the next day. Am I to believe that Gil somehow convinced everyone to go home, shower, and come back in a few hours? Because it’s daylight now and everyone is in a fresh outfit. Something tells me Malcolm would not have done that willingly.
7:22 - Something about the fact that Gil is the only one who ever drinks coffee during the case briefings is hilarious to me.
8:22 - You know I’ve always laughed at this seen because JT says, “I can’t with this.” but I’ve been missing the best part of the scene!! Look at Gil’s face. hahaha it’s an expression of total disbelief. He’s so done with working with these children.
9:29 - Just how many jackets does Malcolm have?!? I know he’s rich but I really want to see his closet. He doesn’t strike me as a rich person who cares about appearances or the money itself. So - what does his closet look like and who is buying him all of these jackets?!?
10:15 - Anyone else wonder how the hell someone managed to bury a winnebago without anyone noticing? It just seems like it would’ve drawn a lot of attention?
10:47 - *sigh* Gil is so resigned to the fact that he can’t control Malcolm. Poor guy looks exhausted. Trying to save Malcolm from himself is not an easy job. This particular case is also probably really hard for Gil too. I mean, Gil caught the Surgeon. If this killer worked with the Surgeon, Gil is probably questioning his detective skills. Questioning whether or not he missed something all those years ago that would’ve had this killer behind bars years ago. Also Malcolm has gone manic again. Yikes.
13:25 - Ainsley. Ugh. Girl - your bf is in the hospital with a stab wound. Stop trying to find a story to further your career and worry about him. Honestly. Why is she even dating this guy? She clearly doesn’t care much about him.
14:24 - Katcha? Another one of the Whitly family employees. WHY ARE THERE SO MANY OF THEM?!? We’re up to 4 now (Louisa, Katherine, Alfonso, and Katcha).
15:51 - Look at Eve in this scene. Initially she is annoyed, then concerned, then curious but by the end of the conversation you can tell that Eve is scared of what Jessica tells her.
18:40 - haha look at Gil’s face here. He’s so pleased and amused that JT is teasing Malcolm. It’s precious.
18:57 - Malcolm’s comment about how the Junkyard Killer has been killing for over 20 years, which is longer than the Surgeon, has me curious. How long did the Surgeon kill for? Did Martin start killing before he got married? Before Malcolm was born? After Malcolm was born? After Ainsley was born? I really want to know. ALSO Gil looks so concerned after Malcolm makes that little comment. Generally Gil shoots Malcolm a concerned look whenever Martin is brought up. I love it.
19:02 - How long did the front desk have that box? No one noticed it was bleeding? AND that blood is seeping out really fast. There’s no way JT could’ve gotten it to Malcolm before it started bleeding. Ugh. The things I excuse/ignore because I understand episodes have a time constraint and things need to happen a certain way to forward the plot.
19:43 - I don’t know a lot about how quickly the human body decomposes or anything BUT father Leo’s hands did not look that beat up a few minutes ago. Check out the severed hand’s finger nails? They’re in terrible shape. Biology nerds: does this kind of stuff happen to severed limbs? I’m curious but too scared to google (I don’t want pictures).
21:00 - This is another instance where we can see how good Malcolm is at interviewing....well until Watkins brings up the girl in the box and Malcolm kind of loses his mind. I love this.
21:36 - Gil looks scared here. A rare look for him. Also - really makes me wish I could’ve seen the moment when the story behind the girl in the box was explained to Dani and JT.
22:30 - Look at Malcolm’s eyes. He looks haunted. Broken. Scared. I’m genuinely surprised he didn’t descend into a full blown panic attack. He looked really close to one.
22:50 - This conversation between Malcolm and Gil is everything. You can tell that Gil feels guilty - like he might’ve worsened Malcolm’s trauma. You can tell that Gil is also concerned about Malcolm. But check out the way Gil is speaking to Malcolm. Gil is so honest with Malcolm yet simultaneously reassuring. I respect that.
24:38 - The moment Malcolm decides that his need for answers is greater than his wellbeing. He could’ve called Gil right here. He could’ve walked away and waited for backup. But he didn’t because knowing the truth is more important to him than his physical health. That’s genuinely concerning. This is a passively suicidal act.
25:34 - “You even smell like him.” This line has always struck me as bizarre. What exactly is John referring to? Does Malcolm smell like fear? Or like desperation mixed with determination? Is that how he smells like Martin? Because I promise you Jessica Whitly would lose her mind if Malcolm was wearing the same cologne his father used to wear. If Malcolm smelled like Martin due to his personal hygiene products I’m sure Jessica would’ve put a stop to it. And I’m sure Malcolm would’ve listened to his mother in this instance because he’s so desperate to be nothing like Martin Whitly.
26:21 - This is sad. Malcolm is being honest here. He really believes that he is like his father even though he desperately doesn’t want to be like him.
27:22 - Gil is pissed. This is peak Dad behaviour. I’m shocked that he didn’t punish Malcolm himself or call Jessica because he knew that her overbearing presence would be punishment for Malcolm.
28:23 - Malcolm is spiralling. Look how manic he is. How desperate he is for answers. Look at how much pain he’s in. This whump is thawing my cold, dead soul (also semi-shirtless Tom Payne is attractive).
29:05 - Jin has the appropriate reaction to this. Ainsley does not. If a murder is on the loose you should be at lest mildly concerned for yourself and sympathetic for the victims and their families. Not excited at the prospect of a story.
30:02 - 1. Tom Payne without a shirt is...wow. and 2. He’s using frozen peas as an ice pack...so he does have food in the house?
30:25 - Yep. When he opens the fridge here you can see he has some other frozen vegetables in the door.
30:27 - This is interesting to me. Malcolm is clearly attracted to Eve and he doesn’t want her to think he’s crazy (even though their first conversation was about how he got high at work) so he hides his pill bottles. When Dani’s come over Malcolm has never hidden his pill bottles from her. Because Malcolm is comfortable with Dani. Just something to think about.
31:00 - Eve said she got Malcolm’s address under “false pretences”. The only false pretence I can see Jessica giving out Malcolm’s address to Eve is because Eve told her she was going to ask Malcolm out. But the false pretence implies that Eve has no intention of ever dating Malcolm. Huh. Either way, I would’ve really liked to hear that conversation. The one where a drunk Jessica Whitly gives a woman her son’s address because she thinks he’s going to get laid. It’s both upsetting and hilarious that this happened.
32:15 - Gil looks like exhausted. Holy crap. Why is everyone so worried about Malcolm when Gil is looking like this?!?
33:25 - The acting throughout this entire phone conversation is phenomenal. Tom Payne’s facial expressions really convey Malcolm’s desperation, fear, and determination to get answers. Lou’s tone of voice really conveys Gil’s worry over Malcolm and tired, desperation to solve this case. And Michael Raymond-James’ confident, controlling voice is just the perfect amount of creepy to be a believable killer.
34:40 - Are you telling me that Gil wasn’t hearing this conversation in real time? Why wasn’t the police recording this conversation for evidence? Also how is Malcolm’s cell phone connecting to Gil’s radio?
35:53 - “Damn it. Ainsley’s there.” This line is beautifully delivered. That is believable big brother concern. This whole sibling conversation is great. I love how they interact.
36:30 - Can no know in this family follow orders?!? Honestly. Ainsley stay in your room. These Whitly’s really need to learn to listen to the people who want to keep themselves safe. BUT SIDE NOTE: Malcolm’s desperate cries to Ainsley as she runs from the Junkyard Killer are haunting.
38:21 - THANK YOU JIN. SOMEONE WHO SEES IT MY WAY. AINSLEY DID YOU DIRTY BROTHER.
39:15 - “How’s Ainsley doing?” Love this. I’m so desperate to know the extent of Gil’s relationship with Ainsley. We know that Gil was a big part of Malcolm’s childhood. I want to know how much contact he’s had with Ainsley through the years.
40:35 - hahaha I love this scene between Jessica and Malcolm. It’s honest, sweet, and sad. You can really see the role that Malcolm put himself in. He’s the self-appointed family protector. He’s probably felt that way most of his life. You can see Jessica’s determination, guilt, and fear. It’s beautiful.
Ahhhhhh I love this show. Thanks for hanging out Prodigies.
#prodigal son#jess-rewatches-prodigal#malcolm bright#whitly#ainsley whitly#jessica whitly#martin whitly#gil arroyo#jt tarmel#edrisa tanaka#dani powell#this show is almost perfect#i love this show#whump#malcolm needs a hug#so good#rewatch#spoilers#ps#Family Friend#e:8#1x8#s1
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