#Does she just fall in love with whoever summons her? That kinda feels like it cheapens some of the emotions of Kadoc's storyline | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dreamkidddream · 3 years

Note

I’m the Doll!MC Anon and I just wanna say I’m so glad that you enjoy a soft/delicate!MC and I really didn’t expect it to get so much love!

Since I kinda want to be evil and see the boys be overprotective, can I request hc’s of them seeing Doll!MC getting hurt by some lesser demon that bumps her into the ground and she gets a bruise? 🌚

Omg Doll Anon I wasn’t expecting it to get so much love either (here’s the original Doll!MC HCs if anyone wants to read)!! So I actually had your request saved for when I was done with the prompt special bc it’s so good, so I decided to combine them and I have definitely been waiting to write this 😈😈 Reader is gender neutral!

CW: mention of blood (nothing graphic) and spoilers for Lesson 16 (Lucifer, Mammon, Beel, and Belphie’s part)

The Brothers and Diavolo with Doll!MC who Gets Hurt

Lucifer

Okay whoever is dumb enough to hurt you in front of him deserves this 100%

The air around this man is already more than intimidating, so whoever tries this is a poor, stupid soul

When he saw you fall down the stairs, he felt his stomach turn. He already caught you before you could injure yourself further, but after seeing the blood coming down your face, the damage was already done

Now, Lucifer is the brother who always has control over himself and what he does. But, we also know that how his temper can get, especially when it comes to his family

This demon is dumb enough to push you but not dumb enough to crack a smile in front of him, especially with how tense Lucifer is getting right now

He sat you up and tried to remember some first aid techniques to stop the bleeding. You’re on the verge of losing consciousness, but you’re okay right now. He’ll take you home, but first-

His glare is making the demon freeze in place right now, and the anger radiating off of him is petrifying

How dare- how dare this fool harm you, in front of him no less?! Did they think that he wouldn’t do anything? That Lucifer, the Avatar of Pride, one of the strongest demons to ever grace the Devildom, would just idly stand by and let this happen?

He’s stalking towards them, and he can feel his fangs showing and his diamond appearing on his forehead, growling out how they will pay for this-

But he’s stopped by Lord Diavolo, who was shocked by the scene. You’re unconscious, and Lucifer has this poor student hanging in the air by their uniform, claws ready to slice through them. Needless to say, he understands why his close friend is upset, but for everyone’s safety he should just take you home like planned

You thought Lucifer was a helicopter parent before? You haven’t seen NOTHING yet

He would start inviting you more to his room to sleep in his bed while he works away, and it started happening so much that he didn’t even ask anymore and started expecting you to always be in there

So instead of him being glued by your side, you’re glued to his. It’s obvious that he can’t let you out of his sight without something happening (again), so hope you’re ready to see experience Lucifer’s daily routine from sunrise to sunset and a whole new set of rules. Basically playing follow the leader, but with a lot more handholding and kisses

You had to practically beg to be back into the kitchen, and he only relented when he could be the one to supervise you, and even then he still didn’t want to hold anything sharp or be near anything that could injure you (which is pretty much everything)

The main one to put a stop to his brothers’ schemes, handing out harsher punishments than before each time they try to involve you. This man is not playing any games with anyone

You know he means well, he was already overprotective from the start, and this is just his way of showing that he cares about you. You can tell every time he gives you that soft look in his eyes, and the regret that he shows every time he catches sight of your bruise. He may not like to be vulnerable, but he couldn’t hide his emotions from you too long. You’re like a weakness to him, one that he isn’t against indulging in

And he hasn’t forgotten about that student, oh no. He made sure to have a nice lengthy chat with them when you both returned to RAD. You didn’t question it when he informed you that the student had been rightfully punished and no longer an issue, and you tried to ignore the red dots splattered on his shoes, or that sadistic gleam in his eyes...

Mammon

This isn’t happening, this isn’t happening, this isn’t happening-

The blood is pouring from your head, and your eyes are closing too fast for him, and his heart stops

You look lifeless, like when Belphie killed you, when he was too late to save you-

He’ll never forget that image, it’s drilled deep into his mind, forever a reminder of his failure to protect you. And now he failed again-

This demon is gloating about this, and that’s when he snaps

He was already in his demon form and beating the life out of them when he was restrained. Many people were shocked that he was capable of this, that Mammon the scumbag, Mammon the dummy, Mammon the punching bag was capable enough to be this dangerous, this deadly. He’s the second born after all, and he’s the strongest right under Lucifer himself, and he holds a lot in

He could- he would do a lot more because they deserve it, but just seeing you so still, it snaps him out of it. You’re more important to him than getting his anger out, and you’re the one he needs to be focusing on right now. But rest asssured, this isn’t over

You thought he was attached to you before? He is glued to your side 24/7 and will not be leaving anytime soon. Ever since you woke up he never let go of you, calling you “his human” and just hugging you tight

Also if you have to go down the stairs you guys are FLYING no exceptions! The stairs are the devil in his eyes (how ironic) and he will not be risking anything with you

If you guys aren’t out and about under his careful and watchful eye (and I mean very careful, he’s like your very own bodyguard but with a lot more growling and snapping on strangers than usual), then you’re in his room doing whatever. Watching movies, playing cards and somehow beating him every time (he swears that he isn’t letting you win! Lies), whatever you wanna do. As long as you’re with him, giggling and safe, he’s happy and stress free

You mean so much to Mammon MC, he can’t even tell you if he tries. Under his tsundere traits, he really loves you, like really loves you! He’s just so scared of being rejected and losing you a second time. But now that he knows you’ll always be there for him, he’s going to do the same for you (but he already was even if you didn’t like him) He hates looking at that bruise right now, but it’s set as a reminder to not let something happen to you again

Also, another thing that people forget about Mammon is that he can talk to crows. So it wasn’t much to have them track down the person who caused you pain, and it didn’t take long for him to find them either. He thinks that the aftermath will set a good lesson for everyone else who continues to underestimate him when it comes to you: don’t

Leviathan

See, this is why he never leaves his safe haven AKA his room!

After he saw your head hit the ground hard, he was freaking out. He doesn’t know what to do, he wasn’t prepared for this! He tried shaking you to keep you awake, but your eyes were steady closing

Everything is happening in slow motion. You’re slumped over on the ground while the person who did it is laughing at him

If anything, the person who did it should be the one on the ground, not you, not his Henry. It’s not fair, it’s not fair, it’s not fair!

The demon stopped laughing when their windpipe was getting crushed by the second. They couldn’t even try to loosen the grip, Levi’s tail is rather strong, and so is he. He is the third strongest out of his family and the Grand Admiral of the Navy, yet people tend to forget that

Everyone knows how bad Levi’s tantrums can be, but this isn’t just a tantrum, it’s much worse. Had the brothers not intervene, he would have done much worse than summoning Lotan (which he was on the brink of doing anyway)

When you did wake up, he was so upset. Of course he let this happen, he’s just a worthless otaku who couldn’t even keep his crush safe-

OMG why are you hugging him and patting his head?! Quit it- well wait, this does feel kinda nice...Ugh you’re such a normie! Getting hurt so easily and still trying to put a smile on his face. But it does make him feel better

He rarely left his room before, and you guys are definitely not leaving it now. It’s like having a sleepover, but it never ends. That sounds great, right MC? Endless marathons of TSL and other anime, co-op video games, trying on his cosplay outfits that he made (some even made just for you and he needs to cover that bruise somehow), it’s going to be so fun and you’ll be safe with him! Who wouldn’t want that??

We all know that Levi is very self conscious. He knows that he isn’t confident like Lucifer and Mammon, or attractive like Asmo, or smart like Satan or Belphie, or physically fit like Beel, he knows. But every time you listen to him ramble on about this new anime show that he wants you guys to binge, or when he rants about a stupid move his teammate did in an online match, he feels valued. He feels loved. And while it’s hard for him to express his feelings, it’s no doubt in his mind that you’re important to him, and that he’s beyond happy that someone like you is his best friend

One day he’ll get the courage to say those three words, but he hopes that you already know with everything that he does for you

For example, Levi is an aquatic demon, and he has the ability to communicate with all types of sea creatures. Granted, he knows right from wrong, but in his eyes he’s taking care of the problem. So it wouldn’t be a huge issue if he used them to clean up the remaining mess of said problem, right? I mean, his venom can only do so much, and he doesn’t need anyone questioning him, and Lotan does get hungry...

Satan

He could only see red. Both from his anger surfacing and from the fact that you’re bleeding

He had his claws wrapped around the neck of the one responsible before they could even think about running. This- this filth dared tried to escape after he hurt you? And they thought that Satan would just let them get away with it?

They must forget that he’s the Avatar of Wrath, the one who doesn’t show mercy

He just kept pounding the demon into the ground, over and over and over and over. He didn’t even care about the blood splatter it was leaving on the lockers or on him

He was this close to finishing them off when he heard you call out for him, and it took everything in him to drop them. He squeezed their neck a final time, not even close to being satisfied with the whimper he heard, and growled out a promise of that he will find them and will make sure that they suffer before he threw them down. They better count themselves lucky that they get to crawl away in one piece (for now), because had you not been there-

Oh, he is seething the more he thinks about it

But you bleeding is a distraction from it, even if it is making his stomach turn, it’s helping him know that he needs to help you now

He didn’t have to let his brothers know as they came to see what the commotion was, and Lucifer (even if he didn’t want to believe it himself) was anxious that he was the cause of it. But after he saw the hold he had on you and another demon barely clinging onto life, he knew otherwise

It was decided that you two going home would be the best course of action (which it didn’t matter to Satan, you both weren’t going to stay here whether it was demanded or not), and he calmed down enough to properly treat you

You didn’t leave his room for the rest of the day, and he even gave up his bed for you to lie in so that he can do some research. The human body is a complicated thing, but Satan can learn it like the back of his hand just for you. So just go ahead and rest for now MC- or maybe not, you might have a concussion according to this book and if you do he needs to monitor your condition!

Even after you were healed, he didn’t let you out of his sight and daily checkups were a must. Dr. Satan is in the building!

You eventually moved back into your room (you would have stayed longer but he’s a little nervous with his towering stacks of books and doesn’t want anymore accidents), but he practically moved in with you with how much he comes over, either falling asleep at your desk reading a book or falling asleep in your chair right next to your bed

Very reluctant to have you around stairs, it makes the hairs on his neck stand up. He’ll let you go down the stairs ONLY if you’re holding his hand. If you’re upset with those conditions (spoiler alert you’re not), then you better be ready to learn some teleportation spells (but even then he’s still not leaving your side)

He doesn’t hold his temper back with the others when it comes to you for the time being. If he even senses that Mammon, Asmo, or Levi is coming to you with something that can cause trouble, he’s growling at them to leave you alone, horns slowly coming out and tail whipping furiously

However, he tries not to lash out in front of you. He realizes that he lost control with that demon, and how it could have terrified you had you been fully conscious, but he doesn’t want you to think that he’s just a monster. He wants you to continue to treat him like you do now, and not have the image of bashing someone’s bloody body on the floor repeatedly

Speaking of bashing someone, Satan made well on his promise of coming back. The demon thought that avoiding coming back to school would save them, but Satan is a genius, and has many associates that he can sweet talk to get what he wants. It didn’t take much to figure out where they went, and he made sure to get out all of his pent-up frustrations from that fateful day. He felt better when he came home, but he needed to take a shower before he went to see you...

Besides from that, he does appreciate the peace that you do bring him. You just have this aura around you that’s so calming to him, and he needs to steal you away more he realizes

Also you make better cat-themed desserts than the cafe and he can’t risk Beel eating them all again

Asmodeus

He’s shook, and not in the good way

He just had your hand in his, complaining about how you cuticles look so good and his is lacking and how guys have to go to the nail salon after class, and then your hand is jerked from his, your form at the bottom of the stairs

The blood staining your uniform is alarming, but he can’t worry about that now. He’s trying to keep you talking, but you’re already on the verge of passing out

“MC, you can’t sleep yet! We have plans to go to the nail salon remember? And I need you awake so we can talk about what matching color we’re getting! So what color should we get now, MC? MC? MC!”

He’s trying to keep himself from panicking, but he can’t help it! You’re suppose to be smiling and laughing with you, loving him, but you’re unconscious on the ground, and he’s scared

Quickly dials Lucifer and tells him the whole situation, and he’s surprised to find himself blinking back tears

The demon who did this is long gone by the time Lucifer and Diavolo come, but he remembers the face, and he has something exciting planned when he comes face to face with them

Obviously you have to go home, but Asmo is so distraught that he has to go home with you. But when you wake up, prepare to be tackled to the bed with him crying his eyes out. All you can do is try to comfort him and tell him that okay, giving him little kisses on his cheek

But now that the sadness is out of the way (all this crying and worrying is causing him stress wrinkles), it’s time for a makeover/stress relief!

Fashion shows, makeovers, painting nails, face masks, the whole nine yards. All in the comfort of his dazzling room!

It’ll make you both feel and look better, and honestly you two need that right now. It also gives him the opportunity to cover that unappealing bruise. Your beauty outshines it but it’ll be best to cover it up for your and his sake (mainly his)

Every time Asmo sees your bruise, he gets upset and he’s tired of being reminded of what happened. He knows that he’s only loved for his looks, his vanity, but you see more in him than that

You’re...you’re the first person that loves him for him entirely, not because of his features. And when he tells you that he loves you, he honestly means it. He would have never thought he would fall so deep for someone, let alone a human, but...he’s glad that it’s you. He’s happy that it’s you

Which is why he wants to keep you safe and injury-free. Plus, your skin is too pretty and doll-like to be roughed up!

You guys still go out of course, he just has a better eye on you now. This one incident isn’t going to hold him back for picking out new cute outfits for you!

And don’t think he forgot about that demon who caused all of this in the first place. He actually waited by their locker, and convinced them to come with him. But what should Asmo do with them? He could always have them steal Beel’s food, annoy Lucifer, say something horrible about Ruri-Chan, the possibilities are endless! As long as they don’t cause him to get dirty, of course

Or maybe they should do something so severe that they have no reason than to leave RAD forever, or even leave the Devildom forever, depending on how far he’s willing to take it. He’ll do anything if it means you’re safe and he gets to keep you all to himself

Beelzebub

He thought it was an accident at first, you get so excited about things that you stumble over your own feet sometimes, but he’s always there to catch you or pick you up

You keep saying that you’re okay as he’s holding onto you, and after he sits you up he’s confused because he smells blood. His heart is beating a little quicker, and you’re not talking anymore, and your head is drooping, and that’s when he sees the blood running down the side of your face

He’s starting to panic, and he’s so scared that if he tightens his hold against you he’ll just make things worse, that he’ll just hurt you more. But he needs to go find Lucifer, he needs to get you help, you’re feeling so light in his arms and it reminds him of the Celestial War when he witnessed his sister dying-

He hears someone snickering behind him, and that’s when he loses his temper

You’re a part of his family now, someone that he loves and cares for more than he can describe, and they did this to you? Someone who wouldn’t even squish a bug, someone who made him late night snacks without even asking, always there to give him hugs after his games no matter how sweaty, someone that put his family back together and they did this to you?

Lucifer and Mammon struggled to hold him back after they found the demon flung through the wall, laying under the rubble. Beel just kept growling, fangs bared and wings buzzing. He won’t stop trying to get out of their hold, and he keeps inching closer and closer to the demon, and it’s only a matter of time before he finishes what he started

You were already in the infirmary getting treated, and Beel isn’t calming down anytime soon so you were both escorted home

You woke up to Beel upset and pouting. He’s so worried about you that he couldn’t even eat. Beelzebub could not eat, that’s how you knew this was a something serious

Poor Beel was so terrified of hurting you himself that he failed to protect you from the people that do want to hurt you, or worse

But this won’t happen again, he swears, both to you and himself. Move over Mammon, Beel is officially your new bodyguard!

Wherever you go, Beel is right behind you, literally. He’s like your shadow, just bigger and a lot more...menacing. Also isn’t taking any chances with Mammon’s schemes, just carrying you away before he can even open his mouth about another get rich quick plan

Speaking of carrying, you are not allowed to walk down the stairs anymore. As soon as you step near some you find yourself in his arms like it’s nothing. Both at home and at school, it doesn’t matter to him

Also he’s very cautious to have you around people besides his brothers, and the exchange students (but he’s still hesitant about Solomon, anyone who can cook food like him is automatically getting the side eye)

Also you practically moved in with the twins, and it’s nothing compared to the sleepovers before. Belphie sleeps easier, Beel’s stomach is satisfied (eating your homemade sweets with you is better than everything combined at Hell’s Kitchen, and trust me he knows) he feels all warm inside, and you’re protected. Everyone’s happy!

Beel is a sweet guy, just don’t come in between his family or his food. After that whole incident with the demon, everyone has come to understand that, especially after seeing just how much damage he caused both to the demon and the school in so little time...

Belphegor

If he was sleepy before, he’s completely awake now

You’re holding the side of your head, and he can see the blood seeping through your fingers, groaning in pain. You keep trying to say that you’re okay, but your words are starting to slur and he’s getting nervous, he’s getting scared

It’s reminding him too much of his worst mistake, of what he did to you, when he murdered-

No. He doesn’t need to be thinking about that right now, especially when the person who did this is bragging about it while your body is slumped over. Right there, he knows what exactly needs to be done

Belphie was already in front of them before they even registered it, and didn’t give him any time to form an excuse. His claws were already at their throat, inching deeper and deeper the more they swallowed

“I should just slit your throat now, it’ll be easy and not a lot of work. But you deserve much worse than that. You’ll wish I did by the end of this.”

After a tap to the demon’s forehead, they just collapsed before him, unmoving. He didn’t even look down when he stepped over them (or rather stepped on them) to get to you. You’re passed out, but still breathing. You can’t stay here like this, and he refuses to tell Diavolo or Lucifer. He’ll figure something out, maybe Satan has some books in his room on what to do...

When you woke up, you found yourself wrapped in blankets and Belphie sleeping beside you, arms wrapped tight. You were confused, when did you get home? You remember walking with him down the stairs, but everything was blurry after that. What happen-

“You’re always thinking so hard MC, you’ll never be able to get good rest if you keep that up. But Satan did say to check on you every couple of hours, so I guess it’s fine. And quit touching your head!”

“Oh, sorry Belphie, I didn’t mean to-”

“Tch, how annoying...”

But he’s lying. Even as he’s carefully re-wrapping the bandages, he’s relieved that you’re awake, that your eyes are still full of life, not like the dullness that he saw that fateful night

When Lucifer finds you he is not happy with Belphie, but he doesn’t care and tells him that everything is already under control and that he isn’t needed. Belphie didn’t miss the scowl that he sent his way, but he just smirked in response. You didn’t need Lucifer as Belphie is already taking care of you, as it should be

You know how he always carries around his favorite pillow? Yeah he’s doing that with you basically, minus the carrying. You’re practically attached to his side, wherever he goes you’re either right there with him or in his room, which is mainly just you two lazing around or sleeping (as usual)

Honestly, the only demons who he’s okay with disturbing you two is Beel and maybe Satan. Beel because that’s his twin and it’s his room too, and Satan only if he’s checking on you medically or if he has some new ideas to mess with Lucifer. Everyone else is just trying to bother you and be annoying, and you don’t need that

Of course he blames himself for this! How is he suppose to keep you safe, to make up for his mistake? But then it clicks

It’s not the fact that he’s weak, people think that he’s weak. But he realizes that this is fine, he’ll use that to his advantage.

Diavolo is upset and Lucifer is running out of excuses for him, but Belphie just plays stupid and says he can’t remember how to remove it (even though he does). Let the demon lose some more sleep until they learn their lesson, whether it’s from the constant nightmares or from sleep deprivation trying to stay awake to avoid said nightmares. He’ll remove it when he feels like it, and he doesn’t see that happening anytime soon

Let people think the Avatar of Sloth is weak, that he’s not a threat, and he can show them exactly how wrong they are. Better yet, this demon can be the perfect example, and many more if they become a bother to you (and him)

You’re too nice MC, too delicate. You treat him so good, like he’s not a demon, like he’s not the monster who took your life, and he has to thank you for that somehow. He feels like whatever he does won’t be enough for the kindness you give him, but protecting you from others who used to be like him could be a good start

Also now he can hog all of your head pats and cuddles for himself, and he doesn’t feel bad at all. Everyone else had their time with you when he was locked up, so he’s finally got the opportunity to be selfish

Diavolo

First of all...this demon is dumb enough to harm you in front of him??? The Demon LORD???? The FUTURE KING OF HELL??!

They have more than just a death wish

It all happened so quick, he just crossed paths with you in the hallways and started to ask about your day (and maybe invite you for a small tea date after school) but he didn’t even get the chance to open his mouth

One second he saw your eyes light up and hand extended to excitedly wave, then he saw your fragile form tumbling down the stairs

Barbatos was soon called to his side as Diavolo saw the red coating his palms and you barely staying conscious, trying to say that you’re okay and not to worry

See...he feared that this would be a problem. While Diavolo is a very kind and understanding ruler, there are still some demons out there who think he’s too lenient, too soft. But that’s where people are mistaken. Diavolo is kind, but do not mistake his kindness for weakness

He felt his anger rising, his demeanor starting to crack, but he set aside his emotions. You’re his first priority, and he needs to make sure that you’re okay! He’s still a ruler, and you’re his responsibility (and first love)

However, he made sure that Barbatos took the demon who did this and kept them in the dungeon until he was done treating you. He won’t let this go unpunished, he can’t and he won’t

You’re an important part of the exchange program, and you’re most important to him, and he’s upset with himself that you got hurt. You’re so delicate, and you don’t deserve any of this happening to you, but what can he do? While he trusts the brothers to keep you safe, he wants to keep an eye on you personally, but how?

Then it struck him

You liked to stay in the castle, always smiling and having fun whenever you spent time with him there, so why not relocate you there?? It’ll be like an extended sleepover/retreat with just you two!! You guys can do all of your favorite activities and won’t have to worry about going home because you won’t have to leave!! Why didn’t he think of this sooner?!

The brothers are very upset with this incident, and even more so when he announced this. Diavolo decided that your condition needed to be monitored closely, and since he’s the person directly in charge of the exchange program AND the ruler over the Devildom, there was no room to argue. You weren’t going to stay in the castle forever, just until he deemed it right to return to the HoL

Which would be...some time soon, maybe. He’s not really worried about that now, his number 1 concern is you after all!

You’re getting the royal treatment, literally. This is the chance that he gets to pamper you without interruptions and he is not wasting it!

You kept trying to convince him that you’re fine, but he wasn’t hearing any of it, especially after he sees the nasty bruise that was left. “MC, please! You still need to rest. How about I have Barbatos bring us some tea to help, and we can even have the royal staff bring us some outfits of your choosing if you like? Oo, we can even have our portrait painted!”

“Dia, I promise that I’m fine, you have more things to worry about than me-”

“Nonsense, MC. You’re what’s important to me, now and always. Don’t ever forget that.”

Even finished it with a hand kiss, UGH he really is a Prince Charming

Once you did return to RAD bruise free, Diavolo, being the gentleman that he is, walked with you everywhere in the beginning. Coming into the building, walking to class, lunch, even to the student council meeting, he was by your side. But he couldn’t avoid his duties forever (unfortunately), but he always made up for lost time afterwards

You never realized that when he wasn’t with you, someone else always was. Whether it be Lucifer who miraculously had spare time, or Barbatos who decided to escort you back to the castle to try a new recipe for his Lord, it was always one of them that stayed with you

Also, it never dawned on you why people were starting to be so nice to you. You thought it was because of what happened, not paying attention to how tense they would get, the fear in their eyes. You did notice that the demon who caused your fall never came back to class, and their desk is starting to collect dust...

When you did ask Diavolo about it, he just pat your head and said that what happened was unacceptable and that the demon has been dealt with accordingly.

You don’t need to hear about what really happened to them, he doesn’t want to scare you or taint your innocence! But he doesn’t mind if anyone else hears it, he’ll be more than happy to explain in full detail what happened and what will happen to demons that even think about attempting to harm you or think that he’s “too soft”. They won’t think he’s a soft ruler after that

Diavolo is a very sweet man, one that treats you as if you’re ruling by his side as his partner and one that you never have to be scared of, but even you didn’t miss the deadly glint in his eyes whenever he spoke about that demon...

But enough about that, he wants to try that new recipe that you made just for him!

He enjoys the time that he gets to spend with you, and after this, you’ll be in his company a lot more. He can’t risk having this happen again to his love- I MEAN favorite exchange student right?

#obey me x reader #obey me reader insert #obey me #obey me swd #obey me lucifer x reader #obey me mammon x reader #obey me levi x reader #obey me leviathan x reader #obey me satan x reader #obey me asmodeus x reader #obey me asmo x reader #obey me beelzebub x reader #obey me beel x reader #obey me belphegor x reader #obey me belphie x reader #obey me diavolo x reader

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marybeatriceofmodena · 3 years

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You know, I’ve been thinking today about how Alina doesn’t even really work as a Reluctant Hero, compared her to Frodo to see the key differences (since Frodo is pretty much the Poster Child for the Reluctant Hero), and then I realized...

You know, I think L/eigh B/ardugo wrote TGT as a very black-and-white fairytale, where Alina is the princess, Mal’s the knight in the shining armor, and the Darkling is basically the dragon, except it doesn’t really work because the worldbuilding requires an approach that’s... a lot more grey?

The thing is, though, I realized... Alina and Mal are basically meant to be Frodo and Sam. Except that, again... it doesn’t really work.

Frodo works as a Reluctant Hero, because he makes it clear multiple times that he doesn’t want to carry the Ring. He asks Gandalf to do it for him, he asks Galadriel, he asks Aragorn, and they all refuse, because they are (or are called to be) in a position of power, and while them being in a position of power is presented as good, the One Ring essentially represents the fast, easy way to get to it, which will ultimately corrupt them rather than have them fight their way towards their goal.

Frodo, meanwhile, is the right person to carry the Ring, because he comes from a humble place and he doesn’t really have any aspirations to become powerful. And while he’s clearly burdened by having to carry the One Ring, and that he makes it clear that he wishes the Ring had never come to him, he still goes on anyway, despite all the hardships he faces, because his ultimate goal is to save the Shire and his friends, and that desire is stronger than any fear or greed he may have.

Now, J.R.R. Tolkien himself said that he didn’t really see Frodo as THE Hero, and that Sam is the real Hero of the story to him. Which makes sense, given how Sam was based off young men from rural England he met while fighting in World War I. But also, the story makes it very clear that without Sam, who’s arguably the most pure-hearted person in all of Middle-Earth, Frodo would have definitely failed in his task. The reason why he resists the temptation to carry the One Ring is LITERALLY because him protecting and helping Frodo is more important to him. Sam doesn’t give two shits about power. Helping Frodo save the Shire and coming back to everything he’s ever loved is more important to him.

Both Alina and Frodo are pure-hearted orphans who are given tremendous power: Alina is the Sun Summoner, and Frodo carries the One Ring. In both cases, power is represented as a corruptive force, that makes people go mad with greed. It works in the context of The Lord of the Rings, given how the rings were given to leaders of Elves, Dwarves and Men, and that Sauron created the One Ring to rule over and control all of them. The Grisha, on the other hand, unlike the Ring-bearers, are not in a position of power, given they are essentially victims of Fantastic Racism in pretty much every country. While Ravka treats them slightly better than in Fjerda or Shu Han, it’s still not ideal and it’s something that could be taken away from them at any moment. It would be an entirely different matter if the Grisha were the ones rulling over Ravka and viewing otkazat’sya as lesser, and in that context, Alina being the Sun Summoner would be a very obvious road to her becoming corrupted.

Frodo refusing to carry the One Ring and asking other people to take that burden from him comes from a place of genuine fear of what the Ring might do to him. In his place, we’d probably all do the same thing. That’s what makes his acceptance of his task all the more admirable. Alina, on the other hand, refuses to be the Sun Summoner and to help her fellow Grisha because that stands in the way of her ending up with Mal. She never gives any sign that she’s truly empathizing with the Grisha’s plight, she tries to run away not once, but twice, and most importantly, she never sees herself as one of them. They are othered, but it matters little to her, because she doesn’t want to be othered herself, because that stands in the way of her running off with a boy. It’s basically the equivalent of Frodo being overcome by fear after seeing the fate of the Shire in Galadriel’s mirror, and just demanding to be sent to the Grey Havens straight away to save his own ass from it all and just leaving the One Ring to whoever wants to deal with it. At that point, it’s not being a Reluctant Hero: it’s being a coward at best, a selfish bastard at worst.

(And that’s why I don’t really buy her when she tells Aleksander that they could have had it all if he had told her all the truth from the start, because... again, she didn’t seem to care about the Grisha that much and Aleks telling her everything would have actually been a sure way of having her run as fast as possible the other way. I know the story is trying to tell me otherwise and that the plot point I’m supposed to see here is that Alina was willing to do something until she felt betrayed by Aleks, which is... not what was shown here, and it’s especially annoying considering how Alina is a deserter in every sense of the word, and that any army would have court-martialed her for running away.)

So if Alina is meant to be a pure, selfless heroine, who loses her powers because she also refuses to be greedy... that just falls completely flat, because if anything, she’s as selfish as Frodo is selfless, because all of this really just boils down to her wanting to run off with Mal.

Now, onto Sam and Mal. Both of them are basically Everymen who are there to help the Hero and keep their feet on the ground. As mentioned earlier, Sam is the one who helps Frodo finish his mission to Mordor, and the story makes it clear Frodo would have failed without him. TGT meanwhile presents Mal as Alina’s “True North”... which could work on paper as Alina’s reminder to temper Aleksander’s efforts and to remind him that in order for Grisha to be viewed as people, it is important for them to also remember that balance and peace between Grisha and otkazat’sya will be essential, so resentment and hatred can be healed between both groups.

The key difference here is that Sam is completely supportive of Frodo at all times. Even when Frodo sends him away in the film, Sam goes back after him the minute he realizes he’s been tricked by Gollum. He never shames Frodo whenever he falls prey to temptation, he simply reminds him of who he is and what he must fight for, and even when he’s climbing Mount Doom, he still carries Frodo on his back despite being probably completely exhausted, because Frodo’s more exhausted than he is. He completely accepts Frodo as both his friend, the Hobbit from the Shire, and the Ring-bearer he needs to help, even if he might die in the process.

Mal (in the books, that is) makes it very clear that he does not accept Alina as both the girl he knew and the Sun Summoner. He only wants the girl, and whenever Alina makes steps towards being the Sun Summoner, he basically sulks and yells at her for not paying attention to him. Despite Alina becoming othered in the eyes of the world, he refuses to see her as othered, mostly because it is inconvenient to him rather than because he loves her for who she is. That’s why in the end, people feel like Alina lost her powers in order to be with Mal, because Mal would never accept her in her entirety. Sam, on the other hand, accepts Frodo as both Ring-bearer and Hobbit, because if he didn’t, Frodo would have failed.

And while they made Mal in the show a lot nicer than his book counterpart, he still doesn’t work as Alina’s “True North”, because he cossets her in her selfishness. He may say he doesn’t care about how Alina is a Grisha in this one, but he also doesn’t consider the implications of it all - which is especially glaring given he’s a soldier himself. Like, look, if you’re going to slap in a racism plotline to make Mal/ina work, you’d think that being half-Shu would give Mal a little awareness that people are going to treat Alina badly for being half-Shu AND a Grisha, and given Alina is the MOTHERFUCKING SUN SUMMONER AND A SAINT, maybe, just maybe he’d tell her: “Heh, it’s kinda lame we’ll just run off and let everyone else in the dust, you know, especially since we could make our lives as well as everyone else’s better?” Seriously, if you’re going to make Mal Alina’s “True North”, have him face her duties and her calling whether she likes it or not, don’t coddle her when she wants to run the other way because she wants to hide under a rock for the rest of her life.

With all that being said, that leaves us with the Darkling, who... I mean, given his whole schtick is that power corrupts and makes you evil and crazy, I guess that makes him Gollum, but sexy.

Gollum, but sexy.

That single expression has been haunting me ever since I started writing the above novel and I fucking hate it. You’re welcome. No one wanted Sexy Gollum. Absolutely no one. Fuck this shyte. See, this is why I want Darkling Redemption. I do not want to live in a world where Gollum is sexy. I need brain bleach.

Even here it doesn’t even fucking work because Gollum hid in a cave with the Ring with a strategically placed cloth because no one wants to see his crusty ass family jewels anyway, while Aleks worked his ass off to give the Grisha a safe place to live and to at the very least ensure they’re useful enough to not be killed like animals. Like, if you’re going to give the world something that’s gonna definitely not make me sleep tonight like Sexy Gollum, at least do it right.

#now i have thoroughly traumatized myself :)#anti grishaverse #anti leigh bardugo #anti mal #anti malina #darklina #alarkling #rants and reviews

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firelxdykatara · 3 years

Note

kitty i can't wait for your thoughts of Shadow and Bone asdfasfaw

Ok well I just finished and I have so many fucking thoughts. Most good! Some, less so. Part of it may just be my bias because I’ve only read the Six of Crows duology and have little interest in actually reading the original trilogy, because I know how it ends and Leigh clearly hates me personally and doesn’t want me to be happy (/j), so I was already predisposed to be far more invested in the Crows and Darkling/Darklina segments (genuinely, the Mal/Malina scenes/storyline bored me to tears, and while I appreciate that the show went out of its way to change Mal’s character to make him much less of a toxic douchebag [I’ve read enough excerpts and explanations of his actions in the books to really loathe book!Malina], it isn’t enough to make me ship them when Darklina is right there), but I also don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the Crows absolutely stole the show.

It’s actually kind of funny, because I’d assumed they were only being so heavily marketed to hype the show up even more, since while there’s a lot of TGT/SoC fandom overlap they are also two fundamentally different genres and I’d wager there are a lot of people who are massive fans of one but not so enthused with the other, while remaining fairly insignificant to the overall plot. Turns out, they make up fully half of the show’s runtime (much to my delight). Which is part of what I think will help this series stand on its own, both as a book adaptation and simply as a fantasy TV series.

I’ll put more of my story-specific thoughts under a cut, so there’s lots of show spoilers to follow!

I know that a lot of early reviewers were saying that Alina’s motivations and storyline revolved too much around Mal, and that really held true for me. It made sense in the beginning--he was the only constant in her life, she was thrust into something new, terrifying, and completely unfamiliar, and they’d developed an unhealthy codependence as a coping mechanism for their childhoods and the traumas they faced, the lives they lead growing up in a war-torn country. But she started coming into her power, falling for the General--not just his power and charisma, but what she felt when she was with him. The way he helped her summon the sun, the way she felt free in a way she never had before.

Until it all went to shit--but the Darklina make-out scene in episode 5? Fucking iconic. Poetic fucking cinema. The way they were quite literally about to have sex on that wartable (and someone better write fic of that moment, what if they hadn’t gotten interrupted), and the General left, but then he ran back just to kiss her one more time... this is what OTPs are made of ok.

I think what really bothers me overall is that Alina ultimately lacked agency in her one storyline, pretty much the entire way through. She did make a few choices, but they were mostly incidental, and a lot of it was Alina desperately trying to get back to Mal rather than seizing her own power and destiny and running with it. The most prominent example is the end of episode 5--Alina is having happy make-outs and almost bones the General in his own war room, and then he leaves, and Baghra comes in and infodumps to her about how evil he is and how he’s only using her and she needs to escape.

I recognize that a lot of this is probably because that’s essentially what happened in the book and Leigh is an executive producer for the show so she has a lot of shot-calling power. However, I really think that even in the book this plotline would’ve been better-served by having Alina make these discoveries on her own.

For example, imagine that the letters which were used as framing devices for episodes 2 and 3 were vitally important to the plot, rather than being one-offs that are mentioned a few times but not really affecting much of anything. Alina begins to get suspicious when she doesn’t receive word from Mal, and she starts wondering if her letters are even reaching him--so she starts snooping. She finds ashes in the war room hearth, late at night,, and recognizes a fragment of Mal’s signature and larger piece of her own. She now knows that someone--possibly the General, but maybe that creepy priest guy, or someone else in the palace--is keeping her and Mal from contacting one another. So she starts snooping around even more. She asks the General leading questions, trying to figure out what the truth is of his intentions. She still feels this pull--this connection to him, and she hopes she’s wrong, but she’s not willing to just sit around and wait for the other shoe to drop.

The Winter Fete still happens, she still gets the hot make-out session with the General, and then when he’s called away, she snoops through his papers, looking for anything that can tell her the truth. She finds a hidden compartment filled with journals.

She reads about Aleksander’s past (and, incidentally, wasn’t that supposed to be a huge moment in the books, him revealing his true name to her in private? kinda wish it had been kept that way in the show but who knows where they’ll go with it in the future)--that leads to the flashbacks in episode 6. She feels for him, but she also reads further--she gets a firsthand look at his desire for power, something that began as a noble desire to save his people, but was twisted by a lust for vengeance (for his lost love and all the Grisha who were killed) and shot through with greed, the realization that if he found the Sun Summoner he could control the Fold, rather than just destroy it. He could create a new world where Grisha could live without fear--where Grisha could rule.

Alina is terrified. Whoever the General used to be--whatever humanity she saw flickering in his eyes, the way his heart fluttered when they kissed--she can’t trust that it’ll be enough to save her from plans centuries in the making. So she goes to Baghra, the woman who helped her discover her power, learn to channel it--the woman who always seemed to know much more than she ever let on. Baghra gives her side of the story--Alina got it from the General’s perspective first, now Baghra is telling her something framed much differently. She isn’t sure what or who to trust, but she knows that Baghra seems willing to help her escape--but rather than trusting her ‘loyal Grisha’, she makes the choice she made in the show, to choose the other path, and winds up with the Crows.

Idk how Mal and the Stag thing would fit into this (if it isn’t obvious by now, Mal just... doesn’t interest me), but Alina’s story and her character arc would be so much stronger for it. And she’s supposed to be the central character, so her story being weak and her agency so frequently being compromised ultimately hurts the show as a whole.

I know I’ve gone on and on about Alina and the Darkling (look, I’m a slut for enemies-to-lovers, and also lovers-to-enemies-and-back, so Darklina and Helnik are where so much of my investment is rooted--plus Kanej, but that almost goes without saying), but the true standouts of the series were the Crows. Inej, Kaz, and Jesper, and Nina and Matthias in their episodes, stole the show (along with the Darkling, Ben is far and away the best actor in the cast and I love that for him, but Freddy, Amita, and Kit are also amazing, and Danielle&Calahan were fucking phenomenal as Nina and Matthias--I do have to say, though, that the whole cast is really solid and has amazing chemistry).

They worked together so perfectly--Freddy and Amita communicated so much with their eyes alone, especially together, and a whole lot of their relationship dynamic is rooted in how they exist together, which really came through. The show altered the Crows timeline considerably (I’m pretty sure Kaz would’ve been 14 during the original trilogy lol), so Inej is still at the Menagerie, but things like Kaz putting up the Crow Club for Inej’s freedom, the way Kaz needed her but could never bring himself to say it (until the end of the season dklhfgdkjfgh i SCREAMED)--the way Jesper played off the both of them, and it’s so obvious they all love each other even though they’re criminals and thieves and murderers, and Kaz would never admit it (out loud--which actually feeds into my theory that his love language is acts of service; Kaz does things for the people he cares about, he never announces it and he will almost always try to downplay it, but the way you know he cares is if, for example, he puts his entire life, everything he built, up as collateral for your freedom), but they’re a family.

One thing that I was kind of iffy about was Inej’s refusal to kill--but I thought it might be something they were planning to work into her overall character arc, and they did. It was the one line she hadn’t crossed--in the books, I’d imagine that it took a while for Inej to wind up at that point, being willing to kill on top of everything else. So I actually like that they worked that into the Crows plotline, and Inej killing for the first time was to save Kaz’s life.

Just like Kaz’s first selfless act was to save her.

(He’d deny it, of course. He protects his investments. He needed her for the job. But the truth is, he did it for her. And he’d do it again. Even if he’d never admit it.)

Meanwhile, Nina and Matthias’ storyline was pretty much note-for-note according to their backstory as it was revealed in Six of Crows, and I loved every second of it. Their chemistry was perfect, their journey from enemies to begrudging allies to friends to maybe something more (Matthias’ stomach cockblocking them when they were about to kiss had me fucking SCREAMING AT THE TV, and then of course the whole ‘betraying him to save him’ thing happened and I sobbed), and then suddenly right back to enemies.

Because from Matthias’ perspective, he trusted a witch--believed in her, liked her, wanted her--and she turned on him. He has no idea that she wasn’t the one who knocked him out in the first place, and no reason to believe her, because as far as he knows, she just confirmed everything he’d ever been told about Grisha. That they are deceitful and treacherous, would turn on you as soon as look at you, that they are dangerous and not to be trusted. It wasn’t revealed in-show but I imagine Matthias’ backstory is largely the same, which means that his entire family was slaughtered by Grisha when he was a young boy, and then he was turned into a brainwashed child soldier by the witch hunters and never knew anything else.

They are perfectly primed for their SoC arc next season and I, for one, am so stoked to see the rest of their journey. And if I slip Netflix a couple twenties, maybe they’ll let Helnik have a happy ending please please please.

Anyway, yeah! I have a lot of thoughts but things are still percolating in my head so I’ll probably float around the tags for a bit and let things settle. This is just a preliminary overview of my thoughts in the immediate aftermath of bingeing the entire show in one night kldfjghdkjfhgkjgf

EDIT TO ADD: I CAN’T BELIEVE I FORGOT ABOUT THE TRUE STAR OF THE SHOW, M I L O

MILO BEST BOY. MILO THE MVP. MILO DESERVES ALL THAT IS GOOD IN THE WORLD AND I HOPE HE LIVES A HAPPY AND HEALTHY AND FULL LITTLE GOAT LIFE.

#shadow and bone #kanej #helnik #darklina #sab spoilers #alina starkov #the darkling #inej ghafa #kaz brekker #jesper fahey #malina salt #asked #cobraonthecob

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olivia-anderson-fanfic · 4 years

Note

And when dick finds out jason KNEW and didn't tell b/c of the bet. oh man. Can we get a chapter in dick's pov on this? idc where u put it I just really want to read it.

Dick rolled his eyes at his brother’s antics. Honestly, he didn’t really care who Ladybug was. They had more than enough proof that she was on the good side and their little squabble didn’t seem all that serious.

Besides, no one in France knew who she was after her being a hero for four years. Dick wasn’t one to attempt the impossible (he loved things that seemed impossible, but that’s different than things that actually are).

Still, Damian had come to him for help and he was fine taking some time out of his day to research with him.

And what did they find? Pretty much nothing.

The Parisians either guessed her age as 15-21 or somewhere in the thousands.

She had to have come over from France over the past two days but there wasn’t a single person even moderately matching her description who had come over.

Her friend group was iffy. Supposedly she was friends with someone named Chloe Bourgeois, who’d had the bee miraculous for a short period of time. Then again, some footage indicated that Ladybug might actually hate the girl, so that information was useless. All the other heroes she’d worked with were still a mystery.

And her powers? God, don’t even get him started on her powers. Did she know what she was going to summon or not -- sometimes it seemed like it and sometimes it didn’t. Just how far did the apparent invulnerability go? How does someone take a miraculous? How does her outfit work? Why won’t the mask come off? How much did her cure actually fix? The only thing they knew for sure was that she had to participate in a battle for her to be able to use it.

Even Tim hadn’t been able to scrounge up more than rumors.

But Damian still wanted Dick to be there when he confronted Ladybug with the information and question her, and he didn’t really have anything better to do.

Finding her was way harder than they thought it’d be. You’d think someone in bright red would be easy to spot in the middle of the night, but apparently not.

But, eventually, they found her.

She didn’t seem to notice them for a while. She hopped from rooftop to rooftop, drink in hand.

And then she stopped. She took a long sip from her drink.

“What do you want?” She asked. Well, at least they knew for sure she was French. Her accent was still pretty thick.

Dick and Damian looked at each other awkwardly. What were they supposed to say? ‘We tried to stalk you on the internet but it didn’t work’?

She spun on her heel and repeated herself: “What do you want?” Her smile was getting more strained.

Damian crossed his arms over his chest. “Who are you?”

Wow. Smooth. He fought the urge to sigh.

Ladybug grinned cheekily as she matched his posture. “I’m Ladybug, of course.”

He could already tell they weren’t going to get anything of substance from her. Still, Damian was sending him pleading looks out of the corner of his eyes. He brought a smile to his face. “We’ve spent the last few days researching you. We looked up immigration records, plane flights, everything. No one matches your descriptions. You, frankly, don’t exist.”

She tapped her earrings. “That’s ‘cause of magic. It keeps people from finding out my identity if I don’t want them to.”

He blinked and looked at Robin, trying to gauge if this could be true. Sure, metas existed and the internet had attributed her powers to the earrings she wore, but the idea of earrings giving people powers was still kinda odd for him.

Robin didn’t know. Great.

And then Ladybug took a sip of her drink and Dick gave pause. He’d seen that cup before. Pretty much every day, actually. He could ask Tim about it later --.

He was pulled back to the present when Damian groaned and left. He broke into a wide smile. Maybe this wouldn’t be impossible, after all.

He held out a hand to shake. “It’s been nice meeting you. Sorry about my…” He hesitated for a half-second, unsure whether he wanted to say ‘brother’. He glanced at her eyes and decided against it. He didn’t like how intent they looked. Whoever she was, she wasn’t stupid, that much was obvious. “... partner. He’s a bit annoying.”

She beamed as she shook his hand. “It’s fine. It’s been a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Nightwing. I hope next time we can get to know each other without him around.”

He chuckled. “Just Nightwing would be fine. And that sounds great.” He gave one last wave before hopping away.

Jason’s phone rang and Dick grinned, glad for an excuse to stop working for even a second.

“Who wants to talk to you?”

He held up his phone to show it was ‘Timberly’.

They both frowned at this. Tim? Calling during work? He must be dying.

Jason turned on his speaker.

“Heya, Replacement, what’s up?”

“Hey, I’m going to take the day off.”

Jason and Dick looked at each other for a long time, stunned. And then they finally processed it. “WHAT?!”

“WHO IS THIS?!”

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO HIM?!”

“ARE YOU OKAY?!”

“IS THIS A PRANK?!”

“Yes, I’m fine. No, it’s not a prank. I’ve met someone --”

Jason laughed.

“-- not like that, Jay -- and I’m giving her a tour of the city. She just got here from France a while ago.”

Cafe person? From France? Dick’s brain clicked and he shoved Jason out of the way to get to the phone. “Did you meet her at the cafe?”

“Yes, I met her at the coffee shop, Dick. What does it matter?”

“She could be Ladybug.”

Tim and Jason laughed at him. Laughed.

“You’re insane. Can I have time off or not?”

Dick fought back his annoyance. Tim was actually asking to leave and he wasn’t going to stop him. “Yes!”

“Please!” Added Jason.

The line went dead. Dick dropped back onto the couch and pulled out his own phone.

How could he bully Tim into bringing (the person who might be) Ladybug over?

He opened up the family group chat.

Idontwantpicturesthatsjustmyname: Guys you will not BELIEVE this

Dick rested his head on his hands as he watched Marinette from across the table.

“So, what do you know about Ladybug?”

Her eyes widened slightly. Whether this was because of the suddenness of the question or because he was right he wasn’t sure.

“Subtle,” Jason said sarcastically. He sent Dick a short glare as if to say ‘don’t scare her off we just met her’ and then gave Marinette an apologetic smile. “Sorry, ‘bout that. He’s been obsessed since she appeared, and most of his research has been a dead end. He’s grasping at straws.”

She relaxed and gave a soft laugh. “I’m too klutzy to ever be Ladybug, you can ask anyone.”

Dick tried not to look too skeptical. He’d purposefully surprised her with a rather forceful hug when he’d met her to see how good her balance was when she wasn’t paying attention. She’d had no problem both staying up and supporting their weight.

He couldn’t tell her that, though.

He groaned. “And I don’t suppose you know who it is?”

“Nope.”

And, just like that, the conversation moved on. Damn it, Jason, can’t you relax for a few seconds so he can interrogate her? Ugh.

Still, he smiled at Tim’s expression as Marinette began to explain exactly how they’d met. Even if it annoyed him that he hadn’t gotten any information, no one could ever pass up on the opportunity to mess with their siblings.

Jason sent Dick a glare as he pulled on his leather jacket. “You want to what?”

“Do a stakeout!” Dick said brightly. “I’m pretty sure Marinette is Ladybug.”

Tim sighed. “So we’re going to stalk my new friend? Great. Maybe this is why my friendships don’t last.”

“C’mon! It’s not like you even have to go, Tim.”

“And let you guys embarrass me? No thanks.”

“She won’t know --,” Jason said.

Tim sighed and put on his mask. “No. Come on. Dick, you owe me a coffee.”

Dick groaned but nodded. “Fine, I’m paying for snacks. Let’s go.”

“For the record, I think you’re stupid,” said Jason as they started to pull themselves up the fire escape.

“Thanks!” Said Dick brightly. “I know I’m right, but thanks!”

Jason laughed quietly. “Suuuure. Wanna bet?”

“Sure. How about 3k?”

He rolled his eyes. “Only 3? Are you really sure?”

Dick scoffed. “Fine. 5k.”

Jason smirked and pulled himself up the last rung and sat himself down on the edge. “Sucker.”

Tim glanced inside and gave sarcastic jazz hands. “Wow. How suspicious. She’s going to sleep.”

“Can’t you guys even pretend to believe me?”

“Nope. You’re insane, dude, the girl probably couldn’t hurt a fly if she wanted to.”

“I know what I saw. That coffee cup was the same one he --” he pointed at Tim “-- brings home all the time. And he saw her get one that day. She’s French and new in town. It’s got to be her.”

Tim sighed. “This feels wrong,” he mumbled. He took a long sip of his drink before continuing: “She’s a civvie, we can’t just watch her.”

“She might be a civvie,” corrected Dick.

His brothers groaned and they all opened their bags of Doritos.

And then Marinette flung the window open and stuck her head out. “Could you guys not do this outside my window?”

Everyone jumped. Tim literally jumped, nearly falling over the side of the fire escape in his surprise. They got into fighting poses on instinct.

Marinette had gone a little pale at the sight of them.

They quickly dropped their guards.

She flashed a weak smile. “Oh, I’m sorry, sirs. I thought you were just guys on my fire escape. You on a stakeout?”

Everyone looked at each other confusedly. Did her accent somehow get worse in the few hours since they met her? Tim looked especially confused by the development.

“Of sorts,” said Red Hood carefully.

She yawned and rubbed her eyes and her accent slipped back towards normal as she spoke: “If you’re staking out, can you…?” She trailed off and her eyes found their way to their Doritos. “Is that really all you’re eating tonight?” She asked, her lips falling into a frown.

The three all looked at each other.

“I mean... yeah, it’s stakeout food,” said Dick.

She clicked her tongue. “C’mon,” she waved them inside and began walking to her kitchen.

They all shrugged as they stepped through her window. What did it matter?

Dick snooped around her apartment with his brothers. He didn’t really know what he was looking for, just evidence that she did anything shady, but really he didn’t know where she’d hide anything. The place was pretty empty.

‘Damn, you live like this?’ He thought, giving her a glance and shaking his head.

His eyes found their way to her bed and he frowned. She’d set up a fake version of herself with pillows and blankets… but hadn’t she made it seem like she’d gone straight from bed to the window? How awake had she really been? And, if she’d been awake, had the accent been faked? Why?

He raised an eyebrow at the real Marinette.

“There were three people outside my window, did you want me not to take precautions?”

He looked away. Fair enough.

He continued looking for anything, but his attempts were fruitless. He would have thrown his hands up in frustration if he didn’t think that would make her suspicious of their true intentions.

Unable to do much else without making it obvious, he wandered over to watch her bake.

Dick looked the NightMare outfit up and down.

Ladybug sighed. “What?”

Maybe he could get some information on how her powers worked.

“Why is this outfit more intricate than your normal one?”

Ladybug rolled her eyes. “Because I was intending to make it look like a coincidence that I showed up here right after the Ladybug in Paris defeated Hawkmoth,” she said.

He knew she was lying. He didn’t know how he knew she was lying, maybe it was the cadence of her voice or the fact that she had a tendency to keep them as in the dark about her identity as possible, but she was definitely lying.

But he couldn’t prove it.

So he moved on.

She stumbled out of her portal and sent them all a tiny wave. “Salut.”

Dick’s eyes widened and he rushed forward to catch her in case she fell. She didn’t, but he still wrapped her arm around his shoulders to hold her upright. “Christ! What did they do to you?”

"Some sort of tranquilizer,” she mumbled, closing her eyes. “We need to warn the Waynes.”

He tensed and looked at his family, who were anxiously shifting from foot to foot.

“You’re not in any state to do that,” said Bruce, finally.

“I can open a portal.”

A wide smile stretched across his face. Aha! She’d admitted that she had to have been somewhere to open a portal. He had her now! “You’ve been to Wayne Manor?”

She opened an eye just enough to send him a glare. “No, but I’ve been outside it.”

His smile dropped. Damn. That’s a good point. The outside was a pretty popular tourist spot. He sighed.

“You need to get home,” said Tim. “I’ll make sure everyone turns around.”

Dick sent him a slight glare but let go of Ladybug and turned away. As much as he wanted to be right, the idea of watching her stumble into her room while half-awake in order to confirm this made him feel a little sick.

He could figure it out some other time, at least.

Jason dropped Ladybug onto the bed and they all scrambled around her.

Dick picked up a knife and started attempting to cut the suit around her wound and a curse slipped from his lips as it attempted to reform itself instantly.

After a few attempts, he reached for Ladybug’s earrings. He hadn’t even really been thinking about her identity, he’d just been frustrated about the apparent inability to help her.

Her hand shot up and grabbed his wrist before he could touch them. She tried to say something but couldn’t talk above the blood gurgling in her mouth.

He pulled his hand from her grip.

‘Fine, but when you die stupidly it’s not my fault,’ he thought.

He went back to attempting to tend to her wounds through her outfit.

Listen, just because he hadn’t done that didn’t mean that he didn’t still want to know.

He sent a text to Marinette. He’d check every once in a while to see if she responded, but if it took however long Ladybug was out then he would be right.

He stepped into the apartment and was stunned to see that Jason and Tim were already there.

But then he watched Marinette walk over. And she was probably injured, with how hard she was trying to hide her limp. And she clearly knew that he was onto her, otherwise why would she be trying to hide it?

“You’re walking a little weird, are you alright?” He said, a smug grin on his face.

But then Tim came to her rescue. He walked over and slung an arm over her shoulders protectively. “Maybe if you weren’t watching her walk she wouldn’t be overthinking it so much.”

Damn it. He hated it when Tim had a point.

Whatever. At least he’d thought of a plan B. He watched as Marinette’s eyes fell on Robin. She’d never met the vigilante before, so there was no reason why they shouldn’t get along.

And then she was nice to him.

He wanted to kick a wall. Was he actually wrong or was she just aware of what he was doing?

She pulled a bottle of wine from her cupboard. “You guys can all have this, right?”

There, a perfectly acceptable way to be petty. He snatched the drink from her hands. “It doesn’t matter because you can’t drink!”

Marinette raised her eyebrows. “It’s legal in my country.”

“But not in ours! Where you are currently staying! How did you even get your hands on this?”

She shrugged innocently. “You’re more uptight than my actual mom.”

He scoffed. Rude!

So rude, in fact, that he didn’t realize that she had changed the subject until there was no natural way to come back to it.

He stared at the wine in his hands.

Screw it.

Dick glanced at his phone as he received a text.

His eyes lit up at the username. Marinette! Aha! He had her now! It had only been a day since Ladybug was released, surely this was proof --!

Definitelyforgottosleep: lemme in

He frowned. All thoughts of Ladybug were pushed out of his mind at the two words. Was she okay? What had happened?

Chloe Bourgeois? Where had he heard that name before?

A frown found its way to his face as he tried to recall this. “I know you.”

“You do?”

He nodded slightly and scratched the back of his head. “Definitely... so where...?”

Marinette looked a little pale. “Don’t all rich people kind of know each other?”

Dick gave a small nod. “I guess...” He said despite being sure that wasn’t it.

She grabbed both of them by their sleeves. “C’moooon. It’s cold out, we can at least do this inside.”

Dick watched from a bit away, trying to fight back a grin as Marinette and Cass greeted each other.

“Hi,” Marinette squeaked.

Cass looked Marinette up and down. If anyone could crack this case in two seconds, it was her…

And she did.

“Are you a vigilante?”

He fought the urge to squeal. Yes! Yesyesyesyesyesyes --!

And then Jason appeared out of nowhere to tackle Marinette in a hug.

This couldn’t ruin his good mood, though. Nothing could.

“Cass thinks that Mari could be a vigilante,” said Dick with a cheeky look on his face.

Jason and Marinette tensed slightly and looked at each other.

Then, Cass gave a short laugh. “No, wait, I was wrong. Don’t worry about it, Dick.”

Ah. Nothing could ruin his good mood except for that.

His smile dropped instantly and he groaned. “Dang…”

Dick looked between Marinette and Tim with horror. Ladybug had confessed literally hours ago and here he was dating Marinette? What the heck? Sure, they were cute together, but that was just cold. Couldn’t he have waited a few days at least?

It didn’t even occur to him that maybe the whole ‘Ladybug confessing’ thing could be linked.

When he’d turned on his comm, he hadn’t expected anything much from it.

“The bug’s been bugged,” said Cass.

“She’s been what?”

“Bugged. Someone bad found out her identity and now she’s got a bug.”

There was a silence as this sunk in.

Then Dick was yelling. “WHAT DO YOU MEAN SOMEONE FOUND OUT HER CIVILIAN IDENTITY?!”

“Damn, Nightwing, didn’t know you cared so much,” said Tim, who sounded a bit on edge.

“WHY DID THEY GET TO KNOW BEFORE ME?!”

“Because everyone gets to know before you,” said Cass calmly. “You’re officially the last to know.”

“IM SORRY?! EVERYONE KNEW?!”

“Yep.”

He couldn’t believe he’d been betrayed like this, especially by his own family.

And so he questioned them.

Tim had apparently figured her out the second day and not said anything about it because ‘her identity clearly matters to her, she didn’t even know I knew it until a little while ago’. Damn him. Dick couldn’t even get mad at him for that.

And then Jason was next. He’d apparently found out when Marinette had gotten shot. He’d given the same reasoning as Tim, which was more than a little suspicious.

Bruce was next. He’d found out on the Wayne Manor cams and hadn’t said anything because he thought everyone already knew. Ouch.

Duke said that he had just found out when Marinette had touched her comm. He got a pass.

And then Cass said she’d found out the moment she’d met the girl. Dick had suspected that, considering the conversation they’d had on Thanksgiving, but then he’d questioned her on why she hadn’t told him and…

“Red Hood and Marinette didn’t want you to know, so.”

Dick was practicing breathing exercises. It didn’t work, though. “WHO IS SHE?!”

He had a strong suspicion he knew, considering Jason had kept the answer from him, but he wanted to hear it directly from someone.

Jason attempted to steer the conversation away: “Hey, so about that bug thing --.”

Whatever attempts to save his wallet he was about to make was ruined by Cass, who simply said: “Marinette.”

Let’s just say Jason was lucky that Dick was against murder.

He was not, however, against cursing him out for the entire family to hear.

~~~

When you have to read 44 chapters of your own fic to answer a prompt--

I probably missed some things, too. I put a lot of little things in

#satisfied #maribat #submitted prompt #the dick grayson chapter #this is lowkey called identity crisis but shhhhhhh

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bunnys-beetlejuice-blog · 3 years

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gently rings a little bell in your ear My fic updated with two new chapters when you weren't paying attention! but now i am tilting your chin up with the point of my sword, forcing you to look. its very villainous and cool. this is part three of an increasingly convoluted story, part one can be found all the way over here but if you just want the high school romance stuff and don't care about found family, that's fine, i guess, but like, what's your deal

The weekend is a welcome relief from everything at school. He’s tired of feeling like shit, so Saturday, annoyingly bright and early, he startles Lydia awake by flopping on her bed. It causes her to bounce, and she groans, pulling the dark purple blanket further over her head. “Beetlejuice…” “I was thinkin’, today we should spend th’ whole day outdoors, in th’ park or somethin’,” he grins, and she lifts the blanket just barely, to glare at him. “You only want to play outside because all your stuff was taken away,” comes her accusation, and she’s not exactly wrong, but he just wiggles a hand under her blanket and gives her nose a poke. “Let’s go get lost, somewhere. Come on, Lyds, please?” She tries to hit him with a pillow but her grip is tired from sleep, and all she manages to do is shove the thing at him.

Twenty minutes later, she’s dressed and ready, bouncing on the balls of her feet, as he mulls over which button up to wear, the highlighter yellow with purple bugs, or the dark green with orange bones. They’re two equally ugly shirts that kind of give him a headache to look at, and both are favorites. “I can’t believe you woke me up at eight so I could stand around watching you go through your wardrobe.” “This is important.” He settles on the bugs, finally, and pulls it on before turning to Lydia, but she’s gone. He blinks, and sticks his head out his door, in time to headbutt her as she comes back in. Both siblings reel back and hold their heads. “Beetlejuice…” she groans. “Lyd-eee-uhhh,” he mimics her. She huffs and throws what she’d gone to her room to retrieve at him. He catches it, then stares. It’s his hoodie, his ruined one from that disastrous Halloween. He can still see that faded dark copper stain in some places, but it's better than it was. Also, the holes slashed in the arms have been very sloppily stitched with a thick, black embroidery thread. He looks back at his sister. “You seemed like you were having a hard week,” Lydia says, shuffling her feet. “I never sewed anything before, I’m sorry it looks kind of messy, and I tried really hard to get the bloodstains out...” He slips his familiar stripes back on and feels much more at ease. “It’s cool,” he tells her. “I like messy.” He holds open his arms and she falls into them, pressing her face against his stomach. It's a nice moment, and for once, he doesn’t feel inclined to ruin it, just pats his little sister’s head. “Love you.” “Love you too.”

``````````````````````````````````````````````````````` Charles, ever an early riser, is surprised to see his children in the kitchen this bright eyed and bushy tailed on a Saturday. He’s pouring two coffees, one for himself and one for Emily, who is sitting at the table, head propped up on her hand, and still functionally asleep, when Betelgeuse and Lydia come bounding in to raid the fridge. “And what are you two getting up to today?” he asks, and the siblings pause to look at him. “Goin’ to th’ park.” “You think so?” Betelgeuse’s shoulder slump. “Seriously? You take all my stuff away an’ now I can’t even go out?” “You’re still in trouble. Why should you be allowed to go out and have fun?” “Cause that wasn’t specified!” Betelgeuse tries, and then turns to Emily. “Ma, tell him!” Emily mutters in her sleep, and Charles wordlessly sets the coffee down in front of her. The smell hits her nose, and robotically, she lifts the drink to her lips, eyes never opening. “Let BJ go do stuff,” she manages, maybe not as eloquent as she normally speaks, her voice gruff from sleep. Betelgeuse grins up at Charles. His father sips his own coffee, and then pats his son’s head. “Home before dark. No fire, no demon nonsense, no taking drugs from strangers.” “Home at midnight, commit arson, summon Satan, enjoy stranger candy. I gotcha.” Both his children receive a kiss on the head before stuffing Lydia’s little black coffin bag with snacks, and heading out.

``````````````````````````````````````````````````````

It’s a big city, and there’s not a loss of things to do, especially with his powers, and there’s no adult supervision today. They find a café and enjoy a big breakfast, then he turns them invisible and they sneak away before the check comes, only reappearing a block later, Lydia grinning wildly. “Food tastes better stolen!” she says, and he pats her head. “There’s my little criminal.” They sneak into a movie, next, some horror thing Lydia had wanted to see that even Emily, the fun parent, had said she was too little for. It’s absolutely a gore fest, but not especially good, and they throw popcorn at the screen and cheer whenever the killer scores another victim.

“I think you’d die early in a slasher,” she says after, scattering their uneaten popcorn on the pavement in front of the theatre. She gets the attention of a whole flock of pigeons, which land and begin pecking at the kernels. “What’s your logic, there?” “You die on screen early and then the twist is you faked your death and were the killer.” “Ohh, classic. I love it.” “I’m a total final girl,” Lydia turns the half empty bucket upside down, much to the joy of the starving sky rats. “And then at the end, it’s like, I knew you were the killer the whole time, and I was just acting. Cause we’re in it together. You know, partners in crime.” He picks her up, slings her over his shoulder. “Always.”

He takes them to Central Park, next, holding her hand behind the theatre and apparating, accidentally, up a tree. She gasps and clings to him, and he digs his claws into the bark of the tree to steady them. “No worries, no worries. I just gotta..” They appear on the ground below, and Lydia looks dizzy. “Feels weird when you do that,” she tells him. “Like riding a rollercoaster, except your limbs are all asleep. But.. Kinda not that, at the same time.” It feels normal to him, but he regularly eats tin cans, so what does he know about normal to begin with?

Lydia takes her camera from her coffin bag, and readies it. It’s a little instamatic she got for her birthday, a few months ago, and she’s going through film like crazy, taking some pretty shitty pictures. He’s not that blunt to her face, though. It’s not like he was a rockstar on the ukulele when he first started, and she’s got a lot of enthusiasm for taking photos. He’s not going to be the one to squash that for her.

Also, he’ll bite off the hand of whoever tries.

“You think this can take pictures underwater?” she asks, aiming her camera at a random woman jogging by. The jogger makes a face, which seems to be what Lydia expects, because she snaps the picture as the woman continues on her way, and the little photo pops out the bottom. Lydia gives it an aggressive shake.

“I’m gonna guess no. Besides, it’s too cold for you to take a swim.” “So let’s go somewhere warmer. I’m thinking Hawaii.” “Good idea, genius, an’ how do you think we’re getting there?” “You can teleport us.”

He actually has to stop and think about that. “I don’t think I could do it in one straight shot,” he says at last. Lydia has moved to a different kind of voyeurism, because she’s on her stomach on the grass, following the movement of a trail of ants with her lens. “I’d probably have to do little distances, an’ get tired and need a nap in th’ middle.”

“Maybe through a mirror? Like Sam?” She adjusts the optic, an entirely useless motion, because this camera doesn’t have any kind of zoom feature. But she’s seen people do it in nature documentaries. “Never done mirror travel before.” He mulls that over. “I’ll practice when I get home, an’ see if I can even pull you through.” “You’re not allowed to go to Hawaii without me,” she gets what she considers her perfect shot, and then stands, brushing off her dark red dress. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

They go bone hunting next, Lydia’s camera still at the ready, his keen nose leading the way. It’s easy to find owl pellets, and she breaks one open with her bare hands, as he teases her.

“Ew ew ew, Lydia gross, you’re touching it!” he pitches up his gruff voice to sound like a tweenage girl, and she rolls her eyes. “No skull in this one,” she frowns, wiping her hands on his hoodie.

“Maybe there’s a bodiless mouse head around here, livin’ it’s best life.” She looks doubtful.

Another, different smell hits his sensitive nose, just then. It’s death, new and fresh. His pupils dilate, and he follows it, her trailing after him, assuming he’s on the scent of more animal bones. What they find instead is an old man propped against a tree. He’s still warm, but the color is draining from his face, and rapidly. He doesn’t look hurt, he’s not bleeding. It’s like he sat down for a rest and died.

Lydia doesn’t get it, not right away. Death is a funny punchline in an overly gorey movie. She’s never seen the real thing, before. “Should we wake him up? It’s cold to be sleeping here.” He lifts the man’s arm, and it flops bonelessly back down. Her eyes go wide. “I doubt he’s gettin’ back up, kiddo.” She lifts her camera and takes a picture.

“Hello?” He hears a voice, and turns. The old man is standing next to himself. He looks back at Lydia, but she’s staring in fascination at the corpse, so he leaves her to it. “Hey,” he nods to the man, who looks relieved. “Can you call my grandson? My phone battery died,” he says, not seeming to understand the position he’s in. Betelgeuse tilts his head to the side. “You’re dead,” he says, a bit unkindly, and Lydia, who has been kneeling by the body, poking it, looks up at him. “I am?” “Wh- No, not you, Lyds, th’ stiff.” He gestures to the ghost, who has seemed to notice “himself” laying there. Lydia looks at her brother, confused. “There’s no one there.” “Sure there is. You just can’t see ghosts.”

“That’s me,” the old man says, not that anyone’s listening to him. “Should we tell someone about this?” Lydia asks him, and Betelgeuse shrugs. “Why? Someone will find th’ body eventually. You know. When it starts smellin’ like shit.” “I don’t want to leave him out here.” “Please, don’t leave me out here!” “I wouldn’t want to be left out here.” “Lucky for you, you’re never gonna die. You even try it an’ I’ll shove your soul back down your throat, if I have to.”

He smells the netherworld, and grabs Lydia, pulling her back, in time for another ghost to appear. A guide. The guide doesn’t even take a moment to look around, just instantly busies herself with getting the newly dead situated, and Betelgeuse picks Lydia up and carries her away. “That’s so sad,” she says, taking one last picture of the body from atop his shoulder. “I guess.”

They find the next official looking person they see, someone cleaning up trash, who doesn’t believe them, clearly, until he sees one of the photos Lydia took. The deathly pallor of the old man convinces him to go looking. Thirty minutes later, that part of the park is crawling with breathers, and the two of them are stuck on a bench, being talked to by cops. It’s a whole, boring process, and it’s drawing a big crowd. “Told ya, we shoulda minded our business,” Betelgeuse nudges his sister. Lydia is looking overwhelmed. Neither sibling ever gets this much attention. There’s even a news crew, though he can’t imagine what for. It’s just one old dead guy, and it’s not even a murder. Someone with a microphone tries to approach them, and he turns their mic into a black and white striped snake, forcing them to fling it away from themselves in a panic, and then he grabs Lydia.

They blink from existence and appear a ways away, and Lydia’s clutching his hand harder than she needs to. “Hey, come on.” His grating voice is soft, for her, as he kneels to her level, and she throws her arms around his neck. “How are you so calm? Doesn’t it make you sad?” she asks, softly, and he gives her an extra squeeze. “Happens to all breathers, Lyds. But it’s not somethin’ I gotta worry about, ever. So… no, not really.”

“Will you be sad when I die?”

He scoops her up, holding his little sister in his arms, and stands, her still clinging around his neck. “When you die at a hundred and twenty,” he tells her, carrying her along the path. “Wherever in the netherworld you end up, I’ll go too. Won’t even have time to be sad, me an’ you’ll be too busy causin’ trouble, even then.” She seems satisfied with that answer, and he doesn’t mind carrying her, so they enjoy the autumn leaves like that, her in his arms, as he follows the winding pathways of the park.

They don’t tell Charles and Emily, when they finally do get home, the sun just barely still peaking over the horizon. It doesn’t seem like a good idea, and Lydia doesn’t especially want to talk about it anymore. She pins her new photos up on the twine strung between the tall bedposts in her room. There’s a couple nice ones, and she lets him eat the ones she decides she hates. “Does it count as part of being grounded if you watch my tv?” she asks, and he grins. “Let’s find out.” She pops in Coraline, which he has to assume she’s got fucking memorized at this point, but they also talk through most of it. By the time the tasty looking bug furniture is on screen, her eyelids are drooping. “I dunno why they make her eatin’ bugs so evil. I wanna try beetles from Zanzibar,” he complains, and she just snorts in response “I’ll get you some fancy beetles, for your birthday.” “Kay. Sounds good.” She falls asleep on him a minute later, and he waives a hand, snuffing the lights, but lets the movie finish playing as he settles next to her, and sleeps.

``````````````````````````````````````````````````````` That next week is boring, but normal. Adam’s in the library every day, despite his earlier insistence that he had better things to do. Betelgeuse honestly just wheels the cart along and lets Adam shelf the books, now, which the nerd seems to unironically enjoy. He’s all smiles as he gets to put things away neatly. It’s embarrassing how endearing and cute Betelgeuse finds that. It’s Tuesday, Barbara isn’t there that day, at least, not right at that moment, so Adam is babbling about her. “Barbara and I aren’t really performers,” he’s telling Betelgeuse, returning a stack of history books to their proper places on the shelves. “But we thought it would be fun to try theatre together, and then we really enjoyed it, so we’ve been in the last two productions. She can really sing, she does this high note, and it’s-” “Angelic, I bet.” Both boys give a stupid, love sick sigh. Adam pauses, and nods, and then studies the other teen. “So.. You.. You like her?” “Yeah,” he says easily. “But that doesn’t mean anythin’.” “What do you mean?” “I mean,” he clarifies, flopping across the cart, stomach first, and laying on it, staring down at Adam, who is crouching to reshelf some more books. “That despite me being a hot piece of ass, I’m probably not her type. I imagine she goes more for…” he studies Adam, trying to think of a nice word for boring, plain and vanilla. “More stable guys,” he lands on. “Like you. I bet she even likes how cute your butt looks in your khakis. I know I do.” Adam flushes. “You think so?” “It’s a good butt.” He nods, and Adam goes redder. “I meant, you think Barbara.. Might like me?” “Well, don’t push your luck, or nothin’, but you probably got a better chance with her.”

“You’re not entirely unlikable,” Adam offers. Betelgeuse lets out a guffaw that’s too loud, because someone in the next aisle over shushes him. “You already forget what I told you Friday?” he rests his head on his hand, tone condescending. “I know no one wants me around.”

“You’re setting yourself up for failure, with that attitude.”

“You think so, huh? Think I just need to hold hands round th’ campfire and sing kumbaya with all you breathers? I don’t think anyone would even take my hand. Probably couldn't get away from me fast enough.” There’s a pause. He doesn’t realize what he’s said until Adam is repeating it. “Breathers?”

He doesn’t get a chance to reply, because he feels a push on the cart, and turns to see Barbara, hands on the handle. “You’ve completely given up even trying, haven’t you?” she says, and he thinks she means about the books, and smiles. “No point. Adam’ll just do it for me.” “I mean with talking to people. With making friends.” His smile falls quickly into a scowl, and he runs a hand through his wild mess of green hair. “Lay off me, Babs. I’m bein’ friendly right now, aren’t I?”

“Sure, it’s plenty friendly, letting Adam do your work. But you don’t try, and then you get your feelings hurt when no one does it for you.” That’s not laying off, and it’s irritating him. “You can’t imagine anyone being nice to you, so you’re rude and push everyone away the first chance you get, in case what? In case you make a friend? Kevin probably needs you, right now,” she presses, physically too, making the cart he’s still lying across lurch forward. “I told you what happened to his dad, and you just said he wasn’t even your friend, when everyone knows you spent the last few months holding hands and making googoo eyes at him, and only talking to each other.”

“S’none of your business,” he tugs at his hair, pulling a tuft down to watch the color. Still green. He’s okay, but he keeps it there, in front of his eyes, focusing on it and not having to look at Barbara. “I’m making it my business. What are you so afraid of? What’s with the barrier? I saw you with your sister, you’re normal and nice, to her. So it’s other people you’re afraid of?” “M’not,” he growls out, standing up off the cart. “Afraid of anythin’.”

“You are,” she says, letting go of the cart and stomping to stand in front of him. She’s got him cornered, his back pressed to the bookshelf behind him. He keeps his eyes on that green tuft, biting his bottom lip. “You’re afraid of rejection, so you don’t talk, or you’re a jerk to people. You’re so afraid of other people, you make yourself sit alone every day, even when there’s an empty seat next to someone else.”

“No one wants me around!”

God, that hurts. He can see purple forming in the tip of his hair.

“You think I haven’t tried?” he rasps at her, letting his hair go, and finally looking directly at her. “You think I like sittin’ alone, bein’ the weird kid in every class, not havin’ anyone to talk to? It sucks!” he hears himself being shushed again, and he expends a burst of power in that direction, knocking books off the shelves to hit the person who can’t mind their own business. The sudden noise makes both Adam and Barbara jump. “You ever noticed that anytime I’ve tried, people can’t get th’ hell away from me fast enough? I’m tired of bein’ alone, but every time I try, somethin’ goes to shit, or I'm ignored! So maybe it is easier to just be a jerk an’ not worry about gettin’ hurt, than to keep tryin’ and ache all th’ time.”

It’s the most honest he’s ever been, out loud. Barbara clenches her fists, but doesn’t say anything. He sees Adam push his glasses back up the bridge of his nose.

Lunch isn’t even close to over, and he’s just made more work for himself by knocking those books off the shelf, but he doesn’t care. He grabs his backpack from the cart and pushes past the two of them, and he storms out, forcing the library door to slam, even though it’s a soft close door. It feels more final, that way.

He spends the rest of lunch invisible, to avoid any more trouble with adults, and slumps into his customary seat in the back of every class, for the rest of the day. No one talks to him. He doesn’t try to talk to anyone. It’s a system, it works. Stupid Barbara. What does she even know? Like she can somehow understand anything he’s going through. She’s pretty, and cool, and has a ton of friends, he thinks, absolutely bitter. She doesn’t get it.

He trudges to the drama room after school, and pushes open the door with his shoulder. The seats are in a circle, again, and he chooses a random one, pointedly, away from Adam and Barbara, between two other people. He sits there, silent, and after a moment, the two kids both move seats. How miserably predictable. Come on, he wills himself. No purple, no red. Just stay green. You can go home and freak the fuck out, but just stay green, he begs his hair.

He wipes his nose hard with his hoodie sleeve, and focuses on that, on the texture of the fabric and the way he rubs hard enough for it to hurt. Pain is as close to relief as he can get. Then the chairs next to him are scooted closer, and he blinks, and realizes that Adam and Barbara have settled on either side of him. He doesn’t.. Get it. He can’t understand, but then both of them reach a hand out, and take one of his, and give it a squeeze. It’s grounding. He takes a breath he doesn’t need, and then a couple more, shaky and painful, and he gives their hands a squeeze back, like he’s making sure they’re real. They are.

When the club starts, he tries, very sincerely, to focus on what’s being said, and not the bright hot feeling blooming like a flower in his chest. Read the rest here!!

#beetlejuice the musical #beetlejuice au #beetlejuice fanfiction #adam maitland #barbara maitland #emily deetz #lydia deetz #beetlejuice broadway

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jq37 · 4 years

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The Royal Report– A Crown of Candy Ep 15 The Two Balls

A Hard Knock Life

Welcome back to A Crown of Candy as we march ever closer to the finale which is good because I can only take so much more chocolate coated drama. The party has just killed the SPF and, as Rina and her crew start to exit the temple, she enters a flashback that’s intense enough that they used a CW so, for that reason, I’m going to put it under the cut.

It’s the year 1196 and it’s almost High Frosting’s Eve (read: Bulb Christmas). A five-year-old Rina is being kept at the Abbey of the Shimmering Cream in the Dairy Seas but she’s not being kept well. As she looks out over the sea, waiting for the day her mom will sail back in and realize she made a mistake in abandoning her as she is wont to do, a nun shows up to bring her to the Mother Superior who’s sent for her.

On the way there, she catches a glimpse of Lazuli in a mirror who comforts her and says that she’s not bad or wrong for being able to do the things she can do and that, “The world is dark and dangerous but there are forces other than wickedness in this world.” Lazuli starts to say that she’s been trying to help but--and she’s cut off as Rina walks into the next room and loses sight of the mirror.

The Mother Superior is waiting for Rina, switch in hand, and says that she’s heard kids talking about some crazy magic stuff Rina can do. Rina lies and says the kids are making it up and the Mother Superior switches her across the face saying that lying is a sin. She straps Rina to a chair and asks if she sees eyes in the mirror. Rina (who is still being played by Emily even though she is five) says, “Doesn’t everyone?” The Mother Superior doesn’t appreciate the line as much as I do because she smacks her again. She says that all she wishes for Rina is obedience and silence and asks what the woman in the mirror says to her. Rina, knowing that whatever she says is gonna get her smacked, says that the woman says that there’s nothing wrong with her and she doesn’t have to hide the way she is. In response, the Mother Superior takes out a holy symbol of the Bulb and starts heating it up in the fire.

The box the symbol came out of has enough of a reflective surface inside that Lazuli is able to tell Rina that there are people in her corner and she’s suffering now but it won’t be forever but she’s again cut off by the Mother Superior who says that this self acceptance nonsense sounds like Hungry One talk. Rina says she’s not scared of anything physical the Mother Superior can do to her but, unfortunately, she’s not here to do anything to her body. She’s here for her soul. She presses the now heated holy symbol into Rina’s chest, causing her blinding pain and cutting her off from Lazuli who desperately tries to keep the connection open.

When she comes back to herself, devastated and tearful, the Mother Superior pledges to burn the Hungry One out of her as many times as it takes and send her to her room without sans morning breakfast privileges. Before she can go however, the Mother Superior stops her and asks why she’s always staring across the sea. Does she really think her dad is Prince Amethar? Not only is that obviously false but, even if it was true, he clearly doesn’t want her. Not even her mom wanted her. Rina (sounding like she’s trying to convince herself) says that her mom did want her. She was just scared and wanted to protect her. The Mother Superior says that her mom was trying to protect the world from her because she’s dangerous and her father isn’t Amether, he’s nothing. Rina shoots back that if her father is no one, then how come she can speak to the winds and command the waves? And why is she so scared of her? The Mother Superior doesn’t have an answer for that. She sends Rina to her room.

In the present day, Rina descends the mountain, dragon around her neck, followers by her side, and crown on her head. She will never be hurt like that again.

Ruby watches them go (Theo and Cumulus going with her and talking strategy) and then goes to find her dad who is still on the ledge. She asks Amethar how peace happens? How do you keep living once you’ve been through something like this? He answers that he’s the wrong person to ask. He’s just been going through the motions since the Ravening War ended. But they reaffirm that they love each other and hug before realizing they can’t see Liam anymore. And, speaking of Liam…

Gastronomy and Cosmology

Liam feels himself falling through endless fire and he can smell cinnamon and it hurts terribly but almost in a good way because, as we can recognize by the way Brennan describes it, he is essentially experiencing the sensation of being eaten and he knows that he tastes good.

As we heard last week, Liam felt a hand grab him but it’s actually less of a hand, more of a paw--a little chocolate rabbit’s paw. Lapin! He and Lapin are in this weird kinda semi disintegrated part of the Ice Cream Temple that’s continuing to break apart. Lapin is also disintegrating but not fully. It’s like the pieces that are coming off of him flaking off and cycling back continually, like Thanos is trying to snap him over and over. Additionally, the middle part of him is translucent and there are three foil-wrapped, chocolate egg-wishes in his chest.

Anyway, we learn that Lapin is essentially there to pack up because the party killing the SPF means he and all the other residents of Candy Heaven have been evicted (which, yeah, checks out--you destroy a load bearing boss, her heaven implodes) and have to go to the Hungry One. Liam asks if that’s a bad thing and Lapin says not necessarily but it does mean they won’t be able to communicate with them anymore. But, on a happier note, Preston is there! He’s apparently not stopped following around Lapin since he was told to.

Liam tells Lapin that they’re super screwed and asks what they should do. Lapin in response takes Liam up to a viewing balcony so he can better see the state of the weird extraplanar space they’re in. The illusion-castle is in the middle of the two titular balls--one red, swirling and consuming, the other bright and shining. The Hungry One and the Bulb. And Lapin gets to fully explain his pre-death realization. The Hungry One and the Bulb have no agency. They’re simple light and dark. Creation and destruction. Two sides of the same coin. Cosmic constants. They’re not really gods and neither are beings like the SPF--(spirits like her are more like living spells). Liam confirms that there’s no way to get back the people they’ve lost and asks if there’s any point in killing more people. Should he just be a seed guy again?

Lapin says there’s nothing wrong with being a seed guy and the three eggs in his chest meld with the three peppermint heart seeds Preston coughs up and float in front of him--one is glowing red, one is glowing gold, and the third is shimmering like Lapin’s robes. They represent the power to destroy, create, and change. Lapin offers him one and Liam--unsurprisingly to anyone who’s watched Ally play D&D for any length of time--picks the change one instantly. Lapin says it’s good to see Liam again and he wakes up in the dragon’s nest, Ruby and Amethar above him. He tells them everything he learned and shows them the egg/wish/seed. None of them can tell exactly how it works or what it does so Liam stashes it for safekeeping.

The gang checks out the section of the temple that had the illusion and conjuration magic. The illusion magic has faded and all that’s left is the conjuration so it seems like whatever they see will be true and what they see is scenes of the past in ice crystals on the walls (before they’re whisked away by Lapin from the other side). Everyone rolls to see what they see--and Ruby rolls a Nat 20. Liam sees memories of dragons past, huge and terrifying. He also sees Lapin in his youth as a street urchin, breaking into a druid monastery, stealing a spell meant to summon the SPF and force her to give you three wishes, and having it Fullmetal Alchemist backfire on him so that he instead had to serve her and give her three wishes. Ruby wants to see who’s loyal and who’s not. She sees that there are people in Rina’s camp, Jawbreaker’s crew, and back home who aren’t on the level but no named characters. Cara’s all good. Joren is and the four sisters were all good. Rina and her closest confidants are all sincere in what they’ve been saying. Amethar sees memories of him and his four sisters. Then (on Ruby’s passed on Nat 20) he sees a memory from when he was about 16 of his sisters having an argument with their mom who they did *not* get along with about the war which hasn’t fully broken out yet. King Jadain is in the middle trying to keep the peace but really trying to just escape the conflict. He says he has to use the bathroom and peaces out to sit on the steps where Amethar happens to be.

Amethar asks if he’s alright and Jadain tries to play it off like he wasn’t shaking and near tears. He says he wishes he was as strong willed and decisive as his wife/daughters. Amethar asks for assurance that he’s going to fight but Jadain says that their motto is In Sweetness There is Strength and fighting wouldn’t be very sweet. He asks Amethar if he’d ever want the crown because he could have it if he did. Amethar says he doesn’t. He’s a war guy like Joren. Jadain says that there may be a time for war guys soon. He then says that he never wanted to be king. It’s too much responsibility and it’s not fair. Young Amethar says that, regardless, he’s king. He has to be king. Words that echo in his head in the present.

Parties and Planning

Rina and crew gather enough weapons to outfit maybe 100 guys and then Rina blows up the entrance to the Temple so the Sanctus Putris (or whoever else) can’t get in but they can come back later to get the rest of the loot.

They go back to Manylicks which has been retaken and is now flying House Rocks and House Jawbreaker flags. One of Liam’s dick older brothers makes the mistake of trying to mess with the newly minted war guy and gets fully shot on sight.

There’s a lot of partying for them and, at the end of the week, it’s Liam’s 18th birthday. His dad gives him Chillguard--a breastplate that raises his AC to 16. Joren says that since they’re out of the Concord, he doesn’t have to be a ward anymore and he can come back home but Liam says he doesn’t really want to. He says that he’s asexual, he’s gonna find himself a romance partner someone to settle down with, go back to being a seed guy, and move out because Castle Manylicks kinda sucks for him. His dad says he’s super valid and they hug (and also talk about polyamory because when Brennan gets into it, he gets *into it*).

War updates! There are still crusaders in the South but they’ve been driven out of the Mountains. The Imperial force backed out--Ceresian forces along with them--because Primsy wrote a letter saying, “Uh, hey, remember that Concord thing we’re all a part of? That’s still on and you’re breaking it. There’s another heir.” The crusade is still on though and Cruller is still letting it happen.

Rina has her coronation which envoys from both the Dairy Islands and Meatlands attend. It’s a fully pagan ceremony but there’s just enough of a veneer or Bulbian propriety that they can stamp their approval on it and call it legit. Post ceremony there’s more partying which at a certain point devolves into a Bulb Bible Bonfire which Cara is super not about because she is an actual, practicing Bulbian.

Primsy, who arrived with the Dairy peeps, swears to Rina and then goes to see Liam who she has a little bit of a flirtatious conversation with. She’s already been married once so she’ll probably end up in a political marriage with a minor noble like a count (what a coincidence, Liam happens to be a count!) and she’s not interested in being slammed down big style. They go to hold hands and take a walk.

Ruby and Amethar get Jack to give them Jet tattoos over their hearts.

A lot of espionage happens. Rina uses two artifacts from the temple to help here--a crystal milkshake pool and flock of white chocolate ravens--while Liam (who got a Nat 20 +12) is leading a team of rangers to ambush messengers and intercept messages. Cumulus and his order are also getting a lot done now that their magic is coming back online.

In the Southern Great Stone Candy Mountains, the above group ends up in a burning town where everyone except Bulbians have been killed by crusaders. Jon Bon pulls a bleeding priest out of the church and demands that he produce a letter and he does--it’s from the Pontifex. As Rina is about to read it, Cinnamon clocks the Bulbian holy symbol he’s wearing and snarls. Rina grabs the symbol and Creates Bonfire on it. As she does that, the spot above his heart on his chest starts to glow just as Cinnamon’s eyes do. Rina takes a moment and then says, “Go for it baby.” Cinnamon leaps off of her neck and starts ripping into this guy and all of her men start killing the other priests. The villagers start to run and the marauders are about to chase them but Rina orders they spare them and her men obey. Cinnamon finishes up the priest by eating his heart and Rina swears, he looks just a little bigger. I hear Feed Me Seymour playing faintly in the distance and I don’t like it.

Rina casts Cone of Cold with Winterscoop to put out the fires and looks at the villagers--the villagers who must be having a roller coaster of a week because they are Bulbian but got conquered by Bulbians and then saw a bunch of other Bulbians get absolutely viciously slaughtered. She says that many of them probably went to the Bulb for salvation, but hopefully today, they’ll see who really saved them.

Cinnamon looks at all the dead priests and looks to Rina for permission. Emily, who also clearly hears the Little Shop of Horror music playing, takes a moment and then Rina allows him to feed and feed and feed.

Oh, and the letter! It’s from the Pontifex to Kerradin and it says that the meeting with all their enemies will be in about 2 weeks.

Gooey heard news that there are Bulbian crusaders hiding in Port Syrup waiting for the church to save them. Rina sends Gooey to go take care of it and, with some hesitation (and with the help of some dragon-puppy dog eyes), also sends Cinnamon who is now the size of a horse (mmm, don’t love that).

All this info gathered, there is a war council. The attitude seems to be that Primsy’s letter is helping for now but they really need an emperor/empress on the throne or else people will be coming for Candia again. The group talks about going to Castle Candy as a small assassination team (with a small contingent of soldiers) and sneaking in the way Theo snuck out with Cara. They can’t teleport there though because the crusaders destroyed all the standing stones close-by. But they can hitch a ride with Annabelle if it’s just a few people. Rina sends her ravens to look at Castle Candy and sees that there are lot of guys surrounding it but they’re un-unified crusaders so as long as they move really fast, retaking the castle is doable.

They also plan to send some troops to Castle Candy from the North so it seems like that’s the real invasion force while they sneak in from the Cola River (on Annabelle’s ships). Primsy says that she can write to Cruller to say that she’ll finally recognize him as legit so that when three Dairy Island ships arrive, it won’t be suspicious.

They go to Port Syrup to meet with Annabelle and see that the town has been wrecked. The Bulbian churches are totally destroyed. People are scared. Everything smells like ash and war. Cinnamon, now the size of a house (!!!), finds Rina to beg for pets like a dog.

Amethar, while wandering the city, finds the corpse of Sir Morris Brie who they left in charge of Port Syrup and, as a Bulbian, was caught up in the sacking of the city. Amethar sadly sits with his dead friend’s body, fused into his armor.

Rina goes to Theo and tells him that she loves Cinnamon so much because he’s the only one who’s ever loved her with the unconditional family kind of love but she knows that, for that reason, she can’t be trusted to be rational about him so he needs to tell her if she’s going to far. Theo says that if they’re going to use Cinnamon, they need to be careful and not just send him off. He also says she needs to discipline him which makes her remember all the ways she was disciplined as a child.

Ruby goes to find Annabelle to try and get some life advice because things are so crazy. Annabelle assures her that things are really bad--she’s not just overreacting--and tells her that when she was stripped of her titles and land, it was a choice she made for freedom over responsibility. She doesn’t know if it was the right choice but it’s what she had to do to be free. Even so, she recognizes that she did turn her back on responsibility. Then she says she has to talk to Amethar.

Annabelle finds Amethar and tells him they found Catherine Ghee’s gravestone. She died in 1196 on the 12th of Harvestdusk. She got really sick after she sent Rina to the Abbey and was really scared of the Rocks family coming after her (or maybe became really religious). Amethar thanks her and goes to tell Rina. Rina accepts the news and asks who sent all the people to threaten her. When Amethar reacts with confusion, Rina explains that when she was a kid, her mom was scared all the time because Candian messengers threatened her. Amethar says that he only sent people to find her which Rina confirms with a Detect Thoughts. He loved her and just wanted to see her again which is news to Rina. Amethar says he’s sorry about the life she’s had and he’s sorry he screwed this up too and Rina says that it means a lot to her that he even tried to find Ghee. Rina also asks if she detected any love for her in Amethar thoughts and is told that there’s a very small part of Amethar that wants to love her.

Amethar goes back to his quarters and tells Cara the news (and I have to imagine she’s like, join the club buddy). She asks when she died and he says twenty years. Her eyes go wild. When exactly. What’s the exact date? 12th of Harvestdusk, 1196. That’s five days BEFORE he married Cara. Which means he’s NOT an oathbreaker. Which means their wedding was LEGIT. Which means the Pontifex had NO GROUNDS to kick him out of the Concord. He is the RIGHTFUL KING OF CANDIA.

(”Bastard no more!” Siobhan crows.)

And that’s it for the week!

Things I’m Concerned About

Mmm, ok so Cinnamon. It’s hard for me to imagine a scenario where this doesn’t end in disaster for someone. Like, as the eating and growing was starting, I felt this deep rooted sense of dread and I couldn’t remember exactly what was pinging until the next day and it was, as I’ve referenced twice previously in this recap, Little Shop of Horrors. This is clearly a full Audrey 2 situation except Cinnamon is a lot more ambulatory than a plant. He at least seems like he still recognizes Rina as his mother, which is good but I *really* don’t like where this seems to be going. And listen. If Cinnamon has to go down, you *know* who the person best positioned to do it is. Rina is the most major magic user, she has ice magic which he’s vulnerable to, and he trusts her enough to let his guard down around her. And, most importantly, it’s exactly the kind of mean choice Brennan, “All the Bad Guys” Lee Mulligan would love to foist upon a PC in a season like this. Bad!

And, connected to this, I don’t love how the marauders are handling the whole reverse crusade. Like, not that there’s a perfect way to do this--if someone were trying to genocide me and I had a dragon, I would for sure be deploying the dragon. And Rina did tell them to not kill the people who just happened to be Bulbian in the village but weren’t participating in the crusades so that’s at least some level of care. But what happens when she’s not there to rein them in? Well, we know what happens. Sir Morris Brie. Which is so messed up. You’re a good guy. You stay behind to help with the war effort and protect the town, and then a couple of weeks later you get torched alive by your own team in your armor because it has the wrong symbol on it. It’s messed up. Like, I don’t have the answers on how to wage an ethical war--which sounds like a full oxymoron. I just don’t love what’s happening.

Also, when Brennan said the guy’s chest was glowing before Rina had Cinnamon eat him, I thought it might be that he was unwillingly branded as a child like Rina, but lol guess we’ll never know.

And, addendum, Cara is a devout Bulbian--but obviously a relatively chill one because she’s down with Sweetening Path stuff too because of Lazuli. If she gets caught in the crossfire...like if you’re Ruby and your life just went to hell and your sister is dead and you have a new sister and you’re trying to accept her but you can’t and then her pet kills your mom who you never even really got to make up with? You’re not my queen *or* my sister at that point and it’s instant PvP. I killed a god, what makes you think I won’t fight you? So anyway, hope that doesn’t happen. lol.

So, we now know that the grounds under which Amethar was kicked from the Concord are false which means he is king still and the invasion is unlawful--even without Rina’s existence. But like, a lot of this season has been about political reality, right? So how much utility does this revelation serve? Everyone’s already rallied behind Rina and she has a contingent of very loyal and skilled soldiers who I don’t think would be happy to hear this news (and may think to try and make the problem go away in a stabby way). So if they go out with this info, it calls into question all the work they’ve already built up, forces them to get this new game plan to all their allies, potentially pisses off Rina’s people (and possibly Rina herself depending on how much she’s willing to go with them as allies and without being the lynchpin), and doesn’t give them much more than they’re already getting with Rina on the throne since their goals are mostly aligned as far as we know. And, anyway, Amethar was named emperor which will stand whether or not he’s king. They just need to get his hand on the Book of Leaves and that should be good to go. Rina gets the Candian throne, Amethar gets to be (or has to be depending on your view) emperor. Of course, clearing his name might be important to him and it probably bolsters his position in other ways but I’m just thinking about the big picture politics of the matter.

Does Ruby keep her Shadow Sorc levels now that Jet is gone? How does that work?

Five More Things

Lol, love how the big twist of CoC is that there are actually no bastards. Only legit children in the eyes of the Bulb.

Rina as a 5 year old was like that Matilda kind of 5. She was dropping some *intense* lines. Also, imagine having to have your scene right after that one. Yeesh. I recapped that flashback separately from the rest of the episode because it was so much and it was only 14 minutes. Everything else I did in basically one shot!

What did Jadain mean about Amethar getting the crown if he wanted it? What was that about? Brennan gave Lou the Jadain flashback on Siobhan’s Nat 20 so I wonder if that’s a relevant piece of info. Also, the voice for him caught me so off guard. I was like, huh. OK, yeah, checks out.

Zac, low key king of comedy, in response to Emily/Rina explaining the concept of movie popcorn salad: Are we joining the Ceresians?

Lapin! Oh man, I was so shocked and overjoyed for Lapin to get another scene. I missed that bunny. And to have him kinda allowed out and joking out with Liam (“Are you in pain?”/“All the time.”) was so good. His, “I’m not mad at you,” was so funny and also genuinely emotional? And also, I’m so happy Liam got some closure for Preston. What a banger of a scene. Big props to Ally and esp Zac who also had to give the once per season, “Here is how the universe works,” talk to Ally’s character.

One More Thing!

Oh man you gotta check out this AMAZING Crown of Candy animatic by @kindlespark. What a killer use of Glitter and Gold. And so comprehensive of the season so far, even recent stuff. So much obvious talent and hard work on display here!

#a crown of candy #a crown of candy spoilers #dimension 20 #dimension 20 spoilers #the royal report

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neverlearnedtoread · 4 years

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Night of the Dragon

⭐⭐⭐⭐; please, whoever it is that is the higher power above me, let me have one good day - the Great Dragon, just trying to get through another Dragon Bullying Season

Oh?? 👌😉😏

poc rep! even the story was something that felt unique from the typical western narrative. that’s something i’ve always loved about watching non-western films - the storytelling feels different

yumeko’s ending - i really, truly respected that this story was ultimately about how yumeko’s journey in the trilogy shaped her

the romance - on paper it seems like it would be frustrating because they fit the sweet-innocent girl x emotionally-closed-off boy trope, but both sides chose to put their trust in each other. its all about falling in love *clenches fist* on purpose

the sheer strength of hakaimono’s fmab!greedling vibes was so powerful,, he also reminded me of bartimaeus, from the bartimaeus sequence by johnathan stroud

No.. ❌🤢🤮 ( //major spoilers alert// )

the Bury Your Gays trope technically applies here - personally, i wasnt too 😕 about it, since the ending is supposed to be tragic - but if you dont want to read a story with this trope at all, regardless of circumstance or nuance, be warned; it does happen

Spoilers under the cut - this is the third book of the series!!

Summary: Despite being forced to give up her well-hidden piece of the Dragon Bullying Scroll to Genno, the ‘Master of Demons’, Yumeko isn’t ready to let Iwagoto plunge into a thousand years of untold death and destruction. The exact location to summon the Dragon and speak your Wish is known to only a few people still alive - the demon Hakaimono happens to be one, and after merging with the former demonslayer Kage Tatsumi’s soul to keep them both alive, they agree to help Yumeko as she races to the secret summoning site. Determined to stop a power-hungry zombie blood mage from using this millennium’s Wish to return to his full strength, Yumeko learns the hard way that there is always another power-hungry asshole ready to jump in and ruin the next thousand years for the rest of us; and that saving the world means making hard choices.

Concept: 💭💭💭💭

I really wanted to see the dragon. That’s part of what drew me to the trilogy at all - fox spirits, and an all-powerful Eastern-style dragon. As long as we got to see the dragon, and Yumeko kept radiating BDE throughout the narrative, I was prepared to be satisfied with the last book of this trilogy. Plus, we were getting true fmab!greedling-style hakaimono now, and that’s always a wildly fun trope.

Execution: 💥💥💥💥

In the end, the dragon itself was kind of a let down (one of the four great kami in the entire realm, practically a god, and he just sat there and vibed, doing the absolute least), but everything else held up amazingly well! I especially loved the reveal of the real king on the chessboard - and the subsequent free-for-all final battle after that. I almost felt out of breath, we didn’t go through so many twists as we did a lot of exciting new trajectory changes, and even though I could see the writing on the wall for a lot of the main plotlines, the author never shortchanged me. Lots of action, a wild ride to the finish - and a bittersweet epilogue. A worthy over-the-top dramatic anime ending for our story.

Personal Enjoyment: ❤❤❤❤

The only reason this category isn’t getting five stars is because I’m just not a fan of sad endings...I like to end things on a happy note! Serotonin’s too low around these parts for all that tragic stuff. That said, I think that the ending was dealt with very respectfully, and was an ending that really did Yumeko justice. But the plot was a lot of fun to follow along with! I read this back to back with Soul of the Sword, the second book in this trilogy, and it took me less than two days. I just had to know what happened next! And it gave me a significant book hangover. All around an impressive ending to a fun trilogy.

Favourite Moment: i cant stop thinking about the inherent comedic timing of the Great Dragon getting //major spoilers// as he’s chillin, one of the most powerful beings in existence...quit bullying him!! all he wanted to do was answer the damn wish and go back to sleep!! #protestdragonbullyingseason

in terms of actual plot, i loved the scene with tatsumi and yumeko in the forest with the kodama. v cute callback to their night in the forest in Shadow of the Fox!

Favourite Character: yumeko - i have to say, this series has had fantastic consistency - i loved yumeko as the main character the whole way through. what a baller! i was highly impressed with how her story ended, in a role i usually see reserved for male protagonists - the wandering traveler who eventually returns to home to take up her mantle as a leader. she stayed true to herself all through the story and i highly respect the author for sticking to her guns. however i will say that hakaimono was a close second place - the fmab!greedling vibes were too strong!! him admitting that yeah, yumeko had made him feel feelings, and he was gonna need a billion years sweating it out in the demon realm to forget he was ever kinda dtf...peak comedy. the inherent hilarity of a demon being like ‘yh one time i grew a conscience, and i definitely dont wanna talk about it’

#night of the dragon #shadow of the fox trilogy #julie kagawa #book review #bookblr #booklover #reading #books

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coffeesuperhero · 4 years

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(Friend, here's a fic meme for you!) Ask meme time! Pick three fics you have written, post a favorite section of each and explain why it is your favorite. Then, pass it on! :D

Ah, thank you so much, my friend!! Putting this under a read more since it’s probably gonna get kinda long :D

01. two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl (the anatomy of apocalypse. remix).

A blast from the past for this one but it’s been Big Mood for me lately, so. This is a West Wing story, and a remix of a post-apoca Sam/CJ piece that I absolutely adore by furies.

When it is her time to sleep, he sits on the burnt ground and watches the cavernous expanse of thick ashen clouds that conceals the stars that travelers once used to light their way home. Even the illuminating glow of Polaris cannot pierce these clouds, but it is of no consequence: there is little use for celestial navigation when they have no terrestrial destination.

In a perpetual waking nightmare they trudge on through the wasteland of the world, communicating mostly through gestures, if at all. There is little to say that isn't as empty as they are, and as words begin to lose their meaning he tries, desperately, to hold onto language, the last best vestige of his humanity. When he can no longer summon the will to create sentences, he murmurs hollow words, any words he can recall, under invisible stars that died millions of years before he did. Stars are really only dead husks of gas and flame that look alive unless you know better, unless you know that what you're seeing is a lie that is older than the world.

When he looks at her he sees the stars. When he looks for the stars he sees nothing.

Somewhere above the smoke and ash and sulfuric acid aerosol there are still stars, and among them is Galileo. Centuries ago Galileo Galilei looked up at the stars, and for performing that miracle they told him that he was a sinner. Now he wanders a celestial battlefield littered with dead and dying heavenly bodies, exiled for eternity to the vast cold vacuum of space.

Galileo. He said it right, once. Now he says nothing.

The original story is all from CJ’s perspective so my remix is from Sam’s, which was an excuse to lean into language and the importance of it, how much Sam tries to cling to his own humanity after the world ends by turning it into story, or, when there is a lack of a cohesive narrative for his life any longer, into any words he can still find. It’s about two people who are falling apart. It’s bleak. There is not a lot of hope in it. It’s just two people slowly unraveling but determined to live anyway, which maybe is something I connect pretty strongly to at this moment in time!!!! This story also contains the line, “if wishes were horses, they would all have pale riders,” which I’m not gonna lie is one of my favorite lines I have ever written and i stopped trying to top it years ago because probably I will not.

02. you do not have to be good.

He cracks a shit ton of eggs into a flour well and wonders if Parker and Hardison are aware that where he comes from, feeding someone is sort of a silent I love you. He frowns at the eggs. Thinks about Hardison buying this place. Thinks about Parker not really seeing anything special about food until recently. Hardison knows, probably, that he feeds people because he loves them. Parker almost certainly doesn't.

He thinks of how he might explain that to her, and it gets complicated pretty quick, because the truth is that where he's from, food can also sort of be a silent fuck you, considering the number of times he's been to a potluck where something like ten different little old ladies brought the same recipe, each secretly thinking theirs was better than you-know-who's. He can still hear the whispered accusations, all these years later. I just saw Flora come through the front door with her casserole dish. You know she puts carrots in that, don't you? Yes, you heard me right. Carrots.

He laughs a little at that. Maybe not everything from home was bad, even if it does seem to have left him with enough baggage to fill a damn shipping container. He hadn't really realized how much he'd been resenting that lately until now, but as he carefully mixes eggs and flour together with a fork, he feels a little of that hurt slipping away. As far as he's concerned, whatever he grew up with, all this internalized whatever, was sort of like a potluck: you go down the line and fill your plate and sometimes you take shit you don't want because it makes other people happy, but in the end you eat what you like, and then later when Miss Flora isn't looking you dump the rest of the shit on your plate in the trash because goddamn, her corn casserole is the worst one you've ever tasted. Who puts carrots in that? The devil, probably.

By the time the eggs and the flour are a big ball of dough underneath his hands, he's chuckling to himself, and he honestly feels a whole lot better about everything. The knot of anxious tension that's been sitting in the pit of his stomach since he and Hardison had that talk is gone. Whoever he is, whatever he is, it'll come together. He just picked up a lot of shit that wasn't his, that's all, but it's not who he is, and he doesn't have to keep it. It's just a potluck. It's shitty corn casserole. It's okay. He can toss it out and make a better one.

I dumped a lot (A LOT) of my other Southern/Heartland queer feelings into this brace of Eliot-centric stories for Leverage fandom earlier this year, and this is maybe one of the most Me parts of the whole thing, because I’ve given myself the Potluck Talk on and off for at least twenty years now. The attitudes about food and potlucks and the battles between potluck cooks described here are also 100% pulled from my real life, and that’s why this is my favorite. This is just me, working through my shit while cooking, only it’s Eliot, too. We love a convenient excuse to tell our own stories and work through our own shit with fanfiction, right?

03. visible cities

This is an old The Phantom Tollbooth piece that I wrote for Yuletide several years ago, and since Yuletide signups are opening and I’m feeling nostalgic, here’s the opening bit from this piece:

Many long years have passed since Milo's journey through the kingdom of Wisdom. He is older now, which is to be expected: hardly anyone grows younger in the course of many long years, though the lessons he learned as a boy have kept his heart lighter than most.

The way into other worlds had been easy enough to find, once he knew where to look, and oh, the things he has seen.

Still, as exciting as his life has been, he thinks of his friends from Wisdom often, especially Tock, especially lately, for he never seems to have enough time. There's always something to see, something to do. There are mountains to climb and oceans to swim, and he's been climbing and swimming for so long now that he has quite forgotten what it is to do something that is entirely for himself.

"I'm as tired as can be," he murmurs, a wistful smile on his face as he strolls home, careful as ever to take in all of the sights along the way, for no matter how many times he walks this path, he always finds something new to delight him.

When he arrives at home, there is a box waiting for him, the packaging the same wonderful blue that he remembers from his childhood, and he smiles so brightly that an unhappy gentleman passing by the window at that exact moment suddenly remembers all of the kind things anyone had ever done for him and immediately hurries home to hug his children.

I just love this book so much, it was very much a Formative Book for me, and when I got this Yuletide assignment I did my best to write sort of a love letter to other media through the vehicle of this story. This passage in particular I like because I like the thought of Milo as an older man, still carrying the lessons he learned so long ago with him now. And I really liked the guy outside running home to hug his kids. It felt Very like the book to me, the book is full of those kinds of things and it’s one of the reasons I love it, this way that Milo is connected to other people even when he doesn’t know them, because...we are, and it’s a small detail, but it’s why I like this bit of the story.

#ask meme #correspondence #norationalthoughtrequired #my fic #fic

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hermannsthumb · 4 years

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47. our first date goes horribly so i don’t know why i say yes to a second date, and now, we’re stuck at the diner until the snow slows down and i’m having fun

from winter writing prompts here

okay i really enjoyed this one and it got to over 2.5k SO in the hopes of saving people lengthy scrolling i posted it to ao3 instead!

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

Like, the thing is, as much as it sucks, Newt kinda went into this whole thing knowing he was gonna fuck it up somehow. He holds no illusions about his charisma, or his ability to maintain a stable, cohesive line of conversation, or even the general fucking fact that he tends to overwhelm people within five minutes of meeting them. His relationship with Hermann was (important indicator here: was) good for that reason–Hermann never had to put up with him in person. He never had to find out that Newt sometimes gets so excited about something he can’t help but interrupt whoever it is he’s talking to, or rants about anything and everything that crosses his mind, or cracks weird jokes when he’s nervous. He never had to hear Newt’s (shrill) voice. He never had to see Newt’s (cool, but probably tasteless) tattoos.

It never felt like blatant deception. Newt wasn’t going to start out a letter to Hermann like hey, man, I sound like a symphony of kazoos and one time I got tossed out of a TGI Friday’s because I drank too much at happy hour and started ranting about the mating habits of salamanders. It just…wasn’t the right kind of medium for that.

The way Hermann’s looking at him now, though, is making Newt reconsider.

read the rest on ao3 here

#newmann #maria's fanfiction tag #Anonymous

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justkpopjokes · 5 years

Text

Nice to Meet You, Angel. || Demon!Joshua

Ft. Joshua/Jisoo(s Chri—actually no, the complete opposite)

Anon: Demon Joshua😏

A/N: This AU has gone through 4 whole plot rewrites rip. kinda inspired by Good Omens!! (also 2 aus in a week?? whaaaaaat)

!! This is a gender neutral!reader fluff with 1945 words~ !!

Before we begin the plot, lemme quickly go through the basics of the universe

yayy lin’s doing world building again

there are angels and demons in the universe, simply just the optional jobs of people’s souls once they die

if they choose this job, they don't remember much of their life on Earth, but they do remember events they associate w/strong emotions bc it helps them

for ex. an angel could remember how sad a death made them feel so they know to prevent it

and a demon can remember how angry a bully made them felt so they can make people that level angry

both angels & demons take the form of their bodies when they were alive and roam on Earth

they can also return to Heaven/Hell and observe Earth from their respective realms

also yes demons can be summoned, but lmao you can also just give em a phone call via incantation

the angel equivalent to this phone call is praying

demons can pretty much do anything as long as it relates somehow to the Seven Deadly Sins (pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, sloth)

angel powers are more holy/good, and they can grant things in prayers if they choose, etc

Anyway, YOU KNOW THIS BOI??

THiS bOi sHUa

he's chill af for a demon ok

one of the first demons so like no one really knows how he’s a demon bc he’s so polite

there’s some speculation that he was one of the first to fall but like

what the hell did he do???

But also some say he became a demon out of spite bc he saw a demon commit a “sin” that actually helped someone

so he became a demon just to help people in a more… unholy way

and then he was upset angels hated him just because he was a demon

like wow spirit discrimination

NOW YOU—

you are an angel (literally)

you’re the angel that protects like. atheists/"non-believers" bc c'mon just because they don’t believe in God/gods doesn’t mean they shouldn't have access to that protection service

(yes hello you’re calling APS, the Angel Protection Service sponsored by God, how may I help you?)

so yeah you’re pretty chill yourself since you have to constantly deal with people who don't believe in you lol

One fine day, you were listening to a prayer from a sick college student

ok it wasn't really a prayer but they were like "oh please, my god, let me get some sleep tonight"

you gladly put them to sleep and they slept soundly at night

when you checked on them the next morning, you noticed—

A dEmON?!?

…lying right next to the student (but above the covers, he has boundaries), who isn't stirring at all

if the leather jacket and ripped jeans didn't tip you off, he had some horns on his head to confirm ur suspicions

You: "Hey what in the world are you doing here?!"

???: "What? If they get up rn they won't be able to pay attention in class. I'm letting them rest first"

You: "Wha—who—okay, okay okay… who are you?"

"I’m Joshua, nice to meet you, angel"

Shua knows he has the name of an angel so afterwards he's like. Don't get it confused bish.

you ask him what he's doing, and basically, he's using the sin sloth on this sicko student so they stay in bed and recover instead of going to class

Even tho you feel iffy abt letting a demon affect a human right in front of you, an angel, you are a bit intrigued

you haven't seen a demon use their powers for good before…

who is this guy??

anyway he disappears, presumably to Hell, once the student needs to wake up

which is when u miracle them some bread to get

But don't worry, you're destined to meet again~

which you did, on several occasions

and ok maybe you were glad to talk to someone who was actually interesting

so, yknow,,, if another angel was like "hey y/n uhh there's a demon… bothering? someone? idk but it's a non-believer, that's ur jurisdiction right"

you had a guess on who this demon was…

…and you were right

Joshua: "Oh hey angel"

You: "Ew, you make it sound like a pet name"

JS: "Well I don't know your name, do I?"

You: "Oh. Right. It's Y/N."

he still calls you angel tho, smh that flirt

y'all just bicker and/or chat for a bit whenever u go help the same person

Like one time when he insisted that you let him use gluttony on a teen so they'd eat a lot of ice cream that day

they had just been through a bad break up so u let it slide

Or another time he used wrath on a timid kid so they could stand up to a bully

all of these ended w/you two bickering while walking away

There was this little girl you were watching from heaven who was writing a letter to "Whoever Can Do This"

little girl started listing a bunch of things, which you assumed were toys

but then you realized it was actually stuff like food, friends, a puppy, a loving dad who will go out to the park with her—

so u go down there to check on this lil child

…and that's when you see a familiar leather jacket watching over her and suggesting other things to write

you can’t see him from heaven so ur like gosh darn it I should’ve known

"Joshua?? I should've known it was—"

*cue both shua and the child turning around*

JS: "Oh hey, nice to see you, angel"

Lil' Nugget: *GASP* "Mr. Josh is this ur s/o???"

JS: "Hm? Oh, I mean, no, but um…"

You: "Josh what have u been putting into this one's head…"

Shua's all like "greed! Her dad's been ignoring her since her mom died so we're writing a list of things she wants"

then the smol girl smiles so wide and is like "Mr. Josh is helping me! He's my new friend!!"

ur like awww dangit ok I'll let it slide if u let me help

Once she finishes it, Josh hands the girl's list over to you

he explains quietly he wants you to miracle her dad to pay attention+love his daughter again so they can have/do all the other things on the list

you read it over again and do just that

The little girl gives the list to her father, your miracle allowing them to have a fun afternoon eating ice cream and playing with her toys

And you and Josh have a nice time too~

once y'all left that girl's room, he invited you for some soda

"Coke? I hope you mean Coca Cola"

"Yeah, uh, there's a place with a vending machine not too far from here. We can walk"

You don't spend time on Earth often, but you learn as you walk w/Josh that he "prefers the air up here"

mainly bc he doesn't fit in with the other demons, but he also just likes spending time with humans

(obviously tho he needs to go down to hell occasionally for like conferences and such)

you don't remember if you've ever been on a date before lol

Josh doesn't either, but he does remember how jumbled up ur emotions get, which he is not ready for

then again of course he has, I mean look at that charm

however, you can't remember if the feeling you get when going on ur little date with Shua is love :/

it isn’t really, but just bc this is ur first “date,” so it makes sense

But Josh makes sure to take you out again… for dinner!!!

you were investigating the use of lust and pride at the same time

of course, it was just Josh helping a guy find someone to hook up with

you were kinda disgusted and wanted to leave, so shua gladly took your arm and pulled you away to a restaurant!

y’all had a nice dinner, paying with some money Josh had collected

and then you went to walk together and chat some more

he’s breathtaking, and he actually wants to spend time with you despite y’all being on opposite sides of an inevitable war

You don’t care, going on more dates just to talk and not have to care about ur jobs and other stuff

Shua hears you yell “what the hell” at some point and he’s like woAH you can say that???

“Yeah. I mean, it’s not really polite, but I can. Can you say ‘Thank God?’”

“‘Thank God?’ Well look at that, I can. Good point”

you love him because he’s so chill and doesn’t give a f*** abt anything

except you and humans, apparently

like he could’ve burned or smth by saying “Thank God” or be confined to the basement of Hell for helping people/talking with you, but he doesn’t care lmao

However, no one really knows you’ve been talking with a demon tho so uhhh

when they do you get in a little bit of trouble w/the archangels

ur boss was essentially like “y/n what the HECK are you doing?!? you’re on thin ice rn”

you get mad at him, trying to defend Joshua

and you’re right in doing so, since he just wants to help people with a different set of powers

ur archangel boss sends you back down to Earth, saying you can’t return to Heaven until they work smth out

(they probably want to burn you with Hell fire)

You warn Josh, knowing they might burn you

he’s adamant on keeping you with him, so y’all try to hide or smth

which won’t work of course, but you can try, right?

right?

Shua and you sit together on a bench, with you leaning on his shoulder

“Joshua… I’m scared, I don’t want to be burned!”

“Don’t worry y/n, it’ll be okay. I love you, angel, nothing bad will happen”

and just like that, you remember what it feels like to love

“You’re right. I love you too. Help the non-believers for me if I go, alright?”

“I’ll help them just for you.”

Your archangel boss is smart, knowing the worst punishment for you is to be reincarnated without memories

you wouldn��t remember Joshua at all

and when he drags u back up to Heaven, you want to cry

do angels cry holy water? anyway

you’re sent back to Earth as a baby that can’t fend for itself

You remember nothing.

You’ve recently graduated from college and are out looking for a job

you’ve gotten rejected and fired so many times

for ex. just now, after you were arguing with someone who spoke another language that you didn’t know and there was no translator available

the customer wasn’t willing to cooperate either, ignoring your attempts to use an online translator smh

it’s late and you’re tired, so you leave, angry, and start coughing frantically when you inhale too much smoke coming from the alley next to you

naturally, you’re like “What the hell?! Dude, you’re not supposed to be smoking this close to an entrance!”

“Why do you care? You don’t work here anymore”

you take a better look at the stranger once he steps into the light of a nearby lamppost

it’s a dude in a leather jacket and ripped jeans who drops his cigarette

“Need help getting a job, y/n?”

“how do you—what—who are you?”

he extends a hand out to you, which you shake reluctantly

“I’m Joshua. Nice to meet you, angel.”

#seventeen imagines #seventeen scenarios #seventeen joshua #joshua imagines #joshua scenarios #joshua hong #hong jisoo #joshua fluff #i never know what to tag josh's fics smh #jkj fics

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amazingmsme · 5 years

Note

You’ve seen Umbrella Academy right? Got any headcanons for the siblings? :D

YES I DO! I LOVE THEM ALL SO MUCH! I'll do headcanons in order of their numbers. Putting it under the cut cause I got carried away & they got longer than expected

Luther-my big boy-he's always really serious & so the others will try to do everything they can to make him laugh-like it's a game they play & whoever makes him laugh wins-one time Klaus won just by screaming "LOOK WHAT I CAN DO!" & just fucking decked Diego right in the face. Luther couldn't stop laughing for 5 minutes straight-when they would get too loud & their dad was gonna get onto them, he always tried to take the fall-he's a big ol softie-totally cries like a baby when any animal in a movie dies-his favorite food is lasagna. He'll eat the whole pan by himself if no one's watching him, so Grace usually had to make two just in case-his laugh is really loud & booming. Allison likes to tease him that it shakes the whole room-being the "oldest" he likes to pick on all the rest of them, even now when they're all adults -he's the biggest tickle monster ever omg he'll just scoop up anyone that's near & doesn't let them go until he feels like they've had enough-he's ticklish too tho, & if you think his siblings don't take advantage of that you're dead wrong-his underarms are definitely his worst. Whenever he holds something above one of their heads they just dig their fingers in under his arm & it comes crashing down

Diego-the angstiest lad-he would always wrestle with Luther when they were kids & pouted when Luther won-if he gets over excited or emotional his stutter will come back for a few seconds-he played the knife game a lot & one time accidentally stabbed his hand. Five & Klaus laughed their asses off as he cried & Grace had to doctor his hand-he always acts super tough & broody all the time but actually is a pretty sweet dork-he isn't the biggest fan of his laugh so he has a fake chuckle he uses instead. His family are all like "wtf that's not how you sound"-you ever heard Tom Hardy laugh? That's what he sounds like-it's really high pitched & bubbly -it embarrasses him so it takes effort to get him laughing like that, but if they ever want to hear it they just have to squeeze his knee & he falls back in loud laughter-he tries to act like he's not ticklish & will hold out for as long as he can before he gives up-his hips and thighs are the worst & he gets so desperate it's adorable-like he'll be a begging pleading mess after only a few seconds-no lie he pulled a knife on Five when he snuck up on him & squeezed his hips-he gets embarrassed about how ticklish he is & if anyone teases him about it he blushes SO hard

Allison-my cool daughter-she's literally so caring but doesn't always know how best to show it-the Mom Friend-after mending her relationship with Vanya they have sleepovers like once a month-if any of the siblings are sick she makes a big pot of soup-would kill for Claire if need be-the master of hide & seek cause she's played it so much with her daughter-a very teasy ler-she'll wiggle her fingers at you to let you know what's coming before chasing you-100% calls herself the tickle monster-has the sweetest laugh ever-her neck & knees are her sweet spots but her stomach is a close second-will literally screech if you scratch behind her ears

Klaus-the very definition of disaster gay(pan)-either looks like a trash ass hobo or an utter king, there's no in between-after he gets sober he practices his abilities practically day & night with Ben so he can summon Dave-once he finally does they hold each other for so long & Klaus cries for 15 minutes straight before he's able to speak coherently -Dave stays pretty consistently after that, tho not as much as Ben-the fact that no one ever takes him seriously actually hurts his feelings a good bit but he's Klaus so he can't let them know it affects him-pretty secretive about his power cause he doesn't like talking about it-tried his best to keep his ptsd a secret from the others but Diego picked right up on the signs & once things calmed down after the apocalypse he told the rest of the family-after getting better with his ability he summoned Ben so that the others could see him. He was the only one not to cry cause he's used to seeing him constantly(but he did tear up from seeing everyone so emotional)-says the most random things whether he's high or not-once ate a tube of toothpaste because he refused to go to the store & buy groceries -a very bouncy & giggly boy-just has so much pent up energy-everyone always gangs up on him cause he says something annoying or just cause-low key does things to provoke his siblings-if you get his ribs or underarms, congrats you've killed him-his feet are pretty bad as well-but his hips are def the worst. & since he's so skinny all you have to do is drill your thumbs into the bone to drive him up the wall insane-now that Ben can actually touch him without phasing through him he totally tickles him all the time-Klaus honestly likes being tickled cause he thinks it's fun & it helps him relax-but you better watch out, cause as he likes to say, karma is one hell of a bitch-he's super teasy, but in like a casual way? Like he can destroy someone while also having a completely normal conversation. He'll even sh them if they're laughing too loud!-loves to act oblivious while tickling you. He'll be all "why are you laughing, I'm not that funny! Oh I'm sorry, does that tickle? I didn't even notice"

Five-he's a very feisty boi-ultimate sass master -literally has a comeback for everything-he's really touch starved after spending so much time alone in the apocalypse -time traveling fucked with his brain so he mutters incoherently to himself a lot-hates that he appears younger than his siblings because he's older & wiser damnit!-uses his young appearance to his advantage tho, so it has its ups & downs-ever since his rediscovery of puppy dog eyes he can get almost whatever he wants-he can hide anywhere cause of his small size, so good luck trying to find him-misses Delores with all his heart. With his messed up mind he saw her as an actual person & losing her hurt him -he uses his ability to trap & corner his siblings so that he can attack them-like Diego or someone will tease him & try to sprint away only for Five to pop up in the doorway leaning casually like "oh I'm sorry, did you think I'd let you get away with that?" before he tickles him-he will show absolutely No Mercy, once he gets a hold of you, he won't let go until he feels like it-also uses his ability to dodge out of family tickle fights cause he knows they'll get him if he doesn't -like Klaus, he's also ganged up on, & it's even easier since he's tiny compared to the rest of them-his laugh is a really loud cackle & his eyes & nose scrunch up a lot, it's adorable-he swears like a sailor when tickled & thrashes around, but nothing really helps-he claims he's "too old for this shit" but Luther's like "you're never too old for this" before straight up murdering him

Ben-my dead son-it's hard for him to see all of his family but being unable to interact with them-he just wishes he can hug them & talk to them one more time-when Klaus finally made it happen, he was so overjoyed it was the sweetest thing ever-sick & tired of all the hentai jokes unless he's the one making them-used to be embarrassed about his power but now realizes how cool he is-was already bffs with Klaus when he was alive but they've gotten closer now that he died-pretty easy going & wants to have fun-helped keep everyone together & kept them from tearing each other's throats out, so once he hit the dust the family just kinda drifted apart-the fact that he has powers helps him stay around even when Klaus is high. Plus he's just stubborn & doesn't want to leave -gets kinda sad when he sees the other kids messing around & targeting each other cause he can only watch-his worst spots are his back, stomach & hips & he basically will go limp if you tickle him, he just gives up-has really breathy laughter-will tear up 5 seconds after laughing my precious boy-after he gets the hang of his powers, Klaus surprised him out of nowhere & attacked him for no reason-he claimed he was making up for lost time but Ben said he was just being mean-he'd be lying tho if he said he didn't enjoy every second of it

Vanya-my sweet baby dear, poor child-she's only just now learning to love herself-has major trust issues, & the shit with Harold did NOTHING to help-cried for like a week after the apocalypse cause she just feels so guilty & sorry-mended her relationship with Allison & loves her sister so much-almost cried when Claire called her Aunt Vanya-very claustrophobic-as much as she loves classical music, she also really loves classic & alternative rock-Diego literally had to beg her to play The Devil Went Down to Georgia but he managed to convince her & everyone was #shook-gets really embarrassed when anyone compliments her about anything & tries to deny it-apologizes over the smallest things. Allison told her she doesn't have to & she's trying to break the habit-really enjoys practicing with her power now that she knows she has it. She's gotten a lot better at controlling it-still pretty scared of Luther. He's apologized for everything & she forgave him but she can't help but flinch if he moves too quickly towards her, & it kinda breaks his heart -even more touch starved than Five cause while he had a childhood with the others, she was isolated & alone & had very little contact. It wasn't until after the apocalypse that she experienced a true genuine hug-always got sad when the others would play around & laugh & have fun cause it was one more thing she wasn't included in, so she's used to just hiding away by herself to practice -was barely ever the target during a tickle fight so she barely even remembers what it feels like-she honestly thinks she's grown out of it(spoiler alert: she hasn't)-a tickle fight breaks out while she's reading in the living room & out of habit she tries to go to her room cause she's used to disappearing without being noticed but Five teleports in front of her & is like um where the hell do you think you're going?-so she's like "to go read?" & by this point they have Allison & Diego's attention & Five's all "so you think you can just slink away scot free?" She tells him she's not ticklish & he belts out a laugh "I seem to remember otherwise" "well you're also like 60 so..." & that's how they found out she's still extremely ticklish-they never let her live it down-I mean they gotta make her feel included right? So it would be rude not to-her ears/neck, sides, & feet are death spots, she can't handle it-not much of a ler, but when she is she uses her skilled musician's hands to utterly wreck you, but overall she's pretty gentle-when she hears laughter her powers kinda go nuts(it's just a genuinely pure sound so she tends to really focus on it)& if it's her own laughter then it's even harder for her to control her abilities cause that fact makes her embarrassed & jittery so it takes her a while to calm down

Sorry this took so long, I've been pretty busy! But I had such a blast writing these so if you'd like to hear more or just want to talk about UA hit me up cause I'm always down to screech about my children(you can probably tell who my favorites are based off the length of each of their headcanons)

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believingbrook · 6 years

Text

taakitz hanahaki, 6 (final)

He wakes up to the overhead light clicked on dimly and Taako standing in the doorway.

Kravitz looks at him, brows furrowed. “Already?” he rasps. He would’ve thought he’d at least wake up before he died.

He never did say goodbye to Raven. He never got to sing for her again. Somehow, that hurts the most.

“Oh my gods,” says Taako. Even silhouetted by moonlight and the faint overhead bulb, he’s beautiful. “Holy — Kravitz?”

Kravitz laughs. He sits up, and is instantly slammed backward with a wave of racking pain, devolves into coughs for a handful of seconds before slumping back down, gasping. Damn. Not dead, then.

Which means —

“Don’t — don’t do that, just lie back down, what the hell, Kravitz, I didn’t — are you okay?”

Which, objectively, is a dumb question.

Two slim hands flutter frightfully over his head, butterflies looking to land but not knowing where, and Kravitz reaches up weakly to take one in his own.

It’s real. He stares at it, uncomprehending. It’s solid in his own, and it squeezes his, tight enough to be painful.

Then he looks up at Taako, who’s looking at him with fear plain on his face.

The facts don’t add up: that Taako is here, Taako is scared for him, and that this is real. This isn’t a dream, and he isn’t dead.

“Kravitz,” Taako says, kneeling by the couch, “Kravitz, can you — can you hear me? Gods, it didn’t take your hearing too, did it? I have — I don’t know how this works — ”

“I can hear you,” Kravitz says hoarsely. He’s still puzzling over the angles of Taako’s face. “You’re here.”

Taako bursts into a high-pitched laugh. “Yeah, homie, I’m here, I — hachi machi, you look like shit.”

“Thanks,” Kravitz says dryly. Then, because he’s exhausted and has no filter: “What are you doing here?”

“I — I got a call from Mags, told me you were in a, uh, uh, a bad fuckin’ way, and you were — that you weren’t doing great and I just had to — I couldn’t — ” Taako locks his jaw and looks away, running a shaking hand through his hair. “Does it hurt?”

“Like hell,” Kravitz says bluntly. Beneath all the exhaustion and joy and pity there’s a thin thread of anger holding him tight. “You left.”

Taako flinches. “Yeah.” He swallows, looks away, then back at Kravitz, gaze fluttering nervously around the living room. It’s like he’s never seen it before, which pisses Kravitz off, honestly; he’s been here hundreds of times, gods, there’s a Taako-shaped indentation on his couch. He has no right to forget what neither the furniture nor Kravitz cannot. “You scared me.”

“I scared you?”

“That — sounds shitty, and it is, I know — look, Kravitz. Listen, I — ” his hands finally land on Kravitz’s and hold them, tightly. There is tension in every one of his fingers. “You told me, or I, uh, I found out, I guess, and I just — I freaked. I freaked out, okay? Because then suddenly a whole bunch of stuff made sense. Like in senior year you, uh, you missed that one test because you said you were throwing up, and you came in looking like hell. And I, uh — I couldn’t connect back then what was happening, of course, because you didn’t — and then you ran out of chemistry class, and I thought maybe you, I dunno, had to go call Raven or...or something, and just. A whole bunch of stuff made sense and I didn’t know how to deal with it because it’s on me, it’s all — on me, I mean, kinda, it’s really obvious in retrospect and I don’t know how I missed it,” he says, voice rising with something like hysteria. “But I didn’t want to see it because I didn’t know what to do with it, so Lup and Barry — they took me away — I mean, that makes it sound like it was a kidnapping, it wasn’t — that’s why they weren’t at work, by the way, I mean, if you even went to work? Did you?”

“I did,” he says. He sits up straighter and brushes off Taako’s attempt to help, anger pulling his face flat. “Why are you here, Taako?”

Taako blinks at the question. His head bows, for a moment, hair brushing in front of his face, and Kravitz notices with a start how greasy and unkempt it looks. From Taako, who cares about his appearance like he does little else, it’s a shock.

“I realized something,” he says. “Something that I should have — I dunno, seen a long time ago. You know me, I’m real good at, uh, at fuckin’, not seeing things I don’t wanna see.”

Kravitz smiles wryly at that. “Yeah.”

Taako shoots him a brief grin. He fiddles nervously with Kravitz’s fingers, which feels — nice. Taako has a lot to answer for, but at least he’s here. He didn’t think he would get to say goodbye to Taako.

“And I know this is, I dunno, comin’ out of left field for you — especially because I ran, and I know, I — I opened your texts, Kravitz, I turned off the — ” he clears his throat “ — the little, the receipts, you know them? I turned those off because I didn’t know what to say, and I listened to your voicemails, not just the ones from this week but from way back, I’ve been saving them, and — ” his voice breaks. He takes a deep breath, looks away for a moment, then exhales it shakily. “Every time I got angry, at — at you, at whoever made this...happen, to you, I guess that one’s kinda on Taako because it was obvious and I just, I missed the fuckin’ memo, I...I listened to them, Kravitz, over and over again. They made me feel better, somehow. Even when Lup couldn’t.” He laces his fingers with Kravitz’s, shoulders bowed. “You make me feel better. And not just about this, about...everything.”

“I’m glad,” Kravitz says hoarsely, and means it. “Taako, look at me.” He does, and Kravitz smiles at him softly. “I’m glad I could help.”

“Don’t,” Taako snaps abruptly. “Don’t do that, that — don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you — ” Taako’s expression crumples for a moment and he slumps against the coffee table, back where his boots were kicked a mere three days before. He takes a trembling breath, and this time it’s Taako fighting for air. Kravitz doesn’t like the reversal at all. “Listen, I did come here for a reason, and not just — to see you, though that was mostly it, I also came to...to tell you something.”

“Oh,” Kravitz says. He lets his eyes slip shut, then opens them again. “I didn’t think I’d get to say it either, but I’m glad you’re here.”

He squeezes Taako’s hand in his. Now that he’s here — it’s so obvious. Kravitz had known he would scare Taako, and that was exactly what happened, and now he’s here; he’s here to say goodbye.

That’s all Kravitz could have asked for, in the end. There’s still some simmering resentment but it’s dimmed, and Kravitz feels love; it never left, but it flickers fully to life now. Even prone on a couch he hangs onto that feeling, summons it to the forefront. It’s so nice, to love. It will kill him but he doesn’t regret it.

No, he thinks; he doesn’t regret anything.

“But you did,” Taako says, confused. “You did — I mean, kinda — ”

Kravitz frowns. “No, I didn’t. Taako, listen. Thank you for coming back, it...it means a lot. Truth be told, I didn’t know if you would.”

“Yeah,” Taako chokes. “Yeah, of — of course.”

“I’m glad you’re here,” he murmurs. “I don’t think it’ll be more than a day or so. We don’t have any beds left, Merle took Raven’s and she’s in mine, but — there are pillows and blankets, you know where they are.”

Taako sits up. “A day until what?”

Kravitz looks at him curiously. “Until I die, Taako.”

“What?”

“I thought that was why you were here,” Kravitz says. “To say goodbye. Are you not — ?”

“No!” Taako’s voice edges clean into hysteria, now. His grip on Kravitz’s hands is painful. “No, I’m not here to fucking — are you kidding? Are you kidding me? No, you’re not going to die!”

Kravitz rasps out another hoarse laugh. “You sound like Raven,” he says. “She keeps saying the same thing.”

Taako is looking at him in equal parts confusion and terror, and if he were strong enough Kravitz would wipe that expression away with his thumb, smoothing the wrinkles in Taako’s skin with only his palms.

“I didn’t come here to tell you goodbye, Kravitz,” Taako says fiercely, voice shaking. “I came here to tell you I love you.”

Kravitz breathes once, twice, into the ensuing silence. He stares at Taako, and Taako stares right back. The whole room is holding its breath, breathless, and for once it isn’t Kravitz.

Love swells up in him, powerful and sweeping, and he smiles gently. The flowers in his throat bloom brighter and he thinks that this is it, maybe; he may have less time than he thought. If Taako keeps making him fall harder, Kravitz thinks wryly, he might have less than the day Raven fought so hard to give him.

“I appreciate what you’re trying to do,” Kravitz says softly. “But Taako, I don’t want you to try to feel things that you — ” he chokes on nothing, he’s breathing in nothing, he can’t breathe.

“I’m not — this isn’t a fucking joke, Kravitz, I’m not kidding — Kravitz? Kravitz?”

Kravitz curls sharply in on himself. His chest heaves for air that doesn’t come and it’s bad, this is bad but it isn’t the worst, he’s breathing through a reed pipe but at least he’s breathing at all.

“Kravitz,” Taako says, whispers, pleads, hands on his shoulders and his cheeks and his chest, like Taako’s fingers can knit him back together where Merle’s magic failed. “Kravitz, don’t — breathe, just keep breathing, Kravitz, please.”

“Go.” Kravitz swallows a cough and chokes, and all he can think about is how the last time Taako saw him like this, he left. “Please, go.”

“I’m not going fucking anywhere,” Taako snaps, and the couch shifts as Taako sits by him, two shaking hands resting on his shoulders. “Is there anything I can — how do I — how can I help?”

Kravitz shakes his head, waving a hand at him. Flowers spill unchecked from his lips and he retches, fighting as always, futilely, exhaustingly, to dislodge them from where they’ve rooted down their home in his ribs.

“Don’t you dare,” Taako says sharply, “don’t you dare, don’t you fucking— ” There are hands on his cheeks, thumbs wiping away the tears prickling at his eyes. Kravitz reaches up, takes those wrists in his and tries to push them away, but Taako refuses to go.

“Don’t,” Taako says. The world is spinning; Kravitz feels lightheaded, and when he cracks his eyes open between open-mouthed pants the room is blurred and shaky. Taako runs his hands along Kravitz’s arms, down his chest, up his neck and into his hair, holding him steady. “You can’t leave now, you can’t, I still haven’t — it’s just fucking rude to leave when — when someone has something to say and you aren’t, you’re not rude that’s just about the last thing you are, don’t — don’t leave. Don’t leave me.”

Kravitz hacks out a laugh, at the bitter irony of Taako trying to get him not to leave, but doubles over again when a rose gets stuck at the back of his mouth. He can feel the little petals tickling the back of his throat, like he could reach in and pull it out, but he can’t; he knows he can’t, because he’s tried. Taako’s hands tremble around his temples.

His windpipe clears, bit by bit. When he can see straight he looks up to find Taako’s face creased in an expression he’s never seen. In his hands is a single rose; discolored, but stained scarlet with blood.

That anxious weight still holds in his sternum but Kravitz breathes slowly, shallowly, and it’s manageable again. Strangely enough, Taako’s face is mottled, and there — there’s a shine to his cheeks and around his eyes that Kravitz has never seen before. His fist is locked tight in the fabric of the couch by Kravitz’s waist.

He stares at the rose and Kravitz tries to ask what he’s thinking, and can’t form the words. At the pained sound, Taako’s face falls flat, and he crumples the rose in his fist.

“No!” Kravitz wheezes, lurching forward to weakly pry Taako’s hands off the bloom. “No, leave it!”

“Why?” Taako asks, hands shaking. “These — these fucking things, they’re killing you!”

“Don’t,” he pleads, “don’t, just — give it back to me, don’t hurt them, please — ”

“These — ” Taako locks his jaw, every point in his body rigid with tension. “These fucking flowers, Kravitz, why are you keeping — burn them!”

“No!” Kravitz reaches for it and collapses back with a choked groan as his ribs protest. “No— ”

“Okay, okay,” Taako says, resting a hand on Kravitz’s shoulder and gently pushing him back down. “All right, just...chill. Don’t sit up. Where — where d’you want it?”

Kravitz points behind him, toward the table where the most recent ones are stored, and Taako hisses at the sight of so many discolored blooms by his head. Taako drops it brusquely in with the others, then pauses and studies them for a long, long time. For the first time in a while, Kravitz has no idea what he’s thinking.

Then Taako takes him by surprise and turns and sits and says, “I wasn’t kidding.”

Kravitz looks questioningly at him. Taako clears his throat. “When I said — listen, Taako don’t make these sorts of confessions lightly, so there’s no — no ifs ands or buts, yeah? No passin’ Go, no — fuckin’ — putting anyone in jail or anything.”

Right. Kravitz relaxes back into the cushions, propping his head up on the arm to keep Taako the center of his vision. “I understand,” he says. “And — I meant it, too. When I thanked you.”

“No — ” Taako tugs out the hairband of his braid in one frustrated motion. “No, you thanked me because you thought I was goofing. I wasn’t goofing, this isn’t — this isn’t a goof. This is the last damn thing from a goof. Farthest damn thing.” He shakes his head, irritated. “That — okay, fuck speech, but listen. Point still stands. I wasn’t joking.”

Kravitz sighs. “Taako, I’m fine. Really. I’ve made my peace with it. You don’t have to — you don’t have to pretend anything just to keep me alive. I don’t want that for you.”

“Yeah, and I don’t — I don’t want death for you, homie!”

“I already told you, this isn’t your fault.” Kravitz reaches for Taako’s hand and he offers it, instantly. “This isn’t your responsibility.” A small, fond smile crosses his face. “I fell in love with you. It isn’t your fault that you don’t feel the same.”

But instead of calming down, Taako only appears more frantic. “This isn’t — I know, you don’t pick you fall in love with or whatever, okay so I see in retrospect how what I said doesn’t sound great, but I’m not just here to try to keep you alive! This isn’t some — some fucking scheme to, to make you hold on a little longer. I’m here to tell you I love you. Did — did you hear that? Because I’ll say it again, I fucking will. I love you. I love you, Kravitz.”

Kravitz stares at him. “What?”

“I love you, Kravitz.”

“No, I heard that part, I just don’t get it.”

“What don’t you get?” His voice is desperate in a way Kravitz has never heard it. “Three words, right? That’s — that’s — I mean, you do too, right?”

“Of course I love you,” Kravitz says easily. “But you — you understand why I don’t believe you, right? This is all awfully convenient.”

“Kravitz — ”

“No. I call Julia and Magnus, and you show up the next evening saying you love me? You’ve known me for ten years, Taako. Love doesn’t develop over the course of — of two days. It takes time.” He knows. He’s fallen in love before Taako, once or twice; but never for this long, and never this deeply.

When he was younger he wondered if he would die for it. He doesn’t have to wonder anymore.

But Taako doesn’t stop. He doesn’t stop. Taako is the only person he knows who could rival Raven in stubbornness. “Yeah, that’s because I’m a fucking idiot. Look. You know me, Kravitz, you know that when I get an, uh, uh, a feeling that I don’t know what to do with I ignore it until it fucks off. You know that.”

Despite everything, the affirmation that Kravitz still knows him makes him feel warm. At least they still share something. “Yes,” Kravitz says dryly, “you do.”

“Yeah. So what do you think I did when I fell in love with you? D’you think I fuckin’ — that I recognized it and, like, acknowledged it like you did? Like any reasonable person would? Hell no, cha’boy went and stuck his head in the fucking sand and it took Barry and Lup two days to dig it out all the way! It — this didn’t just spring up — shit, bad choice in words, this — this didn’t just come out of nowhere, it’s — it’s been a long time, Kravitz. A really long time. I just — I didn’t know what to do with it. Didn’t even know it was happening until, y’know, last night when I was sitting — listening to — never mind, that’s not, that isn’t relevant. You don’t get to fuckin’ beef it because I’m an idiot.”

Kravitz shakes his head, and keeps shaking it. It doesn’t stack up. None of this makes sense: doesn’t add up, the words don’t flow. Three years he’s spent, feeling his own death creeping up on him, and Taako loved him the whole time?

Gods, he’d hoped. He’d hoped so badly, for so long. When he could still rasp through notes he’d written music, songs for Taako, what they could’ve shared. Then, when he realized his feelings would never be returned, he shoved them in a folder and locked them away.

He’d almost burned them. Ironically, it was Raven who had stopped him.

There’s a high-pitched whine filtering in through his ears and it takes him a moment to realize that it’s coming from him.

“Listen,” Taako says, faster and more frantic now. “I need you to believe me. Please, Kravitz. Please, you’re — you look like hell — ”

Kravitz keeps shaking his head. It’s spinning. The ground beneath his back is spinning. In his chest, those damned flowers keep blooming. “I don’t....”

“C’mon,” Taako pleads. His hands rhythmically smooth the collar of Kravitz’s shirt. Distantly Kravitz thinks that this is his sleepshirt, he should’ve put on something nicer for guests, before remembering that this is Taako and Taako has seen him in ripped black jeans and a T-shirt with Amy Lee’s face in the middle.

“Be — be angry, you can do that, that’s fine, as long as you accept — it took me like three years! It took me a long time, to get that, and isn’t that — oh boy isn’t that fucked! That it took me that long to realize!”

“Taako — ”

“No, you don’t — ” Taako’s breath hitches, the movement of his hands speeding. “Just — I can count on one fuckin’ hand the number of times I’ve seen you get angry but I need you to do it now, can you believe how long it took me? To realize I loved you? Just, I dunno, channel your sister, you were here suffering the whole time and I — ” his voice breaks and his shoulders hitch, “ — I didn’t realize ‘cause I didn’t want to see it, how fucked is that?”

“I...” Kravitz trails off. His throat is closing again. He can’t figure out what to think. Taako’s being sincere. Kravitz knows this because the tells are obvious, his face his voice and his ears, but the words he’s saying don’t make sense, because if he’s right then Kravitz was wrong for three years.

If he’s right —

Taako fumbles for Kravitz’s hand. He’s crying, Kravitz realizes through a pounding headache and ringing ears; he’s never seen Taako cry before. These last few days have held a lot of firsts for him.

Taako spreads his fingers gently and presses Kravitz’s hand to his chest. Right over his heartbeat.

It thumps, quick and harsh, against Kravitz’s palm. “I love you,” Taako whispers. “I do, I mean it, I really do. This isn’t a jape and it isn’t a goof, and that — this — this is going for you. This whole — heart thing, this rhythm — you’re a music boy, this tempo? It’s yours. It’s yours. Take it. If you want it, it’s kind of — fast, right now — ”

Taako’s words crumble, get stuck on the back of his tongue. “Please.”

“I don’t want to take your heart,” Kravitz manages. He can’t stop thinking: what if Taako isn’t lying?

“This isn’t taking, you’re not — you’re not taking it, I’m trying to give it! I’m trying to tell you that I’m giving it to you! No permission necessary, just — “ Taako releases Kravitz’s hand, and Kravitz keeps it there, carefully; his heartbeat is entrancing, just as it was the first time he felt it. He takes Kravitz’s face in his hands and presses their foreheads together. “I come here, and you tell me you’re a fucking day from dying, and I don’t — I can’t — Jesus, Kravitz, I need you to not be stubborn for once and just listen. Please, just listen.”

Kravitz stays silent. He thinks —

He’s never seen Taako like this before, so thoroughly taken apart. He’s never seen Taako touch someone other than his sister for longer than two minutes, and yet here he is, smoothing his hands along Kravitz’s shoulders, his arms, his cheeks; here he is, pressing their foreheads together and whispering impossible things against Kravitz’s lips like they mean something.

Taako folds him tighter in his arms. “I love you,” he whispers, palm flat against Kravitz’s shoulderblade. Stunned, it takes Kravitz several seconds to reciprocate, folding his hands behind the small of Taako’s back.

Over and over Taako repeats it: I love you, Kravitz. I love you. I miss you, I’m sorry I hurt you, please don’t leave; I love you. I love you. I love you.

Something curious happens, then.

Kravitz closes his eyes, chin tucked on Taako’s shoulder. He hears Taako’s litany, those string of broken words and hollow gasps; Taako’s never prayed in his life but this, Kravitz thinks, is the closest he’s ever gotten.

And Kravitz — lets him in. Lets himself hear those words, lets them wrap cool and gentle around his heart, and decides to trust.

Please don’t hurt, Taako whispers, nails jagged against his shoulder, and suddenly, he doesn’t.

The wrenching pain in his chest ceases. The relief is so abrupt that Kravitz opens his eyes, just in time to blink as the aching pressure on the inside of his ribs vanishes. All down his throat, he can feel it; thousands of tiny roots that had burrowed into his flesh releasing, floating free.

And then they come up.

Kravitz locks his arms around Taako and coughs over his shoulder, pushes everything out. Taako’s pleas turn frantic again but Kravitz tunes them out — he doesn’t want to hear this, doesn’t want to hear his love shouting himself hoarse — and holds him carefully, firmly in place. Taako fights him, looking again for some way to help but Kravitz doesn’t know how — doesn’t have the air to explain — that he doesn’t need it, that this is it, that it’s not just petals and it’s not just flowers but it’s roots and seeds and everything that has grown inside him for the past three years.

It burns like hell, and Kravitz loses himself to the familiar push-pull of expelling flowers while trying to suck in air. Eventually his arms weaken around Taako’s waist, trembling from exertion, and Taako’s hands are on him again in an instant. Somewhere, distantly, someone is crying his name, shaking his shoulders, begging him for — for something, but Kravitz can’t hear them.

Then the last of the petals fall free, and Kravitz sags forward. Two arms wrap around him, supporting him, and he looks up to see Taako crying openly, shaking with what must be fear.

He takes the first deep breath in three years.

“I’m okay,” he says. There’s still a rasp to his voice. The scores of flesh that ripped apart didn’t heal immediately, but the thorns wrapped in their stems are gone, a serene pile of green-and-red that lies innocently on their carpet.

“Kravitz?”

“I’m okay,” he says, giddy. “I’m — I can breathe!”

He takes a deep breath, then another, and another, marvelling at how he can feel his chest expand. There’s a sweetness to deep breaths that gods, he’d forgotten — he’d forgotten how good it felt to be able to close his eyes and breathe. His ribs twinge as lungs long-depressed expand again, and he revels in it.

“You — ” Taako presses his palms flat against Kravitz’s ribcage, and holds his breath for one, two, three seconds before his face crumples and he buries himself in Kravitz’s shoulder. He’s trembling. “Gods,” he whispers, “gods, Kravitz, you scared me, don’t fucking — Jesus — ”

He places a wondering hand on his throat and swallows. It doesn’t tickle. He doesn’t have to bury the urge to cough. He laughs, quietly, amazed. “I’m okay.”

“Is it gone?”

“It’s gone,” Kravitz says, still a little awed himself. Just like that.

Taako’s hold on him tightens, like he’s trying to anchor Kravitz to him with sheer force of will, before he sits up. “You’re an idiot,” he says.

Kravitz laughs, and catches on the laugh when it doesn’t hurt, and laughs even harder, because now he can do that, now he can laugh at the stupid things Taako says. Gods, he can — he can finally sing again. “Fifty-fifty,” he says, rather generously, he thinks. The twinges of resentment he’s resoundingly pushed away for now protest the statement but then Taako does too, so Kravitz thinks he’s gotten his point across, whatever that point was.

Taako loves him.

He’d spent so long hoping and convincing himself that was impossible and here, here’s the proof that he was wrong, and he should be crying, probably, because he does that easy, but instead he just keeps smiling and can’t seem to stop. He laughs, still a little breathless, and draws Taako’s forehead to his. “I love you,” he says, because he can.

“Shit, dude,” Taako murmurs, voice still a little shaky, “me — me too, but listen, kemosabe, the next time you want validation just come talk to me, okay? I don’t...let’s not do that again.” He pauses, fervent. “Ever.”

“I knew what would happen when I told you,” Kravitz says quietly. “I wanted to keep you in my life for as long as possible, Taako. Maybe that was selfish of me.”

Little tremors run along Taako’s shoulders and Kravitz smooths his hands up Taako’s back, along the nape of his neck, humming a tuneless note as comfort. Taako’s not putting his apologies to words but Kravitz can hear them in the heaviness in the air. It’ll take him a long time, Kravitz thinks, to forgive himself for this.

He still knows Taako so well.

“It was,” Taako whispers, letting out a shaky laugh. “But so was leaving, so, uh...fifty-fifty. Except not really. More like...eighty-twenty. A hundred-zero? That’s not even a split, and I know that and I’m not even a math boy, so something’s wrong, uh, uh — “

“Let’s think about that in the morning, hmm?” Kravitz murmurs, catching Taako’s cheekbones with his thumbs and pulling back just far enough to look Taako in the eye.

Taako pulls away and slumps on top of Kravitz, kicking his feet on top of the cushions. He twists to rest an ear on Kravitz’s chest and it takes him a moment; the same heartbeat that pulses in his throat, Taako hears now. Almost instinctively he curls a hand round to the small of Taako’s back, and rests the other against his chest.

“Can I — ” Taako swallows. Kravitz turns his head, nose brushing along Taako’s hair. “Can I stay?”

The vulnerability in those words makes his chest tighten. He drops a kiss on Taako’s forehead then snuggles down, comfortable and warm beneath Taako’s weight.

“Of course.”

He wakes, and notices two things simultaneously: first, he can breathe without wincing, and second, someone’s holding his hand.

He must make some noise because Taako, sitting by the couch with his head tipped back against the curve of Kravitz’s waist, turns to look at him. When he sees Kravitz, his face splits into a grin. “Morning.”

“Morning.” It wasn’t a dream, then, falling asleep with Taako in his arms. He can’t help but smile in return.

“How did you sleep?”

“Good,” he says, surprised at the truth in the statement. He’d slept the whole night through, strangely comfortable despite the fact that this wasn’t his bed, despite the rattling of the radiator that kept him up as a child. He remembers Taako sprawled snugly against his side, and chuckles at a mystery solved. “You?”

“Good.” There’s light streaming in from the windows already, and it catches Taako’s white shirt and hair in streaks of gold as he raises his second hand to join the first. “I woke up a bit before you did, to be honest, but, uh...” he shrugs. “Didn’t want to do anything before you opened those tired eyes.”

The consideration makes Kravitz feel light. He snags one of Taako’s hands and presses the back to his lips, gently. His lips catch briefly on smooth skin. “I’m glad you didn’t.”

Taako stares at him, wide-eyed, then clunks his face against Kravitz’s hip with a snort. “Sap. You’re still a fuckin’ — did you pick that up in your Victorian novels, Kravitz? Is that where you learned that — that fuckin’ trick?”

“It was my homosexual Westerns, actually.”

“Fuck off with that.”

“No, really! You’d be surprised how chivalrous cowboys can be.”

Taako studies his innocent expression, then jabs a finger in his nose. “Still can’t fool me with that poker face, thug.”

“Damn.” Despite the loss, he’s grinning so wide his jaw aches. “At least I can still hand your ass to you in Go Fish.”

“Go Fish is pure luck, that’s a loada bullshit,” Taako says.

He laughs, and Taako does too, and his gaze drops to Taako’s lips and he wonders —

Taako reaches out a hand, brushes a gentle thumb along Kravitz’s lips, palm perched lightly on his chin. “Chapped boys,” he murmurs, drawing a soft laugh from Kravitz. “All this time I thought you just had shitty chapstick, my man.”

“Nope, that was the — the ‘pneumonia.’” He draws verbal air quotes around the word, unwilling to move a muscle.

Taako’s fingers are soft against his lips. Everywhere skin meets skin trails a pathway of sparks that make Kravitz shiver. Kravitz watches him closely, catches the slight hitch in Taako’s breath, how his gaze follows the path his thumb traces gently; watches him lean in, slightly, and close his eyes.

This time it’s Kravitz’s turn to catch his breath. Taako’s brows are knit in anticipation and it would be rude, he thinks, giddy, to make him wait.

Taako’s lips are just as soft as his fingers. He makes a small noise when their mouths meet and reaches forward, running his hand along Kravitz’s cheeks and into his hair.

Kravitz lets them fall backward, tugging Taako along with him. Taako fits easily against his hip, the curve of his chest. Kravitz delights in running a hand along the planes of his back, the curve of his spine, up to cup his neck where the gentle touch makes Taako shudder in his arms. It’s everything he’d hoped for, and he lets out a fluttering sigh when they break apart.

“Hachi machi,” Taako says, breathless. Then he grins. “Man, I was missing out.”

“So was I,” Kravitz says. He pulls Taako more securely against him, the solid weight comforting against his chest, and has to fight back another yawn. He could go back to sleep like this, easily, the two of them twined close together.

Taako laughs softly against the corner of his jaw. “Lazy,” he murmurs.

“Fuck off,” Kravitz replies, just as soft. “I’ve wanted to do this for a long time.”

There’s a beat of silence, and Kravitz worries for a moment he’s said something wrong, but then one of Taako’s hands tucks more securely around his back and he says, “Yeah. I — I’m glad we can do this, Kravitz. I — ” Taako swallows, burying his nose in Kravitz’s collarbone, and then, so quietly Kravitz can hardly hear it. “I love you.”

Kravitz presses a kiss to Taako’s forehead, notices the contented tilt of Taako’s ears, the way his hands nestle perfectly in the small of Taako’s back; he thinks of the days and weeks before him and thinks, maybe, that his apartment is big enough for two. “I know.”

#taakitz #taz #taako #kravitz #hanahaki

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happy-little-ghost · 5 years

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Prompt # 5

"Due to a spelling error, a spell that was meant to summon a great and terrible entity has summoned you instead." By @docxie

Lucero.

To some extent, you're used to this. It happens every seven decades or so, when someone finally manages to get their hands on one of the few copies of Hapbesto's Institutes on All Things Unholy, or a partial transcript of it.

It's a shame Hapbesto himself never really tried the summoning. It would have saved you a lot of trouble, if you could have met him and explain the wrongs in his invocation. It used to make you mad, but in the past couple of centuries, you just feel sorry for the poor man. He had a firm grasp on Sanskipt, but only so much could be learned properly when self-taught, and while being chased after for his peculiar beliefs. Maybe he had meant to perform the ritual himself, but he'd been captured beforehand.

You'll never really know, but you've made your peace with it already. You have bigger issues to deal with these days anyway.

The summoning usually matches the passing of Halley's Comet. Mortals seem to believe it can only work out with the presence of a rare celestial occurrence, eventhough you know from experience it's not really a necessity. Still, it does kind of make the descent to Earth a tad more smooth. Halley's tail of her dress makes for a easy glide down an otherwise rusty slide when she runs off as fast as she came around, and you do -albeit silently- thank her for it.

Sometimes it's the only thing that makes the trip somewhat pleasant.

The scene you face as your essence reaches the ground is always similar, but the context is hardly ever the same. The candles and dead flowers are a given, and the peak reaping of the harvest is a nice touch when it's there. Someone always looks like they're about to faint when you materialize, and on some rare occasion, someone is waiting for you with a confident smile.

Said smile is bound to fall and turn into a confused frown shortly after. You once used to find it offensive, though by now you simply offer whoever is sporting it as much of an understanding smile as you can muster.

A bit of everything has stood in front of you. You've met chanting crowds, cocky priests, 'unamused' generals, baffled housewives, and a quite terrified teenager one memorable night, to name a few. They always want something; something that isn't generally the same, but that does usually go along the lines of being needed with a burning passion. Something they'd be willing to give up their soul over, which is why that one ritual instead of literally any other is performed.

You can't always give them what they want. There is only so much power you withhold, and you aren't really who they're looking after. Still, more often than not, you don't really want to; even if you could.

(You did lend a hand a couple of times, though. It didn't really harm anyone that you stayed there to help Lucas pull an all nighter for his SATs. You are kinda proud of that, he scored the highest note thanks to you after all.)

So yeah, the trip isn't usually all that pleasant, but at least it tends to be over quickly.

It's not really anyone's fault. Not even if you wanna blame Hapbesto. It's not much of a spelling mistake as it is a miss interpretation of what's being asked.

Sometimes it's easier. Sometimes they understand and they let you go. Halley winks at you as she dances her way past you like every other time, and you hope this will be one of those. You hope they won't throw you into some dungeon engraved with ancient locking spells that will take you a week to break through again. That's exhausting.

Most mortals believe "the brightest star in the firmament" to be him. The one who was cast aside, the one who fell hard and fast with no regret. The one who makes deals and keeps promises but always for a price.

Mortals have painted him in an ugly portrait for ages. You can't stand listening to them talk about him. You never could. Even those who claimed to worship him never really understood. Not like you did, never like you did.

They haven't really seen him like you have. They weren't held at the tip of his fingertips with reverence, nor looked at with the adoration he held in his eyes when they grazed upon you. They never felt the fire running within him, the ablazing grasp of his affection, or the strength in his love.

They don't know about the ache that wreaks through the semblance of a body you gain when your form turns corporeal, the same that keeps your glow eternal, hoping your beams reach beneath the surface of the prision he's been trapped in. They can't comprehend your yearning for his touch, his voice, his presence. All things ripped away from you for a claim that fell on deaf ears, one that he was punished for being voiced out loud.

But perhaps no other star ever did either. You were, after all, the lightbringer's favorite one.

#gee-writes #geewrites

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rosykims · 5 years

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DRAGON AGE QUESTIONS

tagged by: @nordxz thanks so much !!! *heart emoji*

favourite game of the series?

origins! although inquisition is very close as well. inquisition was my favourite for a very time, but like midway through last year i replayed origins and it just felt.....so good. i really struggled with enjoying dao because of the clunky fighting system but an amazing mutual introduced me to a mod that lets u skip fights basically lol, so i was just able to focus on the story/characters/exploration of the game, which just....made me realize how immensely beautiful the game actually is, and i fell in love all over again aaaaa

how did you discover dragon age?

i was a huge mass effect fan ! mass effect was the game that motivated me to make this blog, actually, and obviously through following people i saw a lot of posts from the da community as well. so i bought origins and inquisition (i had NO idea there was a da2 until half way through awakening lmao) and tried to play origins but HATED it gtrhutgrhugtr and then eventually gave it another try like a month later and completely loved it and now here we are

how many times you’ve played the games?

not as many times as some people on here have - i would say origins maybe four times, da2 maybe twice, inquisition three times. but that also doesnt count all the timesw ive created new games and then abandoned them lol bc theres too many to count

favourite race to play as?

love me some elf booty ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

favourite class?

at first it was rogue dual wielder ! i played as a rogue in every single first-time playthrough and idk i felt that class has always been the easiest/most op. but in the last maybe 2 years it’s changed to mage. ive always been super intimidated by magic classes in every game i play but i LOVE inquisition’s mage classes/specializations and i can never go back now

do you play through the games differently or do you make the same decisions each time?

im so so so bad and i usually end up making very similar choices, but usually bc i just......replay the same characters every time hgtuhgtruhgtrui. i REALLY need to make more da ocs to explore more choices but....i dont want to lol i already have to many. i still havent sided with the templars in a playthrough like i just cant do it

go-to adventuring group?

i always bring my characters love interest with them no matter what, just bc its cute, but usually i try to evenly cycle the other characters around that. i always try to have a warrior/rogue/mage in every party. but sometimes i’ll go warrior/warrior/mage/mage especially if i need to focus on straight damage and a LOT of healing lol

my favourite parties would probably be:

dao - alistair + zevran + wynne (wholesome and also funny)

da2 - anders + fenris + merrill (SO much chaotic energy)

dai - solas + cassandra + cole (i just love them ok)

which of your characters did you put the most thought into?

ashara lavellan, my canon inquisitor who was never supposed to be canon tghtgurhtrg. my original canon inq was a trevelyan rogue, who was super nice and good. i made ashara so that i could actually play as an evil/mean character without feeling bad lol, oh and i also wanted to see what the deal with solas was bc i had heard his romance was good ;;;;) anyway that backfired and i ended up completely falling in love with her, and i STILL couldnt make the tough choices with her so i was like ok maybe she isnt THAT evil and now shes just..... the way she is now i guess lmao

favourite romance?

trhhtruih okay u guys KNOW its solas. u know. i dont even have to say anythiing about it bc...u fucking know

(alistair’s is very close tho)

have you read any of the comics/books?

i havent :(((( im such a bad fan but i cannot deal with ordering online and thats the only place ive been able to find them. im planning on reading asunder and the masked empire as soon as i get the chance (and the money) tho !!

if you read them, which was your favourite book?

nope

favourite DLCs?

trespasser ! its pretty simple and very plot-driven like u didnt have to worry about side missions as much as u would with other dlcs so idk that was... refreshing. but obviously i loved it just bc it was so beautiful and intense and sad (since my chara romanced solas obviously) and that music score????? unbelievable i’ll never be over it

things that annoy you.

can i say the fandom trghuitgrhutrhui

mostly the thing that pisses me off the most is the grey morality. writers trying to make everything deep and Thought Provoking like..... no jerry, slavery IS bad theres no alternative viewpoint lol??????? also the fucking whitewashing makes me see red.

orlais or ferelden?

ferelden!!!!! (*blows a kiss* for highever)

templars or mages?

mages <3

if you have multiple characters, are they in different/parallel universes or in the same one?

i only have like 3 protag da characters and they’re all canon, although emeraude is an au. so ella is my canon warden and ashara is my canon inquisitor, but emeraude does exist in that universe, bc i hc she befriended the warden and alistair when they visited the alienage, and she was very outspokenly angry and didn’t really give a shit that alistair was going to be heir. which alistair really,,, appreciated i guess? so emeraude is made his official elven adviser after his coronation but she also kinda helps out as a royal protector because she’s one of the only people in court they both trust completely lol. also she is....stronk.

and the only other characters i have for da are obviously side characters who are related to my canon protags so. they’re all canon as well lol

what did you name your pets? (mabari, summoned animals, mounts, etc)

ella named her dog ser bark gthutgrhutghruihtr she thought it was cute ok

emeraude just went with barkspawn since alistair came up with the idea as a joke but she thought the joke was so bad she made them keep it as punishment vjhuightui

i dont really have a hawke oc but.....he named his dog shepard in my playthrough ! like from mass effect ;;;;)))

have you installed any mods?

origins is modded to hell and back and i genuinely couldn’t play the game without mods at this point. inquisition is slightly modded but im in the process of removing them all, and only keeping a few because my game runs pretty terribly with them installed

did your warden want to become a grey warden?

ella did ! but it was kind of,, a naive childhood dream, she had a really romanticized view of the wardens and she wanted a life of excitement and bravery and adventure, not really taking into consider all the bad things about it (and obviously not knowing the full truth about what it means to be a warden)

emeraude did NOT want to be a warden. she basically had to be dragged out of the alienage because she wanted to stay and protect her community. she never really enjoyed being a warden, although her friendship with alistair was its one redeeming quality

hawke’s personality?

uh i cant remember the colour/personality thing but he was a combo of funny/ethical. mostly there for memes tho.

did you make matching armor for your companions in inquisition?

for origins i do ! i always make sure alistair and ella wear the grey warden armour, as well as every warden in awakening. thats like, all theyre allowed to wear lmao.

if your character(s) could go back in time to change one thing, what would they change?

ella would obviously change her family’s murder lol, and emeraude would at least try and change what happened at her wedding, to prevent shianni and the others from being hurt.

ashara would change romancing solas :((( she was so angry at herself after discovering who he was, and she felt weak and foolish which she HATES more than any other feeling, so she definitely wishes she had never met him for a long time. after she kind of processes it though, and learns to deal with her anger, her answer would be that she wishes she had saved the chargers. it’s the one move she made that actually keeps her up at night sometimes.

do you have any headcanons about your character(s) that go against canon?

ghuitrhuigtrhugtr so many. canon? dont know her.

the biggest example would be that i hc king!alistair was at the winter palace during the wicked hearts level. because uh..... celene and the fereldan monarchs had been corrosponding for over 10 years, trying to build up rapport, of COURSE the king would be there to see who the potential ruler/s of orlais would be and whether or not he ought to be worried. like. im sorry but alistair was there lol you can’t change my mind. i also hc he helps ashara with information about the grey wardens during this chapter, because ???? it just makes sense??? im so angry i wish this was canon

are any of your characters based on someone?

ok it was unintentional but ashara reminds me of an english teacher i had in highschool who was very scary but also....really cool and i loved her. it was an accident but,, still counts.

who did you leave in the fade?

gtiturghtugh okay at the risk of pissing off EVERYBODY who reads this, i left hawke in the fade, even though it was a toss up between hawke and stroud. it was ashara’s fault tho !!! she would have 100% prioritzed an alliance with the grey wardens over like,, some guy. it broke my heart but yeah That happened.

favourite mount?

i like all the elk mounts mostly ! but i never use them bc they sound ugly af

tagging : @trvelyans @f3nharel @allisondraste @ensevens @tethraas @talizorah @fereldun if u are up to it <3 and whoever else wants to do this !

#/ long post #sorry this is so long i got carried away oops #dai #dao #da2 #personal

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