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bokunoheroanalysisforthefuture · 3 years

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Hello hello to all the new followers! However you came across this blog, thanks for being willing to put this on your dashboards. I still have half of this chapter left to go, but hopefully I’ll be able to knock out a larger chunk of it since it’s gonna flow better… at the least, I’ll try to get to where Episode 1 of the anime cuts off.

...huh, damn, now I’m curious about exploring differences between anime and manga… I don’t have time for that, this manga thing is already more of a time-eater than expected… plus considering how many chapters I need to get through… yeah no, I will leave anime-manga comparison to others.

Anyways, into today’s pages! I wanna get this chapter done this week!

[No. 1 - Midoriya Izuku: Origin]

...you, I’m gonna translate you.

[transliteration of sign: 頭上 (zujou) [overhead] 注意 (chuui) [caution, being careful, attention (heed), warning, advice]

[Translation: caution, overhang 2m]

I mean, it’s obvious because of the context, but now I know how to pronounce it! And I guess you guys can as well. No, I will not be ashamed of spending fifteen minutes on this. I’m probably gonna stay in the habit of translating stuff as I come across it.

Anyways, to the chapter itself. Izuku doesn’t do that ‘All Might impression’ thing here like he does in the anime, just basically hypes himself up with grit teeth and determination. Which is a shame, but it makes sense since that sort of thing would look/turn out better in animation anyways. Still a little weird he had a flashback there, but like whatever, it’s supposed to give readers context into the setting and character, this whole opening chapter’s gonna be a bit weird like that.

The villain comes up out from the holes in the sewer grate, and holy fuck does this come off as just a bit of a horror manga, if I saw that I’d be terrified.

You know, out of context this is REALLY disturbing… no wait, in context this is disturbing too, nevermind. But yeah, look at that terrified kid, that is not the face he was wearing earlier against Katsuki, making it even more obvious that he wasn’t scared at that point.

The villain pounces on and envelops Izuku, covering his nose and mouth and making Izuku realize he’s been attacked by, you know, a villain. Which I would share the image of, but honestly it’s graphic as hell, if you wanna see it go look at the manga yourselves.

Yeah, it’s a wonder Izuku didn’t have nightmares for months after this, or have issues with water or potentially drowning/suffocating. Also, honestly, with this hijacking the body thing, I’m looking at the amount of mass of the sludge and the size of Izuku, and I have to remind myself again that this is a shounen manga with urban fantasy magic, logic isn’t a concern here.

But yeah, the villain is super vague about who the ‘he’ he’s avoiding is, while Izuku is frantically trying to scrape at the sludge to no effect. Also, after being in the sewers, that HAS to be some nasty gunk, yikes, how did Izuku not come down with something?

Izuku’s struggles makes him drop his charred notebook while panicking about his death and begging someone to come save him. The book flips open to his conceptual hero costume, which we know is going to end up the ‘first’ version of his costume, though obviously it’s going to undergo some revisions as the series progresses (which is a small thing I like about the series a lot). If I recall right, this is also what prototype!Izuku’s costume was going to look like!

Fortunately for Izuku, in the next page All Might punches his way up out of the sewers, letting both the villain and Izuku know he’s there, and- god, I wouldn’t trust those groceries for any sort of safe consumption, even if they are… two bottles?? That’s it?? What-

Sure, whatever, two bottles of soda, I guess, isn’t that not good for people who have had their stomach removed because of too much sugar or something? Is him being down a stomach even actually canon or just popular fanon? I suppose we’ll find out soon enough.

Anyways, All Might showed up and punched the villain away from Izuku, basically only hitting with the shockwave to avoid hurting the kid too much. Also, we get this gem of a face:

Incredible.

Izuku passes out, and wakes up a bit later to All Might slapping his face, which like, sir, sir, that’s not how you take care of a victim of a villain attack that definitely isn’t an allegory for another kind of assault. But yeah, All Might is sort of out of ‘character’ while waiting for Izuku to get up, and then shoves himself back into it once Izuku’s awake, which is… interesting, and makes sense.

Izuku naturally freaks out, and All Might does a pose while apologizing for his mistakes and explaining his sloppiness with the villain - he’s new to the area, and besides that, he’s ‘off camera’. Which, yeah, you really get the sense this is his TV persona pushed forward. He also thanks Izuku for success in finally containing the villain, and Izuku gives us this hilarious gem:

Ah, meta jokes. Izuku looks around for his notebook for an autograph, only to see it’s already been signed. He bows enthusiastically and says he’ll keep it as a family heirloom, and All Might heads off to take the villain in and to ‘catch him again on tv’.

Izuku wants him to wait, because he still has something to ask, but All Might says he’s got no time, and crouches to jump away, with just a shot of Izuku’s desperate face before All Might takes off, the ‘thanks for your support’ dragging after him like the words themselves couldn’t keep up, and again that is just a cool fucking effect and use of shape and warping to give effects otherwise not possible in text and just- gah, I love comic/manga art for these reasons, so freaking cool!

You’re an all star.

Sorry not sorry. But yeah, the bottles are still there in his pockets - his definitely totally secure open pockets. Honestly, with or without Izuku, he might have dropped those bottles because what the fuck All Might.

All Might tries to shove Izuku off until Izuku reminds him that he will die if he falls, which gets him to pause and go ‘true enough!’ Izuku says he’s got a lot of things to ask, and All Might asks him to close his eyes and mouth to avoid the wind drag. All Might coughs and grunts, with a drop of blood escaping from between his teeth, and him swearing about it.

Onto the next page, and we have some background kanji that I am definitely going to waste time translating, because that’s just who I am.

Top windows/hanging sign: 卜 (uranai) [divination, fortune telling] 黄葉 (kouyou/momiji) [autumn/fall colors, leaves changing color, layered colors in garments (resembling autumn colors)]

[rough translation: fortunate garments / lucky coloring.]

I’m gonna assume this is something to go with Japanese culture and their beliefs around what certain colors mean.

Middle banner/hanging sign: Su/Ta/De [study]

Not confident at this one but I cannot grok how messy those katakana are and so I just have given up on that for now. If someone can confirm, that’d be sweet of you.

Lower windows/hanging sign: [事]務所 (jimusho) [office]

Lower banner: Ma/a/ke/t/to [Market]

Shop overhang: Fu/ra/shi/[mu?] [Flashy] 喫茶 (kissa) [teahouse/coffee shop/cafe]

Flashy Cafe makes sense, but I’m not confident in the katakana when we can only see three of them and no way to know about modifiers,,,

Victory.

Alright, now that I’m done crying over that, onto actual chapter analysis. We get the ‘whoosh’ of something falling, before seeing the POV of the sludge guy coming back to consciousness, frustrated with All Might, and we also get a peek at some kids approaching… aka Katsuki and his minions.

First off, the branding on the can is hilarious and weirdly suited to the situation. Secondly, you can just see Katsuki kicking the bottle in the bottom left corner there, which probably knocks it open for, you know, the upcoming events. And huh, both of the minions smoke, which Katsuki chastises with displeasure in the panel after next.

So Katsuki blames Izuku for ‘messing with him’ and that Izuku being ‘full of stupid dreams like when they were kids’ pisses him off. Which he emphasises by blowing up the can in his hand. I wonder if that’s meant to be a reference to him thinking Izuku’s just paying lip service to being a hero just to annoy Katsuki, at least in his POV?

But yeah, Katsuki shakes his hand after that - which meant he DID feel some backlash for blowing up a can in his hand, or perhaps the superheating of the metal before it went? Either way, backlash! He turns back to yell at the two about their smoking and how it’d go on his record, and the two freak out and point behind Katsuki, before we go to their POV:

But yeah, another decent stopping point here. There should only be two posts after this for chapter 1, based on my skimming of the rest of the pages. I really want to have the All Might convo separate, and then the whole sludge fight and aftermath… but we’re getting there! :D

#chapter 1 #readthrough #opening arcs #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #midoriya izuku #yagi toshinori #bakugou katsuki #not the best post but it has some cute moments #the last two posts though are gonna be whammies #yeah I do waste time translating stuff that doesn't need translation #no i will not take constructive criticism about it #anyways hope y'all are having a good day #:D

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atamascolily · 3 years

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Shield of Lies, continued.

What would my mother think of me? he wondered, and it was the first time such a thought had ever confronted him.

Luke, you really suck at introspection, don’t you? Like... NEVER in TEN YEARS have you EVER wondered about your mother? Sigh.

Shortly after the reorganization of the government, Nanaod Engh had given Luke keys to most of the real treasures of the New Republic—the central data libraries maintained by various branches of the General Ministry. Thanks to Admiral Ackbar’s intervention, Luke also carried the highest-grade security clearance held by any civilian.

Between the two, Luke had—potentially—a great deal of information at his fingertips. But the access he had been granted was a courtesy, not a necessity. Luke’s most urgent curiosities were in areas of little interest to bureaucracies, and he had never found reason to make much use of the favors extended him.

But he found himself with reason now.

Speaking of lack of imagination.... SIGH.

Luke returned to the pilot’s couch and curled up sideways in it. “How do people become part of the circle?”

“Curiosity is not sufficient—which I hazard you know. Some are born to it. Some come to it. Is it any different in your discipline?”

“Born with the gift, do you mean, or born to someone who already belongs, to a trained adept?”

“Is the gift not in the blood?”

“Sometimes it seems that way. Sometimes it seems as if the talent goes wild, almost as if the Force chooses its own,” Luke said, turning on his back and propping one foot on the control panel.

“Why, what do you mean?”

“Look at the way the Jedi are coming back,” said Luke. “The Empire hunted us so relentlessly that most everyone who escaped thought they were the only Jedi left. But it isn’t just that a few solitaries who were hiding have resurfaced. I’ve found students with no family history whatsoever, in species that were never represented before in the Order.”

“Some of your number may have been adventurous travelers,” said Akanah. “On Carratos, I heard many jokes about how the Emperor spent his evenings. If a Jedi sleeps alone, surely it must be by choice, as it is with you.”

LOL, Akanah doesn’t know about Callista. Or Gaeriel. Or anything else about Luke’s messed-up love life.

“Are you saying that you expected me to warm a bed with you?” Luke said. “I didn’t think that was our bargain.”

“No,” she said. “I never expected that.”

“Then what are you saying?”

“That Luke Skywalker could have a hundred children by now. A thousand.”

“That’s crazy.”

“No—that’s the simple truth. There are different rules for heroes and royalty, and you’re seen as a little of both. You can’t be unaware of that.”

Luke frowned and looked away. “I don’t know how to be a father to one child, much less a thousand.”

“You wouldn’t need to know,” she said. “Their mothers wouldn’t expect it. They would be grateful enough for the gift.”

“I’d expect it of me,” he said, and firmly steered the conversation back on course. “We were talking about my being an honorary member of the circle—”

Again, I’m surprised by Luke’s lack of imagination--and offers--given how people at the spaceport viewed him. Did none of them really think, “I would totally bang this dude?” WHY IS HE SO SURPRISED?

Also Luke, just say “fuck,” it’s okay, I promise.

“We were talking about my being an honorary member of the circle—”

“Not honorary,” she corrected. “Novice.”

“Novice, then. But there’s an exception in your oath for people like me?”

“Every adept has the right to judge and the duty to teach,” she said. “I’ve made my judgment.”

“And the rest?” Luke asked. “We’ve had many hours together—why haven’t you started to teach me?”

“But I have,” she said. “I’ve asked you to think about what you know and believe. To go beyond that, the novice must ask for the door to be opened. But you aren’t ready to think of yourself as a student again—not yet. You run too well and easily to go back to crawling.”

#accurate. Luke spends most of this book so convinced he knows everything and yet he can’t figure out why he’s so stuck in a rut.

“No,” Luke said, shaking his head. “To be a Jedi is to be a seeker. A Jedi is always learning. It’s only on the dark side that one becomes obsessed with knowing, and impressed with doing.”

“There’s a touch of the dark side,” Akanah said slowly, “in the way you cling to the privilege of killing, and resist the teaching I’ve offered you. A hint of a mind that has settled on answers and resents being challenged with new questions.”

Luke toyed with the lacing on his longshirt as he considered her words. “You may be right,” he said finally. “I found the Force at a time when what I needed was power. I wanted a weapon to protect my friends, not enlightenment. I was thinking of war against the Empire, not peace with the universe. Perhaps something of that lingers in how I see myself. I’ll think on it.”

“Good,” she said. “Your words give me hope. And hope is the beginning of everything worthwhile.”

I have no idea how the chronology lines up with the other plots and honestly it’s hard to care. This is the most interesting part of the book to me, and I’m STILL reeling at how late in the game this is.

He then took advantage of the open space inside the bay to work his first complete set of Jedi training drills since leaving Coruscant. Working both with and without his lightsaber, he patiently went through the complex exercises which brought him to a profound state of restful clarity.

It was in this state that he felt most keenly the truth and the wisdom of the simple words: There is no emotion; there is peace. There is no ignorance; there is knowledge. There is no passion; there is serenity. There is no death; there is the Force. The peace, the knowledge, and the serenity were gifts that came with his surrender to the Force and with his connection through the Force to all that was.

Sustaining that clarity was always the challenge. In the isolation of a Dagobah, the Jundland Wastes, or a hermitage on a frozen shore, an experienced Jedi could preserve that inner state indefinitely.

But the chaos of the real world was another matter. When ego returned, so did will. The surrender became tainted, the connection flawed. The clarity gradually slipped away under the continuous assault of elementary drives and passions. Even the greatest of the masters needed to perform the practice regularly lest they lose the discipline that made them what they were.

GAH. WHY IS IT ALWAYS DUALITY WITH YOU, KUBE-MCDOWELL? WHAT ABOUT A MIDDLE WAY BETWEEN THE “TAINTED WORLD” AND “PURITY OF ISOLATION”. What about “entering the market-place with gift-bestowing hands”? And nothing ever stays the same “indefinitely”!!!!!

The drills were as much a test for the body as for the mind, and the docking bay’s newly sanitized shower brought a blissful peace to muscles that were telling Luke they had not been properly exercised in too long. He stood for a long time in the place where the six needle jets converged, letting the water flowing down his body become another meditation.

Yeah, maybe you should have thought of that in your hermitage-quarantine-sulk thing??

I’d forgotten about the bookstore full of Jedi forgeries!!!

The offerings included Emperor Palpatine’s Principles of Power, a private publication for Imperial Moffs; the Sith book of offerings and rituals; the H’kig book of laws; and the secrets of forming Bilar-type claqa group-minds, among others—with a special discount if Luke took any three or more. Most of the documents were undoubtedly frauds, and none tempted Luke beyond idle curiosity over the skillfulness of the fraud.

And the Jabba’s palace re-creation OH MY GOODNESS:

But making his way to the outgate, Luke turned a corner and was taken aback by the brilliantly lit exterior of a club bar called Jabba’s Throne Room. Performing Nightly—The Original Max Rebo Band, said the scroll. Visit Jabba’s Guest Quarters with a Pleasure Slave. Face the Mighty Rancor in the Pit of Death—

Driven by an outraged curiosity, Luke joined the line and paid the membership charge without haggling. Inside, he descended a curving flight of stairs into a remarkably faithful copy of the throne room in Jabba’s desert palace on Tatooine. Some of the dimensions had been stretched to accommodate more tables in front of the bandstand and around the rancor pit, but the architecture and atmosphere were authentic.

“Why, it’s just like the Palace Museum,” [he] said to the tall and elegantly dressed Twi’lek barring the way at the bottom of the stairs.

“I’m afraid my master Jabba is away on business,” said the Bib Fortuna look-alike, nodding toward the empty dais. “But I’m having a little party in his absence, and I hope you’ll enjoy yourself.” His head-tails stirred in signal, and one of the scantily clad dancing girls hurried to him.

“Yes, Lord Fortuna,” the server said.

“Oola, this is a friend of mine,” said the major-domo. “Treat him well. Find him a seat at my best table.”

The same fiction was carried through everywhere else—an Ortolan keyboardist leading a jizz-wailer trio on the bandstand, the roaring of the rancor underfoot, an annoying Kowakian monkey-lizard skittering around the room stealing food and cackling rudely, even a carbon-frozen Han Solo hanging in the display alcove. But a busy kitchen was concealed down the corridor to the servant’s quarters, and the price card “Oola” left for him included various services available upstairs in the guest quarters and downstairs in Jabba’s dungeon.

It was tasteless and exploitative, but the music was surprisingly agreeable, the roast nerf was tantalizing, and the clientele was markedly more subdued than their counterparts out on the walks. [He] ordered a drink and the executioner’s cut of nerf, refused all other offers with a polite smile, and settled in to discover the truth quotient of The Secrets of the Jedi.

Shortly after his meal arrived, Luke’s consciousness was pricked by hearing a familiar name spoken at a nearby table: Leia’s. He looked up, fearing that the evening’s entertainment at Jabba’s Throne Room would be a dance by a slave-girl-Leia look-alike. But the band was on a break and the transparisteel dance platform over the rancor pit deserted.

I’m honestly surprised this isn’t at Galaxy’s Edge, tbh.

Shortly after, a holographic Jabba made an appearance on the dais above the main floor. That signaled the start of an elaborately scripted show that promised to involve not only “Bib Fortuna” and the dancers, but additional actors and the audience as well.

Luke took that as his cue to leave. His decision was affirmed when, climbing up the curving stairs to the street, he encountered the bounty hunter Boushh coming down them with an unconvincing Chewbacca in tow.

“Aren’t you a little short for a Wookiee?” he muttered under his breath as they passed.

LOL. Anyway, here’s some stuff on archives searches in the GFFA:

From Carratos he requested any information available from newsgrid, political, or police records on Akanah Norand Pell, Andras Pell, and Talsava. He sent the same query to Coruscant’s criminal records office and citizen registry and to the home offices of both the Coruscant Global Newsgrid and the New Republic Prime Newsgrid.

From the New Republic Reference Service, he requested a quickreport on naming conventions on Lucazec and Carratos, thinking he might parse another lead from the names in hand.

A second request to the same source asked for five-hundred-word excerpts from all matches on the key words “Fallanassi” and “White Current.” After a short debate with himself, and despite the pathetic and sensational inaccuracies of Secrets of the Jedi, Luke also contacted an information broker on Atzerri and paid a hundred credits for a search on the same keys.

He also requested a Current Terms & Conditions brochure from the chief librarian’s office on Obroa-skai. The library computers there were the only resource offering both a greater variety and a greater volume of records than those held by Coruscant.

But Obroa-skai’s generosity with its planetary treasure was limited. To protect against theft of the library, and to provide the resources needed to maintain it, accessing the records meant either going to Obroa-skai or hiring one of the library’s own trained contract researchers.

In either case, Obroa-skai was not a resource one turned to for quick answers. The official language of New Republic recordkeeping was Basic, and everything held by Coruscant was kept in one of several readily searchable data specifications. But the Obroa-skai library was a collection of primary documents, in ten thousand storage formats and uncountable languages. The most complete general index covered only fifteen percent of the library’s holdings, and all the specialty indexes combined added only a few percent to that.

Those were the principal reasons why the brochure—which Luke received within minutes of requesting it, as the first response to any of his inquiries—reported that a normal single-part library search was averaging eight days. The waiting list for terminal time was holding at fifteen days, and the backlog for contract researchers had climbed to seventy.

LOL. I should definitely use that in a fic at some point.

#star wars #eu fuckery #the black fleet crisis

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loridrabbles · 5 years

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Commander Cody x medic!Reader

Request: Can you do a fic of Cody's s/o taking care of the scar on his face when he got it?

yuh

You sat the hangar of the Malevolence, very impatiently waiting for the return of the 212th. Being a doctor has its pros and cons. Pros being you were one of the first to greet the soldiers as they returned from their excursion, cons being, well you were the first to greet them and that usually meant watching some die from wounds they got during battle before anyone was able to help them. You knew there was likely nothing that could have been done anyways, but it was still difficult.

As the transport ship landed, you were relieved to see very few soldiers limping or being brought in on gurneys. Most of those who were injured could make their way to the med center by themselves and wait for someone to bandage a small wound or brace a broken bone.

You scanned their faces, now being able to tell them apart...kind of, for Commander Cody. A few troopers knew of your relationship and didn't care much, but Cody liked to keep things behind closed doors. Even though he was rather reserved when it came to giving affection, he still made it a point to give you a hug or kiss on the cheek when he got back, so you knew where he was. The last transport was emptied, bu you still didn't catch him. Looking around the hangar, you saw Waxer and Boil in the middle of a conversation.

"Hey, Waxer, Boil. Where's Cody? Is he alright? I haven't seen him anywhere." You asked jogging over to them.

"Uhh I know he's around here somewhere." Boil looked around the room for his commander. "He was on the same transport as us."

"I think he slipped away to his room. He got hit pretty bad." Waxer said.

"Why didn't he come to the med center? He knows I could've taken care of it." You asked crossing your arms.

"Beats me." Waxer shrugged his shoulders.

"He did seem to be in a little bit of a daze. Some droid hit him in the face when he had his helmet off talking to us."

"It was crazy." Waxer piped up again. "He had shot that commando right in the chest and it popped back to life a few seconds later."

"Oh no. I'm gonna go find him and make sure he's ok." You said, walking away and quickly making your way to Cody's room. You stepped in the doorway and noticed some bloody rags on the table in the entryway.

"Cody?' You called. I was kind of dark in the small living area, but you could see light coming from the refresher. "Hun, you ok? I heard you got hurt out there."

"Uhh. I'll be ok." He said stepping out of the refresher holding another rag to his face. "Just need to stop the bleeding that's all."

"Come here. Let me see." You took his free hand and brought him into the bedroom, sitting him on the edge of the bed. You took the rag off his face as you sat next to him. There was a huge gash leading from his temple, around his eye, and down his cheek, blood continuing to pour from it. "Jeez, Cody! What happened?"

"Uhg, I honestly don't remember too much. Just that some droid got me pretty bad."

"You're gonna need some stitches. Hold that. I'll be right back." You told him to take the rag, got up off the bed and left the room. A few minutes later, you returned with a first aid pack and a suture kit.

"You're lucky I don't drag you down to the center to clean you up." You said laughing. You took the rag again and threw it away, then took a clean, wet cloth and wiper away the old, dried blood.

"Gah!" He pulled away, wincing.

"Sorry. I've got to clean this, Code." You said pitifully, taking his chin in your free hand to steady his head. "Just a little more." You finished cleaning him up, pulled out the suture kit, and threaded the needle.

"Do I *really* need stitches?" He asked.

"Yes, but only a few. I can use butterfly closures for the rest and I'll have to use glue around your eye."

"Good. I've had enough pain in my face for one day." He laughed.

"Hold still." You said, lining up the needle. After stitching up his cheek, you tended to the rest of the wound. "Looks pretty good if I do say so myself." You said leaning back, admiring your work. "A medical masterpiece."

"Heh." He chucked, looking a little dazed.

"You alright."

"Just a little dizzy." He said, holding his hand up to his forehead as if trying to steady himself.

"Hmm. Does the room look blurry to you?" You asked. He examined his surroundings slowly before answering.

"Yeah. A little."

"Feel anything else besides dizzy?"

"Tired. Kinda nauseous." He thought for a minute before getting up. "But I have to go debrief my men. Thanks for patching me up, love." He gave you a kiss on the forehead and started towards to door, only to be stopped by you grabbing his wrist. The sudden stop in his movement made him stumble.

"Wait a minute. You're not going anywhere. You have a concussion." You said, not letting go of him. "I'm sure Obi-Wan can take care of it."

"But-"

"Doctor's orders." You kissed him on the jaw and took his helmet from under his arm and set it on the table by the door. "You need to rest. No light, no reading, no nothing for a day or two."

"(Y/n), I can't do that. I have work to do."

"You can and you will. Come on. Get in bed." You said, reaching up and unbuckling is chest plate. He sighed and continued taking off his armor. "I'll go talk to Obi-Wan. You better he here when I get back."

"Yes, doctor. I'm not going anywhere." He said sarcastically.

Cody finished removing the remainder of his armor and changed into his grey boxers and a GAR tshirt. Just the simplest motion of pulling his shirt over his head made the room around him spin.

He turned on the fan for some white noise to drown out the ringing in his ears and stared at the ceiling. Staring at the panels above him just made him more nauseous and they spun. He closed his eyes and only opened them when he felt you stir next to him.

"(Y/n)? I didn't even hear you come in." He groaned.

"Cody, its morning. You fell asleep before I came back from speaking with Obi-Wan." You said, sounding just as groggy.

He looked over at the clock which read about 9 o'clock. He took a deep breath and rubbed his right eye.

"How are you feeling?" You asked.

"Well, I'm not dizzy or nauseous anymore, but I've still got a killer headache." He pushed himself up off the bed and leaned against the headboard. "This wound is killing me too."

"Aww I'm sorry." You said sitting up as well. "It's probably going to feel like that for a while." He pulled you close to him so he could look you in the face.

"At least I've got you to take care of me." He said, smiling tenderly and stroking your cheek. "Thank you, dear. I love you."

"I love you too, Cody. Don't scare me like that again." You said nestling against his chest. "Next time you get hurt come find me. But, there better not be a next time."

He chuckled. "I can't make any promises."

#star wars #clone troopers #the clone wars #clones #swtcw #clone trooper x reader #clone commander cody #commander cody x reader #star wars fanfiction #star wars imagine #my fanfic #my fanfiction #my fic

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annoyed-galaxy · 5 years

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White Flame

Fictober Promp IV

"I know you didn't ask for this."

Fandom: Enderal

Rating: T

Warnings: Death (You might cry. Because I did while writing this.)

---

Clerissa's head pounded. She barely remembered what happened. She only knew that Arantheal went to ignite the Beacon.

The Aeterna tried pushing herself up, but her arms were too weak. Her eyes fluttered close before she heard a portal open in front of her. She slowly opened her eyes and saw the Veiled Woman appearing above her. The Woman waved her hand and Clerissa's body began to heal.

She managed to push herself onto her knees. The Woman motioned to the portal. "This was not supposed to happen."

She faded and the portal was calling the Prophetess. Clerissa pushed herself onto her feet and slowly walked toward the portal. She entered a cold cave and a breeze caused her to shiver in her shadow steel armor.

Clerissa walked around the corner and gasped at the sight before her.

A giant machine was elevated in front of her. Clerissa hesitantly stepped towards the machine and to the control panel before it. A voice rang out around the cave and caused her to jump.

"Who are you?"

Clerissa looked at the face of the machine, believing it was the source of the machine. "My name is Clerissa."

"How did you get down here?"

"The Veiled Woman opened a portal for me."

"The-" the machine's voice cut off. "No. This is impossible. If you're here then that means..." It sounded as if the machine sighed. "The Cleansing is happening."

Clerissa nodded sadly. "Tealor Arantheal went to ignite the Beacon without the Numinos."

"Fool. It is too late."

Clerissa raised her eyebrows. "What do you mean?" she asked.

The machine began to explain to her what the Cleansing was all about, how mankind cause the Cleansing, how the Cleansing creates a new High One and how they have no power other than manipulation. The machine also told Clerissa that she was not truly alive. That she died when she was thrown off the ship after Sirius' death.

Clerissa leaned against the pole behind her. Arantheal had just begun the end of the world.

"Is there a way to stop it?" she asked, her voice soft.

"No. But there may be a way to escape it. The Star City. If you can get there, then you may be safe. Safe long enough to wait for the Cleansing to happen and then warn the new civilization."

"But everyone here would die?"

"Yes. The world would perish, a new High One would rise. But if you escape, you could guide the new world into destroying them. You could become their god."

Clerissa shook her head. "I don't want to be a god. And I don't want to do something like that on my own." Clerissa paused for a moment. "Jespar Dal'Varek...you said you can see everything on the surface...is he...is he alive?"

The machine was quiet for a few seconds before answering. "No."

Clerissa cried out. She slumped to her knees and couldn't stop the overwhelming feeling of grief that fell on her.

"I see he meant much to you."

Clerissa could not answer. Her eyes were full of tears.

"You won't have to do it alone," the machine offered. "If you press the button in front of you, I can guide you, help you."

Clerissa looked at the machine's face and thought for a moment, her tears drying.

She stood up and wiped her face before pressing the button. She wondered what was going to happen for a few seconds before she was pulled against the pull. She could not move and she felt her soul begin to leave her body. "What's happening?!" she shouted.

"I have waited eons for this. I've had many names, the most recent being the Black Guardian. But now, I will take your place. You don't want this. I do. I will become a god. Don't worry, when the new civilization rises and I have trained them, I will send someone to fetch you."

Clerissa screamed as she felt herself fade into the machine.

Then she heard an explosion and was released from the pole. She dropped to her knees and gasped. The Black Guardian roared.

"Cler!"

Clerissa looked behind her to see the man she had just cried over.

"Jes!" she cried out. She rushed to her feet and ran towards the man.

He picked her up in his arms, throwing the bow he held to the ground. He gave her a kiss and she returned it before he dropped her on the ground.

"I thought you were dead!" Cler breathed out.

Jespar shook his head. "No, Tealor and Yuslan had blocked the entrance so I couldn't get in. Had to find a way around when I bumped into this Veiled Woman. I'm guessing the one who brought me back to life after Adila."

Clerissa nodded. "I assume she sent you this way?"

Jespar nodded.

The Black Guardian roared again and machines began to rise from the pipes in the ground. "HOW DARE YOU!"

Jespar and Clerissa turned towards the machine.

"I WAS GOING TO BECOME A GOD!"

"No you weren't," Clerissa growled.

"It is too late. You can't save Vyn this time. It's over!"

Clerissa frowned. "I can. You said the ignition of the Beacon will cause the Cleansing." Jespar unsheathed his daggers and Clerissa followed suit, unsheathing her sword and casting electricity in her left hand. The machines advanced and Clerissa lashed out with her magic, the electricity stunning them before they continued.

"Go after the generators," Jespar nodded towards the large machines on both sides of the Black Guardian. "I'll keep these things occupied."

Clerissa nodded before running and jumping over the machines, using some of their heads as purchase for another jump. She reached one of the generators and channeled all her magic into a single bolt of lighting that destroyed the generator. A few more machines rose and began to swing at her with their metal sword arms. Clerissa ducked and chopped their arms off with her sword. "Gotta love shadow steel," she whispered to herself. She spun through them cutting the machines in half before running to the other generator.

"STOP HER!" shouted the Black Guardian.

Clerissa channeled the rest of her magic into one giant bolt and launched it at the final generator. It exploded in electrical energy. She managed to throw a shield over Jespar in time before getting thrown agaisnt the cave wall.

The machines fell and Jespar looked around. His shield disappeared and he rushed over to Clerissa. "Cler!" The Aeterna's eyes fluttered open.

"I'm...good."

Jespar helped her to her feet.

"So what was that all about?" he asked.

Clerissa took a deep breath before explaining everything the Black Guardian had said. "Even though he tried betraying me, I don't think he was lying," Clerissa finished.

Jespar nodded. "I hope not. If there's a chance that we can kill the High Ones, we have to take it. But there is nothing left for us. We are the only ones who can make it."

Clerissa nodded.

It took them a short amount of time to make it back to the Undercity. Jespar had cried out once they reached the area and white veins shot through his body. "I think the closer to the surface we get, the worse it gets," he said rubbing his head. He looked Clerissa up and down. "The Black Guardian was right. You aren't affected."

Clerissa looked down at herself and he was right. She felt no pain, but she could fell herself fading. "This entire time...I had wanted to die after what happened to me in Nehrim but..." Clerissa looked at Jespar, her eyes filled with sadness. "After you, I never wanted that to happen."

Jespar nodded sadly. "This makes me wonder...have I fallen in love with an illusion? Have you really been here?"

They looked at each other unstreadily before simultaneously grabbing hands. "You feel real enough," he whispered.

Clerissa squeezed his hands. "Come on, I'll teleport us back to the temple." Jespar nodded and closed his eyes as Clerissa summoned the last of her magic and teleported them back to the temple.

As soon as they were in the courtyard, Jespar collapsed to his knees. "Gah! It's...too much!" Clerissa picked the mercenary up in her arms before rushing to where the pods were. She helped him into one before stepping back. She had an idea in her head and she knew he wouldn't agree with it.

"How long can you hold on?" she asked.

Jespar hissed as another jolt of pain went through him. "Not...long."

Clerissa clicked her tongue and quickly ran back into the Temple's courtyard.

She looked around and saw the bodies of so many familiar people. She saw Lexil. He was gone. Clerissa clapped her hand to her mouth to try and stop the tears. She continued towards the Beacon and tried to ignore all the souls that were floating towards the sky.

She cried out when she saw Tharael hunched over a body. "Thae!"

The Aeterna turned his head. White lines were fading across his face, but he was still here. "Cler!" he called out.

She ran towards him and stopped suddenly when she saw the body he was hunched over. "Calia," Clerissa gasped.

The young Keeper turned her head. The girl barely had any flesh. She was all bones. She was dying. "Sa'Ira," Calia managed to make out. Clerissa kneeled next to her. "Did you do it? Are we saved?"

Clerissa looked at Tharael and saw in his purple eyes the same question. Clerissa looked down at Calia. "There is a way. I will do it. Rest now Calia. Please."

Calia grabbed for Clerissa's hand and squeezed. She smiled. "I knew...I believe in you." Calia's eyes slowly closed and her hand loosened.

Clerissa cried out, tears rushing from her eyes. Tharael looked down, silently carrying out his grief, then he hissed in pain. Clerissa looked at him and knew what she had to do.

"Thae come with me," Clerissa said as she grabbed the Aeterna's hand. She rushed Tharael into the room with the pods. Jespar looked up in surprise.

"Hey...you're...still alive," the mercenary smiled. Tharael nodded before hissing in pain again, in time with Jespar.

Clerissa opened the second pod and ushered Tharael in. "Is there another one?" the Aeterna asked.

Clerissa stepped back and smiled sadly while she shook her head. Jespar looked at her his brows furrowed. "Cler what are you doing?"

Clerissa looked sadly at her lover. "The Beacon can be destroyed. Lexil had said if we did so without the Numinos, it would destroy Enderal. I can feel the Cleansing. It isn't as bad on other continents as it is on Enderal. I can stop the Cleansing for now. Then you guys can warn the rest of Vyn and destroy the High Ones."

Jespar and Tharael just stared at Clerissa with blank expressions.

"No," Tharael shook his head, " I won't allow it." He went to leave the pod but Clerissa shook her head and flung her hand out to his pod door.

The door shut in his face and Tharael began banging against the door angrily. Clerissa could hear his muffled protests. "I'm sorry," Clerissa whispered, tears beginning to creep out. She reached forward and placed a kiss on Jespar's lips. This would be the last time they were ever together. "I'm already dead," she whispered against his lips. "It won't hurt. Please don't forget me Jes. After all the pain and suffering in my life, you were the greatest thing to happen to me."

Jespar went to argue but she silenced him with another kiss. He was too weak to fight her when she pulled away.

"I know you didn't ask for this, this pain, and I'm so sorry." Tears were pouring out of her eyes now.

The mercenary cried out as Clerissa began to shut the door. "Clerissa please!" his voice cracked and he reached out.

"I love you Jes."

His door shut and cried out, his voice a muffle. Tharael was still trying to open his door. Clerissa wiped her tears and used her magic to ignite the pods' engines. "Goodbye you two." She heard their cries as the pods launched into the sky and she teleported away to the Beacon. She watched as the pods flew through the skies into safety.

Clerissa looked at the base of the Beacon to see Arantheal curled in a ball. "I led them to the light. I alone," he was chanting.

Clerissa wanted to hurt him, but she knew he would feel none of this. Clerissa looked at the Beacon and allowed magic to swirl around her hands. She reached and focused her magic towards the Black Stones. She could feel their energy radiating through the world. The Cleansing was almost finished on Enderal, but the rest of Vyn was still starting.

Clerissa cried silently as her magic tore through the Black Stones and into the Beacon. She could feel the destruction start to radiate through her body. She closed her eyes and kept her magic on the Beacon, tearing it apart. She imagined Jespar and his smile, the way the scar across his eye moved every time. She imagined him tracing all the scars on her body, removing the painful memories with pleasant ones.

Then she imagined Jespar and Tharael arm-wrestling. She imagine Calia making flower crowns for everyone. She imagined Lexil joining them in her house for dinner. She imagined all the people she had met in Enderal. She imagined the peace she felt after Daddy left.

Then finally, she imagine Aravel smiling and waving at her. Next to Aravel, Jespar stood. Both of her lovers beckoned to her.

Clerissa smiled as her body burst into pure white flame. She could see Jespar crying in his pod and Tharael screaming. She brushed an ethereal hand against Jespar's cheek and put a hand on Tharael's shoulder. They both looked up and smiled a soft smile. They knew she was at peace.

Clerissa sighed softly as the memories of her family washed over her until all she saw was white hair and blue eyes.

"I love you."

Then the Prophetess exploded along with the Beacon and Enderal.

---

Please let me know if you did cry. Because I swear to you, I actually cried writing this. I didn’t have this end in the game, Jes and Cler survived, but with this prompt, I had to go with the angst. While writing this, I think I’ve honestly discovered that angst is literally my style. My skill.

I don’t know how this part of the game ends, but I’m pretty sure it’s not like this. That and Tharael was never alive in my play through but we don’t talk about that. Anyways, I really enjoyed writing this. Please let me know how it made you feel. This might be my favorite prompt this month

#fictober 2019 #fictober19 #enderal #skyrim enderal #enderal shards of the order #enderal forgotten stories #jespar #jespar dal'varek #clerissa #Clerissa the Prophetess #writing #G-W76 #angst

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rainoverthemountains · 5 years

Text

So I wrote a Twist-story

I absolutely adore @itsladykit ‘s boy Twist from her Twistfell AU. Actually, I adore all of her boys from all of her AUs, so much so that I wanted to write a story about them. Unfortunately, the more I love a tough and cool character, the more I love hurt/comfort involving that character. Fortunately, Lady Kit is fantastic at providing that. Unfortunately, I wanted even more, and I was also sad that Twist is so hopeless about his LV problem, so this story came to mind. It sprang from Lady Kit’s story Bucket List (the AO3 version), so it makes more sense if you read that first (although if you’re considering reading this and haven’t already read Lady Kit’s stuff, what are you doing here? Go read her stories, she’s incredibly awesome).

I’m hesitant to write it because it seems strange to write hurt/comfort with someone else’s characters (ignoring the fact that all fanfiction uses someone else’s characters) but Lady Kit does like hurt/comfort and has stated that people are free to write in her worlds, and it doesn’t get into any subject that she has stated she wants to avoid, so I decided to give it a try. I also don’t know what I’m doing with writing a story and posting it to the internet, but we’ll see how it goes. Lady Kit please don’t hate me if you see this and don’t like it. I’ll take it down or change it if you want. I’m sorry I’m awkward.

So now I will post this and go hide.

Summary: There’s a cure for LV (probably). It’s completely safe (probably). It’s a highly unpleasant experience (definitely). Twist only cares about that first statement. He probably should have paid a little more attention to the other two. But what does it matter? He’s getting what he wants, and he has the best friends and family in any universe to help along the way.

Chapter 1

“Gah! What the hell is their problem? Don’t they realize what I have here?” Iggy snarls at the review panel’s response to her official report, slamming her bowl of ramen on the desk before sheepishly wiping up the noodles that spill over the side. After the sudden increase in funding from an anonymous donor, the LV reduction project has progressed beyond her wildest dreams. She’d honestly been losing hope just a few months ago, but access to any resources she can imagine has changed things. Well, access to resources and a little creative bending of surface laws on ethical treatment of research subjects.

“Those damn laws,” she growls. She’d looked into them at the urging of her Taleverse counterparts, and, fine, maybe some of her methods are just a little bit illegal here. But those laws just don’t take into account the importance of her work! Following all of the required procedures could delay the project for years, maybe decades. Monsters don’t want to wait decades to get rid of LV, and that includes her research subjects. A few might have melted in the process, but that was only in the beginning and those monsters were too far gone into their LV to care anyway. Besides, that problem is long since solved. While her more recent subjects didn’t particularly enjoy the treatment, they all came out of it alive and with lower LV. They got what they wanted, however much they might have complained along the way. The point is, she’d created the impossible, a drug that can dissolve LV without dissolving the rest of the monster.

“It doesn’t even do any permanent damage to the subject’s soul anymore! What can they possibly have to complain about now?” she mutters, reading further into the report.

“‘Promising, but requires further testing,’ my ass.” She’s done the testing. She’s shown that it works. The subject pool is a little limited, but the trends are consistent and easily extrapolated. Of course, ‘Extrapolation outside the range of available data is not sufficiently reliable to support approval for mass production,’ according to several reviewers.

“Well, maybe they have a point there,” she allows. “A slight one.” Extrapolating from an LV of 9, the highest of her successful test subjects so far, to the full range of monsters who need the treatment might be going a little too far.

“Well what am I supposed to do about it?” She throws up her hands in exasperation. They want all research participation to be voluntary, but they also want the treatment tested on high LV monsters. “Have they ever met a monster with high LV!?” Not exactly the most cooperative research subjects. Some of them might say they want to get rid of their LV, but just try sticking a needle in their soul and see how long they keep cooperating. An uncooperative high LV monster can cause a lot of trouble. She shudders. There’s no way she’s dealing with that again. Then there’s the subjective data. Monsters on the edge of losing their minds are terrible at answering questions about the experience during treatment, and the panel refuses to accept her results without some form of patient report.

Ugh. Those self-righteous assholes want to deny her brilliant, revolutionary cure to all of monster-kind on the basis of a few technicalities. She taps her claws against the desk, fuming. “There has to be a way around this.” If she can just find someone, anyone, with high LV who is reasonably sane and would be motivated enough or have little enough sense of self-preservation to be a cooperative research subject…

Oh. Well of course there’s Papyrus. Well, a Papyrus, the one from her universe. The crazy one who goes by Twist now. That bastard has been on the edge of losing it for years but has never quite tipped over the edge. She nearly had him a few years ago, back when she first started her work underground, but his brother talked him out of it. Undyne kept trying to convince the little fluff ball for her, but eventually they’d given up. But now… Things are different now. Not with the fluff ball, but if she can just go around the fluff ball…

Twist is losing his mind. Anyone even tangentially acquainted with that multi-universal pack of skeletons knows that. Anyone with any basic understanding of LV should know that. The fact that he’s kept it mostly together this long suggests a level of determination or attachment or stubbornness or something that most monsters don’t have. Maybe enough of it to actually go through with the treatment? And based on some of the stunts she’s heard of, a high sense of self-preservation won’t be a problem. So, highly motivated, unlikely to be scared away by any necessary unpleasantness, really not much to lose given the deadline he has to know he’s living under, and LV high enough that no one can say she’s extrapolating outside the range of her data. He’s perfect. Now she just has to get to him where no one else will have a chance to talk him out of it, at least until it’s too late to change his mind.

***

All that being said, it seems best to approach Twist at work, away from all the others. Undyne still keeps track of all possible troublemakers from their universe so it’s easy to find out where he works. That’s how she finds herself greeting a pair of skeletal legs sticking out from underneath a car.

“Twist? Is that you under the car?” she calls.

“Yep, I’m the only skeleton workin’ here so if yer talkin’ to a skeleton under a car it’s prob’ly me.” He rolls out from under the car and waves. “Hey, Iggy. Whatcha doin’ ‘round here? Havin’ car trouble? We’ll getcha fixed up in no time.”

“No, no car trouble. Actually, I have a proposal for you.”

“A proposal?” Twist teases with raised browbones, “well now ya got my interest. Does yer girl know ‘bout this proposal? I’m up fer anythin’, but I’m not so sure she is.”

“Not that kind of proposal!” Fellverse monsters shouldn’t blush this easily.

“What kind of proposal it is, then? Does everyone have ta be dressed, or is that negotiable?”

“It’s not that kind of proposal! Forget that I said the word proposal. It has nothing to do with a proposal. Can you please try to be serious for one minute?”

“Proposals can be very serious.” Iggy glares and Twist grins. “Fine, fine, what’s this not-proposal ya got fer me?”

“You know what I’ve been working on since Asriel’s coronation, don’t you?” Twist abruptly loses his teasing air.

“I do. Think I’ve told ya before that I’m not really in’erested in meltin’, though.”

“Oh, no, the research is way past that point. No one’s melted in months, well, I mean a little bit, but not melted, melted, and I’ve got that part worked out too. Actually, that’s what I came here to tell you. I’ve found a cure!” Twist’s jaw drops.

“What? Ya found… what?”

“A cure for LV! Money from a new major donor gave me access to equipment and materials that I never dreamed of, which let me break through a few major obstacles that had stumped me for years, and now the treatment is already in clinical trials and it works! It really works!” Twist stumbles against the car and decides to sit down before he falls down as his legs give out in shock.

“Are, are ya serious?” Iggy nods enthusiastically. “Yer not exaggeratin’, or brushin’ over some technicalities, or playin’ some sick practical joke ‘cause I swear if you are ya won’ leave this place alive, or…”

“No, no, no, none of that. It’s not an easy cure like ‘take a pill, then get all better right away’ easy, and like I said, it’s still in clinical trials so it’s not approved for the mass market yet, but it’s real and it works.”

“When can I have it?”

“Once it makes it through clinical trials it will have to be approved by a review board and the sovereigns, so whenever all that is done is when it will be available to the general public.” She’s got him. She’s definitely got him. Now is the time to reel him in.

“An’ when’ll that be?

“I don’t know. The real holdup is the clinical trials. I need to show that it’s safe and effective in monsters across the whole range of possible LV, and volunteers with high LV are hard to find. The highest I’ve had so far is 9.” Twist’s sockets narrow. He’s clearly caught on to what she’s doing.

“An’ I suppose ya came here today hopin’ ta find a volunteer.”

“Well, yes. I didn’t think you’d mind. It would give you access to the treatment months or even years earlier than you’d have it otherwise and I know LV is a particularly time-sensitive issue for you.”

“Mhmm. Can’t deny ya’ve got a point there. An’ can ya guarantee I won’t melt?”

“Absolutely no melting. I’m not saying the treatment will be fun. It’s actually pretty painful and can go on for days, even weeks to get rid of as much LV as you have. You’ll probably want to come up with something to tell your friends and family unless you want them worrying about you the whole time. But won’t it be worth it to come home free of LV and having paved the way for everyone else to be free of LV too?”

“So that’s the whole story, huh? I come with you, get this ‘treatment,’ be miserable for a few weeks an’ then I‘m cured? Why do I suspect yer leavin’ somethin’ out?”

“I’m really not. I mean, I haven’t explained every detail, but I will if you come back to the lab with me. I’ll explain the whole process and you can back out at any time before we start, but I know you’re not going to want to because I know you want this. Come on, do you really want to wait around until you hurt someone or lose your mind? I’ve worked with plenty of monsters who lost themselves to their LV-”

“An’ melted quite a few of ‘em.”

“-and that’s not something you want to go through, or put your little brother through. I know you two are close. Just imagine what it would be like for him if one day you attack him, or if he finds out you just went crazy one day and you’re never coming back, or if you kill yourself to keep that from happening.”

“Ok, yes, I get it! I don’ need ta hear it, I already know all that shit!”

“Now imagine coming home to him and telling him truthfully that none of that is ever going to happen, that all of your LV is gone and you can live the rest of your lives without ever worrying about it again. Imagine the same for your friends, each of them losing the LV that’s been weighing on them or their loved ones for years. Imagine what it’ll do for monster-human relations when humans can no longer point to high LV monsters to prove that all monsters are dangerous and shouldn’t have any rights. Imagine-”

“That’s enough! Ya think I don’ know what gettin’ rid of LV would mean? Think I don’ think about it every fuckin’ day?”

“I know you do. That’s why I know you want this. If you want to eliminate LV, and I know you do, then come help me get rid of it. We have the power to do something completely, unequivocally good, here. Just come to my lab and we can do it. We can do it today!”

“Ok.”

“You know you want to-”

“I said ok!” Twist snaps. “You can stop yer grand speech. ‘M convinced. Let’s go cure LV. Jus’ lemme finish with this car an’ I’ll go take off work an’ tell my bro that ‘m going on vacation fer awhile. He’ll be annoyed I didn’t warn him but he won’ be that surprised that I went off on some random trip.”

chapter 2

#Twistfell Papyrus #Twistfell Alphys #more skeletons but they aren't here yet #hurt/comfort #LV problems #LV cure #medical treatment #careless treatment of research participants causing unintentional harm #Those ethical rules and guidelines exist for a reason Iggy #i have no idea what to even tag #and only a vague idea of how tagging works #soul damage #altered states of mind #remembered trauma #brief mention of suicidal thoughts #it's not my fault; Lady Kit got her boy into this situation and he needs rescuing #well actually I got him into this specific situation but I didn't create his problems #this is a terrible way to rescue someone #unfortunately he's very whumpable #and also very badass #but also very wonderful and deserves all good things #honestly most of this story is Twist being surprisingly ok with a shitty situation and his friends and family taking care of him #my version of fluff

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livingmybestfictionallife · 7 years

Text

Private People

Anon Request: hi there!! could you write a seb x wife!reader who work together on marvel and do press together? thanks in advance!!

Warnings: Fluff, language

A/N: Based the ideas in this off of another fanfic I’ve been writing for quite some time so I’m claiming rights to Emilia Reeves and Smoke. ALSO I looked up the meaning behind how the Winter Soldier got his name and it’s making the English major and the analytic in me spazz with joy.

(Y/N) stood nervously beside her husband as the pair prepared for a panel discussion at Wizard World. Sebastian could feel her hand tremble slightly in his as he rubbed the back of it with his other hand.

“Are you ready babe?” he asked.

“I’ll never be ready,” she replied with a soft chuckle.

“Don’t worry,” Sebastian said and then kissed her cheek. “I’ll be right there with you.” From in the distance, the surround sound speakers roared: please give it up for Sebastian Stan and (Y/N) (Y/L/N)! The crowd cheered and the thundering of voices rattled her ear drums. Slowly, (Y/N) followed Sebastian to the two chairs sitting in the center of the stage and hoisted herself into it as Sebastian smiled at her, proud of (Y/N) for agreeing to come speak with him.

“Okay Sebastian,” the panel mediator began, “one thing that a lot of people really want to know is who is this lovely lady beside you today and how did she get mixed up in the Marvel Cinematic Universe?” Sebastian’s bright blue eyes shined toward his wife as the pair clutched to their secret.

“Do you want to take this one, (Y/N)?” Sebastian asked her.

“Sure,” she smiled. “Somehow one of the producers or writers at Marvel liked an idea I had sent in as a suggestion and asked me to come in and explain it. The concept of my character, Emilia Reeves, is that she was recruited by Coulson to become an agent of SHIELD after he realized all that she had gone through. A lot of what Emilia goes through is a reflection of Bucky’s trials. She’s taken in by HYDRA, experimented on, and forced into Terragenesis where she emerged as Smoke--the super badass name she goes by while working with the Avengers.”

“She’s a real breath of fresh air for Bucky to see that someone can still have a life after the torture and manipulation that HYDRA put them through,” Sebastian continued.

“(Y/N) you said you sent in a suggestion for the character, am I right?”

“Oh yeah, I Andy Dufresne-d the shit out of Marvel!” she called into the microphone. Immediately, Sebastian covered his and let out a loud laugh along with the roaring audience. “Oh fuck, can I not say,” immediately she covered her mouth as Sebastian’s face turned a bright shade of red. “Shit, no damn it! Gah!”

“Needless to say she and Chris contribute to the swear jar most,” Sebastian laughed into his microphone. Soon the audience died down and settled back into their seats. “But on a more real level, (Y/N) has done incredible work in creating this character and she really brings Smoke to life. It’s important to know just how hard (Y/N) worked to build Emilia and Smoke and the story behind the character as well. She’s been more dedicated to her character than any of us have been to ours.”

“What was the process like, filming with all of these seasoned veterans?” the question turned back onto (Y/N) as she folded her hands in her lap and tried not to swear again.

“It was great! Everyone was so supportive--even if someone was like ‘where the hell did this character come from?’ they were always willing to work with me to get the chemistry right and all,” she responded as she began to gain her confidence.

“Were some people more helpful than others?” she was again asked.

“Honestly, Sebastian is one of the most incredible people I’ve ever come across. He’s so sweet and, knowing I was relatively new to the acting scene, he was determined to break me out of my shell.”

“She gives me a lot of credit but she’s incredibly talented as a stand alone,” Sebastian quickly added as the panel continued.

“So, Sebastian, can we expect any changes in Bucky that can be derived from Emilia?” Sebastian glanced over at his wife as she smiled and nodded toward him to answer the question.

“Um, yeah, Bucky really grows through his interaction with Emilia. She really understands what it feels like to be taken and turned into something she never wanted to become--for her an Inhuman, for Bucky an assassin--and that bond is really something that he uses to strengthen his own will to fight all HYDRA put in him,” Sebastian said with a smile spreading across his face. (Y/N) knew he wouldn’t be able to hold onto their secret for much longer so she hurried to extend on his answer.

“There’s a lot of healing for Bucky that happens through getting to know Emilia, but they also grow together. Bucky is having to determine who he is in the world apart from HYDRA apart from pre-world war two, and Emilia is still trying to get a handle on how she fits into the Avengers jigsaw puzzle.”

“Eventually, they both kind of figure out that the scars they have on their souls match and they fall into their positions in the Avengers jigsaw puzzle, as (Y/N) said,” Sebastian continued.

“You two have been reported as dating for about three months a few years ago when (Y/N) worked on another project with you, Sebastian. Everyone here can see that you have such a nice chemistry and stage appearance together,” the mediator commented as he moved the pair onto the next question, “so what I’m wondering is if that chemistry plays off well in the ‘rumored’ steamy scene between the two of you?” Immediately the two started laughing. “How did that come about? Was it in the script or what? Did it cause any tension between you two after having been broken up?”

“Well, if you’re asking me, it wasn’t scripted but I was really happy to do it,” Sebastian laughed as a smile flooded his face and his eyes danced toward (Y/N).

“I don’t know why people always assume we broke up,” (Y/N) started to laugh alongside Sebastian as he placed a hand on her knee.

“Do you want to tell them or should I?” Sebastian asked with a wink. (Y/N) shrugged and Sebastian continued speaking. “(Y/N) and I are both pretty private people and pretty introverted so it makes sense that there aren’t many up-to-date photos of the two of us together out of costume.”

“But we never broke up,” (Y/N) continued. “In fact, the kiss between Emilia and Bucky was not planned whatsoever. Seb was filming with Chris and Anthony and I was supposed to be wrapped for the day. When I got back to my trailer, there was a small letter folded on my couch.”

“I wrote her the quote from Thomas Paine’s The American Crisis, which is where the Winter Soldier got his name, that read ‘These are the times that try men's souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.’”

“And below that was this long, heartfelt message about the trials our relationship had been through and then, at the very bottom, Sebastian wrote that--”

“You were the most glorious triumph of my life,” he quoted as he stretched out his hand to hers.

“Under the letter was a ring and I took off toward set again and barged into the frame, still in costume, and just jumped into his arms and kissed him.”

“Apparently the cameras kept rolling and I guess they decided to use it somewhere in the film,” Sebastian chuckled as he clasped his wife’s hand in his. “But what you’re really watching isn’t Emilia and Bucky, rather (Y/N) and Sebastian.” After a long amount of cheering, ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs,’ the crowd settled down and the mediator managed to ask another question.

“So when’s the wedding?”

“Five months ago,” Sebastian chuckled as his wife mumbled into her microphone. His eyes were beaming with joy and pride as the usually timid woman in front of him started to laugh as the crowd of fans gasped in betrayal. She wouldn’t have traded a single moment of their private lives for a moment of glamor with the paparazzi. Sebastian was hers and (Y/N) was his and they didn’t see the need to include the rest of the world in their relationship until they wanted the rest of the world to know. In front of everyone, Sebastian leaned over and pressed his lips gently against (Y/N)s and whispered into her ear, “I’ll always be your winter soldier.”

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lorilane33 · 7 years

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Chicon 2017

Okay. So this is my write up of what my weekend was like in Chicago this past weekend. I flew in Friday morning and left the hotel Monday morning. This is 1,700 words and if you don’t want to read it, I’m totally fine with it.

This convention is my second this year. Hell, it’s my second this SUMMER. I was lucky enough to buy the winning t-shirt for the gold pass in Rob Benedict’s Rock God campaign. I arrived Friday morning at 8:30am and saw the meager line of women waiting for preregistration to start. If you know me, you know that I am an extrovert. However, I tend to have a lot of introverted tendencies when I’m around people I don’t know. I tend to seek out the background and fly under the radar, but since I was alone at this con I KNEW I had to step out of my comfort zone and make some friends fast or else I would be alone and bored. So I went over to a group of girls who were talking animatedly about something related to Supernatural (what, I can’t remember), and I just sat down and started talking with them. Instantly I felt a connection with three of them, and one of them turned out to be the girl I ran around with alllllllll weekend.

I had my photo op with Rob that day, and I told him that I was the gold pass winner for his campaign and he was so excited that I chose Chicon to attend. He then remembered me for the rest of the weekend and whenever I saw him he’d ask how my weekend was going. I also listened to Kim and Briana’s panel, which made me cry twice. Briana for being amazingly emotional and proud of Wayward Daughters, and Kim for being so amazing in telling her story. She’s become such an inspiration to me when it comes to taking control of your brokenness and putting yourself back together, and being okay that there are scars. I then cried when I met her at her auto table. I told her about how she’s inspired me, and then I started crying and she reached across to hold my hand while she gave her response. Gah I freaking love that woman. Friday Night Karaoke was a blast, and insane like always. Moving into Saturday.

I was in the costume contest, and @sdavid09 was too! We had no idea though until later that day. After the contest I decided I NEEDED a picture with Mark since I was dressed as Demon!Dean and it was too perfect. So I speed-walked my face off to the ops table and bought a Mark photo op and speed-walked down to the photo room, making it with five minutes to spare before he had to go up for his panel. The photo turned out AMAZINGGGGG (but because of the nature of my job I’m not going to post it. If you’d like to see my ops, I am more okay with sending them through a message if you’d like. :) ). I met up with @sassy-losechester then I went to @sdavid09‘s room and played Supernatural Clue while eating pizza with her and @hannah-addicted while I waited for the concert to start. IT WAS AMAZING AS ALWAYS. We had tea lights for Rob when he sang “She Waits”, and he cried. It was a very touching moment. THEN SUNDAY ROLLED AROUND.

I went to the gold panel with J2 and laughed so hard. I was so glad to have had the opportunity to listen to those goofballs live. Then came their afternoon panel, and that was just as good, if not better. Jared and Jensen have both become such important people in my life and I wouldn’t be who I am today without their inspiration in my life. Jared, for his campaigns and raising awareness of mental illnesses that are a real thing, but are looked down upon. He gave me the courage to speak out about my struggles and to be proud of the fact that I’m still fighting, I’m here for a reason, and my story can be used to help other people.

And Jensen. Holy oh my lanta this man. People always asked me in college why I loved Supernatural so much and I always brought up the fact that the actors themselves are incredible people, which would lead into a conversation about what each of the three boys (Jensen, Jared and Misha) have done for me. Jared is easy. See above paragraph. Misha is easy. He reminds me that kindness makes the world go round and that it’s important to help others. But when I’d get to Jensen, I could only ever think of how he’s come out of his shell in the past few years with his singing. But that hadn’t really have a positive impact on my life, or inspired me to be a better me. I was extroverted, I put myself out there a lot and was generally friends with everyone. So I just tagged him onto the YANA campaign with Misha (at this time the I AM ALIVE network had not been created yet). And I’d move along to the next topic. Little did I know though, Jensen’s courage DID end up inspiring me, just, three years later than I hoped it would. If you know me at all, and/or you have talked to me regularly enough for me to actually talk to you about deep dark stuff, you know that I’ve had a pretty rough go at this whole mother/daughter relationship thing. And more times than not I’ve probably told you a story or five to help reiterate the level of unhealthy my relationship with my mother was at. Up until the last six or so months that is.

I had been watching con video after con video, finding solace in the conversations that were taking place within the fandom and the cast. As I watched, I realized that over the years Jensen has gotten progressively more involved in the singing part of things to the point where he’s singing at some SNS, and recording on Jason’s albums. I finally thought to myself ‘if Jensen can get the guts to do something like this and not go cry in a hole, then I can have a simple conversation with my mother.’ So I did. We talked. We have had FOUR heart to hearts over the last six months, and now our relationship is basically what it should have been for the last fifteen years. I would not have bit the bullet if it hadn’t of been for Jensen.

SOOOO. Not sorry about the rant, it was lead up to what happened on Sunday. When I got to Chicon, I had every intention of getting EITHER a Jared/Misha OR a Jensen/Misha photo op. Just so I could have one of the boys in my weekend. But ask @arryn-nyxx @deansdirtylittlesecretsblog and @dustycelt. I was debating back and forth for WEEKS about which op I wanted to get. Well I ended up with both. I couldn’t decide, and I love them both and owe them so much.

I go through the Jensen/Misha op, and I had it look like we were taking a selfie while making faces, no problems, and really hardly any interaction. We were all on a time crunch to get Misha to the airport and they were BOOKING IT through those ops. And like five minutes later I was back downstairs for my Jared/Misha. I get up to the front of the line and look at MIsha and go, “Hey! We’re taking a selfie again,” and he goes, “Okay sounds good!” and I took my place between them for the photo. Chris was standing there fiddling with his camera for a few seconds, so we were just waiting. But then Jared, being Jared, started dancing along to the music that was playing in the photo op room. Not only was he dancing, he was full on grinding up against my hip as the music played. Full on Padalecki butt to my hip contact was happening. I was so dumbfounded that all I could do was start laughing and say, “JARED!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” as he was bumping me into Misha at this point. Then the dork starts laughing his big belly laugh, which makes me laugh harder, and then at that point Chris decides he’s ready to take the picture. Jared being the actor he is went into serious mode and made the face perfectly, while I’m still standing there trying to make a face through my tears and laughter. And then as I walked away he freaking winked at me. That man, I swear.

After the hilarity that happened with Jared it was time for autos with J2. I got up to Jared’s table, and we talked about the semicolon tattoo I have that I plan on adding on to, and I told him thank you for everything. I received a very animated high five and another wink as I moved on. Then I got to Jensen’s line and started to get nervous. I knew I had to tell him thank you, but in a way that was positive and not crossing any lines. I made my way through the line and finally arrived in front of him and my moment had come. As he was signing my coffee mug I simply said his name to get his attention, and then proceeded to thank him from the bottom of my heart for what he’s done for me, and what he’s helped me accomplish. The rest of the moment is a very personal one and became more intimate than I ever thought it would be, and I feel like keeping that part to myself. But tears were shed, and I will forever be grateful for Jensen being in my life. Some of you know exactly what took place between Jensen and myself, and that means that you know about my history with my mom and you knew how big this moment was for me. I had every intent of thanking him when I got to Chicon this year, and I wanted you to know that I succeeded. If you don’t know, that’s okay. Just know that Jensen has one of the biggest hearts I’ve ever seen and he truly cares, so very much.

#Chicon #chicon 2017 #chicago con #SPN Family #Jared Padalecki #Jensen Ackles #Briana Buckmaster #Kim Rhodes #Rob Benedict #what a weekend

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tessatechaitea · 5 years

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Teen Titans Spotlight #7: Hawk

I finally found Rob Liefeld's reference for drawing guns!

This was the airport in Denver before it was replaced by the Illuminati.

I thought this scene was going to instantly morph into the cover. Stupid airports and their no guns policies! Although this was 1987. Couldn't you bring anything you wanted onto a plane in 1987?! Maybe I'm thinking of flying in the seventies. Once when I was seven, I remember sitting next to a guy flying with fifteen goats and a keg of sulfuric acid while I let the tired Catholic priest seated next to me rest his head in my lap. Excuse me while I draw a MAGA cap onto Hawk in every panel of this comic book so it reads more like 2019. He's got their philosophy down pat on the first page! "I love everything lefties hate even if I don't know anything about those things! At least I fucking know what the 'AR' in AR-15 stands for! Idiots!" The only problem with this initial scene is that the anti-nuclear canvasser puts his hands on Hawk and then security proclaims there was no provocation. No wait. I used the phrase "the only problem" wrong because there are multiple problems with this scene. One of the problems, I admit, stems from me reading this in 2019. When I first read the panel with security saying, "Let's go," I didn't read it as security breaking up the fight. I read it in the voice of every fucking kid on Twitch or Mixer ready to escalate some shit. I thought the fight was just getting started! Another problem because I should probably wring out more than one extra problem after saying this scene had more than one problem with it is that the canvasser even continues to argue his point with somebody who threatened to give them a fat lip. He's never going to get any signatures from willing people if he spends all his time arguing with people who are obviously not into his groove. Canvassers need way thicker skin than this guy has! Just say "Have a nice day!" and move on!

I didn't know that stripping down to your underwear was a valid defense for violently going apeshit bananas in public.

It's actually worse than stripping down to his underwear. Hawk actually had to unpack his costume and get into it to prove that he had the right to punch a hippie. Security is all, "Well, since you got the Twinkie product placement in, I guess we have to let you go. But don't go punching anybody who isn't a terrorist from now on, you got me?!" The Stapleton Airport Security team have ferreted out a plan by "one of these Middle Eastern terrorist gangs" to sabotage the Crow Mountain Nuclear Power Plant. Hawk pulls his mask down and screams, "Not Crow Mountain! Nuclear is my favorite!" The Security Chief says, "Hopefully the guy you punched was actually one of the terrorists because that would make your actions seem less crazy in context later (even if you didn't actually know he was a terrorist) and also make our story seem less bigoted by making the terrorists white guys." Hawk responds, "Why isn't anybody biting my Twinkie? Don't you understand what an imperative is?!" Now I wish Hawk was a violent, short-fused asshole who was only concerned with proper grammar. Hawk tells the security guys that he'd love to help kill a few terrorists so call him if some shit goes down. Security is all, "Apparently we can't charge Teen Titans with assault so, um, enjoy your stay! Try not to punch too many Coloradans!" But they seemingly come to their senses when Hawk is out of punching range.

With all these snack references, I suspect the terrorists will be stopped by their love of fruit pies.

Hawk is in Colorado to attend an anti-terrorism seminar at a corporate funded think tank called the Kellogg's Group. Why is this comic book insisting on making my mouth water?! Does it know I'm currently not eating sugar?! Hawk is the only hero to attend this anti-terrorism seminar because the other Teen Titans, the Justice League, and the Outsiders declined because they didn't want to be seen endorsing any particular group. Infinity Inc. wasn't invited. Hawk makes a huge splash at the seminar with logical statements and incendiary truth bombs.

Almost got that terrorism sorted! Time for a Ding Dong!

Hawk leaves the meeting to go look at Colorado's natural beauty while fuming about wimps and losers. I'm sympathetic to writer Mike Baron's leftist viewpoints so I'm not going to start calling Hawk "Strawman" during this commentary. But, I mean, he's really quite the caricature of the super-patriotic, support-the-police-at-any-cost, hippies-fucking-suck redneck, isn't he? I probably didn't use dashes correctly in that last sentence but I felt it made it somewhat clearer. For the layman! I know grammar nerds are going all Grammar Hawk on me! "You wimp! You loser! You should be gunned down the Israeli way!" The National Guard stops by in a helicopter to tell the Kellogg's Corporation that they need to evacuate. The Stapleton Airport Security Guard Detectives were right! Terrorists have captured the Crow Mountain Nuclear Plant! Hawk watches from his idyllic perch on the mountain and thinks more of his profound thoughts.

MAGA!

What the fuck is Hawk toting around in that ginormous case? Is it Mike Brady's architectural designs for a new theme park? Or is it a Banana Splits poster?! I'm only five pages into this comic book and I don't think I've ever been so entertained. Hawk is fucking nuts. Is every character with "Hawk" in their name a ranting aggressive conservative bastard? Maybe it's characters with "Hawk" in their name or characters whose names begin with "H" and end with "K"? Is that what made Hulk so angry? Was it welfare queens, immigrants, and the estate tax? Inside Hawk's gigantic tube is the Hawkglider. That's just a hang-glider made from PVC pipe and a re-purposed parachute.

"If you want something done right wing, you've got to do it yourself!" is the original Ayn Rand quote.

Hawk is a big dumb fucker. He might be the anti-Batman. He glides into the power plant to discover a guard unconscious on the ground. In one panel, he notices the guard has an insect bite on his neck. In the next panel, Hawk gets big by an insect and doesn't make any kind of intuitive or logical connection between the two. Instead he just explodes again, calls the bug a wimp and a loser, and rushes inside to kill some terrorists.

For such an angry guy, he sure sneaks comically.

Hawk discovers more guards out cold with bug bites. That makes him think, "More bug bites...what the heck...they should have called Orkin." Immediately followed by this panel:

"Gah! Where's my gun?!"

Hawk needs to stop being so comically angry, conservative, and stupid or I'm going to scan every panel in this issue.

Now I need to add misogy...wait. Is her name "Stupid Broad"?!

Hawk recognizes Stupid Broad because she was with Jerry, the hippie trying to stop nuclear power. She was outside protesting when the terrorists took over and since she had a wrench on her, she thought maybe she could stop them. Stupid Broad introduces herself as Bonnie so I guess Stupid Broad is her superhero name. Hawk continues to curse the bugs and tells Bonnie to keep her wrench handy. At least he recognizes a superhero team-up when it's happening. How long before he accidentally calls her Dove?

Now I'm imagining Batman hunting The Riddler with some Gotham Police while he mumbles, "Never let it be said that Doctor Wayne's little boy was stupid!"

Christ. I'd forgotten just how long we've been dealing with this whole "leftist media" bullshit. But it fucking worked. The media was so fucking upset that they kept getting called biased that they simply stopped actually reporting on news and just became parrots of right-wing talking points. It's no surprise that I probably have spent more time shitting on journalists and newscasters in these comic book commentaries than I've spent shitting on Republicans. Because the journalists should know better and have instead chosen the easy, cowardly way of avoiding constant criticism. Hawk continues to ignore the bug situation until a giant Preying Mantis made out of bugs approaches. It calls itself Arachnid and it wants an end to all sort of fun things: nuclear power, the destruction of the rain forest, the use of chemical pesticides, the production of acid rain. It's practically asking for an end to humans! I hope Hawk kills it! At one point during the confrontation, Bonnie asks about the Arachnid, "What is it?" This is how Hawk responds:

At first I thought he was being controlled by the bug bites. But, no, this is just his standard demeanor.

After Arachnid states its grievances, Bonnie shouts, "Right on!" Hawk yells, "SHUT UP!" Is this the kind of comic books Comicsgaters are dreaming of going back to? Except for the part where the audience understands Hawk is a huge asshole. They probably read this and, every few pages, rush out into the street to find another guy to high five. Bonnie starts talking about some Frank Herbert book while Hawk asks out loud, "How does a bunch of stupid bugs expect to destroy a nuclear power plant?" Luckily, Arachnid is a helpful bug golem. It's all, "Termites!" Hawk should have saved his Orkin line for this moment! There's only a few pages left so when do they introduce the Fruit Pie Wizard and his magic wand of fruit pie creation? Arachnid disappears into some cracks while the nuclear plants alarms go off, warning of an imminent meltdown. Hawk's plan is to randomly throw switches hoping to get lucky enough to stop the meltdown. Bonnie's plan is to look disaster in the face and find the silver lining.

So every thing he said up until this point was supposed to be encouraging and complimentary?!

Before Hawk can start throwing switches and writer Mike Baron has to do some actual research on what effect that might have on a nuclear power plant beginning to meltdown, Hawk notices an organ in the control room. Hawk's new plan is to hook the organ up to the PA system, play some screechingly high notes, and drive the bugs away! If this works, lawmakers will probably introduce a bill to put organs into every public space, just in case of another terrorist attack by insects. Hawk's plan works and the police thank him for saving Colorado. Then they immediately turn on Bonnie and threaten to arrest her for trespassing. She doesn't strip down to her underwear to prove she's a Teen Titan though, darn it. Instead, Hawk uses his pull as a Titan to get her off the hook. The cop doesn't appreciate it but what can he do? This is Teen Titans Spotlight On: Hawk, not Teen Titans Spotlight On: Podunk Denver Police Officer. Later, Hawk returns to the anti-terrorism seminar and basically proposes organs in every public place. What a fucking douche. The issue ends with Arachnid extending an invitation to Hawk to meet with its queen to discuss negotiations of peace with the insect kingdom. Or maybe it's just Queen Bee behind this all and she's in some serious need for an angry fuck. Teen Titans Spotlight #7: Hawk Rating: B+. Fuck, I was entertained. No wonder all these assholes love Fox news. It's fun having people tell you that what you think is right and confirming your beliefs that the people who think differently are angry fucking dumbies.

#Teen Titans Spotlight #Hawk #Teen Titans #DC #DC Comics

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ruined-by-destiel · 7 years

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First Impressions and Second Chances (part 12)

Summary: He never thought he’d get a second chance with you. Life didn’t work like that and it wasn’t something he’d been counting on. But now, being here with you at his side, he felt like he couldn’t thank the universe enough. He wasn’t going to screw it up this time.

Words: 1,633

Misha x Reader

Warnings: implied smut, angst if you squint

Notes: gah, it’s been forever since i updated! things are starting to flow a little more smoothly for me and i’m planning on keeping updates for this series on a semi-regular basis from here on. as always, feedback is appreciated, and i hope you guys like this part!

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You and Misha drove together to the convention center, parting ways once you were inside. He stole a quick kiss when no one was looking before heading off, promising to text you throughout the day whenever he had a chance.

You headed towards the room where Jared and Jensen’s panel was about to begin, and took a seat in one of the front rows. The next thirty minutes were spent laughing and cringing at the two answering questions and telling stories, and before you knew it, you were being ushered out to have your duo photo op with them.

The line for the pictures moved pretty fast, and before you knew it you were next to get your picture taken with the two. They smiled as you walked up, making your heart jump. Jensen pulled you into a hug when you were close enough.

“Hey Y/N, how’s it going?”

“Pretty good, how are you guys?” It felt so casual, talking to them as if you’d known each other your whole life.

“Tired, but good. Never a dull moment.” Jared grinned. “So what can we do for your photo?”

“Honestly, nothing would make me happier than just a hug from you guys.”

Jensen chuckled. “Yeah, of course. C’mere.”

You were pressed between Jensen and Jared, wrapping your arms around the latter as Jensen hugged you from behind. After the picture was taken, they both pulled you in for another hug. Jared called after you before you could head out.

“Hey, we’ll still see you for lunch, right?”

Another tug at your heart. “Yeah, of course.” You tried to answer as nonchalantly as possible, though you were screaming on the inside. They waved as you walked away, grinning broadly.

You were walking towards the vending machines to grab a snack when your phone started to ring. You pulled it out and answered without checking the caller ID.

“Hello?”

“Grab me a Snickers, I’m dying for some sugar.”

You snapped your head around, smiling when you saw Misha watching you from around the corner. Without missing a beat, you hung up and turned back to the vending machine, inserting a dollar and pulling out a Snickers. You walked over to Misha and handed it over to him, leaning up against the wall.

“Don’t have a dollar on you?”

“Nah, I’m just too lazy to walk all the way over there.” You rolled your eyes as he took a bite of his candy bar, humming appreciatively. “God, this is so much better than the granola crap they have in the green room.”

You chuckled. “Hey, so when are we doing lunch?”

Misha grunted in response. “Right, well uh, J and J just got started with photo ops and that’ll probably be a while, so,” he checked his watch, “an hour? Maybe less?” He finished off his Snickers and crumpled up the wrapped, tossing it in a nearby trashcan. “Wanna come back to the green room with me?”

“Uh, yeah. Sure.” He took your hand and you let him lead you back the way he’d come from. “Who all is back there right now?”

“When I left, Mark. But he’ll probably have left to do autographs by now.” He looked at you and smiled. “So it’ll be just us.”

Your heart did another flip. “Yeah?”

“Boring, I know. I guess we’ll just have to find some way to entertain ourselves.” You reached the door to the room and he leaned against it, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. You laughed and punched him playfully in the chest.

“You’re an actual child. You know that?”

“Who, me?” He feigned offense before his playful expression was back. “I’ll show you just how grown up I am.”

You groaned as he opened the door, pulling you in. “I hate you.”

He kissed you softly, barely pressing your lips together which sent chills up your spine. “No you don’t.”

About an hour later, Jared and Jensen walked in the green room to find you and Misha laying on the couch, laughing and enjoying each other’s company. Jared grabbed a beer from the fridge and smiled at you. “What’s up with you guys?”

You blushed, remembering your previous antics, before you answered him. “Not much, we’re just talking about when we were kids.” You giggled. “Hey, did you guys know that when Misha was in high school, he-”

“No! No no, they don’t get to know that.” Misha quickly covered your mouth with one hand and glared at you.

“Probably nothing we haven’t heard before.” Jensen laughed and sat down at the table.

You wiggled out of Misha’s grasp. “Oh, you’d be surprised.” You ignored Misha’s protests and stood up. “So, where are we eating? I’m starved.”

Jensen’s eyes lit up at that. “You’ll see.”

You ended up driving out of town to a small dine-in place you’d never been to, probably because it was basically in the middle of nowhere. Jensen swore by it, saying they served “the best burgers and fries you can get in a 1,000 mile radius.” You’d laughed at that, having just witnessed a bit of Dean in him at that moment.

The four of you went in and ordered after taking a look at the menu, having settled on the same thing as Jensen, just to be safe. You made small talk as you waited for the food to come out.

“So, do you guys do this a lot?”

“Go out to eat together? Yeah, all the time.” Jared smiled. “We have a pretty similar schedule for the most part, so whether it’s going somewhere or ordering take out for dinner, we’re together a lot of the time while filming.”

“Unfortunately,” Misha mumbled under his breath. Your eyes widened in surprise as Jensen and Jared laughed.

“Whatever, dude. You’re just jealous that you don’t live in Austin and get to see us even more when we’re on break.”

Misha huffed at Jensen’s remark. “Sure, that’s it.”

The conversation went mostly like that for a while, light banter and teasing until your food was ready. The burger you’d ordered was much larger than you expected, and the shock on your face must have been obvious because everyone burst out laughing. You shook your head, grabbing some napkins and pulling your plate closer.

“I accept the challenge.”

Conversation continued as the four of you ate, comments thrown here and there in between bites. Your knee brushed against Misha’s leg at one point, to which he reached down with his left hand and rested it on your thigh, rubbing it every now and then with his thumb. It was a small gesture, but so domestic that it gave you butterflies in your stomach every time he did it.

The whole situation was weirdly comfortable, really. Jared and Jensen sat across from you, making jokes and making an effort to get to know you better. Misha contributed to the conversation, but most of the time he was silent, and when you glanced over at him, he’d be watching you silently and smiling to himself, blushing slightly when you caught him staring.

And in the middle of it, there was never a moment where you felt uncomfortable or out of place. It felt like you just… belonged.

“Y/N?”

You snapped out of your thoughts and looked at Jared, smiling.

“Sorry, what did you say?”

“We should probably get going, before people start to wonder where we are.”

“Yeah, of course.” You got up and the others followed suit, Jensen laying down a few bills on the table before heading out to where Cliff was waiting in the parking lot.

You stared out the window the entire way back, participating sparsely in the conversation the four men were having. Misha squeezed your hand at one point and gave you a questioning glance, to which you answered with a smile and a kiss on the cheek, assuring him that you were fine.

When you got back to the convention center, you shared one last hug with both Jared and Jensen before they parted ways.

“Don’t be a stranger, ok?” You nodded and Jensen waved, heading inside.

“Let us know if you’re ever in Vancouver, or Austin, if it’s off season.” Jared smiled. “We’d love to see you again.”

You gave Jared another hug and a muffled “me too” before he followed Jensen in, disappearing through the back door.

Misha wrapped an arm around your waist, walking you in as well.

“You ok?”

“Yeah, just a little tired. Probably that huge ass burger I ate,” you lied.

Misha nodded, contemplating before turning a corner and removing his arm from around you. “I gotta go back to do some more autographs, think you’ll be good for a while?”

You nodded, smiling at him reassuringly. He smiled back and kissed you, slow and sweet. “I’ll text you later, ok?”

“Ok.” He started to walk in the other direction, before turning around and blowing you another kiss. You laughed, pretending to catch it in the air and holding it to your chest. He smiled again and mouthed “I love you” before disappearing down the hall.

Sighing, you leaned back against the wall and closed your eyes.

I love you.

The words Misha uttered to you as you slept, at the end of every phone call, every text, even just now as he walked away.

You knew you loved him back. You really did. But were you ready to admit it out loud? After today, there weren’t going to be any more lunch dates with celebrities, no more fun times in back rooms, no more falling asleep next to someone who made you feel wanted and complete. You shook your head.

Why did you have to go and fall in love with your best friend all over again?

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#misha x reader #misha x you #misha x y/n #fluff #implied smut #light angst #supernatural convention #spn cast #jared padalecki #jensen ackles #misha collins #supernatural imagine #spn rpf #first impressions and second chances #suzana writes

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tenroseforeverandever · 7 years

Text

The Cupid’s Arrow (Revised Edition): Chapter 2

Chapter 1

Characters: Nine x rose; Original Character

Rated: Teen-Adult

Tags: Fluff; Angst; Humour; Aphrodisiac

Summary: Rose has her work cut out for her as she struggles with the threat of killer cherubs and the advances of a love-sick Doctor.

Notes: Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! What follows is a heap of fluff, a scoop of drama, topped off with a dollop of angst! Hope you enjoy!

For @caedmonfaith, who has told me this one of her favourite stories of mine. ((((hugs)))) darling.

Also read at AO3

The Cupid’s Arrow (Revised Edition): Chapter 2

Several of the customers were already seriously wounded. Rose frantically attempted to track the cherubs flitting around, looking positively… angelic as they hurled deadly darts at the hysterical clientele of The Cupid’s Arrow. The restaurant, it seemed, was living up to its name.

“How are they getting’ through the forcefield? Doctor? How?” Rose desperately clung to her mind’s remnants of calm and rationality, but between the killer cherubs and the love-sick Doctor, it was frankly, a bit of a challenge.

“No forcefield can keep me from you, my love…”

“Oh, it’s one way, isn’t it? Like one-way glass. The robot was able to deliver our food, and the cherubs’ arrows can get through, too!” She grinned at her revelation.

“Oh, Rose, always thinking. Fantastic, you are! You and your brilliant mind!”

“Doctor, I need you to concentrate, please!” She glanced through the confetti once more and saw that Zoorgraps was darting maniacally around, eagerly watching the progress of the cherubs, egging them on in his shrill, piping voice, seemingly controlling them from his touchscreen device. “Zoorgraps,” she shouted, “please stop this! This is wrong. Please, listen to me!”

The purple-skinned alien turned his thin face toward her, madness flashing in his eyes. “See! Look at your booooyfriend,” he wheezed at Rose. “And you said you weren’t in love. Everyone who comes here is in love. You cannot deny it! But who loves Zoorgraps? No one! No one will ever be right for me. And you lot deny your love; complain about how complicated love is, when it’s so easy for you. After tonight, though, after tonight you’ll never complain again…”

Rose quickly determined that the Maître-d’ was not only controlling the cherubs but was also most likely responsible for tampering with the Doctor’s drink. She was just fortunate she hadn’t taken a sip of her own beverage: one of the two of them needed to be able to concentrate on stopping the massacre that was developing around them, and the Doctor, it seemed, was currently incapable of rational thought. She tried to keep her mind focussed as he pressed kisses up the inside of her arm. “Oh for the love of…” she muttered to herself.

“Love, Rose? Did you say you love me too?” the Doctor crooned.

Zoorgraps’ hysterical voice fluted up from below. “You will die along with all the rest of the lovers. You are nothing… undeserving of love! So unwilling to accept what is right in front of you, when it is so simple just to reach out and take it.” With that he adjusted the cherubs’ course towards Rose and the Doctor.

Rose, very aware of the danger that she and the Doctor were facing, strived to reason with the insane, violet alien. “Zoorgraps, there is someone out there for everyone. Really, there is. You just have to find the right person for you. It’ll happen. This isn’t helping anyone. Listen to me! Please stop!” She glanced up to see a cherub flying directly for their table. “Doctor! Duck!” As the cherub took aim, Rose flung her arms around the Doctor’s neck, pulling him to one side. She felt the breeze of the arrow as it passed over her right shoulder: too close by half!

“Oh, Rose! You’re such an enthusiastic lover! I can hardly wait either. I just want to get my hands on your, might I say, very lovely–”

“Doctor,” Rose whispered urgently in his ear, “your screwdriver!”

“You naughty little minx, you! I like the way you think.”

Out of sheer desperation, Rose decided to humour the Doctor and schooled her voice to a provocative tone. “Doctor, I know what you want,” she sighed. “I want it too, yeah.”

“Oh, yeah!”

The love-struck expression on his face told Rose that reasoning logically with him would be challenging, but she was determined to get through to him. “But we need to get out of here first: then we can head back to the TARDIS.”

He leered at her. “Yes, the TARDIS! Against the console, Rose. I’ve always pictured you–”

“Doctor!” She shoved him to one side again, as another arrow missed them by mere inches. She collected her scrambled thoughts before she spoke to the Time Lord again. “Doctor, Zoorgraps won’t bring our table down.” She forced her voice to tones of heavy sensuality, as much as she could, considering the panic that was threatening to overwhelm her. “Maybe you could… I dunno… override his controls with your screwdriver… get us down. And then…” She coaxed her mouth into a lascivious smile, deliberately allowing her tongue to poke through her teeth at the corner of her mouth: she was sure that drove him crazy even when he was sober.

His eyes immediately sought her lips (success!) “A plan, love! Well done! Fantastic!”

“Well, get on with it then!” she spluttered as a cherub spun around to aim at them from below.

“Patience, love.” He pulled out his sonic, wrapping his arm around Rose as he aimed it at the menu panel.

“Doctor! Hurry! God, if only the forcefield worked the other way ‘round, so that the arrows couldn’t hit us.”

“Oh, but that’s too easy, Rose! Genius, that I am, I could do that before you could say Raxacoricofallapatorius,” the Doctor boasted.

“Blimey, we don’t have that long! But, impress me, Doctor. Go on, then.”

The screwdriver activated. “Done!” the Doctor announced.

Rose sighed in relief. “But now we could fall. Am I right?”

“Yup. Now about that plan for getting back to the TARDIS: yes, Rose, against the console; specifically, you naked against the console.”

“A bit cold for that, don’t you think, Doctor,” Rose squeaked.

“You could wear my jacket, love. I’m a gentleman: I’d lend you my jacket.”

Screams from the rest of the restaurant diverted Rose’s attention from the amorous Time Lord. “They’re attacking everyone! Can’t we help them?”

“Only if we get down there,” he pointed to Zoorgraps, “and get a hold of that controller of his.”

“Well? What are we waiting for?” Rose yelped, hoping the Doctor was showing a glimmer of returning to a state common sense. “Let’s go!”

“Rose, what about us? The TARDIS? Naked?” Rose felt her hopes plunging to the floor where Zoorgraps stomped around hysterically.

“Well, we need to get down there, yeah! Save the day! And then, Doctor, we can celebrate…” She licked her lips enticingly, and fluttered her lashes.

“Eh, they can look after themselves. I think our needs are more important than these… strangers.” He waved his hand dismissively at the panicked people around them.

Rose rolled her eyes, her exasperation at the single-minded alien peaking, and devised some desperate measures she felt might charm him to take appropriate action: “Doctor,” she hummed his name, placing a warm hand between his hearts. “God, it turns me on when you take charge: when you act so brave and bring villains to justice! You are so fit. Fit and manly... and just, well… hot!” She cringed in horror at her words. Not because she didn’t mean them: just the opposite. But, the real truth was that he would be terribly embarrassed when the potion wore off, and he would think she was having him on, when really… Not that she would actually say that kind of thing out loud (on a normal day,) but that didn’t mean she didn’t feel it, fantasize about it, hope that… just, not like this, with him affected by an aphrodisiac.

“Well, what are we waiting for then, Rose Tyler? Prepare to be turned on!” He adjusted the settings on his sonic and pointed it at the touch screen again. “Going down, love. Now, when we get to the bottom, the forcefield should deactivate automatically, leaving us open to attack. Take shelter! I will protect you!”

“Got it,” she acknowledged, making a solemn vow to herself to disregard his instructions completely. As if she would hide somewhere like some coward while he put his life on the line. “Let’s go!” she urged.

The blue light flashed and Rose heard the screwdriver buzz next to her ear. The table lurched a little and began its descent. Rose kept her eyes on Zoorgraps, ready to take action the second the table landed and the forcefield deactivated. “Doctor,” Rose inquired, “what species is Zoorgraps? Never seen one of them before.”

“That’s what I love about you, Rose. Always thinking. Nothing gets my hearts thumping like a great mind. Ah, and you’re gorgeous, too! A perfect package… The things I want to do to you, Rose, when we get back–”

“His species, Doctor?”

“I was rather surprised to see him here, actually. They hardly ever leave their planet, the Spredifriat-mwooguds. It’s really unusual.”

“Why does that name sound familiar?”

“Well, I was starting to tell you about them earlier, and while I’d love to impress you with my extensive knowledge–”

“Oh, I love to hear you speakin’ all intelligent-like and sciencey. God, Doctor, just thinkin’ about listenin’ to your voice makes me all…” She bravely reached out and stroked his cheek, pulling herself closer to him. “Tell me,” she commanded in a whisper that brushed his parted lips.

“Blimey, I was starting to tell you about them earlier, but you must have distracted me with your sexy–”

“Gah! Doctor, we’re already half way down! Jus’ the facts, yeah.”

“Your wish is my command, Miss Tyler!”

“Get on with it, then, yeah! Before we land!”

“Ahhhh, Rose the dominatrix! So strong and forceful! My fantasy girl!” He rumbled, “Maybe the TARDIS can find you a nice, tight, leather–”

“Oh, my God! Doctor, we’ll be landin’ any second! Quick, tell me about the Spredy-moomoo-whatsits. Jus’ the basics.”

“Not your basic species, Rose. Their mating practices are extremely complicated.” The Doctor began a discourse with no apparent sense of urgency. “Five bonded individuals, of five different genders. Just imagine! And each of them must contribute genetic material in order to produce offspring. The ultra-female is the ultimate host to the offspring, but they go through different larval forms, carried by the primary and secondary females, both of whom receive genetic material from the primary male, before the larvae are transferred to their incubation pouches. The females provide their combined genetic material once the larva has attached itself to her. The ultra-male contributes genetic material only to the ultra-female, but all five must be present and working together through each sexual act. The love they all feel for one another is very strong.”

Rose squinted at the Doctor as she rapidly tried to absorb the information he was throwing at her. “But…”

“Oh, it’s very complicated, Rose. Each member of the bond has a different role in each stage of genetic transfer, but each one must be present every time. Beyond that, very little is known: very mysterious the Spredifriat-mwooguds are! They hardly ever leave their planet, because it’s just so difficult to find compatible bond-mates. It is very odd to find one on its own. And they’re usually so peaceable… with four other partners you have to be. This one is plain bonkers!”

“Poor Zoorgraps! We have to help him, Doctor, yeah? Bein’ alone must be makin’ him go completely spare,” Rose sympathized. As the table landed and the forcefield dissipated, her eyes shot to Zoorgraps whose face was flushed with indigo blotches, his green eyes wild as he furiously tapped in commands for the cherubs. Screams from the customers rang through the air with each shot, somewhat moderating Rose’s compassionate sentiments toward the mad alien, and urging her to action. “We need to get a hold of that touch screen of his!”

“Keep behind the table, Rose,” the Doctor responded curtly, pushing her down to conceal her presence from the maniacal Maître-d’. At the tone of his command, her gaze snapped to his. The look in his eyes told her he had overcome the worst of the effects of the aphrodisiac. This was the real Doctor, her Doctor, who was trying to keep her safe. He strode toward Zoorgraps, bristling with authority, screwdriver brandished like a weapon.

Rose’s eyes roved the restaurant and she realized all the cherubs were now trained on the Doctor, closing fast from all directions. “Doctor! Look out!” she yelped, leaping up from her place of safety to go to his aid.

“Stay where you are, Rose!”

She froze, but found herself muttering under her breath, “Not bloody likely.” How could he expect her to stay hidden when she could be out there helping him; helping the people panicking all around her. Rose moved out from behind the table stealthily, keeping an eye on the cherubs.

“Look, Zoorgraps, you don’t have to do this. I can help,” the Doctor spoke in a firm, quiet voice. With a nonchalance only he could master, he responded to an incoming arrow with a casual flick of the sonic screwdriver. The arrow zinged harmlessly out of the air. Followed by another. The Doctor smiled self-assuredly. “Is that all you’ve got then, Zoorgraps? Little arrows shot by little naked angels?” Zoorgraps’ mouth worked silently in frustration and he rapidly tapped additional commands into his controller, sending more arrows flying at the Doctor.

Rose having stolen a quick glance at the Doctor, and having seen that, for now, he was dispatching the threat of Zoorgraps’ arrows with ease, turned her attention to the frantic people around her. With the arrows all now aimed at one target, the customers and staff who had been at ground level were wasting no time in using the reprieve to their benefit and were beginning to race from the restaurant, assisting others or dragging injured companions with them.

Rose rushed to the side of a man who was desperately trying to haul his unconscious partner, who had an arrow protruding from his shoulder, toward the door. “C’mon, mate,” she laid a gentle hand on his shoulder, “lemme help, yeah.”

The man nodded, eagerly accepting her aid. Together they lifted the injured man and took him outside. “You’re safe now, I think. Make sure you apply pressure to that wound. And don’t move him again until proper help comes,” Rose instructed, turning to run back to the centre of the conflict.

As she reached the doorway, Rose had to fight her way past the people struggling to get out. Several minutes had passed since the Doctor had tried to engage Zoorgraps, and a quick glance told her that the Maître-d’ still had possession of the control pad. Rose quickly ushered the rest of the frightened customers out, offering reassurances where she could. The customers high in the air at their tables were still trapped, though, and she knew many of them were injured as Zoorgraps had concentrated most of his initial attack at those who had been helplessly confined to the floating platforms. Their broken whimpers and pleas for aid interrupted the now relative stillness of the room. She needed to get that pad!

The Doctor was occupying Zoorgraps’ full attention, and Rose was able to slip past the two combatants, behind the last, straggling customers leaving the building. The cries of the injured people above her, and the zing of deflected arrows muffled any noise she made. Sneaking up behind a display cabinet, she peered out, ready to pounce at the tall, thin Maître-d’. Watching for an opportunity to attack, and observing the Doctor’s movements, Rose noticed the Doctor was attempting to target the control pad with his sonic between attacks. It seemed that getting a hold of the pad was not, in fact, imperative: just distracting Zoorgraps might be enough. She heaved a sigh of relief. Looking at the sheer size of her target in comparison to herself, she didn’t think she would be very successful in any attempt, however unexpected, to overpower the big, wiry alien.

Taking a deep breath, she stepped out from behind the cabinet. The Doctor’s eyes, widening in terror, locked on hers. “Rose, no!”

She ignored him. “Zoorgraps,” she struggled to maintain a steady voice, “please, listen to the Doctor. He can help. We can help. ‘S what we do.”

The alien wheeled around, his eyes sparking with madness, face contorted with fury. He pounced toward Rose, towering over her, and she shrank back in alarm. He hissed at her, “You can’t help me! No one can. I am alone.”

“We could take you home… back to… back to your family. Back home. You don’t have to be alone.”

In a chilling response to her entreaty, he smirked at her, his fingers flying across the control pad. Suddenly one of the cherubs was veering toward her, its deadly dart poised to fly. “Now we shall see how easily your heart can be broken,” Zoorgraps sneered in a demented wheeze.

She stood frozen to the spot, barely able to breathe, eyes fixed on the arrow that was aimed directly for her heart. Briefly, her eyes flitted to the Doctor’s and took in his agonized expression, as he countered the attacks of the other cherubs but still managed to hold her gaze.

Zoorgraps didn’t miss the exchange. He cackled, addressing the Doctor, “Your heart will be broken, too, if this one dies! Not in love? We shall see.”

“No, I don’t think we shall,” the Doctor intoned dispassionately.

The arrow flew. Rose’s instincts screamed at her to move, to dive to one side, to get the hell out of there. But she was in a stupor, her body immobilized with terror, despair, disbelief. Everything seemed to slow down around her, and all she could make sense of was the dart hurtling toward her heart, and the anguish on the Doctor’s face.

I wouldn’t have missed it for the world…

The arrow never struck. It veered harmlessly away, clattering to the floor, the sharp sound instantly rousing her from her trance. In horror, she realized the Doctor had deflected the arrow trained at her, leaving himself open to direct attack. She watched helplessly as he lunged to one side, dodging the arrows and thrusting the sonic screwdriver over the floor toward her. A shriek ripped from her throat as she dove face first, past Zoorgraps’ feet, to snatch the device as it skittered towards her. Feeling the comforting weight of it in her hands, she rolled onto her back and aimed it up at the underside of the control pad, and activated it.

Everything went quiet, the air still and tense. The holographic cherubs fizzled from existence, the clatter of the little silver arrows on the floor the only sound in the hushed room.

It seemed like an eternity before Rose remembered to breathe, scrabbling desperately on hands and knees to where the Doctor knelt on the ground. “God, Doctor, you okay?” she inquired, voice low, but urgent. Worry consuming her, she began inspecting the Doctor’s back, convinced she’d find arrows protruding from him like porcupine quills. There was only one, embedded in the sole of his shoe, directly below his heel.

He yanked it out, and handed it to her. “There you go, Rose,” he ground out, “a souvenir.” He sprang to his feet, Rose scrambling up beside him, pointedly leaving the arrow behind.

Suddenly a strange keening noise filled the air. Rose turned toward the sound: Zoorgraps crumpled into a heap on the ground, wailing. With a reassuring touch to the Doctor’s arm, she stepped forward, and tentatively crouched down beside the distraught Maître-d’. “Hey… shhhh. It’s all over, yeah.” She tugged the control pad out of the alien’s limp fingers and passed it to the Doctor, who immediately activated the pad to bring the stranded customers to safety.

“You be careful,” the Doctor’s gruff voice cautioned her. She nodded at him mutely, as he turned away and stalked off to help the victims disembark from their tables.

As medics finally arrived to take care of the injured patrons, Rose turned her attention back to the distraught Zoorgraps. “We’ll get you home; get you back to your family. The Doctor can be very persuasive when it comes to dealin’ with the law…”

“I can’t go back! Never! There’s nothing left for me there,” he bemoaned in his fluting voice, now quivering with distress.

Rose comforted him as best she could. She placed an arm around his shoulders, causing him to shrink away from her touch. Despite his initial reaction, he didn’t specifically tell her to stop, so she persevered, and eventually he relaxed into her arms.

“I should not feel comfort from this… it is wrong…”

“Why?”

“You are not family… only family are permitted to touch so intimately.”

Rose immediately withdrew. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know… didn’t mean…”

“No… thank-you, Miss Rose. You are kind, and you have made me feel more like myself than I have done for several years now.”

She smiled cheerlessly at him, “Glad I could help.” They sat together, just talking, for several long minutes more.

“Rose,” the Doctor approached, speaking quietly, “the police are here.”

Zoorgraps rose to his full height, seeming to unfold before Rose’s eyes, and with quiet dignity, submitted himself to the authorities.

--oOo--

“Can’t we help him? He’s so lonely.” Rose trotted after the Doctor as he strode through the showers of rose petals back to the TARDIS.

“Rose, he’s just lucky nobody got killed today,” the Doctor reproved impatiently.

“He’s lost everyone… all his family in a fire. His life-mates; his children… everyone gone…”

The Doctor stopped and turned toward her, his eyes haunted by the parallels of Zoorgraps’ story and his own.

The similarities were not lost on Rose either. “He feels like he’s to blame, yeah, ‘cause he couldn’t stop it. He feels like he can’t ever go home again… He doesn’t think he deserves a second chance or that he’ll ever find love again.” She grasped the Doctor’s hand. “But I told him…,” she cast her eyes downward, unable to meet the Time Lord’s gaze, “…that, while no one could ever completely fill the hole left by his family, some people might just come along that could make it a little less deep, and maybe make a place for themselves in his heart…”

With a huff, the Doctor continued on toward the TARDIS, dismissing her entreaties with a curt shake of his head.

“Please! Is there nothing we can do?”

Abruptly, he stopped again and spoke gruffly: “What would you have me do, Rose?”

Her thumb flew to her lips and she nibbled indecisively on the nail. “I dunno… convince ‘em that he’d be better off on his home planet. You said before that his people, they’re peaceful, yeah. They must have loads of ways to help him that he could never get in a prison on some human-run penal colony.”

“Humph…”

“I’ve seen those places… you showed me. How could they even begin to know how to help him in a place like that? Please, Doctor…” She fluttered her lashes at him and put on an unrestrained show of what she hoped were her most beseeching expressions.

“That won’t work on me anymore, you,” he admonished, pointedly tapping his temple with a humourless grimace. “No more aphrodisiac to muddle up my thoughts.”

Despite his claims, she persisted with her efforts, entreating him with sad smiles and puppy-dog eyes.

“Oh, alright! We’ll go back,” he finally relented. “But no guarantees.”

“Yes!” she squeaked triumphantly. She began to lean in on her toes to deliver the Doctor a peck on the cheek, but was brought up short by the grim, icy look in his eyes.

He turned away from her, beginning the trek back along the main street, toward the police station.

--oOo--

It was a silent walk back to the TARDIS. The Doctor’s hands remained firmly stuffed inside his pockets, and his strides were long and determined. Rose struggled to keep up. While she was feeling chuffed at their success in convincing the local authorities to permit Zoorgraps to be transferred back to his home planet, she was very concerned about the Doctor: he was taciturn and closed off, resolutely not making eye contact and keeping a significant distance between them.

“Doctor…?” she surged ahead to walk by his side as they approached the time ship. “I just wanted to thank you for doing that for Zoorgraps. It means a lot, ya know. You didn’t need to–”

“Yeah, I didn’t need to! And don’t you forget it!” he cut her off with a snarl.

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“Like you don’t know.”

“No, actually I don’t! Care to enlighten me?” she snapped back, narrowing her eyes at him.

“Trying to take advantage of me while you thought I was still under the influence of that drug. ‘Oh, please, Doctor…’” his voice rose to a girlish pitch as he imitated her. “And the big, sad eyes and eyelash fluttering... Pathetic apes. You’re all the same, thinking sex is the solution to everything.”

“I can’t believe what I’m hearin’! That’s not fair! I would never…” Her voice trailed away. She had taken advantage when they were being attacked at their table in the restaurant, but she had been at her wits’ end. “Well… when Zoorgraps was attacking us, I needed you to get us down from there, so maybe I did take some liberties… but it was so we wouldn’t be killed…!”

He gave a self-satisfied snort.

“What? D’ya think I felt good about it? And, by the way, before, when I was tryin’ to get you to talk to the police about Zoorgraps… I knew… I knew you weren’t drugged anymore. So don’t you go accusin’ me of takin’ advantage of you! You have no right!” She stormed ahead of him, unlocking the TARDIS and thrusting the doors open as she stepped into the warm, greenish glow.

Following her in, he shut the doors firmly behind him. “Go pack your things. I’m taking you home.”

Her jaw dropped. “Think you’re goin’ to try that again? Leavin’ me behind? Didn’t work out so well las’ time, did it?” She shook her head incredulously. “Is this what’s gonna happen every time we row? You gonna threaten to drop me off or… or leave me behind?”

“It’s not a threat. It’s a decision. I’ve lived for over nine hundred years without you, thank you very much! I’m sure I’ll manage the next nine hundred. Now, go pack,” he growled. “And you can give me back that key.”

Rose was stunned, her heart broken, as she fumbled incredulously for the key that dangled from a chain around her neck. Her lower lip trembled as she placed it into the Doctor’s waiting, open hand. Tears pooled in her eyes. “Doctor…” she whispered.

“Go!” he commanded, pocketing the key and turning away from her, toward the TARDIS console.

She dragged her feet to the passageway that led to her room, turning back hesitantly before proceeding. “Jus’ so you know… in the restaurant… I – I never said anything I didn’t mean. I’m sorry that happened to you. I’m just… I’m sorry.” She continued slowly down the hall.

Several long seconds later, the Doctor’s voice brought her to a halt: “Wait, Rose! Wait!”

She turned to find him standing at the entrance to the passageway, silhouetted by the glow of the TARDIS’ central column, and she stepped back toward him, eyes downturned.

His hand gently cupped her cheek, tipping her head up so their eyes would meet, and she lost herself in the blue depths, in the insecurities and fears he so rarely allowed her to see. Then she felt him press the TARDIS key into her palm. “Promise me, Rose, you’ll try to stay safe. And not wander off…”

She rolled her damp eyes at him, snorting sarcastically, “Yeah, right.”

“Rose…” he reproached under his breath, his eyes brimming with unshed tears.

Swallowing hard, forcing back her own tears, she muttered: “Valentine’s really is a rubbish celebration, yeah?”

He brightened, chuckling. “I don’t think much of it, myself, but I’ll tell you what: let’s make the most of it!” He clapped his hands, rubbing them together in delight. “What do you say we watch one of your silly rom-coms tonight? Just you and me, some popcorn, and some really great hot chocolate… minus the aphrodisiac?”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Placing a hand on either side of her head, he gently pulled her face towards his and firmly kissed her forehead. When he pulled away, his eyes roamed her face as though memorizing it, and he smiled tenderly.

“Do you mind if I have a shower first, get in my jimjams?”

“Nah, you go ahead. I’ll get everything set up. Meet me in the entertainment room in twenty.”

Rose skipped away toward her room, spinning to grin back at him every few steps until the passageway bent and she couldn’t see him anymore.

--oOo--

Half an hour later, Rose came out of her ensuite, hair damp and dressed in cozy pyjamas. Her eyes were immediately drawn to a huge, glittering, tulle-wrapped package, sitting amongst the pillows on her bed. She burst into delighted laughter and scurried over to open it. Inside was a bouquet of a dozen red, Verdurian everlasting roses in a no-spill vase; an enormous box of fudge and a box of chocolates, both from the Cupid’s Arrow; a scrolled piece of parchment tied with a red ribbon; and a hand-written note:

There you go, Rose: chocolates and roses and (not very poetic, me but…) a dumb poem too. Sorry I put you through all of that, today. You deserve better. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: ‘I’m so glad I met you.’

Happy Valentine’s Day,

~The Doctor

Carefully untying the ribbon from around the parchment, Rose unfurled the paper to read the poem:

Rose, you’re fantastic!

The TARDIS is blue,

And all space and time

Is better with you.

With a huge grin, she grabbed the fudge and the chocolate, and humming a cheerful tune, danced down the hall to the entertainment room. Maybe, she thought to herself, Valentine’s Day wasn’t completely rubbish after all, as long as she was willing to do as Zoorgraps had suggested: accept what was right in front of her. Although the Doctor was not exactly her “boyfriend” (he was so much better than that!), and their relationship would probably never be conventional, she realized all that didn’t matter. Her search for one decent bloke was over, and had been for a long time.

#happy valentine's day #nine x rose #ficandchips #angst #fluff #humour #aphrodesiac #the cupid's arrow #tenroseforeverandever's fic

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pipedreamprayer · 6 years

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ep 68

there was just...so much i wanted to think about after the episode was done that i wound up noting down my reactions and thoughts as I watched to get them straight and wouldn't forget anything

now I’m just...overwhelmed and curious to see if anyone has any thoughts to add to anything - hence me making use of the copy and paste function

Wait, Ai has had dreams before?! Well…I guess that answers the question of ‘’do androids dream of electric sheep’’ even if a fully sentient AI sans the robotic body is a bit far from android…

…why does the Cyvberse look like a set piece? With splits in the panels showing flat scenery and no movement in the smoke of the volcanoes?? IM SUSPICIOUS

Are you flipping serious, Yusaku perfectly serious and straight faced determined that Ai was definitely not present by using soap operas as bait. What is this episode and where has it been all my life

GOOOD GOD ROBOPPI IS THE CUTEST THING EVER!!!!!!!!!

So it’s is now confirmed that none of the others have been to Yusakus house before….and still have yet to…still, I wonder if the whole helper robot situation is a part of the reason he’s allowed to live alone – he has a helper

Wtf what are the little noises she keeps making, her reactions to the butterfly were adorable but the one when she’s plugged in and has hearts in her eyes…Vrains is seriously pushing the robot sex agenda with her aren’t they?

Oh holy smokes they lured him in via his own vanity THEY DEFINITELY KNOW HIS PERSONALITY WELL

Yusaku is learning to be more cautious with his allies and im so proud! if...worried as hell that he’s going in alone

Oooh Flame’s kind of bitter about Windy being treated with suspicion…I can’t wait to see his reaction when he discovers how warranted that suspicion was…

Holy shit even for an insidious plot involving a fake Cyberse the Ignis are enough the comedy part of the show that they screw up faking Linkuriboh - and Ai still doesn't catch on!

Wait…wait the Cyberse was SPREADING before it was destroyed?? That…I worry that has some concerning implications that the Ignis COULDN’T have just…been left alone forever, that eventually their interests would clash with humanities bc they were taking over the network or something

Ahaha holy shit I totally forgot about the whole joke with Ai not understanding Linkuribohs language no matter how he behaves like he does, and now I cant stop remembering the joke at the starts of season 2, damn that was funny

Dear god they even programmed this fake Cyverse to look like corrugated cardboard around the hole rather than, you know, actually make it look more like a real imitation

Damn Ai is well animated this episide…

AAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH IT’S THE RETURN OF THE LOST INCIDENT THEME!!!!!!!! that's NEVER a good sign

Dear god the Ignis have their own language and it sounds like speaking in electrofunk tongues straight from digital hell. Really puts that au i’ve been thinking about where the Ignis are demons into perspective…

Mmmmkay so literally every fiber of my being is screaming not to trust Windy at the sight of him. From how he appeared out of thin air (as awesome as that was) to the way he’s sitting to how casual he is about all this, all ‘yo!’ and everything…also, his questioning why Ai isn’t speaking Ignis anymore brings up a lot of questions…especially since the biggest difference between Ai and everyone else is that he’s had an extra 5 years wandering the network experiencing life outside of the isolated space the Ignis made for themselves – he’s seen more of humanity than any of the others by a long shot and he’s decided he prefers emulating them over following the lead of the rest of his own kind, and that’s why I think he’s gonna make a big difference to the war that's apparently inevitable. I even wonder if we’ll see a parallel to what he said to Yusaku about the Cyberse being his paradise at the end of season 1 – I wonder if we’ll see him talk about the good parts of the human world to the Ignis

Oooooh I am EXTREMELY uncomfortable at how the fake Cyberse is now clearly an enclosed box…its really such a small space compared to what it would be, and what ought to be big open spaces for everyone to roam about in have become walls of a container…

Kudos to Windy’s voice actor, he sounds like he has a constant smile on his face even without the character having a mouth…

Oh good, even Ai realises how creepy his associate is

THE SHADOWY MAN ISNT A PERSON AT ALL ITS ANOTHER HOLDING PROGRAM LIKE ECHO OR THE TREE MAN!!!! Fucking hell why did I not think of that before… Bohman and all were never talking to the figure itself, but the Ignis on its arm…

Also HIS EYES ARE DIAMONDS!!! We finally have the full appearances of all Ignis and…damn are they interesting – Lightening is so…sharp in every way!

Ooh wow Ai was so used to being in the real world or Vrains he didn’t consider that he wasn’t limited by physics here…

…Is Ai meant to have hands way bigger than the others?? Cause I just noticed his forearms expand way more than Windy and Lightening at least, I need to look at the others designs to check it i’m pretty sure Aqua and Earth have similarly human proportioned hands compared to the rest of their body

Of COURSE Ai is the one who named him – thinking about it, I wonder if it came from liking his own name and seeing Flame also take pride in his name that he wanted to make sure the Ignis all had names

Wait there was a SPY in the Cyberse that led to the attack?! That...changes a lot of things...there was issues WITHIN the Cyberse that led the danger there, not solely an outside force interrupting their paradise

Aaaw Ai cares about Aqua

Wait she went missing BEFORE the attack?! And Ai doesn’t believe she’s the spy damn I love his faith in her

Hahaha Ai is getting called out for his naming habits and acts like a petulant child defending himself saying it’s for convenience – if that’s not a metaphor for the writers answering questions they knew would come up, I don’t know what is

Uuuuuuhhhh I do NOT trust how much Windy is pushing for Aqua to be the spy…It feels like deflecting the attention from himself and Lightening…but Ai isn’t letting himself be lead about, and somehow the fact it’s out of faith in Aqua as opposed to realising they’re trying to manipulate him just makes me all the more proud of him!!

Ai is asking the real questions here…

FAKE LINKURIBOH IS A SPY FOR THEM BOTH!!??!?!

FUCKING LINK SENSE IN ACTION RIGHT THERE!!! Uuugh this raises so many more questions though….how does he know how to do that?! Has he had practice with it, or is it some sort of unexplained instinct? Why hasn’t he done it before?! Like, I dunno, to find Bohman!!

Mmmmmmmmm I don’t like the superiority complex coming from Lightening…it reminds me of Kogami tbh, both how highly they think of themselves and how they’re of the belief that Ignis are superior but vulnerable enough to be destroyed. Except Kogami thought humans needed to attack before the Ignis wiped them out, and Lightening thinks they need to escape humanity’s reach before humans wipe THEM out

Wtf wtf WTF WTAF nonononono you guys weren’t supposed to actually take Kogami’s crazy lessons on board, you were supposed to have left his control bc you DIDN’T want to do as he said!!

Fucking hell a flaming Kogami bc of how the Ignis were named and…GAH I CANNOT HANDLE THIS INSANITY

So…they’re so high and mighty above the humans, but are utterly dependant on them for survival, as their whole world exists on the manmade network…and they’re going to enslave mankind to ensure they don’t get cut off…writers what on earth...

Oh sweet Jesus humans won’t even have THAT reason to keep existing fairly soon...I am VERY afraid of these 2

Wait, does that imply they’re making robotic bodies or something in order to affect the real world and be able to keep making hardware?? Cause…that could mean IRL duels against robots…

…wha, Ai? Wise? And what the hell is this about evil wisdom?? If that’s a jab at the dark element of monsters leading to fiends and whatnot, I don’t get what evil wisdom actually…implies. You could potentially stick evil in front of anything to joke about the dark ignis if that were the only reason, so there’s something I’m missing…though it’s nice to see that Windy and Lightening aren’t…like, 2 sides of the same coin, they’ve got their individual personalities and quirks and aren’t constantly on the same page

Oh…oh fucking hell he has a good point. I hate to admit it, but he does. Even if Ai believes Playmaker wouldn’t delete him, Ai will outlive Yusaku and then…there’s billions of humans out there, but that’s no guarantee that there will always be at least one capable person willing to defend him from those who DO want him dead. Trying to count on humans when you’re immortal and inhuman is…so risky it basically comes down to blind faith. And, frankly, the acceptance that things will probably one day go wrong. Humans accept the inevitability of death, but damn that must be difficult to face for creatures who’d been promised immortality from the get-go. They’ve been making plans for the long-long term future, so the threat of destruction must be…infinitely more terrifying and unknown to the Ignis than to us…

PLAYMAKER!! Interesting that the other 2 knew he was coming and didn’t…hinder him in any way

Wait, they were waiting for him?! Ooooh that does not bode well…

I’m so fascinated in how they are, for the most part, repeating themselves to Playmaker yet are going about it so so differently from how they treated Ai…

Also, the way the flashback reminded me that Kogami thought of humans as vulnerable while trapped in the real worlds dangers is a parallel to how the Ignis are vulnerable while they don’t have control over the hardware that runs the network they exist on

…DAMN that’s an interesting response from Yusaku! He isn’t denying that the Ignis might well be the closest thing to humanity’s successor, and we know he’s going to be honest about that sort of thing. This is his actual opinion. But, furthering that opinion, that possible label doesn’t give them the right to hurt people as though they don’t matter in the grand scheme of things, like how Kogami treated the kids and their families. And…he’s right, or at least I believe so. The Ignis are functionally immortal and have such power in the way of the network, the thing that humanity is so dependent on nowadays, but that’s not…the most important part of the situation. Yusaku just…wants people to stop suffering, whether by the Incident or the network being destroyed or this whole debacle…god I love this character

Ooooh no Windy took that very wrong…it sucks, bc that’s such a…childish argument! its all ‘’If you agree with me great, if you don’t, then you’re lying about your motivations and you’re an enemy and we shouldn’t listen to you’’! Like…dammit you guys are based off of 6 year olds and despite the whole ‘our mission’ this and ‘enslave humanity until they have no further use’ coming across as big important serious decisions made by big important serious people, they’re not the most mature

…fuck that’s even MORE sinister than I expected! They just…don’t care about humans enough to give a shit whether they’re suffering or have lives of their own, they just see them as a resource that will eventually need to be annihilated before they become a threat to their own existence…dammit, it’s not far from how we treat animals!! In fact, that’s exactly what it is! They consider themselves above humans even though they only exist because of them and are still dependant on them, but don’t see them as worth the same consideration they’d give one of their own (though even amongst themselves they’re pretty harsh given how they’ve talked about Aqua) so they’re willing to use them then throw them away like they…have no inherent value, no right to their own lives! Dammit, this feels horrible being on the other end of that…I might need to go vegetarian after this…

Ooooh Ai you sly fox…as much as I love more validation that Ai is a manipulative ignis and they know it while humans and us watchers have been assuming nothing but idiocy is in that head of his, I wonder how much was…genuine. I mean, wanting to try to find a solution with Playmaker seems…in character for him, particularly after that montage of him remembering all they’ve been through together. Still, the way he said goodbye without looking at them makes me feel like he’s trying to hide how nervous he is…and with good reason since they know what he’s up to. I’m starting to get why they call him wise, which is something I never thought I’d think

Dammit these 2 are really scaring me with how they’re just..so causal about chatting as they let Ai drift farther and farther away, fully aware they can cut him off whenever they feel like it and without a doubt are going to do so…

AGH THESE GUYS ARE ON THEIR HOME TURF AND THEYRE FUCKING POWERFUL

HAHAHAhahahaaaaa*whimper*…at least Windy is aware how sinister they’re coming across, even if he doesn’t seem to care…these guys are reminding me of Revolver and Spectre WAY too much

t-t-take over his programming?? Wouldn’t that…be like an Ignis lobotomy?!

‘’his opinion is 1 in 8 billion – you think that will change everything?’’ uuugh I mean he has a point but also this is a card game anime so…hopefully the answer is yes? Hopefully…this IS a very unconventional YGO after all…

Goddammit they don’t have to be so snide about it! Ai was trying to pass on what he’s learnt in his time with humanity – not to underestimate them! Especially his partner!! God I can’t wait for Playmaker and Ai to defeat them and ruin their plans like they did Kogami’s, it will somehow be even more satisfying to see these 2 learn how wrong they are about humanity…

…HE’S ONLY JUST NOW REALISING HE SHOULDN’T BE OUT OF HIS DUEL DISK?!?! dammit, he really is still our lovable dumbass, isn’t he?

HOLY SHIT A MOTHERFUCKING JOJOS REFERENCE this show has no shame and I can’t get enough of it

‘’After I’ve broken down everything that makes you your own person and absorbed you into myself I’ll fix what I don’t like about you’’ FUCK OFF WINDY

So Lightening is too fast for anyone to follow, and Windy has the best control of the Data storms, Earth is the best duelist, Aqua can tell truth from lies…I wonder what Flame and Ai’s specialties are…Ai’s might be monster making since he gets on so well with Linkuriboh and created Storm Access

WHAT THE HECKITY HECK

OOOOH ONLY ONE PERSON MAKES ENTRANCES THAT EXTRA

Revolver, welcome ba-HE HAS EYEBALLS?!?! And eyelashes even prettier than Playmakers…what

‘’were you able to predict that I’d show up?’’ FUCK YEAH, GIVE THEM A TASTE OF THEIR OWN SASS!!!

Ow…my hands hurt bc I couldn’t refrain from slapping the palms together like an excited seal’s flippers…dafuq is wrong with me, I don't even regret it I was too invested in the new developments!

AaaaaAAAAGGGGHHH THEYRE DESTROYING THE FEEBLE CYVERSE IMITATION like it’s a fake probably meant to lure Ai more than anything but the fact they’re going to all that trouble despite that…damn they look so sinister lit by the fires of their own attack on a defenceless…place. I dunno what to call this area tbh. But it’s such a good way of showing how dedicated they still are to the cause by replicating the destruction of the real Cyberse, and to remind us that, well, they’re not good guys by any stretch of the mind. Revolver might have swooped in and saved the lives of our protags, and may have even intended to interrupt the process, but it wasn’t out of the goodness of his heart, it was most certainly bc of the same reason he’s avoided targeting Playmaker himself – he wants to duel him again and cant if he’s dead. Jeez…here’s hoping at least SOME of him just plain wanted to, just simply didn’t want him to die (even though he still definitely wants the Ignis dead).

And on that note…he kind of has a point, much as I hate to say it. These 2 are literally aiming to enslave and wipe out mankind after all…but goddammit I want to be on Ai’s side and say that there’s hope for a peaceful resolution! I just…don’t know if it’s possible with both sides containing such stubborn, angry parties…is it even possible for beings so long living to change their mindsets from what has apparently been their thoughts since creation? I can’t imagine Ignis commonly being open to change…

Uuuugh my god that preview though…Ai and Playmaker are caught between a rock and a hard place, 2 sides riling for a genocide of the other while the ex-emissary of revenge tries to talk peace and acceptance, co existence and letting go of one’s rage in order to have hope for the future…and that…kind of feels like what this is really about? As in, the future. Both Hanoi and the Ignis (not just these 2 but all of them sans Ai) are concerned with the future, with making sure they survive to EXIST in that future no matter the cost. And then there’s our protagonist pair – one who fought so hard to be able to move on from his trauma, to have a future worth living at all, and the other who spent his time in the Cyverse idling and enjoying life one moment to the next with no real regard for his duty as a leader there…who has now learnt so much from these transient humans in regards to taking risks and working hard for what is worthwhile. They’ve certainly got the best chance of anyone in the 8 billion strong population of the world of getting through to these guys, of changing their minds about how to consider the future.

#vrains #episode 68 #ygo #ive never done something like this before #but fuck it #im just throwing all of this out there #why the hell not #go nuts

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