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raleighcarrera · 3 years

Text

falling

platinum | raleigh carrera x mc (cadence dorian)

a little while ago i posted about the idea of a soulmate au where the first words raleigh & cadence say to each other are tattooed on them their whole lives, and this... is that. (for @platinumweekend ❤️)

tags: @choicesarehard ; @empressazura; @emomoustache ; @natesewell ; @zigtheeortega ; @pixeljazzy ; @brycemaloliver ; @grigori-girl ; @dulceghernandez ; @bitchloveskcbaseball ; @withbeautyandrage

~10.5k words | T

the words appear in looping script on his thirteenth birthday, right on time. they curve along the inside of his bicep, innocently punctuated. what’s your name?

“you got lucky,” one of his older cousins tells him, later, when everyone in his family comes by for cake and to ooh and aah over his new tattoo, “you’ll be able to hide that with a shirt or a jacket easily.”

but raleigh sleeps shirtless every night for the next two years, even when it’s cold, so that the words are the last thing he sees with his head pillowed on his arm before he falls asleep, dreaming of the nameless, faceless person who will one day say them, wondering what their voice might sound like when they do.

ii.

she has a more difficult go of it.

being a thirteen year old girl would be miserable enough without the added pressure of the words that practically feel broadcast across her forehead, most of the time. everyone at school teases her constantly and ruthlessly: say something funny, cadence. go on. tell us a joke!

so it’s difficult not to resent the two words scrawled lazily across her collarbone and the person attached to them, especially in the mornings before school when she’s angrily rearranging her neckline and jewelry in the mirror while the bus idles outside.

very funny. she isn’t, really. she’s plenty of things -- determined and passionate and sensitive, definitely, but... no one’s ever found her particularly funny, before.

and no one seems to understand just how much the expectation of having to be funny, one day, is weighing on her, not even her parents, when she finally works up the courage to squeak out, “but how am i supposed to know what i should say?”

her mom laughs indulgently, like she’s already said something funny. her stomach sinks further.

“oh, sweetheart,” she tells her, “don’t worry, it won’t matter. you just will.”

iii.

people ask him about it. a lot.

it gets difficult to keep it a secret as things change around him, but raleigh’s careful to avoid slip-ups and paparazzi photos and he doesn’t say a word about it in interviews, even when he’s asked directly. he’s never seen without short sleeves on, at the very least, and he doesn’t even tell blair and cameron about it.

he sort of wishes he had, though, because as his life turns upside down and he adapts to a new country with a new set of rules and an industry that makes his head spin most of the time it starts to feel more and more confusing, those three words -- what’s your name?

everywhere he goes, thousands of girls blocking the street scream it at him. so how is it possible that whoever’s waiting to meet him doesn’t already know it?

and what does that mean for how the rest of his life is going to turn out?

what if all of this -- the fame and the money and the notoriety -- is fleeting, and he’s only a few short years from being completely washed up and irrelevant? what if the day he’s meant to meet his person is so far away that he’ll be completely out of the spotlight, by then, with sunset skatepark playing reunion tours and him having spent most of his life alone?

it’s a lot of pressure, for someone who’s already working their way through such a serious adjustment, and most of the time it’s dizzying, thinking about the fact that there’s someone out there who’s supposed to be perfect for him, when everyone he meets seems determined to forget every word they know other than yes, so they can suck up to him as much as possible.

his teenage years fly by in a whirlwind of mistakes and regrets. there’s things he would’ve never dreamed would come his way, like world tours and more money than he can count and so many girls who know everything about him before they even sit down to dinner, but there’s more than that, too.

there’s all the ways the industry weakens his trust until it’s gone, all the people who try to use him for what he can do for them, all the times he stumbles until he finally learns to distance himself by cultivating a persona, by leaning into all the expectations of raleigh carrera and creating something so outlandish it doesn’t hurt as much when disaster follows him around because it’s supposed to.

he watches everything that surrounds him turn fake and plastic and puts his energy only into his music, coasting on the rest. the days are less exciting than when he first joined the band at fifteen; he’s a solo artist, now, and most of the time, he’s just trying to get through.

but chaos continues to follow him and eventually his notoriety is inescapable. his first solo album is self-titled and he somehow manages to get a trademark on the word raleigh, as if the name is now more his than anything that ever belonged to the state of north carolina, and part of him sort of expects the words stamped on his arm to change, once he hits one-hundred million followers on his social channels.

they never do, though, and when he’s alone, and the veneer he’s built up for everyone else fades away, he can’t help but to be fascinated by this person who just wants an answer to the question no one else would ever dare ask him.

iv.

college isn’t exactly the fresh start she was hoping it’d be.

she was a loser in high school and things don’t get much better for her even now that she’s with ‘her people’ at a performing arts university she can barely afford, even with two part-time jobs.

shane is across the country at a proper state school with parties and a social life and lots of friends who aren’t her, and she’s failing her improv class, proving that she isn’t actually very funny at all.

boys continue to not notice her and patrons in bars continue to turn away from her one-woman performance, her old acoustic guitar the only constant in a life that feels utterly, unbelievably pointless, most of the time.

it’s like she’s drifting through the days, putting her time in at college in the hopes that it’ll fortify her for what’s next -- her big break, the discovery that’ll get her out of that shitty small town she’s been trying to escape her entire life. she writes hundreds of songs about how lost she feels and hates every single one, dreaming of a time when things might be different and she doesn’t have to second-guess every single one of her decisions.

she doesn’t have much of a love life and tries not to think about that, either.

the person on the other side of those two words stuck on her collarbone is probably looking for someone self-confident, who knows who they are and is comfortable with that. they’re probably expecting to meet someone who has their life together, who, at the very least, has a plan.

they’re probably not expecting a talentless nobody screwup like her, someone who tries as hard as she can yet never seems to make anything work.

things don’t turn around after graduation, either. sure, she manages to find an apartment in a building that’s nice enough and uses the last of her savings on the deposit and trying to furnish it, but it’s only a few weeks of trying and failing to secure a regular paying gig performing before she’s back at smoothie star again, begging for her old job back.

and there’s nothing that makes her feel more like a failure than working the same shifts she had in high school.

as she hums along to the radio on a random tuesday afternoon when the store is dead and there’s nothing to blend, she wonders what mr.-or-mrs. very funny would think if they walked in and saw her here -- twenty-three years old and flat broke, with a dead-end job and a one-bedroom apartment all she has to show for her very expensive and very useless bachelor’s degree.

that, and a notebook full of half-finished songs about relationships she could only ever dream about and an escape from the miserable small town she lives in that feels farther away with every day that passes.

she can’t imagine they’d be very impressed.

raleigh’s life gets monotonous very quickly. the music takes a backseat to the scandals and for a while there’s a predictable pattern of cause trouble, clean up image, rinse and repeat.

there are girls in between the cycles to help him pass the time. some he likes well enough and some he despises, but for the most part his management gives their recommendations and he agrees and makes awkward conversation for an hour or two over brunch until it’s time to go trash something again.

things get particularly bad after one minor cruise ship hijacking incident.

but in his defense, no one ever told him that breaking into the harbor and joy riding was a first-degree felony, worsened by the fact that he’d just so happened to crash the boat into the pier while he was trying to dock it.

at least he’d been sober.

though a monumental fuck up like this felt sort of inevitable; everyone who knew him probably figured it was only a matter of time before he went too far. how could he not when he was always chasing the next high?

still, the image rehab tour that follows is far from what he’d call enjoyable. he has to cut off all his hair and play nice at industry parties and waste time standing around being seen at charity events he winds up just cutting checks for instead of helping out at.

on top of the miserable community service comes the pr bullshit his team so loves -- dozens of tv appearances back-to-back where he’s herded around all day like cattle, in and out of green rooms with crappy coffee and bad catering.

he has no idea that showing up to be a judge on one in a million is going to change his life. hungover and running late, he barely even makes it to the taping of the semi-finals, slinking inside the concert hall in middle-of-nowhere, usa with a headache and some choice words for whoever thought this was the best way to clean up his image.

fortunately, raleigh manages to make his way inside virtually unnoticed. his phone is buzzing angrily in his pocket -- undoubtedly his manager trying to encourage him to hair and makeup or some other absurdity -- but he ignores it in favor of ducking back behind the line near the auditorium doors, only barely catching the last few words of some catty confrontation between two contestants as he goes.

as one of the girls stomps away, he sees the other’s shoulders slump from behind. “guess i’m not making any friends,” she mutters.

it’s clearly said to no one -- not even to herself, really -- yet for some reason, he can’t stop himself from responding. “where i come from, that’s a good thing.”

the girl’s shoulders straighten, but she still doesn’t turn around. “i’m not trying to succeed at the cost of others.”

raleigh smirks, leaning back against the wall beside his guitar case. “you do realize you’re at a competition show, right?”

“of course, but...” her hair ruffles with what sounds like a huff. she’s still not facing him, staring off at where the other girl she’d been talking to had run away. “that doesn’t mean i’m not rooting for everyone here to share their music with the world.”

“what a sweet sentiment,” raleigh drawls sarcastically, almost feeling a little bad for her and her naivety. this poor girl is going to be eaten alive. “it won’t last.”

her body tenses, her shoulders tightening again. he can almost see smoke start to pour from her ears before she spins suddenly on her heel to face him.

whatever sharp retort had been on the tip of her tongue gets swallowed with a blink as soon as their eyes meet. something like electricity crackles in the space between them, strengthening the invisible pull he’d felt when he first stopped behind her. instead, she only asks, “what’s your name?”

vi.

the man in front of her snorts. “very funny.”

a smile tugs at her lips. “very funny, that’s a weird name.” this is unlike her -- the quick comeback, the flirting. usually being face-to-face with a guy as good looking as the one talking to her now made her want to wither away and die, but something about the stranger standing before her sets her instantly at ease. “so, are you gonna tell me, or not?”

now it’s his turn to blink at her. a hand lifts to rub at his jaw. “huh. you really don’t know who i am, do you?”

cadence’s eyes narrow as she assess him. there is something vaguely familiar about that crooked grin, she’s sure of it.

at the very least, it’s an excuse to stare at him, and she does, moving her eyes slowly over the tattoos poking out over his jacket collar, the line of stubble on his sharp jaw, the glint of mischief in his eyes.

her helpless gaping is interrupted by a sudden shrill scream. “oh. my. god! is that raleigh carrera?!”

everything clicks at once. as a wild group of girls corner him, she realizes where she’s seen that smile before -- on just about every tabloid cover known to man, plastered all over convenience stores and the internet with headlines about his latest bender. in fact, she’s pretty sure he was just in the news for something similar -- crashing a yacht or something else ridiculous like that, something that only someone as rich as raleigh carrera could have accomplished.

then she realizes what he’d said to her, as soon as she’d turned to look him in the eyes. very funny.

her heart stops. all she can do is stare wide-eyed at him as he dispels the girls clamoring for a selfie, snapping back to the present when he waves one large hand in front of her face.

“sorry -- what?”

“i said, what’s your name? it only seems fair, now that you know mine, and all.”

“cadence,” she answers numbly, “i’m -- um, i’m used to your hair being longer.”

“cadence,” raleigh repeats, smiling at her, “so you do know who i am.”

“what do the magazines call you again? r&b’s time bomb? puerto rico’s hottest export? you’re kind of notorious.” she blinks at him, then admits, “i’ve heard your songs.”

“seen the tabloid covers too, eh?” the expression on his face suggests he’s almost proud of them.

this is surreal.

“didn’t you crash a yacht or something?” she asks, brain whirring into overdrive as she tries to process what’s happening. he doesn’t seem to have realized it yet, which gives her a moment to gather her thoughts, something that feels impossible when she can’t push the way he’d scoffed very funny out of her mind.

“or something. insurance paid out a couple million in property damage, but...” raleigh trails off, brow suddenly furrowing. he stares at her silently for a beat too long, then slowly turns a dull red. “hey, what’d you say earlier, again?”

cadence wets her dry lips, trying not to panic. stay calm, she silently coaches herself. raleigh carrera is not your long-awaited soulmate and you are not doing this in line to audition for one in a million. “i said -- what’s your name? and then you said...”

oh god, this is happening. her teeth dig into her bottom lip as she fidgets with the neckline of her top, tugging it to the side so raleigh can see the two words on her collarbone.

“very funny,” he mutters, “oh, jesus fucking christ. you can’t be serious.”

“me?” she demands, “you’re the one who --”

“next up,” calls a voice suddenly, cutting sharply through their argument, “contestant #9,276.”

her blood runs cold as she realizes that’s the number she’s wearing pinned to her shirt. she can feel herself start to sweat; how the fuck is she supposed to perform like this? she wants to throw up. why did this have to happen to her now? this was her shot -- her one fucking chance --

“hey, easy.” there’s suddenly two strong hands on either side of her shoulders, and she startles as raleigh stares at her from up close, closer than he was just a moment ago. “relax, okay? you’re gonna be fine. you’ve got this.”

“but --” she starts, then realizes her mind is racing too quickly to even articulate what she wants to say. she settles for shaking her head, eyes wide and panicked. “i can’t just -- oh my god, i’m going to throw up.”

“here,” raleigh directs, “take my guitar. prince gave it to me as a birthday present.”

prince?! she mouths hysterically to herself, as he flips the latch on his case open and pulls out the instrument. “how is this supposed to help me?”

“just trust me,” he says, giving her a gentle nudge towards the auditorium, “now go.”

she does, stumbling forward with the most expensive piece of equipment she’s ever held in her hands in her life alongside her, drawing in a deep breath as she makes her way onto the stage.

she can do this.

everything else will have to come after.

vii.

the thing is -- she’s talented. exceptionally so.

he can tell she’s a little nervous, but maybe that’s just because he’s used to looking out for that sort of thing; he could probably recognize it more easily than the average person would. it probably has nothing to do with who they are, how he notices the nuances in her body language...

her belt is impressive. her voice is stunning, clear and uniquely melodic. his guitar looks spectacular in her hands, and cadence plays it like she’s been practicing on it her entire life.

he tries his best to look nonchalant, feet kicked up onto the seat in front of him, but when she locks eyes with him from the stage he knows he hasn’t succeeded. raleigh’s breath catches, and he stares back at her, transfixed by the way her dainty hands cradle the neck of the guitar and strum the strings, how her lips purse around the long, emotional high note at the end of the song’s chorus.

she’s really very pretty.

he’d probably be lying to himself if he said it doesn’t make him a little bit jealous and uncomfortable, watching how she and avery fawn over each other when she’s finished. he’s probably a much better suited match for her, clean cut and pristine as he is.

he wonders if she’s disappointed that it’s him -- that it’s now, when she’s clearly on the cusp of something great all on her own.

it’s a lot to think about, and so he dips out of the auditorium before she finishes up, rushing outside with his heart pounding. it’s not until he’s halfway through the crumpled pack of cigarettes in his jacket pocket that raleigh starts to relax even an iota, and of course that’s when the stage door he’d left propped swings open wide and cadence’s sneakers hit the asphalt beside his boots.

“uh, you can’t just leave me with this thing,” she says, apropos of nothing, and as he stares at her he realizes she’s talking about his guitar, which she’s holding in one hand like it’s a dead fish. “this costs more than everything in my apartment combined, i’m sure.”

he shakes his head at her, laughing as his fingers flick ash from the cigarette he’s holding. “no way -- you should keep it. you two looked perfect together.”

she hesitates, looking down at the instrument again. he can see in her eyes that she’s torn; it’s obvious she knows the right thing to do is to refuse a generous gift from a stranger, but she wants to keep it, and already his mind is racing as he considers what else he could give her that would excite her like that -- a private flight, a tour of his penthouse, a million dollars.

“are you sure?” cadence asks, without looking at him, and the hesitancy in her voice makes him realize how unsure she really is. she’s the one who’s wondering if he’s disappointed in her.

he licks his suddenly dry lips and drops what’s left of his cigarette to the ground, finding he doesn’t actually need the rest of it, anymore. “positive.”

viii.

they don’t actually get to spend a lot of time together, while she’s filming. she has to focus and it seems like she’s always busy, somehow -- not that she sees raleigh very often in the first place.

the days are spent rehearsing with avery and cramming in as much mentoring as possible, and when she can pull herself away from fiona’s lessons on image to get home at a reasonable hour she collapses into bed pretty much immediately, out like a light from the whirlwind of the day and hardly even aware enough to dream.

but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t think about him. she does, especially on the rare occasions she manages to catch a glimpse of raleigh walking around in the studio, or on one memorable evening she stays late in the auditorium to bang on the piano keys of the beautiful, enviable baby grand on set and startles to find him leaning in the doorway, watching her play.

it’s all a blur and wildly difficult to process; just when she thinks she has a grip on things she remembers the private moments she’s had with raleigh and her emotions tumble to pieces again as she lets the weight of the implications of what’s going on between them crush her completely.

one moment sticks out on her as being particularly worrisome, insofar as how it bodes for the rest of her life.

it feels like something significant from the moment raleigh offers to help her warm up; they’ve hardly had a moment alone together in days and she still has absolutely no idea how she’s supposed to talk to him or what she should say, but for some reason the conversation flows easily and she hardly has to think about the (no doubt incredibly stupid-sounding) words coming out of her mouth.

“you’re going to kill it,” raleigh says finally, once they’ve worked through all the exercises in his arsenal, “you really don’t need my help.”

never in her wildest dreams did she ever imagine someone like him would say something like that to her. “you think?”

“i know it,” he answers confidently, shrugging his shoulders like it’s that simple. “and you should, too.”

there’s a moment of silence where they just stand there staring at each other, ignoring the restless murmuring of the crowd outside that’s waiting for him to slip into his seat at the judge’s table. she’s effortlessly lost in raleigh’s eyes, so fixated on the intensity of his gaze that she doesn’t realize he’s leaning in closer until it’s too late.

“insurance policy,” he mutters, before he kisses her, hands cupping her face gently.

for a split second, she stands frozen, shocked totally still. then, her brain reboots enough to propel her into motion, and cadence gets with the program enough to wind her arms around raleigh’s waist and pull him closer and kiss him back, until her heart’s lurched up into the throat she’d just been warming up, pounding relentlessly.

they make out until the roar of the crowd is deafening -- until it’s impossible not to acknowledge it any longer.

of course raleigh’s a life-ruiningly good kisser. why wouldn’t he be? why should any of this be easy?

it’s only a few simple touches, but raleigh’s mouth leaves her dizzy and lightheaded when she’s supposed to be concentrating on performing, and, independently of the way she’s blinking at him in stupid shock, cadence already knows she’ll never be able to kiss anyone else ever again without thinking about him.

“i have to get out there,” she gasps between desperate presses of their lips against each other, grasping ineffectively at his clothes while his fingers tug her hair out of shape.

“be late,” he suggests, “it always works for me.”

but she’s not him. she’s not like him -- they have nothing in common. they come from different worlds; they’re two completely opposite people.

and yet every minute with raleigh is like coming up for air after being underwater for years, like the knots of guilt and shame and awkward embarrassment she’s carried around for her entire life without understanding why she has them are slowly starting to undo themselves, unlaced by his careful fingers.

they make it out there. eventually.

before she knows it, confetti’s raining down from the ceiling and falling all over her, and she locks eyes with raleigh from across the room to find his lips pulled into a genuinely affectionate grin -- lips that she’d just kissed for the first time a fucking hour ago and, seriously, what is her life now -- his eyes bright and excited.

things just keep getting weirder and weirder, but the way they’re beaming at each other like idiots in a room full of thousands, broadcast on national television, too, makes her think things might be pretty great, too.

ix.

it sort of takes them a long time to getting around to talking about it -- the soulmate thing.

it’s not that he doesn’t try. he does, but she’s got a lot going on, these days: a big move and a new record deal and days filled with songwriting and nights out being seen. he’s still on his image cleanup tour, while she’s at it, so his fake smile stays fixed on his face throughout another boring week of restaurant openings and charity events and talkshow appearances before he finally gets the chance to spend some time with her again.

they text here and there, but nothing pans out until the stars align and they manage to slip out of the back door of a nightclub unnoticed together after a night of dancing too close for the comfort of her publicist while avery and the others cause a commotion at the front entrance to distract the press.

she goes back to his penthouse with him. he can’t remember the last time he brought a girl back to his apartment just to talk, and especially not one who spent the better part of the evening in a sparkly minidress grinding against him.

but here they are.

“so -- how’s the city treating you?” raleigh asks, pouring them both a drink he doesn’t want from the bar cart in the corner of the room for something to do with his hands.

cadence shrugs from where she’s perched on the edge of his sofa, tugging at the hem of her dress. “good, i guess. it’s honestly all kind of overwhelming.”

“yeah,” he nods, passing her one of the glasses in his hands and taking a seat on the ottoman in front of her, close enough to see her face in perfect clarity but still maintaining a distance that he hopes is respectful. “i know what you mean. when i first came here after joining sunset skatepark everything felt so... huge.”

“totally,” cadence answers quickly, nodding in a way that’s almost aggressive. “i mean, there’s so much pressure to deliver an album right away, but i want it to be perfect, and the studio is so different from, like, writing songs in my room at home, and i... i guess i feel kind of homesick, but -- not for my hometown. i hated that place.” there’s hesitancy in her gaze when she asks, “do you know what i mean?”

“yeah,” raleigh says again stupidly, because the truth is -- he knows exactly what she means. cadence has just articulated something he could never quite put into words better than he’d even thought the sentiments to himself. “it’s like... nostalgia for something you don’t even want.”

“exactly,” she breathes emphatically, and then they’re kissing again, and she’s in his lap on the ottoman and he definitely brought her here to talk, for sure, but is it really so terrible if they get a little sidetracked on the way to their destination?

well -- they wind up making out for hours. so, there’s that.

it’s not part of the plan but it’s a hell of a side quest, memorizing the shape and feel of her with his hands while her lips pull every last bit of breath from his lungs, until he’s lightheaded and dizzy in a way no other girl has ever made him, before. it’s to the point where when he finally finds it within himself to push her away, he’s uncharacteristically nervous -- something that’s never happened to him before, not even on the night he lost his virginity.

“i really did ask you over to talk,” he says, voice hoarse.

cadence licks her lips and then beams at him, eyes sparkling. “i know.” she shuffles delicately back onto the couch, lingering in his lap for only a moment before pulling away entirely. he stuffs his hands under his thighs to stop himself from reaching out for her again. “sorry i haven’t been around more.”

“you don’t have to apologize.” raleigh shakes his head. “i should be apologizing to you, i feel like... i should be the one who’s around, to help you with all of this. or at least -- i want to be. i don’t know if i’ll be any good at it.”

he blinks, surprised by his own honesty. he hadn’t meant to say all of that, but the words came up before he was cognizant of them and now they’re out there, and there’s no taking them back -- especially with the way she’s looking at him, all soft and sweet and happy.

“well, you don’t have to be good at it,” cadence murmurs, reaching out for his wrists and tugging his hands free so she can interlock their fingers effortlessly. they fit together like puzzle pieces. “you just have to be you.”

her budding relationship with one of the biggest names in r&b doesn’t have much time to bud at all before it’s rudely plucked from the plant and stepped on.

she finds herself blinking at fiona in confusion as the words take some time to process. “you want me to do what?”

xi.

raleigh balks at his manager, shaking his head emphatically. “no,” he spits out, “absolutely not.”

xii.

“cadence, it’s not a big deal,” fiona tells her, very nearly rolling her eyes. “everyone does it. you go on a few dates, play up the relationship for some photos, social media eats it up -- boom, you’re a star.”

“i don’t know,” she answers hesitantly, mind drifting back to the photographers that have already been following her around, screaming about avery when she ducks into the car with him. things with raleigh are... new, and complicated, and do they really need to add public scrutiny into the mix as well? “i just don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“it’s a great idea,” fiona sighs, shaking her head. “all our focus groups agree. the label thinks it’s best, what with your single taking so long to put out.” she opens her mouth to protest -- it’s not like she’s dragging her feet on purpose -- but barely has a second to get a word out before fiona continues, “besides, raleigh does this all the time.”

her teeth bite at her bottom lip uncertainly. “he does?”

“of course. chantal clearwater? she was a pictagram model when they met, and now she’s opening shows at paris fashion week. it’s just business.”

it’s not, though. it could never be just anything, for reasons no one else knows about except the two of them, for reasons she’ll never tell. “well... what did raleigh say about it?”

xiii.

“i said no, frank.” he’s annoyed, now, and his manager knows it, raleigh’s arms folded across his chest and his eyes set into a glare. “n. o. no.”

“and i hear you, but is it really the end of the world? she’s exactly what we’re going for, and i know you already get along --”

“which is exactly why i don’t want to do this. so pick someone else. anyone else.” he’s not going to let his label turn her into one of the girls he has to be seen with for fake photos and mutually beneficial positive press.

for so many years, he’s watched people fake feelings and use each other -- willingly participated in the using himself, too, more times than he can count. he never cared about any of it before.

but being with cadence doesn’t feel fake, and he doesn’t ever want it to. and he knows that if he agrees to this, everything he enjoys about spending time with her will disappear in favor of the ugly, plastic decay that’s eaten away at so many of his personal and professional relationships before. organic, genuine time with her will become strolls near celebrity hotspots, angling just right to help the cameras get the perfect shot. he’ll show up to support her at shows because her publicist called him, and their time together will become some manufactured narrative meant to push their labels’ agenda, until six months down the line they don’t even recognize themselves or what might’ve been if they’d done things a different way.

“look, there isn’t anyone else. her team’s already agreed to it, and i’ve got brunch set up for sunday. all you have to do is play nice for two fucking months, raleigh. is that so impossible for you?”

yes. already he feels a deep-seated desire to go somewhere and break something, to tear through the flower beds in central park with his motorcycle and wink at the cameras when they catch up to him.

instead, he storms out of the office he’s in, and into the sunlight, tugging the hood on his jacket up and melting into the crowd on the corner so he can be as anonymous as possible when he picks up his phone and calls cadence.

“hey raleigh,” she chirps as soon as she picks up, sounding far too cheerful for someone who’s likely had an equally as miserable early morning meeting on a friday. “guessing you heard the news?”

“can’t i just call you to say hi?” he grumbles, ducking his head as he strolls through the intersection with the mob of people crowded along fifth ave, turning down the next side street so he’s alone again, with no one following, just like that.

“well, you can,” she teases, and some of the anger he’s carrying around with him fades, dissipating into nothing and evaporating like smoke. “but you’re not.”

“no, i’m not,” he agrees with a sigh, shaking his head. “you sound surprisingly cool with it, though.”

“should i not be?” cadence laughs, but he can detect a thread of nervousness in her tone. “i already want to hang out with you. we have the same friends and work in the same industry. we’re... probably going to go on dates anyway, so... how hard can this be?”

god. she has absolutely no idea. part of him thinks it’d be cruel to burst her bubble, but he should warn her, shouldn’t he?

she sounds so optimistic about it, though. it’s hard to feel anything but hopeful when her voice turns up like that at the end. in the back of his mind, there’s a voice that’s not his suggesting maybe this time, things will be different.

surely he knows better than to think something as ridiculous as that, though, right?

“well, i guess it’ll be interesting, at least,” he muses, slowing his steps by the entrance to the subway.

he’s going to lose his signal just as soon as he heads underground, and he’s not quite ready for that, yet.

xiv.

time with raleigh flies by.

it doesn’t feel like they’re fake-dating -- they do everything she hopes he’d want to do with her anyway, like go out to eat at fancy restaurants and take walks through the park and bounce melodies for songs off of each other, facetiming late at night from their apartments or on the days he visits her and micah in the studio.

he’s by her side for the release of her first single, and her first music video, and through it all, raleigh plays the role of the doting partner perfectly, holding her purse on the red carpet and feeding her paella at a strategically-placed outdoor table and fetching her coffee order when she’s too busy to stop writing for even just five minutes.

in the blink of an eye, it’s time to put out her album -- just like that.

raleigh’s perfectly charming through that process, too. he shows up on time, says all the right things, and keeps a drink in her hand all evening long, so that when she’s finally done making the rounds and can enjoy herself after the entertainment and the networking and the schmoozing she’s giggly and touchy, doing her best to steal him away from the crowd.

“what were your other relationships like?” she asks, half expecting him to brush her off, though he’s always indulged her before. they’ve never really gotten this personal. “fake or... otherwise.”

“they’ve all been fake,” he shrugs, “and i can say with confidence that you’re the best one i’ve ever had.”

“really?” cadence smiles, chin propped up on her hand as she leans over the bar. “be honest. what did you really think, when you realized it was me?”

“what?” he asks, pushing the empty rocks glass in his hands around on the bar top, “you mean this thing?” he gestures at his arm, covered in expensive, custom tom ford, and the tattoo laying innocently beneath it.

“uh huh,” she confirms, “‘cause i was totally like oh shit.”

raleigh laughs, loud and wild, the sound swallowed up by the noise of the party around them. no one nearby is paying them even an ounce of attention, and it’s fun, to be anonymous at her own party, invisible to everyone in the room except for him. “i can imagine. i wouldn’t want to be stuck with me either.”

cadence shakes her head -- that’s not what she’d meant. but before she can protest, he rolls his glass between his palms and thoughtfully continues, “i guess i was a little surprised. it felt like i’d been waiting forever to meet you, so part of me was like, fuck, we’re doing this now? and i never thought it’d be someone so...”

“boring?” she suggests, eyebrows arching when raleigh’s expression immediately twists into one of disagreement, his nose scrunching up with distaste.

“no,” he huffs, “so... good, i guess.” she stares at him as he reaches for one of the waiting tequila shots on the bar, pulling it away from the line he’d set up for the crowd he’d been with before she’d tugged him to the side to talk, leaving the drinks untouched. raleigh knocks the shot back -- no salt, no lime. he’s had twice as many drinks as she has, and she’s definitely feeling them -- she has no idea how he’s even still upright, no worse for wear other than a few slurred words here and there. “but you just are. it’s like every song i’ve ever written was about you, and i just didn’t know it yet.”

the noise of the party fades in favor of the pounding of her heart, loud like a kick drum in her ears. she bites her lip and stares at him, watching as raleigh shakes his head at himself, dazed. “you okay?” she asks quietly, leaning in a little across the bar.

raleigh’s quiet for so long she has to wonder whether or not he actually heard her. just as she clears her throat and opens her mouth to repeat herself even louder, he nods, reaching across the bar and squeezing her hand before dragging her back over to the line of tequila shots waiting for them to enjoy.

the night is a blur after that, and there’s patches of the evening that are fuzzy in her memory the next morning, but she knows she’ll never forget the gentle kiss goodnight raleigh gives her when he helps her stumble into the car back to her apartment at dawn.

xv.

things go really well, until they don’t.

they have a blissful six months together with more fun than he’s ever had with anyone. slowly, he learns every single thing about cadence and returns her openness with honesty of his own -- honesty that feels strange and unfamiliar but weirdly thrilling, in a way, made easier every time one of his stories pulls a laugh or smile from her.

it seems unnatural, having a honeymoon period that goes on for so long. in the entire time they’re dating, he doesn’t destroy a single thing -- doesn’t even want to, which is the weirdest part of it all.

there are some moments that catch him completely off guard. more than a few times, he hardly even recognizes himself, she turns him into such a different person.

he doesn’t hate it, though -- just the opposite, in fact. raleigh realizes he’s really starting to like the carefree, far from jaded person he is when he’s with her, though it only hits him for real when he’s watching her storm away from him on liberty island, eyes fixed on the angry sway of her hips.

he stews on it on the long ride back to his penthouse; the game had, admittedly, been starting to wear on him. but he’d gone along with it because it was supposed to benefit her -- he’d agreed to the stupid public breakup and following the rules and not seeing cadence in public for the foreseeable future because it was what she wanted, and -- frankly, it felt like a stupid fucking decision.

not that it lasts long. he starts texting her just as soon as he’s done washing electralite out of his hair and doesn’t make it more than twenty minutes when they first see each other again at the moda gala before he’s sneaking off with her, ducking under the velvet rope that demarcates the planetarium as ‘off limits’ with her hand tucked neatly in his.

“maybe this is better,” cadence muses between sips of her drink, her eyes on one of the stupid glass exhibits he couldn’t possibly care less about. “now we can just be together -- no pressure. our relationship is ours again.”

their relationship. is that what this is? they’ve spent a lot of time talking about who they are and what they like and don’t like, kissing and touching and holding hands. throughout it all, he’s done his best not to buy into the ‘soulmate’ bullshit too heavily, but over the last few months it’s been hard to deny that there’s a reason he was meant to meet her, that she’s been changing him from the inside out.

“what’s on your mind?” she asks, turning towards him with an open look of genuine curiosity on her face, like she really wants to know.

“it’s nothing,” raleigh answers at first, reflexively, like he has so many times before. no one has ever really wanted to know. but cadence’s eyebrows arch, and she waits, patiently silent, and then the words tumble out of him. “it’s just that -- my whole life, i’ve watched other people use each other. so many people are just interested in the concept of celebrity status. so i played the game. never trusting anyone.”

he shrugs. a hand lifts to rub his jaw, and he looks back to meet her gaze just in time to see the little smile playing at her lips, like she already knows what he’s about to say. “but it’s different, with you. you make me not want to be that person anymore. when i’m with you, it’s the only time i feel anything real.”

“raleigh,” she murmurs, her expression flickering before her face does something that cracks his chest wide open. her eyes go all shiny and sparkly and her cheeks crease with a grin, and the way she laughs is so ridiculously joyful the hand he has stuffed in his pocket curls into a fist to stop him from doing something stupid. “i feel the same way. i just... this whole thing, i know it doesn’t always -- work out, but... with you i really want it to. i’ve never felt this way before about anyone, and i think...”

there’s a pause as her lips purse thoughtfully, and then she says the words that make it impossible for him to do anything but close the distance between them and kiss her over and over again: “i think even without this tattoo it’d be you, anytime, anywhere.”

xvi.

being raleigh carrera’s (real, confirmed, 100%-authentic) girlfriend feels almost too good to be true.

raleigh is... everything she never knew she wanted in a boyfriend, wrapped up into one tall, dark and handsome package, with a loud, goofy laugh and a deep, sexy voice that sends a shiver down her spine whenever his mouth so much as lingers near her ear for too long.

it turns out that, despite their differing status in the industry and her initial assumptions that they came from two completely different worlds, they’re actually on the same page about pretty much everything. she finds that the pressure of the word she’d held in such high regard for so long -- soulmate -- disappears entirely where he’s concerned because being with raleigh is just fun.

there’s motorcycle rides and boat trips and hours up late talking about everything and nothing; facetime calls with his mom and shopping trips where the stores are kept open late for them so they can shop alone, in an empty boutique, like every teen movie she’d ever watched growing up.

there’s late nights in the studio and either of their apartments where they both noodle around on their guitars and improvise half-hearted duets, content to just work in the same orbit as each other for as long as possible.

raleigh’s texting one night on the couch in her living room when she plucks out the melody to who i’ll be on her old acoustic, sitting on the floor in front of the tv.

he looks up before the first verse is over. “what’s that one? it sounds good.”

“oh -- just a song i wrote in college,” cadence hums, already downplaying it as she lifts her shoulder in a shrug. “i got stuck, never finished it. ellis made me sell the progress for some other writer to finish.”

he frowns, pushing up onto his elbow. his phone is tossed carelessly somewhere among the couch cushions. “why?”

“because i was taking too long with the odyssey,” she sighs. “it was kind of my only option. it’s weird, though -- thinking about someone singing something that was so personal to me.”

“play me what you had so far,” he says, and so she does, hesitating for only a second before strumming the chords, singing the lines she had slowly.

when she’s done, she looks up to find that raleigh’s slid to the edge of the couch, elbows on his knees as he leans in as close as he can get with the coffee table in his way. “okay -- that was beautiful. you should finish it.”

she shakes her head, setting her guitar down. “i can’t. they already sold it. and even if i wanted to... i don’t know how it ends.”

raleigh’s legs spread in invitation and she stands to walk around to the couch, slipping into his lap and leaning back against his chest. his hands are tender as he rubs them across her shoulders, sliding up her back before one lifts to brush a lock of hair back behind her ear, his pointer finger pushing her glasses up her nose affectionately. “maybe one day you can write something else with the same theme,” he suggests, and she tries her best to smile even though it feels like a dream lost, somehow -- a ridiculous thought, given that she pretty much has everything she ever wanted, but the way she feels all the same.

“maybe,” she sighs, the kiss he drops to her forehead a bandaid on a wound that’s been doing its best to heal for what feels like her entire life.

xvii.

he’s never brought a date to the vinyls before.

there’s been plenty of after parties he’s stumbled out of with a girl on his arm, sure, but cadence is the first person to sit by his side during the ceremony, and he’s surprised by how much he likes having her next to him.

then again, he’s self aware enough to realize he’d like being pretty much anywhere, with her.

still -- the awards are a lot less boring with her around to kiss and stroke his hair and make snide commentary about the rest of the attendees with, and when she squeezes his hand goodbye to rush backstage and get ready for her performance he misses her instantly.

what happens next makes him endlessly regretful of the fact that he’s not backstage with her.

he rushes around just as soon as he can, pushing his way through security and frantically scrambling technical assistants to find her exactly where he thought he might, between ellis knight and fiona, looking lost with her head in her hands.

she seems equal parts broken and pissed in a way that tugs at his heartstrings and makes him a little bit proud. raleigh shoves through the crowd to get to her and slips an arm around her waist. he’s only caught the tail end of the conversation they’re all having, but he knows enough to know that “you can’t bench her. that’s bull.”

ultimately, though, it doesn’t matter how much they stomp their feet. she’s under contract, their hands are tied, and he walks away seething at the unfairness of it all, this shitty industry that’s turned on her when all she ever wanted to do was make music.

she cries in the car back to her apartment to pack her things. there’s no way he’s letting her go home to iowa or idaho or indiana without him, and he barks at his team over the phone until they agree to move his appearances around so he can make that happen, his free hand clasped tightly in hers until he physically has to let her go so she can unlock her front door with trembling fingers.

cadence tosses clothes haphazardly onto the bed and he silently and precisely moves to folds each piece for her, until she gives up and sinks down onto the edge of the mattress, defeated.

wide eyes filled with tears lock onto his, and he watches her bottom lip wobble before she says, “you really don’t have to do this. come with me, i mean. i know i messed up, and -- you have so much else going on. i don’t expect you to --”

“i’m coming,” he states firmly, setting the sweatpants in his hand down and stepping closer to her, sitting beside cadence on her bed. “what happened tonight was fucked up, cadence -- it shouldn’t have happened at all. i’m not going to let you go through this alone.”

“but --”

“but nothing,” he says, and before the words have even left his mouth she’s falling into his arms with a soft sound of gratitude, mashing her face into his chest as she sniffles.

“thank you,” cadence mumbles, sounding so unsure of herself it makes him wonder if she’s ever had anyone show up for her when it mattered most before, or if that’s yet another thing they unfortunately have in common.

xviii.

raleigh tries his best to cheer her up, but it’s still hard, feeling like she’s let the entire world down. her fans. herself.

there’s something embarrassing about showing raleigh her apartment back home and the person she was before she met him -- all the places she felt most uncertain and where she experienced some her worst self-doubt, the room that still has the smoothie star apron hung up in the closet.

but there’s also something exciting, about being totally off the grid with him. no one knows they’re here and there’s no paparazzi waiting to snap photos of them -- especially given the fact that they don’t leave her building for the first three days she spends moping around while raleigh orders all the takeout he can get his hands on.

it sort of reminds her of when they first met, and there was nothing to do but learn about each other, though now there’s a familiarity to him she relies on, a unique raleigh-ness that feels more like home than this shitty apartment ever did.

still, she struggles, and the weight of the world doesn’t let up until zadie shows up with her fanmail and avery does his best to make her smile with a beach trip and some fancy new toys and a day in the sun with a drink in her hand.

eventually it’s just her and raleigh again, out by the fire after everyone else has gone to bed. her stomach is full of s’mores and her cheeks hurt from smiling for the first time in weeks, and it’s a shock when she realizes she feels content, even after everything that’s happened -- almost as though things will all work out for the better no matter what happens next.

“oh my god,” she gasps suddenly, cutting off what raleigh had been saying as her eyes light up and she hastens to stand. “i’ve gotta -- i need to -- oh my god.”

just like that, she knows how her song ends.

recording it is a process, but raleigh calls in some favors and gets them studio time and agrees to be featured on the song even though she knows he’s still working through a sound change that he feels unsure about.

but it means a lot to her, having him crammed in the booth at her side, singing into the same mic. they sound almost unbelievably good together, too, raleigh’s harmonies on the words that finally resolve that lost feeling she’s been harboring her entire life making something deep within her wriggle up happily, wagging its proverbial tail.

the fact that raleigh remains by her side throughout the entire fight with her label, the long nights of despair agonizing over what her next move is going to be and even the moment where they decide to break into indio, of all places, means more to her than she can ever say. she feels markedly less nervous about the entire thing every time she turns her head to the side and sees him, right there next to her -- right where he’s been this entire time -- smiling encouragingly and squeezing her hand hard in his.

though it’s not until they’re up at the top of the ferris wheel that she realizes how precious what she has really is. it’s not until he looks her dead in the eye and says, with that same soft earnestness he’s awarded her since they first met at the one in a million auditions that feel quite literally like a hundred years ago, “cadence, everything you want is on the other side of fear. and i want you to have everything you want,” that she truly understands that’s what between them is special and rare.

not because of any tattoos, or any preconceived destiny. not because of who they are and their status and the fact that people take pictures of them when they’re out in public together.

but because of this -- all these real moments of genuine connection they’ve been fortunate enough to share since fate threw them into each other’s paths.

“raleigh, i love you.” the words are said easily, not a moment’s hesitation behind them.

just before she crosses over in the cart to kiss him until they’re both breathless, raleigh gifts her the brightest smile he has and says, “i love you, too.”

xix.

the night is a blur from the moment he first takes the stage with his old bandmates to when he finally finds himself alone with cadence in a rundown old motel a few miles out from the festival in the desert.

he can’t recall ever being so happy, so of course he doesn’t remember every agonizing detail of the evening, though he does know he doesn’t feel the need to have a single beer with cadence around, twirling barefoot in the grass and giggling when she leads him up to the room they’ve borrowed.

afterwards, when they’re sitting on the roof together in the blanket they dragged off the bed, he reflects on the wild year they’ve had with her in his arms, fingertips tracing the delicate very funny scrawled across cadence’s collarbone.

he feels... free. completely liberated. like there’s absolutely nothing and no one that can get to him, now, like he’s untouchable, like he doesn’t care about a single thing that happens after today and how perfect things have been.

“i think i’m actually freer than i’ve ever been,” he muses, where his lips are pressed into her hair, “i can take my sound in any direction i want.”

“i’m so happy for you, raleigh,” cadence returns genuinely, tilting her head back so he can see her upside-down smile.

his arms tighten around her. “i’m so excited for what you’re gonna be doing, too. i’m excited for us.”

“yeah,” she sighs, “who knows what’s next, right? now that ellis let me out of my deal...”

he can hear the thread of worry undercutting the words. he shakes his head, hands rubbing up and down her arms. “you can worry about that tomorrow. for tonight, just enjoy the comeback. what you did out there was amazing.”

“what we did,” she corrects, and he blinks up the stars as he realizes she’s right -- they’re a we now. he’s part of a we again, after being on his own for so long.

the phrases bounce around in his head, unfamiliar and foreign. me and my girlfriend, he thinks to himself, cadence and i. we’re going to be late. we’ll be away that weekend. we just started watching that show. we, we, we.

“what we did was amazing,” raleigh amends, the words slow to come out but feeling right all the same. “whatever we do next will be amazing.”

“absolutely,” cadence confirms, with conviction, like it’s something she believes wholeheartedly.

and though he has no idea what to expect or what it might be, a large part of him is inclined to agree with her -- she’s been right about everything else so far.

xx.

one year later, she’s finishing a set in berlin, the last stop on a sprawling european tour that had taken she, avery, micah and raleigh across the continent for dozens of performances to sold-out crowds of thousands screaming her lyrics back to her.

if her contract with overknight had been a dream come true, signing to wilshere records is heaven incarnate. cadence’s trip through the u.k. with her new label is proof enough, and the chance to meet new fans with new stories to share that she could connect with is one she’s taken to with enthusiasm, the experience made all the sweeter by the fact that her favorite people get to be by her side throughout it all.

berlin’s crowd is one of the best, and she fully expects to end the tour on a high note, head banging to the last few notes of ‘knockout’ before raleigh’s planned entrance for the last song of the night, so they can sing the duet that’s closed out every show they’ve had on the tour together.

when he struts out with his guitar, waving and grinning at the crowd, she can’t stop herself from smiling stupidly at him, just like she does every time she sees him join her on stage, every time she realizes that this is their life, that this is something they do every night, now.

though her grin falters when raleigh pauses in front of his microphone and asks, “berlin, do you mind if i talk a little bit before i start the song? no? cool, because i’ve got an important question to ask.”

her eyes widen. cadence’s mouth drops open and doesn’t close throughout the entire speech raleigh gives her, even though thousands of people in the crowd are filming every moment of her gaping like an idiot, snapping close-ups of her shocked face.

the arena practically vibrates with screams when he drops to his knee, popping the box in his hand open so she can see the giant diamond ring nestled inside of it.

“so?” raleigh asks, and cadence can just barely hear him in her in-ears with the way her heart is beating frantically up into her throat, as wild as the crowd’s raging around them and then some. “whaddya say, babe? will you marry me?”

as if the answer could ever be anything but yes. she nods, laughing as she launches herself into his arm for a kiss that’s too grand to be given on stage, though that’s hardly going to stop her -- not tonight, at least. tonight, she’s okay with the whole world watching their every move, just one more time.

“oh, i don’t know if it’s going to fit,” raleigh jokes as the ring slides easily onto her left hand, amping up the theatrics for the fans still watching them avidly, even up in the cheap seats.

cadence rolls her eyes playfully at him. “very funny,” she praises, and the grin he offers her in return is so loving -- so knowing, with the secret that only the two of them share and every weird piece of their history included in it -- that it takes everything she has to shove him away so they can perform instead of dragging him down to the floor to kiss him over and over again.

clumsily, she flubs a few notes of love who i’ll be on her guitar. from across the stage, between the bridge and the chorus, raleigh jeers, “someone hasn’t learned to play with the extra weight on their left hand, yet, i see,” and when she flips him off while belting out the last lines of the verse, his raucous laughter is all the harmony the final few bars of the song needs.

#platinumweekend #platinum #raleigh carrera #raleigh carrera x mc #cadence dorian #raleigh x mc #raleigh x cadence #myfic #long post #well. this sure took me a long time DFJGHDFJHGDFJKGH so i hope you guys like it !! it was kind of a new style for me 😳

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hawkinsschoolcounselor · 3 years

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My friends and I occasionally play that made-up game called "Kerfuffle" - A bit like DnD but with everyday life tasks and not as nerdy (sadly :D). You pick a random politician, TV char., etc. and try to overcome some challenges in a way you assume they'd do it. Last time we played, I obv picked s.o. from ST - Joyce. That was when a random thought crossed my mind: If s.o. were to name each ST main character's greatest weakness/ strength, what would be the outcome? I immediately thought of you. :D

Ok, now that the election is over, and my anxiety has come back down to its usual “only a little high” status, it’s back to business here. This is an interesting question from my pal @sollody here. I’m not going to be able to go too much into depth given the breadth of the question here, but it’ll be a nice look at several characters. Perhaps this will result in requests for more in-depth looks at some of them individually. For the sake of having a defined meaning of “main character,” I am only going with characters who were in all three seasons and were directly involved in the action (sorry, Mr. Clarke). I will make an exception for Max, as she’s just too central to leave out.

The Party

Mike

Greatest Strength: Determination. Once he sets his mind on something, he does everything in his power to see that it happens. Do not try to come between Mike and his objective. God help you if you try to stop him when his objective involves Will or El.

Greatest Weakness: A lack of emotional intelligence. Mike reacts to his emotions as they come. There’s no apparent self-awareness, and this results in impulsive behavior that leads to negative outcomes for himself and his relationships. The feelings themselves aren’t the problem. Mike just doesn’t understand them enough to react appropriately.

Will

Greatest Strength: Quick thinking. I was tempted to mention his compassion, but really Will’s greatest asset is his mental acuity. Since season 1 he has shown an impressive capacity for quick thinking in stressful situations.

Greatest Weakness: Insecurity. Will has self-esteem issues resulting from not only the Upside Down situation, but also more mundane personal and family experiences. He worries about how people view him and fears that he’s being left behind. This leads to him keeping important things to himself, things nobody, especially a child, should be expected to deal with alone.

Lucas

Greatest Strength: Rationality. Lucas has generally been the member of the party with the most down-to-earth mindset. Regardless of all of the supernatural goings on, Lucas has tried to view things realistically. His approaches to the events of the series have typically been the most practical, skeptical, and grounded. Ironically, this actually does make him a good Winston, though I wouldn’t want to be the one to tell him this.

Greatest Weakness: Overconfidence. Lucas is very sure of himself, sometimes too much so, even when warned off by others. From being sure that El was trouble, to risking a beating from Billy, to thinking he’s some suave expert on women, Lucas has made trouble for himself and his friends. He doesn’t meant to, of course, and a lot of this may come from some desire to “be a man.” Lucas needs to learn to accept himself as he is.

Dustin

Greatest Strength: Curiosity. Dustin is always looking to learn more about anything and everything. Nothing is too weird or off-putting for him. His knowledge has come very much in handy for the Party, and this general attitude has led to him accepting the supernatural events in stride.

Greatest Weakness: Recklessness. Dustin, in his pursuit of satisfying his curiosity, or some other goal, can fail to see clearly obvious dangers. Find a strange creature? Raise it yourself. See a strange growth in the underground tunnels? Go get a closer look. Find out about a possible Russian base in the mall? Let’s go check it out! His goals are often admirable, but his approach is often foolish.

Greatest Strength: Adaptability. El has managed to escape a government facility, survive in the woods, and travel to unfamiliar locations despite her young age. While she has been somewhat dependent on her powers, she’s managed to accomplish some impressive feats for someone who hasn’t had anything close to resembling a normal upbringing.

Greatest Weakness: Ignorance. This isn’t the “you’re so ignorant!” meaning of the word. I mean it in the truest sense of the word: El just lacks a lot of information in life. Most critically, she’s emotionally and socially unaware. A lot of her schemas for relationships come from TV shows and what little she picked up from Mike in season 1. She’s gotten somewhat better as the seasons moved on, but there’s just a lot she doesn’t know. This had led to her being suspicious, angry, and possessive (specifically of Mike), harming her relationships with others.

Max

Greatest Strength: Acceptance. Max doesn’t unduly judge anyone. Her issues with Mike stemmed from his treatment of her. Aside from that, some light teasing aside, she was more than happy to accept the Party as her friends. She didn’t let Lucas’ race get in the way of their mutual attraction, despite knowing what Neil and Billy would think about it. She wanted to be El’s friend from the start, and, despite being harshly rebuffed at first, she accepted El when she sought Max out in season 3. It’s really a testament to how determined she is to not continue the cycle that Neil and Billy brought into her life.

Greatest Weakness: Family. Honestly, Max’s biggest drawback is her home life. She’s worried that she may end up going down the same angry, abusive road as Billy and Neil. She’s mistrustful, snarky, and blunt even when not worked up, behaviors she likely developed due to exposure to Billy and Neil. She also seems to still love Billy despite his abusive behavior. This sort of family dynamic can be very damaging (and it was probably just as harmful to Billy). Hopefully, Max’s found family serves to offset the harm done by her “real” family.

Older Teens

Nancy

Greatest Strength: Determination. It must be a family trait. Nancy is relentless, and she will get to the truth of the matter, one way or another. Nobody, and indeed no monster, will keep her from what she’s after.

Greatest Weakness: Egocentrism. Nancy can easily lose sight of how things impact those around her. Her desire to prove herself has left her somewhat blind to the difficulties other people face. She has trouble relating to people from other situations.

Jonathan

Greatest Strength: Compassion. Jonathan has sacrificed a great deal for his family, and he’s apparent done it without any noticeable resentment. His treatment of Will resembles the ideal that a lot of parents hope for in their kids (though in reality Mike/Nancy or Lucas/Erica is the more realistic outcome). Jonathan just wants those important to him to be happy.

Greatest Weakness: Social Awkwardness. Jonathan has a great deal of trouble interacting with other people. This likely stems from his family situation, as his father leaving left his family as pariahs of sorts, and it also left him having to be a sort of father figure when he should have been able to be a regular teenager.

Steve

Greatest Strength: Courage. Yes, Steve has been freaked out by everything, but that’s irrelevant. Courage isn’t the absence of fear, it’s the ability to feel fear and not let it control you. Steve has willingly put himself in harm’s way for the sake of others in all three seasons. The only thing that scares Steve too much to overcome is social judgment...

Greatest Weakness: Insecurity. Yes, our buddy, King Steve, has self-esteem issues. This is why he’s always trying to play himself off as a hotshot. He’s simply too afraid to just be himself. Sadly, it’s only when he lets this guard down that he’s at his best. He’s made some stride at overcoming this, and I’m hopeful that he continues this in season 4.

Adults

Joyce

Greatest Strength: Ferocity. Do I even need to explain this? Do NOT threaten Joyce’s loved ones, especially Will. Just don’t.

Greatest Weakness: Emotional Reactivity. When stress hits Joyce, she reacts hard. It’s perfectly normal, given the level of stress she feels, but it leaves her seeming “crazy” and makes it hard for others to understand what she’s trying to get across. As a result, her message, warning, etc. is lost and her credibility is damaged. In less serious occurrences, she instead just comes across as belligerent or annoying, even though she’s generally right about whatever she’s on about.

Hopper

Greatest Strength: Compassion. Hopper is at his best when he’s trying to protect others. Despite having worked to close himself off from the world after his personal trauma, Hopper still feels compassion. He probably never wanted to feel anything for anyone again (perhaps why he returned to a boring town like Hawkins), but when tragedy struck it brought out the best in him. Though, that brings us to his weakness...

Greatest Weakness: Insensitivity. Perhaps ironically, Hopper’s weakness is the complete opposite of his strength. Hopper is a man who runs hot and cold. Which version of him that you get depends on his mood. If you get his bad side, prepare for harsh words, and perhaps harsher fists. This may help him get the job done at times, but it harms his relationships. He has a tremendous fear of loss, which results in him lashing out fiercely at those he cares for if they do something to that risks him losing them.

Ok, that’s the best I could come up with. I’d love to read other people’s thoughts on the matter.

#stranger things #mike wheeler #will byers #lucas sinclair #dustin henderson #eleven #max mayfield #nancy wheeler #jonathan byers #steve harringrove #joyce byers #jim hopper

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lassieposting · 3 years

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If you’re still doing the getting together ask could I request Saracen and Dexter???

I’m bored, so. Send me two (or more) characters for a headcanon on how I’d have them get together

god so. dexter can't stand saracen when they first meet.

like, dex is the second one in after erskine. So when he becomes one of what will eventually be the dead men, it's the original three - skulduggery, ghastly and hopeless - plus ravel. Dex is the youngest by a mile at 17 - he lies about his age to enlist - but he's scrappy and streetwise and has a relatively sensible head on his shoulders, so he's doing well as a soldier. Skulduggery was the one he was really itching to meet - the youngest general in 300 years, the miracle soldier, the living skeleton - but it's ghastly who actually brings him in, ghastly who saw a scared kid with the potential to be a warrior, ghastly who tried to convince him to go home and offered to teach him to box when he refused, ghastly who introduced him to the others.

Skulduggery does not have flames for eyes, does not glow with holy light and, as far as dexter can tell, does not have any extra special fancy magic nobody has ever seen before. A little bit of dexter is disappointed, but skulduggery is still the most intimidating person he's ever met - he only says four words to dexter the first time they meet: "You're in my way." - but dexter gets the impression that this is someone to whom bloody murder comes as naturally as blinking. His induction into the group is a gruelling three week mission to the scottish highlands, which he's fairly sure is supposed to put him off, but it doesn't.

And things go great, until saracen turns up.

Now, dexter has never really had much to do with The Aristos™ before, unless you count pickpocketing them and legging it with their valuables. But he knows that technically, both skulduggery and erskine come from very wealthy, landed families, and hes spent plenty of time with them, so he thinks he knows how rich people work. and like...yes, ravel has a tendency to be a bit stuffy and pompous, but the fact of the matter is that they've both spent over a century slumming it in the army - skug, especially, likes to lead from the front and lives the same way his men do. They've lost a lot of the inherent prejudices and snobbery that comes with being nobility in the 1700s. So nothing about either of them prepares him for saracen rue.

Saracen is your quintessential 1700s rich boy. He bought his commission - as opposed to skug, who enlisted with ghastly and came up through the ranks - and he arrives to meet with skug and corrival wearing a spotless uniform like a toy soldier in a shop window. His tent is obnoxiously elaborate, he has a wagon and horse to store it and his belongings, and the first thing he does is hand dex his bags like he expects him to set the tent up for him. Dexter looks at this gorgeous, glamorous man and then at skug - who wears battered leathers and gets into fistfights and sleeps outdoors with the rest of them without complaining, and wonders how on earth these two people came from the same sort of family

And - it's not that saracen intends to be offensive at all. He's very much attracted to dexter and wants him to like him. He's very jovial and friendly and he even makes skug laugh on occasion, which is a superpower in and of itself in the post-death, pre-vile days. But he's also kind of entitled and tends to be a bit superior, and he's one of those people who just...talk, and don't necessarily think too much about how what they say will sound before saying it.

For example: the case of the lost necklace. As a young boy, Dexter pickpocketed a locket from a distracted young nobleman, and gifted it to his mother, so she could feel like a lady. When he signed up to fight, his mother gave him the locket to wear and made him promise to bring it back to her when the war was over. During one mission Dexter ends up spending the night with saracen in his stupid fancy tent, and when they're postcoitally lazing, saracen mentions that he recognises the locket, a gift he'd bought for his sister - he knows the inscription written inside. Dexter is mortified, but saracen shrugs it off and casually reveals that when he'd realised it was gone, he'd simply commissioned another one. "You can keep it," he says magnanimously, before making a very off-colour joke about how after that performance, dexter certainly earned it. Dex, who has had to sell sex a few times to put food in his siblings' mouths, does not take this well, and things are complicated for a while - he's frosty, but saracen seems to like that, and they keep ending up in bed together and then bickering and ignoring each other and then repeating the cycle.

They have moments of tenderness, though - occasional at first, and then more often as the years go by. Saracen teaches Dexter to read and write, and learns how to scrap and play knucklebones in return. They drink together and tend to each other's wounds and try to figure out what the fuck is going on between skug and ghastly together, unaware that skug and ghastly are doing the same about them. Saracen dresses Dexter up in his fancy clothes and teaches him to walk and talk and dance like a gentleman, both of them howling with laughter the whole time, and then strips the fancy clothes off him and tells him he prefers him without them. They trade stories, and slights, and sweet nothings, amd over the years they become...something to one another.

And then there's Siberia, the mission to assassinate a man so terrible his own people called him "the butcher". Something goes wrong, they're forced to scatter, and when they meet back up at the rendezvous point, they're a man down. Saracen is missing.

Dexter is absolutely frozen with panic, and he doesn't know why. Skulduggery handles it with the same cool, detached competency he always has in a crisis, and the others seem to take their lead from him, but all dexter can think of is saracen, captured and injured and terrified, and how they've all heard that nobody survives the butcher's interrogations for more than 48 hours. The teleporter arrives to take them home, and they refuse to go, and somehow dexter stumbles through the next three days of searching for saracen in a blind fucking haze of fear, sleepless and sick to his stomach, chewing his nails down to the quick.

It's saracen who finds them, in the end, limping towards them sporting little more than some gnarly bruises, missing his jacket and wearing someone else's trousers. Dexter dives on him as soon as he's within arm's reach and they go down in the snow and he's crying like a child and as soon as they're done kissing he's smacking saracen in the chest, suddenly furious, snarling, "never do that to me again! Never do that to me again!" right up until skulduggery gets hold of him under the armpits and drags him off. That night, after the story of saracen's incredible escape has been told and retold and expanded with each telling, dexter tries to tell saracen how worried he's been, how scared he was, how he thought they might never see each other again. But he cant find the words, and he keeps stopping and starting and getting frustrated

And in the end, when it's clear dex isn't really getting anywhere with this, saracen puts his head back down in dexter's lap, shuts his eyes and says, "ah, shush. I love you too."

And they leave it at that

#Anon #fire message #skulduggery pleasant #sexter #vexrue #sp headcanons

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soveryanon · 3 years

Text

Reviewing time for MAG199! ;_;

- That discussion was a lot, and raised a lot of interesting points, but wooftie did the beginning show characters going back to their bad reflexes out of habit and stress. Melanie and Jon were quick to get snappish at each other, and we know from MAG186 that Martin making tea is also his way of avoiding conflict:

(MAG186) ALSO MARTIN: We could. [SIGH] But we both know that loved ones make the worst therapists. They’re too wrapped up in trying to stop you hurting, to actually help. But hey: we know all about that, am I right? MARTIN: There’s nothing wrong with comforting people. ALSO MARTIN: A cup of tea isn’t a resolution. At best it’s a… a plaster; at worst… a muzzle.

So the fact that the sequence began with Martin asking about tea?

(MAG199) MELANIE: … So… ARCHIVIST: … Yeah. [UNCOMFORTABLE PAUSE] MARTIN: Anyone want another cup of tea? [SOMETHING WOODEN SCRAPES ACROSS TUNNEL FLOOR] Well, heh, I say “tea”, it’s har– GEORGIE: We can’t keep putting it off. We need to talk about this. About what we’re going to do.

Aouch. (I wonder where the tea came from: from the London supermarket? Or were those the bags he had packed before leaving the Scotland cabin?)

- Meanwhile, Basira was providing out-of-the-box ideas or possibilities and Georgie acted a bit like a debate mediator, laying options down and trying to keep things on track. I’m especially glad that she was the one to point out that there were actually three options, counting inaction (letting the world slowly die out) as one, since, as she pointed out, she had felt guilty for not having helped Jon back in season 4 – she had told him so, she had to reexplain to Melanie again this episode.

- Although he had begun the season correcting Martin about Elias actually being “Jonah”, Jon mainly used “Elias” to refer to him this season, until they reached London and he was oscillating between the two. But since Jon told Elias Bouchard (the real one)’s statement, it’s been “Jonah” without hesitation, to the point that he corrected Georgie about it:

(MAG193) ARCHIVIST: I could kill his body, sever the link, break The Eye’s power, and… Jonah Magnus would die.

(MAG194) ARCHIVIST: Look. Right, when I said that I would “replace” Jonah in there, that’s not… I m– … That place, the centre of The Eye, i–it’s… it wasn’t made for him.

(MAG197) ARCHIVIST: I see. Destroy the Panopticon, and you release its power. Kill Jonah, and you cut the connection between the Fears and the world.

(MAG198) ARCHIVIST: Had a blazing row? MARTIN: I, uh… eh… Yeah, that. BASIRA: What? ARCHIVIST: About what we should do with Jonah. With… the Panopticon. BASIRA: Oh, about whether you should, uh…?

(MAG199) GEORGIE: One. We follow Annabelle’s plan. We destroy the Panopticon, kill Elias– ARCHIVIST: Jonah– GEORGIE: Whatever– ARCHIVIST: –Magnus.

It feels like knowing about the real Elias helped Jon distinguish the two, since he could now put a story and a personality on “Elias”?

(I’m still laughing a bit that Jon had to be That Person and interrupt Georgie. Not the point, not the moment, Jon.)

- Overall, I like how we could clearly see what was prioritised by everyone amongst the options they explored and how they approached the problem. Basically, the unknown factors came to whether other worlds were already impacted by the Fears or not, and whether the Fears would contaminate all of them or just a portion, which led to a few scenarios showing what they feared and hoped for the most:

-> Keeping the Fears in their world and sacrificing it in the process: hoping that the Fears were intrinsically tied to this world in particular, that this option would mean their absolute annihilation, and fearing that other worlds getting contaminated by them would lead to these other worlds experiencing their own apocalypse, thus perpetuating a cycle they could have stopped.

-> Throwing the Fears into other worlds to save their own: hoping that the Fears already existed in other worlds, that it would only impact some amongst an infinity of worlds, and fearing that sacrificing their world would be a pointless sacrifice if the Fears happen to exist elsewhere anyway.

Jon was behind the first plan, with a few variations (offering to accelerate the death process if necessary… which, indeed, was chilling, and Basira’s firm opposition against actively contributing to people’s murder was very necessary, but made sense as an option if the scenario was to doom this world). The others federated for the second with various priorities: Basira sounded like she could have accepted the sacrifice of this world if it came with the certainty that it would eradicate the Fears everywhere (but they do not have that certainty), while Melanie insisted on people’s own responsibility when it came to bringing around an apocalypse and the fact that hypotheticals could go both ways, while Georgie seemed more receptive to what would happen to this world for sure vs. the unknown in other universes, while Martin was refusing Jon’s option to take Jonah’s place and was receptive to other ideas. From Georgie&Melanie, there was the additional fact that they had recently witnessed the survivors, who trusted them and were under their protection, getting snatched away without them being able to do anything; from an emotional point of view, it might have pushed them to… do something, anything, that could indeed save people, while they hadn’t been able to be active until now.

* I really like that Basira was the one to point out and reiterate how unfair it was of them to take this decision, that they ultimately were very privileged compared to the main victims, trying to find ways to get people involved in the process. It does feel like she’s learned during the journey…

* Jon’s voice (weary, miserable) when he explained that he already knew what people wanted, and that it was for their suffering “to stop”, broke my heart into pieces ;_;

* Martin’s main argument (“I’d rather live the rest of my life lying awake wondering if I made the right choice, over… lying awake listening to the screams of everyone on Earth being tortured!” really echoed what had happened with Annabelle on their journey to Hill Top Road: that he couldn’t help making additional stops to relieve people’s suffering for a bit, and that he briefly lamented Salesa’s death despite Annabelle pointing out that he had made victims, since Martin “didn’t know them”. Martin reacts more strongly to what’s in front of him, uh…

* Georgie felt very End-touched this episode? “until the end”, “towards the end”, just like Beholding avatars had occasionally been punning about their patron…

* Melanie, sayer of “fuck” /o/

(MAG131) MELANIE: Oooh, fuck off?!

(MAG199) MELANIE: But if you think that’s all I care about here, then frankly you can fuck off out my tunnels on your high horse.

Jon still in the lead with four over the course of the series, we’ll see if anyone else takes the lead with MAG200…

- Overall: what was the most striking was how, at this point, Jon was indeed too disillusioned to hope for any possible positive outcome. They all made good points, about what they knew and didn’t know, about the worst and best cases scenarios – but from Jon’s point of view, it feels like the guilt has been heavy enough already, and that he couldn’t stand to add to it anymore.

(And ;; It’s especially cruel that he stuck to his line of trusting the others, that he shared the information with the others and counted on them to make a collective decision… but that he was the only discordant voice in the end. That was the risk! And it just cruelly (for him) turned out this way.)

- Amongst the points that weren’t mentioned, I’m curious that the followings didn’t come up:

* They barely talked about The Web or Jonah as, well, being the main factors resulting in the current apocalypse – as the people who wanted it to happen and worked for it. They all were ready to take the blame but… the apocalypse wouldn’t have happened if The Web hadn’t wanted to control its escape by backing up Jonah to make it happen, and if Jonah hadn’t worked for it. Yeeting the Fears into other worlds also means yeeting The Web, who now knows for sure how an apocalypse can happen, which means it will search for a crack to widen as its next escape pod as soon as it arrives somewhere else, thus repeating the cycle probably much more faster…?

* They all seem confident that once the Fears leave, they’ll be gone forever. But Gerry had raised the point in front of Jon that nobody can tell really which came first, if the Fears originated from people or caused their fears. What if the problem in the TMA world is that the Fears are produced by people – what if they would be recreated as soon as they leave (especially now that people are left traumatised and hurt)?

* They weren’t sure whether the other worlds would be very similar to theirs (“Assuming time even works the same in different dimensions.”) but… the two examples of people crossing the Hill Top Road line had come from very familiar worlds: Anya’s was almost identical (except that there was no Magnus Institute in hers – maybe no Jonah Magnus at all?) and Eowa was killed by the same army he had tried to flee. The examples both Jon and Martin read about felt really similar to their world; those could be drops in the bucket, but still…

* There was absolutely no mention of the people they lost in the course of the series. It’s a strange feeling, because when it came to it, their conclusions seem pretty disconnected from everything that had happened to them, to the point that Melanie could blurt out “We all lived with monsters in the shadows, and we just got on with it.” without being countered by anyone – although it was the most obvious lie ever (and Melanie had to be aware of it, given how she blinded herself to escape The Eye). Melanie knows in detail how her father suffered because of The Corruption at Ivy Meadows before dying. Georgie lost Alex and her ability to feel fear. Basira had to hunt and kill Daisy after she got lost to The Hunt. Jon was traumatised as kid, witnessed Helen Richardson getting taken by Michael in front of him; Martin was preyed on and groomed for The Lonely for months by Peter; Jon&Martin both lost Tim and Sasha. They know how damaging the Fears can be even at the lurking stage. I wouldn’t have been surprised if, even taking this into account, they’d still have gone with the plan to yeet the Fears (since in the best case scenario, Fears would already be present in other worlds anyway, or whatever inhabits them would be insulated to them), I’m just surprised that the topic of the people they have lost didn’t come up as a potential counter-argument, especially since we’re at the end of this journey.

- Oh gods, Jon leaving for a smoke…

(MAG199) ARCHIVIST: Fine. I’m going for a cigarette. [DEPARTING FOOTSTEPS] [CLICK.]

… sounded like a very bad omen, given how las time he had left people alone to smoke, it had gone, uh, pipe-murderly:

(MAG080) ARCHIVIST: I’m going to have a cigarette. Don’t… [DOOR OPENS] Don’t. [DOOR CLOSES]

Surprised that nothing bad happened when he left; if it had been at the end of an episode, I would have panicked for a week about the Watchers coming back for the others while Jon was away.

- It was the first time we’ve heard Jon smoke on tape! We knew he did thanks to a few mentions (him announcing his cigarette break to Leitner in MAG080, the fact that Daisy had found Silk Cuts in his bag in MAG091, when he had tried to give a cigarette to Gerry in MAG111) but we hadn’t heard him taking a smoke.

* … How long has Jon carried these cigarettes? Did they come from before the Change, did Jon restock at Salesa’s, did he get some from Leitner’s stashes of stuff? Or does his own stock never truly deplete, The Web providing an infinite supply of cigarettes just like the recorders keep spawning?

* We could hear the whirring sounds and the drones, Georgie joked about an “indoor smoking ban”, Jon commented he could think better here, we heard Georgie climbing stairs to reach him, so I’m guessing he was at the bottom of the tower? I like how this scene managed to feel nostalgic despite of it, with Jon being somewhere between inside and outside and hiding for a smoke – we don’t know for sure where he used to go to smoke, but Gertrude had mentioned the Institute has a courtyard.

* And just the location highlighted Jon’s situation: not “human” enough anymore to be in the tunnels, but refusing to embrace what is at the top of the tower. So, alone in that in-between.

- Gods, the Georgie and Jon scene began so adorably?

(MAG199) ARCHIVIST: [LONG EXHALATION] GEORGIE: You do know there’s an indoor smoking ban, right? ARCHIVIST: They’ll make an exception for me…! GEORGIE: [FAINT CHUCKLE] ARCHIVIST: Besides, I can’t really think down there. [DRAG ON CIGARETTE] That’s not true, I can, it’s just… exhausting. Puts me in a foul mood. [INHALE] It’s better up here, close to The Eye. Thoughts come quicker. GEORGIE: … If it’s any consolation, you seemed pretty on the ball earlier. ARCHIVIST: It isn’t really but… thank you.

Friendly exes! It really took me back to the familiar bantering they shared in season 3 – except that, back then, Jon was trying to hide what was truly happening to him, and this time around, Jon was shown more open and direct about what was on his mind.

- Again, I love and hate what the scene said and showed, reminding us that… even if the plan they have chosen goes accordingly, Jon won’t be okay, as Jon had explained to Martin:

(MAG181) ARCHIVIST: Uh, these last few days I–I’ve been… getting weaker. Dizzy spells, vagueness, you’ve seen it. Being cut off from the Eye, i–it’s not good for me. MARTIN: Yeah, but if… [INHALE] If you’re that connected, that… dependent, what happens if we actually, y’know, do manage to– ARCHIVIST: We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, I just need us to be moving on.

(MAG191) MARTIN: … Jon. If… When we defeat The Eye, the Fears… What happens to you? [SILENCE] ARCHIVIST: Nothing good. I think it depends on what actually happens. […] If, however, we… find a way to destroy or, uh… eliminate the Powers… I’m not going to be okay. There’s… too much of me that’s part of The Eye now. I don’t… know what would be left of me without it. Maybe I just… die. Maybe I survive, but I–I lose… something. My identity? My mind? My… memories? I don’t know.

(MAG197) ANNABELLE: Most would simply lose whatever power they have been gifted. Jon would lose much of himself, the parts of him that are The Eye. But he would survive. And perhaps, more importantly, he would remain who he believes himself to be. [TAPE SQUEALS]

His moment of rest consists of coming up under Beholding’s radar again; but if they succeed, there won’t be that anymore. At best, Jon would be like he was in the tunnels, at worse, he would wither away like he did at Salesa’s, losing grasp on his memory and unable to focus. It wasn’t mentioned as a factor in their discussion (Martin and Jon had already covered this privately earlier in the season, after all), but it’s likely not something Jon has forgotten.

- Oh GODS, Georgie, no!!

(MAG199) GEORGIE: … Can I have a cigarette? ARCHIVIST: [AMUSED SNORT] … Sure. [PASSING ONE OVER]

(MAG001) ARCHIVIST: “I picked myself up as best I could, checked I hadn’t seriously injured myself, no broken bones or anything, and decided to roll a cigarette to calm myself. That was when I heard it. [STATIC RISES] “Can I have a cigarette?” [STATIC FADES]”

Given Jon’s reaction, he had picked up on it. You either die an Archivist, or you live long enough to see yourself become the Anglerfish’s victim.

- Georgie used to smoke, and Jon knew that about her! They might have been smoking together as students, given Jon’s official chronology regarding smoking?

(MAG080) ARCHIVIST: I’m going to have a cigarette. Don’t… [DOOR OPENS] Don’t. […] Sorry, I’ve been quit for five years now, but th– [STUNNED SILENCE] … Oh. Oh god… I need to… Uh… I need to, um… [TRAILS OF ALMOST INCOHERENTLY]

MAG080 had taken place in February 2017, so five years ago was 2012, which is roughly when Jon joined the Institute (in MAG051, he had mentioned “One of [his] first cases as a researcher for the Institute in 2012”). Although, well. Jon saying that he had “been quit for five years” wasn’t super convincing when he apparently had cigarettes on him at that moment, but it’s a bit difficult to guess when Jon went back to smoking in the series (Elias’s “He’s not smoking again, is he?” in MAG039 could have been referring to him knowing that Jon used to smoke, or to Jon having started again as soon as he got the lighter; and Tim’s “I don’t mean like ‘sneaking a cigarette’ bad” in MAG079 could have been a random example, or referring to the fact that Jon was indeed having cigarette breaks in season 2 and not being super subtle about it).

- Aouch about the theme of shattering illusions and your heroes being people above all:

(MAG199) ARCHIVIST: I thought you quit? GEORGIE: I did! For my health. But… it’s already the apocalypse so… I’ll need a light too. ARCHIVIST: Yeah. [LIGHTER SNICKS OPEN] [GEORGIE LIGHTS UP] GEORGIE: I tried to avoid it in the tunnels, when we had our, uh… When the others were here. […] ARCHIVIST: You didn’t want to tarnish the image of the prophets? GEORGIE: Just didn’t think they wanted one of their “revered leaders” puffing away in the corner. ARCHIVIST: [MURMURS AN ASSENT] GEORGIE: Saw a bishop smoking once when I was a kid, full Easter regalia and all. Really weirded me out.

The comparison hurt a bit by likening the survivors in the tunnels to… children who can’t really tell decorum apart from reality, but there sure was an interesting theme of Georgie being aware of how she was seen, and trying to not hurt the survivors while at the same time indirectly feeding their perception of her as “holy”.

- Okay, so. Probably what felt the biggest, most important thing in this episode was… Georgie taking the lighter, how it happened, and whether or not it will be narratively relevant.

(MAG199) GEORGIE: … Can I have a cigarette? ARCHIVIST: [AMUSED SNORT] … Sure. [PASSING ONE OVER] I thought you quit? GEORGIE: I did! For my health. But… it’s already the apocalypse so… I’ll need a light too. ARCHIVIST: Yeah. [LIGHTER SNICKS OPEN] [GEORGIE LIGHTS UP] GEORGIE: I tried to avoid it in the tunnels, when we had our, uh… When the others were here. [LIGHT METALLIC SOUND] Nice lighter. [STATIC RISES] ARCHIVIST: Hmm? [STATIC FADES] […] I should probably quit myself, then. [LIGHT METALLIC SOUND] GEORGIE: Then, you won’t mind if I hang onto this? [STATIC RISES] ARCHIVIST: [DISTRACTED] Hmm. [STATIC FADES] GEORGIE: … I’m sorry. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] GEORGIE: I know you hate what we’re doing.

* Static when people mention the lighter and Jon not being able to focus on it is far from new:

(MAG111) GERARD: Nice lighter. You a spider freak, then? ARCHIVIST: What? Oh! Er, n–no. I–I, I never really, uh… I never really thought of it. I–I’m Jon. I’m with the Magnus Institute. … I–I’m the Archivist.

(MAG136) DAISY: [SCOFF] She’s… Web. Spider’s sneaky like that. [PAUSE] Like that lighter you’re always using. Where’d you get that? ARCHIVIST: Mm. [STATIC RISES] Good point. We should keep our eyes open. [STATIC FADES] Anyway, how’s Basira doing?

(MAG162) MARTIN: You said this place, the–the cabin was… [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] It, it’s feeding on us, right? ARCHIVIST: Yes… MARTIN: … So should we… destroy it, before we go? […] We’re not even gonna try? We, we’ve got your lighter, maybe we could just– ARCHIVIST: We can’t fight the world, Martin.

(MAG197) ANNABELLE: And it just so happens that the perfect tool was once delivered to you as a token of appreciation. Though you really do need to learn to keep better care of it. Somehow, it always seems to slip your mind, doesn’t it? ARCHIVIST: What…? BASIRA: Jon, it’s that stupid lighter of yours. ARCHIVIST: [INDIGNANT] My what? I… [STATIC RISES] [PULLS THE GOLD LIGHTER WITH EMBOSSED SPIDERWEB FROM POCKET AND FLICKS IT OPEN] Oh? … Oh. [STATIC FADES]

What is surprising is that it still happened even after Annabelle pointed out the purpose of the lighter. If Jon is supernaturally compelled to not pay attention to it (by The Web, to ensure it stays with Jon? By Beholding, out of self-preservation, like it tried to push Jon away from Eric’s tape that explained how to quit the Archives?), how the heck was Annabelle expecting him to use it in the tunnels to explode the Archives with the gas main?

* At the end of the episode, the others explained how they would proceed, and it’s presented as a given that Jon wouldn’t be in the tunnel team – but rather, that he would go with Martin, despite being unnecessary since Martin would take care of the Jonah murder. It’s rather strange that the others didn’t ask for the lighter directly, but that Georgie took it in the flow of the conversation and in a way Jon barely noticed… as if she wanted to take hold of it sneakily because it was necessary that Jon didn’t really notice. Plus, as was explained, Melanie is supposed to be the last person standing to ignite the gas main: Basira is supposed to be a planned distraction, and Georgie is a back-up distraction in case things go sour. If the point was to get the lighter for the gas main, then Melanie should have been the one to get hold of it.

(* It’s additionally rather strange that Georgie said she had “tried to avoid it in the tunnels” when the survivors were around, implying it was a conscious choice but she might have been smoking outside when patrolling with Melanie… yet had to ask Jon for a cigarette and for a light, as if she didn’t have these things on her.)

Overall, I see three options:

* Total coincidence, red herring, Georgie just didn’t take her own lighter along because she wasn’t planning on smoking.

* Since the beginning of the episode implied that Jon&Martin&Basira had given a complete recap of what had happened to Hill Top Road before the tape recorder clicked on, Georgie took the lighter on purpose to free Jon from The Web’s potential influence. She hasn’t gone back to smoking during the apocalypse; she lied about it to lower Jon’s guard by telling a convincing story, given that Jon knew she used to smoke. Likely meaning that Georgie&Melanie&Martin&Basira have another plan in Jon’s back, but couldn’t share with him due to both the tape recorders and Jon’s connection to Beholding – if Jon knows something, then Beholding might be knowing about it too.

* It’s… actually an End thing. There was a feeling of finality when Georgie took the lighter, as if she might be taking a step that would irrevocably lead to her own death? (“The moment that you die will feel exactly the same as this one.”) She said the exact same thing (“Nice lighter.”) as Gerry, who was dead when he said it; she took the lighter for a dangerous mission; she pointed out her own regrets due to her inaction, and was the one to mention that they had to pay the cost, whatever it was, for this plan to succeed. I don’t know, I got the impression that things might be slotting into place, that her own mechanism had set into motion – that things in the tunnels will go awry, and that she won’t make it out.

- Overall, I like the different approaches characters had about their own guilt and Jon’s in this episode:

(MAG199) GEORGIE: … I’m sorry. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] GEORGIE: I know you hate what we’re doing. ARCHIVIST: I hate all the options, I just… It’s all my fault, you know? GEORGIE: What, because you weren’t able to outsmart the literal embodiment of manipulation and scheming? ARCHIVIST: Mmm. GEORGIE: We all make bad choices, Jon. It’s not your fault some eldritch horror decided yours were going– ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] GEORGIE: –to affect the whole world…! ARCHIVIST: They were still my choices. GEORGIE: … Yeah. And you live with them. Or you don’t. That’s all there is, really. ARCHIVIST: Hmm.

For Jon: what was the most apparent is that he was adamant about presenting what happened as his choices. It could be a remnant of Elia’s gaslighting about it (MAG092: “You never wanted this, no. But I’m afraid you absolutely did choose it. In a hundred ways, at a hundred thresholds, you pressed on. You sought knowledge relentlessly, and you always chose to see. Our world is made of choices, Jon, and very rarely do we truly know what any of them mean. But we make them nonetheless.”), but also a sign that Jon had been struggling about (what he perceives to be) The Web’s hold on his life: if The Web had indeed manipulated him all his life, since he was eight, puppetting him like Francis or the kids at Ray’s house, then what is left of Jon? What is his, who is he? Jon clinging to his own guilt, his own responsibility, the idea that he made his own choices at every turn, might be his way to not fall into the other extreme, the idea that he has been nothing but the Web’s marionette all along and that he’s nothing without it.

It’s also striking that the others have told Jon that the apocalypse wasn’t truly his fault, that they knew Jon hadn’t wanted it, but that Jon redirected the blame on him every time anyway. Georgie tried two other approaches in quick succession: taking The Web into account, with the idea that Jon’s particularity was that he was preyed upon by it, that the consequences were only more dramatic than regular “bad choices” because something was planning to use them anyway; and then, something that resonated more strongly with Georgie’s own experience. As she told Jon, she had regrets about not helping him, felt like she had failed him and had contributed to the steps leading to this apocalypse: she knows what it is to carry that sort of guilt, although on a smaller scale. (And her last sentence felt… extremely End-touched, too.)

- The moment of Georgie introducing that Martin (“your next appointment”) was there and that it was her cue to leave was so sweet ;_; Jon’s ex to Jon’s current partner, and both Jon & Georgie being cool about each other’s new partner in their lives…

- And gooods, Jon&Martin’s conversation ;_;

(MAG199) GEORGIE: He’s all yours. MARTIN: Thanks. [GEORGIE’S FOOTSTEPS DESCEND AND FADE] … You all right? ARCHIVIST: Yeah. Sorry it got so heated in there. MARTIN: Don’t be. I’d have been more worried if you were super calm about it. ARCHIVIST: Yeah. MARTIN: … I’d understand if you hate me right now. ARCHIVIST: What? No! No, Martin, I love you. I always will, and I know you love me too, I mean… [SIGH] That’s it, isn’t it? That’s… the real core of it. You want to save me. MARTIN: I want you to save yourself.

* The fact that Martin was ready and understanding that Jon might hate him for the option Martin defended, that he was expecting Jon to hate him for it, and that he still stuck to it… Oh, Martin… (It’s not the first time a Magnus moment made me think of the When They Cry series but… this one was peak Federika’s poem: “Don’t be sad. The world may not forgive you, but I do. / Don’t be sad. You may not forgive the world, but I forgive you. / Tell me. What must I do to earn your forgiveness?”)

* So many “I love you” coming from Jon this season…

(MAG161) MARTIN: I’m sorry. ARCHIVIST: No, it’s– [SIGH] I love you, I just… I need more time.

(MAG162) ARCHIVIST: “The screams may linger on the distant breeze, and your eye may wander beyond the curtains from time to time, but you and the one you love are, it seems… safe. […] There within the thing that pretends to be a cabin is the one you love. […] The one you love is always near, so close that refuge sometimes feels a prison.”

(MAG183) MARTIN: … I’m sure I love you. [FOOTSTEPS] ARCHIVIST: I love you too. [FABRIC RUSTLES] Let’s go.

(MAG191) MARTIN: … I promise. I love you, Jon. ARCHIVIST: [FOND HUFF] I love you too.

(MAG199) MARTIN: … I’d understand if you hate me right now. ARCHIVIST: What? No! No, Martin, I love you. I always will, and I know you love me too, I mean…

I really wasn’t expecting it when season 4 ended, and yet!! Jon has been so soft and open about it with Martin this season…

* I really like the nuance Martin insisted on, that he mostly wished that Jon would want to save “himself” – it’s not necessarily that Martin is right about it but… from his point of view, he might still be suspecting that Jon is still pretty much self-destructive (although in indirect ways), as Daisy had pointed out in season 4, and that his way of engaging in dangerous missions is still tainted with guilt, with the idea that he has to compensate for something:

(MAG142) DAISY: Not like there’s… “normal” trauma, you know? But it’s pretty common. The most important thing becomes control, engaging on your own terms. Even when it’s stupid or dangerous. Anything to not feel helpless. MARTIN: Oh, god… DAISY: And of course, for Jon, there’s survivor’s guilt in there, too. He thinks he’s not human. Makes him very… self-destructive. MARTIN: Yeah, well. We’ve all had trauma. DAISY: And everyone’s changed.

(And gods. Maybe the problem this season for Jon is that Daisy wasn’t there anymore to at least point out these things. She hadn’t really managed to take Jon’s mind off of it (and he hadn’t opened up enough with her to confess that he had been attacking people) but she might have been able to lay it out, at least, if she had been there…)

- I’m really glad about the contrast between Jon and Martin when thinking about hypothetical scenarios!

(MAG199) ARCHIVIST: … Sometimes… I imagine if none of this had happened. If we had just… met. Been together, w–without… all of this. MARTIN: [SOFTLY] Me too. … But we wouldn’t have, would we? Been together, I mean. ARCHIVIST: Huh? W–what do you mean? MARTIN: Well…! We had that, didn’t we? Almost a year of just working a normal job together and… you hated me. ARCHIVIST: I didn’t “hate” you. MARTIN: No–no, no, no, I listened to those tapes. At one point, you explicitly said you’d be fine with me being chopped up by that old jigsaw lady. ARCHIVIST: Oh, god, Angela! Ha! She’s still about, you know? Lording it over a nasty little Flesh domain. Anyway, I didn’t explicitly say it, I… implied it. MARTIN: Face it, Jon, it took almost two years of crisis and trauma to even make us compatible.

* Jon truly is the romantic in that relationship.

* I’m very glad for Martin pointing out that he remembers how Jon used to treat him, and that he doesn’t really believe that they could have gotten together without the circumstances they experienced. I don’t think we’re meant to take Martin’s words exactly at face value (the circumstances allowed them to open up to each other and get closer, they didn’t necessarily turn them into whole other human beings), but it makes sense that, from his perspective… it’s hard to romanticise the past:

(MAG014) ARCHIVIST: I sent Martin to look into this “Angela” character, not that I want him to get chopped up, of course, but someone had to. Apparently he spent three days looking into every woman named Angela in Bexley over the age of 50. He could not find anyone that matches the admittedly vague description given here, though he informs me that he had some very pleasant chats about jigsaws. Useless ass.

Jon was absolutely awful to him back then, and ranting about him on tapes was textbook workplace bullying since he knew the tapes were semi-public (as in MAG032, Tim reported to him that researchers and students had been pointing out mistakes in his recordings). Off-tape, just from Martin’s point of view, we know that it was so pervasive that he remembered about it when left alone, tormented by his worst memories and feelings:

(MAG170) MARTIN: … Oh, I, I met someone! Did I tell you? He’s… [SHUFFLING] I, I don’t know. I like him. He doesn’t like me, though. Not really. I don’t blame him. I don’t like me sometimes, and I am me! Plus, he’s… he’s my, my boss? Is that right? [CREAKING] Ei–either way. It’s probably for the best? Wouldn’t really be appropriate, eh…!

(MAG186) ALSO MARTIN: Or… does it just keep paralysing us, make us shrink back and wait, hoping things work out? Like with Jon when we thought the worms had got him. MARTIN: Hey, to be fair, he still kind of hated me back then. I’m really not sure it would have been the best time to take my shot. ALSO MARTIN: … Fair. He was projecting hard.

Season 1 is not a time Martin would be eager to go back to, because it’s when Jon was at his worst against him (and Martin lived in fear of his fake CV being discovered), while for Jon… it was before Prentiss attacking the Institute, before his scars and before losing Sasha. It makes sense that Martin would want to defend what they got, to defend this world over others, given that from his point of view, it might be the only configuration possible that made his relationship with Jon possible – which, once again: might not be necessarily the truth, but makes sense from Martin’s point of view.

* Though, Martin, sweetie, the “normal job” included you getting besieged by Prentiss for two weeks and having to eat canned peaches. It’s never really been a “normal” job.

- Jon lightening up at the mention of Angela and immediately infodumping about how she was doing was so bittersweet to me, since it emphasised (once again) how deep Jon is in the Fears’ society by now. Those are familiar names, familiar figures, doing terrible things, but it still feels like his own universe when he mentions them, when he explains what he knows about them. Once again, it makes me wonder what will be left of him once all those things are just… gone.

- Martin listened to so many tapes, uh?

(MAG142) MARTIN: I listened to your old statement. Wasn’t your partner down there? DAISY: Yeah. Didn’t find him.

(MAG188) MARTIN: Plus, I… I was a little bit jealous as, well. ARCHIVIST: Of what? MARTIN: Of Helen. Well, the, the real Helen. I found the tape when you were on the run and… I don’t know. Something about the way you two seemed to connect when she came in. ARCHIVIST: [HUFF] Before she was eaten by a door. MARTIN: Well, yeah. It certainly seemed to have a pretty deep impact on you.

(MAG199) MARTIN: No–no, no, no, I listened to those tapes. At one point, you explicitly said you’d be fine with me being chopped up by that old jigsaw lady.

He listened to the one involving Angela (MAG014), to Helen’s statement (MAG047), to the events that got Daisy section’d (MAG061) – that last one being even more interesting since it explicitly mentioned that Basira&Daisy were giving Jon the tapes, which means it was from the stash Jon was recording secretly. I’m back to fearing a bit about Martin as a back-up Archivist: he used to read statements and to take a few live ones, Annabelle made him read her statement in MAG197, he’s been listening to tapes… just like Jon.

- Martin has been good at finding loopholes in mutual promises:

(MAG199) ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] That’s very sweet of you, Martin. Sort of. … Thank you. MARTIN: Wherever you go, I go. That’s it. ARCHIVIST: You promised to let me go, if I had to. MARTIN: And you promised not to go if there was any other choice. And there is. So that’s the deal. ARCHIVIST: … That’s the deal.

Martin said that he wouldn’t “doom the world” over Jon: he’s still respecting that in a way by prioritising Jon and this peculiar world (and as the others had pointed out earlier, they weren’t sure whether their actions would doom others or not).

I’m super afraid about that “Wherever you go, I go” which sounds like something that could suddenly come to a stop. Martin had pointed out multiple times that he was “following” Jon (MAG170: “I was following, al–always following, never leading; never leading.”), but recent episodes have operated a bit differently – Jon didn’t follow Martin to his domain, respecting Martin’s wish to confront it alone, and Jon followed him to Hill Top Road. At this point, Jon has been following Martin, too…

- I got a first impression of Martin’s words before understanding that it could actually be referring to multiple things:

(MAG199) MARTIN: I guess that’s why it really bothers me, you know? [SAD CHUCKLING] I try, but I can’t actually imagine… ever making a decision that I knew meant losing you. And it… It hurts to know you can.

At first, I thought Martin was saying that he felt like Jon would be ready to sacrifice Martin or his relationship with him for a greater good, while Martin definitely couldn’t (as he pointed out to Also Martin, his limit would probably be to sacrifice Jon), but… it could also be a reference to Jon’s self-hatred, the fact that Jon would sacrifice himself so easily. In that case, it’s a bit hypocritical of Martin indeed (since he had told Also Martin that he was ready to sacrifice himself too), but I still feel like there might be a difference between the two – Martin would do it to save the world or Jon (or to not live on the pain of his domain’s victims), while Jon… would likely do it out of self-hatred and because he feels like it’s his responsibility to make up for the apocalypse.

- The contrast between Georgie’s scene and this, when Jon finally broke ;_;

(MAG199) ARCHIVIST: I hate all the options, I just… It’s all my fault, you know? GEORGIE: What, because you weren’t able to outsmart the literal embodiment of manipulation and scheming? ARCHIVIST: Mmm. GEORGIE: We all make bad choices, Jon. It’s not your fault some eldritch horror decided yours were going– ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] GEORGIE: –to affect the whole world…! ARCHIVIST: They were still my choices. GEORGIE: … Yeah. And you live with them. Or you don’t. That’s all there is, really. ARCHIVIST: Hmm. […] You didn’t damn the world, Martin. MARTIN: [SIGH] We all– ARCHIVIST: [HARSH] No! “We all” nothing! I… I’m the one who caused all of this, that’s just the truth of it! I’m the one whose whole life has been nothing but one – long – setup – to this. MARTIN: Jon… ARCHIVIST: [WITH SADNESS] You didn’t speak the words! You didn’t feel them move through you, vomiting out of you like…! [SHAKY BREATHING] … I did this. It’s my fault. And I don’t want… I can’t let anyone else feel that, that… helpless, enormous guilt. Ever.

Both Georgie and Martin beginning by “We all”, but Jon’s reaction being so hugely different when he heard it for the second time.

* I wanted Jon to have a breakdown, I got the breakdown, I’m still sad about it ;_;

* Jon had been very susceptible to the rhetoric of being “chosen”: he had wondered about it in season 3 and 4, until Jonah had concluded that if Jon had been “chosen” in any way, it was by him when he decided that Jon’s Web mark made him prime for his plan and that it was mostly just due to Jon’s “own rotten luck”. It might have been easier to swallow for a while, technically, until Annabelle reactivated all those fears about being “chosen” but from even longer – since childhood, since he was eight, since he was just a kid who just survived a Fear encounter. I do feel like there was a lot of bullshit in what Annabelle told him, in the way she framed it; she had also told Martin that a web couldn’t be “precious about a single strand” and I feel like it was more likely that there were multiple potential Jons, or that The Web had already tried to get someone (Gertrude? Her assistants, with Emma pushing them into danger?) marked and prime for the final ritual. But Jon has been very vulnerable to the idea that there could be something wrong inherent to him, that things he had no power over had to be his fault somehow, such as not being able to rescue his bully, or Sasha getting killed by the Not!Them, or the apocalypse (while he had more trouble accepting his own blame for things he was directly responsible for).

* I was wondering recently if Jon might have finally accepted that he wasn’t responsible for the apocalypse, that it was Jonah’s fault (since he hadn’t mentioned it for a long while at this point) but… nop. He didn’t really change his mind about it since the start of the season, just got better at hiding it:

(MAG161) MARTIN: Jon, it’s not your fault… ARCHIVIST: Martin, can we not do this again. MARTIN: Sorry. ARCHIVIST: I’m just… I’m mourning a world I killed…! MARTIN: I know… ARCHIVIST: And we’re all trapped in its rotting corpse…!

* ;_; My heart broke when Jon recalled the experience of reading Jonah’s letter, and how traumatising the mere action was. We could hear him struggle and try to stop speaking in MAG160, and yet the letter was following its course…

* Just like with The Web’s clutch on him yet Jon still defending that he made those “bad choices”, it’s heartbreaking how Jon seems to be stuck on the paradox of being conscious that he couldn’t stop reading the letter, that something awful was done to him, yet still defends that it’s his fault and his responsibility. Jonah was barely mentioned this episode (and not as the man who chose to unleash that apocalypse), but he was still… very present in the multiple ways he fucked Jon over.

* It’s extremely sad that their current plan requires to trample on precisely the thing Jon didn’t and doesn’t want (to inflict what he experienced over someone else)… and yet, as sad it is, it also needs to be seen in the whole situation. Is guilt the worst thing that someone can experience? What about the people currently being tortured in their domains? (Or is there something coming up, such as Jon’s guilt being one aspect of his “domain” all along?)

* But still. Sobbing over the fact that Jon didn’t even blurt out out that he couldn’t allow anyone else to be hurt and fucked over by another Jonah like he was, but that the worst thing, for him, still was this “helpless, enormous guilt”. Not the pain, not the constant anguish, not the people he lost, but the guilt of having been used to end the world.

- There have been a few mentions revolving around Jon’s voice lately:

(MAG197) ARCHIVIST: As far as I can tell. I–it’s hard to s–… If I look too closely at them, my own voice, things get… recursive. Hard to follow. […] ANNABELLE: [CHUCKLING] I am sorry you find them irritating! They’re a side effect of the very specific way this web has been spun. I thought you liked his voice? MARTIN: I do when it’s his voice. I’ve never liked the statements. It always felt… Yeah. ANNABELLE: Well… you can trust me when I say you’ll be hearing his real voice very soon. […] We found the one we believed most likely to bring about their manifestation. We marked him young, guided his path as best we could. And then, we took his voice. ARCHIVIST: No… ANNABELLE: His, and those he walked with. We inscribed them on shining strands of word and meaning, and used them to weave a web which cast itself out through the gate and beyond our universe. So that when the Fears heard that voice, and came in their terrible glory, they might then travel out along it. [TAPE SQUEALS] Or be dragged.

(MAG199) ARCHIVIST: [WITH SADNESS] You didn’t speak the words! You didn’t feel them move through you, vomiting out of you like…! [SHAKY BREATHING] … I did this.

And once again, there was the “For the silence” coin Albrecht discovered in the tomb of what was likely to be an old Archivist. Whatever happens in MAG200, I wonder if Jon won’t lose his voice in the process? Wouldn��t be the worst thing and, anyway, he will lose his voice symbolically with the end of the podcast (even in the case where he wouldn’t be straight up dying) but… I don’t know. The end of the episode had Jon exceptionally withdrawn and silent while the others discussed, so it already felt like he was falling “silent” in a way, and I wonder if he’ll lose his voice in a more literal way during the crisis, especially if the Fears are following “his voice”…

- Martin was so soft… and the Fabric Rustled again.

(MAG158) MARTIN: I see… [INHALE] I see you, Jon. [BREATHLESS CHUCKLE] [PRESENT, ECHO FADES] I see you…! ARCHIVIST: Oh, Martin… [FABRIC RUSTLES] MARTIN: I w–I was on my own…! I was all on my own…

(Season 5 trailer) MARTIN: You know I’m here for you. ARCHIVIST: [LONG SIGH] … Yes. Yes I do. [RUSTLING OF CLOTHES] MARTIN: All right. All right. ARCHIVIST: Thank you.

(MAG170) ARCHIVIST: [CLOSER] Oh! Martin, hold on, I–I–I’m coming, I just… [STATIC REACHING A PEAK] [FOOTSTEPS] Oh, Martin! Thank god, I, I was… I–I thought you were behind me. [FABRIC RUSTLES] MARTIN: I thought you’d left me behind…! Gone on without me.

(MAG177) ARCHIVIST: … I’m sorry. [SILENCE] MARTIN: [SIGH] It’s okay. I understand. [BAG JOSTLING] [FABRIC RUSTLES]

(MAG183) MARTIN: … I’m sure I love you. [FOOTSTEPS] ARCHIVIST: I love you too. [FABRIC RUSTLES] Let’s go.

(MAG187) ARCHIVIST: [GROGGY] Oh. Martin, good! [BAG JOSTLING] [FABRIC RUSTLES] MARTIN: Wh–, wh–wh–what happened? Th–th–there was the hotel and then…

(MAG191) MARTIN: No, I, I know, I know. I’m sorry, it’s okay. [SIGH] [FABRIC RUSTLES] ARCHIVIST: … Bad dream? […] Maybe I just… die. Maybe I survive, but I–I lose… something. My identity? My mind? My… memories? I don’t know. [FABRIC RUSTLES AS THEY EMBRACE] MARTIN: [LONG EXHALE]

(MAG197) ARCHIVIST: Martin! [FABRIC RUSTLES] MARTIN: … Oh god, I’m sorry, I– ARCHIVIST: It’s fine.

(MAG199) MARTIN: Hey. ARCHIVIST: [SNIFFS AS IF TEARING UP] MARTIN: Hey, hey, hey, hey, come here, come here. [FABRIC RUSTLES] ARCHIVIST: [SNIFFS] MARTIN: We’re going to fix it. ARCHIVIST: No…! [HUFF] … We’re just going to pass it on…! MARTIN: You don’t know that.

It might have for the last time ever…

- What was that sigh, Martin.

(MAG199) [SILENCE, AS THEY BOTH COMPOSE THEMSELVES] ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] Come on. The others will be waiting. [SHUFFLING] [FOOTSTEPS DESCEND] MARTIN: [HEAVY SIGH] [CLICK.]

Was it “just” the sigh of knowing the current plan is making Jon miserable, or is it the sigh of someone who knows that something could comfort Jon, yet can’t share it with him yet…?

- Logistic of things in the next scene was that Jon&Martin came back to Georgie, who explained to them that Basira&Melanie had gone scouting, and the tape recorder clicked on when Basira&Melanie arrived:

(MAG199) [CLICK–] GEORGIE: I’m not sure, they said they were out– Oh, hey. [DOOR CREAKS, FOOTSTEPS ENTER] ARCHIVIST: There you are. I was getting worried. MELANIE: We were scouting. I was showing Basira where we think the gas mainline is. MARTIN: And? BASIRA: Not good. You know those Eye things? ARCHIVIST: The old Archivists? BASIRA: Yeah. I think they know something’s up. The place is crawling with them, it’s like they’re looking for something. MELANIE: Or patrolling. MARTIN: Hmm. GEORGIE: That’s why the stairs were unguarded? BASIRA: It looks that way.

* I’m still not sure what the point of the lighter is in relation to the tape recorders and The Web. Annabelle implied that the lighter had acted as a tracker or would act as a tracker (MAG197: “A little anchor of our power, so that we, and our tapes, may follow wherever you go.”) but we’ve had various examples showing that it wasn’t exclusively the case: the tape recorders had turned on and off in the Archives and in Elias’s office while Jon was away in season 3, they turned up around Martin and in Elias’s cell in season 4, one popped up to record Melanie&Georgie at the end of MAG191 while they were walking in London. What it might be able to do, however, is allow the tape recorders to reach places that should be insulated from other powers (such as within the Coffin, or when Jon was Nikola’s prisoner, or at Upton House)? I’m not sure. Anyway, Georgie took the lighter, has the lighter, and the next scene included Georgie, so I wonder if something will change in the POV of the action next episode, or if the team wasn’t suspecting that The Web still had another use for Jon.

* Why are the Archivists acting up? Is it because Beholding is getting impatient and wants Jon as its pupil? Is it because Beholding is sensing that something is threatening its position? Is it because Jon knows about the plan and the potentiality of Beholding losing its hold over this world, therefore allowing Beholding to know about it and making it react in self-defence? Are Jon’s own feelings about the plan influencing Beholding? Jon said that he didn’t feel like it could think but, if The Eye was indeed behind Jon’s difficulty to listen to Eric’s tape, that showed that it still has instincts and a capacity to try and protect itself.

- As mentioned above, I’m surprised that the last person standing to ignite the tunnels is supposed to be Melanie:

(MAG199) ARCHIVIST: So what’s the plan? MELANIE: I reckon me and Georgie go for the mainline, and hopefully they won’t notice us. GEORGIE: I’ll need a torch. They might notice that. BASIRA: I’ll give a diversion. I’ll try and draw them off. MELANIE: And if they see Georgie’s torch, we just go to Plan B. She becomes another distraction, and I go solo. GEORGIE: I don’t like the thought of you going on your own. MELANIE: And I don’t like the thought of you being chased by manky old archivists, but there it is. MARTIN: Okay. [EXHALE] So what are you going to do when you find it? GEORGIE: We’ve got some old tools. I guess we just… mess with it until we smell gas, and then… back off, set something burning and leg it. It can’t be that hard to break a valve.

… since Georgie had been the one to take the lighter, and didn’t present it as an element she would require in their plan. It’s possible that she’s going to give it over to Melanie and just retrieved the lighter for that goal but mmm, I’m still having doubts about it.

* I love Melanie’s “manky old Archivists”, I’m going to miss her so much ;_;

* … screaming a bit because GEORGIE, if you smell gas, it’s TOO LATE to ignite something without getting caught in the middle of an explosion…………. It’s gonna go very wrong, isn’t it.

* Sob, Melanie&Georgie had been resolute about doing something in MAG191, and Georgie still wanted to be careful about the old Archivists at the beginning of MAG192… but now, they’re really ready to risk everything, uh…

- Melanie was way more careful (and less confrontational) with Jon now that they had to establish the plan, and I wonder if Georgie asked her to tone it down or if Melanie made a conscious effort since they needed to pool their resources and collaborate? I’m really curious about Jon’s wording here:

(MAG199) MELANIE: … Jon, you’re sure about this whole gas main thing? It just seems… I don’t know, really mundane. ARCHIVIST: It’s what Annabelle said. And she wasn’t lying – at least, she didn’t think she was. BASIRA: Well, it’s a bit late for second-guessing.

Because what Annabelle thinks and the reality of things could be very different things. I’m still having some doubts about Oliver and her explaining how their patrons work and presenting them as Fears-that-can-think – it’s fitting in a way but… we also had examples of older avatars (Simon, Arthur) pointing out that they couldn’t guess what their patrons wanted except for some cravings. Something I could see is about the relation between avatars and their Fears (between humans and fears): the idea that the Fears might be… whatever people project on them, and them modelling themselves in turn. Could The End kill people in this world if Oliver wasn’t convinced that it could do it? Could The Web feel so omnipresent and powerful if Annabelle and Jon weren’t projecting their own fears on it?

- Georgie gave me so many red flags this episode…

(MAG199) GEORGIE: Well, we’ll do what we can but… this is it. Whatever it takes, right? If there’s a price, we pay it. No hesitations.

And that one was especially bad by itself, but it also echoed Gertrude’s last instructions to her potential successor:

(MAG161) GERTRUDE: You are entering a new world, a place I’ve lived for most of my life. A place… [SIGH] A place that will often demand a high price from you. Pay it without hesitation, because one way or another, the world is now on your shoulders.

Basically paraphrasing what Gertrude said? Bad sign. Baaad sign.

- There might have been a small misunderstanding between Melanie and Jon there ;;

(MAG199) MELANIE: Sure he can! Just magic-laser-eye zap him or whatever, same as with all the others. MARTIN: [SIGH] MELANIE: Like he did to Helen. ARCHIVIST: Listen, Melanie, I– MELANIE: It’s fine. If we all get out of this, we can talk it through, and, if not, well, it doesn’t really matter, does it? ARCHIVIST: I suppose not.

Since Jon had been unaware that Martin had broken the news to her already, and that Melanie already knew that Helen was bad news… but had learned from Basira that Melanie used to be close to her:

(MAG190) MELANIE: Oh! Oh, I nearly forgot! Careful of Helen, if you see her. MARTIN: Mm? MELANIE: Uh, she turned up a while back and tried to eat Celia. MARTIN: She was here? MELANIE: Yes… A few times. [INHALE] Looking back, I was so stupid! MARTIN: Because you kind of liked her? MELANIE: Yes. Yes… Honestly, I had started to think she was on our side. MARTIN: Yeah. MELANIE: [SIGH] MARTIN: Jon killed her. MELANIE: [SPLUTTERING] Uh, sorry, what?! MARTIN: Yeah, she tried to– I wasn’t there, but they got into a standoff and he… he destroyed her. MELANIE: He can do that? MARTIN: Mm! MELANIE: Well! I mean that’s… that’s interesting to know.

(MAG195) ARCHIVIST: … I also killed Helen? BASIRA: Oh! Right. ARCHIVIST: Yeah… [CONSIDERED ROWING] BASIRA: Didn’t expect that. ARCHIVIST: She was dangerous. And not like the others out there. It was only going to be a matter of time before– BASIRA: No, no, I get it. Honestly, it’s kind of a relief. How did Melanie take it? ARCHIVIST: Melanie? BASIRA: Yeah, she and… she and Helen were pretty tight back when, uh… Oh… ARCHIVIST: What? BASIRA: Back when you were in your coma. ARCHIVIST: I see…! Well, I haven’t told her yet, so… I suppose I have that to look forward to when we get back.

So: from Melanie’s point of view, she used to be close to Helen but learned independently that Helen wasn’t her friend and was actually dangerous for them. From Jon’s point of view, Melanie used to be close with Helen and might have just learned that he had killed her (and might be sad about it). But Melanie was dry about it and it came as an accusation, which immediately made Jon defensive about it. They can’t really manage to interact without making a conscious effort to not rub the other the wrong way, uh…?

Cries, still, because they’ll never talk it through, uh. ;;

- I am REALLY concerned about Martin being adamant that Jon couldn’t be the one to kill Jonah because of the potential consequences…

(MAG199) MELANIE: And it’s hardly going to be a picnic for you either. You’re going up that tower to kill Elias, and if we muck up the timing, you’ll be up there when it blows. MARTIN: … Jon can’t do it. ARCHIVIST: What? […] MARTIN: You’re not listening. I mean, if he kills Jonah, then knowing our luck he’s just gonna end up taking his place in the Panopticon, isn’t he? GEORGIE: [SIGH] Good point. MARTIN: He can come up with me, but when it actually comes to Jonah… BASIRA: You’ll have to be the one to do it. MARTIN: Yeah. ARCHIVIST: Martin… I don’t– BASIRA: Have you got this? We can trade if you don’t think you can do it. MARTIN: No. No, I can do it.

… because it’s not what Jon had said:

(MAG193) MARTIN: So not that then, but… wh–what about something, like… physical? ARCHIVIST: I… What? MARTIN: Look, I know it’s all about… dream logic and metaphor and all that… stuff, but, you know, what if we just… what if we just grabbed him and, you know, pulled him down? Or, or just threw something heavy at him? ARCHIVIST: Uh… […] You were right. MARTIN: About what? ARCHIVIST: His body is vulnerable. A–at least to me. MARTIN: … What’s the catch? ARCHIVIST: I could kill his body, sever the link, break The Eye’s power, and… Jonah Magnus would die. MARTIN: Okay, that sounds good but…? ARCHIVIST: But… that wouldn’t actually harm The Eye itself. And with him gone it would… it would choose a suitable replacement. MARTIN: Oh. ARCHIVIST: If we kill Jonah Magnus… I take his place. MARTIN: Oh, god… ARCHIVIST: And I think… that’s exactly what it wants…!

Jon said that killing Jonah would lead to Beholding taking a replacement, not necessarily the person who’d kill Jonah… and regarding “suitable replacement”, Martin was emphasised as Eye-aligned this season (and Lonely):

(MAG183) ARCHIVIST: Well, you’re a watcher, Martin. You worked for the Institute, you read statements, The Eye is… fond of you. You’re not getting thrown into your own personal hell, which means… MARTIN: [QUIETLY] That one of them belongs to me. But that’s… Ho–how can I be a “Watcher”? I, I didn’t even know it existed! ARCHIVIST: But you’ve suspected for a while now, haven’t you? MARTIN: Maybe? But that’s not “watching”! ARCHIVIST: Do you want me to tell you about it? MARTIN: No. … Yes. N–no, no, I don’t know, I don’t know. [SIGH] [STATIC RISES] ARCHIVIST: It’s a small domain. A swirling mix of The Eye and The Lonely.

And was supposed to take Jonah’s place at the end of season 4 precisely thanks to his connection to Beholding:

(MAG158) PETER: I want to use the powers of this place to learn about The Extinction: what it’s doing, where it’s manifesting. Then we can stop it. MARTIN: And you need me for this? PETER: Correct! Without a connection to The Eye, any attempt to use it would likely end… very messily indeed! But thankfully, it just so happens that you hold such a connection. MARTIN: So that’s it… Both “lonely” and “watching”. PETER: You must admit you’re the perfect candidate. […] You’ll have to dispose of the current occupant. MARTIN: Curren–… [QUICK FOOTSTEPS] [SHARP BREATHING] … Who is that? PETER: Jonah Magnus! His… body, at least. Sitting here; watching; binding it all together; growing ever older. If you want to take his place, well… MARTIN: … I’ll need to kill him. PETER: Yes. Don’t worry, though. I brought a knife. […] Martin. What are you doing? MARTIN: I’m… saying no. I refuse! Game over. [KNIFE CLATTERING ON THE GROUND]

Jon hadn’t mentioned whether Martin would be able to hurt Elias (just that he could), but we’ve seen that dream-logic could be a factor to hurt each other: Basira could kill Daisy, Daisy could hurt Jon through their connection. Given that Martin was once expected to kill Jonah (did Jonah fear that Martin would choose this?), and that Martin has felt guilty all season about the fact that he feels like he could have stopped things if he had just knifed Jonah:

(MAG174) MARTIN: All those lies you told me… You helped to do this, you turned the world into your… your playground! SIMON: Hum… Not to be a pedant, but if you recall, I was actually doing a favour for Peter. And if Peter had won, none of this would have happened.

(MAG186) MARTIN: [HEAVY SIGH] If we’re glad, why do I feel so… ALSO MARTIN: Guilty? Because you feel guilty about everything. MARTIN: That’s… That’s not– ALSO MARTIN: […] The end of the entire world? MARTIN: If I’d done what Peter had asked… If, if I’d not chickened out, and just killed Elias when I had the chance…! ALSO MARTIN: Really? Really, that’s how you’re choosing to remember it? “Chickening out”? MARTIN: I remember it was the wrong choice…! ALSO MARTIN: You choose to remember it that way, and so the guilt– MARTIN: [SIGH] I–I get it, all right? But I need it, I, I choose the guilt, because… ALSO MARTIN: [LEADING] “Because”? MARTIN: Because it motivates me to do better!

I could see Martin managing to hurt him thanks to this. But regarding what could come afterwards:

I’m concerned about the fact Jon tried to object during the discussion and that nobody listened to him… as if Jon was already anticipating something to go very badly because he knows something the others don’t. Overall: what if Martin can’t kill Jonah? What if Martin kills Jonah and Beholding takes Jon anyway? What if Martin kills Jonah and Beholding picks Martin as a replacement?

(Mental picture of Jon screaming “Take me, not him!”, since we’ve been in the season 1 nostalgia this episode… ;_;)

- Aouch for Melanie falling back into old habits…

(MAG199) MELANIE: Make sure it hurts. MARTIN: Oh, I will. MELANIE: … Good enough for me.

(MAG117) MELANIE: I have my own stuff to take care of, they think they’re giving me a chance to “face my demons”, by helping to take down Elias. They don’t get that the only way to deal with something like him is to watch his eyes go dead with your hands around his throat. [SHAKY INHALE] I’ll… play it their way, for now. But when it comes down to it… I want – to see him – dead. […] [INHALE] So… yes. That’s it. That’s all you’re getting, because it hurt like hell to live through, and I didn’t do it so you could stroke your chin and call it fascinating. … Good luck, Jon. I do hope you win. [INHALE] But I also hope it hurts…!

- So, resting time:

(MAG199) GEORGIE: Okay. Sounds like we’ve got… something like a plan. MARTIN: [SOUND OF ASSENT] BASIRA: Makes a nice change. [VARIOUS SOUNDS OF ASSENT] MELANIE: [BRIGHTLY] It does, doesn’t it? Eh! Uh… so. When do we actually do it? GEORGIE: First thing tomorrow. That’ll give us time to prep and rest.

Georgie had already explained how they evaluated “tomorrow” in the tunnels and without any clock:

(MAG190) GEORGIE: Look. We’re all tired, and you still seem a little… disoriented by the tunnels. Let’s get some rest. We can talk about next moves tomorrow. ARCHIVIST: And how do you know when tomorrow is? GEORGIE: We generally err on the side of caution and sleep in…! ARCHIVIST: Sounds good.

So they’ll probably do the same ;;

- Basira thanking Jon for helping her with Daisy (and for helping her personally) made my heart break a bit and really made it sink in that it was likely the last time some (most? all?) of them would talk to each other, or that they won’t be in any state to discuss things like this afterwards. It was also fitting that Jon got his private moments with Georgie, with Martin, with Basira… but not with Melanie. That bridge burned, uh.

- Overall, although with interesting points and heart-wrenching and bittersweet and tender and intimate moments, it was… quite a depressing episode in the whole scale of things?

* The episode gave the impression that it was validating everything about The Web: that Jon had indeed been “Chosen” as the bringer of the apocalypse and had been a right pick for it; that Annabelle had been right when she told Martin that she just needed to tell them the truth for them to do what she wanted; that The Web scheming for centuries to open the crack and prepare its escape, and bringing the apocalypse about just to escape and infest other dimensions… worked. That everyone, regardless of their motivations and feelings, has indeed come to the conclusion that arranged The Web and served its plans, that The Web… is very casually winning just as planned.

* The episode didn’t talk about what would come after, for the characters. Jon briefly explained to Martin what was likely to happen to him, Annabelle confirmed it, but… the episode gave the impression that characters weren’t truly expecting to come out of this alive in the first place.

* Jon’s silences in the last sequences were so sad? He barely managed to sneak in a few words. He couldn’t contribute to the plan. Martin presented him as optional while others are taking care of the action. Yes, it used to be all on Jon but the fact that he couldn’t even contribute and that others ignored him when he tried to object about Martin being the one to kill Jonah was just so heartbreaking, as if he was already silenced and once again not in control of things that would happen…?

- I want to err on the side of caution but, despite it, I can’t help but wonder if some of the Team Archive interactions weren’t… staged a bit for the tape recorders. It’s very suspicious that they apparently got updated on the Hill Top Road situation, but that nobody commented about the tape recorders turning on (although they now know that it means The Web is spying on them and/or that their tapes will be heard by other people in other worlds and associated with the Fears). Melanie and Georgie had taken notice of them when Jon&Martin had arrived in the tunnels for the first time, Melanie was good at hearing the tape recorder turning on… but nothing this time around. Is it possible that they’re planning something else, too, and that it required The Web and The Eye (the tapes and Jon) to not know about it, a bit like how the assistants had put on a show in front of Elias in season 3?

(MAG116) ELIAS: Now! If you’ll excuse me. [DOOR OPENS AND CLOSES] BASIRA: Do you think he bought it? MARTIN: We’ll talk about it later. ARCHIVIST: I doubt we’ll get time, we need to go. MARTIN: It’s fine. We’ve got this, okay. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] … Okay.

Is it why Georgie took the lighter?

I don’t want to bank on it but the fact that nobody has commented about the tape recorders since Annabelle revealed what they were and their purpose has been any nagging at me, so, mmmm…

If MAG200 actually shows the action as it happens, I’m wondering about a few things:

* How are they planning to time up the explosion and the Jonah murder? Jon couldn’t know about the tunnels when he was outside of them, and according to what we’ve heard in MAG192, climbing the tower was a very long process. It’s possible that Jon actually has some awareness of the tunnels as long as he’s in the tower (since both are connected), or that they’ll go for the murder once they hear the explosion coming to them, but how would Georgie&Melanie coordinate to not do anything before Jon&Martin are the top? (When I’m wondering about it, I can think of a few options: Jon&Martin dropping something once they’re at the top, to convey they’ve arrived, or maybe relying on whether a tape recorder clicks on, as a signal that Nothing Interesting Is Happening Up There And It’s Your Turn To Do Something, etc.)

* Will we hear Rosie again? Jon&Martin might have to pass in front of her again to reach Elias. Will they evacuate her, will she stay with them?

* … Surprisingly and yet fittingly: we might hear Jonah/Elias in the last episode. (And funnily enough: it would be the 4th episode where he would talk this season, which means this wouldn’t even be the season with the least amount of Elias appearances! He was in 3 episodes in season 1 (MAG017, MAG039, MAG040) and in 4 episodes in season 2 (MAG048, MAG060, MAG067, MAG080). Season 3 was an outlier that really got us used to hearing him a lot.)

* I’m still squinting about the fact that Annabelle told them to “destroy the Archives” and that they translated it into “destroy the Panopticon” while both Jonah and Oliver designated Jon as the “Archive(s)”…

* If they succeed, and if it all goes accordingly, I am really wondering about the state of the world post-Fears – and it might not be something we’ll get to witness. But mostly, I’m curious/concerned about the complicated cases: if people do remember what happened to them and who were the rulers, wouldn’t it be likely that things turn into chaos as people get back at the people who hurt them? What about the cases Basira mentioned of rulers who hated being in that position? What about, for example, Callum? (Who is currently doing horrible things and… is also a traumatised kid.)

* I wonder if the episode will have an actual date as the case number, and if it would correspond to another world’s timeline or this one. “0181810–B”, as things pick up from the point Jon had read Jonah’s letter (MAG160’s was “0181810”)? “0212503” to play with the release date, since it’s the same release date for everyone for once (no early access for Patreon)? “0111507” to play with the date of Jacob’s statement, heard in the very first trailer? Something beginning with “015” as, in another world, someone (Jon or Sasha or someone else) becomes a new Head Archivist after Gertrude’s death?

* If The Web succeeds and leaves with the tapes, will they be like the Fear Books used to be perceived in this world? Will Jon’s voice be perceived as a bringer of disaster and tragedies? What will happen to Jon’s voice is an interesting question given that this episode ended with… Jon being withdrawn, barely being part of the conversation, trying to object and not being heard, as if his voice was already partially silenced by the others.

* Technically, since the tapes are supposed to leave with The Web, the series might cut off with the tapes leaving, but… other configurations are possible. We could finally hear something without the mediation of the tapes. We could get a new point of view from another world, inheriting the fears. We could be deprived of the action, since the plan was laid out, and have someone (Martin?) recalling what happened, much later, etc.

In previous seasons, the 40th episode was more about the aftermath of the action and posing elements that would be fundamental during the next one: MAG040 explained how Prentiss had died, what had happened to Jon&Tim, but also confirmed (to the audience) that something had replaced Sasha without the others noticing, and revealed that Gertrude’s obviously-murdered-body had been found in the tunnels, leading to Jon’s secret investigations in season 2; MAG080 showed Leitner explaining to Jon who was likely to be Gertrude’s murderer, what the Institute was about, that Jon was now a servant of Beholding and that a Fear ritual was incoming, leading to Jon’s quest to stop the Unknowing; MAG120 confirmed who had come out of the Unknowing alive, revealed what Jon’s dreams were about, had Peter replacing Elias as Head of the Institute and confirmed Peter’s interest in Martin; MAG160 had Jon&Martin running away, Jon receiving Jonah’s letter hidden amongst the statements (and a few tapes likely sent by The Web) and being forced to read his incantation, provoking the current apocalypse.

MAG200’s title has been made public on twitter, so – “Last Words” it is. It sure feels like the series is ending ;; It’s fitting for both the characters and the podcast itself, and I’m screaming that it had appeared in the first episode of this season:

(MAG161) ARCHIVIST: Hang on, have you been recording this? [RUSTLING OF CLOTHES] TIM: Oh, yeah! I… just thought it might be nice, you know, something to look back on when we’re all old and sick of each other…! […] Now, all right, all right; fine! Look: I’m turning it off. Any last words for your future selves?

… in the specific context of leaving a message for the future.

#yaayyyy i posted it more than 17h before the ep release! (shhhh that it would be Late if we had gotten an EA release)#i have absolutely no idea how i'll manage to get 200's done given how i had finished the last episodes pre-hiatus #at the end of every hiatus every time. i'll try but. deadlines are my worst enemies and my best friends.#mag199 #tma liveblog #tma season 5 #long post/#the magnus archives #overall: CRIES CRIES CRIES i'm gonna miss these nerds.............#and WorriedTM.........

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princessjungeun · 4 years

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7:30 Rosé x Reader

Request: May I also ask for a rose x reader where its war/ futuristic AU? After a battle, rose is looking for y/n since she strayed off from the squad, but when they find her at the medical bay, she lost a limb (arm or leg your choice!) and rose can't help as she watches in sadness as she see's y/n waking up with a whole new limb. BUT! rose comforts her and later on y/n learns to get used to the arm and when the war is over, they settle down and have a family. Angst at first but fluffy at the end?

It had been about ten years since the war started. At first it started in Washington DC, attacks on the White House from foreign enemies. Slowly, every major city in the world was being showered with bombs and fire. Within years most of the population was wiped out, almost all of your family and friends included.

Now all you had was Roseanne and your four other friends. You and Roseanne met before the war started, the two of you were childhood neighbors.

Roseanne was quick on her feet and she could climb almost anything with ease. This making it easy for her to hide from enemies and signal for the squad to attack.

You were skilled with throwing knives and axes. In addition to this your impressive swordsman skills saved the two of you in many situations.

Then the two of you met Henry, being strong and multilingual, he was an asset. He joined to see if he could find his (now dead) lover’s little sister, Hyejoo. Henry promised that he’d find and protect her if he could.

Ryujin tagged along after she helped you three out of an enemy attack. She might be young but she can shoot any gun like a professional, her favorite being a sniper. Ryujin never misses.

Soojin mixed in a little while after, using her looks to get what she needed before slipping poison into foods or drinks, killing her victims.

Hyejoo was the last to join your squad. She was an expert with bombs and gassing in battle. Her strong arm made it easy to throw grenades and tear gas at enemies. Hyejoo lost her sense of sight a year into the war. She was gassed so severely she went blind. However this heightened her other senses, making it easy for her to sense danger through vibrations and sound.

The six of you, stuck together and almost never separated. There was the unsaid rule that you’d protect each other, but you also wouldn’t hesitate to kill each other if need be.

•

Half asleep you held a sleeping Roseanne in your arms, her breath ghosting your chest. “Guys get up I feel something” Hyejoo walked around the tent you all slept in, kicking your backs. Ryujin sat up “how many and how big are they?” Hyejoo shuffled her bare feet on the ground, running her hands along the hard Earth as well. “I can’t tell...there’s a few. Like ten men.”

You felt a pit in your stomach knowing who they were, and that they were looking for you. The six of you all stood up and quickly packed up camp before starting to get moving. Roseanne led the squad, Ryujin in the back ready to shoot anyone she found a threat.

The six of you walked for hours, stopping occasionally to refill your water canteens from nearby streams. Finally you all settled on a place to camp, an empty cave, with two entrances. A hidden one in the back and the one in the front.

“Ok lets get some sleep guys. Hyejoo if you feel anything wake us up ok?” Roseanne spoke as she unfolded a blanket. Hyejoo told her “I can’t see anything, the floor is sand, it’s too loose to pick up vibrations.” The six of you looked around debating if staying here overnight was a good idea.

However Soojin spoke up making the decision for you all. “Guys we’re kilometers away from any danger. Nobody will find us, let’s just get sleep and move out at dawn ok?” Ryujin chimed in, “yeah plus there’s a hidden entrance, if we need a quick escape we can go that way.” They all agreed while you could tell by the look on Hyejoo’s face she wasn’t sure.

You turned to Roseanne and said “I don’t think this is a good idea. The only one who can tell us if we’ll be in danger told us it’s not a good idea, and you still wanna stay? This is literally a death wish. I know they’re following us, and I’m trying not to die.” The lavender haired girl looked at you and said “we have no other options Y/N.”

Knowing this would probably work you stepped closer to her, placing a hand on her waist you said “Rosie...this isn’t a good idea.” Before she could respond Soojin cut in “absolutely not. This isn’t fair, whenever Y/N wants something she just gets all touchy with Roseanne and goes ‘Rosie’. And then Roseanne just does it. She’s using you Roseanne, open your eyes.”

The lavender haired girl looked at you and realized Soojin made a point. Whenever you wanted anything from her you did the exact same thing. The two of you both confessed long ago, but due to the state of the world you didn’t want to start a relationship. Especially if your lives were on the line every second you were in open space. Roseanne spoke to you harshly for the first time “if you dont want to stay. Then go. I’m done with you and your games.”

You told her “I’m not- Roseanne I love you. I love you so much and I just don’t want anything to happen to you.” Her features softened but she looked at Soojin who shook her head. “Just go Y/N” was the last thing she said to you.

Looking around you realized staying probably wasn’t a good idea. “Whatever. I’ll see you all around then.”

You slung your swords and bag over your shoulder. As you passed Ryujin you told her “protect Rosie. If I find Jisu and Yuna I’ll do the same.” She smiled at the mention of her little sister and her lover’s names. You both linked pinkies and kissed them, the way you two always sealed promises.

Henry side hugged you and ruffled your hair, he truly was like an older brother. Hyejoo threw herself into your arms. Usually she wasn’t affectionate so this took you by surprise. You told the young girl “i’ll miss you pretty girl, if I find Chaewon i’ll keep her around ok?” She held your face in her hands before nodding and pulling away.

You walked away without looking back at Roseanne. Your heart clenched knowing you might not see her again, but the enemy only wanted you, if you left she might be safe.

•

Weeks passed and you were captured by one of your own enemies. A boy named Felix and his nine other friends, the ones who Hyejoo sensed that night you left.

Felix held you captive, he’d beat you then care for your injuries. He tried to defend himself by saying he hated that he had to do this, but you needed to learn your lesson not to run from him. The boy tried to justify his actions by saying he loved you but you knew just had a strange obsession with you. The never ending cycle of this took a toll on you as well. Until you were rescued by some passerbyers, they snatched you up quickly. However, not quick enough because your right leg was severed by one of Felix’s men.

The strangers carried you to the nearest Medical Bay where a doctor completely amputated from just above the knee. You were there for months learning how to adapt to the metal prosthetic that you were given.

Over time you met people who came in and out, some you’ve known in the past and others not so much.

You saw Hyejoo’s girlfriend Chaewon, when she came in with a severed hand. She recognized you and decided to stay with you in the safety of the bay, hoping Hyejoo might come looking for you.

Ryujin’s little sister Yuna came in carrying a limp and bloodied girl one night. You realized it was Jisu, Ryujin’s lover. She’d suffered major blood loss but she was slowly coming back around.

You met a little girl Ivy, no more than five who had a striking resemblance to a woman you’ve seen in a locket Soojin wore. With time you learned she was the daughter of a woman named Shuhua. The child told you she was looking for a Seo Soojin, that her mother told her to find her and stay with her. You watched out for the child in hopes that one day Soojin would come along to collect her deceased girlfriend’s daughter.

More and more people came and went, the three younger girls however staying by your side in hopes that your squad would arrive. You simply didn’t have the heart to tell them that you’d left them months before.

Until one day you saw a familiar boy carrying a sleeping barefooted girl in his arms, Henry and Hyejoo. Behind them you saw the rest of your old squad walking towards the medical bay.

“HENRY!” You shouted and he locked eyes with you. He woke Hyejoo up and placed her on the ground as the two walked closer to you. The boy engulfed you in a hug and you two watched Hyejoo and Chaewon reunite for the first time in at least a year.

When the rest of your squad came they realized many of those they loved were in fact here.

Your eyes fell on Roseanne, she looked more beautiful than you remembered. Her eyes scanned the medical bay before her eyes locked with yours. You left go of Henry and limped over to her before falling into her arms.

Laughing softly you said “Sorry I’m still getting the hang of this thing...” She looked down at the metal prosthetic leg that was supporting you before looking back into your eyes.

Tears spilled from her eyes as she held you close in her embrace. You asked “Wha- I thought you hated me?” She sobbed into your shoulder and told you “I made a mistake. I’m sorry I love you so much. I thought you were dead or- I’m so sorry Y/N.”

Holding your weight on her you wiped away her tears and kissed her softly. “It’s ok Rosie, I love you too. Everything is okay now.”

•

FIVE YEARS LATER

The war was slowly coming to an end and you and Roseanne moved to the countryside. Although there were still bombs being dropped and bullets flying, the countryside was safer than the city.

Your squad moved here with you however you all were very spaced out.

Ryujin moved with her now fiancé, Jisu not too far from you and Roseanne. Ryujin’s little sister Yuna stayed with them as Ryujin insisted she was still too young to live alone.

Soojin was now a mother to Ivy, the young child now around ten years old. The two of them lived on the coast side of the country, furthest away from you and the rest of your friends.

Henry still refuses to leave Hyejoo’s sode, never breaking the promise to his gone boyfriend. He lives with Hyejoo and her girlfriend Chaewon. The three of them only a few minutes walk from your and Roseanne’s place.

You watched from your kitchen window as Roseanne and your two daughters picked flowers in the field behind your house. Holding your sleeping son in your arms you kissed his forehead, looking at how closely he resembled you.

After all this time you were finally married to the love of your life, with three beautiful children.

#kpop imagines #kpop scenarios #kpop fluff #blackpink chaeyoung #roseanne park #blackpink rose

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dangermousie · 4 years

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So, I finished ep 16 of My Country with subs

I posted some thoughts on the raws previously, but me being me, I always have more to say.

First off, thanks for the crying headache drama. No, literally, I cried so much I have a headache.

MC is a rare drama that remained perfect and consistent through to the last second. It is also not one I plan to rewatch any time soon because watching it is like drinking a nice, hot, steaming cup of depression.

And now, before I get to the rest of my thoughts, I must sum up my n1 take on both the episode and the drama as a whole: FUCK YOU WITH A RUSTY SPIKE, YI SEUNG GYE!!!!

Ok,

Ahem.

Calmer now.

I loved that the last episode went back to the drama’s beginning - the bond between Hwi and Seon Ho. Facing impossible odds, going to their deaths knowingly (and oh, it killed me so when, before their big rush, Hwi admitted he was afraid. To do this when he doesn’t want to die any more, when he wants to live - that is brutal. The fact that Seon Ho was also scared, but only a little, because he’s given up on life thoroughly, killed me a bit in a different way.) But doing it happily because they are together. Hwi has so much forgiveness in him, it’s amazing. It’s that grace that Seon Ho needs so much, that Bang Won was drawn to - clearly he is problematic screwed up guy catnip. I mean, he was willing to let it go that Bang Won framed and murdered his father!

But the tragedy is, Bang Won can’t trust him enough to let him live because this kind of mercy that Hwi has is so alien to him and he doesn’t get it. Through the ep you saw that it killed him to order Hwi killed, he kept trying to find ways out (at one point, he literally declared Hwi his man) and gave him chances to escape that Hwi wouldn’t take but ultimately, for all his bleak kind of honor (he is the sole royal we have seen acknowledge responsibility for horrible things he’s done; look at him desperately trying to egg Hwi on about how he killed Seo Geom just so Hwi would hate him and he can try to feel less bad about what he feels he should do), he cannot let someone not in his control know something this important, be a wild card. You are either his or you aren’t and Hwi never was, and so finally he had to get rid of him since he couldn’t own him, especially with the pressure cooker YSG kept cranking up.

And that’s Bang Won’s tragedy. He is a much better man than his father and brothers. Remember his telling his second in command that he cannot kill someone unarmed and with their back to him? But his ambition, his belief that he can make a better country for everyone worth any cost, and all the blood he has waded through already, combine to turn him into the lonely monster he is at the end, telling himself “You did well” because now there is nobody who would tell it to him - his father never did and he has ordered killed the one man who did. I think he tried his best to limit the sea of blood, but at the end of ep 11, after that confrontation with Yi Seung Gye, where he understood precisely how little his father cared and how there was no way forward except being dead or being a victorious and blood-thirsty, the brakes came off that train entirely. And even then he held off a little (see him at his mother’s shrine) but the subsequent events removed even that and now the steering is gone too. And Bang Won with no limits is terrifying indeed. At the end, he has gotten what he wanted but he has nobody at his side to do anything to soften him in any way.

And Hwi! Hwi, so ready to die to save those Bang Won plans to kill (though he’s lucky he’s dealing with bang Won - YSG would promise and kill everyone anyway.) Restoring Seon Ho’s soul to him without even trying, saying and showing over and over how much he and SH belong together. Lying to Hui Jae about coming back because he is a caretaker. And the tragedy is all he wanted, his entire life, was not power or ideals or even revenge - it was, as he said, to have enough food not to starve. The fact that the world wouldn’t let someone with such small, safe, mundane dreams be is horrifying beyond words.

But the thing is, while Bang Won is irredeemable, Hwi’s care really does bring Seon Ho back from the brink. And I love how SH begins to realize how warped his whole perspective has been - how all the choices he thought he had were awful - but they weren’t the only choices actually. But then how would he know otherwise, brought up as he was. Hwi says he’d have thought the same in his place and he is right. To use modern lingo, it’s as if SH was caught in the cycle of abuse really.

Oh, and I loved that Chido plain text acknowledged that Hwi and SH are each other’s best person (and thanked Seon Ho for taking care of Hwi back when; making it plain text that Hwi and Yeon would have probably starved and died without him.) SH needed so much to hear he was good and he gets this in the ep and it was so necessary.

When Hwi wished SH could lead an easier life with more smiling in it - oh. But of course Hwi was going to sneak away on his suicide run by himself because he protects everyone. And I love that SH would not let him go alone - when he told Hwi that Liandong was the last place he let Hwi go along omg; let’s face it if he did, he’d kill himself anyway the moment Hwi died. This way he dies in Hwi’s arms (though when he told Hwi he is exhausted and he could never sleep well bot now he will rest, and he can face Yeon now, I started ugly crying), with meaning, and when he told Hwi that he and Yeon were his country - OMG. The drama does ram it home that the most worthwhile ideal is people you love; the other way lies insanity and butchery and innocents killed for your ideals.

In conclusion, Seon Ho’s last words to Hwi were “I missed you so much.”

That’s when I lost it and continued to bawl and bawl and bawl. Even now, I feel like crying.

We are not even getting into Hwi telling him he will follow soon, so very done with everything, protecting others with his last breath.

Anyway, MC was a giant bucket of pain and I am not OK.

#kdrama #my country #my country: the new age #my country the new age

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roatsww · 4 years

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Dancing in the Devil’s Playground.

This is my Life, By Michael Drysdale

An Introduction to Dancing in The Devil’s Playground.

Some of you may know that I have been trying to write my life story for some time now, that I started in 2008, and then just left it hiding on my desktop, I don’t know if I’ll ever finish telling it, even though I have to tell my story, as ugly as it may be. Some of you may have read some of the extracts from my life over the past two years, in pieces which I have written such as: -

Only a Boy

Once Was A Soldier

A Little Case of Murder and The Men of the number

The Crime Of Silence

Living with AIDS, My journey Through Hell,

Cholera In The Heart of An Epidemic

The Child Of My Heart

The Lessons of Men

The Sins Of The Fathers

Rags to Frocks - The World of Fashion

On a mission of Faith

My Life For a Horse

Predators

Etc.

I kept so much of it hidden for so many years, it became a ‘Bond of Silence’ between Rosie (my sister) and I, something we never spoke of among ourselves or dared to speak of to the world, in so many of the incidents, Rosie was always there to help me pick up the pieces, never questioning, never criticizing, just quietly giving me the strength of her love and her understanding.

The past eleven years were a rollercoaster ride through the Devil’s Playground, first with my losing the child of my heart, and then two years later having to lose my sister, my best friend, my soul-mate and my protector, Rosie to cancer, Two years after that it was a little case of murder, that finally brought all my walls of safety crashing to the ground, and two years later with Shaun’s incarceration, when I started a journey of terror by the infamous “Numbers Gang”, which led to my being attacked in my home by two of the gang in a murder attempt, and then the terror on the streets as I was harassed and robbed on an ongoing basis, to end with my being gang raped by “the Numbers Gang” on the 31st of October 2015, and then the floodgates opened and years and years of silence came crashing to the fore.

I know that most will not accept my story, but in trying to write it, I have had to open some of the most painful and disturbing parts of my life to my own scrutiny, and dredging up memories that flash with startling clarity and all the physical and emotional pain as when they occurred, makes it hard for me to accept, I sleep even less at night, now that I have opened the doors to my past.

The thing which has shocked me the most in dredging through these memories is my memory of the actions and the reactions of not only the participants but also those who were involved on the periphery. I did not sleep at all last night, I just cried, because I realised the ultimate truth, “Nobody Cares” and “Nobody wants to get involved”.

Oh yes, some will say ‘Oh, I’m so sorry’, others will comment, “Get over it, and move on”, but, nobody will do anything especially those who are in a position to do something, and last night I realised that I have spent more than fifty years “as a broken doll’ and I will spend the rest of my life “as a broken doll” because there is no hope of ever fixing me while the abuse continues, and it does continue because I am trapped in a never ending cycle of abuse, the latest incident having occurred as little as 11 days ago, and the people who were in a position to help, simply ignored my cry for help the following morning.

Writing the story of my life is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, because in doing so I realise that even though there have been a very few friends on the side-lines, I’ve had to endure and walk through life in a pair of shoes that were not made for me, and that I have had to do it alone, because there is no man who is strong enough to have endured what I have endured and continue to endure to this very day.

I quote an example (of just how people choose to look the other way) here from the chapter on my early childhood: -

The following year I started school for the first time and went to grade one, and it was in the first few months that I realised for the second time, that nobody cares and nobody would save me.

Sitting in the class one day the teacher was moving around and looking at the work that we were doing, and when she got to me, she leaned down and patted me on the back, I had no choice, I screamed, you see, daddy had given me a particularly vicious beating the night before. The teacher took my hand and led me into the class’s store room, where she asked me to take off my shirt, I heard her “Oh my God!” as my shirt came off, she asked me to take off my school shorts as well, and then immediately helped me to get dressed again, and led me back to my seat, she said not a word, and went on with teaching us until the bell rang for home time. This teacher totally ignored me for the next two years, she never looked at me, never spoke a word to me, never touched me, and she simply ignored me as though I never existed, until I was finally moved to a higher class and out of her sphere of teaching.

Memories......... of violence and fear, that leave me once again drenched in nightmares that had ceased so long ago.

Dancing in the Devil’s Playground.

This is my Life, By Michael Drysdale Forward/Preface

This world that we live in is the playground of the devil, I have no choice this is where I am, I am Dancing in the Devil’s playground, the music of life starts at birth, and the song only ends with the last breath that you take. The only choice you have in life is whether to dance or to listen, I have no choice but to dance and to keep on dancing, for if I sit it out for one minute then the children of the devil make their move, and I never know what evil they may perpetrate, so I just have to keep on dancing.

I try so hard to keep dancing the waltz of life with God, but, before I know it the devil has stepped in with his tango of death, and the battle to escape his clutches begins again, at times I beg for the music to end so that I can find peace for my soul, I have even on many occasions tried to stop the music just so that I can rest a minute or two, but the music just keeps playing, in this, the devil’s playground.

This is also a story of the tremendous struggle that I have with my faith, my see-saw relationship with my God, who will not let me go, and who has carried me through some of the darkest days of my life, when all of man turned their backs on me, it is the story of my struggle to survive life as a gay man, and dealing with the hand of cards which was dealt for me..

Throughout my life I have had so many who carelessly throw advice my way, people who make judgement on me without ever having walked a single step in my shoes, and I wonder, were they ever to step in my shoes would they ever complete the dance through the Devils’ Playground? Many of those who read my story, will jump up in judgement and condemnation of me, they will criticise me and my life and they will try to destroy the little that remains of me, of this I am sure, but, I accept it as part and parcel of revealing my dance through the playground of the devil.

I have changed some of the incidents, names and places, in the hopes of protecting the privacy of innocent individuals who were involved.

Chapter One - Only a Boy

I can smell it, it’s always with me, something’s dead in the house and the smell of rotting flesh permeates everything. When I first smelt deaths ugly odor, I searched every-where, and any-place where death could possibly have occurred at my own hand. As much as I have searched, there was never a decaying corpse. Still, as much as being enveloped by this ungodly tormentor I could also taste it. No matter what I do, still putrefaction stalks me. Gradually, like a dormant canker it has dawned on me, this all-embracing, consuming smell of death comes from my own mouth, it comes from my soul. Death is waiting, lurking on the threshold, waiting to take me, as it has so patiently for so many years and no matter how much I avoid it, it stalks me still, for death is one of the pitfalls of the devil’s playground.

I’m in my waning years, poverty and disease have aged me beyond my mark, the air hangs thick as a Basotho blanket around my shoulders, my life is an African heat, thick and cloying in its humidity, dry and cutting in its cold.At times, my life has been an African storm where you can smell the sweet wet dust of Africa, the rain in the air, a storm that brews its violence with the first large drops of rain that lift the dust to tantalise your nostrils. One of those violent all consuming African storms, that rent the air and leave nothing unscathed. A typical Highveld storm, with glaring flashes of lightning and deafening, ear splitting thunder, and hot, heavy rain, pelting down for an hour or two, and then gone as suddenly as it had come. Nothing is left untouched, every blade of grass, every branch, and all living things are soaked and when it’s all over, it’s as though the earth has emerged anew, washed clean of its sins, until the next one comes. And after the storm is always calm and a peace, just waiting to be disturbed, just waiting for the heavens to reach boiling point..

Mine is a life lived in a twilight world, with my own mistakes the only light to guide my way, and mistakes, yes I have made them by the dozen, I am no-longer an innocent, and as I’ve progressed through life the mistakes have mounted, I’ve tried so hard not to repeat them, but, I also realise that I am only a man, an imperfect man at that, a man struggling with not only the normal issues that every other man struggles with, but I struggle with so many others, and this is the tale of my struggles, of my failures and my triumphs, of my coming to terms with having to face my abusers in the aftermath of the cruelty that has been visited upon me, and yes throughout my life I have had to face my abusers continually and pretend that nothing ever happened, I have become an expert at wearing a mask.

I remember my childhood in flashes as clear as a photograph, I remember a little boy, a small boy who was always lost and alone, something like this old man who sits in this barren, soulless house so empty of love, tranquillity and affection.

I remember a little boy who’s aim it was to find some meaning to life, . . . . . . . a little boy who has become an old man still searching.

‘n Kind se Gebed

“Liewe Jesus vat asseblief vir papa se seer,

Liewe Jesus steek dit weg waar papa dit nie kan kry nie,

Want as ek dit weg steek en pappa kry dit,Dan slaan papa my eers seer.”

“Liewe Jesus, hoekom slaan papa my so seer?

Liewe Jesus, sê asseblief vir papa,Dat hy my nie meer mag slaan nie.”

“Liewe Jesus, sê asseblief vir papa,Dat hy vir my moet lief wees,

Want Liewe Jesus, ek is lief vir papa,Maar ek is ook baie bang vir papa.”

“Asseblief Liewe Jesus,Ek vra mooi Liewe Jesus.”

En nou na meer as vyftig jaar wonder die kind nog steeds hoekom het Liewe Jesus nooit Pappa se seer gevat nie.

Does God not feel my Loneliness? Does God not see my tears? Does God not hear my crying?

I can remember as though it were yesterday, at the time I was probably three or four, and yet the images are as clear as though they had just happened.

The wind was howling, sweeping up the debris of small town life and swirling it across deserted streets, The sky a musty brown the dust which got into everything had stolen the perfect blue of the sky. The long grass in the vacant stand across the street was leaning towards me bowing in submission to the wind. My options were few as there was nowhere to play outside, and the dust got into your eyes and brought false tears. So inside I went, into the gloomy mining house, where my family lived.

The walls were painted a light olive green and the long passageway which dominated the house, was dark and forbidding, it was a silent house. Nobody made any noise, there were no childish screams and shouts, none of the laughter of children at play, just an empty silence. The safest place would be a world of childhood fantasy in my bedroom, a good place to seek shelter, a comforting place. Out came the dinky toy cars and plastic animals and soon I was lost in a world forbidden to adults, a secret world, a world where I was allowed to be a child.

Shattering the silence! I heard it, the sound of furniture toppling and crashing, glass breaking and my mother’s scream. In total fear, because I knew that I would be next, I crept down the passageway, halting beside the door to my parent’s room, that one place in the house revered and feared as a forbidden shrine. I could hear the muffled slap of flesh on flesh, stifled sobs, and as another ear splitting scream rent the silence, I stretched on tiptoe and reached up to the doorknob. Shaking with fear, my eyes peeked through the gap between door and frame, and I witnessed what no child should see. . . . . .

The big bed where my parents slept was awash with linen, the bedclothes strewn about. The Night lamp lay broken on the floor; my mother’s treasured pretty things lay scattered. My mother, stood naked, cowering against the ancient wardrobe, my father’s clenched fists rained down, blow after blow, on her obscenely exposed body. It was too much to bear for a little boy, and without closing the door I ran, with hot wetness trickling down my legs, I ran to the only safety I knew, and dived headlong under my bed. Gripped with fear and panic, my mind was in turmoil,

“Why was daddy hitting mommy?” “Why didn’t mommy have any clothes on?”

“Why was the room all broken?”

“What did I do to make daddy hit mommy?”

“What’s going to happen to me?”“Is daddy coming to hit me next?”

It was too much for a little boy to understand, what I did know was that the only safety in daddy’s house, was to keep out of the way. It was why it was always so quiet, I couldn’t make daddy angry.

Daddy taught me well, daddy taught me about fear, something no little boy should ever learn.

I couldn’t remember how long it was that I remained under that bed. All I remembers was that when I emerged, driven by childish hunger and a desperate need for comfort and with a pounding heart, my little body wracked with the ever present trembling of fear I crept out of my room. The house and the world I knew were equally dark. No cooking smells, no busy sounds from the kitchen, there would be no supper tonight. Hungry, in need of comfort and reassurance, I crept to my bed, my safety, and lost myself in nightmares because daddy had gone to the pub.

Memories are like an ear-splitting crash which shatters and startles leaving me a little disoriented, the memories come like a bolt of lightning followed by an immense crash of thunder. They come like a Highveld thunder storm ripping across the Eden that is Africa, Memories......... of violence and fear, that leave me once again drenched in nightmares that had ceased so long ago.

My father worked on the mines as a fitter and turner, and the mine had a siren which could be heard all over town, which went off at the start of the work day and again at knock-off time, I dreaded that siren, and from the moment it went off I was immobilised with fear, because I knew that Daddy was coming home, the minute I heard the car stopping outside I’d pee my pants, somehow I just knew when it was going to be a bad day.

Rosie only a year older always tried to protect me, she would constantly try to think up new hiding places for me, under the bed, in the washing basket, in the Apricot tree, Rosie always tried to find a new hiding place, but, daddy always found me, and then the nightmare would start.

He’d grab me silently, and with so much violence, drag me to my bedroom, strip me naked and then the beatings would begin. Daddy had a wooden plank I guess it was about eighteen inches long, and it had a thick leather strap which was probably a little longer nailed to the end of it, and depending on daddy’s mood or how much he’d had to drink, sometimes it would be a beating with only the plank, other times it would be the full swing of the strap at the end of the plank, and the more I screamed the harder daddy swung. It was always only across my back and my buttocks, never my arms or legs, I was always just simply black and blue and in agony, it was only years later that I finally realised that if I kept quiet during the beatings, they were less harsh.

The strangest thing of all was that I adored my father, I loved him and so badly wanted him to love me back, but, it never happened, and he never touched my sisters or my half brother who was to come later, they never felt the swing of his fists, the slap of the strap or the crack of the plank, they just witnessed in silence. It was always me, naked across the bed, while the blows rained down and the same litany of curses spewed from my father’s mouth:-

“Useless, a waste, you’ll never amount to anything, you’re rubbish, good for nothing,”

“I don’t know where you come from; you should never have been born!”

It was inevitable, but, eventually my mother and father got divorced, we three children moved with my father to my grandmother’s house, while my mother and the new man in her life sorted themselves out, yes, my mother had been doing a little of the hanky panky on the side. We’d only been with Granny for a short while when my father came home one day and sat the three of us down in the kitchen. He told us that my mother had gotten married and had a new house, and did we want to go and live with her, my sisters immediately said yes, and my father replied.

“Well that’s it then, you girls will go to your mother and Michael stays here,she doesn’t want him!”

My sisters moved out and I stayed behind, it was a little easier living at Granny’s house, the beatings were less frequent, and Granny knew what was going on, but, Granny kept quiet, and when daddy wasn’t around, granny lavished me with attention, and told me that I had no choice that I just had to “Suck it up!”It was the first time that I realised that nobody would ever save me.

The following year I started school for the first time and went to grade one, and it was in the first few months that I realised for the second time, that nobody cares and nobody would save me.

“Oh my God!”

as my shirt came off, she asked me to take off my school shorts as well, and then immediately helped me to get dressed again, and led me back to my seat, she said not a word, and went on with teaching us until the bell rang for home time. This teacher totally ignored me for the next two years, she never looked at me, never spoke a word to me, never touched me, and she simply ignored me as though I never existed, until I was finally moved to a higher class and out of her sphere of teaching.

I was often shunted backwards and forwards between my father and my mother, spending a few months with one, and then again with the other, it was never settled, I became an introvert, my only friend the budgie which Granny had bought for me, it talked the hind leg off a donkey, and refused to be separated from me (Granny had bought the budgie for me as a result of the trauma I suffered every time Granny needed one of the chickens to be slaughtered for the pot, and as it was my job to feed and look after the chickens, they always ended up becoming my playmates and hence the trauma when it came time for a killing).

Even though there were constant periods of separation between us, Rosie was still my friend, my soul mate, my companion and my protector; she was always looking out for me, and even secretly got me a Barbie doll, so that we could play together, until the day that daddy found the Barbie, and then I suffered one of the worst beatings of my childhood. On one of my early moves back to my mother’s house, it was the year before I was to start school, on a bitterly cold night, my mother took me out to the middle of the street, told me to leave, because she had no place in her home for me, she turned around, went back into the yard, closed the gate and padlocked it, then walked back into the house and slammed the door, I was terrified, I was only six years old. There was a block of apartments across the road from my mother’s house I first went in to their parking garage and hid behind some cars, but, the terror was just too much.

I then walked to the mine sports grounds which were always lit up with flood-lights, and climbed to the top of the bleachers (Grandstand) overlooking the rugby field. I crawled under one of the seats, and lay there for the night, because from where I was, I could at least see if anyone came along. It was a very long night filled with unimaginable fears.

The following morning tired from lack of sleep and desperately hungry I walked back into town, and as I passed a boarding house, an old woman came out, she had been watching me, and asked me if I wanted a cold drink, I said yes, and she took me inside, and gave me a glass of milk while she made some crumpets and gave them to me with jam, all the while talking to me, I eventually fell asleep at the kitchen table only to be woken some time later with my mother shouting at me that I was embarrassing her in front of strangers, I was then dragged back to my mother’s house where I got a terrible beating from my step-father. This scenario with my constantly being thrown back and forth between my mother and father just continued it never stopped, if not the one, then the other would constantly tell me that I was use-less, good for nothing and should never have been born.

I lived a terribly solitary life, I didn’t have birthday parties like other children, I didn’t have friends from the neighbourhood and when I eventually began to go to school, I was the weird boy that nobody wanted to be friends with, I was just a little boy when I first learned the meaning of true loneliness, of isolation and of playing the eternal game of solitaire. I remember so clearly the humiliation, but it was something that my little sister thrived on, my mother used to come and fetch my sisters from school each day, I had to take the bus back to my grandmother’s house, but when the final bell for the school day ended, and everyone poured out of the school gates to waiting parents I’d come out, and there would be my mother with my sisters, and my little sister would shout out, “Mommy, Daddy’s been beating Michael again!”, I don’t know how she knew sometimes, but she always did, And I would be called over to the car and there in front of everyone, I’d have to take off my shirt and pull down my pants so that my mother could see the stripes and the bruises, and all she’d say was “Oh! He’s at it again.”, and I’d have to walk off to the bus in all my humiliation.

You may wonder why I write almost nothing of my little sister, but, it is hard for me, because she was truly her daddies little girl in every way, and even at a young age she became the abuser that my father was, Rosie never ever referred to her by name, but always referred to her as “My Evil Sister!”, she truly was and even to this day, is pure evil. I will write more on her and the spiteful things which she did to me during my later years.

I was in my third year of school when my father came home from work one day, sat me down and told me that it was time that I toughened up, he told me that the only choice I had was in which sport I chose, otherwise I had no choice. He offered me boxing, or Judo, I was horrified, in boxing all I could see was a continuation of my father’s beating at the hands of some-one else. I had no choice so I told him that I would take up Judo. At the hall near the railway station where the Judo classes were given I became the favourite fight partner of every boy, they all knew that I had no fight in me, because my father had beaten it out of me at a very early age, and the other boys realised that against me they would always win, and I ended up being beaten to a pulp twice a week.

One Tuesday night, I was dropped outside the hall as usual by my father, with him going to the pub to wait for me, when the whole world came crashing down, in the first fight of the evening, one of the bigger boys partnered me, and being as skinny as I was, I was a very easy throw over his shoulder, and as my back hit the mat, I started screaming and didn’t stop, I just lay on that mat and screamed, you see, I had received a particularly vicious beating from my father the night before. In those days there were no cell phones, and my grandmother didn’t know where to get hold of my father, and when daddy eventually arrived I was a sobbing heap that the Judo Instructor loaded into my father’s car with the following words, “Don’t you ever bring him back here again.” None the less, when my father got me home I got another beating for humiliating him by being a ‘sissy boy’. It was the first time in my life that I was to hear that awful word, said with so much hatred and which I would for the rest of my life associate with humiliation and hate............... Will I ever finish I don’t know......

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three-houses-text-files · 5 years

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byleth/sylvain

c-s support + paired endings + night of the ball

Sylvain(?): You think I'd cheat? On you, baby? Never. Come on, you should know me better than that. S(?): You’re the only one for me. I swear. S(?): Hey, if ya don't believe me, well... S: Oh, I get it. If I'm not your type, do you want me to introduce you to some other guys who have Crests? They're all nobles, just like me. NPC(?): What?! That isn't why I'm— You— You're worse than I thought! S: I just want you to be happy. You know, get what you're after. S: I hate seeing a girl cry, especially one as beautiful as you. S: So you know, maybe we...

>...

S: So, Professor, do you enjoy spying on people? S: You look like you've got something to say. So say it.

>You're a jerk.

Hey, that was between me and her, not you.

>You broke her heart.

Weren't you listening? I'm on her side! She knows that.

S: But you know how it is. Most relationships, they end in heartbreak. S: Anyway, I don't know why she's so upset about me dating other girls. She didn't care before she found out, so why does she care now? S: I really do hate seeing a girl cry.

>It doesn't seem that way.

>Is that a fact?

S: I swear it's the truth! My heart's in a million pieces right now. It's just the worst. S: Believe whatever you want, but I'm honestly not sure if I can ever love again. S: Well, I figure the best way to mend a broken heart is to head out on the town. S: Why don't you join me? Who knows? Maybe you'll find love. I mean, I know I will. S: Come on. It's hard on me too! If only I had someone to comfort me. Professor? It's OK if you want to console me... S: I happen to have some exquisite tea back in my quarters. You could come by, and...we could chat about love. S: Calm down—it was only a joke! You've really got no sense of humor, you know that?

——————————————————————————————

S: …

>What happened?

S: Oh, Professor. Heh, I didn't realize you were there. S: If we keep running into each other like this, people will start to talk. S: Hey, don't get mad! I was joking. S: They'll say, "Sylvain and the professor are on the prowl." Heh... S: Ah, forget it. What do you need?

>Girl problems, Sylvain?

>Another lover's quarrel?

S: Well, you're not wrong. S: I fell for that girl recently, but I just wanted to have some fun and leave it at that. So I told her we should break it off. S: I guess she was feeling a little more serious than I was. She started crying, and everything got a bit...complicated.

>You're complicated.

>Jerk.

S: Come on, Professor. Playing around with girls is the most fun a guy can have. S: Besides, I don't care what you think of me. I don't intend to change how I live my life. S: I'm a good-for-nothing, if you haven't noticed, but I'm still a noble with a Crest. That's all anyone cares about. S: It's best to avoid getting too serious with fools like that. It only leads to trouble. S: I'm gonna be forced into an arranged marriage with some random noblewoman anyway. S: By the way, Professor. You didn't know you had a Crest, did you?

>I never thought much about it.

>My father never told me.

S: I see. I suppose a mercenary wouldn't be concerned with such things.

>What was your experience?

S: Most children who are born to noble families are tested upon birth to see if they bear one. S: Even descendants of the 10 Elites, like myself, can't be legitimate heirs without a Crest. S: That means, as children, we're only accepted if we're born with one. S: The heads of most noble houses keep having kids until they get one with a Crest. S: Those children then grow up to be heads of their houses, and the vicious cycle continues. S: Do you get it now? To all these commoner girls, I'm just a trophy. Or rather, a studhorse.

>You mean they only want you for your bloodline?

S: See? I knew you'd get it. These girls don't love me. They love the potential rewards of loving me.

>That's cynical.

S: Perhaps. But that doesn't change the fact that these girls don't love me. They only love the potential rewards of loving me.

S: If I marry a girl and she gives birth to a child with a Crest, that kid might become the next head of House Gautier. S: But nowadays, with the bloodlines getting weaker, there are a lot of kids like my brother...born with no hope. S: For ages now, those of us with Crests have been envied and desired but never for who we are. S: I understand the value of my blood. Believe me, I hate how much I understand it. S: I know better than to dream of being free from this burden. I'm used to it by now. S: I used to think I didn't have the right to live freely.

>You don't think that way anymore?

S: Heh heh... That's right. S: You know what? I'm a bit jealous. The whole time you were growing up, you never knew you had a Crest. S: You were free. Nobody pretended to like you. I kind of hate you for that... You were a spoiled brat who should pay for that Crest. Maybe I'll collect the debt. S: Ha! Gotcha! Wow, you shoulda seen the look on your face just then. Don't mind me, Professor. After all, ladies love a dark and brooding noble.

——————————————————————————————

S: Ugh, that hurts... S: Ah, Professor! Thanks for stopping by.

>How's your injury?

>You got hurt protecting me...

S: It's not bad. I was even told I'd be cleared for service starting tomorrow. S: Besides, I got this scar fighting for you. It's almost like a medal or something.

>Didn't you want to kill me?

S: I certainly meant it when I said it, but...

>Are you happy you protected me?

S: When I thought you were going to be killed for real, my reflexes kicked in. I reacted without thinking. S: It doesn't mean I've stopped being jealous of you. S: But, come on, I can't help but look up to you. S: If I'd had the guts to run away from home, I wonder if I would have cared as little about my Crest as you do yours...

>You didn't have the courage?

S: No... But if I thought I could have escaped, I would have tried. S: I'd leave behind House Gautier and the life of a nobleman...and anybody who knew I had a Crest. S: Our home is to the very north of the Kingdom. Just across the mountains from us is land inhabited by foreigners to Fódlan. S: Right now, it actually belongs to Faerghus, but I can't say we're on good terms with the people there. S: It once belonged to Faerghus, but now that the Kingdom has collapsed, it's only a matter of time until fighting breaks out. S: Anyway, that land has been contested for centuries, and all that time, it has fallen to House Gautier to protect it. S: Actually, our Lance of Ruin has been doing most of the protecting.

>But it was stolen...

>I remember. Five years ago...

S: Those were dangerous times. One wrong step and we would have lost our Relic to the church. S: My father was afraid that the church would try to keep the lance, so he entrusted it to me. S: If an emergency arose, I was supposed to be called back home. S: I guess those very situations are why my family values Crests so much. S: Since I bear a Crest, my parents made sure I was never left wanting. S: My older brother didn't have one, and so when I was born, he was pushed aside. S: You know he once shoved me in a well? He left me on the mountainside in the middle of winter too.

>That's horrible.

>You didn't try to get him back?

S: Even as a little kid, I understood why he was like that. My mere existence stole everything from him. S: I have no right to complain when I am surrounded by people who would give anything to bear a Crest but do not. S: Now women smile at me for the same reason my parents adore me...and my brother wanted me dead. S: And I have to meet them all with a smile and a wink because I have a Crest.

>So what you really feel toward women is...

S: The women who just want to use me to become nobility? Hatred's probably the right word.

S: Though, in the end...that's just an easy answer. I don't even know how I truly feel about it all.

>You're wrong.

S: Yeah, yeah. It's late to admit it, but I get you. It would be best just to tell them to heap their empty praise elsewhere.

S: Anyway, it was pretty unreasonable of me to resent you. I'm really sorry about that. S: And I want to say thank you, Professor. Seriously. Thank you.

>For what?

S: Before I met you, I'd gone my whole life not knowing there was another way for me to live. S: So from the bottom of my heart...I'm glad we met.

——————————————————————————————

S: Professor, I've been waiting for you awhile. I've just been out here watching the sky grow lighter.

>Sorry.

S: No, it's OK. I just got here way too early.

>You got here too early.

S: I woke up, and I couldn't get back to sleep. And it's nice to spend a morning like this sometimes. S: It's really just hitting me. For the past five years, we've been fighting and fighting... S: But now the war's over. It's time for a new way of life. S: So I've decided I want to take responsibility for my own fate.

>Fate?

S: That's right. My Crest doesn't decide my fate. I do. It's time for the first step in the right direction.

>Responsibility?

S: I don't want to marry a girl who wants to use me for my Crest or a girl who someone else chose for me.

S: I want to marry someone I really care about. And, you know, maybe I can't...but I'd like to try. S: ...

>Do you really mean it?

S: You don't believe me? I probably should have seen that coming... S: In that case, I'll just have to propose to you over and over again...until you know I'm serious. S: Marry me. I'd do anything for you. S: I'm done lying, especially to myself.

>If you cheat on me, you'll pay dearly.

>I love you, so I suppose I have no choice.

S: You mean... S: If we're together, I don't even care if I stay locked up inside for the rest of my life. S: If you told me you didn't want me to look at another woman, I'd go blind for you.

>That's taking it a bit far.

S: Sorry about that. I got a little excited. S: I've spent my whole life relying on flowery language, so it's a bit hard to rein it in. S: OK... Calming down now. I'm just over the moon about this. S: With you by my side, I'm excited to find out what this new way of life is all about. S: We fought hard for today, and I'm beyond happy just to be alive. And now, I'm engaged to the perfect woman. S: Strike that. You know what? My happiness isn't what I care about today. S: I'm going to spend the rest of our lives together trying to make you happy. S: I promise.

——————————————————————————————

paired endings

After ascending the throne as the first leader of the United Kingdom of Fódlan, Byleth announced her marriage to Sylvain, who had become the new Margrave Gautier. Sylvain was a valued ally who assisted his wife in her new role, both publicly and privately. Most of all, it is said that his cunning manner of speech was a great asset for fostering relations between the Church of Seiros, Fódlan, and surrounding regions. Though known as a philanderer in youth, Sylvain happily settled down after marriage and became a gentle and devoted husband and father. The two had many children whom they doted on equally, regardless of whether or not they bore a Crest. (golden deer + church route)

After becoming the new archbishop of the Church of Seiros, Byleth announced her marriage to Sylvain, heir to House Gautier. Sylvain was a valued ally who assisted his wife in her new role, both publicly and privately. He achieved a great deal, including fostering relations with Faerghus and helping to institute sweeping organizational changes within the church. Though known as a philanderer in youth, Sylvain happily settled down after marriage. By the time he inherited the title of Margrave Gautier, he was a gentle and devoted husband. It is said that those who knew him in his youth wondered what sort of spell the archbishop had cast on him. (blue lions route)

When the fighting was over, Byleth and Sylvain were married. As the new leaders of House Gautier, they focused their efforts on the restoration of northern Fódlan, which had been deeply scarred by the ravages of war. Once this task was complete, they set their sights on improving relations with the Sreng people in an effort to remove the perceived need for the power of Crests. This accomplishment took a great deal of hard work, but the two refused to give up on their ideals. In time, the two had a large and loving family. They lived happily and loved their children equally, regardless of whether or not they bore a Crest. (black eagles route)

——————————————————————————————

night of the ball

S: Evening, Professor. Lovely night, isn't it? Just look a those stars... S: I heard you were headed over to the Goddess Tower, and I got curious about who you might be meeting. S: But here you are all by yourself. This isn't a lover's tryst at all! Heh heh...

>Tryst?

Oh, yeah. The Goddess Tower is where lovers meet. Didn't anybody tell you?

S: They say that if you exchange vows here, they always come true. It's a sacred place for lovers.

>Why are you here alone?

S: To tell the truth, I got curious about who you might be coming here to meet.

S: I know this sounds weird, but I'm relieved to find you here alone.

>Where is your lover?

S: Well, the person I'm interested in...is already here.

S: You're here alone. I'm here alone. I was thinking maybe...

>Wait. Me?

S: Well, of course! We're the only two people here, aren't we? S: I keep thinking about it, and it just makes sense. My Crest and yours...

>That's too much, too soon.

>Marry you? I can't even trust you.

S: Heh, OK. True, true. S: You know, I've never regretted any of my past behavior...until you turned me down just now. S: I can't be who I've been my whole life. I gotta get it together and become a man you can trust. S: I know that sounds like another one of my games, but it's true. I'll prove it to you. S: Anyway, I'm going to head back to the ball. Since we're both here, would you accompany me?

>I'll go back with you.

>I'm going to stay here for awhile.

S: Well then, my lady, I do hope you'll give me the honor of a dance. S: It will be good practice for our first dance at our wedding reception. Heh heh—I'm kidding! S: Anyway... Let's get going before you change your mind. S: It's chilly out tonight, so take care not to catch cold. S: And if you do get cold, you know where to find me. S: Sorry. Old habits die hard, I guess. S: OK. Well, I'm headed inside.

#fire emblem three houses spoilers #fe16 spoilers #fe3h spoilers #byleth x syvlain #sylvain x byleth

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finalfantasyxivwritings · 5 years

Text

Echoes of Mortality

AO3 Version

Relationship: Silence/Reader/Indulgence (OCs)

Rating: Teen

Summary: It's been a long time since the Lightwardens Indulgence and Silence have understood what it meant to be alive. Despite this, they've found feelings in but one fragile mortal who serves to remind them of who they once were, if only vaguely. It is through that mortal's kindness that they are anchored to the world anymore--and for them, the wardens would do anything to keep their mortal safe and happy

....even if it means they have to wait outside a city, allowing their mortal but a short excursion among their own kind.

More information: Silence (Samilen) | Indulgence (Khalja)

It’s late into the evening, though anyone may be hard-pressed to notice that by a simple glance up towards the sky. Where once-fabled darkness may have filled one horizon to the next, there’s nothing but washed out brightness that echoes across the thicket of ethereal clouds–it’s as bright as it would be at noon, with yet the only difference between the times being the mild chill on the air and a lack of people shuffling in the streets.

Despite the seeming freeze of time, mortals are yet stubborn to their habits.

‘I hate this.’

The words come unspoken from a form that stands under the eaves of a building, one of several that lay abandoned on the outskirts of the settlement, where next to nobody would think to travel–especially not when so many sin eaters were readied for any excuse to hunt. The form is humanoid, but it’s hard to pick out any detail beneath the thick cloak that covers their body.

The only point of detail that can be seen comes but in the moments when their hands slip out of the cloak and gestures in what some may know as handspeak.

A chuckle comes at a response to the silent words from the form’s partner, another cloak-covered shape that stands against the wall of a second building so close to the former that the two nameless forms are in relative shade despite the everburning light above them.

“And yet here you are,” the second form but purrs, having to duck their head slightly to be level with the first. “Though, I see not why you could hate these moments–do you not even mildly lust for the feeling of being alive again?”

‘I am alive right now,’ the first signs with motions nearly as sharp as the metal clawed gauntlets over their fingers. ‘It is mortality you speak of so fondly, which you are quick to forget all of the pain that came with it.’

“Worthwhile flaws, of course.”

A breeze flutters through the space between the two buildings, gently catching on the hoods of both shapes and offering but a glance at the faces hidden in darkness.

To the ignorant, both appear as if living marble statues. Their skin is pale, bleached completely of any color that may have once resided. It is so bright, in fact, that it gives off a vague glow, as if their very flesh is wont to revel in the very light they hide from.

The first form, a head shorter than their partner, turns a gaze towards them.

From beneath the hood, a pair of golden eyes burn as hot as the sun, irises laid upon a backdrop of ink that contrasts starkly with the empty white of their skin.

‘There is but one mortal worthy of our time and attention now.’

It’s hard to read the expression upon their face, especially when the words are communicated through silent motion alone. Still, the second form offers but another chuckle–the noise sounds inhuman, a rumble as strong as thunder that is somehow contained within their ribcage.

“You need not explain that to me, Silence.”

‘When your obsessions seem to lie elsewhere, I question that.’ The hard gaze of the now named form, Silence, turns back outside of the shaded alley. Searching. ‘I hate having to conceal my light.’

“You would do well to do it more often, my fellow warden,” says the other. “You would be far more comfortable with practice, and then you would be able to join our dear mortal more often–how you not tire of that drab cave I haven’t the slightest clue.”

Even from beneath the thick cloak, one might even be able to see a faint glow rise and fall with the creature’s amusement.

Silence tries not to listen despite there being some vague truth in the others words. As much as he would like to deny any length of connection to his past mortal life, some habits truly could not be killed in the transformation that ascended him to he creature he is now.

A monster, some may even say, and Silence would not be one to disagree with the accuracy in it.

Still, the words yet catch on nerves. He turns his burning gaze to meet with a set of eyes, equally bright in the colors of polished emeralds. Though he is forced to restrain some level of fury in his motions for the sake of letting his light leak for form break, it’s not difficult in the slightest to see his normally-cold expression crack.

‘So says the warden named for his craven search of debauchery. Indulgence. I dare think you would even have your way with our mortal in the center of this town if they would but allow it.’

The taller of the forms says nothing, though the smirk along his snow-white lips is all the answer needed to confirm the accusation–as well as show for his infamous lack of shame in it.

It’s not worth a fight, though Silence assumes his fellow lightwarden is getting more amusement out of it than anything. As a statement, he crosses his arms within the sweet concealing embrace of the cloak, mind finally wandering back to the thoughts of the one mortal he and Indulgence were yet waiting on.

How long did they need to purchase food? Wasn’t all sustenance the same? It had been so many years since Silence had yet breathed air, so many moons since he could recall feeling a heartbeat, the warmth of the sun upon his now stone-cold flesh.

Perhaps that is where Indulgence holds truth. Maybe, in some regard, there is the faintest cloying desire to feel it again; mortality, being alive in a way that set him apart from his current twisted form. To eat and drink and enjoy the foolish notions of hope and courage and sacrifice.

Maybe, in a fashion, it is why his obsessive desire for the mortal runs so deeply. Why he frets over them, lusts for them, wants to curl his entire being around their soft and fragile form and keep the entire world from even tainting their soul with its cruel nature.

Indulgence may remember much of the good in his past life, but Silence too remembers much of the bad. The trauma, he pain, the endless cycle of death and sacrifice that made no dent in the history he sought to change. The shorter of the two lightwardens is glad that the other hasn’t yet asked about the guilt that yet lingers deep within his breast, an emotion that has never once left him no matter how long he’s existed as a blighted creature of holy influence.

It is as much his own emotion as it isn’t–Samilen Jawantal is a name he but barely remembers, just in kind as much of the man’s memories. They are there in his soulless body, but faint, like old dreams long forgotten in the hours of wakefullness. Silence is sure that his fellow lightwarden must have similar experiences to his past life as a warrior as Khalja Kahkol, but the topic has never been brought up for them to discuss at length.

And Silence doesn’t want it to disturb their mortal.

Still so gentle, so loving, so very fragile in mind and body both and yet with a glorious well of aether untainted by the twisted and deformed world around them.

They are the only reason Silence hasn’t tried to rid the emotions and memories through the spilling of blood. The only reason he hasn’t tried to cleanse the world of its sin, to swallow it entirely in the burning embrace of light. They are the one reason that mortality is yet a mystery to him, for how could such creatures birth such wonder and beauty?

For a once-man who prizes knowledge and logic and the knowing of all things he can wrap his timeless self around, the answer yet escapes him. The purpose, the reason, the point is beyond his godly grasp.

“Silence,” the sound of Indulgence’s vaguely inhuman voice catches the warden’s attention, pulling him from deep in decade’s old thoughts. “I believe they are finishing their lovely little errands of sorts. I can sense their sweetness growing closer.”

‘Then let us leave this place,’ Silence motions with his hands, the vague shape of Miqo’te ears flicking somewhere beneath the hood. ‘I grow weary of being near such a cluster of noise and futility.’

They leave from where they are hidden, timing near-perfect as you come hurrying down the messy dirt road, a full basket clutched tight to your body and somewhat overfilled with goods.

“Sorrysorrysorry-” your words run into one another so that it sounds like one noise, a look of worry laden in your eyes. “I know you gave me only a bell, but there was a new merchant in town and I got distracted and-”

“Shush,” Indulgence coos, silencing your words and bringing a softness to your expression. “A few extra moments of discomfort is worth the joy it brought you.”

Silence says nothing, nor does he make any motions with his hands. You may say that the warden looks annoyed, but it’s hard to say for certain when his expression is always rather unreadable with half of his face constantly hidden beneath a mask of metal.

He but looks at you with those eyes of burning gold, ones you once heard about burning men with but a single glance. Though you don’t feel even the slightest tinge of fire upon your skin, you do feel a blooming warmth in your belly from the attention–the weight of the gaze brings forth a great many feelings, if only because you can yet sweetly remember how the creature held you in his arms the night prior, promising you in the embrace of climax that you would be allowed an hour among your people.

Mortals, as the wardens oft referred to them.

His eyes linger for a moment, then flick towards your hands.

“What is it that you’re holding, dear one?” Indulgence asks, approaching you gently, his height seeming to tower over you even when in his echoed form. Perhaps it is the fact that he cannot change the lifeless white of his skin, or the burning brightness of his eyes, things that showcase their otherness even without their size, glow and ethereal wings.

You suddenly remember yourself and fumble for words.

“Oh! That merchant I spoke about–they….they were trying to sell some flowers they managed to grow and….”

Nervously, you hold out one of your hands; clutched against your palm are but two simple flowers, old names lost to time when so rarely are they able to grow in the nutrient-scarce soil. They are half-withered, but yet they peak with colorful petals and strong stalks that allow both Indulgence and Silence to see how they must have but recently bloomed.

Silence’s eyes widen for but a fraction of a moment at the gesture, but it is Indulgence who response first; the once Au Ra reaches his hands out to gently hold your fist within them, as if he was cupping something fragile.

“Your kindness is hardly worthy for creatures like us,” he murmurs, eyes half-lidded and staring at the flowers for a few moments. Despite how he touches your skin, you notice that he does not touch the flowers directly in any way. “We will find a place for them to live their last days when we return home.”

You feel heat start to gather over your cheeks, but you’re not given more than a few moments to consider the feeling before both wardens move; Indulgence takes the basket with a gentle care, while Silence pulls you into his arms though careful of the cold touch of his claws as they wrap around your form.

He doesn’t look at you as the wardens all but disappear into the light-washed lands.

Still, even as the two creatures shed their cloaks and retake their true forms, even when they appear not even minutely mortal, even as they glow in layers of ethereal light-bleached aether, you swear you can see the faintest touch of a blush somewhere along the top of Silence’s cheeks.

Though monsters as they may be, there was but a shred of who they once were still left–and moments like this prove it to you.

#ffxiv #lightwarden au #writing #samilen readerinsert #khalja readerinsert #silence readerinsert #indulgence readerinsert #poly samikhalja #poly samikhalja readerinsert #sfw #sfw readerinsert #oof #poly silgence #poly silgence readerinsert #i'll settle on tags eventually #shb spoilers #shadowbringers spoilers #5.0 spoilers #I GOT RLY INSPIRED ALRIGHT CAN U BLAME ME

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breg21 · 5 years

Text

Ladrien Week: Tangled

@ladrienjune

Ao3 Fanfiction

I really like Plagg. And I wanted to take a moment and say thank you everyone for your support! You guys comments is what keeps the writing flowing.

"How do we even end up in these kinds of situations, kitty?"

Ladybug knew that she didn't always have the best luck— irony at its best— but sometimes she was completely baffled by the idea that she could end up in this position.

There they were bound together by a normally, unbreakable rope, weaved especially for the two of them by a very nasty spider themed Akuma.

Yay, Hawkmoth was going after bug catchers now. Either that, or pet shop owners.

She was chest to chest with none other than Paris number one teen model, Adrien Agreste, yup that's right, not Chat Noir, no. Plagg decided to have a light breakfast this morning after watching a nature documentary on maternal cats. One would think the being made of pure destruction, could handle seeing some baby kittens being brought into the world but no.

Apparently not.

So, when Chat went to use his cataclysm, instead of a ball of antimatter forming from his palm, he let out a small poof of smoke before the Akuma wrapped them together to leave them literally hanging. On the bright side, nobody was around to see them.

On the not so bright side, they wound up in what appeared to be the only neighborhood without any cheese! So, with the blood rushing fast to her brain, all Ladybug could do was ponder the incredible life choices that lead her here.

But Adrien, ever the optimist, tried to ease her mind. He tried. Whether or not he succeeded was a whole other story. "It's not bad, bugaboo. Turn that frown upside down."

The rope began to shake violently as Ladybug flailed in frustrated anger. "Not bad? Kitty, the akuma is running wild terrorizing the whole city," At that, screams of terror shrilled even louder than before as she was sure other destructive things were going on caused by the akuma. "And we're here, waiting for Plagg to find his cheese so we can cataclysm the rope."

Said kwami could be heard zooming from house to house, raiding every place he thought cheese could be stored. "I'm doing the best I can here! I respect the lifestyle and all but is not one person in this block a devoted vegan?!"

Adrien shook himself to position his face to view the creature. "Either that or highly lactose intolerant."

"Not helping!"

With that, he zoomed into the last house he could find as Ladybug and Adrien heard a proud victory screech escape the nearby building.

"Did you find any?"

The little creature popped out of the building looking like a cat that just stumbled on a field of catnip. "This is… This is La Crème du Fromage. I have only had this cheese once in my entire life and I have spent over two centuries looking for it."

Ladybug smiled. "That's great Plagg, now hurry up and chow down."

"What!? No, one does not chow down on La Crème du Fromage. It is to be savored, admired, paired with the most savory of wines and given its creator the proper thanks for bringing such beauty into the world."

"Plagg, I've seen you devour a whole wheel of cheese in one gulp."

He glared before turning his back to her. "Sometimes I feel as though you don't take me seriously.."

Adrien and Ladybug shared a look for a brief second before she set her eyes back on him and tried to reason with the small cat. "Plagg, I'm sorry. I really am. I can't imagine how much that cheese means to you. But please, we really need to get out of this before people see Ladybug and Adrien together."

Looking down at his beauty, he knew what he had to do. Steeling himself he pulled back the wrapper as the age old aroma filled his tiny nostrils with the memory of his and Tikki's one-thousandth binding cycle.

He looked back at the two lovers chained together trying everything they could to escape.

Lifting up the cheese he closed his water filled eyes. "Here's to true love." Without hesitation, he placed the cheese in his mouth devouring it whole.

He knew as much as they did the dangers of people seeing their identities between superhero and civilian were, especially Ladybug and Adrien's side of the square. Out of all the sides, they tried to keep them at the most distance.

After a hearty battle belch, Plagg was recharged. Adrien quickly transformed and catalysmed the rope from within the bind, turning the thick threads of their entrapment into mere ash.

It also caused them to fall from a good distance onto the hard gravel road, but no one was around due to the chaos surrounding them, so they both counted that as a win. Back on their feet, they separated so Chat could quickly go find Plagg a rather less rare chunk of cheese and join Ladybug back in the fight as soon as possible.

"Oh, and Ladybug," She turned to see the sly cattish smirk that crossed his face "while the method wasn't the most comfortable, I'd get entangled with you again anytime."

She rolled her eyes. "Whatever you say, kitty."

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

After the battle had been won, they retreated to the tower to catch their breaths before they retired to his home for the night.

"Y'know." Ladybug drawled as she tiptoed closer to him, continuously shaking her weight from side to side. "You know how you said you enjoyed being entangled together in the ropes?"

Chat didn't know exactly why, but he gulped. He felt like he had to gulp, and he could do nothing to hold it back. Air was a little heavy in his chest at the moment. It was all too weighted as he forced out, a small, "Mhm?"

She moved just a bit closer. Smile in full force. She brought her lips inches from his, and he could feel her breath and oh gosh, he thought he actually might pass out.

"Well." Her words sounded innocent, but for some reason, he knew better. "I'd rather be entangled in your sheets."

Oh dang. Whoo. Was the air becoming thin? How high up were they? What day was it?

Then she did a complete one eighty and spun in the direction of his house. "First one there gets to pick the movie for the night," And she raced off.

It only took a second to unstiffen his bones that had become like steel in his own body. Once everything was awakened and he could actually move, he grabbed his baton and bounded off towards home.

He knew one thing for sure, no matter what, she was definitely entangled in his heart.

And he never wanted to break those attachments.

Husband's thoughts:

Poor plagg and his cheese. Fun fact, neither my wife or I know any great cheese brands, so the brand of cheese Plagg loses his ever loving mind over is just the phrase the cream of the cheese translated into French. It's a little play on the famous phrase, the cream of the crop otherwise known as la crème de la crème.

See these husband's thoughts can be more than just jokes. Sometimes you get deep philosophical thoughts and fun facts.

#ladrienjune #ladrien #ml #mlb #miraculous ladybug #love square

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prettyboiiharringrove · 6 years

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Your alpha Stave and Omega Billy works are awesome. Totally living for it, reread everything more times than I will say but I wondering if your could go into the crime boss Steve with the dirty cop omega Billy or anything else?

( dsoh masterlist )

( alpha/beta/omega masterlist )

you are honestly so sweet i’m just delighted that you guys keep asking for more because i’m like i love this but it’s also garbage ?? but then people ask for more and i’m like i must give it to them !! serve up my subpar content lolol

okay so yes. now in that au it’s not abo as we know but i was ranting to my lady love @sightetsound the other day (as i do constantly) about all the what ifs with devious omega billy and his murderous alpha steve and let me tell you, it’s fucking beautiful (some of these were even her ideas, she’s an amazing genius).

but like this is my time to shiiinnneee

( i think some headcanons mentioned in this could apply to just normal omega billy, especially the pregnant ones, and may even have been mentioned already but i tried ya’ll, i tried )

so let’s get this started

warnings: alpha/beta/omega dynamics, threats, assault, mentions of blood, mpreg, fear of miscarriage, heat cycles, some sexy shit my dudes, omega billy, alpha steve

People underestimate Billy his entire life. It’s fuckingsexist bullshit and he never accepts or gets over it. People constantly doubthim, talk over him, or patronize him whether it be in the town he grew up in,the police academy, at work, or just casually in public. He hates it, but thenhe meets Steve and Steve is different. Even when they were on opposing sides,Steve respected him, and now? Now Billy is mated to him, carries Steve’s markwith pride because his alpha loves him, sees Billy as his equal and not somewhore to be bred.

Ooh let’s talk about the first time they got together. Seebecause in my original dsoh storyline there’s always this sexual tension andcompetition with each other that fuels their rivalry, and then they end uphooking up because Billy’s pent up and Steve is always happy to help. He’dknown from the start that Billy was meant to be his.

What if the story is similar but instead of them randomlyfucking in a bar Billy goes into an unexpected heat. He just started a newbirth control and his doctor says it could mess with his hormone levels andapparently the combination of that and the stress from the trial, the one Stevejust walked away free from actually, triggers his heat early. So they see eachother at that bar but Billy starts to get hot and dizzy and nauseous and heknows he’s not that drunk, butthere’s not a chance in hell he can make it home on his own, it’s come on toofast.

Steve had walked in twenty minutes ago and he’d been allsensual touches and flirty smiles because he knew it both annoyed and thrilled Billy,but then he sees what’s happening, can smell the slick that must be soaking Billy’spants, gasps when Billy leans forward to rest his head on his shoulder becauseit’s not like Hargrove to just give in

Billy knows that the whole omegas losing their minds duringheat is bullshit, I mean he’d been going through them for fucking years and hehad never hopped in bed with the first alpha that offered themselves up, but hedoesn’t think he could deny Steve if he offered.

Weird thing tho, Steve helps Billy up and takes him out tohis car. He helps him walk out, carries most of his weight as Billy leans intohim, but he doesn’t actually try anything. Billy thinks Steve will finally takethe opportunity to get Billy out of the way, kill him and be done with it.

What he doesn’t expect is for Steve to give him a comfy bed,surround him with blankets and pillows to form a makeshift nest since Billydidn’t have time to do it himself and say “you don’t owe me anything for this,just stay as long as you like. I’m not going to force you to do anything, butI’ll tell you this much Hargrove, if you want my help, all you have to do isask.”

Billy doesn’t even have it in him to feel ashamed when amoan escapes him at the offer.

He doesn’t take Steve up on his offer until the next daywhen he brings him breakfast. He had thought about fucking Steve a lot, hadthought about calling him in for help, even if it was only for the sake ofalleviating those goddamn cramps, but he decided against it. He can’t rememberthe last time he spent his heat with an alpha.

Thing about the next morning though is Steve looks so damnbeautiful in the morning light, and as Steve brushes hair off of Billy’sforehead and he looks up at him with sleepy eyes, something in him clicks. Itfeels like an odd sense of worship, but it also feels so goddamn right. Billypulls Steve down onto the bed and Steve says “hey, none of that now. I told youI’d help, but you need to eat first sweetheart” and he doesn’t know why but itsomehow makes Steve even more desirable. It makes his inner omega purr withdelight.

After that first heat together, they have a sort ofarrangement, because no matter what Billy tells himself, his omega has decidedSteve is his alpha, and Steve has always known Billy was his in return. Billystarts to feel safe with Steve, likes that Steve holds him, takes care of him,kisses him, worships him.

Somehow they start having sex outside of his heats, andBilly starts staying over just to visit as opposed to just coming to ride outhis heat. Their relationship stops being an arrangement and becomes more of afriendship, and then Billy realizes he’s started protecting Steve instead oftrying to arrest him, he realizes that Steve has let him into a part of hislife a cop has no business knowing.

He realizes that Steve has just as much to lose as he does,because Steve has let himself trust. Worst of all, Billy realizes that he lovesSteve. That’s when things take a turn for the insane. Billy may not be mated,but he is Steve’s omega and there’s no denying that. Steve is his true love andhe will give himself without a second thought. They’re bonded, it’s just amatter of time before he has his bite.

The one thing that bothered Billy though is how fucking longhe waited to be Steve’s mate. Billy had to scrub off Steve’s scent everymorning and he hated it, but now Steve is his alpha and no one can take thataway from him.

Steve faking his death really fucks with their mating bond,hurts Billy so goddamn much he’s bedridden for at least three weeks, Tommy hasto come take care of him, because Billy can’t face any of Steve’s employeeswithout screaming or hyperventilating. So, that’s a whole thing to explore.

Y’all wanna talk some nsfw headcanons ?? I do !!

So to start this off if you haven’t heard already, we shouldjust get this out of the way, I picture male omegas having both a dick andvagina (click here to read about that)

All I’m saying is picture Steve fingering Billy so good hesquirts and Billy didn’t even know he could do that and he says as much like…noone’s ever been able to do that before and Steve’s just like “because nobodycan make you feel the way I do sweetheart” but it’s the PROUDEST MOMENT OFSTEVE’S LIFE

Billy being in Steve’s lap, legs wide open as Steve playswith his pussy, his cock twitching every time Steve teases his clit. He’s puton display but only Steve can touch. Everyone else can just admire the view anddesperately wish they had an omega that loving and eager.

“Damn boss, I’ve never seen anyone that wet outside of heat”“you hear that baby ?? you’re special. Tell him baby, what’s got you so wet ??”and billy whines and moans, but when he doesn’t answer Steve stops his playing.Billy’s hip stutter, an unconscious attempt to chase Steve’s fingers. “Come onbaby, tell him or you don’t get to play. Only good boys get to play.” “Alpha, my alpha makes me wet.” “That’s rightbaby, you’re just dripping, making a mess. So eager, just waiting for daddy’scock, aren’t you??” “Please !! Please daddy,I’m a good boy !!” “What do you think, he been good ??”

All the employees know that the only correct answer to thatquestion is yes, unless you intend to sign your own death warrant.

Billy sucking his slick off of Steve’s fingers as he fucksup into him and strokes Billy’s dick.

Okay moving on.

Pregnant omega Billy and his murderous alpha that ispractically daring someone to look at Billy the wrong way. Pregnant Billy restingone hand protectively over his stomach and holding a gun in the other, coveredin blood and Steve finding him, terrified until he realizes it’s not Billy’sblood.

There was not a chance in hell Billy was letting anyone hurthis baby.

He’s calm, shut off, animalistic, that is until he’s inSteve’s arms, trembling as the adrenaline high starts to ware off and Billy canonly think about losing the baby, someone taking that little life away fromhim, of cradling his bloody stomach and praying that he fucking died so that hedidn’t have to live in a world without his baby, so that he didn’t have to faceSteve and tell him that he couldn’t keep their child safe.

He remembers the blade tracing his stomach, the slight cutto his flesh, a small message of what was going to happen; Billy couldn’t letthat happen but now, as he shivers in Steve’s hold, has a vice grip on hislover, and sobs into his shoulder, all he can think about is how close he wasto losing everything.

Billy finally stops trembling, he’s not sobbing anymore buta few stray tears fall as he finally looks up at Steve with a glazed over lookin his eyes. Steve grabs him by the face and kisses him gently before moving tokiss lightly at Billy’s neck and the nuzzle against his warm skin, inhaling thesweet scent and telling Billy that he did such a good job, that he’s such a goodboy, such a good dad.

Also straying away from the angsty stuff and dipping our toeback into nsfw for the pregnant edition, Steve may not look at Billy as abroodmare but he 1000% has a breeding kink. You know he does.

And Billy, Billy is such a submissive boii when it comes toSteve but it’s probably really prevalent when he’s pregnant because Billy’severy instinct screams ‘I’m tired and vulnerable please protect me. Protectus’. He knows he can take care of himself, has proven it time and time again,but he just needs Steve to coddle him and take care of him, to hold him closeand boss him around, to let his mind rest. Some days he simply needs to belongto Steve. He needs Steve to praise him, to tell him he’s doing a good job, thathe’s such a good boy. He needs it.

Here’s something else I think. We’ve already established Stevehas always loved people walking in on him and Billy, loves while Billy rideshis dick while he’s in the middle of a meeting, or gets down on his knees whilethe door is wide open. He loves putting on a show, that is until Billy getspregnant. The second Steve finds out Billy gets pregnant, every alpha instinctin him screams to hide Billy, to keep his omega and pup as far away from thesepeople as possible and he even starts backing off a bit, being less forward anddominant. It kills Billy, especially the submissive side of him that needs toplease and listen and be a good boy, because Steve won’t let him. They talkabout it (because the fuckers realize they have a communication problem) andthings fall back into place.

I’m actually working on a drabble about it to better explain how they get past the struggle of not wanting to touch or bother each other to being the typical clingy loving mess they are. I should have that out soon please be patient with me.

Steve is so extremely in love with Billy, and daddy Steve isall about his pregnant omega, beams with pride every time he so much as thinksabout him.

Billy is a good boy, the best boy, and Steve is obsessedwith him.

No, I’m serious like he can’t fucking get enough of him. IfBilly is in the same room as him, Steve has to be touching him. It’s a fact.His hands are on Billy’s tummy all the goddamn time because he’s in love withthe bump, and Billy is curled up in his lap whenever possible.

Billy is always falling asleep in Steve’s lap and I promiseyou if someone woke him up there would be hell to pay. But picture Steve gentlystroking his stomach so the baby keeps calm and Billy waking up and whining ifhe stops, just a sleepy and breathless “daddy” and he’s burying his face inSteve’s neck like Steve can legitimately feel him pouting against his skin.

Another fun thing to picture is Steve coming home to Billyroaming around the house in his underwear, one of Steve’s suit jackets, andnothing else. The jacket is too long, it reaches his thighs and covers hishands and his belly is sticking out. Steve is in awe but all Billy notices isSteve staring and he’s like “Stop looking at me like that. Goddamn maid did allthe laundry and this is the only thing that still smelt like you. I’ll gochange but stop, Jesus.” Poor baby needed his alpha’s scent but all the sheetsand clothes, even the fucking pillow cases and Billy’s goddamn stuffed animalsgot washed and Billy was stressed. Steve obviously pulls him into bed andcuddles up to him before Billy has a chance to take the jacket off.

Billy probably feels tremendously guilty for gettingpregnant so soon after transferring to work with Hopper. He constantly fallsasleep at his desk because paperwork is the only thing he can do so he does alot of it. Hopper is calling Steve to come pick up his stubborn husband.

I imagine Hopper has to call Steve to come get Billy a lot.

Billy has been puking all goddamn morning but herefuses to go home because he’s not technically sick so he can still work.

Billy almost gets in a fist fight and it’s likeBITCH YOU’RE PREGNANT

Billy the baby is due in three weeks you saidyou were gonna go on leave two fucking months ago, stop coming to work

I think Kayla sums it up the best she literally just said“Hopper’s burden is profound.”

Hop is just like “Steve. Come get your husband I’ve neverbeen so annoyed for someone to actually do their job.” He feels like any secondhe’s about to step on a landmine because if he upsets Billy he feels like a jerk(don’t upset the poor bby) and all of his alpha and dad instincts are likedon’t upset him but also this boy is miserable why is he still here ?? Hop isliterally like if Steve can’t come get him I’m scooping him up and taking himhome.

Like Billy. Honey. It is not a crime to get some goddamnrest.

( Another great quote from my love “Apparently it is,according to Billiam.” )

Steve at one point lays down the law to protect Billy andthe baby because sure a lot of people work up until their due date but Billyhas been overworking, not getting any rest, he’s stressed which we know is notfucking good, and you can just look at him and know he feels miserable andtired.

Sadly, despite Billy’s need to be a good boy, he also feelsan obligation to help Hopper. Hopper gave him a job when no one else would justbecause he was Steve’s mate which meant he was family, and then he got pregnantso fucking fast that he’s like this is all I can do so I have to help, I haveto do everything I fucking can here.

And it’s like no honey, it’s okay, you need to take care ofyourself, please take care of yourself.

Steve would be so genuinely upset, you know he would, whenhe gets a call from Hopper saying “I thought the kid was finally taking hisleave ??” Steve is so confused, just like “…He is??” and Hopper just answersback with “Then why is he drooling on my paperwork instead of in a bed ??” AndSteve is not a happy boy like at all.

At this point it’s like troubling like do we have to stagean intervention ?? “I’m fine okay ?? I just like to help.” “You’re sleepingmore at the station than at home.”

Sleepy Billy when Steve comes to pick him up after that callfrom Hopper. “Hey don’t be mad.” “I’m pissed off Billy, you’re going to have toaccept that.” “Stevie, don’t be maaaddd.” “Stop it, you’re being a brat.”

Honestly though, Billy just wants to be helpful but this isnot the way honey.

Sleepy Billy is my favorite Billy, he’s such a bratty lilboy, especially that night.

“Steve, gimme your jacket.” “You have your ownjacket.” “Yeah, but I want yourjacket.” “Seriously?” “It’s softer, mine is all itchy.” “Then why did you wearit?” “Steve, the baby wants yourjacket.” Steve gives him the jacket.

“Cuddle me.” “I’m driving.” “Cuddle me plleeaaassee.” “I. Am. Driving.”

“Are you still mad??” “Yes.” “…What about now??”“Yeah Billy, I’m still mad.” “Okay.” “Okay…” “And now??” “Especially now!!”

“You know, I was fine, you didn’t have to comeget me.” “You know, I might believe that if I didn’t just watch youaccidentally staple your own hand.” “I was fiiinnnee.”

“Baby, you promised you were done.” “…okay Steve,not for nothing but I had my fingers crossed behind my back so it doesn’tcount.”

Billy he loves you but you’re driving him insane. Stevewants to scold him, tell him how ridiculous he’s being. Why’s he have to be sogoddamn stubborn ?? He needs to fucking rest Jesus fucking Christ. What thefuck is he going to do with this little brat ??

Steve stays home as much as possible and makes Billy come towork with him when he can’t so that he can keep an eye on him. Billy doesn’tknow if he should be pissed or delighted because on the one hand Steve isgiving him all of the attention but on the other hand he knows he’s in troubleand he’s pissed off about it.

Billy is such a handful, big time, and he goes betweenpouting and coming up with every way to get Steve to not be mad at him. He’llgrab Steve’s hand and make him feel the baby kicking because Steve can’t staymad when that happens. He’ll crawl in Steve’s lap and refuse to move. You knowdamn well he calls him ‘daddy’ to get his way. He borrows all of Steve’s comfyclothes and parades around in them because Steve absolutely loves when Billy iscovered in his scent.

The problem is that other times he’s a brat about it. He’lljust ignore Steve. He’ll refuse to sit with him. He’ll talk to anyone exceptSteve, even people he can’t stand. He’ll whine about every fucking thing. Itdoesn’t help that he’ll sit right in front of Steve and call Hopper to see howthings are going at the station.

I also picture Billy having to say “I’m pregnant you fuckingmoron” a lot. (this was mentioned in the other set of headcanons but I justlove it, it’s my favorite fucking headcanon)

Billy and Tommy don’t see each other as muchsince his transfer, so Billy calls him to tell him the good news. Tommysuggests going out for drinks to celebrate.

Some dumbass that does odd jobs for Steve everyonce and awhile sees Billy and comments “Damn Steve, your bitch really lethimself go”. Billy barely get’s the words out before Steve is grabbing the guy by hisneck.

There’s some serious shit going down and someonementions that Billy would be really good backup for when they go try to ambushone of Steve’s rivals.

It’s at this point Kayla and I started discussing how Billyfound out and what him and Steve’s reaction was. It’d be the same as in themain headcanons, except Billy is at work when he hears Flo and Hopper talkingand just drops his crappy breakroom coffee and hides in the bathroom. Oh andSteve freaks the fuck out when he realizes how involved Billy’s been in themore violent side of his work and how much he’s been hit and kicked and thrownaround that at his first doctor’s appointment he keeps asking “so you’re sureeverything’s okay ??” until the doctor has to take a few deep breaths so thatshe doesn’t snap at him and Billy orders him to sit down and shut his mouth orhe’s gonna kick him out.

#Anonymous #daddysteveofficerhargrove #omega billy hargrove #alpha steve harrington #sugar daddy steve harrington #sugar baby billy hargrove #harringrove #harringrove au #billy hargrove #alpha/beta/omega #prettyboiianswers

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awkward-radar-tech · 6 years

Text

A New Home

Summary: The remnants of the Resistance are still on the run from the First Order in the Millennium Falcon. Poe, Rey, and Chewie have been taking turns piloting, choosing a place to fuel and rest every few cycles, eagerly waiting for an ally to respond to pleas of help. Reader, Poe’s girlfriend, is from a secret planet, and when all hope is fading away, she breaks her promise to her people and lead the Resistance to the safety of a new home.

A/N: This is my first time writing Poe, and thinking about the light side of the force. I hope I did Poe justice, it took me a while to figure him out. And I hope you enjoy the backstory on this secret planet/ system I created. Also, mention of sex in the cockpit.

Another wonderful prompt from @michaelathewordsmith: I Know Places: Poe x Reader; Poe and the remaining resistance members are struggling to find refuge so the reader breaks a promise and helps Poe find a safe refuge by revealing where she came from.

It has been a rough these past few weeks for you and all the resistance. First, the love of your life got captured and tortured by Kylo Ren and the First Order. Then he escaped with the help of a rogue stormtrooper, only to crash land on Jakku, losing his new friend, Finn, having already lost BB-8 when he was captured. While his body was a bit hurt when he returned, his morale wasn't and he was back on missions almost immediately. Next the First Order found the base, requiring everyone to evacuate and your hotshot fly-boy decided to mess with General Hux to buy time, thankfully he wasn't killed. After Leia being in a coma, Poe disobeying Holdo, and the battle on Crait, everybody who remained was exhausted and down. The Millennium Falcon has been constantly stopping on different planets and moons to refuel, and rest on solid ground before heading out again to get ahead on the First Order, if they even were still following. Despite the constant pleas for help, nobody was responding to provide shelter and salvation.

While everybody else was sleeping, Poe piloted the Falcon while you sat in the co-pilot's chair to keep him company. You both were silent most of the time, not quite sure what to say or do anymore. Although Poe would never say it, you could tell he was giving up hope on finding a new place to set up base and rebuild. Poe has been zigzagging the ship across the galaxy since he took his shift as pilot, putting it in hyperspace for a bit then pulling out and turning another direction before jumping back. He was in the middle of changing course when you resolved to reveal a deep secret you promised never to tell, but it would help the Resistance tremendously.

Once he put the Falcon back into hyperspace, you went and sat across his lap, wrapping your arms around his neck and kissing his cheek, feeling stubble against your lips, “Darling. I have a secret to tell you.”

He looked at you quizzically, “Let me guess, you love me?”

You playfully poked his face, “While that is true, this secret is one you have always wanted to know and I think it will help us tremendously now.”

His deep brown eyes blew wide open, “You're gonna take us to your home world?”

You tousled his curly locks, “Yes. But you can't tell anyone where we are going, and you'll have to remain the pilot until we get there,” you moved one arm and held out your pinky to his face, “Pinky promise.”

He smirked at your adorable childish ways before reaching up and wrapping his pinky around yours, “Pinky promise, my love.”

Your face went serious as you began to explain, “Now, the reason my home planet is so secretive is because of what we have. Most of our people are very force sensitive, and the last person to leave our planet and become a Jedi wiped our location from all maps. They sensed that Senator Palpatine was not exactly who he said he was and would wipe out all the Jedi and try to find us. They had to take those steps into their own hands because the Jedi Council didn't believe them when they came to warn the council about the threat. Sadly, despite their knowledge of the deceit, they were killed when Order 66 was executed. Not many of my people left the planet before that, but now maybe two every generation.”

Poe had many questions come to mind, but only asked a few, “Wait, so you're force sensitive? And Kylo Ren didn't sense you? Why did you leave?”

“Oh, no, I'm one of the few who aren't. I can sort of sense people's emotions, but unless it is just me and another person alone, I can't tell who is feeling what. And I'll tell you why I left after you pull out of hyperdrive and I put in the new coordinates. It is an emotional and possibly long story.”

“Oh, that sucks. You'll need to get off my lap so I can do as you asked.”

You got off his lap and went to close the cockpit door, just in case somebody woke up and came in while you're working on entering in the coordinates, everybody had to think you were heading to another random location. Once the ship was back in regular space, you went over to enter the information and set the ship up for hyperdrive.

“Whoa, (y/n), I didn't know you knew how to do this stuff.”

You smirked, “There is a lot of stuff I keep hidden from everyone, Poe Dameron.”

“Well I want to know everything. Starting with why you left and how you got here.”

You sat back down on the co-pilot’s chair, “So first off, those who have weak and limited or no force sensitivity are see as second class citizens to everybody else once you reach adulthood, no matter what your family background is. My family is a very prominent family, I'm related to the Jedi I spoke of earlier, I don't quite know the relation since they were turned into an omniscient being, no longer being referred to by their real name or their gender pronouns. Because of this prominence and relation, it was expected all dependents of The Guardian would have strong force abilities, which is almost true, my lack there of brought a lot grief to me and my family. My whole family loves me and understands, and they don't see it as a problem or an embarrassment, but the rest of the population does. For as long as I can remember, people have been coming up to my family and I being like ‘Oh you're just a late bloomer,’ ‘isn't this such a burden on you all,’ ‘you should have put her up for adoption so nobody would have known what a disgrace to The Guardian’s name and sacrifice she is,’ a long with many other horrible and messed up things. And that adoption one was said in front of my 8-year-old self, not quite understanding yet why people said those things about me. I began to think I had done something wrong, that I wasn't trying hard enough, that my family hated me. So I tried harder to do things with the force alone in my room. When I was 10 I tried so hard to pick up a small, almost weightless, plastic ball all because kids began picking on me at school that I passed out. My older brother found me on the ground when he came to tell me dinner was ready. After I woke up an hour later and recomposed myself, my family asked what I was doing to cause that, and when I told them, they all told me they didn't care at all, they loved me no matter what. I stopped going to school after that, my mom taught me what I needed to know at home. At sixteen I realized I was destined for something greater, and that meant I needed to leave the planet, so with help from a cousin, I began learning how to fly. By 18 I was the best pilot on the whole planet, and I told my family that I wanted to do something more with my life, that I felt it in the force that I was destined to do something amazing, someplace away from the oppression of the world I grew up in. They all understood, even though it hurt to know I might never come back, and by 20 I had my own long-distance-travel ship and said my goodbyes. And after some exploring of the galaxy, I found out about the Resistance and its mission, so now I'm here. Just not as a pilot.”

Poe stared at you in awe, you were finally opening up to him about your past, “Wow, I'm so sorry to hear about that. Are you sure about taking us there? Where is that ship now? Have you gone back to see your family?”

“I'm sure, I think bringing the people who have fought both the Empire and First Order to safety is something that would prove to everybody that I am worthy of my bloodline. I sold my ship when I joined the Resistance, I didn't want to be a fighter pilot, so I never told them I could fly anything. And I have never been back, I haven't done anything worth the turmoil of others being like ‘Oh you couldn't make it out there could ya’ but bringing you all with me will stop them. Also, the electric field on the planet interferes with foreign trackers, so the First Order will never track us down, especially because in all maps this area is empty space.”

Poe grinned, “I'm so lucky to have you, (y/n). This means a lot, to all of us, even though nobody knows yet. So, who is the better pilot, me or you?”

You smirked at his challenge, “Well, we will just have to wait until we land, then we can figure it out. But I'm sure it is me.”

Poe stood and walked over to you, placing his hands on the back of the chair, standing between your legs, leaning down to be face to face with you, “You wanna bet? I'm up for the challenge, sweetheart. But don't go home crying when I beat you.”

“Don't be so sure of yourself Dameron. It has been a moment since I have flown, but as soon as I'm in the pilot’s chair it will be second nature.”

Poe got lost in the fierce look in your eye and the tone of your voice that he barely registered any of the words you said, “You're so damn hot when you challenge me. It should be illegal.”

You smirked, you loved when he got like this, “So what are you gonna do about it, hotshot.”

He got a devilish smirk on his face, “I'm gonna make you scream my name.”

He closed the gap between your faces, locking you into a hot and needy kiss. He picked you up from the chair, and held you against the door while one hand locked it so you wouldn't be disturbed. You sincerely hoped everyone was still asleep, and in a deep one at that, because you knew Poe wasn't going to stop until you were bumbling mess, screaming his name as you came.

And boy did he deliver on his promise. You felt like jelly when he finished, so much so that he had to redress you and help you to the refresher.

When you both returned, you checked the progress, “About 12 more hours. When we get closer I have to go get something from my bag so we can announce who we are. They will shoot us down if they think we are invaders.”

Poe gave you a sly look, “So how many more rounds is that?”

You responded with a pointed glare, “No, let me recover from this one before even thinking about the next one.”

“So there will be a next one.”

“Possibly.”

“I think absolutely,” he got up and moved over to you.

“Poe!”

“I'm not gonna do anything more than kiss my beautiful goddess of a girlfriend.”

“Alright,” you reached out and pulled his face to you.

Your kiss was broken early when there was a knock on the doorway. You looked to find Rey and Finn.

Rey spoke first, “Sorry to interrupt, but we're here to change shifts.”

Poe walked over to his friends in the doorway, “Don't worry about it, we got this. You guys go rest some more, socialize with everyone, you went through a lot more than we did with the First Order.”

Rey shuddered, “Don't remind me. And are you sure?”

Poe smiled, “Yeah, I'm sure. I've taught (y/n) a few things about flying so she can take over if need be,” he placed his hands on his friends’ shoulders, “Now go, enjoy yourselves, play some holochess or Sabacc, become more acquainted with the other members. Don't worry about us. And if you hear any weird noises coming from here, do not let anybody investigate.”

Both Rey and Finn reacted in unison, “Eww Poe!”

Rey left right after leaving Finn behind for a moment longer, “If you need us to come take over, just come get us Dameron.”

“You got it Finn.”

Satisfied, Finn left and Poe closed the door, not wanting anybody else to intrude now that they were waking up. He returned to softly kissing you and once he had his fill he sat back down. Silence fell back over the cockpit, but the weight of sadness and desperation was lifted. You thought about your family, wondering about all of them, how tall have your baby cousins grown, did your older brother marry the girlfriend he had when you left like he said he was, if he did were you an aunt now, how was adult life treating your younger sister and brother who are twins, were they dating anybody. Did people wonder where you went, did they care, has society become more accepting of those with no powers? You hoped that somebody in your family would help train Rey, teach her everything they know, she is so eager to know everything about the force and become the best she can be. You hoped your parents approved of Poe, not like it truly had any affect on your relationship, but you just hoped they liked him.

You looked over at him, you just loved the way his curly hair laid on his head, the way his 5 o’clock shadow stubble grew back way before 5 o’clock and how it defined his jawline even more, you loved the deepness of his brown eyes, you loved every type of smile and smirk he had although you loved the one he gave you after a sweet and soft kiss the best, it held so much love and affection. You smiled at his look of concentration as he cleaned the dirt out from under his nails, even though you were pretty sure there was no dirt under them.

He felt your eyes on him and smirked, and he spoke without looking at you, “Enjoying the view, sweetheart.”

“Oh, most definitely. I love the bright streaks while in hyperspace.”

That got him to look at you, “Miss, that is not the view I was referring to.”

“Finn isn't in here, so I don't know what other view you're talking about.”

“(y/n), you're such a tease sometimes.”

“I know, but you love it.”

“Yeah, I do.”

Silence fell over the area again, but now you could tell everybody was awake because the chatter got louder and more movement was occurring.

“Hey, (y/n)?”

“Yeah Poe?”

“Thank you for doing this. Not just taking us to your home planet, but also deciding to join the Resistance.”

“You're welcome babe. I think the force guided me on this path; that I'm not super sensitive because the force has something greater and more fulfilling planned. And let me tell you, everything I've done with the Resistance is more fulfilling than anything I could have done if I stayed. And I got to meet you.”

“I think that is the best part. I love you, (y/n).”

“I love you, too, Poe.”

You went over and sat on his lap, resting your head on his shoulder while he held you. You fell asleep on his lap, and he held you until you awoke, watching the nav and the streaks of stars. When you finally woke up, you lifted your head and kissed his cheek.

He smiled, “Good morning, my sleeping beauty.”

“Good morning. Do you need me to take over while you get some sleep, babe?”

“Yes please.”

You stood up so Poe could move over to the co-pilot’s seat, “About 8 hours left, do you want me to wake you after a certain amount of time.”

“If I'm still asleep when we are 3 hours away, wake me up.”

“Alright. Sweet dreams, my love.”

He must have been hiding his exhaustion, since he was out within minutes. What did he do while you slept and how didn't he fall asleep too? You didn't realize his iron will was so strong, he probably would have forced himself to stay awake the whole time if you hadn't told him you knew how to fly anything. You couldn't help but admire his dedication to the Resistance, willing to push himself to the limits just to ensure everybody else was safe. These people are his family, and now yours too, and he would sacrifice himself if it meant saving anybody else from harm. You love but also hate this trait of his, you don't like seeing him hurt but the fact he wouldn't let anybody else get hurt if he had a say made your heart flutter.

You never expected to find love when you left home, people like you rarely found love at home due to the social stigma surrounding their lack of abilities. From the moment Poe laid his eyes on you the first time, you felt his attraction towards you. It was the strongest feeling you had felt, and you could even tell which direction it was coming from, but still not from who. It took a month until you realized it was him, and in the meantime you formed a crush on him, not knowing he was the one who liked you too. You were briefing him alone after a meeting about the mission he was about to go on when you realized out of all the emotions previously in the room, the only one that remained was the one that held attraction to you. You attempted to push through the force to Poe that you liked him too in hopes that he felt it and asked you out. While you aren't sure it worked, he did ask you out when you concluded the briefing, and you have been dating ever since. By dating Poe you got completely brought into the Resistance family faster than most newcomers. It hurt watching how many left but never came back from the time Poe returned after being tortured until leaving Crait. Hopefully once home, the Resistance could rebuild, and you could maybe provide something fulfilling for those without force abilities to do.

You were so lost in thought you nearly jumped out of your skin when Poe woke up and touched your arm.

He smiled and spoke, voice still gravelly with sleep, “Sorry about that, sweetheart, didn't mean to scare you. And it looks like I woke up just in time, almost 3 hours to go. What were you thinking so hard about?”

You couldn't help but return his smile, “A little bit of everything, sleeping beauty.”

He pointed at you accusingly, “Hey, I'm sleeping handsome, not sleeping beauty.”

“I’d say you are neither when your tongue is sticking out and drooling everywhere.”

He quickly at wiped his face, “I was WHAT!”

You snickered, “I was just kidding. You look like an angel while sleeping, you lose your air of mischief.”

Poe sighed, “Oh thank goodness, you had me really scared for a moment. And mischief?”

“Don't act surprised, you always have some wild plan. And you can't tell me the things you said to General Hux weren't mischievous.”

“You got me there. I'm going to grab some food, do you want me to bring anything back for you?”

“Yeah, bring me whatever I'll eat.”

“You got it.”

You heard Rey ask Poe if he needed a break, that she or Chewie could come take over the pilot’s seat and show you more of the ropes of flying while he rested. He politely declined the offer saying he just woke up and that we are close to our next stop. Returning with food, he sat down and handed you your portion. Once you both ate and he took care of the plates, he decided to sit across your lap while in the pilot's chair.

You began to playfully smack his shoulder, “Get off, you're too big for me!”

“That is the first time I've heard that come out of your mouth.”

“Oh my goodness Poe! Why are you like this?”

“I came as advertised, and you still chose me.”

“I think you used Jedi mind tricks on me.”

“How could I have done that? You are the most force sensitive in this relationship.”

“I don't know, just move, you're gonna break my fragile lady body.”

He got up then picked you up so he could reverse your previous seating arrangement, “Oh, you're fragile now too? I'm almost certain you have told me the opposite of that.”

“Stop twisting my words, Poe!”

He pulled you even closer to him to give you a bear hug, “Never!”

He began pecking kisses all over your face while you laughed. In between each kiss he whispered “I love you” and he would have continued the barrage of kisses forever, but after a while the computer beeped and the cockpit got darker, the ship had pulled out of hyperspace. You immediately turned your attention to the view-port, mesmerized by the beauty of your home system sitting in the distance, something you hadn't seen in years.

You pointed at one of the planets in the distance, “Mine is the bright green one. All the others are uninhabitable for more than a few days or completely due to climate, atmosphere, or native life. While it is lonely, it has been the main reason we have remained hidden for so long. Let me go get my communicator and then we can get closer and enter.”

“It is beautiful sweetheart. It is fitting that such a beautiful woman came from such a beautiful system. I'll be here waiting, my dear.”

You smiled at his comment, leaving a peck on his cheek before exiting. You went to the bunk that held your bag of belongings, and fished out the box that held the device. You weren't bothered since most had dozed off again or were in an area of the ship that you didn't pass through. As you walked back you turned on the device so it could boot up before you arrived, allowing you to send the message after you sat down. And exactly that happened, Poe watching in awe as you spoke in a code or language he didn't know, and having a response cackle back through the device’s speaker.

You sat down the device and looked over at Poe, “They are preparing for our arrival. I know where to land, so it is best if I just take over the flying, my love.”

Poe stood and stepped out of the way, “Of course, the Millennium Falcon is all yours to fly to our new home.”

You smiled to yourself, yes, a new home, a new beginning, among familiar faces and surroundings as a new person. Landing safely on your parents’ landing pad, everybody filed out of both the ship and the hangar building, you leading your new family to meet your original family, both truly being your real families.

The Resistance had a new home; there was no time wasted to work on a new plan to defeat the First Order, leaving no possibility behind; and much to your surprise, your home planet grew a new respect for those without the force. Everything was looking up, and you felt in the force that everything was and will be okay.

#poe dameron x reader #poe dameron x you #a-r-t creation #poe dameron/ you #poe dameron/ reader

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