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writingtoforgetreality · 3 years

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Speak Of The Devil (Malcolm Bright x Winchester!Reader) | Prodigal Son/Supernatural Crossover

[Prodigal Son-Masterlist], [Supernatural-Masterlist]

Summary: What started as a normal case for the NYPD ended in you needing help from your family. Malcolm had never met your brothers & they had no idea you were dating. Things were bound to get complicated, it was inevitable. Still, you had to focus on this case before another person got killed.

Words: 5,557

Warnings: spoilers for 2x02 (doesn’t follow the actual plot obviously), murder, demons, language, confused Malcolm, lil hint at Destiel (barely there, could be missed if you don’t pay attention - sorry, I couldn’t help myself), I don’t think I’ve ever had this much fun while writing something

If you like my work & wanna support me: a coffee would be highly appreciated ❤

The NYPD was assigned to solve a “creepy ass case”, as JT so lovingly put it. As Malcolm & you got to the crime scene, you understood what your fellow coworker had warned you about. Ugh, you hated churches with your guts. Well, that was not entirely true. But whenever a murder happened on a holy ground, nothing good ever came out of it. That was what you experienced before you started working for the police. Before that…you also worked for the police somehow? Just, they were not aware of that & you might have done some criminal things. For the greater good, though! Your brothers & you had saved thousands of people. They still did. You just needed to get out of this life & see if there was more for you to achieve. And there was. Not only did you find a great family who was also your team, at the same time you found Malcolm, your boyfriend.

Back to the case. Walking into a crime scene had always been bizarre to you. It showed you how close you still were to murder, even though you promised your brothers to distance yourself from it entirely. Technically, you did. This was different, though. At least you told yourself so. Gil, JT, Dani & Edrisa were already inspecting the scene when you two walked in. Oh no. This could not be good. The image in front of you seemed familiar & if it were not inappropriate to roll your eyes at a dead person, you would do it. Gil briefly explained the situation to you. Apparently the victim had been a member of the church for 30 years. The Lieutenant & Malcolm interrogated Sister Agnes. She was the one who found the body. There was another thing bothering you, so you did not really pay attention to whatever she was saying. Your focus was solely on JT, who had been through way too much to stand here & act as if everything was fine. A slight touch on his shoulder made him turn his head in your direction.

“Hey, you okay?” of course you were concerned about him. He was family, after all.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” he brushed you off as if he did not know what point you were trying to get across.

“Really? Because usually when Malcolm says he’s fine…well, he’s everything but.” a chuckle lightened the mood a little. You had to keep a closer eye on JT for the time being. Just in case.

“Our victim here performed an exorcism.” Malcolm’s statement let your eyes snap back to where he was standing. Edrisa smiled excitedly at him. This woman…She was the sweetest soul. Could be annoying, too. But in a sweet & loving way. Maybe she should turn down her excitement for murder. Who were you kidding? Your boyfriend was probably worse when it came to that. Wanting to have a closer look at the book Malcolm was referring to, you put your gloves on & carefully walked over to him. Trying not to mess up any possible clues left behind by the killer.

“Can I have a look?” you gestured to the small book & Malcolm handed it over to you. Shit. If you remembered correctly, there was a similar one back at the bunker. A look inside the pages confirmed your assumption. No need to freak out right away. There were tons of crazy people out there. Just because of this murder in this church & this book did not mean that there was anything supernatural involved. You just hoped it would stay that way. For everyone’s sake.

Your face fell when Edrisa said that there was a note left behind, written in blood. To the others, it looked like a sign without meaning. It looked familiar to you but you could not quite pinpoint where you remembered it from. Sister Agnes’ words made you stop in your tracks.

“Abaddon.” she breathed out. Sure, why the hell not? Okay, maybe this case was something for your brothers. But wait a damn minute…last time you checked, Abaddon was stabbed with the First Blade. She could not possibly be back, could she?

“Now we know our killer’s name.” Malcolm’s words gained the attention of the entire team. There was no way he had everything figured out already. You knew he was a great profiler but even that would have been too fast for him.

“Oh? Who is it?” Gil asked intrigued.

“You know.” Malcolm paused for a few moments. Probably for dramatic effect but what did you know? “The devil.” you could not help but laugh at his words. Great, now everyone was looking at you weirdly. Oh, he made a joke. Of course he did. Sometimes you forgot that you were not an active part of the hunting life anymore. A few coughs from you stopped the awkward tension in the room. At least a bit.

In no way did you want to defend Lucifer. He had made your life literal hell one too many times. But even he would not go as far & do something as cruel as this. Again, last time you checked, he was dead. But death did not agree with Lucifer. How many times had he died? You probably should not be the one to judge. You were not better by any means.

Excusing yourself to get some fresh air, you grabbed your phone out of your pocket. Hopefully he would pick up. It had been a while since you last talked. The phone rang & rang & slowly you lost hope. Maybe he really was mad at you for being radio silent for so long.

“(Y/N)?” his voice startled you slightly.

“Sam! Uh, hi.” suddenly you turned shy.

“It’s so good to hear from you! How are you?” he was happy that you decided to call after so long.

“I’m good, thanks. Actually, I need to ask you for a favor…” you started.

“What is it? Everything alright?” Sam was growing concerned. Back then, you hated relying on another person, too stubborn to ask for help, because you wanted to do everything on your own.

“There’s a case here in New York…I believe it’s your kind. And I genuinely don’t think I can deal with this on my own.”

“But you’re safe, right?”

“I am, as safe as one can be.” you chuckled. Working for the police & all that. Not that you would tell Sam on the phone. If they were to come by, he would find out sooner or later. “I’ll send you the details, alright? Be here as fast as you can.”

“Okay, no problem. Take care, okay?”

“You too. See you soon.” wow, you were about to see your brothers again. Hopefully everything would be fine & nobody would rip your head off.

“See you, (Y/N).” Sam ended the call & you let out a breath you did not know you were holding.

The phone call should stay a secret for the time being. People breaking out in panic was everything but convenient. Besides, you did not need your team looking at you like you were a lunatic. Malcolm explained possession trance disorder when you joined everyone again. How could one human being know so much about so many unimportant things? Like, this man was a human dictionary. Looking over at Gil, you had to grin by how hard he was trying to make sense of what Malcolm was saying. Gil noticed you staring at him & gave you a look. The one that made you not want to mess with him. Still, you laughed shortly, you could not keep it in any longer. Malcolm gave you a questioning look but you simply shrugged him off by a wave of your hand.

The last interrogation of the day was with the guy who was currently doing the painting job inside the church. Unfortunately, you did not get any more information. Everything he told you, you had already heard from the others. Basically, after interrogating everyone, you were certain that this was not a common case for the NYPD. And you were more than happy that your brothers were on their way to come over. How would you explain any of this to Malcolm? He knew you had two brothers but you had also told him that you were not necessarily talking, only when it came to emergencies. Great, Malcolm would freak out. Even more so than normal, probably.

“Why do we have to visit your father again?” you shot the question at Malcolm as you were walking over the psychiatric yard, looking for Martin. He rolled his eyes at you, exhausted by your constant questioning.

“I’ve explained it a thousand times, (Y/N).”

“Well, I don’t see how any of this is connected to him.” you argued. Whenever Malcolm had the great idea to visit his father, you tagged along. Simply because you knew it was always hard for him & you wanted to support him wherever you could. Right now, though, you were losing your patience. After all, you knew the cause of this case. But your brothers had yet to arrive so you should play along for now.

“Malcolm, my boy. (Y/N)! Always nice to see you.” Martin started, excited to see his son accompanied by you. The first time you visited Martin, he took an immediate liking to you. Probably because he could see that you were good for Malcolm & his son meant the world to him. Still, he was a narcissistic psychopath. Remembering clearly how he had told you that everyone had flaws during your first meeting. Ah, good times.

“I wish I could say the same, Dr. Whitly.” a sarcastic smile plastered on your face. From then on, you let Malcolm do the talking, not really paying attention to what he was saying. Your thoughts were with your brothers, hoping they would get their asses here quickly before you had to endure more of this bullshit. It was frustrating when you knew how to solve this case but there was nobody you could talk to, not about this. Malcolm desperately tried searching for a non-supernatural explanation. Of course he did. And you just stood by, not being helpful at all. Malcolm did notice your quietness but did not comment on it. Not when you were with his father. He would ask you later today, when you were back at home.

Sam sent you a message earlier today, asking for your address to meet up. This meant that they would not take much longer. The knock on the door was confirmation enough. Malcolm walked over, ready to open it & you did not have enough time to warn him. Oh, this was bound to be fun.

“Uh…Hello?” Malcolm, everyone. Great first impression.

“You’re not (Y/N).” you could make out Dean’s voice. Walking up to where Malcolm was standing in the doorway, you looked over his shoulder & smiled at your brothers. They really were here, it had been too long. Softly pushing Malcolm out of the way, you pulled both of them in a long overdue hug. It was only then when you realized how much you had missed them. Malcolm observed the interaction from afar, confusion obviously shown on his face. Right now, you could only focus on the men in front of you, though.

“It’s good to see you guys again.” smiling widely at them. Sam nodded at you & even Dean could not hide the small smile that was forming on his face.

“I’m sorry…Can I help you guys?” Malcolm spoke up, waiting for answers from either you or the strangers that now entered his apartment.

“No, but we’ll help you.” Dean walked over to Malcolm & patted his shoulder.

“Sam, Dean. This is Malcolm. Malcolm. These are my brothers.” you awkwardly introduced them to each other. Malcolm’s mouth hang open & he could not form a coherent sentence.

“Nice to meet you.” Sam held out his hand & it took Malcolm a second to shake it.

“Your brothers?” Malcolm whisper-yelled.

“Yeah?”

“And what are they doing here?” it was not his intention to sound rude, you knew that. Yet, he seemed rather frustrated because you clearly knew they were coming over but decided against telling your boyfriend.

“Remember when I told you that they had a similar job to ours?” Malcolm nodded at you. “This case we’re working on…that’s one of their kind. We wouldn’t be able to solve it without their help.” you tried explaining.

“We have the best working team out there! Of course we could’ve solved it alone!” but you simply shook your head at him. He would understand sooner or later.

Sam & Dean sat down on the expensive couch, Dean putting his feet on the coffee table. Good thing Malcolm did not care too much about his furniture. Malcolm & you brought drinks from the kitchen & sat across from them. Dean only eyed Malcolm, though. The inevitable was about to happen, you just hoped Malcolm would deliver accordingly.

“Who the hell are you?” he was judging Malcolm & neither Sam’s elbow nudging him nor your dirty look changed the way he looked at him. What could you say? Dean was very protective of you, even after ages of not talking.

“Malcolm Bright, profiler for the NYPD.” that made the brothers’ eyebrows raise. Thank God he did not let slip that he was the son of a serial killer.

“You’re working for the police?” Sam eyed Malcolm, now being confused as to why you would get them involved with the police even though you were aware of what they had been through.

“Well, yeah. I mean, (Y/N) & I met there.” Malcolm reasoned. Great, the cat was out of the bag now.

��Seriously (Y/N)?” Dean looked…disappointed?

“Okay, wait a minute. Let me explain!” Sam & Dean nodded at you to continue. “When I left you guys, I really tried to leave this life behind. I did. But I still wanted to help people. So…one thing came to another & then I was part of the NYPD &-“ you were interrupted by Dean, of course.

“And slept around with this guy?” Dean looked Malcolm over & you rolled your eyes at him. Malcolm looked offended but stayed silent.

“This guy is my boyfriend. And his name is Malcolm.” you defended him. “And I asked you to help me with this case, not with my dating life.” looking at Dean sternly, he nodded at you & apologized. He could get caught up in the heat of the moment but you had more important things to focus on.

Throughout your talk, Malcolm sent you questioning looks every now & then. You brushed him off, telling him you would explain it later. Sam & Dean got the message & tried keeping the talk casual. Clearly, your boyfriend did not know about the supernatural & it would be better if it stayed that way.

“Okay, so tomorrow, we’ll talk to Norman & see what we can find out.” Malcolm concluded after some long confusing hours.

“Sammy & I need some sleep after that long ass drive anyway. We’ll be meeting at his house first thing in the morning. Don’t be late.” when he said that, he stared at Malcolm. Rolling your eyes at his childish antics, you slapped him lightly on the chest.

“Do you wanna stay here for the night?” you asked when they were walking to the front door.

“Um, no. We’re checked in at the motel a few blocks down. Besides…” Dean gestured wildly with his hands. “This entire apartment looks too luxurious for us. How did you get so much money anyway?” Dean asked, again motioning at the expensive looking apartment.

“It’s actually Malcolm’s…I moved in not too long ago.” explaining to both of them. Sam nodded, looking satisfied with your current living situation. Dean, of course, had another thing to comment on.

“Oh wow, (Y/N)…Good catch.” winking at you, you shoved him out of the apartment, shaking your head.

“Good night!” you said before closing the door behind them, letting out a long sigh.

“Your brothers are…nice.” Malcolm started. You winced at his choice of words. In your head, it all worked out way better.

“I’m sorry, Mal…They can be quite protective.”

“No, it’s fine, I get it. They’re, uh, very into this religious thing, huh?”

“Oh, you have noooo idea.” you chuckled.

“Why didn’t you tell me they were coming by?”

“I don’t know…I guess I didn’t want you to think that you’re not good enough for this case.”

“But?”

“But I need you to trust me when I tell you that Sam & Dean are the ones who should handle this one.”

“I trust you, you know that, (Y/N). But you have to give me permission to say “I told you so.” when we solve this case without their help.” Malcolm held out his hand for you to shake.

“Deal.” you smiled at him. Your brothers & boyfriend might not become best friends but you did not expect them to. All you wanted was to get rid of whatever killed that priest. And you knew that the supernatural feared Sam & Dean. This would be over soon.

“You sure these are the same guys who were at our apartment yesterday?” Malcolm whispered to you when you were approaching two men in suits. Not their usual flannel attire, they were working a job after all.

“Just play along, alright?” Malcolm nodded at you. He promised to trust you on this & you seemed like you knew what you were doing.

“Detectives.” Dean greeted you.

“Shut up.” you threw back almost immediately. Sam & Dean laughed at your comment.

“I missed you, lil sis.” Dean said with a genuine tone, one that made you smile wildly.

“Alright, let’s do this.” Sam knocked on the door, waiting for it to open. They introduced themselves as FBI & showed the woman in the doorway their badges. Shooting Malcolm a look as if to say “Don’t ask.” & he just acted as if he had not seen this. The woman led you upstairs to a room. She warned you to not cross the salt lines. All of you nodded. Well, all but Malcolm. The poor man could not understand a thing. Sometimes you wished you were this innocent when it came to cases like this. If it were not for Malcolm, this would have felt like the good old days when you spent your time solving case after case with your brothers. Yeah, it had been dangerous & exhausting but you still liked being a hunter. Also, the three of you were one hell of a team.

The door opened & you were met with countless geometrical lines made out of salt. Because a simple circle would not do the job or what? Fucking show-off. Careful not to mess with the salt, the four of you stepped inside the dark room. Norman’s back was facing you. While Sam & Dean simply took in the room to check for any indicators of anything supernatural, Malcolm started interrogating Norman. You signaled the boys to let him do his job.

“The salt keeps him out.” suddenly, Norman’s voice was way deeper than when he first started talking. Weird guy. Still, you did not think it was him.

“Who?” Malcolm asked in a calm voice. He was good at this. Even though he almost always got himself killed.

“The demon.” Norman said. What the hell was wrong with him? Malcolm turned around to you & found the three of you rolling your eyes. Really desperate if a person wanted to be a demon.

“He’s clearly mentally ill.” Malcolm stated quietly.

“Oh, really?” you sarcastically shot back. Who would have thought? Malcolm started lifting one of his foot, meaning to cross the line.

“Mal, wait. Don’t.” you warned him but when did Malcolm ever listen? You were not sure how Norman even noticed Malcolm crossing the line, his back was still facing you after all, but all of a sudden things escalated. Apparently, Norman thought Malcolm was a demon. He was everything but, really. He just had some demons to fight but he was not one. Norman was grabbing a lamp, wanting to attack Malcolm with it but you got everything sorted before anything bad could happen. Norman was on his way in the hospital & you were just glad that everyone was fine.

When all of you were outside the house again, Sam & Dean looked annoyed.

“Dude, we wasted time with this madman.” Dean started. “That’s bullshit.”

“Dean, stop.” you cut him off before the situation got too intense. “He was the only suspect we had. We couldn’t have known he was mentally ill.”

“We should check out the church tonight.” Sam suggested.

“Why at night?” Malcolm asked curiously.

“Oh, look how precious he is.” Dean mocked. If he kept acting that way you might as well salt & burn his bones next. Turning to Malcolm, you tried reasoning with him.

“Because we can’t risk people watching us. Not when we’re doing this.” Malcolm understood but he also planned a lot of questions for when you were back home.

“Alright, we’ll meet there later. Dean & I will take care of everything we might need.” Sam said before walking off to Baby.

“I see you took great care of her.” nudging Dean, motioning at the beautiful ’67 Chevy Impala. Another thing you had missed dearly. Countless nights had been spent in the backseat, you associated this car with a lot of happy memories.

“Always.” Dean smiled at you. “Baby misses you, too, you know?”

“I’m sure she does. After all, I had the brains. Of course she misses my smartness.” Dean shook his head at you, rolling his eyes at the same time. Saying goodbye & turning around, Malcolm gave you a look.

“What?”

“Baby? Her? You sure you were talking about the car?” oh, that was bothering him. Now you understood.

“It’s a long story.” you laughed & gave him a kiss on the cheek before walking past him. He let out a short laugh & smiled at your actions.

“(Y/N)? I think we should talk.” Malcolm started shortly after you entered your shared apartment.

“Oh no…that’s never a good sign.”

“What’s going on here?” you could tell he was serious. Fuck, you hated lying to him. One of the reasons why you had barely mentioned your brothers was to avoid questions you did not want to answer. It was now or never. Telling Malcolm to sit down, you were about to start at the very beginning. There were still a few hours left before you had to be at the church, might as well use it appropriately. Hopefully, Malcolm did not decide to leave you after opening up to him.

“So…you’re telling me that monsters are real, your brothers hunt them down & you used to help them before you left.” you nodded when Malcolm tried processing what you had just told him. “And my girlfriend saved the world more than once.” he concluded.

“Pretty much, yeah.” he was silent for a few seconds. That would be the moment he would ask you to leave.

“My girlfriend is a badass.” Malcolm mumbled & started laughing then. You joined in.

“Really? That’s all you have to say?” you questioned, not really believing that he dealt with it so casually.

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m freaking out.” he confessed. “You know, makes me think of all the cases we couldn’t solve. Maybe we weren’t successful because of…supernatural beings playing a part. But honestly, it’s just another thing that got added to my plate. Nothing I can’t handle.”

“Mal…”

“No, really. I mean it. Besides, now I know that if I ever meet a monster, you’re here to fight it off. Or your brothers. If I were a monster, I’d be scared as shit of them.” Malcolm finished & you laughed, throwing your entire body back on the couch. That actually went quite well? At least something positive.

Churches were creepy in general. But churches at night? That was a whole other level of madness. You met Sam & Dean at the Impala, Dean’s face buried in the trunk, looking for suitable weapons. Malcolm had promised not to question your actions & you were thankful for it. Because you had other things to focus on. Dean handed out weapons which you gladly accepted.

“Mal? You gotta promise me to stay behind.” concerning eyes met his & he knew better than to argue with you. Malcolm gulped but nodded anyway.

“You ready to do this?” Sam asked.

“I am but I think (Y/N)’s a little rusty.” Dean commented.

“Just...let’s get this over with…” rolling your eyes at Dean, you hated to admit that he was most likely right. You had not been on a hunt in a very long time but you knew you could fight when push came to shove.

The four of you entered the church silently, weapons at ready. After walking around for a while, Dean lifted his hand to stop you all. Trying to get a better look at what made him freeze, you were shocked when you saw Jonah, the painter, pacing these holy grounds. Why did you not think of him? It was quite obvious, really. Maybe you were getting rusty.

“Well, he is a demon, no doubts, but he isn’t Abaddon.” Dean spoke, quietly enough as to not get caught. “So if you guys distract this son of a bitch, I can catch him off guard from behind & stab him.”

“No, wait. You can’t kill him, Dean.” you argued. There was still a possibility of a human being somewhere inside.

“What? Why?” Dean turned towards you & tilted his head in confusion. Sighing out, you tried to talk some sense into him.

“Let Sam do an exorcism. We don’t know if Jonah’s still in there.” Dean thought about this for a few seconds but nodded afterwards. Sam grabbed an old lore book with the exorcism inside. He remembered the words by heart but better safe than sorry, right? Your plan was to stay hidden, the church was dark enough to do that without getting caught.

The demon was confused when he heard the first words of the exorcism, already struggling to stay inside Jonah. Good, he was not a strong one. Malcolm stayed close with you. Sam & Dean each took one side of the church, just in case something went wrong. Sam continued with the latin words & the demon was unable to move anymore. He was trapped in one place. That was when all of you made yourself shown to him. Hopefully, Jonah was still alive in there. If not, you had a lot of explaining to do. You already had but another dead person would make everything even more complicated.

“I AM ABADDON!” the demon screamed & you noticed that he barely had enough strength to stay in Jonah’s body anymore. Malcolm stayed in the background, simply observing & letting you do your job.

“I’m sure you wanna be, pal.” Dean got closer to the demon but not too close for it to be dangerous. “But we got rid of her a long time ago.” and it was true. Abaddon’s death was years ago. Why this demon thought to be her? You were not sure. But you also did not care. You just wanted this to be over. Sam finished the ritual & black smoke came out of Jonah’s mouth. After that, he fell to the floor & all of you ran over to him. Malcolm checked for a pulse & nodded when he felt it. Letting out a breath, you were glad that you could save him. Grabbing your phone out of your pocket, you dialed 911 & called Gil right after.

In no time, cars were surrounding the church. Sam, Dean, Malcom & you were standing in a small circle outside. Gil approached you.

“What the hell happened? And who the hell are you guys?” the second question was directed at your brothers who coughed a little, not knowing how to answer. Time to sell a little fake story.

“Gil, these are Sam & Dean, my brothers.” Gil shook both men’s hands.

“Didn’t know you had brothers.” he noted.

“Long story…Anyway, they came to visit & stayed at our apartment. They kinda overheard Malcolm & I talking about the case. Sam, here, has the brains-“

“Hey!” Dean feigned hurt at your words.

“And he pieced everything together. We didn’t wanna waste time & before I even had the chance to call you, we had already caught him.” as soon as you finished, Malcolm joined in to help with your little white lie.

“Jonah was poisoned by the lead in the paint he was using. It can cause dissociative behavior that can be mistaken for possession.” thank God for Malcolm “Human Dictionary” Bright. Gil could not argue with this so he simply went back over to the rest of the team. Nice job.

“Thanks guys.” addressing Sam & Dean.

“So that’s it, huh?” Sam asked, sad that he knew he had to let you go again. Yet, he supported your decision.

“Hey, Malcolm?” Dean looked at him. “I wanna show you something, come on.” Malcolm followed Dean to the black car which left you alone with Sam.

“He’s gonna kill him, isn’t he?” Sam laughed at your words.

“Possibly.” then he turned serious again. “I miss you.” Sam confessed, his jaw clenching.

“I miss you, too, Sammy.” looking up at him, you continued. “And I’m sorry for disappearing off the radar. It’s just…when I left, this entire starting new thing took more time than I thought it would.”

“I get it & I’m not asking you to come back with us. I can see that you like it here. You’ve finally found your happiness & by the way Malcolm looks at you? He’s utterly in love with you, (Y/N). Take care of yourself, okay?”

“I will, I promise. You, too. Call me when you’re starting the next apocalypse.” you joked with him. He then pulled you into a big hug, one that you had missed so much. Sam always gave the best hugs.

“What is it?” Malcolm asked Dean, nervous as to why he wanted to talk to him alone.

“Look, man, (Y/N)’s my little sister & I’d do anything for her. So if you ever hurt her…know that I’ll beat the crap outta you.” Malcolm gulped but found enough courage to answer him.

“I love (Y/N). I’d never to do anything to hurt her. I get why you worry, I do. But she’s safe here. I promise.”

“Hey Dean, go easy on him.” their heads snapped in the direction your voice was coming from. By the smile on your face, he knew you were joking. Sam & you reached the car.

“I’ll miss you.” approaching Dean, you were more than satisfied when he opened his arms for you to pull you into a hug. He pressed a soft kiss on top of your head before releasing you again.

“Malcolm promised me to keep you safe.”

“Did he now?” turning around, eyeing your boyfriend with a smirk.

“Check in with us, okay?” Dean grew serious.

“I will, I promise. You guys take care of yourselves, okay?” both men nodded. “Tell Cas I said hi. How are you two doing anyway?” you stopped briefly to wink at him which made Sam chuckle quietly. “And bring him next time.”

“Alright, goodbye.” Dean said, laughing at you, Sam joining him.

“Bye, guys.” you waved at them when they got into the car.

Leaning into Malcolm’s side, you could feel his arm sneaking around your waist to keep your close. For a few moments, you stood there in silence, watching the Impala slowly disappear out of your view.

“Do I need to be jealous of this Cas guy?” Malcolm asked all of a sudden & you broke out into laughter. His confused face was hilarious.

“Trust me, Mal. If you meet him, you’ll know that there’s no need to be jealous.” tears were threatening to escape your eyes. The simple image of you & Cas together made you laugh out loud.

“I guess I need to trust you on that.”

“Hey, remember what you said when you thought we wouldn’t need help solving this case?” you asked him, changing the topic entirely. His face showed you that he did, in fact, not remember.

“I told you so.” you smirked at him, enjoying how his smile slowly faltered. Rolling his eyes at you, he wanted to say a witty remark. You knew what he was trying to do but before he had the chance, you silenced him with a long, soft kiss. That always managed to do the job. Pulling away after a few seconds, you lovingly stared into his eyes. This moment could have been overly romantic. If it were not for you putting salt into his wound.

“I told you so.” repeating your previous words, you walked away from him, sarcastically smiling as you did so. You were right about this & Malcolm prepared himself to hear the same words over & over from now on.

Published (04/15/2021) by Cathy

Tags: @thefictionalgemini, @prodigalsonlovingbisexual, @octopus5555, @claudiaparker30, @the-unknown-fan-girl, @popcornanon, @jasminetea-andpaisho, @anatanotegami, @blackandwhitejoker (thanks for your support <3)

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jess-rewatches-prodigalson · 3 years

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Take Your Father to Work Day (S2, E4)

As many people have said: This is one of the STRONGEST Prodigal Son episodes to date. It was incredible. My time-stamped thoughts for this episode are below.

I reference Malcolm’s mental health and sexual violence in this one. So if that’s going to be a trigger for you, don’t keep reading.

SPOILERS AHEAD:

0:16 - OMG. Destiny’s Child. Whoever is in charge of the soundtrack for this show needs a raise. Or an award. It’s SOO GOOD.

0:18 - How great is this montage of Martin’s prison life too? I mean the insane mundanity of it combined with “Survivor” and Michael Sheen’s incredible acting is some perfect mix between hilarious, captivating, and just brilliant.

1:06 - I feel so bad for Mr.David. He has to deal with Martin’s theatrics every day. Poor guy looks done in this episode.

1:35 - CAN HECTOR BECOME A BIGGER CHARACTER?! PLEASE. He’s hilarious and I love him. “Bro. You got your ass jumped at Sunday School.”

2:09 - Wait. What? Jerry’s getting released?!? I mean, I understand that he’s no longer in need of psychiatric care......but he still killed someone. Shouldn’t he just be getting transferred to a different prison?

2:25 - Does Jerry have a death wish?!?! He’s talking about being released in a room full of jealous murderers. Everyone looks sooooo pissed at Jerry.

2:54 - Martin is such a liar. However - Michael Sheen’s performance is astoundingly good. Like he shines brighter than usual in this episode.

3:17 - Poor Malcolm. “What’s going on?” Poor boy looks terrified.

3:23 - I love everything about this scene. I love how freaked out Malcolm is. I love you extra Jessica is. BUT HANS. Holy shit. I want Hans in every episode. He’s crazy in a good way and such a beautiful comedic relief.

3:30 - OMG. “Skinny milennial” might be the best thing anyone has ever called Malcolm. Someone please tell JT and Dani - hell, even Gil. They would tease him forever and I want to see it.

3:45 - 1) Malcolm is a terrible liar. 2) Jessica knows he’s lying. 3) This story about the wine is interesting. I wonder when and how Malcolm first told Jessica the story. Was it the same night? AND HOW DID ENDICOTT’S BODY END UP IN ESTONIA?!? I WANT MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THAT NIGHT.

3:54 - “Ainsley and I came back from the hospital after Gil’s stabbing.”....we never saw Ainsley at the hospital. Was she there and left before Malcolm got there? Or is this a plot hole I need to ignore?

4:05 - The way that the flashbacks of Endicott’s murder is spliced into this scene with Malcolm’s cover story is so perfectly executed. It’s so captivating and so so well done.

4:14 - Malcolm’s eyes look quite manic during the retelling of this story. Poor guy is desperate to have everyone believe the story. Poor guy probably wants to convince himself that the story is true.

4:16 - Wait. What? Ainsley has always been clumsy? .....interesting. I’ve seen no evidence of it but I’ll believe it for the sake of the plot.

4:23 - “At least one of you has a soul.” Holy shit. hahaha Hans is brutal. I love him so much. I also love how this line makes me, as a viewer, think “does that mean the writers want me to think that Ainsley doesn’t have a soul?” ...or more likely that she doesn’t feel emotion (which can be interpreted as a lack of a soul). That she’s a psychopath like Martin?

4:27 - OMG. Jessica loves Hans. He speaks to her dramatic rich woman soul. So entertaining.

4:30 - Poor. Malcolm. This boy is always in some sort of emotional turmoil. For once I wish he was happy (but also I love the emotional whump so if that could continue that would be great).

4:44 - “It’s so much more than that.” *chef’s kiss* comedic genius. I would watch a whole episode of Mr.David making fun of Martin. But can we all just take a minute to appreciate that Martin doesn’t seem bothered at all that Mr.David is basically verbally telling him that he sucks? It’s almost like Martin thinks they’re friends?

4:50 - Martin is strangely chill talking to Mr.David in this scene. It’s a little off-putting. He almost seems normal. He’s not putting on his usual theatrics or ranting about doctor stuff. It makes you wonder how many different sides of Martin that Mr.David has witnessed.

5:01 - “Oh no. Not Jerry.” LMAO. HOLY SHIT. Michael Sheen needs an Emmy. His delivery of that line might be the funniest thing this show has ever given us. hahahahaha

5:29 - Damn. This is not Gil’s month. First Jessica dumps him. Then he has to deal with Martin Whitly in the flesh. That plus the on-going drama of worrying about Malcolm’s mental health and the stress of reintegrating into work after a STAB WOUND.

5:31 - Gil’s face. hahahahaha he’s like, “Kill me. This can’t be happening. I hate everything. I wish the ground would open up and swallow me whole.”

5:37 - “Yeah. Why’d you do it?” GIL. OMG. I’m so proud of Gil for dissing Martin to his face. BUT ALSO I worry that that’s going to give Martin more of a reason to hate Gil. I’m genuinely scared that the writers have Martin escaping as the pre-finale episode and Martin trying to kill Gil as the finale. Maybe Gil shows up trying to save Malcolm, AInsley, and Jessica (whom Martin is trying to abduct or hurt or something) idk I just feel like it’s going to be a likely subplot somewhere. I don’t want an attempt on Gil’s life to become a season finale tradition.

5:56 - Ew. “Gilly” That is a terrible nickname. I think I threw up a little.

6:00 - Damn. I love this scene. I could watch Martin and Gil pretending to be civil to each other for years. So entertaining.

6:29 - hahahahaha OMG. Gil’s reaction to Martin saying, “Thank you” PLUS Edrisa’s sudden excitement at realizing she’s 10 ft away from Malcolm’s Dad - a medical legend, is magical.

6:35 - Not gonna lie. When Edrisa said, “Ok. I’m gonna play it cool.” I had to pause my TV and walk away to calm down. I was experiencing a mixture of second hand embarrassment for Edrisa’s inevitable behaviour, excitement for what is to come, and fear that Martin would be a jerk to our precious Edrisa.

6:44 - Edrisa and Martin interacting was everything I’d hoped. It was strange, funny, sweet, and disturbing at the same time. The sweet, eccentric girl who attends cuddle parties is getting buddy-buddy with a literal serial killer. Hilarious. Even better is Gil’s background reactions as he desperately tries to keep Edrisa away from the psychopath. hahaha <3

7:12 - Gil is currently living in a nightmare. hahahahaha

7:47 - I love this. I love how Malcolm and Ainsley interact. Malcolm is such a good big brother. IDK something about these two adult siblings chilling on a couch and warning each other about Mom’s current rampage reminds me of myself and my younger brother. <3 Warms my cold dead heart. <3 PLUS has anyone else noticed that (as long as Ainsley isn’t hounding Malcolm about a story or airing out his mental health diagnoses like the bs from Q&A) Malcolm is extremely calm around Ainsley. Like maybe the calmest we’ve ever seen him?

8:20 - “Oh Ainsley, that’s a horrible idea.” This is adorable. Malcolm is totally acting like Ainsley’s surrogate dad. He’s trying so hard to protect her. <3

8:42 - There’s something about the way that Malcolm says, “Hey Gil” that makes my heart swell. Idk why. I just their father/son relationship. So much. And it makes me so happy to see Malcolm having semi-normal interactions with people in general.

8:48 - This. Is. The. Funniest. Episode. Of. Prodigal. Son. To. Date. Holy shit. The comical dread on Malcolm’s face. Martin’s glee on the phone. Gil’s general “done with life” body language. Ainsley’s utter joy at her luck. MALCOLM DRAINING THE ALKA-SELTZER. Ainsley saying “chug chug”. So perfect.

9:27 - Is it just me or has Jessica been showing way more concern for her children’s well-being this season? At first I thought it was because she was so happy with Gil....but that’s not a thing anymore (because Jessica is a MORON - seriously if this show gets cancelled before Gil and Jessica are living happily ever after I will riot) so now Idk.

10:02 - EDRISA WHY DID YOU NOT TELL GIL AND MALCOLM THAT THE SURGEON WAS ON THE PHONE?!? For a hot second, poor Malcolm looks like he thinks he’s hallucinating.

10:40 - Gil hanging up on Martin and then telling Edrisa that she needs to make new friends is everything. It’s vicious. Gil looks absolutely furious in this scene and I love it.

11:07 - Yo. Edrisa’s got some baggage. hahaha Malcolm looks soooo uncomfortable with her outburst.

11:18 - I would pay good money to watch Martin and Gil have a pissing match in front of Malcolm every episode. It’s amazing. They’re constantly trying to one-up each other. The tension is palatable. And someone Malcolm is the only one acting like a mature, working adult. Malcolm. My mentally unstable, skinny millennial.

11:34 - OH SHIT. Martin did not just bring Jessica into this. Oh SNAP. Does Martin know that Jessica dumped Gil?!?

11:56 - “I’m going to need a little more than that.” Damn. Malcolm looks pissed here. Pretty sure he hates that Martin just brought up Gil/Jessica. Malcolm’s bio-dad and real dad are fighting and it’s very clear that Malcolm is on Gil’s side.

12:17 - The look that Gil and Malcolm share here is perfect. I love it so much. You can see how annoyed they both are, how much they hate that they need Martin on this case, how much neither of them want Martin’s help. <3

12:23 - SOMEONE GIVE GIL A MEDAL. This man just grit his teeth, smiled, and let MARTIN WHITLY - the man who tried to KILL HIM work on his case. Why? Because Malcolm silently asked him to. Because Gil loves Malcolm and knows that it’s better for Martin to work with them officially than for Malcolm to work with Martin in secret. At least this way he can look out for Malcolm.

12:42 - “It’s taken Dr. Marsh years...” soooo was Dr. Marsh the name of the Asian doctor leading group therapy last season? Is this just a new actor, same character scenario? OR am I supposed to forget that Asian doctor existed last season?

13:04 - I can’t tell if Gil hates this whole “father-son in group therapy idea”. He looks kind of like he hates it (although he is looking at Martin in the shot). I’m inclined to think that Gil is worried. He doesn’t like how nice Martin is acting toward Malcolm. He doesn’t want Malcolm to get hurt again. BUT I also think there’s probably a part of Gil that thinks group therapy might be beneficial for Malcolm’s mental health? I mean it was only ever going to be terrible or amazing. Nothing in between.

13:12 - “They hate you don’t they?” GIL BRINGING THE FIRE. hahahaha angry Gil is really funny.

13:43 - OH HELL YES. More Hector. <3

13:46 - hahaha YES. Hector this is Malcolm - the son. You know, the one you had to role-play? hahaha I feel like Hector is a really cool dude (aside from the murder).

13:53 - Damn. Hector pays attention in group. He has a lot of info about Malcolm. I would’ve thought the other inmates would just tune Martin out when he starts his monologues.��

13:59 - “He’s got a thing with hands?” hahahaha OMG. How did I never connect the hand thing. DOES Malcolm have a thing with hands? ....I kind of want that to be cannon?

14:00 - “You’re crazier than me.” Ouch. That must’ve hurt. Think about it - Malcolm is ridden with guilt about Endicott. He’s haunted by what he experienced as a kid and by what his father is. Malcolm believes he’s broken beyond repair. On some level Malcolm thinks he’s crazy. Now a literal killer just told him he’s crazy. That just affirms what Malcolm already believes about himself. :( PLUS right after Hector tells Malcolm that he’s crazy - the camera pans to Martin. MARTIN looks scared. Martin is losing control of the situation and he doesn’t like it. Martin knows on some level that he ruined Malcolm’s mental health. He almost looks a little guilty?

14:31 - FINALLY. We have a cannon occurrence of someone calling Malcolm “Mal” (or “Malc” if you’re going by HULU’s subtitles?). I hope the writers start having people call Malcolm by Mal/Malc more often.

14:35 - I can’t ignore it anymore. DID HECTOR HAVE THAT SCAR ON HIS FACE LAST SEASON?!? I DON’T REMEMBER IT.

14:38 - YES YES. Malcolm looks angry. I LOVE IT. Scream at him Malcolm! Give him hell!

15:03 - Yikes. Malcolm sounds like he’s about to cry here. :( My heart breaks for him. .....I wonder if this is the first time Martin has ever heard how much pain he caused Malcolm straight from Malcolm? Martin looks hella uncomfortable here.

15:25 - The inmates (literal murderers) empathizing with Malcolm is twisted, beautiful, and haunting. These guys understand how much it sucks to hang out with Martin. These guys can see the real pain in Malcolm’s expression. They know he isn’t lying. Part of me honestly wonders if one of them is going to try and hurt Martin for Malcolm. They looked pissed enough by the end of the conversation that I kind of believe they might.

16:00 - Malcolm is not acting here. For once he’s not projecting his problems onto potential suspects. He’s just venting to suspects. No pretence. I love it. BUT 100% of me wants to know where Gil is during this session. Is Gil listening? Is the session being recorded for evidence? There’s no way Gil (or Dani) wouldn’t confront Malcolm about this. Even if they just asked him if he’s okay.

16:10 - hahahaha look at Doctor Marsh. He’s like “ooookkkkkaaaayyyy. I’m a psychiatrist in a psychiatric facility for people who have committed violent crimes. BUT THIS IS THE NUTTIEST THING I’VE EVER SEEN.”

16:12 - Look at the way Martin narrows his eyes. He’s trying to figure out if Malcolm is acting. He’s finally realizing that Malcolm truly hates what Martin subjected him to as a child. I honestly think this interaction will cause Martin to shift his “become a murderer like me” agenda from Malcolm to Ainsley. He’s finally seen the depth of Malcolm’s hatred and pain and knows deep down that Malcolm will never turn into a serial killer. But there’s still hope for Ainsley. That’s not to say that Martin won’t stop gaslighting Malcolm - he totally will.

17:10 - Martin has been at Claremont for 20 YEARS. How is it that he didn’t know a gold card existed?!?

17:21 - I honestly thought Marsh was going to get shanked. For the gold card. No other reason.

18:07 - It’s not supposed to be funny but Burt freaking out and punching Marsh is HYSTERICAL. hahahahaha

18:10 - That guard who pushed Malcolm out of the room and into a safe area? He’s in my good books. Every time I watch him push Malcolm to safety I want to give him a hug. Just for doing his job. What the hell is wrong with me?!?

18:18 - UGH. I hate that creepy, satisfied look that Martin gives Malcolm. It’s the same look he gave baby Malcolm in the pilot. It’s the “we’re the same” look and it clearly bothers Malcolm. :(

18:26 - Oh look. 18 minutes into the episode and we finally have a Dani appearance!! annnnnnd no mention of JT. I mean, I get it. He’s on paternity leave. I’m happy for him. BUT TWO EPISODES WITHOUT A JT APPEARANCE IS TORTURE. At least give me a throw away line about how happy JT is or about the baby!?? Honestly - it’s my biggest gripe with this episode.

18:56 - soooo either Dr. Marsh is a terrible psychiatrist OR you can’t “cure” murderers.

19:08 - The NYPD knows that Martin cured Jerry?!? HOW? Did Mr. David get Martin to admit to shocking him? Did Mr. David tell the police?!? I don’t remember Martin telling Malcolm. I specifically remember Malcolm saying, “I don’t want to know”

20:02 - Damn. I want Ainsley to go dark so badly. I want to see how badly it would destroy Malcolm and Jessica. I am evil.

20:52 - Malcolm’s burgundy jacket is gorgeous. That is all.

21:10 - Malcolm knows that Martin wants to escape. This is good. I love this.

21:55 - THERE’S A WOMENS WARD?!? REVOLUTIONARY INFORMATION. I THOUGHT THEY HAD A SEPARATE HOSPITAL.

22:00 - Oh wow. Finally - a perk to gender inequality.

22:52 - This Brightwell scene is so cute. I love watching Malcolm be excited about solving the crime. I love watching Dani gently tease him about how weird he is. I love watching them subtly flirt. Is Malcolm ready for another relationship - hell no. Do I think Dani has forgiven him - not totally. If they got together now it would end badly. But I do want them to be endgame.

23:11 - Andre is really suspicious throughout this whole scene. I’m convinced that if Dani and Malcolm weren’t too busy flirting Andre would’ve become a suspect really fast.

23:15 - Why do people get released from psychiatric prisons?!? This is a genuine question. I would’ve thought that everyone in Claremont has committed some seriously heinous crimes and only a very small portion of them are actually sick. The rest of them just pleaded insanity and had good lawyers. But even if they are/were sick. I don’t think the types of mental illnesses that drive people to murder and/or rape is something that can be cured. Sooo why are they getting released? I guess I just wonder because there’s this guy that’s been in my local news on and off for like 10+ years. He’s molested/raped many young women between the ages of about 16-25. He’s been arrested and released multiple times. He keeps getting released to different major cities in my province (usually a city with a big University) and reoffends within 6 months of being released. Most recently he was arrested last month after being released in October 2020. Clearly he’s going to keep reoffending - so why does he keep getting released? I guess I just don’t understand what the criteria are that allow an inmate who has committed that sort of crime to be released. Here’s a link to one of the more recent news stories if you’re interested: https://vancouverisland.ctvnews.ca/police-warn-of-high-risk-sex-offender-moving-to-victoria-1.5149264

23:23 - hahaha Andre is like, “Yo. This dude is freaky.”

24:15 - Look at how proud Malcolm is of his whole “lobster = murderer” profile. <3 So freaking precious. <3 and Dani looks so amused with him. <3

24:37 - Sooooo Mr. David isn’t listening to this conversation? He left the room?

24:40 - Jessica going to Martin for parenting help is terrifying. This is a woman in crisis.

25:20 - But Jessica was right to be paranoid in 97′. She wasn’t being cheated on romantically but her husband was murdering people.

25:24 - Martin is so selling his kids out here. He knows it. He doesn’t care. He’s having too much fun torturing Jessica. He’s rejoicing at the fact that he gets to play the “I turned the kids to the dark side” card.

26:40 - Poor Jessica. She looks suspicious and scared. Scared that she raised a killer even though she tried desperately to prevent that very behaviour.

26:56 - Damn. Martin is having a really good day. First he gets to annoy Gil Arroyo in the flesh. Then Edrisa talks medical with him. Then he gets to work with Malcolm. THEN his ex-wife calls him and he gets to toy with her mind. THEN his daughter, who has literally murdered someone comes to visit him. He is a proud Dad right here and he’s having an amazing day.

28:00 - Rhonda is terrifying. This girl has perfected the “I’m sweet and unthreatening” while lying and manipulating people. I swear she’s a teenage Queen B personality with a side of violence.

28:30 - I love how protective Malcolm is of Ainsley. Look how positively livid he is that Marin is talking to her. Malcolm is terrified that Martin is going to purposefully and successfully turn Ainsley into a serial killer. Malcolm doesn’t want to lose his sister. He doesn’t want Jessica to lose her ‘stable’ child.

29:09 - This scares me. This is the kind of Ainsley behaviour from last season that made me believe she is the Whitly child most like Martin. Her ruthlessness and lack of a conscience when it comes to looking for a news story is extremely upsetting.

30:11 - What the hell happened to Tevin? AND WATKINS?!? We got no closure on those guys. Are they dead? In prison? Is Tevin still in Claremont? Were they transferred to facilities outside of New York State?

30:28 - Malcolm yelling at Martin is perfect. *chef’s kiss* Finally this boy is being honest with his father and he isn’t holding back.

30:40 - Michael Sheen is an incredible actor. This is an Emmy worthy scene. By Sheen AND Payne.

30:48 - I love how you can see Mr. David just chilling. Sitting outside the door and staring across the hall during this scene. It’s just....can’t he hear the screaming?!? Is he just like, “I can’t take anymore of this today. Not my circus and not my monkeys.”

30:55 - Soooooo this is Martin showing his true colours. There’s definitely a part of Martin that hates Malcolm. I honestly wonder if that part of Martin actively tries/tried to emotionally torture Malcolm now and throughout his childhood.

31:00 - “And your mother. And you ruined HeR!!!”....does this mean Martin was trying to make Ainsley a serial killer? Maybe after the camping trip when he realized Malcolm was too “weak” to kill anyone? Is this Martin saying that Ainsley is ruined because she didn’t become a serial killer? Or that Ainsley is ruined because she killed Endicott?

31:05 - “But that’s not me.” hahaha OMG. Michael Sheen just flipped between two personalities like nobody’s business. Respect.

31:08 - Martin’s outburst hurt Malcolm. Badly. You can see it all over his face. Even now, when Malcolm is being strong and showing some backbone to Martin, Martin can wound Malcolm with a single phrase. :(

31:41 - soooo where has Gil been for the past 10 minutes of this episode?

32:02 - Sooooo did Andre kill Jerry for Rhonda? Or did he just know about the murder and keep quiet for Rhonda? Or is his oblivious to the fact that Rhonda killed Jerry? I’m honestly confused here.

32:20 - Holy shit. Rhonda is crazy. Andre is dead now. Right?

32:48 - Wait. Why did Andre have a gold card? Mr. David only has red. What kind of qualifications does a guard need to get a gold card vs blue, green, or red?!?!

32:55 - Claremont isn’t a punishment for Martin. Solitary is. Martin should live in solitary. He deserves to suffer for his crimes (and the ongoing torture of his son).

33:05 - How messed up is it that Mr. David’s job is to protect a serial killer? I don’t think I’m brave enough to do something like that. I also don’t know if I could do that for moral reasons.

33:14 - Damn. That elevator looks like it hasn’t been cleaned since it was installed. It’s sooo much nastier than the hallway outside of the elevator.

33:50 - Sooo does this mean Martin is eventually going to try and murder someone down here?

33:54 - HE CALLED FOR BACKUP <3 <3 <3 OUR BOY IS GROWING UP AND I’M SO PROUD. <3

35:40 - FINALLY SOME MALCOLM WHUMP. <3 THIS SEASON HAS BEEN LACKING IT.

36:00 - This is really interesting to me. I honestly wonder if Martin has some sort of split personality disorder (personality #1: murderous, selfish, psychopath; personality #2: loving, concerned father and lawful doctor). You can see how desperately he wants to escape. But also how much he loves his son. I honestly thought he was going to leave Malcolm to die.

36:06 - Ugh. Look at his whumped face. <3 <3 <3 ....one thing that I couldn’t stop thinking during all the tazing (which was amazing FYI, I’m not complaining) is this: in QxA (1x07) Mr. David says that he only has a single shot tazer. Why did Andre have a multi-shot tazer? Is this a gold card vs red card thing?

36:40 - WHY THE EFF DOES BACKUP NOT INCLUDE GIL?!?! I KNOW HE’S STILL IN THE BUILDING.

37:03 - MARTIN, IF YOU TOUCH A HAIR ON DANI’S HEAD I WILL PERSONALLY HUNT YOU DOWN AND KILL YOU MYSELF. He honestly looks like he wants to murder her.

37:50 - Martin’s speech is not going to help Malcolm’s mental state. At all.

38:31 - No. No. No. Martin you do NOT get to talk to Dani on a first name basis. Look at how much Dani hates it.

38:35 - I love how soft Malcolm looks as Martin lifts him up. Look at how Malcolm gently leans into the touch. It breaks my heart. After 20 years Malcolm is still comforted by physical contact with his father. :(

38:37 - “Put your hands on me again Dr. Whitly, and I’ll blow your head off.” OH HELL YES. Dani is my hero. Iconic. Also - anyone else notice that Dani is chewing gum in this scene (I don’t think she’s chewed gum on camera since the pilot?) it makes her look like so much more of a badass in this scene.

38:55 - Oh look. The rest of the backup finally showed up. Where were these assholes 5 minutes ago when DANI WAS ALONE? AND WHERE IS GIL?!?!

39:00 - Malcolm thanking Dani is so so precious. And the fact that he’s clearly struggling to breathe and stay conscious is giving me life. ALSO Dani saying, “YOU’re welcome.”?!? *chef’s kiss* :) :) <3

39:30 - So Malcolm definitely knows that Martin almost left him to die so that Martin could escape.

39:33 - ......Ainsley is currently living with Jessica. Why is Ainsley not at the family dinner? We literally see her in the house in like 30 seconds.

39:35 - Malcolm in a polo shirt. Malcolm in a polo shirt. Why is it so attractive?!? He looks like a baby cinnamon roll? <3

39:51 - WHO THE EFF LET AINSLEY INTO THE MURDER BASEMENT?!? WHY AM I EXPECTED TO BELIEVE THAT JESSICA DIDN’T RE-SEAL IT AFTER WATKINS?!?!

40:15 - Jessica desperately tearing apart the living room is heartbreaking. :(

40:29 - Question: Did Jessica send her staff home before she tore apart the living room? Because I can just imagine two of them staring into the living room from the hall like, “She’s finally snapped. Should we call someone?”

41:00 - Jessica is the queen of drama. HOLY SHIT. This reveal was so extra and so perfect.

41:13 - “I killed him.” “You’re lying.” I love this interaction between Jessica and Malcolm. Malcolm has spent his whole life trying to convince people that he’s not a murderer. To protect Ainsley, his baby sister, he will say the words “I killed him”. Even though that is literally killing a part of Malcolm. Jessica knows it. I love that Jessica can see that Malcolm is lying. She’s not trying to convince herself that he’s innocent. She literally just accused him of murder. She’s scared. Because Malcolm just admitted to killing someone - his biggest fear - and it was a lie.

41:35 - Watching Bellamy Young’s facial expression as Jessica realizes that Ainsley killed Endicott is a thing of beauty. This woman needs an Emmy too. HELL, CAN WE GIVE THIS WHOLE EPISODE AN EMMY?!?!

42:00 - Poor Jessica. The guilt she must feel. She’s always thought that Malcolm was the one at risk of being a murderer. He’s a boy (they’re statistically more prone to violence than girls), he was older than Ainsley, he remembers terrible things, Malcolm had continued exposure to Martin throughout his childhood (Ainsley didn’t - I think?). But the child she neglected, the child she thought was safe, the child she thought remained free of Martin’s evil killed someone. It’s a plot-twist that just ripped Jessica’s heart into a million pieces.

42:30 - Yep. I promise you Malcolm has been psychoanalyzing Ainsley’s past behaviours since the moment she killed Endicott. He’s found traits common to serial killers and he’s terrified that she’ll become one if she remembers what it felt like to kill Endicott. He’s probably kicking himself for not noticing sooner. He’s probably questioning his ability as a profiler and as a big brother. AND the fact that MALCOLM has to protect Jessica AND Ainsley is heartbreaking. It’s way too big a burden. No wonder Malcolm’s mental health is on a downward spiral.

42:33 - This is the moment Jessica begins grieving for Ainsley. The fear, disbelief, and horror on her face. It’s torture that I can only describe as someone telling a mother that her daughter is dead. Because Ainsley is dead. The person Jessica believed Ainsley was - that little girl is dead. Because Jess just found out the truth.

42:55 - Jessica is now terrified of her own daughter. That is maybe the most upsetting thing this show has given us.

43:00 - I saw an interesting theory about how Ainsley is regressing back to her childhood (crawling into bed with Mom, moving back in with Mom) and I must say - that would be a really interesting way for this story to go. Ainsley regressing to a child-like state as she is convicted of murder. As a result she ends up in the women’s ward of Claremont because she can plead insanity.

This episode was amazing. Seriously, one of the best Prodigal Son episodes to date. Definitely the best of season 2 so far. If you’ve read this far - thanks for hanging out.

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mindmeltonabun-blog · 4 years

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Tale of the Nine Tailed: Analysis and Theories of Ep 8

Welcome to another edition of Mind Melt On A Bun’s analysis and theories of TOTNT. I hope you all will enjoy this post, but fair warning it’s once again another VERY LONG POST! So if you want to turn on your thinking cap and face the risk of your brain blowing up into a million pieces then feel free to keep reading!

Snail Bride and Her Husband

Ureongi gaksi (우렁이 각시) or Snail Bride is a Korean legend which tells about a poor farmer who breaks a taboo and marries a woman who is actually a snail. One day while working in the rice paddy field, the farmer says to himself, “Who will I eat this rice with?”. To which a voice replied, “With me.”. Having heard this voice, the man turned around to see who it was, but only saw a snail. After having heard that, the man found that each day after returning home from work, a meal was always prepared for him.

The farmer was curious of who had been preparing his meal. So one day he pretended to go to work in order to catch a sight of whoever it was that had been preparing his meal. To his surprise, he had seen a beautiful woman emerging from the snail shell. Having been blown away by her beauty, he immediately asked her to live with him instead of returning to the snail shell. However, the woman told him it was not time yet and to be patient. Being the persistent man that he was, he eventually got the Snail to marry him.

The farmer became plagued with the fear that his beautiful Snail Bride might one day be taken away from him so he instructed her to never leave the house. The Snail Bride listened to her husband and did as she was told until one day when her mother-in-law told the Snail Bride to go and deliver lunch to the farmer. And so, the Snail bride did as she was told. However, along the way, the Magistrate who was enamoured by her beauty decided to kidnap her and make her his bride. Despite the farmer’s many efforts, he never found his Snail Bride and ended up dying of a broken heart and being reborn as a blue bird. Tragic I know !!!

Anyways, when applying this story to TOTNT, you will find that Ji Ah’s boss had shared many similar characteristics to the farmer from the Snail Bride myth such as persistency. Other clues that supports the ideal that Ji Ah’s boss is the farmer can be seen in the conversation between Green Juice Lady. The first clue is his fear of flying. This could be seen as a side effect of him being reborn in a previous life as a blue bird. I bet if Ji Ah used those Eyebrows of a Tiger Glasses, she would see him as a bird blue.

The second clue was in what the Green Juice Lady said, “ What are you doing here?”. I interpreted this as her knowing him in the past as well as her not expecting to see the farmer’s reincarnated self in the same vicinity as the Snail Bride.

Green Juice Lady Origin

In Korean mythology, there is a creature by the name of “Dueoksini/Dokeoksini” (두억시니는 ) that kills you by crushing your head (figuratively or literally). In Korean mythology, this creature is seen as an in between of a dokkaebi/goblin and a yokai. Because Dueoksinis have been mostly been forgotten throughout Korean literature, they are usually refer to as being a type of Korean Yokai.

Or the way I like to view the Green Juice Lady is that she's basically Pennywise, Freddy Krueger, and the Boggart rolled into one. After all its like Frank Hebert once wrote in Dune: “Fear is the mind killer”.

Taluipa

In TOTNT, the character Taluipa is seen as being the goddess of birth and fate, Sansin Halmoni. Besides having the ability of controlling birth and fate, Taluipa also can also foresee the future as well as grant immortality (i.e her husband). Given all of this, it is likely that her child, Bok Gil, would’ve had some pretty powerful abilities because he came from such a superior mother.

Now not much is known about Taluipa’s son other than he had committed suicide. Furthermore, the act of suicide was seen as a such a bad taboo that ensured he could never be reborn/reincarnated. In the context of TOTNT, it is inferred that even if you sacrifice yourself for the one you love, it is still considered suicide.

Lee Yeon’s Original Plan For the Imoogi

I think originally Lee Yeon had planned to take the Imoogi into himself and subsequently kill himself. However, when faced with the possibility that this would mean Lee Yeon could not be reincarnated, Ah Eum decided it was better that Lee Yeon killed her because at least she could be reincarnated.

Now you may think that well if Ah Eum sacrificed herself for the one she loves, isn’t that contradictory to what I said earlier about how sacrificing yourself for the one you love is still considered suicide and thus meant you couldn’t be reborn? It really doesn’t and here’s why. Remember that at this time, Ah Eum already had the Imoogi inside of her so her death by Lee Yeon’s hands were not seen as a sacrificial suicide. Rather, it was seen as him killing a greater evil and preventing the deaths of hundreds. Thus, this meant that Ah Eum could be reincarnated. Had Ah Eum ran into Lee Yeon’s knife or stabbed herself in the temporary moment she gain back control of her body, then that would’ve been seen as sacrificial suicide.

If both Lee Yeon and Ah Eum were able to find a loop hole at the very last minute that ensured Ah Eum’s reincarnation, I am sure that this time around Lee Yeon will be able to find a better loop hole given that he has had more time to than previously as well as learning from his past mistakes as it pertains to the Imoogi. I largely believe that this loop hole will have something to do with the favor Lee Yeon had asked of Taluipa’s husband. Maybe the favor Lee Yeon is asking Taluipa’s husband for is the elixir of life that is located in the Underworld (Hint: read my posts about Princess Bari). I think that Lee Yeon will want it just in case either him or Ji Ah dies in their battle against the Imoogi. Such an elixir could revive them!

Taluipa’s Son/Bok Gil = The Imoogi

As previously mentioned, I had theorized that Taluipa’s son, Bok Gil, must have been one hell of a powerful being given that his mom was a powerful Goddess herself. As to what those abilities could have been, it is still a mystery. However, I feel like his powers would’ve been connected the ones Taluipa had (i.e birth, fate, and ability to see what others cannot see). Again, not much was mentioned about him other than he committed suicide and that his name was Bok Gil.

Now let’s look at the Imoogi, we know that he has the power of life (bringing the bird back to life), death (sucking the life out of his nannies), and rebirth (being reborn as that boy).

By the way, I think it’s interesting that the cycle of life, death, and rebirth is represented as an “Ouroboros” or a snake eating its tail. Coincidence? I think not.

Anyways back to what else we know about the Imoogi. We know that he was born in a leap year as well as being born in a place between the living and dead (btw Lee Yeon was born in 420AD also a leap year..possible connection somehow?). The Imoogi could also see what others don’t see such as your soul and your deepest emotions.

If you think about it, when Bok Gil committed suicide, his soul/body was neither in the land of the living nor the dead. He was in between those two realms or in limbo. Connecting this to the fact that the Imoogi said he was born in a place between the living and dead, there is a significant possibility that Bok Gil is indeed the Imoogi. Furthermore, if you look at the kinds of power the Imoogi has and the powers that Taluipa has, you will find that they are strangely similar or related. If that doesn’t convince you enough then just compare the voice of Bok Gil to that of the Imoogi!

Imoogi and Lee Yeon

Initially, I had thought the Imoogi had wanted Lee Yeon for his fox bead (a kind of Yeouiju) so that it could become a dragon, but now I am beginning to think there’s more to the story than just Lee Yeon’s bead. If indeed Bok Gil is the Imoogi then I am left to wonder what kind of relationship did Lee Yeon have with Bok Gil before he died. Furthermore, could Lee Yeon have been part of the reason why Bok Gil committed suicide in the first place? If Lee Yeon had been part of the reason why Bok Gil committed suicide, then I can totally understand why Bok Gil/Imoogi would want to try to exact his revenge and/or anger on Lee Yeon. Maybe Bok Gil was jealous of Lee Yeon for getting more attention from his own parents than he was or maybe Lee Yeon got the girl he was interested in or maybe Lee Yeon was really mean and had bullied him or maybe the person who Bok Gil had died for (aka a loved) was somehow connected to Lee Yeon. I don’t know, I’m just purely theorizing and for all we know all the Imoogi wants is just Lee Yeon’s fox bead so that it can become a dragon.

Black and White Imagery

Other things I found interesting is the usage of black and white in Ep 8. For example, the shirts Lee Rang and Lee Yeon wears, the colors of the stones of the “Go Game”, and the cars in the background of the parking lot Lee Yeon was in.

Typically, the color combination of black and white represents Yin/Yang, Good/Evil, and Life/Death. In either cases, the concept is the same. Both represent the concept of dualism or the ideal that everything is interdependent, interconnected, and interrelated. Meaning you can’t have Yin without Yang, Good without Evil, and Life without Death. Or in the case of Lee Yeon standing in between the two cars and the two doors, both Lee Rang and Ah Eum/Ji Ah’s lives and fate were interdependent, interconnected, and interrelated to that of Lee Yeon’s.

Episode 9 Predictions

Lee Yeon will get Lee Rang out of the Forest of the Preta and Lee Rang will realize that his brother never really abandoned him in the first place. Additionally, their time in the Forest of the Preta is like a blessing in disguise because it helped both brothers to resolve the misunderstanding that occurred 600 years ago.

Now with Ji Ah, I think she will overcome her fear of the car accident. However I think she will be faced with another fear of hers which is seeing Lee Yeon die. I think she will overcome this too, but the Green Juice Lady will pull out one last trick out of the bag. Instead of making Ji Ah relieve some of her worst nightmares, she will make Ji Ah live in a world where all her dreams have come true such as having her parents back and Lee Yeon by her side. The Green Juice Lady will do this as a way to make sure that Ji Ah would never want to leave. After all, why leave a world where all your dreams come true right? Plus, Ji Ah’s mentality will become weaker because she will start to believe that the dream world she is living in is a reality. Therefore, in order to win against the Green Juice Lady, one must have a strong mind that is not killed by fear nor weaken by fantastical delusions.

This kind of reminds of the creature, “Black Mercy”, from Super Girl. Briefly, “Black Mercy” is alien parasite that makes its host dream their perfect fantasy world while it feeds off of them. The only way for the host to get the “Black Mercy” to detach itself is for the host to realize that the fantasy world they are living in is not real. So for Ji Ah, maybe she would have to do the same on her own or it would take Lee Yeon coming into her dreamworld in order for her to realize this.

Last Remarks

For all of those who are still left confused as to why Lee Yeon chose to save Lee Rang first, you can check it out here:

https://mindmeltonabun-blog.tumblr.com/post/633271037441818624/tale-of-the-nine-tailed-ep-7-thoughts-and

And if you’re too lazy to click/read all of that post, I’ll put it simply here:

In the past, Lee Yeon chose to go after Ah Eum first instead of saving Lee Rang from the villagers burning down the mountain. So this time around Lee Yeon did not want to make the same mistake twice and also Lee Yeon wanted to atone for his past mistakes. Plus, Lee Yeon knew that between Lee Rang and Ji Ah, Lee Rang had the weaker mentality so he would need more saving than Ji Ah would.

Happy Readings! I need a drink now after writing all of this !

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phoenixyfriend · 3 years

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The “Momma Sturmvoraus was Literally Satan” AU

As requested by @spazzbot. This AU was initially brainstormed on the GG fanworks server almost a year ago. Specifically, on the first day of 2020.

[ID: a truncated discord message by “Miss Nixy, Gay for RoboLadies” posted 01/01/2020. The message reads “I need to sleep but please for the moment consider:” and ends there.]

So. Let’s get to it.

Satan took a human form because why not see what's going on topside, live like a human, and “Oh shit is this pregnancy? This is pregnancy. Fuck, that's a tiny human. Which is now half demon. Am I supposed to take care it? Wonder if retconing this form into that Valois family was a bad idea. They do have SO much money though, I get to live like a queen. I suppose another child shouldn't hurt, it wasn't that bad. Oh, he's cute, this is actually making sense, why humans do all the sinning. Not counting dear Aaronev's murders, of course, those are just evil, but I did search out the worst of the humans to pair myself to...”

This is literally just "Tarvek and Anevka's mom was low-key Satan on a bored “let's be human for a decade or two to see what happens” jaunt, consequences happen because these kids are LITERALLY half-demon and arguably anti-Christs."

Also it's just Very Funny for Tarvek, ineffectual sexy lamp fashion twunk extraordinaire, to be an antichrist

Jeff thinks he’s pretty. Jeff keeps describing features that don’t entirely make sense. (Jeff’s canon name is Karl Thotep but they spent so long unnamed that the server collectively named them Jeff.)

This is not a crossover with anything, btw. Ambiguously Pop Culture Satan just got bored and went to have babies with a serial killer.

They’re just kids! That are vaguely demonic. So. Moreso than the rest of the Valois.

Sometimes "mom" comes back from the dead and visits Anevka and Tarvek to impart Wisdom and possibly magic lessons The rooms always smell faintly of sulfur after that...

They try to put Anevka in the machine but SHE isn't hurt and the MACHINE just melts

So that's the end of that.

It's very awkward for everyone, but the paperwork isn't too bad. It's very easy to write "incidental fire began during late-fugue experimentation, resulted in fire spreading through six rooms and several casualties, including Prince Aaronev Wilhelm Sturmvoraus."

As per @atagotiak, “I feel like if we’re going in any way dimensional weirdness with thing, Tarvek got so good at exploring bc he could just clip through walls.”

With image provided by @thisarenotarealblog:

Tarvek in Paris: My dead mother keeps showing up in my dreams to tell me I need to seduce my way out of my problems and also she looks like Satan. Tarvek's Voltaire-Appointed Therapist: I still don't know what that means. Just like the last five times. Tarvek: I keep telling her that I can’t seduce Colette, if seduction is that important she should get Anevka to do it.

Like he probably wouldn’t say most of that in front of any Voltaire-approved individual, but still.

Tarvek is still very good at self control but there's a Special Edge to his rants.

(Derailed in the moment to me thinking about Anevka in a sfw-but-concerningly-deadly succubus getup, because... yeah.)

Aaronev dies and goes to hell and his dead wife is just there like "hi! Time to be tortured for eternity!" He wasn't a good husband so. He can't exactly sentimentalize his way out.

“In the sexy way?” “... not for you, no.”

Mostly I just want the BULLSHIT that is "Storm Mom was actually just Satan getting bored and going on vacation as a retconned Valois girl, the kids are half-demons and sometimes it Shows."

To clarify: the Satan bit isn't the retcon. Grandma used to have one daughter. Now there are two. (Seffie and Martellus's mother doesn't remember being an only child, but sometimes...)

Satan retconned a new daughter in, which included a Valid Valois Venusian Vestment, so the blood tests play out.

The subtle signs of wrongness would be fun too. Anevka tends to smile a bit too wide and sharp for a human face. Inexplicable uneasiness, here you can’t point at any specific thing that’s wrong but it’s uncomfortable. Uncanny valley prettiness, almost like the porcelain she became in other timelines. Skin isn’t supposed to be that smooth.

My brain's pre-nap contribution at that point was "Satan's pronouns when not pretending to Human are sin/sinself" which is! Certainly a thing.

Tarvek, at some nebulous future point: I mean, your ancestors were monsters, but my dad was a serial killer and my mom was literally Satan, instead of just figuratively like Lucrezia, so. I mean. I kind of get what you're going through.

Per @firebirdeternal: Tarvek and Anevka growing up with "you're allergic to holy water" and not questioning it until a little later because What.

And then they test it and it's like "yeah, no, there's a rash now. That stung. What the fuck."

It INFURIATES Gil in Paris when Tarvek tells him that's a thing, because there's nothing chemically different about Holy water and regular water. But no, this is somehow happening.

It gets logged in medical journals as a Valois genetic thing because, well, Mom was like that too, right?

One time they both go into a church for an Adventure and Gil is very annoyed to find that Tarvek is like. Faintly smoking. It smells like burnt hair in here.

Gil: What smells like burnt hairgel? Tarvek: [glares]

Gil decides that it must be something particular to the church, like a fungus or something in the stone, contaminating the air and water so it only LOOKS like the holiness is what's setting off reactions.

It is not.

Tarvek once got into an argument with someone and ate a slab of raw, completely uncooked meat as a power move.

SVV seems to work perfectly. Everyone is fine. We get the ‘you fight like ducks’ moment.

And then Tarvek bursts into flames, and everyone panics because no they fixed this what the fuck is he still infected with Hogfarb’s oh my god... and then everything settles down and he's perfectly fine. Not a scratch on him, no longer turning funny colors. Completely unharmed. He's in a nicely tailored suit and looks faintly stunned

"I just met my dead mom, who's apparently Satan. She told me that after I died the first time just now, I should be harder to kill later, especially with fire, because now there's more demon and less mortal and guys I think I'm going crazy." "Is that a martini?" Tarvek looks down. "Apparently."

Tarvek starts just. Randomly setting things on fire by glaring too hard and has to tone it down. Meanwhile, Agatha and Gil are having crises about how he's somehow getting PRETTIER.

Is he faintly glowing? Maybe!

Gil handles it by angrily sniping at Tarvek about how of COURSE he's an evil little rat with a background like that.

Tarvek just wants a nap and to forget this ever happened. Many people are sworn to secrecy. It's very awkward.

Still, SVV did something, for handwave-y reasons, and so they're linked now. Gil and Agatha both getting tiny flashes of the same shenanigans.

They get none of the powers. They just keep getting Weird Shit.

Other characters with divine influence are like "Did you.... did you make a pact with a demon?" "What no that's our boyfriend."

Tho tbh I wouldn’t be surprised if a Heterodyne did sign a contract with a demon at some point in exchange for like. Materials. A hundred souls sacrificed in exchange for some succubus blood. Thanks!

Tarvek and Othar: Falling out of CW as in canon. Tarvek: WHAT THE HELL SINCE WHEN DO I HAVE WINGS HIDE THIS BEFORE I GET BOOTED FROM THE LINE FOR THE THRONE

IDK where Anevka is during all this. I think she might have decided to go sleep her way through the courts of the Ice Tsars. Vacation, y'know?

Othar after he's decided to make Tarvek his new Heroic Apprentice: AH, my poor afflicted young friend, it's noble of you to go against the dark nature of your tragic heritage like this. Tarvek: I hate you. I wish I could hate you to death. But you have a point. I shouldn't let my father's blood limit what I strive for in life. Othar: I... I thought your mother was... Tarvek: I know what I said.

Tarvek: Also you can't tell ANYONE about that, I can't have them thinking I'm not actually in line for the Storm King's throne.

He does admittedly have to like. Explain things to Grandma.

Terabithia is Tarvek’s maternal grandmother so this is supremely awkward. That said...

Grandma fondly remembers her pregnancy cravings; bone marrow and sulfur.

"Yeah so, my mother, your daughter, was... maybe actually Satan? But retconned into your life?" "Tarvek, darling, please. I figured that out half a century ago."

TARVEK ACCIDENTALLY FINDS HIM HIMSELF WEIRDLY INTENSE AT CONTRACTS

I mean that honestly just Tracks about Tarvek anyways? But like moreso.

He just. Writes something up and there's things getting signed or shook on and then the person tries to break the contract and either suddenly catch fire or are deeply unlucky for a set amount of time.

And Tarvek's just standing there like "how in the FUCK did I do that?"

Severity of infernal punishment depends on the severity of the breach of contract.

Tarvek finds out that Anevka's been convincing rich people to sign their souls over to her. It's a fun challenge. She keeps them in jars.

They can still remotely pilot their bodies but like. They can't TELL anyone what happened.

Satan: I'm going to go make babies and now everyone else has to deal with the consequences.

Anevka's living up to that whole "princess of hell" vibe. Tarvek's just like "nope nope nope I want the storm throne, not the hell throne, BYE MOM."

Satan's just feeling sinself down in hell like "awwww look at my babies go, aren't they adorable?"

Tarvek: Anevka, what... first off, how did you figure it out? Anevka: Well, I temporarily died when father put me in the machine, and... I can't say that hell kicked me out because they were afraid I'd take over, but mother DID say she'd rather I play about with human governments instead of Hell's. Tarvek: Okay, cool cool cool. What after you planning to DO with all these souls? Anevka: They make for some lovely reading lamps, don't they?

(Anevka absolutely sets herself the goal of acquiring new titles that rival her old ones, or even surpass them. She just black widows her way through Europa.)

I just want someone (probably Snackleford) to ascend, take one look at Tarvek, and run SCREAMING.

Tarvek still needed to be anchored to Higgs, because Tarvek is Baby.

Gil is eventually in a relationship with an Eternal God Queen and the Literal Son of Satan.

Family dinners can include ALL the in-laws if you duck down to hell! - You borrow Bill from... probably heaven, maybe purgatory. - You have Lu and Aaronev and Satan already there, though the first two... well. Aaronev and Lu get invited to dinner but they have to eat by themselves at the kiddy table and nobody talks to them or acknowledges their presence. After all, this is hell, and what better punishment for Lu than to be completely ignored, and for Aaronev to see Lu at her worst and be reminded that he gave everything for this horrible, horrible person who isn't even pretending to care about him anymore. - Zanta and Klaus get invited via portal. - Anevka saunters in with a blood-soaked dress and a complaint about militant demon-hunters refusing to let her go shopping for a new pair of shoes. - Zeetha tagged along with the OT3. (She can't wait to see this situation explode.)

Oh God, Satan is actually second place as far as good parenting goes.

Well, actually, fourth. Because Adam and Lilith. But second as far as bio parents go. 1. Zanta 2. Satan 3. Klaus 4/5. Lu and Aaronev N/A. Bill

Someone (Anevka) decides to stir the pot and invites Von Pinn, Terabithia, Bang.

Bang is basically Gil’s older sister, right? Right.

This is Zanta meeting Bang for the first time! Zanta is just: "It's so nice to meet my husband's adopted daughter." Klaus freezes. Bang freezes. Gil is the only one who is just. "Yeah." Meanwhile Zeetha is crying with laughter off to the side because both of them deserve this. (Zanta would legit love Bang though.)

Agatha: Tarvek, I think DuPree is-- Tarvek: Hitting on my sister? I know. Agatha: On your mom, actually. Tarvek: NO!

Also I do love the idea of like. Nobody tells Bang they're inviting her. She just wakes up in Hell like. "Ah. Yes. Fair enough."

Satan: Oh no no no my dear, you're here as a guest. Besides as well as you'd fit you're not one of mine, you've got other things waiting for you. Bang: Okay, but I love the decor. And is that Cheesecake?

Bang’s family has their own evil god in the novels, but! Bang DID pick on Tarvek a lot in Paris. Satan cares more than Anevka does. Bang might get the sexy punishment.

I feel like the fact that no permanent damage was done and it taught Tarvek a lot of things means Satan isn't gonna be all that upset about it.

And let's be real, if there's a character in GG who could look the literal Christian devil in the eye and be like "Yeah I tortured your kid, what're you going to do about it?" it's Bang.

Even Satan doesn't know what to do or think about Othar.

He sure is here! As Anevka’s arm candy! Nobody knows what to do except Anevka herself, who just wants to be Smug.

(What's that scene from Phineas and Ferb that's the mad scientist trapping the platypus within the rules of polite dining at a fine restaurant? Like he can't make a scene because that would be rude?) (That. Othar would dearly love to start a fight, but it's a Family Dinner. You're only allowed to fight verbally at those.)

(Othar isn't even fighting Satan, he just wants to argue with Klaus.) (And maybe fanboy in Bill's direction a bit).

#Girl Genius #Phoenix Posts #Anevka Sturmvoraus #Tarvek Sturmvoraus #Aaronev Sturmvoraus #Gilgamesh Wulfenbach #Agatha Heterodyne #Lucrezia Mongfish #Othar Tryggvassen #Bangladesh DuPree #Otharnevka #GG OT3

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pricemarshfield · 3 years

Text

fresh as a daisy

Chapter 1/2. Requested by @renluthor: dani/ainsley angst/angry makeout?

Read on AO3 here.

Ainsley, strictly speaking, doesn't have an issue with Dani. If she's being honest with herself, she's not even having an issue with Detective Powell of the New York City Police Department.

Her issue is this:

She's killed someone, and she's getting away with it, and Dani is an inherently suspicious person.

It would be so much easier if Dani had done something wrong. She is literally just doing her job, and Ainsley can't even blame her for being suspicious because her brother is different. He's freaking out about this or he's not. And he's not? He's freaking out about the fact that he's not freaking out as much as he should.

The gist of it is Malcolm covered up a murder--her murder--and Dani's circling.

So Ainsley does what she does best--redirects. She's gotten this far in life not through luck but because every time someone tried to push her about herself or about her mother or about her father, she managed to make it seem like she was sharing while she was actually just gauging their interest, the reason for their interest, and the best way to distract them.

It's manipulative, sure, but it's her mother's brand, not her father's, so it's fine. Something Dani probably won't know how to defend herself against, too.

So when Dani comes to her place to ask her if Malcolm's doing something he shouldn't, Ainsley does something Dani probably won't expect her to.

"You've noticed, too?" Ainsley asks, voice dripping with concern that's not entirely fake. She is worried about him. "I don't think it's anything, like. Criminal, you know? I think it's just with..."

"Endicott," Dani says, cutting her off, and Ainsley nods, frowning. "You think he's worried?"

"He stabbed Gil," Ainsley says, and Dani twitches, a bit, like she'd flinch if she didn't have the self-control not to. "And threatened our mother. And me," she adds as an afterthought. "I mean, I'm--"

"If you're trying to sell me that Malcolm is just scared for you," Dani says, and Ainsley shakes her head, because that's absolutely what she's trying to do and she doesn't want Dani to know that, "Then save it. I've seen Malcolm scared."

"Have you?" Ainsley says, resentful of the implication that Dani knows something about her brother that she doesn't. "Really scared? You know it's not that he's worried for his life, right? He's never been like that." Dani frowns at her, and Ainsley takes a fierce satisfaction in gaining that ground, even if what she's saying is something she wishes to God wasn't true. "People don't normally get to my mom. They almost never get to me. Did he ever tell you about my first 'super-fan'?"

"No," Dani says, voice a little quieter. It could be uncertainty, but Ainsley doesn't think so, so it's time to keep pushing. "He hasn't."

"Someone sent me a letter," Ainsley says, letting her voice sound as blank as she wants it to. "Saying they knew where I lived, and that they wanted to prove they were the one for me. Malcolm called it something technical, I don't know. The gist of it being that he thought I was in love with him, that I was sending him messages."

"Jesus," Dani says. Ainsley nods.

"And I had to move and I had to file a restraining order and all of that, but mostly, I had to keep an eye out for Malcolm, because for the entire time that was going down, Malcolm was completely--"

She exhales.

"Manic," Dani adds.

"No," Ainsley says. "Or not--I don't think so. I'm not a psychologist, but mania is like--joy, right? Like too much joy? Impulsivity? Malcolm was just off. It's like he was looking for something to keep him from thinking about it."

"If he's in danger, he can take focus from you," Dani says. "I noticed he does that."

"If he does that for you," Ainsley says. "Think about what he'll act like when I'm in danger, you know? Me and my mom?"

Dani's just taller than her, by an inch, if that, but Ainsley still feels like someone's looming over her when Dani looks her over. It's not aggressive, just--piercing, like Dani's managing to cut through the layers and layers of falsity to see her.

It's uncomfortable. The last time she felt like this, it was her father.

Or. Maybe it was Endi--

That's a dangerous train of thought, and Ainsley snaps, "So if you're trying to trick me into thinking that my brother's done something he shouldn't, you should leave. I trust my brother more than anyone."

Dani nods. "Okay."

"Okay?" Ainsley says, shoulders dropping a little in relief that she doesn't have to fake at all. "Good. I'm glad we can just focus on Malcolm. He needs it more than I do."

There's that look again, like Dani's seeing right through her, and Ainsley tenses. She's not sure why, or what she'll do if Dani does figure something out. "Ainsley?"

"Yeah?"

"I care about your brother," Dani says.

"Gross," Ainsley interrupts.

"Not like that," Dani says quickly, tucking her hair behind one ear. Ainsley bites her tongue to keep herself from grinning at the obvious tell. "I just mean...I'm not trying to, I don't know, catch him red-handed or anything. I just want to find out what happened. If he's okay. "

And that takes the wind out of her sails.

"Oh," Ainsley says. "Yeah. Me too."

Dani nods, and this is the part where she should turn around and leave, but instead, she says, "So you don't think it's just worry, then?"

If this were a text conversation, Ainsley would take a minute to just yell at herself for being so goddamn stupid. She can't just be honest with people about anything, not even when she's worried about her brother, she knows that. But she doesn't have that luxury, so she says, "What? Of course I do."

"You know, you're a good liar," Dani says conversationally. "Really. If I hadn't spent so much time with your brother, I'd fall for it. Hook, line, and sinker."

"What are you talking about?" Ainsley asks, letting her annoyance bleed through. "I'm worried about my brother, what makes you think I'm lying?"

"Because you make it sound like Malcolm's going through something he hasn't before," Dani says, and Ainsley's not sure if she actually takes a step closer but she seems like she's right in Ainsley's space now. "And I have seen your brother worried about you and your mother before, during the Carousel Killer case. This isn't that. He's been--on-edge, he's been angry, he's been reckless, but this? This is something different."

"You've known him for what, a year?" Ainsley says, venom in her voice that she can't seem to hold back. "You think you know him better than I do?" And that's genuinely infuriating, even if she's trying to redirect, always keeping the topic of conversation away from herself. Anything real about herself, at least. "Really?"

Dani's calculating expression shifts to more of a glare, and something in Ainsley thrills at that, all of a sudden. "I didn't say better. I said I know him."

"No," Ainsley says, taking a step closer. Dani doesn't back away. "You don't. You've seen Malcolm working while our father has his hooks in him. You don't know anything about my brother, so stop pretending you're looking for anything other than your next case."

"That's more your brother's thing than mine," Dani says, more a hiss than anything else, and there's that thrill up her spine again. "What's wrong with you, I just want to help!"

And Ainsley is sure she's telling the truth, or at least a version of it, and that's awful, so Ainsley says, "Then leave my family alone."

Dani reaches up, then, to grab her or to push her or something, and Ainsley reacts on instinct, shoving the other woman away from her. She wishes she had a weapon. Or she wishes that she didn't wish that. She's not sure yet. Dani only staggers a couple steps back, and she raises her hand in a conciliatory gesture.

"I didn't mean to scare you," Dani says.

"You didn't," Ainsley lies.

Dani lowers her hands. "But I don't trust you."

"I don't care," Ainsley says. "I haven't done anything wrong."

She's not even lying. Endicott needed to go. If she feels guilty about whatever Malcolm's going through, that's one thing, but the actual act itself might as well have been self-defense.

Dani rolls her eyes, though. "Save it. You and Malcolm did something, or you did and Malcolm's covering for you."

"My brother stops bad guys, he doesn't help them," Ainsley says. "Did you forget he turned in our dad?"

"No."

Ainsley stalks a step closer, then another, until she's right up in Dani's face, and says, "Get the hell out of my apartment."

"If you don't have anything to hide, then why aren't you being honest?" Dani says.

Ainsley smiles her best, falsest smile and says, "If you make me ask twice, I'll get you fired."

Dani frowns like she wasn't expecting that, which is ridiculous. Ainsley's her mother's daughter, always has been. "Seriously?"

"Seriously," Ainsley says calmly, though she's honestly not sure she has enough influence in the department with Gil in the hospital. "I'm not keeping anything from you, so can you please fuck off? The security detail outside might actually have a use for you."

Dani glares, and Ainsley keeps grinning, and when Dani turns to leave, Ainsley wishes she was more excited about it.

"I'll be back," Dani says, one hand on the door handle.

"Don't," Ainsley says, all anger again. "Don't fucking do that."

"What, come back?"

"No, talk like you just have to keep trying and I'll reveal I've been the bad guy the whole time," Ainsley says. "Fuck you. You don't know anything about me."

Dani turns, and Ainsley takes a step closer to throw her out or--something. "That's why I'm asking."

"And I'm asking you to leave me the hell alone," Ainsley says, but somehow her arms are on either side of Dani's head, which presumably would make it a little difficult for her to leave.

Dani looks at her with some sort of surprise on her face, and Ainsley tries to figure it out, staring at her face to see if there's hostility or superiority or anything else that might put Ainsley or Malcolm in danger in her face. But there's just wide eyes, glancing from Ainsley to away to back again.

Oh, wait, that's--hm. That's the look Jin had before they actually spent a night together when Ainsley had him in a corner. That's interesting.

Ainsley steps back and drops her hands, because if she's reading this right, she doesn't actually want her pinned against the door. "What do you want, Dani?"

"Uh," Dani says. "Well, I want answers."

"Is that what you were thinking of just now?" Ainsley asks sweetly, because she's an asshole, and it's one hell of a way to redirect attention away from her.

Dani exhales, and says, "No."

Ainsley could act flustered, or act smooth, or act like this isn't anything unusual for her, but she isn't all that bashful and she isn't exactly a player and this isn't something she's ever, ever done before, and she wants to enjoy it, and she's really enjoying this--not quite fight they have going on, so she grins a smile that always made her mother look away and mutter something about her father, sits down on her couch, and says, "Then do something about it."

Dani swears under her breath and takes a few long steps closer until she can pull Ainsley in, and Ainsley can't help but melt into it, because this is so much better than anytime she did this with Jin or anyone. Dani kisses surprisingly sweetly for someone who's so clearly pissed at her, if the grip she has on Ainsley's face is any indication.

Ainsley gets one leg between Dani's and pushes out, knocking Dani on top of her. Dani pulls away with a little huff of annoyance, but Ainsley kisses her to shut her up before she can say anything that'll ruin this. Dani's so warm and Ainsley's apartment is always freezing, and Ainsley can't help but drag Dani closer to enjoy the feeling of her as close as possible.

Dani shivers in surprise, but relaxes a little. There's still some heat to this, Dani's teeth pulling at Ainsley's bottom lip, Ainsley's nails scratching along the top of Dani's spine, but it feels less like urgency and more like something to luxuriate in. So Ainsley does, arching her back a little to press against Dani everywhere she can, and Dani pulls away to pull in a breath. When she does, Ainsley gently brushes her fingers where Dani's top rides up a little.

Dani doesn't full-body jolt or anything, but when she kisses Ainsley again, it's a little deeper, a little harder. Ainsley takes her time with it, exploring Dani's mouth, tongue running along Dani's teeth, the roof of her mouth, sucking on her tongue. That's enough for Dani to pull back and groan, low and right against Ainsley's ear, and Ainsley had just meant to kiss her but--fuck, that's an offer if Ainsley's ever heard one.

So Ainsley pushes up, rolling them until Dani's pressed into the couch cushions and Ainsley's straddling her lap, Dani's hands coming up to hold Ainsley by her hips. Ainsley makes a pleased sound into Dani's mouth, and Dani grips a little bit harder. Ainsley's not sure if it's in appreciation or annoyance, but she'll take it either way.

They kiss awhile longer, until Ainsley's legs hurt from propping herself up and there's an ache between her legs that she's not sure she's going to take care of, so she pulls back, pulling in a breath, and rests her head against Dani's. When she opens her eyes, Dani's already looking back at her, and Ainsley shivers, the eye contact almost more intimate than anything else they've done.

"So," Dani says.

"So," Ainsley says. "This is probably not what you expected when you came over."

"No," Dani agrees with a little laugh that Ainsley would be pissed about if it wasn't obviously self-deprecating. "It definitely wasn't."

Ainsley pulls back a little, the eye contact just this side of overwhelming, and says, "Were you, um." This feels more difficult than any other time she's done this with someone, but then again, she's certainly never made out with a woman who came to her house to question her about a murder she's committed without realizing the murder had taken place, so. "How far were you thinking this might, uh...go?"

It's not anywhere near the level of charismatic she likes to be, and she winces at it before she's even done talking. When she glances back at Dani, the other woman has her eyes wide, like she hadn't even considered that, and Ainsley puts her hands on Dani's shoulders to push herself up and away.

"It's fine," Ainsley mutters. "Seriously. No pressure, or whatever."

"Oh," Dani says. "I, uh."

Dani stares at her, and Ainsley's lipstick is smeared on her face, so Ainsley clears her throat and looks anywhere else. Ainsley's her father's daughter, after all, and Dani deserves better. Hell, might even deserve Malcolm, someone who cares with all their fucking being, not her.

"Get out," Ainsley says, and this time, Dani listens.

Ainsley spends the rest of the day decidedly not-moping. Moping is unproductive, and stupid, and she didn't care that much, anyway, so she throws herself into work. An article on Dr. Whitly's move to a public facility, an article on some professor's very public divorce with his wife, something about a corrupt CEO (and hasn't she had enough of those, recently?).

The articles aren't nearly as good as they could be, as they should be, but in her defense, she's got a lot on her mind, what with the murder and the interrogation and the makeout with a woman. She should be freaking out about that, she thinks, because she did not know she was interested in women until Dani looked at her and she felt more energized than any time with Jin or any other ex-boyfriend, but...

Well, she just doesn't have the room for anything else to worry about.

Malcolm doesn't respond when she texts him, letting him know that Dani came over with a little ":)" to indicate it was something murder-related (Malcolm's idea, or maybe Dad's). Her mom doesn't answer when she asks to go for dinner or something. Ainsley worries about that, a little, but her mom probably just fell asleep curled into some hospital chair at Gil's bedside. It's what she's done the past few nights, anyway. The one time Ainsley went to see her, her mom said she'd go home as soon as he woke up, and Malcolm had ducked his gaze, refusing to say the all-too-awful reality that he might not.

So she works on her articles until the sun goes down, not bothering to get up and turn on the light. She gets told that her articles "could do with a little more polish! <3 love ya" from Leslie, who she hasn't talked to about anything other than work in months. She finishes the last thing she can get done without actually getting up and leaving the relative stability of her couch.

And then it's the hardest part of post-getting away with murder: not thinking about it.

Ainsley tries to watch TV, but she'd been bored with every show on Hulu before her life went to shit. She tries to read one of her books, but too many of them are about her father or murder or crime in general to actually be a distraction. She plays some stupid game on her phone, and that works, but she feels like an animal in a cage after too long playing it. Pacing around and around and waiting for something to do.

Hm, maybe an article on poor zoo care. A follow up on that Tiger King thing might actually get approved.

Something almost like excitement drives her to get back to her computer to start researching when someone knocks. She frowns; the clock on her computer reads 9:16pm. A little late for a social call, and she didn't order food. Maybe Malcolm got her something from that Thai place? He does that when she freaks out a little too much.

She isn't that surprised when she sees Dani on the other side.

"Hey," she says awkwardly.

"Hey," Dani says. "Uh, I thought you were asleep. 'Cause of the lights."

"I fell asleep on the couch," Ainsley says with a little shake of her head, like she's trying to wake herself up.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up, we can talk another time," Dani says, turning to leave.

"No, wait--" Ainsley says, even though by all rights she should want her gone. "Um."

Dani looks tired, like she's the one who's got some big sin weighing on her. Hell, maybe she does. Ainsley doesn't really know anything about her. "We should...probably talk about it, right?"

"Malcolm?" Ainsley says, though the way the corner of Dani's mouth quirks up makes it clear she picks up on the sarcasm. "I...yeah, we probably should."

Belatedly, Ainsley turns to the side so that Dani can walk in. Dani turns on the light as she goes, and Ainsley blinks against the sudden brightness. "So."

"So," Ainsley says. "Uh. I didn't--I wasn't expecting that, either."

"Yeah," Dani says. "Look, I don't--I don't know what I'm looking for with this either. I don't know if this--" She gestures between herself and Ainsley vaguely. "--is something you're even interested in. I don't know if I trust you."

That stings.

"But I think I'd like to try?" The end of it is higher, like a question, like Dani's not sure either. It's so different from every other early relationship Ainsley's ever had, where she allowed herself to be pursued for the thrill of it without ever pushing for it herself.

"Sure," Ainsley says.

"Can you just--" Dani sighs. "I have to ask. Can you just tell me something honestly first?"

"Of course," Ainsley says.

"Endicott," Dani says, and Ainsley knew it was coming but she has to force herself not to tense up anyway. "Do you think Malcolm had something to do with him disappearing?"

Ainsley sighs, pretends to think. "No. I don't think my brother could ever do anything like that to anyone."

Dani relaxes, even as Ainsley can see she doesn't really believe her. Shame. She's actually telling the truth for once.

#my fics #renluthor #request #dansley #dani powell #ainsley whitly #prodigal son #daisy #for my tagging system fjdkfld #fic: fresh as a daisy

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earths-roots-grow-up · 3 years

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Headcanon abt Prussia’s psychology and historical relationship with Poland underthe cut. I hope you like it :)

Fact: The Polish-Teutonic wars were a series of military conflicts that started in 1308 when Teutonic Order took over polish city of Gdańsk (Danzing) and annexed it (event is knows as Slaughter of Danzing). After that came the first Teutonic War, in which the Order won Pomerelia from Poland. It was the beggining of larger Polish-Teutonic conflict that lasted for over 200 years and some following wars include:

- The second Teutonic War, a conflictr that took place between 1409 (when the Grand Master declared war on Poland and Lithuania) and 1411 when the conflict ended with Battle Of Grunewald. Teutonic Order lost and had to retreat, then manage to withstand the Siege of Malbork. The Knights did survive the defeat, but they never again gained their previous influence and power, while Poland-Lithuania was established as one of main powers in Central Europe. After wiki: "Most of the brothers of the Order were killed (during the final battle), including most of the Teutonic leadership". Many Teutonic fortresses were taken over and only eight castles reminded in Teutonic hands after this conflict. - The Thirteen Years' War, when the Order's Prussian territories began a revolt against the Order and asked Poland for help. Poland was like ‘hell yeah, let me make this my problem!’ and Prussian Confederacy/Kingdom of Poland truce was created. This war ended with the Knights losing and having to give up Western Prussia to Poland. - The Polish–Teutonic War 0f 1519–1521 that ended with a treaty of Kraków - this treaty resulted in parts of Order's Prussian territories becoming secularized as the Duchy of Prussia under polish rule (4 years later). This was sealed by the Prussian Homage of 10 April. There were more conflicts between 1308 and 1521, but I don't want to write an entire book here, so I reccomend the Polish-Teutonic War site on wiki, it has a pretty comprehensive list :). So in super short oversimplified terms, as I understand it: The wars started at the beginning of the 14th century with Teutonic aggression and lasted for over 200 years, during which Poland and the Order pretty much became THE RIVALS. The turning point was the battle of Grunwald when the Order lost a lot of its power, but still had some fight in it. It ended with Teutonic Knights secularizing and becoming a vassal state to Poland. This of course completely turned upside down after Prussia became independent again, got the status of a Kingdom and pretty much whipped Poland off the map in 1700s for 100 years, so I guess Prussia never forgets (which is one of my fav HCs for him xD).

Headcanon:

So my most obvious headcanon that comes from this is the hate/hate relationship that Poland and Prussia have. I believe they really can't stand each other and view each other as enemies. Their whole history is pretty much one somehow dominating the other or attempting to dominate him - from the Teutonic Wars, through Prussia becoming Poland’s vassal and then tables turning and Prussia (& Austria & Russia) partitioning Poland into nonexistence & and the Germanization that followed, until WW2 when they also fought. It’s a pattern.

It's like they live for revenge and each revenge has to be more brutal and dramatic than what happened before. It’s a snowball of anger that escalates. And I HC that yes, all of this was seen by both of them as revenge for the previous hurts and both of them believe the other deserved it for what he did before. The difference between them is that Poland views himself mostly as the victim that fights back (due to Polish martyrology culture, which is strong in the historical nation narrative [The Christ of Nations, etc], and the general belief in the “Germanic Aggressor”) and Prussia sees himself as the conqueror who has been humiliated by someone lesser (due to his general lack of empathy for those he sees as victims, so he would never cast himself as one, he himself wants to be casted as the aggressor, as to him this position means power and agency).

Prussia can never get why Poland kinda glorifies himself as the Victim and The Martyr (an important element of Poland’s identity), as to him that makes no sense, being a victim is pathetic, right? and Poland can't understand why Prussia glorifies himself as the conqueror as to him he's just a bloody tyrant so why would you be proud of that, right?

They see value in different things to the most basic level, which makes communications very hard - and both of them see value in things that end up being destructive to them, bc both the ‘Might is Right!’ and the ‘My suffering makes me SpEcIaL!’ thinking is not healthy. They are both messed up, just differently. But the way they are messed up kinda... makes them the perfect enemies and makes it easy to escalate conflict. They fit in this very pathological way, when Poland needs to “suffer” for his national identity of the Martyr of Europe to make sense and he needs someone to cast as the aggressor, while Prussia needs to attack and conquer to see himself as the badass powerhouse of Europe he wants to be. They are like the perfect toxic relationship - they bring out the worst in each other due to their specific world-view quircks, so it kinda makes sense that their history is so bad.

But my second less-obvious headcanon is:

Prussia began the Teutonic Wars with the slaughter of Danzing because he was young, ambitious and very impulsive. Gilbert has a hot temperament and a strong desire to be active - and he did exactly that, without really thinking through the ramifications of attacking a big established country while being just a young Knights Order. You can see this on macro scale in the Teutonic Wars and on micro scale in the Battle on lake Pejpus where he charged on a frozen lake. He was so into attacking that he never even considered the environment. The thing is, this failures (and his hot temper!) almost killed him. He literally almost died due to the lost wars, lost most of his power and had to completely re-invent himself from a military crusading catolic Knights Order into a secularized Duchy just to SURVIVE and ended up under the Polish boot for years. His biggest enemy’s boot. And he needed to kneel in front of him. This is IMO an incredibly important moment for how his further development went. The Ordnung Muss Sein discipline-is-key culture and the strategic mindfulness that become a second nature to him start here, when he almost dies because of his reckless actions. It also ingrained a sense of deep humiliation connected to the Prussian Homage that only installed the need for power EVEN MORE. Before he wanted power because he hated the feeling that he is less important than Actual Counties and believed he was given unfairly bad cards by being born without land. Now tho there's an extra motive: fear. Fear of being subjugated. And revenge. This kick started the process of creation of Kingdom of Prussia as we know it - so the transition from a wild-child-Order that just went with the flow and threw himself into battle on literal iced-over lake, into a very calculating, rational thinking soldier who assesses the room and everyone in it at the moment he enters and is hyper aware of all the environment and situation that accompanies his conflicts. So I guess the short version is: Prussia is very disciplined and controls his anger very well but that's not how he always was. He’s a powerful force of nature, a wildfire, that is being reigned in by the self-imposed diligent soldier discipline in order not self destruct. It becomes his second nature, he becomes the Machine, bc if he stayed the Wild Child he started as, he would have perished and he is aware of that. So this explains why he is so merciless about his discipline and order - it’s not just a preference he has, on a more primal level it’s about survival to him. Natural tendencies still sometimes slip through, especially when he's tired, drunk or in any way vulnerable. I like to HC that you can hear the more crazy part of him when he laughs - it's such a loud, boisterous, overwhelming laughter that it does not seem to fit his cold, diligent matter-of-fact soldier-persona at all. It's bc what's inside is spilling out in the laughter. You can also see it when he parties ;)

You can also see it in violent outbursts of anger that happen when he is REALLY on edge. They are kinda scary. But most of his ‘anger outbursts’ (and wars) are calculated and planned to get his way with minimal consequences. The truth is, he feels like he failed himself whenever he really looses control.

My other HC about Gil as Teutonic Knghts can be found here, here, here and here if you like my rambly takes :)

#aph prussia #gilbert beilschmidt #hws prussia #hetalia #aph poland #aph lithuania #hws poland #Axis Powers Hetalia #historical hetalia #hetalia headcanons #aph #hetalia world series #feliks łukasiewicz #queque

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atopearth · 3 years

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Piofiore: Fated Memories Part 6 - Finale

It's kinda funny how when it came to defaming the Mafia bosses, Dante's one was the most ridiculous with him handling brothels hahaha. Was he so "clean" that they had to make stuff up?🤣 On the other hand, loll at Fei thinking the newspaper wasn't lying about the stuff Yang did hahaha, not sure if we should rejoice that he doesn't actually abuse women daily, but that he does kill his own men lol. Anyway, the mystery guy seems adamant on hating on the Mafia. He's not as verbal about it as Roberto, but his hatred for them seems to run deep. Personally, I'm on Lili's side. She understands that crime is wrong but she also understands the limits of her powers and what she can do by herself, so instead of completely disregarding the Mafia as evil, she instead hopes that she can do her own little part to support this town she loves because she believes that in the current circumstances, helping the Mafia right now means helping Burlone. I wonder what is his importance though~

Is Henri the previous Key Maiden's brother or something and that's why he hates the Mafia and doesn't think Lili will be safe with them? Oooh, or is the Direttore the brother? Chloe sounds... interestingly crazy lol. Anyway, Dante is so cute to insist on drinking espresso even though it's too bitter for him🤣 Gotta salute Lili for eating Lan and Fei's jian dui lmao, it does look pretty bad even though it apparently tastes good. Tbh, it's kinda funny how even though they say they're pretty good at it, they still can't make the shape right lol. Anyway, it's kinda funny how much of a 180 Rosberg does after kinda realising his position I guess. It's like as if he's become the nice and wise church guy lol. I still find it so random how Orlok is his son though, like I legit thought it was a lie back in Orlok's route because he knew saying it would make him go crazier and kill Gil etc so he could at least get his revenge on them that way but apparently it's true haha. I mean, regardless, it doesn't really change the fact that he's literally raised his child to become a killer with no emotions and never really cared about that all these years so I don't know how I'm supposed to view him when he's obviously trash but the story wants him redeemed? Honestly though, at this point, I wouldn't be surprised if the Direttore and Henri are the same person. Anyway, Henri being Riton was expected after seeing the flashbacks for a while, especially with all the stuff he says but yeah, it's kinda sad to see him obstinate on seeking revenge influenced by all the rumours surrounding Chloe's death and how the Falzone might have killed her etc, but I guess even without the rumours he would eventually blame them, since if they never went to the Falzone, maybe she wouldn't have died like that. I wonder if there's a reason why Chloe went kinda insane though, like a Key Maiden thing, or was it just her? I guess she was just so consumed with the Key Maiden thing and didn’t realise that she could have her own life too. Honestly, I'm pretty disappointed with the finale, other than hearing the story of Henri/Direttore, everything ended not much differently from Gil's happy ending, hopefully the after story pieces the rest better. Like, why didn't we get to interact more with Henri/Direttore if this is supposed to revolve around him? Anyway, it is kinda fitting to welcome the new year with them though because I'm playing this on the last day of 2020 haha!

Anyway, it's kinda saddening to know that Roberto and Nicola were actually kinda friendly when Roberto first came to Burlone and they didn't know each other's identities. I guess it kinda shows why Roberto is so obsessed with Nicola and hates him so much in Nicola's route, since Nicola was also the first one to push Roberto away after realising he was a part of the police. Nicola's attitude also doesn't help to pacify things. I think it would have been nice to know this in Nicola's route though, since Roberto is the villain for it. I thought it was really nice that Roberto was the one to remind Marco (when he was doubting the Mafia system because he couldn't save Chloe back then) that the most important thing as the police will always be to protect the people, so yeah even though the Mafia may not be the best way to run this place, there are things outside their control, but protecting the people will always be something they can do. Anyway, I find it funny how in the Henri ending, the guys blame Nicola for leaving the heroine and coming back himself, but when she runs back into the burning casino to find Henri, no one stopped her?! Like, I know it's for story romantic purposes but really, Orlok who is the quickest could have definitely stopped her. It's pretty terrible that Henri got treated badly because his sister tried to kill Beatrice when she was pregnant😔 Even the girl who "saved" him from the parents beating him played him like a toy... It would be hard for him to let go of his hatred when all these things happened after Chloe died, and essentially it's all because of the Falzone even if Silvio and Dante didn't want that. I feel so sorry for the real Sebastiano Gallier... Henri befriended him, killed him and his whole family just to get his identity..that's pretty cruel. Lili's right that Henri dying won't resolve anything, and living is technically a punishment for him in a sense, so I think it would be nice if they could both find a reason for him to live together. Anyway, Henri probably needs a therapist but I guess they aren't in a good situation to look for one. It's kinda funny how in every kind of happy ending where the heroine runs away or disappears, she ends up taking care of kids lol but I guess that's what she can do. Although I don't really care for Henri personally (he is cute though), I do think it's nice to live in a countryside in peace. One thing that really annoys me is Emilio's existence, he never really does anything, causes more trouble than he does providing "important information" because a lot of the time he gives that info, I'm not sure if it's even useful anymore and he only makes some kind of move when chaos has erupted to a point that there's not much point anymore. And the finale after the finale didn't really do much, but I guess I'll look forward to the fandisk if it gets translated!

Overall, I definitely enjoyed Piofiore. I'll say the overarching plot is definitely a miss for me because every time they mentioned stuff about the Key Maiden and everything, I honestly thought it was boring and the relic was silly too imo, and I also think Henri/Direttore's story lacked the impact it could have created. Even though there was a Henri ending, I don't feel like Lili got to interact with him to the extent that could have made me care more for him, so it was saddening in that aspect. Yang was definitely my favourite character-wise and VA-wise because he was everything I wanted in this Mafia game - dangerous, sexy and ruthless. But I did also enjoy the other guys, it's just that Yang outshined them imo (if you can get over how "evil" he is I guess). The individual routes weren't bad, but I don't think they were particularly interesting since I felt like counterfeit money and other stuff like Lee going against Yang weren't very appealing plot points, so the characters are definitely the highlight for me in this game. If I had to choose my favourite Mafia family, I'd probably choose the Falzone for the overall warmth from Giulia and Leo, but honestly the twins and Yang in the Lao-Shu wins over everyone in the end hahaha. Oh and the art is absolutely beautiful in this game, definitely 10/10 for that. Otherwise, I'd say I would give the game a 7.5/10, good and I liked it but I don't think it had anything or anyone in it to make it memorable for me (aside from Yang). I would recommend it though because it was fun and Lili was an okay heroine, I loved how beautiful she was in all the CGs hahaha.

#piofiore fated memories #Piofiore no Banshou

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secret-engima · 4 years

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alyss-spazz-penedo

hey, @secret-engima, hear me out: what if GILGAMESH became Glaucus' Shield? Like, after the two Murder Brats jumped into the Tempering Grounds and Glaucus has to fish them out, the man takes a moment to chew GIL out for endangering children like that, he SAW that last swing and it was aimed unacceptably close to a vital area, what even is he doing STILL haunting the damn Tempering Grounds anyway when the next worthwhile opponent won't be for literal decades (ie. Gladio)

alyss-spazz-penedo

So Gil is clubbed over the head with the idea that he doesn't actually have to follow 200 years of habit and, like. Ardyn's moved on, is living a life, and Gil KNOWS what's coming and that there's no value to holding his post, killing off idiots, once these people leave bc Cor was the only worthwhile opponent for literal decades. He can... he can take a VACATION.

alyss-spazz-penedo

....He has no idea what to do with a vacation, so he falls back on EVEN OLDER HABITS and is like well let's play Shield for a LC then. And maybe, MAYBE he'd pick Ardyn, but there's just. So much history there. That wouldn't... that wouldn't WORK, it would hurt them both just to try.

alyss-spazz-penedo

Which leaves just one LC available (arguably, bc Titus would absolutely fight him for the position but the brat's too young still. Maybe in a few years). And, Gilgamesh KNOWS what's up with Glaucus-once-Cor-Leonis, might be the only person in the world who DOES know, and that's//

alyss-spazz-penedo

*and that's... that's something I think Glaucus might really need. Just. Someone to help him remember who he WAS,

alyss-spazz-penedo

(Also, the thought of Ardyn and Gil wandering around being terrible at self-care and utter bemused by the world amuses me. Also Besithia would probably be an Utter Scientific Glee)

Me: *deep breath*

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS

BUCKLE UP RAMBLE FICLET INBOUND.

-It starts after the Murder Children are idiots and Glaucus has to come rescue them. Titus and Cor have never been more humbled, confused, and terrified than watching Glaucus snark at a 2k year old potential eldritch abomination and GET AWAY WITH IT. Glaucus actually makes Gilgamesh shuffle in shame when he lectures about how close he came to actually HURTING two of Glaucus’s kids. How dare.

-Then Glaucus takes a long, hard look at Gil and abruptly tells him to take a vacation. It’s not like the world is gonna end if he leaves the Tempering Grounds for a decade or so (Titus and Cor are a Fear™, don’t tell the monster to LEAVE it’s hideout and roam the world Glaucus!!). Gil stares at Glaucus in a stunned silence, Glaucus grunts and walks away, lecturing the two murder children.

-Gil thinks ... long and hard on Glaucus’s words.

-In the end decides it’s a moot point because when he was first cursed to this place he did try to leave a few times but he couldn’t. His curse wouldn’t let him. Pity though ... a vacation had sounded ... nice.

-That’s right around the time Ifrit shows up.

-Now, Ifrit doesn’t like humans, even after giving Glaucus his Blessing for the time-travel thing. He tolerates a few of them, even finds Glaucus and his group funny, but on the whole doesn’t like them. Know what he does like? Screwing over Bahamut. And when Glaucus mentioned Gilgamesh’s curse situation within Ifrit’s earshot (ie said it aloud at all because Ifrit tends to watch them from afar like his only tolerated cable tv channel), Ifrit got IDEAS.

-So Gilgamesh is in his Tempering Grounds, minding his own business and being broody bored when there’s a rush of fire and Ifrit the Infernian is standing there looking ... cunning.

-“Mortal.” Ifrit intones.

-“Not really,” Gilgamesh snarks because he’s a walking suit of armor cursed to live until the Chosen King comes, what’s Ifrit gonna do? Curse him again?

-Ifrit just grins “How would you like to change that?”

-Excuse him?

-Anyway after much smug talking from the Infernian, much sarcasm from Gilgamesh, and some severe bending of the rules of curses with a little shapeshifting magic thrown in for flavor, Gilgamesh kinda- blinks and finds himself outside the Tempering Grounds. In the sunlight.

-For the first time in 2k years.

-Yeah there might have been a panic attack or three. Especially because he now had lungs with which to HAVE a panic attack again. Ifrit had granted him a human form (one-armed and with a scar on his back just like the missing arm of his armor and the rend Titus had made) which technically Ifrit shouldn’t have been able to, except apparently he can just this once because he’s not bothering to use a human disguise and he was GOOD at this kind of magic while the rest of the Astrals were too busy being holier than thou to bother learning human-friendly enchantments.

-Gilgamesh sets off into the wilds, quickly figures out he has forgotten how to maintain an eating or sleeping schedule and he’s probably gonna go into a coma or something if he travels alone. So with a dry smile (that feels so good he HAS FACIAL EXPRESSIONS AGAIN. WOOT.) he sets off for where he can feel the magic of the time-traveling Sword.

-A week-ish after Ifrit shows up, so maybe 2-3 weeks after the Murder Children do their thing, Glaucus is having some “me time” out in the forest (happily murdering things to bring back to camp later without having a nattering crowd on his heels, he loves his idiots and Regis’s group, but sometimes they’re ... a bit much) when all the hairs on his neck prickle. He looks up and sees two red eyes glowing faintly in the shadows.

-The figure steps out wordlessly, hand away from his sword. One arm is missing and the man stands at a massive 7′6″, his eyes are a dark red that glints in the low lightning, his shaggy brown hair is pulled back into half-tail to keep it out of his face, which has scars on the right side from some old fight.

-Glaucus lowers his sword, but doesn’t ease from his stance, “I didn’t know you could look human, Gil,” he says almost flippantly.

-“Had a little help from your pet Astrals,” Gilgamesh retorts, his smile tugging at his scars. His posture is relaxed and non-threatening and almost ... uncertain. Like he isn’t sure what to say or how Glaucus will react.

-Glaucus just looks at him thoughtfully before snorting, “My gang of idiots is not the best place for a vacation.”

-Gilgamesh is blunt and open, “I’ve forgotten how to sleep when the moon rises, when to eat so I won’t pass out. I cannot die until the Chosen King comes into his own, but it is still unpleasant. I also...” he hesitates, “I do not remember how to function without a purpose. To fight. To guard the Grounds. To await the Last Shield. Without them ... I am lost.”

-“So you came to me.”

-“You are the only Lucis Caelum without a Shield.”

-Glaucus sneers “A Sword doesn’t need a Shield,” he scoffs, “and isn’t Ardyn more your speed?”

-Gilgamesh winces, “I have made my apologies,” and hadn’t that been a dramafest when Glaucus dragged the newly purified Ardyn to the Tempering Grounds for Gilgamesh to apologize to him, “but we will never stand united as a Shield and a King. I have broken his trust once, he does not give it a second time. Not in the way he would need for me to be his Shield. Besides,” and now Gilgamesh smiles ruefully, “For all his bite, the young Drautos is more a Shield than the Little Lion will ever be.”

-Glaucus flinches at the far off memory, of promising to be Regis’s second Shield, of protecting him no matter what only to fail. But Gilgamesh did not mean the words as an insult and the man makes a point. For all his recklessness and snark and fury, Titus is protective. His instinct is to kill on behalf of something rather than just to feel the adrenaline in his veins. He is protective of Ardyn, and Ardyn listens to the boy. Glaucus sheaths his sword and flexes his hands, “I don’t know how to have a Shield,” he admits softly, “you know I’m not ... natural.” Not a natural LC, not a born one, a time-traveler added to the line for the sake of the future and nothing more.

-“Neither am I,” Gilgamesh shrugs, “it is nothing to be ashamed of. You have the instincts to forge a Shield Bond imprinted in your very magic. I will swear fealty, and you will command me.”

-“Doesn’t that take trust?” Glaucus points out, “You’ve tried to kill me once before, and I know what you did to Ardyn.”

-A pause. A weighted reply of, “it takes trust. The trust that I will fight by your side and be strong enough to watch your back, that I will voice my opposition but obey your every command. The trust that there is no secret you can hold that will turn me away from you.” The last part is meaningful, pointed.

-They stand there in the increasing gloom of dusk for a long time. A former Leonine Sword and a Cursed Shield.

-Then Glaucus laughs, rough and wild and bloody. His eyes spark silver-bright as his magic reaches out and angrily, possessively tangles around Gilgamesh. It carves away the old, tattered, withered bond he once held with Somnus, a blade cutting away a rotted limb, then coils into place. A silent demand for loyalty, a silent acceptance of all Gilgamesh is and has done. Gilgamesh kneels and swears fealty to a new king, a old lion with glittering claws, and in the quiet of twilight, Glaucus names him Gildas, Gilgamesh’s old name from before he was the Mystic’s Shield, his current name of blood and trials and terror, both cast aside in favor of the new one. A new start.

-Gildas rises and follows Glaucus back to camp.

-While the rest of the groups stare in surprise at the massive, one-armed giant of a man Glaucus comes back with, Ardyn stills. Gildas and Ardyn stare at each other for some time, long enough for Titus to bristle protectively, not quite recognizing Gildas as the unarmored and once-more human Gilgamesh. Then Ardyn smiles, sad and understanding and ... forgiving, and pats the Haven in welcome, “Come, friend, introduce yourself to us and enjoy a meal.”

-Gildas dips his head, submission and gratitude all in one, “I am Gildas,” he rumbles, “and-”

-Glaucus interrupts, a slight, possessive lion’s growl in his voice, “He is my Shield.”

-The camp erupts into chatter and questions and shouting save Ardyn, who just smiles sadly and shuffles over to make room for an old once-friend. They will never be what they once were, will never trust each other like they once did, but Ardyn has always been too forgiving of a soul when the scourge did not turn him bitter, and he knows that Gilgamesh has been trapped in the Tempering Grounds for two thousand years with only the voices of the dead to keep him company as he awaited the Chosen King, just as Ardyn was trapped for two thousand years with only the screaming of the daemons to break the silence. In Ardyn’s mind, Gilgamesh has been punished enough.

-Better to forgive and move on in this new time, than to hold onto grudges two thousand years gone.

#Secret Engima Rambles #Melodies and Manuscripts #The Future's Blurry (the Past is Trap) verse #yesssss #gilgamesh (ffxv)#cor leonis #ffxv au

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thenicenamesaretaken · 3 years

Text

Ten Minutes

This is my first fic written for the Soft Things Happen Bingo event going on through the rest of the year.

Rating: Teen Pairing: Gil/Malcolm Square: Kisses AO3: Link

Ten Minutes

“You, are more, important, than answers,” Gil tells him, pressing a gentle kiss to each and every bruise he comes across between the words. "Just give me ten minutes. Ten minutes to remind you why you shouldn’t go throwing yourself into danger,” Gil says.

Set after Malcolm comes out of the tunnel in Family Friend.

For several long, agonizing moments after Paul strolls away from him, Malcolm doesn’t do anything but lay there on the ground and try to breathe without feeling like he’s being stabbed. His first instinct, once he’s sure he isn’t going to die then and there, is to call Gil. But then he remembers the locked door at the entrance to the tunnel, and realizes his…whatever Gil is to him now, won’t be able to get to him there anyway. Not any time soon, at least. He came down this tunnel alone, foolishly, and he’ll have to get himself out of it.

It’s slow going. Painfully slow, literally. He has one hand against the wall, holding him up as he staggers his way out, and one wrapped protectively around his middle. For all the good it does. Each step jars his battered body, each breath setting fire to his lungs.

Once he’s near the exit, he calls Gil.

It doesn’t go well. He should have been thinking about what he was going to say, but he’d been distracted by the pain, and when Gil answers he doesn’t have any excuses or explanations or lies to tell to blur the lines of how bad the situation really is.

“I think I need help,” is the first thing that slips out of his mouth, interspersed with some painful wheezing.

He can hear the flurry of movement as Gil rushes out of his office. He yells a bit, fear and anger evident in his voice as he gets Malcolm’s location from him, voice softening only when Malcolm assures him that he’s okay, he’s really okay, he isn’t bleeding or shot or concussed. Just bruised.

By the time he makes it to the door Gil is there waiting for him. He practically stumbles right into the other man’s arms, and he’s never been more relieved to feel Gil’s strong arms wrap around him, hold him up, hold him close. Safe. Gil has always meant safety to him.

“Jesus, Malcolm. What the hell happened to you?” Gil demands even as he gingerly wraps an arm around his waist. Malcolm throws an arm over his shoulder, and together, they manage to get back to the precinct. The going is much faster with Gil there to support him, and as they walk he tells Gil of his chase and capture in the turnstile, brushing over the fact that Paul had intended to kill him. He also brushes off the suggestion of an ER visit as soon as Gil mentions it, explaining that he’s waiting for a call from Paul and can’t risk being in the hospital when it comes. Gil counters by insisting that Malcolm is, at the very least, seen by a medic. Gil calls for one as they reach the precinct steps.

The medic is already waiting outside Gil’s office by the time they arrive. Malcolm watches Gil with a small, grateful smile as he goes around the office, closing the blinds between them and the bullpen, giving Malcolm some privacy as he starts to strip out of his jacket and shirt. The medic’s questions are direct and to the point, and Malcolm answers them as honestly as he can, knowing that if Gil—who isn’t trying to hide the fact that he’s watching—will bench him if he thinks that Malcolm is trying to hide a more serious injury.

Gil helps him out of his jacket and shirt, folding them carefully over one of the armchairs in front of his desk. Malcolm gets his first glance at the copious amount of bruises already spreading over his midsection, and casts Gil a furtive glance, carefully watching his reaction.

Gil’s jaw is working back and forth, his arms crossed tightly in front of his chest, even as he leans back against his desk, trying to act unaffected. Malcolm watches his eyes travel slowly over his body with a focus that would usually inspire much more pleasant thoughts. Malcolm shivers beneath Gil’s gaze; his brown eyes, normally filled with warmth and affection, now flat and hard. He wilts a bit, ducking his head. He knows he messed up, knows he was rash, foolish, needlessly self-sacrificing. And, while Gil has always cared about his well-being, it’s different now. There’s more between them than there ever has been before—more love, more worry, more to lose.

The medic seems to be a little off-put by Gil’s continuing, obviously displeased, presence in the room. He casts him confused little glances and even attempts to maneuver himself between Malcolm and Gil’s steady gaze at one point.

“It’s okay,” Malcolm whispers finally, “I don’t mind that he’s here.” He risks a quick glance in Gil’s direction, but his stony expression hasn’t changed.

The examination isn’t pleasant, but it’s quick. Some poking and prodding and the medic declares none of his ribs are broken outright—though he can’t rule out cracked. They’re heavily bruised, and he cautions Malcolm against any activities that might put more stress on them, which could lead to a break. He gives Malcolm some heavy duty painkillers and an ice pack that he wraps in a few layers of bandages, holding it in place over the worst of the bruising. Then the medic is packing up and scurrying out.

Gil follows, shutting the door behind him, and Malcolm thinks he hears the click of the lock engaging. He sighs, preparing himself for a lecture, and starts to shrug back into his dress shirt. The sharp pains that had been coming with each breath dull into an all over, constant ache that he can mostly ignore, but his movements are still slow, and he can’t quite hide a grimace as he works his way back into his clothes.

Malcolm is focused on doing up his buttons and doesn’t notice Gil’s approach until the other man is standing directly in front of him, brushing away his hands from where they’re starting to do up the buttons of his shirt. Malcolm glances up sharply at Gil, surprised, especially as the other man flips loose the two buttons that Malcolm had managed to do and pushes the two sides of his shirt back from his chest.

“Gil?” he murmurs, barely above a whisper. The other man’s silence is…unexpected. With the way Gil had been fuming earlier, Malcolm expected that he would have started laying into him by now.

Gil doesn’t meet his eyes, not at first. He brushes the tips of his fingers across the bruising on Malcolm’s chest, following the touch with his gaze until he slides his hands up to rest on Malcolm’s mostly unbruised shoulders. At last, he snaps his eyes up to meet Malcolm, searching his face. His expression is softer, now, and filled with too much emotion for Malcolm to decipher.

“Malcolm, what were you thinking?” he demands, though there’s no real heat to the words.

“I needed answers,” Malcolm replies, immediately going on the defense, ready to argue his point.

“You could have been killed!” Gil exclaims, meeting Malcolm’s stubborn glare with a frustrated glare of his own. “Why didn’t you call for backup? Why do you never call for backup?”

“I didn’t have time, and he wouldn’t have talked to me if I had,” Malcolm insists, but he’s losing steam, his argument sounding flat, even to himself. The deep concern etched across every line in Gil’s face as he looks down at him slices through Malcolm’s defenses, and he starts to feel the weight of exactly what he’d done.

“He wouldn’t have caught you and nearly killed you, you mean,” Gil counters, giving him a gentle shake.

Malcolm grunts, neither agreeing or disagreeing, and drops his gaze back down, reaching to start on his buttons once more.

Gil catches his hands in both of his, stilling them and pushing them down to Malcolm’s side. Malcolm looks up at him, confused, as Gil steps in even closer, dropping his hands to rest on Malcolm’s hips.

“Kid, if he’d killed you, I don’t…I don’t think I’d survive that,” he admits, voice barely above a whisper.

“Gil, he has—” Malcolm begins, trying again to steel his resolve and brush off the older man’s concern, but Gil shushes him with a quick, gentle kiss pressed to his lips, catching him by surprise.

Before Malcolm can recover, Gil presses another kiss to his chin, where Malcolm knows the skin is rubbed red and raw. Gil moves on, dipping his head lower to pepper kisses across the bruises that spread across his collarbone.

“Gil, what…what are you doing?” Malcolm gasps out, mind racing as Gil continues to kiss his way across his chest, sucking just a little when he reaches Malcolm’s nipple because he knows just how sensitive Malcolm is. Malcolm sucks in a startled breath, exhaling with a soft moan.

“You, are more, important, than answers,” Gil tells him, pressing a gentle kiss to each and every bruise he comes across between the words. Then, Gil lowers himself to his knees, and Malcolm’s mind goes blank at the sight. Gil keeps his hands wrapped gently around Malcolm’s hips, tightening his grip to hold him in place when Malcolm instinctually tries to squirm away from the scrape of Gil’s beard as he peppers kisses across Malcolm’s stomach that tickle and nearly draw a giggle from him, despite the gravity of the situation.

“Jesus, Gil. What if someone comes in?” Malcolm asks, bringing his hands up to press weakly at Gil’s shoulders. Their relationship isn’t a secret, though they’ve always kept it professional at work. He knows exactly how their current position looks, and can only imagine the reaction if someone were to walk in to find the head of Major Crimes on his knees in front of his half-dressed consultant.

“Let them. Let them see how much you mean to me,” Gil replies, and Malcolm can see just how much he means it. “Let me show you how much you mean to me,” Gil insists, looking up from his knees to meet Malcolm’s bewildered gaze. His eyes are full of emotion—anger, terror, sorrow, frustration, and so much love it makes Malcolm’s chest ache with the intensity of it. How can he say ‘no’ to that?

Malcolm leans back against the wall, eyes fluttering closed as Gil presses his lips to the narrow strip of skin visible between the bandage and his waistband. Malcolm huffs out a laugh as Gil kisses his way along the very edge of his pants. “I’m not going to be decent enough to go out there if you keep this up.”

“Good,” Gil replies, and he drops his head to press one lingering kiss against Malcolm’s fly, right above where he’s starting to fill out under the attention. “If this is what it takes to keep you from rushing off into danger, I’ll happily do it more often.”

Malcolm gasps, and even though Gil moves away immediately, the arousal remains. He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to put the image of Gil on his knees before him, mouth hovering just above him out of his mind and concentrate on anything else. “Gil, ah, Gil. Wait. There’s…what about Paul? He said he’d call—”

“Later, Malcolm. Just give me ten minutes. Ten minutes to remind you why you shouldn’t go throwing yourself into danger,” Gil says.

“Gil,” Malcolm begins, but his protest dies on his lips as soon when Gil nips at his skin, then kisses away the sting.

He works his way across Malcolm’s belly, leaving soft kisses over every inch of skin he finds, and Malcolm can feel when his lips pull into a smile when Malcolm giggles when it tickles. When there’s bandages in the way, Gil just kisses over them, carefully pressing a kiss against each of Malcolm’s bruised and battered ribs.

Malcolm sighs and feels himself relax ever so slightly, the remaining vestiges of adrenaline and fear fading away beneath Gil’s touch. He runs his hands idly across Gil’s shoulders and neck, sighing in pleasure when Gil finds particularly sensitive spots. With each kiss, Malcolm can feel the depth of Gil’s care for him, and he notices that Gil begins to relax as well, the tension fading slowly from his shoulders.

Gil rests his forehead against Malcolm’s sternum and lets out a long, heavy sigh. He presses one more kiss against Malcolm’s stomach, then slowly pushes himself back up to his feet, running his hands up along Malcolm’s sides as he does.

Malcolm’s eyes begin to fill with tears when Gil pulls him into a careful hug, cupping the back of his head and whispering “I love you so damn much, kid,” into his ear.

“I love you too, Gil. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Malcolm replies, and he is. He’s careless with his own life because stopping a killer seems vastly more important than his own safety. But now there’s more at stake than ever before, and he has more than just himself to live for.

#prodigal son #soft things happen bingo #sthb #broyo #malcolm bright #gil arroyo #kisses

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sahbibabe · 4 years

Text

A Mission For One

Soulmate AU

Sephiroth/Fem! Reader

You are given the details of your mission. It wasn't your intention to be crippling the last of the previous AVALANCHE's funding, nor was it to face the risk of seeing Hojo ever again.

RENO, JUST LIKE RUFUS had said, showed up the very next day, just shy of seven in the morning. He didn't have Rude with him, which was unusual, and instead had a lowly grunt with him. He had a briefcase in one hand and his weapon in the other, shooting you a grin when you opened the door.

"Ready to get started?" He asked, pushing past you to set up on one of the tables. He opened the briefcase with a flourish. "Might wanna sit down because I have a lot of stuff to tell you and not a whole lot of time."

You locked the shop door and sat down across from him, eyeing the grunt who positioned his back to it with a rifle in hand. "Was it necessary to bring the gun inside?"

"Him? Nah." Reno pulled out a file as thick as your fingers put together and set it aside. "Right, first thing I have to tell you is to hold out your arm."

You did so obediently. "What for?"

"This." Reno gave you no warning other than a smirk, and plunged what looked like a five gauge needle into your wrist. He injected a clear substance into you and, before you had time to jerk away, was done. "There. Your Shinra access chip. After the fiasco with keycards and AVALANCHE last year, we decided on these bad boys to secure the system. As long as you're alive, calm, and healthy, you can get anywhere you want to. I think the boss gave you B-Level clearance until you pass your physicals, then will up it to A-Level after that."

You felt dread settle in the pit of your gut. You had never owned anything as much as D-Level access in your entire life, and that was just to attend a small court session to set up your tea shop and legally sell tea from Shinra suppliers. B-Level was a high jump, and giving you A-Level access after? Those were the same permissions that only Rufus's seconds in command got, only less to Rufus himself.

"Reno," you asked slowly,"what the hell am I going to be doing that requires A-Level access?"

"A lot of things," he whistled, thumbing through a plastic card case and pulling out an ID card with your face plastered on it. "Assassination, murder, espionage, sabotage, take your pick. The things we Turks can't do and get away with easily."

The bad feeling in your stomach told you it was a bit more than that. You let it slide when he handed you the ID, noting the fluorescent finish on it and the expensive plastic it was made of, as well as the giant Shinra logo printed beside your head with a script reading 'VIP: DO NOT ENGAGE' along with your VIP permissions underneath, which extended to free hotel stays, you noticed.

"What's this?" You asked, watching it shine in the light. "I already have an ID."

"Yeah, but not one that's special like that." Reno then pulled out a manilla file almost as thick as the one he had brought out before, except this one had giant red confidential stamps all over it and was sealed with Rufus's personal seal. "It can get you anywhere and everywhere, just like the Turks, and more. Flash that thing and anyone will think twice about stopping you. Murder is easy with a card like that."

"I'd imagine," you said, a little choked. You had, quite literally, just gotten federal permission to commit murder. Freely. In an effort to distract yourself from the fact that you'd just been given a 'free for all' card, you tapped the first file he'd pulled out. "And these?"

"Paperwork for the doctor who does the exam." Reno shrugged when you gawked at the sheer size of it. "I know. It's a lot. But it only takes an hour. Drug tests and blood tests and all that. Even STD tests."

You placed it aside in favor of the packet he now held. "I'm guessing those are my mission details?"

"More like your trial targets," Reno supplied vaguely. "You won't officially start them until next week. You'll have a month to finish all of them. You can read up on them and memorize them until then."

In Reno's hands laid the lives of the people you were about to take forever. Permanently. And it wasn't even what you were being recruited for; they were tests. That was it.

He handed it to you and you broke the seal, pulling out one of the targets. A photo had been blown up to visible proportions, blurry and grainy, but you could make out the face well enough, recognized it even: one of AVALANCHE's older benefactors, a man by the name of Michael Dallien.

He had donated a total of three million gil to the cause shortly after the mako reactor went down, you read, and had been funneling smaller sums to them ever since under the guise of fundraisers. At the bottom, stamped in blue, was the price of his bounty: four million gil, plus a bonus for delivering visceral proof.

Which meant Rufus wanted his head. Literally.

"As you can see, you'll get paid more than the three million gil for whoever you kill," Reno explained, pointing to a section near the bottom. "There will be others competing with you, though, but they aren't doing it with the accesses that you have. They work for other corporations wanting to overthrow Shinra. If you get to them first, the other corporations won't be able to nab their resources and bam, you get paid and you move on to the next one."

The more people you found in the packet, the higher the bounties became, until you came upon a bounty on Rufus Shinra himself, priced right around one million gil.

"What the hell?" You breathed, showing Reno the picture. "What does this mean?"

"That leads me to your official assignment." The redhead plucked the paper from your hands and pointed to the list of mercs slated for the job; you weren't on it. "Our little Public Relations guy, Heidegger, put this up a few weeks ago. I doubt he knew we bugged his personal computer, but he's enlisted several attempts on the boss's life in the next couple of months. Now, the Turks aren't invincible, some are bound to slip through the cracks. That's where you will come in."

"You want me to protect Rufus Shinra," you deadpanned,"because the Turks can't."

"Hey, it isn't for lack of trying. He has so many enemies it's hard to keep track of. We keep eyes on the outside, you keep eyes on the internals. Simple."

"You mean people like Heidegger and Scarlet," you supplied, realization dawning on you. "It's not because you can't, it's because you can't do it without everyone knowing who did it."

Reno winked and pointed a finger at you. "Bingo. I knew you'd put it together. Rude owes me fifty gil."

"That explains the ID," you sighed, waving the card around flimsily. You tucked everything into a neat pile in front of you. "Anything else?"

"Yep. I took the liberty of pulling some strings and getting you a female doctor to perform your physical." Reno leaned back and crossed his arms, the grunt shifting nervously behind you. "Figured you wouldn't want Hojo snooping around in your insides again."

The sudden horror you felt had you speechless. Hojo was supposed to do your physical? Hojo had none of the specifications for that, last you had heard, and that was when he was injecting your eyeballs with some dark fluid. To have him examining you from head to toe, even for the gynecology exam because it had to be on there too, made you want to throw up at the idea.

"Other than that, though, all you have to do is get your Shinra tech fitted and your uniform. It's all unbranded so no one will be able to trace us if you get caught, and made with synthetic material that also can't be traced. You'll have to check with the boss about your weapons. Can't go to Scarlet." Reno seemed to be checking off some list and nodded to himself. "That's it, I think. Rude will drop by later and give you your rental keys."

You were still caught up on Hojo doing your physical exam, even after Reno dismissed himself and headed out of the shop. It disgusted you on so many levels that as soon as you tucked your files away into your floorboards and put your ID in your wallet, you went to the bathroom to hurl up your breakfast.

None of what Hojo did to you was memorable after the initial injection, but you recalled him speaking of something like,"Let Her see through your eyes," but it was muffled behind the wall of pain you felt. You remembered the pinch of an IV, trying to open your eyes and only feeling your eyelids as swollen as golf balls, and feeling nurses walk in and out to switch your dressing gown.

Hojo would check, occasionally, prying your swollen lids apart and testing the tears and occasional pus that would stream out, ignoring your crying and screaming indignantly. He pressed the swelling, irritated them, scraped samples from your waterline, and then fed tubes into them to drain the pus out. It never ended well, because it would soon grow clogged with that black material he had put in, like a coagulated gummy pile of rot. You never bled, but the sheer amount of tears you produced left you dehydrated and desperate for water.

You were one hundred percent certain he had also done something to your reproductive system, because after that, your cycles just became nightmares, even more so towards you leaving after he deemed you a failure. You never checked, though, too scared and poor to afford an exam, even when you now had the money and means to do so.

But now you had to because of the stupid physical exam. Hojo had ruined you in more ways than you could say, and it was no wonder you lied to everyone in your life. You were petrified of trust because you, once upon a time, had trusted him to help you. That had been a mistake.

Never again.

#final fantasy #final fantasy 7 remake #sephiroth x reader #soulmate au #soulmate

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shineonmalcolmbright · 4 years

Text

Shine On, Bright: Chapter Three

Table of Contents

Present

The problem is the jittery (yet still subtle but not so subtle) excitement of Malcolm Bright. He’s walking beside Gil, sometimes hiding his shaking hands in pockets and other times he’s fidgeting out in the open in an attempt to explain what is happening right now. But Gil, Gil hears about every other word. He’s looking forward into the junkyard where Malcolm said he was shot at while visiting and that his father’s car was there.

Up ahead, Dani stands around, waiting for their arrival. The look of absolute disappointment is easy to spot or easy for Gil to spot. Without looking over at Malcolm and saying out loud, he does his best to snap, You should stop.

Malcolm literally stops both moving and talking at the same time. He almost trips as he looks over at Dani. What?

Something’s wrong.

With a brief survey, Malcolm knows. There’s something wrong by the way everybody is standing around. There is this attempt at carelessness while the weight of the world weighs down on each and every single present. Dani avoids eye contact while pretending to look over at Malcolm and Gil and their arrival.

“What’s going on here?” Gil interrupts a silence that’s so easy to miss.

Gil avoids thinking all the details Malcolm told him about a station wagon he rode in to get to the Overlook Hotel. Somehow after all those years, Gil remembers it well. The vehicle pulling up into the circle right outside the hotel. While he worked as a security guard at the Overlook, he paid little attention to arrivals but somebody failed to come into work as staff disappeared for the winter. It happened every winter.

Nobody’s saying it out loud but Malcolm can feel it sizzling in the air, all hot in his brain. Bodies. Murder. How’d he know? Whoever said that so loud into the wind, Malcolm didn’t even know their name. He did his best not to look over at them pretending their thoughts weren’t clear but they were all bold, red, painful. How did he know? How did he know here?

Good question.

But it’s not like Malcolm is going to offer them up an answer. Him being haunted by memories and ghosts, both just as dangerous. Maybe even both leading out here. He almost misses something Dani says to him. It’s so easy not to catch considering the noise, noise, noise. Not a good day to be able to read the unsuspecting minds of those on all sides.

When Dani doesn’t get an answer, she changes the subject. All she asked was if Malcolm was alright after being shot at. The no answer was clear, no. There’s a lot to be said too about the way Malcolm looks ready to hop all over the junkyard, about to leap on and off broken cars.

“A body of a young woman was found,” Dani starts to inform them.

Again, her words become lost. Malcolm shoots her a quick glance before nearly blacking out because of all the noise, noise, noise of surrounding loud sounds. How did he know? How did he know here? How did he know? How did he know here? Answer is: They don’t want to know.

Gil side eyes him. Chances are Malcolm’s being louder than usual. A lot louder than usual but he tries to focus and he tries to pry his way through all those thoughts, How did he know? How did he know here? Malcolm picks at a few loose threads in his coat pocket.

Reminder: Fix that later.

Another reminder: Fix memories later. Memories need to be fixed and investigated and sought out to better understand all the reasons to why his father’s car would be here in a junkyard where everybody else is also bouncing around thinking bodies, bodies, bodies. But strange. Dani made it sound as if there was only…one victim.

Rather than focus on Dani, Malcolm swings around to find Edrissa standing in one spot. If it weren’t murder that brought them all around, it would’ve looked as if she were lifting pizza from a brick oven with some giant spatula. She too is practically bouncing around. Some sort of energy consumes the area, popping around each and every single person increasing all the thoughts of each person standing around the junkyard.

Bodies, bodies, bodies. But nobody’s said a thing out loud about this. Just something brewing around them, boiling for too long.

Malcolm tilts his head to the side as he watches Edrisa side step towards another medical examiner, body on her giant pizza spatula. Her head bobbing as if she’s hearing some bop caught in her head. She’s not. Malcolm and Gil know this for a fact. Although in a sing-song way Edrisa is reminding herself again and again: Careful, be careful, you want to be careful

“Is that a pizza spatula?” It’s like Malcolm’s joining the land of the living, not a world of shadows shared between him and Gil then a few others.

Edrisa is dumping the remains of a woman found in a car into a bad to be carried back to the lab. She chuckles. “Oh this? No, it’s actually called a pizza peel, derived from the French word for shovel, which is weird since pizza’s Italian.”

Behind them, Dani manages to say in her head rather than out loud: Yeah, because that’s what’s weird. Malcolm gives her a look causing her to wonder if she said that out loud.

Holding up the pizza peel for everybody to see, Edrisa smiles. Her jitteriness is a welcome energy, one Malcolm feels he can fall in sync with rather than the tautness of everybody else in the junkyard. She chimes back into the conversation. “These puppies are a little known M.E. secret. Great for retrieving smashed soft tissue or a pepperoni that fell off in the oven.” By the look on everybody’s face, utter shock, Edrisa finishes the though. “Oh! Not-Not with the same one.”

Only Malcolm smiles, a breath of relief. He looks at a crushed car, not the station wagon. Those gunshots from the night before ricochet off the corners of his brain, locked in his memory. They’re loud enough above all the other noise, noise, noise that Gil grimaces a little behind him. Swinging his arms around a bit while keeping his hands in his pocket, Malcolm asks, “What do we know about the victim?”

Gil steps forward so Malcolm can see him from the corner of his eye. It takes a lot more strength to not roll his eyes than to actually roll them at the fact both Malcolm and Edrisa look ready to hop all around the junkyard with a victim at the site of the crime and the abandoned car of a serial killer. Then of course, the antsy tremors of gunshot memory ricochets. Before Edrisa gets a word in, Gil tells Malcolm, You should go home, take the day off.

Yeah, but of course, Malcolm isn’t going to listen. He’s the sort of person you say no to and his response is yes as he does whatever it is he shouldn’t do. The kid’s shaved enough years off Gil’s life.

“Oh, not much yet,” Edrisa answers. She’s shuffling around. “Based off of decomposition, I’m guessing she died a couple of weeks ago.” She glances off at the medical examiners with the remains.

Bodies, bodies, bodies.

Gil avoids eye contact with Malcolm. “Is it possible she wound up in the car by accident? Maybe she OD’d?”

Edrisa chuckles, she radiates anxiety. It’s pretty electric. Stacked up on top of all the other anxiety flooding the junkyard. Bodies, bodies, bodies. “No, I don’t think so.”

Malcolm tilts his head to the side, sometimes he’s more bird-like than he should be. But he’s looking at smudges along the window of the crushed car. “No, look at those prints, I think the killer locked her in and then turned on the compactor.” For a split second, she’s there. The girl in the car, clawing for life as she’s about to die. The car buckles around her and it’s obvious, she’s not going to make it, but maybe if she tries…

“Dani, see if the techs can pull a print,” Gil cuts in. He considers putting a hand on Malcolm’s shoulder. A reminder to just relax, but he doesn’t. Instead, it’s business. “And find JT.”

Dani glances at Gil. “He’s running down who might have shot at Bright.”

And as if on cue, JT arrives holding up some paper. “No one, apparently.”

WHAT? Malcolm snaps his attention to JT, he moves too fast. It causes JT to stagger a bit like he’ll be attacked. Doesn’t make sense! Ghosts don’t own junkyards, a fact Malcolm knows.

JT shrugs. “Property records list a guy named Paul Lazar as the junkyard owner but he doesn’t exist. There’s no record of him anywhere.”

But ghosts cannot own…

An iciness crawls through Malcolm. It starts in his head and inches its way through his veins. No record of him anywhere. Makes no sense. None of this makes sense. He pretends he’s paying attention to the moment and not looking over at his father’s station wagon.

Gil attempts to keep up the conversation, “So why would someone buy a junkyard under a fake name?”

To kill one woman? Hide The Surgeon’s station wagon? Still, Malcolm can’t focus in on any of them. Instead, little black spots form at the corners of his vision, blotting out Edrisa, Dani, JT, and even Gil.

Gil meant the question for everybody but his only response is Malcolm. Without looking at him, like they’re not talking at all, Gil replies, We have to consider the possibility that your dad’s car has nothing to do with this murder.

“Why?” Dani breaks the silence. “It doesn’t make sense.”

We have to consider the possibility that your dad’s car has nothing to do with this murder, he’s been chained to a wall for 20 years. That’s a good albi, Malcolm, this has to be a coincidence.

Any movement is too much movement. Malcolm feels too dizzy, he turns, moving at such an erratic pace. This he didn’t mean to say out loud, but he does. “He may not have killed her, but he’s connected somehow. He has to be! It can’t be a coincidence…” My memories brought me here, to a place with is car and a dead body! Only Gil hears the last bit of input, but selects to ignore it as best he can.

“What’s he talking about?” JT asks, just plain confusion is on everybody else’s face. It came out of nowhere, Malcolm’s comments. Then again, it’s not like they need a full explanation to know who’s being referenced. “What’s he talking about?

Bodies, bodies, bodies. Bodies, bodies, bodies. Bodies, bodies, bodies. Bodies, bodies, bodies.

A medical examiner walks over to them with a small wave. She looks at Edrisa, “Dr. Tanaka, we found more.”

Bodies.

Ice turns to steel, not good for blood flow. Malcolm realizes the world is all off-kilter. No. Wait. This is new. But the energy and the Bodies,bodies, bodies lingered with him from start to finish of standing in the junkyard but now it’s real, all too real. He tries to grab onto something except nothing is there. It’s not like the noise, noise, noise would help support him.

“More what?” Gil snaps.

The medical examiner looks at the ground. “Victims.”

Gunshots continue to ricochet but something else needles it’s away through Malcolm. He’s almost numb to it, a lot of feeling already gone. Before Malcolm realizes it’s too late, the ground is reaching up towards him. A soft voice haunts him. My Boy! Come on and take your medicine! The problem with memories is that they’re like ghosts. They’re always out there to haunt you. Malcolm is no stranger to being haunted by the dead and his memories, but a few know of this fact even as he hits the ground, passing out.

But there’s no silence even there.

#shineonbrightfic #prodigal son #prodigies #prodigal son fic #prodigal son fanfic #malcolm bright #Gil Arroyo #edrisa tanaka #dani powell #jt tarmel #Junkyard killer #alternate universe #The Shining #whump #malcolm bright whump

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arofili · 3 years

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Worldbuilding Exchange Letter 2021

Hello lovely creator, thanks for creating for me in the Worldbuilding Exchange! I’m very excited and grateful for whatever you create for me <3

This letter will restate my DNWs, list my likes, give you a brief rundown of my canon preferences, and then dive into specific prompts for each of my requests.

I’ll warn you upfront that I tend to ramble, so feel free to skip prompts that don’t interest you and/or use ctrl+F to search for whatever it is you want to write for.

My requests are divided by fandom, and in the case of the Silm + Middle-earth Legendarium, by topic too, so hopefully that will be helpful for you! Also, my TAZ request is waaay down at the bottom, so if that’s what you’re here for, just go to the bottom of the page.

Housekeeping:

DNWs:

Non-con

Unrequested dub-con

Abusive/Neglectful parenting (especially wrt Fëanor)

Sibling incest, parent-child incest (cousin pairings are fine)

Unhappy/Unhopeful endings (unless otherwise specified)

Jealousy/Possessiveness

Cheating

Character or ship bashing

Hanahaki/any scenario where unrequited love is physically damaging

Soulmates, especially soulmate AUs (soul bonds are OK, if there is choice involved)

Porn without plot (Porn with plot is fine!)

Food involved in sex

Unrequested Modern AU

Non-trans mpreg

If you’re writing a slash ship where the characters are/were married to/involved with someone outside the ship, please don’t have the character(s) hate their spouse or not have been actually in love with them (the one exception is Finrod; I’m fine with him and Amarië not having been actually in love, but please don’t do this for anyone else, especially not Fëanor)

Hobbit/LOTR-specific DNWs:

The concept of a dwarven “One”

Any Fíli pairing

Alfrid

Legolas or Gimli paired with anyone other than each other

no smut for these fandoms, please

Silm-specific DNWs:

Evil/irredeemable/incel Maeglin

Elwing bashing

Fëanorian bashing

Over the top Fëanorian apologism (they did bad stuff; it was at least partially their fault. you don’t have to address that, necessarily, but don’t rewrite the story to claim they were blameless)

Fingon with a wife

Fingon or Maedhros ships that don’t take Russingon into account (polyamory, an open relationship, Mae with someone after Finno dies or vice versa for an AU, them with other people while they’re separated on the Ice/in Angband - all of these scenarios are fine, but in the end I need them to be with each other first and foremost)

Dark!Maedhros

Elvish re-embodiment after death being an actual, literal rebirth that requires the characters to have a second childhood; I much prefer them being granted a new hröa in their prime (feel free to explore what “in their prime” means, though, especially wrt scarred and disabled elves)

~~~

Likes:

(these might not all apply to worldbuilding, but they might give you a place to start from!)

Gen fic

Found family

Family dynamics

Loving families, even when things get complicated

Friendship, intense/important platonic relationships

Relationships that defy categorization

Queerplatonic relationships

Polyamory

Queer headcanons (especially aromantic-spectrum headcanons)

Trans/nonbinary headcanons (genderbending is also fine, but I prefer trans/nb hcs)

Angst with a happy ending

Gray morality

Explorations of magic

Most tropes

Fanon and fandom tropes

Deconstruction/Inversion of fanon and fandom tropes

Interspecies relationships

Peredhil

Secret relationships

Secret relationships coming to light

Secret kids (especially secret peredhil!)

Giving ships OC kids

OCs interacting with canon characters

Confessions of love

First times

Hurt/comfort

Redemption, forgiveness, mercy

Ironic foreshadowing

Canon divergence AUs/X Lives AUs

Politics and scheming

Resolving conflicting canonical details

Historical/Narrative bias affecting what is and isn’t “canon” (to an extent; changing motivations, consequences, etc is great, but please don’t ignore canon entirely)

Elrond & Elros having complicated relationships with both their bio and adoptive parents

Names fitting the time period (Quenya names in Valinor, please; if this is difficult for you, that’s okay, no pressure, but I do strongly prefer it)

Names having a lot of thought put behind them (does the character go back to their original Quenya name upon rebirth? or do they keep their Sindarin name? or come up with something else entirely? do they hate their new Sindarin name and resent having to use it, or do they embrace it? As long as you put some thought into it, I’m sure I’ll like whatever you decide!)

Author’s notes where you explain your thought process, if you want; I love hearing how the story took shape!

~~~

Preferences re: Canon:

LaCE compliance is always completely optional (except if you’re choosing a prompt that is specifically about LaCE, lol). If you do want to include it, that’s great, but if you just want the characters to fuck without having that be an issue, go for it. I love explorations of LaCE that take into account the exceptions, boundaries, definitions, etc; I also love takes that emphasize that they are Laws and Customs, not biological imperatives.

I’m not picky about my Amrod deaths. He can die at either Losgar or Sirion (or, hell, some other time/place if you make it interesting enough!), whatever works best for the story. I do like Lightly Toasted Amrod, aka he almost burns to death at Losgar but survives/gets rescued at the last minute.

Gil-galad theories are all very fun. Please don’t make him the son of Fingon and a wife; if he’s Fingon’s son, I want Maedhros to be involved at least a little bit (adoption or trans mpreg are both fine in this scenario). Otherwise, I don’t have a particular preference, though if it’s not really relevant I usually default to the son of Orodreth (who is in turn the son of Angrod). Also, I’ve requested “Origins of Gil-galad”; there’s more information on him in that section.

Honestly, when it comes to theories and headcanons, my rule of thumb is “convince me”! I’m down for whatever, for the most part, as long as you can justify it :)

~~~

For all of these, “suggested characters” pulls from the list of characters I requested with that signup, but if you’ve got an idea involving other characters then go for it! And in the end, all characters are just suggestions, this exchange is more about the worldbuilding :)

~~~

The Hobbit (Book)

Adventuring Hobbits Before Bilbo: Who were they? Did they ever come back, or was Bilbo assumed dead because of precedent? Were they all Tooks, or did some other hobbits tag along on adventures, too? Suggested Character(s): Belladonna Took

Dragon Magic & Dragon-hunting: Talk to me about dragons! I’m interested in dragons & dwarves, especially in relation to the first time dwarves were driven from Erebor and into the North and the War of the Dwarves and Dragons. What kinds of dragons set their sights on the mountain? How old was Smaug when all that was happening; did he learn anything from the failures of his kin? Who were the dragon-hunting dwarves who fought in that war? Suggested Character(s): Smaug, Original Dwarf Character

Dwarven Craft and Magic: Enchanted weapons, enchanted armor, runes and spells...all so interesting! Borrowing from the movies a bit, did Kíli’s runestone from Dís have any magic power? What’s the deal with the Arkenstone’s thrall? How do elf and dwarf magics intersect when it comes to objects like Bilbo’s mithril coat? Suggested Character(s): Dís, Frerin, Thorin, Original Dwarf Character (perhaps a craftsdwarf?)

Dwarves and Gender: We need more dwarf women! And I’d love any takes on nonbinary dwarves and/or dwarf-specific genders. Were there female dwarves in the Company that Bilbo mistook for male dwarves? Are dwarven women really only a third of the population? If dwarf men and women are very similar in appearance, how do they differentiate between them, or do they differentiate at all? If you included something about dwarvish braiding styles indicating gender, class, marital status, I would be delighted. Suggested Character(s): Dís, Frerin, Thorin, Original Dwarf Character; in this case I’d prefer a focus on canon characters, but OCs interacting with them would be marvelous, especially people like Dís’ spouse.

The Black Arrow: Bard’s little pep talk to his arrow has always intrigued me. I’d love to see your take on the origins of the Black Arrow. Does it really come from Erebor, and if so, who made it? How did Bard and his forefathers come to acquire it? (I like the movie version that ties it into Girion’s attempt to kill Smaug, so feel free to incorporate that if you feel like it.) Is the arrow enchanted? (Perhaps that could be tied to the Dwarven Craft and Magic tag!) Suggested Character(s): Bard, Original Character from Dale, Original Dwarf Character

The Stone Giants & Were-worms: I don’t have many thoughts on these guys except “neat! tell me more!” I’m fascinated by the creatures Tolkien only gives us a passing mention of; if you feel like it, maybe you could combine these tags with some of the creatures in the LOTR tagset (crebain, cold drakes, Watcher in the Water, Mearas, Kine of Araw, etc...I didn’t sign up with all those tags, but it would be neat to hear about them anyway!)

~~~

The Lord of the Rings (Books)

Cold-drakes and Fire-drakes & Crebain & The Watcher in the Water: Like with the Stone Giants and the Were-worms, I just think they’re neat and I’d love to hear your take on their origins and how they affect the history of Middle-earth. Feel free to combine this with other creature-related requests. Suggested Character(s): Scatha

Ghosts and Hauntings: Barrow-wights? Nazgûl victims? Just your crotchety old hobbit neighbor who still holds a grudge about losing the biggest pumpkin contest despite having been dead for 20 years? There’s a lot of potential for stories here; maybe you could combine a ghost story with some other prompt to add a murder mystery or haunting plot to a relationship you’re exploring!

Dwarf-Elf Relations: I don’t believe All Dwarves and All Elves hated each other! We have famous elf-dwarf friendships across the ages, and really it was just the Sindar vs. the Broadbeams/Firebeards that had the feud. Still, Legolas (a Sinda) and Gimli (raised among Broadbeams and Firebeards in the Blue Mountains) are caught up in that, so their friendship is quite remarkable! I’d love interrogations of how that feud continued across centuries and discussions of what really went down in Menegroth, perhaps with one of the Durins having an elf friend at some point in the past that sheds light on how Legolas and Gimli can get along. (I am here for any and all Gimli and Legolas combinations; I love them as friends, I love them as boyfriends or husbands, I love them as queerplatonic partners, I love them as anything in between! Do whatever you’d like with them!) Suggested Character(s): Gimli, Legolas, Original Elf Character, Any of Durins 1-7

Elvish and Mannish settlements in post-Ring War Ithilien: How do Legolas and Faramir get along, both living in Ithilien after the war? What do Legolas’ people think about being neighbors with a bunch of Men? Faramir and Imrahil were Aragorn’s chief commanders after the war, and Legolas expressed admiration for Imrahil; I imagine Imrahil visited his nephew in Ithilien, so what are the interactions of those three like? I’d love to see an exploration of Silvan elves and their culture here, with Legolas leaning into his Silvan heritage and maybe some Silvan OCs who have spent their whole lives in Mirkwood up until now and have never met Men before now! Suggested Character(s): Faramir, Legolas, Imrahil, Original Elf Character

Relations between the Dúnedain and Rivendell: Talk to me about the Grey Company, or Elladan and Elrohir fighting alongside their distant kin, or Rangers taking breaks in Imladris, how the Rangers think of Aragorn who was raised among elves, etc. I’d love an outsider POV here, such as an OC observing the oddities of a canon character. Suggested Character(s): Original Elf Character, Original Ranger of the North

The Glittering Caves of Aglarond: More Gimli and Legolas stuff - but with a focus on Gimli this time :) Gimli as a lord in his own right, Gimli who takes elves on tours of his dwarf-kingdom and weirds out his people (is it just Legolas, or does he take any Silvan elves with him, or like...his elvish in-laws??), Gimli as a craftsman... Or, alternatively, you could explore the caves before Gimli gets to work on them, what the Rohirrim thought of them and how they were created - by natural processes, or by magic, or a mixture of both? Did Aulë make them for the dwarves to find, perhaps? Suggested Character(s): Gimli, Legolas

~~~

The Hobbit (Movies)

Dragonsickness/Goldsickness: The parallel to mental illness in the movies was really interesting. I’d love to see lingering effects of the goldsickness on Thorin after the Battle (Everyone Lives AU, probably), or an AU where Fíli or Kíli inherit the throne of Erebor and are afflicted by it as well. Or, sticking to canon, how did Fíli and Kíli and the rest of the Company deal with Thorin falling into madness? Were the other dwarves affected by the thrall of the gold? Bard and Thranduil were observers of Thorin’s madness; what did they think of him? Did Thranduil remember Thrór under dragonsickness? Or, since movie!Thranduil is a far cry from book!Thranduil when it comes to going to war over jewels, was he affected by the dragonsickness even from a distance? Was Bard? Suggested Character(s): Thorin, Fíli, Kíli, Bard the Bowman, Thranduil

Dwarves who "choose craft"/Aromantic-Spectrum and Asexual-Spectrum Dwarves: This is pulling more from the books than the movies, but I didn’t have enough nomination slots to include any book nominations, so it went here, lol. Anyway: as I’m sure you can tell from my tumblr url, I headcanon Fíli as aromantic, and I love seeing that in fanworks! It’s really wonderful that Tolkien mentioned that many dwarves choose their craft over marriage, and I’d love to see an exploration of that aspect of dwarvish culture, and how Fíli fits into it. It seems to be fairly common/accepted, but are there different cultural pressures around marriage for the crown prince? How does Fíli figure out he’s aromantic? If aro and ace dwarves are expected to be choosing a craft over romance and sex, what’s Fíli’s craft? Or does he not have one, and people judge him for that? The “choose craft” language I use is very much inspired by this post and the Neo-Khuzdul word “bijebtorva” :) Suggested Character(s): Fíli, Original Character(s)

Governance and Politics in Mirkwood: How did Thranduil and Oropher come to power in the Greenwood? I hate the “lowly Silvan elf” line from the movie; can you somehow justify that with worldbuilding, or show how it’s not accurate? Is Legolas half-Silvan like is implied in the LOTR books? Who are Thranduil’s advisors? Is Tauriel really the only one who dislikes and defies Thranduil’s isolationist policies? Is Mirkwood very patriarchal, and is Tauriel’s appointment to Captain of the Guard something she faced opposition or competition for? Are the Sindar elite colonizers, or did they integrate into Silvan society? How does the average Silvan elf feel about their king, or do they not even think about him? Suggested Character(s): Thranduil, Tauriel, Original Character(s)

Poetry and prophecy: Bard uncovers that tapestry that turns a song from the book into a somewhat ominous prophecy; there’s a lot of discussion of fate and signs from the thrush at the door to the last light of Durin’s Day; Thranduil has seen enough in his thousands of years to have had time to brush up against a prophecy or two. What do these three believe about fate and prophecy? Are any of them prophets in their own right? How does poetry/music lend power to prophecy? (Bonus points if you tie it back into the Ainulindalë...) Suggested Character(s): Bard the Bowman, Thorin, Thranduil

Poisons and antidotes: I love Kíli/Tauriel and the scene where she heals his wound...but the worldbuilding around morgul poison and athelas is a little murky. It’s a decent parallel to Frodo’s condition in the LOTR movies, but it’s confusing lore-wise. Can you make sense of it? If Tauriel is a warrior, where did she learn healing? (In my own headcanons, her foster family are healers, which is how she learned those skills even though she’s primarily a warrior - but feel free to take it in whatever direction you’d like!) Suggested Character(s): Tauriel, Kíli, Original Character(s)

Rebuilding Erebor & Relations between Dwarves + Elves + Men: (I’d prefer an Everyone Lives AU for this situation.) How do Thorin and his Company put Erebor back together again? What are the renovation projects like? How long does it take Dís and the rest of the Longbeards to arrive in Erebor and help out? How long does Dáin stay to help his cousin? I would love to see some politics both internally within the Longbeard dwarves and externally as they relate to Mirkwood and Dale. Smaug’s corpse is just lying in the Long Lake...how do the dwarves feel about their old enemy’s body so close by? Do some Men want to re-establish Lake-town, and demand help from the dwarves who flushed the dragon out of the mountain? Do the dwarves want to harvest Smaug’s corpse for resources? (He’s probably got gold and jewels stuck in his scales, and dragon-skin/scales is probably a good raw material for crafting things.) What’s the process of Bard becoming King of Dale? Does he face any opposition? I love the idea of Hilda Bianca challenging him for leadership, or maybe insisting on some kind of democracy/representation in Dale! And if she doesn’t get her way, maybe it’s her leading some people back to Esgaroth and founding a democracy there that would make the old Master roll in his watery grave... How do Bard and Thranduil and Thorin reconcile after the battle? Does Thorin pay up like he said he would? Does Tauriel hang around, or does she go somewhere else? Are any elves inspired by her, or is she a total outcast? If you choose to explore the Kíli/Tauriel relationship, how does that affect politics between Erebor and Mirkwood? Suggested Character(s): Thorin, Fíli, Kíli, Bard the Bowman, Hilda Bianca, Thranduil, Tauriel, Original Character(s)

Tauriel's fate after the Battle of the Five Armies: This is for exploring what happened to Tauriel in canon. Does she wander the world and explore new places? How long does she mourn Kíli? What does she do with the runestone? Does she return to Mirkwood, and if so, how does she manage to get back into Thranduil’s good graces? There are a million different ways to take this, I’d love to see your take on her! Suggested Character(s): Tauriel, Thranduil, Original Character(s)

~~~

The Silmarillion: Magic & Spirits

Houseless Elves: Why did they refuse the call of Mandos? Do Avari even go to Mandos? Can Melkor and Sauron ensnare these spirits for their necromantic purposes? If the call of Mandos is refused once, does that bar them from listening in the future? What kinds of ghosts are haunting Middle-earth in the First Age? What kinds of ghosts haunt Aman? Suggested Character(s): Original Character(s), Melkor

Magic as a connection to the Music/the Song: Magic isn’t always the best-explained in Tolkien’s universe, but what we do know is the incredible power of the Music. How do the Maiar and Valar, who are not technically beings of Arda, interact with the world? How do elves and men (and dwarves! and orcs!) tap into the Song and manipulate it to their benefit (or detriment)? I have the headcanon that Elemmírë, the elf who sung the Aldudénië, is a priestess of Varda; what was the power of that mourning song, and how was it received by her patron Vala? Suggested Character(s): Elemmírë, Varda, Melian, Melkor, Original Character(s)

Nature Spirits: These holes in Tolkien’s worldbuilding are fascinating to me. What role do nature spirits play? How many are there? I’m thinking particularly of river spirits, like the River-woman and Goldberry, but there are probably also mountain spirits and water spirits and-and-and... Are they Maiar? Lesser beings? What do the Maiar we know of think about them? Gandalf seems the kind to listen to them and learn their stories, but perhaps Melian sees them more as servants in protecting her realm... Suggested Character(s): Melian, Original Character(s)

The Shadow-shapes in the hills above Cuiviénen: What were these shapes? Melkor’s prototypical monsters, Maiar who didn’t know how to interact with the Children, something else entirely? What did the original elves believe about them? Did they fear them, did they try to appease them, did they try to confront them? I headcanon that Elemmírë is an Unbegotten elf, so perhaps she lost friends to the Shadows, or thought she did. If the Shadows did take elves, was it out of malice or curiosity or a desire to protect them from whatever Melkor was planning? Suggested Character(s): Melkor, Elemmírë, Original Character(s)

The Void: Melkor spends a whole lot of time here. Does he have any company? Something or someone he makes to pass the time with? Do the Valar (like Manwë or Námo or Varda or Nienna) visit him there? What is the nature of the Void, is it pure emptiness or chaotic magic or a nightmare machine? Is Melkor being punished or is he being contained? And where are the boundaries of the Void? Varda rules the heavens; does her realm bleed into Melkor’s prison? Suggested Character(s): Melkor, Varda, Original Character(s)

~~~

The Silmarillion: Elven Relationships

Note: This request deals with relationships, and while I’m open to pretty much anything, please keep in mind my DNWs. Exploring these topics using canon relationships is a safe bet; I adore Maedhros/Fingon so having a look at them through this lens would be amazing; I have Aredhel as a character request here, and I see her as aromantic (“to none was her heart’s love given”) so while showing her in a relationship is fine, I’d love it if you could take her lack of romantic feelings into account; if you have a question about another ship, you can check to see what I’ve written and/or send me anon message! Additionally, a lot of these talk about soul bonds, which I’m very interested in, but one of my DNWs is soulmates. To me the concepts are very different things; it’s the destiny and inevitability and universal assumption of romance that really squick me out about soulmates. Soul bonds, on the other hand, have an aspect of choice to them that I really dig. So, please don’t make characters Fated For One Another, but please do explore what joining souls is like!

Laws & Customs of the Eldar: Boy do I have a lot of feelings about LaCE—and I’m always intrigued by other people’s feelings, too! I’d love to see an exploration of how these laws and customs came to be, which parts of the rules around marriage and children and re-embodiment are social constructs and which are innate to the fëa and hröa, and/or relationships that defy the norms. If your take on the laws is hetero/cisnormative, how does that affect queer elves? If your take is free of bigotry, what are the flexibilities around queerness, including asexuality and aromanticism? Laws and customs and rules always have loopholes and exceptions, so what do elves who don’t fit into the expected relationship mold do about these norms? Suggested Character(s): Aredhel, Maedhros, Fingon, Elrond, Any Unbegotten Elf Character(s)

Arranged Marriages among the Eldar: Russingon arranged marriage AU?? Orrrr....Maedhros or Fingon are politically engaged to someone else, and they have to deal with the ramifications of that? (Please don’t have them actually go through with the marriage if you go that route; I’m not interested in a story with Fingon having a wife, even if she’s a beard.) If elves (usually) only love once, and by declaration of the Valar can only marry once (Finwë being the somewhat disastrous exception), how is an arranged marriage justified within the cultural emphasis on these bonds? Are they more like arranged romances, people pushing their children together in hopes that they’ll fall in love? Or is it a stricter rule about “you do what’s best for this family”? (Note: Bad/cruel parenting is one of my major DNWs, so if you’re going that route, please don’t make the parent uncaring or malicious. Stubborn and narrow-minded is fine, as is the genuine belief that this is what’s best for the child, but ideally they’ll learn from their mistakes or perhaps everything will be interrupted and derailed by Canon Events. This is especially important wrt to Fëanor.) Suggested Character(s): Maedhros, Fingon

Creation/Discovery of soul bonds: How do soul bonds work on a metaphysical level? Can they be broken? Do they have to be nurtured and maintained? What’s long-distance communication like? Heck, what’s short-distance communication like, is it like talking in your mind or sharing your feelings or more abstract than that? Can elves form soul bonds with mortals? And most importantly—how did elves figure out they could soul bond with one another?? I can imagine that would be quite a shock when they’re discovering sex and then suddenly they’re inside each other’s minds! Suggested Character(s): Any Unbegotten Elf Character(s)

Non-romantic/sexual soul bonds: I’m good with practically any relationship here. Explore sibling bonds, twin bonds, parent-child bonds, queerplatonic bonds, found family bonds, adoption bonds, the bond between a Vala and their Maia...any kind of soul bond that is familial or platonic or chosen without regard to romance! (Feel free to take a canon romantic relationship and turn it queerplatonic, I live for that shit!) How are these bonds formed outside of sex? What are the rituals and ceremonies around forming them? Is it a public or private thing? Are non-romantic soul bonds taken seriously, or are they seen as less important than marriage bonds? Since elven parents literally give part of their soul in the creation of the child, is that parent-child bond innate? Suggested Character(s): Aredhel, Any Unbegotten Elf Character(s)

Elven adoption: I nominated this with Kidnap Dads in mind (if you go that route I love fluff for them as well as more nuanced/complicated takes on the situation, but whatever you do don’t make M&M cruel, and please include Maedhros as a parental figure alongside Maglor)...but hey, it could work for Fingon (and Maedhros) adopting Gil-galad! What are traditions around elven adoption? Are there soul bonds created between the adoptive parents and children? Was adoption even a thing in Aman, or is it only practiced in Middle-earth? Did elves adopt mortals and vice versa? Is adoption extended to found family other than a parent-child situation? How is adoption viewed by elvish society, especially if inheritance/succession is a concern? Suggested Character(s): Maedhros, Fingon, Elros Tar-Minyatur, Elrond

~~~

The Silmarillion: Noldorin Politics

Original Fëanorian follower(s) who turned on their lords at Sirion: Okay, this is a character tag, but I’m absolutely obsessed with this line: “For the sons of Fëanor that yet lived came down suddenly upon the exiles of Gondolin and the remnant of Doriath, and destroyed them. In that battle some of their people stood aside, and some few rebelled and were slain upon the other part aiding Elwing against their own lords (for such was the sorrow and confusion in the hearts of the Eldar in those days).” Who were these people who followed the Fëanorians into exile, into a Kinslaying, through the burning of the ships, through 30 years of Maglor as a king-regent incapable of treating with the Nolofinwëans, through the scattering of their lords and the harsh conditions of the North, through the Bragollach and the Nírnaeth and a “wild and woodland life” and the Second Kinslaying (where some of them went as far as to abandon children in the winter woods to die because they thought it was what their lord/s would want), through isolation and hatred from every other elven group, through the plan to attack a refugee camp—through ALL OF THAT, and THEN they turn on their lords at Sirion??? Why betray your lords NOW? And the people who DID keep following them after that (after kidnapping children!!!), what were they thinking?? — I firmly believe that Maedhros has many escapees from Angband in his service who are ride or die for him and whose morality was somewhat warped by Angband, but what about Maglor’s followers? Caranthir’s? Ambarussa’s? Even Celegorm and Curufin’s?? There’s just SO MUCH potential for story here, I’m dying to read about them!

Noldorin lines of succession: Was It Sexist Or Was It Not: The Eternal Question aka Why Didn’t Idril Become High Queen After Turgon? Also, what does “eldest of the house of Finwë, and not the least wise” even MEAN, Maedhros?? How did Gil-galad come to power? I find it hard to believe he became king immediately after Gondolin fell; was it a wartime power grab? A battlefield promotion? How did the kingship get established in the first place? Why was Finwë chosen to go with Oromë to Aman? Was Maglor ever really king, or did he only rule as a regent for the missing Maedhros? Suggested Character(s): Finwë, Gil-galad, Maglor

Origins of Gil-galad: I am always so interested in takes on Gil-galad’s parentage. My favorites are Russingon baby Gil (through trans mpreg or adoption, both are good) and secret peredhel Gil (probably an Aegnor/Andreth baby adopted by Orodreth), but I also love Finduilas Is Gil-galad and honestly, any situation is fascinating here—just convince me! A possible way to explore this is through Outsider POV; some noble or historian trying to figure out just what the heck is up with Gil-galad. His parentage being confusing in-canon is so fun!! Suggested Character(s): Gil-galad, Original Nobility of the Noldor

Maglor's Kingship between Maedhros' capture and rescue: Was Maglor ever really king? Did he give up on Maedhros early on, or did he cling to the hope that he still lived? Did his brothers turn to him for support, or did they connive to take responsibility from him? The rift between the Noldor wasn’t healed until Maedhros’ rescue; did Maglor try to cooperate with Fingolfin, or did he keep his people isolated? Was he relieved when Maedhros came back and took responsibility, or was he resentful to lose his power? How does this situation (and Maglor not going to rescue Maedhros) affect M&M’s relationship later on? Suggested Character(s): Maglor, Original Fëanorian follower(s)..., Curufin, Caranthir

Dwarf-Elf relations in the First Age & Dwarf-kingdoms: Dwarf-friends!!! Yes!!! I love elves and dwarves being buds (or partners if you’d like to go that route!) <3 IIRC, Curufin learned Khuzdul, and I’m sure Celebrimbor did too; Caranthir was supposedly rude to the dwarves, but what if that’s just his (and their!) love language? How did relations between the Sindar and the dwarves sour over time? Maedhros was friends with Azaghâl; how did that relationship begin? How did Finrod’s contract with the dwarves blossom into a real friendship? Eöl was also buddies with the dwarves; did he ever bump into Curufin or Caranthir while at a trade festival or something? And the dwarf kingdoms of the First Age are fascinating on their own, too; what was the political structure like? Did the dwarves bring items from the other side of the mountains into Beleriand? How did the petty-dwarves get exiled? What happened to Nogrod and Belegost in the War of Wrath, and were they ever re-established after the sinking of Beleriand? Suggested Character(s): Curufin, Caranthir

Guilds and Noble Houses of Tirion: Give me a Tirion political drama! Finwë trying to appease his lords and craftseldar? Indis integrating into Noldorin society and making connections with the noble houses? Arranged marriage situation between Nolofinwë and Anairë? The younger princes running amok and causing chaos in their elders’ carefully-laid plans and delicately balanced alliances? Suggested Character(s): Finwë, Indis, Original Nobility of the Noldor, Curufin, Caranthir, Maglor

Roles and Responsibilities in the Noldorin Royal Family: There were oodles of princes in Valinor. What did they all do? How did they get the followers who came with them to Middle-earth? Were they free to pursue their own crafts, or did they have responsibilities to the common people? How did this change in Middle-earth when suddenly everyone was in danger and had more pressing needs? What is it like being a re-embodied royal in a society that’s adapted to life without you? Suggested Character(s): Finwë, Indis, Maglor, Curufin, Caranthir, Gil-galad

Fashion as Political Statement: This is an excuse to request Color Coding Politics. Fëanorian red! Nolofinwëan blue! Findis wearing Aggressively Neutral White! Lalwen in orange? Arafinwë in yellow? Finwë in an amazing technicolor dream-coat...or more likely just red, showing his bias once more? Art of this would be absolutely fantastic. I have lots of headcanons about color politics; feel free to ask me about them if you choose this option. Suggested Character(s): Curufin, Caranthir, Gil-galad, Finwë

~~~

The Silmarillion: Trauma & Religion

War of Wrath: For a war that took so long and had such wide-reaching repercussions, we really don’t have very many details about this. It’s free real estate, basically! I have my favorite characters (Maedhros, Maglor, Elrond, Elros, Gil-galad...) that you could use to explore this time period, but literally anyone who’s alive at this point is fair game. And OCs! What do the Noldor and Vanyar (and Telerin sailors) feel about the War and interacting with the war-weary exiles and Sindar and Men of late-stage Beleriand? What kind of culture shock/culture clash is there? Were re-embodied exiles permitted to return to Middle-earth, or were they barred from going to war again? Suggested Character(s): Original Noldorin Character, Original Vanyarin Character

Trauma after the War of Wrath for elves and humans & Exiles adjusting to life in the Undying Lands post War of Wrath & Dealing with psychological trauma in Valinor: Trauma was commonplace in Beleriand, but not so much in Valinor. What’s it like for exiles who sail West to be in a society that doesn’t know how to support them? Are the Valar having to learn how to deal with the trauma of living elves super quickly, or are they reticent to change? How do the exiles interact with their re-embodied kin? What do the Vanyar and other Amanyar think of these elves who have been so deeply hurt? What kinds of treatises on psychology are penned by scholars with little to no previous experience? What is therapy like in Valinor? Do the exiles get together for support groups since no one else understands them? Or did the trauma of the Darkening and the First Kinslaying wake up the Amanyar and get their act together before then; are the exiles surprised by the structures already in place to support them? And what about Avari who have been dying steadily all this time from accidents and incidents in Middle-earth? If they’ve been re-embodied, how do they engage with the Eldar who have similar traumas? Suggested Character(s): Estë, Finrod, Maeglin, Original Noldorin Character, Original Vanyarin Character, Rúmil, Any Avarin Elf Character(s)

Worship of the Valar and Religion & Avarin religious culture: Do the Vanyar really worship the Valar, or do they seem them as hyper-powerful neighbors? What are priests and priestesses like in a world where the gods walk among you? How does each kindred of the elves interact with the Valar? Are Maiar viewed as equal worshippers/servants or as deities in their own right? Do the Avari even know about or acknowledge the Valar? Do they worship the stars, or simply Eru? Suggested Character(s): Pengolodh, Rúmil, Any Avarin Elf Character(s)

~~~

Middle-earth Legendarium: Magic & Spirits

Afterlives: This is pretty vague, but I think it’s referring to the various kinds of afterlife. What are the Halls of Mandos like? What happens to spirits who don’t go to Mandos? Do Men pass through Mandos on the way to Beyond? What happens to Men? Are they reincarnated in the more traditional understanding of the word, do they go to some other realm similar to Arda, are they just endlessly partying it up with Eru? Do dwarves really go to the Halls, or is that just a superstition? And of course, what about orcs? Suggested Character(s): Námo

Fate of orc souls after death: Yeah, really, what about orcs? If the orcs were originally elves twisted into Morgoth’s servants, are their spirits still elven? Are they reborn as they once were, elven despite their life as an orc? What about orcs who are many generations removed from their elvish ancestors? Do they have fëar? Can orcs be rehabilitated? I refuse to accept that all orcs are inherently evil; but what does everyone believe in-universe? Suggested Character(s): Námo, Original Orc Character(s)

Foresight and Prophecy and Doom: I’m honestly not sure if this fanon or canon, but Finarfin and his line having foresight through Indis is a wonderful concept and I’d love an exploration of that. How accurate is foresight? Can fate be circumvented? Are prophecies like the Doom of the Noldor self-fulfilling, or are they warnings about possible futures, or are they curses upon people? If you have a high Doom upon you, does that end with your death, or does it follow you to Mandos and beyond? Suggested Character(s): Námo, Finarfin

Songs and Words of Power: Rap battles with Sauron! ...joking aside, song as magic is just fascinating to me. How does this connect to the Ainulindalë and the Song of the World? The elves named themselves Quendi, the Speakers; how do they view the power of words and their ability to change the world around them? Can music be used as a force of destruction or a weapon (battle bard Maglor)? Can it be used to manipulate someone’s mind (Sauron)? Suggested Character(s): Maglor, Sauron

Stars and Starlight: “All light is sacred to the Eldar...but wood-elves love best the light of the stars.” Okay, sorry for being a Hobbit movie apologist on main, but I do love Tauriel! How do elves view starlight? Is it holy, or are the stars more like their friends and guides? Did the Avari choose to remain in Middle-earth partially because of their love for the stars, which were drowned out by the light of the Trees? How does Eärendil feel about being a star; does he feel blasphemous or holy? What legends and superstitions are there among Avari and Men and others who don’t know the origins of Gil-Estel about the new star in the sky? Suggested Character(s): Morwë, Eärendil

The Unseen Realm: This is the in-between world where Frodo goes when he wears the ring, the world that the Nazgûl in their half-life inhabit. Are Ainur able to slip into this realm at will? Did Gandalf walk invisible in Gondolin? How does Sauron manipulate this realm to his purposes? Is this where elves go if they fade? (I don’t usually like Maglor fading, but it could be an interesting way to explore this...) Suggested Character(s): Námo, Sauron, Nazgûl, Maglor

Magical Artefacts & Magical Communications: Palantíri! Galadriel’s mirror! Ósanwë! All sorts of cool ways to talk with magic. Do the Rings of Power enable long-distance ósanwë? Did the Silmarils contain pieces of Fëanor’s soul? What other marvelous magical creations were there that didn’t make it into the Legendarium we know? Suggested Character(s): Sauron, Maglor, Eärendil

~~~

Middle-earth Legendarium: Politics & Lore

Feudalism between Eldar and Edain: We have Edain entering into the service of Noldorin lords (Bëor and Finrod, Hador and Fingolfin, Amlach and Maedhros) and land being given to Men by elves (or not, in Haleth’s case)...how far did this feudal relationship extend? Were the Edain mostly autonomous or were they very much bound to their elven lords? Were there common elves who paid tribute to Edain lords? Can any relationship between elves and Men truly be equal if this is the way they originated? Fealty kink? Suggested Character(s): Curufin, Original Elf Character

Fourth Age Tirion: What’s Tirion like with a bunch of dead people walking around living again, and a bunch of weird legends now imposing in daily life? What’s the first meeting of Rúmil and Pengolodh like—who geeks out over whom? Are the Fëanorians back yet? Is the average elf even really aware of all the nonsense that happened in Middle-earth, or are they extremely unimpressed with King So-and-So of a square of land that’s now underwater trying to cut them in line at the coffee shop? Suggested Character(s): Original Elf Character, Pengolodh, Rúmil of Tirion, Celebrimbor, Elrond, Galadriel

Relationship between Noldor and Dwarves: See “Dwarf-Elf relations in the First Age & Dwarf-kingdoms” in my Silm request for a starting point...but also, was Elrond’s Last Homely House open to dwarves? How did Galadriel come to respect the dwarves, especially after her Sindar kin grew to hate them? Suggested Character(s): Curufin, Celebrimbor, Elrond, Galadriel

Timekeeping between the Death of the Two Trees and the Rise of the Sun and Moon: Tolkien’s math drives me ABSOLUTELY INSANE. His timelines are contradictory, I get headaches just thinking about the length of elf pregnancy, what does aging mean for an immortal species, WHY ARE TREE YEARS LIKE THAT and WHAT IS A YÉN? Please try and make sense of this for me, I beg of thee. I’m especially interested in the time period between the Death of the Trees and the Rise of the Sun and Moon. Did the Noldor wander the Helcaraxë for 3 years or 30? How long was Maitimo in Angband? Did the Sindar even realize something was different? How did people start calculating Sun years? When was the calendar of the First Age adopted? Who did all this math? Is there an in-universe explanation for these contradictions? Do people fight over math? Do the Ainur experience time the same way the Children do? Did some Noldo genius come up with a timekeeping system that worked with the Moon, only for the Sun to come along and muck it up? Suggested Character(s): Pengolodh, Rúmil of Tirion, Original Elf Character, Fëanor - really any scholarly character, tbh!

Treatment of Angband's Escaped Thralls: Which kinds of escapees choose to go to Himring with Maedhros the Tall, and which choose to go to Gondolin and the House of the Hammer of Wrath? Was Rôg an escapee too? Can Maedhros really tell who’s been turned by the Enemy? Does Thingol have the right of it in turning away thralls from Doriath? (If he even does that, I’m now researching this and I’m not sure it’s actually canon...) What was it like for Maedhros and Gwindor to readjust to elven society? Did Elrond grow up surrounded by Fëanorian followers who escaped Angband, and is that where he learned healing? Suggested Character(s): Original Elf Character, Elrond

In-universe authorial bias in historical texts: All of the Legendarium is a history, which means there’s bound to be unreliable narrators. Was Maeglin really as evil as the story says? What gets left out of the narrative? What gets lost in translation? Who lives, who dies, who tells your story? Suggested Character(s): Pengolodh, Rúmil of Tirion

Trade in Middle-earth: What was trade like in First Age Beleriand? What about Second Age trade between Númenor and the mainland? Was Ost-in-Edhil a trade hub? After Sauron returned and traveling became dangerous, what intrepid traders braved the wilds for the sake of goods and money? How was currency developed around the world? Suggested Character(s): Curufin, Celebrimbor, Elrond, Galadriel

Orcs Surviving the Wars: Again, I don’t believe that all orcs are irredeemably, inherently evil. Were they persecuted and stamped out after the Ring War, or did some escape and adapt to a life without a harsh overlord? What’s orc agriculture like? Would Elrond take a chance on rehabilitating an orc in Rivendell? What if orcs were more complicated all along, and it’s the histories that simplified them to cardboard-cutout villains? Suggested Character(s): Original Elf Character, Pengolodh, Celebrimbor, Elrond, Galadriel

~~~

The Adventure Zone: Balance

My only non-Tolkien request, oops. Don’t think I’m not as interested in this request, though; I’m the only one who nominated for it, so I picked my very favorite concepts and I’d love to see what you do with them!

Angus McDonald’s Grandfather: This guy’s name was lost to time, and he loves silverware, and he has a grandson, and that’s pretty much all we know about him. Was he involved in the Relic Wars somehow? Did his name get eaten by the Voidfish? I imagine he’s a rather eccentric fellow; how much of that did he pass on to Angus? Is he even real, or was Angus lying to Tres Horny Boys about his destination?

Any Wonderland Adventurer(s): I’d love to see what happens to the other people who go to Wonderland before our boys. Do they all die? How many get what they want and get out? Do any of them have weaker moral compasses than THB and agree to advertise for Edward and Lydia? What if Edward or Lydia fell in love with an adventurer and trapped them there? What kinds of things do people sacrifice to the Wheel? We know about the Escape Game and the Healing Game; what about the Recovery Game? How long has Wonderland been around? How has it evolved over time? What was it like before Edward and Lydia got ahold of the Animus Bell? How did they get ahold of it? (Personally I think Barry just gave it to them...but did he have to go through the trials first?)

Differences within species between the Two-Sunned World and Faerun: I love the fanon that Two-Sun elves are juuust a little different from Faerun elves...like Taako’s echolocation, for example. But what if this applies to the other species like gnomes and dwarves and even humans? How are the Seven Birds just a liiiitle off from everyone else around them? Also, Cat Elves. This is an excuse for Two-Sun Cat Elves. GIVE TAAKO A TAIL. (I mean, or not, do what you want, but I’d love to see that, lol.) Suggested Character(s): Any Member(s) of the IPRE, Original Character(s)

Reclaimers before Tres Horny Boys: Who were the other Reclaimers? Who did Lucretia trust to carry out this dangerous mission? How did they all each, inevitably fail? What if Magic Brian was a Reclaimer gone wrong? What was the last straw for Lucretia, the last failure that made her scheme to get her boys back? And the other Reclaimers weren’t officially disbanded right away; how did they feel about the new guys in town, and losing their jobs to these doofuses? Suggested Character(s): Lucretia, Original Character(s)

The Relic Wars: There were wars about the Relics!!! Wars!! That everyone forgot!! Wars where people that THB knew died!! And then we never get into this in canon! It drives me nuts! I would love to see an exploration of this chaotic time period, what the IPRE did to mitigate the damage, which relics were obvious and terrifying and which were secret and terrifying, etc... I’ve written a bit about Relic War-era Hurloane, but what were the other NPCs doing? (Or Hurley and Sloane too, I’d love to see your take on them too!) When Lucretia wiped everyone’s memories, what was lost? (I suspect Angus’ Grandfather got caught up in that...) How did those missing memories lead people to the Bureau of Balance? Suggested Character(s): Lucretia, Any Member(s) of the IPRE, Angus McDonald’s Grandfather

The Robot World's crystal post-Story and Song: The IPRE promised to return the Robot World’s crystal if they ever managed to defeat the Hunger...and we know they can plane hop from the casino liveshow...so, did they ever return the crystal? How did that go down? How does the Robot World rebuild itself? And if we’re going into it being the (K)nights Arc’s setting, are there other characters than Troth that we might recognize? Suggested Character(s): Magnus Burnsides, Lucretia, Any Member(s) of the IPRE

Worlds that survived the Hunger: In the worlds where the IPRE found the Light of Creation before the Hunger arrived, what was it like for the people there who had to endure the Hunger’s attack? What was the scope of the destruction? How did they rebuild afterward? Does uniting against a common enemy bring the people of the world together and create more Tesseralia-like societies? How many people knew about the IPRE, and what did they think about them? When they hear the Story and Song, what’s the reaction? If they didn’t know about the IPRE what myths do they create to explain the Hunger? Suggested Character(s): Lucretia, Original Character(s)

~~~

Alright, that’s the end of my prompts/requests! Thanks for reading this far, and whatever you end up writing for me I am super excited to read it!! And if you have questions or ideas or something, my askbox is open and I have anon messages on, I’d love to talk! Thank you again for creating for me, you are the best! <3

#tmi anna #worldbuilding exchange #exchange letter

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jess-rewatches-prodigalson · 3 years

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Face Value (S2, E7)

My time-stamped thoughts for this episode. As always I reference Malcolm’s mental health. A lot. So if that’s going to be a trigger for you, don’t keep reading.

SPOILERS AHEAD:

0:05 - Hold your horses. Malcolm taught at Quantico?!? I mean, I realize that he probably just did the occasional guest lecture (like most profilers?) but I’m still stupidly proud of him. <3

0:50 - ngl Malcolm’s a good lecturer. Take it from a university student.

1:13 - “It’s okay. We don’t know what you did and it’s not that mu-....BREATHE” Holy shit. I’m torn between ranting about what a great actor Tom Payne is and losing my mind because this scene is heartbreaking. Look at Malcolm. I swear he’s reminding himself to breathe - not Ainsley. He’s completely panicking but he’s trying so hard to be strong for Ainsley. This boy is an absolute treasure. Brother of the CENTURY.

1:41 - “You’re right Ainsley. I screwed up.” NO NO NO NO NO. Can you hear the sound of my heart shattering?!? This scene is so much more devastating the second time. When you know Ainsley is putting ON A SHOW HERE. Look at Malcolm’s face. He’s devastated. He blames himself for AINSLEY’S actions. He’s starting to genuinely believe that he’s no better than Martin Whitly. Malcolm’s depression/anxiety is through the roof in this episode. I honestly won’t be shocked if Malcolm has a complete mental breakdown in the next few episodes. Hell, I don’t think I’d be surprised if he tries to OD on his meds. This boy is in crisis and I’m terrified for him.

1:44 - “I think I did too.”.....this line is interesting. Is this part of Ainsley’s act or is she showing some regret for putting Malcolm through this much emotional torment? She can clearly see that this whole situation is literally destroying her brother’s already fragile peace of mind.

1:55 - “Today could be the day!”.....the day that everyone finds out about Endicott and Ainsley.....seriously, Malcolm’s daily affirmations this season have done nothing but feed his anxiety.

2:04 - OF COURSE. A call from Martin. Malcolm is going to have a mental breakdown. It’s just everything. All at once. I’m getting secondhand anxiety FOR him.

2:35 - hahaha Martin is a crazy, evil, pain in the ass but damn is he entertaining.

2:55 - 1) Ainsley looks adorable in Malcolm’s hoodie. 2) Ainsley straight up leaves his loft later in this episode. Did she hid a change of clothes in the loft before Malcolm got home last night? Or does she actually leave her big brother’s apartment in his clothes?

3:05 - “Getting hit by a train might be better.” Yep. Malcolm is entering a dangerous territory. I know depression is different for everyone but for me, when I start joking - out loud - to people I love about death in passing....things are bad. Like I’m getting suicidal bad. I know Malcolm has a morbid job and he talks about death all the time but this feels like Malcolm is starting to consider suicide as an option.

3:34 - I can see Ainsley’s “You were trying to control me” perspective. BUT honestly? Take a step back and listen to the desperation and fear in Malcolm’s voice. Anyone with half a brain cell can HEAR how scared Malcolm is and how deeply he loves his sister. Ainsley has known Malcolm her entire life. If she was functioning on all cylinders - she would know that Malcolm is just being a protective big brother. He’s not trying to control her - just help her. But this has been a theme for Ainsley since season 1 when she brought up visiting Martin during family dinner. She seems to believe that Jessica and Malcolm think that she’s a “fragile flower” and that she can’t take care of herself. I understand how that could be frustrating but I also find it concerning that Ainsley doesn’t seem to understand that they aren’t treating her that way because they think she’s weak or stupid but rather out of love. Ainsley acts like a petulant child about this sort of thing (anger, whining, eye-rolling). Ainsley acts very entitled a lot, in the sense that if something doesn’t go her way she just throws a hissy fit (think reporting and/or any Whitly family squabble). Ainsley is messed up. Unlike Malcolm, she doesn’t seem to have any self-awareness when it comes to her behavioural eccentricities. Malcolm actively tries to improve his mental state. Ainsley just throws a hissy fit when the world doesn’t bend to her will.....and this stream of consciousness Ainsley rant just became wayyyyy longer than I had anticipated (sorry).

3:41 - “Promise me.” See that look? Ainsley is pissed at Malcolm. This girl’s anger is concerning me.......what if (crazy thought) the season finale is Martin escaping Claremont to stop Ainsley from killing Malcolm?

3:43 - I wish I could be happier about this hug. Malcolm is finally getting a hug but.....he instigated it and he’s not the one being comforted sooooooooo I’m still unsatisfied.

3:49 - “Hey, you look...terrible.” SCREAM IT FROM THE ROOFTOPS DANI!! God. I love how concerned she is about Malcolm. IDC how you feel about Brightwell. If you don’t think they’re good friends - you’re a moron.

4:05 - This is the moment when I went....oooohhhh yeah. LDP directed this episode. That’s probably why he’s not in this scene.

4:10 - JT is a GOOD husband. Give him a medal. Seriously - last season he was going to watch the Taylor wedding live with Tally (who was going to wear a hat <3 ), this season Mr. Masculine casually throws out stats about the Housewives. hahaha I don’t even care if JT genuinely enjoys the Housewives or not. I’m just so utterly delighted at the idea of him watching it with his wife and having a good time with her. <3 JT is the definition of a good husband and I’m HERE FOR IT.

4:34 - .......seriously? I thought Edrisa had realized that this crush is unrequited last season? I love Edrisa but her obsession with Malcolm is getting a little creepy. Like “13 year old in love with the 40 year old math teacher” creepy. It’s sort of cute but also like - gurl. No.

4:38 - Ok. Dani’s reaction to Edrisa hitting on Malcolm saves the scene for me. Lol.

4:51 - Ugh. That is a really creepy corpse.

4:56 - Look. We’ve all obsessed about it already but I have to bring it up: MALCOLM STILL HAS THE BRUISE FROM THE ELEVATOR. SOMEONE GIVE THE MAKEUP DEPARTMENT A MEDAL. THANK YOU. THANK YOU FOR REMEMBERING MALCOLM’S PHYSICAL TRAUMA.

5:21- ......ok maybe I’m projecting my cynicism here but anyone who has framed newspaper clippings about themselves in their office is seriously egocentric. Maybe it’s just me - but that’s a massive turn off and takes someone out of the running for “angel” status.

6:10 - I’m sorry for every time I thought Jessica was a crazy rich lady during season 1. Birdie is so so so much crazier.

6:36 - “Only the men you date.” Bitch. OMG. Who says something that backhanded and cruel to their sibling?!?!? ......oh wait. I remember how this episode ends :|

7:15 - THANK YOU. I’ve been wondering about the status of Martin’s medical certification since I watched the pilot. SO happy to find out that he couldn’t weasel his way into keeping it.

7:37 - Like most of you, I’ve been creeped out by this whole Martin/Capshaw interaction since it was released as a promo clip. Seriously - it’s creepy. There’s an upsetting amount of subtle flirting here. I’m not sure what it is about Capshaw but her whole energy is just really unnerving to me. I immediately hated her in the promo. Istg Capshaw is an undercover serial killer or something. AND IF SHE BECOMES A LOVE INTEREST FOR MARTIN I WILL LOSE MY SHIT.

8:06 - Oh yeah. She’s either romantically interested in Martin or she’s a psychopath on the DL and is playing him.

8:12 - YAY!!! The Yankee mug returns!!! <3

8:34 - “Sometimes the most monstrous people are the ones hiding in plain sight.” Ouch. I know the writers like to project Malcolm’s emotional turmoil on the case of the week but hearing those words come out of Gil’s mouth?!? Ouch. That hurt Malcolm. Bad. It wasn’t even directed at Malcolm but damn. This is not helping his mental health. At all.

8:41 - Gil. Is. Concerned. <3 :) .....pretty sure Gil also suspects about Endicott and Ainsley by now too. .....hmmmmm maybe that comment about monsters was Gil’s way of trying to get Malcolm to confess (or to gauge Malcolm’s reaction)?

9:15 - I feel so bad for Malcolm here. He’s literally juggling everyone’s problems. Ainsley’s murder situation. Jessica’s personal drama. But is he dealing with his emotional problems? No. He’s too busy being a good son/brother. SOMEONE PAY ATTENTION TO MALCOLM. HE NEEDS A HUG.

9:35 - Deer. In. Headlights. Well....at least Dani knows Malcolm’s about to have a mental breakdown. This boy just got more information to help him crack a murder case and he looks confused, startled, and lost. He’s usually excited and motivated. This Endicott situation is slowly killing Malcolm. I don’t know how much longer he can struggle under the weight of the guilt.

9:48 - Look at this. Ainsley is pissed off that Malcolm isn’t paying attention to her. We know that this whole 2nd murder was a sham so WTF? Is she really just that hungry for attention? That sounds like Martin Whitly to me - the narcissistic psychopath who needs attention like an addict needs cocaine. Also AINSLEY’S acting here?!? We know that she’s lying to Malcolm but holy shit. She’s a really good actress/liar? What else has she lied about?!?

10:05 - Ok. So just when did Ainsley remember? I honestly think she’s known since at least 2x01.

10:20 - Look. I understand that Ainsley is pissed that Malcolm is trying to ‘control her’. But did she even listen to the desperation and fear in his voice? This boy wants her to stay in the loft because he’s scared of who she might hurt if she’s out in public, unsupervised. He’s not trying to abuse or hurt her - just protect her. Is he misguided -maybe? Should he have called the cops on Ainsley right away - probably. But he didn’t out of love. Ainsley doesn’t even seem to realize how much this whole situation is hurting Malcolm and that’s the biggest problem. She doesn’t show any remorse at killing Endicott. She’s just pissed off that Malcolm lied about it. SHE KILLED SOMEONE an she (outwardly at least) feels no remorse. This girl is a psychopath (sociopath?) and this will NOT end well for Malcolm and Jessica.

10:27 - This whole scene was awesome btw. Tom Payne flawlessly communicated Malcolm’s panic, fear, anger, and desperate attempts to stay calm. And Dani’s blatant concern (and suspicion) of Malcolm and his mental state. AND Ainsley being a little brat. Ugh. So beautiful.

10:45 - I love this scene. I love the fact that they have the type of friendship where Dani’s not afraid to call Malcolm out on his crap (trying to hide things from the team). I love that Malcolm isn’t offended that Dani called him out. He doesn’t lie. Ainsley is lost at the moment. Malcolm is more honest with Dani about how the whole Ainsley thing is affecting him than he is with anyone else. I love that Dani still looks suspicious and concerned. I love watching Dani piece this whole thing together. I’m honestly at a point where I think Dani is going to know about Endicott before Gil. I love that Dani gives Malcolm honest, judgement-free advise. Because she doesn’t like seeing how much pain Malcolm is in. I love that Malcolm isn’t completely shutting her out. <3

11:00 - “What if she already has?”.....yep. Dani is totally piecing the Endicott situation together.

11:09 - “I’m overthinking it.” THIS. There is a split second where you can see the betrayal on Dani’s face. She knows Malcolm is hiding something and she’s hurt that he doesn’t trust her enough to let her in. She’s also probably hurt because she views this as a lie - which brings back 1x20 memories.

11:35 - “Even when they’re as beautiful as you.” Ugh. I love this so so so so much. Look at how Dani absolutely lights up at Malcolm’s unintentional compliment. I relate to Dani in the sense that I’m a woman in a male dominated field (engineering). I can’t tell you how often men that she works with have probably objectified her, belittled her, and sexualized her. Malcolm isn’t doing this. He doesn’t call her hot. He doesn’t comment on her body or how she dresses. He doesn’t even acknowledge that she’s a woman. He just calls her beautiful. But he does it in a way that you can tell he’s being genuine. He doesn’t expect anything in return for the compliment. He’s not trying to play the long game. He’s just thinks she’s beautiful. He doesn’t even realize that he said it. BECAUSE Malcolm is in profiler mode. He’s focused on the murder - not Dani. He mentioned that Dani’s beauty off-handedly because 1) he believes it and 2) it was relevant to his profiling train of thought. BUT LOOK AT HOW MUCH IT MEANT TO DANI. <3 <3 <3

12:00 - Why is Chabra exiled to the corner of the room?!?! Someone explain this tomfoolery. Is it literally to just get across that Chabra is not the alpha in this corrupt plastic surgery business?!?

12:16 - Ew. Please never say YOLO. Ever. It’s cringy when kids say it but it’s so so so much worse when someone over 25 says it.

12:18 - hhahahahahahaha OMG. Dani’s face after he says “yolo”.

12:31 - Yep. This dude is an asshole. DO NOT try to convince Malcolm to get plastic surgery. The dude has enough problems without adding dysmorphia to the mix.

12:41 - Yep. Chabra is the little puppy that follows Donahue around and does the grunt work.

12:50 - LOOK AT THE NOD DONAHUE GIVES CHABRA when Chabra denies that stock has gone missing. Can you arrest someone for being a rich, corrupt, asshole?! Ugh. Hate him.

13:20 - Ugh. I really want to know more about Dani’s past. Who in the NYPD tried to belittle, micromanage, or sexualize her just because she’s a woman?

13:30 - “I want Donahue to be the bad guy.” PREACH SISTER.

13:48 - “Easy. We just isolate him with our own alpha males.” hahaha OMG. LET”S GO. I was so pumped when this scene cut to JT and Gil. BUT I was also a little sad. Malcolm doesn’t consider himself to be an alpha male (I mean, he’s not) but it really just drove home to be that Malcolm sees himself as broken. Gil has been Malcolm’s positive male role model for years. But Malcolm doesn’t think he’s anything like Gil. Malcolm thinks he’s broken where Gil is whole, weak where Gil is strong, and bad when Gil is good. It just sort of broke my heart.

14:00 - hahaha Chabra is just a wimp. Watching Gil and JT play angry cop, calm cop was so so so good though. <3

14:05 - This was the moment that I remembered LDP was directing this episode. I’m not usually someone who notices camera work or anything but this was a really cool shot.

15:00 - Oh c’mon. Seriously? Edrisa’s crush has gone too far. She knows he doesn’t like her romantically. Everyone knows it. Please stop this. I’m getting secondhand embarrassment.

15:16 - Did Edrisa think they were going to do it in the morgue?!? Those flowers?!? Like wtf. I can’t.

15:29 - I’ll give props to Malcolm here. He’s being really kind to Edrisa here. BUT HE NEEDS TO TELL HER HE’S NOT INTERESTED BECAUSE SHE’S CLEARLY NOT GETTING THE MESSAGE.

15:33 - Ugh. Look at how uncomfortable Malcolm is. This is upsetting.

16:08 - “What?!? How do you -” Panic. Pure panic in Malcolm’s eyes. Damn. This boy is spiralling. Someone needs to find out about Endicott. Malcolm can’t keep trying to protect Ainsley and Jessica alone. It’s literally killing him.

17:14 - “All she could see was the ugliness she felt inside.” “That’s a sad way to live.” .........the parallels between the plastic surgery, dysmorphia, and vengeful crime of the week to Malcolm’s current mental health and Ainsley’s crime is slowly killing me. I’m honestly getting annoyed that the other characters aren’t picking up on all the subtle references Malcolm’s making to the fact that he thinks he’s a monster. I JUST WANT SOMEONE TO COMFORT HIM. THAT’S ALL. WHY IS THAT SO MUCH TO ASK FEDAK!??!

17:30 - Another point to the Dani/Malcolm friendship. She takes out the gun and pushes Malcolm back. Is she trying to protect him? Technically, yes. BUT she’s just doing her job. I love that Malcolm respects Dani enough to let her take charge and do her job. I love that he’s secure enough about his masculinity to let her.

18:15 - Yikes. This woman is 90% plastic. Cosmetic plastic surgery is terrifying.

20:16 - Another reminder of the woman’s ward. Either Sophie Sanders or Ainsley is going to end up in that ward soon (I’m still half-convinced that Sophie is going to appear out of the woodwork and take the fall for Endicott).

21:49 - “...convinced her that she would never have a career unless she looked the part.” <3 Look at how disgusted Gil is when Dani tells him that. Gil is a good man and I love him forever. <3

22:33 - I love this. Dani and Gil are both concerned about Malcolm and communicating it in looks. It won’t be long until there’s a team intervention for Malcolm’s mental health (or at least, that’s my headcanon - if someone wants to write me a fic about it I’ll love you forever).

22:44 - WTF GIL. WHY AREN’T YOU ASKING MALCOLM WHAT’S WRONG?!?! IS IT BECAUSE YOU ALREADY KNOW AND YOU DON’T KNOW HOW TO FEEL ABOUT IT YET?!?!

22:49 -.....soooooo does this mean that Gil already knew that Birdie existed?!? How often did Birdie appear after Martin’s arrest?!?! I WANT DETAILS.

23:06 - Holy shit. Look at that little smirk Ainsley shoots Malcolm when he first walks in and sees her. Ainsley is maliciously toying with Malcolm and I DON”T LIKE IT.

23:14 - Jessica is concerned. I promise you Ainsley and Malcolm have rarely - if ever - fought like this in front of her. I was raised in single parent home after my abusive dad left. I know how that changes the sibling dynamic. No matter how genuinely pissed off you are - you don’t stress Mom out more. If you’re just annoyed with each other and doing regular ‘sibling squabbling’ - then you whine and argue in front of Mom. But if you’re seriously angry with each other - you deal with it when Mom isn’t home to see it because no matter what - you both appreciate how hard Mom is working to keep what’s left of your family together.

23:28 - “Malcolm. Looking more like your father every day.” BITCH. Did she just say that because she watched Malcolm go off on Ainsley? Sure, Malcolm was a little controlling (probably similar to a situation Birdie witnessed between Jess and Martin back in the day) but HOLY SHIT. That is your nephew. Maybe he’s having a bad day. Maybe being told he resembles a serial killer is really damaging to his already fragile pysche. I don’t like Birdie. AND I DON”T LIKE THAT JESSICA DOESN”T STAND UP FOR MALCOLM HERE.

24:00 - I don’t like this. These Martin+Capshaw scenes are really hard to watch. Martin is still acting like Martin - manipulative, egotistic, manicA. But he’s also acting like a professional doctor (an asshole doctor but still). It’s really disconcerting to watch Capshaw take his medical opinion seriously. Plus - there’s something about Capshaw that creeps me out. I just haven’t figured out what it is yet. But I’m pretty sure she’s a bad lady.

24:16 - “What bit should I use?” - See this? No. Just...no. I don’t like how she’s taking Martin’s medical advise to heart so readily.

25:04 - Why was Martin allowed to watch the procedure?!? He’s clearly getting a sick amount of pleasure from the blood and drilling. Look at the way Martin grins at Capshaw too. Martin is planning out an entire scheme to manipulate Capshaw into helping him escape. You can see the metaphoric lightbulb above his head.

25:29 - This meal. Seriously. Was I the only one who got a glimpse of the meat in a red sauce and thought “human meat”?!? No wonder Malcolm’s main food group is liquorice.

25:44 - Poor Jessica. She is not having a good time. Jessica’s behaviour in this scene is really interesting though. Jessica repeatedly shoots apologetic looks at Malcolm. She looks at Ainsley with fear. She looks super uncomfortable. She’s not saying much because she desperately wants a relationship with her sister but she also doesn’t want to belittle her son’s career. She’s proud of Malcolm - in her own way.

26:00 - “The family trust fund would run dry.” hahahahaha YES MALCOLM. THROW THAT SHADE. hahahaha

26:23 - “Most of the time anyway” Wow. Uncalled for. I know Ainsley is mad but this isn’t cool. I have this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that Birdie has been approached by Europol about the Endicott murder. I have this terrifying notion that Birdie is trying to collect intel so she can sell the information to Europol. If I’m right (which I’m probably not) this comment will not help Malcolm’s case.

26:41 - hahaha look at how annoyed Jessica is. Is she annoyed because her children are openly fighting in front of their Aunt when Jessica wants to portray the “perfect, undamaged family”? Or is Jessica annoyed because what Ainsley just said was out of line and she’s scared of Ainsley right now?

27:02 - “Why would you do that? I told you I would handle everything.” This. This is why I will argue that Ainsley is way out of line. Yes, Malcolm is sort of trying to control her. BUT listen to his words, the desperation and fear in his voice. Malcolm is trying to protect Ainsley. Ainsley has every right to be annoyed with him but if she was functioning at an adult mental capacity she’d be able to see that he isn’t being malicious.

27:35 - The fact that Birdie is a backstabbing, lying bitch is so frustrating to me. Look at how badly Jessica wants to have a healthy relationship with her little sister. Jessica just wants a girl-friend to confide in and drink with. I’m heartbroken that Martin stole that from her.

28:05 - I know LDP was directing this episode but JT or Dani should’ve called Malcolm. Why? This conversation between Gil and Malcolm (WHEN GIL IS WEARING HIS COAT) just makes me wonder - where is Gil going? JT is at Donahue’s apartment. Dani and Malcolm are going to talk to Chabra. Where is Gil going?!?

29:07 - ....how did Donahue get the coke into the cheetah? Was there a release thingy (like in a piggy bank) that Malcolm just elected not to use in the panic of the moment?

29:14 - “What else would you hide in a cheetah?” hahahahahaha

29:40 - “No. No. Only if I got the dose wrong.” Yikes. Malcolm is operating in full panic mode here. This is not good for his mental health.

30:08 - “This is the worst cooking show ever.” hahaha this was hilarious but cooking show? What? Do I not watch enough of those? Because I don’t see the link.

30:38 - The moment when Malcolm looks at Dani with fear. He thinks he just killed Chabra and he’s terrified that Dani is looking at him with hatred. :(

30:46 - The two seconds when Malcolm thinks he killed someone. Look at his face. That boy is broken. Again - if he doesn’t have a full on mental breakdown soon I’m going to be so annoyed with the writers because NO HUMAN CAN WITHSTAND THIS MUCH TRAUMA THIS QUICKLY - WITHOUT ANY EMOTIONAL SUPPORT - AND COME OUT FUNCTIONAL.

31:03 - “I do not miss drugs.” :O Dani :( Sweetie <3 Ugh. This line was heartbreaking because it hurts to remember that Dani had a drug problem. But it’s also really great. She was just in front of 1 gram of cocaine. She didn’t grab for it. It didn’t reawaken the urge to use in her. She was strong enough to say “I don’t miss this life” and say it OUT LOUD in front of Malcolm. <3 Friendship. She’s starting to trust Malcolm more. This is good....until she finds out about Endicott.

31:45 - Wait. If Birdie knew about Endicott and Jessica.....does she know about Gil?!?!

31:49 - “Trust but verify.” That’s such a heartbreaking way to live. I hate that she has to live in a world without trust because of what Martin did. I want Jessica to be happy. So so badly.

32:06 - .....how did Jessica find out about the book?!!?! Seriously.

32:17 - “Mummy”. Mrs. Milton is alive?!?! What. OMG. So....but how? Jessica is living in the Milton family home. Jessica is rich. But Birdie has been cut off from the family money. However, it’s clear from this conversation that Jessica and her mother aren’t on speaking terms. So how did this work? When did Jessica move into the Milton family home and why? Where is Jessica’s money coming from? Did Jessica invest her trust fund money smartly and make a fortune? Does Jessica still have access to the Milton family bank accounts?!? AND WHERE IS JESSICA’S DAD?!!? I WANT MORE INFORMATION FEDAK.

32:49 - Malcolm is his mother’s son. Look at this. Jessica is so hurt by what Birdie has done. However, Jessica sighs, takes a breath and helps her little sister out at the cost of causing herself pain. Malcolm would do the exact same for Ainsley. He has.

33:40 - “And do we need to talk about last night?!?” Gil has been different this season. Less soft. More strict.

33:51 - Look at how Gil stares at Dani here. He’s annoyed and concerned. Concerned because she was in close proximity to drugs last night. Annoyed because he created a monster. Gil put together is badass, sarcastic daughter with his unstable, awkward son and they are creating a headache for him.

34:41 - “even for consultants?” hahaha

36:50 - The irony that our killer of the week is a woman who is in pain, feels disfigured, and murders in revenge is so so thick.

37:18 - “It’s enough to drive anyone insane”.....like the emotional pain that Malcolm is currently suffering from?

38:42 - “The best revenge is letting him live like this.�� The moment Malcolm realized that Ainsley was manipulating him. Look at the hurt and fear on his little face. :(

39:00 - Ugh. I can’t tell who’s manipulating who in this whole Capshaw+Martin relationship but it’s all gross. I swear if they become romantic I will puke. These two are a psychopathic match made in heaven.

40:08 - I could write essays upon essays about this final scene but I need to sleep. So it’s going into point form without time stamps:

First off - Halston Sage and Tom Payne give us an AMAZING performance in this scene and they deserve an Emmy for it. Seriously.

Look at how Ainsley walks into the room. She’s self-satisfied. She feels no remorse. She’s pleased that Malcolm has been suffering.

Look at how utterly empty Malcolm is when he greets Ainsley. This boy is in shock. He’s so deeply hurt and he just had one of his greatest fears confirmed - Ainsley is like Martin.

“Do you have any idea what you put me through?!?” This. Yes, Malcolm is upset and hurt but there’s a part of me that genuinely thinks this question isn’t rhetorical. There’s a part of me that thinks Malcolm is desperately trying to get Ainsley to admit to feeling remorse so that he can convince himself that his baby sister isn’t gone forever.

“Do you?” Ainsley is mad. She has a right to be. Malcolm did lie to her. He probably should’ve told her the truth. HOWEVER, if Ainsley was a functional adult - she would’ve just confronted Malcolm about it. She has every right to be pissed but her behaviour has been downright petty, juvenile, and cruel.

“Underestimated me. For months.” Is this the root of Ainsley’s anger? She mentioned something similar in 1x6 when Jessica and Malcolm tried to stop her from visiting Martin. She resents Jessica and Malcolm for treating her like a child. For trying to protect her from Martin. On one hand, I understand - that’s probably suffocating and frustrating. On the other hand, Ainsley’s acting like a child so....why wouldn’t they treat her like one?

“I have given up everything for you!! I don’t even know who I am anymore.” This breaks me. Malcolm is screaming through tears. He’s so utterly broken (this doesn’t count as a mental breakdown Fedak....you better give me more). Malcolm is rightfully frustrated that Ainsley doesn’t acknowledge that he literally threw out his moral code to protect her. That when this gets out - his relationship with his only real friends since he was 10 years old (JT and Dani) will probably want nothing to do with him. Malcolm probably thinks that Gil will abandon him WHEN the Endicott thing comes out. Malcolm has thrown his fragile mental health down the drain to protect Ainsley. He thinks he’s a monster. Yes. Malcolm made the choice to protect Ainsley. Ainsley doesn’t have to be grateful. She doesn’t have to respect his decision. But acknowledging that his decision was made out of love would sure help. Malcolm wanted to be a good big brother so badly that he threw away his sense of self.

“Protect me? Or control me?” Wow. Okay. I get it. Ainsley feels controlled which is bad for someone who likes being in control. But Malcolm was never trying to control Ainsley. Malcolm was trying to control a situation. Not a person. Is what Malcolm did right? No, lying to Ainsley wasn’t a great choice. But telling her the truth also wasn’t a great choice. He was damned either way.

“For someone who spent the last few decades trying to recover from being gaslight; it’s ironic how quickly you resorted to it.” Uncalled for. Was Malcolm gaslighting Ainsley? Technically, yes. HOWEVER, one of the main criteria for gaslighting is that the gaslighter is aware that they’re gaslighting someone. I honestly don’t think Malcolm realized he was gaslighting Ainsley - look at his face when she mentions it: he looks heartbroken. BESIDES. How is AINSLEY NOT GASLIGHTING MALCOLM RIGHT NOW?!?! “That’s exactly what Dad would say.” She’s trying to convince Malcolm that he’s just like Martin. She’s made him believe that she murdered a second person. She made him an accomplice to her fake murder. She knowingly continued with this ruse after he came clean and told her the truth. And he was nothing but supportive and protective. Malcolm helped her hide a body. Why is Ainsley playing the victim?!

Look at the torture on Malcolm’s face right before he apologizes to Ainsley for lying to her. This boy is being gaslight and he doesn’t even realize it.

FURTHERMORE I DON’T RECALL AINSLEY APOLOGIZING TO MALCOLM FOR MAKING HIM 1) HIDE A BODY, 2) LIE TO THEIR MOM, 3) LIE TO GIL, 4) AN ACCOMPLICE TO A SECOND (FAKE) MURDER, 5) LYING TO MALCOLM ABOUT THE SECOND MURDER. She just says, “Maybe it was a little over the top.” Come on. No.

“I appreciate that.” SERIOUSLY. Ainsley doesn’t even have the curtesy to say “I’m sorry too.” or “I know you did what you thought was best”?!? Her response feels bitter and angry. She doesn’t forgive Malcolm. She’s still livid despite the fact that her brother is literally breaking apart in front of her. There’s no questioning the genuineness of Malcolm’s apology. That’s sincere pain and remorse.

This whole scene is super disturbing because Malcolm is on the verge of tears. He’s visibly upset. Yet - Ainsley is channeling a quiet, disassociating anger (similar to what she looked like right before she murdered Endicott). She’s completely consumed by anger. She’s not acting rationally and it’s really disconcerting to watch the contrast between the two siblings.

“I had to make sure that you were never going to mess with my head again.” .....you know, a functional adult human (hell, even a half-functional adult human) would just verbally confront their sibling about it. They probably wouldn’t fully trust or forgive their sibling right away but they wouldn’t pull a stunt as cruel and malicious as Ainsley just pulled on Malcolm. The problem with Ainsley’s behaviour vs. Malcolm’s is this: Ainsley is intentionally hurting Malcolm out of anger. Ainsley wants revenge. Malcolm reacted out of fear and panic to protect Ainsley. Malcolm just wants to be a good big brother. Neither of them are perfectly in the right but Ainsley is so so so out of line.

“You need to lighten up. We got away with it.” Ainsley is a serial killer. Say it from the rooftops. This is the first time she’s shown an emotion other than anger/disassociation all episode. Ainsley is happy that they got away with it. Malcolm is crumpling under the guilt and grief but Ainsley is happy.

“No one does this murder stuff better than us.” Holy shit. I can’t. Malcolm looks so so so heartbroken here. He just realized that his sister is gone forever. AND AINSLEY damn. This girl needs some serious help. She’s going to kill again. She liked it the first time. I bet you she slaughtered the pig just to get her fix. She could’ve boughten the pig’s blood from a butcher shop or something but I bet you she killed the pig herself. And I bet you she liked it.

Hoxley is a flamboyant gay and a cocky profiler. That’s just a fact.

I can’t. Alan Cummings will always be the villain from Spy Kids to me. I don’t know how I’m going to take Hoxley seriously.

Yoooooo Endicott’s head is creepy af.

Damn. This isn’t good. Hoxley is going to ruin Malcolm’s life. I can feel it.

Okay. I loved this episode. I have a lot of feelings about it (obviously). I’m so bitter that we have to wait until April 13th for the next episode. See you guys next time. If you read this far - thanks for hanging out.

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stubbornness-and-spite · 4 years

Text

Chapter One

Link to Prologue

Summary: The oldest son of Captain Hook, once known as Killian Jones, Peter Jones has been on the Isle of the Lost as long as he can remember. When he was younger, his father used to tell him stories of his mom and papa, who lived in a far away place called Neverland, but it had been years since Peter had been calmed by fairytales. Peter is torn, between the island that calls to him in his dreams and the one where the only family he’s ever known lives: his father, his brother, Harry, and Bronwyn, the boy who has more secrets than he can count but who Peter loves more than anything. When destiny comes calling will Peter choose the magic that runs in his veins or the family he’s built for himself?

Relationships(possibly to be updated): Peter/Bronwyn, Harry/Gil/Uma, Captain Hook/Peter Pan/Tinker Bell

Notes: I don’t know anything about actual psychics and any descriptions in this story are based off of a fantastical magic system. Any similarities to real life practices are not intentional. *Chapter continues under the cut*

Warnings: Non-graphic mentions of blood, mild violence, occasional language

Word Count: 2132

Chapter 1

A familiar figure was perched on a rock just off the shore not far from the ship. Peter grinned as he made his way over. He slipped behind the figure and wrapped his arms loosely around the other’s chest. “Hi, Bronwyn,” he whispered, grinning.

“Shit, Peter,” Bronwyn yelped, jumping. Peter dropped his head onto Bronwyn’s shoulder and leaned on his back. Bronwyn laughed as their cheeks touched. He turned his head to Peter and kissed him on the corner of his mouth. “Good morning,” he murmured. Peter settled down next to him on the rock, one arm falling to his side, the other staying wrapped around Bronwyn’s shoulder. Bronwyn let his head fall onto Peter’s shoulder as the last of the sun broke free from the horizon. Peter rested his head in Bronwyn’s hair and sighed, watching Bronwyn’s hair ruffle with Peter’s breath.

“Something bad is going to happen,” Peter said to the wind.

“How bad?” Bronwyn asked the sun.

Peter grimaced and exhaled sharply. “Bad. And soon,” he promised. “I dreamt the king was here and he stabbed me in the heart. I woke up gasping. It’s probably not literal, you know it rarely is, but I’m worried.”

Bronwyn reached up to Peter’s hand on his shoulder and gripped it firmly. “We’ll get through it,” he said, his voice steel.

“There was more to the dream that I didn’t tell my dad,” Peter confessed. “The king, he was dying. He looked fine but I could tell he was dying. We were on a ship and the sea was made of blood.” He swallowed. “On the horizon, there was a shining green light and it wanted to help, but it couldn’t. I think it might have been Neverland.” He took a shaky breath and squeezed Bronwyn’s hand. “I think Neverland pushed harder than ever last night to warn me of what was coming.”

Bronwyn stayed silent for a few minutes. “Or maybe it was trying to give you a chance. You’ve said it yourself, Peter. Neverland wants you to come home. Maybe it pushed through because there’s a chance to leave here coming.” Peter desperately wanted to latch onto Bronwyn’s hope like a lifeline, but he couldn’t grab it any more than he could grab the fairy dust that should have been in his lungs and running through his veins. “The king’s already taken kids to Auradon. Maybe him stabbing you through the heart symbolized him killing the part of you that belongs on the Isle and letting you go home.”

“I don’t remember Neverland. I don’t remember my papa. I don’t remember my mom.” Peter closed his eyes and tried to picture it, but all he could see were his dad’s descriptions. “I don’t want to leave you behind. I don’t want to leave my dad behind. Or Harry who couldn’t leave Uma or Gil.” He let out a breath. “Fuck,” he shouted, frightening away a flock of seagulls.

“You know we’d all want you to take the opportunity to go if you got it, right?” Bronwyn asked, sliding an arm around Peter’s waist.

“Yeah, I do,” Peter said. He smirked. “You know I won’t take it without you, right?”

Bronwyn rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I do,” he said.

“Wanna go get lunch?” Bronwyn gently pushes Peter off of him and leans back to face him. The darkness of the day where the sun was hidden behind never-changing clouds had risen.

Peter shrugs. “Yeah, sure. Ursula’s Fish and Chips?” he suggested. “We can check out the trainwreck that is Uma, Gil, and my brother.”

Bronwyn grinned. “Sounds like a good time.” He stood up and stretched, before leaning down to offer Peter a hand. Peter took it, laughing. He let Bronwyn help him to his feet and they made their way down the coast to Ursula’s ship. The dock was falling apart even more than Peter’s. He sneered at the stinking fish and rotting boards that had clearly never seen a broom, let alone been scrubbed. Bronwyn grabbed his hand and laced their fingers together, drawing his attention away from the ship’s state of disrepair. Peter sighed fondly as they made their way onto the ship, avoiding the areas of the dock that looked like supporting weight might be the last thing they ever did. Gil was sitting outside the door when they reached it.

Peter bit back a laugh and forced himself to sound sympathetic. “What’s Uma pissed about this time?”

Gil glared at the ground in what Peter would have called a pout if he’d wanted to start a fight. “She was complaining about the awful things that Mal did and I reminded her of one she didn’t want to think about,” he admitted.

Bronwyn grimaced. “Mal was a bitch to her.”

Gil nodded. “I know, but I thought she wanted to bring it up so she could complain and I didn’t notice her and Harry glaring at me until it was too late. She had a whole song about it which ended with me in a net with her using my feet as a chair and shoving me across the bar. I got pissed and brought it up again. Now she’s mad and Harry’s mad and I can’t even go in and apologize.”

Bronwyn closed his eyes for a long moment, his jaw set. “One: I hate that the ambient magic around here makes people break out into song and dance. It’s stupid and useless and you would think magic would want to build up its power so it could do something actually impactful instead of wasting it on creating enough harmony to make our lives a literal musical.”

“Babe.” Peter put his hand on Bronwyn’s arm, his expression fondly amused. “You’re ranting.”

Bronwyn sighed and shook his head. “Two: Uma’s being a self-centered bitch and you should really consider your other options if she’s going to keep taking you for granted,” he said to Gil.

Gil shrugged and grinned ruefully. “I think I’m good. Uma and Harry are…” he trailed off.

Peter nodded. “You know Harry loves you too, right?” he asked. “He’ll never say it, but he does.”

Gil nodded. “It’s the Isle, we’re fucked up. If this makes Uma feel like her entire life isn’t out of her control, then I’ll sit here forever. Maybe if we’d gotten picked instead…”

Bronwyn gave him a regretful look. “I know.”

Peter spoke up. “You’re cool if we go in, right? We were going to get lunch and I should probably talk to Harry.”

“About your… you know?” Bronwyn asked.

Gil’s eyes went wide. “Is something bad going to happen? Not the kind of bad we like but like the kind of bad that-”

“Gil,” Peter interrupted. “It’ll be alright. Don’t worry about it.”

They stepped onto the ship, pretending not to hear Gil call out. “That wasn’t a no!”

Peter waved at Harry as he and Bronwyn walked onto the ship. Harry grinned manically and made his way over. “Was wondering when you two would make your way over here,” Harry said, roughly guiding them to a table. “I’ll get out of your way.”

Peter grabbed Harry’s arm. “Wait, I wanted to talk to you.” He said, biting his tongue. “Just… be careful, alright.”

Harry nodded. His eyes were dark, his mouth pressed into a thin line, and his jaw was tight. “Eyes up, head down?” Peter echoed the statement. Harry nodded again and made his way over to Uma. He whispered something in her ear and she stiffened. A moment later, she relaxed as if she’d never frozen at all. She jerked her head towards the door and Harry nodded sharply. He walked over and out, but came back inside a moment later, dragging Gil along with him. He gestured at Uma and the three of them slipped away.

Peter relaxed. They’d taken his warning to heart. He turned to Bronwyn and smiled. “Are you going to bother ordering or just eat whatever?”

Bronwyn laughed, “I’m not in the habit of wasting words or time, so no. I’m not ordering.” Peter reached out and placed his hand on the table, instantly Bronwyn placed his hand on top of it and smiled. “We’ll get through,” he said. “Just like we always do.”

“Again.” Peter bent forward, his hands on his knees as he gasped for breath. He gasped a few more deep breaths and threw himself into a fighting stance, his feet shoulder-width apart, his toes pointing away from Bronwyn to give Bronwyn less of a target from his current angle. Peter’s hands shook on the handles of his knives, his dagger long since knocked away. His skin glistened with sweat and blood leaked from shallow cuts on his arms.

Bronwyn leaned back on his heels, putting himself off-balance to signal to Peter to wait. “Are you sure you can go again?” he asked skeptically. Bronwyn’s shoulder-length black hair was slick with sweat and strands fell loose in his face. His breathing was heavy but more controlled than Peter. His long leather pants and long-sleeved leather jacket had protected him from most cuts by Peter’s knives. The gold patterns on his green jacket looked worse for wear and his black pants had taken the cuts that hadn’t reached his skin.

Peter glared furiously at him. “Again.” Bronwyn sighed, flicking his wrist to send a throwing knife spinning towards Peter’s face. Peter’s feet didn’t move, but he twisted his body back and out of the way. Bronwyn sent a second knife flying to where Peter had moved to avoid the first one. Peter noticed a second too late and pulled out of his twist a hair shy, taking the cut across his cheek. He stumbled back at the sudden pain. Still half twisted and standing up as he staggered away, he lost his balance and ended up on the sand. He made to push himself up, but Bronwyn walked over before he could and pushed his chest down until Peter lay flat on his back. Peter strained to push Bronwyn off of him, but Bronwyn picked up the knife that he’d thrown a moment ago and spun it around to grab in his fist. He held the point to Peter’s throat.

“We’re done,” he growled.

Peter dropped his head back and groaned. “Fine, we’re done,” he acquiesced. Bronwyn let out a breath and rolled off of Peter to flop on the sandy beach beside him.

“You’re running yourself ragged over this vision,” Bronwyn remarked. “Getting yourself killed isn’t going to stop anything. Fighting me until you literally can’t anymore isn’t either.” Peter didn’t answer. “You’re sloppy when you’re paranoid,” Bronwyn noted. “You can usually beat me half the time, but when you’re swinging wide and putting too much energy into everything, you aren’t hard to evade.” Peter groaned and smacked Bronwyn in the chest. “I’m serious, Peter.” Bronwyn stressed. “You’re going to get yourself killed.”

“Pretty sure I can’t,” Peter reminded him. “They brought people back to life to imprison them here, do you really think this barrier will let us die?”

“Get yourself permanently maimed, then.” Bronwyn let out a harsh exhale.

“I’m going to be okay.”

“Sorry if I don’t believe empty words over actual prophecies,” Bronwyn scoffed

“That’s not fair,” Peter muttered. “My prophecies are shit and vague and you know it.” Bronwyn didn’t answer. He stared up at the dark clouds that covered the afternoon sun and sighed. He let the back of his hand touch Peter. He turned his arm and wrapped his hand around the back of Peter’s hand, lacing their fingers together and running his thumb softly up and down the skin it could reach. Peter sighed contentedly and Bronwyn closed his eyes.

The sun was setting when the boys finally stood up. Bronwyn pulled himself up and offered Peter his arm. Peter grabbed it and pulled himself up. He stretched his arms over his head until his back cracked. Bronwyn put his hands on his arms and twisted to stretch. He hesitated.

“Can I borrow your belt?” He asked tentatively. “I’ll give it back in the morning. I just need to borrow it.”

Peter looked at him with a furrowed brow and narrow eyes. “You want my belt?”

Bronwyn hissed softly. “And your dagger,” he said. “Peter, I promise I’ll give them back first thing in the morning, please.”

Peter sighed. He slung off his belt and grabbed his dagger, placing it in the scabbard. He held it out to Bronwyn. “Don’t make me regret this.”

Bronwyn grinned. “Thanks, Peter. See you tomorrow.” He leaned over and kissed Peter lightly on the cheek. He turned to leave, but Peter caught his wrist, smirking. He spun Bronwyn into him and dipped him, kissing him deeply, with the sunset framing their silhouettes.

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