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iliveiloveiwrite · 4 years

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Rivals

A/N: @obsessedwithrandomthings requested some Neville angst in the form of enemies to lovers from me so here is what I hope is Neville angst! Honestly, it’s more rivals with a lot of unresolved sexual tension but I still hope you like! She also made this wonderful banner! I also don’t know if you can tell but I am really inspired by greek mythology and witchcraft lore in general (I'm a historian, what can I say?) and this fic is full of it so if that’s not your thing, then I apologise! Nonetheless, I hope you enjoy!

Summary: Rival professors

Pairing: Neville Longbottom x Fem!Reader

Warnings: swearing, gets a lil bit steamy

Word count: 4.7k

There wasn’t a man on the earth that could infuriate you more than Neville Longbottom.

And you had known Draco Malfoy for over a decade.

There was a history between the two of you; a natural hatred that came with the Slytherin/Gryffindor rivalry, but there was always something more. A deeper attraction that ran between the two of you despite how hard you rejected it.

He felt it too; and he fought it with every breath.

You thought you would get some reprieve upon your appointment as the Divination professor at Hogwarts, but as you entered the staff room your first week there, Neville Longbottom was stood speaking to Headmistress McGonagall.

“You have got to be shitting me?” You cry.

“Professor (Y/L/N)!” McGonagall admonishes.

“I’m sorry Headmistress, but seriously? Longbottom?”

“I’m not thrilled about the prospect of working with you either.” Neville drawls.

McGonagall looks between the two of you, a small frown pulling down the corners of her mouth, “I do hope you’ll get along in front of students.”

You glare at the tall brunette, “There’ll be no issue with that on my part, Headmistress.”

Neville returns your glare with just as much acid, “The one thing we’ll agree on then.”

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

It’s the little things he does that bother you; such as smirking at you from across the Great Hall or taking the last of the milk in the staff room. Neville knows exactly how to get a rise out of you, and he does an excellent job of it.

The rivalry that had seemingly ended upon the end of your education, promptly started back up again.

Constant competition broke out between Neville and yourself: who got the higher grades? Who had the highest pass rate? Who got the most laughs out their students?

It never ended. He would goad you, and you’d goad him right back. Practical jokes would be played on each other often. You were both frequent customers at the Weasley twin’s joke shop where materials were hoarded, and plans were formed.

McGonagall watched the two of you bicker in the staffroom; a regular occurrence. She watched the both of you argue from across the room with a fond look on her face. The rivalry would always be present between the two of you; and she was surprised – to say you were a gifted seer, you had not foreseen the palpable tension between Neville and yourself.

She watches the back and forth between the two of you; head moving as if watching a muggle tennis match. Insults and jibes are thrown between you both and yet, despite the bitterness of the words, there was no major malice in your voices.

McGonagall sips at her tea, rolling her eyes at the two of you. She supposes that it would only be a matter of time now.

----------

The week before term starts you get a letter of rejection in your notice box. Your application for the money for new textbooks had been denied. You scrunch the paper in your hands; feeling the all too familiar emotion of frustration running through your veins. Your argument for the textbooks was sound; it would be easier for the school to purchase the materials for the students than to rely on the students to use their own money.

You knock on the heavy, wooden door of McGonagall’s office; entering upon hearing her grant permission. “Headmistress, why has my application for new textbooks been rejected?”

“We’ve had to siphon funds for the Herbology trip.”

You see red, but keep a lid on your temper in front of your boss, “Pardon?”

“Divination is an elective subject; Herbology is compulsory through all seven years.” McGonagall reasons.

“So because of that, my students have to use textbooks that are falling apart?”

“We can add the material onto the reading list if that makes anything better?”

You sit back in your chair, “Term starts in a week. Students will have bought their books already. The very reason I applied for the textbooks was so that students didn’t have to buy them.”

McGonagall holds her hands up, “I’m sorry, Professor.”

You sigh through your nose, standing to leave, “Thank you for your time, Headmistress.”

Anger rises within you; all directed at the maddening Herbology professor. You understood that Herbology was a compulsory subject, and that it was very useful in determining a student’s future career as a Healer or a Potioneer. But Divination was becoming increasingly popular among the muggleborn students who grew up knowing the tales of tarot reading, palmistry and clairvoyance. And after the war, so many students sat in the class hoping for a relief in their grief – to find an answer to the well-asked question, do they find peace?

You confront Neville in the staff room, “The reason I cannot get new textbooks for my Sixth Years is because you’ve used the money for a trip to London to meet Herbert Beery?”

“He taught Herbology here before Professor Sprout, it is a worthwhile trip!”

You pause the rant sitting at the tip of your tongue; letting his words settle. “Repeat those very words for me, Longbottom.”

Neville frowns, “What?”

“Repeat. Those. Words.” You enunciate; each syllable pronounced.

“Herbert Beery taught Herbology here before Sprout. It’s a worthwhile experience for students interested in taking the subject further.”

The cushion in your hands hits Neville in the face. He looks at you astonished as you shout, “You’re taking students to meet an ex-professor?”

“What aren’t you understanding about this?” Neville questions as another cushion hits his face, “Stop doing that!” he yells.

“Why didn’t you bring him here?! He knows the school; it’s known territory! And it would have saved enough money so I could get my textbooks!” You throw more cushions at him; enjoying the way he has to dodge them. “You didn’t think this through at all, Longbottom.”

“Calm down, (Y/N). Your students can always buy the textbooks.”

“Not this close to term starting!” You throw yourself down onto the couch with a groan, “You’re an arsehole.”

Neville glares, “This trip is a once in a lifetime experience for my students. Herbert Beery is officially retiring from the field after this lecture.”

“And yet you couldn’t invite him to Hogwarts?”

“No.”

You stand, shoving his shoulder as you pass him to leave. “I can’t even begin to tell you how pissed I am. I can’t even look at you right now.”

Leaving him there, surrounded by couch cushions, you take a breather in the courtyard. Inhaling the fresh air, you start to see things more clearly. It seems that a friendship would never exist between the two of you; the rivalry stemming from Hogwarts running so deep that it could never be breached by kind words and actions.

A plan forms in your head for the perfect revenge, and it would mean a visit to Diagon Alley.

---------

If there was one thing that your education at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry had taught you, it was if you were going to prank someone, you had to make it a good one. George and Fred Weasley are more than happy to help you enchant the chalk; neither asking too many questions – they see the mischievous glint in your eye and know not to interrogate too much.

Neville walks into his classroom to find his students already sat in their seats. He lets them continue socialising as he sets up his materials for the day; this lesson focusing on the theory behind Herbology rather than hands-on practice. He grabs his chalk from the bottom of the board, proceeding to write the date and title before turning to his class, pulling their attention away from their friends and on to him.

It takes him two minutes to notice to amused expressions and the stifling of laughter.

It takes him five minutes to figure out why.

On the chalkboard behind is a caricature of his face on the body of a baby Mandrake. He’s crying big, fat tears that make their way down the length of the board before turning to dust at the bottom.

Neville can feel his face heat from the anger building within him and coursing through his veins, setting them alight. He knows exactly who’s behind this, and it isn’t any of his students.

--------

Your class settle into their assigned seats; the crystal balls already placed in the centres of their tables. Once upon a time, students would groan at the sight of them, but now they regard them with interest.

You grin at your students, knowing what lesson they had last, “How was Herbology?”

Thomas Wadsworth in Ravenclaw begins to laugh, “I knew you would have something to do with it, Professor.”

“Was it obvious?”

He shakes his head, “Not really, but everyone knows of your rivalry.”

“How did he react?”

Shea Bard in Gryffindor raises her hand, “He went very red and muttered some curses before teaching us something else.”

You rub your hands together, “What else? Was it funny?”

“Very,” Shea nods, “But we didn’t dare laugh, no-one was in the mood to get a detention no matter how funny it was.”

You clap your hands together, pleased with the outcome. You’d have to send a thank you card to the Weasley twins for their genius minds.

“Why do you have this rivalry with Professor Longbottom?” A voice from the back asks.

Other students turn their eyes from their crystal balls to you; more interested in this topic of conversation rather than predicting their neighbour’s future.

You shrug, “We’ve never liked each other. He’s a Gryffindor and I’m a Slytherin.”

Thomas scoffs, “That can’t be it, surely? Give us something more, Professor.”

“What more is there? We went to school together and we never got on.”

Shea smiles, “With all respect Professor, you have to be aware of the tension between the two of you.”

“Tension?” You question, eyebrows furrowing.

Thomas raises his hand, counting the syllables off with his fingers, “Sex-u-al ten-shun.”

You stare wide-eyed at your class. Shea frowns, “Oh man, you weren’t aware of it were you?”

You clear your throat, “I have to know, how did my personal life become the topic for this class?”

“Since you won’t make a move on Professor Longbottom.”

“Thomas!” You chide.

He frowns, “I’m only saying what everyone else was thinking. It’s so obvious you fancy each other, it’s sickening.”

“Professor Longbottom and I have never gotten along. The most you’re going to see out of us is rivalry and cold stares.”

Thomas rolls his eyes, “Okay, Professor. If you get together before Christmas, Frances owes me Butterbeer for a month.”

“I’ll be sure to keep your bet in mind, Thomas, thank you.” You drawl with an unimpressed look, “Let’s get back to our crystal balls shall we?”

And just like that, the conversation over your personal life and your relationship with Neville Longbottom was over.

--------

The sound of your classroom door slamming shut has you jumping in your spot. You press a hand to your chest; trying to slow your racing heart as you take in the angry figure of Neville Longbottom.

“I know it was you.” He states, enunciating every word as if they were its own sentence. “I know it was you that planted the enchanted chalk in my classroom.”

You place a hand on your heart, grinning, “I am hurt that you would accuse me of such a thing, Longbottom.”

He stalks towards you, pressing you into your desk. He’s so close that you can smell the dirt from the greenhouse; it’s become the scent you associate with him.

“I spoke to the Weasley twins.”

Your grin shifts into a sly smirk, “The jig is up, you’ve caught me red-handed.”

The atmosphere between the two of become charged. The electricity in the air becoming magnetic; stirring something deep within your gut. Your eyes run over his face; taking in the widened pupils and the deepened breathing. He’s feeling it too; feeling it just as intense as you.

You resist the urge to drag him in for a kiss. You resist the urge to taste him; to memorise every inch of him with your fingers and mouth.

“You feel it too, don’t you?” You ask, voice breathless. He pushes himself away from you, stepping away quickly as your words land.

Neville storms out of your classroom; running both hands through his hair with a frustrated groan. You watch him leave, trying to slow the racing of your heart to no avail. He had no idea the reaction he could pull from you, but you were also unaware of the reaction, you could evoke from him.

You push your hair back from your forehead as you analyse your feelings for the Herbology professor; wondering when they had started to lean more towards to love than hatred.

You need to consult someone or something whether it be your cards or your tea leaves; everything feels so gnarled and scrambled, it felt impossible to make heads or tails of it all.

----------

Neville begins to enact his revenge a week later.

It starts with sitting next to you at the weekly briefings; sitting close enough to you where you can feel the warmth exuding from his body – sitting close enough to you where his thigh presses against yours. Through the briefing, he’d lean into you, whispering into your ear, asking for your thoughts. You clench the hand that’s resting on your thigh, and you feel rather than hear Neville’s amused snort at your action. He pulls away when McGonagall calls the end of the briefing and you’re left feeling suddenly cold at the lack of his touch.

He then moves onto catching your eye at every meal time. Upon which he smirks, running a hand over his jaw, not missing the way your eyes track the movement of his fingers. You turn away with a frown, drawing Professor Flitwick into a conversation about the latest journal on charms.

He decides to interrupt one of your lessons on the second day of his revenge. He enters your classroom using the ruse of searching for a student. Your mouth dries as you run your eyes up and down his body. His work overalls are tied at the waist; his muscles gloriously defined by a tight white t-shirt spattered with dirt from the plants, and the tattoos he got in memorial for the second wizarding war stand out against his lightly tanned skin.

In the years you had known Neville, you had watched him transform from a bumbling teenager into what could only be described as a Greek God.

The expression that falls across his face as you take in the sight of him makes it very clear to you that he knows exactly what he’s doing.

You refuse to let him see how he’s getting to you. You shift your attention back to your class; not missing the way Thomas Cresswell points at Frances Bainbridge across the room, calling for the outcome of their bet. You roll your eyes at Thomas and Frances as you let the student Neville came for leave the classroom.

-----------

“What are you doing?” You hiss at him on the third day of his revenge.

He smirks, “Absolutely nothing.”

“If this is your revenge for my prank, it’s messed up, Longbottom.”

Neville’s eyes widen; his face the picture of perfect innocence, “What makes you think that?”

He walks away before you can answer, leaving you questioning the last week of your life.

You finish your week confused and frustrated. The feelings that had always been present for Neville were riled up; you were thinking of him more often, remembering how his thigh felt pressed against yours and the attention he paid you from across the Great Hall at every meal time.

Your heart races every time you think of him, and your stomach erupts in butterflies. You spend your free periods thinking of how he would feel pressed against you, and how his stubble would feel under your lips. More often than not, you would find yourself with your head in your hands, cursing the day you ever let the Herbology professor into your life.

----------

It was the very last thing you wanted to do, but it was something you needed to do. A headache had been brewing now for three days, ever since Neville cooled off with his revenge for your chalkboard prank. The headache was making you sharper with your students that you intended to be.

This wasn’t a usual headache though; it had stemmed from your witches-eye - becoming a seer’s headache very quickly. The only way this could be relieved was to fall into it; opening your eye and being shown what you needed to see.

You find Neville in one of the many greenhouses dedicated to Herbology. He stands over the freshly potted Mandrakes, sprinkling fertiliser on them. You lean against the door to the greenhouse, rubbing the centre of your forehead. “Longbottom, I wouldn’t usually ask this of you, but I need access to the restricted greenhouse.”

Neville frowns, “Why would you need to go there?”

“There’s a plant I need. Would you please take me?”

“It’s nothing dangerous is it?”

You shake your head, refusing to speak as it would give away your lie.

Neville takes a set of keys from his pocket, searching for a minute for the lesser-used key. You follow him as he leads you to the restricted greenhouse. Such as with the library, the greenhouses had an area controlled against student use for it grew plants that were not only dangerous, but deadly. Mandrakes were one thing - the plants grown here had helped dark wizards gain fame, fortune, power, and all at a cost.

Neville waits at the door as you walk through the greenhouse, looking for the pale yellow flower covered in veins. You find it in little to no time at all, picking a few flowers from the plant. A petal would be fine for now; Henbane could be deadly if used in large quantities. Taking more than what you needed was your way of assuring that you wouldn’t need to bother Neville again.

You make your way back to Neville, smiling smally at the questioning expression on his face. “Did you get everything you need?” he asks.

You nod, patting the little bag in which you had stored the Henbane flowers, “I got it. Thank you, Neville.”

The walk back to the staff room is in silence. You make to walk back to your tower, ready to start the drying process for the Henbane flower, but a hand grips your wrist. You turn to find Neville holding you in place, “You’re being careful, aren’t you (Y/N)? There’s a reason that greenhouse is restricted.”

You pull your wrist from his grip, “I’ll be fine, Neville. Thanks for your concern.”

You walk away before he can say anything else.

--------

Nothing felt clear; everything felt frazzled and vague. It was as if the very threads of your life had become a tangled, snarled mess. Your realisation of your feelings for Neville had left you in a lurch; you’ve caught him watching you multiples times now – all with a puzzled expression on his face, as if reliving the restricted greenhouse and the revenge from your prank on him.

Your hands run over the top of scrying bowl. The bowl had been handed down to you by your grandmother who had been a powerful seer; it depicts the Triple Goddess in her three forms – maiden, mother, crone.

Incense fills your office; the scent of the Black Henbane given to you by Neville. Henbane had been demonised for centuries; scholars noting that it was used in ointments and could help with conjuring of spirits.

You inhale its smell; your witches-eye opening, more sensitive in the right environment. So few witches possessed the gifts of a seer, it was rare for you to use your talent – usually letting the prophecies and such come to you naturally.

But this was needed. You needed answers for why your tea leaves were conflicting and why your tarot readings were not making sense.

An ethereal voice calls out in greeting, signalling that you had reached the other side, “You called me, daughter.”

“The path is foggy, and I’ve lost my way. I thought I was certain but now I’m not.”

“There is no way forward that does not have him in it.”

“What do you mean?”

“The one who gave you the Henbane to call me forth. He is with you through it all.”

Neville? Neville.

“He doesn’t love me. He doesn’t even like me.”

“Do not be too sure, daughter.”

Your eyebrows pull together, a puzzled expression taking over your face. You knew your feelings for the professor had changed; had felt the long dormant passion flare again but there was nothing to be done about it.

The pull of the spirits is intoxicating; you can feel their hands on your shoulders and arms, caressing your face, pulling you closer and closer – begging you to help them find peace, to answer their questions, to help pay the ferryman but you cannot.

A male voice shouting your name has you refusing the screams of the spirits.

The voice shouts again; it’s closer now, corporeal hands shake your shoulders in an attempt to pull you out of your trance, but there’s no luck.

The goddess bids you farewell before everything falls black.

----------

Your vision comes back to you slowly; black spots still dancing across your view of the vaulted ceiling of the hospital wing. You groan at the pounding in your head, bringing a hand up to rub at your forehead.

“(Y/N)?” A male voice asks; a familiar voice.

The feeling of a cool cloth being pressed to your forehead has you sighing in relief, “That feels nice.”

Neville’s face comes into view; his eyes run over your face, checking for what – you don’t know. “You’ve been in contact with higher powers – that’s why you asked for Black Henbane, isn’t it?”

You take the cool cloth from him, “I needed to see something.”

“You put yourself at risk doing this.” Neville bluntly states.

You groan, “I know.”

“Was it worth it?” He asks, narrowing his eyes, “Did you get your answers?”

You nod, averting your eyes – focusing on the vaulted ceiling rather than the man sitting next to you. Shame washes over you from the tone of his voice – reproach mixed with something akin to worry. You smile a little, “Neville Longbottom,” you tease, “Were you worried about me?”

“What was so important that you needed to contact higher powers? You know how addicting they can be!” He chides; ignoring your question completely.

You purse your lips, refusing to answer.

Neville leans forward in his chair, bracing his elbows on his knees, “What was so important?”

“I don’t want to tell you.”

“I was the one who found you, did you know that? I found you bent over your scrying bowl, talking to spirits and the higher powers. It was me who pulled you out before they could take something more permanent.”

“And I’m grateful for that, Neville.”

“But you won’t tell me why you had to consult them?”

You push yourself into a sitting position slowly; pausing only to stave off the wave of dizziness and nausea. Neville stands, his hands outstretched to help but you wave him away, telling him you’re okay. He doesn’t look like his believes you, but he steps back, nonetheless.

“I needed some answers about my future, about my feelings. It’s all so blurred, even my tea leaves don’t make sense!”

“So you decided to use your scrying bowl? (Y/N), you had trouble with this when we were students.”

“I’m surprised you remember.”

“Of course I remember, why wouldn’t I?”

“We weren’t exactly the best of friends.”

“That doesn’t mean I didn’t notice you.”

“You noticed me?”

“I always notice you, that’s how I found you. You asking for Black Henbane had me consulting my own textbooks and when I read it was used to help see the future more clearly, I followed you.”

You both lapse into a heavy, charged silence. Neville throws his hands in the air before setting them on his hips as he paces the two steps in front of your bed. You want to groan in frustration; want to scream and shout but it would do no good.

“What are we doing, Neville?” You finally ask, voice tired and head foggy.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean us. The pranks, the teasing, the unresolved tension.”

Neville sits back down, crossing his arms, “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

You pull the cloth from your forehead, glaring at the brunette, “Oh that’s a load of bullshit and you know it.”

He glares in return but doesn’t say a word.

“We have been dancing around this for years, Neville. I’m sick of having to pretend I hate you.”

“You don’t hate me?”

You shake your head, “You piss me the fuck off, but I don’t hate you.”

“I don’t hate you either.” He whispers.

“So what do we do?”

“Honestly, I’d like to take you out to dinner,” Neville states, confidence running through his body.

“Dinner?”

“What’s wrong with dinner?”

You bite your lip, running your eyes over him. He’s standing again, as if unable to sit still through this conversation. His eyes are bright with happiness and another emotion you can’t quite put your finger on; he’s entirely delectable. Merlin, in for a penny, as the muggles say, “How about we skip dinner and go to back to my rooms?”

Neville leans in close; his breath fanning over your face. He smells like recently mown grass, freshly fallen rain, and a hint of lime. It’s intoxicating. His eyes search yours for permission; you granting it as you tilt your face up to meet his, you close your eyes at his proximity, taking it all in. He lightly brushes his lips against yours, with a feather-light pressure that has you chasing him for more. He pulls away with a light chuckle at the look of frustration on your face.

“After dinner,” he promises.

The note of promise in his voice has your breath quickening and your toes curling. In the time that you had known this man, you had hated him but now, all you did was crave him.

His touch, his look, his attention. The goddess had promised you that there was no version of your future without him in it, and now...

And now, you were more than ready for that future.

“I’ll hold you to that.” You murmur, breathless from the thoughts running through your head.

---------

A month later:

Neville finds you in your classroom writing the information for your first lesson of the day on the board in chalk. He leans against the door as he closes it. Neville watches you; his eyes running over every curve and dip in your body, thinking of how less than twelve hours ago he was worshipping it with his mouth and hands. He bites down a groan at the memory; your gasps and moans echoing in his ear – he can still feel the dull ache of the scratches on his back, from your fingernails reaching for purchase.

He struts over to you; enjoying the surprised yelp that leaves your mouth as his arms wrap around your stomach, but he loves the way you soon relax into him, your hands coming to rest on top of his. Neville presses a kiss to the crook between your neck and ear, smirking against your skin as he hears your breath hitch.

Neville leans close, his mouth to your ear, “I’m going to have to teach you a lesson.”

You hum happily, arching into the touch of his hands as they trail lower, starting to undo the fastenings to your skirt.

You knew he would come; you’d played another prank on him, but this time you knew what the outcome would be.

You turn your face, pressing your lips to his cheek before trailing them across his jawbone, enjoying the look of your lipstick staining his skin. “What did you have in mind?” you whisper, breathless from the excitement coursing through your veins.

He smirks as he bends you face down over your desk.

*************

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tinybibmpreg · 3 years

Text

a oneshot as a birthday gift for myself lol. was going to be more adult themed but then i got sidetracked by angst & lore and then a happy fluffy family resolution. so. lmao.

my temperamental prince character Gaelwin and his elf knight (future) husband, Tasnear, working out some misunderstandings and family secrets about their daughter. past/post mpreg

Blykren: Getting to Know You

Gaelwin smirked down at him, mismatched eyes blazing with some emotion Tasnear wasn’t sure he wanted to know the identity of. Gaelwin shoved him onto his bed and climbed on top of him, like a predator holding down its prey- ready to kill. Tasnear resisted the urge to throw off Gaelwin, to fight against him and escape. It wouldn’t do to hurt a prince of East Atalan. He was already in such low standing with the King, Gaelwin’s grandfather. He quite liked being allowed back in the palace, being with he and Gaelwin’s daughter. It wouldn’t do to get himself exiled again.

He’d just have to hope that Gaelwin was just being mischievous, trying to scare him, one last thrill before he went off to sleep. The prince’s siblings were quite vocal at times that that was what their brother did- terrify people. For fun or out of cruelty. He’d scare them into obedience, go into wild rages and smash everything around him, destroy their things, hurt himself in the process. But he’d never lay a hand on them unless he was grabbing them and carrying them off to what he believed was safety.

Tasnear wasn’t sure if that applied to him, seeing as he wasn’t one of Gaelwin’s siblings. He wasn’t even sure Gaelwin actually believed he really was Orwina’s mother.

Which certainly wasn’t good. Gaelwin could be downright violent towards people who he didn’t see as family, especially with his new powers. He could rip people to shreds with a wave of his hand if he wished, and he’d done so before. Having spires of ice erupt from the ground to skewer an assassin through, using wind to send projectiles of dirt and rocks to go through a man who had swore at him. Everard had told him how Gaelwin, before getting his powers, would throw and stomp on people who offended him. He always had a reason for reacting so badly, Averil insisted, even if the reason didn’t seem strong enough, or obvious enough. It wasn’t violence for violence’s sake, even if it really seemed to be.

He wasn’t sure what he had done to offend Gaelwin. Perhaps Gaelwin was finally convinced he was lying about being the one to give birth to their daughter. Perhaps he’d gotten sick of him befriending his siblings. Tasnear couldn’t think of anything he could have said to upset Gaelwin. He was always kind to his siblings, and never said a bad word about him to the children nor to anyone else. Orwina loved her father, and though Tasnear feared the man and the danger he posed to everyone around him, he would never try to change his daughter’s mind.

So Tasnear didn’t dare speak now. He just stared up at Gaelwin, bracing himself for whatever the prince might do to him. But the man did nothing- he just kept him pinned, that devilish smirk on his face.

Minutes passed and Tasnear found himself growing bored. With a different person, he might have thought that they were waiting for him to let his guard down, but Gaelwin didn’t seem the type to try that tactic. He just seemed to be thinking, rather, barely breathing or blinking, eyes losing their intensity and glossing over as time dragged on and on. Tasnear debated internally on whether or not to snap Gaelwin out of his thoughts. He opened his mouth to speak, then hesitated. Before he could make up his mind on whether or not to say anything, Gaelwin blinked rapidly and shook his head. With a huff, he pushed himself up, now only kneeling with his legs on either side of Tasnear.

“Huh. Got lost in my head for a while there.” Gaelwin rubbed his eyes, blinked a few more times, and looked down at Tasnear. Confusion flickered across his features, only to be replaced by a grin. “Hello, Sir Tasnear.”

He didn’t bother correcting Gaelwin that he wasn’t a knight anymore. “Is there something you need of me, Prince Gaelwin?”

“No, not really, Tas.”

Tasnear chewed his lip for a moment, not expecting the diminutive from Gaelwin, then asked, “Ah… Has Orwina has begun calling me that to you?”

Gaelwin placed a hand on Tasnear’s chest, fiddling with a clasp on his tunic. He nodded, then undid the clasp. He continued down the elf’s tunic, undoing all the clasps until he could expose his undershirt. Tasnear didn’t know what to think of being undressed. Was Gaelwin merely curious about his clothing? Had he just wanted to do something with his hands, like a nervous habit of picking at buttons? Gaelwin’s siblings had assured him Gaelwin had no interest in anything but keeping them safe or indulging basic curiosity and harmless impulses. Tasnear didn’t fear being taken advantage of by the prince.

“Tell me, Tas,” Gaelwin started in his questioning tone that demanded an answer no matter when or where or to whom he asked. Pale, bruised fingers drew down Tasnear’s front to stop on his belly. “Are elves as humans? Is a mother’s body marked forever by its pregnancy?”

Not at all what Tasnear expected to be asked, though if he was honest with himself, he’d had no clue what the prince was going to ask. At least it was something he could answer easily. “Yes, typically. If an Elvin mother shows during their pregnancy, they will have marks, just as a human would.”

“Tas.” The way Gaelwin said his nickname was… odd. Tasnear felt embarrassed, and he wasn’t sure why. He was fine with the nickname, had grown up being called that by family and friends and people who were familiar with him. But the way the prince said his nickname, as if in knowing it he’d indulged some great curiosity, made his ears twitch. Gaelwin’s eyes flicked to the movement and he moved a hand to Tasnear’s left ear, pinching the point of it between two of his fingers.

He swallowed at the prickles of sensitivity. His other ear twitched involuntarily, though Tasnear tried to suppress it.

Gaelwin tilted his head, his messy blond hair falling into his eyes. He finished unbuttoning Tasnear’s tunic and pulled it open, then shoved up his undershirt. Tasnear bit his lower lip, his face growing hot.

A cold hand spread out over his belly. Tasnear glanced down and saw as Gaelwin traced his thumb over the stretch marks on his abdomen. Though they’d somewhat faded over the past few years, they were plainly visible. Grinning, the prince suddenly was over him again, a wicked look in his eyes.

“Prince Gaelwin? Mmph!” Tasnear jolted as Gaelwin surged down and kissed him, their teeth slamming together painfully. His hands went up to push Gaelwin off reflexively, but he managed to stop himself and instead held onto the front of Gaelwin’s tunic, closing his eyes.

The kiss was more of a bite than a kiss, far too forceful. Tasnear wasn’t sure what to think of it at first. Surely, Gaelwin wasn’t attracted to him. His siblings made it obvious that Gaelwin would never view anyone as desirable, and Tasnear had figured that for himself through watching how Gaelwin treated people. Gaelwin only viewed people as threats or as things beneath him. He didn’t make friends, much less take lovers.

Still, the kiss was thrilling in a way. During moments in his pregnancy, he’d imagined what it would be like for the father of his child to be there with him. He’d wake up to fleeting dreams of a charming prince holding him and touching his belly, claiming him. Tasnear hadn’t tried to entertain ideas of what it’d be like if the 15th princess’ son had taken him as a lover instead of just requesting a child of his own when his mother asked him what would make him happy, but he’d been emotional and overwhelmed and couldn’t help himself.

It wasn’t the gentle embrace he’d dreamed of, but it certainly felt like he was being claimed. Being pressed into his bed, Gaelwin biting him as if he were trying to devour him…

Definitely not what he’d imagined while he was pregnant, but still something he, surprisingly, would have and did enjoy.

Tasnear’s hands moved from clinging to Gaelwin’s tunic to wrapping around him, one hand going to holding the back of his head. Gaelwin dipped his head down to bite his neck and Tasnear’s fingers tightened in his hair, which only made him bite harder until it drew a whimper from Tasnear as he felt the prince’s teeth slice through his skin and draw blood. Gaelwin hummed and lapped at the blood. When he pulled up, leaving Tasnear catching his breath beneath him, his teeth were stained red. He ran his tongue over them.

“G-Gaelwin…”

“Hm. I believe you.”

Tasnear furrowed his brow in confusion. “What?”

“I said I believe you, Tas,” Gaelwin repeated, shrugging. “I didn’t before. But now I do.”

“Ah… about…?”

“About what you said. About Orwina.” Gaelwin rolled his eyes as if Tasnear was being ridiculous. “My mother never told me where she came from, just that by using magic, she was mine. So I guess your whole story about a knight telling your family your exile would be lifted if one of you did a favor for the son of a fifteenth princess wasn’t made up, and you really did carry and give birth to my daughter for me.”

“Oh. I’m- I’m glad.”

“Sorry my mother lied to you. She did that sometimes to make things easier for me.”

“It’s… alright. I’m very fond of Orwina. I’m glad I’m her mother.”

Gaelwin climbed off of him and sat on the edge of the bed. He looked over his shoulder at Tasnear, an impatient look on his face. Tasnear scrambled up and perched next to him, pulling down his shirt and starting to button up his tunic.

Before he could get too far, Gaelwin made an unhappy sound and reached to yank his shirt back up. “Hey, I still want to look at you. Do the marks go on your sides? Is there anything else?”

He felt his ears go hot and start twitching again, which he didn’t bother trying to suppress. He was too flustered. Gaelwin raised a hand to one and pinched it again.

“Why are your ears moving so much?”

“They do that when I’m…”

“When what, Tas? When you’re aroused or embarrassed?” Gaelwin asked, twisting Tasnear’s ear curiously. Tasnear’s whole face felt hot hearing Gaelwin ask if he was aroused. Not something he’d ever expected from the prince. Seeing his face go red, Gaelwin tugged on his ear and huffed, asking, “Are you going to answer anything?”

“S-sorry. I’m just… just flustered. I’m not used to- to any of this.”

“Neither am I. So your ears twitch when you’re flustered?”

Tasnear nodded slightly. “Yes. Elves’ ears can also twitch when they’re angry or upset or- or aroused. Any strong or sudden emotion, really. Joy or surprise, as well… As adults, we try to suppress the twitching. If we hear something in the distance, sometimes, as well.”

“And my other questions?”

“It would be easier to… to show you, I suppose.” At that, Gaelwin raised an eyebrow and sat back, waiting. Tasnear couldn’t believe he’d offered that, but pulled off his tunic and shirt, setting them aside. He looked down, refusing to meet Gaelwin’s eyes.

Gaelwin put both hands on his abdomen, leaning in close. “Wow. You’ve got a lot of stretch marks.”

“They were quite red, during the pregnancy… I used salves to try and help, but it didn’t do much…”

“Did they hurt?” Gaelwin picked at a larger one with his nail.

“They itched. The salves helped with that, at least.”

He brought his hands up to Tasnear’s chest and traced the lines on the underside of his breasts. “Oh. You’ve got some here as well.”

“Mm, yes. My chest developed a bit during the pregnancy as well…” His chest was still somewhat soft. “I used to be quite flat-chested.”

Gaelwin tilted his head. “Hm. A bit redundant, since you didn’t get to keep Orwina very long after she was born.”

“Excuse me?” Did Gaelwin think he’d gotten to be a mother to Orwina when she was a baby? That couldn’t have been right.

But Gaelwin ignored him. “I know my mother lied to you about the reward you’d get, but it’s still quite surprising to me that anyone would agree to have a baby knowing that it would eventually go to a different realm entirely. For all you knew, you’d never get to see her again.”

“But I never got to see her.”

Gaelwin sat up, confused. He stared at Tasnear, searching his face. Finally, he asked, “What do you mean? Didn’t you give her to someone acting on behalf of my mother after she was born?”

“You… you couldn’t tell how old she was when you first got her?”

“I wasn’t allowed to see her for three months after my mother received her.”

That was mind-boggling to Tasnear. Aghast, he asked, “Your mother didn’t let you see your own daughter until she was three months old?”

Gaelwin shrugged. “She never let me near my siblings when they were babies. She didn’t trust me.” Tasnear couldn’t help but give Gaelwin a horrified expression. Gaelwin waved it off and explained, “I don’t blame her. My mother loved me, she really did, but I was dangerous. Once my siblings were weaned my mother would help me hold them, and once Orwina could walk I was allowed to hold and play with her with my mother or father watching.”

“You didn’t get to hold your own daughter until she was old enough to walk? Prince Gaelwin…”

“Is that… bad? I didn’t really like that Everard and Averil and Eberlein got to spend more time with her before I was allowed to, but once she was old enough I would always hold her and carry her around. She really loved riding on my shoulders when she was a toddler. I should ask her tomorrow if she still likes that, in case she’s just been too busy to remember to ask.”

Something about the story didn’t seem right. “Why couldn’t you spend time with Orwina for so long?”

“Oh, because there was… an accident, with Averil. I was left alone with my siblings for a while, and my guardian took Eberlein away to change him or feed him. Everard and Averil were only about three… We were playing a chasing and hiding game in the library, and then I fell into a bookcase. Everard will swear now that I did on purpose, but I didn’t, and it landed on Averil’s leg.”

Gaelwin’s sister was missing half of one of her legs and walked with a crutch and prosthetic. Tasnear had a bad feeling about where the story was going.

Continuing, Gaelwin told him, “My father’s library was very old, and that bookcase was very tall, top-heavy, and crumbling at the bottom, and I fell very hard against it. I couldn’t get it off of Averil and she wouldn’t stop screaming and there was all sorts of blood, and my guardian wasn’t much help when we tried to lift it off of her. So I grabbed one of my father’s swords and cut off her leg to free her. It was mostly severed anyway. The doctors said it would have been removed eventually. But… my mother believed Everard.”

“So you weren’t allowed to spend time with Orwina until she was older.”

“As I said, my mother didn’t trust me.”

Then why did she trick me into bearing you a child to make you happy if she thought you were so dangerous? She could have lied and said it was impossible and you would have shrugged it off and thought of something else to wish for. It makes no sense, Tasnear thought but didn’t dare voice. Gaelwin seemed to be agitated by the story, even if he spoke of his mother’s distrust casually. Gaelwin and his siblings’ conflicting stories about their parents bothered Tasnear.

At least now he understood why Gaelwin was so misinformed about the real age Orwina had gone to live in the other realm with her father and grandmother.

He almost didn’t want to bring it up anymore.

But the prince brought it up anyways, “So what did you mean by you never getting to see her before we got off track?”

He swallowed, nervous about telling the story. It had been so upsetting when it happened, the depth of deception and the omission of details when he had agreed to carry a prince’s child to restore his family name. Gaelwin grabbed his hand, squeezing it to coax him into speaking. After taking a deep breath, he started, “After my family was disgraced and exiled, we didn’t think there would ever be a chance for one of us to restore our family name and reverse the king’s decision, not even after my father’s death. But one day a knight from the royal guard showed up at my family’s door and announced that the fifteenth princess, the daughter of the King who my father had betrayed, was willing to take away our disgrace if we did a favor for her and her eldest son. I accepted, even though my family begged me not to, afraid that the favor would be too great or impossible since my father’s betrayal had been unforgivable to King Ataria Erwyn.”

“You didn’t know what the favor was?”

“No. The knight took me to see a few of the royal mages, who told me that the fifteenth princess, your mother, wanted to choose someone to be the mother of her son’s child. I could have backed out, but I thought it was a blessing. All I had to do was bear a prince’s child, and my family name would be restored, I could return to my position in the palace as an honor guard. I even asked if I could do that, once the child was old enough for me to return to full-time service in the guard. They simply said I would be rewarded as your mother had promised.”

Gaelwin seemed to get where the story was going, nodding. “So you thought that you would become a consort for a prince, essentially. That by being a mother, you would be bearing and raising a royal child.”

“That’s exactly what I thought. The spell took a few days to perform, and then it took a week before the mages could test and see that I was with child. After they confirmed it, I thought they would take me to see the prince in the palace, so I asked if I could be with my family for a while instead, and they told me they’d intended to bring me back to my family anyway, that I’d stay with them until I gave birth.” He took another deep breath. “The pregnancy went by fine. Any difficulties I had, the mages provided remedies for. They checked on me frequently. My family and I prepared for the birth, prepared for the baby… we thought that the baby and I would remain at the family home for a few months until the baby was strong enough and I had recovered enough to make the journey to the palace.”

Gaelwin scoffed. “I can’t believe they let you think that. It just seems cruel.”

“...It was,” Tasnear said softly.

The prince moved closer to him until they were sitting pressed together. Gaelwin wrapped an arm around him and leaned his head against his shoulder.

Taking that as an invitation to continue, Tasnear did. “Things seemed alright when I went into labor. The mages were alerted and they stayed largely out of the way as my family helped me. Elvin children are born earlier and at a smaller size than human infants, and Orwina took after you. It took a while… but when I was pushing, the mages…” He stopped, biting his lip.

As he waited for Tasnear to finish telling him what had happened, Gaelwin took his hand again and played with his fingers.

“Um, they forced my family to leave and barred the entrances to the room with magic. As I finally gave birth to Orwina, they readied a spell. When she was born, one of them caught her and told the others that she was a girl and they cut the cord and covered her up and- and another two held me down and they used a spell to vanish with her. I never got to see her, I barely heard her cry… I first saw her when she and your siblings arrived in the forest of this realm, but I wasn’t really sure if it was just wishful thinking for a while until Everard started telling me about your letters from your mother…”

“I don’t know what I’d do if someone took away Orwina or one of my siblings from me.”

Seeing as how Gaelwin had tried to destroy the kingdom when he’d gotten separated from them upon first arriving in their realm, Tasnear had a pretty good idea of what the prince would do. “My family tried to help me forget about it. We weren’t even sure if she was alive, or who her father really was.”

“Not a prince, that’s for sure. At least not until we showed up here.” Gaelwin sighed heavily and flopped backward, Tasnear’s hand still in his. “Goodness. Those were upsetting stories.”

Tasnear wiped his eyes, finding that he’d teared up a bit while telling the story. He took another deep breath, trying to calm himself down. He didn’t have to be so upset anymore. Orwina was alive and well, very happy in her new life in the palace with her family. Tasnear got to see her every day, as the children’s unofficial guard. He couldn’t be a parent to her, but it was enough, knowing she was safe, seeing that she was happy and well cared for.

Even though Gaelwin was dangerous, Tasnear didn’t believe he’d ever hurt their daughter.

He laid down next to Gaelwin. The prince lifted his hand to inspect it as he fiddled around with his fingers.

“Are your nails naturally this color? Orwina doesn’t have black nails.”

“Yes. Elves have dark nails. Black nails are a trademark of my family… Usually, anyway. I guess hybrids don’t inherit that.”

“They’re nice. I like them better than mine.” Gaelwin’s nails were short and chewed on, bruised and scabbed underneath. “I wonder if we had another baby if she would have black nails.”

Prince Gaelwin was full of surprises. Any lingering upset over bad memories was quickly overtaken by shock. Tasnear turned to stare at him, eyes wide.

Seeing his expression, Gaelwin looked confused once more. “What?”

“What?” Tasnear repeated. “Is that- is that something you’ve thought about, Prince? Having another child?”

“No! I didn’t even believe that you were Orwina’s mother until I saw your body.”

“But- but you said she.”

“I just figured if we had another it’d probably be a girl since Orwina is. And I don’t know, I think another daughter would be nice. I mean, I’d be just as happy if it was a boy, but I’d prefer a girl. Not that I’d be upset at all if it was a boy.”

“Are you… trying to convince me?”

“I don’t know. Do you think you could be convinced?”

Tasnear wondered how it could have gone from him thinking that the prince was going to attack him to now, with Gaelwin possibly asking for a baby. It was due to this whirlwind that he found himself saying, “I- I suppose I could be.” Upon realizing what he’d just said, he quickly added, “But- but we barely know each other, Prince Gaelwin! Now I’d prefer to know the father of my child better. I’d rather… have a relationship with that person.”

“Well, we can’t get married,” Gaelwin said plainly.

“I didn’t-!” Tasnear felt flustered all over again. “That’s not what I meant, Prince Gaelwin. Um, why not, though…?”

Gaelwin gave him an exasperated look. “Tas, I’m married.”

“What?” The prince’s siblings had never mentioned that.

“You know that. To Queen Fractura?”

“Oh. Is that marriage actually binding, still…?” Tasnear felt relieved, for some reason. Gaelwin had been tricked into marrying a queen in order to receive his powers, and she’d tried to use him to destroy the kingdom of East Atalan, where his grandfather ruled. Thanks to his siblings and Tasnear, that hadn’t happened. He’d figured that with the evil queen in a dungeon somewhere that Gaelwin’s marriage to her would have been nullified or that the King would have insisted on a divorce.

Gaelwin nodded solemnly. “Yes. We’re still husband and wife.”

“You’re not seeking a divorce, Prince Gaelwin?”

“No. I don’t have any reason to.”

Tasnear could think of a handful of reasons off the top of his head, namely that the queen had tried to kill Gaelwin once he’d seen past her deception, and that she’d tried to use him to destroy a whole kingdom.

He kept quiet about that, though. Instead, he clarified, “I just meant getting to know each other better, Prince. Becoming friends, spending time together… building a measure of trust.”

“I trust you not to hurt my siblings if I’m not around.”

“And- and I trust you, not to purposefully harm me nor our daughter,” he told Gaelwin, finding that he was telling the truth.

The prince was quiet for a moment, and then asked him, “Do you want to go check on Orwina? All this… I wouldn’t mind making sure she’s tucked in.”

“I’d like that.”

Both of them got up and Tasnear pulled his shirts back on. He followed Gaelwin through the palace to the royal family’s living quarters. Gaelwin let him into a decent-sized room with a large bed- his own room. Then, the prince brought him through another door into another living space connected to his bedroom, where two smaller bedrooms branched off. In one room Tasnear saw Gaelwin’s brother and sister Everard and Averil on their beds, who eyed the both of them warily. In the shared space, Gaelwin’s youngest sibling, his brother Eberlein, was laying on his stomach on the floor, writing on a few pieces of paper, with an open book beside him. And in the other small bedroom, there was an empty bed that belonged to Eberlein, and another where Orwina was sitting and looking at a book, her blanket and pillows all shoved aside.

“Hello, Gael,” Eberlein greeted, not looking up from his writing. “Hi, Tasnear.”

Tasnear returned the greeting quietly. “Hello, Prince Eber.”

“Studying, dear Eberlein?”

“Mhmm. My tutor wants me to learn more about war history, so I’m writing down all the interesting battles I want to hear more about or anything that I want explained.”

“Good boy. Don’t stay up too late. That goes for you two as well, Everard, Averil.”

Everard scoffed, but his twin shyly replied, “Yes, brother. We were just talking.”

“Anything interesting?”

“We were waiting for you to get back and wondered what was keeping you, that’s all,” the girl admitted. “Eber went looking for you, but a guard told him you were in Tasnear’s room, so he came back.”

“We were worried about Tasnear,” Everard added, narrowing his eyes. “I guess we didn’t have to be. He looks fine.”

Suddenly aware that he was likely covered in bite marks and bruises around his lips and neck, his hair and clothes probably ruffled. Tasnear felt humiliated.

Gaelwin, who had no such marks and permanently ruffled hair, wasn’t ashamed. “Of course you didn’t have to be. You knew all along he was telling the truth. I was just making sure of it, and he was!”

“Oh!” Averil clapped her hands together. “I- I’m so glad, Tas! Now Gael doesn’t have to worry about you being our friend. Eve and I were worried he wouldn’t ever believe you.”

“Y… yes, there’s no need for anyone to worry, now.”

“Are y-you going to bed now, Gael?” Averil asked. “We’ll help shut off the lights.”

“Just a moment. Poppet, are you still awake as well?” Gaelwin stepped into Orwina’s bedroom, Tasnear close behind. “Oh! You’re reading?”

“Gael!” Orwina sat up in excitement. “And Tas!” She slid off of the bed and ran up to Gaelwin, hugging his legs.

“Hey, ‘pet.”

“Eber said you two were spending time with each other! Does that mean you’re friends now? I hope so!” Tasnear couldn’t help but smile at how earnest the little girl was. She looked thrilled at the idea of them being friends.

Gaelwin lifted her up. “I don’t hate him anymore.”

Orwina beamed. She turned to Tasnear and told him, “You’re friends with Gael! If he doesn’t hate you then he really likes you!”

Even a seven-year-old could tell Gaelwin was very difficult. “Oh? I’m glad…”

“I’m happy! Gael, are you happy?”

Gaelwin pressed his forehead against hers. “I’m happy to see you.”

She giggled and hugged his neck. “I’m happy to see you too!”

All of the bad feelings from before melted away seeing his daughter so happy with her father. Tasnear was so grateful that Orwina was such a happy child, always overjoyed to see her family and friends. Even if he could only be a friend to her, he was thankful.

“Tas and I wanted to come to say goodnight to you.”

Orwina’s eyes widened. “You called him Tas!” She looked back at Tasnear. “That means Gael really likes you a lot!”

“Do you want a hug from Tas, Poppet?”

The surprise on her face would have been comical if Tasnear wasn’t sure that his own expression mirrored hers. Glancing out of the bedroom door, he could see equally shocked faces on Gaelwin’s three siblings.

Prince Gaelwin didn’t let anyone else but his siblings touch his daughter.

Orwina reached out for him, the dull points of her ears twitching with excitement. He took her in his arms and she squeezed him tightly, making a happy noise against where she buried her face against him. Tasnear hugged her tight as well, relishing getting to hold his daughter for the very first time. He closed his eyes, feeling tears welling up, and tried to burn the memory into his mind so he wouldn’t ever forget it, so it would make up for the past seven years, for the grief he’d gone through when she’d been taken away as a baby.

“Poppet, do you want to sleep in my bed with Tas and me tonight? We both had a bad day…”

She popped up, ending the hug sooner than he wanted. “Yeah!” she answered, and Tasnear was glad that Gaelwin wasn’t immediately taking her back, instead just reaching to pet her hair as the elf held her. “Oh! If you had a bad day, can I read to you both before bed? Gael, my book-”

“I got it, ‘pet.” Gaelwin grabbed the book. “Let’s get to bed. Goodnight, everyone.”

A trio of goodnights, two confused, one normal, followed them. Tasnear felt a bit too embarrassed to look back at the twins, sure that they were feeling rather odd at knowing someone would be sharing their brother’s bed. But that embarrassment was just in the background. Being able to carry his daughter in his arms, feel how she settled against him, a weight that belonged there- that joy shone above everything else.

He couldn’t wait to write to his family and tell them that at last, he’d found his daughter. Something he’d been keeping from them in fear that he’d never get to be close to Orwina and would eventually be sent back home, returning to exile.

After setting Orwina down in Gaelwin’s bed, he took off his boots and tunic and set them on a chair. Orwina directed him to take the left side of the bed, as Gaelwin always slept on the right where there was an abundance of pillows. The prince went into his bathroom and came out in sleeping clothes, then climbed into his nest of pillows and handed Orwina her book. She flipped to the front of it and started to read.

A few pages in, Tasnear realized that Gaelwin was staring at him. He bit his lower lip, glancing at Orwina’s book to try not to think about it.

Midway through, Orwina was yawning and Gaelwin was still staring. After a few more pages, the book flopped over with a soft thud as their daughter fell asleep. Tasnear carefully picked up the book and set it on the nightstand. He tucked Orwina in, and Gaelwin turned out the lights with a wave of his hand, a breeze going around and blowing out all the lanterns. The two of them settled down, Gaelwin’s cold stare returning.

Somehow, Tasnear managed to fall asleep despite it. And when he woke up in the morning, Orwina had sprawled out with half her body on his chest and arm, and Gaelwin was awake, bags under his eyes, watching.

“Ha. I told you Gael would stay up all night.” Everard’s voice startled the both of them, the boy standing at the end of the bed with a tray of food in his hand. Tasnear kept himself from jumping, not wanting to wake up Orwina. Gaelwin hissed and glared at his brother.

Averil gave them both an apologetic look. “Oh, Gael. We told you Tasnear is safe. Why’d you let him stay here all night if you were worried?”

“It’s called trust-building. He slept all night and didn’t do anything to Orwina, so he passed a test. Ugh… Now I’m going to bed.” Gaelwin turned over and buried his face in his mound of pillows. He grumbled until his breathing slowed and he fell asleep quickly.

Everard rolled his eyes. “We brought breakfast. Avie’s got a kettle and we’re going to make some tea in our common room.”

“You’re welcome to join us once you’re free.”

“Free?” Tasnear echoed.

“Orwina has you trapped. You’re stuck under her for a while.”

“We can just wake her up.”

Averil laughed a little. “Okay. If you think you can bring yourself to. Only her tutor is stronghearted enough to wake her, and Eve asked her not to come since you’re here.”

“Yes. In bed with our brother, bruised up. That kind of gossip will spread, and Gaelwin doesn’t like rumors.”

“S-sorry. I’ll cover up before I go.”

As nice as it was to have his daughter sound asleep on top of him, sometimes embarrassment could win out. The twins snickered as his face reddened and walked to their living room, leaving him trapped under Orwina and keenly aware of how the bruises on his face and neck were aching.

In his letter to his family, he would definitely have to leave some things out.

#mpreg #past mpreg #just a warning this story has a brief mention where tasnear is worried gaelwin will attack or assault him but very quickly he realizes #that he wont lol. and also mentions a past child injury (princess avie is fine now) and a baby being taken away (orwina is now back with Tas #original story #oblio's fics #Gaelwin 'Gael' Blykren #Tasnear 'Tas' Lyreale #Everard 'Eve' Blykren #averil 'avie' blykren #Eberlein 'Eber' Blykren #Orwina Blykren #Blykren - story tag

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hippychick006 · 4 years

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15.11: The Gamblers - Episode Review/Recap

This ep follows directly on from last week. The episode was very mixed, there were 2 distinct storylines that merged at the end. I had a few issues with the Castiel/Jack side of the story, which I’ll cover later, but the Sam and Dean scenes, for the most part, I was able to enjoy. I even caught myself smiling… fucking smiling at several moments, because this? This was a glimpse of what my show once was. This also explains to the “Just stop watching” brigade why I’m still watching. The brother scenes were a nugget of gold amongst the dross and worth watching for.

Thank you, Davey Perez, Meredith Glynn and Director Charles Beeson for reminding me, albeit briefly, why I fell in love with this show, and at the same time, why I dislike much of Dabb’s run, which in my humble opinion hasn’t just veered the ship slightly off course; it crashed into an iceberg in 11.21 and has been slowly sinking since then. I think last week’s episode brought us to the point where half the ship is now vertical, ready to plunge into the depths of the icy ocean...

...Anyway, enough about sinking ships, the key thing I struggled with going into this episode is the obvious fuck up from the previous week; the entire premise of the Winchester’s losing their “luck” and being reduced to “normal” people, and I want to talk rant about that for a few more minutes before we get onto this episode. If you want to skip that, I’ll put start and end of rant, so you can skip forward.

Start of rant

In order to enjoy this episode, you pretty much have to ignore much of the previous episode and… that doesn’t sit well with me. Last week wasn’t just a single scene you can forget ever existed (e.g. the trench-coat scene or Dean’s apology to Cass). What Dabb did fucked with the entire concept of the show; that the Winchesters are ordinary people who do extraordinary things. So, it’s really difficult to shake that epic fuck up off and just move on.

I just can’t ever buy in to the concept that the Winchesters were “favoured” or have more luck than “normal” people. I mean look at Sam’s life for starters; he didn’t know his mom, he was fed demon blood as a baby, was dragged up in a life he hated, constantly moving, being brought up in crappy motels and forced to train to become a hunter. The love of his life is murdered, and he becomes an orphan at 22. He died at 23 (for the first time) and then he loses the last remaining member of his family at 24. The Winchesters are far from “lucky” and if I could be bothered, I’d go looking for mentions of “with the Winchester luck” that have been peppered throughout the series. Chuck has not “favoured” the Winchesters at all and they haven’t had Charmed lives because of Chuck’s interference.

I also can’t buy into the concept that the Winchesters are anything other than “normal” in the first place. Sadly, they showed last weeks “fight” scenes during the recap and it did nothing, other than enrage me again. Sam and Dean are excellent fighters and hunters because they trained from a young age to be as good as they are. They weren’t “given” anything and certainty not a free ride and fuck Dabb once again for writing that bullshit. It was nothing less than petty because we rejected his instant Hunter!Barbie fiasco that wasted too much of season 13.

So, how do I move forward from that and manage to enjoy this episode? The answer in my opinion, is you can’t, because even with a few good brother moments, the entire premise of this week’s episode fails to make sense, because the previous episode fails to make sense. I’ll cover why that is when we get to the pool game.

End Rant

The episode opens on a recap, and I ask myself why they are using all the bad bits from the previous few episodes, before I remember there weren’t many good bits to select from. That clip of Jensen with the teeth is still funny. 😂

I love the intro again this week. The setting was good, the guest actors, the camerawork, the music choice – North to Alaska - which complimented the scene, rather than felt like nails being dragged down a chalkboard. All classic spn so far, so it has my attention.

Two men (Joey and Leonard) are playing a game of pool and you can tell this is a high stakes game from the get go. What the stakes are, we don’t yet know, but when the game ends, we see 2 coins being held in a contraption above the pool table; one glows green then dulls with the coin head disappearing, the other glows green and gets brighter with the coin head gaining in definition. I don’t think this looks good for the loser. He agrees and tries to attack the winner with his pool cue. He’s stopped from doing so by a bouncer who turfs him outside. 👋 cutie tall bouncer. There’s an absolutely great shot of the loser tossing his coin in the air and the music gets loud again (Hey, I’m here as much for the settings, lighting, music and camerawork as I’m here for the Winchesters – sue me) and then…. Splat. He’s hit by a truck. Poor Leonard, red shirt of the episode. RIP my friend.

As an aside, I like how you guys announce which pocket the 8 ball is going into, we don’t do that.

This was a great into, interesting premise that immediately sucked me in, wanting to find out more. This is my show. Great job so far.

The next scene though shows once again how useless, at least for me, the writing is around Castiel. They wrote an entire scene with him walking into the bunker, seeing a note that has been left, going down to read it “Cass, we’ve gone to Alaska, Sam”. I’m not going to rant about the twats that insist on saying Sam has spelt it wrong, I’ve already done a post about the arrogance of fans trying to tell the show that created the character that they are wrong with the spelling of that character, so I’ll save you by moving on.

This entire scene, while I liked the shots of the otherwise empty bunker, was just wasting time for me. I’ve seen people say Sam left a note because Castiel was in heaven and wouldn’t get a text message and how clever of Sam to resort to paper. I don’t know about anyone else, but I dip in and out of WiFi zones all the time and the moment I dip back in, my phone pings with multiple notifications, so I personally thought this scene was dumb. It would have been better to see Castiel appear back at the sandpit and get a text notification from Sam with the same message.

Even better, you could take this scene away and it changes nothing that happens so why include it? *Whispers* J2 wanted time off and the writers are incompetent of filling that space with something more interesting so use “filler”.

Interestingly, my computer froze on Castiel’s face for 5 minutes so fuck you Norton or Windows 10 Update for your bad timing in running something in the “background”

BROMENT ALERT

We’re finally with what I’m watching the show for. Dean and Sam are in baby and driving towards Alaska. Sam’s phone is lighting up with messages and we find out through Dean that it’s Eileen. 🙄. Oh, Eileen’s being shoved into the narrative now? Sorry Eileen, the third wheel position on the show has already been filled since Season 7. And fuck you again Dabb because I loved Eileen as a friend of Sam and it’s just yet another thing your reverse Midas fingers have screwed over this season.

Dean: Silent mode is always an option

Me: I love you, have my babies… wait, that came out wrong

Eileen thinks the plan is a little too good to be true. Sam thinks she might be right. He’s not convinced the place even exists or that it can fix their problem. Dean thinks it couldn’t hurt and he’s done with normal, including the constant heartburn.

Sam: You know if you changed your diet…. Dean’s frown 😂

Sam insists that no one other than Garth has heard of it and it isn’t in the lore. Dean believes it’s got to be there. He believes Chuck isn’t messing with them,

Dean: He [Chuck] wants us off our game, he wants us weak, ‘cos he’s coming for us Sammy, and when he does, and we haven’t figured this out, we’re DOA.

Mostly a great brother scene, apart from the forced insertion of Eileen – are we incapable of getting a broment in the final chuck damn season, without the completely unnecessary forced inclusion of a third party???! The scene ends with a great shot of baby.

Back at the bunker and Castiel hears a phone ringing, and… I’m trying not to nitpick, but the way this case comes about just annoys me. There are better ways of bringing this about, than how they did it. But moving on, Castiel answers a random phone that was ringing in Sam’s room, and it’s a sheriff (Jeb Evans) looking for FBI agent, Watts. Castiel tells the sheriff that Agent Watts is working a case in Alaska, and that he is Agent… Lizzo. I can only assume Dean gave him that alias as I don’t think Castiel would know any musicians on his own. I like Jeb, who tells Agent Lizzo, they have a homicide and the suspect is someone Agent Watts flagged into the system… and guys… Sam is back to hacking into police systems and I just… I need a moment here as they’ve remembered Sam can hack into systems!

The agent tells Castiel that the suspect is Jack Kline.

Ummm… Castiel, are you... okay? Do you… do you maybe need to use the bathroom? Oh, you’re emoting? Okay dokay then. I can’t with this. I got more out of Leo in the less than 2 minutes he was on screen than I got out of Castiel since his return in season 7.

Back with the impala, which rolls into a diner stop. Sam is asleep, and Dean whacks him to wake him up. Sam wonders why they’ve stopped at “Round up café”. Dean says it’s the last stop for food for a few hundred miles.

Sam (frowns): Grab something out of the cooler

Dean: Yeah, no, I polished off the last of the sandwiches while you were out

Sam (annoyed): We’re on a budget!

Me (sighing): platonic soulmate Husbands! 😍

Last weeks puppy dog eyes fiasco aside, Dean’s still wrapped round Sam’s fingers, they enter the diner, slap some coins on the counter and ask what they can get for $4.60. Apparently, it’s a slice of pie and a coffee, and I’m moving to Alaska when they secede from the US because that would barely get you just the coffee here.

Dean asks for two forks for the pie

Me (sighing): platonic soulmate Husbands! 😍

Long story short on this scene, they get out of the waitress there’s a local urban legend about a magic poolhall in the middle of nowhere, that if you win, you come back lucky. She says though that no one ever comes back. Turns out she knew Leonard from the intro, and he went up there because the bank was going to take his house and he met with an accident.

Sam says at least they know now what the downside is. Dean doesn’t agree, he thinks it could be great, pool is the game of champions, kings, his game, our game, and they have great memories of hustling pool

Sam: yes, because we had to… to eat!

Still not seeing the “luck” Dabb wrote about. Imagine thinking they were remotely lucky; running scams or hustling pool to put a roof over their head or food in their stomach. And this is where I disconnect with this week’s episode, because of last week’s writing. How are they going to even be good at pool, a game that takes practice and skill? The things taken away seem to be random and plot devices; lock picking, fighting, hot metal burns, while it appears Dean can still drive okay, fix baby and I’m guessing their pool is going to be okay too, otherwise what’s the point of this episode? There’s no believable rules to this “bad luck/normal” and I’m left completely drifting and because of it. It's just badly thought out and executed.

Dean: if pool is the way we get our mojo back then maybe we ain’t as screwed as we thought

Waitress: Hey, you guys drive an impala?... I think you guys have a flat.

😂

Back with Cass and sheriff Jeb, Cass has managed to set up the laptop and access a video the sheriff has sent him. The video is of Jack killing a doctor and eating his heart. 😷 Jack, no! I’ll come back to the heart eating later.

Back with the boys, another shot of baby as they pull into “Lurlenes”. Baby isn’t sounding too good and I think I missed that earlier, but it did somewhat register that she was sounding louder than normal. Good touch.

Dean walks over one of the coins as they head for the entrance which I guess might be Leonard’s from earlier. I like little details like this. Once inside, Sam points out they don’t have beer money, much less what it costs to buy into a game. Dean says they’ll figure something out and goes to the bar and orders two waters. I’m guessing that’s going to hit Dean more than health conscious Sam. Dean asks the bar person, Evie, how they get into a game. She calls Pax over and it’s the tall, cutie bouncer from earlier. Sam asks Evie if she saw Leonard and she says no, but you can tell she’s lying.

Pax takes them to his office and explains the rules of the game, that they don’t bet with money, they bet with luck. He gets Dean to touch a coin he puts down and it turns green. Pax looks at the coin and says “not great”

Dean: And that means?

Pax explains that everyone walks in with a certain amount of luck, that the green glow was Dean’s and it was “about average.” Dean thinks that sounds about right. I’m going to head-canon that Dean’s luck is about average of the people that find the pool hall, but below average in general, due to Chuck screwing around with them.

Pax says if Dean wins a game, he might see his fortunes improve.

Sam: And if he loses?

Pax says he can keep playing, but if the coin goes blank, that means you’re out of luck, and you’ve got to leave. He asks if they’ve got any questions.

Sam (a bit pissy): What is this place? Who owns it?

Pax says he doesn’t know, but if they don’t like it, they are free to leave.

Dean: When I win, can I split it (indicates Sam)… the luck?

Pax (sighing): platonic soulmate Husbands! 😍 Oh, wait, sorry, that was me

Pax: it’s yours, you can do what you want

Sam asks for a second to talk to his husband brother.

Sam: no, no, no, no, no way (complete with shaking finger)

Dean: man, I’ve been slinging pool cues since before you were born

Snarky!Sam: when you were four, really? In between snack time and nap? 😂

Dean (internally): damn, I forgot you were my brother for a second and I can’t bullshit you

Dean tells Sam that they need to do this, and that Sam is pretty much better than him, at everything, he’s not mad about it, he’s proud… but he can wipe the floor with Sam at pool. Dean takes Sam’s epic eyeroll as silent permission he can play.

Back with Castiel, he investigates the doctor’s office and finds a weird case which has a sword inside. We flashback to a previous episode with Sam tied to a chair (🙄 it must have been a Thursday). Anyway, the flashback tells us the doctor was one of the Grigori, a brotherhood of perfect beings. I’d forgotten about them and might have to look them up before I touch the heart eating thing. Note: I did look them up and it was a Claire episode, so never mind, that’s why I forgot about them.

We transition from Cas to Jack and he seems to be following someone with the same case as the doctor, so another Grigori. He follows the Grigori into an abandoned building.

Back at the pool hall and no one is biting to play with the noob. Okay, I’m ashamed to say I laughed at this next bit, Dean deliberately breaks badly and loudly proclaims that he’s rusty at this. Oh Dean. No one’s going to fall for… Surprisingly he actually gets a taker and asks Dean to rack up. Sam goes back to the bar to speak to Evie. She asks if he plays and he says not really. Sam asks Evie what the woman’s deal is that’s playing Dean (Moira). Evie says she’s been here a while and her sister is in a coma.

Sam goes into awkward question mode, and I have flashbacks to the earlier seasons. He asks about rotten eggs. Evie responds: Just Charlie… We pan over to Charlie and he’s playing pool badly. Sam then asks if she’s seen “little bundles” laying around. She says no, but she gets that he’s trying to figure the place out. Sam says places like this don’t exist for no reason, she answers that most people think it’s a godsend. She gives him information on a couple of people playing, they won at first, could have walked away winners, but kept playing until their luck ran sour. She repeats they should have walked away which is a clear warning for Sam who looks over at his brother who wins the game.

Back with Jack, he’s got an angel blade and is still after the Grigori. Unfortunately, the Grigori twigged he was being followed and now has Jack at blade point.

Back at the pool hall and Sam is trying to convince Dean they need to leave, and I’m trying not to be distracted by the picture in the scene behind them.

Dean (brandishing his coin at Sam): Come on man, I’m on a roll

Snarky!Sam: Dean, you won one game!

Sam thinks the place sucks you in and that if Dean keeps playing, he’ll lose and end up like Leonard. Dean convinces Sam who reluctantly allows him to have one more game.

Me (sighing): platonic soulmate Husbands! 😍

Dean finds his mark, which is Joey from the intro. We see Dean playing well and Joey asks what his name was again.

Dean: my name is Dean Winchester and I am going to kick your ass.

Sam: 😍 that’s my platonic soulmate husband brother

Joey smiles.

They talk as Dean clears the table. Turns out Joey used to work the bull riding circuit.

Dean (cocky smile): tell me, how was that?… corner pocket. He misses the shot

Joey (grinning): good times (he pots and all he can do is hide the cue ball behind another ball, giving Dean a very tricky shot on the 8 ball)… and some not so good.

Dean goes to take the shot and Joey challenges double or nothing if Dean misses. Sam doesn’t like it. Dean asks if Joey is trying to hustle him.

Joey: I thought you were going to kick my ass

Dean smiles and agrees to the deal, does a trick shot with the cue ball jumping over the other ball and potting the 8 ball.

Joey closes his eyes. Sam looks happy, then Joey says: a hell of a shot.

Dean watches as the coins glow green and Joey’s coin is now dull, and this is sad because even if Sam and Dean haven’t realised the implication yet, Joey is not long for this world. Joey leaves, and Sam and Dean follow. Joey congratulates Dean on the game yet again and says, “I guess you can’t hustle a hustler.” Sam’s concerned when Joey starts coughing. Turns out Joey is dying, he has cancer, he came to the pool hall to beat it, and Sam and Dean have finally caught up with me that this game sucks. This is the first time in a long time, I’ve felt anything for a character on this show that we only meet for a limited time in a single episode, so I’m going to kudos the writing and the guest star for this one. This is what happens when you actually put some characterisation into your writing.

Sam and Dean go back inside. Dean said the plan worked so they should hit the road.

Sam: What about everybody else?

Sam wants to stay and figure out how they can help them. Dean reminds him they are in a fight with God and they just got their mojo back. Sam challenges whether there’s even enough luck in the coin for them. Dean says they’ll give it a try by him going for a drive and if baby’s okay, they are leaving. End of.

Back with Castiel and he meets sheriff Jeb at the abandoned building Jack was captured in. A transient spotted Jack going into the building so called the police. Castiel asks Jeb if there are any other abandoned places around. Jeb tells him about a church.

Back with Sam and he’s talking to Charlie, who is apparently playing so his team can win the Super Bowl and part of me is 😂 and part of me is, I feel you my friend, because Canucks and the Stanley Cup, and desperate measures at this stage.

Sam: that’s great, it is, but is it really worth your life?

Me (picturing the Stanley cup being paraded through the streets of Vancouver): …Yes?!

The puppy dog eyes fail again, Charlie says “just one more game.” And goes back to playing

Evie says at least Sam tried but no one will listen. She says none of “us” are going anywhere. Sam asks if they are trapped here, if Evie was trapped here. She leaves rapidly.

Dean arrives back, baby’s dead again, he didn’t even make it out of the parking lot. Sam takes a look at the coin Dean slams down. He believes Dean should have won more luck than he did, given how many people Joey likely beat before Dean played him and all that accumulated luck should have gone to Dean when he won, but it doesn’t seem to. Sam thinks someone is stealing the luck, skimming off the top.

Dean: You mean like the house?

Sam (lifts coin showing head): her… I think

Dean takes the coin and reads: Atrox Fortvnta

Sam says she’s the Roman goddess of luck. So, Sam’s allowed to be smart as a plot contrivance this week? *cough* hot metal burns *cough*.

They go speak to Evie about who runs the place. She says she can’t help them. Sam asks why she warned him in the first place. Evie says so he would take his brother and go. Dean asks why Evie is there, does the god have something over her. Evie says she played and lost and is only alive because she lets her stay as long as she keeps working. Sam asks if the god is here, but Evie doesn’t know, she only talks to Pax and drops the revelation that Pax is the god’s son.

Back with Jack and the Grigori has injured him and holding him captive. He knows what Jack is and that he’s powerful. The Grigori wants to know why Jack killed his kind. The Grigori have their own frequency of angel radio. Me, 🙄 of course you do because easy plot device. Before his brother died, he called to the Grigori. He asks Jack if he did that to draw him out, to kill him too.

Back with Sam and Dean, Sam approaches Pax wanting to ask a question. While Pax is focused on Sam, Dean grabs him and holds him at knifepoint.

Sam (niceness gone): Where’s your mom?

Loved that bit

Pax doesn’t answer so Sam shouts “Fortuna.” Dean follows with, “We have your son”

Moira walks through the pool hall and we know she is now Fortuna.

Sam says they know she’s skimming luck and they want it back. Dean threatens to kill Pax if she doesn’t

Fortuna: well, you probably could, his daddy was human, but no

Pax (shocked pikachu face): Mom!

Fortuna: I’m sorry baby, I can always make more sons

Sam and Dean (shocked pikachu faces).

Uh oh, leverage gone. Dean releases Pax, but not before the blade cuts his throat a little.

Dean demands Fortuna to play him for it. She says she’s already played him and got a read on him. He’s just a “beach read”. Sexy, but skimmable.

Dean (how dare you face): beach read? lady, I’m Tolstoy

Fortuna laughs and says, “That’s very funny” and approaches Sam: this one here, now he could be interesting

Dean (Protective big brother mode activated): Wait, no, no, that’s…. Uh uh

Sam (I’m 36 years old Dean, not a kid anymore mode activated): Fine… Yeah, okay, but not for our luck. I’ll play for the lives of everybody in here.

Fortuna doesn’t agree, she says the deal is only for their luck and if they lose, she wants their lives. She wants to make an example of them.

The Grigori is torturing Jack, cutting his skin. Jack says he can’t kill him. There’s then expose on the Grigori feeding off souls, and this one feeds off children. I think I’m supposed to not feel sorry for the Grigori when Jack eats his heart, but I do have a few issues which I’ll come onto later. Jack looks to the side and it’s clear he catches something. The Grigori reaches for his sword and points it at Jack’s throat. He asks who told Jack that. He answers Death.

The Grigori senses someone behind him. Now given the Grigori are supposed to be elite and much more powerful than ordinary angels, I’m embarrassed for this one and have no idea how on Earth this Grigori managed to survive to being last of his kind as even Castiel despatched him fairly easily, without too much of a fight, but “new canon” I guess. 🤷‍♀️

With no tests whatsoever, Castiel releases Jack from his bonds. I’m presuming one of Castiel random powers of the week is being able to automatically tell it’s Jack. We get a Cass and Jack hug and I … don’t really care to be honest. I can’t watch Cass without viewing that awful scene in Purgatory so I’m over him.

Back at the pool hall, Sam breaks, potting 2 balls immediately. I love, love, love this next bit: as Sam lines up his next shot, we see Dean nodding in agreement, because yep, that’s the shot he would have went for too. Sam proceeds to knock down a couple more, Fortuna has said a couple of things, but Sam is focusing on the game. She asks why they need the luck so bad, girlfriend problems? Liver failure? (She looks at Dean here). Sam answers: “a curse by god” and misses the next shot.

Fortuna: Life’s a bitch and then you die

Me: Hey! That’s my philosophy!

Dean: THE god literally cursed us

Fortuna (sarcastic disbelief): You’ve met

Dean: Yeah, Little guy, squirrelly as hell

Fortuna: Yeah, that’s him… well, welcome to the club

Dean: the club?

Fortuna answers with exposition while winning the game. God created the world, but humans created the gods, kind of, which led to God creating the other gods. Dean asks why, which makes her angry and she misses the next shot. She says they were created to take the blame for anything that went wrong. That only worked for a while before his ego got the better of him, now he hides behind whatever religion pays the biggest syndication deals. She keeps talking about how pissed she is and that she’s holding a grudge. Sam meanwhile is quietly potting balls and winning the game. She realises this and shakes off her mood, “oh well, what can you do?”

Dean: we’re going to fight him

Fortuna: are you now? And when you lose?

Sam’s voice from off screen: we lose swinging

He then appears in shot and says “8 ball, corner pocket” and she realises the game is nearly over.

Sam lines up for the shot, looks at Dean briefly, then… he wins. I wasn’t expecting that, and Dean is happy too.

Fortuna (to Sam): you little minx, you got me talking!

Sam smirks

Fortuna: you’re good

Sam: I learned from my brother

Dean approaches: all right, you know the deal, even up

Fortuna offers to make it interesting, if they are going to fight God, that’s the stuff of heroes and they are going to need the luck of heroes. Hercules, some other people, she helped them all. Sam asks what the catch is. She says another game, double or nothing.

Dean: Double? That’s how the cowboy died.

Sam agrees to play, “but not for more luck,” he indicates the room, “for them. If I win, you have to let them go.”

Fortuna: I’m not stopping them

Sam: Okay, when I win, you have to give back the luck you stole, close up shop

Fortuna: What is with you and these losers? They’re nothing, they don’t matter

Sam: they matter to me

Dean: they matter to us

Everyone in the poolhall (sighing): platonic soulmate Husbands! 😍

Fortuna agrees. She breaks, and it all goes downhill from there. Sam doesn’t even get to play a shot.

They lost. There’s silence

Fortuna: you challenged the goddess of luck in her own joint, what did you think was going to happen?

Me: pretty much this tbh, I’m actually surprised Sam won the first game

Dean: well, we had to try

Fortuna: well, that was stupid

My poor boys. They leave the poolhall.

Dean: I thought she was going to kill us

Sam: well she doesn’t have to, our luck will do that on its own … Dean, we can’t just…

Dean:… leave ‘em? Yeah, I know.

Me (sighing): platonic soulmate Husbands! 😍

Dean: all right, well let’s go get WiFi and see what kills Lady Luck, we’ll circle back

Sam’s agreeing when Evie comes out, followed by the other players. They ask her what happened. She says Fortuna shut it down. They ask why

Evie: Because of you, she said she thought your kind had gone extinct

Sam: Our kind?

Evie: Heroes, like the old days

Fortuna also gave her a message to pass on, “Don’t play Chucks game, make him play yours.

She hands Sam a coin which he somewhat reluctantly takes. He holds it in his closed fist as she walks away. He opens his hand and we see the coin glow green on his skin. Dean “grabby hands” Winchester snatches the coin, getting a glare from Sam and the coin glows green in his hand too.

They get into the car and Dean fires up the engine. “We’re back baby!”

Aww, Dean called Sam baby.

Me (sighing): platonic soulmate Husbands! 😍

Also me: You can take your “Castiel is a lamp” sub zero text and whack yourself over the head with it.

They drive away. And I’m left behind wondering if they’ve got their “normal” luck back or the supercharged hero luck that Sam said he didn’t want and that’s why he was reluctant to take the coin.

They arrive back at the bunker. Dean’s scratching lottery cards and doesn’t win. So much for the superhero luck.

Sam consoles his husband brother that they might not have won the lottery, but they have no car trouble, the credit cards work again, and Dean was able to eat back to back bacon double cheeseburgers, that didn’t kill him. So…

Dean: that was beautiful by the way… I’m just saying, would it have killed her to give us a little extra?

Sam: well, she thinks we’re really heroes, maybe they don’t get all the answers

Well hopefully that conversation answered my concern from earlier.

Cass appears, looking shifty (when doesn’t he tbh). They know something is wrong and Sam asks him. He steps aside and Jack appears. Jack dorky waves hello and we all melt and immediately forget he killed their mom and did some other really naughty stuff that at the very least should get him a time out. Apparently, Dean and Sam forget too. This scene is shot with Jack and Cass at one side of the reading room and Sam and Dean on the other.

Sam: Jack?

Castiel (to Sam): it’s really him

Sam walks over to Jack first and gets quicker as he reaches him and we get a Sam and Jack hug, and since I didn’t get one in season 14, I’ll ignore the mom killing, heart eating etc. for a few minutes and enjoy the hell out of this one. Yes, I’m fickle! But I loved this nougat eating baby before Dabb ruined him.

Dean walks across more slowly, reaches and grasps Jack behind his neck, staring into his face as if checking it’s really him. I think he’s struggling to see past the burnt-out eyes which was their last view of him. He looks briefly at Cass once. To me it’s a silent thank you (headcanon for bringing Jack back for Sam in particular), and an equally silent, you’re welcome. Jack looks a little apprehensive as obviously the last time he was alive, Dean was going to shoot him, stopped only by Sam.

They all have a beer at the map table, Sam asks Jack about eating hearts, so it’s good that hasn’t been hidden. Jack said he had to.

Dean (to Castiel): and you let him?

Castiel nods (likely waiting for the anger for doing the wrong thing)

Dean (shrugs): hmmm

And… that is not my Dean. They’ve turned him into a neutered house cat and idiots are calling it “growth”. And all I can hope is that his natural instincts fight their way through, I believe it’s wrong to trust Jack is okay eating hearts, even of ones that eat children’s souls and I hope we see that develop as we progress.

Sam: you could have called us

Jack: every day I wanted to come home, but I couldn’t

Dean: why not?

Jack: because if I don’t stay hidden, if I use my powers, my grandfather, he’ll know I’m back, and try and kill me… again… he’s afraid of me, and that’s why we had to wait.

Castiel: Billy kept him hidden in the empty, until Chuck went off world

Jack: she let me out when it was safe

Dean: safe to what? Eat a bunch of angel hearts?

Jack: safe to do what I have to.

Turns out the hearts were just the beginning, they made Jack strong, but not strong enough. If Jack follows her plan, he’ll get stronger and he’ll be able to kill god.

Sam and Dean (in winsync): bitch please, this is our show!

Not really, that was just me and we end on that note. I could wish we had ended on “The Gambler” by Kenny Rogers, but season 15 music budget. Sigh.

So, I have a few other issues with this episode, particularly with the Jack side of the storyline, off the top of my head;

1) I’m hoping we aren’t sweeping what he did in season 14 under a rug, a la Castiel.

2) I’m hoping we aren’t just going to support him eating hearts (even of bad angels) without fully investigating what this supposed plan is.

3) I’m struggling with the heart thing anyway. I don’t believe an angel has a heart to eat, only the human vessel does so I’m going to need an explanation on why eating human hearts is supposedly goring to make jack stronger, and why we don’t care about the human vessel

4) I’m struggling with how a lesser god can give back what God took away, even if that lesser god is the goddess of luck, God still trumps her.

Other than that, I think Death is bad now, or at least Billy’s version of death is. I think they changed course on wanting to kill the Winchesters a couple of seasons ago when they realised they could play a part in them reaping God. Possible reason, just being tired after all this time, and wanting it all to end. And it can’t end before Chuck dies. Possible power play.

I still think Chuck will die. I still think the Winchesters will become firewalls, not sure what Jack is, other than a toddler whose power needs to be bound until he can wield it responsibly, and Castiel is going to sacrifice himself at some point. And the less we say about Eileen, the better.

Next episode is up after Hellatus the welcome break from the caricature this show has become

#spn spoilers #15.11 #The Gamblers #episode review #episode recap #anti castiel #spn critical #anti saileen #anti eileen

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realitv · 5 years

Note

what do you think of season 2 and do you hate it and do you wish you could purge it from your memory

@revoide also asked: w…what did you think of s2, claire?@itsnotpatsy also asked: Will you talk to us about why you hate season 2. I’m here. I’m doing this. Open the floodgates.@capitolhosted give me your opinion on season 2 👀

THANK YOU. hello and welcome to tumblr user hdtvtits full on fucking critique of the fuckshit hellshow that is, was and remains season two. i’m going to first talk about this from a technical and writing standpoint. the writing, in short, was shit. absolute shit. from episode one there was an unpleasant offness to the way the characters spoke and interacted. like the writers had written each line individually and mashed it together. you could… feel the writers writing these characters. nothing flowed correctly. there’d be one solid sequence an episode (the old gods behind the stage, shadow and his mother, sam!!!, just about everything anansi says except you know that One Scene) that would carry you through with how beautifully it was written, and then some fucking character would open their mouth and the dialogue would be so fucking awful that you’d physically cringe. every time mr. town spoke and interrupted the beautiful writing that shadow and his mother had i’d feel like fucking rose on the door telling jack ‘COME BACK…. .COME BACK’. it was gruelling to get through. in addition to the shitty character writing, all of the nuance (laura my sweet girl what did they do to you????? they keep beating her cheating on shadow but that horse is dead and falling apart yall can stop any fucking time now.) has been taken from these characters and characters with a high amount of nuance such as sweeney and laura were respectively reduced to comic relief and a blunt axe hacking at wood. and speaking of those two – i don’t enjoy getting abusive fucking dynamics shoved down my throat but sure let’s push sweeney and laura together let’s just fucking do that why don’t you.also, nothing happened. nothing happened this season. no plot advancements were made. the war still hasn’t really started, we got the spear and then sweeney said ‘fuck it’ and made it vanish. nothing’s happened. we’re finally going to lakeside in season fucking three. no progress was made and it just felt slow and plodding and awful. furthermore, deviation from the book is good! but. it has to be meaningful and expand the world in a meaningful way. what occured this season was lazy (the dwarves subplot), not meaningful, and a shitload of lore they introduced (re: the new gods) was contradictory and senseless.

writing aside, this season had a lot to say on social issues (as did season one), but instead of landing in satire or giving us actual meaningful commentary, this season was actively racist, misogynistic, islamphobic, homophobic and antisemitic. was season one perfect? no. shadow’s lynching and the way sweeney treated salim wasn’t great and should never have happened. i’ll never excuse fuller for that. it should never be excused and should actively be critiqued. but the issues in this season were so pervasive and constant that the entire season deserves to be critiqued and quite honestly raked over the fucking hot coals. tw for: hate crimes, lynching, racism, n*zis, islamphobia, sexual assault(?), white-washing and homophobic slurs below.

this season had yet another lynching. another lynching for the sake of having a lynching just like season one. and of course it pertains to shadow. and of course they have to show it constantly. it’s not necessary. it never should be necessary. what purpose is there showing a black man getting lynched over and over and over again? shock value? are you playing a very real threat and worry (in addition to being a historical atrocity) for fucking shock value? the needless scenes of white police brutality against black youth for shock value? a scene which i might add leads in to some disgusting implied black on black violence wherein anansi insinuates ibis is killing these young black men for sacrificial purposes. shadow himself was pretty much reduced to a sex object this season. while he is a passive and non aggressive character in the book, he’s not a fucking piece of furniture like the writers desperately want to turn him into. he was objectified as eye candy in a shirtless torture scene filled with wires and clips and a lot of flexing. you know what happened to the last show ricky was in that did that? he fucking left it. then after he was… possibly sexually assaulted by bastet? (he never consents and she tells him to ‘just let it happen’ whereas in the book it’s a little more… clear that he is an active participant), camera just had to give us an ass shot. he had no meaningful character development this season and really seemed to exist as a sideline character. where was his story arc? why couldn’t they have devoted an entire episode to his back story? oh, right. because the writers saw him as eye candy. baron samedi was also treated as just eye candy and there to quite literally fuck laura in a drug induced orgy (as that plot thread had no climax) so. you know. yeah, keep objectifying black men.there was also colourism this season. it’s established in the show that the egyptian and african gods are dark skinned black people. which is amazing, and great, and i wish the show would figure out how to light them all properly but i digress. bastet showed up in a dream sequence and i thought she was very light at first (she is described in the books as dark) but it turns out she’s not even a black actress she’s pakistani. all right! ALL RIGHT! let’s not forget they had julian richings playing iktomi, a first nations god! JULIAN IS WHITE. they covered him in war paint and thought we wouldn’t notice. and let’s talk about social (new media) media. i think the concept could have been super cool. it could have been interesting and a really interesting reflection of what social media is capable of and is doing to us. but. the show operates under the belief and makes it clear media and new media are the same character. herein lies… a lot of issues. season one media stated that they would nuke the whole of korea as a sacrifice to odin. new media is korean. was that ever addressed? no. why the fuck would it be that would require a second of critical thinking from the writers. furthermore, when media was phoned in prior to new media’s introduction, it took place in the back stage. media chose to present themselves as white news casters. technical boy then tells media ‘put on a face you’re comfortable with and get out here.’ which. doesn’t sit well with me but ok. got that? cool. let’s go on.from the second she is introduced with harajuku girl aesthetics (and she’s dressed like a fucking loli schoolgirl and is always dressed like a loli + a cut crease to hide her monolid which ha ha real nice guys) she’s just sexualised. constantly. all the time. her first major act as a character with only 3 minutes of screen time at that point? A FUCKING TENTACLE PORN SCENE WITH A SUBHUMAN MONSTER. OH, YES. THEY REALLY WENT THERE. so you know. that’s fucking disgusting. she’s literally given cat ears at some point and a goddamn kitty anime face. every time that character comes on screen she’s either written as a sex object or completely and painfully oblivious; not to mention her powers depend on technical boy (who she hit on prior to the tentacle porn scene for bandwidth purposes as the upgrade somehow made new media weaker bc i guess a young asian woman is weaker than an older white person and new media is only considered ‘powerful’ after she fucks to survive), so. you know. fucks to survive i guess. not to mention she has no personality (and it’s not kayhun’s fault. she’s a good actress; the writers just don’t give a fuck) because the writers only wrote this character to fill in for media and it shows. she’s a prop to them. she’s literally a prop and it is fucking disgusting. and oh, did i mention that the new gods are allegory for the assimilation of immigrants in america? what are they trying to say here? new media was also portrayed through a highly misogynistic lens. so were… all of the women this season who are constantly sexualised in just about every scene and bastet just existed to fuck so. constantly. bilquis at least escaped this as she’s always had her own agency but the others? not so much. laura goes on a drug trip orgy, new medis fucks to sruvive, maman brigitte was here just for fucking and so was bastet. mama moon was exempt because as we know, moms do not fuck. in addition to laura’s character being just stripped, it’s clear the writers just hate her and wanted us to hate her too. fuller for all his flaws made her a hate-love character with a lot of depth and even though she did shitty, shitty things, she wasn’t there for us to hate. this season, she was there for us to hate, and after sitting through a disgusting line from wednesday where he says he’s had his hand shoved up her skirt to grab at her or some shit (wednesday is nasty but he’s supposed to sugar coat his shit this was just straight up sexually violent), they just keep… on. and on. and on. that she’s evil, and that she, like every other fucking woman, is original sin and dirty and immoral. i’m tired. i’m over it. and the islamphobia this season. there’s a scene with salim and wednesday and the djnn where they… attack his (salim’s) religion? i can’t remember the specifics but it was something about ‘his god’ and ‘one god’. and how he should worship wednesday instead because he was ‘a god’. just absolutely shitting on salim for being muslim and following its teachings. it didn’t… feel or sit right with me and after talking about it with the s2 support server we all agreed that it was pretty icky and a senseless attack on salim, a muslim character. let’s not forget the homophobia. it’s clear that the writers are uncomfortable writing lgbtq relationships. it took all eight episodes for salim and the djinn to kiss/touch. they’ve fucked, mind you. in season one they had an intense sequence that was very well done. this season? they were together the whole time but not only did they not touch at all (not even hand holding), but the djinn is a fucking asshole to salim constantly (let’s not forget the religion bashing) right up until he finally kisses him again. salim, you deserve better. dump him. salim was also a punching back for some spicy spicy homophobia. wednesday doesn’t even want them in the back seat together because he’s ‘afraid they’ll fuck’ or something in his car, and in e7 they literally bring salim in so sweeney can call him a pillow biter and the fucking f-slur to his face. thank you, writers. really nice. and last. but not least. the nazis. first of all, why? just why? the way e6 was constructed it could have just as easily been a mob since it’s 1920s america but no. let’s just have full on nazis in fucking nazi uniforms with the swasticas on their arms walking around. i get it. you want to comment that neo-nazis use norse imagery. you don’t do that by having odin sell thor to the fucking nazis and when columbia goes ‘hey those are uh nazis’ odin then responds with ‘they are sheep and my son is their shepherd’. what in the fuck. odin and thor are nazis now, and then you have the nerve to put odin in LOU REED’S JACKET. i really want the writers to stop and ask themselves ‘does this need nazis’. no. no it did not. you really don’t need them unless you want to play up genocide (which u know. of course was never addressed thor was just sad they wanted him to lose to a german body builder what the fuck man) for shock value. you’re literally just putting nazis in there and acting like it’s no big deal, having odin an active and willing participant, and then putting him into a jewish man’s clothing. eat my fucking ass.all and all fuck this season and fuck the writers and fuck starz the end.

#ask to tag //#HEY I'M TIRED #shedevvil #📺❝ THE SCREEN HAS ALL THE ANSWERS ! ( answered. )#📺❝ BLOWS A KISS TO THE TV: FOR THE MASS MEDIA ( ooc. )

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tricksandtales · 6 years

Text

Chapter 4: Welcome to Team Free Will

“These are some good pancakes, cupcake.” Gabriel murmured dousing them with more maple syrup.

“Thanks, honey bun.” The angel’s head jerked up and stared at her. “What?” She blushed slightly. “You’ve been calling me all sorts of food related things, thought I’d return the favor.” She grinned.

“Okay then, gum drop. Game on.” He grinned back.

“I’m surprised you can taste the pancakes over all the syrup.”

He grinned back around a mouthful of food, “I like sweets.”

“Me too.” She smiled, shifting her hips to lean on the counter. “But apparently not as much as you.”

Over breakfast, Gabriel had started telling her about his story: his family, the apocalypse, how he’d met the Winchesters, about Jack, and what had happened to make Heaven loose so many angels. It was complicated, and there were a lot of holes, but he explained the Winchesters would be able to fill in most of missing pieces.

Riley was fascinated. Still a bit anxious and unsure, and she kept pinching herself to make sure she wasn’t sleeping. She wasn’t, sadly.

Gabriel was as helpful as he could be. He didn’t spare any details from his answers. He even offered to do the dishes while she packed. Apparently, this involved snapping his fingers, which made Riley frown, and wonder if she could do dishes that way too now…. There was going to be some great application to this angel mojo if it could be used to make her apartment clean. Sighing, Riley headed to her room and began pulling out clothes and items she need for a week, or two.

If it went longer…. Then she’d have to consider what to do long term. But that was a decision for future Riley.

Once packed, Riley made her way to the bathroom and grabbed a quick shower. She wasn’t quite sure what to do about her wings, because although they didn’t seem to get wet, she could feel them on her back and had a very strong urge to clean them. Especially since she could reach out and touch them, the feathers soft in her fingers. Her wing span was pretty large, though nothing compared to Gabriel’s. His wings were massive. Would his feather have the same feeling? Could wings be hurt?

She spent a longer time in the shower than she intended, musing on things as the water massaged her aching body.

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For his part, Gabriel waited pretty patiently. He snapped the kitchen clean. Raided the candy bowl he found on the dining room table and settled in to watch some tv. He did send a quick mental note to Castiel that he might want to rendezvous with the Winchesters, as there was going to need to be a discussion asap on what happened next.

When Riley emerged from her bedroom, dressed in jean shorts, a bright yellow tank top and green flannel shirt, she found him sprawled across the couch, mouth around a lollipop, watching Dr. Sexy reruns. His eyes raked over her form as she approached, and he gave her bemused smile, “Flannel?”

Riley blinked at him, “It’s the weekend, I tend to dress down.” Her hand reached up a tugged the braid she’d wound her wet hair into. “Is it bad?”

He gave a bemused chuckle, “No. It’s just that you’ll fit right in with the Hardy twins.”

“Um….”

“Winchesters. They wear a lot of flannel.”

“I like flannel.” She sounded slightly offended. “What’s the issue with it?”

“Nothing. Nothing.” He soothed, “It’s cute on you.”

A blush tinged her cheeks as she turned back to kitchen. “I’ve got my stuff. I made arrangements for next week, work wise. So I’m ready whenever you are.”

“Righty-o.” Gabriel stood, tv blinking off behind him. He grabbed one of her bags and then took her hand with the other. “So, first time flyer – I’ll take us this time. Then we’ll need to work on you being able to do it yourself. But later.” He winked. “Ready, set, here we go!”

And like that, Riley’s apartment no longer held the two angels.

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The hotel room Gabriel transported them to was cheap, and made Riley’s skin crawl ever so slightly. It wasn’t that she was judgey about the quality, more so the state of cleanliness. She hoped it wasn’t their final destination, but figured she’d roll with the punches at this point. The day could honestly not get much weirder.

Then she met Sam and Dean. The two men who inhabited the room were not what she’d expected. Gabriel, for all his humor and weirdness, was very well dressed and smooth talking. The Winchesters were….. not.

Rough around the edges would be a good way to describe them.

When they arrived, with the sound of wings no less, the boys had rolled off their respective beds and drawn weapons on them. Riley screamed.

Sam towered, literally towered over her and Gabriel. “Easy there Samsquatch, Deano.” Gabriel said. The boys slowly put their weapons down, though Dean did not put his completely away.

It had been an interesting meeting.

After they’d all calmed down and Riley was no longer hyperventilating, she got to actually meet the boys. Sam and Dean were nice, a bit freaked out, but still nice.

They had no idea what to make of her. Neither considered the possibility that she would have survived, or been turned into…. Whatever she was now. Angel? Half angel? Random thingy.

Sam was polite and Dean was gruff. He had a smolder to him that would have been charming if they’d been in a bar and not standing around a motel room. On first impression, Riley honestly liked Sam better, he made her feel more at ease….. and less like he’d shove a knife through her heart at any moment.

Neither tried to kill her though, which was a welcome thing. Instead they’d gone to a diner to grab some breakfast. Or for Gabriel and Riley, second breakfast.

Riley wasn’t particularly hungry, but she figured this wasn’t fully about food. They were in Massachusetts still, but pretty far outside Boston. Sam told her that Jody had called last night, and they’d driven up until Gabriel had told them to stay put. So they found themselves in a small town, waiting to hear.

Which was why the two men had stared in shock at Gabriel and Riley when they’d shown up at their hotel room, waking them up. Thus, Dean declared they needed food, and so to the diner they went.

There, as Dean stuffed his face with greasy food, and Riley sipped at a cup of tea, Sam started to tell their story. It was long, and complicated, and at points Riley really didn’t want to believe it. The life of the two men before her was terrible in its brutality and cruelty. They were brave, and crazy in the amount of fortitude they had. She didn’t believe she could have survived the things the universe, or apparently… Chuck….. had thrown at them. Not that they always survived. They just apparently came back to life.

Overall, it was also a condensed version, and Riley was worried what a full telling would reveal. The cliff notes were bad enough.

And then Sam started to talk about Jack, and Riley’s heart broke. How young. How alone. How unfair his life was. And Riley really wanted to find the poor kid and give him a hug. Even if he was the reason she was now having her eyes opened to the world of things that went bump in the night, she still felt a heart wrenching in sympathy for the kid. She was still a tad peeved at him, she had been happy in her life in Boston, but she still couldn’t help feel bad for the kid.

The other thing she knew, just knew, was that she did not want to be a hunter. The lore was interesting, all those supernatural creatures. But damn if she was going to go out hunting them. Especially since it seemed to spawn only heartache, misery, and death. Who knew that death could die, btw, that was just some messed up shit. And it sounded awfully lonely.

Which was probably why all three of the men at the table with her had haunted looks in their eyes.

Even if not a hunter, Riley was sort of stuck. It wasn’t like she could just walk away at this point. This was apparent by the ever-present translucent wings now on her back. She still had mixed feelings about those.

Also, Riley found herself drawn the brothers. Not romantically, definitely not sexually (though neither was hard on the eyes). She just, wanted to hug them.

As for Gabriel…. Riley wasn’t sure exactly where her feelings lied. He had staid with her through the night, joked with her in the morning, and brought her to the boys. Everything he’d done had been to help her. Plus he made her heart flutter, just a tad. A crush maybe? Riley shrugged it off. No time to deal with it now. So many other things to deal with.

Breakfast was a slow affair, and Gabriel sat there drinking his sugar with coffee in it and Riley sipping her third cup of tea. Dean ate a lot. Sam ate some. And by the time they were all done, and the most of breakfast crowd had filtered out, that was about the time that Castiel walked in.

Meeting Castiel was……… weird. He was not what she expected. So serious. The straight man to Gabriel’s trickster. Which was surprising because she’d imaged the other angels would be like Gabriel. But Castiel was the anthesis was the sugar loving archangel.

Plus he’d stared at her in such an unnerving way that Riley had excused herself to make a phone call.

While the four boys talked, Riley escaped outside to call Jody. Jody was shocked and happy. She didn’t expect that win, and it was a win. She said they were going to drink the moment Riley felt good enough to get out of the bunker. Riley really wanted to ask what the bunker was, but figured she’d find out soon enough.

They chatted for a while, catching up. Jody gave her more pieces of the puzzle, explaining how she’d met the boys and how she’d actually found herself with her charges.

As they were signing off, the boys exited the diner. Castiel disappeared quickly.

“You can hitch a ride with me.” Gabriel offered, “I’ll drop your bags and you off at the bunker?”

“Um…”

Dean scoffed, “And leave the girl alone in a strange bunker. We’ll take her.”

Gabriel shrugged, and grabbing her bags, disappeared too.

Riley found herself following the Winchesters to a black impala. Riley stopped and stared at the car for a few minutes. She loved it. It was so classic and beautiful, and told Dean so. Which is how she found herself riding shotgun and Dean now grinning at her. “Music?”

“Obviously.” She responded. Dean hit the dial and AC/DC filled the car. Sam sighed, cramped in the backseat. “I could have gone with Gabriel.” She offered, still could.

“Nope, gotta get the full experience.” Dean said. “Plus you can tell us about yourself now.”

“Ah. Sure.” Riley sent Sam a sympathetic look as he shifted again, stuck in the back. “I’m from Massachusetts, but the rural area originally. I went to undergrad and studied pre-law. Went to law school in the city. Took the bar. Got a job. And here I am.”

Dean chuckled, “That can’t be all.”

“Honestly, I’m kind of boring compared to you guys.”

“How’d you meet Jody?” Sam asked.

“I attended a seminar on small town law and its conjunction with law enforcement. I met Jody there. She was giving a talk sheriff life. We staid in touch. I helped her with a custody thing.” She shrugged, “We have girls days when ever we’re in the same part of the country.”

“Boyfriend?” Dean asked. Sam snorted in response.

“Nope. Too busy with school.” She smiled, “And you?”

Sam burst out laughing, “No serious relationships. Dean likes the ladies though.”

“The ladies like me.” Dean grinned.

Riley was nothing like them she realized. Other than music apparently, she had had little to offer the Winchesters. This was going to be an interesting experience. Heck, if it ever stopped. Riley glanced out the window, ‘for all I know, this is my life now. Or whatever comes next.’

“Do you like pie? Or beer?” Dean asked.

Riley’s eyes slid back to him, “Both. I make a good apple pie.”

“Make?” Sam asked.

“Yeah, I like to bake.”

“I think I’m in love.” Dean flashed her joking smile. “You’ll fit right in.”

Riley laughed, wondering how they could think that. She relaxed though and allowed herself to be drawn into some inane conversation about the best pies Dean had ever had on their hunting trips.

#supernatural #supernatural fanfiction #gabriel #gabriel x oc #spnfandom

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wolf-skins · 7 years

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tbh I was really disappointed with how that situation with the Krogan was handled in this game. I wanted to give them rights, like make Kesh the new director bc who the fuck cares about Tann. Instead? We just hand over a giant piece of technology that absolutely no one knows shit about, with no context except ‘potentially can be used as bomb’.

I mean I felt like I had to do it bc the choice was ‘give it to this colony or give it to this other colony’ like??? how about no one keeps it!! we don’t know shit about the Remnant but we apparently are just supposed to play around with a drive core when we literally were never told anything about it.

also the stupid ‘fist fight’? what was that? it was the worst thing i have ever seen bc it looked like a bad film where the actors are clearly not hitting each other but they’re still flying around and dying. And we’re just supposed to trust this ‘overlord’ who we again don’t know anything about other than she hates the Nexus. Which I mean, yeah, there for, but that was the entire conversation. It lasted maybe a minute. And now we hand her a potential weapon bc we don’t want to alienize the Krogan again, but we don’t know anything about any of the ones in-game save Kesh and Drack.

Oh yeah, then there was that boring ‘throw back’ to the Rite like no............. it wasn’t fun or great, it was boring. The Rite in ME2 had a point, a story point, a lore point, and you got to have this bad ass fight with your companions. You do this one with randoms with three enemies you’ve probably already have had gain up on you in droves already.

I just expected more but it feels like a cheap repeat of the same story. It didn’t give me any monumental moment like fighting in the Rite in ME2 or curing the genophage in ME3. I know we wouldn’t have had that but I still wanted something better than this. Make Krogan equals politically. The entire problem was that Tann lied about letting them have more political power and say in Nexus development and shit, but instead we just..... have this thing..... like the quest was boring. A Remnant drive core from a giant derelict Remnant ship? Sounds like something huge.

No, you just run to three different point, fight a couple guys, and then do nothing. Any potential lore that we could have gleamed was null. I get you’re supposed to probably learn a lot more later but this just seemed so disappointing.

Like honestly after Havarl and Voeld the other planets become boring; rinse and repeat. Activate the vault, kill a couple guys, solve some problems, create outpost, yay! Havarl and Voeld had lore to them. A lot of it. I get that Eladeen and Kadara were about Milky Way problems but they still could have done better. We barely know anything about any of the people there. Bleh.

Thankfully after finishing a few last things on Kadara I can quit and run off to continue the main storyline bc this is starting to get boring. I mean the combat is so much fun and I love this game in general, but like other people have mentioned, Bioware is moving further from constant storytelling and worldbuilding to just trying to make big maps where you run around and dungeon crawl outside of fucking dungeons.

Like I know they “looked into Skyrim” for inspiration but the best parts of Skyrim are that most quests have stories to them, there are many different ‘main’ quests bc of factions, but they do lack in character building bc after a certain questline is done all the characters just stop..... being anything. Bioware was different with that. And I loved it. I love Skyrim/TES games but like..... they have many main quests with various interesting characters and very unique stories.

BW is failing on that. We get these world with ‘main’ quests, but in general it’s just........ nothing. Havarl and Voeld were exceptions bc they built on the lore for Angara and such. They could have easily done something like that for the other worlds. Give us looks into the Milky Way races that we haven’t had - like how they brought in the lore of the Ardat-Yakshi in ME2. I mean, people can argue about its concept, but it was still cool lore that was more than what we had known before. And the Justicars as well were new.

I know I’m ranting but oadiwjadw I’m tired of spending hours doing something only for it to be just................................ battle after battle. I like the combat but I don’t want to keep attacking random places for no reason.

awdoijaowdwija I just want them to start working on focusing more on stories than building giant maps. Like I ran far east on Eladeen trying to fight the “””Abyssal Worm””” that the devs didn’t even make a point to having..... and you can go far out and its empty except one or two lil Remnant sites and you’re like, “Oh! Something hidden and fun!” Nope. No point to them. No point to the fucking weird thing jumping in and out of the sand. Shot at it, had it jump right over me, nothing. Like...... why bother with all that extra map space when you could have given me something unique and with a story to it.

ioajwhd89oaiwd I’ll just have to see what the main quest is like continuing on bc the only way I’ll get to know anything (who/what the Remnant were, wtf is going on with the Scourge and what is it, what is the future for AI when they are melded directly with an organic brain.....) I understand I’m supposed to still have questions so they can continue but honestly bleh. I love the characters and the new stuff they brought in but I’m getting very little content with all of it.

idk maybe I’ve just spent too much time running around doing side quests and have annoyed myself out and am ranting very long about it

It’s not a bad game at all like I have been enjoying it; I’ve just been enjoying more the story, the lore, and the characters, and BW has been trying to go for bigger maps than focusing back on those. The MEA devs said ‘no fetch and grab’ quests but like............. y’all liars. Also why does my scanner keep annoyingly asking me to scan shit I’ve already scanned? I don’t need more research data, I’ve got nothing I wanna research. I don’t want any of the weapons or armor or anything. Esp bc I end up being able to develop it all as I go along lmao.

The jump jets are awesome though. I want those to stay. And I want more time with my crew and more time with new lore and less time on running around aimlessly on a map. It’s boring. And if you give us giant, interesting shit like a giant ass dropship ruin than you better shove a ton of story into it. smh

#price's gamer problems #essentially eladeen was disappointing and i'm getting tired of having interesting maps that have no point to story #they COULD but don't bc they wanna be bethesda so bad #which reminds me I had Drack following me around a Vault for a while but still 'dead'#so he just laid around talking while Vetra and I did all the work #and then I built an outpost and a building clipped through the nomad and became one with it #so i mean if they're trying for bethesda they're getting rather close

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maned-cerdae · 7 years

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Dreams

wait i still know how to do lore? its a miracle!

A gentle breeze through the woods, carrying a slight scent of rot from the Wastelands on it. This far from the border, however, it wasn’t strong. The trees here grew mostly normal, with only the occasional mutation creating strangely covered leaves or bark with weird textures.

“Oi, slow down!”

You stopped and looked backwards at Icemane, who was several yards behind you. “Oh. I didn’t notice you fell behind.”

Icemane stopped next to them and pouted dramatically. “You are the absolute worst gathering partner. I can’t believe this. You’re so cold I’m crying now.”

You snorted. “Come on. We got to finish gathering for the party tomorrow and get back.”

“You aren’t fun. I say we should just hang out in the woods all night and have our own party!”

“You’re suggesting skipping your own birthday party?”

“Well, it’s not just mine. It’s yours. And Violetdream’s. And Crystalfur’s.” He frowned slightly. “This is the reason I shouldn’t be skipping it, isn’t it.”

“Congratulations on realizing it.”

He elbowed you, but he was smiling. “Like I said. Incredibly cold.” Icemane scanned the forest, looking for food or other supplies to bring back. His eyes light up and ran over to something further ahead, kneeling to pick something up. You walked over cautiously and he stood up, holding a bunch of strawberries in his hand. He pulled the leaves off and popped one in his mouth before wincing in disgust.

“What’s with that face?”

“They’re sour. All plants are sour. I feel bad for breeds that have to eat plants.”

“That’s what I think whenever you convince me to eat some of that nasty fish of yours.”

“But fish are good! Plants, however, are disgusting. Well, a few can stay as long as they taste good with fish.”

You held out your hand and he threw one into your hand. He put the rest in the bag at his side and bent down to pick the rest on the plant, but then he realized you weren’t next to him. Icemane looked over his shoulder and saw you leaning against a tree, blantaly not even thinking about helping.

“Hey!”

You smirked. “You deserve this for suggesting skipping the party.”

Icemane turned away and you frowned. But then he jumped up, spun around, and smeared something all over your face. Jolting back in surprise, you remembered the tree and swore. He started laughing and you realized what he did. You stuck your tongue out and licked at the stuff on your face. Yup, a bunch of crushed strawberries.

“Are you serious?”

His only response was more laughter, but you couldn’t find yourself to be mad. Especially when you wiped off your face with your hand and cleaned it on his face in return. He sputtered and…

You blinked and found yourself in a dark tunnel. He still stood in front of you, but he was older now.

A part of your mind screamed it was just a dream of what happened, but the fear you felt was just as intense as when it really happened. Icemane swayed, unsteady on his feet. He smiled and his teeth were sharp, far too sharp, and his eyes. They were completely black, except two little glowing pinpoints, one glowing red and the other gold. The wound over his right eye had reopened and was glowing a sickly dull purplish color. Patches of feather grew and fell off just as suddenly as his body started to have trouble holding him into his shifted form. Where the feathers grew thin lines of pitch black blood dripped, creating delicate patterns on his skin. He cocked his head, staring at you with that grin and those dark eyes and the feathers and blood falling to ground. You backed up as far as you could, but the wall of the tunnel stopped you. He took a hesitant step like he thought he might fall over and wrapped his hands around your neck. Sharp claws dug into your neck. Slowly, very slowly, still grinning, he drug those sharp claws across your neck.

Another blink, a different place. It was brightly lit and crowded with dragons shoving each other to get the best view. A guard grabbed your arm and drug you through the horde. You glanced up at the guard, but they pointedly stared forward. The crowd suddenly ended and the guard shoved you to your knees, keeping on hand on your shoulder. Just a few feet away from you was your mother, bound with rope and surrounded by guards. If you were to move forward just a bit you could touch her. The guard’s grip on your shoulder tightened like they had heard your thought. Your eyes drifted to the two people in the front of the room, sitting on twin thrones on a dais. On one was King Mesmer. Your father. He stifled a yawn as he watched over the room. And sitting next to him was Queen Begonia. She noticed you looking at her and sneered. You flinched, her look of disgust so strong it felt like a slap in the face. Cypress is nowhere to be seen though. Of course, wouldn’t want the precious little prince to see something that might scare him.

Begonia stood up and the entire room went silent. She walked down the steps of the dias slowly, still weak from the assassination attempt, dress billowing out behind her slightly. Stopping in front of Delphine, she waved the guards away. They hesitated and she glared at them until they retreated. She pulled a small bottle from some kind of hidden pocket that was filled with a shimmering pink liquid.

“Delphine Worseer, you have been charged and found guilty of trying to assassinate the queen. Thus, you are sentenced to execution. Do you have any last words?”

“Fuck. You.”

Begonia sighed. “I’m not sure if I expected anything else.” She waved her hand at the guards. “One of you, come back here.” Begonia kneeled down in front of your mom and tossed the bottle between her hands. Delphine’s eyes followed it and Begonia laughed. “Would you like a taste of you own medicine, quite literally? Oh, I think you do.”

Begonia looked up at the guard who had came forward. “Get her to open her mouth.”

Delphine’s eyes widened, but before she could do anything, the guard stabbed her in the arm. You sat numbly as dark purple blood splattered on the pristine white floors. Delphine opened her mouth to cry out in pain and Begonia cursed as she hurried to open the bottle. “I didn’t mean right away!” she hissed at the guard as she pulled the cork out and dumped the liquid into Delphine’s mouth. She scrambled away and looked over at the guard. “If you don’t want to lose your sword, I suggest retrieving it now. Oh, but could you cut the rope? It would make things much more. Interesting.”

They blinked and quickly pulled their sword out of Delphine’s arm and then used it to cut the rope. Delphine fell forward a bit before managing to put an arm in front of her to catch herself. There was a strange almost popping noise and she started coughing. Drops of purple Shadow blood and liquid Arcane magic splattered onto the floor before her. Another pop and she screamed as cracks started racing up her arms, glowing pink. You watched as the cracks grew. She dug her fingers into them and they started to bleed, but the blood was literally boiling and turned into steam as it hit the surface. The tips of her fingers started to burn and blister and, oh. Oh Gods. They started to gray and turn to ash that drifted to the floor. Try as you might, you couldn’t pull your eyes away. One of the ashes drifted over to you and landed on your cheek, sizzling slightly from the residual magic in it. You flinched, but didn’t feel the grip on your shoulder from earlier. You managed to look up and saw the guard had their hands clasped over their mouth, looking like they were about to either bolt or throw up or both. Taking the opportunity, you pushed yourself to your feet and started running through the spectators to the doors. No one stopped you, too focused on what was happening up front, and you ran through the halls of the palace until you found the darkest corner you could, and then laid down and cried.

***

Flowerstorm jerked upright, gasping. It was nearly completely dark, but there was a small distant light in the distance down the tunnel leading to the cave Icemane had declared their bedroom and moved his and their stuff in to. Speaking of Icemane, the coatl was missing. Flowerstorm frowned at the spot where he had been when the two of them went to sleep, mind too tired to work properly. The light in the distance reached the cave and Flowerstorm muttered and put a hand up to shield their eyes.

“Oh, sorry, did I wake you up?” Icemane asked as he put his lantern down on a shelf and uncorked a bottle he was holding. He took a sip and cringed.

“Mm. It wasn’t you, it was nightmares.” They looked at the bottle he was holding and the scar over his right eye and shivered. “What were you doing?”

Icemane held up the bottle and shook it slightly. “My Light magic started acting up and I wasn’t gonna wake one of the healers up to write a spell tag or start casting bolts into the sky and attract every creature is a 50 mile radius. So I grabbed a healing potion and hoped it would work.” He took another sip and cringed again. “This thing tastes like shit though. I think I might have preferred being mauled by some random animal that followed my Light spell being launched into the sky.”

“Tau and Nightsbane would flip though.”

“Eh, it’s fine. If I die, they can’t yell at me.”

Flowerstorm wiggled their fingers dramatically. “Magic. They’ll find a way.”

“Fuck.”

They laughed, but it turned into a yawn halfway through. Icemane finished the rest of the potion and placed it beside the lantern before blowing it out. He made his way over to the mess of furs and blankets he had declared a nest and laid down next to Flowerstorm. “I just thought of another reason why I shouldn’t go outside, shot a bunch of light around, and let myself get eaten by wild animals.”

“Hmm, did you finally develop a survival instinct?”

“No. Our anniversary is in like. A couple of days isn’t it? And if it’s past midnight it’s my birthday. What if I had done it and gotten eaten like a minute before my birthday? That would’ve sucked.”

“Shut up and go to sleep.”

“Still so mean to me after all these years.”

“Shush.”

They didn’t have nightmares for the rest of the night.

#flight rising #main lore #c: Icemane #c: Flowerstorm #c: Mesmer #c: Begonia #c: Delphine #wont tag violt dream and crystalfur and stuff because theyre only mentioned #*violetdream

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