#like Felix if you made him kill his father deserts

[randomnameless]

Bcs Nopes retconned one of the things I really liked about FEH’s Fodlan content namely Moon Gradivus (B!Dimitri calls it his father’s lance!) -

What if Macuil yeeting Lambert from his lawn had more consequences than just a footnote?

Like, imagine Macuil sleeping/napping/counting clouds peacefully in Sreng, then a bunch of armored humans are approaching, but instead of targetting him to steal treasure, they just start to fight and all next to his resting place -

He tells them to fuck off far from here, but Lambert doesn’t really understand what is happening, there’s a giant beast calling him a thief.

Before being yeeted away, he merely told the giant beast he was no thief, but the magic beast seemed super pissed and angry, and told him he stole what he is using as a weapon.

Returning to Faerghus after talking a bit to Rodrigue and Matthias about the aborted Sreng campaign - and the giant beast he met - Lambert has doubts, and rides alone, with Aredbhar, to the temple where he met the giant beast.

Greeted by some “do you really wish to die stupid human”, King Lambert explains how this is a Relic and the Church of Seiros said Relics were “gifted” by the Goddess, so he didn’t steal it. But the Goddess also sent the Immaculate One, her messenger, to help humans, so is he one of the Sacred Beasts, like the Immaculate One?

Macuil wants to erase him on spot for 1/distrubing his nap 2/being the descendant of an elite 3/daring to compare him to his fool of a sister but then Lambert saves his hide by making a proposal : right now he needs the power of the Relics to protect his country from invasions and war by other states, but when he’ll have achieved peace and Faerghus will be safe and secure, he promises it, he will return the Relic to him.

Birdie doesn’t believe him - humans are worthless after all - but is amused, so he’ll take the bait. He’ll pretend to wait here until that human returns the relic, but when he obviously won’t and his fool of a sister will come for her thousand year visit, he’ll rub it in her face that humans are worthless because look this one promised something and never upheld his part of the bargain.

Of course, Lambert loses his head and never returns.

AG verse : Dimitri hears something about a giant white beast who helped the Church escape Garreg Mach ? Rodrigue wonders if it was the Immaculate One, Lambert also mentionned seeing it once in a desert, and he talked about an oath made to one of the Goddess’s envoy but he never explained more.

Wanting to fulfill his Father’s oath, Dimitri wants to go on expedition in the desert to meet that beast, under Sylvain and Matthias’ combined “plz no the desert is in Sreng why the fuck do you want to go there we already have a war at our door”.

While Seteth and Rhea are apparently arguing about something (“what have I told you again about transforming??? Now people saw you!” “It wasn’t me! I hate deserts!”) Flayn pops up and joins Dimitri’s party, saying that if a sacred beast is there then she wants to met them.

(Ashe thought they were going to meet the Immaculate One, but Flayn spoke a bit too fast and said Lady Rhea is in the Cathedral if he wants to see her, which puzzled Ashe, why is Flayn talking about Lady Rhea?)

Happens what happens, Birdie wants to slaughter new “thieves” disturbing his nap (”stupid humans I can’t even sleep 20 years without them bothering me??”) but then he sees his beloved niece, who introduces him to her new “companions” as the “Source of magic” so he is suddenly in a good mood and doesn’t want to kill them all.

Even a majority of them are thieves.

Dimitri ultimately makes the greatest mistake ever, calling Macuil the “Immaculate One” - but he isn’t yeeted away, Birdie merely notes that this stupid Blaiddyd human never learns, he told him last time he was not his “fool of a sister”.

Felix calls him out, it’s the first Dimitri met him, right?

Apparently, this Sacred Beast (the Wind Caller Annette heard!) met a human with “yellow hair” and the “stench” of Blaiddyd not so long ago, but it’s not like he bothers remembering every human he met - Dimitri introduces himself as that man’s son, King Dimitri, son of King Lambert. And per his oath, he is here to, uh, do what his Father couldn’t?

“Return what you call a Relic”

Flayn guesses where this is going, and asks her Uncle (Dedue raised a brow, her Uncle?) to please let it go, those people aren’t the people they used to know, and right now they need power to protect themselves from the Empire

“The what?”

For the first time in 1100 years, Macuil laughs when he hears Adrestia declared war on the Church of Seiros and the rest of Fodlan “tell me Rhea isn’t dead yet, I need to laugh at her!” and is so happy at those humans who made his day (or decade) that he tells the blonde human with a stupid shiny armor - the Blaiddyd - he can find a new lance in the ruins, he finished it “just in case you humans respected your promise, I made it for the other human but you should be able to use it, to protect your people or country or whatever instead of using the relic”.

Then he flies away - after correcting Felix that no, it was not Saint Indech who made the Holy Weapons the Saints used during the war, “Dechi” only made stupid lumps of metal, what made them “strong weapons” were his spells.

Dimitri is puzzled, should he really use this lance? Will the Church of Seiros accept it? Flayn tells him not to worry, besides, this lance is like the proof King Lambert managed to make a first step towards reconciliation between two parties, if he managed to make the Wind Caller trust him, then everything is possible.

Vowing to walk in his Father’s steps, Dimitri names his new weapon “Moon Gradivus” for some reason, and calls it “his father’s lance”.

Downsides - Seteth is unable to join the war effort for the next two weeks, because he has to prevent his siblings from fighting - more precisely Rhea from punching Macuil because he gets on her nerves and keeps on making fun of her decision, back then, to trust humans, doubly so because the current war is led by an Hresvelg.

of course, he won’t be playable.

#fodlan AU #lizard family time? #Birdie stuff #i kept on thinking about it #in FEH B!Dimitri calls his weapon his father's lance #but in Nopes Aredbhar is apparently what he has left from his father? #and so I wonder #if we had one person who knew in the modern times or would have reacted this way upon kind of learning things about relics #it'd be Lambert - who met Birdie #and maybe Birdie would have made a new weapon for him #'this way' being returning the relic to one of the Sacred Beasts #the IO is known all around Fodlan #maybe the Wind Called is known too? #I mean the background is kind of contradictory on those accounts #everyone is stupid for Macuil #humans and family included save for Cethleann #FE16 #3 Nopes #sort of #I still find it sad that we didn't saw Indech'n'Macuil in Nopes #I mean in AG #the rest of Nopes doesn't exist lol #at least I wish it didn't #nopes nonsense

[misslilli]

Felix Felicis

MSR. AU. PG-13. | tagging @today-in-fic | AO3

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10

Chapter 11 - Friday Night's Alright For Fighting

[ FM ]

On Friday, it’s Felix’s mother’s turn to pick him up from school since he’ll be spending the weekend at her place. I briefly wonder if he’ll tell her about his new-found admiration for the enigmatic Miss Scully and for just a little bit, the petty side of me wishes he would. It’s not that she’s a bad mother per se, but she never shared a strong connection with our son and ever since the divorce, it somehow got worse instead of better.

Felix took the divorce pretty hard, lashing out at me and the teacher and kids at kindergarten. There were times when I couldn’t even recognize my own kid. Because of my background in psychology, I tried to talk to him countless times but I finally had to admit that I was too emotionally involved to really help him. So we began to see a therapist back in Washington, D.C, him and I. His mother refused to participate because “He never acts out when he’s at my place, Fox, seems to me like that’s a you-problem.” That day, only the thought of what would become of my son if I went to jail had kept me from murdering her on the spot.

We don’t stay in contact much, except for negotiating pick-up and drop-off times for Felix, and that’s about all I can handle from her. The custody battle was a hot mess, not because she particularly wanted to keep Felix, but she used it to humiliate me, dragging my abilities as a father and caretaker through the mud in front of a judge and our lawyers. I tried to keep Felix out of the court hearings, putting my foot firmly down when her lawyer suggested that we could just ask the child where he wanted to live. He was three years old at the time, fat chance I was going to let that happen.

Thankfully, we were able to convince the judge that I was willing and more than capable of caring for our son and that me working from home was a more child-friendly environment than his mother’s job, which takes her out of the country several times a month.

I take off my reading glasses and close my laptop, this trip down memory lane has put me in a sour mood. After putting away everything work-related for the weekend, I stretch my arms over my head, contemplating what to do with my free time. I don’t have any friends here yet and since I can’t meet anyone at work, I decide to walk down the street to the harbor.

The streets are pretty busy with locals and tourists alike and as I walk past the crowd that stand around the rock that marks the place where the pilgrims debarked the Mayflower back in 1620, I think to myself ‘Guys it’s just a rock. In the ground. Walled in on all four sides.’ I was pretty disappointed, if you couldn’t already guess that.

I continue my walk and pass the dock where you can usually see the Mayflower II anchored, swaying with the waves of the Atlantic. She’s an accurate and beautiful reproduction of the original ship with which the pilgrims had sailed to America, founding Plymouth Colony after 10 gruesome weeks at sea.

Currently though, the dock is empty safe for a few seagulls harassing the tourists – they have taken the ship to a shipyard in Connecticut for restoration, much to Felix’s chagrin. When he heard that we were going to move here, he spent countless hours reading up on the history of Plymouth, the Pilgrims and everything that happened afterwards. He got a real kick out of imagining the American Protestors and the British Government officials dressed up in frilly dresses and huge feathered hats, actually having a fancy tea party instead of the Boston Tea Party, which escalated the American Revolution in 1773.

His special interest, though, had been captured by the Mayflower, which is not surprising because he loves anything that’s big and can transport people or cargo. Planes, helicopters, trains, you name it, but especially ships. On the first night in our new house, he insisted that we leave the boxes packed for now and head down to the harbor, right now.

At first, always the responsible adult, I refused, but he didn’t let up, resorting to pleading with me, then he practically begged me and when I still wouldn’t budge he went in for the kill with his puppy-dog look and a pronounced pout. I could see the tears welling up in his eyes. Damn, he was using my very own look against me!

The tears still came a little while after, when we reached the harbor and found the dock deserted. I wanted to kick myself for not checking if the ship was actually there or not and I had to carry a bawling, devastated Felix back to our house. He only stopped crying when I promised him that we’d go see the Mayflower II the very second she sailed back into the harbor.

After another, more pleasant, trip down memory lane, I had reached my destination: The Cabby Shack, a local bar and restaurant that is made up of an inside bar downstairs and two large decks, the lower one housing the outside bar, the upper one the restaurant.

Making my way through the crowded room, I spotted an empty seat at the bar and ordered a drink aptly named Islands of Misfits. I snorted out a laugh at how accurately it described my situation right now. Island of Misfits alright, inhabitant: 1.

I took a sip of my drink and twirled the tiny umbrella between my fingers when out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone take the seat next to me at the bar.

“Islands of Misfits, huh? Must be bad!” Looking up, I’m surprised to see that it’s Walter Skinner, my son’s principal.

“Yeah, sort of. Sorry, hello sir, it’s nice to see you!” He shakes my hand briefly and orders himself a whiskey on the rocks. Had I been a more insecure man I would’ve felt stupid for my drink choice, but as it was, if I like my drinks sweet and with a cutesy umbrella in it, then that’s what I’ll have. And don’t you dare forget the fucking umbrella!

“So Mr. Mulder, what is it, love troubles?” As a born and raised city boy I have yet to come to terms with small town frankness but I like Principal Skinner and his lack of beating around the bush.

But still, I couldn’t exactly tell him the whole truth, I don’t think he’d appreciate a Actually yes, sir, I’ve been staring at one of your teachers for every damn day of the week and when I’m not busy staring at her, I think about her all the time. I wonder if her kisses taste like strawberries and what her hair smells like. I’m driving myself slowly insane by imagining running my tongue over the spot where her neck meets her shoulder and let me tell you about the dreams I’ve been having real quick. Yeah that won’t fly.

First, he’d kick my ass into the sixth dimension and then he’d have me arrested for gross misconduct or worse, sexual harassment. Even though I’m not sure if that’s really applicable when it only takes place in your mind, it’s still inappropriate as all hell and I’m not going to test out my little theory. I don’t think I’d fare well in jail, to be honest.

So instead, I opt for a more appropriate half-version of the truth. “Yeah, sort of. I had a huge argument with my ex-wife over the phone when she was late picking our son up from school. If I had one, I think my swear jar would be able to buy me my own Island of Misfits. And what’s even worse is that I think my – our son was there to hear at least her end of the fight.” I take a miserable sip from my drink.

“I’m really sorry to hear that, Mr. Mulder. Your son’s name is Felix, right? He’s in Miss Anderson’s first grade?” Thankful for the slight change of topic, I nod.

“Yes, sir, that’s him. We got off to a rocky start but after the first week, he really loves going to school, Mr. Skinner.” The other man shakes his head and offers me his hand once again.

“Please, call me Walter. Outside of school only, of course, you understand.”

I grab his hand and give it a brief shake, smiling wryly. “Of course. I’m Fox but I make everyone call me Mulder. Even my parents. I hate my name.” He huffs out a laugh at that and I can tell that it’s a rare occasion.

“I get the feeling you’re in need of a friend on your island, Mulder not Fox.”

That I do, indeed.

Island of Maybe not such Misfits, inhabitants: 2.

Chapter 12 - A Rainbow In Its Natural Habitat

#xf #the x files #xf fanfic #msr #felix felicis

[indigowallbreaker]

For the kiss thing do you think you can do 58 for Mercedes x Ingrid , I just love them so much

(I hope you don’t mind me taking some inspiration from you @daneicole​. but as soon as I saw your art, I knew I wanted to write something with the concept-- and this was the perfect opportunity!)

58. Moving Around While Kissing, Stumbling Over Things, Pushing Each Other Back Against The Wall/Onto The Bed

Butterflies battled in Ingrid’s stomach as she ascended the steps towards the dining hall. Memories from yesterday were killing her appetite but she would never waste food, especially not during a war. She would make herself eat breakfast.

As she entered the hall, Ingrid smiled softly at the sight that greeted her, briefly forgetting to be mortified. Professor Byleth, Sylvain, and Annette were stilling at a table with a few other troops, laughing at something that had clearly pissed off Felix, as he was the only one scowling fiercely. At the opposite entrance, his Highness was standing in the doorway watching them as well. He only entered when a grinning Ashe appeared at his side and gently guided him towards the table. A rare peaceful morning for the Kingdom army.

Ingrid was about to join them when she spotted Dedue and Mercedes by the entrance hall door. Whatever they were chatting about caused Mercedes to giggle and every butterfly came back to Ingrid’s stomach.

All thoughts of food vanished as Mercedes waved Dedue goodbye and left the dining hall. Without even wishing her friends good morning as she passed, Ingrid made a bee line towards the entrance hall. Mercedes had just walked out, turning for the stables, so Ingrid followed. All the while, scenes from yesterday were swimming in Ingrid’s head.

“Your eyes’re so pretty, Mercedes. Just looking at ‘em makes me feel healed.”

“That’s very sweet of you, Ingrid. Lie still now.”

“Anything you say. I’d give you anything, y’know?”

Ingrid cringed. Concussed or not, Ingrid shouldn’t have said any of that. She had to set things straight with Mercedes as soon as possible. Even if her heart was beating double time as she followed Mercedes towards the stables.

When she rounded the corner, it was to find the stables deserted, apart from herself, Mercedes, and the horses. “G-Good morning!” Ingrid called to make Mercedes stop walking.

Mercedes turned and smiled as Ingrid caught up at last. “Good morning! How do you feel today?”

“Much better, thanks to you.”

A giggle. “Of course! You gave all of us quite a scare. I’m just glad I was nearby to help.”

“M-Me too.” Ingrid folded her hands in front of her, willing herself to keep her chin lifted. “I wanted to talk about that, actually. I... Well, I’m sorry, Mercedes.”

“Whatever for? I know you didn’t mean to get hit in the head.”  

“That’s not-- I’m sorry for the things I said to you. I’m sure they made you uncomfortable.”

Mercedes’ eyes widened. “Oh! Oh, Ingrid, don’t worry about that! I know you didn’t mean it.”

Ingrid swallowed. “U-Um...”

“Okay, your head looks healed. Let’s sit you up. I’ll wash the blood from your hair.”

“I should wash your hair sometime. It looks so nice, you take such good care of it.”

“Thank you very much.”

“When the war’s over I’ll steal you from your father like a knight in a fairy tale ‘nd we can wash each other’s hair all the time. We can have tea, too. That sound good?”

“It does! But you have to stop turning to look at me, okay? Eyes front, my brave knight.”

Ingrid took a deep breath. It was only fair that Mercedes knew the truth, even if Ingrid hadn’t quite meant for it to happen this way. “I did mean it.”

Mercedes’s smile fell. “What?”

“I think your hair and eyes are pretty. And when the war is over, I don’t want you to go back to your father and for me to go up north and we never see each other again. I don’t want to hear how you got married off to some random stranger. You deserve better, Mercedes. I want to give you better!” Ingrid finally dropped her gaze, unable to take Mercedes’ look of surprise anymore. “Y-You don’t have to feel the same way, and I’m sorry this came out how it did, but everything I said yesterday was true.”

A breeze stirred the hay stack beside Ingrid. Further down, a horse snorted in its stall. And still Ingrid did not move. She prided herself on her bravery, but it was taking all her willpower not to scurry back to her dorm.

She jumped when a warm pair of hands cupped her face and lifted her chin for her. Mercedes was smiling. Really smiling. At Ingrid. The butterflies didn’t know what to make of that.

“Ingrid...” Mercedes began softly, thumbs stroking Ingrid’s cheeks, “do you remember saying yesterday that you would want to nap in my bed because you thought it would smell like my lavender perfume? And that you would probably get the best sleep of your life if I were to nap with you?”

Ingrid felt a blush crawl up her neck and settle in her face. “N-No, actually, but I have thought that for a long time. Oh Goddess, what else did I say?!” 

Mercedes giggled. “I was just going to tell you I want that too.” And now Mercedes was blushing. “I want to live with you after the war is over. We can stay in a little cottage and have tea and plant lavender and you can be the best knight in the whole village. But you’ll always come home to me. I’ll heal you, and you can read knight’s tales to me in our bed and I’ll tell you ghost stories.”

It sounded like Mercedes was narrating a fantasy Ingrid had held close to her chest for years. It was so perfect, and coming from Mercedes it sounded so possible. Ingrid put her hands on Mercedes’ wrists and leaned in to kiss her. 

Mercedes’ slipped her hands from Ingrid’s hold and she wrapped her arms around Ingrid’s neck instead, pulling her close. Ingrid stumbled forward at the sudden shift and the pair nearly tripped over a water bucket. That didn’t stop Mercedes, who gently guided Ingrid back until they were against the stable wall. That same horse snorted again but Ingrid was too absorbed in the feel of Mercedes exploring her mouth. 

Feeling bold, Ingrid’s hands fell to Mercedes’ waist, holding her in place as Ingrid broke the kiss briefly to kiss along her jaw and down her neck. The scent of lavender was nearly overwhelming, just like Ingrid imagined it would be. Mercedes’ fingers dug into her back and she let out a small giggle. Ingrid smiled against her shoulder and hugged her properly, shutting her eyes and pretending they were already standing outside their future cottage.       

(Give me all the kiss prompts, i want them all) 

#Anonymous #mercedes von martritz #ingrid brandl galatea #fire emblem three houses #fe3h #kiss prompts #mercedes was going to talk to ingrids pegasus #she talks to her pegasus about ingrid sometimes and after yesterday DEFO wanted to talk #have a good weekend everyone

[theradioghost]

hey, can i pester you for some podcast recs? something with a good dose of humour and not too many episodes to catch up on. a sprinkle of queer romance would be a nice bonus. my fave so far is tsco starship iris, and i also loved greater boston, wooden overcoats, the bright sessions and caravan. and thanks always for all your great recs! you’ve brought many hours of joy into my life :)

We Fix Space Junk -- Two intergalactic repairpeople -- a knowledgeable cyborg veteran and a former socialite on the run -- travel the universe meeting people and fixing things at the behest of the terrifying intergalactic corporation they’re trying to work off their debts to. Hilarious British sci-fi sitcom featuring Evil Space Capitalism, many many wonderful AI characters, and an absolutely delightful teenage space wasp-human-cow hybrid princess who is probably off accomplishing her grandiose special destiny somewhere offscreen while the main characters deal with things like their bosses possibly trying to kill them (again).

Death by Dying -- People have a tendency to die in odd ways in the small town of Crestfall, Idaho. Luckily the town also has an Obituary Writer, an eccentric and nameless but impeccably stylish fellow whose closest friend is the Angel of Death, and who has a knack for solving murders even though that’s definitely not his job description. Throw in walrus haikus, extremely rude ravens, Something Mysterious And Malevolent Lurking In The Dark Woods Outside Of Town, disappearing childhood homes, silent nuns, ghost bicycles, and three man-eating cats, and you get something like a delightful cross between Wooden Overcoats and Lemony Snicket. (Also, OW is peak Canonically Bisexual Dumbass.)

Less is Morgue -- Riley is a paranoid, reclusive teenager with a fondness for conspiracy theories who lives in their parents’ basement. They’re also a predatory ghoul who feeds on human flesh. Evelyn is a cheerful, outgoing young woman with questionable tastes in media. She’s also a ghost, ever since she was killed by a falling stage light at a Nickelback concert 16 years ago. And since Riley dug up and ate Evelyn’s corpse, they’re roommates! Will they ever manage to record a coherent episode of their podcast without something going ridiculously wrong and/or Riley eating one of the guests? Probably not!

Victoriocity -- The steampunk buddy-cop comedy-mystery thriller you never knew you needed but definitely do! Featuring Inspector Fleet, a grouchy, extremely driven policeman looking for the murderer of the Empire’s greatest inventor, and Clara Entwhistle, an even more driven and unfailingly upbeat rookie journalist who has just arrived in the island-spanning, bizarre cityscape of alt-history Even Greater London. Come for some of my favorite sarcastic British narration since Adams and Pratchett, stay for characters-are-begrudgingly-forced-to-work-together-until-they-come-to-genuinely-and-deeply-care-about-one-another-as-friends trope. (Also for Tom “Eric Chapman” Crowley as the aforementioned grumpy detective.)

Quid Pro Euro -- From one of the other leads of Wooden Overcoats, this doesn’t have a typical plot as such but has made me laugh so hard I pulled a muscle despite the fact that I know nothing about the EU. Which is what this near-surreal, Look Around You-style comedy is about: Felix Trench’s vision of a simultaneously hilarious and terrifying alternate European Union, seen from the perspective of a serious of educational tapes from the ‘90s predicting what the EU would look like in the 21st century. It’s hard to describe this show in any way that does it justice, but it’s incredibly funny.

Time:Bombs -- A miniseries by the exalted creators of Wolf 359, which (because they are madmen) was written, recorded, and produced in the space of one week. Also, a comedy about an NYC bomb retrieval squad on New Year’s Eve, most of whom are just trying to get through the night while their leader attempts to break a record for most bombs cleared before the calendar ticks over. Chaos and hilarity ensure.

Superstition -- Wisecracking, bi, Jewish, definitely-a-private-eye-just-don’t-check-her-qualifications Jacqueline St. James receives a message from her father, which is weird, because her parents disappeared years ago. Following the trail leads Jack to Superstition, Arizona, a town in the middle of the desert where everyone’s got secrets, assorted ghosts/monsters/cryptids harrass the locals, and the missing persons rate is the highest in the nation. As a protagonist Jack is Looking For Trouble And If She Cannot Find It She Will Create It, so while Superstition isn’t a comedy per se, it’s got a fair share of laughs and is also just so, so excellent in general.

Standard Docking Procedure -- A self-declared hopepunk scifi workplace comedy about the somewhat dysfunctional staff of Pseudopolis Station, effectively a high-tech interstellar truck stop. It’s funny and heartwarming, nothing truly bad happens, and Julia Schifini is there.

Solutions to Problems -- A morally-questionable human named Janet who has defintely never done any illegal time travel and an easygoing, physically indescribably alien who likes to go by Loaf host an intergalactic advice podcast. Are you tired of your species’ insistence on solving everything via ritual combat? Not sure how to talk to your partner about whether body-swapping has a place in your sex life? Dealing with being a superpowered teenager summoned into being by the collective will of an apocalyptic groupthink cult? Janet and Loaf have you covered! Provided that Janet’s on-and-off girlfriend, the AI who supplies the air they breathe, doesn’t kill them all first. Oddly heartfelt comedy in the form of a relationship advice radio show from the Space Future.

Middle:Below -- This show’s tagline is “Remember: bad things WILL happen,” and that is basically a lie. This is actually a short, incredibly heartwarming and frequently funny show about Taylor Quinn, the only human with the ability to pass between the land of the living (aka the Middle) and the land of ghosts (the Below). Meaning, of course, that the dead call on him to fix all their problems, with the help of a girl named Heather, a ghost named Gil, and a cat named Sans. (Also, some of the most comparatively wild live shows I’ve ever heard.)

Inn Between -- Ever wonder what fantasy characters get up to between adventures, during all that time they seem to spend at inns? This show skips all the adventuring, question, and action, instead focusing on the quiet moments between where what is Definitely Not A D&D Party meet and progress from bickering strangers brought together by circumstance to close-knit found family -- all at the inn, of course. (Lots of queer folks in here also, although there’s no romance at least in the first  couple seasons.)

The Godshead Incidental -- A relatively new but very exciting and so far really enjoyable show!! Following a young woman who writes an advice column through her life in a familiar, and yet strange city where anyone might be a minor god -- your editor, your landlord, that weird guy on the street who was shouting about how he’s the God of Memory and you got into a fight with him and now you keep forgetting everything? Also, your apartment is full of pigeons now because you found out the aforementioned landlord is secretly the god of doorknobs and he’s panicking. Good luck! (Starring Ishani Kanetkar, aka Arkady from Starship Iris!)

Gal Pals Present: Overkill -- Madison, a middle schooler at a Girl Scout camp, agrees to play a game with a somewhat tastelessly bright-pink Ouija board. However, Madison doesn’t know that she’s a natural medium, and now sarcastic mid-2000s 19-year-old Aya Velasquez has joined the many ghosts who are for some reason haunting scenic Harding Park. Aya, however, will not rest until she can solve her own murder (and possibly get to know that other ghost girl a bit better, who says romance has to stop when you’re dead?). Absolutely hilarious writing of a narrator who is almost definitely wearing spectral Uggs during the entire show.

Dark Ages -- The Rivercliffe Museum of Mostly Natural History is one of the finest museums anywhere! Or it would be, if anyone ever actually visited it. Or maybe if the staff weren’t a disastrous and dysfunctional collection of criminals, weirdos, wannabe immortals, idiot bisexuals who can’t just admit they like each other, and one extremely uptight elf with no people skills. Also, it would probably help if the legendary and fearsome Dark Lord, finally returned from his millennia of dormancy to complete his prophesied conquest of the world, wasn’t hanging around watching the chaos unfold because they’ve got his crown on display. (Fantasy workplace comedy with a theme song that did not need to go that hard?)

Brimstone Valley Mall -- It’s mid-December 1999, and at one mall in South Central Pennsylvania, a group of demons are going about their evil work -- namely, working at various dinky kiosks and restaurants, hoping of achieving every demon’s dream of getting to work at Hot Topic, trying not to do too much evil because Earth is way more fun than Hell and no one wants to get promoted back home, and preparing for their band's triumphant opening performance at the upcoming Y2K party. Just one problem: their lead singer is missing. Another absolute masterwork from The Whisperforge.

Arden -- 10 years ago, Hollywood starlet Julie Capsom vanished into the woods of northern California, leaving behind a car containing a human torso that may or may not have belonged to one Ralph Montgomery. Now, private eye Brenda Bentley and reporter Bea Casely, both of whom were among the first at the scene and both of whom have their own very strong opinions on the case, are setting out to solve the mystery on their true crime podcast, Arden. Providing, of course, they can stop arguing with each other long enough to solve it. (Or, a not-really-parody-but-definitely-comedy “true crime” podcast where the crime is a retelling of Romeo and Juliet -- and even knowing that, it’s still a genuine mystery with twists and a surprise ending! -- and the hosts are wlw Beatrice and Benedick from Much Ado About Nothing. In other words, it’s perfect. Season 2 is upcoming soon and is adapting Hamlet!!)

Alba Salix/The Axe and Crown -- Another high fantasy workplace sitcom, this one a medical comedy about the titular not-very-personable witch who runs the kingdom’s House of Healing and the various shenanigans she gets into, between her somewhat scatterbrained sister and brother-in-law the king and queen and her assistants, an overly-whimsical fairy and a wannabe monk forced to do community service. The same feed contains The Axe and Crown, a spinoff set in the same world that manages to simultaneously be a sitcom about the staff of a local pub trying to stave off foreclosure and come up with schemes to beat their business rivals, and a heartfelt story about gentrification and recovery starring a gay veteran with PTSD? Which is possibly one of my favorite podcasts? (Also contains one of the most unbelievable crossover cameos possible: Leon Stamatis.)

The Adventures of Sir Rodney the Root -- Also a high fantasy comedy! When a witch transforms heroic Sir Rodney into a small piece of wood, his closest companion Sir Gilbert must set out to cure him by collecting several highly powerful and dangerous relics, accompanied by a snarky dwarfen thief, an imperious princess, a slightly creepy human child raised by fairies, a picky elf sorcerer, a dead unicorn possessed by the ghost of a stoner, and a bard who breaks the fourth wall too much for his own good. So far as I can tell, nobody is straight.

The Amelia Project -- A dark comedy about a secret organization that helps people fake their deaths. Which is honestly a pretty full summary, barring the two important points that 1. this show contains possibly the most continuity-warping crossover event of all time (it’s the center point of this absolutely chaotic diagram), and 2. in one episode Felix Trench plays a character named Bartholomew Fuckface Chucklepants Knucklecracker.

#podcast recs #bobbie recommends things #yujacha #asks #my posts

[kinnaman-smorgasbord]

Esquire Singapore Dec 2019 - Joel Kinnaman Interview

OBSERVERVABLE ACTS

Editor-in-Chief: Norman Tan Photography: Michael Schwartz Stylist: Chloe Hartstein Groomer: Kristan Serafino Story: Wayne Cheong

Instead of a rooftop shoot that we had planned, we’re indoors at Dune Studios on Water Street. Outside, the weather is every writer’s dream: “It is an ash-streaked sky that portents a downpour.” “Like a warning, steel wool hangs overhead.” “A dishevelled blanket of grey that drifts languidly like detritus in a muddied pond.” A wet weather doth not a good shoot make.

When Joel Kinnaman arrives, the first thing you notice is how large he is. Bigger than life, broad-chested, he sometimes stands astride, like he’s about to break the spirit of a wild stallion. Then, there’s that presence; a sort of aura that’s quiet but still strong-arms you for your attention.

Just as the fashion shoot is about to start, Kinnaman asks if he could put on his own playlist for the shoot. He brings up his Spotify playlist, titled ‘For some of mankind’. ‘What Becomes of the Brokenhearted’ by Jimmy Ruffin plays.

“The playlists are just for fun,” Kinnaman tells me. “I’ve made a playlist for every project that I’ve been in.”

The project that this particular playlist was made for is For All Mankind, now playing on Apple TV+. It’s a show that puts forth the idea: what if America lost the space race to Russia?

Created and written by Ronald D Moore, the visionary behind the reimagined Battlestar Galactica and Outlander, For All Mankind stars Kinnaman as Edward Baldwin, a NASA astronaut who works alongside Buzz Aldrin (Chris Agos) and Neil Armstrong (Jeff Branson). Kinnaman’s character isn’t based on a particular historical figure, instead he is a composite or a representative of the ‘all-American’ astronauts of that era.

“I’m half-American and half-Swedish,” Kinnaman says. “I’ve lived in Sweden and America so, in a way, I’ve a split identity. My favourite part of the American spirit is not giving up. If they get knocked down, it is a national honour in getting back up and continuing the fight. In reality, when the US got to the moon, it concluded the space race. We didn’t get the continuation in space exploration that everyone was promised.”

Kinnaman is drawn to the science-fiction genre, fantasising of what could have been (though it can be said that the broad field of fiction can also put forward, ‘ what if’). Growing up, he watched the Star Wars movies, he loved the cyberpunk feel when he shot Altered Carbon. He is a fan of Blade Runner due to its dystopian future.

Do you think that sci-fi’s dystopian trope is becoming a reality? Kinnaman muses on that. “We’ve a president who is a national and international embarrassment. He’s immoral, a compulsive liar, a narcissist who doesn’t respect or appreciate democracy. I pray and hope that this nightmare would soon come to an end.

“But I believe we have the potential to overcome this. If we change paths and realign our focus in coming together as a human family, we can solve whatever problems that come our way together.”

This sentiment is echoed in For All Mankind, although the loss wasn’t the be-all and end-all for America. According to Moore, in losing the space race, America ends up the winner in the long run because of the continual effort into space exploration.

“Art can be a little lazy in pointing out the negatives. In many instances, the role that art and the artist play is showing us what’s wrong: that’s important but showcasing the positives is equally important. For All Mankind shows us how we should be operating if we are guided by our better angels.”

Physicist and theoretical biologist, Erwin Schrödinger, came up with a thought experiment. Imagine, if you will, a cat that’s sealed in a box. And inside that box is a device that might or might not kill the cat. Quantum theory states that quantum particles can exist in a superposition of states at the same time. Some even theorise that the quantum particles will collapse to a single state when it’s observed. When applied to Schrödinger’s cat, the feline is both dead and alive until you open the box.

Schrödinger came up with this thought experiment to explain that “misinterpreted simplification of quantum theory can lead to absurd results which don’t match real world quantum physics”. In the real world, it’s absurd that the cat is both dead and alive at the same time.

But one can also see this as an example of how the scientific theory works. Nobody really knows if a theory is right or wrong until it can be tested and proved. It’s like asking someone out on a date, you don’t know if that cute girl or guy will go out with you until you ask; the possibilities of rejection and acceptance remain in co-existence.

That is before you open the box.

Observe: Joel Kinnaman wouldn’t have existed if his father, Steve, had not defected from the US Army. An Indianapolis native, the elder Kinnaman was drafted and stationed in Bangkok, Thailand during the Vietnam War. While he was there, he started spending time with European backpackers, who have a different perspective of the war. A seed was planted. It finally blossomed when he attended a friend’s wedding in Laos. “It turned out that the woman’s family was half Laotian and half Vietnamese,” Kinnaman says. “It was an emotional moment for my dad. He asked himself if these were the people that he was going to kill.”

Still reeling from the love he had witnessed, the elder Kinnaman returned to his base. It was then that he was given the news that he was being reassigned to the battlefront in Vietnam.

In the history of war, the common punishment for desertion is death. According to the US Uniform Code of Military Justice, Article 85, it is meted out “by death of other such punishment as a court-martial may direct”. (Since the Civil War, only one American serviceman was executed for desertion: Private Eddie Slovik in 1945.)

Knowing the penalties for desertion, the elder Kinnaman made the decision that night to leave camp. He hitchhiked his way up into northern Thailand and into Laos. He burned his passport, changed his name and passed off as Canadian. For the next four years, he lived life among the Laotians doing odd jobs. Then, he found out that Sweden grants asylum to Vietnam deserters. Since moving to Sweden, President Jimmy Carter eventually issued an amnesty in 1977. The elder Kinnaman continues to reside in Sweden. After his first marriage ended, he was involved with Bitte, a therapist. This relationship yielded Joel.

“I’ve been working on the script about his life,” Kinnaman says. “The idea would be that I’d play my dad but I’m getting a little old.” It’s a story to be told, one about the dangers of blind patriotism; a tool that’s often exploited by governments. “We need to be critical individuals who should make up our own minds.”

Observe: Kinnaman had his first taste of acting when he was 10. He played Felix Lundström on Storstad, a soap opera that looks at the lives of the residents living in the fictional town of Malmtorget. Back then, Sweden had only two TV channels so even if it’s a secondary or even tertiary role on an ensemble piece, people will recognise you. “I didn’t understand it,” Kinnaman says. “There was something thrilling about being famous but there was something I didn’t like about it either.” His whole experience as a child actor was underwhelming.

In fact, taking a page from ‘history repeating itself ’, observe as Kinnaman could have been a soldier in the Swedish army.

“It was mandatory for the men to be conscripted for a year in the army and it was during my time when the rules for enlistment started to relax,” Kinnaman says. “If you didn’t want to enlist, all you have to do is purposely fail the proficiency tests.”

Alas, Kinnaman was so caught up in the competition that he aced it. His results showed potential to be a company leader. He was enlisted and assigned to an 18-month tour in the Arctic Circle but Kinnaman plum forgot about it. When he moved to Oslo, Norway, to be a bartender, he received a call from his mother, informing him that there was a government notice stating that he was supposed to enlist in three days.

He called the army to tell them that he was no longer in the country. “They said, this is a serious offence and I could get prison time for this. But if I were to write a letter to explain the situation, I could get out of this.” And then he forgot to write the letter. Kinnaman continued working odd jobs but he was always haunted by the thought that if he were ever to be arrested by the police for anything, they might discover his draft dodge from his records and he would be sent to prison.

“I ended up at this fight outside a night club and got taken in by the police.” Kinnaman says. Observe: Kinnaman could have ended up serving his sentence for draft dodging but nothing came of it.

Acting was calling out to him once more. His friend, Gustaf Skarsgård (famously known for his role as Floki in History Channel’s Vikings), was on track to becoming an actor and advised Kinnaman to apply for theatre school. After several applications, Kinnaman finally got into what he describes as “Sweden’s second-best acting school” and would go on to film two movies during his enrolment.

After graduation, he continued acting in Sweden before moving to America. He kept himself busy. He made an appearance in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo; starred as Governor Will Conway in House of Cards; made people notice with his portrayal as the homicide detective, Stephen Holder; scored the lead role in the Robocop remake; was cast as Rick Flag in Suicide Squad.

The one genre that Kinnaman can’t seem to appear in is comedy. Yes, he has a stern demeanour but the man is also funny. “Sometimes, Hollywood sees you in a certain way and it’s much easier to get cast for it. And the next is similar to that and so on. I haven’t made an effort to dissuade people’s opinion. The lighter side is probably more me.”

The closest he has gotten to doing comedy is the shooting of the Suicide Squad sequel. Helmed by James Gunn, Kinnaman said in another interview that it feels like he’s “shooting his first comedy”.

“I’ve been around tough people with issues before,” Kinnaman continues. “I’ve had some bad times so those kind of environments were natural to be in. It’s a survival mechanism too. A way for me to cope as I grew up. At the time, you’re figuring out about your identity. I felt insecure, powerless and didn’t know what to do in life.

“It was a period of my life that was pretty negative. But one of the beauties of acting is that those dark periods become a mother lode that you can mine from. Maybe I’ve drawn a little bit too much from it by playing too many tough guys.”

In May 2016, Kinnaman was one of the delegates and personalities from Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Finland and Sweden who was invited to one of President Obama’s final state dinners. Kinnaman, dressed in a sharp tuxedo, attended the dinner with his then-wife, Cleo Wattenström.

He overheard that the Obamas were fans of House of Cards and was looking forward to being introduced to them. At the reception, he and the other representatives stood in a row as President Obama made his way down the line, shaking hands and posing for a photo op. By Kinnaman’s admission, his mind wandered as he imagined what he’d say when President Obama came up to him. “Maybe I’d say, ‘Mr President’, and then he’ll say ‘Governor Conway’, and then we’ll laugh. And we’ll end it with a cool handshake.”

And all of a sudden, the president stood before him and Kinnaman muttered, “Mr President…” There was an awkward pause. Kinnaman would recount that it’s very possible that either the Obamas hadn’t watched the episode that he was in or if they did, his presence made zero impact. Before the silence could prolong, Kinnaman ended with, “thanks… for everything”. President Obama said something along the lines of, “Surely but surely, we cannot lose hope” and Kinnaman was ushered off.

He would retell this story when he introduced President Obama at Brilliant Minds, a conference of creative individuals who embody the forward-thinking spirit of Sweden, in June 2019. After the introduction, he returned backstage, where President Obama was waiting for his cue to go up. “He had this huge smile on his face and he said to me, ‘bring it in for a cool handshake.’ We hugged, we talked for about five minutes. He was super friendly. I’ll always remember that moment.”

Kinnaman isn’t shy about his politics. He voiced support for the #metoo movement; he had championed the environmental cause by one of his fellow Swedes, Greta Thunberg; he does not hide his disdain for the Trump administration.

“I think the last UN report stated that we have about eight years to turn back our carbon expenditure into the atmosphere,” Kinnaman says about where we’re heading as a species. “You don’t have to be a prophet to see that the world is heading towards the wrong direction. The oceans are heating up, the glaciers are melting. These natural disasters will be more frequent and that’s gonna lead to more tensions among countries.

“Politically, we’re moving towards a more nativist direction; people are pulling away from international cooperation. There’s the rise in disinformation campaigns, which will threaten democracy.”

But Kinnaman, ever the optimist, still believes in the human spirit, that we can innovate our way out of this quagmire.

Observe: Kinnaman, who was born with pectus excavatum, chose to correct the disorder instead of living with it.

Pectus excavatum is a chest-wall deformity that affects roughly one in 400. Instead of the breastbone being flush against the chest, it sinks in. Measured on a scale called the Haller index, anything above an index of 3.2 is considered severe. Kinnaman’s index was a seven or an eight.

“It’s something that’s survivable,” Kinnaman explains. “But it’s a condition that grows worse over time: your posture becomes worse; your stamina worsens as your heart is not given room to pump. By correcting it you can add years to your life.”

For a condition this severe, doctors had to insert two curved metal bars across his chest. Then the bars are turned to force the chest out and then the bars are wired to his ribs. The operation changed his life for the better. He doesn’t feel self-conscious whenever he removes his top. Six weeks after his surgery, he had to do reshoots for Suicide Squad. It was a fight sequence but Kinnaman sucked it up. “Would you like to feel it?” He asked.

He raised his arm like an invitation. I reached out and felt the spot, where the metal bars are, beneath the fabric and skin.

That’s an interesting party trick, I say. Kinnaman could only chuckle in response.

“It’s funny, if you ask me to say a line from a movie that I’ve been in before, I can’t. Not one line from any movie that I’ve done but I once did a monologue that was one hour and 30 minutes and I knew it by heart after 10 days.”

Kinnaman used to opine that as a Swedish American, growing up with dual cultures gives him a better perspective of the world but that also left him feeling like he doesn’t belong. He jumps from place to place, leading a nomadic existence.

“But I think,” he says as though he had stumbled upon some great truth a long time back, “I don’t wanna travel so much any more. Home. That’s where I’d like to be. I have two bases: one in Venice, LA and the other, an hour outside Stockholm.

“Growing up, my family didn’t have any money. We lived in this tiny little cottage that was in the middle of the woods. Now, I have this piece of land, where my family lives. This past midsummer was the first midsummer that we all spent together.

“That’s my new happy place.”

Joel Kinnaman looks like a man who has placed the final piece in that mystery of his life. He has stopped worrying about how he’s perceived by the public. He has exorcised people who have “struggled with jealousy, who don’t have a natural inclination towards generosity”. He has zero tolerance against bullshit. He likes how his career is shaping up—aside from Suicide Squad 2, For All Mankind is now filming a second season, and Kinnaman has three films coming out: The Informer; The Sound of Philadelphia and The Secrets We Keep; the last two, he avers, are his best work. “People who have watched me for a long time, it will remind them of my early career and for people who recently followed me, they will see a new side of me.

“I have goals that I’d like to achieve. Actor awards are such bullshit… until you get one. But yeah, that would be great. In future, I’d definitely want to be in a producing role and at some point, I’d like to also direct.

“I’ve said that I’d direct in five years time for about 10 years now.” That might change. His life is still a long and open road ahead.

Schrodinger’s cat posits two states that the creature can be in—dead or alive. But what if there’s a third option. That within the confines of the box, the cat is not there. It’s escaped. Unburdened from the stipulations of a thought experiment, free to do what it wants.

#photoshoot #magazine #joel kinnaman #esquire singapore #interview #we feed on scraps of new info #ive linked his Spotify playlist for people who missed it in march

[tcstu]

July’s Honorable Mentions

This was a great month for the contest! The competition was fierce and it was incredibly difficult to choose a winning piece. I hope you’ll take a few minutes to read through the Honorable Mentions below and see the incredibly unique perspectives each writer took when approaching this piece of art. If you like someone’s entry, reach out to them and let them know. I’m sure they would appreciate hearing from you!

As a reminder, The artistic piece for this month’s contest is an untitled digital painting created by Aldara @aldara-art​ . Aldara has some incredible pieces, so if you like this digital painting, make sure you check out this artist’s page to see more original creations!

Note: The pieces below are listed in the order they were received and do not reflect any system of ranking.

“Duality”

Written by: @evanthenerd83​

“Don’t get too close,” whispered the father. “They’ll bite.”

He grabbed his son’s shoulders with both hands, steering him to the far side of the path. Where it was bright and safe.

The rocky soil was broken in some places. He’d seen movement inside, quick and subtle. Almost invisible. ‘Bugs,’ he thought, grimacing in disgust.

“Don’t let them see you,” whispered the mother. “They’ll crush.”

She held up her hand, signaling for her daughter to stay in the depths of their canyon. Where it was dark and safe.

The giants took big, prolonged steps. Shadows fell upon their land. Rocks were dislodged by the shaking. ‘Gods,’ she thought, staring in wonder.

Untitled

Written by: Felix @a-tapestry-of-words​

When they came, they said that they would help us, that they were good, that they came in peace. That didn’t last long. I’ve heard stories of what they’ve done, lucky enough myself to escape before their true nature was revealed. Now, survivors, how ever few we may be, hide away, away from the strange creatures that stole our land and our lives. Now, we live in fear of their glowing red eyes.

“Another World”

Written by: Manu @themidnxghtwriter​

Taru had never run faster. Their lungs were screaming for air but they couldn’t afford to stop. They ran. Over startlingly blue streams. Past dull, grey rocks. Their eyes watered in the thick, dusty air. Their muscles burned.

They couldn’t rest. They weren’t safe.

Someone, something was still following them.

Taru ducked into a cave, panting heavily. They couldn’t run any further. Their legs were numb. Their heartbeat roared in the ears. Their bare feet were throbbing, little crumbs of dirt digging into the soles. Dust and sweat matted Taru’s long dark hair. They slid down onto the ground, tears clearing a steady path in the dust on their face. Taru had to stop breathing so heavily. The Thing might hear them.

They couldn’t hear anything for a couple of beats. Steeling themselves, they dared to look out over the desert-like land.

It looked like any dry landscape from Earth would at first glance. Your second glance would show that it very obviously wasn’t. The lake in front of the cave was a striking, unnatural-looking blue that almost hurt to look at directly. It reflected a thin, watery light over the walls of the cave. Scaly reptilian beasts hissed from underwater. Grey-skinned creatures with long horns atop their heads stared at them with malicious curiosity. The rocks were a dull pink, almost as if they’d been painted over. The sky was a resolute, bright but fading purple. The moon had disappeared.

And an enormous shadow loomed in the distance. Each step it took made the ground quake beneath Taru. Glowing red eyes that bored into their soul. They’d already seen the indescribable horror that the thing was up close, barely escaping with their life and they wanted to pull the memory out with their bare hands if they could.

This was not Earth.

This was not the place Taru had woken up that morning.

And so, the only thing they could do was run.

“Watchers”

Written by: Blurred-Cat @blurred-cat​

"They they are again mum-- watching us."

"Well, child, they aren't watching. They've not the ability to anymore."

"What are they doing?"

"Isn't that the question? Not even the wisest among us know-- but it's always at the same hour."

"Who are they?"

"We know not their names, child, only that they departed this world too quickly-- in fire and light."

"You mean the great light that started the world," gasped the child, pulling up their horned mask.

"Yes, child. It tore them away for the world so swiftly their souls did stay bound," the mother lifted her horned mask, to look at her child, "And we know they continue the last moments of their life."

"But the stories say they brought the light," replied the child, confused.

"Not all of them-- only those with power. These were innocents," sighed the mother, "And they likely knew not of the Burning Light which killed them all. It is by their folly we do exist. Do not stare, child, else you go as mad as them-- the Humans."

In awe, the child lowered their mask, and turned their gaze away from the shadowy giants.

“Roamers”

Written by: L.W. Locke @lliuem​

They were the gods. Once a class of great kings. What remained of a long-gone civilization. A master race. Enough power to down an army of egocentric knights and their armor. Above all, they were human. Yet only two remained. They were the Roamers.

Hunted for glory and fame. They wanted no war. They only wanted peace. No longer did they walk the world freely. They lived in the shame of their fallen kings. The shadows welcomed them.

Darkness loomed over the cliffside. Not that of a landscape hidden by clouds. But something monstrous. Rolling thunder. The storm that never ceased. Yet not a cloud in the sky.

Waves crashed against the wall of rock. No noise. For in the sea below, a Roamer sat. Their shoulders barely above water. Because, of course, they were but a child. A prince as one would say.

Ignorant to the war-torn wreck that surrounded them. A ship. To them it was normal. Wreckage. Forgotten. To a king, it was a sign of loss. The loss that was scattered throughout the land.

The last king. They were the shadow. The darkness that loomed. Their hatred for the knights that only grew stronger day by day. Anger that could only be soothed by the prince. Hope.

The king made it their final quest to guard the prince from the evils of this world. No longer would they live in a world for themselves. Instead, they lived to keep the legacy of the fallen kings alive.

Through the Fog

Written by: @sarcasm-for-free​

The path they were taking through the patch of garden behind their new house was swallowed by thick fog.

An expedition, Joe had called it before tugging his father with an outstretched hand along. His wish for an adventure hadn’t been denied, and nothing would for the next few weeks, or at least for as long as he had double brownie points on his side for taking their sudden move so well. The job demanded it, dad had said. Although Joe still didn’t understand what his father even did for money. All he knew was that he always laughed funny and shrugged when people asked him for which company he was working.

“Careful,” dad said and pulled Joe closer to keep him from tripping over a big rock. The ground was becoming more uneven the longer they walked, the lush green grass tapering off into colorful gravel and protruding stones.

“What do you think is behind the fog?” Joe asked, peering at his dad because there wasn’t anything to see in front of him except for white and wobbly mist.

Dad smiled, once again kind of funny, at him. “What do you want there to be?”

Joe thought about it for a second, biting his lip. “Something cool.” He nodded decisively. “Not just a swing set.” Then he shook his head, slightly panicked. “Not that a swing would be bad.” Sometimes dad was illogically touchy about the strangest things, as mom had called it before she’d left them. It wouldn’t do to hurt him if they did end up with a swing set.

“Hm,” dad said. His smile turned into a wide grin. “Let’s find out.”

Tugging Joe along for a change, his father trudged deeper into the fog while he pulled a dark plastic box, as big as his palm, from his trouser pocket. Sometimes he did stuff like that. Like grabbing boxes with punched-in holes or bits and bobs with lots of flashy buttons out of nowhere, or smiling with too many teeth, or packing them up from Lincoln County, Nevada, to go to the weirdest places for no other reason than work and then move back barely a month later.

“Okay!”

But that was fine, Joe thought as his next step ended up crushing something crunchy and also oddly squishy under his shoe, because it was never boring with dad.

#July's Honorable Mentions #writing contest #writing community #writeblr #ekphrastic fiction #ekphrastic fiction contest #honorable mentions #contest honorable mentions

[emospritelet]

Yes, yes, I know it’s been ages *shrug emoji*

Last time, Lacey and Weaver told some truths and declared their love. It’s now them against the world. Or, more accurately, Lacey’s family.

(cover by @timelordthirteen​)

[AO3]

x

Lacey drew back reluctantly, leaving the comforting circle of Weaver’s arms, and wiped the tears from her cheeks. 

“How did you get here?” she asked, her voice thick with emotion.

“Took the plane out before you landed,” he said. “Followed you from the airport. Fa planted a tracker on you.”

“Fa - oh, she was the one who bumped into me?” Lacey guessed. “She’s good, I didn’t recognise her. You told her about me?”

“I told her you were in trouble. She and Dunbroch wanted to help.”

She nodded, feeling a surge of gratitude.

“Where are they now?”

“They followed the guy that dropped you here. I should really call, see how they are.”

“Felix won’t go far,” she said. “He’ll stay in town, I reckon. Probably get here early in the morning to drag me with him.”

“Then we’ll have to be ready, won’t we?”

He was watching her, a soft look in his eyes, and she wanted to cry and be held by him again. He was too good. She didn’t deserve him, and she was putting him in danger just by letting him love her. It hurt to think about, and so she turned her attention to the safe behind them.

“Do you have the right code?” she asked, her voice wobbling a little, and he nodded, reaching in his pocket for his phone.

“Took a picture of it before I changed it,” he said. “Figured it might come in useful.”

She gave him a flat look, hands on hips.

“You’re a sneaky bastard, anyone ever tell you that?” she said, and he showed his teeth.

“Takes one to know one, hmm?”

“Yeah, okay, I deserved that.” She stepped aside to give him access. “You want to do the honours?”

Weaver nodded, phone in hand, and bent to tap out a code on the keyboard, the flashing cursor bringing up a line of asterisks. This time there was a dull click, and when Lacey turned the dial, there was a tiny squeak from the mechanism as the door opened. She pulled it wide, peering inside, and Weaver held up his phone screen to give her a little more light. Inside she could see a thick folder, wedged in and curved to fit the small space. She reached for it, tugging it out. Another hard drive came with it, almost hitting the floor before Weaver caught it, and Lacey looked at the heavy holder in her hands. It was a cardboard concertina file, the kind that held legal documents, tied at the top with a piece of woven cotton. Lacey carried it to the desk and tugged at the bow, opening it up.

“What do we have?” asked Weaver, and she shrugged, pulling out a sheaf of papers and flicking through them.

“Not sure. Grandma said it was evidence that my mother gathered against my father. Looks like accounts, property deeds… wait, here’s a letterhead. Isaac Heller. That was the lawyer that was murdered, right?”

“So these files are his?” 

Weaver was looking over her shoulder, and she could smell his scent, warm and comforting. It made her want to kiss him, so she concentrated on his hands, turning the pages in front of her.

“Must have been what they were looking for,” he said, almost to himself, and she turned her head to face him.

“Who?”

“Whoever murdered him,” he said simply. “When I was first on the case, we went over to his place. It had been taken apart, even the couch cushions slashed open. Whatever this is, someone didn’t want us to have it.”

“Grandma said he wanted to carry on his wife’s legacy,” said Lacey, and Weaver nodded slowly.

“His wife was working with reformed criminals, getting information about your family,” he said. “She had this idealistic notion that the authorities would help her. Just got her killed.” He glanced at her. “Your grandmother spoke of this?”

“Not exactly,” admitted Lacey. “She wrote me a letter. Left it in the safe deposit box with the hard drive I gave to Felix. She said - she said she knew what was happening to her, and - and she wanted to find me while she could still speak. She agreed to try to help Heller finish his wife’s work, if he could find me. Guess he almost did.” 

“Guess so.” Weaver flicked through the pages, and stepped back. “Well. We can look through this later, as soon as we decide how we’re gonna proceed. Shall we eat? Mrs Potts should have made those sandwiches by now.”

“You met Mrs Potts?”

“She threatened to shoot me,” he said dryly, and Lacey giggled.

“Her bark’s worse than her bite.”

“Given that the gun she threatened to shoot me with turned out to be a frying pan, I believe you,” he remarked, and reached for her hand, holding it between his own and patting it gently. “Come on. Let’s go down to the kitchen. Put that back until we decide what to do.”

Lacey nodded, pulling away and shoving the folder back into the safe before sliding the hard drive in on top and shutting the door. Now that their confrontation was over, she felt drained and weary, her legs threatening to collapse underneath her and pitch her onto the rug. She was relieved when Weaver put an arm around her, guiding her back towards the door and down the stairs, and was happy to lean on him a little as they went.

Mrs Potts wasn’t in the kitchens, but she had set out a large plate of sandwiches: ham and mustard, pastrami with lettuce and tomato, and sliced egg salad with homemade mayonnaise. There were pieces of rich fruit cake, dark and moist, and small apple and cinnamon tarts. A bottle of red wine was open, two glasses by the side, and Weaver felt his mouth water. It had been a long day, and he had eaten little. Lacey reached for one of the sandwiches, slipping into a chair, and Weaver poured them each a glass of wine, taking the chair next to her and pulling the plate of sandwiches closer. He shifted in his seat a little, reaching into his back pocket for his notebook and pencil and setting it on the table in front of him before cramming one of the sandwiches into his mouth. Lacey raised an eyebrow, and he shrugged, brandishing the pencil as he chewed and swallowed.

“Thought I might as well start planning,” he said, and took another sandwich.

He wrote down the positives in their situation, what they had to their advantage, which was precious little beyond the information in the safe and the element of surprise. On the opposite page he wrote down what they were facing. This was a far longer list, and made him shake his head. He turned the page, making a list of what he knew about the Schwartz family from his own investigations, to make sure there was nothing he was missing. Lacey sat in silence for the most part, eating her way through some of the sandwiches, and occasionally coaxing him to eat some. The apple tarts were excellent. He had three of those.

After a while he ran out of information, and sat back with a sigh, taking a slurp of wine. Lacey reached for another of the sandwiches and took a bite, and Weaver pondered their options, tapping his pencil against the notebook. He dug in his pocket for his phone, flicking the screen to call Detective Fa. After a moment she answered with her usual terse greeting. There was music playing in the background, a rock ballad of some sort, and Weaver frowned.

“What’s your status?” he asked, and she sighed.

“We followed the guy to a dive bar where he’s been drinking beer and playing pool with a bunch of local no-hopers,” she said. “I had to restrain Merida from getting up to play him herself.”

“Good,” said Weaver. “She’d kick his arse, and we don’t need that kind of attention.”

“Looks like he’s settled in for the night,” she said. “There’s a bed and breakfast up the road: I heard him tell one of the idiots he’s playing that he has a room there. Merida went to book us in.”

“Okay. Make sure you keep an eye on him.”

“Thanks, I’d never have thought of that,” she said sarcastically. “How are things with you? Did you find Lacey?”

“I did.” He ran a hand through his hair. “She’s fine. I’ll fill you in later. We’ve got some planning to do, so I’ll call again.”

“If there’s any movement from this end, I’ll call.”

“Good. Thanks, Fa.”

“Anytime, asshole.”

Weaver grinned, hanging up, and put down the phone. 

“They’re keeping an eye on what’s-his-name,” he said. “He won’t make a move without them seeing.”

“Good,” she said. “He’ll be back tomorrow morning to take me back to Vegas, though, so we need to come up with a plan.”

“If you have any brilliant ideas, now’s the time to tell me.”

Lacey shook her head, looking rueful.

“Fresh out,” she said gloomily. “If I was feeling self-serving, I’d say offer them Heller’s info in exchange for leaving us the hell alone, but they can’t be trusted. None of them.”

She took a bite of her sandwich, and Weaver nodded, picking up his pencil again.

“Besides,” she added, her words muffled by sandwich. “I kinda want to finish what Grandma started, you know?”

“I understand,” he said. “The more I think about it, the more it looks like an us or them situation. Let’s make sure it’s fucking us that comes out of this alive, right?”

“Means we have to kill ‘em,” she said, looking dejected.

“Does that bother you?”

“Only that it’s bloody impossible.”

“No one’s impossible to kill,” said Weaver grimly.

Lacey wrinkled her nose, as if to say she disagreed with him, but she said nothing, taking another bite of her sandwich. Weaver tapped his pencil against the pad, thinking.

“What can you tell me about the kind of set-up they have down there?” he asked, and Lacey shrugged, chewing and swallowing.

“Big complex out in the desert,” she said. “About five miles out of Vegas. Sometimes my father or Fiona will visit the casinos. but most of the time they’re at the house. And there’s no schedule for when they do their visits, either.”

“So no way to intercept them at the casinos, then,” he said. “What about the house? What sort of defences do they have?”

She shook her head.

“You won’t be able to get in,” she said. “The complex may look like a mansion, but it’s stuffed full of armed guards and the rest of the scum that work for them. Took me long enough to work out how to leave, never mind getting back in there.”

“I’m resourceful,” he said, and she put a hand over his, giving him a firm look.

“I know that, Rafe, but you’re also mortal,” she said. “No need to go out in a blaze of glory. No point.”

“True,” he agreed. “No such thing as a glorious death, in my opinion. Usually it’s just a fucking waste, and that’s not what I want for us. I want us to come out of this whole and healthy with a new life ahead of us. Me, you, and Tilly.”

“Good,” she said, sitting back. “Because I’d get Mrs Potts to sit on you until you agreed not to go, anyway.”

“Right.” He chuckled and reached for a piece of cake, breaking a chunk off and stuffing it in his mouth as he scribbled some notes. “So a head-on attack’s out of the question. What about the guy who drove you here? Felix?”

Lacey shrugged.

“Loyal, far as I can tell,” she said. “My father always punished disloyalty in pretty lethal ways. And he paid well. Kind of dissuaded anyone from turning on him.”

“So I can’t break in there, and we can’t get someone on the inside to get me in,” he mused, running a hand over his mouth.

“Except me,” she said, and Weaver shook his head firmly.

“There’s no way I’m sending you into something where I can’t go in and drag you out,” he said. “From what you say, the police can’t be relied on, and I agree. A lot of my investigations involving the Vegas connection were met with stonewalling. Any suggestion to them that your father and his crew should be taken out would probably be referred to him.”

“Sounds about right,” she said gloomily, and took a drink of wine. Weaver sighed, sweeping a hand through his hair.

“In which case, I have another proposal,” he said.

“Which is?”

“We stay here,” he said, jabbing a finger on the table top. “Make our stand. Make them come to us.”

Lacey looked thoughtful.

“You mean I tell Felix to fuck off back to Vegas without me?” she said. “You’re thinking they’ll turn up to drag me back, hmm? Could work. We’ll need to keep you, Merida and Mulan out of it, though.”

Weaver shook his head.

“I’m not leaving you to face Felix alone…”

“I’ve been dealing with assholes like that my whole life,” she insisted. “I can tell him to go screw himself without any input from you guys, trust me.”

“And if he decides to shoot first and explain it to his boss later?” he demanded, and Lacey shook her head.

“My father wants to see me, according to Fiona,” she said. “No way Felix is gonna sign his own death warrant by getting in the way of that. I’m telling you, this could work. But I’m gonna need your gun.”

Weaver drummed his fingers on the table, eyeing her, and Lacey raised her chin with that stubborn look she got.

“Okay, fine,” he said wearily. “But you face him somewhere I can watch both of you and not be seen, okay?”

“Okay,” she said, nodding. “I can do that.”

“Which brings us to the matter of your father and stepmother,” he said. “Ideally we want them both to come here. And the - the Blue Fairy too, if possible.”

Lacey pursed her lips.

“You really did your homework, didn’t you?”

Weaver inclined his head.

“It’s my job.”

“It’s kind of sexy. Anyone ever tell you that?”

“Not in living memory, no,” he said, grinning.  “What do you think? You think they’ll come to us?”

“My father and Fiona, probably,” she said. “Not sure about Azurine - that’s the Blue Fairy, in case you didn’t have her name. And definitely not if they think it’s a setup. If they get the slightest whiff of someone else being here, they’re gonna flood this place with armed men and it’ll end up a bloodbath. Which means I need to convince Felix it’s just me being a stubborn brat, so he leaves for Vegas without me.”

“You think he will?”

Lacey pulled a face.

“Depends how strict my father was with his orders,” she said. “There again, he has the hard drive, so maybe that’s all they want. He may go and - and they might not come.”

“Maybe not,” he agreed. “In which case we have to come up with a better plan.”

“It’s not a great plan, is it?” she said heavily. “Piss off a minion and wait for your murderous mob boss father to turn up?”

“You got any better ideas?” he asked, and she snorted.

“God, no! Considering what we have to work with, it’s as good as it gets. Just don’t fuck it up by bursting into the room if Felix gets handsy, okay?”

“I’m a patient man,” he said evenly, and she smiled.

“Guess you proved that, huh?” she said, and grasped his hand again. “I don’t deserve you, Detective Weaver.”

“Bollocks,” he said dismissively, and leaned in to kiss her. “We decided a long time ago that we were gonna make a life together. That hasn’t changed for me just because of some difficult relatives.”

“Difficult?” Lacey looked amused. “Understatement of the century.”

She kissed him again, and pressed her forehead to his affectionately. Weaver sighed, reaching up to stroke her hair.

“Are you finished with the food?” he asked, and she nodded.

“Yeah, I’m done.”

Weaver kissed her forehead, nuzzling her nose with his as he breathed in the scent of her.

“Come on, then,” he said quietly. “Let’s go to bed.”

Lacey let him pull her to her feet, and they each took a glass of wine, heading up the stairs into the main part of the house. She led the way, one hand on the gleaming banister, walking along thickly-carpeted corridors to the bedroom with the sage green walls and the large bed where she had slept for the months she had spent apart from him, back when Tilly had been growing inside her, back when she thought she would never see him again. Four years on, and she wanted him even more than she had that first night, their relationship changed from hesitant first-time lovers into something intense, something real.

She closed the door behind them, setting her glass of wine down on the nightstand as she turned on one of the lamps. Weaver turned off the main light, the lamp sending a warm, muted glow around the room, making the shadows of his eyes and cheekbones deeper and darker. She sat on the edge of the bed, tugging off her boots, and he took a sip of his wine as he watched her run fingers through her curls. He was very still, and for a terrible, frightened moment she thought perhaps he wouldn’t want her. Her teeth caught at her lower lip nervously.

“Is - is this okay?” she faltered. “I - I never asked if you wanted to share a bed with me.”

His face softened, and he stepped forward, putting his glass next to hers and cupping her cheek with a warm hand as he sank down onto his heels, gazing up at her.

“I have missed you so, so much,” he whispered. “I love you, Lacey. I love you and I want you.”

His other hand reached up, framing her face, and she could smell the scent of him on his fingers, musk and spice, a hint of leather from his jacket and the faintest whiff of cologne. She turned her head a little to kiss his palm, nuzzling him with her nose, and he shifted onto his knees, pressing his forehead to hers as his fingers pushed into her hair. She could feel her breath quicken as his mouth brushed against hers, and he kissed her gently, lips pulling and stroking. Her hands slid over his shoulders, fingers brushing up over the nape of his neck and into his hair as the kiss deepened.

Weaver drew back, sitting on his heels again as he shrugged out of his jacket. Lacey was watching him with those beautiful eyes of hers, wide and shining, her lips full and dark. He could feel his heart thumping, his mind humming with a jumbled mess of emotions: pure love for his wife tinged with fear over the dangers they faced, and determination that they would get through it together. Lacey reached for him, fingers shaking a little as they plucked at the buttons of his shirt, and he sat still, letting her unfasten them and push the shirt from his shoulders before shrugging it off. He shifted closer, pushing in between her legs, hands sliding up her thighs as he knelt up to press his mouth to hers.

She tasted sweet, of wine and cinnamon sugar, and she let out a tiny moan as his tongue slipped into her mouth and stroked gently. He broke the kiss, pulling back a little, and his hands pushed her dress up her thighs. Lacey shifted, letting him slip it over her hips and around her waist before lifting her arms so that he could tug the dress over her head. She reached behind to unhook her bra, tossing it to the side, and he let out a heavy sigh of contentment, eyes running over her pale curves, reaching up to cup her breasts with gentle hands. Lacey was tugging at her lower lip with her teeth, as though she was trying to stop it from trembling, and so he kissed her again, trying to send her reassurance, wanting to comfort her. 

Her fingers were touching his chest, gently stroking over his skin and raising goosebumps on his flesh as her thumbs circled his nipples. It felt good to be touched by her again, to know that she loved him, that they were united, that she would let him fight for her. Lacey’s kiss grew hungry, her hands sliding up over his shoulders and tugging him closer, and he let his own hands follow the curve of her waist, fingers hooking beneath the waistband of her tights and tugging them down with her underwear. He had to move back to push them down her thighs and tug them off at her feet, but then he leaned in to kiss her again, mouth trailing along her jaw and down her throat. 

Lacey moaned, lowering herself back onto the bed as his hands parted her knees, feeling him press his body against hers, the buckle of his belt hard and cold against the hot skin of her belly. She wrapped her legs around his back, wanting to keep him there, to feel the comforting heat and weight of him against her. She had missed him so much, and the fact that he loved her still, after all her lies and her attempts to push him away, made her want to cry. It felt good to be held, to be wanted, to know that there was no more need for secrets and defensiveness. It felt good to be honest with the man she loved.

She ran her hands through his hair, loving the softness of it, the way it slid through her fingers, the scent of him drifting into her nose as his tongue probed her mouth. His kisses were hard and urgent, almost desperate, and she was reminded of the night that Tilly had been made, the night when they had needed one another with a passion that had surprised them both. She needed him again, and she reached between them, fumbling at his belt. Weaver drew back, getting to his feet to unbuckle the belt and take off his jeans and boots, and she wriggled on the bed, pulling back the blankets and slipping inside. 

The sheets were crisp and cool and scented with the lavender fabric softener she remembered so well. She closed her eyes, focusing on the thud of her pulse and the cool cotton sheets, smiling a little as she felt the bed dip with the weight of his body. Weaver slipped in beside her, a warm hand sliding up to cup her breast as he covered her body with his, firm chest pressing down on her. His lips trailed along her jaw to find her mouth, and she moaned as he kissed her, his hand sliding back down, over the flat of her belly and between her legs. Lacey gasped into his mouth as he touched her, fingers sliding through delicate flesh, spreading the slippery wetness he released. Her hands gripped his shoulders, nails digging in a little as his fingers pushed inside her, and Weaver groaned into her mouth, pulling his lips from hers to kiss down her throat.

She could feel him against her thigh, the hard, hot length of him, and she gasped, letting her head roll back as his fingers pushed in and out of her, his thumb brushing over her clit and sending jolts of pleasure through her. He kept his thrusts slow and steady, working her up to what she knew would be a blissful climax, but she wanted him inside her. She wanted to feel him deep within her, to take him with her when she came.

Her hands pushed at him, making him raise his head, and he stilled for a moment, confusion wrinkling his brow before she slipped a hand down between their bodies to grasp his cock and squeeze. He let out a low growl, kissing her neck again, his teeth gently nipping before his tongue swept over her pulse point, and Lacey sighed in pleasure, running her hands up his sides and around his back. Drawing out his fingers, he took himself in hand, shifting a little before guiding himself into her, and she moaned as she felt him slide deep, pushing into her, a deep groan rumbling up through his chest. 

Weaver felt Lacey lift her knees, inner thighs sliding up his sides so that he could push deeper. He sank into her hot flesh with a groaning gasp of pleasure, and cupped her face with shaking hands, fingers pushing into her dark curls as he pressed his brow to hers.

“God, I’ve missed you, sweetheart!” he breathed, nuzzling her nose with his. “I’ve missed you so much! I love you, Lacey. Always, always.”

Her lower lip trembled, and she nodded, tears welling up in her eyes as her fingers stroked through his hair, sending shivers through him. Two tears tracked down her cheeks, and he kissed them away, his mouth finding hers, tongue stroking against her own as he began to move with slow, rhythmic circles of his hips. Lacey arched her back a little, pushing her breasts against his chest as she moaned into his mouth. Being inside her felt incredible, the sensations enhanced by their honesty, by her declaration. He could feel love for her rising within him, a swelling tide brimming over and waiting to wash over them. 

She wrapped her legs around his back, tugging him close against her, and Weaver pulled his mouth from hers, saliva making their lips slippery, his breath coming in pants. His cock was thick and rigid, sliding in and out of her, and there was heat and wetness where their bodies joined, the pull of her flesh against his a delicious sensation. She arched upwards with a moan as he ground against her, head rolling back a little as she tilted her hips upwards, and he quickened his pace, his thrusts growing harder, deeper.

Lacey could feel him nearing his peak, his cock a thick rod of hard flesh inside her, the scent of his musk and sweat in her nose and the taste of him in her mouth. It was almost too much, the rising bliss and the feel of him pressing down on her. The thick silver links of the chain he wore around his neck hung down, cold against her skin where it touched her, and he kissed her again, messy and desperate, his stubble scraping against her chin and his fingers still sticky with her fluids as they pushed into her hair. 

She could feel heat rising, her climax approaching, and she broke the kiss with a gasp, cheeks flushing as her body stiffened. A wave of pleasure broke over her, and she came with a cry, clutching at him, bucking her hips against him. Weaver followed her with a low, guttural groan, his cock pulsing deep inside her as her flesh tugged at his, and she peppered his neck with kisses, tongue sweeping over his damp skin and licking up the taste of salt and musk and the faint, clean smell of his cologne

Weaver pushed up on his elbows, letting his head drop as he tried to catch his breath, the cool air in the room starting to lick along the damp skin of his naked back. Lacey was murmuring contentedly, hands stroking through his hair, and he felt a surge of love for her as the bliss of his orgasm faded. He raised his head, blinking sleepily, and she was watching him through heavy-lidded eyes, a tiny smile curving her perfect mouth. He found himself smiling back, and her lower lip wobbled again as she reached up to cup his cheek, thumb rasping against his stubble as she stroked.

“I love you,” she whispered. “I love you so much, believe me.”

Weaver kissed her palm, his nose nuzzling the tips of her fingers before he turned back to press his forehead against hers and feel her warm breath against his lips.

“Yes,” he said, his voice rough with emotion. “And I love you, too.”

#fic: things left unsaid #woven lace fic #woven lace #my fic #rumbelle fic #rumbelle #anyelle #lemon fic #rather large estate #woven lace smut

[juniperwindsong]

Four Things Felix Rosier Remembered.

Fall 1980

"And this is Felix Rosier," the Slytherin prefect says, introducing the first year to the teenagers seated around the fire. "Yes, yes. Of those Rosiers."

Eyes turn to inspect the eleven year old Felix. He's acutely conscious of how short he is compared to the older students.

"Well, don't just stand there," says the prefect with an encouraging smile, motioning Felix to join them. "Come. Sit."

Felix takes stiff steps toward the sofa. When he reaches it, the prefect pats the space next to him and Felix perches straight-backed on the edge of the seat.

The prefect's badge gleams in the firelight. So do his perfect, even teeth as he flashes his dazzling smile again. Felix wonders which of those is the main supplier of the older boy's supreme confidence, and how he, Felix, might go about obtaining it.

"So, you’re Evan's...brother?" asks the girl across from him. Her skin and hair are dark, but her eyes are such a light grey they're almost white and painful to look at. They flash as cold and cutting as diamonds.

"Cousin," Felix answers. "But I see him all the time. He stays at our manor most summers."

"Really?" the girl drawls, smiling in a way that makes Felix uncomfortable and tapping her cheek with a long black fingernail. "I'd love to hear more about him."

The boy next to her glances up from his book at this. He eyes the girl disdainfully before warning Felix, "I wouldn't go throwing that bit of information around, if I were you. Unless you want to get yourself hexed."

"What does that mean?" asks Felix confused.

"It means he's a coward," sneers the girl with diamond-like eyes and she flicks the boy with the book hard on the temple. The boy turns on her, snarling. They draw wands so fast Felix barely sees it and he flinches involuntarily.

The prefect intervenes. "Enough," he commands. "We don't eat our own."

The girl and the boy glare at each other, but lower their wands. Felix gazes at the prefect in awe.

The prefect crosses one leg over the other comfortably and addresses Felix. "What he means, Rosier, is that a lot of the students and staff here are related to people your cousin has killed. All in the name of the cause, of course, but still...you're not likely to make friends with anyone outside of the house by dropping his name."

Felix furrows his brow. "I don't understand. Aren't most people on our side now? My father says it's only ‘the dregs’ left."

The diamond-eyed girl chuckles at this. It makes Felix shiver.

"He isn't wrong. But the dregs make up a sizeable proportion of this place," she says scornfully.

When Felix continues to look puzzled, the prefect again interprets. "While the real war may be going in our favour, the school has not yet been cleansed. There are three other houses, each full of mudbloods and traitors who will hex you as soon as look at you just because you wear green. If they find out who your family is-"

"Let's just say, they'll attribute it a less pleasant sort of honour," the girl finishes. She mimes throwing a curse at Felix using her finger as a wand. He flinches again, visibly, and she laughs at him.

"Don't worry, Rosier," the prefect reassures him. "You're in Slytherin now. We're our own family here. We watch out for each other, have each other's backs. Never forget that." He puts an arm around Felix's shoulder and squeezes lightly. "It's why we're the top house."

A tingling warmth spreads through Felix's chest at the physical contact, burning away the nervous tension. The older students continue to chatter, but Felix only half-listens, focused on enjoying the feeling of belonging that he's craved for so long.

Winter 1980

"So, you're Felix Rosier," the older boy chuckles, straightening his green and silver tie. "Nearly had it there, didn't you?"

Felix scrambles to his feet, shame burning in his cheeks. He kicks aside the legs of the Gryffindor third year lying partly on top of him, immobilised by the older boy's timely jinx.

"Thank you," Felix pants, retrieving his wand from the floor.

"Bit old for you to go picking a fight with, isn't he?"

Felix scowls. "He's a mud-blood. He made a crack about my cousin."

The older boy makes a derisive chuffing sound and Felix looks at him more closely. Obviously in Slytherin, by his tie, but Felix hasn't seen him before. He's tall and well-built, exuding that casually confident air that Felix wishes for so desperately. He twirls his wand absently between his fingers, and Felix makes a mental note to practice that later.

"Mud-blood," repeats the older boy with something like amusement. "Listen kid, all that stuff about blood? It's a myth. Blood doesn't have anything to do with your magic."

Felix gapes at him. "But...my father says-"

" 'Rosier', right?" the older boy interrupts. "Yeah, you've got those old-fashioned sort of parents. Lots of people in our house do." The older boy motions for Felix to follow him and they set off down the deserted corridor. "Do yourself a favor," the boy continues, "Don't buy into all that rubbish. It'll hold you back from allying yourself with people who could be useful to you."

They come to a door at the end of the hallway, and the older boy opens it with a tap of his wand. Felix notices he doesn't have to voice his spell.

"Some of the most powerful wizards I know are muggle-borns. And the power of your magic is what matters." They step out into a hallway Felix has never seen before, and the older boy leads him toward a tapestry concealing a flight of stairs.

Felix isn't sure what to say. He's never heard anyone talk like this before. He realizes with a jolt that the boy must not be a Death Eater, the way he naturally assumes everyone in his house is.

"You don't work with the Dark Lord, then?"

"Nope. I only work for myself. Jump that step, it's a trick," the older boy warns, and Felix hops over the step in question hurrying to catch up.

"Choosing a side is just backing yourself into a corner," explains the older boy. He glances left and right before stepping off the staircase into a passageway Felix finally recognizes as leading to the dungeons. "Good guys and bad guys, right and wrong, that shit changes all the time. But you know what lasts forever?" The boy turns and winks at the open-mouthed Felix: "Treasure."

"What, like gold?" asks Felix, awe-struck.

The boy raises an eyebrow mysteriously. "There's all kinds of treasure, kid."

They've reached the entrance to the Slytherin common room. The older boy gives the password and the wall begins to open. He motions with his hand for Felix to go through.

"Aren't you coming?" Felix asks hopefully. He isn't sure he understands any of what the older boy is saying, but it's fascinating, and he doesn't want the conversation to end just yet.

The older boy shakes his head. "Nope. Things to do. Just wanted to make sure you didn't get yourself cursed on the way back. The halls are dangerous right now."

Felix hesitates. "Do you think...you could show me that jinx sometime?"

"Wish I could, kid, but between you and me? I don't think I'll be around here much longer." The older boy winks again, and sidesteps Felix before he can ask anything else. "But there's a book on dueling hidden in the artefact room. Look through it sometime. And remember what I said."

"I will," Felix assures him, wondering which of the many strange things the boy has said in their short conversation he's talking about specifically. Felix walks dazedly through the entrance wall, then remembers something and whips around.

"What's your name?" he asks as the bricks begin to close between them.

The older boy gives him a lop-sided grin. "Jacob Windsong."

Winter 1981

"You are Felix Rosier!" His father pronounces, giving the last name an emphasis bordering on reverence. "Rosiers do not give in the demands of peasants."

The first rule of the house is not to contradict his father. Felix knows this better than anyone.

"But my name doesn't mean anything anymore!  Not to anyone at school! They-" 

The sight of his father's drawn wand makes Felix's throat constrict and his voice fade away to nothing. His father lifts the wand to point at Felix's torso and he flinches involuntarily.

"Doesn't mean anything?" His father repeats the offensive words, his voice low and deadly. "It is a pureblood name of the most noble history. A leader even among the Sacred Twenty-Eight." His dark eyes flash with fury as he intones, "It means everything."

Felix's insides writhe in silent despair. He can't decide which he fears more: his father's wrath or finishing his second year at Hogwarts.

The two months since the fall of the Dark Lord have been chaos. It's open season on anyone with even the most distant death eater affiliation. Felix has lost count of the number of times he's been hexed in the halls, even by students in his own house, desperate to prove to the rest of the school they're not one of those Slytherins. We don't eat our own, his prefect had said. But that's all gone to hell now, and his prefect with it. Like most of the house, he disappeared before the holiday break.

"Beauxbatons is just as prestigious as Hogwarts," his mother ventures timidly from her chair near the fire. "And the estate in France needs caring for. Why not go where the name will be appreciated?"

His father turns his glare at his mother, who lowers her eyes like a dog.

"Because we've lost a battle, not a war." His father begins to pace. "The Dark Lord will return. And if he doesn't, someone else will rise eventually. I will not abandon the cause, nor let Evan's death be in vain."

He shoots a dark look at his son. His father had never made his preference for Evan a secret. He often remarked in Felix's presence how much more satisfactory Evan was in every way.

Jealously sparks inside Felix, rekindling his nerve. "Father, I don't want to go back. I want to go to Beauxbatons. I-"

His father stops pacing and revolves on the spot to face him.

Felix's voice falters. "Please."

His father does not speak until he's towering over Felix. His voice is so low it's almost a whisper, but Felix cringes at the fury behind each word.

"There are more important things than always doing what you want." For such a slight man, his father takes up an enormous amount of space. He's all Felix can see. "Want is for children. For lesser wizards. Those who do not have the weight of a sacred name to uphold. Do you understand?"

Felix nods.

"Answer me." His father's hand twitches toward his pocket where his wand is hidden. Felix gulps.

"Yes, sir."

His father grips Felix's chin and jerks his head up to look him directly in the eye.

"Evan is dead and I am in disgrace.” He says this without the least emotion. "As much as it pains me, you are the face of the Rosiers now." He relinquishes his grip on Felix, who keeps his eyes forward all the same.

"So, you will return to Hogwarts. You will excel. If they push you, you will push back. Harder. You will make the name Rosier great again. And you will not disappoint me. Do you understand?"

Felix's dread has not abated. It still sits in his stomach like a leaden weight. But there's something else growing in him now too. This is what he's always wanted. A chance to prove himself. To prove he's just as powerful as Evan was. That he can be what his father wants. That he is worthy of his name.

Felix lifts his chin a little higher, trying to mimic his father's perfect, imperious expression.

"Yes, sir."

Fall 1984

"You're Felix Rosier?" the Gryffindor girl called Angelica glares at him, arms crossed. "Cousin of Evan? Son of that bastard who bought his way out of Azkaban?"

Felix is on his feet, wand drawn in less than a second, but all three of the train compartment's other occupants are right behind him. The four new prefects size each other up, wands raised. The tall, lanky Ravenclaw prefect called Chester speaks first.

"Let's just all take a breath, okay? It we start dueling each other before we even reach school, they'll take our badges away." Chester sets his face grimly. "And I don't know about you, but I worked hard to be here."

Angelica and Felix regard each other warily, each lowering their wand at exactly the same time. The short Hufflepuff prefect called Jane mutters something that sounds like "Babies," before tucking her own wand away.

The train gives a lurch as it rounds a corner, and all four are forced to resume their seats before they topple over. A very tense silence follows. Felix keeps his face guarded, but his heart sinks into his stomach. This is exactly the sort of confrontation he's been dreading.

It's almost three years since the war ended, and the attacks in the halls have largely subsided. Slytherins still keep mostly to themselves, and Felix is no exception. But being a prefect has been his dream since his first year at Hogwarts, and he's not going to let anything get in the way of that.

"So, we're supposed to look over the list of rules and banned items." Chester references the roll of parchment they've been given to review. "It looks like they've added a few this year. First is-"

Angelica interrupts him. "How are we supposed to work with him?" She gestures at Felix. "He's practically a Death Eater."

Usually, Felix wouldn't rise to the accusation, but he's on edge. "I'm no more a Death Eater than you are a muggle just because you're related to them."

Angelica calls Felix something that makes his eyebrows shoot up his forehead and causes Jane to let out an eerily high pitched laugh. Chester grabs Angelica's arm before she can draw her wand.

"Okay, that's enough." Chester looks back and forth between the Sytherin and Gryffindor. "How on earth will we set an example for our houses if we can't even treat each other with civility?"

Felix gives the Ravenclaw boy an appraising look. He knows Chester only by his academic reputation. The two of them have always been neck and neck for top of the class, and Felix has only ever regarded him with the same wary competitiveness appropriate to any rival. Now, he feels a grudging admiration for his fellow prefect's dedication to responsiblities over rivalries. It's an attitude he wants to emulate.

Felix slicks his hair down where pieces have come out of place and takes a deep breath, turning to face Angelica again.

"How about, I'll keep quiet about your family if you will about mine," Felix proposes, his voice as passive as he can make it.

Angelica narrows her eyes, inspecting him closely. Felix has the impression she's searching for a sign he's mocking her, and he keeps his face as conciliatory as possible. After a minute, she mutters, "Whatever," crosses her arms, and looks stubbornly out the window.

"Do you really not mind working with muggle-borns?" inquires Jane, her strangely bland eyes on Felix. It unnerves him how little expression can be gleaned from her facial features.

"I'll work with anyone as long as they don't get in my way of being Headboy," Felix announces.

"No promises there," warns Chester. "Slytherins aren't the only ones with ambitions."

"No, just the ones who know how to achieve them," retorts Felix.

The two boys size each other up across the compartment. Then Chester smiles and Felix smirks.

Angelica rolls her eyes hugely at them.

"How about a truce, then? Until sixth year at least?" Chester suggests, looking around at the other three prefects.

"Very well," agrees Felix solemnly, trying not to sound too eager.

Jane nods.

Angelica wrinkles her nose. "Fine." She leans over and snatches the roll of parchment from Chester.

The three other prefects sink back into their seats as Angelica begins reading off this year's newly banned items. Chester glances across at Felix and repeats his tired smile. Felix can't quite bring himself to smile back - it's not an expression he often indulges in - but he tries his best to look appreciative.

He allows himself to relax in his seat just a fraction, enjoying the heady sense of pride and accomplishment that emanates from the prefect badge finally pinned to his chest. This year, for the first time, Felix feels confident enough to handle anything Hogwarts throws at him.

#felix rosier #felix rosier fanfiction #Jacob #hogwarts mystery #jacob's sibling #chester davies #angelica cole #jane court #hogwarts prefects #felix rosier x chester #felixxchester #felix/chester fanfiction #hogwarts mystery fanfic #hphm fanfiction #fanfiction #hphm #death eaters #slytherin #evan rosier

[midrashic]

[headcanon] a map of hidden places i: new york city

{ a map of hidden places }

the first time james visits new york is more accident than anything; there’s a weapons expo and it’s january, and surely new york in january can’t be any more unpalatable than scotland in january. there are restaurants and boutiques whose names were, even then, synonymous with luxury, but james spends most of his time in the hotel room with the nanny playing with the puzzle ball he’d received that christmas. enid takes him to the natural history museum to see the mammoth bones, to central park to stare at the bare, shivering tree skeletons while he mounds old snow into various blobby shapes.

he doesn’t remember any of this; by the time he’s ten, new york is just a vague smear of concrete and solitude in his imagination, a glimpse of a faded marble facade that blends into all the other glimpses of all the other cities of everywhere else his father has ever had a conference.

for years, there’s the odd holiday abroad with his aunt, a trip with a school friend whose father owns a major hotel in the city or something. then there’s the navy. he learns new york in thirty-six hour stretches of shore leave, and he learns new york through the eyes of dozens of royal navy sailors, which mainly means that he learns very fast which bars near the harbor serve something roughly as strong as paint thinner for a measly two dollars per drink, or a dozen for a twenty.

but he learns other things, too. he saves up the days of walking on solid earth for the weeks when his feet won’t touch dry land and wanders into the neighborhoods that his well-to-do parents and guardians never let him anywhere near: bushwick, the lower east side, basically all of the bronx. new york city’s just hit its peak for violent crime, though someone only attempts to mug him once and gets a broken jaw for his trouble besides. the strangest thing for a brit is the gunshots that will ring out randomly, multiple times a night, but that’s true for every american city he’s ever visited.

he experiments with the subway. the tube in the 80s and 90s was no picnic, but hell, he learns, is a suspiciously empty new york subway car.

one strange thing: over the course of one particular weekend, he runs into a girl he slept with on shore leave in kingstown in a pizzeria named something uncreative like “48th street pizza,” an old university professor in a rare book store, a boy who was in the class above him at eton in bryant park, and then the girl again at a bar that night. (there is indeed a repeat performance.) this is a statistically accurate sampling of how often he recognizes a face from his past. back then, it was the third-largest city in the world, after tokyo and osaka, but it could sometimes feel very fatalistically small.

& then he’s in new york fairly often as a junior agent, but he doesn’t really tap the veins of the city until he’s a double-oh.

the thing about new york is that, for all that you tend to run into people you haven’t seen in years fairly frequently, it’s a great place to disappear. there’s no way to cover every possible exit when planning an ambush and a thousand laundromats, bars, and, hell, magic shops to duck into when you’re being tailed. vaguely seedy fleatraps that bill themselves as “youth hostels” where you can rent a room for four months and leave without anyone having asked you your name. the city seems to boast a disproportionate number of people sitting alone in the corners of coffeeshops, bars, hotel lobbies. it’s the first thing he thinks of when the name shows up in a mission briefing or news article: the pure relief of being quietly ignored, of being anyone, of being no one. he kills a drug kingpin and sips espresso at a café patio ten feet away as the police begin to boredly take statements. he garrotes a man in a bodega bathroom and no one notices for three days because it’s always out of order anyway. new york makes it so easy, so very easy to let a face become a file become a statistic. it has a carelessness with its people that he’s used to seeing in the third world, in places where the corruption is overt, in places that don’t even pretend to have a functioning police system. new york doesn’t care about you.

it also makes it so very easy to pick people up.

in a lot of ways, new york is a lot like london. it’s not every city in the world where you can get a sandwich at four am because the son of a bitch you were surveilling spent five hours haggling over uranium shipments with his contact, which was four hours and fifty minutes longer than he needed to spend. there’s a certain level of mercenary profit-seeking required to keep a sandwich shop open all night, damn circadian rhythms.

but new york takes it to excess. in london, you can probably find 24/7 takeaway within a reasonable walking distance, but in new york, you’re guaranteed to have at least five in the immediate neighborhood and eight more if you’re willing to go a little further for a substantial uptick in quality. during a particularly frustrating bit of downtime not longer after the quantum incident, bond strolls into a midnight karate class for no other reason than he’s bored and wants to see what kind of people can only do karate in the middle of the night. it’s a surprisingly friendly bunch, two night shift workers, a sleep-deprived college student, a jumpy little tweaker, and a single mother who decides to do this with her scant two hours of free time weekly. it’s taught by a petite woman who hits with the precision of an architect and used to practice jiu-jitsu competitively until a back strain caused her to switch to a sport with more standing and less rolling around on the ground.

he does try to sleep with her, but they actually end up sharing a platter of nachos in between (fittingly) manhattans at a bar and chatting about differences in karate conditioning techniques and shitty b-movies. the bartender joins in for the latter. he walks away that morning to another endless round of negotiation with the cia feeling strangely refreshed for a man who got no sleep and no sex.

bond ends up censoring his new york reports more than any other locale, not because missions go wrong in new york more often than anywhere else, but because they tend to go wrong in utterly baffling and sometimes embarrassing ways when he’s in new york. in the reports, he changes the timely plague mask-wearing flash mob that allowed him to escape his pursuer to a traffic jam, the girl wearing a dress made of lettuce that beat a terrorist into submission with her tomato purse into a well-placed police officer, the message he got painted on his nails in gold glitter to a simple note (it worked, the fsb searched him and found nothing and apparently manicured men in brioni are common enough in the city that no one even gave him a second look). new york is many things, but it spits on the dignity of the profession.

felix hates new york, hilariously. he calls it “the big asshole.” he hates the garbage sitting out on the streets, the way you can never tell whether a puddle is rain or urine, the flimsy little metrocards, the food deserts, the traffic, my god, the traffic. (bond has to agree: it’s bad. he once walked to laguardia instead of waiting for a taxi.) the only places he hates more than new york are minnesota and south sudan, which are the foreseeable consequences of a boy from texas spending his first winter away from home in the midwest and being a sane person with a functioning sense of smell. but for some reason, international criminals turn up in new york a lot more often than they do in ann arbor or south sudan, so felix has no choice but to spend sometimes weeks or months at a time in his third-least-favorite place in the world.

(bond knows why he really hates new york: in 2003 he was chasing a jewel smuggler and ran straight into a fruit cart. he was washing fruit juice out from behind his ears for a week and he lost the target. after that, anyone would hate this place.)

when bond is in midtown west, he makes a point of stopping by the trenta tre pizzeria, which boasts pizza that isn’t oily, isn’t too chewy or crisp, and boasts a sauce with a salty-to-sweet balance of flavors that make his eyes roll back in his head. he’s had the real deal, pizza lovingly crafted by hand, topped with buffalo mozzarella, and wood-fired in a tiny neapolitan back room. he knows better than to tell an italian--or anyone who he needs to think of him as a well-traveled sophisticate--but he prefers this.

coincidentally, the pizzeria is located next to a bodega that displays its fruit on wooden stands on the sidewalk. behind the peaches lives a cat, well-fed and sleek and a shameless thief of chicken parm pizza toppings. he doesn’t know her name--the owner is from rural ethiopia and doesn’t speak english, mandarin, arabic, french, german, spanish, russian, or any of the four other languages bond speaks--but in his head he’s named her selina after that greatest of feline burglars, catwoman. selina is good company after a violent mission, and almost never sheds on him, which is more than he can say about the other cats in his life. if he lingers after the pizza to pet her a little longer, no one needs to know.

the events, the new trends, the previews, the releases, blah blah blah. the access is touted more than it actually matters. he’s sure that- if he actually lived in new york he would appreciate the convenience of dwelling in the obligatory stop of every tour and the go-to place to drum up media attention. but he doesn’t and he has enough frequent flier miles that his grandchildren will probably be getting complimentary upgrades and if he really wants to be at the premiere of a much-hyped performance of la traviata he’ll make it there somehow. he does notice that the access has given new yorkers a strange sense entitlement--when a fashionable event happens someplace other than new york, the resentment is deeper, the sense of loss sharper--as if everything important should happen in new york. still. he brings home a tea flavored with the newly discovered ruby chocolate months before it becomes widely available as a souvenir for q. there are compensations. 

when q finally punches down his fear of air travel for long enough to make it to new york, bond keeps him out of manhattan. they drift around brooklyn and queens, wandering streets balanced on the knife edge of an existence that is almost suburban--dogs everywhere and strollers between the specialty shops and markets. they sit in a soda fountain famous for its egg creams and share a sundae named after elvis. q orders three different sodas--he’s a connoisseur of exotic beverages--and pronounces the house blend the best cherry soda he’s ever tasted. bond smiles at him around his ice cream float. the place is packed, every seat filled, but here, at a little round table tucked into the corner, he and q might as well be invisible, being aggressively ignored by everyone except the soda jerks. just two people, forcefully alone together. the last two people in the world.

#007 fest #teambondvillains #fandom: this is the end #relship: your loving arms (keeping me from harm) #ch: secret agent man #ch: shiny new steamship #event: gee brain what do you want to do tonight 2019 #ella headcanons #series: a map of hidden places

[gascon-en-exil]

FE16 Blue Lions Liveblogging

Chapters 9-10, except for the events of the ball which I already discussed here.

I went with my original plan and made Annette my dancer. Dimitri had the best CHA in my army and it would have been hilarious to have a dancer lord, but I do want to make use of his unique classes the first time around. Something for a future playthrough, possibly. At least the requirement for winning the dance competition at that point seems to be very reachable by most units. And naturally, I enjoy the absurdity of these students competing to see who gets the honor of becoming the game’s implied camp follower.

I complained about pegasus knight!Ingrid’s lack of advanced class options last time, but as so many of those classes require A ranks most of my units are hitting a wall. I switched all of them over to different intermediate classes for the time being while they work on building up those skills. Sylvain and Felix alone were able to move on, as a paladin and assassin respectively.

Budding talents don’t take all that much to build, but the rewards are usually not very impressive. I guess they make it easier to open up more options?

I’ve recruited all of the non-student units except Alois and Seteth, plus Gilbert who comes post-timeskip. If they all didn’t have supports to work on I’d probably just bench them and concentrate everything on the students, because even if with the useful adjutant system my army’s gotten a little too big now. Flayn in particular feels like a (comparatively) early-joining Est, and I’m not fond of those.

Having all the knight characters away from the monastery in Chapter 10 makes sense from a story perspective, but it cut into my gift-giving and faculty training sessions. I’m trying to get some from a married old man here, come on.

I’m starting to see why people say Normal mode is too easy. I am however not complaining in the slightest.

Based on Seteth and Flayn’s paralogue I don’t think casters get full movement in sand. I sure hope this game doesn’t have a desert map.

Character/Story observations

Jeralt dies following a bland map. It’s hilarious that Byleth tries to use a game mechanic to save him only to get outplayed by Thales. As for the death itself, I know everyone’s comparing it to Greil’s death scene, but that’s a hard sell. Ike at that point in FE9 is already a fully-realized character with a relationship to his father that feels genuine, so despite terrible voice acting his grief in the moment and for many chapters afterward works. It also helps that he gets to play off all the other characters who knew and loved Greil and are going through their own mourning. Byleth on the other is literally incapable of emoting except suddenly they do and it’s supposed to be poignant. Meh, you can get more out of all the NPC chatter in the following chapter grieving Jeralt than you can get from the protagonist. 

The followup exposition dumps revealing the peculiar circumstances surrounding Byleth’s birth and Jeralt’s flight from the monastery would have felt a bit less clumsy had their taken a minute to write and voice “my son/daughter” or gendered pronouns instead of repeatedly using “my child” in the most stilted way possible. This isn’t the only time where the game’s ability to acknowledge Byleth’s chosen gender in fully-rendered cutscenes but not in simple dialogue feels awkward and lazy, but it really stands out.

But back to the Greil comparisons: Kronya just isn’t as threatening or engaging an antagonist as the Black Knight. She dies the very next chapter, for heaven’s sake, and the scariest thing about her and Solon is in the implication that they killed the people they were impersonating and have been having free run of the monastery in disguise for months. Neither of them are very interesting, and they weren’t that challenging as bosses either. The Death Knight is more comparable to the BK, and that’s more in being an overpowered masked figure.

Dimitri spying on the bad guys and the Flame Emperor conveniently dropping the very plot trinket that would immediately allow Dimitri (and the player) to determine their identity all feels very contrived, but I suppose we have to build up to that reveal some kind of way. Dimitri showing himself willing to throw himself completely into Byleth’s (alleged) desire for vengeance would come off as blatant Avatar worship if it weren’t obvious at this point that the guy’s screws are coming loose.

I figured out that the two arrows over some of the support conversations mean that there are two ranks to that support, so some non-Byleth pairs get four conversations seemingly at random. That’s confusing.

Not much to the supports themselves that I recall. Catherine/Shamir is probably going to get progressively shippier. Dimitri/Ashe actually does feel shippy despite ending at a B, although most of that is Ashe being so awkwardly reverent. More boring cooking supports with Dedue; funny that it never comes up with Dimitri and instead you find out from his Annette support the prince loves his cooking. Flayn’s just an endless source of useful side information...but also she doesn’t know what opera is. Or theatres. Even though Annette complains about being scatterbrained it’s Mercedes who gets most of the physical comedy, first flinging a sword at Dimitri and now cooking up a smoke bomb in the dining hall when Ashe wasn’t watching. I wonder if the post-timeskip supports will still feel as comically slice-of-life.

Last exploration note: Dimitri and Dedue are separated again in Chapter 10, but I found lost items belonging to each of them in the same room. I really hope the items don’t spawn randomly, because that’s too telling of a coincidence.

#Fire Emblem #FE16 #Fire Emblem Three Houses #Spoilers

[hotheadhero]

Jouska: A hypothetical conversation that you compulsively play out in your head.

@thefetchingfletcher asked this also!

It’s been a long time since I reblogged the source ask (misread it from the very beginning too) and I’ve been thinking about Azure Moon recently, so I’m going to be lazy(?) and answer this as if I’m writing a drabble for just Caspar. Spoilers for Azure Moon Chapter 14, major (albeit offscreen) character death, and sheer length. Hints of monachopsis, rubatosis, nodus tollens, and lachesism scattered throughout (arguably also mauerbauertraurigkeit, albeit indirectly). There are also hints of suicide here and there if you know where to look (disclaimer: I have encountered very little of it myself and am making it up as I go).

Whatif I had stopped him?

Whatif I had intervened then and there?

Theywere weeks out from the event, yet Caspar couldn’t stop replaying his uncleRandolph’s final moments in his head. How he’d begged for mercy, tried in vainto appeal to Dimitri’s sense of reason and his heart. How Dimitri merely shuthim down, dug the nail in deeper, until Randolph’s very voice bled with tormentand he cried out for the mad king to stop. No doubt his uncle had imagined all of the men he’d fought with, dyingbefore his eyes even as he lay helpless to stop them. Imagined Fleche there onthe guillotine with them, eyes wide and panicked and accusing in their finalmoments. Why didn’t you save me, brother? those cyan eyes demanded. Whydidn’t you try harder to save your people?

Perhapshe was merely imagining those things, for Fleche was not here now; and byvirtue of not being here, she could not be dead. Perhaps he was merelyprojecting his own thoughts onto another, in some… futile attempt to come togrips of exactly what it was that he was enabling.

Itwas no secret to any of them that Caspar hailed from the Empire. He was the only one of them hereif one excluded the runaways who’d fled Emperor Edelgard’s iron grip on the southern Adrestian lands. Everyday he expected one of the Lions of Faerghus to come for his head, to lop it off as theyhad Fleche’s in his vivid nightmares, laughing scornfully, maniacally, justas Dimitri had done before Byleth intervened and killed Randolph with one blow. Byleth was no better, either—the Ashen Demon come back to life, murdering Caspar’s blood relative as coldly and emotionlessly as Caspar might take out the trash. Itdidn’t matter what they’d said to Dimitri after that. How they missed theDimitri they once knew. It was all a ploy. A feigned attempt at emotionality, at humanity.At least Dimitri had been obvious about how he’d felt, and confirmed outright thesuspicions Caspar had had of him since coming back to the monastery and theLions last year.

Andyet… Had anything Dimitri said truly been wrong?

Justbecause the one who’d delivered the message was clearly unsettled did not meanCaspar could dismiss it out of hand. The mad king had a point. Even if this waswar, with every life they took, all of their hands turned redder and redder,the poll of blood widening at their fingertips, soaking into their skin, so that noteven the most vigorous of scrubbings could clear the taint away. And Caspar hadbeen so eager to prove his worth on the battlefield, so ready to kill anybodywho stood in his way, allegiance be damned. Was it truly justice if he had tokill and murder friend and foe in order to achieve it? He’d deserted his house to be here; hisfamily, his country, the princess. He’d slain countless citizens of theEmpire as Dimitri’s and Byleth’s willing pawn, even enjoyed it—did that makehim any better than his friends in Faerghus, who at least had the ties of (separate) country binding them? What must they think of a deserter who readily killed those hailing from a country he once called home?

Werethey too waiting for him to snap? To take his revenge upon Dimitri, as nephew tothe slain?

Hecouldn’t deny the hatred he felt burning in his bones, threatening to overwhelm him in afever pitch if he just closed his eyes and gave in. And yet Caspar couldnot so easily shake his memories of the Faerghus prince from five years ago,the first of his house to extend a welcoming hand to the new transfer, one with whom he’d laughedand cried and joked and sparred countless times in the past. The memories feltso far away now; but they were as much a part of him as his very name. Could hereally leave all that behind, even for the sake of justifiable revenge? It washis duty as a Bergliez to avenge the death of his uncle; yet impossible hope against hopestayed his hand. He had to believe the Dimitri of old would come back one day,or else everything he had fought for up to this point would be for naught. Hewould be nothing but a traitor, a fool who mindlessly killed for his homeland’s enemy, a monster smiling but not the less grotesque, carrying out the dyingwishes of a mad king, a walking corpse.

Hecouldn’t bear the idea of facing Linhardt now, even as he wished his old friend could be here right now to comfort him and tell him that he was doing something right.

(Yethe knew Warp magic did not work that way; they’d tried plenty hard five years before—)

Therewas so much he wanted to ask Dimitri. What happened, what insult had the Empiredealt him so long ago that he would chase after them so single-mindedly now, whatif anything he could do to make it better. But Caspar had no doubt in his mindthat if he were to approach Dimitri now, he would simply order his head cut off,or maybe simply his tongue so that Caspar could neither protest nor questionhis orders. If he persisted, Dimitri would do worse—just as he would have doneRandolph, had Byleth not intervened.

(Worse yet, he did not know that even his death would cheer the prince of Faerghus up. He’d heard in Dimitri’s voice that some part of him was still horrified by all the death he invited and caused, even if the greater part of him thrilled in it and wanted more. In other words, if he confronted Dimitri now, his life too would be in vain, just as his uncle Randolph’s had been before him.)

AndByleth was no better either—willingly letting Dimitri use them “evenshould the flesh fall from their bones” even though their blood ties were nomore tightly-hewn than his. Caspar had almost forgotten just how it was that Bylethhad earned the nickname they’d held before leading the Blue Lions. Now hewould never forget.

Norcould he confide in any of the other Lions who followed Dimitri; not Mercedes or Annette, not even Sylvain or Felix. Caspar had no way of knowing how many of themapproved of Dimitri’s mad tirade, how many of them had their ears peeled foreven the slightest hint that he was cracking under the pressure of being alone. And so Caspar had no choice butto bear it alone, even as it wounded him, bent his back and shoulders and tore athis guts until he was little more than a throbbing mass of pain andconfusion and regret. What must Linhardt think of me now? Caspar thoughtmiserably. He knew before anyone else that I wanted to switch houses. Doeshe still think of me when he hears news from the battlefront? Or does myface morph into Dimitri’s now, laughing maniacally while mowing hundreds of enemy soldiers down?

Goddess,he was even starting to think of the Empire as his enemy now. Were the ties ofblood and old friendships really so tenuous?

Caspardidn’t remember sitting down or dropping his head into his hands; but helifted his head now with a shuddering, despairing laugh. Maybe he shouldgo confront Dimitri, he thought to himself; put an end to this stupid farce once andfor all. It was as clear as day that he did not belong here. A lone Adrestian amongFaerghans, a red wolf lost amid the blue. At least death would be better thanthis uncertainty; and even if Dimitri made his end neither swift nor merciful,there would be no more of this unbearable tension. Just one clean stroke, andhis life would be over, especially if Byleth intervened again to spare him thetorture.

Itwasn’t as if he’d made much use of his life anyways.

Aturncoat hiding amongst the wolves. His pulse quickened in his chest; Casparimagined it was trying to burst clear out from the bones that caged it in. Anaccurate analogy for one such as he, chained by the corpses piled at his feetto a false ideal, far from everything he had once held dear. He didn’t have tosee the bodies to be certain that his older brother and his family lay deadnow, as did his father, the indomitable Minister of Military Affairs. They wouldhave gone after him first; Count Bergliez was too dangerous a target to letwander free. Perhaps some part of him yet wanted him to stay alive for the sakeof the fallen, to procure revenge if at all possible and flee with his life ifhe could not. And yet, when had Caspar ever behaved like a proper heir? Howfitting it would be if he died as he lived, a rebel to the very end, spittingon the face of his lost inheritance as surely as he’d spit upon his country andhis family. For even if he hadn’t killed Uncle Randolph himself, his inactionhad killed him as surely as if he and not Byleth had wielded the blade. Casparwould never forget the look on his face as he died, as surely as he wouldn’tforget the smile on Dimitri’s face as he spoke so callously of gouging Randolph’s eyesout and dragging him down to his level—

Casparhadn’t even realized he’d started laughing again in earnest. Quiet though thesound was, it was inhuman, not even his own. The cackling of a monster. Howcould he ever have thought he’d make it through this war whilst keeping his idealspure, wings white, hands clean?

Perhapshe would go seek Dimitri out after all. Caspar never had been one forinaction; none of the Bergliezes were. No doubt his aunt Fleche would do thesame in his shoes, if she learned of the fate with which Uncle Randolph had met.

Hecouldn’t let her throw her life away like that; for if she lived, she was theonly living relative he had left. He couldn’t lose another relative when somany of them had already fallen. All of the tragedy that had befallen theirfamily was his fault—and it was his responsibility to end it.

The laughter continued, brokenand despairing. If it would silence these coward voices, then by the Goddess,he would act.

#ask #drabble #heirofhresvelg #thefetchingfletcher #3h spoilers #tw: death #tw: suicidal ideation #// oblique ideation but still #// thanks for the ask! #// 5000 years later #// sorry i didn't quite follow directions but #// i got this irresistible idea and it sets good groundwork for any azure moon threads i do #answered #war phase

[randomnameless]

I hate that the writers gave recruited characters on CF those little dialogues against former friends/family and the recruited characters never have any comeback because not even the writers could figure out a good reason for them to side against their homeland. "Ignatz...", really? Thats all you have to say after your childhood friend calls you out for joining the warmongering imperialists currently invading your home country where the sister you swore to protect lives, Raphael? Okay then.

That is because the devs got lazy with their battle quotes.

I'm not expecting Tellius tier of battle quotes, but even in Elibe or in Magvel?

I think the devs wrote it this way. Every character has to be hit with the UwU factor, so they're not really characters anymore, just tropes you want to play with.

Forget the "tragic background" for each characters, they litterally don't care about their friends and family, Billy's more important (and the Lord they're following).

And yet, because apparently everyone wants "real" characters that don't feel like tropes, a major criticism of Awakening and Fates, the characters must say something. So, the devs acknowledge the bonds those characters have (because you must like a character, not a trope, even if the character is a trope) without making them really realise what they're doing.

Zihark would just be sad, but would skin Lethe :'(

What is Raphael even going to say? I joined the Empire because Rhea Bad? He joined because prof Billy is awesome, and you are supposed to feel bad for those poor students you can't recruit and it's supposed to be heartbreaking.

Not buying it. When IS uses such a cheap device to make us sad, it makes me mad instead. This is as stupid as Johan and Johalva deciding to kill each other because Larcei talked to the other first. I hate it.

#FE16 #anon #replies #i tried to write battle quotes #but it felt apart #the out of house character has nothing to say really #it's like talking to a brick wall oh wait #'why do you want to kill your dad' 'silence ingrid' #omg if it was only to see this then why bother adding it #Felix can't feel bad on screen during the battle he'd lament ominously after the fight #but during the fight? when he cuts down his dad? #i'm not saying his HP bar falls to 0 but have some consquences ffs #like Felix if you made him kill his father deserts #he won't join Dimitri he just leaves #'but what did i recruit him them?' #you never recruited him those are characters with their own stories and morals you can't warp them even if you're god's avatar and also pla #player-chan #ffs even in ToX2 Ludger who's supposed to be everyone's bestest friend can't convince Rowen to dice Elise #but Billy can because Billy is OP

[seoulscenarios]

Go on your own path, this is my lane

member: Lee Felix

word count: 3185

genre/warnings: action, fluff, a lil bit of angst

request: YES

summary: you and felix had never been the best of friends, in fact you were actually rivals in the local street racing business created by your father. but when an old threat comes back to haunt, how will the two of you react?

a/n: this is a PSA... i know literally nothing about street racing so any terms that are wrong or any inaccuracies are entirely my own!! nonetheless i hope you enjoy it :)

- “Y/N CROSSES THE LINE IN FIRST POSITION, THEIR 9TH CONSECUTIVE WIN IN THIS SEASON PLEASE JOIN US AGAIN NEXT WEEK FOR THE FINAL RACE, IT WILL BE A GOOD ONE”

- You hear the roar of the announcer on the megaphone as your tires screech up to the holding area

- You see the thing is, whilst most kids you went to kindergarten with are now in decent education, you were sucked into an almost fantastical, glamorous and oft times dangerous new life

- Your father built up a street racing empire in your district, building it from the bottom up to the sleazy, shady but big business it was today

- At first, you were reluctant to get involved but every day you spent in the garage, was a day you learnt new things and quite honestly, it was exhilarating being thrown around a modified car around a dusty abandoned race track

- Ever since your first ride with your father, you knew street racing was for you

- And since then, you began to start hanging round in the garages learning how to fix and modify cars and your older brother began to learn the business aspect of it all

- The day you won your first race when you were 15 was a day you would never forget, running into your fathers arms and feeling the bubble of pride he had for you

- It didn’t last long

- Not even a year after you began racing, your father passed away in an infamous car accident which still shook the community to this day

- It took you over a year to get behind the wheel again, and when you finally did, you were filled with a newfound fire that intimidated all your competitors

- You got better and better after each race, winning the majority of them and losing when you knew you had to (some betting or business related crap that your brother tried to explain to you but you never really got, business had never been your strong point)

- Whilst still a relatively secret thing, the racing community expanded into other districts and before long there were new faces cropping up at racing events

- Which to your surprise, a few kids your age popped up and began to challenge you

- One of which, is Felix

- The first time you met Felix was after a race in which he nearly beat you and he got really cocky that he nearly beat the famed Y/N

- You were very quick to knock him down and told him to beat you next time then he can get cocky

- After that, the two of you began this weird friendly rivalry that most outsiders (and your brother) think is flirting, even after you both vehemently deny it 

- You weren’t about to admit that you were flirting with the boy,,, heck you weren’t even friends

- You were eNeMiEs

- Not that you don’t find each other attractive,, the underlying rivalry is still more important and will always come first

- Felix is your number one fan when the two of you aren’t racing

- Sometimes he’s there with his crew who all look a bit put out that their star racer is only there to cheer on the “enemy”

- You find it endearing, and the rare time you weren’t racing but he was you always made sure to give him a secret smile before the race or wish him good luck

- Felix, though, has the most hideous racing car you’ve ever seen

- It was painted an awful shade of bright orange, with green and orange stripes on the doors and you were pretty sure there were pokemon stickers on (courtesy of his crew)

- What made it worse was the fact Felix had called the car “”Baby”

- Like, if someone bumped into it

- He would get very defensive and ask them to apologise to Baby

- You rolled your eyes every time you heard him talking to his car and most of the time Felix just shot you a massive grin

- ANYWAY

- The current “season” is about to peak in its most dangerous race yet

- Which you happen to be the forerunner to win

- It’s been designed by your brothers’ girlfriend who is notorious for keeping the track as difficult and kinda secretive during the actual design process

- Which meant only the most experienced drivers could go on to race as the details were kept so secretive that they were only going to be shown to the drivers on the day

- As this race is the most important race for prestige, many racers from different districts are coming to show off their prowess

- And one of them,,,, just happens to be your biggest competitor and one of the most notorious drivers out there

- No one knows him, only the fact he goes by XDJ and is rumoured to be part of a secret underground mafia group

- Which makes them DEADLY as you can’t trace them, you only know just how brutal he can be whilst racing

- Whilst no one can confirm, there have been numerous rumours that his group have cause a number of fatalities

- Nasty car crashes, tampering of vehicles, sometimes even drugs were involved

- No one could point it at them,,, but the rumours still stand

- This guy, he was dangerous and you could be in serious trouble

- Especially with how infamous you are as a driver and how interlinked your brother is with underground business deals

- Felix,,, is worried for you

- He wasn’t going to be racing, you had point blank refused to let him race after he asked

- Felix wasn’t happy about it and what’s even worse, he knew that you wouldn’t back out of the challenge especially after XDJ was announced to take part

- Rumour has it that it was his connections with the mafia that caused the car crash resulting in your fathers’ death

- So to say there was some tension in the air was an understatement

- However, you knew you were ready to take them on and if needs be,, take them out if the opportunity arises

- Sure you were hot headed and impatient sometimes but you knew how to keep cool and calm under pressure, even if you were about to go up against the guy who might’ve killed your father

- Despite you and Felix not being the best of friends, the week leading up to the final race Felix turned up to your garage and started to hang around with you

- Which confused you as well, this garage was a private garage and you’d never revealed the location to anyone outside of your immediate business (consisting of your brother, his girlfriend and his PA

- Felix just shrugged his shoulders when you asked him how he knew where it was and just handed you a coffee, which happened to be your favourite order

- You pieced it together, knowing your brother must’ve told him about it

- For what reason, you had yet to figure out but still it was nice to have company in your otherwise lonely garage

- As the week passes by, you and Felix fall into a routine and it’s kind of weird

- You’ve never really gelled with people due to your line of work and the fact you fell so easily into Felix’s companionship was a bit odd

- Not that you were complaining as Felix was so much fun to be around and pulled you out of your bad moods and never failed to brighten your day whenever he smiled or laughed

- Over the course of the week you began to notice how much he integrated himself into your life and just how much he did for you

- There was no more scrambling around to find tools or struggle to do a two-man job by yourself

- And you began to notice the other things he did, the way his nose scrunched up when he laughed and his eyes turned into crescent moons, or the way he couldn’t help but dance when a particularly good song came on the radio

- A week isn’t long enough to fall in love, but it’s long enough to know that these feelings aren’t entirely just friendship and you want to be the cause of his laughs or see if your hand fits in perfectly with his

- However, you try and shake these thoughts out of your head

- It’s not the right time for you to develop feelings for someone, the race is more important and if you’re not in the right mindset

- Then, you might be toast

- The way he integrated himself so easily into your life never occurred until the day right before the race and Felix was nowhere to be seen

- You’re a bit distracted and it made you realise that maybe you enjoyed his company more than you let yourself believe

- It’s not until evening breaks and you spot an obnoxious orange gleam poke its way into your garage

- You can’t help but roll your eyes because of course he’d bring “Baby” with him

- “So, you wanna drive aimlessly into the night and sing karaoke?”

- You’re not going to say no to that because quite frankly you needed the distraction

- Honestly the drive was just what you needed, Felix drove around the quiet streets and out into the deserted roads that lay just outside the district

- The windows were cranked down and you couldn’t help but laugh as Felix shoved his head out of the window to belt along with the music

- It was pure perfection for a few hours (even if you nearly got into a police chase because of Felix’s race car)

- Felix drops you off back at your apartment and walks you to the front door

- “This was...”

- “Thank you Felix, I didn’t realise how much I needed it”

- Whatever moment that could have happened was promptly ruined when the front door opened to reveal your older brother smirking at the two of you

- Felix promptly scurries off, but not before giving your hand a squeeze and telling you he would see you tomorrow

- You try and get to your room but not without your brother sending you various winks

- You just roll your eyes and slam your door before he can interrogate you further

- You flop into a bed, a small grin gracing your face

- (Definitely not thinking about how cute Felix’s freckles seemed to dance in the moonlight or his voice blending perfectly with the playlist he had made)

- Before you even realised, you were stood next to your car surrounded by swarms of people all wishing you good luck and telling you what bets have been made 

- It’s all white noise to you

- Nothing is going in and you’re trying not to freak out, especially when XDJ and his hoards of people turn up and flash you dirty looks

- You don’t even notice Felix turning up, a few of his friends in tow

- It’s not until you feel the warmth of a hand slipping into yours and squeezing it that you realise Felix even turned up despite his reassurances throughout the entire week

- You’re pretty sure he can hear your heartbeat and you’re not entirely sure whether it’s from nerves or Felix so casually holding your hand like he was always doing it but either way, it’s kind of soothing

- The announcer screams over the megaphone and before you could even say something to your brother or Felix, you’ve slipped behind the wheel and pulled up to the start line, a map provided by your brothers’ girlfriend in plain sight

- Out of the corner of your eye you can see your fiercest opponent pull up next to you and your demeanour changed

- You knew you had to win this race or else it would be the end of you and your brother’s business

- For the majority of the race, you remain calm and following the mysterious car

- You just want to keep an eye on the car, watching for suspicious movements and besides, you practically grew up in this kind of environment

- You knew what to do and for the most part, you’re relaxed and know the best course of action

- However, the trickiest part of the race is yet to come up that even you knew you had to focus on

- What you didn’t account for was the car you had been tailing to slip behind you and before you could even rectify your mistake, there’s a slam on the back of your car and you panic

- Sure, you had been in car crashes before but you knew the aftermath of the crashes that were cause by XDJ and you fly into a panic, trying to rectify the steering so you don’t fall into the side of the road or flip the car

- However, there’s only so much you can do and you feel another nudge on the back end and your car begins to tip and you realise it’s probably the end for you

- You lose complete control and the last thing you remember is the sound of tires squealing past and not one person stopping to help

- ....

- You slowly blink your eyes open, the bright white lights almost blinding you

- You thought that would be more pain, but maybe you’re just dosed up with painkillers you don’t notice the 

- Out of the corner of your eye you can see a glimpse of fabric, so turning your head slightly you try and figure out who it 

- You quickly figure out it’s not your brother and the only person you know with obnoxious orange hair is that it’s the owner of a certain obnoxious orange race car

- Felix

- Curled up on an uncomfortable hospital chair

- You giggle quietly to yourself because he looks quite cute, hair all fluffy

- But apparently not quietly enough and he’s suddenly leapt up onto the bed, holding your hand (which you realise your other hand is wrapped up in a cast?!)

- With his spare hand, he cups your face and looks deep into your eyes

- You can see a wave of emotions cross his face but the overbearing one seems to be relief

- A sudden feeling of apology washes over you and you try to get the words out but before you could Felix interrupts you

- “Don’t ever do that to me again, I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you”

- You’re not quite sure how to respond so naturally you just apologise

- “I’m sorry”

- “No, it’s my fault, I should’ve tried to persuaded you to be safe and maybe ever-“

- You’re the one interrupting now, knowing it’s not his fault that you’re currently in a hospital ward

- “it’s not your fault Felix, I wanted to race and I knew the consequences. Even if I didn’t want to end the night in hospital”

- “I couldn’t lose you, and im not sure your brother would want to lose you like how you lost.... your father”

- The mention of your father brings a painful lump to your throat and tears threaten to spill, but you quickly shake it off and squeeze Felix’s hand tighter

- “Well... i’m still alive and I don’t plan on leaving either of you yet”

- The two of you sit in silence for a few moments before your doctor makes herself know

- She rattle off a list of injuries, none of which you take in but you gathered the main points and the fact that actually, you were in a lot of pain

- You don’t remember the exact details but you end up being discharged and bundled up into a sleek black car that suspiciously looked like your brothers but you don’t say anything as Felix drives the familiar route back to your home

- The whole trip is a bit hazy, probably due to the amount of painkillers in your system but you’re suddenly enveloped by the warm and familiar arms of your brother and you can’t help but let the tears fall

- He pulls back, wiping your tears gently and directing you to the sofa in your lounge

- Felix is already there and his hand slips back into yours as your brother details the exact aftermath of your crash

- Bits of it goes in but most of it passes over your head and your brother realises, and he drops a kiss to the top of you head and tells you he’s got business to attend but Felix is more than welcome to stay

- You don’t see it but your brother sends a wink to Felix who blushes up from his neck to the roots of his hair

- The two of you sit in comfortable silence, hands still interlinked

- You don’t know whether to bring up what he said at the hospital or just leave it when his voice cuts across the silence

- “So, the this is- you know how we weren’t even friends? But then, you know, we were? Are? So... what if I don’t want to be friends anymore? Not that I want to go back to hating you, more like... I want to start... dating you?”

- Of all the things for Felix to say to you, you sure as hell weren’t expecting a full on confession after such a traumatic event

- Quite frankly, you’re sat there looking like a guppy fish all wide eyes and slack jawed and you can’t even formulate a response before Felix cuts in again

- “if I kissed you right now, would you punch me. Because I really want to kiss you, just not if you’re gonna punch me”

- “Felix, I have a broken wrist, I physically cant” you respond snarky, waving your casted fist at him but squeezing your hand that’s interlocked with his

- “But, you’re other wrist is free I don’t see why you can’t punch me with tha-“

- You just roll your eyes, something that seems to be a constant mood with this boy, and plant a kiss square on his lips

- He takes a moment to respond, but when he does you know that this is what you wanted

- His lips are soft and fit perfectly against yours and you can feel the overwhelming smile he has dancing about his lips and you have to break apart because his smile is just so beautiful and distracting you just want to look at him

- Felix pulls you closer to him and your head rests on his shoulder, giggling

- “So, are we officially dating?”

- “yeah”

- “cool”

- “cool”

sorry for such a lame ending but like i said i know NOTHING about street racing lmao aksjdf

as always i hope you are happy, healthy and hydrated and another friendly reminder: REQUESTS ARE OPEN so feel free to send in whatever requests you have !!! 

love, admin Leigh <3

(p.s. gold stars for anyone who can figure out who XDJ is!!)

#stray kids #stray kids scenarios #stray kids imagines #stray kids imagine #stray kids lee felix #stray kids felix #stray kids felix scenarios #stray kids felix imagines #lee felix scenarios #lee felix imagine #requests are open #pls send requests #also i have a newfound love for felix and i just wanna snuggle him okay goodnight admin leigh #we love the actual embodiment of the sun and it's lee felix thanks

[douxreviews]

Supernatural - ‘Absence’ Review

"What he did wasn't bad. It was the absence of good."

I apologize for the lateness of this review. It probably won't surprise you that I didn't want to write about this episode.

That wasn't necessarily about losing Mary. It's over for her now, and in the best possible way. She's in Heaven, and she's even in a "special" heaven according to Dumah, which I took to mean that it's not just a simulation of John Winchester that she's with, that she and the real John are in heaven together. That was moving and lovely, especially after their brief, heartfelt reunion in "Lebanon." Plus, Mary was never happy back on Earth in the first place. Plus, unlike what happened to Nick, Mary's death was instantaneous and painless. She's happy and at peace. What more could anyone want for her?

The real tragedy in this episode was, of course, what Mary's loss did to Dean.

It's not like Sam wasn't suffering too, because he was. But until relatively recently, Sam had never known his mother at all. When Amara brought Mary back, it was an unexpected gift for Sam, a chance to get to know her for the first time. While he clearly grieving and very upset about losing Mary, Sam was more concerned about how Dean was feeling – which was devastated, overwhelmed, and so furiously angry that he needed to direct it at someone. And deserved or not, that turned out to be Castiel.

As the shell of Mary Winchester burned at her hunter's funeral, Castiel wanted to touch Dean, to comfort him, and Sam wordlessly blocked Castiel's move. I think Sam was protecting both of them. Sam knew that if Dean attacked Castiel while he was so emotionally raw, it could have ruined their closeness forever. Sam also got physically between Dean and Castiel in the cabin, too. This is the sort of situation that can blast apart a friendship, pun very much intended.

Was Mary's death Castiel's fault because he didn't tell the brothers what Jack did to Felix the snake? Honestly, I don't think so. As Sam said, it's not like the brothers didn't know Jack was dangerous, and they are certainly aware of what being soulless does to someone. (I kept thinking of the Empty telling Castiel it would wait until he was perfectly happy and then take him. Right now, it seems unlikely that Castiel will ever be happy again.)

This wasn't Jack's fault, either. He didn't choose to be the son of Lucifer. He didn't choose to lose his soul while trying to save his friends. He didn't intend to kill Mary. And now he has lost his entire family, all three of his adopted fathers. Not to mention the bunker, which is the only home Jack has ever known.

Last week's previews made me think that Lucifer had healed and possessed Nick's body again. I'm glad that didn't happen, that Mark Pellegrino was playing yet another role: Jack's subconscious, the submerged Lucifer-ish side of Jack. That was good writing because it gave Alexander Calvert someone to dialogue with about what he was really feeling. It's not a surprise that Jack realizes there is no coming back from this one, that he can never trust the Winchesters again. To give Jack credit, he really tried his best to bring Mary back, to fix what he'd done. Although during all of the scenes with Rowena, I thought Jack would end up killing Rowena, too.

(I also thought the spell ingredients Rowena put together would bind Jack or something. But no. She probably knows that she isn't powerful enough to do something to Jack.)

I thought for a moment that they were going to give us "The Monkey's Paw," a soulless, evil version of Mary Winchester. Thankfully, no. It was just her shell, enough to give us the emotional heaviness of a hunter's funeral. Better than an ash-filled blast site at some deserted cabin.

There were some lovely flashback moments, ones we haven't seen before. It was interesting that Mary initially wouldn't let Castiel heal her because she found angels creepy, but at the same time she was grateful to him for being there for her sons. I also liked the bit where Mary moved the table in order to hide the knife holes in the floor. That was very like Dean. In last week's episode, I noticed that they gave us a glimpse of the DW and SW initials carved into the table. The reveal that Mary had carved her initials there too absolutely choked me up.

This was a dark episode, and not just emotionally. Many of the scenes were filmed at night. The playground entrance to Heaven was deserted. The score was minor key. I wonder if it's not just Jack that isn't coming back from what happened. Is this the direction they're taking the final season? If so, I'm not certain I can handle it.

Bits:

— The two sets of dates on Mary's door in Heaven was probably the only light moment in the episode: 1954-1983, 2016-2019. Which would make her only 33.

— The boys burned her body in the center of a fork in the road. No special meaning in that, huh?

— I wonder what they did with Nick's body?

— I kept thinking of the Buffy episode, "The Body." Except I think this one was more like the Monkey's Paw episode after that one, "Forever."

Quotes:

Castiel: "You know, I'm no expert but I think most humans would bandage an open wound before stopping to eat." Mary: "It's a scratch." It wasn't a scratch. The food thing was what Dean would do. Obvious where he got it from.

Castiel: "I know you know this, Mary, but Sam and Dean, they're glad to have you back. Whatever you still have to deal with and however long it takes, you should know they're happy. Finally, they don't have to be so… so alone." Mary: "Castiel, they were never alone." That actually made me cry.

Dean: "If he did something to her, if she's… (looks at Castiel) then you're dead to me." And that hurt.

Rowena: "Mary Winchester is no longer on this Earth." Rowena has changed a lot. It was probably the gentlest possible way to tell the boys that their mother was dead.

Mary: (to Sam) "Parenting is always a struggle. You always feel like you're failing, and you look at them and somehow, they're amazing. Somehow, they're literally the bravest, kindest, most heroic men on the planet. Kids. They'll always surprise you." I wonder if this wasn't just Mary telling Sam that he and Dean grew up to be incredible men. Was it a hint that Jack is redeemable?

Sam: "We fell for him 'cause he had a good heart, a good soul. Then he didn't."

Nick/Lucifer: "There's no going back. You realize that now."

This was an upsetting episode. I'm not going to rate it,

Billie Doux has been reviewing Supernatural for so long that Dean and Sam Winchester feel like old friends. Courageous, adventurous, gorgeous old friends.

#Supernatural #Dean Winchester #Sam Winchester #Castiel #SPN #Supernatural Reviews #Doux Reviews #TV Reviews

[reddeaddamnation]

Imagine: Watching Bayek fight in the Arena

“Come, Aurelia! The show is starting!“ you urged your friend, grabbing her by the hand and leading her towards the terrace of the Arena, where your father Felix Martialis was waiting. “Oh, Y/N!“ Aurelia whined “Lately the gladiators in Krokodilopolis tend to be so boring! Have you been to Ravenna? The gladiators there fight bears!“ You looked back at her with a smirk “I’m sure they do. Where do you think they will find bears in this desert?” you laughed “I don’t know! Transport them here from Rome!“ your friend answered sharply. “It is too hot for bears here, Aurelia! But trust me, father says he has someone new to show the public. It is said that he is one of the best fighters.“ Aurelia rolled her eyes skeptically “We will see. He will either die like all the others or win another day to live.“

Your conversation was cut off, because your father greeted you at the entrance of the terrace and lead you towards your seats, one of each being large enough to fit the both of you, cushioned with red velvet and having two red pillows for extra comfort. Aurelia sat down in one of the seats and you sat next to her. In front of each of you was a silver plate with grapes and a goblet of wine. Felix stayed to speak with you for a few moments, before moving to the very front of the terrace to announce the beginning of the show that will put so many lives to an end.

“Your applause for,“ your father’s voice echoed throughout the arena loudly, so that even the people sitting in the back seats would hear him “The guardians of Siwa!“ The roar of people cheering and applauding filled the newcomers with confidence. Or at least the woman of the duo. She greeted the crowd cheerfully, with a grin, walking around the arena so that everyone can see her. Kensa was her name. You knew her from previous matches and she astonished you with her skills in battle and made you wonder how a woman can outmatch so many brutes and be just as equally brutal as them. The man next to her, on the other hand, caught your attention with his modesty. “That must be him!“ you nudged Aurelia with your hand, motioning for the dark skinned man. All you knew was that he was from Siwa. Your father didn’t tell you anything else, concerning him. “Do you think they are spouses?“ Aurelia asked you in a whisper. “I sure hope not.“ you scoffed.

The battles began and you watched with far more interest than during any other time you watched gladiators fight. Mainly because your attention was entirely on the newly arrived gladiator. “Father.” you called Felix. “What is it, my dear?” he turned his attention to you with a smile. “What is that man’s name?” you pointed at the man who interested you. “Bayek of Siwa, if I am not mistaken.” your father answered. “Are those two spouses?” you asked again, getting the answer to the question both you and Aurelia wanted. “No.” Felix answered. “Does he have a spouse anyway?” you continued interfering in Bayek’s personal life, annoying your father. “I do not know, Y/N!” he answered sharp-tongued.  “He fights well.” you stated, gaining the suspicious look of Felix. “Why does he interest you so?” he asked, eyeing you with a raised eyebrow and serious expression. You shrugged innocently “There hasn’t been a fighter like that in awhile. Maybe these two will defeat the, oh so infamous Gallic brothers. I hope they do. They became boring quickly.” You rose from your seat to get a better look at what was happening. “Only Fortuna can tell.” Felix shrugged.

Bayek fought with astonishing style and ferocity. His muscles made you weak in the knees and the way he handled a sword made you wonder if he was equally skilled in handling a woman. Thoughts of the sort made blood pool in your cheeks and you had to lean against the fence for support. The crowd and so did you gasp at yet another brutal kill Bayek did and a moment later your eyes met. You stared at him, mouth hanging open, with a rather sensual expression and unintentionally moved your arms closer to each other, pressing your breasts together. His gaze made heat pool between your legs. A strange mixture of ferocity and tenderness... 

That moment of distraction almost cost him his life, if it wasn’t Kensa who saved him from the man with a spear lunging at him. She scolded him quickly before returning her attention to the other enemies. “Maybe they stand a chance at the Gallic brothers.” Aurelia, who’s presence you had almost forgotten, spoke, startling you. She stood next to you with her goblet in hand and leaned against the fence. She shot you a sly smirk, realizing that you had zoned out. You shook your head quickly, trying to come down to earth as soon as you can and spoke in a forced indifferent tone “Perhaps. Perhaps not.” you scoffed. A minute later, Felix announced the end of the fight, followed by the loud applause and cheering from the crowd for the Guardians of Siwa. 

You met eyes with Bayek again. This time he watched you with innocent interest, now that the threat is over and he can be at ease. The eye contact was broken by Kensa, who you dreaded for interrupting the moment. She nudged him with her elbow and apparently teased him about something, because he blushed and started making excuses in a loud tone. You rolled your eyes and pushed yourself off the fence, making your way towards the exit. “Where are you going, Y/N?” Aurelia asked. “To see someone.” you answered

#assassin's creed #assassins creed #assassin's creed origins #assassin's creed origins bayek of siwa #assassin's creed origins bayek #bayek of siwa #bayek of siwa x reader #bayek of siwa imagine #bayek of siwa x reader imagine

[anneapocalypse]

[RvB 16.10] Tucker and the Post-Protagonist Problem

So I want to talk about Tucker’s characterization in seasons 15 and 16 (henceforth “Joe’s Tucker” for brevity’s sake), and how it relates to Tucker’s characterization prior.

I uh, realize this is a divisive issue, and you might not agree with my take on this and that’s fine—I am not here trying to ruin something for you that you like, or to force you to like something that you don’t. How characterization lands for us is subjective in a lot of ways. I just want to talk about where it lands for me, and I have some thoughts both positive and critical about characterization both past and present. And as I have a lot of ground to cover, this is going to be a long one.

A lot of the takes I’ve seen center around the idea that Tucker’s season 16 characterization—in fact, much of the tone and style of season 16 generally—is a return to the tone and style of the Blood Gulch Chronicles. I have seen this raised both as a positive and as a negative.

So let’s talk about Blood Gulch.

Tucker’s Character Arc

Let’s talk about how Blood Gulch sets Tucker on the path he will follow for the next decade.

Tucker’s hypersexualization, as the first and one of very few canonically black characters on this show, is not a problem that started with Joe. It’s a problem that’s been there, has always been there, and it’s kind of too late to retroactively fix it at this point.

You can’t go back and unwrite Tucker’s personality. What you can do is make Tucker a more complex character by developing other aspects of his personality, and that, I would argue, has been going on as far back as season 3, when he finds the sword and embarks on the Great Journey. Is Tucker’s arc in Blood Gulch goofy and weird? Yeah, absolutely, but he does have one.

Blood Gulch is a story about failure and yet Tucker is the exception that proves the rule—he ends up being the only person in Blood Gulch who actually succeeds. Church fails to protect Tex, Tex fails to kill Omega and fails to complete her final mission, York fails to help Tex complete her mission and then dies, Wyoming fails his mission and also dies, O’Malley fails to take over the universe, Doc fails at being a medic on every conceivable level, Caboose (if season 6 is any indication) fails to make Church his best friend, Simmons fails to gain Sarge’s respect, Sarge fails to kill even a single dirty Blue, Donut’s teammates more or less shut him down every time he speaks, Sister isn’t really there long enough to have a goal, Grif… well, to say that Grif fails would imply that he is trying to accomplish something in the first place, so we’ll let that one go. (I guess if you really wanted to, you could say Andy succeeds at exploding, so… that’s a freebie, you can have that one.)

But Tucker succeeds in multiple ways. He finds a special object and goes on a quest and gives birth to Alien Jesus. (Despite the apparent failure of the Great Journey, its true purpose ends up being fulfilled.) I think Tucker is in fact the only Blood Gulch character to actually defeat an enemy, when he permakills Wyoming!

And Tucker continues to grow in the Recollections arc. The ambassador gig might’ve started out simply as an explanation for his absence in season 6, and his desert predicament a way to bring him back to the story while moving the rest of the characters to a new map. But it also had the effect of adding a whole lot to Tucker’s character: new responsibilities, his relationship with his son, his ability to think on his feet and hold his own against a whole team of enemies trying to kill him. Fulfilling the Great Prophecy was not something Tucker chose. But in Recollections we see an increasingly proactive Tucker.

I want to stress two things here: first, that all of these things happen long before Chorus, and second, that none of this undermines Tucker’s established personality in any way. He’s still a lighthearted character who likes to crack jokes and make innuendos and flirt with girls, and generally doesn’t take his situation too seriously, including his “dumb job.” But that attitude also doesn’t undermine his capability, nor does it stop him from coming out on top.

In present-day season 10, while Carolina drags the Reds and Blues around the map, she gets pushback from pretty much all of them—for very good reasons. But it’s Tucker and Epsilon who take the lead in trying to get more information from Carolina—eavesdropping, prodding her for the details of her mission directly, and finally sending Epsilon to go undercover and try to figure her out. I don’t think it’s by chance that at the end, when the Reds and Blues finally turn on Carolina, it’s Tucker she pulls a gun on, rather than Grif or even Sarge. Tucker’s not the first or the only one to stand up to her, but his persistence combined with his capability does make him the most obvious threat to her control.

Tucker’s character progression has been a strong, consistent arc from Blood Gulch to Recollections to present-day season 10 to the Chorus Trilogy. The person Tucker becomes on Chorus is the culmination of a ten-year character arc, and the change Tucker undergoes on Chorus is not that he becomes capable. He was always capable. Wash sees that in him in season 11, and says so very clearly.

“You're a capable soldier, Tucker. At least compared to your usual acquaintances. You just need to try.”

Tucker grows into his capability on Chorus because his environment drastically changes. He is thrown into a real war with real stakes. He must rise to the challenges before him because to fail means to see real people die—his old friends, his new acquaintances, and the de facto team leader he has begun to regard with a grudging respect. This is important: Tucker’s arc on Chorus and specifically his arc in season 12 is about coming to recognize the stakes of the conflict—understanding that a wrong decision in this context will get people killed. He learns this the hard way, but the lesson sinks in fast, and Felix takes full advantage of that to goad and manipulate Tucker. Even after successfully reuniting with Wash and the others captured by the Feds, Tucker continues to struggle with insecurities brought to the surface by his experiences with the New Republic.

(I say “brought to the surface,” not “created,” because Tucker’s insecurities also do not materialize fully formed for the first time on Chorus, but we’ll come back to that later.)

I am not saying that Tucker’s rise to protagonist status was always planned, but I am saying that Miles chose him for a reason. Tucker’s capability in the Chorus arc is not an eleventh-hour add-on to his character. It’s always been there. Always.

“Dude, I'm kind of a badass all the time. You guys just happened to notice it then.”

Joe’s Tucker

You know what else has been there the whole time? Tucker’s insecurity.

This is an aspect of Tucker’s characterization this season that I like: the desire for approval. I think that’s consistent characterization; I think that’s been there since Blood Gulch and it was definitely there on Chorus, both in Tucker’s conflicts with Epsilon and in his growing respect for Wash.

I’ve written before about how I think a lot of the tension between Epsilon and Tucker comes from the fact that Epsilon doesn’t respect Tucker and regularly insults and demeans him--which frankly reflects far more poorly on Epsilon than it does on Tucker, but that’s another post. Wash, on the other hand, challenges Tucker because he sees him as capable, and Tucker responds, not only by growing into his own capability, but by coming to trust Wash in turn (“Wash will know what to do”) and coming to him for advice when he’s feeling down about decisions he’s made.

“Sis and Tuc’s Sexcellent Adventures” more serves to highlight Tucker’s inexperience back in Blood Gulch than it reflects on present Tucker, and that really doesn’t bother me. I am absolutely down for fumbling and inexperienced Blood Gulch Tucker versus the fucking character assassination season 14 attempted on him--yeah, let’s not get into that. Point is, nothing about Tucker’s adventures with Kaikaina early in this season has bothered me. Given the choice to see Tucker as insecure and posturing versus actively sexually irresponsible or predatory, I will take the former every time.

However. I can’t bring that up without also bringing up the “You’ve been served” gag from season 15. The implications of the Tower of Procreation are a messy can of worms that I really don’t want to get into here, so let’s assume for the sake of the argument that Joe at least intended that to be a basically consensual situation. Making Tucker suddenly an absentee/irresponsible father still feels like kind of a kick in the teeth, invoking some hardly-benign racial stereotypes and kind of spitting on Tucker’s established love for Junior--a child who was, by the way, conceived in a completely non-consensual manner of which Tucker was the victim, and whom Tucker nevertheless loved and accepted as his own once Junior was born.

Tucker was arguably the best father in Red vs. Blue, so uh. Undermining that piece of characterization 15 years in? That sucks. I don’t know how else to say it. It’s not as bad as “Fifty Shades of Red” trying to make him a statutory rapist, but it’s not great.

But let’s talk about some of the other beats Tucker hits in these recent seasons.

I laid out most of my thoughts on season 15 in my big fat RvB15 post so I’m going to try not retread too much of that here. I’ve said there and elsewhere that I think “Previously On” and “Reacts” are among the strongest episodes of season 15. Joe’s character writing really shines there across the board. Setting aside the Temple of Procreation business, Tucker hits several familiar beats in these episodes, most notably his insistence that Epsilon is Church (Tucker never really seems to draw a hard distinction between Epsilon and Alpha and I’ve argued before that this contributes to some of their tension on Chorus) and his looking up to Wash.

These episodes also introduce a new beat for Tucker that returns in “Nightmare on Planet Evil” and pays off late in the season, and that’s Tucker’s protectiveness of Caboose. Tucker and Caboose have had a tense relationship more or less from day one, each of them clearly seeing the other as competition for Church’s attention (though Caboose certainly takes that to an extreme, and his bias against Tucker probably also contributes to the way Epsilon treats him). It actually makes a lot of sense that following Church’s death, their shared grief might bring them together, and a real friendship might develop at last. Tucker helping Caboose to understand that Church is really gone is good development for both characters and it’s planted and paid off very effectively throughout the season.

Tucker’s relationship with Carolina likewise gets some good development throughout season 15, from Carolina joining the band on the moon (and singing so good), to Tucker helping her to her feet in the end sequence.

There are some moments of weirdness in Tucker’s dialogue (“me and Carolina and the Blues” comes to mind), but overall, when it comes to his relationships, Tucker hits some strong beats in season 15, both carrying forward established relationships and building on them.

And I think in a lot of ways, this remains true in season 16. Tucker and Kaikaina’s adventures have mostly surprised me in a good way. I like what they’ve added to canon both past and present. I love the serious moment the two of them share--ironically, a serious moment about how they both wish shit could be a little less serious, certainly an understandabl sentiment for both of them. It’s an important moment of continuity for Tucker after the mishaps of season 15, and it’s a nice further window into Kai’s entrepreneurial ventures.

The cyclops episode is absolutely goofy, but it’s goofy in a way that gives us some classic Tucker--both his capability and his sense of humor. That he defeats the cyclops by punching it in the ball, in a wacky action sequence complete with some well-placed innuendo, I’d say brings together those aspects of Tucker pretty damn well. If I had to pick an episode that embodies that whole callback to the Blood Gulch spirit, and Tucker in Blood Gulch specifically, I’d probably pick that one.

The thing to note about this episode is that its absurdity in no way undermines Tucker’s capability or the more complex understanding of the world he has grown into over time. I have no major complaints with this episode.

Let me say it again for those in the back row: the Blood Gulch tone is not itself a problem and does not, in and of itself, undermine anyone’s character growth.

However.

(You knew there was a however.)

There are a few specific instances where I think Tucker’s characterization weakens in these recent seasons--in ways that have nothing to do with tone.

Again, I don’t want to rehash too much discussion of season 15, but I know I was not the only one a bit discontented with Tucker’s role in the plot. Like I said, I think Tucker has plenty of great moments in 15. His role in the story, however, seems mostly to be to step aside to let the plot happen, and then to act as ineffectively as possible to make sure things are allowed to escalate. I wrote about this in my season 15 essay as well, how not allowing the Reds and Blues to be suspicious also weakens Temple as villain because it seems like sheer dumb luck rather than his own cleverness that no one catches onto him, how weird it is for Tucker to trust a stranger given his past experiences, etc. Most of this comes down to narrative issues, I think, and making Dylan the protagonist; it affects Tucker most noticeably but it’s not limited to him.

It’s Tucker going full LEEROY JENKINS that really feels like kind of an insult to his established characterization. It’s not just Chorus Tucker who is good at coming up with tactics on the fly and figuring a way out of a tight spot. He does that at the temple in Recollections. He figures out how to defeat a time-distorting Wyoming in Blood Gulch.

And as I’ve said before, you can come up with reasons why Tucker is off his game in season 15. Grief and the possibility of Church being alive is probably right at the top of that list.

But I do want to raise again the most important lesson Tucker learned on Chorus, and that’s the difficulty of making tough calls in a high-stakes situation. I don’t think Tucker making a bad call in the fight against the Blues and Reds would even be a problem if we saw Tucker consciously struggling to make that call, instead of just running out half-cocked. Instead, he acts impulsively and someone gets gravely hurt because of it, and then Tucker feels bad about it.

That’s not new character development, that’s Tucker’s season 12 arc, again. Kind of like how a villain from the past with a grudge against Carolina for the loss of someone they loved isn’t a new concept, it’s just Carolina’s season 13 arc, again. You can make it make sense in universe, but it still feels derivative. Callbacks to the tone, humor, and style of earlier seasons is fine. Cannibalizing past seasons for plot, and retreading character arcs instead of moving them forward, is not a good look.

It looks like you just didn’t know what to do with these characters, so you did something that had already been done.

And I can respect, in light of some of that criticism of season 16, that Joe is really trying to do something with The Shisno Paradox that hasn’t been done. Regardless of how this season ends, and how this new arc ends up landing for me as a whole, I can and will respect that.

Which brings us at last… to Camelto, and my take on why this episode in particular rubs me the wrong way when it comes to Tucker.

No one could call this scenario derivative of past seasons--and upon further consideration, I don’t even think I’d call it regressive--because this Tucker doesn’t really resemble Blood Gulch Tucker or any other Tucker. I mean, sure, the hypersexualization is there, as is the insecurity. But there’s a big difference between posturing and threatening to murder people who insult your sexual prowess.

And you can say I’m taking the King Arthur shenanigans too seriously, but I do find something kind of jarring about Tucker casually sending a whole army to their deaths when he’s had a major character arc based around taking the stakes of war and human lives seriously. Yeah, in a meta context, the time travel shenanigans are meant to be funny, and they’re mostly closed loops so it doesn’t really feel like anyone is actively killing anyone who wasn’t historically going to die anyway. But from an in-universe perspective, it’s kind of uncomfortably callous. (You know, the kind of callous disregard for human life that was played dead fucking straight last season when it was Carolina doing it anyway moving on.)

So, setting aside the attitude toward death, for me the whole tone of this episode with Tucker tips just over the line from “posturing and it’s funny” into “aggressively desperate to reaffirm his sexual prowess and it’s kind of pathetic and uncomfortable.” And that is not the feeling I’m used to getting from Tucker. It starts to feel a little bit mean-spirited, and coupled with the earlier episode about Tucker’s sexual missteps (which, on its own, I enjoyed), I start to feel like we’re more just dumping on Tucker, rather than giving him character development. It’s uncomfortable for me in the same way the back half of season 10 gleefully punishing and humiliating Carolina was uncomfortable for me.

And I did not feel that way last season. I felt like Tucker was kind of getting pushed around by the dictates of The Plot, and thus wasn’t allowed to be his best or most interesting self. But I didn’t feel like we were deliberately devoting entire episodes to making him look stupid.

And that’s what this feels like to me.

Taken as a whole, Joe’s Tucker has been… kind of all over the place. I can’t really characterize it one way, because it’s been a lot of things. At points I think it’s quite good, and at other points I’ve found it frustrating--in different ways.

We’re still mid-season, so I’m not ready to pass final judgment yet--this episode could end up being an outlier and if so I won’t lose sleep over it. I think I’ll forgive a lot if we just get a bit of Tucker being capable in a plot-relevant way--it doesn’t have to be a major way. He’s not the protagonist of this season, Grif is, and now that they’ve teamed up I think, and hope, that we’ll have a chance to see Tucker play a stronger supporting role.

The Post-Protagonist Problem

Lest I come down too hard on Joe, I want to point out that this fumble is not unique to either Joe or Tucker.

In what I’m going to call the “Post-Protagonist Problem,” Church, Wash, and Carolina all suffer from similar problems once their main arcs are over.

Alpha’s arc wraps up pretty effectively in season 6, but Epsilon has his own arc spanning seasons 8-10. Your mileage may vary but I find Epsilon utterly obnoxious in season 12, and I think there’s a reason for this beyond how needlessly mean he is to Tucker: he is still trying to be the main character two seasons after his main arc has ended, and thus he ends up actively fighting Tucker for the protagonist spot, and bogarting every scene he’s in.

Wash really has two main arcs that kind of fuse into one: his Recollections arc, bracketed by Freelancer and present-day season 10. You could argue that season 11 is really the culmination of Wash’s main arc, because it’s there that he truly settles into his place on Blue Team, ultimately sacrificing himself for them, even though he doesn’t die. From season 12 on, Wash doesn’t really have an arc—his interactions with Locus serve Locus’s development far more than they serve his own, and his role in the conclusion of the Chorus storyline is pretty secondary. In season 15, Wash has no active role in the plot except to get shot, and season 16—well, the verdict is still out, but his role so far has been fairly passive. (And the continuity of Wash’s characterization is fairly contentious in itself, but that’s another post. Oh boy, is that another post. We’ll get to you, Wash. We’ll get to you.)

Carolina’s main arc wraps up in season 10, she is hastily escorted offscreen for a season and half, and when she does return, it’s mostly to carry Epsilon around and say and do very little otherwise—she even gets nerfed immediately upon return. The only reason we got a Carolina mini-arc in season 13 is because fans expressed disappointment at her sidelining in 12, and Miles took note. It is also worth noting that:

Carolina’s season 13 arc has nothing to do with Chorus, does very little to advance the main plot, and does nothing to develop Carolina’s relationships with the main cast and in fact actively removes her from them for large chunks of the season.

Carolina’s role in season 15’s plot, though not an arc for her, is pretty much a retread of her season 13 arc with a different villain.

What this all adds up to is I think that Red vs. Blue in general, not just Joe Nicolosi, has trouble figuring out what to do with a character once their run as a protagonist has ended—and that’s kind of a shame, because it’s not like most of us wants these characters to go away. At least, I don’t.

There’s nothing wrong with a character taking a secondary role once their main arc is complete. But that secondary role shouldn’t discard established character development. A character’s shouldn’t have to regress simply because they’re not driving the plot. There are ways to offer follow-up to previous character development without placing a character back in the protagonist spot.

I’d argue that some of Wash’s strongest character beats post-season 10 are the ones that develop his mentor relationship to Tucker. I think both Carolina and Wash would benefit from developing their connection with each other post-Freelancer. It doesn’t have to be front and center or take up a lot of a screentime, it’s just a way to maintain emotional continuity for both characters in the background of the plot (and it can still be relevant to the plot--imagine if Carolina and Wash’s season 15 talk on the beach were about Epsilon instead of York).

Likewise, there are plenty of ways to explore both Tucker’s fun-loving flirt personality and his insecurities without feeling either regressive or mean-spirited.

I think you can have fun with a former protagonist as a secondary character while still offering up some emotional continuity through relationship development while letting plot development mostly take a backseat. I think Joe was almost there with Tucker and Kaikaina’s subplot this season--like, really close. Tucker can be silly. He can be insecure. Just don’t outright disregard the lessons he’s already learned so he can be made to learn them all over again. And do let him show his confidence and capability now and then.

#lavernius tucker #rvb16 #rvb first spoilers #avian dentistry #red vs blue