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#this has already had long term repercussions for me at this point. how much more damage can I afford to take
lavellenchanted · 1 year
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Since I know you have Opinions™ on this: ☕️ for Bridgerton Netflix?
Ooooh, now you're asking.
In general, I enjoy it as some light entertainment - it's a fun, frothy soap opera with lots of pretty people and dresses. I appreciate that they're more interested in the Regency Aesthetic than historical accuracy, so a lot of things that would annoy me in a more serious period drama I can just ignore to enjoy Bridgerton for what it is.
I'm not particularly bothered in principle by their decision to stay from the book plots, because as much as I like the books there is a lot about them that has not aged well in the 20+ years since they were published and just would not work in a modern TV show.
In reality, however, I think they've made some pretty terrible decisions in how they've strayed from the books and chosen to adapt things that has been more about adding drama for drama's sake rather than because the conflicts they're inventing actually serve the storytelling. Personally, I think most of the added conflict has actually made several of the characters less likeable.
The issues with Daphne and Simon have been gone over at length since S1 came out but Whistledown, for example - they wanted her to have more teeth and be a bigger threat than she is in the books, where she's really only a framing device, but the long term effect is to make Penelope much less sympathetic and even dislikeable as she's seen to betray those around her.
The Marina storyline was an absolute catastrophe from start to finish that does nothing for anyone involved. Colin looks like a fool, Penelope looks catty and vindictive, Marina's cruel if understandable and getting viewers invested in her a character is going to have terrible repercussions when it comes time to adapt To Sir Phillip with Love (assuming they intend to stick with the book endgames, although I don't really see the point of even introducing Sir Phillip if that's not the plan).
Anthony was already thrown under the bus in S1 by making him the reason why Daphne is getting any suitors instead of it being about Daphne being determined to hold out for a love match like her parents, and the storyline they chose to go with for S2 caused me to end up really disliking both Anthony and Kate, despite the fact that Anthony was my favourite Bridgerton in the books. And they dragged the drama out so long that instead of resolving the conflicts properly they had to shorehorn in some quick resolutions that weren’t earned so they could wrap everything up in a bow by the end.
I could list a whole lot more but that would be so long so let me to saying that what’s particularly frustrating is that I feel so many of these issues could be solved so easily. I could write a much longer post on how I would rewrite both seasons but just for example:
have Simon getting too caught up in the moment to remember to pull out and then freaking out about it, leaving Daphne confused and feeling betrayed
keep Daphne at the same age she is in the books, and feeling the pressure of new debs coming on the scene
if you really want Marina as a foil to Daphne, keep her as a Bridgerton cousin that Violet’s trying to help, with Penelope suspicious about her secret and then discovering it but ultimately choosing not to out her in Whistledown because that’s not what she wants to be
also don’t have her throw Eloise under the bus and destroy the only significant female friendship on the show
don’t go all the way to an Anthony/Edwina wedding! Have Edwina find out about Kate and Anthony in episode 3/4 at Aubrey Hall, and then spend the rest of the season actually building up the relationship between Anthony and Kate without the issue of Edwina between them so you can allow for softer, lighter moments between them that actually show them liking each other as people without the underlying feeling of it being emotional cheating, as well as actually giving time for Edwina and Kate’s relationship to be repaired and their reconciliation to feel earned
I’d also have Edwina knowing about the dowry situation and being torn between duty to her family and and needing to figure out what she really wants for herself rather than being humiliated in front of everyone in society
(also don’t give Eloise’s trauma over Edmund’s death to Anthony but let him keep his own)
(also also give Mary and Violet more to do, and have Violet’s breakdown be explicity pre Hyacinth’s birth with the ‘Hyacinth smiled and it saved me’ scene included so the fandom doesn’t come out of S2 vilifying her and calling her and Mary bad mothers)
Essentially I feel that in a lot of ways they flattened out the characters and defined them by one or two exaggerated traits (Eloise is the Feminist, Benedict is the Bohemian, Francesca is . . . not there) that leads to manufactured rather than organic conflict, which is a shame because for all their faults there’s a lot of rich characterisation in the books that could translate really well to the screen.
But at the same time it’s still my comfort crappy period soap opera and I will watch however many series Netflix want to give us.
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tlou anon from last night:
answering under a cut! 
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We definitely seem to disagree on a lot of things, and I think that that’s one of the most interesting and exciting parts of watching or consuming any form of media. 
Everyone’s going to take something a little different away from it, and people will always look at it from varied perspectives. 
I think we all expect something (or a lot of things) from the content we consume especially when it’s content based on something we know well and already love. 
I would argue that Ellie lost her innocence at the Lakeside Resort, didn’t actively act on it until after she lost Joel. Sure, she killed David - but that wasn’t violence for the sake of violence nor was it thought out and planned; it was “in the moment, him or me.” Still violent, but very different than the violence that we see from her in Pt 2. 
Show Ellie doesn’t really seem like she likes violence, just that she appreciates the effectiveness of it and hopes to someday be as capable and confident with weapons as Joel. I think we’re going to learn a lot more about why she behaves the way she does during the Left Behind episode. 
I’d also argue that the level of violence and the things they do in the game are unchallenged, too. Joel and Ellie kill a TON more people in the game than in the show, and there’s really no repercussions for that until Joel’s accident in the University, and then Abby’s group finding them in pt 2.
I think that they’re (both in the show and in the game) trying to make the point that for most people, violence is just another part of life, and there really aren’t people left to challenge others (outside of QZs and places like Jackson anyway). If you’re not good at it, or willing to be violent, you won’t survive long. 
I don’t know much about Druckmann or his politics, so I can’t really comment on that, but I do believe that even though he had some input on this, Mazin had more of a final say on everything so there was definitely some push and pull on what was included and how. 
From what was leaked while filming was going on, there seems to be a ton that was cut and changed, especially in the Sam/Henry segments, and even in the first two (first) episode. That makes me think that there was probably a lot more that we also didn’t get to see that might have gone deeper into these questions and changes, but for whatever reason, they eliminated them. 
I don’t know that I’d say the show is being simplified - I definitely think that it’s easier for a TV audience to see the characters and their emotional changes and challenges - specifically Joel, and hopefully soon with Ellie when we get inside her head for longer than we have so far. 
I also actually really like that they aren’t leaving as many things open to interpretation as they did in the game. By telling and showing us what we’re supposed to think and feel here, Mazin is saying “this is what I want you to take out of this episode and what you should be focusing on, instead of making fifteen different potential conclusions from this one thing”. 
I hate to say it, but the average viewer wants to be entertained, and not delve too deeply into the backstory and background the way gaming (or even comic book) fans do. 
I’m surprised that you don’t think the show looks good - I have yet to be upset by anything that I’ve seen in terms of set design or lighting (I think the way they’re using lights and individual item symbolism across episodes is really smart), and I think that it looks really high budget. I got so used to shitty Netflix adaptations and CGI and what they consider quality over there that this feels like winning the lottery - but even as a standalone show, it’s fantastic IMO. 
I especially appreciate that even the dark-lit scenes aren’t overly dark, and there’s no question about what’s going on in them, which has been a huge issue for HBO in the past. The costumes are very fitting, the prosthetic and practical effects have looked fantastic, and the score has been spot on throughout the first five episodes, too. 
I’m really sorry that you’ve felt let down by the first five episodes, and if you continue to watch, I hope that you find something redeeming about the last four! 
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franckie-108 · 2 years
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Season 3′s Inability to Meet Reader Expectations
Having read all of The Breaker’s Season 3 thus far, I understand readers’ legitimate gripes with the pacing, artwork, and decision to switch protagonists midway through the story. What bothers me especially is that Jeon, the author, was seemingly oblivious to the obvious backlash that would ensue. Backlash is nothing new. I remember all the complaints that occurred with New Waves, but the writing team’s lack of understanding of their target audience is highly concerning.
Regardless of people’s nationality, all readers have the same expectations for comics: (1) proper storytelling, (2) acceptable art, and (3) a compelling main cast. You can read more in-depth about people’s expectations here.
I have a background in literature and teach literature for a living. Plus, I'm a published author. Because of my background, I'm more understanding, patient, and forgiving than the typical reader. I'm acutely understanding of editorial mandates, for example. What Jeon did though is highly unusual and ill-advised for writers, regardless of whether they happen to be newbies or veterans. Switching main characters - your point-of-view character - is fine. Switching protagonists - the character whom the plot revolves around - however, especially halfway through the story, is something else entirely. It's a major no-no. There are serious repercussions when you do so, and every medium I've seen that pulled a stunt like this ended up flopping. This is equivalent to finding porn with the hottest girl in it but all you see and hear is the guy.
I don't have a problem with introducing a new character as Season 3's deuteragonist. Furthermore, I think there's room involve 3 generations. The problem lies in the execution, and this is where Ha Jae falls flat. He simply doesn't hold any major plot importance on his own. He's Shioon 2.0. Same background. Same built. Same fighting stance. Same characterization. Same hype. Ad infinitum. The forced parallelism wreaks of ad hoc writing. Compare and contrast the following. Here's an example of proper writing: 
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Ha Jae, on the other hand, is an example of improper writing. He severely damages the storyline about Shioon being a special person for whom the growth speed was phenomenal (a few months). To get this far he had to suffer a lot and had to have a remarkable mindset (win or die). Now a new, filler character arrives and starts doing some incredible s**t in just a few days.
As fans it forces us to wonder if all the story built years was not a lie at all, that what Shioon has is actually nothing special, he just took some drugs and voila he's op as hell.
It's not just aggravating, it's painful to read because it changes the universe and the uniqueness of characters, especially the main one that we learned to love.
Jeon could have done things very differently, such as introducing your typical hotblooded hero with a dream. Having a kid who is always in trouble and loves to fight would contrast quite differently from Shioon. (It'd work really well with Jinie too.) In addition, this development would allow Jeon to explore the other side of bullying, with this hypothetical deuteragonist serving as a mirror of a young GMR rather than being Shioon 2.0 with a fugly design. We already know what Shioon's training was like, but we never saw how GMR learned martial arts.
There are plenty of ways too on making the kid join the Murim:
They're an exchange student
They're a spy from the Illuminati (they're stated to exist around ch. 88 in NW)
They're being bullied by Murim-Ins
They're an untrained student whose master was killed by GMR/SUC
Had Jeon gone a route without regurgitating material like he did with Blue Boy, the new kid would be much more interesting because I truly believe that having another protagonist is not the problem, the problem is the sheer laziness of making him a copy of Shioon.
Part 3 was supposed to be about Illuminati shenaningans and the Shinmujengpe. That's what readers, specifically long-term readers, were anticipating with excitement, not the current story we're getting. Moving away from your core audience’s expectations is also why Eternal Force has flopped so bad thus far. The writing team (i.e., the editor, the author, the illustrator, etc.) quit caring about readers' hierarchical expectations: a good story, a compelling main cast, and acceptable artwork. Hopefully they listen to reader feedback, otherwise Eternal Force is going to flop internationally like how it flopped in Korea.
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titansarmy · 2 years
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hi! i totally feel you on being exhausted by the triangle talk so here’s something different haha. tim has mentioned that in season 4, the disney plus documentary will definitely have an impact on their lives. js there anything you would want to see for any of the characters in regards to that?
i don't keep up at all with what goes on outside the actual show so i had no idea but THANKS FOR TELLING ME BECAUSE THAT SOUNDS SO PROMISING!!
god ok gina's my best girl, my favourite always, so im really hoping that its all good for her and it opens up more doors in performing. i know that at the start of the season they were saying she was back to gina 1.0 but gina 1.0 was an incredibly ambitious person and i hope the opportunities that the show gives her allow her to continue her ambitions. HOWEVER, i think that this could also be a icky point for gina because if the show opens doors outside of salk lake, will she take them ??? her mum is back in salt lake, she feels like she finally has a place where she can stay, idk if she'll want to uproot again.
ricky. he's an incredible performer but he has just come to terms with being a theatre kid so i don't know how he'll take the documentary opening performing opportunities for him. its also his senior year so i can see him having a troy style crisis (i know scream from hsm3 would be a great song for ej this season but i really want to see joshua have the scream moment).
i really hope the show goes well for ej's sake. i think ej's whole thing about the show going well is so interesting when you focus mostly on what it means for him and his relationship with his dad more than anything. i really wish they explored more about ej's own motivations outside of his relationship with gina (sorry abt bringing the ships in i just sort of had to) because i think it would a nicer way to tie into what assume is going to be ej's arc in the future (what the fuck is he doing with his life?). i don't see how ej would profit much from the documentary but i really am interested in seeing that.
ok ok final person although it was the main person that popped into my head when you said that the documentary will have repercussion on their lives. KOURTNEY !!! LEAD IN THE MUSICAL !!! LITERAL ELSA !!!! her anxiety plot line, although probably mostly finalised this season, i would also be very interesting to see it post the documentary being aired ??. she's quite literally going to be in the spotlight and i don't know how she's going to deal with all of that. at the same time, i would also love to see her completely shine in the spotlight because its quite literally what she deserves.
i know i already said kourtney was the last one but now im thinking about jet. literally another lead. the thing is that we know close to nothing about jet so i'm not sure how the documentary would affect him. or how we would know about how it affects him?? i've seen a lot of people say that jet might enrol in east high so i guess we'll see then. him and maddox are quite interesting though so i do hope they stick around.
this got so long sorry but what do u think as well??? is there anything you'd like to see??
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moss-and-marimos · 6 months
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heard you had some thoughts you wanted to share on GILLION TIDESTRIDER, CHAMPION OF THE UNDERSEAS- 👀?
HERO OF THE DEEP!! its true its true, he makes me a little bit wild, I've been rewatching some of the earlier episodes and I just. god. I think about him so much, hes so autism to me. I already made the other post about the autism experience of realizing you've been the butt of the joke, but like the fact that its canon that he liked visiting loffinlot because he felt like he could finally read the tone there because everyone was laughing, only to have that like ripped away from him upon finding out its a curse and stuff, and jay and chip just like not quite understanding that. ow. to me chip has adhd and gill has autism or both autism and adhd and they just like dont super get eachother, and they dont communicate the best because of that like conflicting mental illnesses over here, idk they just. ough. like chip obviously doesnt mean to hurt gill with his 'jokes,' and as the audience we are intended to find them funny, and we do, because we have like everyones perspectives, but god in hindsight does it make me just kinda sad. gill doesnt deserve that. for the first time in his life hes been like allowed to express anger without real fear of punishment, but also he like doesnt have the, for lack of better term, friendship degradation mechanic in his brain, like a lot of adhd and autism people dont, and so like the idea that his fight with chip could have long term repercussions on their friendship doesnt quite register and so he tries to go back to things being like normal after they fight, and obviously chip isnt having that, and I just aaaaaa owwwww I just think about how even now gillion is still trying to find his place in the world and everything because of the prophecy, especially because of [info redacted so as not to be spoilers] in recent episodes and im grrgagrghajghgerghgh foaming at the mouth this poor guy. hes doing his damn best over here and he's gonna keep at it 'til it kills him. also?? the fact that gill did not/does not have the fucking hp to be a tank and still plays it anyway?? oh my goddddd. self sacrificial fish man. hes so. like there was a point when jay had more hp than him and he continued to be a tank, how much do you have to practice, to train, to be walking around under 10hp and pretending its normal and doing it so well your friends cant even notice. I do wonder sometimes how much even now that jay and chip like understand gill, because chip is in his own head a lot, and jay Is very focused on like circumstances I feel like, and so im like aaaaaa just like do they understand gill do they understand how he thinks even now? do they get it? im not certain they do but they try to be there for him anyway, but sometimes they do, and theyre all just doing the best they can and aaaaa im so. im so . guys. also Charlie and condi only recently like re-realizing that chip is 19 because of [redacted recent events]???? im so. im so . guys oh my goddddd. but yeah back to gill I just. slaps this fish this bad boy can fit so much autism in him. he gets it. Charlie slimecicle king of making autistic characters. god gillion makes me so sad and emotional all the time
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ziracona · 3 years
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How do otherwise decent people just seek out and start relationships with other people, entirely of their own volition and by choice and on purpose, could not have been more optional, then succeed in befriending their target and getting close to them, become cared about and have time and effort and emotion spent on them, and then stop caring about any of it and bail on the whole thing and run away the moment they’d have to do any work for the relationship to exist, instead of just cashing in on someone else as a passtime...
#I am so sad. I just don’t understand how it’s easy for some people to flip emotions towards others on and off like light switches. how can#it be so easy not to care. or not to try or not to communicate or bother even officially saying goodbye just fucking around from life to#life and playing it off as normal or quirky or victimless.#I don’t get it I don’t. I have a hard time stopping caring about people long after things go /south/ even. completely anyway#why does friendship not matter in a demonstratable way? how? how can you not want to try hard and care#I’m so ride or die. all I /am/ is ride or die. I’d never talk shit about someone I’m friends with behind their back. I defend them and work#hard to support and help them when I can. I try hard to listen and care and if I am asked directly I work hard to do or address what I am#asked. how is caring so trivial or changable for some people I just I don’t understand I don’t understand#how do people not care who they hurt how do they not feel bad about it? I’m plagued with guilt by the things I did wrong if a relationship#goes south with someone because they were /terrible/ to me#I just.#I just...#I guess it doesn’t matter. me caring is never going to be enough to get them to. they will it won’t and they won’t ever care what I think#I just need to stick to the people who can love on my level and treat me well. Dashawn and Nye and Grace and Tyler and Drew all tell me I#need better friends. (I mean aside from them ofc. I have plenty of wonderful friends too). maybe they’re right#Nye was making a lot of sense last night#this has already had long term repercussions for me at this point. how much more damage can I afford to take?#I don’t really know how to ‘vet’ people aside from just. being slow and thorough af getting close to anyone new. or just. not doing it#anymore or smth : /#oh well I’ll figure it out and be okay or I won’t 😔#fuck it#personal#I am angry and hurt. maybe I deserve to be#maybe that’s valid.
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frostedfaves · 3 years
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Repercussions (15 - Alt Ending)
Masterlist
Pairing: dark!Natasha Romanoff x dark!Wanda Maximoff x fem!reader
Summary: Natasha and Wanda refuse to leave without you.
Warnings: dark themes, gun mentions, threatened suicide, manipulation
A/N: never expected to write this despite it being highly requested, but with me being stuck with Particular Taste and in the mood to write some angst, I ended up doing it. I’m still down to write angst, so I may do another Sad Song Sunday, but I’ll let you know.
Original part 15
-
“You worried us, printsessa, disappearing like that,” Natasha addresses you in a chilling tone as the two of them stop a few feet away from you. “And we’ll deal with that later, after you tell Wesley to come out so we can punish him first.”
“He’s not here,” you tell her calmly. “His only job was to bring me here--”
“And take the tracker out of your leg, which we will be putting back,” Wanda interjects with a stern expression. “Now you can either come with us to the car willingly or we’ll drag you.”
“I won’t be doing either of those things.” You stand slowly, lifting the gun to your temple as you go. “Your only choices are to leave me here and go back to the way your lives were before I came in, or you can let me die. If you take me again, I’ll just fight you every day until you wish you’d killed me yourself. No matter how you manipulate my mind, my true self will never love someone who wants to control me. I’ll tell you how much I hate you for ruining my life every second I’m able, and I’ll kill myself the moment I get the chance to do so.”
You notice the glassy look in their eyes as they face each other, and you knew they were having a silent conversation in their minds. Seconds feel like minutes as they seem to discuss their options, eventually turning back to face you. Wanda is fully crying now, and Natasha seems to be physically holding back her own emotional break.
“Please don’t do this, printsessa,” Wanda chokes out with a cautious step forward. “We just want you to come home.”
“What’s home to you is a prison to me.”
“But it didn’t always feel like prison, right? Remember those days we’d bake together, and watch your favorite movies all day?”
“Or that time we took you to Coney Island for a week straight because you couldn’t get enough of it?” Natasha added and you sighed.
“You don’t get it, do you? I was obsessed with those Coney Island trips because it was the only time you didn’t make me feel like a kid that would get lost if I wandered too far! The only time I felt like an actual human instead of a fucking meat puppet!”
“The moment we decided to trust you a little, you abandoned us!” Natasha yells so loudly that Wanda even flinches. “We’re in Nebraska right now because you couldn’t stand being a good girl and waiting for us to get home!”
“You left me with a fucking babysitter, Natasha! It doesn’t matter that it was someone I actually wanted around. You installed cameras and tried to bug Wesley and me. You put a tracker in my leg! If you trusted me, why did you go through so much to make sure I couldn’t leave? You can’t say that you love me and treat me like you don’t.”
“I’m so sorry.” Wanda’s voice comes out in a whisper as she steps forward again, and you watch her eyes for any hints of red. “I never meant to make you feel so cornered, but you have to understand that I’m an Avenger. I’ve seen what enemies are out there and at one point I was one, so I just wanted to do what I could to make sure you never ended up in the wrong hands.”
“She’s right,” Natasha chimes in, clearing her throat as a single tear slips down her cheek. “I know what lengths some people will go to hurt the loved ones of the other side because I used to do that exact thing. I’d let the world end before I let any harm come to either of you, and I guess I went a little overboard with protecting you because Wanda has a bit of an advantage.”
“I know I’ll never understand what it’s like to do what you do, and to live with your pasts…” You take a deep breath as you feel a lump forming in your throat, and the hand holding the gun to your head begins to shake. “But I do know what love is supposed to feel like, and it’s not this. I shouldn’t have to worry about setting you off because I didn’t agree with something, or waking up from a week-long mind trance because you didn’t want me to fight back.”
“How about we start over?” Natasha offers, glancing at Wanda and turning back to you once she nods. “No trackers, restraints, babysitters or manipulation. Just us getting to know you and vice versa, and hopefully rebuilding the love you once felt for us.”
“Please.” Wanda gives a pointed look toward the gun still pressed against your temple. “I know how upsetting this already must be for you, so please. Let us help you make it better. Let us fix this and hopefully have an even better relationship in the future.”
“We love you, and we agree that we should’ve gone about this in a healthier way. Please give us the chance to make this right.”
“And you promise there will be no more tricks?” you ask, and Wanda nods as two more tears make an appearance.
“Cross my heart--”
“--and hope to die.”
You stand there for what feels like minutes, your gaze bouncing between the two women in front of you, hoping to gauge their level of sincerity on expressions alone. As much as you didn’t trust them because of everything they’d done before, you’d be lying if you said there wasn’t a part of you that missed those happier moments, and wouldn’t mind starting over to create more. Perhaps it was worth a shot, if they were truly serious about not messing with your mind anymore.
“Okay,” you finally answer, and you notice the relief appear on their faces. “If you’re serious about starting over and doing this the right way, I’ll give this a chance. But you’re going to have to wait a long time before I start to trust you.”
Wanda grins at the two of you as Natasha approaches you cautiously, and you place the gun on the chair behind you before allowing her to pull you into a hug that you melt into surprisingly fast. Your other girlfriend joins the embrace, and her ecstatic giggle is the last thing you hear before everything goes dark.
-
“Y/N/N...hey wake up!”
You jump up suddenly, nearly bumping into the person standing above you. After a few moments of blinking to adjust to the bright sunlight, you turn your head to see your cousin sitting on the edge of the bed.
“Wesley?!” you gasp as he grins in acknowledgement. “What are you doing here and why do you look like shit?”
“You know, I’m gonna let that go because it’s your wedding day, but I’ll get you back later.”
“Wait, my what?”
“Jesus, did you hit your head or something?”
“Feels like it,” you grumble as your eyes close for a moment.
“Bachelorette party must’ve been crazy.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” You sigh and face him again as your eyes open. “Did you have a crazy night too or did you come here all bruised up?”
“I got into a pretty bad accident a little while ago,” he answers after a few moments of silence. “I guess I didn’t tell you about it because I didn’t want you to worry, but I probably should’ve said something when I got the invitation in the mail. Which reminds me, it’s time for you to get ready.”
He stands up slowly with the help of a cane beside him and limps out of the room, and a chill washes over you as the door closes behind him. You move to run your hands over your face and pause as you feel a cool metal bump against your nose, and you lower your hands to see a ring on the appropriate finger.
Of course it made sense considering--according to Wesley--you were getting married today, and the ring is exactly what you would want, but it just doesn’t make sense how you got here. As you move onto the bathroom and begin showering, you get hit with flashes of moments with Natasha and Wanda that include the moment they proposed, but it feels a bit more like watching a movie than a memory should. Still, there’s a warm feeling in your chest as you come to terms with the fact that you’re marrying two people that have been so good to you since your relationship was formed.
“Come in!” you respond to a knock on your door as you slip on a robe, smiling as Pepper enters the room holding what seemed to be a dry cleaner’s bag and a small jewelry box.
“Hey there, just bringing your dress.” She drapes it carefully over the end of the bed and faces you while holding the box out to you. “And your almost wives wanted you to wear this.”
You take the object from her and lift the top off, gasping as a necklace is revealed. It consists of a simple silver chain, but the pendant has a spider with a prominent red gem that almost seems to glow as the sunlight makes contact with it.
“Need some help?”
You nod with an appreciative smile as you hand her the necklace and turn around, feeling your smile widen as the cool pendant touches your warm skin. Your fingers run over the spider while you wait for Pepper to secure the chain around your neck, and you face her when she pulls away.
“Thank you. Wait!” you call out as she turns to leave. “I just have to ask...Do you think going through with this wedding is a smart idea?”
“Well, I haven’t been around the three of you much, but I’ve seen the way Natasha and Wanda react whenever you’re mentioned. It’s equivalent to someone finding out they won the lottery, honestly. I also know how much time and effort they put into making this house as safe as possible to put their minds at ease about you while they’re away on missions. In my opinion, I think you’re in good hands here, but I’m also not there for the little things. I’d recommend just listening to what your heart tells you.”
You thank her before she leaves the room, letting her words echo in your mind for a bit before moving to get ready for the ceremony. The dress, you quickly discover, is an exact replica of one you’d seen in a magazine that you loved so much you saved it in a scrapbook for years. How you’d managed to track it down, you had no idea, but the questioning thoughts seemed to fade away a bit once you realized how amazing it felt to be finally wearing it.
“How do you feel?” Wesley asks once you reach the bottom of the stairs, and you loop your arm through his free one as he leads you to the back yard.
“If I’m being honest, I’m super nervous about all this. Everything’s felt like a weird coma dream since the moment I opened my eyes.”
“Hey, you’re about to spend the rest of your life with Natasha and Wanda,” he reminds you quietly, and your gaze shifts away from his joyous expression to the small crowd that begins to stand upon your arrival and Natasha and Wanda smiling at you from the end of the flowery path. 
“It’s what you’ve always wanted.”
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little-mad · 3 years
Text
Downsides of Thievery Pt. 12
~ Previous Part ~ Next Part ~
Gavin felt completely emotionally drained. Between being insulted by Ashryn and threatened by Rael, all he really wanted to do was crawl into a hole and hide from the world for a little while. There was no part of him that was ready to face the alteon Emperor--to be judged and sentenced. Gavin wasn’t even sure he had the energy to plead his case at this point.
As much as he just wanted to run away, there was no escape for the human. He was trapped on top of a gigantic desk. The massive items nearby almost seemed to taunt him, reminding him of how small and insignificant he was in this dimension. “You’re pathetic,” the quill sitting in its inkwell a few feet away seemed to say. “You’re all alone,” Gavin imagined a massive roll of parchment sneer.
“Great, I’ve sunk so low I’m starting to imagine inanimate objects talking to me,” Gavin thought bitterly to himself.
Meanwhile, the alteon Emperor loomed over the human like some kind of divine monument. The man almost looked ethereal, as if he walked straight out of a storybook. His skin, which appeared nearly flawless, was of a cool brown color. He shared Rael’s long black hair, but rather than tying it back, the Emperor wore his down, with a few strands done into intricate braids. As seemed to be the case with all alteons, the Emperor’s eyes were of a striking, vibrant color. Those yellow irises were focused in on Gavin, holding him in their intense stare.
In terms of dress, the Emperor certainly looked the part. He wore a jeweled band around his head that appeared to be made of silver--which matched the metal that made up the leaf shaped earring that hung from one of his pointed ears.
With the Emperor sitting at his desk, it was impossible for Gavin to see a majority of the man’s apparel, but what he could see looked incredibly lavish. The tunic was of a deep blue color and was decorated with silver embellishments along the hemlines. No doubt the garment was made of silk or some other similar luxurious fabric.
“We have much to discuss,” the Emperor began as he looked down at Gavin. “But first, I believe introductions are in order.” There was no hostility in the man’s voice. Unlike with Ashryn, Gavin didn’t detect anything disdainful or accustatory in his tone. Instead, the Emperor seemed perfectly calm and polite; he even wanted to engage in civil greetings. “My name is Ailred. I am the son of Lyris, and the Emperor of Iaela,” he announced smoothly, the words clearly ones he had said many times.
Considering both Rael and the Emperor had introduced themselves without surnames, Gavin had to assume alteon’s didn’t utilize them in the same way many human cultures did. The Emperor had presented himself as the son of “Lyris” though, something Rael had not done. Were he in a better mental state, Gavin may have pondered why that might be, but given the circumstances he would just accept it and move on.
It took a long moment of Gavin just standing there frozen, shifting uncomfortably under the Emperor’s silent stare, before he figured out he was expected to say something. “He wants me to introduce myself,” he realized.
How the hell was he supposed to get himself to speak? This was maybe the very first time Gavin had zero desire to say anything. He didn’t trust himself anymore. The last time he’d opened his big mouth, he’d ended up with a giant hand slammed down beside him. Now imagine the consequences that could await him if he said the wrong thing to a damn Emperor.
At the same time, remaining silent was hardly an option either. Refusing to comply with the Emperor’s wishes could just as easily have frightening repercussions. Gavin really and truly was stuck between a rock and a hard place.
After a few seconds of internal panicking and frenzied thinking, Gavin spoke up. “My name is Gavin--uh Gavin Stone,” he managed to spit out. He tried to force himself to maintain eye contact with the Emperor, but every fiber of his being was begging him to look away from that intimidating gaze.
“It’s nice to finally meet you, Gavin Stone,” the Emperor replied, giving Gavin a nod of greeting before turning his attention beyond him. “Rael, I trust you encountered no issues in retrieving Mr. Stone?” he inquired, reminding Gavin of the fact that his former captor remained in the room, just a few yards away.
“There was no trouble from the humans, your majesty; however I did run into some brigands in the woods who attempted to abduct the prisoner,” Gavin heard Rael explain from behind him. “The offenders did manage to escape, and for that I offer my sincerest apologies.” God, Rael almost sounded like a different person when he spoke to the Emperor. Not that Gavin had any real grasp on what kind of person Rael was. He’d learned that the hard way.
A frown developed on the Emperor’s face. “You did your duty in protecting the human,” he began. “What I’m more concerned with is the fact that these criminals were bold enough to attempt to interfere with Imperial business.”
“Greed can drive you to do some pretty stupid shit,” Gavin thought to himself bitterly.
After a moment of silent contemplation, the Emperor sighed. “I suppose we’ll need to increase the number of patrols in the surrounding woods,” he concluded. “I’ll also have you meet with Captain Saida later to coordinate a search for these would-be abductors.”
If Kaydin and his female associate were smart, they would already be getting as far away from the palace as possible. Gavin could tell the Emperor was serious about this, so if the two thugs didn’t get some major distance from the scene of the crime, there was probably a high likelihood they’d wind up getting caught.
“Now,” Gavin instantly felt the intensity of the Emperor’s gaze return to him, “you are here because you were caught stealing from an alteon diplomat while they were visiting the human realm, correct?”
Suddenly Gavin felt like he was back in elementary school, being forced to answer questions the principal already knew the answer to. The Emperor already knew what the human in front of him had done, and yet he wanted to see Gavin admit to it himself.
Biting back an exasperated sigh, Gavin gave a nod of confirmation.
“And you understand that because your crime was against an alteon, you were brought here to face judgement?” the Emperor inquired, continuing to watch Gavin with those hypnotizing yellow eyes.
Gavin nodded again. He knew he wouldn’t be able to get away with giving non-verbal responses forever, but he wanted to avoid it for as long as possible. Not only because he didn’t trust himself not to say the wrong thing, but also because he wasn’t sure how he was meant to refer to the Emperor. Rael had called him “your majesty” earlier, but the idea of saying something like that sounded so strange to Gavin.
“I realize as a human you are unfamiliar with alteon customs, so allow me to explain the situation,” the Emperor started. “Typically, when I am called to judge a criminal, it is done as an official trial in which nobles and all involved parties are present.”
Gavin supposed that wasn’t altogether different from the trials back home. Of course, rather than having a jury of his peers, Gavin would be judged by the Emperor and the Emperor alone.
“However,” the giant monarch continued, “because you are human, the circumstances are different. I believe a large-scale event would do more harm than good in the long run,” he explained, folding his hands atop the desk. Gavin tried not to focus on them for long, because he and giant hands really weren’t on good terms.
While he was glad to hear he wouldn’t be subjected to some grandiose trial in which he’d be trapped in a room full of a bunch of alteons staring at him, Gavin wasn’t entirely sure alternatives would bode any better. If the Emperor had no one around to criticize his decision, he could be as cruel as he wanted.
“In the meeting which preceded this one, I discussed with my advisors various potential sentences,” the Emperor went on. “I also requested input from Ashryn, as he has some experience interacting with humans,” he added, looking at Rael when he said it.
Gavin suppressed a scowl. He was sure any input from Ashryn had been exceedingly negative. For whatever reason, the guy had it out for him--or maybe he just had it out for all humans in general for some reason.
“Ashryn’s position on the matter was that you need to be made an example of,” the Emperor stated, quickly erasing any doubt that that asshole had a vendetta against humankind. “His suggestion was that you be made a spectacle of, perhaps by placing you in a cage and displaying you in the front hall for visiting nobles and the like to view.”
An instant feeling of nausea came over Gavin. He felt absolutely sick to his stomach. Ashryn was beyond just a dick, he had to be some sort of sadistic demon. The suggestion that a living, breathing, intelligent creature be caged and put on show like some kind of zoo animal was abhorrent. Gavin could hardly even believe what he was hearing.
“Your majesty, forgive me, but doesn’t that seem a bit excessive?” Gavin heard Rael ask incredulously. What was with that guy? Not ten minutes ago he was yelling at Gavin and standing up for his alteon soldier buddy. Now all of a sudden he supposedly cared about what happened to Gavin? It just didn’t make any sense.
The Emperor gave a small shrug. “I don’t know, some of my advisors seemed to like that idea. They believe that if Gavin Stone isn’t properly made an example of, then more and more humans will think they can get away with crossing alteons.”
What was Gavin supposed to do? Should he try to stand up for himself, to excuse what he’d done? Would it even matter? He had committed the crime, that much was fact. So would any excuses even make a difference? He tried to read the Emperor’s face, to look for some kind of sign that he would be understanding, but the man had an expression that was virtually unreadable. “What the hell am I supposed to do?”
-
Of course, of course Ashryn would advocate for some cruel, antiquated punishment for Gavin. It was obvious the guy had some inexplicable resentment towards humans, certainly more than Rael had ever had. He’d been of the opinion that they were inferior, fairly irritating creatures, but never would have gone out of his way to ensure they suffer. Ashryn, on the other hand, seemed eager to see Gavin endure the worst.
And what was worse? The Emperor hadn’t immediately dismissed Ashryn’s suggestion. How could he even consider it? Surely he would never subject even the worst alteon criminal to the humiliation and indignity that would come from being locked in a cage and put on display. Yes Gavin was human, but he was still an intelligent, sentient being. He didn’t deserve to be treated like an attraction.
But what could Rael do? He was in no position to question the Emperor; doing so would be suicide for the reputation he’d worked so hard to achieve. He had to wonder whether the information that Gavin had in fact been hired to steal from the diplomat would impact the Emperor’s decision.
Gavin himself seemed pretty convinced that that bit of information wouldn’t change anything, so it was doubtful that he’d speak up about it. Rael wasn’t convinced. Surely if the Emperor knew Gavin had just been used by somebody else, he would be less harsh with the punishment he issued.
Rael couldn’t speak up about it. He had already taken a great risk with his previous comment. Continuing to speak out of turn in favor of a human criminal could end up reflecting horribly on him. The Emperor may begin to question his loyalty. Rael couldn’t put that all on the line for the sake of a human of all people...right?
The memory of Gavin’s fear-stricken face flashed through Rael’s mind. He cringed internally at the mental image. Gavin had clearly had some level of trust in him, the look of betrayal he’d worn made that much evident. When Rael had used his far greater size and strength to scare the human into submission, he’d shattered any trust that may have developed between them. He had taken the side of Ashryn, someone he hated, rather than risk his status by standing up for Gavin.
Yes, what Rael had done had been the right thing to ensure his reputation remained in good standing. But if it had been the right thing to do, then why did Rael feel so miserable about it?
“If you have something to say on the matter, you have my permission to speak up,” the Emperor told Rael, clearly sensing his hesitation.
“I can’t say anything, I’ve worked too hard to get where I am to risk it for some human!” one part of Rael’s mind insisted, but he was finding that voice was quickly becoming quieter and quieter.
While it was difficult for him to believe he could make such a profound difference, Rael couldn’t help but worry that what he said next could seal Gavin’s fate one way or the other. The Emperor was watching, waiting for a response. Rael had to make up his mind. “Yes, your majesty. I have information concerning Lady Elyth’s stolen ring.”
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scripturiends · 3 years
Text
law school episode 9 musings
warning: very very long post ahead. i have a lot of thoughts.
hey folks — how we feeling about episode 9?
given that there are so many plotlines in the show, i’m afraid i won’t be able to extend my analysis of the episode as far as i would like, but there are three characters who stood out to me the most last night that i’d like to talk about for now:
kang dan
there’s a lot that we got to uncover about her thanks to professor yang’s trial. if i’m piecing it all together right, the basic summary of what led to her disappearance goes like this:
she was a volunteer for assemblyman ko’s campaign, but upon discovering that he was spreading fake news about his opposition, dan reported him to the authorities (i’m guessing not just the police but also the media) and became a whistleblower. assemblyman ko tried to buy her off with money, but she refused, so he attacked her where she’s most vulnerable instead — by using her family.
i’m not completely sure about this (please feel free to correct me!) but it’s either byeol is (1) the twins’ half-sister, or (2) their stepsister? it’s so hard to tell, especially since korean terms can get lost in translation in the process (i watch on netflix, if that helps). but anyway, sol and dan’s mom married someone who was abusing her, and in exchange for dan’s silence (and her fleeing), the husband signs a contract that he would stop hurting his wife.
so that’s the backbone of dan’s story. however, this still doesn’t answer a lot of things, like where seo byungju or lee manho fits into the equation, the whereabouts of their mom’s ex-husband, or why dan was sent into boston in the first place.
i usually don’t like theorizing, but i do have one: there is an ivy league school located just outside of boston — harvard. (it’s technically in cambridge but you know, i’m taking liberties here.) professor yang said in passing one episode that he thought he saw dan when he went to the school for a seminar or a talk or something. could it be that assemblyman ko offered her an education at a top school in exchange for her silence? it could explain why she gave it up all so easily. what if she took that topnotch education as a chance to prepare, so that when she came back, she had much stronger leverage to take assemblyman ko down, given the knowledge and network of connections she’ll have earned in that school?
the theory’s plausible but i might be overestimating assemblyman ko’s kindness — unless he’s insanely desperate, he might not give a damn about dan’s education. it actually benefits him more if she stayed uninformed, but still. let me know what you think about it.
yoo seungjae
in this episode, we learned a little bit more about how yoo seungjae was able to hack into the professors’ laptops, and they also confirmed some of our previous speculations about him: that his wife yujeong was an ob gyn, and so was he, and that they were trying for a baby. unfortunately, i find it all to be a bit lacking in substance. i was hoping we could get down to the nitty-gritty of why he did what he did.
i say this for one important reason: i don’t know about you guys, but i would never make such a stupid mistake in undergrad, let alone in law school. seungjae has gone to med school, so we know that he knows the repercussions of his actions. why would he go to such lengths? sure, he found an opening, he was tempted, and he took it. but he didn’t just do it once, he did it multiple times, and those offenses add up (hacking, stealing exam papers, and cheating). surely he must know that something like this can ruin careers even before they even start, and not only would he get kicked out of the school, he would also get blacklisted from the industry once he implicates himself. so we understand why he’s so hesitant to testify (especially now that his wife is pregnant).
but why did he do that in the first place? we could say he’s insecure about his skills, but he’s survived med school. how much harder could law school be for him? i just don’t think that the payoff is worth the risk. what must be so important for yoo seungjae to do all of this for? what does he get in return if he successfully pulls it off and gets straight As during his entire time in law school? who is he doing for?
i hope it runs deeper than just wanting a ‘good future’ for him and his wife and their baby or something — because he could just as easily do that as a doctor. there must be another reason he went into law.
still, though, and this is just a personal opinion, even if i did find out his entire backstory, there’s no way i could ever defend him. we see in the show how his guilt builds up (from observing how kang sol A studies so well, to his conversation with jeon yeseul in the hospital), but at this point there is no more excusing what he did. not that i ever condoned it in the first place.
we’re still in the dark about a lot of things regarding yoo seungjae. hopefully by the next episode, we get something. but until then, he is still a shady, shady man to me.
kang sol B
her screen time in this episode was short, but i still wanted to highlight her because she is pretty much a ticking time bomb.
she’s in a tight spot right now because even if she testifies about having seen the sugar packet, the prosecutor will just twist the argument by saying she colluded with a murderer just to cover up her plagiarism.
and now, seo jiho needs her help, probably for something related to his case with prosecutor jin. in exchange, she puts pressure on him to ‘confirm’ that she didn’t plagiarize in middle school, since they were schoolmates and rivals.
there may be more to this plagiarism issue than meets the eye. who knows, we might find out later on that she actually didn’t plagiarize? but given what i know now, i have no reason to believe that she didn’t. i don’t blame her specifically for that, seeing as she has to pay for the consequences for something that her awful mom forced her to do. but now that the mess has been made, i want to see how she cleans it up.
kang sol B is a very elusive character to me. the scary thing about her is that she’s on no one’s side but her own. and that’s why i think she’s a ticking time bomb.
~
bonus: han joonhwi
so that’s all i have for the serious stuff. as a bonus, i’d like to talk about han joonhwi and his four (4) children jeon yeseul, seo jiho, kang byeol, and min bokgi.
one of my friends brought up how it’s so funny how he’s somehow just at the right place at the right time all the time. this happened when he ran into kang sol A when she was looking for yeseul (i still think they were on the phone with each other beforehand but this is just my shipper self talking — truthfully, if the focus was shifted towards that phone call without divulging who it was, i have a feeling it might be more important later on), and when seo jiho confronted prosecutor jin. adding his elevator conversation with kang sol B, i think it just solidified what we already know: han joonhwi is a very compassionate person. but he doesn’t sacrifice his own personality just to appease them — he recognizes that these individuals have agency, and he’s just giving them the little push they need to make them realize what they need to do.
i also felt the need to bring up kang byeol. the show does such a good job of ensuring that all the solhwi scenes that we get, no matter how indulgent and “fanservice-y” they might seem, actually have a deeper purpose. again, i could go on and on about what each solhwi scene has actually contributed to the development of the plot, which is exactly why i love them so much! because all of their scenes are so meaningful. but anyway, it’s nice to see han joonhwi care so much for his, ehem, future sister-in-law.
and for min bokgi — this scene was so short, but i absolutely loved it so much (i tend to pay attention to the throwaway scenes): min bokgi is going off about how yoo seungjae is acting weird, and he says to joonhwi, “hyung, you should call him.” and joonhwi responds with, “sure. eat your food.” it’s such a fatherly thing to do and it’s such a great contrast to bokgi’s dynamic with sol A, with whom he’s so loud and vibrant, moods that both match their personalities, but with joonhwi, who is more subdued, he’s like a little kid in need of rescue from an older brother, or even a dad. ah, i love it so much. min bokgi is such an underrated character. i wish he had more screen time. (if he doesn’t get a central ep, well, you guys know where i’m going with this, right? it means i’ll give it to him myself.)
~
so that’s it for now! i’m sorry i went on rambling again, but if there’s anything noteworthy in this post that you think is worth discussing, please do tell! if there’s anything that you found thought-provoking in the episode that i didn’t get to touch up on, let me know as well!
i personally don’t make any theories about the overarching plot myself, seeing as by the time the new episode comes out, we get fed information that renders the theory useless. still, that doesn’t mean we should stop coming up with our own ideas. sometimes, the theories are more interesting than the canon itself.
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astarryon · 3 years
Text
Another Lifetime: Shouldn’t Have Gotten Shot
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Fem!Reader
Warnings: Description of war and battle injuries, mentions of blood, gunshots, language, etc.
Summary: Bucky doesn’t like talking about her, but Dr. Raynor isn’t an easy person to argue with. And now that it’s summer –– now that he’s living through the months they’d shared together all over again, only without her by his side –– fighting the memories becomes all the more difficult.
A/N: Listen, I really don’t know what’s gotten into me but ever since tfatws started I have been INSPIRED! Hoping to update this fic sem regularly, but we’ll see where the new school term takes us. As always, I hope you enjoy, and feel free to let me know what you think!
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Bucky Barnes has never been overly fond of the summer.
One aspect was the fact that he could remember what it was like to be a miserable kid living in a cramped Brooklyn apartment with no air conditioning and three baby sisters who never stopped whining about the heat. Of all the jumbled, foggy memories bouncing around the confines of his skull, that one is clearer than most. And though he still finds it difficult to picture the faces of his little sisters –– can’t hardly remember arcs of their noses, much less the colors of each of their eyes –– a nostalgic, brotherly feeling washes over him all the same.
There’s also the little detail that he’d received his draft notice in the summer months. That Bucky remembers perfectly, one of the few memories strong enough to remain unmuddied by all those years of shitbag scientists rooting around his head and picking his brain apart. The heat that year had been sweltering, and once his mother found him in her kitchen with that damned letter clutched between his fingers, he felt it burn right through the strings of his heart. 
The first week of July delivered the news. The last saw him shipping out to bootcamp. 
He guessed he didn’t mind the sunshine. That part had always been nice, and it helped to calm him on occasion these days, to remember that the golden rays licking comforting heat up his skin were the same ones which had shone down on him back in the 40s, before and during the war.
Before Hydra had condemned him to seventy long years of dark and cold.
To that end, logic said the season he really should hate was winter, but he’d never felt any ill will toward the colder months, and found now, in the present, that he’d only grown fonder of them. When the rain came down from the sky in sheets, or when snow fell so thick it resembled white, puffy clouds blanketing the ground, he took walks. Partly because no other soul would be idiotic enough to trudge through a borderline natural disaster at three in the morning, meaning he wouldn’t have to put up with prying eyes and conspicuously pointing fingers, and partly because experiencing said natural disasters in solitude did wonders for the soul.
Steve thought it was strange. Hated that Bucky did it, kept insisting that he at least take a goddamn jacket, there isn’t any actual proof he can’t get pneumonia. But Bucky always shook his head and declined, rolling his eyes and muttering beneath his breath about how apparently the tables have fucking turned.
But, no. The winter, the rain, the cold –– none of that could ever draw half as much ire from him as did the gentle beginnings of June, the scorching heat of July, the fading light of August. Because those weren’t the things which served as reminders from before.
Reminders of her.
“James. Did you hear me?”
Bucky blinks hard, freeing his gaze from the wall calendar tacked up and viewable just over his doctor’s shoulder. Glancing down, he sees the familiar green of the velvet armchair –– one of three options for patients to choose from in her office, and Bucky’s personal favorite on account of the way its textures did something to sooth him as he gripped its arm anxiously with his flesh hand –– and the worn, fraying knees of his black jeans against it. He doesn’t bother meeting his therapist’s gaze. He already knows which of her expressions he’ll find her leveling at him, if he does.
“Sorry,” Bucky mutters, sucking his teeth. He hopes his voice isn’t quite as strained as it sounds –– though, judging by the way Dr. Raynor clucks her tongue as her fingers twitch toward her pen, it definitely is. “Guess I’m a little scattered today.”
The sardonic hum Raynor gives in response as she knowingly tilts her head nearly makes him open his mouth to finish the silent argument she’d started, but Bucky knows better than that. The moment he starts up, she’ll feign innocence and inquire as to why he feels the need to defend himself when no verbal accusation has been made. God damn, it would be just his luck to end up with the one government assigned therapist actually capable at her job.
“That’s what you said yesterday,” Dr. Raynor offers. “And the two days before, if memory serves me right.”
Bucky shakes his head and tsks, tapping a metal finger against his temple. “Not a funny joke, doc. Remember the audience you’re dealing with here.”
“‘Deflecting.’”
The word drops from Raynor’s mouth with a simpleness that puzzles him.
“‘Scuse me?” he prompts when she only goes on to stare at him owlishly.
“Oh, that’s what I’d be writing in my notebook,” she explains simply, folding her hands together in her lap and leaning back in her chair. “If we were using it right now, that is.”
Again, Bucky rolls his eyes, and has to make an active attempt not to cross his arms like a forlorn child. The threat in her words is easily recognizable, not that she’d really bothered trying to conceal it. She knows that damn notebook irritates him more than any other aspect of their current arrangement, and he knows she’s not bluffing. If he doesn’t start talking, Raynor starts writing –– and if Raynor starts writing, he gets tailed by government watchdogs to ensure there are no imminent incidents lurking in the near future.
He sighs dejectedly and meets her gaze. “What was it you asked me?”
“What it is about the month of June that makes you so uncomfortable.”
Bucky blinks, red alarm bells shrieking in his head. Fuck, he can’t help but think. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Caught red handed.
“June’s fine,” he tries, but even to his own ears the assurance sounds weak. To think, he’d once been the most prolific tool of espionage around –– now he can hardly deliver a lie with a straight face. “Don’t have any feelings toward it one way or the other.”
“Strike two,” Raynor quips, glancing one again toward her pen.
Fuck!
Exhaling sharply through his nose, Bucky sits a little straighter in his seat, searching for any semblance of comfort to be found while already knowing he was bound to come up short. Damn it all. She wasn’t going to let him out of this one.
“Alright, hold your horses,” he sighs, waving a halting hand. Raynor’s expression doesn’t shift. She simply continues peering at him with her dark eyes, waiting patiently for his next few words to come. “Why do you assume I’ve got a problem with June?”
“Because you didn’t start staring at that calendar until it switched over from May,” Raynor supplies. “Like I mentioned, today isn’t the only day you’ve been scattered. Seems like something we should consider talking about.”
“No,” Bucky answers quickly. Too quickly. Shit. If she thought he’d been deflecting before, he didn’t even want to know the words running through her mind in regards to his behavior now. “I mean–– well, no. I don’t think it’s that important.”
Raynor arches a brow. “Funny,” she tells him, “the way your eyes keep drifting back to the word ‘June’ tells me otherwise.”
He sighs, worrying the inside of his cheek with his teeth. Caught between a rock and an even bigger, weightier rock. The universe really wasn’t one to take his side often.
Bucky knows there really isn’t any choice here. Either he does what Raynor asks and elaborates on his suspicious behavior, or he risks facing the repercussions of those notes she’ll be jotting down in her notebook. Which of the two evils is more definitively the lesser, he can’t rightly say, but he knows which of the consequences he’d prefer to suffer through. And they’re certainly not the ones which see him robbed of the ability to walk freely down the street without a detail of armed babysitters.
So he figures that, maybe for once, being honest can’t be the worst decision to make.
“A few years ago, back before the blip,” Bucky tries, “I spent a summer in Wakanda.”
“Housed by the royal family,” Raynor nods, tone soft. “We’ve spoken about that before. You said you found it peaceful there. That you liked it.”
He did, and still does. On the nights when his mind isn’t quiet enough to let him find sleep but his heart feels light enough to forego the slideshow of horrors he’d been made to suffer throughout the years, Bucky’s thoughts often return to the bliss which life in Wakanda had offered him. He’d remember the farm he kept there, the little children who would come to sing and play and dance in trees to keep him company in the afternoons. He’d remember Princess Shuri –– Just Shuri, James, come now –– and the kindness she’d displayed in deactivating the deeper, most concerning parts of his programming. The day she’d told him it was done, turned off, that he’d never be forced to revert back to the Soldier against his will again, he’d rushed her and caught her up in a bearhug so relieved and forceful that her Dora Milaje detail had actually pointed their spears at him. He’d remember the tranquility of it all, the simpleness.
The peace.
There’s no hope of him being able to return to that place any time soon, much as he’d like to, but the memories sit resolutely concrete in his mind. The first of a new set which he’d never have to worry about being stolen away from him by the currents of an electric shock.
“It’s a nice place,” Bucky affirms, sighing wistfully at the thoughts swirling up in his head. “I bring it up because back then, that summer… I started remembering a few things. From before.”
Raynor keeps her face smooth and composed, but Bucky notices the twitch in her cheek that says she’s got a question. “When you say before,” she asks, voice gentle, “do you mean your time as the Winter Soldier?”
He shakes his head, swallowing thickly. Ironically, things would be easier, were that the case. He might not be so miserable in the present, seeing the month of June start all over again. The melancholy might not be so strong. “No, not then. I mean from before. From the 40s, during the war. I don’t know if it was Wakanda’s heat that did it, or that my programming was officially deactivated. But one night I went to sleep in my hut like normal, and then the next morning I woke up, and… and I remembered.”
Raynor clasps her hand together in her lap, the pen, the notebook, the hesitation all forgotten. Bucky sees it in her expression, the shock at the fact that he’s speaking, that she’s actually making progress in getting him to talk about things so painful he often wonders if they aren’t better left in the past. He’s still trying to figure that one out. Miserable as he’s been for the first four days of June, he figures nothing good or relieving or positive can come from retelling this particular tale. It’s all behind him now, and there isn’t anything to be done to change the ending in any significant way.
But… but he figures he owes it to her. As painful as the memories are, they can’t be anything in comparison to what she must have gone through in the aftermath of it all.
Slowly, Raynor crosses one ankle over the other. “What was it that you remembered, James?”
Bucky sighs, closing his eyes and inhaling as deep a breath as he can pull. He lets it loose after counting to six, then opens his eyes again and crosses his arms over his chest. “It started back in June of 1944. I got shot.”
––
June 1st, 1944
It was damn lucky you weren’t sleeping much these days.
A funny thought, really. One which brings a sarcastic, bitter smile to your lips as you bend your neck to get a closer look at your handiwork. Wasn’t it just two nights ago that you’d been laying in your cot, staring up at the moon through the flap of your tent and counting all the reasons it wasn't fair that the bliss of unconsciousness evaded you? Wasn’t it three that you’d considered sneaking into the med tent and downing a few of the sleeping pills meant for the soldiers? You hadn’t, of course –– god only knew the sort of trouble you’d get in if it came to pass that you were caught –– but the consideration had been there all the same.
“Fuckin’ shit!”
The foul language, mixed with the rough jerk of the body beneath your dexterous hands, was enough to steal your attention back from your jaded inner monologue. Nearly two years back, when you’d first signed on to work as a field nurse, the pained outburst would have sent you flinching. Now, the swearing isn’t anything new, and thankfully for the soldier whose leg you were currently stitching up, it was no longer anywhere near enough to give you pause.
“You better hold still unless you want this to scar even worse than it's already going to,” you tell him matter of factly, gently tugging the thread the rest of the way through your current stitch.
The soldier –– Matthews? Moore? You can hardly remember the name he’d gasped at you in pain, but you’re sure it started with an ‘M’ –– rakes his dirty hands over his even dirtier face, brown eyes squeezing themselves shut as his fingers quake with agony. “Sorry,” he rasps, skin paling. “Just… Jesus, shit hurts so bad!”
You cluck your tongue, guilt racking your heart as you push the needle through his skin once more. “Shouldn’t have gotten shot then, genius,” you murmur, shaking your head disapprovingly.
It works. For a moment the soldier’s face twists in disbelief, and in the next, a shuddering, wheezing gasp of laughter expels itself from his throat. The sight is bleak, but it’s enough to twist your heart with warmth as you once again pull the thread through the stitch. You’d learned in the first few months of working as a nurse on the frontlines that the last thing these men wanted or needed was to be coddled along over their injuries, especially by a woman. Vulnerability was more averse to them now than ever before.
Personally, you don’t much understand it –– but your work isn’t, and has never been, about yourself. 
“Look, why don’t you tell me something,” you start, glancing up to… Morrison’s…? face in apology before sticking him with the needle yet again. He jerks, but not quite so violently this time. Another one down. Only about a thousand more to go tonight. “How’d all this happen? I thought you boys weren’t meant to scope the new territory until tomorrow afternoon. Y’know, in the daylight? When you can actually see whether or not someone in the distance is pointing a gun at you?”
“Unit leader was gettin’ jumpy,” the soldier coughs out, groaning against the pain. Guilt stabs your heart like a knife. You’d have given him something for the pain if you had it, something to numb the wound. But shipments of med supplies were behind, and it would be at least a week before you got your hands on anything like that again. “Said going at night would be better, that we could get the drop on them before they even knew we were coming.”
“Yeah,” you scoff, rolling your eyes. “Never mind the fact that their soldiers know the land better than ours do.”
So, the unit leader had jumped the gun. You’d figured as much, when two of your nurses had run into your tent with messy hair and sleep addled expressions, panicking about the oncoming slew of injured soldiers who needed immediate medical attention. That had been two hours, six patients, and about one hundred and ninety seven stitches ago.
Again. It was lucky you weren’t sleeping much these days.
The soldier whose leg you were currently stitching up opened his mouth to speak –– whether to snark along with you at the poor choice made by the unit’s leadership or to blindly defend his superior’s decision, you couldn’t be altogether sure –– but before he could even fix his mouth to properly shape the words, a sudden roar of someone else’s agony effectively cut him off.
Steadying your hands, you carefully turn to peer over your shoulder, searching for the source of the commotion. All night, you’d been surrounded by a cacophony of screaming soldiers, but that yell of pain is one you’re certain hasn’t yet met your ears. And, as you watch the flap of the med tent swing back before admitting entry to three people –– one of your nurses and two soldiers, one leaning bodily against the other –– you discover that your assumption is correct.
“We got a bad one,” the nurse –– Sally, curly haired, nearing twenty four and a bit more capable than the other girls when met with the sight of blood –– shouts. Her eyes scan the tent, searching and searching until her gaze finally lands on you. She pauses only a moment to turn and direct the uninjured soldier to drag the one he’s supporting over to an empty cot before barrelling in your direction. “Gunshot wound to the abdomen. I haven’t really had the chance to get a good look at it, but he’s–– well, to be frank, that man has lost a shit ton of blood.”
A gutshot. Poor guy would either go through a sickening amount of pain just to die, or he’d survive, and end up having to endure even more pain. Either way, in light of your depleted supply of painkillers, ‘excruciating’ didn’t even begin to describe it.
Oh, damn it all.
“Take over here for me,” you command, gesturing with your chin to the needle perched between your fingers. Sally’s already moving to pluck it from your hand before you’ve even finished speaking. “He’s got about fifteen to go before we even think about sending him back to his tent. Don’t let him convince you otherwise.”
“You don’t think I know better?” Sally remarks drily, but you don’t have the time to come up with a witty comeback. You’re already on your feet and rushing toward the soldier writhing in pain across the tent, reflexively grabbing a collection of gauze, thread, tweezers, and rubbing alcohol along the way.
This isn’t going to be much fun for either of you.
The first thing you do is excuse the uninjured soldier, the one who’d carried him in. For one, there isn’t any need to keep him witness, and for another, you work better when an addition of unnecessary eyes aren’t tracking your every move. Besides. You doubt the poor soul laying on your med cot is at all interested in one of his peers –– one not sick or out of his mind due to his own pain, that is –– see him in this state. So, you simply thank the young man for his assistance and shoo him back in the direction from which he’d come, waiting until he’s passed the tent’s entrance before turning your full, undivided attention to your newest patient.
He’s got his eyes screwed shut tight in pain. You can hardly blame him. Of all the wounds to suffer through, a gutshot has the potential to win least desirable. It’s easy enough to see why, as the young man’s handsome features carve themselves into an expression of despair. A slick sheen of sweat coats his pale forehead, dampening his dark hair and sticking it to his skin. He’s biting down so hard on his bottom lip in effort to swallow his screams that you’re genuinely shocked he hasn’t drawn blood.
Though, part of you wonders if there’s even enough blood left in his body for his lip to bleed. Deep scarlet blooms stain his green shirt, so thoroughly soaked through that the fabric has turned almost black. Swathes of red cover his torso, his pants, the pale skin of his arms. It’s everywhere, already leaking onto the white sheets of the cot.
Sally wasn’t kidding. He really has lost a shit ton of blood.
“Hey there, soldier,” you start up, setting your collection of medical supplies down before taking a closer look at his torso. Shirt sticking to his skin the way it is, you aren’t going to be able to get much done until it’s out of the way. And, given that this man is certainly in no state to shrug it off himself, you’ve got no choice but to cut it. Lucky that you’d thought to grab a pair of scissors too, you suppose. “Don’t suppose you might be able to help a girl out by telling her what year it is?”
His jaw works for a few moments, teeth grinding together so forcefully the sound is audible. You think he might be gearing up to let loose another scream before he shakes his head a single time. “I got–– got shot,” he wheezes, whole body shaking, “not concussed. Don’t–– ah, don’t really… get how the year’s relevant.”
You exhale a bemused scoff through your nose, considering your response as your scissors work their way through the bloody fabric concealing his wound. You’re working as gently as you can, and so far it seems to be doing the trick. The soldier hasn’t flinched once since you started, though it’s hard to tell if that’s more due to the fact that he hadn’t noticed any difference one way or the other, or if it’s because he’s dedicating what strength he has left to keeping his head screwed onto his shoulders.
“Fair point,” you reply, still carefully cutting through his shirt. “How about a name, then? Little more relevant to the conversation, I’d say.”
It takes a few moments of silence for him to respond –– almost as if he’s trying to remember that he’s got a name –– but eventually, it comes.
“James,” he tells you, the single syllable leaving his mouth in a pained grunt.
You nod, cutting away the last of the fabric. “Nice to meet you, James,” you tell him, carefully peeling the tatters of his ruined shirt from his abdomen. “You just hold tight a little longer for me, alright? We’ll fix you up good as new.”
It isn’t a pretty sight, what you find beneath. Under all that red is a nasty wound, jagged and swollen at the edges, punched into the flesh just beneath the southmost edge of his ribcage. Thankfully, no bones have been hit –– a shattered rib would be immediately evident, both in the pitch of his screams and the deformed shape of his chest –– but the wound is more than a little inflated. There’s a puffiness to it that you can’t comprehend, a stiffness to its perimeter that doesn’t click in your mind, until––
Until you see the small, dark center, and suddenly it does.
You swear beneath your breath, a filthy, ugly word that you’d picked up a few weeks back from one of your patients. You don’t even know what it means, not really, but speaking it feels cathartic enough that you don’t altogether care.
Oh, sweet, holy hell.
James cracks an eye open, muttering, “Darlin’, you rea–– you really gotta work on your bedside manner.”
“Alright, listen to me, James,” you tell him, forgoing a witty response. You don’t have the time, not considering what you’re now dealing with, and you figure James will appreciate your working hands more than he’ll appreciate your shitty attempts at banter. “There’s… there’s something I need to do for you, before I can start patching you up. Now, normally I could give you something for the pain, but we’re out of the anesthetic I need. So this isn’t gonna… it’s not gonna feel very good.”
James looses a labored sigh, oddly calm for the clear anguish marring his face. “Shit, well good news,” he mutters, swallowing thickly, “it already doesn’t.”
His lashes flutter in a telltale manner, one which lets you know he’s getting closer to the brink and you’re running short on time. It’s easy enough, not to give in to the panic this incites in your chest. You’ve been doing this job a long time now, know that what James needs is your calm, your level-headedness. Those things have a higher chance of keeping him alive, of seeing to it that he comes out of this on the other side. Scarred up, maybe, and without the ability to breathe as deep as he once could, but still alive.
You shake your head, grabbing the tweezers from where you’d set them down before planting your forearm against an uninjured section of James’ bare chest for leverage. “Alright, big breaths, James. You scream as loud as you want or need to, but just… try and stay as still as you can, okay? I won’t be able to stop until it’s done.”
The only answer he gives in response is a shaky nod, the thick black fringe of his lashes brushing his cheekbones as his lips begin to move at a speed with which your eyes can hardly track. A prayer, you figure, or a plea for a quick end. Whichever it is, it helps him to relax just the tiniest bit more, slightly smooths out the lines of pain and suffering etched into his face.
Until you start digging with the tweezers, that is.
Then it’s all white hot screams of pain.
“I’m sorry,” you whisper beneath his cries, words drowned out by the sheer volume of the howls ripping out of his throat. But you don’t stop working, don’t withdraw the tweezers from his bloody wound. You hadn’t been joking when you told him starting meant you couldn’t stop until you finished. Abandoning the task now meant leaving James to bleed out in a matter of seconds. “I know it hurts, I’m sorry. You’re doing good, though, alright? You’re doing amazing. I’m sorry.”
It takes a moment for the tweezers’ edges to find the metal bullet lodged in his skin. At first, all you can feel is a mess of flesh and muscle, shredded and frayed from the impact of the gunshot. For a few short seconds, you wonder if your eyes hadn’t been playing tricks on you, if it would have been more wise to search for an exit wound on his back than to simply jump straight in without taking the time to stop and think.
But your worries are unfounded –– proven two seconds later when your tweezers make contact with the tiny, foreign object threatening James’ life. Carefully, you maneuver the tweezers into the correct position to properly take hold of the bullet. Then, with one last whispered apology, you slowly and carefully begin to pull.
James’ legs buck hard against the cot, arms straining at his sides where he’s got both his hands fisted into the sheets in an attempt to hold on for dear life. His teeth chatter against each other, knocking and clacking as he tries to get ahold of the screams pouring freely from him, and that thin sheen of sweat coating his skin has turned into a full on tidal wave.
But his torso doesn’t move –– not a single inch.
“We’re almost done,” you assure him, keeping your hand steady as you continue gently easing the bullet up, and up, and up. You can just make out the silver edges of it now, slick with blood and dented. It won’t be long now, before it’s out and you can start working on staunching the blood leaking from his body. Maybe you can lift his spirits with a joke or two then, a witty comment to ease some of the pain. Maybe––
The bullet slips from the tweezers, catching you off guard and jerking your hand to the left. It’s only by a centimeter, not a huge distance, but given that you’ve got edges of metal inserted into this man’s wound, to him, it makes all the difference in the world.
James throws his head back and screams, loud enough that you can instantly hear his vocal cords go raw beneath the strain of the volume. A single word leaves his lips; it sounds like Ma, only it’s warped, strangled. Much as you detest the fact, you know the sound well. A soldier crying out for his mother while under the thrall of delirium and pain isn’t exactly a rarity around these parts.
Guilt twists your heart with the razor sharpness of a cruel knife.
“Stop,” he gasps, voice hoarse. “P-please–– please stop!”
“I can’t,” you tell him, already repositioning your tweezers and going back in. Luckily, the bullet is much closer to the surface of his wound now. It only takes a second before you find another grip on it, instantly deciding to forego gentleness in favor of speed. “But the good news is––” With a slight bend of your wrist and a soft, wet pop, the bullet comes loose from his wound. “––we’re done with the shitty part.”
James’ eyes, glassy with pain and pupils blown wide, fall first to the bullet you hold up for his perusal, set against a backdrop of lowlight and your blood covered hand, before wandering their way up to your face. It’s then that you notice his irises are water blue and clear as crystal. You’re not sure why, but their color fascinates you.
“I wanna keep that,” he mutters weakly.
Then, his lashes flutter rapidly and his head lolls to the side, his lungs expelling a great, big breath before shuddering to a halt.
Your heart lurches at the sight. For one, awful moment, you think you’ve just put the poor man through all of that pain and agony only to end up somehow killing him in the process –– never mind the fact that this isn’t the first time you’ve extracted a bullet from a soldier’s abdomen, and certainly isn’t likely to be the last. But then his chest starts up moving again, at a much less worrisome pace. It’s slow, and his breaths are shallow, but they’re still breaths.
Unconscious –– not dead.
The realization is enough to make you send a mental note of thanks to whichever being was kind enough to have shown James mercy.
You allow yourself the shortest of moments to bask in the relief –– that you’d successfully extracted the bullet, that James hadn’t died during or after your attempts to do so, that you aren’t now left to set in motion the process of another condolence letter being shipped across seas to his family.
And once it passes, once you’ve inhaled and exhaled and wiped your hands on a cloth, you grab a cloth and press it to James’ wound, setting to work on stopping his bleeding –– but not before wrapping the bullet you’d just dislodged from his body in a pad of gauze and tucking it into the breast pocket of your uniform.
––
Chapter Two: Someone Good
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abovethemists · 3 years
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The Worst That Could Happen - Chapter 4
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Summary: Nicholas Rush has been told to lighten up or face repercussions in his professional career. Lacey French is in desperate need of a wedding date. A blind date provides them both with an opportunity. From the prompt “Rushacey blind date”. 
[Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3]
A/N: The last time I updated this fic, no one had ever heard of Covid-19. A simpler time. Anyway, here’s the next chapter of the Rushacey blind date/fake dating fic. 
*
“How did it go?”
Rush jumped at the voice that came from far too close behind him, nearly spilling his coffee down his front. He wheeled around to face a smirking and altogether too smug Gold, and leveled him with a glare.
“Fine,” he said, tersely, moving past the other man and out of the teacher’s lounge.
He was jumpy as all hell this morning and the worst part was he couldn’t blame it on anything other than himself. He’d been off all morning thanks to Lacey’s impassioned plea and his casual lie to Regina. He wasn’t sure his superior had been remotely convinced. He could feel her skeptical eye on his back as soon as he’d left her standing in the quad, but she hadn’t contradicted him. Regina was watching him though and that could only mean trouble.
“How did you like Lacey?” Gold asked, trailing after him down the hall, the scuff of his cane on the industrial linoleum floors keeping pace with Rush’s footsteps.
“She’s a nice enough girl,” Rush conceded. There was no point in telling Gold just how much he’d liked his sister-in-law. Nothing was going to come from this little farce of hers. He happened to be in the right place at the right time for Lacey’s use, nothing more.
“Nothing else to say?” Gold prompted, that interminable smirk still on his face. Rush had half a mind to punch him.
“No,” Rush groused, settling for being his usual sociable self. They’d arrived outside Rush’s office and he turned to face Gold without opening the door. He wasn’t about to invite the other man in to question him further.
“Lacey tells my wife everything,” Gold said, the corner of his mouth twitching up in a grin. “And my wife tells me everything.”
“What’s there to tell?” Rush asked defensively, crossing his arms against his chest. “I didn’t bloody sleep with her.”
“I wouldn’t want to hear about it if you did,” Gold fired back, his nose wrinkling. “She’s my wife’s sister, tantamount to being my sister.”
“She looks exactly like your wife,” Rush countered. “Failed to mention they were identical twins.”
Gold shrugged looking nonplussed.
“Lacey is half an inch taller,” he said, as though the physical differences between the sisters in any way outweighed the similarities. “But that’s beside the point. You’re going to that bloody wedding with Lacey.”
So Gold really did know everything about his non date with Lacey. He wondered if Lacey had told Belle about the kiss, or if she hadn’t given it another thought. Lacey probably kissed lots of people, all younger and better looking than himself. It certainly wasn’t haunting her every waking moment the way it was his.
“Oh am I?” Rush snapped. There was no need to tell Gold he’d already agreed to Lacey’s terms. “I must have missed when you took charge of my decision making.”
“Well someone has to,” Gold said, eyeing him critically and lingering far too long on the cuffs of his shirt. “What are you planning to wear?”
“What?” Rush returned with no small amount of annoyance.
“To the wedding,” Gold explained. “Do you even own a suit? I’ve never seen you wear one.”
“You wear enough of them for the both of us,” Rush snapped back.
“That’s a no then,” Gold said, still looking at Rush’s jeans and button down critically. “I’ll take you to my tailor, have something drawn up, but it’ll cost a fortune for a two week turnaround.”
“That’s completely unnecessary,” Rush said. “For your information I do own a suit.”
There was no need to tell Gold that it was a decade old and that he’d worn it exclusively to funerals and job interviews.
Gold winced nonetheless, as if he could picture the pitiful thing in his mind.
“Fine, perhaps you don’t need bespoke, can I at least take you shopping? Make sure you have something that fits?”
Rush scoffed. “Are you going to braid my hair afterwards too?”
Gold looked at him flatly.
“I thought we’d get mimosas and paint each others nails, but if you’d rather look like a slob and embarrass Lacey in front of all her friends, so be it.”
Rush sighed. He was supposed to be helping Lacey, ostensibly. She wanted to “win” her break up, whatever that meant. And her future career prospects were wrapped up in this too. If he showed up in his old suit, he’d hardly be an asset to any of that.
It was Rush’s turn to give Gold a once over.
“We’re about the same size, can’t I just borrow one from you? Surely you have a closet full.”
Gold looked mildly offended, taking a step back from Rush.
“I’ve got at least a stone on you. You’re emaciated.”
“You’re just as scrawny as I am.”
Gold sized him up critically.
“Fine, come over this weekend for dinner and you can shop my closet. You’ll need something for the rehearsal dinner as well.”
“You’re inviting me to your home?” Rush asked, surprised. So far his friendship with Gold had consisted of drinks in the office after hours. They’d never fraternized off school grounds.
Gold shrugged. “You’re dating my sister-in-law. You’re part of the family now. You should probably meet Belle.”
A week to the day after her date with Rush, Lacey found herself in a fabric store in Boston searching for the perfect lace for Ana’s veil. The dress itself was complete but for a few final alterations and Lacey thought she’d rather outdone herself. She’d taken inspiration from Ana’s grandmother’s original dress, updated it, and given it a spin she felt was unique to her aesthetic. Ana was in raptures over it and Lacey was already imagining a day when she could quit Granny’s for good and set up her own boutique.
“What about this one?” Belle asked, pointing to a bolt of ivory lace. She had Gideon strapped to her chest in a carrier, his little arms and legs flailing around as he reached for a rack of brightly colored silks.
Lacey pulled her sketchbook out of her purse, flipping open to the page that had her drawings for the veil and a scrap of the lace from Ana’s dress.
“Not quite,” she said, holding the sketchbook up to the lace. “But close.”
Belle hummed her disappointment and wandered further down the aisle.
“I can’t wait to see the finished product,” she said. “Send me so many pictures.”
“I wish you could see it for yourself,” Lacey said. “I can’t believe Will didn’t invite you.”
“Why would he invite his ex-girlfriend’s sister?” Belle said with a wave of her hand. “Or his ex-girlfriend for that matter.”
Lacey stopped to compare another bolt of lace to her sample, buying herself a moment.
“Because I made the dress,” she said finally, hating the excuse.
“Yeah, so what?” Belle said. “I didn’t invite Monique Lhuillier to my wedding.”
Lacey rolled her eyes. “Thanks, Bells, I totally forgot you had a Monique Lhuillier gown. I’d never remember you were loaded if you didn’t mention it constantly.”
At Belle’s flat look, Lacey shook her head.
“Sorry,” she said. “I’m a little on edge.”
Belle grabbed on to Gideon’s hand, saving a rack of colorful buttons from his sticky fingers as she turned to face Lacey.
“You don’t have to do this, you know,” she said, with a knowing look.
“I’ve already done it,” Lacey countered. “The dress is nearly finished.”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
Lacey sighed, tucking her sketchbook back under her arm.
“He invited me,” she said, her voice hushed.
“So?” Belle said, managing to infuse the tiny word with so much sympathy it made Lacey want to cry.
“So if I don’t go it looks like I have a reason not to go.”
Belle reached for Lacey’s free hand squeezing it in hers.
“Why do you care what he thinks?”
“He’s my friend,” Lacey said with a shrug, pulling free from Belle’s grip.
“He dumped you!” Belle exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air. “You don’t owe him anything.”
Lacey shook her head.
“Our relationship had run its course. He’s still a good guy, just a little fucked up. We have that in common.”
“Fine,” Belle said, rubbing a finger across a stark white lace that absolutely didn’t match the dress at all. “If the relationship ran its course and there’s no hard feelings, then I’m happy for you. But there’s no rule that you have to stay friends with him.”
“Look just because you can’t be friends with your ex, doesn’t mean the same is true for the rest of us.”
Belle let out a hearty laugh at that.
“My only ex is Gaston and he was a Neanderthal. I don’t think friendship was ever in the cards.”
“If only you had one more in that column,” Lacey said reaching out to cup Belle’s cheek with her hand. “Remember when you and Gold broke up for like three weeks? Wish that would have taken.”
Belle’s mouth fell open in outrage as she covered Gideon’s ears.
“Take that back,” she whispered. “Or Gideon will think you regret him being born.”
Lacey rolled her eyes. “He’s fifteen months old, Bells. He has no idea what I’m talking about. Do you Giddy Goo?” she directed at the baby, tickling him under the chin. “You have no clue what Aunt Lacey is saying do you? Silly little cutie booty!”
Gideon blew a raspberry at her.
“See?” Belle said. “He’s very smart. He understands condescension when he hears it.”
Lacey just rolled her eyes before spotting a lace option that might work and stooping down to get a better look.
“I know you’ll probably jump down my throat for even asking, but how are you feeling about your date with Dr. Rush?”
Lacey threw a glance over her shoulder at Belle.
“I feel fine,” she said. “We talked a bit on the phone earlier this week and I think we’ve got our story mostly straight. It’s best to stick close to the truth so we’re going with the story that you and Gold set us up and we’ve been dating for about three months. I doubt we’ll get much more scrutiny than that.”
“Uh huh,” Belle said noncommittally. “And how are you feeling about that kiss?”
“Well it didn’t suck, so if I have to do it again next weekend that’s just a little bonus isn’t it?”
“So you have a weekend long date with a nice guy with a stable job who is also a good kisser and you’ll be sharing a room at Granny’s B&B and you think absolutely nothing more will come from it?”
“I never said he was nice,” Lacey pointed out. “And as for job stability, that’s the whole reason he’s agreed to this.”
Lacey finally decided on the lace, jotting down the dimensions in her sketchbook before straightening back up.
“Well, I get to meet him at dinner tonight,” Belle said with a grin. “I guess I’ll get to judge for myself.
“Don’t get attached,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at Belle. “It’s not real.”
“I know,” Belle said with a little frown. “But we’ve never been on a double date before. Can you let me have this?”
“Belle,” she said, her voice a warning.
“You know I never thought Will was right for you,” she said. “He took you for granted. Would it be so terrible to find someone who loves you like you deserve?”
“No,” Lacey said truthfully. “But Dr. Nicholas Rush isn’t it. The only reason he agreed to all this was because he needed something out of it as well. It’s a transaction, Belle. Not a relationship.”
“We’ll see,” she said with a smirk, turning back to the rows of lace. “Oooh, look at this one!”
“I already picked one,” Lacey said, holding up her sketchbook. “Let’s get Gideon home before he hurts himself.”
Belle glanced down at her baby who had somehow managed to find a skein of yarn and had it half unrolled. She sighed, extracting the yarn from around Gideon’s pudgy wrists.
“I can’t take you anywhere,” she said to the baby with a shake of her head.
Rush tugged at the lapels of his blazer as he mounted the front steps to Gold’s Victorian mansion that Saturday night. He’d never been to Gold’s house before, but if he’d tried to imagine the thing sight unseen, he’d have probably done a fair job. The house seemed to fit the man, luxurious but old fashioned. He could never envision Gold in a sleek, modern condo or a suburban McMansion. But the salmon colored Victorian with its decorative gables and wrap around porch over looking a wide green lawn was tasteful whilst undoubtedly expensive.
Just like Gold’s suits he was expected to peruse through this evening.
He tugged at his blazer once more, feeling a bit like he was going on an interview, or meeting the parents. It was a ridiculous thought. For one, he wasn’t actually dating Lacey. And second, he’d spent far more time with Gold than the one meal he’d shared with Lacey. Still, he would be meeting her sister and this whole fake relationship was seemingly becoming increasingly complicated.
He let out an unsteady breath, letting the nerves leave his system before he raised his hand to knock on the glass-paneled front door.
The door flew open a split second later, framing a diminutive brunette in a pleated skirt and white lace top. He rather sensed she’d been lying in wait for him.
“Hello!” she said brightly.
At first glance, he thought he was speaking to Lacey, but further scrutiny proved him wrong. Her large blue eyes were identical to Lacey’s, but her hair was a lighter shade of soft brown, lacking the reddish undertones of her sister’s and he wondered which of the twins bore their natural color.
Belle then.
“Hello,” he returned.
“You must be Nicholas!” she exclaimed, ushering him inside. “Or, I’m so sorry, do you prefer Dr. Rush?”
She looked up at him expectantly and Rush blinked.
“Nick is fine,” he said.
She beamed at him, taking his arm and leading him into the house.
“I’m Belle,” she explained, unnecessarily. “Welcome to our home.”
“Thank you,” he said, looking around the large foyer and taking in the large oak staircase to the right of the hall, the high stained glass window overlooking the stairwell and the plush Oushak runner in tones of muted red and gold. “It’s beautiful.”
“Thank you!” Belle returned. “Can I get you a drink? Roman is just upstairs getting Gideon down to sleep. I figured we could have a grown ups only dinner tonight. It’s a rare enough thing with a baby and he’s been going through a bit of a sleep regression.”
“Roman has?” Rush deadpanned, certainly the first time he’d ever used Gold’s first name.
Belle snorted, an inelegant little huff through her nose that reminded him of Lacey. Where was she anyway?
“Oh my husband has never been a good sleeper, but I was talking about the baby.”
Belle stretched an arm out toward a room off the main hall.
“Go ahead and get comfortable,” she said. “I’ll go pour us all a glass of wine. Is red alright with you?”
Rush nodded and Belle gave him another sunny smile before disappearing down the hall. With nothing else to do, Rush strode in to the room Belle had indicated, a lounge of sorts with a big fireplace set in the far wall flanked by large built ins. There were two overstuffed leather sofas set across from each other in front of the fireplace and Lacey was stretched out across one, her socked feet propped up on the arm.
“Nicky,” she said with a twist of her lips. His stomach lurched uncomfortably and he swallowed thickly.
“Lacey,” he returned.
She sat up, placing her feet on the plush rug and leaning her elbows on her knees. She looked comfortable this evening. Gone was the blue mini dress she’d worn on their date replaced by a pair of black skinny jeans with holes artfully ripped in the knees and an oversized black top that was slipping off one shoulder, showing a hint of a red lace bra. He averted his eyes, staring at the framed artwork above the fireplace. Or was it a TV with a screensaver? He couldn’t quite tell.
“I’m glad you could make it,” Lacey continued, calling his attention back to her. “I suppose one more night of getting to know each other is preferable before we convince Will and Ana we’re in love.”
He wasn’t sure what to say to that, so he just nodded, standing awkwardly at the foot of the sofa.
Lacey stood up, stretching her arms up over her head and giving a tantalizing glimpse of her pale, flat stomach, before dropping her arms at her sides.
“So,” she said, “Are you ready to be the pretend man of my dreams?”
Rush nodded again. “I’ve already arranged for my teaching assistant to take my classes on Friday. I’ll drive up Thursday evening.”
Lacey raised her eyebrows. “Did you have to run that by your dean?”
“I did,” he said. “Told her I was attending an out of town wedding with my girlfriend. She choked on her coffee.”
Lacey smiled, a radiant thing that had him forgetting to breathe for a split second.
“Well I hope it’s gotten her off your back a bit.”
“My TA is absolutely brutal. Perhaps I’ll take Thursday off as well. They’ll be begging for my return.”
“Positively dastardly,” she said with an impressed nod.
“I was aiming for Machiavellian,” he said with a wink.
They smiled at each other, a comfortable silence filling the space, until the clack of high heels made them turn toward the doorway.
“Here we go,” Belle exclaimed, entering the room with a bottle of wine raised in one hand. Rush was no wine connoisseur, but he assumed anything to be found in Gold’s wine cellar had to be good.
Belle opened the wine, setting it on the coffee table to breathe as she retrieved 4 glasses from a butler’s pantry off the kitchen. By the time the wine was poured, they were all sitting comfortably, waiting for Gold to come down to eat.
“Don’t worry, Roman made the lasagna,” Belle said with a grin from behind her wineglass. “He did let me help with the salad though. I’m quite proficient at mise en place, but the actual art of cooking escapes me.”
“Aw, Belle, that’s not true,” Lacey chimed in. “Those sugar cookies you made last Christmas were bonkers.”
Belle scrunched up her nose. “Those were store bought. I just put them on a tray to look homemade. Thank you for thinking I was that capable though.”
Rush took a sip of his wine, enjoying the banter between the sisters. It had been long, too long, since he’d been around any sort of family. It was nice in a comforting sort of way to know such relationships still existed, despite his determined loneliness.
A moment later, Gold joined them, looking as casual as Rush had ever seen him sans jacket and waistcoat, his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
“Gideon is finally down,” he announced, giving a nod of welcome to Rush.
“My handsome hero,” Belle said, standing from the couch and handing Gold a glass of wine. “Was he fussy?”
“Just a bit,” Gold said, planting a kiss to Belle’s forehead. “I think that back tooth is about to pop through and then we should all start getting a better night’s sleep.”
Gold took a sip of his wine before starting, staring down into the glass.
“Is this the 2013 Syrah?” he asked Belle.
She bit her lip. “Maybe.”
“We were saving that for a special occasion,” Gold groused.
“It is a special occasion,” she shot back. “We never entertain.”
“It’s your sister and my work colleague. Hardly a dinner party.”
“It’s my favorite,” Belle said, looking up at him with wide eyes. Gold seemed to melt, wrapping his free arm around Belle and smiling at her. Rush had no idea who this sap was, but he was a far cry from the man he saw at the university every day. Maybe a relationship would soften his edges, give him something more to live for than work. Perhaps, once this situation with Lacey was over and done with, he’d actually try going out on a real date.
It was probably a pipe dream.
“Ugh, get a room, would you?” Lacey groaned from beside him on the sofa.
Belle and Gold stepped apart, remembering there were other people in the room.
“We have a whole house,” Gold said. “And yet you seem to always be here.”
“I was invited,” Rush pointed out and Lacey shot him an exasperated look.
“I’ll be out of your hair soon enough,” Lacey said. “Belle and I found the perfect lace for the veil today and I’ll be headed back to Storybrooke tomorrow for the foreseeable future.”
“Doubtful,” Gold intoned, and Belle pinched his arm, nearly making him spill his precious Syrah.
“Alright,” he said motioning across the hall to the dining room with his wineglass. “Dinner is ready. That is why you two are here, right?”
“I thought I was here to borrow your clothes,” Rush pointed out. Lacey looked at him with raised eyebrows.
“My lack of wedding appropriate clothing has been noted,” he explained.
“Ah,” Lacey said, giving a once over to his blazer, button down, and jeans. “I think you look good.”
A nervous little butterfly seemed to take residence in Rush’s stomach, flapping against his ribcage.
“Well, thank you very much,” he replied.
“He can’t wear jeans to a wedding,” Gold said, affronted.
“It’s Storybrooke, not Manhattan society,” Lacey shot back.
“I thought you were an aspiring fashion designer,” Gold said. “Yet proper wedding attire is outside your wheelhouse?”
They bickered back and forth on the way to the dining room and halfway through dinner. Rush was under the impression it was par for the course for them and the apologetic look he got from Belle only solidified his opinion.
“Would you two stop already?” Belle said, exasperated. “What is Nick going to think of this family?”
“I couldn’t give a fuck,” Gold deadpanned, taking a bite of the infuriatingly delicious lasagna. Rush was fairly certain Gold was proficient at absolutely everything despite being a miserable bastard. He could cook, had a beautiful wife, apparently a knack for antique restoration, and God knew what else. Rush was almost jealous.
“It’s refreshing,” Rush said, with a half smile at Belle. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had a family dinner. Or a home cooked meal, honestly.”
“Oh, Nick,” Belle said, pressing a hand to her chest. “You’ll just have to come over more often. You’re Roman’s best friend, you know.”
Gold looked outraged.
“We’re hardly friends.”
“Work colleagues,” Rush added.
“Exactly.”
“Oh shut up and admit it,” Lacey said with a snort. “You’re friends and,” she cocked her head, looking back and forth between them. “Maybe cousins? The resemblance is there, right Belle?”
“I’m so glad you said something!” Belle exclaimed. “I thought the same thing.”
“Now that’s ridiculous, I’m far better looking,” Rush joked.
“I’ll agree with that,” Lacey said, and Rush felt his smile faltering, that stupid butterfly feeling erupting in his stomach once more. If she was going to keep complimenting him, he was definitely going to need more wine.
After dinner, Belle and Lacey cleared the table, heading in to the kitchen to clean up and Gold took Rush upstairs to rifle through his closet. The bedroom was massive, a king sized bed barely making a dent on the space. The walk in closet was half the size of the bedroom, one side filled with bright colors and fabrics and rows and rows of high heels. The other side was a wall of black, navy and very dark grey.
“Quite the range you have here,” Rush said, picking at the sleeve of the suit jacket closest to him.
“Pick one,” Gold growled.
Rush sighed, turning to the rows of finely made suits. He grabbed one at random.
“Not that one,” Gold said, his voice exasperated. “It’s entirely wrong for you. You need something European cut.”
“I don’t even know what that means,” Rush admitted.
“Obviously.”
Gold brushed by him, pulling out two suits, one black and one navy.
“Here,” he said forcing the hangers into his hands. “Try those on in the hall bathroom.”
Rush did as directed, finding the guest bath and hanging the garments on the back of the door.
It felt a little strange, stripping down to his underwear in someone else’s house, but to his relief, the first suit seemed to fit. The pants were cut a little slimmer than he was used to, but it was undeniably well made. He buttoned the jacket, taking in what he could see of himself in the mirror above the bathroom sink. He was pretty sure he’d never worn anything this nice, not even to his own wedding.
With a sigh, he opened the bathroom door to go seek Gold’s approval when he was instead met with the sight of Lacey.
“Oh,” Lacey said, her eyes wide. She had a bowl of ice cream in one hand, a spoon hanging from between her pink lips. She pulled the spoon out of her mouth, letting it clatter in the bowl. “Wow.”
“Does this…” Rush glanced down at himself. “Does this work?”
“Ye—yeah,” Lacey said with a nod. “That’s…that’ll do.”
She licked her bottom lip as she watched him, and Rush suddenly remembered the feel of her lips against his last weekend. He was struck with the sudden urge to kiss her again.
“Lacey, I…”
“Will is going to look like an idiot,” Lacey said with a snort. “I see your hot English girlfriend and raise you an even hotter Scottish boyfriend.”
Rush clamped his mouth shut. That’s what this was about, showing up her ex. It was stupid to forget.
“Right,” he said with a nod. “Clothes make the man and all that. Hard to look bad in…” he checked the inside tag of his jacket “Dolce and Gabbana, apparently.”
Lacey shrugged her shoulder.
“I think you look good in just about anything,” she said with a wink. “Or nothing.”
He blinked, rendered speechless by Lacey for what felt like the millionth time.
She took a bite of ice cream, sucking on the spoon in a way that felt a little obscene. In spite of himself, Rush couldn’t help but watch, his mind conjuring all sorts of inappropriate images from what Lacey’s tongue was doing to the spoon.
“You want some?” she asked.
“What?” he asked, startled.
“Ice cream?” Lacey asked with a smirk. “Belle’s serving dessert, that’s why I came to look for you.”
“Oh, of course,” he said with a nod. “Sure. Let me change and I’ll be right down.”
“Alright,” Lacey said, still smiling at him dangerously.
Rush backed in to the hall bath, shutting the door on Lacey’s still smirking face.
This was fake, he thought, as he leaned against the bathroom door and shut his eyes. Despite her constant flirting, Lacey wasn’t interested in him. She was hung up on her ex-boyfriend and his only part to play in this little drama was as an outsider, someone who was around for a weekend and no more.
This wasn’t real.
He opened his eyes, catching his own reflection in the bathroom mirror.
“You’re a fucking idiot,” he told himself.
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ready-to-obeyme · 4 years
Text
[OM!] All Demon Brothers + Undateables as Babysitters (Part 1)
Scenario: For the sake of the exchange program (probably), the entire cast is now in charge of taking care of kids ranging from infants to pre-K children at a daycare with you. Headcanons on what type of babysitter they would be + whatever cute shenanigans that may occur
Note: Baby fever!! Inspiration is the entirety of Gakuen Babysitter/School Babysitter. It is literally the cutest anime I have ever watched in my life and I highly recommend it if you want a cute feels-good, slice of life!! Some of the kids I may have based off of them, but you don’t need to watch it to understand this! :))
why do i always make my headcanons so long
Part 1 has the 7 Demon Brothers
[Part 2] has all five Undateables
--
Lucifer
This was probably Diavolo’s idea so he has no choice but to go along with it, much to his dismay
He already thought humans were fragile, and now they were going to take care of the smaller, younger ones? 
His face scares 90% of the kids on his first day as a babysitter, which kind of hinders his job because every time he tries to help them clean up or change diapers, the kids start crying 
The other 10% who are not intimidated by him claim him to be the Big Bad and play fight with him all the time, and considering his attitude, he’s a pretty perfect villain in their make-belief play so he’s won their hearts IMMEDIATELY 
Generally a pretty strict baby-sitter who is listened to without having to repeat himself; his power and authority is unyielding (and also he’s just plain scary even if he doesn’t mean to be, and lowkey he likes the power he has because the kids remind him of Mammon sometimes) 
It’s honestly a big debate whether he should just give up and ask for help or power through, but if he’s just babysitting with you, pleads with you to please help him because he’s so lost and why do they scream so loud and not that he would ever admit to it, but he is a tiny bit hurt that he can’t seem to have the kids trust him
Once he’s told that he should smile more and speak more gently, he implements it with mixed results (at first), but it’s a significant improvement from the first few days
During a moment of rest, he’s sighing when a baby crawls up to him and sits in his lap without warning, and he’s a goner 
Literally has the hardest time trying to train his face not to look so pleased or happy, but his smile is so soft (and he will not hesitate to kill any of his brothers that see him like that, but for you and the undateables, he’ll just be embarrassed) 
Loves infants and how trusting they are of him despite how scary his face may seem sometimes-- the epitome of unconditional love and he’s just… very tender
Probably ends up being the respected babysitter who’s super cool to all the kids but slightly unapproachable (unless you’re a babyyyy) but eventually climbs the ranks in terms of babysitters because he vouches for them if they do need him
Mammon
The kids have decided that he is the biggest kid on the playground and now to assert dominance, they must beat him up
Which is what they do-- or as much as they can with their tiny fists and miniscule strength and the fact that Mammon is a literal demon
You just stare at Mammon as he cries on the ground, whining at how the kids ganged up on him and you’re just like…. They’re literally <4 years old. 
Despite that part, Mammon gets along with all the kids really well!! 
He talks to them as normal and calls them ‘brats’ but they all know he’s soft for them so they kind of take advantage of that? But only a little bit because they don’t like seeing Mammon cry either
You forget who comfort the other more at this point, the kids or Mammon
Mammon is the best person to call for if the kids want to play around because he’s pretty animated himself and goes along with whatever the kids want to do 
You might have to reign them in a little yourself, because you’re not quite sure Mammon really knows what’s actually dangerous for them
“Mammon, please only carry one kid at a time please, you’re scaring me”
“Huh? You know I can carry all four of them on my head--”
“Please”
Suuuper popular with the kids even though he kept complaining about them to anyone who would listen that he had to look over these tiny humans
But the moment any of the kids ask for his help or do something cute, he’s the FIRST one to go and help because ‘you need the GREAT Mammon’s help? Guess you can’t help it after all…” and he just likes the fact that he feels reliable to these kids
He might… actually save money to buy these kids Christmas gifts?? Will maybe cry if they bring little Valentine's Day candies (that their parents probably told them to give but shhh let him dream)
Leviathan
May or may not be hyperventilating as he hypes himself up to go into the daycare and meet the kids
He tried to brush it off to his brothers that they’re just kids and he doesn’t care if they like him or not because it doesn’t matter to him because he’s just an otaku-- but my god he hopes they like him 
Little does he know, the fact he lets them play on his game consoles (whether or not they actually know how to play) wins them over immediately and breaks the ice
They find him super interesting to talk to and he ends up a pretty popular babysitter because he talks to them like adults (yes, even to the babies) 
Catch him giving a bottle to a baby while talking to them in baby-voice (that he adopts not on purpose) about his favorite TSL season 
One of the biggest reasons why the kids love him is because he really listens to them even though their rants and blabbing doesn’t always make sense
When he does talk about his interests (or it slips out, as it does), the kids are genuinely interested in what he has to say and that’s when his mission to convert all of these kids to watching anime and reading manga started
“Reading manga is going to help them develop reading comprehension!!”
Probably brings his entire stash of (kid-friendly) manga-- probably the magical girl anime with Ruri-chan-- and has the kids dig in 
It does have some negative repercussions because kids aren’t exactly good at handling precious material, so things do rip and break and Levi had to excuse himself to go outside and mourn his lost
But the fire of his mission burns brighter than the sadness over what he has lost (besides, he would never bring limited edition/1st edition things outside his room so these things are replaceable) 
If Halloween rolls around, the kids will exclaim that they want to be [insert character] from TSL or another anime and Levi may shed tears of happiness right there and then
Will make it his side quest to make costumes for ALL the kids-- especially if they can’t afford their own and will encourage them to be whatever they want to be!!!
He’s literally leading an army of newly-created weebs/otakus that look up to him in the daycare and the power he has over these kids is so formidable some of his brothers are actually a little jealous HAHA
Satan
Acts casual about the whole thing and is actually casual about it
He hasn’t necessarily spent much time with kids, but he figures he’d be able to do it-- and he’d be right; considering how natural he is with people in general, I doubt kids would be much different, especially if he talks to them like adults and respects their opinions 
Is definitely the type of babysitter some of the kids end up having a little baby crush on, considering how charming and prince-like he can be with his gentle tone of voice 
Not that he’s perfect-- some kids are just brats and he does get angry at them but he only needed to snap once before the troublemakers all learned not to mess with him
Despite that, he would most likely be the ones to keep an eye on the troublemakers, because it may be a sign of a troubled home (not always, but… well, he would know best, wouldn’t he?) and he’d want to reach out to them if he can help them in any way
What he loves to do with the kids-- and you can probably guess-- is have Story Time!!
The kids are so excited to circle around him before naptime and listen to him read storybooks, doing voice overs and dramatic/animated readings; the kids are so intently listening and giggling at the funny parts
At first, he attempted to bring all his books over to the daycare, but he had to put some back when you tell him these kids are literally three and probably don’t have the reading comprehension required to read Quantum Physics-- so he provides picture books instead; anything he procured from the human world
Really encourages the kids to try their best to read and, if he has the time of day, tries to teach them basic things like the alphabet, how to spell out each words etc (you may call him…. Sensei) 
Adores their imagination too because he knows adults could hardly compare at times and he encourages them to make up their own stories and he’d help them write it down 
Uses a lot of tactic like these to encourage their education and their development-- he loves books and the impact they’ve made on him and he wants these kids to be able to experience the same things
Asmodeus
A little hesitant at first because kids can be super cute and great for pictures but… they can also be super gross and kind of mean; and he’s seen both ends of the spectrum so he’s not really sure what to expect
Then one of the kid compliments his hair clip shyly and shows their own similar hairclip and he’s sold because obviously they have the cutest kids in the world
Hair undone? He’s there
You wanna try out painting nails? Oh hun, he’s got you-- free make-overs for EVERYONE-- except maybe the infants, he doesn’t wanna ruin the natural baby smell and softness they have going for them
He wants to encourage ALL the kids to express themselves so he sometimes brings old clothes he doesn’t wear anymore so they have a fashion show/runways
ALWAYS encourages the kid to wear what they want because gender norms who???
If ANY and I mean ANY parent comes up to him and talk about him letting them wear non-gender conforming clothes he WILL go off on them because they are LITERALLY KIDS-- let them express themselves and have fun
Kinda grossed out by snot and diapers tho so you’re gonna have to help him with that; and since the universe knows that he hates getting dirty, he’s probably the brother most likely to get peed on while changing a diaper
You have to force him back into the daycare after that incident because he refuses to come out of the bathroom after changing into clean clothes 
But he is so captivating that the kids usually don’t cause trouble when he’s around, and also similarly to Levi, he talks and listens to them blabber while he’s doing their hair so it’s always pretty soothing 
Probably ends up in charge of the creativity hour and cooing over everyone’s art project, encouraging them to sprinkle as much glitter as they want, use as many colors as they want-- as long as it makes them happy! 
Beelzebub
Considering he’s the sweetest and physically the strongest, he’s actually pretty concerned about hurting them, and asks you to help him adjust to this new role so that the kids will be okay (you know he’ll be fine, but if saying yes to helping him will make him feel better, you say it)
Beel keeps to himself as a babysitter for the first few-- oh idk-- hours before some of the kids figure out how STRONG he is and he’s the best thing since sliced bread
The kids start to literally hang from him, testing how strong he really is, and are all delighted that he can hold all of them in and from his arms; he’s a little worried he’ll drop them, but since the kids are so excited about it, decides to lift them only a little high just to please them
Happily, he eventually gets used to knowing how to deal with them, and it helps that the kids are so polite to him
He’s the ultimate Big Brother figure to them, much to his surprise since he’s used to being the younger brother, and it makes him really soft inside that these kids actually look up to him and rely on him 
During free play, he has definitely carried at least six kids on his back when they play horsey and not break a sweat and throws the babies up in the air playfully (and carefully) and let them pretend they were flying
He’s their protector, making sure that they’re playing safely, even though he went a little too ham on the protection, grabbing a kid by the scruff of his collar because he was running and beel was afraid of him falling and scraping his knees
“It’s okay Beel, they can handle it--”
“Are you sure?? But they’re so tiny and fragile--” 
Changes diapers pretty handily after the first time; has definitely tried the baby formula and ate the entire bottle by accident before feeding a baby
Makes sure the kids are nice to each other, especially siblings, and that they eat; you tell the kids that if they eat their vegetables they’ll grow as strong as Beel, and that’s the FASTEST you’ve ever seen picky kids eat them in your LIFE
Belphegor
“Alright, nap time, everyone!”
“Belphie, they just arrived;;;”
Honestly just thought this entire thing was a hassle because kids in general take a lot of work and he just doesn’t want to put that sort of effort into something he didn’t sign up for
But since you’re there, he may as well try to be proficient enough to be well-liked enough to not cause a fuss and be able to babysit with you
He’s the type of babysitter who converses with the kids and pretends he doesn’t know something so the kid tries to teach him-- and honestly this give the kid a chance to be confident in their skills and also lets Belphie not do as much work to keep the conversation alive so win-win
As you can probably guess, is definitely in charge of enforcing nap time… by napping with the kids-- gotta learn by example right?
There are probably mats that the kids lie on but whenever Belphie lies in the middle of them, they all end up rolling and curling near his side; when he wakes up he’s always surrounded by a sea of kids and he’s so confused and he can’t move unless you wake up the kids for him 
The most efficient babysitter out of all of them because efficiency means less effort and time taken to change a diaper, clean up a spill, or wipe a kid’s nose 
Doesn’t understand why the kids keep wanting to interact with him but he’ll always indulge them in the end regardless of his nonchalant attitude
He actually finds a lot of them endearing when they talk about the things they like to do and about their daily life because it’s always interesting to learn about their perspective on things
When it’s creativity hour, the kids like asking him to doodle something on their paper (it can be a small chibi or caricature or just some animal) and it always makes them super happy; you watch him crack a smile as he sees the kids try to copy his drawing right next to it
If any of them are interested in stars, will gently show them the constellations in books and watch as they fascinate over them as he did before
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shijiujun · 3 years
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hey, idk who else to ask - do you happen to know how gong jun managed to star in 2 BL adaptions? idk that much about c-ent, but i have seen quite a few people say that actors won't do one again if they already did one, as not to get a reputation i guess (?), so i was super surprised that he got announced for shl. is it just a rule for actors that gained all their popularity from a BL show? is it even actually a thing or just fans saying bc it has not happened much? thanks in advance if you know!
ehhhh okay so i kind of totally forgot he was in advanced bravely
okay wait let me bracktrack and break down the danmei/bl live action for you briefly as much as i can:
so bl dramas of the past right, forget wholesome plots (okay there may be like a small handful of exceptions) BUT honestly, every single china BL i’ve seen are mostly like the intense, makjang, angsty, super dramatic modern style ones - this was when BL live-action was starting out and slightly before the ban went into place, but i swear, all i ever saw were like BEs (or subtle HEs, but sooo much suffering and betrayal) - and there’s a lot of like skin on skin contact like either actual R21 scenes or hinted at - nothing wrong with any of these technically, but it made watching BL really sad af especially, when you watch those from china 
then the ban happened, and things disappeared for a bit, and i think gong jun was really pretty lucky to not get cancelled in the industry for doing a BL show - because it was a huge possibility then, a lot of actors you saw in BL shows then didn’t really film after that?
and then of course now that everyone is sort of trying to skirt the no homo line by putting immense bromance, and obviously the shan he ling team really took quite a number of bold risks - risks that can have repercussions at any time, BUT sorry, getting back to your question:
1. so firstly, it’s just an assumption right, that actors don’t like to do more than one BL - i admit it’s really common, especially when they dont want to be typecast into a BL role? but i think it varies from person to person, honestly gong jun looks like he had real fun with filming and the script and everything, plus if he wasn’t like totally turned off from BL materials, i think he might have been more like “okay cool i’m getting paid for this” - a lot of actors themselves are like.. they really dont want to deal with these types of roles for a lot of reasons, some homophobic, some legit and understandable, and then there are definitely actors (and as long as the govt or censors dont crack down hard) that are like HOOOO alright, cool, another role,
2. yes, actors in bromances/bl adaptations these days do get more eyeballs - this is unfortunately (or fortunately) a fact of the industry - but i don’t see why this should be a huge issue - we all create content or be a part of content that will give us more exposure, so it’s pretty natural to head towards a show that will give you the exposure you need - there’s demand, and thank god for the supply just saying
3. more wholesome plots - so we no longer have like the makjang style like oh i’m gonna plot to incarcerate you or my parents are gonna harm you so you stay away from me plots *I AM NOT JOKING I WATCHED LIKE THREE LIKE THAT?!* - these are still current danmei plots and a lot of danmei writers specialize in like angst or gouxie - but these are definitely like more in your face hahaha, which brings me to the point of wholesome plots right - like we give you a little bit of fluff that can be explained away with “they are siblings”, touches that leave you screaming because damn that flirtation level - in any case, with for example TSOMD, CQL, MRIAD (not bl but close enough), now WOH, and in the future, SPL, MODU etc., there’s like greater plot they can focus on, rather than the INTENSE relationship itself - in terms of censorship it’s way easier to explain away 
4. and also a legitly interesting plot?!?!?!?! i mean if you think about a lot of popular danmeis, the cult favourites, the focus isn’t just that the main couple is gay yeah, even in Word of Honor the plot is like DAMN YES, compared to some like one layer modern love romance - hell yeah i’d go fight some jianghu baddies anytime
5. honestly if youku or whatever paid him enough i say do it HAHAHAHA i honestly don’t think it was anything complicated - simply MONEY + HANDSOME OTHER COSTAR + interesting plot + appreciation for script + more money + POSSIBLE VIRALITY + MORE MORE MONEY hell yeah i’d take it too damn
6. he could also really appreciate priest’s writing, i mean, she’s pretty much a legend rn
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sunflowerspectre · 3 years
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Hellfire and Ectoblasts
For @cleanlenins
Title: Hellfire and Ectoblasts Fandom: Danny Phantom x Lucifer Summary:  The devil works hard, but Vladimir Masters works harder. When Vladimir Master dabbles in dealing favors to others to get his way - much easier than constantly possessing everyone - Lucifer Morningstar has a few choice words for the business tycoon. Rating: T for cursing (multiple uses of the F word, mentions of drug abuse) Final Word Count: 5005 Ft. Uncle/Redeemed Vlad AU
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Los Angeles is new territory, despite all the places Vladimir Masters has traveled. He has drunk martinis in the sands of Bahamas, made deals in Cancun, and has a passport larger than most politicians. He has even traveled further into the Ghost Zone than most of the fully ghosts there.
Yet the city of angels has always eluded him, or rather he eluded it. It never quite appealed to him, with the oddities and gaudy casinos. It felt almost beneath him and it has, honestly,  never been on his priority list - at least, not until now.
Business is business and Vlad Masters will always go where business is; even if it is in a city like Los Angeles. Even if it is with an admittedly annoying sixteen year old teenager for a long extended amount of time.
Honestly, what was he thinking when he wanted Daniel as a son? He should have gone after Jasmine, he begrudges. At least she knew when to be quiet.
“Are we there yet?”
Vlad feels his eyebrow twitch, a vein throbbing in his neck. Daniel Fenton has the nerve to look at him with large innocent, doe eyes as if that is not the hundredth time he has asked that question in the past hour.
His somewhat nephew had jumped on the chance to go to LA with him; he would have been more suspicious of Daniel’s intention if not for the fact that the space shuttle endeavor will be within one quick bus ride from their hotel. As challenging, and even powerful, as Daniel can be - he is very much an open book that has been quite easy to read.
Danny opens his mouth, as if to ask that infuriating question again, but is stopped short by a small ecto blast. The ectoplasm effectively sticks against his mouth and despite the way he claws it, it refuses to budge. He settles for crossing his arms in a huff with a narrow glare. He idly considers it for a moment before a middle finger raises in contempt.
“Curse at me all you want, Daniel, but I refuse to listen to that infernal question the entire trip.”
Danny’s body language makes it clear that he is mocking him. Vlad waits until his fit is over before removing the ecto blast. Danny, huffing about being cut-off, leans back into the seat of the private jet. When he glances out the window, catching glimpses of clouds, he can not help but think wistfully how much better it would be to be flying Airline Danny. Jets, private or otherwise, are too confining now that he knows what it feels like to touch clouds.
He bets that the skies of Los Angeles is beautiful up close. He absently wonders if he gets far away enough to the nearby desert if he will be able to get a good view of the stars. The Orion constellation, not to mention a few planets like Venus and even Saturn, should be more visible here than it would be in Amity Park. He wonders if he flies high enough if he can get a good picture with a smartphone.
“Why are you going to LA anyway? Don’t you have enough money that you don’t need to be blowing it at casinos? Or is that the whole point?”
He barely even spares Vlad a glance through the corner of his eyes, arms crossed lazily against his chest as his cheek presses against the cool glass of the window. While being with Vlad is not the worst thing in the world - at least not anymore - he can not help but wish he would’ve been able to bring Sam and Tucker along. He imagines that they would be thrilled to go somewhere that’s not the Nasty Burger. At the very least, they would be better conversationalists.
Well, I guess it’s at least fun to mess with him, Danny thinks wistfully, a more devious smile on his face. If anything, it is a great way to pass the time. Messing with Vlad has always been a treasure, but now with little repercussions, at least nothing that compares to the way he used to threaten to kill his dad, it is like the entire world is his oyster.
“You can never have enough money, young badger.”
Danny coughs something into his elbow that sounds suspiciously like ‘ eat the rich’.  His eyes watch Vlad carefully with feign innocence, as if he never said anything at all. His elbow hides the large shit-eating grin threatening to break on his face.
Vlad makes a point to ignore the comment, continuing easily, “Since our - my -”
He struggles to find the right word, fumbling a bit with a strained look on his face. Mentions of the past have always been hard to bring up when he is, honestly, doing his best to move forward from it. He feels strained at the mere mention of how he behaved beforehand, somewhat even embarrassed by the things he tried to pull. He cannot be thankful enough that the Fentons, including even Daniel, have even given him this second chance. The young badger’s trust is not an easy thing to earn.
“ Your redemption arc,” Danny offers somewhat helpfully.
While not fond of the term, Vlad has to admit that he cannot think of a better phrase.
“-Yes.”  
He accepts the term Danny offers with clenched teeth, “-and as such, possession has become quite unfavorable . I have taken up doing business the old-fashioned way.”
Danny turns to face him. His innocently blinking eyes do not fool anyone with the gleam of mischief shining brightly in them.
“-Legal suits and proper paperwork?”
Vlad snaps at him suddenly, a vein throbbing in his forehead as he regrets taking off the ecto-gag.
“Oh will you - stop that?”
The outburst sends Danny reeling  into a laughing fit, clenching his sides tightly.
__________________________________
Danny’s smartass comments cost him; though, in his opinion, it was absolutely worth it. To his dismay, Vlad drags him along through the city of angels instead of leaving him at the hotel. He claimed he needed to meet a new potential business partner. He gave an entire speech of how it would be good for him to learn how the business world works, but Danny can only recall maybe the first few sentences of said speech. Vlad even went as far as stuffing Danny into the most uncomfortable expensive clothes that he could find. Honestly, couldn’t the man at least get comfy expensive clothes? Gucci makes sweat suits. He makes a mental note to send some links to Gucci sweat suits to Vlad later.
Comfy or not, he still would have preferred to have just headed straight to the space shuttle endeavor. At least then, he would be in ghost form most of the time anyway. It would have been a ten - maybe fifteen - minute flight himself from their hotel room; he even promised Vlad that he would stay invisible the whole time and not touch anything he was not supposed to. A promise that was hard to give since oh man did he want to touch the shuttle just to say he touched something that was in space. He even begged his uncle. Slipped in a few mentions of how his mom would be so happy if he was able to go and get pictures.
He almost got him too, but alas, his efforts were in vain. Instead, he is stuck in a limo. It is not a bad thing in and of itself, but even a luxurious car feels suffocating when you want to be somewhere else.
He eyes the protesters lining up on certain streets. Sam would have loved it here. He keeps track of all of the ‘trendy’ vegan cafes he spots along the way for future reference; he even spots a few goth-centric stores. He snaps a few pictures, sending them over their group chat. He follows them up with pictures of pictures of every BBQ stand he finds for Tucker’s sake.
Sam: Still with the ex-villain?
Danny snorts, scooting away from Vlad as much as he could before snapping a picture of his unsuspecting ex-arch nemesis. Vlad visibly sighs, the exhaustion showing on his face as he does not even bother to look at Danny anymore.
Tucker: Someone looks like he’s having a great time
Danny: He’s with me, of course he’s having a  great time. I’m a joy to be around. An absolute blast.
Tucker: Isn’t every party you’ve gone to nowadays a bit - dead?
Danny audibly groans at the bad attempt at puns, sending a quick message of how puns are his thing; it’s his whole shtick.  But like all group chats do, the conversation grows dead pretty fast.
He is already growing bored again after having sent all the memes he could find ( and how dare they not laugh react at them) . He settles for rolling the window up and down obsessively, occasionally even sticking his head through it. When that adrenaline rush is short-lived, he ends up leaning against the door while obnoxiously clicking the window button repeatedly until Vlad is forced to ask the limo driver to put on the child lock. He considers the idea of just phasing his head through the window, but as weird as LA is, he thinks even that would be a stretch.
He could just phase away entirely. After all, the limo is not ghost proof. Vlad even got rid of most of his more outrageous contraptions and traps so he knows that the seat will not suddenly grow restraints if he tries to get up from it. He wonders if the oddity shop that they passed is still open? He did promise everyone souvenirs and the weirder the better (as is the whole point with souvenirs).
But he also promised his mom that he would get along.
Besides, Vlad said he would pay for lunch when they are done and they passed the most delicious looking burger place.
After what feels like forever, watching all the places he wants to go but can’t right now like a sad puppy begging for the window to be let down, the limo finally pulls up in front of a nightclub. LUX. Danny raises a brow. He may not be the smartest out of his family, but dead languages are his specialty. He glances to Vlad, wondering if he should be more concerned about his pseudo-uncle doing business here. Any nightclub named after light that looks this shady can not be good.
He is also pretty sure that he just saw a drug deal around the corner and some of the people in line already look under the influence of something .
“Am I even allowed here,” Danny questions, pausing a moment to count on his fingers, as they exit the limo. “I’m only like - sixteen? I am a literal child. ”
Vlad continues walking as if he does not hear Danny’s voice grating on behind him. Somehow, the teenager has a voice that seems to stick out like a sore thumb against the boom of the music coming out from the club’s doors.
“You are not a child, Daniel,” Vlad finally acknowledges.
“Uh the law would disagree, sir,” Danny waves a finger after him, “I am a minor.”
The sun is already starting to set, which means the club is steadily filling up; a majority of people are still out in long lines outside of the club’s door. He glances at them briefly, if in a bit of curiosity at the club wear. He blushes wildly at some of the more out-there club wear and focuses quickly on the fact that Vlad is steadily getting ahead of him.
“We are not here for drinking, Daniel,” Vlad’s voice comes out a bit exasperated as he fixes his tie. He eyes the people in line with a bit of disdain, but otherwise ignores them.
Vlad continues on past the lines, not acknowledging the way that some of them call after him. He keeps his hands in his pockets as he gets closer to the crowd; Danny realizes that it likely has something to do with the high possibility of getting pick-pocketed. After all, Vlad does not exactly blend in, but neither does Danny in the suit that Vlad forced him in.
Danny is close in tow as they head straight for the bouncer at the door.
If Vlad was not so used to the way that Maddie could ( has and absolutely will) beat him, he would have been more surprised at the woman at the club’s door. The choice being a bit abnormal in the job. Her intimidating presence is enough to make most of the more pushy people at the front second-guess themselves. A few of the people who dare to test the boundary of the velvet rope quickly change their mind as she just glances at them. Danny’s first thought is how much Sam would like the bouncer. The entire leather outfit is just something that feels like she would like, compared with how tough the woman seems to be. If the woman didn’t scare him so much, he would have tried to take a picture.
His second thought, however, is how off she feels. The closer he gets to her, the more his core vibrates deeply in his chest. As if it is trying to transform and get him out of there, like an animal’s instincts to a predator. Run. RUN. RUN. He digs his heels into the ground and refuses to listen to his gut. He refuses to let his gut determine what he thinks about someone, or how he acts on them. He learned the hard way to control that impulse.
Besides, she does not seem that dangerous - he thinks? He glances to the knives strapped to her thigh and the mean look in her eyes. Mostly. But his ghost sense has never gone off. That means that possession is off the table - so is her being a ghost. But he has never felt his core vibrate this way, in such a paralyzing instinctual fear. The only thing that comes close is when he faced Pariah.
Danny is sure that Vlad notices it too, he is way too smart not to. Vlad’s expressionless face does not give a single thing away, staring straight on even as the woman looks him over closely, a sneer on her face. Something about the way she bares her teeth feels more like a threat, as if she is prepared to rip your throat out herself at any given moment. The worst part is that it feels like that is something she is very much capable of doing. She gets startlingly close to Vlad’s face, sniffing him. He refuses to flinch and let this woman know how much she intimidates him.
He seems to pass whatever test she was giving him. Finally she just snorts, taking the card that he offers her. Danny only catches a glimpse of the red and  gold lining against black with some sort of name written on it. He barely sees the flash of some sort of horned symbol on the edge. Just who is Vlad doing business with anyway?
Whatever the card is, it works. She backs off, crossing her arms against her chest as she moves out of the way of the door to let them through. The glare she gives some of the people at the front of the line scares them out of even thinking about shoving their way in through the open door.
Danny sticks close to Vlad’s side this time, feeling the urge to get as far away as he can from the woman. He is not sure if she will stop him. He would love to get out of this situation with Vlad, but he would hate that it meant staying anywhere near the woman. The wild beating of his core is getting worse and it feels like he can’t breath.
He is unsure if he can handle being around her much longer with his core acting up like this. He feels like he is this close to a heart attack.
“You smell weird, but whatever. He’s inside.”
He smells weird, Danny wonders how she can smell anything especially when all he can smell is all the people around them not wearing deodorant. He tries his best to brush it off as some sort of intimidating tactic. But when Danny passes by the woman, she leans forward, visibly sniffing him as well.
“Sorry it’s my - uh - aftershave,” Danny’s panicked lie confuses even him as he just waves at the woman as he enters the club, finally taking a deep breath in as the door shuts behind him.
Still thoroughly weirded out by whatever that was, something that does not improve when he’s suddenly surrounded by drunks and loud blaring music, he sticks abnormally close to Vlad. The people surrounding them are too drunk to notice when he phases through the elbows that are just too close to him or the shoulders that almost bump into him. Vlad looks back at him briefly, a ghost of a smile on his face, before he turns attention to the crowd.
“Whatcha looking for? The bar? Drugs? A confessional?” Danny asks as they finally reach a section that gives them some elbow room. He brushes off imaginary dirt, and not so imaginary something , off of his shoulders.
“My business partner,” Vlad answers curtly, eyes still scanning the crowd. He knows what he’s looking for, despite not having met the man before.
When Lucifer Morningstar reached out to him, insisting that they meet in person to discuss business, Vlad almost brushed him off. However, a combination of the man’s obsession with the devil and the fact that Lucifer Morningstar’s very identity doesn’t go back any further than a few years intrigued him. How does a man who legally has only been around for a few years get so ahead in the business world? More importantly, who is he really?
“What does he look like, maybe I can help.” Danny offers, looking over the crowd as if he would suddenly be able to who they are looking for.
“It is our first business meeting, I’m afraid, but if he looks anything like his photos, you can’t miss him.”
That gets Danny’s attention. He swerves suddenly on Vlad, jutting his hands out to form a T, his fingers press against his palm, “Whoa, time out! You brought me to a business meeting with someone you never met before? How do you even know the guy’s like, I don’t know, a ghost hunter?”
“You're a paranoid teenager, young badger.” Vlad’s voice is dry with a lack of amusement, “I’ll have you know that I reach all my partners quite well. Lucifer Morningstar is nothing more than a lunatic, however he is quite popular with our mutual partners.”
“ Lucifer,” Danny harshly whispers, his voice only half-way kidding, “Don’t tell me you actually made a deal with the devil?”
Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise him if Vlad did - if such a thing is really possible - but it would put a strain on their now alliance. Vlad’s about to retort, likely something along the lines of you’re being ridiculous Daniel, but he gets cut off prematurely by another voice.
“Well not yet, but let’s see if that changes today, shall we?”
A particularly British voice gets their attention as a man in a well fitted suit, looking vastly more comfortable in it than Danny is, struts their way. Despite looking like every other business man he’s seen, the man doesn’t feel like the usual stuffy suit type. He feels dangerously charismatic, with an easy smile on his face and a magnetic pull that makes it difficult to turn their attention away from him. He has a few beautiful women, and at least one man, at his side. He whispers something that Danny wishes he didn’t hear, to each of them before they regretfully leave his side.
“You must be Vladimir Masters.” The tone of voice is not a compliment, coming off more mocking, “Look at you, a bit older than I expected, but ultimately age is never an issue. Provided you’re at least an adult.”
The sultry look that the apparent Lucifer Morningstar has as he looks Vlad up and down appreciatively reminds Danny too much of how Vlad used to look at his mom. He starts to feel sick to his stomach, gagging exaggeratingly in the background as he tries his best to ignore the way his core has returned to vibrating, thumping hard against his chest.
Whatever the woman at the door was, Lucifer Morningstar must be at least the same thing - or something close to it - to make his core react the same way. He should be more concerned over it, but he glances toward Vlad. He looks stony as ever, the only sign of discomfort being a vein beginning to throb on his neck. Ah, so he does notice.  
He doesn’t seem surprised either.  Danny wonders if this is some sort of test again, to see what he will do and how he will react. Especially in front of an unknown factor. Shit. Danny curses when he realizes that’s why Vlad brought him along in the first place and then curses again - more directed at Vlad himself this time - for Vlad being as cryptic and vague as Clockwork.
 I just wanted to see the endeavor, Danny bemoans as the man ushers Vlad (and by extension, Danny) to a clear booth. Taking Vlad’s lead, Danny acts more confident this time around, trying his best to act like every inch of his being isn’t screaming to run.
“Drinks,” Lucifer offers, seeming comfortable in the booth with his arms stretched out wide against the edge of the seat across from Danny and Vlad. While Vlad accepts the offer, ordering a simple old fashion, Danny speaks up with a cheeky grin.
“I’ll have a coke on the rocks,” Danny orders, showing a lot of teeth in his grin as he gives finger guns, of all things. After a pause, he adds on, “Not shaken nor stirred, please.”
Vlad’s exasperated sigh is barely audible as he breathes out through his nose. At the very least, he should be glad that Danny is acting normal - as awkward and tiring as normal is.
“I must admit Mr. Morningstar, I was a bit surprised to receive your invitation,” Vlad speaks easily. He politely sips at his drink, but otherwise leaves it untouched, more focused on the conversation. He tries to not let his eye twitch when he hears Danny suck up his coke through a straw.
Lucifer looks at Danny in amusement, seemingly unoffended by the teenager’s manners (a small blessing). Unlike Vlad, Lucifer doesn’t shy away from his own drink, downing it easily. He orders a few more at one of the ladies passing by, followed by flirtatious compliments that make her giggle and once again, makes Danny wish that he couldn’t hear what was being said.
“Well how could I not invite a man such as yourself, Vladimir,” Lucifer’s voice is exaggerated, almost strained, “Or is it Vlad? Vladdy?”
Vlad does twitch at that and Lucifer grins, “Vladdy it is. Better than douchebag, I suppose.”
Danny snorts at the sudden word, laughing hard enough that he barely stops the coke from pouring out of his nose. He takes in a deep breath, wiping at his face with a cocktail napkin as his nose burns from the soda.
“I prefer to use the term fruit loop,” Danny speaks up helpfully.
Lucifer seems delighted at this information, his eyes lighting up in glee as Vlad visibly sinks into the seat.
“ Fruit loop,” Lucifer repeats gleefully, “Lacks a bit in curse words for my liking but fruit loop it is!”
“You can always say fucking fruit loop,” Danny offers as if he is still being helpful, the grin on his face more genuine, “Or fruit by the fucking loop?”
Lucifer’s laugh is infectious, his eyes gleaming as Danny joins him in laughter at Vlad’s expense. For a moment, the two continue back and forth before Vlad is forced to intervene; the vein is his neck is more noticeably throbbing at this point.
“Mr. Morningstar,” Vlad cuts in, his voice stern, “What exactly was the point of the invitation, if I may? I hope it wasn’t to just call me outrageous names.”
Lucifer nonchalantly waves off Vlad’s growing ire, “Oh no, I invited you over for much more than just that. Favors, you will find, are my  specialty. One could say it’s my whole business. I grant favors and I do not take kindly to others who sneak up on my business and steal it away.”
There’s a flash of something in Lucifer’s eyes. Something dangerous. As brief as it is, it’s enough to make Danny’s core hum against his chest, his hand grips his knee tightly. His eyes flicker to Vlad and as much as the older man is trying to hide it, Danny can tell that he’s just as suddenly bothered by whatever that was.
“It’s the point of the matter, you know,” Lucifer continues, “Steal my business, shame on me, steal my shtick, shame on you.”
He downs another glass and grabs something off a platter as someone passes by. It looks suspiciously like a joint. He lights it up without a second thought; Danny tries his best to act like he doesn’t know what it is as Vlad eyes him through the corner of his eyes.
“Word is that you, Vladimir Masters, have been sneaking around granting favors to a chosen few. I don’t know how you grant said favors, I don’t particularly care. But I do wish you would stop.”
The dangerous aura that’s thick in the air is heavy, but the realization that Vlad has still been up to shady business is heavier. Danny slumps into the seat, leaning forward with a heavy sigh.
“So you have been up to shady shit,” Danny mumbles under his breath as he absently stirs the straw in what has to be his third glass of coke.
“If you don’t stop,” Lucifer continues, “I’m afraid I’ll have to make you stop. If Mazikeen does not get to you first.”
He gestures his thumb toward the woman that was outside the door; she hovers nearby as if she knows exactly what they’re talking about. The grin on her face is malicious, bordering on feral as she twirls a knife across her knuckles without breaking eye contact. That woman is intimidating, Danny swallows thickly, but grins wildly at Lucifer.
“Oh he’ll stop,” Danny reassures the man before Vlad can even get a word in. There’s an edge to his words; a very clear message underlying his words. “Otherwise I’ll make him stop myself.”
A flash of ectoplasmic green swirls across his eyes. Vlad, not quite intimidated by a sixteen year old still going through puberty, simply mumbles under his breath, oh stop with the ‘scary’ eyes, Daniel, honestly. Lucifer catches the moment, eying them both with interest as he relaxes into the chair. He makes a motion with his hand and suddenly the woman - Mazikeen - isn’t there anymore; Danny isn’t sure where she went, if he should be worried about it, or if it was a sign of good faith.
“ You are a very interesting child,” Lucifer says, “At first I thought you two may have been one of mine, but that’s not really the case is it?”
Danny isn’t sure what one of mine really means; he doesn’t really want to know either. The way Lucifer says it feels off, as if he’s not concerned by it or that they would have been in worse trouble if they had in fact been one of his (whatever that means). Vlad recovers fast, eying Lucifer with narrowed eyes.
“Just what is it that you’re inferring, Mr. Morningstar?”
“Why, that you’re not human, of course!”
He says it as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, a large grin stretched on his face as he finishes off the suspicious joint, making a point to blow the smoke away from them. It may have been a trick of the light, or even just a magic trick, but Danny swears that the smoke formed some sort of devilish face. Complete with the horns and all.
Danny’s grin falters as he watches Lucifer closely.
F-uck-ing typical. At this rate, he will never get to see the endeavor or any other of California’s space museums. Why can’t he have just one normal road trip for once? No circus ringleader, no reality altering devices, no ghosts, and no ghost hunters. He just wants to get a selfie with a space shuttle, order as much hotel food as he can off of Vlad’s card, and then crash. Maybe even go to the Griffith Observatory. Fly to the Hollywood sign. Sneak into a Disney park and take a selfie on top of Cinderella’s castle. Just a normal trip (with a few added advantages to being a half-ghost boy). Now, he has to instead worry about some devil-obsessed (but definitely weird and maybe not human at all) club owner finding out his secret.
This is exactly what Danny told Vlad; meeting someone you don’t know is just a risk. At the very least, Lucifer doesn’t look like a ghost hunter. He definitely doesn’t fit the M.O. of a Guys In White agent. There could be other agencies out there though, other people who want to hunt them down. Who knows, maybe whatever this guy really is likes to eat ghosts or hunt them for sport. This is exactly what he was concerned about. Now, his secret, and Vlad’s secret too he supposes, could be blown all because Vlad had to go make a shady business deal.
Danny turns to Vlad, not even bothering to whisper as his voice cuts through the loud music.
“I told you so.”
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aceofwhump · 3 years
Text
Alright!! This post is for my lovely friend @theladyoffangorn who wanted some whump fic recs for Leonard Snart from Legends of Tomorrow. BABE! I GOT YOU!
I've got sickfics, I've got emotional whump, I've got team feels, I've got ship feels, I've got Leonard lives AUs, I've got Leonard loses a hand AUs.
I'VE GOT YOU!!
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A Hand of Metal and Wheels by areyouarealmonster: Leonard shatters his hand trying to get free of the cuffs that Mick--Chronos--left him in. Gideon can seal the open wound, but no more than that. Leonard has to come to terms with losing his hand, and to deal with the inconvenient feelings he has for the man making him a prosthesis. Ray, however, is still with Kendra, which makes Leonard's feelings even more inconvenient and pointless. There's no easy fix for his feelings, or for learning how to use a mechanical hand. It's tough, and it's frustrating, but at least Ray Palmer keeps touching him, so he's got that going for him now.
Dig Me Out by ninhursag: 20 year old Sara Lance and 20 year old Leonard Snart wake up locked in a room together on one of the worst days of their respective lives. This is an au of the already au Possessive Charms stories. It takes place both before and after those stories, depending on the point of view character. You probably could get away with starting here.
After the Oculus by SaxyFangurl: Rip and Sara prevent Leonard from going back and saving Mick at the Oculus. The Team gets concerned when it seems like Leonard is not handling his grief well. To make matters worse, they lost contact with their resident kleptomaniac when they all were scattered throughout time.
In This Life by JaelIn: one Earth, Rip didn't time-scatter the Legends--he sent the Waverider spinning through the multiverse, damaged, its crew trying to find a way home. And when that Earth's Sara and Leonard approach another Earth's Waverider, they'll find out just what a life and a destiny can turn on.
(I Don't Believe in) Destiny by Jael: Leonard Snart is back, finally pulled from the timestream where he's spent the last four years. But he wasn't alone, and the repercussions of that will echo through the Legends, the Time Bureau, and beyond. And maybe, just maybe, they'll bring everything around full circle.
How to Save a Life by Jael: In one moment, Leonard Snart is bleeding out in an Central City alley. The next, he's waking up on some kind of ship, where weird shit keeps happening all around him, his oldest friend is avoiding him, and an intriguing blonde he's never met before seems to know him far too well. What the HELL?
bad habits, they die hard by SiriCerasi: They have no food, and more importantly, no water. There's not a single tree in sight, nothing higher than stubby bushes, and Leonard fucking Snart will not take off his goddamn parka. Or, Sara and Len get stranded in the heat, Len is stubborn and whiny, and Sara is 100% done.
not to break by SiriCerasi: He only fixes the robot because he had, technically, broken it. Or, Len is lost without Mick, Sara and Gideon try to help, and Len is adopted by robots.
sensitive's unravelling by SiriCerasi: "Movie?" he asks, as though this were normal, as though they'd always been friends on a time travelling space ship, as though she hadn't almost killed a teammate today. Episode tags: 1x05, 1x06 & 1x07
child, be still by SiriCerasi: He thinks, some days, that this is helping her as much as it is him. The days when she seems very far away despite sitting right beside him. When the look of longing on her face as she speaks of the past makes her seem like a ghost, haunting her own life. Crook and Assassin, trying to dull each other's broken edges. Weaves in and out of canon, following season 1.
The Weight of Time by areyouarealmonster: Leonard Snart has learned (kind of) how to be a superhero with his new powers to control time (thanks, Oculus). Now, he and Ray Palmer are back on the Waverider, adjusting to being back with the Legends. It goes just about as well as you'd expect.
A Rift in Time by elvishmockingbird: While Sara struggles with her feelings after ending things with Ava, vacation shenanigans lead the new Legends to discover the story of Leonard Snart. With some help from Team Flash, they find a way to bring him back. But saving Snart has an unexpected effect on the timeline that the Legends now need to fix.
Cold Hearts Brew Colder Songs by WinterSky101: When he looks back on it, Leonard's not quite sure how he manages to get from the ship to the hall where the others are fighting. Missing scene for 1.09 (Left Behind).
DC Random: Necropolis by Side Quest Publications: A "what if" based on a remark Kendra makes in a chapter of Catalyst. The Legends visit a necropolis to find an artifact that might help in the fight against Savage, but a rocket launcher destroys Leonard's escape route, leaving him stranded on a pillar with no way down. Carter tries to rescue him, but Len's recent fear of heights interferes. Takes place between LoT S1E1 and S1E2
Len's memories by TheRamblingsOfaMadWoman: The Legends and Lisa go into Len's head and relive his memories with him. Turns out Len lied to Lisa about their parents.
The Hardest Part Is When You Know by Anime Girl23: Integrating Snart back into the team came with an adjustment period, but he also came back with secrets he couldn't keep hidden as well as he did their last time around. The truth had to come out sometime and Leonard Snart could never do anything without it being dramatic. Mick/Len [Coldwave] Series: In The Time Of Our Lives [4/5]
Time Has Come For Letting Go by Anime Girl23: [An Interlude] They'd become a team, but going back to the mission while Mick and Snart were in Boston was like going into battle with missing limbs. They weren't complete without them. Realizations and visits and two of them get a little closure on an almost. Mick/Len [Coldwave] Series: In The Time Of Our Lives [3/5]
A New One Begins by Anime Girl23: They've become a team, but when Snart comes crashing back into their lives, it's not as easy as saying "welcome back" and moving on. Sometimes, you need to say goodbye before you can say hello again. Mick/Len [Coldwave] Series: In The Time Of Our Lives [2/5]
This Is Where The Chapter Ends by Anime Girl23: They were a fractured team, broken up by cliques and people who got stuck on the outside. Sara looked at them and promised they'd be stronger, but it took steps to get there; sharing stories at the dinner table and finally taking the time to learn who Mick was underneath his criminal record. Mick/Len [Coldwave] Series: In The Time Of Our Lives [1/5]
A Case of the Flu by WillowWinchester: Leonard falls sick with the flu, and Sara is the one who appoints herself to take care of him. [Captain Canary]
Of Sacrifice, Poison, and Risk by SeaSpectre160: The team races against the clock and takes a leap of faith to save one of their own. Lots of Whump, rated T because of it. MY 100TH STORY!
Big Brother by Dawnstorm101: When Snart and Jax are kidnapped, Snart does something Jax didn't expect, exposing the young man to a side of Snart he didn't know existed.
Secrets of a Legend by DianneRose2016: Warnings inside. Set after 2X8: Snart is taken by Chronos and the team needs to try and rescue him from his captors. But how long can Snart hold out among the torture he is enduring in a place that time has no meaning? With the help of a friend and an old teammate can they save Snart from not only his captors, but from his soon to be broken mind? Will Snart even want to survive?
DC Random: Confessions by Side Quest Publications: In which Leonard Snart finds himself confiding some very old secrets to Sara on the day they meet... and discovering he has secrets even from himself. Occurs during Season 1 Episode 1, while the rest of the team is exploring the Waverider before they time-jump for the first time. Trigger warning: non-con flashback from Len's childhood. Canon warning: OOC is Serious Business.
Bullet wounds and heart ache by MarenMary93: On a mission in Germany 1941, Leonard Snart discovers how painful a gunshot can be. But will he ever manage to tell Sara how he feels?
Cold Shoulder by MarenMary93: Spoiler for ep. 1x08 Night of the Hawk. Leonard's shoulder gets hurt when monster Jax hits him, and of course Len being Len doesn't want anybody to know... (And I'm the worst at titles... Seriously? Cold Shoulder?)Leo
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that-spider-witch · 3 years
Text
On the topic of Book!Edward Hyde
Or rather: The topic of his existence (or lack thereof).
Browsing through the J&H tag, I’ve seen a lot of book readers be spiteful of every single adaptation of the character and its pop culture version because it misses the moral of the book: That Hyde and Jekyll were just one and the same, and that Jekyll was the one doing all the bullshit that went down and that Hyde was just a mask to keep his reputation intact.
Most of these rants go on to imply or outright accuse of any author doing the split personality take on the plot to have never actually read the original book, or that Edward Hyde never existing is something that the book leaves loud and clear, something irrefutably canon.
Having read the book too, I’m here to say: Yes and no. You could read the book and still get a “two character, one body” impression from it. Allow me to explain...
While the plot of “Jekyll is Good, Hyde is Bad” is truly bullshit and the very thing that the original novel rips into pieces, whether Hyde could be considered to have a will of his own is a little more ambiguous and it can actually be interpreted either way.
Note that I’m using the word “will” and not “personality”: Hyde is still Jekyll, they both have the same personality, but while Jekyll is a rational human being, Hyde is Jekyll but without the strings of societal norms, morals and impulse control holding him down.
Book readers who go by the take that Hyde never existed also claim that the book is very clear that the changes brought by the formula are just external: Jekyll is completely himself the whole time and “Hyde” is just a mask.
And this is true... At first. Depending on how you interpret Jekyll’s unrealiable narration, “Hyde” actually slowly develops something of a will of his own as Jekyll’s evil nature, given a body of its own by his dumb experiment, continues to develop.
Here’s a fragment of how Jekyll describes the experiment and the very first transformation:
“That night I had come to the fatal cross-roads. Had I approached my discovery in a more noble spirit, had I risked the experiment while under the empire of generous or pious aspirations, all must have been otherwise, and from these agonies of death and birth, I had come forth an angel instead of a fiend. The drug had no discriminating action; it was neither diabolical nor divine; it but shook the doors of the prisonhouse of my disposition; and like the captives of Philippi, that which stood within ran forth. At that time my virtue slumbered; my evil, kept awake by ambition, was alert and swift to seize the occasion; and the thing that was projected was Edward Hyde. Hence, although I had now two characters as well as two appearances, one was wholly evil, and the other was still the old Henry Jekyll, that incongruous compound of whose reformation and improvement I had already learned to despair. The movement was thus wholly toward the worse.”
“Edward Hyde” (who at this point still doesn’t truly exist as his own being and it’s just a mask for Jekyll to use) is evil because Henry Jekyll himself is evil. But while Jekyll-as-Jekyll has good personality traits as well as bad, Jekyll-as-Hyde is just everything that Jeyll finds evil about himself and nothing else. This paragraph also states very clearly that Jekyll’s intentions were never good.
If this was the only instance in which anything along the lines of “two characters as well as two appearances” was mentioned, then yes, there would be no room for debate on the whole “Hyde is just a fake identity and nothing else” because there wouldn’t be evidence of the contrary. It would be clear text.
Except that Jekyll, unreliable narrator that he is or not, also gives us evidence to support the theory that Hyde, while still not being a completely separate split personality on his own right, does develop a certain awareness of himself and a will to act somewhat separate from Jekyll’s. 
Of course, this all still falls on Jekyll’s own fault, and even if we consider Hyde as something of an alter, he’s still nothing but the scapegoat that Jekyll uses:
“The pleasures which I made haste to seek in my disguise were, as I have said, undignified; I would scarce use a harder term. But in the hands of Edward Hyde, they soon began to turn toward the monstrous. When I would come back from these excursions, I was often plunged into a kind of wonder at my vicarious depravity. This familiar that I called out of my own soul, and sent forth alone to do his good pleasure, was a being inherently malign and villainous; his every act and thought centered on self; drinking pleasure with bestial avidity from any degree of torture to another; relentless like a man of stone. Henry Jekyll stood at times aghast before the acts of Edward Hyde; but the situation was apart from ordinary laws, and insidiously relaxed the grasp of conscience. It was Hyde, after all, and Hyde alone, that was guilty. Jekyll was no worse; he woke again to his good qualities seemingly unimpaired; he would even make haste, where it was possible, to undo the evil done by Hyde. And thus his conscience slumbered.”
Something all book readers will be familiar with is that Jekyll’s narration uses “I” when writing about most of Hyde’s actions, while also mentioning both Henry Jekyll and Hyde on third person. Jekyll tries to dissociate himself from his crimes this way.
But... Whether also done by Jekyll to still reflect guilt from himself or not, the text also refers to Hyde as having a nature of his own, albeit one irreversably connected to Henry Jekyll’s own hidden desires.
“Between these two, I now felt I had to choose. My two natures had memory in common, but all other faculties were most unequally shared between them. Jekyll (who was composite) now with the most sensitive apprehensions, now with a greedy gusto, projected and shared in the pleasures and adventures of Hyde; but Hyde was indifferent to Jekyll, or but remembered him as the mountain bandit remembers the cavern in which he conceals himself from pursuit. Jekyll had more than a father’s interest; Hyde had more than a son’s indifference. To cast in my lot with Jekyll, was to die to those appetites which I had long secretly indulged and had of late begun to pamper. To cast it in with Hyde, was to die to a thousand interests and aspirations, and to become, at a blow and forever, despised and friendless. The bargain might appear unequal; but there was still another consideration in the scales; for while Jekyll would suffer smartingly in the fires of abstinence, Hyde would be not even conscious of all that he had lost. Strange as my circumstances were, the terms of this debate are as old and commonplace as man; much the same inducements and alarms cast the die for any tempted and trembling sinner; and it fell out with me, as it falls with so vast a majority of my fellows, that I chose the better part and was found wanting in the strength to keep to it.”
There’s a clear divide here, with Jekyll and Hyde having something of a different outlook on life, something that outright doesn’t make sense if we are to consider Edward Hyde as just Jekyll’s alias. 
Something to note here is that the divide between the two personas is not of a moral nature, but something much more mundane and selfish: To Henry Jekyll, his social status is everything, and his main drive to keep transforming into Hyde again and again is to enjoy a life of sin without repercussions. To Hyde, said social status can go to hell for all he cares, but still keeps the ruse because his concealment is ultimately necessary for his continued existence, something that the narration will go back to later.
After this point of the book, which is when Jekyll goes to sleep and wakes up transformed on his other body the next morning, the doctor becomes scared and goes cold turkey for two months, having decided to stop being Hyde forever and return to a normal life. It doesn’t lastlonger than that: Hyde returns not because he takes control, but because Jekyll turns himself into Hyde on purpose once again, by his own free will.
“I do not suppose that, when a drunkard reasons with himself upon his vice, he is once out of five hundred times affected by the dangers that he runs through his brutish, physical insensibility; neither had I, long as I had considered my position, made enough allowance for the complete moral insensibility and insensate readiness to evil, which were the leading characters of Edward Hyde. Yet it was by these that I was punished. My devil had been long caged, he came out roaring. I was conscious, even when I took the draught, of a more unbridled, a more furious propensity to ill. It must have been this, I suppose, that stirred in my soul that tempest of impatience with which I listened to the civilities of my unhappy victim; I declare, at least, before God, no man morally sane could have been guilty of that crime upon so pitiful a provocation; and that I struck in no more reasonable spirit than that in which a sick child may break a plaything. But I had voluntarily stripped myself of all those balancing instincts by which even the worst of us continues to walk with some degree of steadiness among temptations; and in my case, to be tempted, however slightly, was to fall.“
Something fun to note here: Jekyll describes Hyde, and/or himself when he’s Hyde, as being comparable to a child. First by merely noting that Hyde’s body is younger than Jekyll’s, then by comparing him to a “son” and Jekyll as the “father”, and now comparing the murder of Danvers Carew to a child breaking a toy. 
Speaking of the murder, Jekyll is 100% guilty of it: Even if Hyde was a completely different being with his own traits and goals, which he is not, Jekyll would still be responsable by virtue of willingly going through the transformation again like an idiot.
That being said, the text continues to give Hyde some semblance of personality:
“Hyde had a song upon his lips as he compounded the draught, and as he drank it, pledged the dead man. The pangs of transformation had not done tearing him, before Henry Jekyll, with streaming tears of gratitude and remorse, had fallen upon his knees and lifted his clasped hands to God. The veil of self-indulgence was rent from head to foot.“
From this point on, everything goes to hell: Henry Jekyll is relieved that now that Hyde is a wanted murderer, he now has no choice but to stay as Jekyll and leave that sinful double life of his finally behind (”Jekyll is the Good half” my ass!). But, surprise surprise! He starts to transform unwillingly, and now he needs to constantly drink the potion to stay as Jekyll. 
Fun fact: Do you remember which thoughts are the ones that trigger the first unwilling transformation after the murder?
“I sat in the sun on a bench; the animal within me licking the chops of memory; the spiritual side a little drowsed, promising subsequent penitence, but not yet moved to begin. After all, I reflected, I was like my neighbours; and then I smiled, comparing myself with other men, comparing my active good-will with the lazy cruelty of their neglect. And at the very moment of that vainglorious thought, a qualm came over me, a horrid nausea and the most deadly shuddering. These passed away, and left me faint; and then as in its turn faintness subsided, I began to be aware of a change in the temper of my thoughts, a greater boldness, a contempt of danger, a solution of the bonds of obligation. I looked down; my clothes hung formlessly on my shrunken limbs; the hand that lay on my knee was corded and hairy. I was once more Edward Hyde.“
The thought that he, too, was just like any other man. Something that his Hyde half knows as a fact, but that Henry “I’m superior than all these lazy peasants around me because I’m rich... I mean, because I have active good-will” Jekyll considers undignified, and therefore, cruel or evil. O Sweet, sweet Victorian hypocresy.
And it is from here on out that the narration acknowledges Edward Hyde as being his own character somewhat, somehow, at least as part of Jekyll’s conciousness.
After the transformation and the visit to Lanyon:
“My reason wavered, but it did not fail me utterly. I have more than once observed that in my second character, my faculties seemed sharpened to a point and my spirits more tensely elastic; thus it came about that, where Jekyll perhaps might have succumbed, Hyde rose to the importance of the moment.”
“Then I remembered that of my original character, one part remained to me: I could write my own hand; and once I had conceived that kindling spark, the way that I must follow became lighted up from end to end.“
“He, I say—I cannot say, I. That child of Hell had nothing human; nothing lived in him but fear and hatred.“ 
“When I came to myself at Lanyon’s, the horror of my old friend perhaps affected me somewhat: I do not know; it was at least but a drop in the sea to the abhorrence with which I looked back upon these hours. A change had come over me. It was no longer the fear of the gallows, it was the horror of being Hyde that racked me.“
It’s curious how Jekyll’s narration uses “I” when looking back at Carew’s murder, and yet it is just from here on out that he’s oh so repulsed by Hyde than he uses He/Him pronouns for him. 
And, most of all, when he has locked himself up:
“The powers of Hyde seemed to have grown with the sickliness of Jekyll. And certainly the hate that now divided them was equal on each side. With Jekyll, it was a thing of vital instinct. He had now seen the full deformity of that creature that shared with him some of the phenomena of consciousness, and was co-heir with him to death: and beyond these links of community, which in themselves made the most poignant part of his distress, he thought of Hyde, for all his energy of life, as of something not only hellish but inorganic. This was the shocking thing; that the slime of the pit seemed to utter cries and voices; that the amorphous dust gesticulated and sinned; that what was dead, and had no shape, should usurp the offices of life. And this again, that that insurgent horror was knit to him closer than a wife, closer than an eye; lay caged in his flesh, where he heard it mutter and felt it struggle to be born; and at every hour of weakness, and in the confidence of slumber, prevailed against him, and deposed him out of life. The hatred of Hyde for Jekyll was of a different order. His terror of the gallows drove him continually to commit temporary suicide, and return to his subordinate station of a part instead of a person; but he loathed the necessity, he loathed the despondency into which Jekyll was now fallen, and he resented the dislike with which he was himself regarded.”
And what immediately follows is my favorite part of the book:
“Hence the ape-like tricks that he would play me, scrawling in my own hand blasphemies on the pages of my books, burning the letters and destroying the portrait of my father; and indeed, had it not been for his fear of death, he would long ago have ruined himself in order to involve me in the ruin. But his love of life is wonderful; I go further: I, who sicken and freeze at the mere thought of him, when I recall the abjection and passion of this attachment, and when I know how he fears my power to cut him off by suicide, I find it in my heart to pity him.”
This petty behavior of supposedly destroying and vandalizing Jekyll’s stuff to spite him is mentioned yet again just a few sentences later,along with the following line:
“This, then, is the last time, short of a miracle, that Henry Jekyll can think his own thoughts or see his own face (now how sadly altered!) in the glass. Nor must I delay too long to bring my writing to an end; for if my narrative has hitherto escaped destruction, it has been by a combination of great prudence and great good luck. Should the throes of change take me in the act of writing it, Hyde will tear it in pieces; but if some time shall have elapsed after I have laid it by, his wonderful selfishness and circumscription to the moment will probably save it once again from the action of his ape-like spite.“
This assertion from Jekyll that, as far as he’s concerned, he will be already dead when he transforms for the last time, is what closes the book:
“And indeed the doom that is closing on us both has already changed and crushed him. Half an hour from now, when I shall again and forever reindue that hated personality, I know how I shall sit shuddering and weeping in my chair, or continue, with the most strained and fearstruck ecstasy of listening, to pace up and down this room (my last earthly refuge) and give ear to every sound of menace. Will Hyde die upon the scaffold? or will he find courage to release himself at the last moment? God knows; I am careless; this is my true hour of death, and what is to follow concerns another than myself. Here then, as I lay down the pen and proceed to seal up my confession, I bring the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end.“
If taken at face value, these lines actually paint Edward Hyde as being somewhat able to think his own thoughts and do his own actions, while still just being the childish, “ape-like” part of Henry Jekyll’s mind. Emphasis on childish, not evil, the evilness is all on Henry. Edward Hyde is still nothing but Henry Jekyll’s psychological scapegoat, and the one that Jekyll technically leaves behind to deal with the mess he himself created by “dying”.
I’m not trying to get more people to interpret the book this way nor am I saying that the ”Hyde is not real and Jekyll is a lying bitch” take is actually wrong, because it is not. I’m just pointing out the book could actually be interpreted differently by different readers, and they’d still have sentences in the book to back their interpretation on.
Now, if we could all stop hating and throwing shade on every content creator out there who “got the book wrong”, that’d be peachy. 
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