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Alex Høgh Andersen
Luck Be a Lady | One Two Three Four
Reader was looking forward to a simple girls trip to Vegas to celebrate her birthday but it looks like it may turn to something more.
Cybersex
Alex hasn’t heard his girlfriend’s voice in a week and becomes moody. But luckily an impromptu FaceTime session turns his frown upside down.
Dishwasher
Alex washes some dishes. That’s it.
The Best Angle
He just wanted to take your picture.
Ivar the Boneless
In My Sights | I II III
When Ivar’s contracted kill is taken out right in front of his eyes, he didn’t expect it to be at the hands of an old friend.
Second Chance
A young woman doesn’t realize there’s more to her boyfriend until it’s too late.
The Stolen Queen Series
When Heathen King Meets Christian Queen
Ivar finds more than just gold when he raids the Kingdom of Powys.
Lost
Reader gets lost in the forest after Ivar decides to let her go.
Learning
Ivar is able to learn more about Reader as her walls slowly comes down.
The Secret Visit
Vikings are known to bury their treasures. Ivar, on the other hand, chooses to keep his most precious treasure in a cabin in the woods.
———————
Want on my tag list? Ask me to be tagged in any future update! Also comments/reblogs will also earn you an automatic tag for the next update for that story.
I have never truly felt all that old until I logged into Tumblr after a 4 year hiatus.
Quotes from my first ten minutes being back on tumblr:
“Blaze? The fuck is a blaze?”
“They want me to pay how much for a goddamn badge?!” Nevermind, I see I have earned a free one. Dope.
“Oop not quite ready to post this, let me put it in my drafts.” *one minute later* “Where do I find my fucking drafts?”
“🥺where did my friends go?🥺”
“My post is hidden because it may be sexually explicit? Chiiile, get the fuck out of here! You take away my video porn, now you’re coming for my word porn?!”
Summary: Ivar returns from his travels but all is not well. (IM RUSTY AT THIS FANFIC SUMMARY THING!)
AN: Heyyy! How’s everyone doing? It’s been a wild 4 years since I posted. But here I am, down a mom and a husband in the same damn year.
I was going through my emails and found a pretty much completed part of my Stolen Queen series if anyone is interested or even still into Vikings 😅
——
Warm blood dripped down to your elbow as you reached up to wipe the sweat off your brow. Your hand returned to the cut open stomach, making small, swift cuts against the membranes as your other hand was busy pulling out the entrails. The deer was your first successful hunt, a proud victory for you after much instruction from Arn. You jumped for joy when your arrow landed in its neck but he only grunted out that you needed to work on your aim before shooting a proper headshot.
Blood splattered onto your face when you plopped the organs into the bowl next to you. You looked up from the carcass after hearing a snort from the man in front of you.
“Care to share what’s so funny, Hallfred?,” you questioned the skinny blond-haired man as you went back to pulling out the rest of the innards.
“I just didn’t think that Christian princesses were known to get their hands dirty.” He smirked as he took the intestines from your bowl to rinse off the blood.
You rolled your eyes, not even bothering to correct him. There was no point. You knew that your royal title made no difference in these lands.
“She’s a queen, not a princess. And if some of our dead Viking brothers and shieldmaidens could talk, they’d tell you just how dirty her hands got in battle,” Arn uttered as he sharpened the stick in his hand into a proper arrow. You were surprised to hear him chime in at all. The large elder man kept to himself mostly unless it was to criticize you or his partner.
“My apologies, Queen Y/N,” Hallfred teased, giving a small mocking bow to you. If you had any guilt remaining for taking his knife, it was definitely gone now.
Your head shot up when you heard the sounds of horns blowing out in the distance. Feeling your heart begin to race, you couldn’t help the smile that was threatening to creep onto your face. It had been months since you last saw Ivar. While you appreciated the company of the two men next to you during the day, your nights have grown to be cold and lonely.
As the horns became more rushed and constant, you sensed that something was wrong. The two guards exchanged a look before Hallfred stood up and began walking off toward town.
“Arn, what’s going on? What do the horns mean?” You were now on your feet, standing in front of him with your arms across your chest, worry painted all over your face.
“It means the boats have returned,” he said so matter-of-factly. (He came over and squatted down next to you.) “Start skinning, we need to hurry up and cut up the meat.”
Knowing he wouldn’t say anything else even if you begged him, you did as you were told.
——
The sun had long been set and still you had no word of what had happened. Hallfred had since returned. His usual mischievous face was replaced with something more serious and yet he remained quiet, not offering any news to you.
So you tried to busy yourself around the cabin. Blankets and linens had been folded then refolded. Your stolen knife was now sharp enough to split a hair in half. And after a good polish, you could see your reflection in all the gold trinkets Ivar had given you.
You toyed with your necklace as you looked out the window to check the tree line for the umpteenth time. He should have been here by now. You tried to reason with yourself again. He was King and if he had a successful raid, then it would be right for him to spend the night celebrating with his people...even with his wife.
A set of footsteps approached the cabin, breaking you away from your thoughts. You must have been so lost in your mind that you didn’t even notice anyone walking by. Grabbing your knife, you tucked yourself behind a pillar, worried that you might have an uninvited guest on your hands.
You could hear the hushed tones of Arn and Hallfred but couldn’t make out what was being said. They sounded cordial enough that maybe this stranger wasn’t deemed a threat. When a quiet but familiar voice started to speak, you stepped out of your hiding place and out of the cabin to greet this guest.
The last time you had seen Hvitserk was when you first arrived in Kattegat right before a bag was placed over your head and you were forcibly marched over to the very spot you were now standing in. By the look on his bruised and injured face, you knew the raid didn’t go as planned. You tried to hold yourself together, knowing that if he was here instead of his brother, then there was nothing good he had to tell you.
“Where is Ivar, Hvitserk?” your voice quivered as you felt the water welling up in your eyes. You turned your gaze from him to Arn when he hesitated to give you a proper answer.
The older man wrapped his oversized cloak around you and calmly instructed you to go with Hallfred and Hvitserk. As if sensing your anxiety, Arn pulled the hood over your head and then leaned down to reassure you, “You will be okay.”
——
You focused on the dimly lit path in front of you as Hvitserk—or was it Hallfred?— ushered you to your destination. With the cloaked hood obstructing your view of the structures surrounding you, you found it odd how you have never truly been in Kattegat even after living on the outskirts for almost two years. You briefly wondered if you would ever get to explore the town Ivar was proud to call home.
You felt a push from the hand across your back as it led you into the building. If it wasn’t the fragrance of healing poultices and salves in the room, then it was definitely the overbearing stench of blood and death that let you know you were in the healer’s hut. You started to hear Ivar’s strained groans as you made your way further into the room.
While walking toward the direction of the sound, you were about to take down your hood when the screech of a chair being pushed back stopped you. Careful footsteps slowly approached you before a soft feminine voice cut through the room, “Is this her?”
“Freydis…,” Hvitserk started but was cut off by a scoff.
“I was told that he kept saying he needed his queen ever since he arrived but when I came to him, he told me to leave him alone. I’m not stupid, Hvitserk. I know that lately when he’s home, he prefers to warm another bed than our own at night.”
You felt the air shift as she walked past you and out of the hut. Ivar had never offered a lot of details about Freydis other than that she was a former thrall he had freed. You assumed her to be beautiful if she was able to have garnered his attention at one point and become Queen of Kattegat. Pulling your hood back, you looked toward the door to get a glimpse of the woman but she was already gone.
You turned your head back when you heard Ivar groan out once again. Sitting in the vacant seat next to his bedside, you brought your hand up in an attempt to stifle your cry when you looked down at his bandaged midsection.
“It was an ambush and one of the Saxons got him in the side with their sword,” Hvitserk started unprompted before continuing with a shaky voice. “He lost so much blood and I tried to tell him to stay at the settlement to heal but...but he wouldn’t listen, he just kept saying that he wanted to come home. It was like he knew something I didn’t. And then he went to sleep and wouldn’t wake up. I thought that you should see him before—”
You stopped him immediately, not wanting to hear the end of that sentence. “You mustn’t go there, Hvitserk. His body is forcing him to rest so he can heal. He’s still here with us and that’s what we should focus on.” You looked up at him, noting the dark circles under his eyes. He must have exhausted himself with worry for his brother. “Maybe you should get some sleep yourself. I’ll stay with him.”
He seemed to hesitate over the idea of leaving you alone with Ivar before taking his leave. “I have slept alone with him unguarded. If I wanted to kill him, I would have done it by now.”
An overwhelming guilt washed over you as you stared at the large dark spot soaking through the cloth. There was a point in time when you had prayed to see him on his deathbed, even better if it had been at your hands. But now you found yourself silently praying to your god and all of his that he would make it through this.
You took his hand into your own and leaned close to his ear, “I’m still here, Ivar. I waited for you so don’t you dare leave me now.”
—-
After glaring at Hallfred when he came back inside for the fourth time and insisted that you come back to the cabin, you continued to clean Ivar’s arm with a wet cloth. You had already washed away days worth of sweat, dirt, and blood from the rest of his body, making sure no one was in the room when you got around to his legs. You knew how sensitive he was to being in that state of undress around most people.
“I already told you, I’m staying here until he wakes up and can tell me to go back himself. Besides, I was just telling him about how you wet your pants when Arn threw his axe at you.” You smirked at the guard. You had spent most of time recounting everything you’ve been up to since Ivar was gone.
“He was aiming for between my legs! He could have nicked my balls off!,” he pouted before stomping back out of the hut.
You laughed as you dropped the cloth into a bowl of water and then wrung it out.
“I bet he screamed like a little girl too.” You nearly smacked the bowl off the table, startled from the sound of Ivar finally speaking. The small smile he had went all the way up to his blue eyes that were busy taking you in. “Well? What else happened?”
You rushed in to wrap your arms around his neck, taking care to not put any pressure on his wound. As you felt his arms wrap around your waist, you had let go all the tears you were holding in. “You had me so scared, Ivar. I have half the mind to slap you for traveling with such a serious injury.”
“I had to make sure that you were still here waiting for me,” he chuckled into your neck.
You pulled away from him, frowning, “Don’t joke, you could have died. You really want to make sure I don’t leave you then shackle me to Arn or take me with you. But you will not do this to me again,” you demanded even though you knew you had no authority over him.
Taken aback, he palmed your face to wipe the fallen tears off your cheek, “You were truly worried for me. I’m sorry, I won’t scare you like that again, my queen,” he pulled you in and pressed a kiss against your lips, his hand falling down to stroke your neck. “I must confess that I...that I—“
You waited for him to finish his sentence, momentarily concerned that he was suffering from memory loss. “You must confess that you…?”
“That I had left your book with Hvitserk.” He finally finished.
You had a feeling that that wasn’t what he was really going to say but you chose not to bring it up. You rolled your eyes, “I don’t care about any presents. I care more that you’re awake and talking to me now.”
“Still, I think you would like it. It had pictures of dragons. Maybe it’s a story of my grandfather and how he slew Fafnir.” He held your hand in his, “I would like it if you read it to me. I have missed your voice.”
@deans-ch-ch-cherrypie @leilabeaux @serasvictoria @pomegranates-and-blood @alexhandersen-marcoilsoe-fandom my lovely muses I love you more than chocolate cake 🎂
@deans-ch-ch-cherrypie @leilabeaux @serasvictoria @pomegranates-and-blood @alexhandersen-marcoilsoe-fandom my lovely muses I love you more than chocolate cake 🎂
Vikings fic: The Best of Everything - Chapter Seven || modern!Ivar x reader
A modern!Ivar AU
Ivar x f!reader
CW: swearing, lots of bad language and shit talking, threats and verbal abuse, standover tactics, intimidation. Mentions of gentrification. Not as much smut in this chapter. But Ivar is still as dense as a brick. A little bit of smut, not a lot. I don’t know whether to be relieved or apologise.
REMEMBER: Aunty Pearl says VIOLENCE IS NOT THE ANSWER.
Synopsis: Your dad’s bar is a local landmark, your pride and joy, your livelihood. But Lothbrok Developments also has it in their sights. You’ve managed to resist their dirty standover tactics for months now, but when their infamous CEO Ivar Lothbrok gets involved do you even stand a chance? A fiercely independent and practiced businesswoman, you’re stubborn as hell with a reckless tendency to speak your mind, so you like to think you can handle anything the blue-eyed businessman throws at you.
But, in reality, you know it’s never that easy to resist temptation.
Thank you to @leilabeaux for the inspiration and cheerleading, and help storyboarding. I love you more than I love puppies. Cute puppies. Danish puppies. Okay I took that too far.
Please message me or ask if you would like to be tagged or if you’d like to be taken off
Catch up! Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six
————————
Chapter Seven
Hvitserk’s voice echoes up the stairs behind you as you take them two at a time. Ivar is sitting up in bed by the time you burst through the bedroom door.
“The fuck?!” he exclaims, scowling. Looking around, you clock a shoe and quickly pick it up and hurl it at his head. He ducks, then rolls sideways off the bed and onto the floor, naked as the day he was born.
“You motherfucker,” you fume at him through clenched teeth.
“What the fuck is wrong with you now?!” he yells, peeking up over the side of the mattress.
“You lied to me!” Your voice rises shrilly, echoing around the house and probably down the street, but at this point you have no further care for airs and graces. “You’re still angling for my bar. You’re fucking unbelievable, Ivar. An absolute fucking con artist. I can’t believe I fell for it. You didn’t mean a fucking word of it, did you?!”
You lunge for him, darting around the side of the bed, but he’s quicker than you, rolling across the mattress back to the other side. Before you can change direction and go after him, he’s heading for the bathroom with sweatpants in hand. As you reach the door, you hear the lock click into place.
“Y/N, you need to listen to me,” he yells through the door, barely audible as you hammer on it with your fists. With a frustrated screech, you turn and slam your back against it, sinking to the ground.
“I don’t want to listen to another fucking word that comes out of your mouth, Ivar Lothbrok,” you bristle, tears prickling at your lashes; you wipe at them angrily.
“Well, you’re fucking going to have to because I have your fucking car keys,” he yells. With a curse, you slam your fist against the door, screeching again with rage.
Vikings fic: The Best of Everything - Chapter Six || modern!Ivar x reader
A modern!Ivar AU
Ivar x f!reader
CW: swearing, lots of bad language and shit talking, threats and verbal abuse, standover tactics, intimidation. Mentions of gentrification. I’m so sorry everyone. This is almost pure smut from start to finish. There’s a bit of plot but only at the end. Also, there’s a lot of swearing, verbal abuse and some throwing of things in this.
REMEMBER: Aunty Pearl says VIOLENCE IS NOT THE ANSWER.
Synopsis: Your dad’s bar is a local landmark, your pride and joy, your livelihood. But Lothbrok Developments also has it in their sights. You’ve managed to resist their dirty standover tactics for months now, but when their infamous CEO Ivar Lothbrok gets involved do you even stand a chance? A fiercely independent and practiced businesswoman, you’re stubborn as hell with a reckless tendency to speak your mind, so you like to think you can handle anything the blue-eyed businessman throws at you.
But, in reality, you know it’s never that easy to resist temptation.
Thank you to @leilabeaux for the inspiration and cheerleading, and help storyboarding. I love you more than I love nice whiskey. And that’s a lot.
Please message me or ask if you would like to be tagged or if you’d like to be taken off
Catch up! Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four
Chapter Five
——————
Chapter Six
You snort in amusement, getting to your feet and grasping his hand to pull him up. “You’re the one who smashed the light,” you remind him, sliding your feet across the ground in the direction of where you think the staircase is. You kick something hard and it goes clattering across the floor.
“Here, use my phone,” Ivar mutters; you grope in the darkness for it as he turns on the flashlight. It takes the pair of you a while but eventually you make it to the landing and up into the kitchen. You wish you could say that getting to his bedroom was any easier with light and clear passage, but truth was it really wasn’t. You’re like a pair of teenagers whose parents weren’t home and you only had a few hours to fool around.
Vikings fic: The Best of Everything - Chapter Five || modern!Ivar x reader
A modern!Ivar AU
Ivar x f!reader
CW: swearing, lots of bad language and shit talking, threats and verbal abuse, standover tactics, intimidation. Mentions of gentrification. Guise, this is where the smut starts to kick in. Also, there’s a lot of swearing, verbal abuse and some throwing of things in this. REMEMBER: Aunty Pearl says VIOLENCE IS NOT THE ANSWER.
Synopsis: Your dad’s bar is a local landmark, your pride and joy, your livelihood. But Lothbrok Developments also has it in their sights. You’ve managed to resist their dirty standover tactics for months now, but when their infamous CEO Ivar Lothbrok gets involved do you even stand a chance? A fiercely independent and practiced businesswoman, you’re stubborn as hell with a reckless tendency to speak your mind, so you like to think you can handle anything the blue-eyed businessman throws at you.
But, in reality, you know it’s never that easy to resist temptation.
Thank you to @leilabeaux for the inspiration and cheerleading, and help storyboarding. I love you more than I love nice whiskey. And that’s a lot.
Please message me or ask if you would like to be tagged or if you’d like to be taken off
Catch up! Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four
—————————
Chapter Five
It’s a full four days before you hear someone clear their throat, and you look up to see Ivar leaning against the door frame of the cool room.
You had kind of hoped he would show up. Truth be told, if he hadn’t shown up that morning, you probably would have gone looking for him yourself.
The end to your date had left a sour taste in your mouth, a thousand things unsaid, both good and bad. You wish you hadn’t bitten right away to his self-loathing, or his jumping to conclusions, or his name-calling; whilst you were generally known for being hot under the collar when the right buttons were pushed, you were also level-headed in confrontations, good in a crisis. There was just something about Ivar Lothbrok that brought out the worst in you.
You stare at him for a while; he offers you a thin smile, then steps away, heading in the direction of your office. With a sigh, you turn back to your stock inventory; you’re not chasing him, no way. He can wait while you finish. He can sweat.
Ten minutes later, he appears again.
“I bought you lunch, you insufferable woman,” he snaps, “come and eat it before it gets cold.”
“This frigid bitch is used to cold things!” you call after him petulantly.
The sound of his laugh echoing down the hallway to you makes you grin as you tick off the kegs of Heineken from your list.
Vikings fic: The Best of Everything - Chapter Four || modern!Ivar x reader
A modern!Ivar AU
Ivar x f!reader
CW: swearing, lots of bad language and shit talking, threats and verbal abuse, standover tactics, intimidation. Mentions of gentrification. Sexual content.
Synopsis: Your dad’s bar is a local landmark, your pride and joy, your livelihood. But Lothbrok Developments also has it in their sights. You’ve managed to resist their dirty standover tactics for months now, but when their infamous CEO Ivar Lothbrok gets involved do you even stand a chance? A fiercely independent and practiced businesswoman, you’re stubborn as hell with a reckless tendency to speak your mind, so you like to think you can handle anything the blue-eyed businessman throws at you.
But, in reality, you know it’s never that easy to resist temptation.
Thank you to @leilabeaux for the inspiration and cheerleading, and help storyboarding. I love you more than I love cake.
Please message me or ask if you would like to be tagged or if you’d like to be taken off
Catch up! Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three
————————–
Chapter Four
Your heart takes a long time to calm down. Sitting at your desk, you stare at your computer screen for a while, then, realising you’re not going to get any work done while your mind is on him, you close the screen and head out into the bar.
It’s not a particularly busy day, even for a Saturday. There are no football games on and the weather is good so most people are out enjoying it. Your regulars come in around dinner time and it’s a pleasant relief to sit and chat with them.
Finally, around ten-thirty, the last person leaves and you start to close up for the night. You’re about to take the till out to the safe when you hear the old bell above the door chime.
“We’re closed, sorry,” you call out, not looking up. “But I can get you a take–”
You pause when you hear the click-drag of his uneven gait over the tiled floor. Immediately, your brain starts to short-circuit in a supernova of conflicting emotion.
Vikings Fic: The Best of Everything - Chapter Three || modern!Ivar x reader
A modern!Ivar AU
Ivar x f!reader
CW: swearing, lots of bad language and shit talking, threats and verbal abuse, standover tactics, intimidation. Mentions of gentrification. Minor sexual content.
Synopsis: Your dad’s bar is a local landmark, your pride and joy, your livelihood. But Lothbrok Developments also has it in their sights. You’ve managed to resist their dirty standover tactics for months now, but when their infamous CEO Ivar Lothbrok gets involved do you even stand a chance? A fiercely independent and practiced businesswoman, you’re stubborn as hell with a reckless tendency to speak your mind, so you like to think you can handle anything the blue-eyed businessman throws at you.
But, in reality, you know it’s never that easy to resist temptation.
Thank you to @leilabeaux for the inspiration and cheerleading, and help storyboarding. I love you more than I love cake.
Please message me or ask if you would like to be tagged or if you’d like to be taken off
Catch up! Chapter One | Chapter Two
————————-
Chapter Three
It’s not often Ivar Lothbrok is lost for words, but he’s thankful now that he is practiced in schooling his face into expressionless blankness at the drop of a hat.
He stares straight ahead for a while, pretending to watch where they’re going, trying to calm his racing heart, his shallow breath. The scent of shampoo reaches him, and he glances sideways at you, noticing for the first time your hair is wet. Like you were fresh out of the shower. Where you’d been naked.
Oh, Gods.
He swallows thickly and closes his eyes, taking a deep breath, letting it out slowly as he tries to regain some sort of semblance of composure.
Vikings fic: The Best of Everything || modern!Ivar x reader
A modern!Ivar AU
Ivar x f!reader
CW: swearing, lots of bad language and shit talking, threats and verbal abuse, standover tactics, intimidation. Mentions of gentrification.
Synopsis: Your dad’s bar is a local landmark, your pride and joy, your livelihood. But Lothbrok Developments also has it in their sights. You’ve managed to resist their dirty standover tactics for months now, but when their infamous CEO Ivar Lothbrok gets involved do you even stand a chance? A fiercely independent and practiced businesswoman, you’re stubborn as hell with a reckless tendency to speak your mind, so you like to think you can handle anything the blue-eyed businessman throws at you.
But, in reality, you know it’s never that easy to resist temptation.
Thank you to @leilabeaux for the inspiration and cheerleading, and help storyboarding. You’re an absolute treasure, sis.
Please message me or ask if you would like to be tagged or if you’d like to be taken off
——————
Chapter One
There’s a whiteboard above one end of the bar, covered in writing. Most of them are motivational quotes, scrawled in all different kinds of handwriting. Some are funny, some are poignant, but there’s one that stands out to you:
The happiest of people don’t have the best of everything, they just make the best of everything they have.
It’s kind of your life motto. Well, that and something about glasses being neither half-empty or half-full; they’re always refillable. And yeah, it’s cliched, it’s corny, but it’s kind of true.
This bar isn’t much, but it’s yours. It started out as your dad’s. You lived in the flat above the bar until you turned fifteen and went away to school, and all your childhood memories revolve around this place.
*COMING SOON* - The Best of Everything || A Modern!Ivar AU
Damn you, @leilabeaux
I love you, boo
A modern!Ivar AU
Synopsis: Your dad’s bar is a local landmark, your pride and joy, your livelihood. But Lothbrok Developments also has it in their sights. You’ve managed to resist their dirty standover tactics for months now, but when their infamous CEO Ivar Lothbrok gets involved do you even stand a chance? A fiercely independent and practiced businesswoman, you’re stubborn as hell with a reckless tendency to speak your mind, so you like to think you can handle anything the blue-eyed businessman throws at you.
But, in reality, you know it’s never that easy to resist temptation.
You’re the most recognised and internationally praised superhero, but you don’t fight any crime. Instead, you use your powers over stone and metal to repair the damage caused by the catastrophic fights other heroes get into.
They didn’t call you a superhero when you started. You didn’t claim to be one, either.
You didn’t have a costume or a sponsor or training or anything like that. You were just a kid who had just seen your entire world knocked down. So, in a moment of childish determination and belief, you thought you could fix it all.
The first emergence of your powers wasn’t a huge triumphal moment. Moving stone and earth and steel doesn’t matter if you don’t know anything about how to stack things up so they don’t fall back over again.
Your first attempts crashed right back down again. That was your first lesson.
—
Even when you got good at what you did, they didn’t call you a superhero.
You still didn’t have a costume, but you’d gotten your hands on every architectural diagram you could and done plenty of practice. Then you started to show up to the aftermath of battles and put them quietly together again.
But it still wasn’t right. You couldn’t do much if you didn’t have the diagrams for the buildings demolished–if the city planners didn’t let you have them.
So you stitched together a costume, something bright and colorful that would grab the attention of the cameras on the scene afterward as you tried to work.
“Look! Someone’s putting those houses back together!”
The effect was instantaneous. The moment you’d grabbed public attention, there were requests for interviews, think pieces–each giving you a platform to ask for the help you needed.
This was your second lesson.
–
You didn’t call yourself a superhero, or come up with the name yourself. You were never really good about all of those things. But once the attention was on you, you got offers from managers and sponsors. One, a blonde with perfect hair who introduced herself as “just Sandy”
“I don’t have any money.”
“That’s alright,” she said, her grin showing spectacularly white teeth. “All I need is for you to take on some gigs and give me a cut.”
Sandy set you up. She got you the costume people would know you for, gave you the name, managed all of the PR and set up interviews. Your fame skyrocketed, and soon you were seeing yourself on billboards.
Soon you had access to hundreds of city plans and blueprints. After enough attacks happened, you learned them well enough to hardly need to reference them. After a few years, you could rebuild a tower in a matter of minutes, and cities in a matter of days.
Your powers evolved as your understanding did. Soon, you could read the entire layout of a building just from touching. Then, just from touching the ruins. You no longer need blueprints, then–just your own hands on the metal.
The gigs were simple, too–just fixing up hero bases after they’d gotten wrecked in attacks. Feel good work that paid well.
With the help of many people, you do more. That’s the third lesson.
—
The problems started with the homeless thing.
You were in between projects and itching to use your skills more. Creating homes for the homeless seemed like the perfect, feel good project to flex on.
It was, for the first few weeks. Then came the backlash. City dwellers crying foul, saying they hadn’t agreed to an enormous den of undesirables in their backyards. There were protests, white suburban moms holding up signs about drug dealers and rapists and criminals.
It wasn’t your choice in the end. Eventually the city mandated that you deconstruct your shelter, or they would do it the hard way.
Regretfully, you took it down. You did not look in the eyes of the people that had sheltered there as they had to go on their way.
It was the same story in every area you tried to build shelters in afterwards.
—
“Can we just buy the land to build them houses?” you asked Sandy.
She clicked her perfect teeth. “Sorry, there are laws against building new things in the city. You need mayoral approval to start a new construction project.”
“Why?”
“Well, there are already too many empty houses,” she said matter of factly.
You stared. “What? Then let’s just buy those and put people in them!”
“You don’t have that much money,” she pointed out. “Not when you’ve been giving it away every year. Also, it wouldn’t do as much good as you think. Just think of the effect on the market–”
This is not why you fired Sandy. But it was the first time you thought of it.
—
Opinion started to turn against you when you began using your interviews and platform to talk about this problem, to demand permission to build or otherwise help. Exasperation turned to hostility when you started to reshape the landscape to be softer to the unhoused, anyway–when you created caves in parks where people could easily shelter, or made every bench large and soft so that anyone could have a place to sleep.
Laws and ordinances passed, all regulating the amount of alterations one was allowed to make to public property. About how many changes you were allowed to make as you were reconstructing a city. The fines for altering things started to heap up.
Firing Sandy didn’t help. Your good reputation was always as much her work as yours, but after what she said about—you couldn’t.
You couldn’t.
You learned not to read the scathing opinion pieces on you. That was the hardest lesson yet.
—
Of course, shit really hit the fan when you were contracted to rebuild another base.
It was a simple enough decision for you. You found out they had been building drones and firing them on civilians. That at this base Techno has been building surveillance technology that would be able to monitor every single person in the country at every moment, and be able to fire upon them with impunity the moment suspicious activity was detected.
It made you rethink every base you had built in the past.
“No,” you told them.
“You already signed your contract–”
Instead of dignifying that with an answer, you transmuted the entire area into the rockiest, most impossible terrain you could. Every trick you had learned to make land easier to build on–you reversed it, turning what had once been the base into a precarious canyon of jagged, diamond-hard steel, nearly impossible to remove or build on.
“I said no.”
—
Stopping the construction of the stadium was the next kicker.
“You’re insane!” said the heroes who came to remove you.
“They evicted a hundred families for this!” you spat. “Those were people’s homes. It’s disgusting that it’s allowed for the government to do that–much less to do it for-for a stadium? For entertainment?”
And so you stood there for the next 48 hours, deconstructing every single thing they tried to put on their ill-gotten land.
Then, they sent the heroes to stop you. You were never the best at fighting, so they knocked you out quickly.
—
They don’t call you a superhero now. Behind bars, you glance over every thinkpiece and profile about the world’s most beloved hero fell. You read speculation about evil, greed, madness. All things you’ve heard about “villains” who came before you.
It makes you wonder about those people. If maybe you had misjudged them, too.
But that’s alright, you realize after the sting of it fades away. That was the second lesson, after all–more than anything, you need people to be talking. And for all the bitterness in these words, you realize grimly that people will never stop talking.
Once you’ve thought things through, you decide you’re ready. The steel of your cell melts away. After all, there is no prison that can contain you. No earth or stone or metal can withstand your will.
Your legacy as the world’s greatest supervillain begins with a left turn down the hallway, right to where the other villains are kept.
Go as slowly as you need to in order to complete your writing project(s).
Prioritize other responsibilities if necessary. It’s okay.
Prioritize rest and self-care if necessary. It’s okay.
Re-write those 6k words you slaved over for weeks. It’s okay.
Slog through that boggy, swampy middle you always dread. It’s okay.
Writing fast is often glorified in the writing community. But some people just physically cannot do that for whatever reason. It’s perfectly okay to write slowly.
