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pnfc · 4 months ago

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short conversational fic. in which heinz buys them a pet, and there are no problems ( ~4k words )

EDIT: obligatory ao3 link

It’s like half a year into them dating. Or 194 days into them dating, but who’s counting. Holiday season. They’re out shopping together, which is a joint effort, Heinz distracted by the offerings at every store and gimmick toys too babyish for any kids they know (but not too babyish for Heinz) and whatever side-street restaurants have sprung up by surprise, or are at least new to his memory. Perry is keeping Heinz on task, and footing the bill. Heinz is tall enough to reach a checkout counter. So they make a good team.

They’ve stashed their bags in the truck and are finalizing things at the books and small gifts store when Heinz tells Perry to hold on a minute, while he runs back out to the street. Perry has read through most of the cards for wine moms on the bottom row when Heinz returns with a plastic crate.

“Okay so you know in ‘Lady and the Tramp’ when the guy gets the girl a puppy for Christmas, stuffed in a hatbox?”

An alarming preamble. Perry sets his face.

“Well don’t worry, I didn’t do that, because it’s stupid. Gifting someone a pet dog. Who does that? And wrapping it up in a bow it doesn’t want to wear and everything, so it trips around and falls down the stairs, strangles itself to death, awful. Just a terrible gift idea.” He pauses. “But I got us a kitten!”

Heinz swings the container forward so Perry can see in the barred door. There’s a blanket wrapped around a white lump of fur, which is bristling and softening with each breath. Perry looks up at Heinz with a hollow expression.

I’m so glad you didn’t buy a dog, Perry signs. Heinz is beaming. No.

Heinz blinks, while it registers. “Did you say ‘no’? You’re saying ‘no’?”

I’m saying no.

“No to the . . . kitten? To the sweet little ki— Perry the Platypus, come on,” Heinz pleads, pulling the crate back stably against his legs. “There’s a million little kitties out there who need a home and we have so much room in our place, I’ve been thinking about this for a while. It never worked out for me picking up strays off the street, as you recall, but this guy’s from a shelter, so no little kid’s gonna show up and steal him away. I paid for this. The logistics all check out. It’ll make our house a home!”

No. We don’t need a cat.

Perry leaves it at that, doesn’t bother taking offense to Heinz’s suggestion that their house is not currently a home. He’s being stupid, obviously he is, why call a spade a spade? Heinz furrows his brow at Perry, and sighs at him like he’s being so hopeless.

“Alright. I thought you might be like this — you’re that type of guy, aren’t you, Perry the Platypus? All burly and macho, convinced only a big manly hunting dog could be the animal for you.”

Perry’s mouth is open. Is that how you see me?

“Ok so I’m hyperbolizing but the point is — you’re not a cat person. I know. At least you think you aren’t. But I know how people tick, Perry the Platypus, and trust me: once you let this little ball of cuteness into your heart, you will never want to unclog your arteries.” Heinz points at Perry, who’s got his jacketed arms in a cross. “You’re too soft on the inside. You’ll see.”

That certainly explains how Perry got where he is, with an impulse-driven, acutely toxoplasmotic boyfriend. He presses a hand to his bill bridge, glances sidelong, then starts tugging Heinz away from the crowded card display.

There’s no one in the back corner of the store, with the self-help books, so Perry drops Heinz’s sleeve and gestures at him to set the crate down.

“I thought we could talk it over in the car — or at home?” Heinz says as he straightens up. “Or did you want to look at these before we leave?” He’s skimming over romantic guides advising women to dump their pushy boyfriends. “It’s just they’re all so hacky, I’m not a fan. Plus this store doesn’t carry any of my books — which are hacky, yet practical.” He looks at Perry. “Though none of mine have a ‘Phasing out of subtextual innuendo and into a real relationship’ chapter, yet. That’s in drafts.”

Let’s talk here. Perry hits the brakes mid-sign and wheels on Heinz, with a low growl. Do NOT write about our love life.

“Perry!” he flutes, in a scandalized tone that is difficult to trust. “I would never, in so much detail. I write in broad strokes. Anonymized hypotheticals, that people can relate to. I’m not getting monotreme-specific. . . . Maybe mammal-specific.”

This will be a future conversation. Perry plates it on the heaping table of messy topics in his mind and returns to the one at hand.

We can’t keep the cat. It’s a bad idea.

Heinz huffs, glancing back down at the plastic carrier on the carpet. “Ok, I hate to go here but. Is it because you’re an animal? Does that make it weird to you?” He cocks his head. “Because you know I don’t even think about that. That’s not what you are to me. Like I’m not blind to it, obviously, because you are a platypus. It’s hard to miss that. And I love all the little platypus parts you have, your leathery paws and your big tail and your, your highly efficient lack of ears — it’s all just so characteristically you,” Heinz says, indicating Perry’s form with open hands. “So uniquely Perry the Platypus, not animal-ish. To me. But maybe that’s because I don’t hang out with a lot of other platypuses.”

Heinz kneels by the carrier, while Perry lets his opening question hang unanswered. He hooks fingers into the metal bars — the kitten’s still deep in sleep, its pink nose poking out of a blanket fold.

“Point is you’re not at all like this guy, to me — or to anyone with eyes and a brain. You’re a person, and this guy’s a pet. A real one, not like the one your job forced you to act like, back in the day. This kitty isn’t like you and your secret agent buddies. Like what was it — Kathy? Kelly? The cat one? We’re not gonna push it through military brainwashing, or feed it smart-pills or whatever it is they did to you.”

Perry stares in response, and signs for pill-taking with a shake of his head.

“Oh, they didn’t give you smart-pills? Well they did something to you. And we’re not gonna do whatever OWCA . . .” He trails off, since Perry’s still shaking his head. “What? They didn’t?” Another shake. “Didn’t OWCA stick you guys with a supersoldier serum when you were kids? Or some kind of brain-smartener? The whole ‘Flowers for Algernon’ deal?” Shake.

Heinz is taken aback. He pushes off his knees, and stares down at Perry. “Really? That can’t be right. Perry the Platypus, you’re like.” He pauses, thinking. “Well, I’m not too proud to say, that — for a certain number of metrics of intelligence, and that is bearing in mind that a large number of those metrics exist — you’re smarter than me. By a lot.

“And you have a certain conversational verve and wit about you that I don’t tend to encounter at the zoo, among those chuckleheads.” Heinz laughs, stiff. “I mean come on, you’re not a regular platypus, Perry.”

To which Perry has no ready retort. He just hills his shoulders, palms open. He is and he isn’t. He isn’t, but apparently he is.

Heinz gawps, and sinks himself down to the bookstore carpet. “So like, what, you’re telling me you’re just naturally like this?”

Seems that way.

“And you’re uh. What, like. . . . An animal?”

194 days of officialized dating and this has clicked for him.

“No way.” He leans in closer to Perry’s face, fists propping him forward like a curious ape. “I just never thought — you sure there isn’t some big secret they’re keeping from you? Tell me.”

Perry blinks at Heinz. If there’s a secret, he signs with plodding emphasis. How would I know?

“Right — you’re right, okay.” Heinz slouches in his kneel. “That makes sense. But wow, Perry the Platypus. That is surprising. I mean, I know animals can be smart. God knows the local pigeons outwit me every other morning on my bakery runs. But Momma Ocelot wasn’t exactly reading me Cervantes, growing up.” He rubs fingers through the short pile of the rug. “Then again, she didn’t have a library card. That might’ve had something to do with it.”

She probably couldn’t read, Perry signs, as he sits next to Heinz. I learned from OWCA.

“You had different opportunities,” Heinz says, in slow agreement. “Okay, I can see that. But don’t you think, Perry, there’s something extra-special about you? There is, right? I mean I’ve never connected to anyone,” he says, fumbling, “like you. No people, no ocelots, animals. Ever in my life. What does that say about you?”

Perry tilts his head, and points the question back at Heinz.

“. . . Huh.” Heinz stares at his own hands, dangled on the floor. Perry studies his face as they lapse into silence. Unlike most silences with Heinz, this one is accruing an uneasy edge. Perry fidgets, glances at the pet crate and back. He taps a hand on Heinz’s upper arm.

Hey. Is this a problem? he signs. It’s clear something’s clicking together in a weird way for Heinz, and Perry knows better than to assume the worst, but he still has to state his mind. I’m me. Same as yesterday, Perry signs. Same as always.

Heinz stares across at him, a little chastened, a little pink. “Oh — I know, Perry the Platypus.” He rubs the back of one hand with the other. “It’s just — what are we doing? With this kitten, I mean. What does it mean if he could be like you? If he went through OWCA, or if we . . . taught him the stuff you learned, how to read and everything. Or if we didn’t — what, would he just be a normal cat? Is that a choice we could make?”

Perry gives him a searching expression, hands up.

“That’s all you’ve got for me? You don’t know?”

Quiet again. Thoughts are coming down fast as the outside flurry. Their gestural language is getting good now, quicker than Perry had anticipated, quick to read each other and intuit what’s in the gaps. But despite it all Perry still can’t articulate with ease all the words flowing into his head — they get stuffed up inside, pillowing down too fast. Typing is great, when he can get in the swing of it, and he longs for it at times like this.

But maybe the communication barrier is just as well, when there’s so many words piling up and none of them form an answer.

What can Perry explain? Is he supposed to articulate answers to the questions that have unremittingly cropped up his entire life, in his own mind? Years wondering why he couldn’t click with Agent Pinky, who chewed on couch cushions to soothe an eternally simmering anxiety, intractable doggy jitters that Perry could not fathom and found perpetually annoying — or with Harry, who’d wrap Perry up into lanky hugs that felt like getting shoved down in a brushfield, skunky earthen smells and loud cackles that he had to fight his way back out of every time?

Were they more animal, or was Perry more human? He couldn’t hope to answer that with any confidence. Or was there something more malignant in Perry’s development, some aberration of personality, whatever it was that kept him from gelling and made him not even want to try?

He gets the sense that some unnatural growth did twist up, over the years, in the walled garden he built within himself, behind brick meters of protection. One Heinz had cracked his way through to, after years of persistent battering. And now Heinz is delighting in the fruits of whatever warped, mutant object Perry has become — which felt good, until today, when he thought to question it.

Was it unfair, maybe, for Perry to overstep the boundaries written into his birth, to give Heinz a warped impression of animalkind? Or was it all just delusional egotism on Perry’s part, thinking he’s fundamentally any different from this cat?

Perry stares at the pink plastic of the crate. Melted snow has congealed into drops on its side. He looks at Heinz, who’s sitting with his long arms crossed on his knees, and formulates the thought at the front of his mind right now, knowing it doesn’t help a thing.

I came from a pet store.

Heinz makes a little “oh” with his mouth, and nods. “That’s how your family got you, huh?”

How OWCA distributes their pet-sized agents, yeah.

Heinz joins Perry in looking at the crate, where the kitten’s still sleeping in peace. “What’d they charge for you?”

Perry snorts at that, like it’s a joke, surprised. Heinz isn’t really smiling though, he’s got those soft eyes turned on him.

So he smiles back at Heinz, head tilted. No idea.

“Well,” says Heinz. “This guy cost me $60. And I’d wanna think you’re worth more than that. What kind of a number did OWCA put on you? I’m serious.”

Perry waves a hand in dismissal. Don’t take it too seriously. They’re domestic animals, he signs, they need a home.

“Kinda hard not to take it seriously,” Heinz gruffs, “when it applies to you. I’d like to know exactly how much cold hard cash Francis made pawning off my boyfriend to some grubby little kids, you know? Not to insult your family, Perry. I like them. But like. Definitionally, that’s what they were, at the time.”

Heinz is fussing with the aglets of his bootlaces, chipping away at the plastic.

“D’you think I should ask him to pony it back up? The adoption fee? Not for me, you know, for your family, since they’re the ones who paid it. But mostly for Francis not having it anymore.”

Indignation is all across Heinz’s lined face, as he broods over his boots. Perry feels himself gazing in slack adoration. What an incredibly stupid, petty thing to offer.

He and Heinz have been out long hours shopping, racking up a massive amount of credit — on Perry’s card, on the account that is shared between them, though Heinz’s name isn’t officially attached to it yet. Every other minute it’s been:

Oh, a gardening spade! That’s a good brand, Perry the Platypus, you should get it for the boys, isn’t Ferb studying botany? And God that astrolabe is beautiful — who’d like it more, Linda or Lawrence? And Oh! When did we get a stationery store? Vanessa’s into the analog stuff, with her little jetsetting friends, and she’s got that trip to Europe next year — that is a nice fountain pen, Perry the Platypus, trust me, it’s worth the pricetag. And oh, not a bedazzler kit — didn’t Norm want that? I know, I know, Perry . . . we shouldn’t enable him. But it’s Christmas. Speaking of. That tablecloth set is gorgeous, right? I mean we need seasonal napkin sets, I’ve been saying this. The project of home furnishing never ends, Perry the Platypus. We’re getting it.

Heinz never offers to pay his share, on these shopping trips out. He accepts his receptive place under the hefty bulk of Perry’s bank account. It must’ve been the same way with Charlene. Like after so many sad bachelor years he’s reverted to the natural role of spoiled househusband, a happier state of being.

And Perry gets to enable it, gets to fund his cute little impulses. Which throbs a kind of wild power up his spine, makes him feel towering, despite his 24 inches.

Did Charlene get to feel this way? Perry thinks, as he thinks about marriage. He reaches out to rub Heinz’s knee.

“I kind of regret getting him that cool pencil sharpener now,” he mutters, and Perry has to drag his head back to the topic of Monogram.

Reassuringly: Don’t. He uses pens.

Heinz scoffs. “You could’ve told me.”

It was a vintage sharpener shaped like a cartoon beaver, you stuck the pencil in its mouth. Heinz had been so charmed by it. Perry just grins at him, all “what can you do”.

A soft mewl carries from the plastic box, and Heinz wheels on it immediately. “Aw, little baby . . .”

Through the carrier door Perry sees the white-wicked lump moving, a squint of sleepy blues. Heinz pokes a couple fingers in, his palm too thick to fit between the bars.

“We forgot all about you, sweetie, we were talking about that bad Major Monogram. He’s a mean old man who’s rude to animals, who you will never have to meet — God, can you imagine,” he says with a turn to Perry, dropping his babytalk down to dry derision in an instant. Perry holds back a laugh.

“I guess that’s another factor I didn’t consider, in pet ownership. My proximity to a guy who brainwashes little animals to prop up his own failed military career.” He waggles his fingers, which the kitten is taking notice of. “He wouldn’t try to recruit this guy, would he?”

Doubt it, signs Perry, smiling tight. But we’re not keeping it.

“Yeah, I think I’m getting that by now,” he mumbles. “I wasn’t really thinking this guy could grow up to be like you. I mean, maybe he wouldn’t? But what’s he gonna be in 5 years? Our — our adult live-in roommate? I don’t think we need that, Perry the Platypus,” Heinz says. “I mean we already had Norm.”

Perry restrains himself from throwing a self-help book at Heinz’s head. These things are murder weapons. Instead he scuffs a foot at his boot.

“Maybe we just raise it for a while,” Heinz considers while the kitten attacks his fingers. “To adolescence. Then we swap it, get a new one. Keep a perpetual cycle going of dumb little babies. What do you think, Perry the Platypus?”

Surely he’d survive one book to the face? Instead Perry pulls a reluctant paw off its spine, to sign: I thought you quit evil.

“Oh yeah, I did,” Heinz grins back at him. Dick. “Can’t believe I forgot that. Thanks for the reminder.” His face flags. “Oh — I’m kidding, you get that, right? Don’t look at me like that. This does actually bother me, in case it’s not obvious. I feel like there’s some weird implications here that I don’t wanna think about.”

Another roil of anxiety in Perry’s chest. He gestures: Like?

“Like,” Heinz says, thinking. “Well. Can I just never have a cat? From now on? It’s just that I always liked cats,” he says, looking dolefully at the kitten. “The strays around Drusselstein kept me company, growing up, and the ocelots were like my siblings, even if that didn’t last too long. I always thought taking care of a cat would be paying them back, in a way. Helping out their distant cousins across the sea.

“. . . But Charlene was allergic. So, you know,” he finishes.

And Perry can’t hide that that guts him, that detail. Because Perry wants to be whatever Charlene wasn’t. To know and understand the parts of Heinz that she did not, or would not. To accept what she couldn’t.

But Perry can’t. Not this, not now, so out of the blue, with Heinz not even realizing what he sprung on him.

Perry knows he’s not to blame for the strangeness of the world, its incongruous distribution of mind among its creatures. But he made Heinz aware, by embodying that strangeness. And now they're attached.

And maybe if he hadn’t been . . . If OWCA just sent normal people after the bad guys. Like they used do. Then, well. Then this wouldn’t be an issue.

“Perry.” Heinz’s knuckles push into the sleeve of his coat. “Hey, Perry. The Platypus.”

Heinz is ignoring the kitten, now turned to face Perry, all concern.

“You know this doesn’t actually matter, right?” Heinz’s hand rolls down Perry’s arm, as Perry looks up at his eyes.

“It doesn’t. I mean . . . it’s a lot to think about, that I sort of haven’t before. It’s a weird existential conundrum, right? I mean, speaking of things to write a book about.

“But I’m an adult man. I don’t need to get a kitten today, you know? I won’t even throw a tantrum about it. I just thought — you know, in that stupid way, where I think without thinking — that you’d like it. I thought it would be sweet.

“I mean — look,” Heinz says pointing at the carrier door, through which the kitten is now straining to escape, “he looks like a snowball, and it’s snowing. And he’d look so cute next to you. That’s about as far as I got before I had my wallet out.”

Perry tries to smile up at him. But he has to look away, can’t make the shape with his face, doesn’t know what to say. Heinz rubs a thumb on the back of Perry’s hand.

“We’ll think it through more, in the future. That’s a nice change of pace for me.”

They lapse into a gentler quiet, broken only by the kitten’s high-pitched mewls. Heinz sighs, and glances at Perry.

“You wanna, like. Hold it?”

Their corner of the store remains vacant, while the bustle of holiday shopping continues unabated near the front. At one point an older woman came perusing down the adjacent aisle, and left. That’s the most company they’ve had.

So Perry agrees to let Heinz open up the cage and lift the kitten out, deposit it on the rug. It rolls and bounds around in the angular pen made by Heinz’s splayed legs.

It does look like snow, blue eyes. A pretty little guy. Perry recalls some statistic about deafness in white cats, and for a second wonders if that could be their saving grace, getting Heinz a pet so walled off by its own sensory defects that it could never hope to operate on their level.

That’s a sick line of thought, he realizes with a flash of anger. And it’s nonsense anyway. Like he could allow it, like Heinz could. Like they wouldn’t work extra hard to train it in the animal-adapted form of sign language they’ve been cultivating.

It had opened up new dimensions, to Perry. He thinks Heinz was more excited about it than he was, the first few times Perry’d signed about some noun that wasn’t pointable in the room with them.

The kitten bounces over to Perry and grapples his arm, hugs around it like it’s a playmate. It reaches his shoulder, stretched up on its hindlegs like this. If the cat is deaf, Perry considers, glum, there’s no chance it’ll learn sign in a regular household.

Heinz is looking at him, a bittersweet smile on his face. “Sometimes I forget how small you are,” he says.

Perry grips the kitten under its shoulders to hoist it away from himself. Sure it’s cute, this dumb little thing, with fresh blueberry eyes, staring vacant the way Perry used to train his own to do. If there’s a spark of self-awareness behind this animal’s eyes, Perry can’t see it. He pushes forward, beak to its nose, and issues a gentle krkrkr, tremelo waves down the soft shelf of his bill. The kitten stares, wide eyed, and angles its teetering head forward to press its nose more firmly into Perry, before opening up to jaw on him like a chew toy.

Heinz snorts. Perry looks up again to find him grinning, cross-legged, one knee going at an antsy bounce.

“You’re so cute with him, though,” he says. “I was right about that. You’d . . . you’d be good. With a pet,” he says, voice fading to a softer tone. “With a baby.”

Heinz pauses. “I guess those aren’t the same thing, though.”

Perry sets the kitten back on the carpet, where it topples over its own legs. They aren’t the same thing — but Perry could only treat this animal like one or the other. And he thinks it’s now clear, to him and Heinz both, which one it would have to be.

“I have to admit,” Heinz says, beckoning the kitten back into his hands. “My retirement plan, whenever I used to picture it. Whether I wound up ruling the tristate area or not. Was me lounging back with a good book, in a cozy chair. Big fat kitty on my legs, keeping them warm.”

Perry looks up at Heinz, and nods slowly, mulling this over.

He pokes him in the calf, and signs: That’s good. My retirement plan was getting fat.

Heinz laughs, so sweetly, Perry’s reward. He crunches Perry’s hat down over his eyes, with a heavy hand.

Perry accompanies Heinz back to the vendor, who’s posted up in the window of the florist shop, standing by a square corral of tumbling kittens at play.

“Wife said no, huh?” he says, when Heinz hands the carrier over.

Heinz fake-laughs. Perry’s stationed at his leg, paws in coat, perennially overlooked. “Someone did.”

“Well,” he says, as they get back to the truck. “I’d say this was a pretty successful day, with no major disasters. No monumental life choices made in haste. Wouldn’t you say, Perry the Platypus?”

Perry leans back in the passenger seat, with a glance trunkward at their gift haul. A lazy “ok” hand says enough — they did good.

Heinz grins. “She’s gonna flip, right? I mean, the recording equipment — the weighted keyboard? She’ll be spoiled. You’ve got the gift giving instinct, Perry the Platypus. I’ll give you that.”

Heinz leans over Perry, to buckle him in. “Mine could use some improvement.”

Perry just gives him a silent nahh, smiling up, cheek on hand. Heinz pecks him on the hat. "Shut up, Perry the Platypus." And they depart.

#fic #u can tell im endlessly entertained digging into the weird cartoon animal stuff #also that i started writing this in december and didnt pick it back up til last week...#perryshmirtz

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nopefer-art-tu · 11 months ago

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Home is where I want to be, but I guess I'm already there

I come home, she lifted up her wings. I guess that this must be the place

I can't tell one from another—Did I find you, or you find me?

There was a time before we were born

If someone asks, this where I'll be

Where I'll be

#brokeback mountain #ennis del mar #jack twist #heath ledger #jake gyllenhaal #annie proulx #ang lee #cowboys #gay cowboys #cowboy #gay cowboy #gay #mlm #queer cinema #queer lit #hey...hi...hello...#i actually dont just talk about brokeback mountain all day long contrary to popular belief. sometimes i also make art #i actually started this back in december for bbm's anniversary and in that time i discovered i have a new adversary:#drawing grass #but it's finished... it's finished... i can rest easy now knowing that ive finished this art that has singlehandedly killed my creativity #the art that i have been screaming shitting crying about struggling with for 7 months now #which will only get like 9 notes max #but that's OKAY. i did this for me. i needed to be the change i wanted to see in the world(seeing ennis looking at jack like he's the sun)#my art #still brokeback posting

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nevertheless-moving · 1 year ago

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unable to stop dwelling on the discworld trouser leg of time where, in the penultimate fight scene in Nightwatch, Carcer manages to kill teenage Sam Vimes.

Which means that the future that Duke Vimes came from can no longer exist, which means he can’t go home. Meanwhile you’ve got a bunch of history monks with stored up temporal energy, a prepared space outside of time, and the need to do some desperate damage control before the Auditors get involved. Death shows up, reality is unweaving, Sam is reading Carcer his discworld miranda rights because what else is he supposed to do.

and finally, with little other option, the monks de-age Sam so he fits the time period and send him back out into the fray.

(they didn't call it deageing of course. His memory is hazy, splintered during that terrible in between moment, They....took the time out of him? Sanded away the edges of his self for a terrible, workable fit? It...wasn't a good feeling.)

Just—damn. Sam Vimes having to live his whole crapsack life over again, but this time as his disillusioned-reillusioned, unwillingly-character-developed, noir-epic, Duke of Ankh, Commander Sir Samuel Vimes self.

Younger (Older? He's never felt so Old, His steps so Childlike, reality twisting in his gut like one of Dibbler's pies) Sam Vimes walking around in a haze after the revolution. Desperate to go home, knowing he can’t. Wanting to drink. Knowing he can’t.

The whole precinct feels pity, he really took Keel’s death hard, hardly speaks except to do his job. Eventually he has to grit his teeth and start being present, because what else is there to do?

Resists the urge to drink until Colon takes the whole watch out to celebrate because -he’s going to be a father!

Come on Sammy, one drink won’t kill you— and after the first drink he’s cracking jokes and after the second hes smiling and after the third hes honestly the life of the party and sometime after that he’s crying about how he was going to be a father and my wife would be ashamed if she saw me drinking like this and—

Oh shit, Did anyone else know he had a wife?? A PREGNANT wife??? What—aren’t you like 12—no you're 17 now aren't you but when did—

You guys n’ver met ’er—oh gods none if you ev’n know ‘er, is jus’ me...

What—when did you lose—

I lost her the same damn day I los’ ev’rythin else, whadya think...bleeding Carcer...the fuckin revolution...

So! That! Sam only vaguely remembers the night, but rumors travel faster than light on the disc, so by the next day the whole damn city knows about poor Sam brung low by the loss of his poor, tragic, pregnant wife, so young to be a widower, and the Seamstresses nod because they already knew, don’t ask them how, somethings you just have to know in that trade.

And his mother—I don’t know, sue me, I’m a time travel fiend but there’s something deeply intriguing about a man meeting his dead parent, who is somewhat younger than him, and stepping into the old relationship like a badly fitting thing that's supposed to fit well. She would know, right? How would she deal with her son’s impossible grief? Maybe she wouldn’t know—he spent most of the time out of the house, running with different street gangs, maybe he avoids her until she dies and lives with the guilt twice over. God, we don’t even know her name. There’s just so much narrative and emotional potential that I don’t even know where to start.

When he’s on duty, which is most time - it’s agonizing because at first he remembers cases, saves lives that would have been lost. But the more time passes, the hazier his memory because in the original timeline he was becoming an alcoholic. Fuck! A kid dies and he could have saved her if he hadn’t been such a drunk, if he had just remembered where the asshole lived, but it’s all a haze, and he wants to drown out his guilt, but that’s what caused this in the first place.

Good young Sammy, who spends his rare off-time in dusty libraries (and yes, the irony that he’s apparently Carrot now is not lost on him) reading gods-only-know.

It’s not like he can ask the wizards for help, cutthroat and vicious as they are now in the not-so-distant-past.

Good young Sam, who...talks to the Broken Drum’s pet Bouncer like he’s a real person and not a dumb rock? That’s a bit weird, but he’s a bit of a funny guy.

Good old Sam, who believed the testimony of the dwarf who said the humans were trying to rob him and let the dwarf go??

the PROBLEMS this man would cause, good grief. Can you imagine a moderately progressive middle aged man with some degree of begrudging diversity and equity training that he did, for all his sins, pay attention to, suddenly going back to like, 1990, going back just 30 years, and going...oh damn this is kind of fucked up, no man you can’t say that, holy shit.

Except Sam’s lived through even more rapidly shifting social moroes! There’s no seamstress guild, there’s no women allowed inside the university, there’s no black ribboner’s society. People hunted trolls for their teeth! But Sam can’t just unlearn everything, and he can’t shut up, and he has no real luck and anyway he would absolutely get himself (temporarily) fired.

FUCK. Sam has no idea what to do with that. None. Zero clue. Wanders around in a haze until that dwarf he saved from police brutality finds him and insists on repaying the debt. No, he insists, do you have any idea what debt means to a dwarf?

“Sort-of?” he replies hesitantly, and that honest admission of incomplete knowledge shows a hell of a lot more respect and understanding than any self proclaimed dwarf-expert ever did.

Gets a job as a surface man, hauling rocks into the city. It’s backbreaking work, but, in true Discworld fashion, it’s also one hell of a workout (again the irony of being Carrot is not lost him. he freezes for a minute while hauling a rock cart, when he remembers he's technically Lost Nobility too, in a strict sense, but someone curses at him in the street and he's comfortingly grounded)

And here is where this au slides into a SPECTACULAR romantic comedy, BEAR WITH ME. Because in his time on the Watch he’s already done noir, action adventure, war story, detective who dunnit, psychological horror, but guards guards only allowed him to be a romance protagonist in an extremely limited context.

Give me righteous, twenty-something-looking, can’t-say-he-doesn’t-have-style, young Sam Vimes, not an alcoholic, being fed three square meals a day by his dwarven forced found family, hauling rocks. He is startled to find him bumping his head on a low hanging bar that he doesn’t think used to be there, eventually realizing that he’s an inch or two taller than he remembers. Huh. Guess all that bearhuggers really did stunt his growth.

Still doesn’t get what some of the looks from women he’s getting are about, sure, he’s dirty but so is everyone else. Fine, he took his shirt off, but it’s hot out, there’s far wrinklier than him hauling heavy loads, get a life.

Happens to glance in the Ankh one day when it’s particularly slow and shiny and is startled to realize that he might be turning heads for a different reason. Oh. Right, not that he was ever a heartbreaker, but he did alright for himself... when he was a younger and his face hadn’t been broken so many times. Which...it isn't now.

Is mildly disturbed by the revelation.

Especially once things blow over at the precinct and what with high mortality rates, he ends up with getting hired again. The boys are delighted to have him back, nevermind that he’s an odd one, noone is ever quite in your corner like Vimsey, absence makes the heart fonder, no one else works that hard, and he’s not even competition for promotion. All around great guy, we should set him up with somebody and just, no.

It just keeps getting worse! He’s literate! He’s a feminist! He believes abuse victims! He’s got a tragic backstory! He’s unreasonably good in a fistfight! He’s kind to animals! Word gets around that there’s a good man on the watch and he’s just waiting for a good woman to come snap him up. The widower excuse doesn’t hold people off completely, and for some it’s its own sort-of appeal.

Things REALLY become stressful after he rescues that carriage full of noblewoman.

What’s he supposed to do? Let them get robbed? Or worse? Chasing down and beating up 10 goons is as easy as beating up one, when they’re that stupid, getting separated like that, drunk and distracted, and he knows these streets better than anyone, really it’s nothing. And oh lord he’s Modest too.

I mean, they were genuinely greatful, as genuine as people like that are capable of being, the skill having grown rusty. And then there is something...magnetic about the man. An air of command.

So, soon enough you get Lady Marigold of Marigrave calling on Treckle Road for that gallant young officer who rescued them, she really needs to thank him. And Viscountess Elanor Thitzferal specifically requesting that he guard her at her next soiree. And Baroness Julieta van Shoeholten insisting that he come to her home while her husband’s away, for... manly protection.

Aaaah just zero sympathy from the guys. None. 'It’s become a competition, they’re just trying to see who can get me into bed first, it’s like I’m a piece of meat, you can’t send me sir, the Marquess greeted me in a nightee last time you made me go to—' and 'small gods Vimes are you even listening to yourself, shut the hell up'.

Simultaneous to this, (again this is several years into the timeline) swamp dragon accessories come into style. Which means abandoned swamp dragons scrounging on the street. Vimes takes one back to his apartment, blows his paycheck on dragon medicine, and eventually, heart in his chest, brings it to the Ramkin estate. The sunshine orphanage doesn’t even exist yet and he’s just standing outside the gates like an idiot, what is he thinking. Turns around, but her carriage is pulling up and—

well. they meet. it's cute. he's never felt so young. he's never felt so old, too old for her, too poor—

and certainly her thoughts linger too long on the awkward, kindly, handsome young commoner, but is it any wonder she doesn't quite connect it to the stern, dangerous, sexy young guard the ladies seem to be in some quiet, cuthroat competition over?

i have this gorgeous, absurd scene in my head in which Vimes is strong armed into standing guard at some high society soiree and one of the pushiest ladies insists he dance with here, or, if he prefers, if he's not confident about his skills, he can dance with her in-private at her home and he’s like [grinding teeth, looking for a way out, seeinf one] “I would be honored to dance with you.”

Steps right into some ultra-complex dance with multiple partner swaps (she never thought he'd pick this one, devilishly intimidating to one not strictly trained, and you barely spend anytime with your first partner).

But he does alright. Better than alright, for a common man, sometimes misstepping but his hands and feet always end up where they need to be. Raises several eyebrows part way into the song because he's throuwing in some slightly scandalous, no innovative, extra lifts and twirls that wouldn't become fashionable for another decade or two. Who even is that guy? Some out of towner? No, no he's in a guards uniform...how very strange.

Gets to Sybll and she's used to embarrassment during these dances, she tries to get out of them when she can... but can't always. Men awkwardly skipping the lifts, or worse, trying and failing. But him — oh it's him, the one who helped little Erold, and looked at her like—like—well like she was someone beautiful. And he's doing it again, and he's strong and there's a quiet moment where she's in the air, they lock eyes, and the rest of the room melts away.

And then the partners change again, the moment ended.

Just...living throught it all again. To the left, a dance he almost knows the steps to, throwing others off balance with erratic moves , honest mistakes, and delibrate stepping on toes. Improvising. Ruining. Improving. Getting far, far too much attention.

Hes almost excited when the first assassains start coming after him. It's like a hobby.

Everyone tells him he should get a hobby.

Interactions with young vetinari...I don't have the energy to write it all down, the slow circling in on each other, both burning with the need to fix the city, save it, their city.

needless to say he ends up fired again, life under real threat after offending some high lord.

Conveniently enough he has an employment opportunity- bodyguard to fucking Vetinari on his 'grand sneer.' The bastard knows vimes isn't what he seems, though sam is pretty sure that he doesnt know the exacts.

Vetinari hypothesis:(the ghost of keel? Keels son, with some hereditary curse? Or a larger spirit of justice possessing a string of unrelated souls? He knows things he shouldn't- mind reader? Fortune teller? Havelock once arranged for a wizard to bump into him on the street, the magical fool gave an odd double look and then muttered something about destiny looping in on itself giving him a headache. Destiny? Lost noble? And hes far too familiar with sybyl, one of the few bearable noblewomen in this city. And his thoughts on guilds, when havelock can trip him into speaking... Most of all, if hes reading him at all correctly (for all the mystery hes not that hard to read, unless thats a very clever cover) then it seems that behind those dark haunted eyes is Respect. Loyalty. For vetinari. What an interesting man. A puzzling asset. An intriguing threat. )

Did I mention the timeline is changing, healing slowly around the place where it was torn? Healing enough around scars to perhaps get some flexibility back, with some painful stretches and...massaging of said scar tissue?

And hes heading to unresting uberwald, a place where a werewolf pack still hunts humans and, truely unrelated but perhaps equally exhausting, an eldritch spirit of vengeance just might be looking to stretch its legs in a hapless vessel?

Opening drabble Vimes Vetinari Meta (Unwell) Scene from the Uberwald Grand Sneer

#discworld #sam vimes #discworld au #nightwatch au #i literally drafted this post in December 2021 #and i know it was living in my head for years already at that point #i have more somewhere aging like cheese in the back of my mind #discworld fanfic #night watch #Let this be free from my mind #Perhaps someone else will write it #BE FREE ANCIENT AU OF MY SOUL #For all my obsession with discworld I have but this one (1) AU though it tears at me like the seam of a pair of pants #The songs I have permanently associated with this au are slightly bonkers by the way #My au #Seriously there's like two full novels worth of content up here. Sybyll running away from home and living as a commoner #To mirror Sam joining upper class in original timeline you see?#Some early discworld murder Wizard nonsense when they try to poke at the temporal anomaly and the universe goes brrrr #Eventually catching up with color of Magic city burning bs and vimes is mad as fuck #Weird year that never was protecting people during sourcery #And when we start catching up with where he left #Oh ho ho you can't to forward to something that doesn't exist but maybe you can go sideways to a place that's got a tear in it #A sam vimes shaped tear #And his pregnant wife from 30 years ago in the other trouser leg #AND that's not even mentioning how carcers trial got taken to a...higher court

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noncredible-naramon · 5 months ago

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deeply funny to think about the Drifter trying to interact normally in the Origin system while their consciousness is ping-ponging back and forth between Duviri (time loop) and 1999 (time loop).

They have no compunction about being completely honest with people because they are used to everyone forgetting everything they say when the loop resets. They don't treat their own possessions with any care because they absently assume they will pop back into existence tomorrow. They forget to eat or sleep for long stretches because (you guessed it!) their physical well-being would usually reset too. They cheerfully abandon any task they're undertaking to satisfy their curiosity because "it'll be there next time."

What a weird little freak. I love them.

#In other words--they act like the player of a particularly engaging videogame.#I also imagine the Hex seeing this behavior at first like 'what the Fuck is your Deal'#and then as their extended time loop continues they start to pick up bits and pieces of the same mindset #they get less rigorous about maintenance and repairs each time December comes back around #they start to trust in the Loop as well as in each other -- there's always more to do. of course. but they can always try again.#how nice for a group of people who fought so hard to earn just one more chance #Warframe 1999

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girltiger5000 · 4 months ago

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Stupid animation I never finished lol. Hope u guys enjoy as filler 😭

#mouthwashing #jimmy mouthwashing #curly mouthwashing #daisuke mouthwashing #anya mouthwashing #swansea mouthwashing #tulpar crew #I started it arounddd like early December? somewhere there. you can tell where I picked it back up and rushed #my art :p

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yupuffin · 5 months ago

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I think the aspect of the 2.7 story that felt most impactful to me was something that was previously addressed in the Penacony main story, but was reemphasized and expanded upon with Sunday being the narrative focus of this update:

Sunday is scared.

His motivation to protect the people and things important to him -- Robin is an excellent example -- manifests as a desire for control, to eliminate potential dangers. This motivation is based in fear; he's afraid to lose what he has to factors beyond his control, like the bullet that nearly took his sister's life.

And part of the "true paradise" he longs for involves preventing the sense of powerlessness that accompanies that fear. He believes that humanity sleeps because "we are afraid to awaken from our dreams." Indeed, the appeal of the "sweet dream" of Penacony is freedom from the uncontrollable and inevitable tragedies of the waking world.

It's part of what made him such an effective villain in the Penacony arc; even though you may disagree vehemently with his actions, you can understand with and sympathize the rationale behind them. In his mind, absolute control over the Dreamscape -- the elimination of frightening unknowns -- is the most effective way to keep everyone safe and happy. However, this undermines the real freedom and autonomy of the affected populace, many of whom are unaware of the Dreamscape's true nature.

In the 2.7 update, Sunday is "nerfed after turning into a good guy," to use March's words. Previously, he enjoyed immense social status as the head of the Oak Family -- and as the imposing, invulnerable, "final boss"-style antagonist. Now, his role is effectively reversed; he's a fugitive who has to disguise himself to evade the potential consequences of simply being seen.

He's an incredibly vulnerable position.

Not just physically -- as the audience, we also get intimate insights into his feelings and thought processes. Now he recognizes the scope of the harm he was previously willing to cause in the name of absolute control, and shoulders the responsibility of dealing with the repercussions.

His newly evident guilt and shame is emotionally moving on its own...

...and becomes even more poignant when you realize that guilt and shame and vulnerability has been a crucial aspect of his character from the very beginning. After all, so much of his deep-seated fear of the unknown stemmed from him blaming himself -- his lack of control over the situation -- for Robin's unforeseen injury.

I found the scene at the Dream's Edge the most touching in this update. Sunday's conversation with Robin is a bit of a paradox: he is deeply sincere and vulnerable in speaking to his own sister, yet guarded because he must avoid revealing his true identity. And Robin, in turn, directly provides an alternate outlook on Sunday's character, describing him as though to someone who's never met him, as though he isn't there.

And Robin's perspective reaffirms that Sunday's apparent invulnerability was essentially a facade. He may have been the head of the Oak Family, and the imposing final boss, but at the same time, on the inside, he was continually paralyzed by fear.

Sunday has always been vulnerable. He has always been scared.

And I think what makes the conclusion to the 2.7 story so satisfying and triumphant is that Sunday begins to properly address his fear, his persistent guilt and shame. He moves beyond simply acknowledging it, and recognizes not just how indulging his fear can bring further harm, but also what good things (that otherwise wouldn't occur) can happen when he overcomes it -- as it were, when he doesn't let his fear control him.

I'm going to be real, I probably had an intelligent-sounding conclusion for this, but... it took me several weeks to write this and I've forgotten any idea i might have had previously, so let's just say he definitely hit me right in the feels. 🤣

#sunday #hsr sunday #honkai star rail #hsr #star rail #hsr spoilers #sunday hsr #idk man just. AAAGH #idk if I'll ever be over how sunday played with my feelings #i started the penacony main story back in like march or smth and this update came out in december #so that's a solid 9 months i spent legitimately terrified of sunday #like that one scene in his office with aventurine gave me probably some of the worst nightmares i had all year #so like. idk if i realized it consciously at the time going through this part of the story but #i think it hit me particularly hard learning that he was never as invulnerable as he seemed #like not that him being a big scary villain was fake per se #but in that his invulnerable persona was a fundamental misconception of his character #that is perhaps deliberately cultivated (he talks about how he never wants to share too many of his worries with robin)#i feel like that could be its own separate post because AAAH #there's so many feelings and so much dramatic irony in sunday and robin's relationship #demonstrated very well by this conversation at the dream's edge #anyway. so i just.#like i definitely didn't doubt that this part of the story would do his character justice #but given my previous feelings on him i just never expected to fall for him like i did #well played hoyo. well played

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