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vgfm · 4 years

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Deltarune Theory: The True Identity and Importance of “Everyman”

I’ve been away from the Undertale theory scene for a long time. It’s been so long that a whole new-fangled game got announced, and I’ve got some theories on it.

Are these theories about Gaster or Sans or whatever’s going on with Kris? Not exactly. At least, not yet. I’ve got a better character in mind.

Let’s start with Everyman: Undertale’s most obscure character and (I think) one of the most pivotal in Deltarune.

This is a two-part theory: the first part outlines who Everyman is and why I think he’ll be important in Deltarune. The second part? You’ll have to read and find out.

This is a long one and with loads of images, so strap yourselves in.

Sections

Part 1: Introduction to Everyman

Who is Everyman?

“So Everyman’s just an Easter egg, right?”

Everyman’s Importance

Why did Everyman appear in True Lab?

Why Everyman will have a bigger role in Deltarune

Part 2: Everyman is ???

What will Everyman’s role be?

Jevil’s Connection to Everyman

The Spade King’s clue

Additional Evidence

“Seriously?”

The Gaster connection

The “Strange Son”

Who made who?

“Seriously, who is Everyman?”

End

Closing Summary

Final Conclusions

Who is Everyman?

"Everyman” is a special attack that appears during the Reaper Bird amalgamate fight in True Lab.

This same figure appears twice in Deltarune’s first chapter:

Once as graffiti in an alleyway in Hometown...

...and again as a rare bullet attack during Jevil’s fight.

The name “Everyman” only ever appears in-game next to his graffiti portrait in Hometown. Everyman’s sprites are simply titled “strangeman” in Undertale’s game files:

[Image transcript: UTModTool is showing multiple highlighted sprite entries that begin with “spr_strangeman”. On the right is the file “spr_strangeman_walk” opened, showing a picture of Everyman. End image transcript]

Some time after Undertale’s release there was a since-deleted tweet from Toby with a picture of Reaper Bird’s attack that he titled “Everyman,” which is where fans first got the name.

[Image transcript: A tweet from toby fox that says “Everyman”. The first reply says “Is that his name. please thell me thats his obj name.” Toby’s response repeats “Everyman.” The next reply says “everything i aspire to be.” Toby responds again with “’Everyman’ you aspire to be.” Toby then adds another tweet saying “Description. Just a good guy that shows up on occasion.” end image transcript.]

This is a web archive screenshot so the image of Everyman’s bullet sprite wasn’t preserved here. Special thanks to catcat for tracking this one down!

“So Everyman’s just an Easter egg, right?”

I don’t think so. I’d be more inclined to write off Everyman’s role in Deltarune as a mere cameo if he had only shown up once. But it’s odd that Toby felt the need to include Everyman twice in a single chapter. To me this seems less like a one-off cameo and more like foreshadowing for a greater role in the full game.

Let’s compare Everyman’s appearances to instances of character foreshadowing and one-off cameos from Undertale and Deltarune:

Mettaton

[Image transcript: four Undertale screenshots arranged in a grid. In the top-left screenshot, the narration text box reads “(the machine isn’t working.)” as Frisk stares at Mettaton in Snowdin’s colored tile puzzle room. In the top-right screenshot, the narration textbox is reading a TV announcement in Papyrus’ house: “(It says ‘STAY TUNED FOR A NEW PROGRAM - MTT.’)”. In the bottom-left screenshot, Napstablook’s text box says “there’s a show i like to watch on it... sometimes...” as Frisk looks at their television. In the bottom-right screenshot, Undyne’s text box says “This oven is some top-of-the-line MTT thing.” as Frisk stares at her oven. End image transcript.]

Mettaton is foreshadowed multiple times before he makes his proper introduction in Alphys’ Lab. This includes a direct on-screen appearance of his rectangular form as part of Snowdin’s colored tile puzzle. What’s interesting is that half of these references (including the tile puzzle) only make sense in hindsight to a first-time player. For all we know there could be other, more-cryptic Everyman references already in Deltarune that we don’t have the full context to understand yet.

Rouxls Kaard

Despite his legendary introductory sequence catching many-a-player off-guard, Rouxls Kaard actually is foreshadowed a couple of times before his stunning debut.

[Image transcript: four Deltarune screenshots arranged in a grid. In the top-left screenshot, Ralsei is reading a message from Rouxls Kaard: “It says... ‘Thoust fools, thou will NEVER figure it out now!’. This is continued in the top-right screenshot: “Then it, um, says, ‘PS - I make my own Rules. - RK’”. In the bottom-left screenshot, a puzzle-master says “ROUXLS KAARD... Lord of the Puzzles... Be careful...!” In the bottom-right screenshot, one of Clover’s heads says “RK came by... What a hunk!” End image transcript.]

I’ve noticed from watching Let’s Plays that many people don’t even realize that these lines were meant to foreshadow him (and I’m pretty sure I didn’t realize it either on my first playthrough).

Ice-E

Now here’s something that’s an example of both a one-off cameo and proper foreshadowing! In Undertale, Ice-E is referenced exactly once in the entire game—as part of Sans’ Monster Kidz Word Search puzzle. No other character mentions Ice-E, Ice-E does not appear in-person, nor does the Ice-E’s restaurant appear... in Undertale. Deltarune is a completely different story.

[image transcript: Two Deltarune screenshots side-by-side. in the left screenshot, Kris looks under their sink and the narration text box says: “A can of Ice-E’s Cool Boys Body Spray ‘Spray For The Boys,’ Flamin’ Hot Pizza Flavor.” In the right screenshot, Kris reads a chart in the hospital. The narration text box says: “(It’s a classic 1-to-10 pain scale, using ICE-E as a model.)” End image transcript.]

In Deltarune chapter 1 we find numerous references and bits of foreshadowing for Ice-E and, lo and behold, we see that Ice-E’s restaurant exists in Hometown at the end of chapter 1. And notice how it’s multiple references and not just a one-off like last time.

In every example of foreshadowing listed above we’re given more than one hint of a character’s presence, and so far Everyman fits this same pattern. This makes me feel safe in assuming he will have a bigger role in the full game.

Everyman’s Importance

What’s interesting is that in Chapter 1, Everyman appears in both the light and dark worlds. So far Deltarune has kept the light and dark worlds largely separate from one another, with only Kris and Susie traveling between them (as far as we know).

Everyman’s presence in both worlds implies that either he can travel between both worlds as well, or at least that lightners and darkners are both familiar with him.

Based on what we know, I’d wager that Everyman is a lightner—specifically, a monster. I say this for two reasons: 1.) so far we’ve only seen lightners (Kris and Susie) travel between both worlds, and 2.) this would explain Everyman’s appearance as one of Reaper Bird’s attacks in Undertale’s True Lab.

Why did Everyman appear in the True Lab?

The worlds of Undertale and Deltarune are connected. Toby has all-but-confirmed this himself.

[Image transcript: A screenshot from the official Deltarune website’s question-and-answer page. The question says “So there’s no connections between the two games?”. The answer says “It’s a different world that might even have different rules. That doesn’t mean there will be no connections at all though.” End image transcript.]

One major connection between Undertale and Deltarune is their largely-shared cast of characters. Many major characters from Undertale make an appearance in Deltarune’s first chapter, and Toby has shown that at least some characters from Deltarune’s universe have counterparts in the Undertale universe as well.

The Undertale Alarm Clock App makes reference to Rudolph Holiday living in the Underground some time prior to the events of Undertale.

[Image transcript: A dialogue box where Asgore says “Rudy... loved the holidays, you know.” End image transcript.]

This dialogue also strongly implies that Undertale’s universe has a counterpart for Noelle.

[Image transcript: Another dialogue box from Asgore. He says: “With a warm slice of fruitcake on the table. His youngest daughter peeking shyly from around the corner...” End image transcript]

Depending on how one interprets the Clamgirl NPC’s dialogue, there may or may not be an Undertale version of Susie (aka “Suzy”) too.

[Image transcript: Two Undertale screenshots side-by-side. In the left screenshot, Clamgirl tells Frisk: “Synchronicity...? My neighbor’s daughter looks about your age.” In the right screenshot her dialogue continues: “Her name is ‘Suzy.’ I feel like you two should be friends.” End image transcript.]

I’d argue that Everyman also had a “counterpart” in Undertale’s universe who lived as a monster in the Underground. Much like Rudy, the Underground’s Everyman likely grew old and eventually “fell down”. But unlike Rudy, Everyman was sent to the True Lab for the royal scientist’s soul experiments and became part of the Reaper Bird amalgamate.

This would fit with the pattern that we see with most other amalgamates, namely that they each seem to be made up of one named/noteworthy monster combined with several other generic monsters. The formula goes like this:

Lemon Bread = Shyra (Shyren’s Sister) + Aaron + Moldbygg

Endogeny = Muttler + various dog enemies

Snowdrake Mother = Crystal (Snowdrake’s Mom) + Vegetoids(?)

Reaper Bird = Everyman + Astigmatism + Whimsalot + Final Froggit

The Memoryheads seem to not “fit” with the other amalgamates, perhaps intentionally, so I’ll leave them out for now.

Long story short: Everyman was most likely a monster since he was part of an amalgamate and (as far as we know) amalgamates can only be made of monsters.

Why Everyman will have a bigger role in Deltarune

We see in Deltarune that three of the monsters who became amalgamates in Undertale have since passed away. This fits a trend I’ve noticed of Toby trying to “explain” the absence of characters who are prominent in one of his games but not the other.

The examples I cited above of Rudy, Noelle, and (possibly) Susie existing in Undertale’s universe also serve as “excuses” for where those characters were and why they were absent from the events of Undertale’s story. Rudy was dead and Noelle and “Suzy” were living with their families (presumably) in parts of the Underground where Frisk never ventured.

Shyra, Muttler, and Crystal are similarly “excused” from Deltarune’s story when the graveyard informs the player of their passing. Gerson is likewise excluded from Deltarune due to having passed away before the events of the game.

Conveniently, Everyman is not listed among the amalgamate monsters who have passed away in Hometown, and the alleyway graffiti implies he’s alive and well.

We know that Deltarune’s timeline and character ages don’t match up perfectly with Undertale’s—Deltarune Asriel is still alive and slightly older than Kris, who’s roughly the same age as DR Monster Kid. Conversely, Undertale Asriel died long before Frisk entered the Underground, yet Frisk is still seemingly in the same age bracket as UT Monster Kid (who’s barely younger than Asriel in Deltarune). Like Rudy, we can assume that Deltarune’s Everyman is younger than the Everyman who “fell down” in the Underground.

What will Everyman’s role be?

Remember when I said this was a two-part theory? Well, here’s the second half of my theory: Everyman is the Knight.

[Image transcript: A text box that says “Yes, you read that correctly.” End image transcript.]

Yes, the same Knight mentioned by Seam, Jevil, and the King of Spades. The same Knight who’s pulling new dark fountains out of the earth and who’s implied to be a major antagonist in the full game.

I could hedge my bets by saying Everyman is merely “connected” to the Knight, but if the Knight is a character we already know of then I think Everyman is the most likely candidate.

Let’s start with the name: Everyman’s sprites are titled “strangeman” in Undertale’s files. The very first mention we get of the Knight in Deltarune is Seam describing a “strange knight” who appeared, complete with red font for emphasis.

[Image transcript: Seam speaking inside of a shop, saying: “But, recently, a strange knight appeared... And three of the kings were locked away.” End image transcript.]

The word “strange” seems to be used selectively and very deliberately in Deltarune’s first chapter. Here’s a breakdown of all the times it’s used:

Seam referring to the knight

Seam referring to the Knight’s “strange son” (more on that later)

Telling Seam about Jevil (”Strange Prisoner”)

Seam referring to the “strange someone” that Jevil met

Seam mentioning the “strange words” Jevil said

Rouxls Kaard referring to Lancer (”a strange and irritating darling!”)

Narration before Kris seals the dark fountain (”You felt something strange.”)

Flavor text during the Jevil fight (”Kris gazed strangely”)

The Devilsknife/Jevilstail appearing in a “strange chest” outside of Jevil’s cell upon defeating him (this may be dummied out or only triggers if your inventory is full of weapons/armors and Jevil can’t give his item to you)

The description of the key to Jevil’s cell (”something feels strange about it”)

With the exception of the line from Rouxls Kaard, every instance of “strange” somehow connects to the Knight or Jevil. If the Knight is indeed the “strange someone” who Jevil met then the list tightens even further, to the point where all but one use of the word “strange” is associated with a single character and his handiwork—a very “strange man”, as it were. Speaking of Jevil...

Jevil’s connection to the Knight and Everyman

Jevil’s fight is one of two places where Everyman appears in Deltarune chapter 1. Not only that, but Everyman’s sprite only appears as a rare event during Jevil’s carousel attack, implying that his appearance is somehow significant.

Interestingly enough, the other two sprites that appear during this attack are one with a head that vaguely resembles Mysteryman (believed to be Gaster) and another with the head of a horse, a.k.a. the same as a knight piece on a chess board. It’s also worth pointing out that it’s rarer for the Everyman sprite to appear than it is for either of the other two sprites to appear.

We can also see the Everyman sprite represented in the official Chaos Revolving Keychain from Fangamer.

Jevil mentions the Knight once you defeat him, showing that he has knowledge of his existence.

[Image transcript: Jevil saying “THE HAND OF THE KNIGHT IS DRIFTING FORWARD.” End image transcript.]

This is interesting since Seam’s dialogue implies that Jevil was imprisoned well before the Knight overthrew the three kings at Card Castle. I can think of three possible explanations for this seeming timeline discrepancy:

Jevil is somehow intrinsically “aware” of things that go on outside of his cell

The Knight or someone else visited Jevil in jail to tell him about what happened with the three kings

The Knight is the same “strange someone” that Jevil met before he was locked up

The first explanation is the least likely, imo, due to Jevil asking who Kris, Ralsei, and Susie are when he first meets them.

[Image transcript: Two Deltarune screenshots side-by-side. In the left screenshot, Jevil is talking to the fun gang and he says: “BUT LO, THREE VISITORS STANDING INSIDE?” This continues in the right screenshot, where Jevil says: “WHO ARE YOU FEW?” End image transcript.]

If Jevil was aware of the outside world then he’d surely know of the fun gang’s antics by that point.

The second explanation doesn’t seem very likely either. Seam is the only character who acknowledges Jevil’s existence and we never see Seam visit Card Castle, even after the Spade King has been overthrown.

[Image transcript: Two Deltarune screenshots side-by-side. In the left screenshot, Jack Person tells the fun gang: “By the by, I asked Seam to come here, but...” Continuing onto the right screenshot, where Jack Person finishes by saying “There wasn’t any interest.” End image transcript.]

Jevil’s cell doesn’t seem to have any guards and it’s kept on its own floor, so that would rule out Jevil hearing about the knight from other prisoners.

If someone in the castle brings food to Jevil then he may have overheard it from them, but even that is speculative. Does Jevil even need to eat? He says his body “cannot be killed,” after all.

[Image transcript: Jevil saying “THIS BODY CANNOT BE KILLED!” End image transcript.]

And I’m not sure if the King of Spades would be so accommodating towards a dangerous prisoner.

That just leaves the third explanation, which seems the most likely to me. It’s also the tidiest explanation for how Jevil would be aware of both the Knight and Everyman—they’re the same person.

We can only speculate as to why the “strange someone” caused Jevil to run amok. If that strange someone was the Knight then I would assume that setting Jevil loose may have been his attempt to overthrow or destabilize Card Castle’s leadership. We know that the Knight eventually overthrew the three other kings himself, so that may have been his plan B after Jevil failed or he merely wished to remove Jevil as an obstacle. Either way, the Knight toppled the quadrumvirate and installed the Spade King as the protector of Card Castle’s dark fountain.

The Spade King’s clue

The Spade King is the closest ally of the Knight that we’ve seen so far. The exact nature of their relationship isn’t fully known, but the King’s words imply that he reveres and is loyal to the Knight.

[Image description: Four Deltarune screenshots arranged in a grid. In the top-left, the King of Spades says “By the Knight’s will, I shall shatter your heart to pieces!”. In the top-right, the King says “For the KNIGHT has appeared.” In the bottom-left, the King says “The KNIGHT that pulls the Fountains from the Earth.” In the bottom-right, the King says “My KNIGHT... I shall not fail you...” End image transcript.]

Both characters share an interest in maintaining the existence of dark fountains, given that the Knight has been said to create new fountains by pulling them up from the Earth.

Unlike Jevil, the Spade King’s attacks never make explicit reference to Everyman’s visage, but he does give a possible nod that many players have overlooked. When the Spade King is defeated, he makes a curious gesture by letting his cloak fly away like a butterfly.

While this may be a simple artistic flourish, I always found this moment to be odd and unfitting for a brutish character like the King. It’s also worth pointing out how the King’s cloak is clearly not a part of his body, unlike what’s implied with Lancer’s “clothes”.

[Image transcript: Two Deltarune screenshots side-by-side. In the left screenshot, the battle narration says: “You tell Lancer you can’t tell the difference between his clothes and his body.” The narration continues in the right screenshot, saying “He seems flattered... His ATTACK POWER went down!” End transcript.]

What if the King didn’t always have that butterfly-shaped cloak? Did someone give it to him? Think of where else we’ve seen butterfly motifs before.

At first blush, this seems obvious—the Reaper Bird is clearly made from the Core mercenaries, including Whimsalot. Whimsalot attacks with butterfly bullets, so that’s where Reaper Bird got them from, right? Case closed. Well, not so fast.

It turns out there are two different sets of butterfly bullets in Undertale’s game files, and Reaper Bird’s are different from Whimsalot’s.

[Image transcript: Two groups of butterfly bullet sprites. The left group is labeled “Whimsun / Whimsalot.” The right group is labeled “Reaper Bird”. End image transcript.]

Notice how Reaper Bird’s butterflies are smaller and have pointier, more symmetrical wings? While those differences could be chalked up to limited pixel resolution, it’s interesting how Toby went out of his way to create an entirely unique set of butterfly bullets for Reaper Bird when it arguably would have made more sense for him to recycle the Whimsun butterflies like he did for Whimsalot.

If you want to compare the sprites for yourself I suggest either looking at the game files directly or looking at an actual playthrough of Undertale. I’ve noticed that Spriter’s Resource mistakenly has Reaper Bird’s butterflies listed under Whimsun’s sprite sheet (which is a completely understandable mix-up).

To drive the point home, notice the string names that are used for these butterflies:

[Image transcript: An UTModTool window showing multiple named strings. Highlighted in red are six strings that each contain “obj_strangeman_butterfly” in their names. End image transcript.]

They’re “strangeman” butterflies. Not “amalgamate” or “Reaper Bird” butterflies (despite Reaper Bird having its own share of dedicated strings and named sprites), and they’re not “Whimsalot” butterflies either. Toby clearly delineates them as belonging to strangeman, a.k.a. Everyman, meaning that Everyman is specifically associated with butterfly imagery. The Spade King also makes use of butterfly imagery immediately after he mentions the Knight in his final turn.

Between the King and Jevil, this makes two characters that can be linked to both Everyman and the Knight.

Additional Evidence

Let’s circle back to Reaper Bird for a second. It’s commonly known that this amalgamate is made from Astigmatism, Final Froggit, and Whimsalot. To wit:

These enemies are part of the mercenary group that Mettaton hires to attack you in the Core. Have you ever noticed how out-of-place they seem? Almost every other set of enemies in the game is somehow themed around their environment — Snowdin enemies are ice creatures, Hotland enemies are fire/lava-themed, etc. These mercenaries are themed around medieval warfare and yet they show up in the Core, the most high-tech area in the entire Underground.

What’s even stranger is that this medieval theme seems to come out of nowhere. Astigmatism, Final Froggit, and Whimsalot act as “upgraded” versions of Loox, Froggit, and Whimsun, respectively. And yet their Ruins counterparts don’t have any medieval theming whatsoever—it was added purely for the mercenaries. For whatever reason they’re all dressed like a bunch of wizards and... knights.

[Image transcript: Two Undertale screenshots side-by-side. In the left screenshot, a Core NPC says “Why do I look like a black sausage and not a knight or a wizard?” This continues on the right, where it says “Well... Everyone has an angle they look best from.” End image transcript.]

That’s not my interpretation of their designs—the game outright calls them knights.

On the one hand, it’s true that Asgore’s royal guards also dress up like knights, but the Core mercenaries are explicitly not part of the royal guard—they’re mercenaries.

[Image transcript: Battle flavor text that states “Mercenaries emerge from the shadows.” End image transcript.]

Assuming that Asgore has a dress code for his guards or is just old-fashioned in his sensibilities, there’s still no reason why fighters outside of the guard should follow their standard. Even some of the royal sentries don’t follow this theming, as seen with Doggo and Sans (who’s technically a sentry):

With the abundance of knight-themed royal guard and sentry enemies that exist already, Toby could’ve easily designed the Core Mercenaries to more accurately fit with the Core’s futuristic theme. Doesn’t it seem a little too coincidental that Everyman would wind up as part of the same amalgamate as these otherwise out-of-place knights?

When we look at the other amalgamates, we can see that Lemon Bread (a.k.a. Shyren’s sister) is made up of Waterfall enemies. Endogeny is made up entirely of dog-based enemies. These two amalgamates each have a “theme” for their component monsters that fits the “main” named monster they’re each made of, and Reaper Bird has a clear theme of its own. Why would Everyman be paired with a bunch of knights if he was not connected to them in some way?

Even the Undertale artbook groups Everyman’s concept art with the Core Mercenaries, specifically the ones that look the most like knights and wizards in-game. The book also repeats the name “Everyman” and Toby’s cryptic phrase of “Just a good guy who shows up on occasion.”

Perhaps Everyman knew the Core mercenaries when he was alive? Were they his fellow knights? Or did they work for him before he fell down and they had to then lend their services elsewhere?

“The Knight? Seriously?”

Some of you may be shaking your heads dismissively at the idea of Everyman being the Knight (or you more likely clicked over to another tab by now). I mean, just look at the guy:

What part of this design makes you think “knight”, let alone THE Knight? Well, Seam does refer to the Knight as a “strange” knight, and Everyman certainly fits that bill. But more importantly, we haven’t seen an actual overworld sprite for Everyman yet—we’ve only seen some graffiti and a couple of magic bullet attacks, which are always abstract and simplified.

Not pictured: Froggit, Migosp, Temmie, Moldbygg, Tsunderplane, Mettaton, or Endogeny.

Everyman’s “proper” design would almost certainly differ from his Pillsbury Doughboy-esque bullet sprite, especially if he’s wearing a cloak or a suit of armor. And even if his design doesn’t differ that much, so what? It’s not like this series has ever had an opponent that looks goofy or non-threatening, right?

Another little tidbit I noticed: one of Reaper Bird’s attacks consists of Everyman repeatedly removing his own head.

Or maybe it’s not his head? Perhaps it’s a helmet? Like one that a knight would wear? After all, it’s not unheard of for helmets to have beak-like protrusions.

And this is a series where helmets can come in any shape or size to better fit the needs of the wearer.

Just some food for thought.

The Gaster connection

It’s time to address the elephant in the room: “Isn’t Gaster supposed to be the Knight?” If you haven’t heard by now, this is one of the prevailing theories in the fandom. To be honest, if the Knight ends up not being Everyman then Gaster is the next-best candidate, imo, but these two theories don’t have to be mutually-exclusive. I think a case can be made that Everyman and Gaster are connected in some way.

Let me say up front that this section is highly speculative (unlike the previous sections, which clearly aren’t the least bit speculative). We’re dealing with two super-obscure characters who’ve yet to make a proper on-screen appearance in either game. It’s already hard enough to figure out how either of them connect to the broader Undertale universe, let alone to each other, but I’ll give it a shot.

For starters, we can affirm that both Gaster and Everyman are linked to the True Lab. There’s no shortage of fan theories and speculation on Gaster’s prior usage of the True Lab in his own experiments and I won’t get into all that here, but suffice it to say the True Lab has Gaster’s name written all over it.

(Am I the only one who thinks the DT Extractor looks more like Everyman’s head than it does a Gaster Blaster? Forget I said anything.)

We’ve covered how Everyman appears as one of Reaper Bird’s attacks. Interestingly, the amalgamate Memoryhead has an attack that resembles the head of Mysteryman, the figure believed to be Gaster (which I’ll assume here for simplicity’s sake).

If we follow the logic of my prior “Everyman is the named/important monster that makes up Reaper Bird, fitting the pattern of other amalgamates” argument, then Gaster (or pieces of him) could fill the same role for the Memoryheads.

Everyman and Gaster’s sprites both have the suffix of “man” in Undertale’s game files. Here are all the sprites that use this same naming scheme:

strangeman - Everyman

mysteryman - “Gaster”

snowman - gives you the snowman piece

riverman - a.k.a. River Person

darkman - the shadowy overworld sprites used for the Core Mercenaries

watchingman - The spoon-shaped amalgamate that tucks Frisk into bed

The snowman’s inclusion is a bit of a fluke, because what else would you call a snowman without using “man” in the name? If we exclude the snowman, each instance of “man” represents a mysterious figure that ties back to Everyman and/or Gaster.

We’ve already covered the connection between Everyman and the Core Mercenaries, and it’s easy to connect the “watchingman” amalgamate with the True Lab. River Person is also frequently linked to Gaster in fan theories (and they allude to “the man from the other world” and “the man who speaks in hands”), so what we’re left with is a close-knit community of strange, mysterious "man”s.

This naming scheme looks very intentional on Toby’s part, and he seems to be continuing it in Deltarune by referring to the secret unseen NPC who gives you the egg behind the tree in Scarlet Forest as simply “a man.”

[Image transcript: Narration from the secret egg room. The text box states: “(Well, there is a man here.)” End image transcript]

The Knight’s “Strange Son”?

Remember when I said I’d get back to the Knight’s “strange son”? That’s now. I’m a little iffy on this topic because it involves stacking a whole ton of assumptions onto a single line of dialogue that’s phrased in an ambiguous way. But, if it means what I think it means, it could shed a ton of light on Everyman’s possible connection to Gaster and whether either of them are the Knight.

When you ask Seam about the “Kingdom”, Seam says this:

[Image transcript: Three of Seam’s text boxes arranged vertically. In order, they read: “Historically, this land was ruled by the Four Kings, from CARD CASTLE to the East. But, recently, a strange knight appeared... And three of the kings were locked away. The remaining king put him and his strange son into power.” End image transcript]

Let’s focus on that last sentence. On my first playthrough I misread this line as “the knight put the king and his strange son into power” because that sounds a lot closer to the events that happened—the Spade King and his “strange son” Lancer are in power now because the three kings were locked away, presumably by the Knight.

But the actual text states the opposite—the remaining king (Spade King) put him (the Knight) and his strange son (i.e., the Knight’s son) into power. Or does it? The line could also read as—the remaining king (Spade King) put him (the Knight) and his (the King’s) strange son (Lancer) into power. The second way is awkwardly-structured but technically valid. And this is assuming that Toby didn’t make any grammatical errors when he typed these lines, which he has done on occasion.

[Image transcript: A dialogue box where Dr. Alphys says “I felt so guilty knowing I hadn’t do anything to stop you.” End image transcript.]

Not to be too hard on Toby, but even if Seam’s line is grammatically correct it’s still clunky and murky in its conception—at this point in the game we’ve only just been introduced to Lancer and the fact that his dad is the King, and now this line is potentially introducing yet another father/son duo that is closely connected with Lancer’s dad—is it any wonder that this line is often glossed over by fans?

The second reading, where Lancer is the “strange son,” is also awkward because the Spade King would have little need to put Lancer “into power”. Lancer was already a prince and, presumably, already wielded power in that role. Various NPCs make reference to Lancer bossing them around, and such a thing could’ve easily happened before the three kings were deposed.

If we take Seam’s line with the first reading (where the Knight has a “strange son”) and assume there were no grammatical errors, then this is the only time in chapter 1 that the Knight is ever referred to as having a son. It’s also the only time that the Knight is addressed with pronouns, implying that the Knight is male. If true, this would rule out the theory that Kris (or any potential alter ego that Kris has) is the knight, since Kris is neither male nor do they have a son. This would also rule out Susie, who’s never been a popular contender for being the Knight but is referred to as a “dark knight” on her stats page.

Who made who?

So then, who’s male, widely believed to be the Knight, and is often depicted as having one or more sons?

This (alleged) guy!

“But wait,” you might ask, “isn’t your theory that Everyman is the Knight?” Well, the Knight and his “strange son” seem to be working as a duo in the scenario that Seam outlines, given that the Spade King put both of them “into power.”

Because of Everyman’s connections to the Knight that I’ve laid out, plus the more popular theory that Gaster is the Knight, it’s possible that one may be the Knight and the other may be the Knight’s “strange son.” The way I see it, it doesn’t make a huge difference which one is which.

Now, I don’t think that Gaster and Everyman would be father and son in the strict biological sense. There are a number of reasons for this, but for starters I’m not even sure if Everyman and Gaster are the same species. My inclination is that Everyman is a monster, while Gaster may be a darkner. The latter is mostly my own guess and springboards off of a popular theory that Sans is a darkner, but it’s a whole other can of worms that I won’t get into now.

More importantly, Gaster is strongly implied to have some sort of connection to Sans and Papyrus. All three of them are also connected with special fonts that they each use. As far as I can tell, there’s no widely-used font by the name of “Everyman”, so this would imply that Everyman is not a skeleton and therefore not biologically related to them. However, there’s more than one way to start a family.

Gaster was the royal scientist in Undertale’s universe and it’s not out of the realm of possibility that he (or his potential Deltarune counterpart) could find the means to create life forms artificially.

[Image transcript: The vessel creation scene from Deltarune. The on-screen text says “YOU HAVE CREATED A WONDERFUL FORM.” End image transcript.]

Everyman could be a creation of Gaster’s and thus he’d be Gaster’s “son”.

There’s also another possibility: Everyman is Gaster’s creator. We know that the Knight is pulling new dark fountains out of the Earth. I think the Knight, regardless of who they are, must be able to survive without a dark fountain to give their body form, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to venture into areas where new fountains have yet to be pulled up. The Knight is almost certainly a lightner, and I’ve already detailed why I think Everyman is a lightner as well.

We don’t fully understand how dark fountains interact with darkners, but it’s stated multiple times that dark fountains “give form” to the Dark World.

[Image transcript: Two Deltarune screenshots side-by-side. In the left screenshot, Ralsei’s narration says “Today the FOUNTAIN OF DARKNESS-” and continues into the right screenshot, saying: “The geyser that gives this land form-” End image transcript.]

In the dummied-out manual pages, Ralsei also mentions how his dark fountain gives his body form.

[Image transcript: Ralsei’s manual excerpt, whic says “Dedicated to The unending pillar of darkness that gives my body form.” End image transcript]

Darkners need dark fountains in order to maintain their forms. They may not even be able to survive at all without them. From this point of view, when the Knight creates new dark fountains he’s bringing new darkners to life. If Gaster is a darkner himself, then it’s not unthinkable to imagine that Everyman may have brought him to life in this way and could thus be called his “father”. Seam does refer to lightners as the “creators” of darkners, after all.

[Image transcript: Seam’s dialogue box saying “They were like Gods to us. Our protectors. Our creators. Those who gave us purpose...” End image transcript.]

Ultimately the question of who’s the father and who’s the son is purely speculative. We don’t even know for sure if the Knight has a son, let alone whether it’s Everyman, Gaster, or someone else entirely. It’s very much a “the chicken or the egg?” kind of question.

[Image transcript: Two images. The right is a screenshot of the egg room with narration stating “(You received an Egg)”. End image transcript.]

Hmm...

“Seriously, who is Everyman?”

Let’s bring this home with the question we started with: Who is Everyman? I’ve gone into evidence that he existed as an actual person in Undertale and will likely play a role in Deltarune, but this doesn’t tell us much about the kind of character he is. We don’t even know if “Everyman” is his real name.

If Everyman is indeed a prominent character in Deltarune then there are two possibilities: 1.) he’s a brand new character we’ve never met before, or 2.) he’s someone that we have met before. The first option, while a strong possibility, doesn’t leave us with much to talk about, so let’s look at the second.

Right out the gate I can confidently say that Everyman is not a character that we talked to or had significant interaction with in Undertale. The obvious reason is that he was busy being stuck inside Reaper Bird and he couldn’t have been in two places at once (as far as we know). This means that Everyman would have to be a character introduced in Deltarune chapter 1.

I’ve said before that I believe Everyman is a lightner, so this would rule out any dark world characters. That leaves us with the residents of Hometown who didn’t have direct counterparts in Undertale’s story.

After careful consideration I’ve narrowed the field to two suspects:

Father Alvin

Father Alvin has always struck me as an oddity. He seems like an important member of Hometown’s community, and yet none of the other residents ever talk about him. He’s also conspicuously absent from Undertale’s universe.

The most notable thing about Father Alvin is that his church seems to worship “the Angel”.

[Image transcript: Father Alvin saying “Let the Angel’s power light your way.” End image transcript.]

Ralsei’s prophecy states that the three heroes must seal the dark fountains in order to banish the “Angel’s Heaven.”

[Image transcript: Two Deltaunre screenshots side-by-side. In the left screenshot, Ralsei’s narration says “Only they can seal the fountains.” The right screenshot continues, saying: “And banish the ANGEL’S HEAVEN.” End image transcript.]

This would put the heroes at odds with both the Knight (who’s creating fountains) and whoever is serving this Angel. We can only speculate on the Knight’s motives, but what if he’s acting in service to the Angel?

Something that isn’t brought up much in the fandom is the religious reverence that darkners give to their fountains. The King of Spades refers to the fountains that the Knight creates as “holy” fountains.

[Image transcript: Two Deltarune screenshots side-by-side. In the left screenshot, the King of Spades says “Holy Fountains, whose shadows are creating a new world...” The right screenshot continues, saying “OUR world.” End image transcript.]

The soundtrack that plays at the Fountain is called “The Holy.” Dark fountains can seemingly create life, so it’s easy to imagine the Knight viewing his own mission as some sort of holy rite.

As far as evidence goes for Alvin being Everyman/the Knight, the biggest clue is the drawing signed by Alvin that shows up in the supply closet at the end of chapter 1.

Every other object in the closet represents a part of the dark world that Kris and Susie visited, and yet at no point do they encounter a dark world manifestation of this drawing. We know that the Knight visited Card Castle previously, so this drawing could be meant to represent the Knight’s presence in that part of the dark world.

It’s also worth noting how most of the closet’s toys are arranged from left to right in the order that Kris and Susie encountered them on their journey. Alvin’s drawing is on the far right, just past the open cabinet drawer (i.e., Card Castle), implying that Alvin’s drawing was either at the fountain or that it was effectively the “next” thing that Kris and Susie would’ve encountered if they had stayed.

It’s hard to make out what the drawing could be beyond being a “poorly-drawn picture of a green turtle”, as the flavor text explains. Could it be Everyman? Or is it just a reference to Bold and Brash? Both? Neither? The world may never know. Or it may know when the full game comes out.

Can I also add how strange it is that Alvin’s drawing is in the closet to begin with? Alvin looks to be a pretty old dude, so why would his drawing still be in a school that he no longer attends? I don’t have an answer, I just think it’s weird.

Other clues that could point to Alvin being Everyman are that he is, scientifically speaking, old-looking, which would line up with my hypothesis of Undertale’s Everyman being an older monster who fell down before becoming Reaper Bird.

Alvin also vaguely resembles Everyman as far as their proportions are concerned.

It’s by no means a perfect match, especially if we factor in Alvin’s shell, but both characters possess a round head with some sort of beak or proboscis.

If Everyman actually is Father Alvin, then the title “Everyman” could be a reference to The Summoning of Everyman, a 15th-century religious morality play. I won’t get into the specifics here, but the play focuses on a character named Everyman who must prepare for his inevitable death and judgment for his deeds in life. I don’t really know how much that would tie into Deltarune’s themes or if it’s even a deliberate reference to begin with, so make of it what you will.

Father Alvin was the first character that I suspected of being Everyman when I started writing this theory, but there’s one major sticking point that prevents me from fully embracing the idea: the fact that he lacks a character portrait for his dialogue boxes.

This may seem like a minor nitpick, but dialogue portraits indicate when a character is important to the story, and it would be a pretty big oversight on Toby’s part if a (presumably) recurring antagonist wasn’t given a portrait. Even a three-scene wonder like Rouxls Kaard was given a portrait.

It’s true that recurring characters like Napstablook and Monster Kid weren’t given portraits in Undertale...

But Deltarune has greatly expanded the number of characters with portraits this time around, and we can already infer that Noelle (who had a portrait in chapter 1) will be an important character going forward:

Given Alvin’s limited dialogue in chapter 1 and his lack of a portrait, I’m more inclined to believe that he’ll end up being a minor character, in which case he’d almost certainly not be the Knight (and therefore not Everyman). But who knows, maybe Toby will give him a portrait in the full game.

Thankfully, we have another candidate who might be Everyman:

The Ice-E’s Employees

You think I’m joking? Trust me, you’ll know when I’m joking.

I didn’t initially make the connection between Ice-E’s and Everyman until I saw a post from @curioscurio that pointed me in that direction.

Let’s go back to the Everyman graffiti that appears in Hometown.

Notice how the drawing right next to it resembles Ice-E’s head? I can’t believe this was staring me in the face the whole time and I never realized the connection.

Another point in favor of the Ice-E’s workers is that we don’t even know what two of them look like. We know that Burgerpants is one, and another is implied to be the Nice Cream Bunny that we met in Undertale.

[Image transcript: Two Deltarune screenshots side-by-side. In the left screenshot, the Ice-E’s employee says “Psst, can I tell you a mascot secret? I only started working here because...” The right screenshot continues, saying “The logo made me think it was an ice-cream shop...” End image transcript.]

But this still leaves the “purple guy” and “The Warrior”, who remain in full costume for chapter 1, meaning that one of them could resemble Everyman underneath their mask.

Speaking of The Warrior, he certainly fits the bill as being “strange.” His title wouldn’t be out of place among the likes of The Knight, and his dialogue refers to the hospital’s medical staff as “white wizards”, which fits with the medieval theming that’s associated with Everyman’s mercenary cohorts in Undertale.

[Image transcript: Two Deltarune screenshots side-by-side. In the left screenshot, the Warrior says “This castle’s WHITE WIZARDs relegated me to this HEALING CHAMBER...” The right screenshot continues, saying “But my BLOOD is BOILING FOR BATTLE!!!” End image transcript.]

Speaking of the Core Mercenaries, here’s an interesting tidbit:

[Image transcript: Two Undertale screenshots side-by-side. In the left screenshot, a Core NPC says “As a youth, I would sneak out to play by this creepy flaming pit.” The right screenshot continues, saying “Since the CORE is always re-arranging, it was like a game trying to find it.” End image transcript.]

I used to assume that the Core Mercenaries were older monsters who fought in the human-monster war, which would explain their insistence on dressing up as old-timey knights and wizards. However, these lines of dialogue imply that the Mercenaries are far younger—young enough to visit the Core when they were kids.

So why would a bunch of younger monsters dress up like old-school knights and wizards? Simple: they’re LARPers. This would explain why their more casual overworld dialogue doesn’t match their overly-serious battle dialogue whatsoever—the battle is over and, thus, so is the act.

What does this have to do with Ice-E’s? Simple. The Warrior is also a LARPer. But he takes it a step further and never lets the act slip. According to Burgerpants, he terrorizes customers with war chants during his day job, and we see him keeping up the act while he’s injured in the hospital. It’s clear that he’s living in a fantasy world, and someone like that would have every reason to spend time in a strange dark world that “seems like” fantasy.

[Image transcript: Lyrics from Deltarune’s credits theme. It says: “And the places that you know seem like fantasy”. End image transcript.]

Someone like him could grow attached to such a place and want to see it spread as far and wide as possible, with no regard for how it would affect the boring “real world”. All he’d need to do is create new dark fountains to sustain this fantasy world.

I also find it interesting that The Warrior is in the hospital during chapter 1. Burgerpants claims that this is the result of “pizza-related injuries.”

[Image transcript: Two dialogue boxes from Burgerpants. Read from top to bottom, it says “The Warrior - Thankfully absent due to pizza-related injuries. Constantly terrorizing customers with war chants.” End image transcript.]

But what if there was another reason? We can see signs of “some kind of struggle” in the King of Spade’s throne room, complete with tattered wall banners.

[Image transcript: Narration in the Spade King’s throne room. The text box says “(Wall banners. They seem to have been through some kind of struggle...)” End image transcript.]

What if the Knight sustained injuries when he overthrew the three kings and had to go to the hospital afterwards? A “struggle” implies that there was some resistance involved.

Another interesting coincidence is that the previews for Deltarune Chapter 2 strongly imply that it will take place in a dark world that forms in the hospital.

Earlier previews have also implied that Noelle will have a larger role in Chapter 2, and she’d have every reason to be in the hospital visiting her father when things hit the fan.

It feels awfully convenient that a new dark world springs up right in the spot where the Warrior is. I wouldn’t be surprised if chapter 2 gives us our first glimpse of the Knight in person, and what better way than a surprise run-in with the Warrior?

Some of you may be asking why I’d suggest a minor character like The Warrior might be the Knight when he has a single line of dialogue and no dialogue portrait? Simple: characters tend not to have portraits when their face is hidden from view. We see this with Undyne in Undertale:

She doesn’t gain a dialogue portrait until after she removes her helmet. This is also true of Burgerpants in Deltarune.

So, unlike Father Alvin, The Warrior has an excuse for not having a dialogue portrait yet. While Father Alvin has some compelling evidence supporting him being the Knight/Everyman, The Warrior has no major counter-argument that I can think of (unlike Father “no portrait” Alvin), so I give The Warrior the edge as far as Everyman suspects go.

I’d also like point out that if Gaster ends up not being the Knight or the Knight’s “Strange Son,” then we could get a two-for-one deal of Father Alvin as the Knight and The Warrior as his strange son. Definitely not the most likely outcome, but technically possible! I’d imagine those two would have a hilariously awkward dynamic if they were related.

Closing Summary

Wow, this post went on for a while! Let’s summarize what we’ve learned today.

Everyman (in Undertale)

Was likely a monster who “fell down”

Became part of the Reaper Bird Amalgamate

Likely knew the Core Mercenaries

Is connected to butterfly imagery

Described as “strange”

May or may not have looked like his bullet sprite

May or may not have been connected to “mysteryman”/Gaster

May or may not have been connected to the River Person

Everyman (in Deltarune)

Is alive and active

Is known to both lightners and darkners

Can most likely travel between the light and dark worlds

Is known of by Jevil

May or may not resemble his Undertale bullet sprite

May or may not be connected to “mysteryman”/Gaster

May or may not be Father Alvin

May or may not be an Ice-E’s employee

May or may not be the Knight or the Knight’s “strange son”

The Knight

Described as “strange”

Is pulling up new dark fountains from the Earth

Has been to the dark world

Is possibly a lightner/monster

Is connected to the Spade King, who uses butterfly imagery

Overthrew the other three kings at Card Castle

Is known of by Jevil and Seam

May or may not be Everyman

May or may not be “mysteryman”/Gaster

May or may not be the “strange someone” who changed Jevil

Likely male

Likely has a “strange son”

Everyman and the Knight (similarities)

Both are likely monsters

Both are alive and active in Deltarune’s world

Both are (presumably) male

Both have a presence in the dark world

Both are known by Jevil and may have met him previously

Both are associated with butterfly imagery to some degree

Both are connected to knight imagery

Both are described as “strange”

Both may be connected to “mysteryman”/Gaster

Both are foreshadowed in Deltarune chapter 1

Final Conclusions

So what do I really think? I’m reminded of Undertale’s original Kickstarter demo and how much of the full game’s story was left out of it. Right now we’re in a similar situation with Deltarune. I can’t view any of my theories with certainty because at the end of the day I have no idea what Toby’s going to write for the full game, but I can guess.

If I had to put a number to it, I’d say the odds of Everyman making further appearances in Deltarune is 95% and the odds of him being the Knight is about 66%. There’s always the possibility that Gaster will usurp the title of Knight and leave Everyman as the Knight’s “strange son” or as the far less illustrious role of “no one particularly important”.

If Everyman is in the game, I’d give 50/50 odds that he’s one of the Ice-E’s employees, mainly due to the Warrior’s situation lining up well with Chapter 2′s (likely) setting. I’d then give a 25% chance it’s Father Alvin and the remaining 25% as “anyone else”.

Thanks for reading all of this (or skipping to the end). I’ve seen hardly anyone talk about our favorite strange little man and I just wanted to get the word about him out there. Even if you don’t agree with my conclusions, I’m happy to (hopefully) ignite further discussion over this often-overlooked character.

For now I’ve said all that I can say on the topic. All we can do is wait and see what happens. Fingers crossed.

Special thanks to @curioscurio for inspiring me to make this post in the first place.

Date published: December 10th, 2020

#deltarune #undertale #everyman #undertale theory #gaster

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thinkingoutlouddblog · 3 years

Text

butterfly effect: one

His mouth is slightly ajar, surely shocked to be seeing the girl of his past so far from where he had left her. I myself try to compute what I am seeing, but my brain is running so fast from the adrenaline, the gravity of what is occurring hardly registers.

It’s Harry, and he’s here and the two of you need to get out of there right now.

Word Count: 6k+

Includes: mob!h, mentions of blood, scary dudes late at night, and the set up for my favourite story I’ve ever written!

A/N: guys I am so excited about this story! I swear writing this is the only thing holding me together (so don’t let it flop lmao). It is 2AM pray for me.

My inbox is open for anyone who wants to chat about this series! I love to gab, and constructive criticism is very much appreciated. I want this to be as good as possible!!

butterfly effect masterlist // my masterlist

now

It is not until it is already too late that I realise I should have just ordered an uber.

Alex was very insistent that I order one home from my late shift at the pub. He had even offered to split the cost, knowing without needing to ask this was the cause of my hesitation. It wasn’t that I couldn’t afford it. Strictly speaking, I could. I was just keenly aware of the amount of material I could buy with the amount a late night uber in London would cost me. I would never take him up on his offer. He needed the money just as much as I did.

“It’s okay, I’m good for it,” I gave him a little smile. He was sitting in front of his mirror in his room, midway through getting ready for work. I had simply come to say goodbye before I left for my shift when he had grabbed me by the hand and demanded I ordered an uber home.

“Babe, you have to promise me.”

“I promise!” I stared exaggeratedly into his eyes as I spoke, emphasising my honesty.

In that moment, I made peace with the money I would be losing from my fabric budget. I calculated this budget, of course, by subtracting living expenses from my weekly income. My best friend wanted to make sure I got home safe, wanted the peace of mind while he was working that I would be fine. Who was I to say no to that?

“Make sure you text me when you get into the uber and once you make it up to the apartment.” My chest flooded with warmth at the love and care in his voice. It was moments like these I really sat back and thanked my lucky stars that Alex was in my life.

So, of course I was just going to bite the bullet and order the uber. Of course.

Except, well.

I couldn’t help but think how quickly I got from our place to work. We had picked the apartment just one short month ago, heavily considering the advantage of its walking distance to my work. The King’s Arms was just one block up and down the road. It was barely a fifteen-minute walk. Shorter than that if I took the shortcut down the alleyway back to our block, saving me from walking further down the road and looping back around. It would probably take me longer to get home via uber, once you account for the time spent waiting for it to arrive.

A ten-minute walk home wouldn’t kill me, surely.

The contemplation was pushed from my mind for the duration of my busy Saturday night shift. It was my least favourite shift of the week, as I spent each week chasing after middle aged men getting rowdy in the excitement of watching whatever sport was on TV. The King’s Arm was small, but it was a local favourite known for its homey pub meals, reasonably priced pints and good atmosphere. Much to my contempt they didn’t keep a large staff pool, preferring a smaller, well-trained, reliable bunch. Which was great in theory until it left me to run around like my hair is on fire on a night as busy as tonight.

I was capable of serving everyone well and in a timely manner, but it wasn’t exactly a stroll in the park. More like a seven-hour long sprint, with a half hour break in the middle.

As the final game for the night ended, the crowd slowly but surely thinned until just a couple of small groups remained.

“Hey y/n, are you okay to lock up by yourself if I head home in five?” my manager, Rachel asked me half an hour before close. “I have some time I need to take back,” she added in explanation.

“Of course, you go get out of here.” I knew she wasn’t lying when she said she had some time to take back, putting in all sorts of extra hours to keep the place in tip top shape. I liked Nicola, and I had certainly been working there long enough to handle a couple of customers and lock up by myself. Even if I didn’t like Rachel and thought she was slacking off, I couldn’t exactly argue. She was both my boss and the owner’s daughter, probably not far off becoming the owner herself.

“Are you sure?” She asked, eyeing the few men still seated, probably triple checking she didn’t think they were any kind of threat.

“Yes,” I laughed, “now scram, before I change my mind.”

“Alright if you insist,” she said, already making her way towards her bag.

“Ring me if you need anything! Good night!” She called over her shoulder as she exited through the kitchen door. The cook had gone home ten minutes earlier, the pub serving only drinks the hour before close at midnight.

“Night!” I called back.

I made quick work of what little cleaning there was left to do, and gently reminded the remaining patrons we closed in half an hour. To my surprise they were agreeable and friendly, one of them instantly assuring me, “Don’t worry love we’ll be out of your hair soon, won’t make you stay back late.”

Usually the kind of people that were in the pub this late had no care for closing time, believing that pertained simply to whenever they decided they wanted to leave.

True to his word, everyone was out with ten minutes to spare and I was able to clean their dishes and tables with the remaining time they had granted me. I locked the door to The King’s Arms at 12 o’clock on the dot and riding the high of such an easy close, took not a moment in deciding I was in fact going to walk home.

To Alex: Just ordered an uber!

I felt guilty lying, but I would rather lie than have Alex worrying over nothing. I would be home in a flash, keys secured firmly in between my knuckles the whole way. I felt far safer on the move than waiting out the front of work for an uber anyway.

I kept a fast pace, left only to debate whether I took my shortcut or stuck to the street. I checked over my shoulder, and seeing absolutely no one around, made a quick right turn into the alleyway between two buildings.

I grabbed my phone from my back pocket as I heard the ding of a text notification. I glance down at my screen, reading as I walk.

From Alex: Amazing! I should be home in a couple hours, text me when you get home safe. Love you x

I don’t register the hushed growling tones as I continue making my way down the alley, still looking down at my phone as I type a simple ‘love you’ in reply. It isn’t uncommon to hear the conversations of tenants on the lower levels of these apartment buildings as you walk down the street. Walls are thin and many windows generally left open. It is easy to consign this particular conversation among the other non-threatening city sounds until I eventually look back up from my phone.

I am immediately faced with a most unfavourable scene, under the single light that illuminates this alley, are the two men who I now recognise to be the source of the argument I had barely registered. The first man is tall, dressed in all black, thick muscles protruding through his t-shirt. He towered over the second man who contrasted him starkly in his bright red adidas tracksuit. The tall man’s presence would be dominating the space, even if he didn’t have his dark forearm pressed firmly against the smaller man’s throat.

I clamp a hand over my mouth, stopping myself from yelping stupidly and drawing attention to myself. They haven’t noticed my presence. A witness to whatever it was that was occurring here.

“See all I’m hearing is excuses, bruv,” the tall man’s accent is distinctly that of someone from South London. His tone is aggressive, but even. He knows he has the upper hand and it is clearly not his first rodeo threatening people. This is exactly the kind of person I could’ve avoided encountering by simply ordering an uber.

I snap out of my shocked daze and start to turn to make a swift and stealthy departure. I’m no fool. I know there is a definitive gang presence around here. I also know, if you leave them alone, they too shall (hopefully)leave you. All hopes of making such an exit are of course foiled as soon as my foot connects with an empty beer bottle on my first step.

The two men’s heads snap towards me instantly. I expect the shorter man to ask for help, to say something, but his mouth remains clamped shut. Gang business. He is in a bigger mess than someone like me can ever save him from. The taller man’s eyes narrow. After the briefest moments of standing there frozen, caught, I spin on my heel and run as fast as my feet can carry me.

I run back to the route I should have taken, cursing myself all the way for being naïve enough to believe that nothing bad could happen to me on something as simple as a walk home from work. That women who were raped, kidnapped and murdered from off the street were somehow removed from me. That was something only on the news in my world. Not something that was possibly about to occur.

My heart hammers in my chest as I make the split-second decision, I am safer running all the way home than running as far as I can from the scene of the crime. I’m going to run all the way up the stairs to my fifth-floor apartment, and I am going to lock the door behind me. I turn the corner back up to my block, not slowing down for a second.

I am so quick in fact, that as I come flying around the next corner towards my apartment, I nearly barrel straight into someone. He was clearly walking with some pace too, because he narrowly prevents us crashing into each other head on, but he is a second too slow in his reaction time because I trip straight over his feet. I hardly even see him, even as I am falling straight over him. All I see is brown hair and a dark suit before I’m staring straight at the pavement flying towards my face. I barely manage to throw my forearms out to break my fall as I hit the pavement at speed.

“Jesus,” the man mutters, but the only thing I can hear is my heavy breathing and my own blood pounding in my ears.

I’m on the ground now, I register for a second before my flight response kicks back in.

I don’t even feel the sting of the scrapes with the adrenaline coursing through me, already attempting to scramble up and get as far away as possible from this stranger. “I’m so sorry!” I manage to call as I pick myself and my keys up, gearing up to get moving once more.

“Honey?”

No. It absolutely could not possibly be. There was only one person on this planet who had ever called me by that name.

I stop dead in my tracks. That voice. It’s deeper than I remember but undoubtedly familiar. Familiar seems too simple a word. That voice had echoed around the halls of my brain for years. Even now, six years later, it was not gone but buried, waiting for a simple trigger to spark my memory and bring that beautiful sound back to the forefront my mind. Some days I swear I remembered it like I had just heard it moments ago.

Except now, I really had heard him.

Slowly, I turned to face him.

It’s Harry, and he’s here and the two of you need to get out of there right now.

Before he can verbalise any of the questions on the tip of his tongue, I grab his hand in my own, and yank him forward as I continue running home.

Realistically, I know that we now outnumber whoever it was that may be coming after me and I know even six years since I’ve last seen him, I am always safe with Harry. He proved that in many ways, and more than once, while I knew him. I was not, however, willing to risk the tall man pulling a knife on Harry. I didn’t even want to put him in a situation where it was a battle of fists. Though I did know from experience he could more than hold his own.

“What’s going on?” he yells as we run down the street, rapidly approaching the exit of the alleyway I had fled.

I gradually reduce our pace until we are speed-walking past the alleyway. Tempted as I am to see if they are still there, I keep my eyes trained forward, praying they aren’t there watching us as we pass by.

As soon as we have cleared it, I’m straight back to my running pace, forcing Harry to accelerate speed once more.

“I’ll explain inside,” I call over my shoulder in answer to his earlier question.

Now that I felt a degree safer with Harry’s presence, I had the capacity to feel thankful I had opted for a boiler suit and converse for tonight to accommodate for the Saturday night rush. This run would have been hell if I had worn a skirt and a heeled boot instead.

“Inside where?” He’s laughing as he speaks and as the fear loosens its grip on me, the déjà vu begins to battle for dominance. That laugh had brightened my every day for long enough to leave a mark on my soul. Fleeting as it was, that single sound reignited the shine it had once left.

His question was answered when we came to a screeching halt in front of my apartment. It took me two tries to input my security code correctly, my brain and hands both moving quickly, but not quite matching up. Eventually, the door clicked, and I was able to swing it open, tugging Harry in after me.

I didn’t stop dragging him along behind me until we had taken all five flights of stairs up to my apartment two at a time.

“y/n…” he attempted to grab my attention when we first entered the building, but I was not to be deterred until we had reached the absolute safety of my apartment. I shushed him, not wanting to receive a noise complaint from my new neighbours. I supposed having such a thought was a good sign, my consciousness beginning to register it was not in any imminent danger.

I huffed and puffed as we landed at the doorstep of apartment 5B, the place I loved to call home. Harry, I noticed, was barely short of breath. He had always been a runner when we were in high school. I wondered if he kept up the habit even now.

My hands shook as I located the correct key on my chain, body still shaking from the excitement of the events of the past five minutes. I struggled to align the key with the lock with my left hand, unthinking of the fact my right was still firmly in Harry’s hold.

“Let me,” he murmured, already moving his right hand to take the key. I said nothing, simply surrendering it over to him.

His hands were steady as anything as he turned the key, granting us entrance into my home. I released a breath I didn’t realise I had been holding. I finally stopped just past the door, my back to Harry as he shut it behind him. I took a few deep breaths, trying so desperately to ground myself.

Was any of this even real? The sketchy characters I could believe in a heartbeat, Harry Styles’ presence, however, was harder to grasp.

But there his hand was, in my own, even if I couldn’t see him.

Harry stood back and let me take this moment to myself, keenly aware of how much I needed it. He knew I needed to take pause and re-centre myself otherwise I would only shut down. He was also aware of my injured state though, even if I wasn’t.

“y/n, you’re bleeding.”

“Oh,” my head snapped back to look at my arm. In the rush to get home, the blood from the scrapes on my arm had run down my arm and dripped into our connected hands. I quickly released my grasp on him. “Jesus, I’m sorry.”

“A little bit of blood never hurt anyone,” he quickly dismissed. “Unless you’re the one that’s bleeding, in which case you better get cleaned up as soon as possible.

“Luckily you have me here to play nurse. Just lead the way to the nearest bathroom,” he gave me a little cheeky grin, clearly trying to lift your spirits. The subtle playfulness is not as natural as it once was, but it is certainly reminiscent of our old dynamic. The surrealism of this whole thing goes straight to my head, clouding my ability to form full, coherent thoughts.

Somehow, I manage to come out with, “I think you mean our only bathroom,” in response.

He grunts a laugh, but he hasn’t missed the use of the word our.

I walk like a zombie, leading him through the hallway past the living room and the kitchen to the bathroom. I hold my forearms up in an attempt to redirect the flow of the blood and prevent it from dripping from my fingertips onto the floor. As I slowly came out of survival mode, my awareness of the stinging of my forearms became increasingly prominent. I was sure my hip and knees were going to be bruised pretty badly too. I really hadn’t managed to slow down at all before all my momentum came crashing into the cement.

“Do you have a first aid kit?” He asks upon our arrival to the bathroom.

“Under the sink.”

My eyes trail over the mess Alex and I had left in our rush to get ready.

I tend to procrastinate getting ready for as long as possible, busying myself with just about anything else. Generally, it will be tidying up the mess I’ve made during the day, only for me to create a whole new one in my hurry to get ready for my shift on time. Alex on the other hand, always leaves plenty of time to perfect his look before leaving for the night. Despite having the time to do so, he never cleans as he goes. Leaving his many products and deliberated outfits spread far and wide. Luckily most of his mess was confined to his bedroom, the only trace of him in the bathroom skincare and hair products (though there wasn’t a limited amount of those, either).

“I’m sorry for the mess,” I speak quietly watching Harry get his bearings, standing helplessly as I bled, hands still raised.

“Nonsense,” he doesn’t look at me as he speaks, jumping into action.

Harry turns the faucet on in the sink before opening the cupboard door and grabbing the first aid kid out. It was actually sort of a miracle Alex and I had one. It had been on a list of “Things You Need for a New Apartment” I had googled, scared we were missing important things. At the time, I had deliberated longer than necessary over whether to get one. I couldn’t remember the last time I had required anything more than a band aid for any given ailment. The deciding factor had been the memory of Alex getting into a couple of scrapes while out over the years. It had never been anything major, the worst injury he ever sustained being a bruised jaw, but it was better to be safe than sorry, I decided.

Turns out, that decision was for the best.

He gently touches his fingertips to my right arm, which had copped the brunt of it. With the softest touch, he delicately guided my arm under the stream of water. As I stepped forward to lean over the sink and wash away the dirt of the footpath, he stepped backwards, giving me my space.

I winced at the initial contact of the water as it ran red. I risked a glance at my reflection. Sweaty brow, the light lazy work makeup I had applied half off my face. I quickly diverted my gaze back to my injured arm. This was not exactly how I pictured our reunion. I had hardly ever even pictured it, I was so sure that I would never see Harry again.

I wondered if this silence was as heavy as I thought it was. Everything about him felt so familiar, yet so different. Up until this moment it felt like being in the presence of a friend, but now I realised, he was closer to a stranger.

I knew the person he once was, a sweet but fucked up kid who had been forced to become a man too early. Someone who had his walls a mile high around almost everyone. Almost. The boy who painted his nails on lunch breaks and was friends with everyone but somehow also no one. Until he was friends with me. Then he was the boy who always sat to my left from the first bell of the school day to the last. Back then, I knew him from the inside out, just as he knew me.

He was my greatest joy of those years. Then he was my greatest heartbreak. Now, he was just some guy I used to know who I had plucked straight up off the street, looking very out of place in what was clearly a designer suit in my tiny apartment.

He looked through the first aid kit as I ensured the entirety of the scrape was rinsed. It extended most of the way from my elbow to my wrist, but more pressingly in my mind, it now stung like a bitch. Once the water rain clear as it ran off my arm, I moved onto the much smaller and shallower scrape on my left elbow, working quickly to get it clean.

Most of the bleeding had stopped, only a few spots on my right arm still dotting with blood. I leaned over the sink to prevent the water from dripping onto the floor.

I cleared my throat, nervous to break the silence.

“Can you please grab me that towel?” I nodded my head towards the black hand towel hung behind Harry.

His eyes snapped upwards from the first aid kit he had been busying himself with. I was sure he had been surveying it more thoroughly than strictly necessary, trying to detract from the awkward energy which had crept up on us. We made brief eye contact through the mirror. My breath caught in my throat. The moment was over as soon as it began as he turned wordlessly to grab the towel.

He holds it in his hand, hesitating before handing it over, “Did you want me to…?” he trails off, growing awkward in his offer. He regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth. She barely knows you, back off, he tells himself.

“No that’s okay,” I speak gently, and he quickly passes the towel to me. I get to work patting my arms down delicately.

“Thank you though,” I add, hating the unsure look on his face. I meet his eye, giving him a smile I hope is reassuring.

“Okay, let’s get you sitting down so I can fix you up,” he returns your smile with a slight upturn of the right side of his mouth.

I relocate to the little dining table Alex and I had bought at Ikea just a week prior. Harry isn’t far behind, washing his hands before joining me to tend to my wounds. He lays out everything he is going to need from the first aid kit before holding his hand out. Like an idiot, I stare at his hand without moving for a beat too long before jerkily offering my right arm up.

He laughs silently as he turns my arm over, analysing it carefully.

“So, do you often go for runs at midnight?” He asks as he unscrews the lid on the Vaseline.

“Yeah all the time. I just don’t normally take people from the street with me.”

“Is that all I am? A person on the street?” He tries to keep his tone light, but I can tell he was hurt by my choice of words.

I expect to feel guilty, but a burst of anger I thought I had long gotten over flares in my chest. It isn’t as red hot and overwhelming as it had been years before – I’d definitely had my fair share of time to cool off – but I’m still surprised by the sting of it.

He was the one that made himself a stranger to me, and now he’s upset when I’m stating the fact that he made a reality.

Despite myself, I tried not to come across too harshly in my response. I was never one for confrontation.

“I mean, I haven’t heard from you in six years.”

He is very careful not to lift his eyes from my injuries as he carefully applies the petroleum jelly. I stare down at him, desperate to catch his eye.

There’s a pause as I wait for him to offer some kind of explanation. Some perfectly good reason why my best friend and first love left town without telling me why, or where he was going, and then never contacted me again.

When he doesn’t fill the silence, I sigh as quietly as I can manage. You don’t really know him, I remind myself. I practically kidnapped him, I can’t just go asking him to rehash history. It was so clear that he was what he had wanted me to be. History.

“I just mean, I don’t really know you anymore. I’m sorry I grabbed you like that, I just,” I hissed at the sting of his first aid, “I was walking home from work and I saw these really sketchy looking guys.”

“Sketchy looking?” He finally looked up at me, raising an eyebrow questioningly.

“Well I guess they didn’t really look sketchy in their appearance particularly, it was more the fact that one of them was practically choking the other. They were arguing over something. I think it was something to do with some of the gangs around here,” I attempted a nonchalant tone, not wanting to worry him. The less phased I seemed, the better. I had caused him enough trouble. The only thing that was probably stopping him from running for the hills and never looking back (again) was guilt.

I go on to explain how I’d kicked that stupid beer bottle and taken off running, “which is when I ran into you. I’m really sorry about that, by the way. I’m so glad I didn’t take you down with me I think I would’ve died of a mix of guilt and embarrassment right then and there.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Ho-“he cut himself before his mouth could form that name he had so affectionately given you. “I’m the one who feels guilty, if not for my big, slow feet you wouldn’t have bit the dust.” I laugh at his turn of phrase.

His face suddenly grows serious. “Your head is okay, right?”

Instinctively, my left hand shoots up to the back of my head, ghosting over the slight bump hidden under my hair. The scar tissue was ever so minimally raised, only perceptible to a knowing touch. I retract my hand bashfully, slightly embarrassed by my knee jerk reaction.

“It’s fine,” I match his serious tone, before lightening it up, “as you can see, I managed to break most of my fall,” I gesture to my right arm he has paused work on.

He holds my gaze for a moment longer, discerning whether he thinks I am downplaying anything. He picks up the dressing, moving onto the next phase of his treatment plan.

“And they don’t feel broken? You can move your wrists okay without too much pain?”

My heart swells at his concern. I stamp out the small joy as soon as it flared up. It’s guilt that’s fuelling him. Nothing else.

I shake my head no. He looks up once more, having missed the gesture in his concentration. “Sorry! No. All bumps and bruises. I’m fine honestly, I probably majorly overexaggerated the whole thing and freaked out for nothing. I’m really sorry about all this, its so late at night.”

“Don’t apologise,” he says firmly. “It’s not your fault and you did exactly the right thing by making a break fo’ it. You never know what could’ve happened. Ya’ know. Out late. By yourself. In the dark.”

My face burned red with shame, but also defiance. I knew what I did was stupid and extremely risky, but I also didn’t think I needed a lecture about it in this moment. The fear still coursing through me and my scraped-up arms were surely lesson enough.

“I could say the same thing to you,” I countered.

We both knew my argument didn’t hold up very well. He was a man out alone at night. There was obviously a risk there, but it wasn’t the same.

We also both knew, I wasn’t really trying to start a debate. Just signalling to him I didn’t want to get into it and wanted to move on.

“I was walking to the tube from a mate’s place,” he explained simply, letting me off the hook.

He had begun to tape the dressing down to my skin, securing it safely. He worked expertly. Even if I didn’t already know, I would have said this was one of many times he had done some at home first aid.

“In a designer suit?” I questioned. There were two things I was asking, but also not saying. Was this the kind of ‘mate’ you wine and dine before going home with them? And what happened to that poor kid from Holmes Chapel I once knew?

“I came straight from work.”

Jesus he wasn’t giving me a lot to work with in the way of details.

“Oh,” I say lamely, not wanting to pry. As much as I could tell myself (and him) that I didn’t really know him anymore and he was basically a stranger, it still hurt to be treated like one. We used to be so open with one another. The one thing I ever kept from him was how I truly felt about him.

“I work in finance,” he offers up after a beat of silence. “It uh- I’m pretty lucky to have the job I do,” he alludes to his financial standing, obviously wanting to acknowledge the contrast comparative to how I knew him. A boy not even of eighteen, fending for himself while trying to complete his high school education.

My face practically split in two with the size of the smile on my face at his words. “I’m so happy for you, Harry,” I say, hoping he can see how genuinely I mean it.

“Thank you.”

“Are you happy, H?” The question slips out before I can stop it. Internally, I kick myself. Externally, I try to keep my face neutral, yet interested. That’s a perfectly normal question to ask. Totally.

“Um,” he switches to my left elbow, making quicker work of the smaller wound. “I think so. In my experience you never realise how happy you are until you aren’t. But still, I think I am.”

“Good,” I say firmly. “I’m glad.”

“What about you?” He turns the questioning back on you. “What’s your story?”

“Oh, you know. The sad story of the girl chasing a dream,” I nodded my head towards the sewing machine stationed at the other end of the table.

“Don’t say that!” His tone jests, but he is serious as he speaks. “I think it would be far sadder if I discovered that your talent was going to waste. I’m really glad to hear that actually,” he half says the last sentence to himself, concentrating on fixing his dressing properly on the more difficult angle of my elbow.

“There you go,” he gleams as he admires his handy work. “Good as new.”

“Thank you so much, Harry. I’m so sorry for all this-“

“Not your fault,” he quickly dismisses.

“Even so, I’m sorry for all the trouble. I’ll pay for an uber home for you or something,” I try to come up with something to offer him that can even begin to repay him for his help.

“Are you going to be okay by yourself?” His brow creases in concern.

“Oh, Alex should be-“ I smack a hand over my mouth, realising I never texted him to let him know I had gotten home okay.

“Oh fuck,” I remove my hand from my mouth. I gingerly fish my phone out of my back pocket, muscles beginning to protest, the impact of that fall settling in.

Four missed calls and a flurry of text messages. My phone had automatically turned onto ‘Do Not Disturb’ mode as scheduled at 12:30. I hadn’t been notified of any of it and he had definitely assumed the worst.

“Is everything okay?”

“I forgot to text him and let him know I made it home okay,” I don’t look up as I speak, opening our text chat.

From Alex: I’m coming home

Received ten minutes ago.

“Your boyfriend?” He questioned, keeping his face impassive. That had my head shooting up.

“Uh-“ I began, but cut myself off as the unmistakeable sound of heeled feet running up the stairs to our apartment ran out loud and clear.

Shit.

Before I could even think what to say next, Alex’s key was in the lock. The door swung open, smacking the wall with the force of it.

Both Harry and Alex’s brows hit their bloody hairline I swear. Or more accurately, Lexie’s.

There my best friend and roommate stood, in full drag, light catching the sequins of the pink mini-dress I had sewn myself. If I weren’t standing there with the guiltiest expression of my life, I would be thinking about how stunning she looked.

Harry looked between the two of you, as Lexie did the same. Both trying to catch their brains up to what they were seeing. I myself was at a loss for words. I probably should have started with, “Lex, I am so sorry,” but Harry broke the silence first.

“Wow, you look amazing,” he breathed, transfixed by the look Lexie had created. Drag was an art form, and she was quite the artist. He was not the first to become enchanted upon first look, and he certainly would not be the last.

Lexie narrowed her eyes at Harry, jaw falling slightly open at the audacity of the acknowledgement in this moment. She had little patience for besotted strangers in moments like this. Her narrowed eyes moved to mine, face filling with rage.

“Lex-“ I begin, but am cut off for what seems to be the millionth time tonight with the simple raise of her hand. The close of my mouth is instant. I was not about to make this any worse.

“Bitch, if you do not have a very good explanation for this,” she breathes deeply, trying to gain her composure, “I am going to fucking kill you.”

********

As soon as he is out of your apartment and onto the street, his phone is in his hand. Fingers not able to press to type the message fast enough for his liking.

From Harry: We need to talk. I saw her.

As soon as the message was delivered, he was returning the calls he had silenced in y/n’s presence. The moment she had turned her back and left him to wash his hands, he had turned his phone to airplane mode.

“Jesus Christ bruv, I thought you were dead,” Michael joked as soon as he picked up.

The two of them had parted ways for what should’ve been five or ten minutes. Harry hadn’t seen it happen, just heard the clatter of the beer bottle as it skated along the ground and the screeching halt in the argument. He had been waiting patiently for Michael to finish working in the shadowy doorway to the side. He hadn’t seen a thing, and he was sure from his concealed position, whoever had seen Mike hadn’t seen him. So, he obligingly offered to take a walk, ensure she hadn’t gone calling the police.

He had just been bored. Ready to go home and have a drink with Michael so he could have a bitch and a moan about work. It always left him feeling better when he returned on Monday. He was killing time, that was all. He hadn’t expected to stumble over the girl who had changed everything.

Harry didn’t take time to explain his extended absence, moving straight along to what he had called for. Just like Mike, he preferred to skip the pleasantries.

“I need you to subtly divert as much traffic from this block as possible,” he didn’t ask. He never asked. It was always an instruction with him. In this business, asking nicely didn’t exactly lend itself to going far.

“What’s this about?” Harry gritted his teeth. He did not enjoy having his authority questioned. The only reason Michael would get away with it was because of their pre-existing friendship. Even then. Harry was not exactly in a forgiving mood. Made all the worse when Mike added, “This isn’t about that girl from the alley is it?”

Michael had his answer when Harry said only, “Get it done or I’ll have your fookin’ head.”

chat with me about butterfly effect!

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ckret2 · 3 years

Text

Alright let’s talk GVK spoilers!!!

My reactions as best I can remember them!

- love how Kong is humanized from the very first scene, like every time he shows up he’s humanized so much more than other titans are. If that was at the expense of other titans being made likable I wouldn’t enjoy it so much, but like, Godzilla is made pretty lovable over the course of Monsterverse, Mothra is too, and all the titans featured for long are given recognizable emotions that let us see them as more intelligent and feeling than “just” animals; so all of them are made understandable/likable/sympathetic. But of them all, Kong is the only one really humanized. Which makes sense, because like, big monkey! Basically our distant cousin!

- And they kept playing, like, normal songs for him, which cracked me up.

- I really appreciated how you could SEE the titans in this movie. After all the weather effects to hide the titans in KOTM, there was such a clear difference in this one from the very start. Kong in the daylight! Godzilla makes his first attack at night, and even then you can see him much more clearly than you can for most of KOTM! Nice!

- after the Iwi were portrayed as silent stoic witnesses in Skull Island, I really appreciated that they took an Iwi character, made her a main character, and gave her dialogue and a real role to play in the story while also keeping her deaf/mute. I think that was a good way to improve on the way that the Iwi got got sidelined in the last movie while still maintaining the worldbuilding!

- I didn’t appreciate so much that, y’know, they murdered the rest of her people off-screen in order to do it. Couldn’t they have gone “her parents died so she got adopted by a Monarch agent that was close to her family, but like, the rest of her tribe is fine”? Or at the very least “their island got fucked up so they had to be evacuated but like they’re settling in somewhere else”? “They’re living under this island dome with Kong and they know what’s up and Monarch’s keeping them in the loop and they decided they’re chill with their new dome home, but this one girl likes to go on adventures with Monarch”? Something? Did we have to kill them all off? Y’all make up an entire fictional indigenous culture and then murder them off-screen when you don’t need them? Just let them live.

- a few minutes in I was like “hold on, we’ve got two characters that speak sign language, we’ve got a giant gorilla, gorillas learn sign language, is there any reason they can’t teach Kong?” and then later I was like “OOOOOH!!” Humans and titans learning how to communicate with each other has been one of my favorite themes to explore in Monsterverse fanfic so I was absolutely tickled to see it getting explored in canon, too.

- That said I think it’s hilarious that the girl managed to teach Kong to sign without, like... anybody seeing. Kong’s hands are above the tree line and there are cameras everywhere, how did NOBODY with Monarch see him signing.

- Bernie’s weaponized being an annoying coworker to such a degree it can only be called an art, and I really appreciated it.

- Godzilla’s extra chonky in this movie and I dig it. Roomie noted he was extra crocodilian and I dig that too.

- “There’s been no confirmed titan sightings in three years” I don’t buy that for a minute. They’re BIG. Rodan NESTS IN VOLCANOES. They found a MOTHRA EGG. Humans have A SCARILY WELL-FUNDED ORGANIZATION DEDICATED SOLELY TO FOLLOWING TITANS AROUND. Like, most of the lore in GVK that I don’t personally like, I can be like “eh... I can tweak it just a little bit with headcanons to make it work for me...” but NO confirmed titan sightings? You expect me to believe ALL of them moved underground when we’d previously seen them all prefer to live above ground? You expect me to believe that now that they’re all AWAKE, they learned how to HIDE?? Uh-uh. And at the end of KOTM there was stuff in the credits about using titan droppings as biofuel, obviously they’re still walking around up top! Can’t take that from me. Nope.

- Who the FUCK is Ren Serizawa and how is he related to Ishiro Serizawa? IS he related? Maybe they just dropped the surname as another “yeah this is a Godzilla movie for Godzilla fans” easter egg but I have a hard time believing that he can’t be somehow related to the other character with the Very Important Last Name who was so important in the last two Godzilla movies. If he is related I’m sure it’s been explained in a tie-in comic or the novelization or something, I’ll look it up later.

- I had to look up how much weight huge battleships can carry while writing a KOTM fic where Ghidorah hitches a ride on one, and y’all, I had to pull weird gravity-negating magic to get him to ride on that boat. Godzilla and Kong woulda sunk that boat like a rock. All I could think during that scene is “this wouldn’t work and I know that because I DID THE RESEARCH and I wasn’t even getting PAID.” I’ll choose to believe that Monarch gets special heavy duty ships designed to carry titans but nobody mentioned it because it wasn’t relevant to Kong’s journey.

- The bit where they could see where Godzilla was swimming because he’d got half a ship hooked to him that was bobbing around on the surface, didn’t Jaws do something like that with a buoy? It’s been ages since I’ve seen Jaws. Anyway good reference.

- Insert “they’re gonna need a bigger boat” joke

- I LOVED the part where they shut down all the ships to get Godzilla to leave. Both because, one, it’s a spectacular callback to KOTM’s “turn off all the guns so he knows we’re not a threat” that makes it seem like now that’s just what Monarch knows what to do to get G to chill out, and two... we know that Godzilla backs off either when he’s killed his enemy or when his enemy has yielded to him. At the end of KOTM—and the end of GVK—the act of yielding is presented as very ceremonial and uniform across species: everyone lowers anything they’ve got that could be dangerous (claws, fangs, beaks, axes) and bows to show Godzilla they’re not gonna fight. Battleships, obviously, can’t bow, but even without being inducted into whatever secret titan cultural intricacies might be going on, humans have figured out their own way to “bow” to Godzilla: cut all the power, so their ships can’t move and can’t use weapons. I know the movie presented it as “playing dead,” but c’mon, if Godzilla could hear MechaG power up from halfway around the planet then he could hear that Kong’s heart was still beating, and he’s been around enough boats to know humans can turn them off and on when they want. The humans bowed to Godzilla. He accepted that they yielded and left.

- Mark Russell looked like such a dad in this movie, like he’s retired 100% from being a rugged action hero and now he’s just Pure Dad. I like him better when he’s a dad, it’s a good development for him. He got like 3 lines and I’m like “I appreciate this character development.”

- Despite all my qualms about how conspiracy theories and extremist groups are handled in Monsterverse (and WHICH conspiracy theories they decide to reference), I really love Madison and Bernie’s dynamic. The adult man who’s the excitable wide-eyed believer in every BS conspiracy you can possibly imagine; and then the serious, severe Teenage Girl On A Mission who’s hypercompetent because she was raised for five years by a friggin doomsday cult militia; and despite having wildly different personalities they’re just, in total agreement about everything. Handled just a BIT differently (like, leaving out the more gross IRL conspiracies) they would be a wildly fun comedic duo—especially with Josh the Only Sane Man coming along as the hapless sidekick. And they all play off of each other so well! Both in a comedic sense, and in more serious moments—when Bernie talked about his wife, there was a real moment of empathy between him and Madison with very little said. I’d watch an entire movie just about the three of them. I’d watch a TV show.

- On the one hand I wasn’t too much of a fan of KOTM’s “all titans... are inherently In Tune With Nature... nature has a Balance, because that’s a Real Thing and not an anthropocentric concept to describe how we like nature to act, and they automatically restore it... because they’re like, some kinda borderline divinities or something... we should probably be worshipping them...” thing; but, now that it was totally absent in GVK, I sorta miss it. Like I feel like there needs to be a balance, a few humans who are like “i lowkey worship these dudes?” and a few others who are like “they’re cool but like, that’s a lil extreme” and that neither side be presented as Right in how they regard titans’ relationship with nature.

- “All titans come from THE HOLLOW EARTH” nah I don’t buy that it’s silly. Basically, what I object to is the idea that all titans have some sort of intrinsic similarity (they all come from the same hitherto-unknown location; they all are part of the same pack that has the same alpha; they all are fueled/fed by the same energy source; etc) rather than letting them be SEPARATE species whose only unifying traits are “they’re all big enough to fuck everything up everywhere they go” and “they’re big enough that the typically-insurmountable barriers between different biomes (mountain ranges, valleys, long distances with terrible weather) aren’t insurmountable for them, so even if they’re specialized in different environments they still all have to deal with each other pretty often.” I’ll make some exceptions for convergent evolution (i.e., claiming multiple titans developed similar traits that are relatively easy to spontaneously evolve and a prerequisite for a creature to survive at such a large size). But I can’t buy “this big gorilla has more biologically in common with this big crocodile-iguana than he does with, say, gorillas,” or most of the other “all these titans have THIS IN COMMON” claims that Monsterverse makes, including “everyone’s from hollow earth.” So I’m tossing that out the window and substituting my own headcanons. Some might’ve evolved there but some evolved on the surface. Maybe a majority of them like ducking in and out of the hollow earth like some kind of titan shortcut system. Kong’s species, I can buy, IS native to hollow earth, considering that they built a whole-ass society down there with tools and architecture.

- I’m SO curious about the little underground Kong home, the Godzilla motif in the floor, and the axe that appeared to be made with a Godzilla scute. What’s the story there??? We know Godzilla’s species and Kong’s species are ancient rivals. Is it because Kong’s species hunted Godzilla’s to steal their scutes to make weapons, seeing them as a valuable resource the way, like, early humans considered woolly mammoths a valuable resource—thus making that Godzilla on the floor equivalent to cave art of mammoths made by people who hunted them—until the Godzillas got pissed and started fighting back en masse? Or were Godzillas and Kongs already enemies when Kongs decided to start making weapons out of their corpses? Did they use to be allies, fighting together, with Godzillas voluntarily offering shed scutes and/or bones of their deceased members to Kongs, and that place used to be a shared home until they started fighting?

- What about that power source, is it something that was already there that both Kongs and Godzillas started to deliberately harvest for technology/atomic breath? Or did Godzillas automatically channel that stuff and Kongs exploited/borrowed/traded with Godzillas to utilize it too? Or is the power from Godzillas who collaboratively poured a bunch of power into the place thus that Kongs were able to use it too? I doubt Godzilla’s species CREATED all that weird energy but the question remains of whether, like, they channel it FROM underground, or naturally produce the same thing in their own bodies, or what.

- Godzilla using his atomic breath to dig a hole STRAIGHT TO KONG just to KICK HIS ASS is hilarious. How lucky that Hong Kong just HAPPENS to be straight over Kong’s house! Were all the tunnels to the hollow earth made by pissed off Godzillas who wanted to kick monkey ass??

- I loved the aesthetic of the battle scene in Hong Kong, with the brightly colored neon building outlines, VERY cool look. The choreography of the battle scene was great too, especially

- we literally broke into applause when Kong shoved the axe handle in Godzilla’s mouth. Love it, perfect callback, that was the ONE thing from the original King Kong Vs Godzilla I was hoping to see referenced and there it was.

- You could really see a difference in how Kong and Godzilla fought—Kong doing a better job at using tools and the environment, Godzilla fighting more like a reptile. They seemed to emphasize Godzilla’s more animalistic behaviors in this movie to accomplish that contrast—he was down on all fours and moving like a crocodile more often, he was clawing at Kong’s chest—but even though it seemed a bit different of a combat technique it also didn’t seem out of place compared to how he fought in prior movies. And we’ve already seen that if Godzilla’s involved in a fight and one of the combatants knows how to use the environment, it’s typically not gonna be Godzilla. (See: Ghidorah using the reflection in a building’s windows to see what’s behind him, and recognizing a nearby power source and biting it to juice himself up.)

- So many of Godzilla’s enemies seem to have specialized in negating his atomic breath in order to combat him! The MUTOs directly suppress his ability to use it—and it makes sense that that’s an inborn ability they have, since they evolved to use Godzilla’s species as prey. Kong has a weapon that both acts as a shield to absorb the breath and turn it back against Godzilla’s species—they didn’t evolve to counter Godzilla, but they developed tools once a rivalry happened. Ghidorah’s the exception—which makes sense, since he came from space—but even at that we see him using tactics specifically to take into account Godzilla’s most powerful weapon (such as keeping one head on lookout for when he starts glowing so that they know when they need to dodge).

- LOVED the reveal that MechaG was based off of Ghidorah’s brain, it has vibes of both the Kiryu Saga and the way that Heisei MechaG is based off of Mecha-King Ghidorah. Not the most surprising plot twist, since we’d theorized that they might use San to make MechaG, but I wasn’t 100% sure they were gonna go with it until they finally did. Even when I was going “huh, the mecha pilot’s chamber looks weirdly organic” I didn’t make the connection to WHY until the reveal, lol.

- “Ghidorah’s necks are so long that the heads have to communicate with each other telepathically” that’s COMPLETELY WILD but I love it, it follows very well from their prior portrayal as telepathic empaths in Heisei, it lines up with their emphasis on electricity (because BRAINWAVES AND ELECTRICITY, hey ho movie monster pseudo science!), and it very much compliments my own private headcanon that they’ve got some psychic/mind control abilities.

- The movie ended with both “Godzilla won, technically” but also “since they teamed up as equals, the ending doesn’t FEEL like ‘Godzilla wins, Kong loses’ but rather ‘they both won against a common foe’” and since I’m on both Team Godzilla and Team They Should Be Friends, I’m happy with this outcome. Plus since the last time they fought, the Japanese movie company graciously let the American monster win, so it’s only polite that the American movie company graciously let the Japanese monster win.

- There were just a few too many humans in this movie. I was intrigued by Ren but we didn’t get much out of him, but like I guess somebody had to be in the pilot’s seat other than the Apex CEO. Didn’t care for the author of the hollow earth book, I feel like his role was superfluous. Didn’t need the Apex CEO’s daughter there at all, coulda done without her. How about this, combine all three roles. Instead of having a whole-ass author who knows about the hollow earth, just casually reference that Rick from KOTM wrote a book about it since he was the expert, and (since he wasn’t in this movie) say that he tragically died going to explore the hollow earth himself, and that way we’ve got the book with the “titans are from there” theory AND an excuse to share the “humans die when they go underground” info. Now, have Ren be working for Apex as a pilot for Mechagodzilla, but have him be MechaG’s pilot because he’s also a good pilot in general, and can fly those HEAV things. Have Apex send him to Monarch to be like “hey, you guys trust me right, since I’m Ishiro Serizawa’s relative? We at Apex have heard all about your failed hollow earth expedition, and due to Ishiro I’ve got some past ties to Monarch so I’ve got high clearance with y’all, so I could bring over this useful Apex tech that’d let you go underground and use what I know about hollow earth from my past time at Monarch to help guide things.” Once they’ve got the little chunk of energy stuff and go topside, he hustles it straight to Apex and straps into his seat to run MechaG. Bam, you’ve combined “person who knows enough about hollow earth to help the expedition,” “person who represents Apex’s interests and gets the energy,” and “person who pilots MechaG” into one character, in a way that takes three flat/underdeveloped characters and turns them into a single interesting character with a lot going on and some intriguing ties to the rest of the cast.

I think that’s everything?? Hoo.

#gvk #godzilla vs kong #gvk spoilers #godzilla vs kong spoilers #godzilla #meta

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ninzied · 4 years

Photo

that which we call a rose

based on the prompt: a hello/goodbye kiss that is given without thinking - where neither person thinks twice about it.

happy valentine’s day, kastle fam!

On the second Thursday of every month, Karen can’t help the extra spring in her step. There’s no point in trying to hide it—she does have an office adjacent to Matt’s, after all—but until she knows what it even is, she’ll let her friends draw their own conclusions.

This month is no exception.

“So…hot date tonight?” asks Foggy, precisely ten minutes after Matt’s said goodbye. Though Foggy’s doing his best to sound nonchalant, he’s clearly been waiting all day to spring the question on her. “You haven’t stopped smiling since you walked in this morning. And that was before we even had coffee. What gives?”

“Not a date,” says Karen lightly. “But a something.”

“Wait.” Foggy looks up from his briefcase, dropping every pretense now. “Yeah? That’s great! I’m so happy for you, Karen.”

She looks a little bemusedly at him. “Thanks, Foggy, but it’s not a big deal. Just takeout and whatever’s on TV tonight, probably.”

“Hey,” says Foggy. “Not gonna lie, but that sounds pretty appealing right now.”

Karen lets out a laugh. “Why? What’s stopping you and Marci?”

“You know how she gets about this kind of thing.” Foggy glances at his watch, and groans. “Shoot. I still have to pick up flowers. I can’t afford to be late—literally. This place had like a five-month wait list for tonight, and I think there’s a surcharge if we hold up one of their tables.” He throws her a rueful smile. “Wish me luck.”

“Good luck,” says Karen, in a tone that she hopes will come across as commiserating rather than slightly confused. Was there some memo about today that she missed?

“And you have a good ‘not a date but a something,’” says Foggy, practically beaming at her. “You can”—he gives a comical wag of his eyebrow—”not tell me all about it tomorrow, sound good?”

“Sure,” says Karen, smiling distractedly. She waits until Foggy has gone, the door closed securely behind him. And then she picks up her tiny desk calendar, which she’d forgotten to flip over to February, and looks down at today’s date.

Oh. God.

…

The signs are everywhere, on her walk home from the subway.

For the life of her, Karen doesn’t know how she could’ve missed them before. Paper hearts plastered on storefront windows. Floral shops spilling out onto the sidewalks. Restaurants boasting their two-for-one specials. And the couples. All the couples, wherever she turns.

By the time she’s at her apartment, Karen is nearing levels of genuine panic.

She hangs up her work clothes as if on autopilot. She pulls on a worn pair of leggings and a soft, oversized sweater before pausing to reconsider, and then she changes out of that too. This isn’t just any second Thursday of the month anymore.

She checks her phone, in case Frank has canceled.

She does have a text from him, but all it says is that he’s running about a half hour late—his latest demolition site is all the way up in the Bronx, and traffic is a bitch right now—but how does she feel about Vietnamese for dinner?

There’s no doubt in her mind that the day has not occurred to him either.

Perfect. I’ll be ready with the wine, she sends back, and immediately wonders what has come over her. Beer would’ve been the more appropriate choice for this very much not-a-date, and besides that, they never drink wine together. Whiskey, sometimes, but they’d finished off her last bottle of Maker’s the last time he was here.

Wine is different. Wine means something. Right?

What was she thinking?

And what on earth is she supposed to wear?

…

Karen answers the door an hour later, back in her sweater and leggings. She breathes a small sigh of relief to find Frank there in his typical attire—jeans, with a faded black henley, and a crooked half-grin as he steps over the threshold into her apartment.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hey,” he says back, like it’s just another day. Like this is just another dinner for them to catch up. He holds up a bag and says, “Hungry?”

“Starving.” She reaches for the food so he can get out of his coat, but he waves her gently off.

“’S’okay, I got it.” He looks at her, his gaze going warm. “Think you said there’d be wine?”

And just like that, the rest of her anxiety melts away. There’s still a light flutter of nerves in her stomach, but that’s something else.

Something that she’s always going to feel whenever she’s around him, whether it’s Valentine’s Day or not.

…

Despite how casually Frank is dressed, there’s always a sense of formality to the way he moves around in her place. Like he’s not quite sure whether he’s intruding or not.

He carefully folds his jacket over the back of her couch before taking the food to her kitchen, unpacking each dish as she pulls out the wine.

She tells him about work—minus Foggy’s theories on how she planned to spend her evening—and Frank doesn’t say much, but she knows that he’s listening, attentive to her as ever.

Somewhere between the first and second glass of wine is when he starts to loosen a little, leaning his elbows onto the counter, swiping the last bite of spring roll from her plate.

He tells her small stories about how work has been going for him, and each time she laughs he ducks his head down, the corners of his eyes crinkling.

They end up eating half the food before realizing they’re still standing in her kitchen.

Frank takes their wine to the couch, and she turns the TV on at low volume, flipping aimlessly through the channels.

They settle on a cooking show, which would’ve surprised her one year ago, before these Thursday night dinners. Before he teased her for the one frying pan that she owned and resigned himself to eating takeout from then on. Before they learned to laugh about things like what Matt said at work that day, or the fact that Frank hasn’t had to kill anyone with a sledgehammer. Not recently, anyway.

“All right,” he says, pointing at the pasta on her TV screen. “Next month, we’re doing this at my place for a change, and I’m making you that.”

She doesn’t know why she does it.

Maybe it’s his casual reference to next times. Maybe it’s how closely they’ve wound up sitting together, with her thigh snug against his, the arm he’s draped warmly over the back of the couch right behind her.

Maybe it’s the way this not-so-random Thursday in February feels as though it could become something like every day, for them.

“Deal.” She puts a hand on his knee without even thinking about it, smiling as she tells him, “All right, I’m going to go to the bathroom real quick.”

“Okay,” says Frank, turning to smile back at her.

It happens so fast, so instinctively that before she knows what she’s doing, she’s leaning in, and pressing her mouth briefly to his as she stands from the couch.

Like this is an everyday kind of thing for them too, kissing each other before one of them’s about to leave the room.

Karen makes it down the hall without any memory of how her legs have carried her there. Oh God. Oh God.

Her cheeks are flaming when she shuts the bathroom door behind her.

…

After splashing water on her face, and dabbing it dry with shaky hands, she looks in the mirror and wills every last part of her being to get a freaking grip. This is Frank, and she can be honest with him. Even if it means being honest with herself.

She knows what this is. She knows what she wants it to be. And she’s done letting either of them think that anything less is going to be enough for her.

Karen takes a deep breath and steps out of the bathroom.

…

She hadn’t been gone long, but apparently it was long enough.

The TV’s shut off, their wine glasses cleared from the coffee table. He’s not on the couch.

He’s not—anywhere in her living room.

But as she moves closer, she sees his coat still folded there, and then she hears the sound of movement in the kitchen. She doesn’t know whether she’s more relieved or apprehensive at the prospect of facing him right now, but she supposes she’s grateful she even has the option to decide between the two.

Frank’s clearing the counter, so she can’t get a good read on his face. He’s quiet, though, brows creased together even more somberly than usual, and the fact that he won’t meet her eye should tell her everything he’s not saying out loud.

Their leftovers are stacked neatly next to the takeout bag. He slides the bag out of her way as she picks up the food containers, storing them in her fridge. There’s a six-pack of beer on one of the lower shelves, the bottles clinking together as she closes the door.

“Frank,” she says, careful not to look over at him, “I think we should talk about what we’re doing here.”

He swallows audibly. And then he says, “Yeah. I know.”

She glances at him, wishing she weren’t as surprised as she feels. She’d expected more resistance from him, if not outright denial. It’s unfair of her, she knows; Frank’s abysmal track record notwithstanding, he’s still here, despite the fact that she’d just snuck a kiss out of him without his permission. That has to mean something.

Right?

God love him, though, but he can’t seem to keep his hands still. He grips the edge of the counter, and then reaches into the takeout bag, a rustle of paper and plastic that echoes overloudly in the silence between them.

Karen presses her lips together, biting back a refrain about how now is probably not the time for dessert.

Instead, Frank pulls out a small bouquet of white roses.

She stares as he sets them down on the counter. When he looks up at her, it’s with an intensity that nearly knocks her off her feet, and she grips the counter edge too in order to steady herself.

His gaze is unwavering on hers. “I’ve been thinking about this day for a while.”

She blinks at him, a part of her still wondering if it’s wrong of her to hope. “You have?”

“More than anything.” He shifts closer, and now she can see the last of the fear in him too, how he’s finally reached past it for something—for more. The edge of her own fear starts to soften, giving way to that fluttering lightness only Frank can make her feel.

Karen steps forward, marveling at the shared heat between them without their bodies actually touching. “And what, exactly, have you been thinking?”

Frank brings his hand up to the back of her neck, and she closes her eyes as he pulls her in.

He kisses her, and it’s everything Karen has wanted, everything she could only pretend that she hadn’t been waiting for all this time. He kisses her, and she knows how long he’s been wanting, and how hard he’s been waiting for this too.

He draws in a hoarse breath when they part. “I wanted to get this right,” he murmurs.

“Well,” says Karen, trying—failing—not to smile, “you want to know what I think?”

He tightens his arms around her. “What?”

“I think this is a good place to start,” she says, and leans in to kiss him again.

#kastle #kastle ff #kastlenetwork

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thedistantdusk · 3 years

Text

Arcadia, Chapter 3

Thanks to everyone who followed along! Things are heating up with this chapter! Most of the referenced triggers from chapter 1 apply in this chapter specifically. Here's the link to chapter 2, if you're just seeing this now :)

Thanks again to @secretkeeper13, @accio-broom, @remedialpotions, @jamezbot, @jenoramaca, @not-steve42, @ginisbetterthanfirewhiskey... god, I'm forgetting people, and I'm sorry! But you're all amazing <3

___________________________

D A Y + T H R E E

As fate would have it, Ginny wakes before 0-700.

Not that she sleeps.

Nightmares, the likes of which she hasn’t experienced in years, torment her throughout the night. They leave her scared. Miserable. Guilty. Around 3 AM, she finally reaches for her Dreamless Sleep potion with shaking hands. For more reasons than one, she’s pleased that Harry’s slept on the couch.

She knows now just how stupid this entire mission truly was. The longer she analyzes it, the more she accepts that her bloody pride got her here in the first place. A chance for a promotion, however small, gave her false confidence in her ability to disregard a decade of sexual tension, all while trapped in close quarters with the person she wants the most.

She hopes Harry makes himself sparse today, though she knows that sounds cruel. But the longer they spend together, the clearer it becomes they’re on the cusp of something… and not something that would look good on a performance review. He’s been kind and understanding so far, even when she’s fucked things up. She just hopes she can ignore the most human parts of herself until they’ve dealt with this.

So at half-past 8, Ginny — Jenny — emerges from the house in a bright floral sundress and nude pumps. Were it not for the secret weapon clutched in her right fist, she might have fit in quite well... but Jenny has no intention of fitting in. Not anymore. In three confident strides, she marches across the front lawn, bends down, and spears the prongs of a lurid pink flamingo into the grass.

Yes.

She grins and takes in her work. How ghastly against the backdrop of earth tones! How repugnant!

Ginny steals quick glimpses over each shoulder, only to be met with the eerie, blanketed silence that’s defined Arcadia since their arrival. No activity at all. Which means she’ll have no issue with the next bit…

She strides to the mailbox at the end of their driveway and gives it a sharp kick. The post slides out of alignment, leaving it askew. Perfect. She returns to the house with a bounce in her step. Living with the twins taught her a thing or two about how to infuriate complete strangers.

She just hopes it’ll be enough.

___________________________

As luck would have it, it is enough. Her efforts receive reward more quickly than she thought— more quickly than she’s been conditioned to expect.

Scarcely an hour passes before she finds the warning she needs. And to be honest, it could’ve been there sooner; she just figured she’d give it that long before she checked.

Still, it’s not even 10 AM when she opens the door and sees it on their welcome mat: a folded paper with Pee-tri scrolled on the front. She can’t help but admire the sheer cheek as she unfolds it; this is the closest they’ll get to a public call-out for the way Harry insists on correcting everyone’s pronunciation. The message inside doesn’t surprise her, either.

Be like the others before dark. Or else.

Ginny glimpses out at the lawn, just to confirm— and yes. Sure enough. Just as she’d suspected, the flamingo's gone. The mailbox is straight. Everything’s back to normal.

She kicks the door closed with a smirk and wonders if they’re aware of how easily they’ve exposed themselves. How—

“What’ve you got there?” Harry calls from the sofa in the living room. He looks up from his laptop with bleary, dark-rimmed eyes. A wave of guilt washes through her; that sofa clearly didn’t get more comfortable overnight. Not that he would’ve accepted the alternative.

“Erm. A letter.” She waves in front of her and walks into the living room. “I’ve done a great job annoying them!”

He offers a gentle smile. “Any chance you’ll let me know who this ‘them’ is that you’re so worried about?”

Ginny rolls her eyes and settles on the other end of the couch. “You know I can’t—”

“Talk about your work,” Harry finishes, turning back to his computer. “Right.”

“Mm. Not exactly that I can’t… talk about my work,” she ventures, putting her feet up on the white ottoman. “More like I can’t give information until it’s essential knowledge for all parties involved. Based on criteria that I also can’t share.”

“Sounds like a fun job,” Harry deadpans, still looking at the computer. “But anyway, if I were to suggest something like… I don’t know…” He casually tilts the screen in her direction. “The fact that Oliver Skinner definitely has a criminal record, and maybe that’s worth looking into. You couldn’t confirm or deny that?”

Ginny just shrugs. “That’s correct. I can neither confirm nor deny.”

His theory is wrong, of course. Dead wrong.

They wouldn’t have sent an Unspeakable and an Auror into the country if this were a simple Muggle murderer. Harry would be able to suss this out, she reckons, if he had more sleep. Poor bloke.

He groans and cracks his back. “I’m starting to understand why King’s always so frustrated.”

“Probably because he has to deal with you all the time,” Ginny quips, reaching for a magazine on the floor. Ugh. Of course, it’s only the TV guide, Radio Times. They don’t even have a TV, but it came with the Daily Mail on Sunday.

Harry reaches for a glass of water on the coffee table. “Fine,” he relents, in between sips. “I’ll stay in my lane. But if I get bored, I’ll get tetchy.” He gestures to the computer. “And since they’ve given us this laptop, I’ve had time to do a bit of—”

“They’ve given me a laptop,” Ginny corrects, arching a brow. “As you’re well aware, Auror Potter, that is technically the property of the DoM.” She returns to the guide with a shrug. “I just don’t care if you use it, mostly because I don’t expect you’ll be looking up tits all day.”

He chokes on his water; Ginny just laughs and turns the page. Ooh, lovely! Eurovision looks particularly flamboyant this year…

“You’re absolutely right,” Harry says, once he recovers. “I’d never look up tits on government property!” He looks affronted as he hands over the laptop, but she knows he’s not done... not when he’s set that up so perfectly. Annnnd sure enough…

“You of all people should know I'm an arse-man, Ginny.”

Now it’s her turn for an unattractive snort as he winks over his shoulder and marches upstairs.

When he’s gone, Ginny rolls her eyes and opens her laptop. He’s an incredible liar on the arse-man front, but it was a good joke. A simple joke…. one that didn’t deserve looking into.

It’s just unfortunate that can’t stop these stupid fucking butterflies from erupting in her stomach like she’s ten years old again.

___________________________

He launches into the air again, the gardens of his neighbors spanning out in front of him. Each perfectly manicured. Each disturbing in its performative precision. None of this is real; none of this is life.

He pulled out the trampoline after dinner, when Ginny okayed it. He’s not used to that— checking before he does things. This whole exercise has been a great reminder that his teamwork skills are rusty, especially when he’s in a subordinate role. Ron left after their first year to work in the magic shop instead, which only made sense after… yeah. Harry draws a deep breath and jumps again. Ron and Hermione haven’t been problem-solving in his head for ages. There’s been no one to share the burden of choices or—

“OI!” Oliver’s voice thunders across the garden.

Harry smiles and takes another huge leap into the air. Just in time…

He rips open the fence door and stomps over, hands balled into fists. Harry’s never seen anyone look quite so furious while dressed in cashmere. And standing beside a trampoline.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Oliver hisses, eyes narrowed to slits. “Are you trying to make enemies, Henry? Is this entire estate a bloody joke to you?”

“Of course not!” Harry lands on his bum before he jumps up again. “This is very serious!”

“Oliver!” Sharon wails, hurrying over. “Oliver. Please! This really—”

“Keep your nose where it belongs, woman,” Oliver snarls, looking at her like she’s scum on his shoe. “No one wants your opinion!”

Sharon flinches… and this, more than anything else, gets Harry’s back up. “No need to take it out on her!” he snaps, climbing down from the trampoline. “Talk to me if you’ve got a problem, Ollie. Why not—”

But just as Harry’s feet touch the grass, something very weird happens: A dull buzzing fills his ears. Sharon and Oliver hear it too, but unlike Harry, they aren’t looking around in bewildered confusion. In a flash, the rage on Oliver’s face transforms into something much different: fear. And as the pressure grows, Harry can only watch as Oliver grabs Sharon’s hand, yanking her from the garden, when—

An unmistakable sound replaces the buzzing. A large piece of glass from somewhere in the front of the house shatters on the pavement. And with that, the buzzing stops.

Birds chirp again. Someone laughs in the distance. Harry jabs a finger in his ear, trying to clear it, but it seems Oliver’s returned to his furious state. He lunges towards Harry, a vein ticking in his neck, his hands outstretched as if to push him over— but Harry doesn’t have time for this. He’s already running around him, bolting towards the source of the sound, his hand inching for his pocket…

Because whatever they’ve got going on isn’t related to Oliver, is it? No… definitely not. That buzzing was too creepy to be muggle. Harry hadn’t really been convinced of the Oliver theory in the first place, even if the wanker has a criminal record for drunk driving. He mostly suggested it to Ginny to see if she’d give him any information.

Harry spots the broken glass the second he reaches the pavement. The lamppost right outside their house has shattered, light bulb and all. Bits of glass sparkle on the street, but the lamppost is at least 10 feet high. Harry scans around for signs of a ladder, or some form of a projectile… any method someone might’ve used to— oh! A baseball rolls around in one of the open garages across the street. He’s about to march over and collect it when his conscience stops him.

Because that’s the definition of circumstantial evidence, isn’t it? Harry sighs, rubbing his forehead. Snatching the baseball while working alone is one thing, but it’s not worth risking Ginny’s job. Especially because he reckons these thoroughly unmemorable homes are each equipped with monitoring systems. At absolute best, that would be… awkward to explain to the muggle police, especially without an obvious connection between the ball and the shattered lamppost...

Harry’s just about to turn back inside and write it off a freak occurrence when—

Shit.

His breath freezes in his throat.

What the...

He blinks a few times to make sure he’s not imagining it, but no...

There’s no weird buzzing this time… but something else is happening instead. The grass on the far side of their yard is bulging and curling, right in front of his eyes. The soil creaks as this… this mass — a huge sphere of some sort — passes through; bits of dirt fly into the air before settling back.

Harry’s veins turn to ice, his stomach churning. Work has introduced him to new, vile varieties of ghouls and nasties. He’s been bitten by a leprechaun. Stalked by a vampire. He’s encountered every disturbing otherworldly menace that one could imagine.

But he’s never seen anything like this.

His only solace is that it’s headed towards Mike’s empty house… this massive, rolling boulder that travels beneath the soil. ‘Boulder’ isn’t exactly the right term, though; he’s never seen a boulder move with a slinking, predatory grace. He’s never gotten gooseflesh from a rock, no matter how large.

And try as he might, he can only stand there, wide-eyed, his heart racing. Because now he knows for sure what Ginny only alluded to before: whatever they’re chasing isn’t human.

And it’s aware of them.

___________________________

The door creaks open less than five minutes after the glass shatters, but Ginny’s prepared.

She’s standing in the alcove just off the entryway, wand in one hand, fire poker in the other. It’s probably not the best strategy she’s ever had— but she reckons that if a Muggle were to catch sight of an altercation, it would be an easy memory supplantation. Wands and fire pokers don’t look that dissimilar, and—

“Ginny?” Harry calls. Directly into her ear.

Shit! She jumps into the air, the poker clattering to the ground.

“When did you learn to move like a cat?” she demands, turning to face him. “You nearly—”

“We need to talk,” he says brusquely. It’s only then that she takes in his wide, haunted eyes. His white pallor. The way he hasn’t even commented on the ridiculousness of her fire poker.

Oh.

He’s scared.

Scared in a way she hasn’t seen him in ages. Maybe ever. Which means he heard…? Shit. She’d might as well ask.

“What do you erm…” She toys with her wand handle. “Want to talk about?”

Harry heaves a tired sigh. “I’m only going to ask you this once,” he says flatly, rubbing his hand over his forehead. Then he blinks up at her, his eyes pulsing and stern. “What the fuck was that?”

“The… shattered lamppost?” she hedges. “I’ve no idea. I just—”

Apparently, that was the wrong response.

Harry groans. “You know damn well I don’t mean the bloody lamppost!” he snarls. “I mean that… that thing! First the weird buzzing, then whatever moved through the grass! It was like some creepy worm, or—”

“—not a worm,” she amends, staring at her cuticles.

This, too, was the wrong reply; she’s never seen him go from bewildered to enraged quite so fast.

Harry lets out a furious roar and kicks at an empty box. “This is why Unspeakables are so fucking annoying!” he shouts, tossing his hands in the air. “You never fucking say anything — even if it might help someone!”

Pfft! He can do better than that...

“Not sure what you expected,” she deadpans. “Would it help if I were a Speakable instead?”

Harry rolls his eyes and throws himself on the couch. Ginny just leans against the door… and waits. She can’t say she blames him for being angry. It’s probably made him feel vulnerable in ways he hasn’t in ages.

“The least you can bloody do,” Harry says, cutting into her thoughts, “is to let me know how to kill it.” He glimpses up at her, his chest still heaving. “Because if anything happened to you….” His hand curls around his wand, his voice dropping to a near-whisper. “We both know I’d never forgive myself.”

Fuck.

Her heart clenches; as embarrassing as it is, tears sting the backs of her eyes. She wasn’t expecting that… but it makes perfect sense. He’s not angry because he’s vulnerable; he’s angry because he doesn’t know how to protect her.

Because he’s Harry.

Her Harry.

And try as she might, she can’t deny that. He’s hers… even though now he’s broken and angry and scared and alone. Which is probably why she loves the fucking fuck out of him.

No.

She stops herself, squeezing her eyes shut. Mission. Mission. They’re on a mission.

Right. She clears her throat and steps forward, two papers clutched in her hand.

“What’s that?” Harry grumbles as she hands them over. He scans the pages, brow furrowing. “Sugar… engine oil. Red Dye 40. What am I supposed to do with—?”

Ginny smiles and tries to make this easy. “It’s the report from the necklace. The thing that was on Mike’s medallion… it’s rubbish. Not blood, not some ghost slime. It’s just a weird mixture of types of rubbish.”

She should’ve figured he wouldn’t find this significant.

“What a brilliant scientific discovery.” Harry tosses the paper to the side. “Hermione would be thrilled.”

Ginny gnaws at her cheek, choosing her words carefully… but if he’s already seen it, if he’s already heard it, surely there’s no harm...

Harry rises to his feet and takes a step closer until he’s towering over her, all warm and brooding. They aren’t touching… not exactly. He’s just hovering close enough to give her strength, whether he knows it or not. When she finally gets the nerve to look up at him, his green eyes are swirling with more pain than rage. Truth be told, she prefers the rage. “I deserve to know,” he says thickly, like he’s suppressing something in his throat, “what the fuck is going on.”

Ginny breaks their eye contact. Some of this she hasn’t even shared with Attica yet. She’s violating about a million protocols by telling Harry first, but if they’re together on a mission…

“It’s… not what we thought. Not what I thought,” she admits softly, after a moment. “We came out here under the assumption of chasing something from the Thought Chamber. Something that erm… may have escaped. During a routine experiment.”

He’s not impressed, though. “Yeah,” he says, arching a brow. “I gathered all of that from your intro with the camera, thanks. Do you ever plan on telling me anything new?” He jerks his chin towards the window. “Because you’ve sure as hell never mentioned Evil Grass Monster Experiment #6, and that may have been helpful to fucking know before I saw it.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake!

His attitude is more infuriating than his actual words, but she lacks the patience for dealing with either. The bloody nerve, to act all impatient with information that’s kept secret for a reason...

“I don’t have to tell you shit, actually,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest. “And in case you’re unaware, I can protect myself.”

Harry pulls back with a laugh, but this one is cruel. Dark. The sort she’s never heard from him before. “Makes sense,” he says with a fake grin. Then he taps her on the nose. “Because when that thing outside inevitably kills someone else, we all know how well you’ll manage the guilt.”

Ouch.

She reels back, stung. He’s got to know that’s a low blow. Younger Ginny would have Bat Bogeyed him into oblivion, but she’s better now. She’s changed.

At least that’s what she tells herself as she glares at him, her hands fisted so tightly they turn white. “Say what you mean,” she manages several moments later, when rage isn’t clawing at her chest. “If you’d like to rehash our breakup, Auror Potter, I’m all ears!” She gives her best impression of an icy smirk. “This isn’t exactly professional… but then again, when have you ever been?”

Harry looks like he’s going to respond, but a loud vibration starts in his back pocket. “Fuck!” Now it’s his turn to leap into the air before he realizes it’s just his wand. And really, she’s tempted to laugh— but the look on his face helps her put the pieces together.

Because if his wand’s vibrating, that means it’s an emergency; only department heads can summon their employees like that. They’re the only ones with access to that sort of technology, not that she’s really interested either way.

“It’s King,” he mutters. She’s about to get on him for stating the obvious, but when he peers at her again, his face is filled with such timid yearning that she can only see the 11-year-old boy on the train platform. “Can I…erm. Use your mobile?”

Fine. Ginny nods towards the bedroom, her head still spinning. She’s still a bit angry with him, but he’s so fucking broken. They both are. And besides, they’ve got bigger problems. What could possibly have King so worried that he’d call Harry from a mission? The man is unflappable.

Harry returns a minute later, his face stony, jaw set. In another life, she might’ve seen the bulge in his pocket and asked if that’s just her mobile, or if he’s happy to see her.

Instead, she tucks her hair behind her ears like the seasoned professional she is. “There’s no reception inside,” she points out. “I’ve had luck calling Attica from up the street, right at the corner. Just watch out for…”

Harry smirks. “Grass monsters?”

Ginny draws a breath to consider her options. She could keep him in the dark forever, but isn’t that the whole point of this assignment? To learn? It’s time for the truth, she reckons...

“It’s erm. It’s called a tulpa, actually.”

His eyes light up at this. “A tulpa?”

Ginny shifts her weight and searches for the right words. “It’s a… it’s sort of like an evil imaginary friend, created by a group of people to do their bidding,” she explains, reaching for the discarded papers. “They come from the material of whatever’s underground. I’ve only heard of creatures made from clay or water, but since this village was built on a rubbish tip”— she flicks the papers with her fingers— “that’s our guy!”

She can almost see the gears spinning in Harry’s head as he studies the far wall. “So…” he says slowly, still peering off, “it’s basically an evil dump monster, made of rubbish, that can murder people.”

A laugh slips past her lips. It sounds a bit dumb when he puts it that way. She clears her throat and continues. “I was wrong because it’s not something that’s escaped, more like something that’s—”

“Formed,” Harry finishes quickly. For the first time all week, he sounds intrigued. Like he’s happy to be here. “So… they’ve made it to keep order, then?”

“It would seem so.” She shrugs. “I… honestly don’t know. But between the weird buzzing and the rubbish, it’s the closest match we’ve got. According to the system database, anyway.”

There’s another pause as Harry mulls this over. “So, how do we get rid of it, then?”

How fucked up is it that her heart warms at the way he says ‘we’?

Ginny brushes that aside. “Considering the mask in Gogolak’s house and the way they’ve made a point to tell us he’s in charge, I’d say he’s the one we need to get rid of.”

Harry crosses his arms over his chest but doesn’t object.

“Or at least… knock him totally unconscious,” she adds, swallowing; Gogolak’s a wanker, but she’d rather not kill him, either. “Beyond just being asleep. Because he sleeps at night, but the tulpa’s still here, which means he needs to be down for the count. Comatose, even.”

Harry’s wand buzzes again. Ah, shit; in all the hubbub, she’d forgotten about that.

Concern floods Harry’s face. “Give me five minutes.” He blinks. “Ok?”

She waves towards the door. “Duty calls.”

He gives her a weak smile and turns away; she begins the trek upstairs to send Attica an email update.

“Ginny?”

She stops to look down at him. Harry’s paused, halfway out the door. “Thank you,” he says softly, meeting her eyes. “And… I’m sorry. For everything. Ok? I’ll always, erm…”

But she can’t right now. She actually fucking can’t.

“Later,” she whispers, nearly begging. “Please. Let’s do this later.”

Because of course she loves him.

She’s always fucking loved him, even though that’s changed forms. It’s shifted. It’s evolved. He feels the same way… she knows he’s bloody feels the same way. She just doesn’t have the resources to deal with whatever this fuck is reigniting, right in front of her eyes, as the tulpa dances in the back of her head.

Luckily, he understands. Harry just swallows again, nods at her, and heads out into the night.

___________________________

As it would turn out, he was wrong about the identity of the summoner.

“Great news!” Hermione announces on the other end of the mobile. “MLE found Yaxley. He was hiding in a cave in Romania, just like you said.”

Harry snorts; he wishes that gave him more pride. “Well, if you’d listened to me months ago, then—”

“The important part is that we have him,” Hermione says, cutting across. “We need you back ASAP to prep for witness questioning. You’ll take the stand, of course. The trial’s set to start next week!”

He can practically hear her bouncing with excitement. Very little brings her more joy than trials of former Death Eaters.

“Erm… about that.” Harry rubs the back of his neck. “We’re actually right on the cusp of something here. I’m gonna need a couple more days to wrap things up.”

“Really?” Hermione sounds surprised. “Kingsley and Robards said you’d be pleased. Said you found this mission as useless as they did.”

Fuck, he was such an arse.

“Well, things… changed,” he offers lamely. “It’s going really well. This mission is so important to her. I’d just hate to leave at the last minute.”

“Ohhh?” Hermione draws out the word in a way that suggests she finds herself quite clever. Even before she asks, he knows what she’s on about. “How’s it going with Ginny, then?”

Harry rolls his eyes. Her coy prodding is obvious, even over the phone.

“As I already said, it’s going well,” he replies flatly. “We’re a great team. Always have been.”

But she can’t let him have that one, can she?

“Well… not always,” Hermione allows. “After Percy—”

Harry groans. For fuck’s sake, what’s her obsession with stating the obvious? “Yeah, well,” he retorts, “I’d like to know who you think did well after that, especially since…”

He trails off with a sigh.

Especially since what, exactly?

He toys with the fraying ends of his hoodie string.

Especially since Ginny was the last to speak with Percy? That she still carries the weight of the guilt for what she said that night? That she’s never admitted it, but that he suspects her choice to become an Unspeakable was influenced by the things she wishes she could un-say?

Harry makes a face. That’s corny as fuck, isn’t it? What a thing to pull from his arse...

Hermione interrupts his thoughts for a bit of bragging. “Well, Ron and I have done just fine.”

He can almost imagine her staring at her engagement ring in dreamy affection. The mental image makes his reply sound more bitter than he intends.

“Well,” Harry snaps, “Ron wasn’t the last person to speak with Percy. So I’m not sure how you could compare the two, really.”

Shit.

The silence on the other end tells him he needs to apologize, even if it’s true. Fortunately, Hermione gives him an easy out. “Anyway.” She clears her throat. “I’ll give you until tomorrow night, but we really need you the following day. If you haven’t settled this, we’re swapping you out. Got it?”

Harry sighs. He’s exhausted, but this couldn’t possibly take much longer. Ginny’s more or less got the proof she needs now. They just need to confront Gogolak, knock him out, and—

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

Harry cranes his neck towards the source of the noise. Huh… weird. Far up the street, flashing lights tip him off. That’s definitely Oliver’s Audi, the one parked in the driveway directly beside theirs. It’s in utopia blue with a metallic finish, a detail Oliver probably mentioned at least fifty times the other night. Then, while Sharon and Ginny were out walking the dog, Oliver began a mind-numbing lecture on the car’s exact miles per liter. Harry was a bit drunk, which is probably why he interrupted to ask a much more important maths question: How many blow jobs per week is too many, exactly?

Even from a distance, Harry can tell that Oliver’s nearly the same shade of murderous red now; he storms from the house and turns off the alarm with his key fob. But then he pauses, glancing around like something’s spooked him. He must decide it’s not that significant, though, because he huffs back inside soon enough. Fucking wanker...

“....Harry?”

“Sorry!” Harry shakes his head. “Yeah, sorry, that works. See you then, Hermione.”

“Can’t wait!” she trills. He doesn’t need to see her face to know she’s smug and grinning.

___________________________

Two minutes after Harry leaves, Ginny feels it again: that same sensation she experienced while walking Captain Bone.

She’s sitting at her laptop when it starts… this deeply unsettling shift. It stands the hair up on the back of her neck. She rushes to the window on instinct, but just like before, everything outside looks the same. There’s no “moving grass monster,” as Harry called it. Not yet, at least.

Still, she can’t deny it’s growing louder. Getting stronger. And now that she’s felt it for a bit longer, she can put more words to it. It’s like she’s plummeting through the absence of sound; like all the wind’s been sucked from the air. It’s a building pressure, a mounting unease, and before she knows it, her whole body starts to shake.

Then two things happen in quick succession: that weird feeling stops, and a car alarm begins to blare in the distance.

Weird.

She shudders. This whole thing is so fucking weird. Weird is her job, and this place is still Very Fucking Weird. Seriously, who enjoys living here? She’s reaching for her wand, just in case, when the front door slams open.

In retrospect, it’s a blessing she knows Harry as well as she does… because she can tell that those heavy, clobbering footsteps don’t belong to him. She knows he’s not the one drawing deep, ragged breaths as he marches up the stairs.

She hides around the corner of the bedroom, her heart racing, and goes through a mental list of spells she might use. Shield charms. Enchantments. The buzzing’s stopped, so this probably isn’t the tulpa… but who else would be here? Gogolak? It sounds more human than—

“Jenny?” a deep, soothing voice asks. “Are you in here?”

Her breath freezes in her throat. She’s only heard that voice once before… but it’s so similar to her former life that she identifies it at once.

“Mike?” A wave of relief washes through her. She shoves her wand into her dress as she comes around the corner. Sure enough, there he is, in the flesh. Mike Snodgrass. A man she presumed dead days ago.

“Hi!” Mike pants. He cracks a smile. “I’d offer to shake your hand, but.” He winces, wiping a palm on his ripped khakis. “Been hiding!” Fuck. His whole outfit (yellow Polo, khakis) is the same he wore days ago to unload their boxes, except now it’s filthy. Stained. Like he’s been living beneath cars and inside drains. He’s just missing his Saint Julian medallion, which she’s sent to the Ministry.

Ginny feels sick. She wrote him off as dead so carelessly...

“I’ve been trying to take it down,” he adds earnestly, peering at her. His cheeks are caked in something red and grimy, the same stuff she stuffed into her bra. He’s been tailing the tulpa, she realizes, her stomach plummeting…

Except he’s got no clue what he’s doing.

“I was about to leave the development, to just run away, but that’s when I figured out it was coming for you two!” He shudders, closing his eyes. It feels like he’s been waiting a long, long time to say this. “And I’ve been aimless without Jess in the first place. So what was the point in leaving, really, if I could save…?”

He trails off, clearing his throat; when he looks up at her again, there’s a flash of annoyance in his eyes. “I’ve been leaving clues, though! Why didn’t you listen?”

“Clues?” Ginny sounds like she’s a million miles away.

Mike’s nearly pleading now. “You had to go and kick the mailbox and stick the flamingo in the grass, didn’t you?” He raises his pointer finger. “And even though I left you a note, you had to make it even worse! It only attacks when the sun goes down, see.”

“You… you left the note?” she whispers. She was so certain that it was from Gogolak...

But Mike proceeds in such a rush it’s clear he hasn’t heard her. “It was about to get Henry by the trampoline, so I threw the baseball as a diversion. I broke the lamppost, too— which worked. For a second,” he adds hastily, glancing over his shoulder.

“How did you also set off the car alarm— oh.” Her head’s still spinning. “Buddy system. Right.”

Mike dangles a keyfob. “Covenant rules. Stole the spare off Jane.” He glances into the hall again before whipping back to face her. “It’ll need a sacrifice tonight, though,” he adds grimly. “And every night, until you all have perfect behavior. It was coming for you earlier, see. We aren’t meant to be outdoors after dark without a permit for dog-walking, so.” He shrugs. “If there’s an unapproved disruption like a car alarm, it knows just where to hunt.”

It’s then that the final pieces of this dreadful puzzle slide together in her brain. “Captain Bone,” Ginny breathes; she swears a feather could knock her over. “He was the first since we arrived. Punishment for us sticking out.”

“I couldn’t save him,” Mike laments. “It came up and snatched him. So I threw in my medallion, right after his collar, just to make them think I was already gone.”

“That’s… that was brilliant,” she admits, biting her lip. “Thank you. You didn’t have—”

“Nah,” he says firmly. “I did. For starters, you remind me so much of…” He stops mid-sentence, an odd expression on his face.

For a second, she thinks he’s being sentimental, but then she feels it too.

Shit.

The hairs on her arm stand up. It’s back… that weird way she felt before. Like the air’s sucked from the room. That creeping, clawing silence. This time, though, it only gets louder, louder, louder, until she’s throwing her hands over her ears, all hope of self-defense forgotten.

But Mike knows what he’s doing. He knows exactly what he’s doing. She doesn’t have the chance to object or get her wand before he’s ripping open the closet door and throwing her inside. Ginny opens her mouth in a startled cry, but it’s like she’s screaming underwater, the sound distant and distorted. Mike slams the door closed with her inside and stomps to the center of the room— but now the thundering, roaring wind is causing her physical pain… it’s so loud now that it reverberates in her chest, so loud that her hands shake as she reaches for her wand at long last, but fuck fuck fuck, it’s too late…

It’s too fucking late.

Because Mike’s made a choice. One he can’t take back. He just stands in the middle of the room, puffing out his chest, offering himself as the proud sacrifice, even as the noise grows so loud that Ginny screams her throat raw.

She feels it enter the bedroom, this looming, shifting mass— but by then, she’s certain her ears are bleeding, her eardrums bursting. Her whole body rattles and shakes as she peers through the slats in the closet door, but she’s frozen. Stuck. Miserable. She couldn’t cast a spell if she tried… even as the tulpa oozes into the room, lunges itself back, and swallows Mike with a sickening squelch.

Even though the slats of the door, Ginny’s sprayed with blood. Covered. And she’s dizzy now… so dizzy. A drop of blood trickles into her eye; she reaches up to wipe it from her face, and it’s only then that she hears her own screams again. They reverberate through the small space, anguished and pleading, so loud that she’s certain someone up the street could hear, but she doesn’t care. She doesn’t fucking care. She just screams over and over and over, her nails clawing at the walls, until the world slips away into darkness.

___________________________

Blood.

It’s the first thing he smells as he charges up the steps. His chest squeezes, his eyes water, his head pounds over and over again with one word: No.

No. No. No.

Not Ginny. It can’t be.

But almost as soon as he smells the blood, he hears her screaming, and yes! His heart soars. Screaming is good; screaming means she’s alive and breathing and—

Fuck.

His dinner rises in his throat as he steps into the bedroom. He smelled the blood from the steps, he hadn’t expected… this much. It always takes him aback, exactly how much blood is in one human body, and he’s certainly never seen it sprayed, all over the floor… covering the walls. Covering the closet, even, where Ginny’s still screaming.

He flings open the door, thinking he’s prepared for what he might see. Somehow, though, none of that measures up. Because he’s dealt with tears in his line of work… but he’s never, ever seen her so broken. His chest clenches when he takes her in. Her perfect suburban dress — the yellow floral one, the one he liked so much— is now red and grimy, caked in blood, as Ginny rocks back and forth on the floor, sobs wracking her body.

Blood’s covering her face, too, and her arms. Dried trails of it have crusted around her eyes, like she’s fallen asleep wiping them away… or perhaps lost consciousness. The thought is too terrible to bear. He kicks the door open completely and brings her into his arms in one fell swoop.

She melts against him, her voice raw and broken. “H-Harry!” she manages. “P-please! I need-I need!” She begins to shake, pressing her face to his chest.

“A shower,” he says firmly, stepping into the en-suite. “You… you just need a shower. Ok? And maybe some calming draught, I’ve got some in my luggage, and—”

“No!” she cries, shaking her head. Her eyes are wide and filled with horror. “Don’t… don’t leave. Don’t leave me, Harry, please!”

“I… ok,” he allows, carrying her to his luggage to retrieve the bottle. She clings to his neck as he reaches for it, but she weighs next to nothing. Fuck, she’s so thin… he’d just been too busy eyeing her up to realize exactly how thin. What a complete wanker.

It’s not difficult to unzip the suitcase with one hand and pass her the bottle. “Take this,” he urges, thrusting it into her hands. “Please, Ginny. You’ll feel—”

She’s already downed it before he gets to the end of the sentence. She tips her head back, drawing air into her lungs. “Thanks.” Her voice is still hoarse. Ragged.

“Shower, then,” he murmurs, walking her into the bathroom. He feels her start to relax against him, her body growing looser, as he opens the curtain and turns on the tap.

“Thanks,” she whispers again, her head tucked beneath his chin. His fingers itch with restraint; he’d do anything, he thinks, to hold her against him. To press a kiss to her temple. To tell her he loves her and that she’s beautiful and perfect and he’s sorry, so sorry, that any of this happened and—

She peers up at him, her eyes more focused now, less wide-eyed and horror-struck. “Would you stay here?” she asks, biting her lip. “While I shower? Just so I’m not—”

“‘Course.” Harry swallows, putting her on her feet. She lands with unintentional grace, one foot after the next.

“And can you… erm.” She turns her back to him, lifting her hair above her zipper. His hands shake as he reaches for the clasp. He knows the exact shape of her back as he slides it down, over the middle bump of her white bra strap. He nearly unstraps that for her, too, before he catches himself. It reeks of intimacy, doesn’t it? All of this…

His eyes linger on the soft swell of her bum before he turns around, self-disgust hammering in his throat.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” he adds feebly. He balls his hands into fists as her dress hits the floor… followed by her bra. And her knickers.

“Not your fault,” she croaks, stepping into the shower. He smiles, his glasses fogging up as he moves to sit on the closed toilet seat. Even covered in blood and traumatized, she can't bring herself to blame him.

She finishes several minutes later.

“Erm… towel?” She shuts the water off. “Could you?”

“Sure,” he soothes, thrusting one through the curtain. “D’you want me to leave, or…?”

Ginny manages a weak snort. “Nah. Nothing you haven’t seen before.”

He chuckles at the door as he turns around again. She’s right, of course; he knows every bloody inch of her… but it’s not quite the same now.

There’s a tap on his shoulder. He whips around to face her. Admittedly, she looks… better. The blood’s gone. Her eyes are still red-rimmed from sobbing, but she’s looking a bit less like a woman who witnessed a death. Which reminds him…

“Erm. Give me a second to get it all cleaned up?”

Ginny shudders and settles on the toilet seat; he immediately kicks himself for asking. “Yeah,” she says a moment later. “Just… come get me, ok? When you’re done?”

He nods.

___________________________

It can’t be later than 10 PM when he finally carries her to the bed, still wrapped in a towel.

He’s exhausted from the nights on the sofa, but he knows she’s worse off. He’s cleaned the bedroom fairly well, he thinks, considering. There’s a rust-colored stain above the closet that he reckons won’t go anywhere anytime soon. He just hopes she doesn’t see it.

He rests her on the duvet surface, fully prepared to head downstairs for the night— but the pleading look on her face informs him he’s got other plans, instead. So without sharing a single word, he spreads his palms, lies beside her, and waits.

It comes eventually, as he knew it would. One person can’t deal with all that, see all that, without eventually cracking. And as a fellow fucked-up individual, he would know.

It starts as simple tears, ones that he wipes away. It progresses into sobs… full-body sobs. The sort he heard coming up the stairs. He’s surprised she’s got any left, but Ginny’s always been the sort to keep him on his toes. And just as her water-dark hair starts to dry and sprout red tendrils, he faces the thing he expected least of all: a kiss.

She starts softly. Slowly. Her lips so tender and soft that he forgets everything. She moans against his mouth, her whole body leaning into it; he’s instantly reminded of how much he’s fucking missed her. How lonely he’s been. How could he have forgotten the tiny mewl she makes in the back of her throat as her tongue parts his lips? He must’ve blocked it out, he realizes, as she begins to slide her body against him, panting, as she tips her head back. His lips trail down her neck, nibbling and biting, as she grips his arms and hair and bum. Because if he’d remembered all of these little details, he’d have gone mad long ago.

He’s throbbing hard by the time he gets to the tail end of her towel, which brushes the tip of her thighs. He tries to adjust himself, to—

“You can take it out, you know.”

Oh. He blinks up at her, his breath freezing in his throat. She’s peering down at him, her lips red and swollen.

“I know you’re hard,” she adds, her voice still raw. “So if it’s uncomfortable… take it out.”

He arches a brow from his position at her thigh. He’s about to retort with something snappy. Something that might keep them bantering for ages. But Ginny has no patience.

“Please.” It’s nearly a command. She blinks down with glassy eyes, her lips swollen. “I want you, Harry.”

Fuck. He groans, rubbing his cock against his palm to relieve some of the pressure. It doesn’t help for long, not that it matters; he’d rather focus on her, anyway. So with a slip of his fingers, the towel opens. She releases a breathy moan, tipping her head back.

Naked.

She’s finally naked. In front of him. His breathing grows ragged, his eyes scanning the territory somehow both totally familiar and completely new. She is thinner; he was right. Her hip bones jut out now, her stomach more sunken. But most of her is the same. The smattering of freckles on her chest. The way her breasts have puckered and darkened, the way her chest is rising and falling so fast. The thatch of dark red hair at the apex of her thighs.

“Well,” she quips. He blinks up at her as she reclines on her elbow. “Are you going to fuck me, Harry, or just stare all day?”

With that, he removes his glasses and gives her a smirk— her only real warning— before he kisses her one more time, just as his fingers spread her thighs.

She opens beneath him with a breathy sigh. Fuck, she’s so wet… he groans into her mouth as he dips his fingers further and further down. She’s dripping by the time he finds her clit… by the time he begins to swirl in tight circles. Clockwise. The pattern that screams of such intimate familiarity that it’s as if the years never passed.

He’s scarcely done anything, but she’s already writhing against his fingers, arching her back. “Please,” she slurs after a minute, “put them in.”

He’s never been one to deny her, has he?

It’s like muscle memory how quickly he finds his face between her thighs instead. He spares a moment of self-indulgence as he closes his eyes, breathing her in. She smells like home. She always has. It’s comfort… but more than that, it’s proof. Proof she wants him as much as he wants her. It’s why he stuffed his face in her knickers whenever he got a spare moment on the Horcrux hunt: one hand on that black lace, the other pulling at his cock. It’s bloody erotic, seeing proof of how much she wants him… but it’s more than that.

It’s love.

And despite all the things he’s forgotten tonight, he’d never forget this. He presses two fingers inside her, his hands shaking, and lets his body do the rest. Fuck, he’s missed this. She cries out above him, her hands grasping at his hair, tugging him closer. He’s never forgotten this… the way she tastes. The way she smells. The right way to run his tongue against her clit. Exactly how many fingers she needs, pressed against her just there… crooked in a certain position… just as she begins to thrust herself up and down on them, her cries growing louder, more insistent… and yesssss, there it is, she’s right there, right fucking there—

“Harry!” Her hair rubs against the pillow with abandon. “I’m… I’m so close,” she pants, her body starting to shake.

“Come for me,” he commands, his cock fit to burst, his face slippery. “Come for me, Ginny.”

He returns to her clit for a split-second before she says the words that change everything.

Her whole body tenses, a blush spreading up her chest. “I love you!” she cries, her voice strangled… and with that, she’s coming, clenching around him, her body shaking as he rides her through it.

What he doesn’t tell her is that he comes, too. The second those words wash over him. Those fucking words that prove he’s fucked up, fucked up, fucked up… but he can’t exactly help that, can he?

He just shoves his face into the duvet, thrusting his hips once, twice, and with a grunt, he’s off. His cock tightens and bursts, filling his boxers. Soaking through his jeans. He pulls back, dizzy, when the clenching finally stops.

Luckily, she seems too distracted to notice. Ginny’s half-asleep as he rises from between her thighs, pulling the blanket over her. He presses a kiss to her temple and makes quick work of removing his soggy clothes. Fairly embarrassing, this. Like he’s 16 again and rutting on the lawn.

He mutters a quick cleaning charm and changes into basketball shorts before settling down beside her in bed… making sure he’s on top of the duvet.

But as he drifts off, there’s something far less sentimental that hammers through his chest: They need to get their shit sorted.

Before he ever, ever lets that happen again.

#harry/ginny fanfic #harry x ginny #harry potter fanfic #harry potter fanfiction

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wonda-cat · 3 years

Note

You mentioned rewriting that one analysis post on Tommy’s revival stream and I’d really look forward to it! I never got to read the full og post and that’s the only place I saw these takes. Especially the one about the afterlife being too depressing. It’s not even just about Tommy, the implication that even if every character is safe and happy by the end, this is their inevitable fate is messed up. It’s not “a neat subversion” it’s just depressing and doesn’t add anything.

Hey, anon!

I sorta decided to not rewrite it? I feel a bit differently about the essay in the end, although I still believe in most of my points. I’m also just not nearly as passionate about it as I was when I wrote it (I finished it in a single sitting, which was... interesting.) However, yes, the afterlife stuff still bothers me just the same, as well as the odd changes to Wilbur’s characterization... post mortem.

But—just for you, anon—here’s the entire meta-analysis essay anyway, with some minor edits to the stuff I don’t agree with anymore!

My Many Narrative Issues with Tommyinnit’s Revival Stream

I want to preface this by saying that I dearly love the Dream SMP and understand it isn’t exactly comparable to other mediums like TV and film. With this being the case, most criticism against it is generally in bad faith or strange in foundation. Complaining about streamers for bad acting is the best example that comes to mind.

These aren’t professional actors. Most have never acted in this sort of setting, or even at all. Quite a few have admitted to never roleplaying before. Which is why it’s warranted to praise Tommy, Dream, Wilbur, Ranboo, and others when they deliver stellar performances. The same applies to criticism of music choice, dialogue delivery, focus, tone, etc.

However, one such category I cannot overlook is in regards to its writing. The writing of a story is its entire foundation. It encompasses many things—conflict choice, character development, themes, and morals. The author creates the blueprints for the architect, who then expresses the story with light, sound, color, pacing, and music. It is in its execution that we see if this connection is made or broken.

The reason I find poor writing mostly inexcusable is because it is one of the most available skills to practice and perfect. I don’t mean to say that it’s easy, I mean to say it is something anyone can attempt to cultivate. Whether they do it well or not depends on their methods and experience. If anyone can self-publish a novel and be criticized online for its quality—and even compared to the works of Mark Twain—then I find critiquing the writing of the Dream SMP to be perfectly reasonable.

However, since the Dream SMP script is a set of loose bullet points, tearing apart dialogue and scene continuity—which is nearly all improv—is rather useless. It doesn’t exactly have a clear focus as the plot plays out. The characters talk in circles until they hit the story beat required, and then they move onto the next. Thus, when criticizing it, one should generally critique grand events and narrative-specific shifts, more so than small-scale character interactions.

Which brings me to my main point: The broad narrative choices taken in Tommyinnit’s most recent livestream, ‘Am I dead?’ may lead to disastrous writing pitfalls in the future.

I’ll be outlining each of my issues below, in hopes of creating a better understanding as to why I feel this way.

This might become quite lengthy, so please bear with me for a bit.

Tommy’s relationship to Wilbur has flipped. This change is jarring and seems out of character.

Tommy and Wilbur’s friendship is rather complicated. While Wilbur does care for Tommy immensely, especially during the L’Manburg Revolution and the Election Arc, his mental spiral during exile put a massive strain on their relationship as a whole. Wilbur brushed off Tommy’s feelings and wants, while clinging to him and pushing everyone else away. He was simultaneously distant and suffocating.

Tommy, on the other hand, has an unclear view of his mentor. Since the beginning, and even long after Wilbur’s death, Tommy held him in especially high regard. He saw him as a brother-figure and a wise leader. He followed what he said and did everything he could to impress him. Yet, Wilbur still hurt him while the two were together in exile.

When speaking of him, Tommy tends to flip infrequently between remembering Wilbur the way he was before his mental decline and thinking of him as a monster. Both of these images conflict with each other, but they weren’t nearly as extreme as what Tommy described Wilbur as when he was revived from death. The fear Tommy displays to Wilbur is beyond intense—it feels as if the audience may have missed a month’s worth of character development.

This can make sense, especially since it was stated that he’d spent what felt like two months in the void. However, this shift is still deeply at odds with Tommy’s previous impressions of Wilbur, which is both disheartening and confusing. The fact that Tommy would agree to stay with Dream—his abuser and murderer—over his past mentor is simply head-reeling. It paints a very different picture of Wilbur’s character, somewhat conforming to the fandom’s ableist impression of him—the idea that Wilbur is insane and irredeemable, and always will be.

It also ignores Dream being the driving factor in Wilbur’s downfall, as well as the double-bind deal with Dream which required him to push the button, no matter the outcome. Others have pointed out that Tommy may be lying to get Dream to bring Wilbur back, and there’s compelling evidence for that. For one, Tommy and Wilbur’s conversation seemed uncomfortable, but it was certainly nothing like Tommy implied. (Unless this fear comes from something Wilbur said off-screen.)

Tommy also begged Dream to not bring him back multiple times over, which he should know would make Dream even more tempted to, simply because he likes seeing Tommy in pain. Tommy is also a known unreliable narrator. He may be making Wilbur out to be worse than he is by accident (even still, I’d argue this is a bit of a stretch.)

However, there are some issues with this theory. Tommy offered himself as payment to Dream if he chose to let Wilbur rest. This is a deal Tommy knows Dream is extremely unlikely to refuse. Tommy is what Dream has coveted all this time. If Tommy genuinely wanted Wilbur back, he would not offer this. This sort of compromise is Tommy’s greatest nightmare—something he would only do in response to his friends being threatened or his home being destroyed.

To add, Tommy is not great at lying. Unless he was taught by Wilbur for those two months* in the afterlife, there’s no chance Tommy would be this good at it. Thirdly, Tommy is terrible under pressure. He uses humor to cope. When he can’t, he cries and shouts and spills his heart out. While cornered, Tommy will tell the truth about anything, especially if Dream casually debates killing him again, just for fun.

For now, it’s too early to tell how the relationship shift will play out. In the grand scheme of things, this issue is rather minor.

Season three’s writing is needlessly bleak. The portrayal of the afterlife is a nightmare. There is no rest, not even in death.

I adore the Dream SMP storyline in its entirety. I believe the first season is fantastic, and while the second season has some narrative clarity issues, I enjoyed it just as much. Although, I would argue season one had a more concrete understanding of its Hope-Conflict balance.

To briefly explain, the Hope in stories are its ‘highs’ and good moments. These appear when a character the audience is rooting for is narratively rewarded. They happen during character building in the text—it’s the downtime and peace that allows for connection and relatability. It’s a moment for the viewer to breathe easy.

The other half is Conflict, an obstacle in the story that gets in the way of the main characters’ goals, beliefs, and motives. These are the ‘lows.’ They give the narrative focus and weight. They make the highs feel even higher. They establish consequences and force the characters in the story to change in order to adapt and overcome them.

I bring up the Hope-Conflict balance because a traditional hero’s journey would have an appropriate amount of both. Their highs and lows are generally equalized, as the name suggests. However, this balance has been awkwardly skewed in the latter half of season two and in the current plot of season three. To clarify, it is perfectly reasonable, and even common, for some stories to tip the scale more to one side.

But a common mistake for amateur writers is to create their stories as either hopelessly dark to cause the audience continuous distress for the sake of distress, or to keep everything entirely conflict-free for most of the plot. What do these both have in common? They each make the story boring and predictable.

Season three has taken this concept and thrown a monstrously heavy weight onto the Conflict side and flipped the scale so hard it has crashed through the ceiling. The viewers are hardly given time to find any joy in Tommy’s character, as he’s thrown into yet another abusive situation, just barely after his first narrative reward. The world is painted as relentlessly violent and traumatic.

Every person Tommy meets is morally grey, unhinged, or out to hurt him. Everything most of the characters love is taken from them by those in positions of power. Ranboo cannot even grieve properly because it scars his face. Puffy, Sam, Ranboo, and Tubbo all blame themselves for what happened to Tommy.

The audience watches lore stream after lore stream with the same depressing tone (with the exception of Tubbo’s, but I assume that’s unintentional.) Tommy is revived after being brutally beaten to death by his abuser, surrounded by all of his greatest fears. The afterlife is revealed to be akin to inescapable torture. It’s a colorless void that wraps the individual like fabric.

Time moves thirty times slower within. There’s nothing—nothing but the voices of others who’ve passed on before him. Dying in a world already devoid of happiness takes the characters to a place worse than hell. When a narrative delivers unfair suffering to the entire cast without a moment of joy to speak of, the story will feel simultaneously overwhelming and pointless.

Why watch characters suffer when there’s no light at the end of the tunnel? What happiness could they strive for when we know they’ll never get to keep it? How can I be satisfied with a good ending, if I know that an afterlife too terrible to name is what awaits them, truly, at the end of their story? Death isn’t even a white void that offers rest—it is eternal torment.

Obviously, it isn’t a good message to send by making the afterlife seem like a quiet, perfect place or an escape from pain. But making it an unspeakable anguish which awaits, assumedly, every character who will die in the future? I deeply hope Tommy was only being an extremely unreliable narrator.

More likely, I hope the place Tommy was taken to was a Limbo of sorts, not an end-all-be-all destination for everyone.

The degree of Tommy’s narrative punishment continues to escalate, to an almost absurd degree.

Tommy is one of the most tragic characters to exist in the storyline. He was sent into war at a young age and experienced two traumatic events during it. He was exiled by the newly elected leader and witnessed his mentor Wilbur spiral and break down with paranoia. Tubbo is executed publicly in front of him. When expressing rightful anger at the person who murdered him, he’s beaten nearly to death and never receives an apology.

Schlatt dies right in front of Tommy, after his initial refusal to hurt the ex-president. His brother-figure and mentor is killed in assisted suicide on the same day his nation is blown up. His best friend exiles him from his home for the second time. He routinely self-sacrifices to protect his country and those who live there. His most treasured possessions were taken from him and he was called selfish for trying to retrieve them (although his methods were self-destructive and volatile.)

He was pushed to the brink of suicide after being relentlessly abused and isolated in his exile. He was horrified when he thought he was responsible for drowning Fundy. After making an objectively good decision to stand by his old friends and change for the better, his country was obliterated by the man he once idolized, his father-figure, and his abuser.

He was left scattered and without purpose for many days. Then he fights against Dream and loses, while also reliving his trauma. He watches Tubbo almost die at the hands of someone he once thought was his friend. He doesn’t tell a single person about what happened to him in exile. The day he tries to sever his connection to Dream and heal, he’s trapped with him for a week, surrounded by everything that terrifies him.

He threatens to kill himself, speaking about his own life as if it were an object—something to hold over Dream’s head. He blames himself for everything bad that’s ever happened to L’Manburg and his friends—internalizing a mentality as a scapegoat for everyone around him. He is forced into the role of ‘hero’ despite the title being unfair and distressing to him.

As if that weren’t enough, he’s then beaten to death by his abuser and spends what feels like two months in an afterlife that is worse than hell. When he returns, his senses are excessively heightened. Dream can cause him excruciating pain, just by pinching him. He can send Tommy into an instant panic attack, just by raising his voice.

The punishment Tommy’s character receives is a thousand times worse than everyone he has ever met, or ever will meet. And it shows no signs of stopping, as Dream now has control over Tommy’s very mortality. Tommy now fears the slightest damage and feels as if he’s losing his best friend all over again. He is also forced into a position where he has to kill Dream out of necessity, to protect everyone he cares about.

Characters need fitting punishments in relation to their actions. Not always, but in order to be satisfying? Yes, they do. It is preferred that a main character deal with unfair situations and difficult conflicts, but this is borderline torture p*rn. Putting Tommy in these distressing and abusive situations on repeat and punishing him for doing objectively moral or healthy things is exhausting to watch.

To quickly add, I find the general insinuation of Tommy going to hell distasteful, especially considering the contents of his storyline. I know this may be hard to believe, but Tommy is one of the most moral characters in the plot, besides Puffy and Ghostbur. He’s also the only character, followed by Ranboo, to recognize that they can be wrong and make mistakes. He changed himself in order to heal and be a better person. He was in the process of paying people back for the things he’d stolen.

He’s learned to be hard-working and less violent through the guidance of Sam. He has apologized to everyone he’s ever hurt (with the exception of Jack Manifold, because that man is allergic to communication.) He puts himself in harm's way to protect others. He doesn’t set out to purposely hurt anyone. He goes out of his way to make connections with people and maintain them, even if others don’t reciprocate.

He’s hopelessly optimistic, despite his outwardly bitter façade. He loved so much and put meaning into the smallest things. The thought that a person like him—a suicide and abuse survivor—would go to hell after being beaten to death by the man who took everything from him; it makes me sick to my stomach.

The only thing more morbid than Tommy’s afterlife being different than everyone else’s, is the concept that everyone will end up in this same eternal torture, no matter what they do. Take your pick: Tommy is sentenced to anguish until the end of time for no reason, or everyone will receive the same disturbing ending, regardless of their actions.

The narrative weight of Ranboo’s character is potentially out the window.

For the past few months, I’ve watched all of Ranboo’s lore streams faithfully, curious to see what role he would play in the future. His ‘hallucinations’ of Dream seemed to be sowing the seeds for a plot that has Ranboo taking the fall for every single insidious thing Dream has done. It would also be a tragic parallel to Tommy’s trial.

Ranboo being convinced he was the one who blew up the community house, when Dream himself admitted to doing it, was one of the bigger indicators for me. This is just one of many other unexplained occurrences. Dream seemed to be making an effort to trigger and control Ranboo, especially after Sapnap’s prison visit. It appeared, from the way he went about this, that Dream had some grand use for Ranboo as part of his plan to be freed from Pandora’s Vault.

However, after Tommy’s stream, the way Dream explains himself makes it seem like there was no plan besides seeing if the book worked on people. And if he didn’t after all, then what was Ranboo for? Was Ranboo unimportant? Was Ranboo just some weirdo who happened to phase out when seeing smiley faces and imagined conversations that may or may not have happened?

I bring this up more as a worry, and much less so as an active problem in the narrative. They haven’t actually thrown Ranboo to the way-side or written themselves into a corner yet. In future streams, this could very easily be explained away or developed as more information is revealed.

Only time will tell.

The potential for Wilbur’s future development and importance to the plot is unfeasible.

I feel as if I am the only person on earth who doesn’t want Wilbur Soot or Schlatt revived. There are many reasons for this, but one of them is not a dislike for these characters. I especially adore Wilbur, as he’s one of my all-time favorites. I don’t want either of them resurrected because their stories have already been told. They each had a fitting conclusion that ended their involvement perfectly.

Bringing Wilbur back would especially cheapen the impact of the War of the 16th. It’s the end of a man who was brought to the absolute edge and out of desperation, shame, and self-hatred, he destroyed himself alongside his creation. Bringing him back would leave the climax of the previous story hollow. My biggest issue, however, is that a lack of story importance would likely follow his return.

The only real impact I’d like to see is through a healing arc with Tommy, an apology to Fundy, or a confrontation with Phil/Niki. But that’s really all the potential I can realistically see. While I don’t doubt Wilbur as an agent of chaos, able to create plot out of thin air; what is he going to do now? His country is gone, his friends and family are scattered about, and his mission from the 16th is already accomplished.

What is a well-educated, charismatic politician supposed to do in a world already broken and without nations? Read poetry to himself and cry evilly? However, this is working off the assumption that Wilbur would be returning as his old self.

If Wilbur is resurrected as a ‘villain’ of sorts, then what? He’s not good at fighting in the slightest. He would have no materials. There are no real allies he can make, other than the arctic group. On top of that, there are already more than enough villains to last a lifetime.

We don’t need any more, I promise. Quackity seems to already be shaping up as another antagonist, alongside Sam’s slip into darker and darker shades of moral ambiguity. We also have Philza and Techno, which are already overkill. But then we have Dream who, despite being in a prison, has the ability of selective revival. This is mercilessly overpowered, especially if he makes many allies. The dude could just bring his dead friends back so they can keep fighting forever.

Then there’s Jack Manifold and the Crimson followers; Antfrost, Bad, and Punz. That’s not even including characters who are refusing to get involved. How are Tommy, Tubbo, and Puffy expected to do literally anything to fight back?

Dream’s experiment on Tommy implies he had no backup plan to begin with. This makes his character seem both short-sighted and foolish.

When Tommy woke up after being brought back to life, Dream sounded surprised that the revival worked at all. This instantly shatters the perception that Dream was highly intelligent and thought ahead. With just a few lines of dialogue, it’s implied that Dream killed Tommy, unsure of if the resurrection would even be possible on humans.

Which, to risk something that important, seems unbelievably stupid. Dream needs Tommy, from his perspective. Tommy is his ‘toy,’ the one who makes everything fun. If he lost him and couldn’t get him back, what then? Oh well, everything Dream was doing was all for nothing, I guess.

Why not attempt this experiment on literally anyone else first? Like Sapnap or Bad or, hell, even Ranboo. I suppose it could be that, as soon as Dream got the book, he experimented with it after the 16th. This appears to be insinuated with Friend and Hendry’s revival, although this is uncertain. But even then, he was still unsure of the book’s effect on a human being.

Also, this means, hypothetically, Dream’s entire plan of escape hinged on the experiment working, to begin with, and also on bringing back Wilbur if it somehow did. I find this even more ridiculous. Why Wilbur? That man couldn’t find his way out of a paper bag, let alone get through the traps in Pandora’s Vault. Even if he is intelligent after years* in the afterlife, that’s also a strange assumption.

How do people learn things in the void? Where do they even get this knowledge? I’d honestly argue Techno is a far more competent choice than Wilbur. And even if Dream did bring him back and tell him he owed him his life, what’s to stop Wilbur from just killing him permanently? Or killing himself, continuously?

No way would Wilbur want to be controlled by anyone, ever. The dude would sooner fuck off into the mountains and become a nomad than help a neon green bodysuit cosplay as Light Yagami.

Dream’s discussion about Sam implies that he wasn't playing any part in Dream’s plan, making Sam appear entirely incompetent and neglectful of Tommy.

Dream talked about Sam in a way that seems detached and unaffiliated. He also mentioned him being broken up about Tommy’s fate and not being aware he’s still alive. Dream not being partnered with, or not using Sam in his plan leaves many plot holes. I’ll go through each one. The initial incident was an explosion, coming from the roof of Pandora’s Vault. This did not affect the Redstone mechanism for the doors or dispensers.

Meaning, Sam could’ve had Tommy leave the way that was expected for visitors after he investigated and found no issues. This likely couldn’t have been done in less than a day, but it would be better than an entire week. If Tommy was required to stay for longer, due to protocol, he could’ve gotten Tommy out and then placed him in one of the minor cells for the remainder of the time.

Also, no one else lost a canon life for leaving via the splash potion of harming and returning outside the maximum-security cell; why would Tommy? To add, Sam being uninvolved means that the explosion could have only been caused by Ranboo or Foolish. That, or it was placed long before and timed for the moment Tommy entered the main cell. (I’m going to ignore how ludicrous it is that someone would know the exact time Tommy would’ve entered the room with Dream.)

If Ranboo was the person behind the detonation, this implies he was necessary for Dream to kill Tommy to test the book. But that makes it even stranger. If this was Dream’s goal all along, why not kill Tommy the instant he was trapped with him? It makes no sense for him to wait so long.

Sam is also directly at fault for not letting Tommy out, even after the week was up. There was no reason not to. He already knew there were no issues with the prison at that point. Although, to be fair to Sam, his character may have been paranoid and checking everything more than necessary, just in case. But this still isn’t a good excuse for him ignoring protocol in this one instance, and yet, not in any of the others.

All of these plot holes or inconsistencies would be removed if it was revealed that Dream was blackmailing Sam in some way, or Sam had been working with him since the get-go. That Sam was the person who set off the explosion in the first place to trap Tommy inside. It would also explain Sam’s refusal to let Tommy out and by keeping him in there for longer than necessary.

This can also coexist with Sam’s attachment and care for Tommy. He probably wasn’t told about Dream’s plan to test the book and genuinely believed Dream wouldn’t hurt him. On top of that, Dream is known to be a pathological liar, so his statements about Ranboo and Sam could be entire fabrications.

Who knows?

The Book of Revival invalidates death entirely. The narrative now lacks both tension and consequence.

Another way the Dream SMP differs from other storytelling media is in the way it goes about its character deaths. In a TV show, for example, there will be characters who die just because, or when it’s important to the plot. However, it seems as if the Dream SMP is hesitant to commit to killing its characters. And there are many reasons for that.

The most important one being, killing someone’s character excludes them from the story and some of their livelihoods depend on them regularly streaming on the server. There is also the issue of the cast becoming extremely sparse if characters keep dying. Typically, in stories, when you kill a character, you should introduce another.

This keeps the cast from dwindling as the storyline goes on. This means the writers would have to find new streamers to join, who will develop their own characters and relationships with the plot’s continued momentum. This can be stressful and daunting to those who may be newly added in the future.

Keeping this in mind, the Book of Revival is annoying from a writer’s perspective. When death is no longer an issue for a story hinged on its characters’ mortality, then what do you have as a consequence anymore? We’ve explored every kind under the sun; from abuse, to betrayal, to loss, to destruction.

In stories, traditionally, death is a finality. It’s a conclusion. Whether it’s good or not depends on the character’s actions, its build-up, and the event’s execution. Without this lingering sense of danger, tension evaporates from the story.

Why should I care if Tommy loses in a fight to someone, if he’ll just come back a day later? Why should I care about what happened to Wilbur, if he just returns as if nothing happened? The answer is simple: I won’t. I will no longer care if Tubbo or Ranboo or Sam die in the story, because the idea of revival even being a possible outcome leaves me unenthused and uncaring.

The Dream SMP likes to flirt with death. It teases the demise of its main characters many, many times. More so Tommy’s than anyone else’s. Wilbur’s failed resurrection, which had unforeseen and unfortunate outcomes, is now strange in comparison to Tommy’s, which happened without a hitch.

To be fair, we actually don’t see how many attempts it took. But here’s the problem; Dream could do it without the book being physically present. He’s trapped in a prison with nothing on him, meaning he doesn’t need any materials either. It’s also implied he could do this as many times as he feels, for anyone he wants. This would be exceedingly overpowered, if not for one thing—Dream himself is mortal (at least, I fucking hope he’s mortal.)

If someone kills him one last time, that knowledge is gone forever. And I’m glad they’ve established at least some way for Tommy to win. Because at this point, I was losing faith.

There is also the bare minimum establishment that Dream can refuse to bring back those he doesn’t care for. He can also use it as a shield, holding this power over other people. If Dream is gone, death is permanent. But isn’t that how death is supposed to be, anyway?

What a bleak premise—the afterlife is pure eternal torture while life is cheapened by a lack of consequences.

Conclusion

All this to say, I am cautiously optimistic for the future. I hope dearly that every single one of these can be disproven or developed in the coming livestreams. Obviously, there’s not enough information to really determine what the end result will be, or how everything will fall into place.

Every time I have theorized about the story, it has done something completely different and pleasantly surprised me. I want this trend to continue.

Surprise me again—I’ll be here to see where it goes.

#answered asks #long post #tommyinnit #dream smp meta #dream smp #dsmp #dsmp analysis #this is slightly outdated still but whatever #hope this was helpful anon #tw abuse #tw suicide

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ryansjane · 4 years

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ranking every off jumpol’s roles

so I’ve wanted to do this for a while! as the tumblr off queen who has seen practically all of his roles, I feel qualified to do this even though of course this is 1000% biased.

anyways first of all, the roles I haven’t seen (if I get to see them one day I will of course add them to the ranking):

little big dream: it’s only half subbed...

wifi society: the horror home. it’s sadly not subbed

love songs: still single: not subbed either

bangkok love stories: keep love. again not subbed

cat tv radio s2: not subbed or findable anywhere...

okay now let’s get into the meat of this random ass post lmao, the actual ranking!!! I will take three things into account: the showcasing of his acting, the writing of his character, and the cuteness/lovely factor of the character

1. sean (not me)

so after years of khai being my favorite character of all time & specifically my favorite character of all time... he has to share the spotlight with sean. I’m literally incapable of choosing my favorite between sean & khai bc they’re both so special to me in incredibly different ways, BUT... the reason why I’m listing sean first is bc I do believe not me to be a more important and better executed show overall. sean truly is also undoubtedly off’s best acting performance, on top of being one of the best acting I’ve ever seen in thai dramas PERIOD. the writing for sean is incredibly layered & he has so much depth to his character, while all the struggles & pain he goes through makes him a character you can’t help but root for, which really departs from other off characters that are less overwhelmingly likable. the writing of the show truly makes him the most special character that has graced my screen with khai, and words cannot express how much I’m happy & grateful this role & character exist!

acting: 1000/ 10. writing: 12/10. cuteness: 10/10

1. khai (theory of love & the tol special)

listen, khai is not only the best character off got to play, he’s the best character PERIOD. now I know he’s extremely polarizing but let me explain why I adore him. despite being meant to be hated on the first sight, khai’s first introduction is him being adorable and sending third a kiss as well as a ‘love you.’ we also see him constantly interrupting third when he films his reviews. this introduction scene establishes three things: khai is self-centered, khai is quirky & cute, & khai is loving. and these character traits are only gonna expand during the rest of the show. khai is this kind of intensely flawed characters who are just trying their best. at first he comes off as an accidental fuckboy: he’s attracted to many women who all pursue him. he dates them & then realizes they’re not meant for him (meaning he’s a terrible boyfriend & them complaining about it annoys him so he breaks it off.) and the circle of fuckboyery continues. but it’s never shown that khai does it with any ill-intent. it’s only when he decides to knowingly become a fuckboy who only has sex bc he’s tired of break ups that a more cruel side of him appears, only to disappear quickly as khai falls in love with third. for me I never hated khai even one second, from the first ep to the last bc his bad actions were compensated by him being a dumbass & doing them without ill-intent. also he has the character development of the decade. and that’s what I love about him, he’s incredibly flawed from the beginning to the end yet those flaws do evolve towards a much softer, understanding & generally better person.

acting: 10/ 10. writing: 10/10. cuteness: 1000/10

2. ten (cooking crush)

if you asked me which off character I’d want to date, I would answer ten without any hesitation lol. he is like the ONLY off character who doesn’t have any red flag, and also the glasses make him even cuter <3 ten is just... such a cutie. he’s nerdy but also confident, respectful but also thirsty af, and probably the most DOWN BAD, loyal boyfriend ever (after maybe sean in his heartbroken era lol.) ten is just SUCH a good love interest and is not afraid to be a little ridiculous for love. he carried cooking crush & is literally the cutest bean, I love him so much! I’m so so so happy off got to portray him :)

acting: 9/10. writing: 9/10. cuteness: 12/10

3. krathing (girl next room)

krathing was MADE for off. because while I’m sure off can slay any type of role, it is certain that he has such an ease with dorky but still emotionally intelligent & complex characters, probably because this is the kind of roles he’s been given the most. and krathing is so PERFECT for him: he’s over the top, hilarious, pining, jealous, has daddy issues... and it’s really a shame that richy rich isn’t a full length show because he could’ve been even more iconic if he was more developed. that being said his development on the show is already so good for only 4 episodes, and he’s the only love interest in girl next room that managed to be as interesting as the main character.

acting: 9/10. writing: 9/10. cuteness: 10/10

4. zen (fabulous 30)

zen??? is lovely. he’s a huge piner, a dork, a bicon... he’s that kind of side character who steals the show super hard because he’s so much more interesting than the main one (sorry mond baby, forgive me). I also love that despite being a huge dork he still is highly intelligent and emotional.

acting: 9/10. writing: 8/10. cuteness: 10/10

5. mote (midnight motel)

mote is far from the off character who shines the most, but in a way off shines in that role the most bc he managed to play on the more subtles aspects of mote while obviously OWNING the funny & quirky parts of his character. it was also so pleasant to get a more morally gray character in such a well produced & executed show, and his performance was *chef’s kiss*!

acting: 10/10. writing: 9/10. cuteness: 8/10

6. maetee (I’m tee me too)

not to be shady & biased................. but being shady & biased lmao, he really was the best character of the whole show. he certainly was the funniest & the cutest, and I also feel like his storyline with his mom could’ve legit been turned into a much bigger drama bc it was really interesting? the acting was great, he was hot as always. the only thing I disliked was how they made him the ‘disgusting’ one with a lot of fart & poop jokes, which... can those die please? we’re not five anymore nor does this show cater to five years old. apart from that maetee is yet another proud bisexual character (don’t argue with me) & I love him. protect at all costs.

acting: 8/10. writing: 7/10. cuteness: 10/10

7. por (wolf)

listen por was a fucking asshole........... yet such a loveable one??? like I truly believe off’s strength is making asshole characters into adorable ones bc I loved por sooooo much & was actually into his character development until it was ruined by the last few eps of the show. also off in glasses will always make me emo so por gains points for that!!!

acting: 8/10. writing: 6/10. cuteness: 10/10

8. plu (10 years ticket)

I love plu so much, and I loved all three of his storylines, be it his grandma having dementia (which touched me especially since I went through the same thing), him being forced into an illegal business, & him being the third wheel in yet another love triangle yet handling it perfectly. off especially acted so perfectly as him, especially in the more emotional scenes, but... sorry but plu has no personality lol. outside of his storylines, he’s quite bland, which is why he’s not higher. still love my little bland boi tho <3

acting: 9/10. writing: 8/10. cuteness: 6/10.

9. pine (the jungle)

pine is perhaps one of the most intriguing off characters, mostly due to how underdeveloped he is (despite being literally the most developed character of the show which says a lot lol.) pine is supposed to be a fuckboy, deals with some illegal stuff, etc. but is at his core a crazy loving and loyal character, who will protect the ones he loves fearlessly. off was also SUPER HOT in this, and while I wish this show had been better written and executed, off and his love story was undoutedly the best part of it.

acting: 8/10. writing: 7/10. cuteness: 8/10.

10. pick / rome (our skyy)

looking back while khai is the role that made me a stan, our skyy is the show that showed me off’s potential. him acting as rome & playing in his strength of being adorable???? best decision ever! no but truly he is so cute as rome & I really thought he nailed the gun facial expressions. this was a really lovely role!

acting: 7/10. writing: 7/10. cuteness: 10/10

11. pat (46 days)

so pat is by far off’s most mature character. like the dude is a doctor, he’s got his shit together, he’s calm & collected... the complete opposite of all of his other roles lmao. that being said, they still managed to slip in character traits that are in every off jumpol’s role like being a playboy, screaming a lot, being scared of ghosts... at this point they’re doing it on purpose lmao :’) but anyway pat is like... THE dream guy tbh, even him being a playboy is abandoned almost as soon as he enters the story. he’s loyal, mature, not pushy at all (a first for an off character lol), and frankly kinda the mvp of the whole show. I just love him a lot & I’m so glad off FINALLY got a role that changes from his others!

acting: 8/10. writing: 7/10. cuteness: 8/10

12. thawin (girl 2k)

thawin is a role I’m very mixed about, bc on the one hand the show was really mediocre & the writing was really bad, but on the other hand I loved off in that role. first of all he’s SO FUCKING HOT IN A SUIT!!! but also VILLAIN OFF!!! I loved how perfect he seemed for most of the show, only to show his true colors in the end. and off did so well! he looks almost inhuman for most of the show bc thawin is trying so hard to look normal, but when he becomes mean his facial expressions were on POINT! so even though girl 2k is really not my fave show, I gotta be honest in saying that thawin, even though he’s again a player, a misogynist & just a shit person in general... kinda has a piece of my heart lol :’)

acting: 8/10. writing: 5/10. cuteness: 8/10.

13. ron (fai sin chua)

ron is probably off’s most fucked up up character. he’s a loser who struggles for money & was abandonned by his mother. he does drugs often & has a complicated relationship with his brother. by the end of the show, his life isn’t much better. he’s also not a very good person, being paid to seduce ploy’s character and ruin her reputation. though ron didn’t have many scenes, he’s a very sympathetic character & actually probably off’s character who gets the most sympathy from the writers, when usually let’s be honest they’re not very nice to him lol. and I really liked him. off was great at showing how lost & confused ron is and he had very cute moments. also his bff being played by arm was really cute & made me happy :) I’d say my biggest issue with this character is just how underdeveloped he is. his storyline is very complex & would have deserved to be the main one of the show, but it wasn’t. so he sadly ends up being a quite forgettable character. a very interesting & cute one though.

acting: 8/10. writing: 7/10. cuteness: 6/10

14. sun (chuamong tong mon)

so I went into this show expecting off to have the smallest cameo role & no character development whatsoever... WHAT I DIDN’T EXPECT IS FOR HIM TO BE A CONFIRMED MLM WITH A BL SHIP!!! at first sun is kind of this okay brother to the female lead who defends her from her evil stepmother & stepsister but also doesn’t have much of a backbone bc he lets his sister work on her own to support the four of them. HOWEVER, we learn later that his sister was the one who insisted on him not working so he could focus on his studies, and that when the family was in big financial problems he got a job behind his sister’s back to help out. apart from that sun has a very strong personality & would do anything to defend his sister, including joining his company’s trip to protect her from a colleague he thinks is trying to take advantage of her (when in reality that colleague is gay.) but things don’t turn out that way when sun realizes HE’s the one who is falling for that colleague, who is justin played by leo saussay. their relationship develops through friendship at first but it’s clear pretty much since day 1 that they like each other. in the end, justin, who was a gay closeted model, comes out publicly with sun as his boyfriend & they become a shipped couple, leading to both happiness in love for them & fame. and like??? wow. when I say every off jumpol’s character is bi I didn’t expect that there was a role like that I hadn’t seen yet. sun is a babe & I love him with all my heart. the reason he’s not higher is that he wasn’t as developed as the characters above him & off’s acting and cuteness weren’t as good. but I love him nonetheless!

acting: 7/10. writing: 7/10. cuteness: 7/10

15. bright (sotus/sotus s)

bright is yet another biconic role for off, and I can’t believe he was in the very first thai series I ever watched & I didn’t pay any attention to him jifdnhbcjihbd!!! while bright is very much a background character & kind of an asshole sometimes (a theme for off’s characters, I tell you) bc of the hazers’ mentality, he was honestly the funniest character & I always appreciated his little background story of having dated kongpob’s senior in the past, idk it added something for me. what I’m saying is that it’s not his best character at all BUT it definitely is such a pleasure to see him in this show every time I rewatch it :)

acting: 7/10. writing: 6/10. cuteness: 7/10.

16. li tang (u-prince: the ambitious boss)

idk if I’ve made it clear, but I love villains / not very nice characters, and li tang is just THAT. he’s not the villain of the story per say, but he’s a mysognistic asshole so like he might as well be. yet...... (and that’s where my off bias comes through & shoves my feminism aside) he was kinda cute in it??? like for a brief moment I kinda rooted for him, ngl. bc while he ended up being toxic af, I do believe he liked mook’s character a lot & he had good intentions. and again he always manages to make assholest cute, what can I say. also him getting captured & beat up by the mafia fuels my best dreams I live for it jfddijchrejicbdiuc!!!

acting: 7/10. writing: 6/10. cuteness: 6/10.

17. tankhun (astrophile)

sigh... after a really solid start for tankhun in astrophile, sadly the writing & execution of the show did NOT come through for him. tankhun is an absolutely useless character, even though he’s included in every promotional material for the show as a main character. he’s just a prop for some VERY minor drama & that’s it. the worst of it all, though, is that he was only given sad moments FOR NO FUCKING REASONNNNN. this whole show was just torturing poor off & his audience from beginning to end lol. he did great, as he always do, but even his great acting & handsomeness couldn’t save this mess of a show.

acting: 9/10. writing: 1/10. cuteness: 7/10

18. puen (room alone)

for his very first role,,,,, puen is honestly quite a good character. the biggest problem for him (and the whole show, honestly he might be the best character in it) is that he’s quite inconsistent. I did really enjoy off’s acting though, considering it was his first role. he has a really convincing crying scene in season one and he had a few cute moments in season 2. amongst a really mediocre show & again for his first role I was extremely impressed. puen can stay!

acting: 7/10. writing: 6/10. cuteness: 4/10.

19. pick (puppy honey)

I’ve said many times that I just don’t love pick as a character (which would probably disappoint off, whoops). I don’t hate him at all, I do think he has a few good moments, but it’s always funny to me that one of off’s worst roles in my opinion is the one that kickstarted his career. for me pick is yet another asshole character, but for the first time off’s cuteness just doesn’t come through to save the day. he’s an asshole, and that’s it. he’s got a couple jealous moments & then he rescues rome but that’s basically the extent of the decent part of his character. I just think this role not being his best is a culmination of a lot of things: him not being the most comfortable with a bl role at the time, offgun’s chemistry being legit 0.1% of what it is today, and the writing being quite wonky for pickrome as a couple. so yeah I don’t hate him, but I don’t like him either lol.

acting: 7/10. writing: 6/10. cuteness: 3/10.

20. off (love from outta space)

now we’re getting into special appearances & stuff like that but frankly off in this commercial was adorable. him scared of gun? gold. him getting sick? adorable. him sleeping on gun’s knees? diamond in the rough. I’ve said it before but I wish this commercial could’ve been a movie bc the story was really interesting & offgun pulled it well!

acting: 8/10. writing: 8/10. cuteness: 10/10.

21. jet (club sapan fine 2)

jet is just... khai without the charm & character development tbh lol, and even dumber :’))) off did fine, but tbh bc his character has almost no redeeming quality & I hate how they styled his hair in that role, soooooo... yeah...

acting: 8/10. writing: 3/10. cuteness: 5/10

22. dentist assistant (teenage mom)

listen, off making a sexual innendo & being totally gone for a sort of dom!gun was sooo refreshing. apart from that this cameo is literally 4 minutes long so there’s not much more to say lol

acting: 7/10. writing: 7/10. cuteness: 7/10

23. ? (cornetto love expert)

he played a popular jock and I??? approve wholeheartedly. apart from that he’s cute af but barely has any lines so it’s hard to judge his acting

acting: 7/10. writing: 6/10. cuteness: 9/10

24. ? (the shipper)

he was there for 5 seconds but 1) that was a cute ass offgun moment & he looked whipped and 2) he was in the same vicinity as ohm pawat & idk it makes me happy

acting: too short to judge. writing: ???. cuteness: 9/10

25. tom (ugly duckling: pity girl)

tom is... absolute goddamn trash, off’s worst role FOR SURE. not only does he have three scenes and a half & looks bland as hell during all of them, off’s acting is suuuper mediocre (sorry), but most of all... tom is an attempted r*pist trying to take advantage of his ex girlfriend’s memory loss. he is the WORST & has nothing redeemable about him

acting: 4/10. writing: 3/10. cuteness: 1/10

26. ? (hormones)

he’s literally there for one second lol, but he still managed to appear in one of the most popular thai shows of the time so like,,, good for him

#off jumpol #not me the series #not me #theory of love #girl next room: richy rich #fabulous 30 #our skyy #i'm tee me too #wolf the series #astrophile #sotus #u-prince: the ambitious boss #room alone the series #senior secret love puppy honey #bypiningbisexuals

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kimberly-spirits13 · 4 years

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Haunted (Request)

Paring: John Constantine Protégé (reader) x young justice

Synopsis: It’s basically the episode, “Haunted” from Teen Titans where Robin sees Slade but he isn’t there but it’s with the reader

Notes: Y/F/C = Your Favorite Channel

Warnings: None

Word Count: 2336

Constantine had told you to be extra careful after you had returned from missions or what he liked to call, hell bound adventures with him. You’d always been, it was part of the job of course. That didn’t mean however, that sometimes, something would go a bit ... awry.

You were crashing on the couch after getting back from a mission with your teacher. John Constantine was a different kind of person to everyone, but for you he was like a weird uncle or estranged father figure. You had just gotten back from cleansing yourself of anything that might attract some sort of negative spirit or energy into the cave. He lectured you on that before you two had come in through the zeta beams. You rolled your eyes thinking of it as the remote that you were using made the tv flip to new channels every few seconds. You passed Conner’s favorite, static, and then made it to your own favorite channel Y/F/C.

It was some time before the team had come in from their own mission. Kid Flash was the first to greet you as he sat threw himself over the top of the couch to sit down by you.

“Hey beautiful.” He said making you cringe internally.

“He- get your hands off of my popcorn Wallace.” You said without looking at him, instead opting to keep your eyes on the screen.

You felt him scoot over some at your tone. He knew not too touch your food, especially after missions. The one time you did share, everyone was half dead and happened to have stuffed a few snacks in your pockets. You only looked up when you heard the rest of the team walk near the living room and kitchen.

“How was your mission with Hellblazer?” Artemis asked sitting down on the floor next to you.

“It was ... long.” You replied with an exasperated sigh, “Honestly, I could use a nice movie night for once.”

“I second that.”

After a few minutes, everyone was showered and in pajamas. Bean bags, pillows, and blankets were strewn out in every square centimeter of the living room and a movie was underway. The movie was a nice distraction from the night’s events. You almost had this fear that if you looked away, you’d see something that you didn’t want to. It was a fear that you finally told yourself that you needed to face in order to enjoy your night as much as you possibly could. It was a fear that came true the moment you took your eyes off of the tv. You didn’t have to squint to see the massive black figure lurking in the shadows. It stared back at you almost daring you to move. You sat still, tensing up some after looking to see if it could be anyone that wasn’t sitting by you at the time. Then you confirmed it, the entire team was accounted for and the shadow was moving closer to you.

“Everyone get to the mission room!” You yelled out making the rest of the team jump.

“What’s wrong?” Robin asked standing up.

“Don’t ask just go!”

It was a known fact that if Constantine’s kid was telling everyone to get away from where they were, you left. The team sprinted off to where you told them to go as you rushed into the kitchen hold your hand out in the general direction of the being and chanted something that only you could understand. The cage that you put the spirit in wouldn’t last for long and you knew that. That wasn’t the point though, right now, you were after paint, and a marker. Once you had those items, you ran into the briefing room where missions were given out calling out protection spells and scribbling the corresponding symbols on the walls with the permanent marker. The rest of the team looked on in horror as you ran closer and closer. They couldn’t see what was quickly trailing on behind you, but they knew that if you were this panicked, it must be something serious.

“Move together in a group.” You instructed running around them with the salt, “You know the drill, don’t touch, move, blow on, don’t do anything with the salt unless I say so!”

“Y/N, there isn’t anything there.” Robin said looking around.

“I can’t even sense anything.” M said crossing her arms some.

“I know you can’t, that’s why you have to stay here.” You said drawing symbols around the circle, “Someone get a hold of Constantine, I’m a bit preoccupied at the moment.”

You stopped and looked behind you seeing the shadow coming closer and closer to the door, “Shit!” You hissed standing up, “Take these, if anything happens and you have to leave the salt circle, make sure you have these around your neck. Don’t let anything happen to you.”

You handed each of them a necklace with a protection charm on it, “It’s after me, so, in theory, you guys should be fine unless it kills me.”

“W-wait... Kills?” Wally asked making everyone turn and stare in the general direction you were looking.

“Precisely my dear Watson.” You started chanting something again before yelling out in pain clutching the protection tattoo over your arm. There appeared scratches much to the horror of the rest of the team.

Blood dripped down slowly and in smaller amounts than you expected it would. The heat off of whatever scratched you seemed to have cauterized most of the scratch, that wasn’t a good sign.

“What do you want?” You asked in a different language that was foreign to the rest of the team, “Whom do you seek?”

“The blood of Constantine.” It replied.

Now you knew it was after you. You had the blood of Constantine, at least with being his kid and all. That was when you started running. Your bedroom would be the safest place for you right now, just not the team. The team wasn’t typically allowed in your room because of everything inside of it that they were not ready to be around at all. Some of the things might cause them nightmares, others a state of delirium that you had been trained to be accustomed to. There, in your room, you had the spell books needed to vanquish whatever was after you.

You knew that the team probably wouldn’t be able to get a hold of your mentor. The communications were probably down by now. If anything happened, there would be no one there to help you. Not even Zantana was here. She would be nice to have around right about now. Then again, almost anyone with skills in magic would be helpful to have around right now so that wasn’t saying too much.

You had to run through the living room and kitchen once more. The shadow was right on your tail when you turned around to see if you could find it. The moment you did, it disappeared.

“Damn it!” You murmured before turning around, wide eyed at what you saw about to run into you, “Should have remembered eyes on the roa-“

The shadow picked you up. You didn’t expect it to be able to do that. Maybe scratch you a bit, but certainly not lift you off solid ground. Kicking and thrashing around seemed to be doing nothing for you at that moment. The being laughed at your antics before lifting one of its claws to your cheek and slowly cutting into it drawing the smallest amount of blood. You screamed out in pain, all the while trying to articulate a spell to put distance between you and the shadow. It did its job and the next thing you knew you hit the ground running. The stumble and fall didn’t hurt that bad at the moment, you had too much adrenaline in your system for that kind of common pain.

You slid into a different hallway and then down one more before getting into your bedroom and shutting the door. There was no need to make protection spells in here since they were already there. As quickly as possible, you ran to the book shelf and started trying to find the book Constantine had always told you to use if something like this had happened. You found the book, a navy blue leather bound book with old paper and tarnished gold details. Opening the book on your bed, you flipped through it rapidly trying to find the page needed for the spell that you were about to cast.

Once you got to the correct page, you saw that you’d need something to give you some time. It involved a few different things to make it work, all of which you could do quickly with some other spells, but not fast enough to keep yourself safe.

“M? Can you hear me?” You asked over the mental link.

“Loud and clear. Are you alright?” She asked.

“Not the best but there’s no time to complain about it, listen if you can, I need you to do something for me.” You said, “It’s dangerous and if you don’t want to do it, I’ll think of something else but you should be fine with the protection charm I gave you.” “I need you to fly out of the salt circle, as in, don’t touch it. Then will you go into the hallway outside of my room, looking like me and lead it to the zeta beams. Go as fast as you can on that part. On my signal, change back into yourself and go invisible. I don’t want you in sight during this part. Get back to the salt circle.”

“If you think it’s best, I’ll do it.” She answered after a few seconds of silence.

“Good. Now go.”

After a minute or so, you felt the shadow following something else. Your plan was working and all you had to do now was beat the two into the room entrance. You took a different route that wouldn’t be anywhere near were the two of them were and once you were in the right place, you dropped to your knees making the correct markings on the floor and setting candles around it. You had done this countless numbers of times, but now that this thing was threatening your only real family, it felt a bit personal. You stood up once M announced to you that she was entering the room. You hid behind Conner’s motorcycle and at the right moment, leaped out in front of it telling M to leave.

She did as you instructed leaving you to finish the spell. You felt your energy draining more and more as it got closer. You were leading it right where you wanted it, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t hurt you. By now it had scrapped you up a bit. There would be bruises in the morning considering you made it to then.

The shadow laughed at your pain, lifting its hand to knock you into a wall. You grunted in pain before stumbling back onto your feet, not letting it break your concentration. You dodged a flying wrench and then screwdriver before feeling a sharp pain on your leg. This thing was toying with you now, trying to get you to drop the spell. The intensity of the spell ended up making the lights flicker on and off, finally killing them. You felt multiple cuts forming on different parts of your body. That was when you caught it. It tried to keep moving but was now stuck in the symbol that you drew. You smiled some suddenly having a bit more energy and hope that you’d finish. With confidence, you ended the spell. The sound of the high pitch screeching made you hold your ears closed in pain. You fell to your knees before telling the team that it was okay to come out. The lights came back on and the last thing you remember was a bright white light and then silence.

“Come on kid, wake up.” You felt someone shaking you awake. The voice sounded familiar but panicked like if you didn’t open your eyes at once, they’d lose it.

Under you, you felt the concreate of the cave floor. It wasn’t the best feeling in the world in the slightest especially with your aching bones. Around you, you felt multiple people, none of them to be evil. Then, slowly, you blinked your eyes open, light flooding your senses before you were adjusted.

“I-is it gone?” You asked rubbing your head hearing the sigh of relief from your mentor.

“It is.” Constantine said helping you up and catching you as you stumbled over, “I didn’t think you’d be able to handle a demon of that size. I’m impressed you did, but you need rest.”

“How’d it get in?” You asked looking around some to see the team fully intact.

“I’m still figuring that out right now Y/N/N. The ole bastard didn’t stand a chance against you though”

“Y/N, are you alright?” M asked not really wanting to come closer to you with John there. You nodded, “Yeah, I’m fine.” “Are you guys okay?”

“We’re all fine Y/N... w-what was that?” Robin asked, “None of us could see whatever it was that was here, it seemed to just be you.” “It was a demon. Must have followed from my last mission away from you guys. You couldn’t see it because it didn’t want you to. It was after me, but once it got me, I’m sure it would have gone after all of you.”

Constantine stayed a little while longer to help make sure that there was nothing else there. You told him that it was after him which wasn’t unheard of at all but he needed to be more careful than he typically was for a little bit. After he was gone, the team dragged you into the living room where you promptly fell asleep during a movie.

This was fun to write. I find it funny that two people kind of had the same idea, that was pretty funny. Anyways, I hope you guys liked this one and are having a great day. I’m going to still try and post even with my laptop gone but that all just depends on what happens. I hope you’re all staying safe and healthy and have a wonderful week and rest of the day!

#young justice x reader #young justice #justice league x reader #justice league #justice league x y/n #justice league x you #john constantine #john constantine x reader #john constantine x daughter reader #john constantine x daughter

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astrothdied · 3 years

Text

Me ig

this was supposed to be things i do that i find aesthetics pleasing but halfway through i ended up wanted off track a bit

Only writing in pen and in all caps

a terrible sleep schedule but functioning fully on 3 hours of sleep

simply existing in the same room as any cat

mitski

debates, not arguments cause those are when you personally attack someone. debates are facts over feeling, arguments are feeling over fact. no yelling or insulting just simply stating why the other is wrong.

dying my hair while listening to mother mother at 2 in the morning on a wednesday when i have to wake up for school in 3 hours

i hate people, but love the individuals

going to a bookstore and museum in the same day

redbull

girl in red >>>

12 year old boy humor & dad jokes but ironically

too distant from people to be able to fall in love

is an astrology bitch but doesn’t actually judge anyone by their sun sign because i get along with all of them

books half way annotated because i started hyperfixating on something else completely and forgot about it

dissociating when someone is talking to me and them thinking i’m not interested in what they have to say

thrifting because you can find cute and comfortable clothes for so incredibly cheap

credit card fraud <3

kinder buenos

tumblr, pinterest, and musi keep me alive

wanting to die but being too lazy to actually commit

music that makes me feel like i’m in a fairy tale

J.R.R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis being besties is it’s own thing

can literally be put in any type of social situation and be fine. like i can be around people for hours on end if i have to, yet has also stayed in my room for 6 days and only left to shower and didn’t have any complaints just me and netflix

doing shrooms in the woods

bo burnham my beloved

wants to be a writer but literally can not put thoughts down onto paper for the life of me

shifting realities <3

sleeping through a thunderstorm

long car rides (7+ hours) and going into a gas station and seeing who can find the weirdest thing between my mom and i

i leave my phone on do not disturb and when i see the cluttered notification screen i delete em all without looking at them so i won’t know what anyone said if i haven’t opened that app

the arctic monkeys

tea rooms are elite

i don’t care what people identify as or their political party as long as they aren’t unnecessarily rude i’m fine

hedgehogs & cows <333

babies freak me out

i couldn’t tell you why if i wanted to but i LOVE maps so much like not just the roadmaps but the little ones you can find printed at malls or amusement parks. i have a shoebox full that i’ve had since i was like 9 but it’s starting to overcrowd

arguing with old white republican men

any tv show or movie category you would consider nerdy i am slightly a part of: anime, star wars, 60s - 90’s movies, lord of the rings and the hobbit, narnia, the old disney movies, etc…

old printed pictures make me feel a fuzzy warm feeling inside

i want to collect tea

i make hearts for my friends out of candy wrappers (my favorite to do is dumdums)

i actually only started giving them to my friends cause i would use them for bookmarks but then people started complimenting them so i decided to make a few more

mylifeisayolk (egg) covers and original songs>>

comfortable silence >>>

going over conspiracy theories with my friends when high on shrooms and drinking wine

walking around at night talking about everything and nothing at the same time

is a fire sign

cloudy days have my heart

honestly i’ve never struggled with math it’s always been easy for me, i’m not interested in it it’s just easy

grey and green >>>

grilled cheeses <3

i live for crime related media and for no reason in particular

#aesthetic but not really #aesthetic #if i was a post #i want some fries rn #honestly i still have my grippy socks and i wear them on a regular based as regular socks and when i was in the 11th grade a girl #in the locker room saw them and asked me what trampoline park i got them from and i replied with the nuthouse and she said she’s never been

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lesbianlovelanguage · 4 years

Note

YOUTUBER AU I’m such a fucking sucker for those. It can be anything you want really. Maybe they are friends doing a challenge or something and they end up kissing (or more ;)) or they could meet each other at like a creator even and take a pic together and everyone starts to ship them... :)

HI! Anon I am so sorry, life has been *general handwaving* a MESS. But, I’ve finally gotten most of my shit together and look! A fic! Finally!!! I hope you enjoy two ridiculous boys being ridiculous.

---

“You guys asked for it, and here it is. The explanation to Bendy and the Ink Machine! Now, I’ve watched a ton of playthroughs of this, especially The RatKing’s, as well as played through it myself, and I think I’ve got it.”

Such a simple statement, it made it through both of the editors as well as Steve and Dustin themselves without raising any red flags. But as with everything, once it had been released on the internet it became fuel for fans to break apart and over analyze.

The comments started pouring in, the standard mix of support and people trying to break apart his theory. But one comment in particular would stand out and begin something so much bigger than itself.

Twenty minutes after Steve had pressed upload, someone with the username Random Hoe posted a comment saying Awe! A collab between you and Billy would be totes amazing!! While an innocent comment in itself, it began to pick up steam as people ranted and demanded for the two popular youtubers to interact more. It turned from video ideas to outright shipping within two hours, and only five hours after the video had been up, people began tagging Steve on Twitter with everything from edited screen grabs to fanart and video edits, all about Steve and Billy’s secret yet undying love for each other.

Steve had almost quit Youtube as the fanbase for what had been dubbed “Stilly” steadily grew and became all the more ravenous. There were less and less comments and reactions to his theories, whether movie, video game, or even book related, and more and more comments about how he needed to do a collab with Billy ASAP, and how he’s queerbaiting, and how it’s okay to come out, it was 20Gayteen after all. He had tried to do damage control, but it only made things worse.

And then someone showed Billy, and Steve not only wanted to quit Youtube, but also crawl under a rock.

Billy’s only reaction to someone sending him a picture of Steve and Billy during a live stream was “Nice art, like the hair,” but Steve could have sworn his mouth twitched down in a grimace before Billy recovered his composure.

But Dustin had convinced Steve to keep going, and with two months of no recognition or new content, the frenzy of Stilly shipping died down. It never disappeared, but no one sent anymore art to Billy and stopped tagging Steve in all of their posts. That had been in February.

Vidcon was in June, and Stilly was the least of Steve’s worries. He’d been asked to host a panel on the new game show he and Dustin had begun hosting on Youtube TV about pop culture trivia, and then host a live episode with various Youtube guests as competitors. It promised to be relatively simple, a simple explanation of the origin and behind-the-scenes and a simple Q&A session followed by what he spent every Thursday doing for the past two months. And it was, him and Dustin breezing through the panel bouncing off of each other and the first round of Did You Know? You Don’t Say? flying by as the famed beauty guru aced almost every question. But once the second guest stepped on stage, Steve knew it was all going to go to shit.

Because Billy Hargrove, The Rat King himself, swaggered out on the stage in flip flops and an Everlast crop top and flopped into the contestant’s chair with a smirk. Steve froze, mouth suddenly drier than a desert.

Luckily, Dustin didn’t even stutter. “Ah! The next victim. Should we go easy on him?” He waggled his eyebrows as he asked the audience. The audience shouting brought Steve out of his daze, and with a shake of his head, he turned and spread his arms out wide.

“Well then, let’s begin. So, Billy, Do you know what the rarest MnM color is?”

The cocky smirk melted off of Billy’s face, replaced by one of thoughtful determination. He’s silent for only a moment before he looks up and says, “Brown, like your eyes, Pretty Boy.” Steve feels his pale skin flush with heat, but he coughs and tries to play it off.

“Quite the charmer there, Rat King. Luckily, your lines are actually true. One point! Let’s see it!” He calls out and then looks behind him to the television screen currently displaying the scoreboard. A large blocky 1 appears and the audience cheers.

“Alrighty then,” Dustin says after the crowd dies down. “Next question. Billy, Do you know the original name of Istanbul?” Billy chuckles, and shakes his head.

“Easy. Constantinople.”

Dustin fake pouts and looks over to Billy. “None of that Rat King charm for me?” The audience laughs, and Billy chuckles before throwing a wink at Dustin.

“Not quite old enough to ride this ride, bud.”

Dustin scoffs and shakes his head, making the curls bounce around wildly. “Whatever you say, old man. You did get it right by the way. Let me see another point!” Dustin mimics Steve and gestures towards the scoreboard which now shows a big, white 2.

“Your turn, Pretty Boy. Give me something hard.”

“Alright. Let’s see.” Steve pretends to look over his notes before seeing the perfect question. “So, Billy, Do you know which two American states don’t observe daylight savings time?” Billy stares blankly at Steve. This was the final question in their lineup, but he had asked for a hard question.

Luckily, Billy recovers quickly and clears his throat before giving another chuckle. “Damn, I know I said give me a hard one, but I wasn’t expecting that. I’m gonna go with Hawaii and Alaska?” Steve shakes his head and gives a small sigh.

Dustin gives a little cheer, and then runs over to a table off to the side of the stage where they have a cue card that the contestant has to read off of if they lose. It was Dustin’s idea, the You don’t say? part of the title. It’s his favorite part of the show, because they get to see their contestants say some ridiculous things.

“Well, unfortunately, that was incorrect,” Steve announces over the booing audience. “And, following the rules, you now have to read whatever is on this card.” Dustin hands Billy the cue card with a wicked grin.

Billy sighs and flips over the card. There’s a moment of silence as he reads over what the card says, and then he looks up at Steve and clears his throat.

“Would a Pretty Boy want to go out with me?” He says in a clear voice, gaze never leaving Steve’s.

Suddenly too many things for Steve to process happen at once. He feels the heat return to his cheeks and his mouth dry out again, the audience goes wild, and a buzzer sounds, signaling that they were out of time for Did You Know? You Don’t Say? Dustin comes through and pushes a frozen Steve off-stage, where Billy is waiting in the wings. With the audience’s weighty gaze gone, the feeling returns to Steve all at once.

“What the hell man? What was that out there?” He hissed at Billy. The man simply shrugs and gives another one of his trademark smirks.

“Just giving the people what they want, Princess. Try to keep up.” And then he turns around, and walks away. Simple as that. Nothing to it.

Steve wants to scream. Fortunately, he and Dustin have been friends for years, and he knows all of Steve’s tics by now. The stagehands shoo them from the wings, and he pulls Steve through one of the backdoors to outside the convention center. Somehow, he also procures a water bottle in the hustle, and hands it to Steve once they’re both sitting on the steps outside. Steve takes the water bottle gratefully and chugs half of it in one long gulp. He pulls it away and wipes at his face before sighing. He seems to deflate, like a balloon losing all of its helium at once, and Dustin puts an arm around him. It’s awkward because he’s shorter than Steve, but it’s still comforting nonetheless.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Dustin asks quietly.

“I- I’m so stupid. For just a second I thought it was real, but why would it be? What would someone like him see in someone like me?” Dustin lets out a huff before pulling away and turning towards Steve.

“Steve, buddy, pal o’ mine. You’re an idiot. If anything, he doesn’t deserve you. He’s a pompous ass for pulling a stunt like that. It’s bullshit.”

“He could have anyone. Between his paycheck and his pecs, he’s one of Youtube’s hottest content creators.”

“Yeah, sure. But for the sake of alliteration, he also lacks personality. The guy’s a huge dick! And he proved it today. He knew that you wouldn’t shut him down and bitch him out on stage, so he thought it would be funny to pull that shit.”

“Yeah, he is kind of just a publicity-seeking asshole, you’re right,” Steve admits, feeling a little better, and a lot angrier. “You know what, Dusty-Poo? I’m gonna find him, and give him a piece of my mind.” He stands up, itching for a fight and knowing who to go find for one.

“Tha-that’s not exactly what I meant but sure! Go knock him down a peg.” Dustin stands up as well and follows Steve back onto the main showfloor.

It takes about twenty minutes to find Billy amongst the crowd but Steve sees him, and locks in like a tiger stalking his prey. Or something cool like that. Thankfully, Steve doesn’t have to make a huge scene as he walks up to Billy and gets in his face.

“You. Me. Conference Room 3. Now,” Steve says, poking a finger in the middle of Billy’s chest to emphasize his point. Billy chuckles, but still follows along as they walk into the empty conference room. Once they clear the doors and Steve hears them swing shut behind them, he turns to Billy.

“Explain. What the fuck was the point of that little,” he wavs his hand around, “stunt you pulled during the game show?”

Billy raises an eyebrow. “Told you Pretty Boy. I gave the people what they wanted.

“So that’s it? It was a publicity stunt?”

“You tell me. You’re the one who started the whole thing,” Billy shoots back, still holding on to an air of nonchalance, but Steve can his patience waning.

“You- you mean the stuff from February? When I happened to mention you in one video? You think I meant for that shitstorm to start, for fun and publicity?”

Billy only shrugs again.

“Okay. Nope. Again, I mentioned your channel one time, as a source. Gave credit where credit was due. I do it for all the channels I watch! I’ve mentioned Nancy’s channel like 8 times, and Jonathan’s too. Never had this shit started with them.”

“They’re married, Steve. Like super married. Of course it wouldn’t. We’re both single, queer youtubers. Of course shit’s gonna stop. Didn’t your agent or whoever look over your video?”

Steve huffs. “Oh yeah, let me just go hire an agent, cause I have such a need for someone to monitor my every move,” Steve snarked. Billy just looked at him like he had failed to add 2 and 3.

“You’re telling me you, part of one of the biggest channels on Youtube, don’t have an agent?”

“We’re not one of the biggest channels, and we’ve never needed one! We’ve got our team of editors and assistants, no need for some agent.”

“Steve,” Billy says patiently, like he was explaining something to a child, “You have over 4 million subscribers. That’s a big channel.”

“We’re still not one of the biggest channels, dipshit.”

“Oh, I'm the dipshit? I didn’t start a fucking fandom frenzy apparently by accident. Because I was smart and got a fucking agent.”

“You’re such an asshole.”

“Whatever you say Princess.”

“Stop fucking calling me a princess!” Steve screams, voice booming in the silent conference room. “Why do you do that? Pretty Boy, Princess, Stevie? Just- just stop with the fucking nicknames. It’s not fair.” The second part of his outburst comes out as a whisper, sounding almost desperate.

Billy was at a loss for words, but then again, he had always been more of a man of action.

So he says nothing, only gives a seconds’ thought of what he was going to do, before lunging forward and doing it.

Steve’s next words are muffled as Billy crashes their lips together with absolutely no finesse, teeth clacking. It probably constituted as the worst kiss Billy has ever had, but as he moves back, Steve grabs a fist full of blond locks and pulls him forward. Their

second kiss is far better. By no means is it soft, but that was just par for the course with them wasn’t it?

The kiss comes to a natural ending as they both pull back to breath, before Steve starts to giggle.

“You really need to work on your pick-up lines, Rat King.”

A soft gasp from the doorway cuts off Billy’s retort, and they both turn to see a girl decked out in Youtube merch, including a jacket with the Upside Down Theories logo on it. She had dropped her backpack, and was open-mouthed gaping at the two. Her eyes are as wide as dinner plates as she frantically gathers up her backpack and shoots out of the conference room.

“Chances that this blows up online by tomorrow?” Steve asks, turning to the blond next to him.

“I’m betting in the next two hours, Pretty Boy,” Billy replies.

A wicked smirk creeps onto Steve’s lips as he shrugs and says, “Oops. What was that about getting an agent to help with this stuff?”

---

Aside from this taking FOREVER, I hope you guys enjoy this! It was tons of fun to write.

tag team: @lostnoise @gideongrace @stevefuckingharrington @a-magey @catharrington @trashycatarcade @myboyfriendsteve @thesummerof84 @lightsupinthenorth @smashmouth-hargrove (lmk if you would like to be added/removed from the list!)

#tay writes #AGAIN FINALLY #harringrove #billy hargrove #steve harrington #stranger things #youtuber au #anon asks #tons of fun to write!!!

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phynali · 4 years

Text

more spn discussions, just skip this post y’all

@queerbluebird thanks so much for engaging with my post/reply! i really enjoyed reading your response and i have a long reply here.

i’m responding to your post/reply here rather than reblogging it because honestly that thread is - so long. so very long.

so first -

i agree there is a difference between entitlement and what i would call, not promise, but instead “narrative follow-through”. A story that completely lacks narrative follow-through does end up feeling disappointing, or frustrating, or rage-inducing, depending on what’s happened. to me there’s a fundamental difference between critiquing a story based on follow-through and bad storytelling (which your post aims to do), versus say, creating hashtag campaigns about a character being silenced because and spreading conspiracy theories about a bad dub (among other things honestly).

and also - queerbaiting totally sucks, we definitely do agree on that.

where we disagree, i think are these two core points:

i do not see the narrative build-up that demands a follow-through. i do not see supernatural as having built up to the story that many destiel shippers seem to think was there, and no one has ever been able to point out to me any actual textual reasons that do craft that narrative build-up

i fundamentally do not believe that destiel was ever a queerbait. queerbait involves active intent on the part of creators to tease a ship or queer representation in order to draw in $ from queer audiences without ever making it canon, so as not to alienate straight audiences. so, refering to point 1., i do not see the canon text as having laid the groundwork for a queerbait and those romantic tropes, at least not at any point in the past 7 years. and beyond the canon, the writers and producers and jensen ackles all indicated dean was straight, and that they were not writing a romance. if anyone queerbaited the fans, it was misha collins who kept teasing the possibility, and personally i would argue that was irresponsible of him. but that’s a different discussion altogether and tends to piss people off when it’s framed as such, because misha means a lot to them and it hurts to see the man who validated their feelings get criticized for the manner in which he validated them. so i’m gonna leave that aside.

beyond that, I want to engage with some of your specific quotes:

Supernatural loves to say “wait for it.” And I don’t think it’s entitled to feel betrayed if an author uses their story to say “wait for it” in order to convince you to stick with their story and then delivers the opposite after you do.

May i ask, where was the “wait for it” with destiel? this ties in directly to the queerbaiting. i indicated in my post/reply that while i see it from cas, there’s been little to no hint of any reciprocation of feelings from dean, and if anything the past 7 or so years have driven the point home that it isn’t happening. i personally am not able to see the “Wait for it” and that was the point of my question. without the “Wait for it”, i also can’t see the queerbait.

I asked for specifics and while i totally get not having the spoons, you provided a few:

(off the top of my head for Dean though, the mixtape, his response to Cas’ death at the end of 12, subsequent grief arc, and reaction to Cas’ return in the front half of 13 rank highly. His reaction to Lucifer’s prank call in 15x19 might rate, but maybe just because it’s so recent.)

not trying to be unkind here, but i quite genuinely don’t see any of these examples as framing cas and dean in a romantic light, or as hinting at a “what if”. the mixtape is like.... okay, maybe. i had read that as being symbolic of something else, but i can see wanting to read it from a shipping lens. (i don’t however think i’d read it as baiting or “what if” - it was quite textually not framed that way. shipping, 100%, but canon build-up, not for me).

for the other examples -- grieving for someone you consider family? and being happy when they come back? that’s not shippy to me. i mean - contrast the grief he showed over cas’s death compared to his grief over, say, mary? or, less extreme, charlie? and nothing compared to how off the rails he goes when sam is dead or he thinks sam is. so i -- i just can’t see those as creating a narrative that demands a follow-through. and when your friend who is dead calls your phone? of course you hop to the door - i don’t know what is romantic about that. sam would’ve hopped just as quick if “cass” had called his phone instead.

and look - i see what is fun to ship about all that. if i shipped it, i’d be happily collecting these moments with a smile and grinning to myself about how cute they are and much they mean. but shipping it vs. it being romantically framed in the canon are two fundamentally different things. shipping doesn’t imply narrative buy-in or deliberation from the creator.

moving on, you also spoke at length about 15x18:

15x18 made the sort of statement that drew back even people who did exactly what OP said they should do, turning off the TV years ago. It wasn’t a quiet “if you’re still watching, keep waiting,” so much as a shouted “hey we’re gonna do this thing, watch this!”

i guess destiel fans vs. those of us who don’t ship it really see this as fundamentally different. because you discuss that moment as one which requires follow-through, and say that if this were heteronormative m/f love declaration, there would be that expectation of follow-through. not necessarily reciprocity, but more - more conversation, more acknowledgment, more something.

(i mean - if there was more, but that more was “hey i love you too but only platonically, sorry man” would that be better?)

but no - i actually just... disagree with your point on that front. i can see why you feel the way you do and i acknowledge that it can be read as the start of a conversation. to me though -- and clearly, now that the finale is out, how the writers saw it -- that was actually the end of a conversation. the end of, like you pointed out, 12 years. a 12-year conversation that ends in a gorgeous declaration of love, and specifically how love isn’t about being together, it’s simply about being - it’s about the fact that you love someone, and that feeling alone is the most beautiful thing in existence.

to me, that declaration can only be written and interpreted as an ending. a sacrifice, a declaration, and a goodbye. so - while i kind of expected seeing more people in episode 20 and realize that didn’t happen largely due to covid - i’m not disappointed we didn’t see cas, because that culmination of his narrative (and then knowing he was with jack, after, rebuilding the heaven that he rebelled against and finally completing his narrative circle by fixing all the problems with it alongside the good god he sought to find all along) is kind of perfect.

and i genuinely don’t think if cas was in a female vessel this entire time that that would change. maybe some audience members would feel differently, but i think many of us would see it for the end it was nonetheless. there’s plenty of stories with m/f ships that are one-sided and that character sacrifices themselves for the person they love, so i don’t see why this would be any different (except the bury your gays issue, but that’s a whole other and very real conversation about media tropes).

moving on to the series finale.

As many people have pointed out in praise of 15x20, Sam is the absolute most important thing in Dean’s life, his priority above anything and everything… And yet there, at the actual end of the world, Dean ignores Sam’s call and instead cries over the loss of Castiel. Dean’s loss of Castiel plays in tandem with the loss of literally the whole world. But we’re not to take that as a promise that Castiel means more to this story, or to Dean, than a couple seconds of wistfulness after the dust settles?

I... yeah. i don’t see what this even is arguing. that dean taking a minute to himself to grieve his best friend, who just died in part because dean decided to go hunt down billie (who was literally dying anyway). he’s hurting. there’s nothing about this that’s a promise - it’s an end. it’s grief. it’s the horror of losing someone you care about, and the silence that comes after. it’s fundamentally human in it’s pain. and we, the audience, are invited to grieve with dean.

so I mean - of course cas means more to this story. of course he’s meant more than a few seconds of grief, after 12 years. but just because that’s the last time we see him on screen doesn’t mean we don’t value his story, and celebrate how it too came full circle.

You mention cas as a sort of avatar for a different potential ending for the brothers, and highlight him representing:

An ending where higher powers stop yanking them around and they get to actually live in the life they’ve built for themselves.

So while i never considered cas an avatar for that, i do think we all wanted the brothers to have their freedom. “finally free.” so we can agree on wanting that end. but we disagree on whether it was delivered, i guess? because i feel it was.

you also talk about what you and many other fans conceivably wanted a happier ending to look like. can i -- i’m going to be totally honest. i have not seen a single person who’s critiquing the end saying “i just wanted sam and dean to grow old hunting together with their dog until they retire together and die of old age.”

would that be satisfying to those who are mad about the end? i personally don’t think so, but maybe my opinion is being coloured by the most vitriolic fans i’ve seen. if sam and dean got to have the life they wanted free of chuck, and dean didn’t die, and they kept going (or retired and opened a bar together!). maybe sam still had a kid, but again because romance wasn’t the point, the wife wasn’t important and they left her blurry still so we could interpret ourselves if she was a wife or a co-parent or a surrogate or what. maybe dean has a kid too, with a similar question-mark-wife. maybe we get a few images of them having a holiday with jodie and the girls. and then getting to heaven together in old age, greeting bobby with a beer, and going for a drive.

would that be an end that wouldn’t cause fandom uproar? i would enjoy it, soft an slightly discordant as it would be to me. i prefer the ending we got, bittersweet and heartbreaking though it was, but i wouldn’t be taking to social media to yell about it if we got a softer epilogue, so to speak.

on the other hand... would that still not be enough, at least not for so many of the angry fans? i’m genuinely unsure. it seems to me that so much of the ire is about destiel itself, even if people are pretending it’s about more and other things than that. not everyone, but like, a big portion of them. which leads me to believe that nothing short of dean and cas at least interpretable as together is what they wanted. if every other single thing about the existing finale was the same except that cas was the one to greet dean instead of bobby, and even with the same basic dialogue, without discussing the confession, but they have a lingering smile, and dean leaves to drive and wait for sam with the promise he’ll see cas later -

if everything else stayed the same except who greeted dean, i genuinely don’t believe i’d be seeing almost any critique of the finale on my dash. maybe i’m cynical, but that’s where i’m at.

which is part of why i really struggle to believe that people are engaging in good faith when they critique the finale. because i feel like if it offered them either a) everything they’re purportedly asking for but still no cas and zero hint of destiel, vs. b) every other thing they claim to hate stays the same except there’s a wink and nod to destiel - i believe they would take the wink and nod.

On to some other things you raised:

But how can you know to walk away from a tragedy if the tragedy says “the end won’t be a tragedy, keep watching” right up until it ends in tragedy?

Oh i Get this. I hate thinking i’m consuming fun media only for it to rip my heart out at the end. i’ve literally - well, i’ve had a very unpleasant and distressing experience of this, actually. so i get it. also the opposite: i sometimes feel disappointed when i’m consuming media that is gripping and intense and painful, but then the end is too easy, too soft and happy?

BUT - supernatural never pretended it would have a happy end? the end was so. much. happier. than i ever expected. the Swan Song end was going to have Sam in hell being tortured by lucifer for eternity. according to something i read which i am fundamentally too lazy to link because who knows if it would have turned out this way but -- kripke was apparently going to have Dean jump in the cage with him at that end, if the series ended on S5? the ‘horror’ ending. completely devastating sacrifice for mankind (sam), and completely devastating sacrifice for his brother (dean). just -- oof. even if that wasn’t the plan and the series would’ve ended as the episode did - sam was still in the cage and cas was off waging war in heaven and dean was living every day knowing he was alive and his brother was being tortured.

i’m sorry if you thought you were watching a happier show. i know how much that hurts. that doesn’t mean the story was actually that happy though. sometimes, it’s on us as consumers to acknowledge we were misreading the media. i’ve had to do this. it’s hard, it hurts, but it helps you consume things healthier. i’ve had to do this growing recently, and i’m better off for it.

regarding the specific manner of dean’s death - that’s really not what my post was about and i’m not gonna address it here. i’ve talked about it elsewhere and so have others, and @lovetincture‘s original post spelled it out beautifully, in how human it was. i have feelings on how and why i loved dean’s death, and why it was the absolute opposite of what Chuck’s ending was and what he wanted (no blaze of glory), but i’ll leave those for another time.

They cast aside all the relationships they’ve built. [...] They lost/walked away from the life and home they built in the bunker. Dean got a season 1 death. Sam got a season 1 life.

I feel that there is a very huge difference between regression and progression when it comes to cyclical storytelling. And that difference seems to be missing from the ongoing discussions i’ve seen about this in fandom.

Coming full circle to season 1 does not at all mean that the development is ‘undone’ or that the story has regressed or that anything has been lost or destroyed. It can mean that, if the storyteller doesn’t know what the hell they’re doing, but in this case i don’t (personally) feel it’s a fair critique.

Dean’s death might parallel his s1 not-quite death from Faith, but the s15 result of that death is night and day. Dean is no longer alone. Dean does not go up to a lonely heaven filled with bittersweet memories, where even his canonical soulmate and him have wide gulfs between the memories they fill their shared heaven with. Dean dies a hunter, but he dies a hunter who literally saved earth and changed heaven and gets to spend eternity with his brother, side-by-side and together without all the pain and miscommunication, and he gets to see his family and loved ones too. he died having literally made the world so much better.

even without that though?

his story comes full circle, but dean’s character development isn’t about his death, it’s about the fact that in the first several seasons dean could hardly admit he cared without acting like his teeth were being pulled. he was too afraid of abandonment to ask for someone to be by his side. he was too afraid of rejection to let anyone in. and in the end? he asks sam to stay. he tells him that he loves him. he pours his heart out and says all the things that 15 years ago were stoppered in his throat, words trying and failing to claw their way free but his hurt and fears were too deep.

dean is free.

the point of dean’s story coming full circle to season 1 parallels was specifically to highlight this incredible development, not to undermine it. he is different. he is free.

god it makes me tear up just thinking about how happy i am for him despite how gutted i was by that scene??

(i could write a similar analysis for sam, about how he left for stanford to escape his life and how his finale life montage bits were the opposite of that, but honestly this post is long enough already).

Destiel is loosely a part of that promise in the sense that Castiel is a part of that promise. The symbol of free will

You make a super interesting argument about Cas being a symbol of free will. I don’t have much to say about it, because I’m gonna mull it over, because I think it’s kinda cool and I’ve never thought about it.

That’s - all i’ve got. thanks again for engaging. i’m happy to continue the convo if you have questions or want to reblog/reply

(though my followers might hate me omg, i’ve been spamming long spn meta posts for weeks now, it’s just been so confronting to see the ongoing fan reaction on twitter and how divided it is...)

#spn meta #supernatural #supernatural meta #spn #fandom discussions #uhhh what do y'all want me to tag this #it's not wank?#it's an open discussion which i like a lot #hmmm #discourse #i'll just go with that #destiel #kind of #this won't show up in the ship tag because that's not in the first 5 tags so i'm safe i hope #don't wanna be a dick and put this in the ship tag #long post #long post for ts #sorry if there are typos it is almost midnight and i am sleepy

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dismuch47 · 3 years

Text

STARTING POINT

Length: Longer than a drabble, but a one shot with no intention of continuing.

Marvel AU in which Vision (I’m calling him Paul) is the illegitimate child of Howard Stark. There are tensions between half-brothers, and this is the first time that they actually talk about something other than the strange family situation. And it happens to be about... a girl. I hope you enjoy.

This has been moved over from my deactivated blog, so no, this is not stolen if you recognize it.

“’Sup, nerd?” Tony let the door slam itself shut after flinging it open in a grand flourish. He flung his bag of dirty laundry on the mahogany dining table, let his leather jacket fall to the immaculately clean floor in a heap, and then trotted over to the kitchen fridge to excavate.

Paul shifted out of his cross-legged, curved shoulder posture (his studying posture) and sat up in a rigid manner. He placed his book on the cushion beside him, his lips in a thin line.

“Hilarious...considering your field of study in Quantum Mechanics and Theory, Anthony.” Paul called out for the other youth to hear. It wasn’t in his nature to give jabs to other people... but ever since Mr. Stark... or rather Paul’s biological father... had acknowledged the existence of a bastard son in England and the illegitimate child had been included into the multi-billionaire’s home at Mrs. Stark’s request... Paul had tried to rise to the challenge in order to “bond” with the golden son, Tony Stark. Apparently he only responded to sarcasm, rather than sincere attempts of friendship that Paul preferred.

Tony peeked his face from around the kitchen door, tilting the aviator sunglasses down from his face. “I study it, I don’t wear it. What is that, an argyle sweater vest?” His face disappeared once more as he grabbed one of his father’s choice beers from the fridge, closing the door shut with his hip.

“Mrs. Stark likes it...” Paul looked down placing a hand on the sweater vest. He didn’t dislike it... but he didn’t care for it. But anything was better then the second-hand clothing that was always too small for him back at the London shelter. And if it helped the mistress of this home approve of a bastard child more...

“Your mother will disapprove if she sees that rubbish on the dining table.” Paul warned his older half brother. He picked up his thick book and began reading again. “Why you insist on bringing that home when you can just-”

“Carmen. CARMEN will ‘disapprove’. I don’t think mother has done laundry or set a dinning table since her college days...” He slumped down in a white wing-backed chair across from the couch, separated by a glass coffee table. “Besides it’s all apart of the collegiate experience: announcing my arrival home with proof of my hard work and stank of my sheer brilliance.”

“Anthony, your father-”

“For the last time, it’s TONY.” He took off his sunglasses, his dark eyes like daggers at this blonde intruder of his home. He didn’t dislike Paul... he disliked how different Paul looked, sounded, and talked... forever reminding everyone in the household of his father’s infidelity. Of his mother’s pain... and tragic kindness for wanting this person to be part of the Stark family. The dark moment passed and Tony tossed his glasses carelessly to the glass table.

“...And dad can just deal with the mess.”

Paul’s blue eyes were cast downward, trying to resume his reading... recognizing the subtext of that wording, but Tony turned on the television to an outrageous volume, swallowed and sighed loudly over his beer.

“Tony-”

“Little brother, PLEASE.” Tony cut in. “Your bro is nursing a hangover at the moment.” He took another swig of beer. “Do you mind?”

There was no warmth in the word ‘brother’; it seemed more like a reminder that Paul was an outsider that Tony had to put up with. The lanky teenager began to slowly pack up his schoolwork, not feeling particularly welcome in the space...

Tony blinked darkly at the screen; images and colors barely managing to distract him from his mood... and guilt. He was mad at his father... not the accidental child resulting from unprotected sex. His brown eyes darted over to Paul, who was quietly collecting his things to leave.

“What are you reading?” Tony asked, monotone.

Paul blinked in surprise, then looked down at the book in his hand. “A Tale of Two Cities.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “This is why you are a nerd...”

“It is a school requirement.”

“Is it your first time reading it?” Tony raised a dark brow. “Or is it your 3rd or 4th time?”

Paul shut his mouth. It was his 5th. He couldn’t explain how it was that he was able to read so fast, or find a book so compelling upon a 5th or 6th reading. He traced his long fingers across the dog-eared pages.

“At the shelter, all I had was books. I...I like to revisit them...” He couldn’t meet the Stark’s brown eyes. “Like how Mrs. Stark likes to watch old movies over and over...she says they are ‘old friends’ that never change, but grow more enriching with each viewing.”

Tony looked down at the beer in his hand. That did sound like something his mother would say. He recalled her telling that to him. He also felt super awesome for reminding Paul about his life of poverty... which was still fresh. Tony turned off the tv.

“Fine. Books are the exception.” He finally looked over at Paul. “But you have GOT to get out of that gaming stuff if you ever want to get laid, Goggles.”

“Vision.”Paul corrected, a little too hastily. His hands held on to the book a little tighter. “It is live action role-play-”

“Oh my god, I can’t tell you how much I don’t care-”

“-And it is very therapeutic. It helps me get out the frustrations of being in a new home environment, learning American customs... feeling so different. According to Dr. Cho.” Paul defended, blossoming as he talked about this passion of his. “Vision is not just a character... he is an extension of my subconscious; trying to sort out and deal with my very average conflicts.”

“Yeah, that’s the ah...mutant...god... robot thing?” Tony asked, with a belch. Pretending to care was starting to give him a headache.

“Synthezoid.” Paul added.

“Right... with the magical jewel stone for... ultimate power?” Tony yawned

“Mind Stone.” Paul began realizing how stupid this all sounded. Tony had been present at the therapy session when Dr. Cho had explained how this experimental role play with peers might be good for Paul.

“Fascinating. I think I need to go whiz now.” Tony got up from his chair, setting the empty beer bottle, with out a coaster, on the glass table. “Well have fun with that sausage fest.”

“There are girls.” Paul blurted. “...A girl... there is one girl who does it too.”

Tony backed up, a bemused expression at Paul’s outburst. “I’m sure she’s a looker... geeking it up with the oily skinned, pimple-marked-”

“She is beautiful.” Paul’s tone took Tony aback; it sounded stoney firm and indisputable. And Tony couldn’t help but feel a tiny bit emasculated with his younger half brother now towering above him.

“Prove it.” Tony beckoned.

Paul narrowed his eyes down Tony Stark, feeling it trivial to prove his truth... as if his best friend was some prized stock animal to be appraised. Tony didn’t deserve to gaze upon real beauty... but Paul was a teenage boy. And he wanted to make this college tech jock drool.

He sat down, pulling out his phone and searching for a picture of her. Tony plopped down beside him and yanked the phone out of his younger half-brother’s hands. Paul protested, reaching with his long arms, but Tony was athletic and broad. He put Paul in a headlock after a brief struggle, and scrolled through the pictures on the flip phone.

Tony gave a sigh at all the larp pictures... they were in COSTUMES. “Is that face paint? Really, Vision??? Oh my god, you are going to die a virgin...” Then he came across a larper who was entirely too hot to be hanging out with such nerds. “Whoa... whoooaaaa. Is that her?” Tony showed the screen to Paul, who was still gasping for air before pulling out of Tony’s lessening grasp.

“...Yes...” Paul tried to push his hair back into place.

“Name?”

“Scarlet Witch-”

“Her real name, idiot.”

“Wanda. Wanda Maximoff.”

“Russian? Like Natasha... oh what’s her name. You know, she’s a senior this year...”

“Wanda is from Sokovia.”

“Same difference.” Tony shrugged.

“Actually-”

“Which means she probably has one of those dusky european accents.” Tony stood up, looking at more pictures. “Please tell me she has a dusky accent.”

“...Yes.”

“Oh god.” Tony looked at the screen for a beat. “You’re sure she’s only in high school?”

Paul firmly took his phone back.

“Fine... too young for me. And way out of your league.”

Paul looked down at the screen. He knew that was true, but it didn’t hurt less to hear someone say it. “She is just a friend. My only friend.” He held on to the phone for a beat, then closed it. He returned it to his pocket and picked up his book that he had discarded on the table. His shoulders sagged, and the words on the page were blurring together. Completely unreadable.

Tony damned himself when he saw the effect that his teasing had on Paul. The oh so sensitive, yet robotic Paul. “Okay. I’m taking this away.” He took the book out of his half-brother’s hands and sat on the glass table, directly across from the tall teen. “You’re tall, you have a pensively sweet British accent, and some girls like the peach-fuzz stubble look. You just need to stop slouching, and you’d be any girl’s dream boat.”

Paul looked up. “You have said that I’m oafish, awkward, and that my dialect is ‘annoying as hell’.”

“I lied. It’s hard to compete with. I cut you down to make myself feel bigger. Thank you Dr. Cho.” That didn’t seem to make Paul feel better; he seemed to slump even more in his seat, eyes downcast at the floor. “What... what is this? I basically called you pretty and you're being a pooper. What’s the problem?”

The blonde teen took a deep breath. “Steve Rogers.”

Tony blinked. “The star quarterback? The ruggedly handsome boy next door, class president, and so patriotic that he’s Captain America at all the Sunday Picnics? Sky-blue eyed, chiseled Adonis-bodied Steve Rogers? That Steve Rogers??”

Paul clenched his jaw and looked up at Tony.

“Oh man... good luck with that.” The Stark son gave Paul a sympathetic pat on the shoulder.

Paul leaned back into the sofa, feeling defeated. He looked up at the ornate crown molding on the ceiling. “She does not talk about him all the time... but she stares at him constantly. She wants to take our roleplaying sessions out by the football field just so he can see her in her costume. She has even invited him to one... and he came. She only stayed by my side because she was too nervous to be alone with him. He smiles at her and I just... I...”

“Wait... so they haven’t hooked up?”

“...I do not believe so.”

“Has he told her he even likes her?”

“Yes... well... he told the group that he likes us and what we do. He’s actually really nice and great in battle, which is an absolute annoyance...”

Tony rolled his eyes. “And have you told her? How you feel about her?”

Paul looked down at Tony. He opened his mouth but closed it. He looked away, trying to find anything else to focus on, but Tony drumming his fingers against the glass table drew his attention.

“If I told her how I felt... and she did not feel the same...”

“Well Vision,” Tony said standing up with a stretch. “Don’t you at least agree it’s a good starting point?” He made his way to the kitchen to throw away his empty bottle.

Paul sat, thinking about all the scenarios in which he could get rejected by Miss Maximoff. But there was one hopeful scenario in which she, in her usual tender way, is caught off-guard. Her eyes would warm and a broad smile would light him on fire inside...as it always did.

“Perhaps.”

#ScarletVision #WandaVision #Vision #Tony Stark #Wanda Maximoff #au #fanfiction #FOR THE FANDOM

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cctinsleybaxter · 4 years

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2020 in books

2020 was a year of changed reading habits; people reading more than ever or not at all, some changing their tastes and others turning to old comforts. While there weren’t any huge overhauls on my end, more free time did mean a total of 32 in a wider range of genres. In the past couple of years I found a lot of the things I read to be kind of middling and ranked them accordingly, but this year had some strong contenders in the mix. With college officially behind me I love nonfiction again, and I really need to stop being drawn in by novels with long titles that ‘sound interesting.’ A piece of advice to my future self: they will only make you angry.

The Good

The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky I loved the BBC radio play when I first listened to it back in 2017, but didn’t know if I could stomach the idea of actually reading the 700-page book, especially since I already knew the plot (spoiler alert: this had no effect and I gasped multiple times despite knowing what was going to happen; Fyodor’s just that good at atmosphere.) The story follows Prince Lev Myshkin, a goodhearted but troubled man entering 1860s Petersburg high society and meeting all of the wretched people therein as he navigates life, laughs, love, unanswerable questions of faith, and human suffering. I care about it in the same way I think other people care about reality TV shows and soap operas. I’m so personally invested in the drama and feel so many different emotions directed at these clowns that it’s like being a fan of Invitation to Love (with an ending equally upsetting to that of the show ITL is from, Twin Peaks.)

Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlanksy I adored this book. The first half reads a little like a Wikipedia article, and I was worried that it was leaning too clinical and would be disaffected with colonialism and indigenous peoples, but even that oversight is corrected for as the text goes on. It’s not going to be for everybody because it really is just the world’s longest encyclopedia entry on, well, salt, but it’s written with such excitement for the topic and is so well-researched and styled for commercial nonfiction that I think it deserves any and all praise it’s gotten. We have to talk about that time Cheshire was literally sinking into the ground, and companies who were over-pumping brine water to steal each other’s brine water said ‘no it’s okay it’s supposed to that’ so were legally dismissed as suspects.

Midnight Cowboy by James Leo Herlihy Cried. 10/10. The plot of Midnight Cowboy is very classic and actually has a lot in common with The Idiot, as 20-something Joe Buck moves from the American Southwest to NYC and meets myriad challenges as a sex worker. I’ve been obsessed with the movie for a few years now and the book made me appreciate it anew; I think it’s rare for an adaptation to take the risk of being so different from its source material while still capturing its spirit. The movie doesn’t include quieter moments like the full conversation with Towny or time spent in the X-flat, nor does it attempt to touch Joe’s internal monologue or his and Rico’s extensive backstories, but these things are essential to the book and are some of the best and most affecting writing I’ve ever read. Finally! The Great American Novel!

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones I would firmly like to say that this is probably the best horror novel ever written. The setup is very traditional in that it’s about a group of friends facing supernatural comeuppance for a past mistake, but delivery on that premise is anything but familiar. A story about personal and cultural trauma that raises questions about what we owe to each other and what it means to be Blackfeet, with a cast that’s unbelievably real and sympathetic even at their absolute worst. Creepypasta writers trying to cash in on the cultural mythos of lumped-together tribes wish they were capable of writing something a tenth as gruesome and good as this. It could very well be a movie the visuals and writing style were so arresting, and I can’t wait to read whatever Jones writes next.

Found Footage Horror Films: Fear and the Appearance of Reality by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas This is the least accessible title on the list since it’s a college textbook for people with background in film, but it was so nice to read a woman unpacking film theory with the expertise and confidence it deserves that I have to rank it among the best. I had an absolute blast reading it and am going to have to stop myself from bringing up the horror of 1960s safety films as a cocktail icebreaker.

Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy by Heather Ann Thompson

The year’s toughest read by far, but also its most rewarding. Thompson uses mountains of documents, government-buried intel, and personal interviews to explain what happened at Attica from beginning to end, and does a fantastic job of balancing hard facts and ‘unbiased journalism’ with much-needed emotion and critical analysis. It’s more important reading in the 2020s than any kind of ‘why/how to not be racist’ book club book is going to be, and the historical context it provides is as interesting as it is invaluable. The second half drags a bit in going through lengthy trial processes with some assumed baseline knowledge of legalese (which I did not have. All that criminal minds in 2015… meaningless), but aside from that editing and prose are some of the best I’ve seen in nonfiction.

The Bad

The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn A friend and I decided to read this together because I’m obsessed with how insane the author is and wanted to know if he can actually write.

He cannot.

The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All by Laird Barron Barron is an indie darling of the horror fiction scene, so I was excited to finally read one of his collections but can now attest that I hate him. If you’re going to do Lovecraft please deconstruct Lovecraft in an interesting way. I had actually written a lot about the issues I have with how he develops characters and plots, but one of the only shorthand notes I took was “he won’t stop saying ‘bole’ instead of tree trunk” and I feel like that’s the only review we need.

Bats of the Republic by Zach Dodson Look up a photo of this author because if I had bothered to glance at the jacket bio I honest-to-god wouldn’t have even tried reading this.

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone I went in with high expectations since this is an epistolary novella I’d seen praised on tumblr and youtube but oh my god was there a reason I was seeing it praised on tumblr and youtube. This is bad Steven Universe fanfiction. Both authors included ‘listening to the Steven Universe soundtrack throughout’ in the acknowledgements, and to add insult to injury there’s a plug from my nemesis Madeline Miller.

The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton The premise of this one plays with so many tropes I like that I should have been more suspicious. It’s a dinner party with stock characters one would expect of Clue, and rather than our protagonist being the detective he’s a man with amnesia stuck in a 24-hour time loop. Body-hopping between guests, he must gather evidence using the skillsets of each ‘host’ until he either solves Evelyn Hardcastle’s murder or the limit of eight hosts runs out. I read a lot of not-very-good books, and it’s so, so much worse when they have potential to be fun. This is how you lose the most points, and how I abandon decorum and end up writing a list of grievances: • Our protagonist can only inhabit male hosts, which I think is a stupid writing decision not because I’m ‘woke’ but because wouldn’t it make sense for him to also be working with the maids, cooks, and women close to the murder victim? • Complaining about the limitations of hosts makes some sense (e.g- there’s a section where he thinks that it’s hard to be an old man because it’s difficult to get to the places he needs to be quickly), but one of his hosts is a rapist and one of his hosts is fat. Guess which one gets complained about more. • One of the later hosts is just straight-up a cop with cop knowledge that singlehandedly solves the case. We spend some time being like ‘wow I couldn’t have done it without the info all eight hosts helped gather’ but it was 100% the detective and he solves the murder using information he got off-screen. • The mystery itself is actually well-paced and I didn’t have a lot of issues with it (e.g, there’s a twist that I guessed only shortly before the end), which makes it all the worse that the metanarrative of this book is INSANE. No spoilers but the reveal as to why our unnamed protagonist is even in this situation is stupid. I just know they’re going to make it into a movie and I’m preemptively going to aaaaaaaaa!!!

Trust Exercise by Susan Choi The fact that this was the worst book I read all year, worse even than the bad Steven Universe fanfiction, and it won multiple awards makes my blood boil. I could rant about it for hours but just know that it’s a former theater kid’s take on perception and memory, and deals with sexual abuse in a way that’s handled both very badly and with a level of fake deepness that’s laughable. Select fake-deep quotes I copied down because at one point I said ‘oh barf’ aloud: -I’m filled with melancholy that’s almost compassion. It’s sad the same way. -[On a friendship ending] We almost never know what we know until after we know it. -Because we’re none of us alone in this world. We injure each other.

There are also bad sex scenes that I can’t quite make fun of because I think (HOPE?) they’re supposed to be a melodramatic take on how teenagers view sex, but I very much wanted to die. Flowers were alluded to. Nipples were compared to diamonds.

Honorable/Dishonorable Mentions (categorized as the same thing because, well,)

The Life and Death of Sophie Stark by Anna North This book was frustrating because the first third of it is fantastic. It’s set up to be a takedown of the manic pixie dream girl trope, jumping from person to person discussing their relationship with the titular Sophie, and indirectly revealing that she was just some girl and not the difficult and mysterious genius they all believed her to be. Then in the third act, BAM! She was that difficult and mysterious genius and she’s now indirectly brought all the people from her past together. I wanted to scream the plot beefed it so bad, but the good news is I really liked this octopus description.

It was the size of a three-year-old child, and it seemed awful to me that something could be so far from human and obviously want something as badly as it wanted to get out of the tank.

Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore Cool new nightmare speedrun strat is to hear a 2-second anecdote from a documentary that people used to get radium poisoning from painting watch faces, be curious enough that you buy a book to learn more, and be met with medical and legal horror beyond anything you could have imagined. This was almost one of my favorite books of the year! Almost.

Radium Girls is very lovingly crafted and incredibly well-researched; one of those things that’s hard to get through but that you want to read sections of again as soon as you’ve finished. The umbrage I take with it is that it’s very Catholic. The author and many of her subjects are Irish and their religion is important to them, but it casts a martyr-y narrative over the whole thing that I found uncomfortable. Seventeen-year-old girls taking a factory job they didn’t know was dangerous are framed as brave, working-class heroes, but there’s not a set moral lesson to be gained from this story. Sarah Maillefer didn’t make “a sacrifice” when she agreed to the first radium tests, she agreed because she was terrified. She didn’t think she was helping she was begging for help.

The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins by Anna Tsing Tsing is an incredibly skilled researcher and ethnographer; there are so many good ideas in this book that I’d almost consider it essential leftist text… if I could stand the way it was structured. Tsing posits that because nature is built on precariousness she will build her book the same way, allowing it to grow like a mushroom, and thus chapters don’t progress linearly and are written more like freeform poetry than a series of academic arguments. Some people are really going to love that, but I’m me and a mushroom is a mushroom and a book is a book. I don’t think in the way Tsing does, and while I tried to keep an open mind it’s hard to play along when something is this academically dense and makes so many ambitious claims. As if to prove how different our structuring methods are, I’ve made my own thoughts into a pros and cons list

Things I liked: • ‘Contamination’ as something inherent to diversity • ‘Scalability’ as a flawed way of thinking (Tsing has written whole essays about this that I find very compelling, but a main example here is that China and the US have come down on Japanese matsutake research for being too ‘site specific’ and not yielding enough empirical data) • Discussing how Americans were so invested in self-regulating systems in the 1950s we thought they could be applied to literally everything, including ecosystems • “The survivors of war remind us of the bodies they climbed over- or shot- to get to us. We don’t know whether to love or hate the survivors. Simple moral judgements don’t come to hand.” • Any and all fieldwork Tsing shares is amazing; I especially liked reading about the culture of mushroom pickers living in the Cascades and their contained market system

Things I didn’t like: • Statements that sound deep but aren’t, e.g- “help is always in the service of another.” (Yep. That’s what that means. Unless an organism is doing something to help itself which then nullifies your whole opening argument.) • A very debatable definition of utilitarianism • “Capitalism vs pre-capitalism,” which seems like an insanely black-and-white stance for a book all about finding hidden middle ground • A chapter I found really interesting about how intertwined Japanese and American economies are, but it tries to cover the entire history of US-Japan relations. Seriously, starting with Governor Perry and continuing through present day, this could have been a whole different book and it’s a good example of what I mean when I say arguments feel too scattered (the conclusion it reaches is that in the 80s the yen was finally able to hold its own against the dollar. Just explain that part.) • A chapter arguing that ‘true biological mutualism’ is rarely a focus of STEM and is a new sociological development/way of thinking which is just… flat-out not true

For all the comparisons art gets to ‘being on a drug trip’ this anthropology textbook has come the closest for me. Moments of profound human wisdom, intercut with things I had trouble understanding because I wasn’t on the same wavelength, intercut with even more things that felt false or irrelevant. I can’t put it on the nice list but I am glad I read it.

#2020 #books #long post #(in case the read more isn't working)

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gale-gentlepenguin · 5 years

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ML Fic: Soulmate Survey Part 11

(Master post)

Before you start, I want to thank all of you so much for the amazing fan art. I never thought I would see so many versions of Marinette’s outfit. Also, your comments and support have really made writing this a delight.

Okay now for part 11.

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The ladybloger was relaxing in her room. She was looking at her laptop and was thinking of what to do? Adrien’s interview didn't start for another half an hour, nothing new regarding Ladybug and Chat noir, and she had zero motivation in tackling her homework. She was considering messaging her boyfriend and seeing if he wanted to play some ‘Super penguino’, he would likely say yes. Just as she picked up her phone, she remembered that thing Marinette sent her.

“Oh yea, what was this about.” She said aloud as she looked at the audio recording. “Jeez, its like a forty minute recording. What did she do an interview?”

Alya shrugged, ‘super penguino’ can wait. She pressed play and began listening to the recording.

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“And We. Are. Live! Welcome my lovely listeners! I am Sonny Potins and you are watching ‘Scoops and Scandal’, the show that brings up the scoops and scandals with your favorite Celebs.” The enthusiastic wavy blonde haired host exclaimed. She was in her mid twenties and was wearing plenty of make up. “And today we have a very special guest, you have seen his ads all over Paris, the young model who is the face of the Gabriel brand, the one and only, Adrien Agreste.”

The spot light shined on Adrien as he approached the stage to his seat with the audio from the cologne ad playing in the background. The studio audience cheered as the model walked with a cool yet approachable attitude. A bunch of them screaming ‘I love you’ ‘Adrien!’ ‘You are amazing’. Adrien smiled and waved at the audience.

Sonny was sitting in a comfy leather chair across from Adrien, who was sitting in an identical chair. She was sitting on the left, and her was sitting on the right. A table with two water bottle and two microphones stood between them. The chairs were angled to help the two face each other while also face the cameras and the audience. Above them was a jumbo screen that would show clips, info, and whatever the people in charge wanted to show. Usually fan submitted questions, photos or live cam.

“I am happy to be here.” Adrien greeted the audience.

“I am sure all of Paris would love to hear all about you. So lets get the ball rolling.”

Back stage, Marinette watched out of view, she looked to see Adrien notice her and give her a quick wink before looking back at the host. Marinette smiled at his sudden wink, doing her best to stay calm.

“Seems like everything is going well.” A voice whispered from Marinette’s jacket.

“Yea, I can't believe Adrien found out about the scarf. I thought he would be sad about finding out the gift wasn't from his father.” Marinette whispered.

“Seems like he is happy to have someone who cares about his feelings. You both seem to be really connecting.” Tikki assured. “I think he doesn't see you as a just a friend anymore.”

“You think?” Marinette questioned with hope in her voice.

“Call it a hunch, but in the mean time, we should probably listen in. Maybe you can learn more about him through this interview.”

“I am pretty sure it won't reveal anything new, most of these interviews are just for publicity, repeating questions that were asked in the past. But I am glad Adrien is getting the screen time he deserves. He is really great.” Marinette responded. “Though I am not opposed to watching at all.”

Tikki rolled her eyes and smiled at her chosen. Marinette sure was helpless when it came to Adrien, but the same could be said about Chat noir around Ladybug. How the red bug Kwami wanted to reveal this tid bit of information to Marinette. But she said she wouldn't and the time will come one day.

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“And I was right about his favorite color!” One of the four girls squeaked.

“We all got that question! I expect nothing less from the Adriknights.” Adrienne answered with pride.

Lila was sitting to the side of the couch as she watched these four fangirls gush at every word that Adrien said, it was nauseating. The interview was so by the book it was boring, combine that fact with annoying fans and it only gets worse. The brunette had begun contemplating the pros and cons of a lobotomy by plastic spoon, but she knew she would have to endure.

Adrienne was the perfect person to set up to be akumatized, she needed to wait for something to make her upset, anything that would bring potential negative emotions to draw an akuma here. But this interview was practically kid stuff. But then something caught her attention. Lila tuned back into the tv to listen to a particularly interesting thread the host was spinning.

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“...but yes I am allergic to feathers, but as long as I am not wearing them or I breath near them, I don't sneeze.” Adrien answered.

“Adrien, you are quite an enigma in this city. a young teen that is one of the most well known faces in Paris, a voice actor, and has his own line of cologne, which is just getting an international release.” Sonny exclaimed. The crowd cheered as the jumbo screen showed a picture of the Ad. “Yet you are one of the sweetest people I ever had the pleasure of interviewing. Most stars around your age are... well they are spoiled brats to put it mildly. What helps you stay so kind and keeps you grounded?”

The crowd was quiet as they waited for Adrien’s answer.

“Well I am lucky enough to be surrounded by talented people. My Best buddy Nino is an up and coming DJ, his girlfriend Alya runs the Ladyblog, my fencing Team mate Kagami comes from a legacy of proud fencers, and Marinette is a fashion designer that has designed works that the fashion critic Audrey Borgeois and My father have both approved of. The latter of which I can tell you personally is no small feat.” Adrien started off.

“Then of course the fact that we live in a city full of superheroes. Nothing is more awe inspiring and humbling then seeing Ladybug save Paris. She is just so incredible. It is reassuring knowing that she is watching over Paris. She is really Miraculous” Adrien slightly gushed before bringing it back. “Those are just some of the amazing people I know and know off, its easy to remember to stay humble when you are surrounded by wonderful people.”

The crowd awed at the cute statement. They were eating up his words.

“Talented indeed. You are quite the fan of Ladybug. If I remember correctly she has saved you a few time. Should Chat noir be worried if you have a crush on the spotted heroine?” Sonny teased.

The blond blushed, but didn't let himself get flustered.

“I am sure Chat noir wouldn't hold it against me. I am pretty sure everyone in Paris has a little crush on Ladybug.” Adrien deflected. “It would be easier to make a list of people who didn't like Ladybug.”

The crowd clapped in agreement, Ladybug was a well respected hero and the Blond made an excellent point. Marinette smiled at the little display, the blond was able to easily handle everything the host was throwing at him. She also was a little happy to hear that Adrien was a fan.

“Truer words have never been spoken. Though speaking of the cat hero, he happens to be a handsome blond hero with a certain flare, are you actually chat noir?” Sonny prodded. “Because that is a popular theory going around.

Adrien for a split second felt a tingle of fear in the back of his spine, but thankfully he knew the host was playing with him. So he laughed it off.

“Secrets out, Thats why I was cast to voice him in the movie.” Adrien remarked with a clearly joking tone.

The crowd laughed along with the blond.

“If that were the case, my father would have a trademark on all of the Chat noir merchandise in Paris.” Adrien answered.

“I heard your father is pretty protective of your image. Is it true that people can't take any pictures of you without you or your father’s consent without being fined?”

“Pictures are fine as long as they don't try to make merchandise of me or use it for financial gain like in magazines, media and tabloids. Thats when people get sued. Thats why there aren't that many paparazzi that hang out by the Agreste manor, they couldn't handle the lawsuits.” Adrien explained. “Not exactly easy to do, my father spent a fortune doing that, but considering the industry he was in, he more then made back his money.”

Marinette blinked.

That explained why he was never hounded at school by photographers. Though that didn't really stop the fans when that ad first came out.

“Fascinating, Your father must be pretty protective over you?”

“Its his way of showing he cares.” Adrien answered. He managed to maintain a smile despite how irritated he was over how protective and controlling his father is.

“So that means having permission to bring a guest to any of your events must be a hardsell.” Sonny continued prodding.

“He is easing up a bit more ever since he said I could go to school. I can sometimes bring friends along to events, like fashions shows and photoshoots.” Adrien assured. “I was even able to bring a guest to this interview.”

Sonny nodded.

“Oh, yes. I believe I bumped into her when you both showed up. I believe her name was Marinette. She was the designer you mentioned earlier.” Sonny smiled.

“Thats right. Marinette is pretty great. I am glad she was able to come along.” Adrien responded.

Marinette smiling brightly at the comment, he was happy she was there.

Sonny smirked, she had found a way to kick this interview up a notch.

“Hey can we get a view of Adrien’s cute guest? I remember her wearing this amazing outfit and I think the audience will love to meet her.” Sonny asked.

“Wait I think she should have a say before...” Adrien tried to interject but sure enough the big screen revealed a camera showing up behind Marinette.

“Say hi sweetie, you are on the air.” Sonny called out.

The bluish-black haired designer turned around and noticed the camera. She nervously waved, unsure of what to do.

“H-hi sweetie.” Marinette parroted nervously. She wish she was better prepared for this. Granted it wasn't the first time a camera caught her off guard, she still remembers when the cameras following Jagged stone went into her room. That was a real nightmare, this might be a close second.

The crowd was cheering as they saw Marinette on the screen. One person in the audience yelling ‘Damn she cute!’ but no one knew where.

“Oh wow, she is cute.” Sonny commented. “I need to find out where she got that outfit, it is incredible.”

“She made it herself. That is just one of her designs.” Adrien answered. “But I think we should turn the camera off, I don't think she would like to be on camera without permission.”

“Of course.” Sonny motioned quickly and the screen stopped showing Marinette. “I guess we got a little over excited her on SaS. Thats what I call this little show.”

“As I was saying. Marinette did design that outfit herself. She told me it was inspired by Chat noir and I must say it is very impressive.” Adrien veered the conversation back to avoid that awkward moment. He made a mental note to make sure Marinette was okay with being on camera like that and apologize if she wasn't. He had told her she would likely not be on camera, and this was counter to what he had said.

“Well I see why you are humbled by her talent. That design is to die for. Though are you worried that Chat noir might steal her away from you? She did base a design off of him.” Sonny poked.

Adrien felt a faint blush thinking about this.

“I am sure Chat noir would probably find himself falling for her if she wore that in front of him.” Adrien answered, more honestly then the audience knew.

“So what is your relationship with this Marinette? Are you dating? Because I do remember rumors floating around about you running around Paris with a mystery girl? Omg is SHE that mystery girl?!” Sonny excitedly interrogated, causing the crows to lean forward and ‘Ooooooooh’

“Marinette was one of the first people that helped me out when I first started class, though we didn't exactly get off on the right foot at first.” Adrien began.

“Oh? Someone that didn't love you after first meeting you? I find that hard to believe.” Sonny replied.

The Designer was beet red from the previous questions and was now listening super closely. She was going to get to hear how Adrien thought of her.

“You could almost say she hated me, but considering how she thought I put gum on her seat, I doubt anyone would have had a high opinion of me.” Adrien continued. “ It didn't matter that I was a model or had a decent face...”

One person on the audience screamed ‘Your face is perfect!’ which got a few claps. Adrien nodded in the direction mouthing a ‘Thanks’ before facing the camera again.

“It was the first time I realized someone was treating me like a person, not just as a model or as some rich person that needed to be coddled. It made me want to change her mind, her opinion of me mattered. Because it was someone that was judging me for me, not my reputation, not my family, just me.” Adrien confessed.

Marinette remembered that moment in the rain outside of the school. It was the moment that she fell in love with him.

“I managed to clear the air with her and she was happy to move past it once she heard me out about the misunderstanding. After that, I started to get to know her.” Adrien smiled. “She had become my first real friend even though it was a bit bumpy at first, she always seemed nervous around me, I thought it was because she was still on guard, but I realized that it was just her being Marinette, she always seemed nervous but never let it stop her from helping people. She is someone I admire and someone that I can say I am better for knowing.” Adrien finished.

The crowd was surprised by his answer. kind of silent by it.

Adrien realized he had more or less spilled out how he felt about her.

Crap... So much for keeping it calm and professional. I was so busy trying to not to put a label on it that I ended up spilling my guts.

The audience started clapping. There was thunderous applause, they were moved by Adrien’s word.

At the edge of the stage, Marinette was crying happy tears.

He thinks of me like that.

The audience’s applause seemed to die down and Sonny was able to speak up again.

“Truly beautiful wording. But that didn't really answer the question.” Sonny pointed out. She smiled as she noticed something on his cheek that was pointing away from the camera.

“Seems the make up crew missed a spot. There seems to be some lip gloss on your cheek there.” Sonny stated with glee. “And what a familiar shade it is.”

Adrien and Marinette’s face’s shared the same red blush and their thoughts were in sync.

OH FUCK!

“And we will find out more about that and answer some fan questions... When we come back!” Sonny answered as she closed out for commercial.

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“Oh wow things are really getting interesting.” Nino commented to himself as he was watching Tv and the interview went into commercial. “Good on Marinette for making a move.”

He decided to support his friend by watching the interview, at first it was pretty dull, until Adrien started talking about him and their friends. Of course that host smelled blood in the water and she kept on attacking. He notices his phone buzz. It was a text from Alya.

‘Open the door asap!’

Oh crap! Did I forget something important! Think Nino, is today her birthday? No that is next month. Anniversary? No that was last month. What did I mess up?

Nino opened the door to see his rather furious Girlfriend at the door.

“Hey Babe have you been watching Adrien’s interview? Things are really... is something wrong?” Nino asked cautiously.

“First, is anyone home aside from you?” Alya asked, talking with an eerie calm.

“Are you planning on Killing me?” Nino asked trying to pretend like he was joking.

“Not you, you are wonderful. Someone else.” Alya assured.

“Oh, then yea. Its just me.”

“Okay good.” Alya smiled for a second before closing the door before letting her emotions out. “THAT TWO FACED BITCH LIED TO OUR FACE!”

Nino was shocked. “Wait who?”

“Lila! She blatantly lied to our faces! She told us that she was sorry, that it was a simple error in judgment. That she was doing this to help Marinette and Adrien! It was all a load of crap! My Intuition was picking up on this but I ignored it because I didn't have proof. But now I have proof!” Alya raved.

“Babe, deep breaths. What proof?” Nino tried to ease.

“You are gonna wanna sit down for this.” Alya stated. _______________________________________________________________________

Lila felt her fist tremble as she watched that interview. She was disgusted by his praise of Ladybug, how he kept so calm and collected, but then, then he started talking about Marinette. He was practically saying he worshiped the ground she walked on and then just to add insult to injury, that comment about Lip gloss.

The brunette wanted to scream, but her emotions seemed to cool when she noticed Adrienne’s reaction.

“Who is that bitch!?” Adrienne shouted as she shot up from the couch. “How come she gets to get so close to Adrien!? How come he is practically singing her praises! Just because she is a designer? I designed all of these banners! I designed the Adriknight Logo!”

“Adrienne... Please calm down, I don't think they are dating. He would have clarified it if they were.” Maggie tried to ease.

Lila felt her rage turn to sinister inspiration.

“Oh Adrienne, I am really sorry to tell you this, but they are.” Lila spoke with a saddened tone.

The three other girls looked at Lila with wide eyes. As if saying ‘What have you done’

“WHAT!?! That can't be true. You are lying!” Adrienne cried out.

Lila walked over.

“They started dating a few days ago, after they got matched up in Soulmate Searcher.”

Adrienne felt her knees wobble.

“Thats not possible... I made an account, I would have showed up on his list if he had one.” Adrienne answered.

Lila pulled out her phone and showed her a photo, one that showed Adrien’s list.

“Adrien sent me this when he told me they started dating.” Lila lied as she let the girl look at the photo closely.

“Adrienne please don't listen to her. It is obviously a joke!”

“Oh, I wish it was. Marinette is a nasty manipulative shrew that is only dating Adrien because she wants him to help launch her fashion career. The poor boy doesn't even realize it.” Lila spoke into Adrienne’s ear. “I am convinced she rigged it to get 100%, after all, no one else has ever gotten 100%. But poor naive Adrien was so trusting of the app that he just couldn't help but give it a chance.”

Tears began to stream down the club president’s cheeks.

“Adrien... but he .... but we...” Adrienne tried to articulate as she dropped Lila’s phone. She ran into the bathroom and started sobbing.

The three other girls ran after their club president as Lila picked up her phone. She snagged an Adrien cupcake and took a bite out of it, before casually walking out of the room. Lila was going to make her way to the studio.

Enjoy your gift Hawkmoth. I need to go get that recording.

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A window opened letting the light into a dark room. A man in a grayish silver mask and a purple suit stood in a room filled with White butterflies.

“Ah, obsession, The crazy sister of the emotion of Love. The tears and absolute anguish of a heartbroken fan who finds herself separated from the object of her affections. How tragic. It seems Miss Rossi has blessed me with a gift.” Hawkmoth monologued as he opened his hand allowing a white butterfly to land. He infused the white butterfly with his power turning it into an akuma

“Go my Akuma, find the source of that powerful negative emotion and evilize her” The villain exclaimed as he sent out the akuma from his hand and let it fly into Paris.

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Adrienne wept on the floor of her bathroom as her friends tried to get her to come out. She was clutching her bag of homemade Adriknight pins as she cried.

“Adrien... you belong to all of us... not that evil witch...” She sniffled as she let her sorrow take hold. The akuma flew through the small bathroom window and possessed the bag. Adrienne sat up and her face now had a purple butterfly outline over her face.

“Fandoom, I am Hawkmoth. Adrien is someone that can not be possessed by one individual, he deserves the praise and adoration of all of Paris. I am giving you the ability to expand your influence and power by recruiting more members for your cause. Show him that he deserves better. In exchange, you will deliver to me Ladybug and Chat noir’s Miraculous.”

The red head smiled darkly at the proposal. Adrien was not something that could belong to one person. If Adrien was taken away, then there would be no Adriknights, and then the club would dissolve. She couldn't let that happen!

“I accept Hawkmoth. I will show Adrien the love he deserves.”

Adrienne was covered in a purplish black mist transforming her into an akuma.

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Part 11 is finished I am so amazed by all of the amazing takes you guys have on Marinette’s outfit. So, I thought of something that would be cool if you guys are up for it. I want to see your guesses on what you think ‘Fandoom’ looks like. (This is completely optional and will not impact whether or not I write part 12. It would be super cool to see.)

Please Keep up that amazing feedback. I love seeing those notes and comments, It really feeds my impulsive need to write.

Below are all the people who are tagged. If you have not been tagged, and want to be tagged, or requested to be tagged and want to be from now on (PLEASE Check to make sure you are tagged in case there is an issue with the system):

@suzanaboss @chrissyl0v3 @changingmagz @black-cat-9000 @misscrimsonflame @wegan97 @maddrag @lady13bug @franco-green @i-sttan @t-mblrwontletmehaveagoodname @miraculous-multishipper@assortedyeets @noirchengs @katzzz @miyugaze@mindfulmagics@janaikam@wolfyred-ks @only1nycsweetie @aconi17 @miraculousl4dybug @origami-dreams @mellsrants @idekpeople@isingwhennobodyseesme@garfieldloganlovesrachel@mr-ray607@bromanticgigglefits @masked-bixch@starryarose@flightfoot @coccinellegirl@cheezuschryst @checkmeow @auroradraws @absolutelycoathangered@solar-flare-606@angelisalise

@the-tophatted-dinosaur @galaxies-of-fandoms @rasberrytears@gprattt001 @katthekitkat@myheadinthecloudsnotcomingdown@shayshaymonyou@un1cornf1ghter@mewwitch @lionxufia @obliviousasheck @princessofdawn0718@martasaur @jewelcuzimpreciousdamit@ariana-the-fangirl@whimsicallyconfusedforlife

@mr-adrien-swagreste@poptartpeter@kabih@howtoshuckatlife@theartistinbed@alyas-ladyblog @http-chatbug @blueflower45 @generictrashblog@certainmuffinbagelcalzone

@adricat-and-buginette@tylily@snow-swordswoman@rose-sparks13@wilhelmares @mintflavormelon @kphoe8 @mery-vhan27@skeletonmermaidlife@mermain123@chatnoirismycinnamonroll @here-in-the-corner@lidgraphy@kitzune701 @bowser14456@coccinellegirl@funstufffandomsandcoolpictures @red-pandas-and-books@jsaais@strangerahne @ladybub @zoe-oneesama@chimpcamp@galahadwilder @biacetrash @rose-sparks13 @dweeborg @communistchexmix @heizerux @fusselkuchen @shitposting-embodied @tigris-types @avatar-jenny-mac @xxxspacexxx @loving-neko @coltaire @seguin @ale-san28 @foreverrightnot @panda-charlotka @fanatic-kay @random-posts-and-stuff @moodiecookie @dear-minette @adannayamiraculousbakes @lunamoonmint @lilbabygoose @kiara-rose-blackthorn @pendragonpotterwinchesterchief @kikisuteru @rominix11 @starlightky @theluckiestwitchathogwarts @cosmiccarrotcake @gargling-through-the-memes @theyellowfeverexperience @scurry-vampire @fan8687 @finnsauroraborealis @vi-bi-bye @silent-storms-posts @kmarinova @absolutelycoathangered @maggiethemagical12 @lexysama

#soulmate survey #soulmate searcher #miraculous ladybug #ml #adrienette #ladrien #marichat #ladynoir #marinette dupain cheng #Adrien agreste #alya cesaire #if this one could also get 1000 notes that would be beautiful #or some delicious fanart #nino lahiffe #so much drama #the fluff #the suspence

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