#but it's better him and everybody else dying than the timeline being erased by a higher entity.

[randomsloredrops]

Random's Lore Drops - Sand Under Table (FR this time)

Alright, so basically, i hate my shitty sans lore drop so i'm making a real one. Ready? Because it's time for...

Cursive, Cursive the Skeleton. Wait what do you mean it's not Cursive? Oh, Sans? sorry. Sans, Sans the Skeleton.

Time to rant. Like, REALLY rant. So, Sans The Skeleton. You know him, you love him, or you hate him. I'm in the middle-ground. I don't give a fUCK about that twat. He's the face of Undertale (but most definitely not what defines it), as well as the first person you meet in Snowdin, excluding Mister Camera which people usually miss (it's in the bush right as you exit). He's a comedian skeleton who likes to play pranks, and also tells over half as many puns as Papyrus (wild ain't it?). His first introduction is not at the gate, but instead the walk to it, where you get to watch his shadow move around as you walk, and also watch as he snaps a stick with ease (don't ask how). As you might know, he's completely nihilistic, and refuses to fight you until you actually end up being a threat. That's right, first degree murder on everybody except those two Froggits you forgot about in the Ruins makes you not a threat, but a Genocide route does. Why? Well, it's simple. You become a threat to the timeline. Now, it's to note he DOESN'T remember resets, only being able to tell by Frisk's expression (which is not related to your input). He also doesn't have the deja vu that others have, instead noting down things during resets, like Frisk turning around before he tells them to, and them acting like they did everything before. He DOES, however, state that there are reports of timelines shifting left and right, which means he has some sort of machine to tell. It's pretty known, but the reason he doesn't kill you isn't out of laziness, but instead, having a promise. He outright tells you that he'd kill you in a paci/neutral route during the "date" with him. He is CANONICALLY only friends with Toriel, and even then, he never knows her name until the pacifist pre-ending cutscene, before Asriel. sans.™ literally could not give any less of a shit, but because he knew Toriel for a while, albeit due to the power of knock-knock jokes, he ended up accepting. He also states that he HATES making promises. His attitude really tells a lot, as, even in his boss fight in the Genocide route, he does not give a SHIT about it. He constantly looks like he's joking, and he does NOT act overly emotional in any situation, with the most emotional that he gets being to tell yourself to politely go fuck thyself by telling you to burn in hell, and calling you a dirty brother killer. He still CARES about people, he just rarely shows it. That "dirty brother killer" line really shows it. After all, how would YOU feel if broke into YOUR planet, into YOUR country, into YOUR town/city, and killed your only family member and then said I was above consequences for that. ...Ignore the "your planet" line. Trust me I come from Earth. It's also shown based by his room that he is NOT a clean person. His first stand stinks of condiments, he sells hotdogs at his own stand, and it's assumed that he LITERALLY has the exact same stand everywhere, based on the snow on the roof, which never disappears in any instance of his stand (stand, IS THAT A JOJO REFERENCE?!?!?). His only role, aside from comedic relief, is the final Genocide boss (which he is known as), and the guy to judge you before you go to Asgore, since that is his only role. Now, onto personal hate. People DON'T realize that he's not fucking FIGHTING you because you're a threat to the kingdom, but because you're going to ERASE the timeline, and when something's erased, it usually never comes back. It's because of the timeline possibly being erased forever, in which he fights you and tries to off you. He doesn't know about the "deal" that the Player makes with Chara, in which you trade your SOUL to recreate the timeline from square one. (my personal headcanon for if Sans ever remembers you're genocides is to go fuck off elsewhere, since there's no reason to fight, right? After all, you're not permanently erasing the timeline, he has no reason to fight. It may be erased, but it keeps coming back, even if YOU don't recreate it, because another Player will.)

[mettywiththenotes]

ROTT Thoughts and Spoilers

I know a lot of people aren’t happy with the ending (and That One Thing), and it was a surprise to me too. I think it was obviously supposed to be telling the end of the series, but as a movie on netflix, they also presented it as a stand-alone, which is why Blinky was recapping everything and had no follow-up as to why he was telling it, and why he was going through every bit of what happened. Plus the subplot comedy with Steve. If it was supposed to be both connected to the series but also stand-alone for kids who didn’t know what it was connected to, then they likely felt like they had to add in the comedy to fill in the gaps of trauma and death (though the subject for the comedy is... questionable lol)

I also see a lot of people talking about how everything has been erased now from the timeline, BUT CONSIDER - Jim now letting everything happen again so he can find his friends and let them have the happy endings they deserve without all their trauma

Like I also think the Toby Getting The Amulet part was a little off, but I kinda think it was because Jim was thinking Toby could have the coolness of the armour and heroic duty too! And since Jim is there to stop him from getting traumatized and hurt, Toby gets to have his fun and so does Jim by being his sidekick, fighting bad guys and getting The Good Timeline

BUT ANYWAY I keep thinking about the possibilities of what could go on now, since it seems to be somewhat of an open ending

Like imagine Jim letting everything that happens happen, but having a suspicious amount of knowledge on the dangers

Toby just keeps saying to him “Man, Jim, you always seem to know what to do! It’s like you’re psychic or something!” and Jim just laughs, shaking his head because Toby doesn’t know how right he is

But then it gets more serious and Jim is basically stopping stuff that should have been harder to dodge or get around. Toby gets to the point where he’s like “Okay this is seriously getting scary, Jim. How do you know all this stuff?”

And idk maybe Jim does something so crazy, so very suspicious that he can’t excuse anymore, that he just tells Toby. He just tells him that he’s from another timeline and about what happened and it’s like such a stark contrast to how he normally is in that timeline - Jim is happy now, here with all of his friends, doing somewhat normal kid stuff and being the knowing sidekick because he doesn’t want Toby to die. He’s so happy, but when he can’t make excuses anymore and tells the truth to Toby, it’s like he’s reliving everything with a melancholy expression that nobody is used to seeing

And in truth, he kind of has been reliving everything anyway. He’s been having nightmares of the other timeline - of Draal dying again, of Nari and Strickler dying and not being able to save them. Of course, he can save them now, he has that chance, but he still remembers everything from the other timeline and is still traumatised by it.

And so, not being able to get around Toby’s questions anymore, he tells him what happened, and Toby is hooked on his every word. Listens to him and sees what Jim had gone through.

When Jim finishes his retelling, Toby is as patient and kind as ever. “Oh, Jim, I didn’t know... wait, doesn’t this mean you’ve been reliving everything on your own? All those bad guys and all that pain?”

Jim gives him a considering look before shaking his head a little. “It’s a little tricky. All the events are the same, but not exactly the same, you know? I know what happens, so I can change it, so nobody has to die and nothing has to get worse. And we can find all my friends - our friends - again. And everything will be okay.”

And Jim smiles, because this is better. This is what he wanted, right? Sure, there are some things he misses; his familiar bond with Blinky being one of them. They are still friends and they still talk now, but the bond just isn’t the same as it was in the other timeline. And Strickler still being his step-dad is good, but that bond that they had before, of being direct enemies and student and teacher in both the class and training, is gone, and things are still better and nicer, but it’s just not the same

But this is fine too! Right? He’s better here. Happier.

Toby pays more attention to him now. He’s still his friend and they still save the world together with Claire and the trolls, but Jim can never escape his eye when a bad memory comes up, or something triggers him.

When necessary sacrifices come up (like having to let one of their friends get hit so they can do something that will end the fight quicker, or having to let his friends fail in order to acquire something and then succeed), the guilt on Jim’s face is so visible. He wants everybody to be fine and happy, to meet his friends again in a better world, but for that to happen, there’s a certain give-and-take that needs to take place, and it breaks Jim’s heart every time. He doesn’t let anybody die like in the other timeline, of course not, but he still doesn’t like purposefully screwing them over just to get to a better vantage point where he can deal more damage to the enemy, or do something that will end one of the apocalypses quicker.

It’s a little thing between Toby and Jim for a while that nobody else knows about.

Sometimes, Jim gets his nightmares and he wakes up during the night, cold sweat and shaking. He immediately texts Toby to see if he’s awake, and Toby always is. He offers Jim to come over and talk. Toby has always been such a good friend to him. Somehow, that thought is what makes his breathing come quicker when he remembers the other timeline’s Toby, his dead body in that van.

Jim stands outside his house, still in his pajamas, waiting to be let into Toby’s house. They sneak up quietly and Toby distracts him, or they talk about it. Sometimes it ends in tears, with Toby hugging him and comforting him, and sometimes Jim is muffling his laughter so much just so he doesn’t wake Nanna, or even the whole neighborhood. Toby distracts him with comic books, or with an anecdote on smthg that happened where he had gone off with Aaaargh to a park and tried to keep him hidden from the people.

It’s a secret between them, for now. And Jim finally has someone to talk to about it, until he eventually chooses to tell the others

When everyone is finally back together, he tells them, and they get straight to defeating the Arcane Order, stopping the end of the world and saving Nari, and the effect that she has on the world is that the world is reborn with her power, but she can control just how much gets reborn. So idk maybe the planet just has a little more plants now than it did, and humanity is still saved

But because time travel is tricky, and because I’m not quite sure on timelines, maybe the Arcane Order being defeated extends to both timelines, so all the kids get to concentrate on in The Good Timeline is beating up bad guys and being kids

(ugh, timetravel)

And - of course - they all finally get to have brunch together, like Douxie promised! And Jim gets a therapist because its what he deserves

This kinda got away from me but anyway these are just my thoughts, you don’t have to follow them, and all I can say is thank god for fix-it fics and au’s

Like I guess I’m not too against the ending of the movie, but I will always be thankful for fix-it fan content

[jcmorrigan]

Even Badasses Cry

The F/O? Giovanni Potage from Epithet Erased. The S/I? Rachel Scribere - mundie, writer of much fanfiction, independent contractor supervillainous minion who has also given up on adulting. (Most of those things apply to me IRL!) I’m now caught up through E6, and this was...blatantly inspired by E5. I mean, having written him comforting me during a breakdown, I wanted an excuse to flip it, but thanks to E5 breaking my heart, I had the perfect launching point. Also, timeline at this point is “You decide.” This doesn’t work with canon or postcanon so just...use your imagination for whatever.

***

           It was nice, that we had managed our own apartment. Sure, it was the bottom of the barrel as far as apartments went, but I was dying to prove my independence, and no disrespect to Mrs. P., but I felt Giovanni was a bit better off not having to yell back and forth with her five times a day.

           Also, I knew if I got in another shouting match with her, I wasn’t getting out of it with both Giovanni’s and my self-respect intact. Believe me, I know that your partner not getting along with your mom is The Worst, and that woman does not back down.

           Could I have done without the multiple flights of stairs and no elevator I had to hike every day? Sure, but I’d done a higher trek on my study-abroad in London. So long as I had the motor function of both legs, I’d be fine. Now, if I ever lost motor function of one or both legs, then we’d have to figure out a new plan.

           The stairs also gave a person ample time to sing whatever song was stuck in their head as they ascended, so by the time you got to the apartment itself, you’d have it out of your system and you wouldn’t look like a dork in front of your partner. However, being that my dorkness was already a known fact, I unlocked the door and swung it open while actually increasing my volume; “The paaaa-pers say! Johnny, won’t you come back home! But everybody knows you don’t! Wanna give yourself up; tell the truth and – “

           The apartment was dark, so of course, I had thought at first I’d beaten Giovanni home. When he stirred from the kitchen table, however, I was startled into halting the song, nearly dropping the grocery bag I held – my protective instincts regarding the carton of eggs taking over and forcing my grip to tighten.

           “Oh, COMPOSER!” He had been inexplicably sitting at the table in the dark, arms crossed on the tabletop and head down on them, until he became aware of my presence. Now, still in the dark, he scrambled up to his feet, leaning casually against the wall, crossing one ankle over the other. “Didn’t hear you coming up! Nice voice, by the way! Anybody ever tell you that?”

           “Is…there a reason you were sitting at the kitchen table alone in the dark?” I asked with trepidation, walking toward said table to deposit the eggs somewhere safe. I kicked the door shut behind me, which I failed to account for lowering the visibility in the room even further. “Hey, can you hit the lights?”

           “I dunno, I think this feels more atmospheric. Can’t you just feel the villain aesthetic brimming in this room of abysmal void?”

           “What I feel is the sense that I’m about to run into the fridge.”

           Which I proceeded to immediately do. That was, however, fortuitous, as I needed someplace to deposit the eggs and the produce I’d scored. I pried the door wide, beginning to unload the bag into organized compartments –

           And as the meager light poured into the apartment, Giovanni retreated from it, scurrying along the wall like a cockroach.

           Well.

           I stuffed the bag in the fridge and shut it; it could get sorted later. “Is something wrong?” I asked as I turned to make out his thin silhouette, padded with that fluffy sweater he so loved, in the dark.

           “Wrong?” He laughed nervously. “Why would anything be wro-ho-hong? No, noooooo, I’m just in a DARK and EDGY mood because I’m a VILLAIN. Every villain has to go through their serious phase!”

           “Okay,” I said with a shrug. I turned back to the fridge.

           Which was a feint. Before Giovanni could catch me, I had whipped around and smashed that light switch, illuminating the room.

           When I looked him in the eye, I could see exactly why he’d wanted those lights down. The skin around his eyes was pinkish-red, somewhat swollen. Either he’d had a very localized allergic reaction to something he had yet to identify, or…

           “Were you crying?”

           “NO!” He folded his arms and turned his face away from me. “I was definitely NOT CRYING! It just looks like I was…because…I got punched in the face!”

           “Gio, if something’s wrong, you can tell me. I’ll listen. That’s what I’m here for, you know.”

           I saw his lip quiver. Then his voice cracked; “They really did punch me in the face. They beat me up, all of them. About twenty of them.”

           I could practically feel my own heart hurting. “Rivals?”

           “No. Other Blasters.” He sniffled. “They all think I’m some kind of loser freak or something. They just don’t get it! Or…or maybe it’s because…” His chest began to shake. “B-because I am one – “

           I didn’t need to hear more. I rushed to close the distance between us, wrapping my arms suddenly and tightly around him, one on the waist, one on the upper back. He clung to me in return, no longer holding back, heaving sobs.

           “Oh, God, sweetie…” I said softly. “You’re not a freak or a loser.”

           “But even YOU say you love how much of a loser I am, and I know you mean it as a compliment, but – “

           “I’m sorry. There’s a big difference between being a garbage fuckup and not taking life too seriously, or being a little spacey. Trust me. I’m the garbage fuckup here. Not that I want pity. Shit. Don’t make this about me now. DO NOT MAKE THIS ABOUT ME NOW.”

           “I’m trying, Rachel…I’m really trying, and nothing fucking works out for me…”

           I froze. He was using my actual name. Which meant things were worse than I thought.

           I wriggled out of the embrace, taking his hand. “Come with me.”

           He followed obediently, as though lost in the wilderness and trusting the guidance of a will-o’-the-wisp, until I brought him to the couch and sat down on it. For this, I would need him to have less of a height advantage on me, so I patted the cushion beside me, encouraging him to sit down. He did, still gasping as teardrops trickled down his cheeks.

           “Look at me,” I told him, softly yet firmly.

           “I don’t wanna,” he protested. “It’s bad enough already. Now you’re seeing me having a breakdown – “

           “Everyone has breakdowns, Gio. This is okay. You’re still an awesome badass. But I need you to look at me.”

           He pivoted to face me, slowly, gingerly, trying to stop crying cold-turkey to put on a show for me.

           I reached out, taking his face into my hands. “I love you so much,” I told him, then began the treatment process.

           First, tugging his head downward so I could kiss his forehead, right between the brows. Then delivering a line of kisses down each cheek in turn. A few along either side of his jawline. Then, finally, on the lips – he was far more passive than usual; I couldn’t feel the light prick of his fangs on my lower lip.

           As I backed off from his face, I put a hand up, palm out, to his chest. “Can I?”

           “Y…yeah…”

           I lay it right over his heart. It was something of a shared secret between us – a spot on his body he worried about, sometimes, because it still protruded slightly, giving away that it used to look much larger and softer and not at all like how he wanted his body to be. This was our arrangement, my reassurance that it wasn’t a flaw on him.

           “Does it still hurt?” I asked.

           “Yes,” he choked. “Emotionally AND physically. This is helping, though.”

           “Okay.” I was getting another idea. “Then follow me.”

           I lay back, stretching across the couch, and I tugged his forearm to bring him down with me. He obeyed, lying somewhere on the overlap between beside-me and atop-me, his head nestling into the hollow of my neck on my right shoulder. I was still shorter than him, so I supposed this would look comical to an outsider, me trying to play a horizontal sort of big-spoon with his legs dangling far past where my own ended. Here, I just let him be, not asking anything of him, just stroking a hand over his hair, down onto his back, over and over again.

           “They’re all pieces of shit,” I assured him. “Give me a list of names and I’ll annihilate them.”

           We knew it was an empty threat. I still didn’t have blood on my hands. I wasn’t sure if I ever would – but more frighteningly, I had the suspicion that the capacity was inside me, and I wasn’t sure how he would feel if it ever came out. But that wasn’t today’s topic.

           He didn’t say anything, just giving another choking sniffle. “It’s okay,” I told him. “Just get it out. It’ll get better. I promise.”

           “I w-wasn’t supposed to break down like this.”

           “It’s seriously okay. It’s just you and me. You’ll be able to come at them again swinging in a few hours.” I sighed. “I hate them. So goddamn much. Thinking about you getting pummeled makes me so goddamn mad – “

           I realized I had knotted my fingers into his hair and was pulling the locks rather hard out of frustration. Immediately, I let go. Well, that was a rather frightening thing I hoped wouldn’t happen again. I was angry because he’d been hurt; I certainly didn’t want to end up hurting him worse.

           “I have to stop talking about it,” I admitted, planting that hand firmly on his back, drawing circles with my palm. “Or else I’m gonna punt a chair into orbit.”

           “I just felt so…so fucking helpless…”

           “God, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry – “

           My free arm came up to wrap over him, keeping him tight against me. Protectively.

           “You’re amazing,” I whispered. “You’re beautiful. And you’re not a garbage fire. Don’t even think about it. Please. Just…let this be it. You and me. You’re safe here.”

           It was barely audible: “Thank…you…”

           “No. Thank you.”

           I placed another kiss on his forehead.

           Words were spent. We stayed like that for half an hour, lying adjacent, sharing the burden.

[elspethsunschampion]

Fact or Fiction: Chapter Seventeen

Rated M for abuse, sexual content, and discussion of rape/non-con.  Canon-typical violence.

Summary: It’s Ral Zarek’s sixth year at Hogwarts. And everything would be fine if Jace wasn’t totally occupied with his new girlfriend, to the point where it’s honestly kind of weird, and Ral’s starting to be concerned. Now if only everyone would stop telling Ral he’s just jealous and LISTEN to him…after all, he’s NOT just jealous, right? (Sequel to Send to Sleep.)

Ships: Jace Beleren/Ral Zarek, Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy, Luna Lovegood/Hermione Granger, Nissa Revane/Chandra Nalaar, Elspeth Tirel/Teysa Karlov

A/N: Many, many thanks to @paperclipminimizer for beta-ing and checking my timeline, as well as answering all my questions about Harry Potter. Thanks also to Juri, @dragons-suck, and everyone on Sketchydoodles’ Vorthos server for listening to me rant about this thing as it took shape.

Also available on AO3 and FFnet.

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen: Moonlit Wake

           The moon was rising above the treetops of the little glade, a thin, silvery-white crescent. Jace looked up at it, took a deep breath, and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. His other hand was currently occupied with Ral’s, and the other boy awkwardly tightened his grip as Jace’s breathing changed.

           It had turned out to be pretty easy to slip away from the school by night these days—all they’d had to do was ask for permission to sleep on the lawn, and then set up a drowsiness potion that Kallist had blown over towards the prefects. Guiltily, Jace shifted from foot to foot, but it wasn’t really betraying anyone’s trust, because it was for a good cause.

           “Okay, we’re all clear!” Chandra called from the other side of the clearing, and Jace took another deep breath. Everybody was here.

           “Lumos,” he croaked, and the end of his wand flared with white light. After a moment, there was a murmured chorus of echos, and eleven more lights blossomed in the thick darkness of the Forbidden Forest. Chandra hurried into the clearing, holding onto Nissa’s hand tightly. Jace didn’t think they’d stopped holding onto each other since Nissa woke up, not that he was in any position to judge, he supposed.

           “Ouch,” Ral said irritably at his ear. “You’re squeezing too hard.”

           “Sorry.” Jace forced himself to relax his hold on his friend’s hand. Okay. Everyone here was a friend. Everyone here would help. He just needed to tell them what he needed. Taking another deep breath, he let go of Ral’s hand for long enough to give a halfhearted wave at everyone assembled in the clearing. Elspeth was closest to him and Ral, standing between Teysa and Ajani. Behind her, Tamiyo and Narset waved their wands at him. Dack’s wand hung down over Narset’s shoulder, but he grinned at Jace from his position slung down over their backs. Gideon and Koth, who had been checking the other side of the clearing, were just coming back, their little lights twinkling as they moved. Above Jace, Kallist created a miniature ball of flickering light, and behind him, he felt Mirko’s cool presence.

           “Hi, um. Thanks for coming. We haven’t really had a Sleep Club Meeting for, um, a few semesters now, I guess. And this isn’t exactly Sleep Club stuff, but I—” Breathe in, breathe out, keep talking. “—I trust all of you. This is Teysa Karloff, by the way, I know you guys have all met her, but, um, I guess she’s sort of an honorary member now. Anyway.”

           He found himself pacing in front of the lake’s edge. Jace wasn’t quite sure why he’d chosen this particular location, but it was far away from the school, and a part of the forest that wasn’t terribly occupied by much of anything—partly because it was at the edge of Mirko’s hunting range, so anything staying here would have to constantly fight through a lowgrade sense of unease. Which wasn’t currently affecting any of them, but that was because Mirko was specifically protecting them, as Jace had asked them to.

           “By now I guess everybody knows what Liliana Vess did to me,” he managed, and it came out almost easily, although there was still a soft, bitter refrain in Jace’s head of, Why didn’t you notice? “So, the thing is. When I stopped her from—when I finally stopped her from cursing Ral—” That came out less easily. Ral’s hand fell from Jace’s shoulder to his waist, and, to his surprise, Ral pulled him quietly against him in a half-embrace. It only lasted for a moment, but the contact was enough to steady him. Ral was all right.

           “You saved my ass, in fact,” Ral murmured in Jace’s ear, and Jace glanced at him in surprise. “Nah, you’re not projecting, I just know how you think.”

           “I went into her head so that I could stay ahead of her.” Jace locked eyes with Teysa for a moment, and she gave him a discreet nod. “And it worked bloody well, I’d have killed her if Professor Lovegood hadn’t stopped me. I still wish I had.”

           “Wish I could’ve killed her,” Ral muttered under his breath.

           “But I’ve still got the memories in my head.” Jace pressed a knuckle against his forehead. “Which fucking sucks, frankly, and if that weren’t bad enough, the Ministry tried to get them away from me. I don’t want them to have these, I don’t think they should have these, because I don’t trust a bunch of random strangers who are part of the government that thought it would be a great idea to experiment on me as a child.” His voice was rising, and he had to pause and take a deep breath. “I want these out of my head, but I don’t think I should erase them, because someday it might be really important for someone to have this knowledge.” He managed to crack a faint smile. “I’d just really rather it was someone I trusted.” Okay, he was doing great, everyone was nodding. He just needed to explain the next bit as well. “There’s something else, too. Emmara was—she was a real person.”

           He saw it the moment they all realized. Ral had known already, of course, but Jace hadn’t told anyone else. He hadn’t been able to, until now. Elspeth’s mouth opened in a ‘O’ of horror; Teysa’s mouth twisted to the side. Tamiyo and Narset both put their hands to their mouths, Dack staring from behind them with wide eyes. Chandra actually twisted to the side, letting a sudden burst of flame loose from her outstretched hand. She stared at it in consternation for a moment, before Nissa pulled her close and held her.

           “She was a good person,” Jace continued. He had to keep going, or he wouldn’t be able to finish saying what he needed to say. The horrified, sympathetic look on Ajani’s face might choke off his ability to speak if he didn’t hurry. “We were going to be really good friends, but I—I only knew her for a few days before she died. Um. She was actually a few years older than us. She’d finished up at Beauxbatons the year before, and she was studying to be a healer.” His face was wet, and his voice was cracking. “And she really liked dolls, so I—I got her this.” He pulled the little blonde doll out of his robes. “I was going to give it to her as a thank-you for putting up with—with the amount I talked about R-Ral for n-no good reason.” Fuck. It was getting hard to talk around the tears.

           Ral’s hand tightened around his again. Gideon was nodding encouragingly, one hand shaped into a fist. Jace inhaled deeply. “I never gave it to her, because—well. It didn’t seem right anymore.” Because when you were suddenly dating someone, it seemed strange to give them a thank-you present for listening to you babble about someone you thought you’d had a crush on and now suddenly didn’t. Because his whole relationship with Emmara had changed. Because it wasn’t Emmara anymore. Because—

           It was hard to see the little doll through the haze of tears over his eyes. Grinding his teeth together, Jace forced the words out. “I don’t want these memories anymore, I don’t want to see her dying. I don’t want to see her being murdered from the point of view of the person who murdered her. So I’m going to take the memories out and put them in this and obliviate myself.” He held up the little vial of pensieve potion that he, Ral, and Teysa had quietly removed from Professor Malfoy’s locked Potions cupboard. They probably could’ve just asked, and maybe before this semester Jace would have, but right now he felt that the fewer people who knew about this without being directly involved the better. “I feel like the Ministry might’ve been right, though, a little bit. I mean, maybe these will be really important someday. Maybe it’ll become imperative that we have some of this knowledge, to—to protect people. So I want to be able to get them back if I have to. But, um, I don’t really trust a lot of people right now.” Jace ran out of breath, his words tripping over themselves as he went faster and faster because he had too much to say, and it was getting harder and harder to say it.

           Staring directly at the silver glow of his wand helped because it narrowed the world around him to that single mote of light. “I trust all of you.” The words came out monotonous and hollow, sounding fake to Jace’s ears, but he meant them as much as he could. “If—if you don’t want to help me, that’s fine, but it’d be good if you could leave now. What I want to do is hide the pensieve with the doll somewhere in the Forbidden Forest and then split up all the memories so that all of you only remembers a bit of where they are. So that if they’re needed, we’ll all have to agree that they’re needed before we can find them. But, um, I—I understand that you might not want me fucking about with your head like that, so—so—of course anybody who wants to can leave.” He thought about mentioning the redundancies he was going to try to build into the spell in case of someone dying or something worse, but he decided not to. A flicker of Teysa in his mind commended him for being appropriately paranoid.

           There was a long pause, and Jace shut his eyes, letting only the bright pink-green afterimages dance in front of his retinas. There were a few murmurs, and then Chandra said loudly, “Glad to see you’re still an idiot, idiot. Of course we’re going to help.”

           Jace took in a sudden, hasty breath and tried to brush the tears away from his eyes, but they were flowing too fast for that. “Thanks,” he managed to get out through a sobbing hiccup. “Okay. Can all of you come a little closer so I can be sure I have enough light?”

           The first step was going to be the hardest, because Jace was going to have to perfectly copy what Professor Malfoy had done to extract Jace’s memories for the Bottled Dreams potion. Jace had really hoped he’d do a proper incantation, but he’d done it wandlessly. Of course. That whole thing had been a horrible exercise in trying to keep secrets while sharing someone else’s mind, but then he’d already kind of been doing that every time he’d gone into Ral’s head lately as well.

           Shutting his eyes again, Jace pointed his wand at his temple and focused on the remembered sensation of the memories traveling from a mind to the wand, focused on the strange new tug and coiling and the not-quite-words Draco had used to move them. At first, it felt like his head was going to come apart into two pieces, but he gritted his teeth and yanked harder. There was a moment of unraveling tension, and he felt the memories begin to flow into the wand.

           He had to open his eyes to begin the transfer from his wand to the pensieve vial, and he had an unpleasant moment of vertigo when he thought he was going to lose the spell, but though his vision blurred, he managed to hold the wand steady. The memories glistened in the wand-light as he kept unraveling in his mind, pushing them toward the vial. It became a little easier once there was arc from his mind to the vial, the liquid pulling the memories along, almost seeming to make a place for them. Thank god for his Legilimency lessons; Jace was pretty sure he’d never have been able to manage this if he hadn’t already been intimately acquainted with playing around with the inside of his own head.

           By the time the last of Liliana’s memories slid sluggishly into the vial, Jace was sweaty and trembling, and the only reason he was still upright was because of Ral’s firm arm around his waist. He leaned backward against his friend, trying to get his breath.

           “You okay?”

           “Just—give me a minute.”

           If you’re lucky, you get to be snogging Ral in a few hours, his tired brain reminded him. Just had to get through this. Pushing himself up against Ral’s arms, he staggered upright again. “Okay. Since no one’s left, I’m just going to stasis it under the lake—”

           “Let me do it, Jace.” He didn’t know when Elspeth had gotten so close, but it was a relief to be able to pass the vial to her, especially since he knew he still had to perform an Obliviate spell on himself and a modified version of it on the rest of the students after that.

           “Thanks,” he whispered, though he still had a small twinge as he let go of the vial. After a pause, he also handed over the doll. “I guess I was thinking—she could sort of watch over it,” he mumbled. “Kind of silly, but…”

           “It’s not silly at all.” Elspeth’s voice was steady as a rock, and her hand pressed his in the sturdy way only she could manage. “You think it’ll be best under the lake?”

           Jace nodded, and Nissa stepped forward. “I’ll levitate it,” she offered, and Chandra, who also had her mouth open, shut it embarrassedly. “I’m better at fine control than you are,” Nissa said mildly, and Chandra scowled but nodded.

           “Wingardium leviosa.” Elspeth cautiously slid the vial into the doll’s clothes and let go of them as Nissa spoke the incantation. The little doll bobbed outward towards the center of the lake and hovered there.

           “Stasis temporis et stasis loci,” Elspeth said clearly in her Scottish lilt. A wavy blue glow formed around the doll, shimmering inchoately and then forming into an oval blob. She and Nissa looked at each, clearly a little unsure of what to do next, and Ral sighed. “Someone get the water out of the way,” he said. “Someone who isn’t me, I’m crap with water.”

           Both Narset and Tamiyo stepped forward, and with two neat wandswirls and some murmured words, a magical vortex formed in the center of the lake; then the water seemed to peel away to both sides, leaving the muddy lake bottom stripped and clearly visible in the center. Nissa lowered her wand, and the doll, with its vital cargo, floated slowly downwards into the center and lodged there. A wand movement from Koth drew the mud up to half-cover it and partially hide it from view. Little by little, Narset and Tamiyo let the water trickle back over it until the top of the lake was placid and undisturbed once again, nothing but a cold misty haze hanging over it.

           “Goodbye,” Jace whispered, his pocket where the doll had lain feeling light and empty.

           He shivered, then raised his wand to point at his own forehead again with a sense of heady relief. “Obliviate,” he whispered, and then he was blinking, and they were gone. Liliana’s memories were gone. He sagged against Ral again.

           “Fuck, Jace, warn us, will you!” Ral was trembling. “You were out for almost five minutes.”

           Oh. He was sitting on the ground with Ral behind him, and his hair was wet. “Did you get lakewater in my hair, Ra—” He looked up. Ral’s eyes were red, and he swiped at them as he looked away.

           “Yeah, I’m fucking incompetent, deal with it, okay?”

           “I—um, I still have to do the last spell.”

           “That’s great, you can do it sitting in the mud because I’m not catching you if you fall over again.”

           “We need to leave the clearing first,” Jace pointed out. “I mean, it’s not going to be much of a secret if we’re all still here when I get rid of the memories.”

           “Yeah, well. Shut up.”

           “You can do it once we’re all back on the lawn,” Elspeth suggested. “That way, we’ll be back quickly.” And if anything goes wrong, we can shout for the teachers.

           “I heard that thought,” Jace muttered giddily, and Elspeth gave him a strange look, but he let her help him to his feet.

           Walking through the forest with Kallist hovering overhead, Mirko’s soft footsteps behind, and both his arms slung over Elspeth’s and Ral’s shoulders, Jace felt more himself than he had in days. He wasn’t entirely he sure he wanted the walk to end, ever, but he still had stuff he needed to do tonight. And he wasn’t sleepy, exactly—more exhilarated. He was bloody exhausted, of course, so tired that he could barely move his legs, but his mind was clear. It was like a Butterbeer high but—clearer. As if everything was light and air.

           The Sleep Club stumbled back onto the Hogwarts lawn to see that the Drowsiness potions were still slowly exuding smoke, and the sleeping bags were still exactly where they had left them, but it didn’t look the same to Jace. The darkness had seemed vaguely menacing before, and now it was welcoming. The flickering flames of the fires the teachers had lit to keep them warm looked cozy and homey instead of eerie. And as Elspeth and Ral helped him back to his sleeping bag, Jace surged to his feet, took their hands, and twirled them around in a clumsy circle before collapsing to his knees with a giggle that turned into a full-blown laughing fit.

           “Oh, great, he’s finally gone bonkers,” Ral said in exasperation, which also seemed hilarious. Jace curled over himself, clutching at Ral’s knees, and Ral went over foreward and collapsed to the ground beside Jace. He ruffled Jace’s hair awkwardly. “So—your other spell?”

           After another several seconds, Jace managed to contain the giggles and drag out his wand. “I’ve actually got a good feeling about this,” he said, smiling confusedly at Ral. Ral blinked for a moment, then smiled back, and Elspeth patted his shoulder.

           “That’s good, Jace, but you are being a little hard to predict right now,” she said sensibly. “Just be careful, all right?”

           He didn’t want to be careful; he wanted to let himself fall into the feeling of being all right for just a little longer, but he knew that Elspeth was right, and he nodded. Taking a deep breath, he looked at everyone around him. “I’ll be careful,” he said. He looked down at his wand, then felt Mirko’s presence at his back, sighed, and laid the wand down carefully.

           “I don’t actually need it for this,” he said, not entirely sure who he was talking to, and he reached up and undid the clasp of his cloak.

           God, what an evening. Jace laughing was good, but Jace passing out for five minutes definitely wasn’t. At least despite the flashiness of setting his wand down, the second spell he’d done had only taken a few moments, and Jace’s eyes had been open for all of it, glowing a bright, eerie blue. Now, he really should try to get some sleep—and Ral wondered when he’d started fussing like a mother hen—but Jace had run off somewhere else to get something else. Just how many things had he been planning to do tonight?

           With a groan, Ral heaved himself upright again, trying to figure out where his friend had gone. Nearby, Elspeth was looking around in confusion as well. “You didn’t see where he went either?” Ral grunted. “Fuck, I mean I’m glad he’s feeling better, but—I dunno how long this is going to last.”

           “At least the spell worked.” Beside her, Teysa nodded.

           “Mirko went with him,” she added. “Don’t worry, I don’t think Mirko will let anything happen to him.”

           Moisture trickled into Ral’s hair, and he glanced up. “Did he tell Kallist to guard me or something? I haven’t seen him leave Jace’s head since—since I woke up.”

           “I wouldn’t be surpri—Jace, there you are!”

           “Thank god,” Ral muttered under his breath as Jace came cannoning back, somehow having apparently moved from not being able to stand up on his own to running halfway across the school grounds. “You think you can try going to sleep now, Jace?”

           “I, uh…” Jace rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. “I got you a Hanukkah present.”

           Ral blinked at him. “What?”

           Elspeth colored suddenly and exchanged a look with Teysa that Ral couldn’t read. “We’ll just leave you two alone, shall we?” she said brightly, and Teysa gave an exaggerated yawn.

           “I’m so very tired,” she agreed theatrically, and the two girls immediately moved away towards their sleeping bags, giggling together. Ral watched them go suspiciously, then looked back at Jace.

           “Well, I mean—it’s the first night of Hanukkah tonight, right?” Jace suddenly looked concerned. “I got that right, didn’t I?”

           “Oh, um, yeah, I think so.” Ral waved a hand vaguely. “I haven’t been paying much attention.”

           “Anyways, I guess I’ve been waiting all day to give you this. So, um, here.” Jace held out a medium-sized crystal vial filled with dark liquid. “It’s—I finally got the Bottled Dreams potion to work. It’s not a long dream, but—maybe you’d like to try it?”

           “Have you been waiting for this all night?” Ral asked. Jace shuffled awkwardly. “Okay, okay, give me the damn potion.” It wasn’t like Ral didn’t stay up half the night working on stuff in his tower anyways.

           The potion was dark blue, with a faint silvery sheen. He sniffed at it, but it didn’t have much of a scent. Maybe a faint hint of mothballs. A sip told him it tasted of nothing much either, just a vaguely watery Gatorade.

           Ral put his hands behind his head and lay back on the sleeping bag. He felt a little drowsy, but nothing more. There was a momentary feeling of weightlessness. The warm body beside him on the bed shifted, and he blinked, shifting against them as well. For a moment, nothing else happened, and then Jace rolled up onto his elbow and looked down at Ral. His blue eyes widened fractionally, and then he grinned, ducked his head, and kissed Ral on the mouth. It was clumsy and wet, but warm. Ral wanted to hold onto the feeling forever.

           When Jace pulled back, it was only to flop sleepily down beside Ral again, and now Ral caught sight of the sky above his head, deep velvet blue and clear—a familiar sky. The sky from the Astronomy Tower. A single little twinkling mote of light hung for an instant and then descended, whipping across the horizon and vanishing in a brief burst of fiery glory.

           He blinked and opened his eyes again, to see that Jace was sitting cross-legged on the grass beside him, chewing on his knuckle.

           “You asshole,” Ral said, and Jace’s face fell, eyes scrunching together in sudden pain, his breath indrawn in a hiss. Ral’s stomach turned over. “Jesus, not like that! For—acting like you didn’t know that I—uh—you—” he paused. “Jace, you’ve been in and out of my head for the last week. You do know I’m as gay as the stupid halls people will be decking in a week, right?”

           “I—I mean, yes, I know you’re gay,” Jace shifted, the expression on his face turning abashed and something halfway between hopeful and still devastated. “But that doesn’t mean that you think about me—I mean I’ve been trying not to check what you feel like about me, I didn’t want to invade your privacy too much—”

           “Oh. My. Fucking. God.” Ral rolled up on his knees, grabbed the back of Jace’s stupid neck, and dragged Jace’s stupid mouth down so he could kiss him on his stupid lips. Jace gasped against his mouth, muscles stiffening under Ral’s hand, but before he could kiss back, Ral pulled away long enough to say, “How I feel about you is that you’re my best friend, you’re an idiot, you’re annoyingly sexy, and I’d like to euphemistically sleep with you as well as literally sleeping with you all the time. And if you don’t snog me right now I will hit you with my pillow until you beg for mercy.”

           Jace made a noise that was halfway between a gulp and a laugh, and then muttered, “Well, I wouldn’t want you to fuck up your pillow,” before leaning in for another kiss. This time, he had a hand on Ral’s shoulder and one one his cheek; Ral shifted up onto his knees for a better angle and slid his own hands into Jace’s cloak around his waist. Jace moaned into his mouth, and Ral took the opportunity to deepen the kiss, tracing his tongue around Jace’s lips and probing into Jace’s mouth. Jace made another noise, low in his throat, and his hand dropped to Ral’s shoulder.

           As Jace pressed closer against his front, Ral took the opportunity to slide backwards and grab Jace’s hips so that they both went over, Jace falling on top of Ral, flush up against him. Gulping out a breathy noise at the contact, Ral let his hands snake up Jace’s back, holding him close, and Jace ducked his head, letting their lips meet again. God, this whole horrible year had been officially so fucking worth it. Ral could take a few more sessions of the Cruciatus Curse if it meant getting to snog Jace senseless later. And the noises Jace was making in his throat—soft little pants and moans—were both adorable and highly arousing.

           Rolling to the side, Ral shifted their positions so that Jace was on his back leaning up into him, then dragged his lips down the corner of Jace’s mouth and began to kiss down the line of his jaw and then up under the vulnerable hollow of it.

           “Ral,” Jace whispered. “Oh, fuck. Oh, that—mmmn—”

           “About damn time.”

           Jace gasped and tried to sit up; Ral sighed and lay down on top of him, looking up to find that Chandra and Nissa were standing over them. “I swear to god if you ruin this for me,” he whined.

           Chandra grinned. “I wouldn’t dream of it,” she said. “Just needed to make sure you two were finally shagging.”

           “We are not shagging!” Jace protested.

           “Yeah, even with the fires, it’s a little too chilly out to be having sex.”

           Chandra’s grin widened, and Nissa went red. “If you say so,” Chandra responded. “Anyway, carry on, I’m just—glad—that’s all.”

           “Chandra,” Jace said. “Uh—you were totally right, by the way. I deserved to be punched in the face.”

           “You did what?” Ral scowled at her, and Chandra shifted uncomfortably.

           “I’m sorry, Jace,” she said, “I didn’t know about the spell. It was dumb.”

           “You were worried about Ral. You get a pass.”

           “What the—no, she doesn’t! No one is allowed to punch my boyfriend in the face!”

           “I’m really sorry, okay?”

           “Ral. Leave it.” Jace’s hand landed on the back of Ral’s neck, and for an instant, every piece of thought processing equipment in Ral’s brain short-circuited. “So I’m your boyfriend?” Jace asked. He sounded like he was trying way too hard to be casual.

           “Yeah, sure, as long as you want to be.” Ral tried to match it with his own casualness, but he wasn’t entirely sure if he managed.

           “Yep. Yep. Boyfriends, sounds good, great, bye now, Chandra, bye Nissa.” Jace’s cheeks looked faintly red, and Ral didn’t think it was just the firelight.

           Nissa waved and started to move back in the direction of what was probably her own sleeping bag, tugging Chandra with her, but the other girl paused for one moment longer. “Pro tip, if you squeeze his ass, he makes the most adorable little squeaking noises.”

           Ral bit his lip and grinned, looking back at Jace, who was red to the tips of his ears.

           “I do not!” he protested. “Just because we had one snog a year ago, she thinks she knows everything about m—”

           Ral pinched his ass. Jace squealed. Nissa and Chandra fled, giggling.

           Swatting Ral gently on the arm, Jace surged up and pressed a quick kiss to the corner of Ral’s mouth. “Happy Hanukkah, Ral.”

           “Happy New Boyfriend Day, Jace.” Jace stuck out his tongue, and Ral pressed him down into the sleeping bag again.

[cwdcshows]

Arrow - S8 E9 - Green Arrow and the Canaries

Here we go, the backdoor pilot for what I'm sure will be another stellar series in the DC/CWU; and it's a shot of someone on a motorcycle buzzing around the city.  You can tell they must be in a hurry, because I'm pretty sure I just saw them pop a wheely.   Oh, it's Laurel; I can tell by the way she fiercely turned from the bike to the camera like she just got off it. Sigh.... Naturally I'm trying to figure out if the scenes with Dinah and Laurel are set in the present or the future; because they sure as hell don't look to have been aged.  The way Dinah keeps making pointed references to "2020" make it clear that it's not 2020 (although it does bring up an interesting point about when Crisis occurred, because that started at the end of 2019...)

....Sigh... So what, even though the Crisis was over and Dinah was shown to be an integrated part of the new Earth reality who J'Onn gave her whatever pre-crisis knowledge she needed; not only did she inexplicably wake-up in the future, but was also wiped from reality.... Fuck you writers.  Just fuck you.  You had a thousand different ways and opportunities to lay the groundwork for this; and you're just going to pull a dues ex machina out of your ass?  I mean, it's typical, but still, fuck you. And I can tell already that it was probably Oliver, as the Spectre, who saved her and sent her to the future; probably to help his daughter.  And that's fine.  It's stupid, but it's fine.  What makes even less sense is Dinah being wiped from reality post Crisis when they had her on the new Post-Crisis Earth; and now they're trying to shoe-horn this shit in. So is Laurel displaced in time too?  I'm having difficulty telling, because the few times they showed her in the future they didn't seem to try and age her much, but at the same time I swear she's wearing a shit ton more make-up than I would normally expect. Sigh.... so Dinah's been displaced too, and has knowledge of the future of the future.  Has no one involved with these shows figured out yet that they all suck at writing time travel stories?  Do they lack any self-awareness?  Obviously these are rhetorical questions; because just as obviously the answer to both is, yes. Give me a fucking break; Star City has been virtually crime free for the last 20 years? Just like that?  Well, maybe what everybody said about Oliver being a magnet for some of the bad things that happened was true; because otherwise that's some grade A bullshit.  This big ass fucking city, which presumably has only gotten bigger by some measure in the last 20 years, doesn't have the occasional murder or robbery?  They're all happy, shiny people, who uphold the law out of deference to the man who sacrificed his life for the planet?  Is Oliver Queen fucking Jesus now?  Is that the big graduation Mia is celebrating, is she becoming the first Pope in the Church of the Green Arrow?  Does the choir wear green leather and hoods? So basically the writers felt the need to toss the last year and a half of character development for Mia, in favor of her making her more like Oliver was before he became the Green Arrow.  And because of the trailer for this episode, we know that Laurel is going to magically give Mia back her memories; which kind of makes this whole thing pointless. Okay, so that is JJ.  Honestly, we saw adult JJ so infrequently, I wasn't entirely sure if that was him or not during the proposal scene.  Although Mia's never going to look at you the way her dad looked at yours, dude.  I'm going to guess though that he's going to die by the end of this episode; motivating Mia to become the Green Arrow - possibly traveling back in time, giving hopes that this future doesn't play out.  Although the fact that they've established that there wasn't any crime in Star City for the last 20 years, maybe that part won't happen, but I maintain that it's a fucking stupid idea to set the proposed spin-off in 2040. We get it, they've changed the future; and now all the angry people who were fighting for control of the city in the previous timeline are now rich douche bags who.... control the city.... Oh come on.  I get that it's 20 years later, but seriously, as famous as Oliver is in this future for being the Green fucking Arrow, how does Mia not at least know what Laurel looks like, even if Dinah inexplicably has been erased for their history? Commercial aside - based on the trailer for the Flash, it seems yet another character has been erased from existence, yet inexplicably preserved; and I'm going to stab in the dark and guess Cisco.  I'm also further guess that he might opt to leave, either by the end of the episode or the season.  A lot of the signs pointed this leading up to Crisis, what with Barry appointing Cisco their future leader, which obviously they weren't going to need when Barry invariably survived.  And then they brought black-hole guy on, who was basically a new Cisco; and set it up that he would join the Star Labs crew.  And since we don't need two Ciscos..... I originally interpreted this as an indication of Cisco dying during Crisis; which I still think would have been preferable to this speculated departure and erasure.  But of course that would mean making bold decisions that have lasting consequences; and they couldn't possibly write off a recurring character in such a way as not to be able to bring them back later.   Again, only speculation.  I'm sure I'm completely wrong. Anyways.... Jon-Jons?  Really? Sigh...... And seriously, he what, put a mind whammy in a ring and sent you off on a time traveling adventure?  Using J'Onn as an explanation for giving characters back their Pre-Crisis knowledge was pretty sketchy when they kept it ambiguous during Crisis, but come on, this isn't just the highlights of knowing that there was a multiverse and then and then a Crisis and all the other bullshit; this is legitimately all of Mia's actual Pre-Crisis memories.  How the fuck could J'Onn or anyone give her back those memories of her entire life?  I mean, Vibe, maybe; that might actually make sense, but if he does turn out to be erased in the new timeline, I can see how they wouldn't want to use him for that during Crisis. (And on a side note, it just occurred to me how, the Monitor made this big deal about Vibe specifically being needed for Crisis and giving Cisco back his powers against his will; and then Vibe was barely in any of Crisis.  What's up with that?) Okay, so it was Cisco.  I guess that's what I get for jumping to conclusions; because it's not like this and the other shows would be stupid enough to just say that it was J'Onn. I won't however concede that Laurel mentioning Cisco contradict my above theory for the upcoming Flash episode, because Dinah was erased too and Laurel knows her.... The Time Bureau is going to come and stop them from changing time, right?  No?  Okay. So they're completely retconning Dinah into a completely different character.  Whatever, it's not like they had any idea what to do with her for the last, what, 3 or 4 years now? Wait, let me guess, Mia's going to assume the Deathstroke wannabe is JJ, but it'll turn out to be someone else, maybe Connor; because "misdirection" - that and it's doubtful they would still have JJ end up going down that path.  And whomever the actual Deathstroke turns out to be, they'll kill JJ or end up killing Zoe again; again, all to motivate Mia into becoming the Green Arrow. Are they going to address who Laurel is Post-Crisis?  Because, out of the plethora of Canaries in the Arrowverse, she's the one who shouldn't exist.  She wasn't at the dawn of time, she comes from an Earth that was destroyed and may or may have been merged with the Earth's history where Laurel died (we only know for sure that Supergirl's Earth 38 merged with Earth 1; and weren't given any indication that Earth-2 merged with it also).  I hadn't really thought about it until either reading one or watching a Crisis review thing that brought it up; and it was suggested that this episode would address just who or what the fuck Post-Crisis Laurel was.  But so far they haven't shown her to be anything more or less than what she was before Crisis.  And seeing as how she has her Post-Crisis memories, they don't indicate if she's still coping with the loss of her Earth, if it came back or anything that doesn't have to fucking do with Mia. Augh, why is this episode only half over?? Seriously, he encrypted their honeymoon plans?  It should have just been porn.   Better yet, just a bunch of Diggle/Oliver fan-art. I mean, I get Mia being bitter about remembering all the bad stuff; especially remembering watching her dad die - but at the same time, she also remembers actually getting to fucking meet her dad, so that should probably count for something.... So, Dinah's experience as a police Captain in 2018/19 provides her with the necessary background to be tech savy in 2040?  What the hell sort of advanced placement training did the SCPD give her?  It's not even like she lived through the last 20 years to be able to grow with and adapt to any of the changes in technology; she just suddenly woke-up one morning and a) somehow managed to procure a bar with no social security number, not cash, no history of any kind; and b) was a full 20 years behind the times.  There are older millennial who legitimately lived through the technological changes of the last 20 years, who in spite of being lumped into the artificial classification of people who are supposed tech savy, aren't actually all that adept at technology. I know a guy in his early 40s who doesn't know how to type on a computer keyboard; because he missed out on being young enough to have that transition as part of his education or home life by probably a couple of years. Can you imagine what sort of developments lie ahead 20 years from now?  Whatever we guess, we'll probably be wrong. "Thank God for morons." The Arrow writers accidentally include what Greg Berlanti says every time the CW picks up another one of his superhero shows as a line of dialog... So Laurel notes that the building they're breaking into has meta-dampeners all over the place; and Dinah comments that means no Canary Cries - but isn't hers still synthetic?  She lost her powers last season and was given a device to replace, right? Modeled after Laurel-1's?  So has Crisis undone that and given Dinah her powers back? Which raises a question; why not carry one of those sonic necklace deals that Cisco made as a back-up when their powers are dampened?  Hell, for that matter, seeing as how it modulated their own normal voice or something, just imagine what that thing could do with their meta-generated cry. Oh, cool, some guy we met like once and don't really care about is the real mastermind of this bullshit.   Just to be clear, this Trevor guy is the first resident of Star City in 20 fucking years to decide to go off the deep end and do something seriously criminal?  Really?  Why?  What could possibly set him off to run afoul of the memory of Saint Oliver? Don't forget the future newspaper Doc showed Marty... I mean Laurel showed Dinah, where Bianca's kidnapping and murder lead to Star City turning into the 9th circle of hell in one year's time. Wait, what?  Exploding shrubbery? Oh, flammable shrubbery.  Well, that's different.... Random thought, just how expensive must Mia's college education be in 2040? Laurel just mentioned Sara dropping her a bit of knowledge.  I take it I glossed over her mentioning earlier Sara's role in helping Laurel do the one thing she and the other "legends" supposedly work to stop? "I can't believe it's been 20 years since he sacrificed himself to save the city." I believe the word you're looking for is world.  Or more precisely, the fucking universe.  But sure, make it all about Star City. Fucking William. William and Mia's body types are exactly nothing alike; how the fuck would anyone who might have seen her and reported the emergence of a new Green Arrow think they saw someone of William's build if they actually saw Mia?  She's practically tiny enough to fit in William's pocket. So much for Mia remembering all that League of Assassins training she received in the previous timeline, for her to be tranq'd so easily... Augh...fuck you writers.  So not only does Cisco somehow replicate J'Onn's inexplicable ability to restore Pre-Crisis memories and put it in a ring, that he gave to Laurel (for some reason - I guess because it was an elaborate plan to reawaken Mia?) another one of those rings made its way into someone else's hands, which they used to give JJ his Pre-Crisis memories back.  Because whoever did that knows who he was Pre-Crisis.  But it's not like JJ only has those memories; he still remembers the life that lead to him not leading the Deathstroke gang and just because he remembers the other life doesn't mean the Pre-Crisis version of him should override who he became Post-Crisis. But lets dig into the minutiae of this whole thing.  Who would know who JJ Diggle was in an alternate timeline?  How would that person learn of the magic memory ring?  Why would Cisco have made two of them?  Why did he even make one of them?  How many people possibly even need to remember events of Pre-Crisis?  Is security at Star Labs still that shitty in 20 years that people can still steal stuff from them?