#either way at the end alan gets his memories back first and then explains to ted what happens and gives his memories back

[mattzerella-sticks]

The silhouette of a figure in the doorway. A picture of Hawaii before WWII.

I am hoping beyond hope that a plot dream I've been having has escaped containment inside my head and has infected some poor writer to bring my dream to life.

[sepialunaris]

Theorizing Amelia and One's backstory based on implicit storytelling

Hmmm infinity train possibly not getting a continuation got me thinking more about Amelia and One-One's implicit story throughout the books. Since the train in Book 4 still works on One's "in a literal sense [the passengers] are numbers to him" and "if they dont sort their problems they'll die here" ideal and not post-Tulip "every passenger's wellbeing and progress is important," the state of the train prior to Ryan and Min is a big mystery, and what specifically happens after to Amelia and One One is another mystery.

I saw @suppuration 's post (which unfortunately can't link since, mobile) about how Book 1 of Infinity Train is about One One experiencing and learning to act as a denizen for Tulip, and while he was mindwiped it must have a big impact to how he does his role as the conductor now and before, when he was just one entity.

Long analysis ahead

One = Simon

Book 4 One reminds me of... Simon. Simon "but you are not a person" Laurent. One is colder and more aloof towards passengers, and seeing them as just "numbers," which is similar to Simon's views at nulls and lack of respect of agency. While he got amnesia and his experience with Tulip made One-One realize his inactiveness has also hindered the purpose of the train as well as a sense of guilt on things that were not his fault (Amelia's cars in the train), he does strive to change, but Amelia still remembers and internalizes what she knows One was in the past, hence she still refers to his old name and had to read his instruction card to remind herself of his new ideals.

Moreover, Book 4 shows Stewards being in charge in train maintenance in the past. Reddit AMA said that in the present the Stewards are almost all destroyed in the coup besides the one Amelia outfitted with weaponry and One One used as transport in Book 2. Book 3 saw One One using humans like Amelia for maintenance, which shows that he is more willing to give agency to the passengers rather than lock them up in place while the Stewards do their jobs. So unlike Simon, there is growth.

Amelia = Hazel, but not really

One conforming to rigid power structure and not really considering anyone's agency like Simon and Pre-Hazel Grace makes Amelia seem like Hazel in this metaphor, which is appropriate that she is her 'clone' or imaginary child. And like Amelia entered One's and life resulting in his mysterious split, Hazel entered Simon and Grace's lives to split them (even if One One dont go separate ways like them, and stayed together) after she experience a personal loss that they caused or 'denied to unreverse' (in Amelia's case). Hazel made them both the chance to question, rethink, and restart their ideals but Simon didn't take it, while Amelia at first tried to give constructive feedback to One before executing the coup and also fell into One's problem of not recognizing others' agencies by 1) throwing away One One and possibly removing his memory 2) forcibly taking away the support system for the passengers to navigate their problems like Ryan and Min-Gi thinking its giving them agency to "individuate" and be on their own, when in the case of Ryan and Min it just reiterated their trauma.

Also her contradictory way of thinking is why in the end Amelia's belief of the other passenger's agency ends up being fallible and destroyed as she becomes more violating and just altogether doesn't want passengers to leave their cars. And I'm highkey convinced that the reason the Ghoms exist (but not in Book 4) is that she created them to prevent people from moving around freely, as there is no therapeutic reason for them to exist (that said the hand monster exists, but it is only in 1 car while Ghoms are numerous and everywhere in the wasteland, so this monster may explain One's aloofness to their wellbeing even further). She does have Ghom orb and used it in Atticus, so its really reasonable to think so. Plus it would be a logical thing that would add up to her numbers a lot and make Samantha the Cat dread her, yet still not make her numbers reach the top like Simon after directly trying to murder his friend.

Amelia's Loss

Though we're not sure because of how little screentime we have of them in Book 4, I do think Ryan and Min-Gi's attempt of staying together is a big foil too for Amelia's experience of abandonment, loss, yearning for the past, and loneliness. Therefore the Steward's first appearance was to reonnect the boys to their past by giving back their stuff, despite Amelia saying that she did that to "individuate" them (this may be directed for all the passengers but in this book's context it is about Min and Ryan's commitment to each other), and the second appearance Amelia specifically says "[they] are on their own." By the lens of Ryan and Min, Amelia is portrayed as a force that desires to separate them, not in a malicious nor personal manner, but maybe a projection of her own trauma of codependency with Alrick and not wanting the same to befall to Ryan and Min (it may also be jealousy but she hasn't shown any displeasure of that sort so it seems more like bad faith analysis) and the pther passengers. And in the end she releases everyone in the train from their 'dependency' by decomissioning the Stewards. Her actions, especially the former does have understandable motives and she isn't intending to harm anyone, but it happens anyway because in the end she disrespects their agency and pulled the whole train from under the rug.

Amelia = Lake & others

And the story of agency is central in Book 2, and how Lake fights for their recognition as a person and getting off from the train, to the point they have to confront One-One about it. It was the first time One One's imperfection is shown and how even now his standards for denizens has gotten better but not the best. Though he does end up respecting their agency and puts thought to it too. And a minor detail is that he mentions Atticus too in Book 2, meaning that he remembers him personally due to his experience as a denizen instead of just an instrument like in Book 4 (eg: Denizens like Kez being frozen kept of the blue during Steward visits), and he appreciates Alan Dracula too. So he did grow, even if its not perfect and his cold tendency and lesser view on denizens is still there. Yet One and Amelia's ideals of hierarchal superiority and the concept that denizens are worth nothing bleeds down to the Apex, who follows Amelia's footsteps after she has decided to refuse her former ideal to "individuate" passengers (as she has already used her outfit when finding Grace and if we think Amelia made the Ghoms then yeah it tracks), as well as Grace and Simon's own coping mechanisms of dealing with traumatic abandonment and loneliness being parallels to Amelia, through manipulating others and intruding on people's agencies respectively.

However, what I find interesting is that, like Lake, Amelia also got to the engine room and got to ask for favors from him. While the context is not clear as well as her lack of companions, if we parallel it to Lake's story and also considering Amelia's fallible interest to humanize the passengers to One, something similar might've happened.

Her story parallels with Ryan too, that wants to subvert expectations within his life even recklessly so at times that ends up hurting people (just like how she took over the train and hurt One and the other passengers), yet he deals with life better even after abandonment by Min. She also parallels heavily with Morgan, who was dependent on Jeremy and tried to isolate herself from her friend, Kez. And the big thing that Amelia lacks in this scenario, unlike Lake and Ryan, is that as said before, the distinct lack of companions she has. No one like Jesse or Min-Gi to ground and provide her company besides her desire for Alrick to come back, and doesn't show interest in forging new relationships and instead focused on her own stuff, just like Morgan grieved when Jeremy was gone. Amelia was both isolated and isolated herself further when she couped the train, and in the end like Morgan she turns from a caring person to someone that revokes agency. Though Morgan, in the end does decide to grieve herself and opens a window for her to reconnect with Kez, unlike Amelia who lost that opportunity and fell further to the dark due to cruel circumstance and her own actions.

And as for the reason why One One was split is mysterious and currently unexplained, Idk if this is an appropriate idea to connect to, but I feel like there's a possibility that he could've split himself or gave himself amnesia, as a way for him to deal with self isolation and or trauma from betrayal. Maybe he was even inspired by seeing Ryan and Min's commitment to each other? But again it is farfetched to judge as something tracks as of now.

Soo... tl;dr what i think happened.

During this era One only interacts with the passengers by maintaining the trains through the Stewards, without consideration of their well being or agency, hence the hand monster/Docent exists

Amelia enters the train and fights her way into the engine room to meet One, possibly asking her stuff back too

One decides to receive input from Amelia, who intends to humanize the passengers to him by giving them back their stuff, while akso taking interest to cultivate independence on the other passengers to avoid codependency like her

Amelia falls back to her dependency and asks One to bring Alrick back, he refuses, and she hijacks the train

As a way to give them freedom, Amelia releases all the passengers the rules the train binds them to and destroys all the Stewards that acted as maintenance before

One is sent to the snow car for 33 years. He is either split or mindwiped by Amelia or he performs this action himself

Amelia's idealism wavers over time and she gets obsessed in find orbs to create Alrick. Becomes more militaristic and creates her Conductor persona, outfitted the last Steward with guns, and created the Ghoms with her cannon

In order to make sure no passengers try any funny stuff and let her focus on her quest, she uses the Ghoms to make sure they are within order, and prefers passengers to no longer leave their cars. She ultimately has no control over that though therefore she can only minimize the problem

Book 1 happens, Amelia is ousted and decides to work under One One as a human steward and to fix her mistakes to repent

Feel free to add on or critique things because I might've missed/misintrepreted a lot

[liliaeth]

Fix it’s for Teen Wolf

I can think of a few things that would have made Teen Wolf better.

1.  I wanted more focus on Scott’s emotional response to what happened to him.  I don’t mind that Scott isn’t the type who complains about getting hurt. The problem for me was that the show rarely dealt with the consequences of Scott’s pain, and thus to the casual viewer often made it look like he simply didn’t mind, that being hurt didn’t bother him at all. Or worse, that nothing all that bad had happened in the first place.

 Doing this undermined many of the hallucination scenes.  For example, in Season 2’s Party Guessed, we get hallucinations for Stiles, Jackson, and Allison which give us a view into psychology, letting us know their issues without spelling them out.  For Scott, we got Allison making out with kanima Jackson.   Compared to the others, it felt shallow and confusing.  The writers couldn’t even bother to give us dialog.  He received the same treatment in Season 5, when they read the book designed to trigger their memories about the Dread Doctors. Stiles gets yet another scene about his dead mother who has been crucial to his story since Season 1.  Lydia sees her grandmother and her connection to both Lydia’s powers and Eichen House, as well as foreshadowing her treatment at the hands of Valack.   Malia about her Mom and sister’s death at the hands of the Desert Wolf, which is her entire arc.  And Scott?  He gets a nightmare about a dog that was never mentioned before and would not be mentioned after.

 2. I wanted more focus on Scott’s trauma in general. In Season 1, Scott was repeatedly mentally and physically violated by Peter, terrorized and abused by Derek, and hunted by the Argents, and it was taken as a given.   Even the recaps at the beginning episodes in other seasons barely show any of that.  For example, Gerard attacking Scott in clear view at the hospital, stabbing him, and threatening his mother, never appeared in any of the recaps, even in episodes where it would have been important to remind the viewers about it.

While the show had no issue showing us over and over again how Stiles or Derek or Isaac or Allison or any white character really was hurt, they did not focus on the pain Scott was put through, and thus let the viewers conclude that those events didn’t matter.

The show literally had Scott try and kill himself, twice in less than two days, first in Frayed, by refusing to let himself heal, and then again in Motel California, yet neither of those suicide attempts are mentioned even once afterwards. And this while it would have been a good call back in s5b, when Scott is once again not letting himself heal after Theo killed him. and yet again, no mention whatsoever.

 3. I wanted more consequences for certain characters.   I liked that Scott and to a lesser extent Derek were confronted with the consequences of their actions. When they screwed up, they got called out on it. When they did something wrong, it wasn’t excused.  Then they made up for it.

In contrast, certain characters, especially Stiles, got to do whatever they wanted and it was either dismissed as funny or used to make them look sympathetic.  Stiles got to be mean and cruel, and the narrative still treated him as if he were the best friend ever.  He got to assault people, hurt them, and it was treated as if somehow he was the victim. 

For example, I would have liked Stiles a lot better, if when he tortured Scott with lacrosse balls, punishing him for who-knows-what, if someone else had called him out on it or if Scott had got to defend himself, instead of just taking it because Stiles was angry.  Scott allowing Stiles to hurt him to maintain their friendship was a pattern between them, just as much as Scott taking responsibility for things that aren’t his fault.  He keeps on doing it over the course of the show, but it would have been nice if the show at the very least had made it clear that that didn’t make Stiles behavior acceptable.

Just like I wish that Peter had actually faced consequences for his actions – and/or shown some kind of true remorse for his misdeeds--instead of the others just letting him hang around after all the horrible things he’d done or reduce it pettiness.

 4. I would have liked more time spent on Melissa and the McCall family in general, especially on Melissa’s initial reaction to Scott being a werewolf. In the show, they barely spent two minutes total on Melissa’s reaction to finding out her son has been turned into a werewolf.  By the end of s6b, she was barely even behaving like a mother anymore. Even to the point where we don’t even get a conversation between her and Chris about his attacks on her son before the two of them start dating.  Now don’t get me wrong, I liked Chris and Melissa in a relationship, but it was missed opportunity to humanize both her and Scott that they didn’t bother to show her finding out about that and her reaction to it.

Instead we got the whole horror reaction, of her being horrified at seeing her son’s other face, the reaction that any LGBT kid fears when they come out to their parent. Which could have been a great metaphor, especially if they had then made it clear that Scott was bisexual.

 5. I would have liked more focus on Boyd.   The production time spent on Isaac and Erica, while Boyd’s arc was treated as almost an afterthought. We barely even got any hint on his past, in the episode before they killed him off.    They started out with Boyd as the one who wanted to be like Scott, and then never explained it.  Why not focus more on that, and their relationship?

(similar complaints go about Mason, and how little we knew about Mason, outside of him being Liam’s friend. Like... what was his relationship like with his parents? What is Mason interested in, what does he want to do with his life... how did he deal with the after effects of the Beast...

 6. I would have liked more focus on Alan Deaton. The show had such huge potential with this character’s backstory, not just with the Hales but as an emissary in general.  There was this whole mythology about druids that they barely even delved into.

To not even start on how little we knew about his personal life? Why did he and his sister have different last names? What was their relationship like?

Does he have any romantic relationships? Friendships, relationships in general?

Or how about more time spent on his role as a father figure to Scott, we got so few crumbs of their relationship when we should have gotten so much more

 7. I would have liked more focus on Scott and Theo’s interaction in Season 6.   I get that in 6a, they had Scott primarily focused on getting Stiles back, but I’ll never understand why they then didn’t use 6b, to deal with the fact that Theo had tried to murder Scott and was trying to make it up to him and the pack for what he’d done to Scott and the others.

I don’t mind Theo interacting with Liam.  Those scenes were great, but they should have at least one scene with Scott and Theo dealing with the issues between them.  For Theo’s sake, as much as Scott’s.

 8. I would have liked a complete rework of Season 6A in its entirety.  If you’re going to focus a season on an actor who isn’t available, then you have to make it about his impact on the others. Show us what difference this character made, by showing us the effects of his absence, rather than just try and make it about a romantic ship. (I’ve written a post about this already in greater detail, so limiting it to that, but seriously, that season was such a huge wasted opportunity.)

 9.  Actual character growth for Stiles. For a character who had as much screentime as Stiles did, it’s shocking just how little character growth Stiles had over the course of the entire show. This contrasts in a really bad way, when you look at how much every single other character grew and changed over the course of the show.

Just look at the last four episodes of 5b, to give an example. After almost an entire season of watching Stiles at his worst, focusing on emotional scene after emotional scene with him, he suddenly got relegated to comic relief. Why? Because they didn’t want Stiles to grow, because unless he grew, there was no way for him to go but down. If Stiles had taken responsibility for his actions, then they’d have had to admit that he did wrong in the first place. And they couldn’t have that happen.

 10. And last but not least. More moments of the kids being kids. Even if it’s just proms and beach parties. Moments where we see the characters spend time together, when they aren’t trying to stop some bad guy. Where we can see them be friends, hang out with kids their own age. Even just to remind the audience just how young these children are. And where the viewers along with the characters can rest in between the horror, because doing so makes the horror hit far more strongly in contrast to the light.

 11. Also, a better lighting budget, pretty please Davies, were a few more light bulbs that much to ask for?

[thefanficmonster]

Death’s Tales

The Curator (The Dark Pictures Anthology) x Reader (Female)

Warnings: None (Maybe slight spoilers and slight mentions of death)

Genre: Dark Theme, slight Angst

Summary: This isn’t Y/N’s first visit to the Curator’s repository. She’s visited two times so far and deep down she knows she’ll keep coming back. Stories have a way of trapping you in the place where they live. But then again, it’s nice to have some good company for when you are introduced to those stories. Someone to laugh with during all the humorous parts. And also someone to offer you tissues when you are going through the thick of the lives written on the pages of the many books.

Requested by Anon! Hi there! Thank you so much for your request! Sorry it took so long to write, though I hope the fic makes up for the wait. I hope I captured what you had in mind. Please, enjoy. Love, Vy ❤❤❤

“Hello? You here?!“ Y/N calls out as she walks into familiar room. She immediately gets the feeling that she’s in the presence of a more intense power than she could explain - the power of all the timeless stories currently surrounding her. This is by no means her first tango with the deathless death turned into words written on thin, delicate pages for people to enjoy. She has always had an odd connection to each and every story she reads, so this place was the ultimate trap when she first wandered in, expectations low and head held high. She underestimated the repository, however, it didn’t take long for it to turn the tables on her with all it has to offer. In less than an hour, she had her nose buried in a book, her expectations exceeded by miles and her mind transported to a different place and time.

“Where else would I be?” The distinct voice she’s gotten so used to hearing replies from somewhere near by, “You know I rarely leave this place.”

 “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that’s a sad way to be spending your time. But man, if I could stay here all my life I would.“ She struts into the room where the reply came from.

He is indeed there, standing by one of the many shelves, a candleholder with lit handles in one hand, browsing the shelf’s contents with the other. He chuckles at her statement, brushing it off completely, “I was waiting for you. Have a seat, I’ll pick a story for you.”

She gets comfortable, unwrapping her scarf and shrugging off her jacket. Sitting down in one of the leather chairs opposite his desk, she crosses her legs and waits expectantly.

“Ah, there we go. ‘House Of Ashes’, how does that sound to you?” He pulls out a book, holding it under the candlelight for Y/N to see the cover with the title engraved in the, what seems to be, leather surface.

She frowns, scrunching her nose, “You know what, no. I’m tired of these sad and scary stories laced with death. I can’t live knowing I gave those characters a bad fate. I know it’s redo-able, but I can’t help but feel shitty afterwards.” She shifts in her seat, “First all those people left stranded on that boat! Then I was tricked into sympathizing and emotionally investing into characters that were nothing more than the product of a broken mind!” She gives him a glare that’s looking through him more than at him, “I think I deserve a different story this time. Something lighter.”

The older man chuckles. “I was gonna have you choose between this one and this other oldie I have,” he points at the desk where another book is already sitting, “it’s a longer story, I might have mentioned it before.” Y/N reads the title ‘The Impatient’ engraved in the olive green cover of the large book, “But that’s not in any way lighter either. I would even say it’s among the more depressive ones.“ He pauses for a second, returning ‘House Of Ashes’ in its spot, “Perhaps I could find a story of a less melancholic premise.”

“Wait.“ She lifts her hand, putting his actions to a halt, “Why don’t we change it up for once? How about you tell me a story instead of reading me one?“

He’s very clearly taken aback by this. “I’m afraid an old man like myself doesn’t have a lot to share. Especially not when I’ve spent a rather big chunk of my life in this very place, doing this very thing.”

Y/N shakes her head, “Quite the contrary, mister Curator. I believe you have way more stories than all the people my age combined.” She smirks, “Don’t worry, I won’t tattle if you have some dirt on your name. What is it? Robbery? Fraud? Murder?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Y/N. I am not that interesting.“ He chuckles, settling in his chair. “But I believe I could tell you the story of the only time I helped someone directly rather than through the riddles you hate so much.“

She’s clearly pleased with the outcome of her protest. She gives him a smile, “I’m all ears.“

He can’t help but shake his head at her child-like enthusiasm for something so simple. He’s determined to make it worth her while, so he digs through the contents of his brain, looking for the most interesting memories he has stored there - the ones that would entertain her. Eventually, he comes up with one.

“Have I ever mentioned my dear friend Alan to you, by any chance?“

Y/N thinks for a moment before nodding, “Yeah, but as usual, you were very vague.”

He chuckles, “I know you hate not being given details, so I’m gonna make sure not to leave anything out.” He absentmindedly picks up the pen on his desk, twirling it between his fingers, “Well, a brief introduction to our character Alan: he’s a psychiatrist. A year or two younger than me. He’s from Calgary. I met him in my mid-thirties, when I was still what some would consider young.” He smiles at the pleasant memory.

Y/N fakes shock, placing a hand over her chest, “You mean to tell me there was time when you, the Curator, were young? You can’t be serious. I refuse to believe that.”

“I was. And I was quite handsome, mind you.“ He takes out his wallet, opening it and handing it to Y/N. On the right, covered by a thin layer of clear plastic is a black and white photo of two men in their early to mid forties.

“You’re the one on the left, right?” She asks, staring at the photo wide eyes, looking up at him for confirmation. He nods in response. “Wow, I honestly wouldn’t have recognized you.” 

“Understandably so. Time has really taken a toll on me.“ He actually looks saddened when he says that. She can tell that was less a joke and more the truth.

“I wouldn’t say so.“ She tells him sincerely, a small genuine smile on her lips.

He returns her smile, his eyes becoming a bit livelier. “Him and I are still friends till this day. He’s a walking book of stories, I’m sure you’d like him if you ever get the chance to meet him. You see, he has spoken to me about all his patients, never once naming one of them. Until this on young man had come into his office. He was struggling with issues medicine in and of itself couldn’t completely fix. His name was Joshua. The boy was having a really tough time dealing with the loss of his sisters.” He sighs at the memory, “Alan told me he tried everything. He tried all things his years of practice and work have taught him but the boy was slowly sinking further and further down into the void of his mind.“

His voice is way different from his usual narrator tone. You can hear the weight of the events he’s reciting in every syllable that leaves his lips. She is now an accomplice, exactly like if she were there when it all happened.

“It was troubling my friend to the brink of madness, I couldn’t just stand aside and watch that. Also that kind young man, Joshua, deserved a lot better than what life was giving him. Every branch that poor boy held onto snapped. Everything he ever tried to make of himself crumbled. I admired him for the fact that he kept trying and seeking a way to succeed. What he failed to see was the obvious need for help he had. He was longing for a helping hand but no one noticed, or they simply didn’t care. Except this one girl. Her name was Samantha. She saw right through his act. But he never allowed her helping hand to reach him. He never wanted to be a weight on her shoulders. Never wanted to be nor the bump in her road nor the baggage she carried while walking it. So, I stepped in. I taught him the importance of having someone by your side, and taught her the importance of never giving up on someone who means a lot to you. Luckily for themselves and for Alan and I, they listened.“

“Forget about Alan, I want to meet Joshua and Samantha. I want to meet them and give them a big hug.“ Y/N says, her mind wandering to the images she has compiled. A broken boy and a girl with the strength to carry both her and his world in her arms. She can quite see their face, but she can picture their auras, their energies. They feel so real to her, and all just from the Curator’s words alone.

Soon enough, her eyelids start giving out, her eyes fluttering closed. She’s fighting to the best of her ability to stay awake, see this story to its end, but the Curator’s storytelling and the dark, candlelit room aren’t helping her with the battle. Her mind is drifting further and further into the land where the story she’s being told will keep expanding with elements added by her imagination. She’s certain she’ll dream of this tale.

“Oh you’re already clocking out, huh?“ The Curator chuckles, pausing his story mid-sentence.

“Can’t help it.“ Y/N mumbles, already more than half asleep, “Just tell me how it ends, you’ll fill in the gaps when I wake up.“

“Well, it hasn’t ended yet. I can tell you where it’s at at the moment.“ She hums approvingly, “It’s been five years since I stepped in and now they are happily married. They have a little one on the way. A little girl, I believe.“

A lazy smile forms on her face. “That’s nice.” the words leave her lips in the form of a sleepy sigh moments before she has been dragged into the deepest crevasses of her mind and imagination.

The Curator calmly and quietly gets up, taking his jacket from the coatrack. He drapes it over the girl asleep in the armchair on the other side of his desk. Little does this college student know, he has seen both her past and future. He has met her in several different periods of her life. She’s been like her own personal guardian angel. In her past-lives too.

Guardian angel of death.

He was lucky to have met Alan before that curse was bestowed upon him - making the psychiatrist the only man he could interact with without bringing him a sooner than anticipated and inevitable demise. He wasn’t completely honest with Y/N about the time frame of meeting the other man, but that was not an important piece of information. She could do without it. He used the only hall-pass he had to do his old friend a favor - settle the storms that raged between Joshua and Samantha. And now, he’s locked away from the world, waiting for souls to come to him instead of the other way around.

Nowadays, he just stays hidden from people and only meets with those who wander into his repository. It’s always the same pattern: they come in, not really sure how they ended up there; He coaches them through a story they think they have some sort of impact on; and then they leave and never come back.

Color the man surprised when he saw her walk in the first time. It took him no time to connect the dots, he’d recognize her anywhere. She wasn’t clueless like the others, she actually seemed like she was looking for the place. He spent the next week or so feeling like he had failed the only purpose he had - to keep her safe. That was until she showed up again, even cheerier than the first time. That’s when he knew he shouldn’t fear for her, for she was a phenomenon beyond his understanding. A soul never in death’s reach.

“I hope you never get to see the same fate as everyone else who meets me.“ He whispers, looking down at her sleeping form.

He knows she’s special. After all, he never has never met anyone more than once.

[argentdandelion]

How to Speedrun the Infinity Train

How to Speedrun the Infinity Train: Part 1

1. Can you exit the Infinity Train without ever fixing your problems?/Summary of the “Expected Course”.

“Every passenger is important. Their well-being and progress is what the train is all about. All aboard the growth train! Toot-toot!” (One-One’s note to Amelia)

The Infinity Train’s purpose seems to be quantifying the severity or complexity of Passengers’ problems via numbers on their hands and sending them to a train car so they can progress through cars’ scenarios, which will eventually lead to emotional growth. Commonalities in Passengers’ character arcs suggest one gets one’s number to zero and therefore leaves by a combination of right thought and right action, to the end of giving up, letting go, moving on, or otherwise no longer caring about the particular issue that got them aboard the Train. It seems people are intended to deal with their problems by emotional growth through self-understanding or introspection, not, say, gaining emotional skills in unrelated fields and suddenly no longer caring about an issue for reasons one can’t explain.

In a way, the Infinity Train is like a video game in which the end goal is going home after achieving sufficient emotional growth to deal with one’s “boarding problem”. But is it possible to “speedrun” this game, without ever taking the expected course of going through cars, introspection on one’s problems, and conscious personal improvement?

Absolutely. And the methods to do so can get really weird.

2. Can You Ignore the Infinity Train’s Resources?

“The Train is filled with all sorts of things that can help you learn about yourself and grow as a person!” One-One, in an informational video

Judging by what One-One says and the commonalities of different passenger arcs, it seems it’s expected Passengers will travel through cars, have a denizen companion, interact substantially with Denizens, and know that their numbers exist and their function. However, it is possible to ignore or bypass these expectations and still get one’s number down to zero. Indeed, it's likely: if One-One's description of how people are assigned numbers ("numerical algorithmic judgment") also applies to how they lower. After all, algorithms can be tricked.

Skipped: Going Through Cars

It seems Simon stayed with The Cat for months in just one car and his number got very low. It may be that just being in one car for the entire time can lower one’s number to zero if just one car can provide sufficient opportunities and incentive to deal with one’s problems. For example, if Simon’s initial problem was something simple, like some low-level manifestation of “fear of abandonment”, it could be treated by having a dependable parental figure who always came back. In such a case, it seems plausible that living in Le Chat Chalet and waiting for The Cat to come back after her lengthy trips outside would gradually lower his number. (Since little of Simon’s backstory is shown, it’s unclear whether he boarded with a small number, his number gradually went down just by being in one car, or his number went down rapidly after a short time period of traveling through cars)

Skipped: A Denizen Companion, or Any Denizen Interaction

"Always remember - there are lots of denizens along the way to help you on your journey! Don't be afraid to reach out!" One-One, in an informational video

Judging by One-One, the Flec Mace, and observing the episodes, Denizens and especially “companions” (friendly denizens who travel with Passengers), seem to exist to help passengers with their emotional growth in some way. They can help by being friendly, presenting challenges, or even being outright antagonistic or threatening: Marcel of The Map Car could have been designed to give people the courage to stand up to harmful people or dangerous situations, for example.

However, in Tulip’s case, one of her companions was One-One, who’s surely not a denizen as the Train’s Conductor, and some of her number-dropping can be attributed to interactions with him (e.g., in “The Unfinished Car”). It’s also probable Grace’s number dropped prior to “Le Chat Chalet” because of the time she spent being friendly with Hazel, a denizen, despite not knowing Hazel was a denizen at the time.

Most convincingly, interactions between passengers can lower numbers. Amelia’s number drops when she thanks Grace for her help, Grace’s number drops when she confronts Simon in “The New Apex” and when talking with the Apex kids, and the Apex kids’ numbers change (likely dropping) when Grace tells them they can’t be Apex anymore in the aforementioned episode. Given how quickly a number can increase within seconds (e.g., Tulip walking away from Ghom-Atticus), Grace’s rate of number increase between meeting Simon and the memory flashback in her memory tape is actually very low, and it only progresses past her palm and later to her elbow some time after founding the Apex.

Keep in mind numbers can go down just for doing basic nice things (e.g., Amelia thanking Grace for help), though numbers going down for basic nice things isn’t guaranteed. (At age 10, Grace’s number is 148 both before and after comforting Simon.) It’s worth mentioning they would still have to deal with their problems, not just live a comfortable and stable life: if just having a dependable friend would have been sufficient for Simon to deal with his (probable) abandonment issues, Simon’s number would have gotten to zero long before he was 18.

Skipped: Knowing the Numbers Exist, and Their Function

Tulip’s number was 89 during the first DolphWorld flashback in The Cat’s Car. It’s last seen in that episode at either 45 or 15, depending on the length of the vertical line in the first number, which isn’t fully seen. By the time she checks on it by the end of The Chrome Car, it goes down only briefly, and ends at 3. Judging by how the number flickers only briefly by the end of The Chrome Car, it’s probable Tulip’s number lowered during The Unfinished Car and The Chrome Car, strongly suggesting passengers don’t need to know their number values for them to lower. The fact Simon’s, Grace’s, and Amelia’s numbers are so incredibly large would make it difficult to recall the exact numbers, anyway, and yet Grace and Amelia did get number drops.

Jesse's number doesn't increase when he supports the “new Alan Dracula” or orders Alan Dracula to laser away the vines (not expecting him to actually do it).

This would suggest not every instance of behaviors or attitudes away from emotional growth or fixing problems causes numbers to go up. That might explain the very slow pace of Simon’s and Grace’s number-raising, despite being on the Train for years.

[rachelbethhines]

Tangled Salt Marathon - The Brothers Hook

It’s time to say goodbye to Hook Foot. He won’t be missed. 

Summary:  Rapunzel takes everyone to see Hook Hand in concert. However, this brings back bad memories in Hook Foot, as he was always overshadowed and looked down on by his elder brother. Hook Hand is revealed to be employed by the self-centered King Trevor who wants Hook Hand to play at the ceremony of the marriage between the Seal of Equis and his female mate. When Hook Foot sabotages his brother’s performance at the wedding he must face King Trevor in a dance off to save Hook hand’s career. 

The Episode Placement Is Indeed Wrong  

I talked about this last episode, but the ordering of episodes is confusing. 

The Brother’s Hook does come after Rapunzel: Day One in terms of production order and is placed after it on the Disney Plus, but it supposedly aired before Rapunzel: Day One originally and the events make more sense in that aired order. As they’re traveling on foot here because they lost the caravan, and they’re all stressed out and fighting in the first scene of this episode. Also it world explain Hook Foot’s absence in Rapunzel Day One. 

Yet why would they order things that way? Why hold off on resolving the Raps and Cass argument if you’re not going to even hint at it here? Why not place this earlier in the season so that you wouldn’t be dragging Hook Foot along in the Great Tree for no reason? 

It just goes to show how rushed and poorly planned out season two actually was. 

This is Another Pointless Parallel 

So Hook Foot is suppose to represent Cassandra here and Hook Hand is supposed to be Rapunzel in this scenario but like that doesn’t work for several reasons. 

For one, Rapunzel never discouraged Cassandra’s dreams. Cassandra herself just never opened up to tell her what those dreams were, and indeed even the audience don’t know what Cass’s dreams are now that she’s already achieved her goal of becoming a guard back in the first season. I don’t think even Cassandra knows what she wants. 

Second, Rapunzel and Cassandra’s conflict isn’t actually about ‘dreams’, it’s about control. Each wants to control the other, to be in charge, because they think themselves always right. Both equate ‘being right’ and a lack of criticism as validation and to them, and this show in general, validation is equated with ‘love and compassion’ and is the ultimate end all and be all goal for everyone. Even though that’s not how validation works and a it’s a very unhealthy mindset to promote. 

Third, no one owes you anything. Yeah, Hook Hand is a jerk here, but at the end of the day giving up on his dreams was Hook Foot’s choice. You are in charge of your own choices, and at some point you need to decide if you’re going to listen to rest of the world telling you no or have some self respect and do what you want because you want it. You don’t actually need anyone’s approval but your own. By making ‘validation’ the end all and be all of the narrative, it undermines characters agency and fails to teach people about self respect and accountability. 

Same goes for Cassandra, even more so in fact. She needs to be the one to get off her ass and try for what she wants. No one is going to hand it to her and Raps doesn’t owe her a damn thing. Cassandra is the only thing getting the way of Cassandra because time and time again the series gives her chances that she refuses to take for ill defined reasons. There’s nothing at stake for her to lose if she just left. 

Last off, no one learns anything from this. Cass gets nothing out of it despite being right there the whole time, and Rapunzel is too hypocritical and self centred to see that she is very bit the bully same as Hook Hand. Not because she crushes Cassandra’s dreams like the narrative wants you to think, but because she tries to insert herself and her views on to everyone. 

Bullshit

Once again, may I remind you that there is over twenty villians in this show and only four of them get redemptions. Four! And one of those four was Eugene’s doing not Rapunzel’s. 

The narrative does not support the ideas that it wants to push. If you want me to believe that Rapunzel does sincerely believe in second chances then you need to show her giving that chance to everybody equally. And no, not everyone has to take it, not everyone needs to be redeemed, but she needs to at least try. Especially if they’re a recurring baddie with a tragic backstory like Lady Caine’s.

Oh, and may I also remind you that currently a 15 year old orphan is rotting away in a jail cell because of the corrupt government and Rapunzel does not give a crap! 

The Song Is Sounds Good But It Adds Nothing

It doesn’t add anything to the overall narrative and it fails to add anything to the episode itself because it gives us no new information.  

This is extremely wasteful. Not only because Alan Menken and Glenn Slater are highly respected artists who are wasting their talents on crap like this, but also for pure budgetary reasons. Tangled has a limited budget for songs that is worked into the contract. Each season is suppose to get eight original songs and two reprises. (tho season three trades out one of those songs for an extra reprise) 

In an arc heavy series like this, with such a limited number of songs to convey information, then you need to choose where those songs go wisely. The writers did not choose wisely in this instance. 

Rapunzel You Are Not In A Position To Give Advice Here

This episode is foreshadowing for what season three would become. Which is a complete formula switch up that undermines the narrative’s goals. 

This is suppose to be a coming of age tale. That’s in its mission statement. It’s what the writers supposedly wanted to achieve according to interviews and the very pilot episode itself.

That requires Rapunzel learning and growing. She can’t be in the mentor role. She can’t be the one to give out sage advice if she is the one who is meant to grow the most. She not there yet. She’s not experienced enough to fulfill that place in the narrative.  

Season one may have been repetitive in it’s lessons but it at least tried to show Rapunzel owning up to mistakes and changing as a person, but here and in season three they toss that out the window and have Rapunzel teaching other people lessons instead. People who ultimately don’t matter to the overall narrative. 

Instead of showing her growing as a person and coming to fit in that role over time due to experience, it has the opposite effect of showing Rapunzel as being patronizing, selfish, and unworthy to rule. Because she has no grounds for having an opinion, no basis for her advice to go off of, no experience to back up what she says, and zero claims for being in charge except for being born in a classist feudal system. 

Had the narrative actually bothered to call out  this instead of just having Cass pitch a hissy fit over nothing, then we could have gotten a really complex character and unique moral to the show, but that’s not what actually happens. 

King Trevor Is the Saving Grace of This Episode

I don’t think the writers realize that Trevor isn’t the hateable douche that they believe him to be. 

Oh sure he’s not nice, he’s essentially the equivalent of an annoying ‘I want to speak to the manager!’ type customer. But there is a huge, huge difference between being a Karen and being a fascist dictator. One’s irritating and the other is actively malicious and a danger to people's lives. 

Frederic might be outwardly more pleasant but he’s still a person who abuses his power in order to harm poor people. Trevor is just a mother-of-bridezilla here and a perfectionist. Like big deal. 

 And to be honest Rapunzel isn’t that much better. 

Like you are a bully Raps. You’re every bit a pushy and demanding as Trevor is, particularly in season three. 

While she’s not actively malicious like Frederic, she’s still a danger to people because she refuses to acknowledge that the power she wields has an impact on others lives and that that impact can indeed be negative. 

There’s something called the banality of evil. That being simply mean to others isn’t how true evil spreads. It’s people refusing to challenge the system, and if you are a part of that system then you are a part of the evil it spreads no matter how nice you are outwardly. 

Rapunzel and the show at large, does not understand the difference between being nice and being kind. It introduces the concept of flawed government and systems but then does nothing to actually challenge it. It forgoes the actual work it takes to make change happen by focusing on easy outs and proformative progressivism. 

Trevor does more than either Frederic or Rapunzel here with this one line alone than they do in three full seasons. 

Eugene did indeed commit a violent crime, no matter how much the show tried to present such a crime as ‘funny’. Trevor is in his legal rights to prosecute the person who tried to kidnap his child/pet and assaulted his personage. 

Yet he’s actually granting mercy here. More than that, he’s inviting them to his child’s/pet’s wedding. He’s offering friendship when he could have had them killed. Because Tevor, for all his faults, recognizes the power the that he wields and then makes the conscious decision not to abuse that power. 

Moreover over he acknowledges the difference between what is a personal offense and not a an attack on his kingdom as a whole. What Eugene and Frederic did could have been considered an act of war and Trevor never even considered that an option. 

It’s sign of bad writing when the person we’re supposed to consider a jerk and a recurring antagonist is more compassionate than the main heroine herself. Even as he jeers and makes an arse of himself. 

This is the Point Where Rapunzel’s Characterization Buckles and Breaks 

At first glance this seems like growth. She’s now assertive and taking charge, and Hook Hand did indeed had this coming, but in context of the greater narrative and how Rapunzel’s character develops past this episode, this is the point where the wheels start to come off. 

Rapunzel is a hypocrite. We’ve established this as a fundamental part of her characterization back in season one and it’s the driving force behind all of the main conflicts with her in the first two seasons. But before now, her hypocrisy at least had consequences. It caused enough problems that if you were paying attention you could see it for the flaw that it was.

But here her hypocrisy is presented as being right. She looks over Hook Hand even as she tells him not to look down on others. She dictates to him how his relationship with his own brother should go, when she has zero context for said relationship. She’s heard only one side of the story and only a piece of it. She doesn’t know what actually went down between them while they were growing up nor does she honestly care why Hook Hand does what he does. Even as she asks him why. 

Yet she is rewarded for this behavior. She’s never called out as wrong. The narrative bends over backwards to accommodate her and reinforces her views. Without direct consequences a character’s flaws are rendered meaningless, and so the character will only frustrate the audience rather than endear themselves to us. 

That is the opposite of what you want to achieve in a story. You want to the audience to like you’re main characters, or at least find them entertaining in their awfulness. Making them right all of the time, even when they’re wrong sabotages this goal. 

Trevor’s Still the Better Person Here 

Like it may not have been Hook Hands fault, but at the end of the day he did screw up at his job and a paying customer has the right to be upset and refuse to work with you again or even demand their money back. That’s what being self-employed means. It’s part of the risk you take as being a contractor.  

Trevor’s not being unreasonable here just because he raised his voice and wants Hook Hand to leave the wedding premises. Yeah the insults are uncalled for, I’ll give you, but remember that Frederic locked a tailor in a stockade for accidently ripping a robe; that he has the ability to fix if he wasn’t locked up. 

And he resolves conflicts and personal insults with a dance off! 

What happened when someone called Frederic out for being a poor leader and endangering lives, oh yeah they wound up in jail! 

Also This Episode’s Big Climax is a Fucking Dance Off

Out of all the low stakes conflicts in this show this is the lowest. 

And it’s coming right off The Great Tree and the big Cassandra vs Rapunzel fight. This shouldn’t be here. It’s throws off the pacing the tone. 

Well I Guess Trevor Kept HIs Word, Which Is More Than What Frederic Would Do 

Like Trevor is defeated and he does indeed complain about losing, but everyone is apparently free to leave afterwards and Hook Hand still has a career so I guess Trevor kept his side of the bargain. Even though he has no reason to and no one to hold him to account for it. He just has a code of honor I guess. 

Meanwhile, Frederic throws a teenager in a dungeon after promising to help him and completely ignores his supposed friend Quirin being encased in amber.  

So What Was the Point In Bringing Hook Foot Along Again? 

What did Hook Foot add? What did he bring to the story that no other character out there could bring? What does writing him out of the story now achieve, and why couldn’t he have been left out of the narrative all together? 

If your answer to all of those question is ‘Nothing!’, then congratulations you have more sense than the showrunners. 

I have seen a few people get angry and suggest that Lance should have been the one to go because getting rid of Hook Foot meant getting rid of the shows main disabled rep, but that’s ignoring that getting rid of Lance would mean getting rid of the shows only real black representation as well. Because tokenism isn’t real representation.  

Yet for all of how poorly handled Lance’s character was, he still has more reason to be there than Hook Foot. He has a unique connection to one of the main characters that, once introduced, would be hard to ignore. There’s nothing connecting Hook Foot to the plot or the main characters, and that’s why he shouldn’t have been in the show at all. Regardless of how much you may have liked him. 

Destiny Isn’t a Goal!!!

How many times do I have to say this!? 

A goal needs to be specific. It needs to have logical motivation behind it. It needs a clear obstacle to be overcome for the character to achieve it. 

A vague ‘destiny’ has none of those things. 

Conclusion 

Meh. That’s the word that best describes this episode and the majority of season two. It’s not the worst thing ever if you just want to shut your brain off for 30 minutes, but it’s not actually good either, and if you stop to think about any of it for more than two seconds it falls apart.  

[gumnut-logic]

Flannel (Bit 26 and THE END)

Bit 1 | Bit 2 | Bit 3 | Bit 4 | Bit 5 | Bit 5a | Bit 6 | Bit 7 | Bit 8 | Bit 9 | Bit 10 | Bit 11 | Bit 12 | Bit 13 | Bit 14 | Bit 15a | Bit 15b | Bit 16a | Bit 16b | Bit 17 | Bit 18 | Bit 19a | Bit 19b | Bit 20 | Bit 21 | Bit 22 | Bit 23a |Bit 23b | Bit 24 | Bit 25 | Bit 26 (The End)

Okay, this is an ending! Woohoo! Soooo many thanks to all you wonderful Thunderfam peeps who have written almost as much encouragement as I have fic ::hugs you all like crazy:: thank you for reading, commenting and putting up with my crazy during this fic (like this extremely strange posting schedule). Would you believe all these little bits add up to 22,000 words?! I never expected it to be this long (I’m blaming Alan - he was the one who wanted to go visit the mountain - it was supposed to finish just before that!) It went places I never expected. I had no idea when I started where the incident had actually occurred. I also now know a lot more about Washington State than I did before.

Extra thanks to @scribbles97 for reading this bit through and telling me it was okay when I thought it was too soppy. Yes, Nutty got soppy. Must be all the tears this fic has induced - even I got teary when Scotty cracked ::wails::

Anyways, I’ll stop babbling. Thank you being wonderful and I hope you enjoy this last bit.

-o-o-o-

It was John who was the practical one. Aware of his brothers’ state of mind, the suspected injuries hidden by Scott and Virgil, and the sun slowly being overtaken by cloud, urged him to gently suggest that perhaps it was time to go.

He had recorded the monument in fine detail. Enough to project a hologram from his phone. He had thoughts on that. Something that might help. But for the moment, his priority was getting his brothers safely home.

A quiet word with Eos and it wasn’t long before a roar echoed across the mountains and Thunderbird Two made her presence known. The great green cargo ship reassuringly familiar in the sea of emotion this place had invoked.

She came in to hover close, her forward hatch lowered. Of course, Virgil was the first to move towards her, an arched eyebrow in John’s direction. The half-smile John sent him in return was enough. Limping or not, his brother climbed the railing around the lookout and stepped onto his ‘bird. Gordon grabbed Alan, saying something that could not be heard over Two’s VTOL, and together they made their way on to the hatchway.

John stepped up beside Scott, who since releasing Alan, hadn’t looked up and stood staring at the monument.

“Time to go, big brother.”

Blue eyes looked over at him before darting in the direction of the hovering Two and then back to the grey flame.

“I miss her.” Barely heard.

“I know.” John reached out and put his hand on Scott’s shoulder. “C’mon, let’s go home.”

A blue inquiry was shot at him before the muscles under his hand relaxed just a little and Scott let his head drop in a single nod. Almost reluctantly, Scott made his way to Two where Alan offered him a hand to climb on board.

John took a last look at the plaque, his mother’s name and the flame forever frozen, reaching for the sky.

Two’s VTOL flickered in echo.

Green was his mother’s favourite colour.

He looked up and knew Virgil would be in his pilot seat by now, demanding control be returned to him. It wasn’t a guess, more a law of physics.

He let his fingers brush over stone.

A quiet, indrawn breath quickly let out again.

“Bye, Mom.”

The breeze overcame the heat of Two’s VTOL and curled its cold fingers in his hair.

He strode over to the hatchway and climbed on board. As the hatch drew him up into the warmth of Two’s belly, he caught sight of Mount Rainier, still massive, still silent, still there, until it was gone and all he could see was Two’s cockpit and all he could hear was her engines and his brothers.

Two minutes later they were out over the Pacific and heading home.

-o-o-o-

Virgil Tracy wore flannel. No matter the climate. No matter the temperature. He wore flannel. At least when he wasn’t wearing his uniform.

Well, almost any temperature. Apparently, John had spoken to Eos at length after their trip to Washington State. His purpose had been to explain the process of human grief. Her response was to heat the villa to thirty-five degrees centigrade to see if she could get Virgil to shed his flannel shirt.

What she hadn’t expected, nor Kayo and Grandma returning from the mainland unexpectedly, was how many other items of clothing might be shed.

Five Tracy boys in only their underwear as they desperately tried to cool down a hot house on an already hot and humid day, was not a spectacle either of them had expected to see.

John and Eos had a rather longer discussion after that little incident. Eos also made a point of hiding from Scott for the next month or so.

So yes, Virgil wore flannel unless his AI niece’s good intentions tried to cook him.

But what did change after Washington was the words.

Alan made a point of it. Not a big one, but a subtle one. No longer was the topic of their mother banned from conversation and Alan finally had a chance to get to know the woman behind the photos and the videos through his brothers’ memories.

First up he discovered that there was a reason why Virgil wore red plaid. Apparently, he’d had a blanket as a child, now long lost, but he associated it with their Mom and it gave him comfort.

That story appeared one day when Alan came across Virgil sitting out on the balcony. He had the shirt off, but it was laid across his lap. His grey t-shirt pale in the sunlight.

Alan sat down beside him and a rare moment of storytelling just happened. Alan did prod a little with questions, but Virgil appeared quite happy to tell him of the time six-year-old John went swimming in a lake and lost his shorts. Gordon had been just a baby, and Dad wasn’t there at the time, so it had been up to Scott and Virgil to fish their little brother out of the water and protect his modesty.

The fact Gordon’s third word after momomom and dadadadada was jajajajajah made the story all the more amusing.

Scott, too, offered some stories. He mentioned the awards their mother had won. Alan had known his mother was smart, after all her five sons had a decent set of brain cells themselves. But it was more than the awards. It was the stories about the ceremonies and how Virgil had cheered wildly into a dead silent auditorium. How every eye had turned to them, including those of their mother standing on the podium. Her smile had been brilliant.

Unfortunately, that had only encouraged Virgil, and their father had to quiet him down. But Scott remembered her proud smile.

Virgil had been right. There were many stories and his brothers offered them to him when they could and slowly the woman who was his mother grew in his mind into a person rather than just a figure head.

There were still bad days. Days where Virgil would be found shivering on the lounge or silent on the balcony. But the difference was that now the blanket appeared and was wrapped around him with words, reassurance and understanding. All the brothers would gather and they would talk.

About Mom.

About Dad.

About each other.

Eventually Virgil would end up snoring on the couch, usually half on top of one brother or another. And they would all crash there, all silent support...well, all except for Alan, apparently. They all claimed he talked in his sleep. He still wasn’t convinced Gordon hadn’t fabricated the recording he claimed to belong to Alan and his slumber years.

So, it got better. Not perfect, because life never is, but easier.

Some days the flannel comes off, some days it doesn’t. But ultimately, it didn’t matter.

And if Scott froze solid the first time John led them all out onto the cliff that overlooked the caldera to show them the permanent hologram he had installed there, it was to be expected.

If Virgil’s hands flew to his mouth to muffle his reaction, John chose to ignore it.

But the grey flame that now flickered above the volcanic rock said everything.

Their brother had installed a plaque, just like the one on the mountain in Washington, but the words were different.

Jefferson and Lucille Tracy

The source of the flame

Forever burning in our hearts

You were the lightning

To our thunder.

-o-o-o-

FIN.

[idairsauthor]

This Fcking Trial, Episode 2: Being Alive

CONN: Senator Collins just announced that she was going to vote to call witnesses.

PLAIDDER: That’s still only 48 people IF Manchin doesn’t do his fucking Manchin thing. Go away.

ETHIR: Don’t talk to him that way.

PLAIDDER: It gets worse!

ETHIR: I have a question and I really need to know the answer right now.

PLAIDDER: I guess in cyberspace it’s always time for freagair.

ETHIR: Who in the green earth or under it is Alan Dershowitz?

PLAIDDER: Ethir. This is unworthy of you. The night before all hope is lost, you come into my house and you ask me to dredge up from the cesspool into which they have subsided my totally 80s memories of celebrity lawyer, self-appointed gadfly, and massive narcissist Alan Dershowitz?!

ETHIR: I do.

PLAIDDER: Ethir, last night I saw Just Mercy, a film based on a real-life case in which a young lawyer named Bryan Stevenson devoted years of his life to obtaining a new trial for an innocent man who was framed by corrupt racist cops for a crime he didn’t commit, prosecuted for that crime by a corrupt racist DA, and given a bonus death sentence by a corrupt racist judge. Unlike most real-life stories in which underfunded young lawyers take on entire power structures, this one actually has a happy ending, and an innocent man who’s spent six years on death row for no good reason is eventually returned to his family. I think you should get a bucket of popcorn and some caffeine-free soda and go watch this movie. You will enjoy it.

ETHIR: But--

PLAIDDER:  I want you to go watch that movie, and then I want you to come back here. And then, when I tell you that Alan Dershowitz got famous in the 1980s for finding a way to get the conviction of a European billionaire who most likely murdered his diabetic wife thrown out and get him a new trial at which he was acquitted based on problems with handling of the evidence, and then gave a dinner party to celebrate which Alan Dershowitz attended and wrote about in his book Reversal Of Fortune which by the way was made into a TV movie in 1990 which I actually to my everlasting shame saw--when I tell you all this, and then tell you that Alan Dershowitz thinks that makes him Bryan fucking Stevenson, you will fully understand my rage. 

ETHIR: All right.

PLAIDDER: In the meantime, can we not talk about how Alan Dershowitz’s narcissism has set fire to the last shreds of our Constitution?

CONN: But that’s exactly what I’m most hopeful about.

PLAIDDER: That...BLOWHARD forgot that he’s not in a damn trial court where the worst he could do to the world is set one rich and guilty asshole free. To satisfy his insatiable fucking ego, that man just burned down the rule of law.

CONN: No, he didn’t. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. He’s actually made things better.

PLAIDDER: This oughta be good.

CONN: All along we’ve been talking about that moment when everyone stops pretending. The moment when people just drop the mask for good and all and they just stop caring about whether people see their atrocities or not. We talked about that in July when that Congressional delegation went to see the detention camps at the border. You must have a clip of that somewhere.

PLAIDDER: OK, I found it:

CONN: Their lack of fear, that’s the worst sign. The fact that they don’t fear exposure. The fact that they’re not worried about the rest of the world finding out what they’ve done. Because that tells you that they know they’re protected. And that means they have no reason to stop. Not just that. They have no reason not to make it worse. No reason not to invent new indignities. No reason not to entertain themselves with making more misery.

PLAIDDER: That’s something I’ve always been afraid of. The moment when the state decides it doesn’t have to pretend any more. Theamh is afraid of that moment too–you know–on the magical side. That’s why that battle at Slieve was so important. It forced the corrupt government to go on pretending for a while. As long as they were pretending, there were certain limits to what they were able to do. Theamh and everyone else worked so hard to keep those limits in place.

CONN: You’re right to be afraid of that moment.  

CONN: And you’re afraid that this moment has now come.

PLAIDDER: It has. This is it. 53 Republican Senators--

CONN: Fifty-two--

PLAIDDER: Conn, you are on my LAST NERVE tonight. Fifty-two Republican Senators are about to vote to endorse the idea that the President can rig an election and nobody can do a thing about it.

CONN: No. They won’t be. Because Dershowitz and friends have already retracted that argument.

PLAIDDER: They can’t retract it now. Fox News has a hold of it. The Republican Senators have a hold of it. It’s out there and it’s going to become the new normal.

CONN: You’re not listening to me. THEY WALKED IT BACK. They realized they HAD to walk it back. Because 53 Republican Senators are not ready for this moment.

PLAIDDER: I bet 51 of them are.

CONN: No. That...circus act...that your President calls a legal team has withdrawn that defense because they now realize that these Republican Senators still want to pretend. And where there’s pretense, there’s hope.

PLAIDDER: Yeah, well I just refreshed the WaPo page and we lost Lamar Alexander, so I’m gonna go scream into the night now.

CONN: There’s still--

PLAIDDER: Don’t you get it? These assholes have got together and worked out exactly how it’s going to go down and what will happen is that they will let Collins, Murkowski and Romney vote for witnesses so there’s a 50-50 tie and then Roberts will refuse to cast the tiebreaking vote and there will be no witnesses and the whole thing will be over tomorrow. These people are not taking a stand, they are saving face in the most weaselly way possible. 

CONN: But surely you realize that it doesn’t matter any more whether they call witnesses or not.

PLAIDDER: I DO NOT realize that.

CONN: They don’t have to make Bolton testify. As soon as Alan Dershowitz made that argument, he admitted that your President has done everything he’s been accused of. Everyone saw that, everyone knows that. Anyone who will ever be willing to vote for removal will vote for removal now. And the people who will never be willing to vote for removal will never be convinced no matter how many witnesses you call.

PLAIDDER: So this is it. He gets acquitted. And I SWEAR TO GOD if you say “not yet” ONE MORE TIME--

CONN: All right, I won’t say it.

PLAIDDER: You won’t?

CONN: No. I won’t. Acquittal is what you always expected. That’s is what you always knew was probably going to happen.

PLAIDDER: BUT YOU TOLD ME NOT YET!!!

CONN: MAKE UP YOUR MIND! Or let me go back into the void! I never asked to be dragged out here to this horrible place.

PLAIDDER: Yeah, I’m not gonna watch any more of my favorite characters go through the door to oblivion tonight, friend.

CONN: 67 votes for removal was always an unrealistic threshold. It’s never been done before, I understand.

PLAIDDER: No.

CONN: Trust me when I say this, friend. They overreached. That always has consequences.

PLAIDDER: How can they overreach when they are about to take a vote that will ensure that their party will always have unlimited power?

CONN: That’s not what that vote is going to ensure.

PLAIDDER: Then what will it ensure?

CONN: That your president never gets a second term. And neither will many of them. 

PLAIDDER: Why should I believe you?

CONN: Look at what the Democrats in Congress have been able to do. They dragged that mac na mhada to the brink of removal. Where is your appreciation for Adam Schiff, who got up there day after day and told the actual truth?

PLAIDDER: You mean the “you know you can’t” speech.

CONN: Yes. That and many others. Because the thing is: they DO know they can’t. They definitely know that now. 

PLAIDDER: What does it matter? They will never cross him.

ETHIR: Hey, I’m back.

PLAIDDER: So you see what I mean about Alan Dershowitz.

ETHIR: Actually I saw something totally different.

PLAIDDER: What?

ETHIR: You know that scene where Ralph Myers takes the stand at that hearing and he tells everyone that he lied at that first trial?

PLAIDDER: Yes.

ETHIR: And he’s scared to do it. But once he does it, you can see the whole man come back to life. He’s told the truth and now no matter what happens to him, he doesn’t care, because he’s alive now. I mean you wrote our story but you spend all your time on the shriias, you’ve never really thought about how ordinary people experience the truth. I will tell you, I’ve seen a lot of people lie in court and I’ve seen a lot of people tell the truth and there is no comparison. Telling the truth is magic for us too. It’s...it’s being alive.

PLAIDDER: Anthony Scaramucci, of all people, has said as much.

ETHIR: I wish Theamh could have seen Slythe during the trial. She would have been so proud of her. Still an ordinary woman, but once she caught a hold of the truth again she never let it go. She understood it better than I can explain it. You could see it when you looked at her. I think she knew there was a good chance they would kill her. But it was worth it to her, just for that feeling of being alive. Humans are humans. They need joy. They need to feel alive. 

PLAIDDER: How are you making me cry when I don’t believe EITHER of you?

CONN: It’s like your Nancy Pelosi always says. Patience and time.

PLAIDDER: That was Kutuzov in War and Peace.

CONN: Well she doesn’t say it. But she knows it. She dragged this process out as long as she could safely drag it and what can be exposed has been exposed. Whatever happens tomorrow, you got more out of this than anyone expected. Be mindful of that. And just...be all right. All right?

PLAIDDER: All right. I guess this will be our last episode.

CONN: Maybe not y--

PLAIDDER: THANK YOU AND GOODNIGHT.

[coll2mitts]

#65 Beauty and the Beast (2017)

I’m burning through my Disney+ subscription, and instead of this forever cursing my drafts section until I work my way through the other lower movies on this list, you’re getting this one now.

Beauty and the Beast was my favorite Disney movie as a child.  Belle was smart, she read a lot, and she was a bit of an outcast, which were my only identifiers as a wee lass (other than being obnoxious and constantly having tangled hair).  I'm going to bet that this movie is the reason so many girls my age went through a Paris phase in their tween years.  I did take 3 years of high school French that I have almost no memory of.  

The original's animation is gorgeous, the songs by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman are iconic, and the romance between two people who learn how to trust and support each other... it's probably the reason why I've stayed in terrible relationships for way too long.  My father took me to see this movie in theaters when I was 6, and it is the first movie I remember crying during out of sadness.  There I was, while the Beast was dying, trying to hide the fact tears were streaming down my face because I didn't want my dad to see I was crying and not take me to see another movie again.  When they adapted it for Broadway, I listened to that soundtrack over and over...  "Home" was my favorite song, and the end still makes me cry like a 6-year-old.  It's perfect.

I had attempted to watch this remake once before.  I hated it so much I started drinking, and then peaced out so hard when Lumiere started moving that I had to watch Moana to normalize myself.  Visually, this movie is what happens when the Uncanny Valley turns into the fucking Grand Canyon.  Little did I know that this movie gets worse... much worse... as it goes on, and that Stephen Chbosky, the author and director of The Perks of Being a Wallflower made it this way.  A man who wrote one of my most beloved novels and movie adaptations helped in creating this narrative monstrosity, and that, out of all of this, was the deepest cut of all.

I'm not rehashing the plot, because I have too much to say about why this remake shouldn't exist, and I’m going to guess you’ve either seen the movie or are familiar with this almost 300-year-old story.  It took the source material and just murdered it in its attempts to update it.  I'm going to start positive and work toward the biggest issue I had with it, because I'm currently writing angry and that never turns out well for me.

Things I liked:

This may be controversial, but I did like Josh Gad's performance as LeFou.  I'm not saying what LeFou did made any sense (he suddenly was upset Gaston was making things up again?), but as an actor, Josh Gad was working with what he had, and I think he owned it.

Chip's introduction to Maurice - I actually paused the movie because I was laughing so hard.

The piano playing the funeral march when it tackled LeFou.

When Mrs. Potts said Chip smelled good when he turned back into a little boy.  It was a cute little detail.

The guillotine joke in "Be Our Guest" and the Les Miserables barricade reference.

I actually thought Cogsworth was adorable for being a CGI nightmare.  I don't know how much of my opinion of this was influenced by the voice of Ian McKellan.

I really liked the costumes, except for Belle's gown, which was definitely a downgrade.  Micarah articulated the issues with it perfectly.

Celine Dion singing the credits song was a nice homage to her cover of "Beauty and the Beast", although it sucks she's associated with this nightmare of a remake.

Little quibbles:

Whatever they did to Emma Watson’s voice made her sound like a robot.

Almost all the CGI, especially the Beast, was completely unsettling.  The wardrobe was the worst of it, holy shit.

They went out of their way to explain plot holes like "Why don't the villagers remember the castle?" or “Why is it snowing when it looks like the middle of summer in the village?” or "How did Belle get the Beast up on that horse?" when none of that really matters to the overall narrative.

The reaction to Belle teaching a little girl how to read was unbelievably eye-roll inducing.  Lindsay Ellis' video on this is so fucking good, watch it now - You don't have to read the rest of my ramblings if you do. #beastforshe

Ariana Grande slurring her way through "Beauty and the Beast".

It was nice to see Maurice updated from a manic inventor to a level-headed, sweet, competent, reserved man who treats his daughter like an equal.  Clock-maker Maurice that actually takes care of Belle reads better to me, and I like how they had him wander into the garden to get a rose for her - it's a nice callback to the original story.  The problem with doing this, however, is it negates the "crazy old Maurice" narrative that plays heavily into why the villagers don't believe his tale of the Beast in the first place.  If Kevin Kline, a put-together man (up until this point), wandered into the tavern looking disheveled and conveying a story about his daughter being kidnapped, I'd be like, "Shit, Maurice, what did you see?!".  But instead, the story goes out of its way to put him at the mercy of Gaston, and shoehorn in an attempted murder plot to really turn everyone against him - it's bizarre.

Medium quibbles:

Gaston went from being a well-liked, athletically inclined dude to a literal predator and murderer.  Belle was a beautiful status symbol in the original movie, but she becomes literal game to Gaston in the remake, as he refers to her as prey, or something to be hunted.  When Maurice gets in-between him and Belle, Gaston punches him in the face and leaves him out in the forest to be eaten by wolves?!  What does this add to the story?!  Gaston wasn't right for Belle because he wasn't kind and didn't intellectually stimulate her, but that nuance is wasted on the remake, turning him into a full-blown vengeful villain that will literally kill Belle's family to get what he wants.

The first time Belle is brought to her room, there is this long panning shot showing off how nice it is, and she comments, in wonder, how she thinks its beautiful.  They had the fucking nerve to play “Home” in the background of this scene, completely ignoring the original context of the song is sadness and despair.  But go off, I guess...

The Big Enchilada:

This is where my notes went from eh????? to WHAT THE FUCK, so be prepared.  How someone with enough emotional maturity to write Perks can make the Beast into such an abusive asshole is so fucking beyond me, I'm still trying to process it.

Beauty and the Beast is a romance at heart, which you would never know by watching this movie, as Belle and the Beast have so little chemistry it's painful.  This might be because the Beast is abusive to Belle at every turn in the beginning, making the pivot from enemies to lovers so completely unbelievable it's shocking.  The remake is already at a deficit as the CGI Beast is terrifying, in contrast with the cartoon, which has the ability to make the Beast cuddly with big eyes and an expressive face.  But they still decide to take all of the Beast's inner conflict out of the remake, remove his agency completely out of the relationship with Belle, and make him supremely unlikable in every interaction they have together.

There are a few scenes that illustrate this, starting with the dinner invitation scene:

In the original, the Beast sees the pain he's inflicted by pulling Belle away from her father, and offers her a tour of the castle and a bedroom instead of a prison cell.  He also invites her to dine with him, although he could have gone about it wayyyy better.  He confides in his staff that she is beautiful, and he realizes she can break the spell, but he doesn't know how to appeal to her.  His staff give him tips on how to be charming and not so intimidating.  He is receptive, but overwhelmed, because he hasn't had to interact with any other human in years.  When he discovers she doesn't plan on eating with him, his anger takes over because she refused his hospitality, and he's a king, so how dare she?  The staff try to help him appear genteel, cause again, HE expressed interest in being appealing to her.  When this doesn't immediately work, he throws a massive tantrum and tells them not to feed her.  When he looks at Belle later in the mirror, he hears the direct result of his actions as Belle is ranting to the wardrobe.  He laments she'll never see him as a human because his actions have pushed her away.

In the remake, it's not the Beast’s idea to give Belle a room, or to invite her to dinner - it is his staff's intervening that puts him in that situation in the first place.  He doesn't even want to get to know her because she's a daughter of a thief, and that's somehow below his current social status of recluse animal/human hybrid.  His staff persuade him to give Belle a chance as they're all invested in breaking the spell because they'll turn into furniture if they don't!  They give him tips to manipulate her into opening the door, he tries it, it fails spectacularly, he gets angry and he leaves - but not before calling his staff idiots...  I appreciate he's not as physically violent in this version, but he just acts like he couldn’t be bothered with Belle.  He does spy on her from the mirror, but she looks bewildered.  He doesn't know if she's lonely, or missing her father, or what...  There's no indication that how he treated her in that moment has pushed her further away.  Then he just stares at the rose like, "Well, shit, this ticking time bomb is still ticking!".  It's completely self-focused.

Oh, and then Mrs. Potts tries to handwave the Beast’s behavior away with, "People say a lot of things in anger.  It is our choice whether or not to listen," which, excuse me, WHAT THE EVERLOVING FUCK DOES THAT MEAN?!  You are in charge of how to interpret someone's actions, and you could just choose to ignore when they are being abusive??  I CAN'T.  She also tries to gaslight Belle into seeing how great the Beast is when Belle has had zero positive interactions with the dude since she's been there.  The wardrobe brings it up in the original, but this is after he's offered Belle a room and invited her to dinner himself, not by his staff...

The west wing scene and the Beast turning into less of a dick:

In the original, the Beast himself tells Belle not to go to the west wing.  Her curiosity brings her there, because she wants to understand more about him and what he is hiding.  She's invading his space knowing full well that she is invading his space.  When she is discovered, she's about to fuck around with something that is literally tied with the Beast's livelihood.  His anger is disproportionate, but justified, and you see that he immediately regrets his reaction after she runs away from him.  That’s why he goes after her.  Belle watches him risk his life to save her even though she broke a promise to him, so she decides to repay the favor by bringing him back.  They fight while she's trying to clean his wound, and they're both right in their perspectives, but the Beast acknowledges that yes, his temper got the best of him - he realized that the moment she bolted.  Belle then rewards his selfless act by thanking him, which sets his entire transformation in motion.  

He gives her the library because he expresses interest in doing something to make her happy, and he vocalizes he's falling in love with her.  He's delighted by her reaction.  During the ballroom scene, the way he looks at her, you can see he absolutely adores her.  He asks, "Are you happy here with me?" because he loves her, and her well-being is the most important thing.

In the remake, the staff tell Belle not to got to the west wing because it's a storage area.  She wanders over there anyway, for whatever fucking reason, and takes a glance at the rose behind the glass.  The Beast finds her looking at it and gets mad at her, even though he never told her not to visit him in the west wing, and she didn't fuck around with the rose.  When she runs away, he doesn't even look like he cares.  There is no reason for him to go after her, and there is no reason for her to help him back to the castle other than the plot told them to do it.  She doesn't help him with his wounds, and the staff are the ones to thank her for returning him.  She even asks the staff why the fuck they care about him, because he's such an asshole.  They justify his behavior because he had a cruel father, and damn themselves to his fate because they didn't stop a literal monarch from raising his son.  Belle continues to take care of him because she pities him?  He repays her kindness by insulting her taste in literature.

He doesn't even show her the library because he knows she likes books, he does it because he wants her to read "better" books.  Then he makes one joke about not reading Greek and THAT IS WHAT MAKES BELLE SWOON.  THE FUCKING GREEK BOOK JOKE.  I mean, I sort of get it, I fell in love with my ex because he made a bread pun, but he hadn't been continually abusive to me up until that point.  Belle starts to read out loud to him, and that's supposed to be the event that incentives the Beast to be better?  Even while Belle is singing about how much he's changed (he hasn't), he throws a boulder of snow in her face. The cherry on top of this sundae is his stoic question after they dance, "It's foolish, I suppose, for a creature like me to hope that one day he might earn your affection?" which not only sounds like complement fishing, it is primarily motivated by breaking the curse!  Only after she gives an indifferent answer does he ask if she'd be happy at the castle.

Oh god, and the death scene is cut off in the middle because we have to watch 2 minutes of the staff members permanently turning into furniture, which, like, I wouldn't think they'd want to castrate the emotional climax of the movie, but this whole thing is an exercise on how to fuck something already good up.

This movie fails so spectacularly at this basic love story, I can't begin to justify its existence.  I wouldn't recommend this to anybody.  If you want to watch new Alan Menkin content, watch Galavant, because this movie just pissed me off.

It was bold of Disney to end it with a beastiality joke, though.

[hes-writer]

A Cheat IV

How about when y/n is engaged with her boyfriend and how happy she is with her life but harry is still miserable. He misses her so much that he begs her to take him back, like literally begging. He tells her that he’ll do anything bc it hurts him to see her getting married with someone else. But y/n isn’t having any of it so she tells him “you already took my heart for granted and left me broken. But now i finally found my happiness again, you’re going to take that away from me too?”

Summary: Harry cheats, Y/N is happy

Warnings: angst

Word count: 3.6k

“That’s what I hoped and gee thanks, have fun with yours too if you ever get over me,”  Harry smirk at her menacingly.

She rolls her eyes, burning from the tears she held back. She remains strong.

“Don’t worry, I will.”

Y/N couldn’t believe how well things have been going for her. In the past eight months after her and Harry’s horrid conclusion to their relationship, Y/N had finally graduated from university after four grueling years of late nights and caffeine coursing through her system. She had gotten a puppy—something that she’d always wanted, but never took the initiative to get one. After tossing her cap in the air during the ceremony with Alan beside her, she was offered a job at a well-known law firm only a few weeks after. Everything is going great.

Not a few days ago, Alan had proposed to her and the engagement ring on her pinky finger was proof of a powering relationship, glimmering against the light of her wooden work desk serving as a backdrop. She smiles to herself, thinking how things finally turned around for her. One of her coworkers passes by, noticing the jewelry adorning her finger and stops to eye her suspiciously, a smile stretching over her face before squealing as Y/N nods shyly. She congratulates Y/N before walking away to her own table.

Y/N’s phone ‘dings’.

Alan

“hey babe, im cooking dinner tonight

what do u want? :))))”

She sighs with satisfaction, having someone supporting her through everything made her feel wanted. Alan is the perfect match for her. Regardless of dating for only six months (they've known each other since high school), he’s been a sturdy shoulder to lean on during the past two where she altered between crying over Harry or being a strong, independent woman that has had enough of being treated like shit. When he asked her out, granted a bit timidly since he wasn’t exactly sure if she was ready to move on, she hesitated but she trusts Alan. She also told herself that not all men are like Harry.

-----

Irene and Harry’s relationship didn’t last long after Y/N caught them in the bathroom. Actually, it ended not too long after. Since Harry’s attention was focused solely on her, Irene took advantage of that and asked him to purchase her a bunch of things that she ‘probably didn’t need’, Harry thinks. I mean, did she honestly need four of the same bags in different colours? Or having Harry book five-star restaurants around the city to celebrate Irene's friend's brother-in-laws birthday? Ridiculous. The price didn’t bother him as he had enough money to buy an island, but hearing her talk his ear off about a new Versace handbag or the recent fall line of Jimmy Choo heels that she just had to get her hands on; he’s had enough. Before officially officially splitting from Y/N, Irene had asked him to buy her stuff, sure, but it used to be minute things like a new perfume or some brand-name makeup. But now, it’s as if she thought her name was titled to Harry’s earnings, threatening to break up with him if he didn’t comply.

At first, he gave in to everything, mistaking the fear of Irene leaving him as something he was deathly afraid of. But now, realizing that the feelings he held for were nothing but sexual infatuation, something exciting and thrilling in his life. Now that he had nothing to hide, his life was giving an off vibe–yearning for Y/N’s presence. Yes, Harry missed Y/N.

He first felt a twinge in his heart in that bathroom, slowly but surely, it kept coming back stronger and more frequently. It happened especially before bed, when Y/N would usually speak to him about her day or ask him about his, or even caress him with gentle touches to calm him before sleeping, he misses her gestures that he only thought of as pestering and nagging during the last few months, but really it was nothing more than actions of love and concern. Irene never gave him a second glance, she cuddled into his chest, manicured razor sharp nails scratching his chest as if to be done as a calming notion, but Harry feels it as a burning sensation that urged him to shift uncomfortably from the woman beside him.

Irene was different from Y/N, stating the obvious. Y/N cleaned the house routinely, cooked the most flavourful dishes, and stocked the kitchen and bathroom with supplies efficiently. Harry believes in splitting the workload and chores between people who lived in the house –which was both of them– but Y/N took special charge in the household activities, saying that Harry needs his rest after being busy the whole day. He feels like a jerk sometimes knowing that she was stressed too, yet she continues to work harder than anyone he’d ever met. Besides that, his comparison was that Irene was rather unforgiving with chores. She’d requested many times that Harry hire someone else to do the work for them, she didn’t even live with him! Saying that her nails were too expensive or that her hands were too precious to handle the pressure of cleaning anything in the house. And when Harry did hire someone, she looked down on the helper as if she had the right to do so. Harry powered through her attitude for the good—recently mediocre— sex and the company.

As things got worse, he didn’t know how much more of Irene he can handle. When he received the news that she was cheating on him with her boss, he snapped. He spoke to that guy in person about giving Irene a promotion and this was how they repaid him. Frankly, it didn’t hurt as much as he’d thought; it didn't hurt as much as his break up with Y/N. He was relieved that she wasn’t going to be around anymore. But all things have an equal and opposite reaction because now, Harry felt extra lonely.

The slight twinge in his heart built into something grander when he was left alone with his own thoughts. Replaying his memories with Y/N trying to see where it went wrong. And at that moment, Harry realizes that it was all his fault. He was the reason why they drifted, he was the reason why she packed her things and left their house with nothing but a few stacks of bills in her hands to last for a few months because he’d essentially kicked her out of his life. What was he thinking?

-----

Y/N was on her lunch break for the day, deciding to grab food at the cafe a few blocks from the firm. She was hastily carrying herself through crowds of people with somewhere to go. Once she arrived, she stands behind a lengthy line of customers waiting to state their order to the cashier. Although Y/N rarely strays from getting her regular items, she scans the menu briefly anyway.

Her turn comes, ordering and paying for her food, she was asked to wait on the left side. The main entrance bell chimes, indicating that someone new had either left or entered the café.

Harry walks in with his grandpa hat covering much of his hair and he hopes that it's doing a good job at disguising his face. His hands held tight in his pockets as his lanky legs move him to the line-up. He did not need to look at the menu since he always gets his coffee black. Instead, his eyes scan the area, looking for watchful eyes from people who have recognized him or casually inspecting his surroundings for the sake of it. His eyes land on a familiar head of hair that he has to blink thrice to make sure of what he was really seeing.

There stood Y/N clad in her matching pantsuit, hair in a ponytail and a bag clutched on her elbow. She looks sideways and he was blessed with a side profile of her face. Oh, how he misses her. He decides to take a detour from his usual escapades and makes a beeline towards her.

"Hey"

Y/N turns around, face visibly displaying a mixture of disappointment, confusion, and anger upon seeing Harry.

"Hi," she says curtly, before turning around as her name was called. She grabs her latte and croissant, turning around swiftly before lightly knocking shoulders with Harry's broad ones, make an escape route to the exit. Even though she still had an hour or so left on her break, she doesn't think that she could handle spending any more time with Harry in the vicinity. So she exits and makes it out on the street that has cleared some during her fifteen minutes indoors.

"Y/N! Y/N, wait. Please," Harry shouts from behind her, weaving his way around people blocking his way to Y/N.

"What do you want, Harry?" You.

"I saw you and wanted to say hi," he explains, eyes finding hers trying to find any kind of emotion that meant she was somehow glad to see him. H finds none.

"Well, you said hi. See you around," Y/N briskly tries to walk away once again but is stopped when he grabs her wrist. A chill makes its way up her spine, heart beating untimely. She gulps.

"Please, Y/N. Let's talk,"

She pretends to look at her watch, rolling her eyes before saying, "Fine. You've got ten minutes,"

The pair walk side-by-side towards a nearby park. The silence between them was uncomfortable for both. Sitting on a bench, Harry shifts his body facing her, clearing his throat.

"I want to apologize for-for what I did before," Y/N can tell that he's nervous by the way his body language breaks down in from of her.

"You mean when you cheated on me and I caught you fucking her brains out in the bathroom? Or was it when you knew that your feelings changed for me but you led me on anyway?" Y/N raises her brows accusingly.

He gulps in response.

"Y-yeah for that. Look, I thought about it and it turns out that I still love you, Y/N. I still have feelings for you,"

She takes a bite of her croissant, shifting her gaze somewhere else and further emphasizing how uncomfortable she was feeling right now.

"And if you'd let me, I want to give it another try. I promise I won't ever do it again. You deserve the world and I'm willing to give it to you. I'll do anything that it takes to have you forgive me," he pleads seriously. If he had to jump off of a bridge for another chance at Y/N's love, he would do it. He will do anything to have Y/N forgive him. Anything.

He was blind without her, lost without any guidance and navigating the world alone. He needed Y/N to tell him that it was gonna be okay when times go rough; he needed Y/N to love him like she did before, the way he does for her right at this very moment. He wants to relive the past where he didn't take her for granted--when they were happy. And if he can't, he might as well give it another shot, to experience the happiness she brought him once again by trying the circumstances. He was ready for it if she was.

"I'm engaged, Harry."

His eyes were like laser beams boring through her face; eyebrows furrowing, lips pursing open and closed and his chest felt crushed from the force of her words. She didn't say in a tone to spite him or make him jealous, it was soft and gentle–merely stating a fact that he obviously missed out on because What?

"Engaged? Y/N, what are you talking about," He spits out nervously, not wanting to accept the truth but wanting to learn more about her status. It’d only been eight months, surely she couldn’t have moved on that fast. You’re one to talk, Harry. He snickers to himself.

"Alan and I—we're getting married," She takes a sip of her beverage, ring glinting against Harry's green eyes and he swears that he just saw his life flash before his eyes.

There it is. The ring that bonded Alan and Y/N together, glistening in the sunlight, taunting him. It rested so gently on her pinky as if it was meant to be there. When Harry imagined this moment, she wore a ring that he had given her because he was the one who got down on a knee, declaring his undying love for her, praising her for her beauty and grace, and asking her the question he'd pictured himself repeat about a hundred times under his breath trying to find the best way to ask her to be his wife.

"Y-you're getting married? Tell me you're lying," He sounds angry, demanding, and in disbelief of what's unfolding right in from of his eyes and ears. "Tell me that you're pulling my leg, love," he says his second statement with great vulnerability, voice cracking in the middle of it to which Y/N retracts her neck, appalled.

"No, I'm not kidding. Why would I do that?" Y/N was confused about why Harry was reacting the way he is right now. Shouldn't he be happy for her? After all, he did break it off between the two of them so he had no right to feel hurt or pained. He had Irene.

"Because I wanted it to be me!" He all but yells at her face. Neck vein straining from the blood rushing to his brain, making him dizzy with the knowledge he just received. Palms sweating profusely forcing him to wipe it on his jeans before he takes hold of her empty hand, taking it in his own which she surprisingly lets him.

"I wanted it to be me. I want you to be mine and now I can't because he—he's the one you're going to marry," A lone tear falls down his eyes, nose starting to get runny from the emotions that overwhelm him. She tries to pull her hand back to herself, but he doesn't let her.

"Why are you crying? You wanted this, you wouldn’t have cheated on me if you didn't want me out of your life," She tries to reason and justifies with his previous actions. Everything was making sense until he spits out the bullshit of still loving her. And even so, why did he wait so long to find her and tell her?

"It was a mistake! I was stupid and a huge asshole, I didn't think of the consequences." He grasps tightly to her hand, fearing that this may be the absolute last time he'll be able to touch her like this. "I took advantage of you, of your love and I shouldn't have because you're the most amazing person in this world. You gave me chance after chance and I didn't deserve any of it b-but I just wished you'd give me another one,"

Harry brings her hand up to his lips, kissing it multiple times while looking in her eyes sincerely.

"I'm glad you know that you already took my heart for granted and left me broken. But now, I finally found my happiness again, you want to take that away from me too? Just so you'd feel satisfied with yourself for getting the girl again?" She pulls away.

"Thanks, I'm flattered but even if I was single, I wouldn't dare give you another chance regardless if you are Harry Styles. I don't care if you can give me the world or anything I want because all I needed was for you to love, trust, and be honest with me." She takes hold of her bag strap blindly, holding her coffee cup in hand and standing up. "You didn't give me any of those,"

Harry stands as well, not prepared to lose her once more. "But I can now! I'll love you so much and I will give every ounce of it out of my body. If that's what you want, I'll do it. Just please,"

"Can't you see, H? I'm happy with Alan now. I've moved on, forgotten about you. For god's sake, I'm getting married!"

Each word she darted out of her mouth was like a gunshot to Harry. Wounds getting deeper and his body feeling heavier than usual, the emotional toll it was giving him was too much for him to handle

"Please. Do the same for yourself. I may not love you the way I did before, but I still care about you," Y/N states gently to Harry. If anything she sees him as a friend, still cares for his well-being. From the short distance, she sees a few girls whispering to each other and pointing at him, obviously recognizing his stance and demeanor.

"But I love you, Y/N! Isn't that enough?"

She only smiles at him before shaking her head, "Sometimes love isn’t enough. Sometimes you have to act on it, and sometimes cheating isn’t a great way to prove that.”

“I hope she was worth it.”

And before he could fire back at a chance to defend himself, the group of girls approaches him suddenly, catching him off guard.

He could hear them requesting to sign their phone cases, could hear the shutter of their phone cameras capturing his dumbfounded face, could hear them chattering about his work and he could hear them praise him for all the things he wasn't. Even with the roar of his crowd performances echoing how much they loved him, nothing beats Y/N's soft voice voicing out an, "I love you, Harry" He feels one girl shake his arm, usually he'd politely ask them to not touch him but at the moment he felt numb.

Because a few meters away, he witnesses Alan and Y/N walking towards each other with the brightest smile on their faces. Greeting each other with a hug, everything about them screamed being in love. Like Harry was, except the girl he adored was loving another man. What hurts the most–when they kissed each others' lips tenderly and his mind plays tricks on him, envisioning that he was the guy that Y/N was with except it flicks back to reality much too soon than he’d like it to be.

His imagination is proof of what could've been him and Y/N spending the rest of their lives together but of course, he’d mess that future up. He stands there wishing he could turn back time, praying to whoever it is up there that could help him find love again. Because his heart continuously breaks seeing her be happy with somebody else.

——- If you like it, shoot me a message If you don’t, pretend you do requests are open!

[just-a-spark]

The Before, and The After Part 13

Warnings: Language, Sexual Content (18+ to be safe)

Series Masterlist

Summery: A wealthy classmate of Meg’s becomes close to the family, a little too close to the playboy grandson of Harlan Thrombey. The events leading up to, and following, Harlan Thrombey’s death.

Eliza

Ransom couldn’t look away from the woman in the front row behind the Prosecutor. Her husband glared at him as he stared at the redhead, but Ransom needed her to look at him again. He needed to memories the look of her face one more time before he spent the rest of his life behind bars.

“Hugh, I’m going to need you to focus.” His lawyer hissed as he was situated next to her. She pushed her hair behind her ear, leaning in, “Don’t give them any more ammunition, this is already an impossible case.”

Ransom swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he looked to the side, unable to hide his interest in the woman. She looked so pregnant, and she looked so scared. Was she scared of him? Did the idea of him hurting her cross her mind?

Ransom shook the thoughts away and looked forward as the bailiff told everyone to rise for the judge. The older woman swept in and sat, and everyone followed suit. He was in a daze, preparing himself to have all his indiscretions aired out in front of the jury. He knew he shouldn’t look so distracted, but he knew what his lawyer knew: he would be found guilty. Despite Stephanie’s best efforts, he killed Fran and he tried to kill Harlan and he tried to kill Marta and there was no wiggling his way out because they had his confession.

“How do you plead?”

“Not guilty Your Honor.” Stephanie said firmly and Ransom saw Phil snort out of the corner of his eye.

“Very well then.” The woman grumbled, clearly hoping the defense wouldn’t waste her time with a pointless trial, “We shall proceed.”

After that Ransom tuned out everything said, occasionally lifting his head higher when he heard his name. As Phillip made his opening statements, Ransom held his gaze with a sorrowful, guilty expression. He didn’t feel guilt over his charges though, he felt guilty over not saving Eliza from this schmuck.

Lieutenant Elliott took the stand first, followed by Richard, who had never said such nice things about Ransom before in his life. It made Ransom wonder if Richard really thought that or if he just needed his son out of prison so he wouldn’t be alone. Ransom’s mother was nowhere to be seen or heard from.

Alan was painfully honest in his opinions on the stand, going into detail about the will reading and Ransom’s departure with Marta. All the while, his defense let the Prosecutor rip Ransom’s reputation to shreds, unable to find a bright side in their accounts.

By the time Benoit Blanc took the stand, Ransom wished he had plead guilty from the start. It would have made this day end faster.

“Mr. Blanc, you were hired by Hugh Drysdale to investigate the murder of Harlan Thrombey’s death, correct?” Phil asked, pacing slightly in front of the judge.

“Yes, sir. That is correct. I did not know that at the time of my hiring though. I was hired anonymously.” Blanc replied, leaning back in his chair, eyes following the lawyer as he paced.

“And you found evidence that Mr. Drysdale attempted to murder his grandfather?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You were also in the room when Mr. Drysdale attempted to stab Miss Cabrera with this knife?” Phillip gestured toward the prop knife that was brought out for evidence.

“Yes. After confessing to the housekeeper’s murder he attempted to... attack Miss Cabrera out of rage.” Blanc said easily, unafraid to throw Ransom’s ass under the bus.

Ransom’s foot tapped against the hard floor anxiously, and his lawyer whacked his thigh to get him to stop. She shot him a dirty look and he stiffened, a child chastised for being a distraction to the class.

Phillip nodded and smiled at Blanc, then turned to the judge confidently, “No further questions your honor.”

Stephanie stood and smoothed down her blazer jacket over her high waisted trousers as she approached the stand. Her heels clicked lightly as she practically coasted over to Benoit Blanc, studying him with a smile, “Detective Blanc, let me just start by saying it is an honor to meet you.”

Blanc smiled a little, “Thank you.”

“Now, I have to ask, why exactly do you think my client would murder his own grandfather?”

Blanc bounced his head back and forth a little, “He was cut out of the will and he wanted the will reverted back to it’s prior form.”

“Alright, that makes sense, but why kill his grandfather? Harlan Thrombey wasn’t sick, as far as we know, so why, in your professional opinion, would he kill him now? Could Mr. Drysdale not simply try to get back into his grandfather’s good graces before he passed away?”

“Because if Miss Cabrera was the reason for Harlan Thrombey’s death, the Slayer Rule would not allow her to get the inheritance, so the old will would still stand.” Blanc explained easily and Ransom contemplated jumping out of his seat and screaming ‘I’m Guilty!’ at the jury.

“Your Honor, allow me to speculate as a lead in to my next question,” She paused and the judge gestured for her to continue, “This motive fits not only my client, but the entire Thromby family. However, wouldn’t an easier explanation be that Miss Cabrera found out that Harlan was leaving her everything and decided to off him early, to ensure he can’t change his mind?”

“Objection, Your Honor” Phillip called, “Conjecture!”

“Sustained, Miss Thompson you are on thin ice. Get back on track.” The judge warned and Stephanie and she lifted her hands as an apology, turning back to Blanc.

“Harlan Thrombey’s death was ruled a suicide. Please tell the jury how you know Fran the housekeepers death wasn’t?”

“She died of a morphine overdose. She told Marta it was Mr. Drysdale when Marta arrived and called the authorities.” Blanc explained slowly, a small grin growing on his face, “She was very specific about who did this to her.”

Stephanie nodded, holding her chin, “And who told you what she said?”

“Miss Cabrera.”

“Was anyone else there?”

“No. Miss Cabrera asked me to wait in the car while she went in to pick something up. Afterwards she explained to me that she received a blackmail email telling her to go there. I came in once I saw the authorities arriving on the scene.”

Stephanie smirked, “So, just to be clear, the only person who heard Fran say it was Mr. Drysdale was Marta Cabrera? The woman who just inherited Harlan Thrombey’s estate?”

“Yes, but-”

“How can you be certain that Marta didn’t kill the woman?”

“Objection!” Phil called, but this time, the judge tilted her head toward Blanc, curiosity written across her face.

“Overruled. Please answer Miss Thompson’s question Detective Blanc.”

“Marta has, uh, an interesting condition. See, when Miss Cabrera lies, she tends to... expel the contents of her stomach.” Blanc drawled and Stephanie stifled her laugh.

“So she vomits when she lies? That is how you know she’s telling the truth?” Stephanie asked incredulously as the jury began to murmur to themselves. “Tell me, who’s medical bag was found on the scene of the crime?”

“Well, Marta’s but-”

“And who’s morphine was administered?”

“Marta’s-”

Stephanie looked toward the jury and took a deep breath, not looking back as she asked, “And who’s prints were on the bag and syringe?”

Blanc paled a bit, but he kept his eyes trained on the ebony haired lawyer as he answered truthfully, “Miss Cabrera’s fingerprints were on the equipment, because it is hers. It does not mean she committed any crime.”

“But you have no finger prints condemning my client to the crime either then, do you?” Stephanie challenged and Phil yelled objection again.

“Overruled.” The judge said, narrowing her eyes at Stephanie, “You’re causing quite a stir, Miss Thompson. Wrap up your questions, or I’ll start siding with Mr. Stevens.”

“I only have one question left.” Stephanie said, turning back to Blanc with a confident smile that Ransom didn’t think belonged on her face. “Do you have any sort of proof that Hugh Drysdale murdered that woman?”

“Why yes, I do. Mr. Drysdale was being recorded when he threatened Miss Cabrera and admitted to his crimes.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, just one more question-” Stephanie put her index finger up to the judge, “Did he, or did he not make said confession under the assumption the housekeeper was alive?”

“Objection! Relevance!” Phil called and the judge and she responded with ‘sustained’, eyeing Stephanie as she grinned.

“No further questions.” She said proudly and turned on her heels, heading back to her seat.

Phil stood and approached the judge as Blanc was allowed off the stand, “Your honor, I’d like to request a brief recess.”

“Request granted.” The judge said quickly, pounding her gavel and allowing the lawyers to take a break. The air was heavy in the courtroom as Miss Thompson took a seat next to Ransom and pulled a granola bar out of her briefcase.

“I’m impressed.” Ransom told her quietly, looking over his shoulder to see Eliza speaking with Blanc, “You almost made a viable case for my freedom.”

“That’s my job, isn’t it?” She hummed, taking another bite.

Ransom sighed, looking over at Eliza again. For a brief second, her eyes landed on his and she averted her gaze. “They’ll play my confession and it’s over. But I appreciate your efforts.”

“Don’t give up so quickly, Ransom. The trial isn’t over yet.” Stephanie promised as she stood to leave, and the guards reappeared to make sure Ransom didn’t make a run for it.

He rubbed his wrists together, feeling the phantom pull of the handcuffs he had to wear on the ride over from the prison. There was special place in hell for men who tried to murder their family, and Ransom wondered if it was filled with good intentions.

He told himself he’d done it for Eliza. He wanted to take her away and keep her for himself. With what he deserved of the inheritance, they would have been set for years, living comfortably as they traveled the world. Ransom wanted to provide for her, keep her comfortable, and make her feel loved.

At least that’s what he told himself in an effort to feel justified, but he knew in his heart he was angry and greedy and no amount of love or devotion could make him as happy as a thick stack of cash.

Stephanie reappeared and sat down beside Ransom, reaching down and grabbing his knee as his foot began to tap, “We’re on the home stretch.”

Ransom huffed and clenched his teeth, looking over his shoulder to Eliza again. This time though, she was looking at him too. She had a sad smile on her face, but she gave him a small wave, and he opened his mouth to say something until the bailiff announced that court was back in session.

“I’d like to call Marta Cabrera to the stand.” Phil said confidently and Marta was ushered into the room. She sat down and swallowed hard. Despite swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, Trooper Wagner approached the stand with a garbage can just in case.

“Miss Cabrera, did Mr. Drysdale try to kill you?” Phil asked simply as the crowd murmured.

“Yes. But the knife he used wasn’t real. It was a prop.” Marta said simply.

“Were you present when he admitted to the housekeeper’s murder?”

“Yes.” Marta said simply, meeting Ransom’s eyes for the first time since he was taken away in the police cruiser. “I told him Fran was alive, so he admitted to everything, because he knew she would tell everyone he gave her the morphine.”

Phil nodded slowly, “Why did you lie to him?”

Marta opened her mouth, organizing her thoughts before she stated, “Because I knew he would lie to save himself. If he knew he was about to be caught, he would tell the truth. Why would he admit to a murder he did not commit?”

The crowd and jury murmured at her answer and the judge pounded her gavel to silence them.

Phil smiled grandly, then turned to the judge, “Your Honor, I’d like Exhibit C to be entered into evidence. This is the audio confession taken by Lieutenant Elliott the day of Hugh Drysdale’s arrest.”

The clerk hit a button on their computer and a crackle began, followed by a deep man’s voice narrating a story. Phil looked to the clerk in confusion and they shrugged, looking to the judge and the bailiff questioningly, “This is the evidence Your Honor.”

“That’s not right though.” Phillip said, scrambling over to his table to open his briefcase, “Your Honor, I’m unsure of what has happened, I have a backup copy of the audio file if you’ll allow me to play it.”

“Go ahead. I’m curious about this confession that over half of our witnesses have talked about.” The judge said, allowing Phil to hand over the CD he’d kept as a backup.

Ransom looked to his lawyer, but she just looked ahead with a confident smile on her face, not even blinking as Phil began to play the new CD.

The same voice narrated, “And in a world of a thousand knives, they just couldn’t find the one they were looking for...”

“Your Honor, is this an audio book?” Stephanie stood and questioned, staring at Phil in disbelief, “Is this some kind of a joke?”

“It’s A Thousand Knives! It’s one of Harlan’s stories!” Trooper Wagner yelled with a grin from the place he was standing near the door and everyone began to talk over one another.

The judge pounded her gavel, “Order! Order in the court! Mr. Stevens, what is the meaning of this?”

“I don’t know, I listened to this just last night, I don’t know how this could happen!” He scrambled, wandering over to the clerk as the book played.

Ransom looked to his lawyer as she stared at the judge in exasperation. “Your Honor, we request a mistrial. The prosecutor has no evidence against my client, and his witness admitted this so called confession was made under false pretenses! There’s not even a confession to prove his confession!”

Suddenly the audio book cut off and all the jury heard was Ransom saying “In for a penny” before the audio cut out.

He grinned like a madman as the judge pounded her gavel, granting the mistrial and ordering the guards to escort Ransom back to prison to await further options for his case.

[witch-of-letters]

A Mirror Shattered (Callum Lynch x Reader)

When they first brought you here, to one of their Animus facilities (or ‘prisons’ as you liked to call them), they didn’t bother giving you their names. You didn’t ask them to. It didn’t matter to you. But one day, a woman, a head scientist as you’d later learn, introduced herself as Dr Sofia Rikkin. The rebel in you told you to remain silent and hostile but when you saw that shine of honesty in her eyes, you reluctantly swallowed your anger and talked to her as calmly as you could at the time (given how restrained and nervous you were).

  She explained your purpose there - they would put you in the Animus and watch your memories - ‘genetic’ memories to be precise. You listened to her patiently and when a pause came, you told her that you knew how that machine worked, how it wouldn’t be your first time in there. You felt a little amused when you saw her face change from calm and collected to surprised. Guess she wasn’t used to hearing that.

  Once they ‘released’ you into the ‘social’ area of the facility, you weren’t surprised to see so many kidnapped people in the slightest. You were a long-ago-initiated assassin, a Master. You were a brilliant hacker, IT-specialist, historian, fighter, and on top of that, a great expert on the artefacts of Eden. You previously had the chance to study them very closely, and that alone gave you an edge - you knew exactly how Apples and the other artefacts worked, and what their purpose was. Minerva had chosen you as her ‘champion’ for the fight against recently released Juno, for by the time you actually got into that facility, Desmond Miles had been long gone.

  While Desmond was your cousin (and one of the closest friends you’ve ever had), it didn’t stop him from foolishly pressing his palm against that damn pedestal. As grim as 'inevitable’ solar-wind/energy (you surprisingly couldn’t remember which one was right) collision sounded, it was far better than whatever Juno had in store for humanity. Everyone was devastated at his death, even his distant and cold father, who normally would never shed any tears. Fortunately, the team didn’t disband and together with Shaun and Rebecca, you somehow managed to move on - and that’s where the backstory abruptly stops.

  At first, you didn’t bother with socializing with the people around you. They kept themselves away from you, not knowing who you were but knowing why you were brought here. For as long as you could, you kept interactions with any of them at a minimum, not only because they were complete strangers but also because you needed some space to observe everything - the structure of the building, guard patrol schedules etc.

  On one day though, you saw the eyes of a person who looked like he had seen better days, had a better life. You didn’t know why he did it but when your eyes met, his lips whispered the words ‘Where am I?’, clearly stating that he knew nothing about Abstergo. Thankfully, the guards didn’t pay any attention to that, but you chose to look the other way and poke at your untouched steak.

‘Where am I?’   - the words kept repeating in your head, over and over again. ‘You have absolutely no idea what you have gotten yourself into, pal.’ you thought while laying on your bed, awake and in the middle of the night. You suddenly wished you could send a message to your teammates, let them know where you were but alas, you didn’t have a laptop at your hand’s reach, or even a simple phone to poke around in the Templars’ internal network and search for the Apple located in this damn building.

  Once they put you into the Animus the next day, they kept replaying Ezio’s memories - memories, that you had already gone through at the Auditore mansion - to find the place he had hidden the Apple in. What they didn’t know was actually your rather strange ability to directly interact with your genetic memories and ancestors. While no one could explain that - even Minerva - you found it useful, and right now, very comforting because you knew that all of them - Altaïr, Ezio, Connor, hell even Edward - were watching over you, unable to physically aid you but staying there with you as your pillars of sanity. 

  Callum, as you finally learned his name, was slowly getting accustomed to life in here. Moussa became his first friend, then Emir, and as bizarre as that sounds, even Nathan (the descendant of a traitor, Duncan Walpole). You kept noticing him glancing at you whenever you entered the hall to have lunch or spend some time playing basketball.

  Once you got your tray with lunch, you sat at the table next to him. You told him the words you first thought of after he first arrived here.

  ‘You have absolutely no idea what you have gotten yourself into, pal.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ you smirked.

  ‘We are prisoners in here. Forced to revisit the memories of our ancestors. Find what they seek.’ Suddenly he seemed very confused at your words.

  ‘Who’s “they” and what are we supposed be to looking for?’ You subtly shifted your gaze to your surroundings, looking for anyone eavesdropping on you. The camera wouldn’t be able to hear your conversation in this hall anyway.

  ‘Ancient artefacts. Not made by a human.’

  ‘Are you saying there are aliens out there?’ As amusing as that sounded, you kept your poker face.

  ‘It would be rather difficult to explain it to you here where we are not exactly alone. Besides, I’d need the artefact in my possession in order to show you how it looks like, and how it can be used.’ Now you saw him in deep thought, probably just processing your words. An alarm signalled for you to finish your lunch, and then go back to your designated cell.

  ‘I think I might be able to get one for you.’ Since the guards were already approaching, you had only enough time to give him a small nod. ‘Finally.’

  Some days later, Dr Rikkin asked for you to step inside her lab. Whether it was for another ‘interview’ or not, you frankly didn’t give a fuck. And then...you saw it. The Apple, laying inside a small chest, just waiting for you to come and get it. But you wouldn’t dare to do it. It wasn’t the right time.

  ‘I have an offer for you, Y/N. One that would benefit both of us.’ You already knew what she was about to tell you. ‘Not a chance.’ you thought.

  ‘Oh, please. Don’t tell me that I’m going to have to dig deeper, and when I’m finally finished, you’ll have your father pardon me. That scenario won’t happen, I assure you.’ For a moment she looked sad but the she made her face neutral again. She knew you were right but what else could she offer you for your cooperation? You wouldn’t budge so easily. She decided to be honest with you, for reasons she herself couldn’t understand. Perhaps you were just charming enough.

  ‘No. He won’t. But I do want to help you. I-’

  ‘Look, it will never work out between us. I know that you’re trying to bring Callum on your side by telling him a story about how both of your mothers were killed by an assassin but he won’t get you what you want. No one here will.’ you paused, to let her mull over your words a bit. Not giving her the option to open her mouth, you continued.

  ‘Your father, you, and your countless followers can’t seem to understand that the Order you’re all trying to achieve so hard will never be realised. While we Assassins fight for the Freedom, we understand that we can’t give people too much of it, or the world would become even more chaotic than it already is. The Order on the other hand practically equals slavery. You are trying to find the Apples of Eden like the one behind you.’ She turned to look at it but made no move to close the lid of the chest.

  ‘What do you think your fellow Templars would do to the innocent people? Enslave them. Make them mindless puppets to play around with.’

  ‘My father has always said that our the Templar Order would make our world peaceful. That we would never have to fight anyone again.’

  ‘Then you were either raised as a blind mole or an ignorant fool. Look around you. Why do we, perfectly normal people, have to be kept in cells and used as your personal Indiana Jones’ to find a thing that you have absolutely no real knowledge of? Oh yes, you have absolutely no idea how the Apples, or should I say any of the Eden Artifacts, work.’ She was stunned, to say the least. The things you just said...seemed baffling to her. She slowly and with a small hesitation, started to believe your words. The Templars had neither good and peaceful intentions nor the knowledge on any of the artefacts of Eden, and that one day, it would be their downfall.

  ‘I believe you, Y/N, but unfortunately, I don’t have the power to release you. My father would never betray the Order or its principles.’

  ‘But I see that you can. I’m not going to offer you a place within the Brotherhood. You can come there yourself if you want to. The only thing I’m actually pleased about is that you finally know the truth and recognize it. No one benefits from lies - everyone has to swallow the bitter pill in the end .’ With that, you left her lab, letting her think it over and decide for herself, whether she’ll betray her father or not.

  While you were talking to Sofia, Callum faced his shadowy ancestor in his cell, staring at him through the glass window, looking him in the eye. After the last Animus session, he began experiencing hallucinations, dubbed “the Bleeding Effect”. He couldn’t tell the difference between what was real and what wasn’t. Unbeknownst to him though, Alan Rikkin was looking at him through the one-way mirror, silently observing his moves. He was fascinated by it because as a Templar, he would never be able to experience such a thing. It just didn’t work on the Templars as a whole. But there was also that feeling of dread like he knew something bad would happen with his ‘guest of honour’, like he would be able to tear down the whole facility if he kept gaining Aguilar’s combat experience. He would have to keep a close eye on him.

  You don’t hear it when it happens. The Riot. You simply stare at the ceiling, doing nothing. Then suddenly, Moussa barges in through the door to your right. You jump up from the bed and raise an eyebrow, silently asking ‘What?’ He only smiles and throws you a strong rubber baton.

  ‘We goin’ hunting now?’ you ask.

  ‘After you.’ he motions to the door, and without a thought, you ran into the hall so fast, that Moussa is having trouble with keeping up with you. The more unconscious or dead bodies you pass, the stronger your will fight is. Spotting a guard stepping out of a hallway, you run up to him and jump in the air, just high enough to flip and land on his shoulders, twisting his neck with your thighs. Your companion is very impressed, to say the least. When you finally reach the main hall, you see the other Assassins having finished the fight in there. Emir runs up to you.

  ‘We need to find Cal.’ you’re quicker than Moussa.

  ‘In the Animus room. He’s there, I know it.’

  ‘Then let’s go!’

  The fight between you six and the guards doesn’t last long. Nathan lays dead on the floor along with Emir. It was safe enough to take a breath. Callum though has another idea in his mind apparently, and runs away to God knows where. Then you realize that he’s after Sofia. ‘She will escape, Cal. You won’t catch her in time.’ The three of you - Moussa, Lin, and yourself, leave the room, but not before bowing your heads in respect of your fallen comrades.

You and Callum escape the facility.

  ‘You want to get that Apple, don’t you?’ he asks you one night after your escape. You nod.

  ‘I was after it long before I let myself get captured by them. Sometimes it’s necessary to take such risks.’ You briefly thought of Lucy and her betrayal. ‘But they don’t always pay off.’

  ‘I assume you know much more about the Creed.’

  ‘I do. I’m one of its current leaders actually. I know that you’re not familiar with the name of William Miles but he’s the one who is trying to keep the Brotherhood together. He’s given away a lot of things to keep it that way, and I’m trying not to let him down because he’s the only blood family I have left.’ You hug your shoulders, and Callum puts his jacket on your shoulders, trying to keep you warm and at the same time comfort you.

  ‘True, I don’t know him but you could introduce us to each other someday perhaps? Right now, we need to follow Alan Rikkin and retrieve the apple he’s stolen.’

  ‘That’s the part where you realize that we Assassins can never afford any holidays. We always have to be on the move, always have to be alert and cautious. It gets so tiresome sometimes that you wish you were already dead and at peace.’ He actually laughs at this. What would Moussa and Lin say about this? Perhaps the guy upstairs knows, you can’t tell.

  ‘Indeed. Now, let’s sleep. We won’t have enough time for it tomorrow

The next day is practically all a blur to you. Alan and his followers converge at a ceremony in a Templar sanctuary in London to celebrate their ‘triumph’. You all dress up into black hooded outfits. Rikkin begins his speech. His neck gets pierced by a hidden blade. He lies in a pool of his own blood, while Callum retrieves the Apple from his hands. Sofia cries for her father and vows revenge against Cal. The four of you depart, vowing to protect the Apple from the Templars.

Present day, Luxembourg

"How glad am I to finally have you back in my arms," Shaun sighs as he holds you close to him. You squeeze him tighter, letting a tear escape your eye.

"And I you, Shaun. Frankly, it was a mess in there. I’m glad that it’s finally over."

"Me too but I know that you were able to handle things in there just like you always do - perfectly."

"Don’t flatter me, you bastardo." you mocked him with a perfect Italian accent, which he loved, if anyone asked you. Rebecca went over to you two and gave you a tight hug which you happily returned.

"I was really worried, Ryder. Try to be more careful next time, okay?"

You rolled your eyes, “I always am. Now let me go and attend the Council. As rather useless as it is, I need to give them a full report about what happened in Spain."

”Alright, go but return ASAP. We’ll need you, and this guy over here specifically.’ She pats Shaun on the shoulder and he answers with an indignant ‘Hey!’

As soon as you leave the room, you spot Callum standing in the shadows at the end of the long hall. He looks you in the eye and nods. You nod back.

The plan is set in motion.

[dan-alexander-art]

Personas

Man it has been a long time since I posted anything. I wanted to apologize for that, things have been hectic. Especially with University but through all that I've been doing a lot of self discovery and realized I'm not one person, but actually six (plus a train of thoughts). Most people might think it's Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID or Multiple Personality Disorder) but that's not what I have. After talking to a therapist about this she's helped me see that they're just different parts of me. I knew it wasn't DID to begin with since I didn't have blank memories. It took awhile but after trying to listen to my different parts I figured out who they are and their own stories. Most have their own tastes of music and that has helped me a lot in figuring out on who they are, what they do and what they're like. So below I their bios as well as a short story of them and how they came to be. This is right to left.

Name: Love and Memories

Nickname: Rose

Likes: Listening to Maroon 5 and songs about love. Look back at happy memories. Giving Lillies or Bonsai Trees to friends.

Bio: Love has been around a long time, he's the second longest persona that existed. When he's around he doesn't care what to wear. When he's present he likes to go back and remember both the good and bad in my life. He has a deeper understanding between a good relationship and a bad relationship. The vines represent a current relationship I have, weather it's a friendship or family relations. When the vines are mostly thorns rather than flowers it means the relationship is toxic and should be fixed. If there are more flowers than thorns then the relationship is healthy. The point where the toxicity has gotten really bad is when the rose on his right eye begins to wither. Whenever we get friends he symbolically gives said friend either a lily or Bonsai tree since these require lots of care, love and patience just like a real friendship. Love isn't too hesitant about forming new bonds but only after a certain amount of time. He's not shy but most people would assume since he doesn't speak much, but in reality he just doesn't know how to communicate well and worries it might come out wrong, misunderstood or offensive.

Name: Beast

Nickname: ---

Likes: Feeding off my insecurities and taunting me

Bio: Beast is a dangerous persona that requires me to have full control of what goes on. Beast can control the other personas. For example Beast can make Love rewind traumatic memories and leave me feeling paralyzed. He is the embodiment of negativity and he enjoys seeing me suffer. If I'm not careful he can and will slowly crawl up behind me. Starting with small whispers of insecurities then building on until he's shouting taunts at me. Shouting all my fears, my worries and my worthlessness to the point of crying.

Name: Hurt

Nickname: Wolf

Likes: Listening to Linkin Park, Three Days Grace, Katy Perry and any type of strengthing music. Wearing rings and bracelets.

Bio: Hurt carries a lot of scars and wounds on him that represent emotional and mental scars and wounds I carry. He doesn't mind showing them off, he actually finds them empowering. To him it shows not only what he's been through but even through all that he's still here. Hurt isn't afraid aside from Beast. Beast is the only thing that scares him. Hurt also doesn't mind crying, it just means he's human like everyone else. When he's around he lets me cry when I need to but also reminds me that there's always a better tomorrow. That whatever is going on in my life doesn't mean the world is going to end and this experience is only going to make me stronger. Hurt's nickname comes from his ability to change into a wolf. The form represents the pride he has for being able to continue walking down this path dispite the curveballs life has thrown at us. Hurt is very wary of new people and doesn't open up on the spot. Though he's very kind and is willing to comfort people who are hurting. He always puts other people ahead of himself. The cracked eye shows that Hurt's soul is part broken, since the eyes are the windows to the soul. The cracked has a tendency to bleed every now and then and because of the cracked eye his perspective is warped. What caused the cracked eye is something Hurt doesn't want to talk about or explain.

Name: Ying & Yang

Nickname: Unity

Likes: Listening to NoCopyrightSounds (NCS) and other types of beat music. Wearing a black hoodie.

Bio: Yang has a deep understanding for human behavior and human emotions but doesn't understand his own. When he's around I just have a strong emotion of movement and color. Yang is very powerful, he can alter my reality. He helps me see different perspectives. Yang also has a different side called Ying. Yang is calm, collective and uses his ability to make my day brighter. Ying is a bit more unstable, he changes my reality in order to escape it. Ying doesn't always show up but when he does it's often from stress and a sense of lack of control. Unlike Yang, Ying doesn't see color. He only sees static black and white. This static helps calm my mind by focusing on less. Ying is also chaotic and makes me go through healthy mental breakdowns. Though Ying's mind is also disturbing compared to Yang's. Ying doesn't mind listening to twisted music and watching gorey movies.

Name: Smart Alec

Nickname: Yukio

Likes: Listening to lo-fi and reading music. Reading fiction books. Peace and quiet whenever possible.

Bio: Alec is the first persona to be around, he only focuses on school and is always planning ahead. He rarely makes me forget to do HW. Alec would often scare me into doing HW fast and early. Though it pays off. He loves reading especially the Wings of Fire series. The combination of music and reading helps keep him immersed into the world. He's often very technical and often likes to argue with science. He's all about the facts and research, he sees educating one's self is important especially with the type of world he's in this time around. He's hardworking and studying whenever it's necessary. He use to push me to my limits but is now more lenient and doesn't make me overdo it when it comes to studying. He's not really too comfortable in crowds and prefers to be with a small group or being alone. He doesn't mind a challenge, in fact he actually welcomes it. Alec doesn't see any reason for emotions and he lacks a lot of emotion himself. Although he doesn't see it as bad he does see it as a burden, especially if when I'm upset but there's a task to be done. Though he encourages me to do said task, like he always says: Once you hit rock bottom, the only way now is up.

Name: Creativity

Nickname: Twilight

Likes: Listening to Alan Walker, Zedd and any upbeat music, but mostly music in general. Drawing and painting, especially adding a new drawings to my bedroom walls. Playing videogames, mostly JRPGs. Wearing hoodies and comfortable clothes.

Bio: Creativity likes to turn Yang's vision of colors into meaning. He often translates those colors into drawings. The same goes when he listens to music. When he's around he always compeles me to draw even if it's late. He gives me a drive to continue drawing. He also looks out for my wellbeing by helping me balance between downtime and chores. Creativity is also the one who gave the other personas nicknames. He's mostly shy but that shyness doesn't stay around when he's playing competitively. He won't hesitate to pick up a controller when it comes to games such as Smash Bros. Playing games helps with the ongoing stresses in life but also helps spark new ideas. Creativity also likes to world building and create new characters for his world building. He's always positive and helps me through my hard times by drawing vent art. Creativity is a Walker fan himself, if you're curious he's Walker #37804.

Name: Lust

Nickname: Blaze

Likes: Listening to Ke$ha, Avril Lavigne, Green Day and any type of party music. Think about sex as a means to relieve anger, frustration or irritation. Wearing multiple necklaces and high tops.

Bio: Lust didn't always have free will especially early on. He was always fueled by rage, hate and anger. He often protected me by being cold and learning to fight back. He was present in my early years of starting Elementary school as a way to keep a distance from people who would try to hurt me. Though because of his lack of free will he would often make me feel angry and ready to clock anything even if it was just bothering me. The lack of freewill came from Beast. In fact Beast and Lust use to be one. With Beast fueling his anger with hurtful words. It wasn't until Ying and Yang helped them be their own person that Lust started to control his anger. Now he just likes to display himself as someone against authority when he believes something is wrong. And he uses that anger as a passion to participate in marches and protests. Though Lust hasn't completely shed influence from Beast. He possesses the ability to become a dragon. He can do this at will but not when he's angry. The angrier Lust gets the more dragon like he becomes. Only when he gets enraged does Lust become a full dragon. Lust is very protective, not just protective of me but also of my friends. He cares about other people and displays it as being protective. If anyone messes with my friends, Lust won't hesitate to get even. He's also very raw when it comes to intercourse and sees it as nothing more than human nature and not something to be ashamed about. Though he also holds consent to a high standard. If we're out he'll make sure me or someone there doesn't end up getting taken advantage of or be in a dangerous situation. Intercourse is very secrete to him and not something someone should have the ability to abuse.

[awkwardplantwrites]

holy fuck I found one of the first original stories I wrote. this is from 2013, when I was 16. It’s called “The School Gate.” I have virtually no memory of writing it.

violence/death cw

The school gate. That was where everything happened. Teachers couldn't scold you. It was out of sight from every adult. It gave us the buzz of freedom; some of us so drunk on it we’d riot and cause havoc. We’d do things no-one else would dare do.

I’d fumbled over my own tongue here at the school gate, trying to ask the girl from the year below on a date, and had somehow succeeded. One time my friend’s older brother had given me a cigarette as we waited on my friend to arrive. This place, where the paint on the metal bars were worn by memories... This place was the foundation of my gang. That day had been a Tuesday. Rain pattered on my head as I trudged out the school doors. I wiped droplets from my forehead with a damp sleeve. I could feel it as soon as I walked out of the school building; that feeling you get when you know something will happen by the school gate. As I walked across the school grounds, I could see the scared and excited faces of others glancing at the school gate between snippets of hushed gossip. I looked up to see the gate's threatening presence. I walked past it slowly and slouched against the wall beside it. Today would be the day. I could feel my breathing becoming quicker. I saw my chest rising and falling with every breath as I stared at the ground. Feet scuffed around me. I pulled down my hood. Shanks nodded at me. It was a sign of respect. Ralph grinned at me. His eyes were wide with crazed enthusiasm. The three others, Alan, Smith and Greg towered behind them. Each of them with ill fitting names for their dark, sadistic minds and bulky bodies. I led them all down the dirt path. We were hidden by trees. Our tracks were washed away by raindrops. After ten minutes we were in the middle of the woods. It was dark. A crow cawed. What we all heard was hurried footsteps not too far away. Our first victim. The trees hung above us and sheltered us from the now pouring rain. Mud clung to our shoes as we walked towards him. It squelched beneath our feet in an almost rhythmic pattern. We could see him now, a small, skinny boy about our age. Mousy-brown, wet hair and thick rimmed glasses. Obviously a nerd. We'd be doing him a favour, I reckoned. We walked faster. I held up my hand to let them know we still had to be quiet. The boy sat underneath a tree. For shelter, I supposed. Then he saw us. His eyes widened in fear. I felt the corner of my mouth curling upwards. It was too late for him to run away. Ant and Smith ran ahead and grabbed both his arms. Then they dragged him behind some trees up ahead. I heard muffled screams and the deep, loud voice of Smith shouting abuse. They pulled him back into view. He was a wreck. His glasses were smashed and lay in the mud a few feet behind. His eyes were dark like someone who hadn't had much sleep for a few days. That was the way to hurt him- it would make his stories seem unbelievable. His clothes were soaked with sodden earth. He looked up at me from Ant and Smith's firm hold. I held up my hand. Ant and Smith dropped the boy like a small pebble. "What do you want with me?" he asked in a surprisingly deep voice. I could see the fear still burning in his eyes but a strange sort of understanding lay there too. He stared daggers of hatred at me. I kneeled down and stared into him. "We need you to do something for us." I said. I attempted to keep a cool and calm expression. "If you don't, we're going to tie you to a tree. Then we'll burn that tree. It's very likely that you'll die." I held out my lighter to show him we were serious. Smith was already holding the rope in his enormous hands. "However," I said as I stood up. "If you agree to it, we'll let you go. Maybe even invite you to join our little "group" here." I indicated to the others with my hands. "What'll it be, Junior?" He flinched at the sound of his name. Ant frowned at me. I smiled. I had done my homework all right. The air suddenly seemed heavy, like you could taste the tension in the air.  Junior looked around like he would break. His expression showed inner conflict. It was easy to see things like that. It was never a good sign. Lightning crackled. No-one even flinched."

Alright." he said. He stood up and faced me. Direct, gutsy. I was a little impressed. I didn't let it show. "What do you want me to do?" 

I almost grinned. I was right to see potential in this guy. "We want you to steal something from Mrs Powell's house. Something...expensive. Worth some cash, you know?" 

His jaw dropped but he quickly shut it again. He appeared to be clenching his fists. "That's my grandmother." he said. You couldn't miss the pure malice in his voice. It was music to my ears. "Well, if anything, that makes it easier. Don't you think?" I gave him the eye. When he nodded I felt not merely happy, but superior. "Right then." I smiled. "You can go tonight. Ant, Smith and Greg will be waiting for you outside her house at seven on the dot. If you're not there, well let's just say we know where to find you so..." I shrugged. 

He laughed, a sharp, short snort. "Dude, you don't even know my name, let alone where I live." I frowned. I had thought I had done it all right, thought I had found his name and a victim. I had done everything right and he was spoiling it. Then he ran. We weren't expecting this at all. The kid went like lightning speed. One minute he'd been there, close enough to smell the sweat on him, then he'd flown away. Faster than you could see. I had to blink to make sure I wasn't imagining it. I wasn't. "Get him," I said. "GET HIM!" I shouted. "Go and get him you lazy lowlifes!" I screamed at Ant and Shanks. "What use are you if you're just standing there?!" Ant frowned. Smith crossed his arms. They looked at each other. "Well now, Zachary. It seems like you've lost our first victim. Or maybe we should say your victim since you were the one that dragged us all out here. Telling us we'd be the new cult The Gate Crashers". Smith sneered at me. He looked me in the eye, sized me up, decided he was the biggest. The rain had stopped. A heavy fog blanketed the ground. Ralph looked at me, the excitement was still there in his eyes but it didn't seem to be for the right reason. Oh God, I realised. They'd planned this from the start, maybe even before. I looked for a way out. There was none. They wouldn't listen to Manipulative Me anymore. I couldn't outrun these bastards if my life depended on it. I thought that it probably did. Smith was still holding the rope. He was coming towards me. I didn't run. I knew there was no point. "I'm surprised you haven't tried to leg it." Smith said as he tied me up with his rope. It burned my skin but I had a feeling that things would be worse than this later on. I really wanted to worm my way out of this, wanted to at least try and convince them that we could try someone else, and that I wouldn't include them in the planning this time and we'd be equal. The words were stuck in my throat. It was probably a sign that they wouldn't have worked, had I tried them. My chest felt tight. Smith knotted the end in a bow. I think it was supposed to be ironic. They thought that I believed I was a God given gift so they were going to have me all prettied up so that they could give me back to Hell, the place they thought I came from. And giving me back meant killing me. Smith watched me as I figured this out, probably seeing in his mind my train of thought. Finally, he picked up the lighter which I had dropped in my rant. I could barely breath. I squeezed my eyes shut. Somehow I found my voice again. "You can't set me on fire, or the trees. It's too wet." Smith considered this then looked at me like you would when trying to explain something to a child. "That's a very good point, Zachary," he used my name as a way of annoying me, I knew. And because I knew it it wouldn't bother me. "Perhaps we should leave you somewhere until it all dries up then? And then set you and the woods alight? Would that please you?" he added sarcastically. I clenched my jaw. I looked at the others. They weren't looking at me or Smith. "You're not honestly going to do as he says, are you?" I asked them, ignoring Smith hitting me in the chest. I shrugged him off. "I only tried to get a boy to steal something, not kill one." I hit home. Ralph's eyes widened and the excitement was gone. Smith was raging. "What? Don't listen to that idiot. He's using you. He'd keep all that money to himself. Say it was a part of being a leader. I mean, who even made him the leader?" I looked innocently back at him. "Isn't that what you're doing though Smith? Aren't you suddenly becoming the leader even though no-one ever suggested that you do?" He came for me. I went down to the ground, the ropes still tight around me. He used them to burn my skin. I winced, but I wouldn't scream. He punched me but the ropes softened the blows. Greg suddenly came up from behind him and hit him over the head. He dropped like a dead fish. Or just like something dead, really. He lay still. Ant kicked him lightly. "He's deffinitely out." he said. I restained the urge to roll my eyes. After getting help untying the ropes across my body I lifted his limp wrist. I felt for a pulse. "Oh my God, Greg, you've gone and killed him!" my voice went up by half an octive. I forgot about the burning on my skin for half a second. "No, no I didn't." He shook his head frantically. Ant pushed him away. "Right, so what do we do with his body then?" "I stared at Ant. He stared right back at me. I had no idea he was this inhumane. Maybe it was just shock. A guilty conscience speaking. Or maybe I had turned this boy into a heartless murderer. I looked around. There was no way out of this at all. Everyone seemed to be looking at me for what to do. "Well... I guess we either leave him here for everyone to see. Or we burn the place and his body. Or we drag him into a ditch where he will be found ten years later by a guy walking his dog." Everyone stared at me incredulously. They burst out laughing. Greg hit me in the back. "You're so funny Zach. So funny. Right, how about we go with option two and burn the place down? Or maybe just his body would do, do you think?" Ralph nodded in agreement. I was frozen with horror-not Ralph as well. Not the funny boy I went to nursery with, the boy who helped me learn how to ride my bike when he couldn't even ride his own. I looked into spaces between the trees. Could I..? Well of course I could, but should I? I looked at the group of boys surrounding their friend's body on the forest floor. One had a lighter in his hand, another searched his bag for a jug of gasoline. This was it. The moment I decided whether to  stay here and become a killer in a cult or to run away from it all with a guilty conscience of an act I hadn't directly commited. I stepped forward. I knelt down on the forest floor to join The Gate Crashers in their planning. I stayed.

[gweniala]

Conversations

One of the many conversations that Leverk, Nike and Nehmen had. If you are confused as to who Leverk is, you may need to read Well Past Midnight first because I did not bother explaining what’s going on in this fic. From Nike’s POV. A plot bunny that came to me while rereading Well Past Midnight.

I hope that Tumblr is fanfiction-friendly in the sense that you can read the text. I find its columns very narrow. Oh well.

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I don’t remember all the conversations we had with Leverk, but I do recall most of them. In a particularly memorable one of them, he called me out on something long-forgotten.

“So I was talking to Nehmen here,” he showed me a mouthful of sharp teeth as I was sitting down, “and it seems to me that you’re a fake!”

“Excuse me?” I bristled at the accusation. “I always stay true to myself. You know that.”

“Not really, you don’t,” Leverk shook his head. “The Nike that was born in Quater’s mansion at the end of space and time was a different person than you. You’re just an impostor, a substitute to the brother I… allegedly… lost.”

I rubbed my forehead. Starting off with a difficult topic, I see. I had to keep my head level for as long as possible. “Are you talking about what happened when I was four?”

“Of course,” Leverk rolled his eyes.

“I’m not fake then. I am Nike. I was always Nike.”

“That’s true,” Nehmen agreed. “I would have recognised if he was swapped for an impostor. The only thing that changed about him was that he stopped being afraid of tight spaces.” He rubbed his cheek. “To be honest I always thought Hoborg had a part in that. He started the talks because of you, didn’t he?”

“He started the talks because other Hoodians were jealous that I got so much of his attention,” I corrected him. “But yeah, pretty much.”

“Nehmen,” Leverk said with a certain levity. I knew by then that this tone spelled impending doom. “What’s your greatest fear?”

My brother stared at Leverk. After a moment the deformed Hoodian motioned him to get it on, smirking lightly. “Oh, you really want an answer? Jeez.” Nehmen sighed. “Okay, just because you’re my brother.” (“I’m not,” Leverk said immediately.) “My greatest fear… is probably being alone.”

“Not alone,” Leverk wagged a claw. “Abandoned. You’re afraid that everyone you thought loved you will leave you, aren’t you?”

Nehmen took a breath, expression breaking into a grimace. He held the air in for a moment. I reached out and patted his hand. He breathed out. “Yeah, I guess so. That everyone will leave me is… about the worst thing I can imagine to happening.”

Leverk nodded. “Now that Krevel has turned against you, it must be like your worst fear come true.” He studied Nehmen’s face for a response.

Nehmen only stared at him. I had never seen him so quiet and subdued as in conversations with Leverk. The evil one’s voice carried knives for anyone who cared to listen. I was torn to shreds by his words. I wondered every day how much more of this I could take, when and how I would snap under the weight of Leverk’s insults. But I had not thought of how they made Nehmen feel. When someone offended him or tried to hurt him, Nehmen would usually respond with anger and swiftly return the offence. Sometimes he got angry at Leverk, too, as we both did. (And, like a child, Leverk took delight in every time he managed it.) But it didn’t happen nearly as often as with others. His way of listening to Leverk was quiet and introverted, feeling the knives stab his heart in silence.

“You may be evil,” I interrupted the stare-off. I would not let Nehmen wallow in self-pity any more. “But we have not lost you. You are still here.”

“Oh but that will not last long, will it? Anyway,” Leverk rubbed his claws together, “that’s beside the point. What I wanted to say was – Nehmen, do you think that you’d change as a person if your worst fear was taken away?”

Nehmen thought about this for a second, then nodded. “Definitely.”

“Do you think you’d be like a whole new person?”

Nehmen puckered his lips. “If I wasn’t afraid of people leaving me at all? Yeah, that would probably leave a big mark.”

“There you have it,” Leverk spread his arms out, a victorious smile spreading across his face. He had got us once again. I realised what he was about to say a moment before he said it. “Nike got rid of his worst fear. Therefore, he isn’t the same person anymore. He may inhabit the same body, but he is not the same brother Krevel and Nehmen had in the beginning. He’s someone else. The real brother… well.” He looked at both of us in turn. Nehmen’s brow was furrowed. And I knew exactly what he was going to say. “You both know what happened to him. He’s long dead. Nike is long dead. All we have left is this impostor, who looks like him but is not him,” he gestured toward me.

I chewed on my lip.

“That’s not true,” Nehmen objected unhelpfully. “I would have noticed if he changed that much. It’s just claustrophobia. And it didn’t even disappear completely, Nike’s still got some problems.”

Leverk shook his head as if disregarding this defence completely. Instead, he caught my gaze and twitched his chin up and down lightly, beckoning me to speak. I took the bait. I had an idea in mind. Leverk like to catch us on our own words and we wanted to do the same to him.

“It wasn’t just that,” I admitted. “I can’t really put a finger on it, but I think other things about me changed as well.”

“Such as?” Leverk prompted me.

“Uhh. It’s hard to recall. You don’t spend your life analysing your psyche.”

“You spend yours analysing mine,” Leverk pointed out.

“I suppose. Um… I know that I used to be afraid that I would be one of many. That I’d become part of the crowd. That I’d lose everything that defines me.” I shrugged. “That got better after I was nursed back to health after the breakdown. I didn’t need to be so… different from everyone. I knew that as far as I was myself, I was free.”

Leverk’s toothy grin at this point was so wide that it was unnerving. “Oh boy. Do you even realise what you’ve just said?”

“What?”

“Well for starters, you lost the primary thing that defined you. You became like everyone else. And you don’t even care! The real Nike would be disgusted with you. You’re a liar pretending to be someone else. You’re a fake given to us by Hoborg. You remind people of Nike, but the real Nike died and you are his substitute. Just like Nehmen lost Caline and created Alan as a substitute.”

Before Nehmen started to object (he did get angry every time his son was brought up), I jumped in. “And how can you tell? Even if I was a fake, you’ve never met the real Nike. You can’t tell the difference.”

Leverk snorted. “Nehmen gave me a pretty good picture of what Nike was like before the breakdown.”

I shook my head. “Nehmen has said it himself – he doesn’t think that the breakdown changed me all that much. You don’t have any basis for saying that the real Nike died. Except…” It was my turn to smile devilishly. Two could play the game of catching your opponent’s fallacies. “Except if you did remember it. Except if you really were Krevel, and had his memories, and you were just lying to us about it.”

Leverk stared at me, the smile falling off his face. “I am not him,” he said simply. “I know this. I was born two months ago. I’m not responsible for any inborn knowledge I might have.”

“Your inborn knowledge is Krevel’s memory and subconsciousness,” I pressed. “We all know it! Our brother is under the surface aching to break free. And we are all waiting for him!”

“I am not Krevel!” Leverk bellowed, jumping up from his chair. He swaggered as the clear stone in his chest pulled him off balance. He steadied himself and grabbed me by the collar. “Do you know how I know this? Because after Krevel put the crown on, he changed. He changed, just like you changed, Nike, and what came out was too different to be called Krevel anymore!”

I held his wild gaze. His violence did not scare me. I spoke slowly. “Do you know that this is the only way I can upset you at all? By finding a proof that you are Krevel. And you always have been.”

Leverk’s eyes widened in anger. “Dead man speaking!” he screeched and yanked with my collar sideways, losing his grip on it. I grinned victoriously. Leverk paced across the room, arms crossed.

“It’s not the same,” he repeated after a minute. “Krevel and I are not the same. Nike and you are not the same. Krevel is dead just like Nike is dead, too. All that’s left is the two of us, and we are stuck here being called by their names!”

“That’s not true,” Nehmen objected. “People can change. Why don’t you say that I’m not the same either? I only knew one language when I was born, after all. Now I know two. Things are very different because of that. So why isn’t the real Nehmen dead, too?”

Leverk glared at him but I spoke first.

“Exactly. By your logic, isn’t the Leverk of yesterday dead, too? You know things he didn’t, and they make you different from him.” I strained my imagination. These talks took out a lot of me. “Maybe you’re dying every minute, and a new person is born instead of you. People change. You can’t get hung up on it and regret that they’re gone forever. I am your brother. Nehmen is your brother. Even if our past selves aren’t here anymore, we are. We are here for you, right here and right now.”

Leverk looked down at the clear stone in his torso, teeth clenched. And then, for the first time since the transformation, tears appeared in his eyes.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said quietly. “I’m going to die. You’re going to lose both me and Krevel and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.” He looked up into the ceiling. “I have a feeling that Krevel would regret his wish now. Yep, he definitely would. He’d want to take it all back. He wouldn’t want what the crown’s given to him. But he can’t do anything anymore. He’s gone. He’s dead. All you have is me, and I’ll disappear soon.”

Nehmen scurried to his feet and went for a hug. Leverk didn’t push him away. “Don’t touch me,” he said quietly. Seeing this, my hopes flared up. My brother was pushing through, out of this evil person’s shell. He was reaching out to us. I got up as well and hugged Leverk from the other side.

“We’re here,” Nehmen said.

“I said…” Leverk growled. “Don’t touch me!!” With a surprising force he pushed us both away and sprung to his feet. “You are not my brothers and I am not yours!” he yelled, pointing a claw at us. “I can’t stand your filthy hands on me! You’re both weak and Krevel was the weakest of you three!” He was breathing hard. All signs of tears had disappeared. He gasped and cradled the stone in his chest. “I want my lungs back,” he whispered and fell back into his seat. “It’s getting hard to talk.”

Nehmen and I looked at each other. There was no doubt that, for a moment, the Krevel we knew had shone through. But that moment was gone. And there was no use in pushing it. We sat back down.

“So,” I piped up, “you think that the original Nike died three hundred years ago.”

Leverk gave me a weary look. “Shut up.”

“I don’t disagree with you,” I shrugged. “It did feel like dying.”

“You have no idea what dying’s like.”

I shook my head. “I felt very close to death. Closer than any time before and any time after. And if what you say is true, then… I guess? Yeah? You can say that the original Nike had his wish granted. You can say that he died. Just like hope dies in people who are denied freedom for long enough. Just like confidence dies in people who are hurt for long enough. It’s…” I shrugged, searching for words. “It’s a suitable rhetoric, I suppose. Death and rebirth.”

“Quater, you are just boring me now,” Leverk rolled his eyes. “Let’s talk about something else already.”

Back in the day, I was convinced that Leverk only foresaw death for himself. He was walking down a tunnel, his heart icy, and he knew that one day he would lose everything.

As smart as he was, as much as he liked to think and philosophise, I don’t think it ever occurred to him that he could be reborn as well.

And I still think that just how Leverk claimed that he did not remember ever being Krevel, Krevel did not remember Leverk. But something substantial connected them.

And even though I remember everything that happened before I was four, I also feel a sense of disconnection from the guy was before. Who was he? What did he want?

Well.

Do you remember who you were and what you wanted when you were four?

I didn’t think so.

[d2kvirus]

Dickheads of the Month: September 2019

As it seems that there are people who say or do things that are remarkably dickheaded yet somehow people try to make excuses for them or pretend it never happened, here is a collection of some of the dickheaded actions we saw in the month of September 2019 to make sure that they are never forgotten.

As if proven liar Boris Johnson suspending parliament to try and force through a No Deal Britait at the end of August didn’t look dictatorial enough, he then moved on to threatening and Tory MP who doesn't fall in line with deselection - and yet, rather than call this the obviously despotic move that it is, instead the media spent more time focusing on him adopting a fucking dog

Master strategist Dominic Cummings said that, rather than listen to “rich Remainers” in London, people should listen to those all over the country - which certainly helped, as Cummings’ genius idea to have proven liar Alexander Boris De Pfeffel Johnson walk the streets of Morley and Doncaster saw said proven liar have to listen to the non-rich giving him both barrels for being responsible for the mess we are currently in

Not only did Laura Kuenssberg repeat what the press did with Carrie Symonds’ neighbours and throw around the term “Labour activist” to dismiss the very real concerns of the father whose daughter was in the understaffed hospital that proven liar Boris Johnson visited for a press op and then called out the proven liar’s claims it wasn’t a press op by pointing to the camera crew a few feet away, but she went one step further by doxxing the person by posting one of his tweets to her Twitter timeline, which unsurprisingly led to him getting a dog’s abuse from people because he dared say bad things about proven liar Boris Johnson - abuse he would not have got if Kuenssberg hadn’t doxxed him to her 1.1m Twitter followers, all because she wanted to distract attention from the fact her beloved BoBo had been caught on camera lying to someone’s face

...and it wasn’t long before the BBC proved their blatant double standards, having circled the wagons around Kuenssberg to say she did nothing wrong while doxxing a member of the public, yet disciplining Naga Munchetty for an off-the-cuff remark about the Orange Overlord saying Trump saying non-whites who criticise him should “go back where they came from” is racist

There is nothing sinister about Dominic Cummings saying that, if MPs wants to stop receiving death threats, they need to get Britait done.  Absolutely nothing sinister about that at all...

When Jacob Rees Mogg wasn’t literally lying in parliament, he was dismissing the genuine concerns of neurologist Dr David Nicholl by comparing his concerns to those of anti-vaxxer Andrew Wakefield, who was struck off for giving erroneous advice

I’m trying to work out if Justin Trudeau forgot about the whole wearing blackface thing, or merely assumed everyone else had.  Either way, at best he could generously be accused of gross naivety - especially when the second round of photos came out, after he tried to pass it off as a one-time prank

So not only did proven liar Boris Johnson sound supremely cuntish by saying that leaving the EU would honour the memory of Jo Cox - that’s the same Jo Cox who, while campaigning for Remain, was murdered by a member of Britain First - but when quizzed on this Bernard Jenkin could only respond about the stress that the proven liar was under, because as we all know the real victim is the person who said something monumentally dense and not the person murdered by a member of the far-right on the streets of their constituency

If anyone can explain what the hell compelled Stephen Kinnock to suddenly decide that Theresa May’s deal should have yet another going over in parliament in spite it being defeated three times already and her not even being PM at this point, let alone why he wanted to bring this up at the moment No Deal was being defanged, I would love to hear it

Something compelled Quentin Letts to compare the recently-deceased Robert Mugabe to Boris Johnson...as a compliment

Compelling argument against nominative determinism James Cleverly thought he was being clever by keeping up the “chicken” jibes against Jeremy Corbyn that proven liar Boris Johnson and his cronies at The Sun had been keeping up for days in a desperate attempt to pretend Corbyn hadn’t spotted an obvious tarp by Dominic Cummings and sidestepped it...right up until his stunt ended up seeing the entire Tory party get bitchslapped by Kentucky Fried Chicken

...and it wasn’t long before proven liar Boris Johnson rendered all jibes of Corbyn being “chicken” laughable when he responded to some heckling when visiting Luxembourg by publicly running away from a press conference with Luxembourg’s PM 

According to Kwasi Kwarteng there are people up and down the country questioning the impartiality of the Scottish judges who ruled Boris Johnson’s prorogation of parliament unlawful.  Just a reminder, Kwasi Kwarteng is the Business Secretary and not a Youtube right-wing conspiracy nut

Waffling gargoyle Nigel Farage has decided that those dozens of appearances on BBC political programming over the last decade were examples of the BBC being biased against him, and he;s boycotting all future appearances.  He neglected to mention whether or not any other member of The Nigel Farage Ego Project would follow suit...

We saw just how little credibility Laura Kuenssberg has on the 2nd September edition of The Six O’Clock News where she stood outside 10 Downing Street talking about how proven liar Boris Johnson would be calling a snap election, only for her to be cut off mid-sentence by the proven liar walking out to waffle for five minutes where the only thing of note he said that wasn’t an easily-debunked lie was that there would be no election...and once he was finished Kuenssberg continued talking about a snap election as if she hadn’t been stood less than twenty feet away when it was said there would be no election

The fact that nobody was surprised when James Cleverly falsely claimed that the Tories created the NHS during the Tory conference isn’t a surprise - not least because it’s not even the first time Cleverly has made that patently false claim 

It would appear that Alan Sugar misses the days that he and not Alexander Boris De Pfeil Johnson was being held up as the British answer to Donald Trump, judging by his posting a tweet taking aim at the dogwhistlers’ favourite target Diane Abbott

We are supposed to feel sorry for David Cameron after his memoirs stated that he thought that Boris Johnson and Michael Gove behaved “appallingly” before and during the EU Referendum campaign.  If only the party leader did something about this, which they were in the position to do, and what was the name of the leader of the Tories at that moment in time again...?

Forgetting that we’re supposed to be calling Jeremy Corbyn a chicken, instead our good and honest friends at the Daily Mail instead ran an article about how awful it was that Jeremy Corbyn supported the Guildford Four’s Paul Hill.  That’s the Paul Hill who, like the other members of the Guildford Four (and the Maguire Seven) were threatened, beaten and tortured by the police and served fifteen years in jail for being members of the IRA in spite of the fact that they weren’t members of the IRA nor plotted any terror attacks, and the Mail thinks it’s bad to show support for someone who was a victim of one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British history

It’s a bit rich for Rachel Riley to be the face of the Don’t Feed The Trolls campaign considering her history of harassing, doxxing and encouraging pile-ons on anyone who disagrees with her

Sentient testicle Toby Young thought he was being really, really clever when he accused Phillip Hammond of an “anti-semitic conspiracy theory” after Hammond stated that the sole reason for proven liar Boris Johnson trying to take the UK out of the EU by October 31st is to help out his speculator mates - although the cleverness rapidly evaporated when Hammond responded personally with a threat of suing for libel, and for some strange reason Young’s really, really clever tweet vanished off the face of the earth

...and because Toby Young has to be Toby Young about things, rather than keep his head down after Hammond’s threat of legal action instead he came rushing to the defence of the proven liar by saying that female Spectator employees felt upset if they weren’t groped by proven liar Boris Johnson, which is not only the defence of the rapist but his “defence” only serves to say that proven liar Boris Johnson has a history of groping

It’s as if The Sun have decided they can go back to their pre-Leveson levels of scumbaggery, judging by how they’d both told Gareth Thomas’ parents he was HIV positive and threatened to publish it, as well as reporting how two members of Ben Stokes’ family had been shot and killed several years ago without actually obtaining consent from Stokes before splashing it across their front page

...and right on their heels was the Daily Mail doxxing Jo Maughan for the sole purpose of...nope, no idea why they felt the need to do so, but they did it anyway

If Steve Baker thought he was helping the Leave side look non-deranged, his claiming that proven liar Boris Johnson is moving the Tories back to the centre ground failed to do that on a molecular level

It’s all well and good the Liberal Democrats acting as if bringing in Luciana Berger and Angela “funny tinge” Smith as MPs is some kind of major breakthrough...but they sure kept it quiet that they wouldn’t be defending the parliamentary seats they’ve been squatting in since February

So nice of Mike Gapes to join the dogwhistling brigade with his deciding to highlight Diane Abbott’s poor use of grammar...by highlighting that she was using grammar correctly while Gapes’ attempts at grammar bullying only served to highlight his grasp of the English language could be better

It says it all that the Daily Mail was encouraging their readers to stop sponsoring the RNLI for the crime of using 2% of those donations to support causes abroad

To nobody’s surprise, as soon as John Humphrys was out the door he harrumphed about the BBC’s “liberal bias” to the Daily Mail - as if over thirty years of his using the Today programme as a platform of his right-wing views and generally being a miserable twat

How generous of Tim Martin to say that, as the UK had left the Customs Union, Wetherspoons could now charge 20p less per pint...except Britain hadn’t left the Customs Union, revealing that Martin could have cut prices long ago if he wanted to, but he obviously felt he didn’t need to as the chain’s profits weren’t nosediving as a direct consequence of Tim Martin alienating half of his customer base for the past three years

According to reports, Nicalis head honcho Tyrone Rodriguez went to the same business school as Channel Awesome supremo Mike Michaud, judging by the reports coming out that he would go weeks without answering any calls - which is not what an indie dev who sent their game over to Nicalis to be ported wants to discover - as well as a laundry list of evidence of him not realising he isn't a 14-year old edgelord who can only talk in raicst, antisemitic, homophobic or ablest slurs, on top of his charming habit of bullying members of staff

In the latest attempt by PewDipShit to prove he's not beholden to the alt-right section of his fanbase he offered to donate $50,000 to the Anti-Defamation League...and when that same alt-right section of his fanbase kicked up a fuss, he cancelled the donation and waffled about “taking responsibility” while demonstrating that how averse he is to the idea

This month it was John Ocasio-Nolte who was getting insanely triggered by Greta Thunburg, taking to Twitter to suggest she either needs to be spanked or receive psychological counselling (which worked about as well as can be expected the second the tweet was posted) while Dinesh D’Souza said she looks just like images used for Nazi propaganda as if that means anything other than Dinesh D’Souza spend hours going through Google image searches to try and find something, anything that would serve as the basis of an utterly batshit proclamation that his moron followers would swallow

Not a good look for Focus Home Entertainment to decide that, once their deal to distribute Frogwares’ games expired, their solution would be to drop all of Frogwares’ games from every online store - yet rather than return the code to Frogwares, instead they’d be keeping those as well because if Focus Home can’t sell those games, no-one can

It’s not a surprise to see The Sun forgot the faux outrage they stoked last December at trying to say Jeremy Corbyn called Theresa may a “stupid woman” (even though any lipreader will tell you he said “stupid people” of the entire Tory front bench) judging by their response to proven liar Boris Johnson calling Corbyn a “big girl’s blouse” was to dispatch one of their hacks to Corbyn’s house the following dya waving an item of women’s clothing at him, seemingly under the impression this looked anything other than mad

Meanwhile The Daily Telegraph wrote a piece comparing waffling gargoyle Nigel Farage to Britait’s Icarus...somehow forgetting how the story of Icarus ended

Britain’s most triggered man Piers Moron Morgan took to Twitter to howl about how Dora the Explorer discourages men from becoming explorers.  I’m guessing that he forgot how Indiana Jones and Nathan Drake exist...

What would a month be without Donald Trump doing something utterly lunkheaded?  Not this month, that’s for sure, judging by his response to mistakenly claiming that Hurricane Dorian was heading to Alabama wasn’t to admit the mistake or even never mention it again, but instead draw on a weather map with a Sharpie to make it look like Dorian’s path would now head into Alabama - so not only did he prove he can’t admit to being wrong, but he’s so thin-skinned his being wrong eats at him so much he can’t let his being wrong go, which only draws attention to his being wrong in the first place