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mycrofts-gunbrella · 3 years

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Favourite Experiment- Sherlock Holmes x Reader (Part Six)

Word Count- 4.9k

By the time John came back into the front room at 10:30am, Cluedo had long been packed away and you and Sherlock were sat watching the television. It took John a fair bit of effort to not make a point about your sitting position- you on Sherlock's armchair, him on the floor leaning back against your leg- and instead took interest in what you were watching.

"Is that.. The Office?" He asked, peering round as Michael Scott began to hand out the year's Dundies.

"Excellent observation, John." Sherlock spoke, eyes glued to the television.

"And you're.. watching it?"

"Doubly excellent, have a Dundie Award!" His voice was laced with sarcasm.

"I just.. I didn't expect you to watch that kind of thing. Any kind of thing, actually. You've watched television exactly once since we've lived here and that was an episode of Jeremy Kyle."

"Ridiculous show. Such a dated technique, lie detectors." Sherlock almost blew a raspberry at the end of that.. Almost. "Based on heart rate. Stupid, anybody can control that if they think hard enough."

"Yes.. Well. At least Y/N's got you watching the US one. Never usually one for American remakes but this one was good."

"Nah, we finished our one a while ago. Sherlock agrees, by the way. You could easily be related to the bloke that played Tim Canterbury." Sherlock nodded his head in agreement. John huffed. "Anyways.." You tapped Sherlock's shoulder to encourage him to lean forward and you stood. "I spotted some eggs in the fridge and some bread in the bread bin.. Scrambled egg on toast?" The boys merely nodded, John first trying to take your position to watch the telly before getting all but hoisted to his own chair by the man on the floor.

"And how did you convince Sherlock to watch The Office exactly?" John called, shuffling his own armchair to the front of the screen.

"He got sick of me constantly referencing it when he didn't know what I was talking about. Considers it 'educational'." You answered, mixing the beaten eggs in a pan on the hob.

"So Steve Carrell is educational but knowing the Earth revolves around the Sun isn't?" You shrugged your shoulders. "Right, say no more." You weren't planning to anyway. It was nice, you had to admit, staying up playing Cluedo and watching one of your favourite TV series with Sherlock- comforting, even. There hadn't been many people in this world that you simply clicked with from the get-go (in fact, you couldn't actually think of one) but Sherlock fit that category perfectly. Greg and Mycroft too, in their own little ways, but not like Sherlock. With Sherlock it felt far more like you'd known him for years rather than four days, but you couldn't quite explain why. Though you weren't about to sit here and complain about it; it was lovely. While dishing the food, you naturally placed your eggs on top of the slices of toast for yourself and John but something in your mind clicked to change that on the third plate, so you dished Sherlock's egg in a small bowl that fit beside the slices of toast. The small smile you got in return as you handed him his food let you know it was the right idea. Christ, he even said 'thank you'. You'd barely taken the first bite of your own before your phone vibrated on the coffee table.

'Your shipment from Australia has been.. encouraged, so to speak, to arrive sooner than your previous arrival date. Please ensure somebody is within the residence of 221 for the next hour- lock-picking can be an incredibly tedious task. -MH'

"Sherlock?"

"Mmm?"

"How many free passes do I get from your brother?" You showed him the screen.

"There's no such thing as a free pass with Mycroft, he'll be wanting something. Likely still testing you of your loyalty status to see how trustworthy you are. Equally likely suspects that you could hand your genius to 'the forces of evil'" His waved his fingers out into the air, mimicking the likes of a ghost. "Not that I ever recommend willingly spending time with my brother, but he can be useful. Ask him for coffee, it's what he's waiting for. You must have mentioned it before. Had it been scientifically possible, I'd wager his body was 90% caffeine." You nodded your head and text the suggestion back to the elder Holmes. "Order him a cappuccino, though. He thinks he's all suave ordering the darkest thing they have but he secretly loves the frothy rubbish- another reason I'm convinced one of us was adopted."

"Duly noted. One frothy coffee, chocolate dusted top for added measure." You ticked the air as if crossing off a list, noticing then the approved text response you had received. "Oooh and he's sending me a car, very fancy. I might have a new favourite Holmes." You grinned, finding the little scowl on Sherlock's face impossible to ignore.

"Mycroft is very much a homosexual so I cannot see that working out in your favour, Y/N."

"Christ, Sherlock, I didn't say I wanted to shag him." You laughed, standing from your position and grabbing the keys to your flat. "Now I trust you boys have little else to do for the next hour so I would appreciate it if you could let my stuff in for me when it arrives. Toodles!" You wiggled your fingers childishly in your wave goodbye and headed downstairs to get changed before Mycroft's car arrived.

---

It wasn't unsurprising that Mycroft wasn't actually in the car that turned up outside of 221. Even less surprising that Anthea remained in the back seat, her position so precise in comparison to last time that it's almost as though she hadn't moved.

"Still Anthea today?"

"Yup."

"Cool.. Cool.. I'm not going to another warehouse am I? But with some kidnapped barista?"

"No."

"Nice. Do you ever answer using more than one syllable?"

"Once per conversation."

"Did I just use mine asking that question?"

"Yes."

"Bollocks."

---

As Anthea had confirmed, it wasn't a warehouse at all but a rather nice independent little cafe. The only odd thing about it was that it was just over 40 minutes away in the Twickenham area, but it was nice all the same. You'd noticed Mycroft sat at a table in the far corner as you walked in, offered a wave and briefly asked the young lady behind the counter for two cappuccinos and two of the chocolate pastries from the Patisserie counter- everybody loves cake; worse case scenario is you get two.

"Good morning, Mr Holmes." You nodded your head to him as you said down, took the offered hand to shake.

"Please, I have offered my first name to you so you are more than permitted to use it." It was only now that you realised the rest of the cafe was empty save yourself and Mycroft. "Ah, yes. Never truly been the sort for social interaction; I leave the luxury of business presence to few, and a social presence to even fewer."

"Are we here to talk business?"

"Not particularly."

"Then consider me honoured and proud of myself for somehow enticing both Holmes brothers in such a short period of time." You smirked, and if it were smug (which it certainly was), neither of you pointed it out. You had a right to be.

"I do admit that I find myself oddly.. fascinated. Though I am not quite sure whether the fascination lies within your talents or your ability to mellow my brother's personality in only a matter of days."

"You could always say both and really feed my ego."

"And where's the fun in that?" The young girl from the counter wandered over with a little trolley, placing a mug and pastry in front of each of you and a few sachets of brown sugar before scooting off to hide in the kitchen again. Mycroft's head tilted slightly, eyebrow quirked, so did the side of his mouth. "I haven't allowed anybody to order for me since I was a child." He spoke, stirring in two of the sachets with a teaspoon- tapped it twice on the rim and laid it on the little plate. "How did you know?"

"I cheated, Sherlock told me about the coffee. But you knew that already." Of course he knew that already. Testing to prove that one doesn't have to lie to show off their abilities. Trust.

"And the pastry?"

"Lucky guess."

"We don't guess."

"No but, statistically speaking, there was a very high chance that you'd like cake. And.." You used the small fork to place a tiny bit in your mouth. "It's absolutely fantastic. Dark chocolate, pairs well with a cappuccino- not bitter, but not sweet enough to ruin your drink."

"A food connoisseur?"

"Just an avid eater." You grinned, taking another forkful before washing it down with the drink. Mycroft followed suit, his eyes closing as he pulled the fork from his mouth. "Rare treat? Or do you often breech orgasm from chocolatey dishes?" He almost choked on said dish at that but couldn't help himself from releasing a small laugh.

"The former; I can assure you that it takes more than just eating the chocolate cake for that." His eyes widened a little, eyebrows frowning. "I'm.. I honestly don't know why I told you that. Apologies." You let out a laugh and shook your head.

"It's fine. I'm just one of those people that others find it easy to talk to. Works fantastic as a detective, better amongst peers. Greg told me he's sick of Casablanca references." Mycroft let out an expression that was midway through hurt and shock.

"That's utter tosh! It's a piece of cinematic history! Such a marvellous film."

"Not to mention getting to stare at Humphrey Bogart- he's so dishy."

"Precisely!" Mycroft waved his hand in the air as if you were the only person in this world that spoke some sense. "Gregory didn't understand the appeal but- no. You need to stop it, this is getting terribly out of hand." He shook his head, sipped his coffee and dialled down the built excitement.

"Spoke to the man twice and yet I can get famous Iceman, Mycroft Holmes, to gush over 1940s actors.. Whatever would Her Royal Majesty think?"

"We've discussed it twice and she very much agrees that Humphrey was something special, thank you." You both laughed and cradled at the mugs in your hands. "You.. You could be a very dangerous woman, Miss Watson. Very dangerous indeed. See Sherlock and I had always been able to master the intelligence side of things, work out a man's backstory from his tread marks in the sand. But socially we were both on the losing side. You seemed to have excelled in all areas. You could do anything."

"Well then you're incredibly lucky that I'm on the nicer side of things, aren't you?" You winked. "Though I don't think I could ever go against Sherlock now- one look in his disappointed little eyes and I think I'd be crestfallen."

"Yes, well this does lead us on to part of the reason that I did agree to your meetup. Days are early, very early, and yet my reports have informed me on a multitude of things. Just this morning, in fact, I saw that my brother allowed you to sit in his chair. Not only that, but he opted to sit on the floor for it. And even dared to rest on your leg!" Mycroft said as though it were the craziest thing in the world.

"I'll try to ignore the part where you've mentioned spying on us in the privacy of the flat.. Starting to go a bit Victorian on me at the end there too, Mycroft. I've seen his bare wrists as well!" You gasped and placed your hand over your mouth. "Such a scandal! What will the ladies at the Church think of me?!" Mycroft rolled his eyes, dared a smirk.

"That is precisely the point; it is almost on par with a scandal. In all of the years I have known my brother, Sherlock has never been fond of human contact. Not in the slightest. Mummy had to fight him every holiday for so much as a hug in thanks for his presents- nobody else dared to try. In the last twenty years, Sherlock hasn't allowed me to offer him any more than a pat on his shoulder and that was after his first.. Well, I'm sure you can fill in the rest." You nodded slowly. "Nobody has sat in Sherlock's armchair since it was moved into 221B; he won't even allow John to sit there and he's been his 'exception' for the last year. Now all of a sudden he's leaning on people's legs, letting them sit where they like. You have to realise that this is completely unexpected."

"So you're suggesting what, exactly?"

"That is the other thing. It is something I simply am not used to admitting to very often in both my line of work and my life in general. I simply do not know." He began to squash the remaining crumbs from his pastry beneath his fork, shifting them around the plate. "All that I know is that it must mean something which is why I hold my concern. Sherlock's connections with other people are rare, very rare. Doctor Watson has improved my brother's life tenfold and in more ways he could possibly imagine. He equally seems to have already made such a connection with you, if not slightly stronger in a much shorter frame of time. I fear only that, should something happen and you leave, it may cause.. upset. And if such happenings also involve your own brother and he loses the pair of you, I hold concern that it would simply.. destroy him. Things, perhaps, may just be moving too quickly." You nodded your head again, half wondering in your head how you've gone from gushing over Humphrey Bogart to this.

"What does that mean then? What do you want from me? You want me to leave now so it causes less of an issue? Because, Mycroft, I don't think I can do that. You Holmeses aren't the only socially awkward people with little connections. I can talk for England and can get the most shocking people to speak to me about anything, but I don't have friends. You've seen my file, likely stalked my life in Australia, maybe before. You don't need me to tell you these things. You definitely don't need me to tell you that I've equally found that click with Sherlock that is such a rarity for people like us. As for too quickly? God, you and Greg have been dating for what, 4 months? And I can already see that you're pushing the L word boundary in your mind." His cheeks flushed, you cut him off before he could butt in. "We don't do people, we don't find friends, or partners. By some miracle, they find us and we develop so quickly with them that it scares us but we understand it completely. We're not normal, couldn't be further from it, but we're not stupid.. We know what's good for us, whether that's in friendship or more."

"And how does that correlate to you and Sherlock? Evidently there is a fondness between you that could be interpreted as friendship, but with the rate of development, is this something you imagine venturing to the throes of companionship?" Steady on, Mycroft, don't beat around the bush or anything.

"I don't know. I know that I enjoy working with him, and pissing him off while we build furniture. It was fun playing Cluedo with someone on my wavelength and I like that he only lives upstairs. Yes it's been four days, but we both know that time doesn't mean anything. Time's just... Time's just a social construct." Thanks for that one, Sherlock. "But in short? What you're looking for? Would I consider Sherlock a friend? Absolutely. Am I planning on leaving any time soon? Absolutely not. Am I the type to run and hide if Sherlock pisses me off and risk that friendship rather than take it with a pinch of salt? Hell fucking no. Our intelligence doesn't stretch to the depths of being able to predict the future, so for your last question I shall remain silent on it- it simply is what it is."

"Right, thank you. That's- What you've described is a very accurate account and very much along the lines of what I was expecting. I can only tell you that I am not, in any way, disappointed. Perhaps for the longest time I'd have deemed it balderdash, but relatively new acquaintances have allowed me to see past my old thoughts."

"But you knew that already, all of it. Why make me say it?"

"It lets me know that it's real." Silence pursued after that, the dregs of your coffee turning cold, the coffee bean shaped chocolate dusting now covering the top like a sad little cloud. The atmosphere remained tense until Mycroft spoke again. "I do apologise, Y/N, for such a tense meeting. I truly do not intend to upset you." His voice was sincere, if anything it felt like guilt. "I trust you understand the importance of this discussion and why I held my concerns." You hummed in agreement.

"I'm not pissed at you, if that's what you think. I think, in a way, I've clicked with you as well- but in an entirely different way to Sherlock. Greg too. He's a good man, rare to find a 'normal' one of those to share affections with." Mycroft only nodded, not wishing to dwell too much into his private life as if he hadn't just nose dived into yours. "Had I known there was a little circle of these people back home in London all those years ago, I don't think I'd have gone to Australia." You smiled, a genuine one this time- no sarcasm, no hidden meaning. "It is nice. Feels like I've been here for far longer." Another nod, clearly still not convinced that he hadn't pissed you off. "I do have one question though, and it is very important to me. I am sincerely hoping that we can talk this through and clear the air once and for all." Mycroft looked up, met your gaze.

"And that would be?" He tried to straighten his posture, stiffen his back, and prepare for whatever was to come.

"Why the fuck are we in Twickenham?" Mycroft's laugh came out as a bark, the breath he had held shooting out in a single sound. You bit back a toothy grin.

"An experiment, if you will."

"So you do experiments too, then?"

"Obviously."

"Ahhh, so that's why."

"Why what?"

"Why Sherlock says 'obvisly'." He could only tip his head in response, offer a twitch at the side of his mouth. Anything to differ brother from brother. "Care to elaborate?" Mycroft sat forward, his posture relaxed once more.

"It's the second part, actually. You being here was the first. Our talk, it helped me see your perspective. But Sherlock? Sherlock will not talk to me. So I take his potential person of interest forty minutes away from his flat.." He looks at the clock on the wall. "Twenty minutes before his usual lunch time.. Doctor Watson's first day off out of his week so he is bound to make an intolerable lounging partner. If he's on the same track I think he is, I'd say we have thirty seconds."

"Thirty seconds until what?"

"Twenty two, now. Expect lunch." The little countdown ticked on and you soon spotted a Belstaff clad man walking down the street towards the cafe.

"Bloody bastard.." You weren't sure which of the Holmeses you were speaking about at this point. "Well before I get dragged away.. Thank you. For the talk. I think it helps clarify things on both our ends and helps let me know that I'm not the only crazy person out there. It was also quite nice finding another person in the big wide world that understands me. If Greg's ever late or you need someone to watch Bogart with, you have my number and I'd like you to use it." You turned your head away from the door, pretended to not see Sherlock walk in. "If not? Well, we'll always have Twickenham. Not quite as glamorous as Paris but the pastry was just as nice."

"I'll keep it in mind. Just remember to be patient with him. Some things come easier than others."

"Y/N, John's being incredibly difficult to live with this morning and I'm hungry. Lunch isn't interesting if I don't have somebody listening to me." Sherlock didn't even acknowledge his brother, instead just huffed and perched on the table beside you. You knew the answer but you asked anyway.

"Care to join us, Mycroft?"

"Mycroft isn't invited. Plus I only called up to save two seats."

"Oh, Sherlock. Making reservations for two now, are we? Already? May I be expecting a happy announcement within the week?" Mycroft's other exterior was back now, different to the man you had spoken to only moments before.

"Yes, brother mine. Wedding is on Saturday- instructions to the venue are to take a long walk off a short pier."

"Always a pleasure, Sherlock. Y/N, you shall hear from me soon enough." And with that, Mycroft left the cafe. You were about to question how you were going to get home when a matching sleek black car to the one that left pulled up against the curb, a gentleman stepping out to open the door.

"I had instructions from Mr Holmes to arrive at 12:15 exactly to pick up a Miss Watson, and Mr Holmes the younger." He spoke, ushering you into the car. Lord praise Mycroft’s magical brain and spy cars.

---

Eventually, you found yourself in another cafe, though this one was much closer to home. The pre-booked table resided in the back corner, sectioned off from the rest of the area- maybe the brothers do have the odd thing in common. With food ordered, you chose to speak up first.

"So.. Running all the way to Twickenham to drag me out for lunch? I won't patronise you by asking you how you knew where we were going, but I will query you as to why you didn't just call me." Sherlock stopped making little indents on the napkin with his fork to look up at you for a second, then went back to prodding.

"Far simpler. John was being aggravating, I needed to leave, waiting around would have been boring. Too many people hovering about the streets."

"And there were less people.. on the tube? And on the train? Because I know you wouldn't get a cab- the small talk attempts would have killed you."

"I also knew the chances of you leaving Mycroft to come out to lunch with me would be increased if I were to turn up in person rather than just send a text- basic human responses known by basic psychology. It was purely logical." You nodded, sliding your napkin over to him as he finished filling his own with the dots.

"Good enough for me. Though, to save you having to delve your mind for simple psychology, I'd have come if you just text me. Mycroft doesn't like my movie references."

"I hate them."

"Yes, but you're at least feigning interest and trying to learn where they come from. Tops you back as my favourite Holmes. Only just, though. I invited Mycroft out but I'm pretty sure he paid.. At least I hope he paid because I definitely didn't. Oh bugger, am I going to get done for robbing two coffees and some sodding cake? Next to the TimTam charge I'll gain reputation for being an evil Willy Wonka."

"I'd be able to bail you out within a week."

"A week?!"

"Give you time to think about what you did.. And gives me five minutes peace from your rambling."

"Git, you're the one that dragged me to lunch. You can shove your panini up your arse when it gets here." You flipped two fingers up at him, his grin matching yours. "And I gave you my napkin to deface. You'll have to make it up to me now for being mean." The waiter came over to give you your food- you said 'thank you' while Sherlock immediately dived into the side of crisps.

"Mm, I can offer a case. Revisiting an old one from the Yard because most of the employees are incompetent. A woman died of illness, left behind two daughters in their thirties. Five months ago, one of the daughters was found dead- no suspects with reasonable motives but I suspect it's her sister. I just need to find out why." He opened his toasted sandwich, hoisted out the ham and threw it back onto the tray with disgust and bit back at the cheese filled bread. You asked why he didn't just order a cheese one. "I like the ham flavouring. Anyway, are you in?"

"Of course I'm in. But are you inviting me to make up for being mean, or because I can talk to people a little better?"

"Both seems a reasonable response- you are very useful and I don't want to bring John along because he's been rude." You stabbed at a chip. "Fine, and because I quite like having you on cases. Feel better now?" He stole a chip from your plate, bit the most part and threw the crispy end at your forehead.

"Definitely; ego and stomach fed.. You've filled me quite nicely."

"That's what she said." You paused.. Did he just?

"Sherlock Holmes, did you just quote Michael Scott to me? A man after my own heart, I am very proud." You laughed, stuck out a hand for a high five. He merely knocked your palm with his fist. Close. "There's plenty of other things I need to get you to watch because I reference them a fair bit. That and I just want an excuse to watch them again." Sherlock rolled his eyes but gestured for you to continue as he ate his panini. "Right, first and foremost is some God tier British comedy. I'm getting you on The League Of Gentlemen, Nighty Night and The Thick of It at the very least. Some classics with the likes of Rik Mayall, John Cleese and David Jason too.." You listed them off using your fingers to count. "Then comes movies.. Oh there's so many.." Reeling off your favourites until you ran out of breath.

"I've one condition if I am to endure such.. mundane activity." You raised your brow. "We watch them in your flat. We sit more comfortably on your sofa and you have a bigger telly."

"Deal."

"And I get to lay down still."

"Done."

"And we finish The Office first."

"You're enjoying it?"

"You are. And I'm.. partial. Consider it a compromise."

"Oh you do care! My heart is completely and utterly warm."

"Idiot. It's simply logical to keep you, in some sense, happy in order for my life to remain comfortable. No matter other consequences."

"Very sweet of you, wanting to keep me happy." You teased, batting your eyelashes at him.

"I'll make you very unhappy in a second."

"How?" He reached over and stole your last chip, shoving it in his mouth and grinning in victory. "I'll get you back for that, Holmes. I don't know how, but I will. That was a good chip."

"Oh I quiver with fear." Paired with an eye roll. "Lestrade also called earlier to tell me that a Mr and Mrs Nicolas and Katy Hurren were arrested for the murder of Michael Chatterley. Apparently they confessed as soon as they were back at the station. Just means they'd have been weak, easy to catch- likely would have turned themselves in anyway. Our time there was entirely wasted."

"Well, not entirely. We still helped in bringing justice for a dead man. You sitting there for two minutes looking at a sheet of random numbers and sussing out they correlated to elements on the periodic table.. You just did it so bloody fast and made no mistake- you're simply-"

"Intolerable?"

"Incredible."

"..Oh."

"For a man who's well aware of his own talents, you are terrible at taking compliments." You criticised, nodding to the door in a gesture of leaving. Sherlock nodded, put on his coat and left a twenty pound note on the table.

"I am simply unused to being on the receiving end. Most of my deductions come with a resultant 'piss off'."

"I can do those too, if you'd prefer.. If not, I'll be sure to pay you all of the compliments when they're deserved. Your hair looks fantastic today too.. And that coat! Grey is a fabulous shade on you." You plucked at the lapels and grinned as he rolled his eyes, leaving the cafe and holding out his hand for a cab.

"Ah yes, the 'intolerable' is only used as your description. Come, Watson. We've a killer to catch."

TAGLIST- @starryeddie , @momos-peaches , @ask-the-elf-stuff

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cricktoon · 2 years

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I didn’t like cgi season 3.

My long list of grievances:

What the fuck.

-They spend the entire first episode complaining about the snakes.

-They give the enemy snakes names without actually establishing them, just expecting us to catch on.

-The release of the snake men was the biggest concern at the end of the last season, other than Rampage’s first appearance. It ends up being as easy as. He-Man beating them up.

-The snake men aren’t even related to what Skeletor intends to do in the end- why did we spend an entire season building them up, again?

-Several characters who reacted to the snake men are not shown for several episodes. Continuity error #1.

-The weird ‘sibling’ thing they had going with Krass and Skeletor. It was… uncomfortable?

-None of the characters seem to know what their motivations are. You can establish this without making it confusing. They did not. The evil warriors in particular just disappearing and reappearing for no reason, which is just lazy writing. You can acknowledge that these characters no longer know what they’re going for in a way that isn’t just having them verbally say “what’s going on here?” Also lazy writing.

-It is completely unclear what is going on until like… episode 4. How are kids supposed to follow along with any of this?? I was confused, and I’m an adult!

-Almost all the stakes in this season are completely different from stakes established in the past seasons. Characters are just completely written out to make room for what feels like hours of He-Man and Randor aimlessly wandering and complaining, and all of the brand new stakes that weren’t There previously. Like Havoc He-Man (don’t worry I’ll get to him.)

-Webstor’s weird deification of Stratos. Don’t like that.

-COLONIZER KING GRAYSKULL???? “He brought us culture.” FUCK YOU????????

-ELDRESS COMMITTED GENOCIDE????????? OK??????????????? I’M GLAD SHE’S DEAD NOW!!!!!!!! DAMN!!!!!!!!!!!

-Eldress’s death felt like it didn’t even matter. No one mourns her and all we get is a half-baked explanation from the Sorceress on how they were apparently the same person the entire time. All of that buildup of her coming back and Teela looking up to her and trying to keep her alive all while not knowing who she was…. For what? There was nothing? Teela just says “it’s fine I’m not sad about it!” Then WHAT was all that buildup for???

-This kind of thing happens several times. Reveals and plot points are built up then completely squandered or rushed in this season. There are so many examples I can’t even think of them all.

-And now Mer-Man is also dead. No one mourns him- the last of his species who were exploited and murdered by the people who were supposed to be the good guys. What kind of message is that going to send to little kids.

-Havoc He-Man. Yeah we knew it was coming, but I feel like the buildup only came from the beginning of season 3. All of his dialogue is really grating. I guess it’s supposed to be- but it still is. It just feels like such a left turn. Like “oh we gotta deal with this now” and again, it’s a new problem this season presents that does not last long at all but still pushes away other problems that the characters have been dealing with since season 1. I could be wrong but that’s how my memory serves me.

-They only bring the heroic warriors (Stratos, Webstor, Mosquitara, and sigh. Gary.) back when He-Man needed their encouragement. I know motu has a lot of characters to work with, and it must have been difficult to fit everything and everyone in with the episodes they were allotted. But it was just sort of a bummer for me personally. Especially because Stratos was exiled from the main group for how he behaved though no one spoke to him about it, then cites this as a learning experience as a part of the reason he appreciates He-Man so much. It felt… not good.

-ORK-0 getting completely written out of the story and only brought back for plot convenience. He was an active agent in season 2, and there was really no reason why he shouldn’t have been there with the other characters for this part of the story. He reacted to the snake men being released at the end of season 2, then did not appear for a full five episodes. GARY, the most irritating character in the entire show, was brought back before him. GARY. It’s part of a reoccurring problem I’ve noticed with Orko’s character in general. If you notice, he gets written out very often, not just here. It’s happened in 200x and Revelation too. Because he’s different, and cannot fight the same ways as the other characters, if the writers can’t think of a way for him to be there along with the other heroes, then he just isn’t. And that’s exactly what happens here. I should probably make a separate post about this- but for now it’s too many words and thoughts to get together all at once. I am probably biased, but in this case, objectively, I think it’s not good to have one of your main characters just… disappear to live with the other versions of himself.

-While I’m at it, Man-E-Faces was all but completely written out, as well. The most interesting and compelling character in season 2- just. Completely written out except for 2 half scenes and a flashback. I know it’s a matter of my own opinion but that made me so sad.

-The legs thing. I will not explain further because it was a horrible vision from my nightmares that I do not wish to recount. You probably know what I mean.

-The body swapping thing seemed like an actual thing that would happen that Orko had to fix, but it still feels like a thing that happens a lot in western cartoons. So it wasn’t my favorite.

-Duncan has no purpose in this season other than to make clichéd quips and one-liners. Then near the end they’re like ‘oh what’s his thing? Oh I got it, he’s a builder.’ What does that even mean? Why can’t found family just be his thing? Isn’t that what they were going for? The kid didn’t even know what a birthday was!!!! But no he’s a builder, and that’s the big endgame reveal for his character. I just found it lame and pointless.

-The scene with Evil-Lyn and Krass kinda bothered me. Like, Lyn is crying because she doesn’t know what kind of villain she was anymore, but then she goes on to give Krass advice? It didn’t really seem as if she was in any place to do that. It just felt kinda weird.

-The 2 second goop threat that is brought about and solved with a Wall. Yet another problem built up really high then solved almost immediately.

-The zombification of Beast Man was just kind of uncomfortable.

-The sword of power did not reject Skeletor like it had He-Man when he had the havoc. Another plot inconsistency.

-All Skeletor does once he’s Bigger is put his face on some rocks. C’mon guy, you can do better than that.

-I don’t even remember most of the final battle. Does that mean anything.

-I was fine with the way they solved the issue, with the “power of grayskull being inside them all along” but I didn’t understand Cringer’s “I’m a protector, not a predator.” Felt like something they just made up for him, it would have been fine if he had just said he was a protector. After all, Duncan’s a builder.

-Skeletor’s arm was chopped off, then is completely restored as white bread Keldor. How do they hope to write another season now, without Skeletor? Is it just gonna be about Hordak now? I mean call me a hater but I just think that’s kinda lame.

And that isn’t even all of it. I’m not really willing to rewatch it because it was so soul-achingly disappointing to me, but if I did I’m sure I would find more. It just had that many problems. Don’t get me wrong, there were things I liked. But as a whole I did not enjoy this season. It was unpleasant, it was crammed, it was for the most part not funny, and it made otherwise noble and compelling characters either unlikeable, uninteresting, or unimportant.

#motu #cgi motu #cgi motu spoilers #masters of the universe #cricket chat #i am so sorry i am so negative here i hate to be negative i was just. so disappointed #also thank you to skeletorboyfriend for encouraging me to speak my mind

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hawkinsschoolcounselor · 2 years

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You know, I do believe Will has powers. And I do believe they're gonna show it. And yes, I also think it's going to be a big thing. People seem to forget that there's two volumes. And all the stuff we saw in that trailer is volume 1 material. Remember, season 4 is twice as long (~16 hours in total). There's still more than enough room for Will to discover and explore his powers, to be important as a character in general and for all these things to work well in volume 2. And beyond.

For Will's role in the supernatural side of this seasons conflict, the watch could fit in with the clock vecna has alluding to Will having some sort of semi unique connection with him or it has something to do with alarms and sleep..... honestly imo one of Will's biggest strengths against the upside down is how damn pragmatic the kid can be in life or dear situations and I'd really like to see that expanded on with whatever the Cali gang is up to

I'm going to throw these two Asks together since they cover the same topic.

I do have to keep reminding myself that we really only know anything about Volume 1. While we don't know exactly where it ends, we can probably assume it's after episode 4 or 5. You're right that they would have time to at least introduce him having powers by the time we reach the end of the season. I would imagine, though, that if they do go with him having powers, the reveal would be near the end of the season. Season 5 would then be about him learning to use his powers, so he can help end things once and for all. It would be a sort of bookend after everything having started with him in season 1, episode 1.

It's possible there's some connection between Vecna's clock and Will's watch, I suppose. They're both timepieces, one older and mechanical, the other more modern and electronic. Perhaps there is a significance to the clock that Will is able to figure out, though I don't even know when they make it to Hawkins.

If the clock is signifying a countdown of some sort, then I suppose Will might be able to figure it out. He's worked in code before, and he did a project on Alan Turing. I'd like there to be more to Will than that, though. They've really given us few hints as to what Will could bring to the table next season. All we have to go on is what he's done before.

Seasons 1 & 2 do tell us how clever, brave, pragmatic, and strong-willed he is, though. He survived in the Upside Down for a week even though he was being hunted. He managed to send messages to his mom very soon after being stuck in there. He found a way to communicate through drawings when words failed him regarding the Mindflayer. He was able to use Morse code to tell the heroes how to stop the Mindflayer, despite probably know it might kill him. Will got the short end of the stick in season 3, where he was just a walking Detect Evil spell who was pining over Mike. As much as I feel that was intentional, and probably still needs to be touched on next season, I fear another season like that will just convince casual fans that he's The Load (see TVTropes for a description).

I want to circle back to the whole watch thing, actually. For those of you who don't know, the Funko Pop (and whatever the name of the other figures are) for Will in season 4 has him reaching for his watch.

It's probably a stretch, but the left wrist is where El, and presumably the other subjects, have their number tattoos. I no longer believe that Will is the person in front of the burning car (probably part of a Vecna trance, if I had to guess), I still like the idea I had for what could happen if it were Will. I had written a little scenario for it, but all that really matters is that Will's watch would blink 12:00 after using his powers for the first time.

With something involving his watch seeming to be of some import, maybe they could still do something like this. Even if it isn't directly linked to him manifesting powers, perhaps it could still be used as a type of foreshadowing. It could be something as simple as his watch breaking, so, no matter how often he tries to set the time, it keeps resetting to a blinking 12:00. Bonus points if he's the only one whose watch messes up, or at least is the only one shown.

Even if nothing like that is going to happen, please, oh please, don't let Will be reduced to something like the official timekeeper of the Pizza Party.

#stranger things 4 #will byers

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ateezinmymind · 3 years

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my brother’s best friend (part 1)

word count: 4k

fluff, slight angst??

(series masterlist)

tag list: @brie02 @a-soft-hornytiny @reeateez @multidreams-and-desires

Jung Wooyoung, the boy who was irresistible, but off limits. Jung Wooyoung, the boy who just had to be your brother’s best friend…

“Y/n!”

Snapping your eyes out of the reoccurring unsettling thoughts, remembering you're still in the 1st hour. You guess the bell already rang, seeing everyone had their bodies turned in the teachers direction.

The class murmuring amongst themselves, the small episodes of laughter and whispers.

“You didn’t even hear!” Gripping your shoulder and shaking it around, you roll your head towards the boy sitting next to you. “The announcements said there’s going to be a school bonfire this Friday!! Aren’t you excited?” Not getting the ecstatic reaction he was hoping for, scoffing out Wooyoung leaned back into his desk.

Looking down at the ground you searched for a reasonable excuse to tell the guy you’ve been dreaming about, you weren’t going.

“y’know.. Woo I don’t think that’s really my scene“ bringing your gaze into his unamused eyes you continue without confidence, “a-and you know it.”

Flicking the loose bangs that fell to his eyes, Wooyoung looks at you with disappointment. “That doesn’t mean you can’t change.” Leaning forward in his desk once more, taking his chin to his hands, closing his eyes he whispers out “you don’t have to stay hidden away from the fun”

———

Why was he so committed to bringing you out of your comfort zone? It’s not like he actually enjoys being in your presence. He and your brother have always been picky about the terms of you hanging out with them. Yeosang loves you of course, like any brother would, it was indescribable and obvious. But once he graduated high school, last year. He had told Wooyoung to keep his intended boundaries from you and not spend as much time with you when he came over. But even during Yeosang’s senior year, you and Wooyoung actually came to become close friends.

October, 29th << Junior year

“Get off! Get off! I can’t breathe!” Spitting out fits of giggles and snorts, Wooyoung laid sprawled out on top of you. “No! I can’t, I’m sorry y/n.” giving a wiggle seeking comfort “you stole my spot.”

It was true. You did steal his seat on the couch. It was so tempting to lay your head down when he got up to use the restroom.

The three of you were having a scary movie marathon, which meant lots of snacks, blankets and jump scares. When the first movie ended you hadn’t realized you had clung to Wooyoung’s side until Yeosang gave a cold glare and a questioning “what the fuck?” And from there, was when Woo got the sudden urge to get out of the brewing situation by going to use the bathroom.

Rolling your eyes, giving out a huff, you lay yourself along the sofa. “Why are you acting like that Yeosang??” lifting himself up off the recliner he goes to put in the next movie, slumping down and ejecting the disk he quips out, “like what?” Giving out a small chuckle from annoyance, you stick your tongue out to the back of his head. “Like you’re going to have me banned from my own existence”

Closing the case, Yeosang turns around and tilts his head to the side. Plastering you a look of disgust, “I’m sorry, but I just witnessed my sister boggling my best friend. To which I might add, is off the table”

Lifting your head up and forcing it back down, you continuously hit it over the sounds of your groans. There was no wrong intention of being friendly and quite frankly seeking comfort from the scary movie, it was stupid. Right as Yeosang gets up off the floor and heads to the kitchen to refill his bowl of popcorn, Wooyoung comes out of the bathroom. In perfect timing.

“You little-“ he blurts, running towards you as evil giggles ignite within him as he plunges his hands on your shoulders. Rocking you up and down as he makes his way on top of your flat frame.

Hearing laughter and squeals come from the living room, Yeosang puts his phone down and peeks into the area. Observing the way your face is flushed, and how you’re literally being all up in Wooyoung‘s damn business, made his blood boil. Stomping back to the kitchen, the beeping of the microwave feeding his flaming fire of rage, gets feverishly opened and as he takes the popcorn out of its bag and into the bowl. He makes sure to slam it shut unnecessarily hard.

“Dude get off my fucking sister, that’s gross.” As silence blanketed the room, the tension before significantly increased. “Chill, we were just messing around-“ Wooyoung says almost defensively.

Propping your elbows up, swiping a hand over your forehead, moving the messed up hair. You look up at Wooyoung, who’s jaw clenches and unclenches, as the veins in his neck become prominent.

Tapping his arm as a gesture for him to release you from his trap, the awkward silence feeds your urge to leave this situation completely. “Please get up Woo” you practically plead out. So he does, he releases his hands on your waist and gives you a light apology. “Sorry-“

“Thanks.” Yeosang spits out. “Now we can continue on to the next movie…” looking over at you getting off the couch, he gives one last blow, “the reason why you’re even here.”

Your eyes become blurry with tears, from both embarrassment and the sudden anger rising within. Now standing, you quickly fold the blanket you were wrapped in just seconds before. Draping it over the cushion, you look at Yeosang who snidely smirks in satisfaction at the television. Then to Wooyoung who portrays himself in a stiff manner. His arms folded over his chest, left leg bouncing quickly, and wearing an expressionless face.

Quickly looking down to the floor, you make your way across the room and to the bottom of the stairs. Trying not to embarrass yourself any more, you try and sound the least bit affected by your feelings. “Goodnight. Thank you for letting me hang out-” leaving the boys to continue watching by themselves.

Making your way up to enclose yourself in your room, face hot and limbs jittery. Why did Yeosang have to humiliate you in such ways, you knew Wooyoung didn’t mean anything by it. Of course that’s not the same way you feel about him, because who wouldn’t have some intimate feelings for him. He was a charmer, and hell he knew it. Wooyoung never bent out of shape about it though, he had times of modesty and respect, especially when he was trying to get on someone’s good side.

There was that one week where he spent his entire day, everyday to help out with the junior class decorations for the school spirit competition. You’d never seen him so motivated before that, it still makes you chuckle to this day. He’s always yearning for affection, though he can be seen to come off as a cold hearted person, Wooyoung wants to please the people around him. He doesn’t like having enemies or people who look down on him, and he won’t risk his reputation of being ‘everyone’s friend’. It’s in his nature to be a comforting presence, and that's why you think you’re so fond of him.

Opening the door to your bedroom, getting welcomed by your favorite scent from the lit candle by the window, you let out a long sigh of exasperation. At least this was the longest you’ve got to hang with them yet. You could see this as a plus, though because this outburst had to happen today.. right when Halloween is around the corner. Your once exciting ideas flew out the window while insecurities sank their teeth in.

It was a stupid idea to begin with, of course you shouldn’t hang out with him, he wasn’t your friend. It’s not like you befriended him first, even though he’s been your classmate since the beginning of this school year, your junior year, you drew an interest in him when he made his way to introduce himself. He had been so funny, making the whole class laugh out from this one awfully corny joke.

Wooyoung being the new student was like a fresh start to a better experience. He wanted to put his past behind him, and change his former and darker days.

In all honesty Wooyoung didn’t share a lot about his life, which is interesting to consider— for he’s so determined to be a safe place for everyone else. You were clueless about how his life besides your home and school goes down. It’s not that you were suspicious about him hiding something, but if he in fact was even the slimmest bit of your friend, you’d want him to open up too.

Walking over to your nightstand, turning on the warm lit lamp you sit on the end of the bed and flop down on your back. “Thank you for letting me hang out??” Slapping your forehead, you give a cry of humiliation, “why did I say that-“ you shouldn’t have to have permission to be friendly with your brother, and frankly his friends! Why was Yeosang so picky when it came to Wooyoung but not the others?? You’ve had your times of fun with Seonghwa, why was he so different?? It made you angry to say the least.

The other boys came over a lot more before Wooyoung showed up. Mingi and Seonghwa showed you a side you’ve missed with Yeosang.. they brought him comfort and genuine smiles and hospitality. They didn’t hold a grudge on each other, they didn’t keep secrets, and he actually liked to talk about them in your presence. This year changed how things were..Mingi left schools when Wooyoung came, and Yeosang stopped hanging out with Seonghwa. Obviously it was a sensitive topic, but that only intrigued you more.

Getting up, quickly making your way to the bathroom, trying not to wake yourself up before you wouldn’t be able to sleep. You take care of your nightly routine of washing your face, brushing your teeth, etcetera. Hearing Wooyoung give a quick and loud commentary about the typical people in scary movies from down stairs, you rub your eyes with exhaustion. Today drained you, and in order for this Halloween weekend to be a success, there needs to be some time to sleep. Blowing out your candle, and then turning off your lamp, you hop into the warmth of your bed, and fall into a slumber.

October, 30th << Junior year

“KANG YEOSANG YOU PIECE OF SHIT!” opening your eyes, the screaming voice of Wooyoung does its job of erupting ears, and it makes you roll out of bed. Groaning with annoyance, once again make your way to the bathroom to wash up.

Going to your closet, picking out an outfit for the day you choose some casual leggings with a t-shirt. Another scream from outside your door makes you think of all the possibilities causing it could be. It’s only 9 in the morning and already they’ve woken the house.

Walking across the hall to your brothers room, you give a quick knock. “Yeosang??” you ask, but you’re only met with giggles and then a smack, ending in a “OUCH!” assuming it’s from Wooyoung, given his standards.

Turning the handle, you peek through the door to see your brother and his friend sitting on the floor, faces lit with blue in the dark room, and nudging each other repeatedly. They’re absolutely unfazed, and had no clue the door even opened. You roll your eyes, at the fact they woke you up with video games..typical—

“Hey!” getting their attention, they swivel their heads over to you immediately. In all honesty you didn’t even think they’d hear you, so a bit flustered about how much attention you had made you just laugh. “Do you guys want breakfast?” softly saying, and all they do is turn back to the screen and give a sigh of relief and a happy “YES PLEASE!” making you gently close the door and head your way down the stairs.

“Good morning mom!” stepping into the kitchen you sing out to where she is sitting at the table reading a book and sipping on coffee. Looking up at you, and giving a bright smile, she gets up and greets you in a morning hug and kiss, “Good morning my sweet y/n, how did you sleep?”

Giving a light chuckle and soft smile back, you separate yourself from her body and turn to the fridge. “It was fine...actually pretty nice. Since I didn’t stay up as long as the boys-“ then turning to playfully give your mom another roll of your eyes and finish saying, “but they DID wake me up!” making her laugh out loud, she sits back down and picks up her book and sighs out- but joyfully, “Yep, I heard” craning your head back to look at her face, you see she wasn’t mad, just wearing a smile sweetly.

There’s times where you think your mom needs help, with dad rarely being around because of work, you never find her complaining. She is strong, practically caring for three children, because Wooyoung is welcomed whenever he wants. It’s a problem, but it’s become a habit or probably more a lifestyle.

Taking out the carton of eggs, some bacon and fruit you start on breakfast. You thought just something simple would do.. there’s no need to go all out. Your mom kept trying to help you out, but everytime you insisted she’d relax instead.

After finally cutting and washing the various fruits and filling the plates of food, you give your mom her meal first. Setting it in front of her reading state, you kiss her cheek “here you are! I’ll go get the boys” you say and turn to set your way up the staircase.

Skipping two steps at a time, you reach the top and strut to your brothers room. Hearing the muffled conversation, knowing you shouldn't invade either of their privacy, curiosity took its turn in you. No more screams or fits of laughter spilled out through the crack, only the low inaudible stammers.

Softly placing your hand on the door frame, leaning your head in for better comprehension, the conversation clears up and becomes coherent. Not even needing to be in the room, you know there's tension going on. “But that's a whole different story Woo, I didn't feel that way with Seonghwa..it was just d-different.” you had no idea what was going down, why was Yeosang talking about Seonghwa? “sure, I get that. But i just don't understand why you are always so weird about me wanting to acknowledge your sister..you get such a temper when she's around.” then there was a long pause, hearing someone shuffling about, sounding like they're on the bed, the interesting conversation continued but a little quieter. “Wait..Wait!” hearing giggles come around, the grip on the door frame tightens, your whole body on edge for more information. Both of them erupting in a small fit of laughter, “so it was Seonghwa!! That’s why!!” you hear Yesang trying to rebuttal but unable through his annoyed groaning and small chuckles.

So this was all about something Seonghwa did? Or is it something you missed, having really no clue what this is about, you straighten your body away from your brother's private talk. You hear the muffled sounds of them again as you head to the stairs. Your mind thinks of a billion ways to connect something. Leaving them be, you turn to give a shout for breakfast once you reach the steps again. And with what little you knew, you never got the chance to figure out their meaning in that exclusive talk.

———

The morning quickly turned to evening, the day spent uselessly. Yeosang and Wooyoung ended up going out after you fed them, something to do with their “weekend plans”, whatever that meant. So you wasted time cleaning and being of help to your mom. When the boys came back, you all had dinner together and then Wooyoung went home. You weren’t even sure what this certain tension going on was about, and how Halloween hadn’t even been brought up at all. It was almost awkward, and uncomfortable to try and possibly bring up.

After you washed the dishes and wiped the counters clean, you made your way to your room for the night. Passing Yeosang’s closed room, you hear his video game playing making your body involuntarily knock on his door.

“Come in!” he shouts over the sounds. Entering in with his invitation, once Yeosang sees it’s you he pauses and softly smiles up to you. There he was, that was your brother. The sweet brother whom you love dearly, and whom loves you— even when it’s hard to tell. The brother who has always been there for you, your other half. Well that was the true him, at least how it used to be before.

“Hey yeo yeo— can I sit with you?” you feel yourself cheering back to his sweet expression. Earning a pat next to himself on the bed, you skitter forward and crawl to him. “You okay?” he gently says, throwing his controller to the side.

Nodding your head, you reach for his hand. Taking it in yours, you give him a reassuring squeeze and giggle. “Yeah, yeah~ I just want you to know that I’m sorry.” you say lowering your voice to almost a whisper. Actually really not sure what you were saying sorry for exactly, but in all this mishap you find yourself being the one the blame. Lacing his fingers with yours, Yeosang perks his head to the side and lightly sighs. “Y/n, please don’t..” he starts with a comforting tone, taking his other hand to tap your knee. “No apologizing, it’s over and it was stupid” he scoffs. “Okay and also— you didn’t miss much” he picks up his controller again after giving your hand one last grip “it was so predictable and not even scary-“

Finding his amusement enlightening, you give a laugh and slide your legs off the side of the bed. “Well, fine. But I love you Yeosang..” you say getting up, and turning to look at him lightly.

“And I love you dork, but let’s not get too sappy now okay?” he chuckles. “I gotta beat this game real quick so you can join in~”

And that’s what the both of you did that night, played video games, proving each other wrong, having little arguments, the tiniest bit of pushing and pinching but overall bonding again. The night couldn’t go on forever sadly though, it had to end at some point. Sharing laughs and love, everything seemed perfect.. that this would be your brother always.

But did he really mean it?

———

<< present day

That weekend had always left you wondering what you did wrong. The day after your evening games with Yeosang, he didn’t end up going out for Halloween. Wooyoung didn’t show up, it was interesting to say the least.. but there wasn’t really anything you could do.

After the bell rang, students flooded the hallways, the chatter rang through the building and you packed your things by your locker. School went by surprisingly quick, and throughout it all Wooyoung had pressured you further to go to the bonfire this weekend. His reasonings didn't really make you want to go, you didn't really feel the need to. It would be a night full of your annoying classmates, the screeches and shouts of people doing something unabiding of their safety, and the only friend you would be with was Wooyoung.

Closing your locker you feel your phone start buzzing in your pocket.

Before getting it out to answer you see Wooyoung at the end of the hallway leaning against the wall, hands in his pockets. Maybe he was waiting for you? He had said that he was going to stay after school for a test he missed. Because he didn’t show up at all last week, and came back like it was nothing, saying he got sick.

As you continue to walk to the lobby you answer the call not paying attention to the ID, “hello?”

“Y/n, hurry up I’m waiting..” the male voice sounded so familiar, you sped up quickly waving bye to Woo as he pushed off the wall seeming like he wanted to talk. “Wait.. who is this?” turning the corner you see Seonghwa standing there, wearing a smile

“it’s me..”

part 2

#wooyoung #wooyoung fluff #wooyoung angst #ateez #ateez fluff #ateez imagines #ateez angst #ateez series #seonghwa #ateez fic #wooyoung series

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loquaciousquark · 4 years

Text

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E111 (Sept. 29, 2020)

@eponymous-rose‘s internet is out tonight, so I’m here late and without coffee! Let’s see how many typos we can fit into an hour and a half episode.

Tonight’s guests: Ashley Williams JOHNSON, oops!! & Liam O’Brien!

We open with Brian in light-up vented sunglasses and Henry at his side, as always. Dani is very excited to be back and has fun-buns in her hair tonight. So cute! Everyone talks about how much they’re Zooming these days for work, and Liam mentions he and Matt & Marisha did a digital cocktail night. He and Dani arrange on camera to have a distanced, masked meetup in the park so Dani can see Liam’s dog again.

No announcements! Tonight, we’re discussin’ episodes 110 and 111.

Starting with the end, Brian jumps right to it by asking how they feel that Molly is alive. Liam 100% thought we’d be back to him, but still wasn’t ready when it happened. Caleb doubted he was alive. Both Liam & Ashley marvel at the numerology that keeps cropping up throughout the show. Brian hates not being able to see it at the same time the show happens live; Ashley was biting her tongue not telling him spoilers. (He doesn’t want to hear spoilers unless Yasha dies so he can be there for Ashley if needed.) Brian says he has a little reality trauma from the night Pike died in the pre-stream game; it was the first time he’d realized how much it affected the players.

Ashley’s realized how much she misses unpacking the game with Brian when they get home. She just has to sit with it until everyone else gets to see it. Brian: “Instead she comes home and I have to fill her in on the Real Housewives of Amarillo, Texas.”

Reunion dinner with Trent! Liam talks about how the way things unfolded with Trent is not at all how he imagined it in his pre-game creation; he’d expected more of a fracas, more of an unexpected clash. “Caleb might have been a different person if he’d run into these people earlier in the story. The M9 changed him before [Trent & co] came back and got to him.” He’d imagined Astrid & Eodwulf to be complicated encounters, but says what Matt’s designed has been even harder than that. A fight on a mountain is one thing, but walking into a room with “what Trent dropped, is impossible to cope with.” It also means that if what Trent said is true, anything Caleb does now is effectively of Trent’s design, even killing him.

He doesn’t think Caleb would have gone anywhere near Trent & co without the M9. “The Mighty Nein--it took a long time--but they cracked Caleb open like a walnut.”

He thinks what Matt has done is much more murky than the simplicity of murder, such as the Briarwood arc. He can’t just exact his revenge now.

Liam says that the tempation to tinker with time is no longer as all-consuming as it was. He might still be tempted if Matt dangles a bunch of carrots in front of him, but he thinks that now it might be better to make sure that that kind of thing doesn’t happen anymore for anyone else (!!!). “It’s still a nugget in his brain and it’s still possible he could be tempted by the drug, but what he wanted in the beginning was entirely selfish, but now that the M9 are involved he owes it to them, to the people of the country, even on the Dynasty side--is so complex that if Caleb were to get that carrot and chase it, he would be risking everything.”

Ashley agrees that most of their choices are no longer black and white. Many of the situations feel more like real life. Liam agrees and says he’ll sometimes make decisions that he’s both really happy with and regrets at the same time. They both look forward to what Matt will reveal in Act 3.

Brian feels it’s tough to gauge how deep they are into what Matt’s planned for the campaign. Liam says that thanks to Matt’s skill, he really doesn’t know what Caleb wants right now.

Ashley agrees, and talks about how she created Yasha to have more to overcome than Pike. She loves what Matt’s doing in terms of allowing each of them to overcome more emotional hurdles than physical ones in this campaign.

Going back to Molly’s grave was very exciting for Ashley since she wasn’t able to be there when he died in the game & wanted to do what she could to honor him. Yasha, however, was very hesitant but knew what needed to be done. She’s not very open with her emotions, but both she & Ashley were stressed. They all could feel the energy in the studio & knew Matt was about to do something mind-blowing. Liam: “You could feel all the dust in the air coalescing around Taliesin.”

Brian trips over Eodwulf. Liam tries to help him find some pronunciation shortcuts. Ashley: “You say it so beautifully.” Brian: “Thank you.” Ashley: “Not you.”

Caleb knows how wickedly intelligent & ambitious Astrid is, and was heartened by the wavering he saw in her at the dinner. However, he can’t trust her until he knows why she’s where she is.

He really feels that if they’d had this dinner 60 episodes ago, Caleb might have tilted back along the evil axis and he would have had to retire the character. He had a playlist entirely for if Caleb turned evil and left the party.

The vision of Zuala was a huge deal for Yasha, even along every other instance she’s had of being mind-controlled, etc. “That’s guilt I think she will always carry with her, but at least she’s starting to forgive herself.” Losing the chains, sprouting wings again--Ashley reiterates that she didn’t know that was even a possibility, she just picked the skeletal wings because they were dope--were huge moments in the character development. Ashley’s glad Beau was there at the moment of the first flight; Ashley thinks of the quotation “Happiness is only beautiful when it’s shared,” and because Yasha tends to keep things very much to herself, having someone there to share it made it more impactful. “That was a cool moment. There’s been a lot of healing for Yasha these last episodes.”d

Ashley also says sometimes in that moment, when all eyes are on you in a one-on-one with Matt, everything goes muffled like Saving Private Ryan. “Wub wub wub.”

Dani feels that the only way she could even have the conversation with Zuala was to let her go in the first place.

Liam thinks one of the things that Yasha & Cad share is that still waters run deep. He loves how much Yasha hangs back sometimes, only to then reveal some new moment like the fighting pit. Apparently Ashley also has a knife collection, and uses that metal side of herself when she wants to let that new side of Yasha show.

Cosplay of the Week: Crystal Armstead (@riyuski on twitter) in a Reani cosplay. Beautiful!

How does Liam feel about the return to Rexxentrum? Very, very complicated. Caleb loves magic and lights up when he sees it, which is wrapped in the Soltryce Academy; he brought folks to the dance hall for the same reason, which was wanting the M9 to see the things that he loved about the city.

Yasha felt the same way about visiting the Chantry of the Dawn. It was a memory of a very traumatic moment (almost killing Beau), but given everything that’s happened between then and now it was cathartic to see again. There’s been a lot of healing in the past few weeks. It also felt like a physical representation of Yasha’s growth, the last time she was controlled against her will like that (or at least, until she was mind-controlled by Vokodo. Ashley sighs, aggrieved.)

Brian: “The tower really feels like a love letter from Caleb to his friends.” Liam: “It is, and a love letter from Liam to his friends.” When he looked at Caleb’s spell list, he remembered how amazing the mansion was in Campaign One and how many role-playing moments it led to and knew he wanted to incorporate it. However, he knew it could never be the same as Scanlan’s mansion because Caleb doesn’t have the same improvisational genius as Scanlan does. Liam has been “tinkering with this machine” for over a year, waiting for the moment to reveal it. He loves that he got a chance to see Jester’s room in time to have her tower room reflect reality. He’d discussed the tower extensively with Dani & Matt. Brian: “Hey! What am I, chopped--what’s the saying?” Ashley: “Chopped cabbage?”

Ashley marvels at the design of the dome. Liam talks about how Caleb knowing Caleb has been abused has been slowly getting better, but he also loves now being able to juxtapose that healing with his innate love of magic and how beautiful he finds it, how he loves to use magic as his artistry. The Soltryce Academy wasn’t “Welcome to DEATH SCHOOL,” it was the Sorbonne. It was amazing, everything he wanted. It was only one bad apple within that recruited him and turned it all bad.

Liam also points out how much it means in real life to be able to express his love and care for his friends in person too.

Ashley talks about how much she loves Yasha’s armor in a meta sense because it’s so cool and useful, and great for her armor class, but struggles with what it represents in game. She might not be able to let it go due to its sheer utility, and she may have to find an in-game reason to justify keeping it.

Ashley segues a moment into talking about her velvet top which apparently has a matching velvet scrunchie. She’s asked to demonstrate the scrunchie and ties her hair up in a way that I have never in my life seen someone do with a scrunchie before, and my hair’s been waist-length most of my life. I watch it again in slow motion. How did she DO that??

Caleb’s been looking for the right time to tell Jester about his past for a long time. She’s a good person and makes him feel like he might be capable of becoming a good person at the end, because that’s how she saw him. Liam knew from Laura that Jester wouldn’t condemn him, but Caleb put it off as long as possible. He also wanted to take the time to make sure Caduceus & Yasha knew the whole story too before they went to dinner with Trent.

Liam was also relieved to get it out, because he could never remember who knew and who didn’t, and now he doesn’t have to track it anymore. “Now we can move forward. Now we can heal wounds, maybe.”

Ashley feels Cad picks up a lot, more than most people realize. Yasha was really affected by Cad’s line: “Patience can be good, but it can lead to apathy.” She really feels it opened her eyes, and she appreciated the simplicity of him pointing out her hair’s growing back white again. Having a friend notice “hey, you’re changing for the better” really means a lot. She’s interested in seeing how this means things might change with Beau.

Dani points out that it also reinforced for Yasha that she can want things too--she can be patient and just continue to be with the group, as she’s wanted, but it’s okay to want more than that too. Ashley remembers Veth asking her what her purpose is. There’s a part of her that knows Yasha is still figuring that out, and she’s interested to see how Yasha will continue to change. She’s always spent her life serving somebody--the Sky Spear, Obann--and then even after she joined the M9, it was very centered on “what do you need, what does the group need, how can I help with our next job?” She’s going to have to take some time to figure out what she wants.

Fanart of the Week! Lovely Yasha & Beau flight art by @JMNP7888. The wings look amazing!

Brian: “One of the things we want to talk to you about, Liam, is about the Vokodo fight and the FUCKING disintegrate spell.”

Liam: “That was one of the most insane 60-90 seconds of gameplay that ever existed for the table, and definitely for me, in the entire history of the show. A lot of people think I just went, oh man, just bet it all on black. But what if I told you that...I Larkin’d the first 20 seconds of that fight and then at a quarter to midnight, I forgot that the reflection was a thing? I just forgot it was a thing! I spent that whole battle thinking I’m just here to banish things. I might buff my friends a little bit, maybe I’ll counterspell, but I’m just here to banish. And it didn’t work and it didn’t work and then it did! Finally it did and Jester made it work and then he was GONE. And then everyone got greedy and it was done but we brought him BACK. And it was a quarter to midnight and I’m not an animatronic D&D lesson machine, I’m just a guy playing D&D at 11:45 at night, and he came back and everyone started Goodfellas circling him and kicking him, and Beau & Yasha are gonna kill him, and then it’s my turn? Disintegrate! And then the room was quiet, and then time passed, and Matt asked, you really cast Disintegrate? And I said yes, of course, and Matt started rolling dice, and in the back of my head I started wondering why he asked if I was rolling Disintegrate. Oh no. In the back of my brain, I was like, well, just tell him that’s not what you did. Tell him you didn’t remember the reflection thing. But he’s already rolling dice! You can’t take it back now. Hold on a second. I’m going to take you on the journey I went through. I was thinking: you have a spell save of 17. This thing wasn’t that fast. +1, +2, maybe? Anything under 14 is okay. That’s 70%. 70%. That’s okay, right? And still no one said anything to tip me off that I was in ELDRITCH MADNESS at that point, no one said anything about the reflection! And then I realize it can reflect back on us, and I realize this is...disintegrate. And then I started becoming morbidly, macabre-ly fascinated at the puppet dance of death I had created. Well, this is a mess. I have made a mess. Let’s just sit in it. And somehow, nonsensically, spectacularly, it worked out in my favor. I went home that night and I got in bed next to my wife, who was fast asleep, and I stared at the ceiling going, dude. Duuuuuuuude. Duuuuuuuuuude.”

He apparently also told his therapist about this and how terrible it was and how close he “danced myself to the precipice like a crazy person!” Marisha (as told by Liam): “Epic roll, though.”

Matt told Liam that night that if it had been reflected, it would have gone back on him. “If a player throws an M80 in the middle of a room, it would reflect on that player who threw it.”

Ashley talks about how interesting that Yasha is not performative, and yet has been doing these public performances with the harp. It’s a great experiment for Ashley--Yasha doesn’t like the attention, but feels like she is making something beautiful for the world.” She’s trying to change something about how she views herself & her place in the world. She was raised to be a weapon for the Sky Spear, but she’s also extremely gentle and loves flowers & beautiful music, and the further away she’s gotten from the tribe, she’s falling in love with gentle, beautiful things.

Liam also points out it easy (real, but simplistic) to make an entire character centered around a single personality trait: “I’m angry all the time. I’m sad all the time.” He thinks it’s more realistic to see nuance in personality.

Liam can see some paths for Caleb to find peace & do good. He doesn’t know if Caleb is conscious of those. He thinks it’s a huge step forward to admit he was molded in this direction at all and that it wasn’t all his choice, but doesn’t know if this is the same possibility as redemption.

He also mentions Essek in this answer: there was/is attraction there, both intellectual and physical--the forehead kiss was a big marker of that--and he’s interested in seeing where that goes because he’s invested in Essek’s redemption arc on its own, but Essek is not as high on the list as other things Caleb/the M9 need to work on. He loved the “high spy times” of the Essek arc and the tangled-up-ness of feelings getting involved at the same time as intense commitment to duty.

Liam always felt Matt would bring Molly back in some aspect, even though Caleb always demurred because he doesn’t believe in fate. Dani and Brian agree that this is the start of a new act.

Ashley cried at the Vilya reunion. She thought that was an incredible moment and was so glad to see Keyleth. Liam: “Keyleth as part of our story is everything to me. That story is really important to me, so getting just a glimpse of her again was so important to me.” They could all see how that affected Marisha & how special it was to her. Liam: “It was such a great note in her song or color in her painting. She achieved magnificent things and was powerful and great, but had a very heartbreaking and sad ending, so to have this sliver of joy go back in is so complex and beautiful and masterfully done.”

Aaaaaaand that’s all for tonight! Remember, no Critical Role this week. Talks will be back in two weeks. As always, don’t forget to love each other. <3

#talks machina #critical role #talks machina spoilers #critical role spoilers #long post #long post for ts

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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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RWBY Recaps: Volume 8 “The Final Word”

Well, we made it to the finale, everyone, and if you're reading this it seems you've survived the watching of it too. Barely. To say that some questionable choices were made across these 20 minutes is... an understatement.

But before we delve into the episode, I want you to cast your mind back to November 7th, 2020. A horrible year that heralded a horrible RWBY volume. There, coming off the shaky writing of Volume 7, I posed a number of questions and concerns that the show needed to tackle, with the promise that we would return to these expectations in four months time. Now, here we are! Let's refresh everyone's memory, yeah?

Taken directly from that recap, what RWBY promised us, through various teasers and Q&As, included:

Emphasis on Ruby’s leadership and how Summer’s death has impacted her

Insight into Ren and Nora’s flaws

May Merigold will supposedly have a larger part

More information about The Long Memory (Ozpin’s cane)

Theme of the volume is that you can respect someone but that doesn’t necessarily mean you agree with them

Very short timeline (supposedly just two days)

Yang in particular is very suspicious and distrustful

And you know what? They did all this. In the spirit of being fair and honest to this show, RWBY succeeded in delivering on everything they promised... it was just our foolishness that expected that these ideas would be delivered well. Ruby's leadership took center stage in the form of her hiding for multiple episodes and then others telling her she's still The Best before the plot dropped a solution into her lap... one she could have used at any point prior to this. Summer's death certainly has an impact, though it's an impact born of a crazy reveal that Summer likely isn't dead, but turned into a horrifying grimm monster. Ren and Nora both delve into their flaws, but heaven forbid either grow from that reflection. Ren learns that if he pushes past his primary flaw of keeping his emotions buried and actually expresses his doubts for once, he'll be yelled at and ignored until he admits how wrong he was. The "real" flaw is being a bad friend, with "bad friend" equaling "Not agreeing with Ruby 100%." Meanwhile, Nora considers that maybe she shouldn't rush in recklessly and hit things with her hammer... which is why she rushes in recklessly, hits something with her hammer, gets grievously injured, and is told that this is just who she truly is. No growth there, not unless we count her sudden desire to figure out who she is without Ren... but that exploration hasn't started yet. Too bad she wasn't the teammate separated at the end of the volume!

Meanwhile, May did indeed have a larger role to play, one I quite liked, it's just that this role — like all the others — inevitably circled back to realizing how wonderful Ruby is. May challenges Ruby to make a decision, but instead of being the catalyst for Ruby's growth, May becomes another forgotten side character who does a sudden about-turn regarding her perspective, leaving the group with the contradictory message that Ruby is actually doing her best, she's just a kid, no need to try any harder... everyone who claimed otherwise up until now was mistaken. May is another Cordovin. She's another Qrow. She's another Maria.

Fun fact: we don't even know if Maria is alive right now. That's how little she means to the show!

Actually, wait... anyone remember this nonsense from Volume 7?

I was too lazy to change the date.

Moving on, Ozpin's cane turned out to be a stakes obliterating bomb that came out of nowhere, makes no sense logistically — how do battles store energy that only hurts grimm? — yet nevertheless seems to have killed Hazel? It's a disaster of unanswered questions. Similar to the disaster of our two day timeline when, I'm fairly sure, we've had an unnatural number of sunrises and sunsets. I'll have to take a look back at the volume as a whole now that it's complete to be sure of that though. As for our themes... did we really explore the idea of respecting someone even if you disagree with them? Because Ironwood wasn't shown any respect. Ren wasn't shown respect. I think the closest we got was Oscar calmly validating Yang's worry about getting buddy-buddy with Emerald, but the whole point there was that Yang was wrong. She wasn't wrong, but that's what the text would have you believe. She is indeed "very suspicious and distrustful," but that's hardly unjustified in these circumstances. I'm still boggling at the fact that it took the group three volumes for forgive Ozpin, even while he was actively working to assist them, yet I-helped-destroy-Beacon-and-tried-to-kill-everyone-you-love Emerald is the group's new BFF after she... ran away with Oscar? She didn't save him, she just went along for the ride. At the very least we might have gotten a scene where Penny was like, "Hey, why are you all laughing with the woman who just tried to kill my dad?"

But oh yeah, the story doesn't remember Pietro exists either. His daughter is DEAD and he hasn't been on screen since Episode Five, let alone there when she passes.

I had my own list going in, including such expectations as "Ozpin bb you got done dirty please acknowledge this" and "Queer baiting, queer baiting… you’re on thin ice at this point, RWBY. Just skate on over to the queer snack bar before you fall straight into the lake." Obviously these needs were not met.

So what, given this mess of expectations, did we end up with?

Our finale — for some reason — breaks the one word title trend with "The Final Word." It's an expression that refers to the final word in an argument or a discussion, the idea of winning by making a last, devastating point. It can also refer to making the final decision on something, which is the best way I'm able to apply the title to this episode (outside of any “final” comparisons). Penny's death is certainly all about choice and making some kind of decision... but on the whole, this title doesn't feel like it fits well. Not like "Worthy" or "Creation" or "Risk." The two latter titles had obvious connections to the episode in question through dialogue and plot, while the former was a deliberate callback to Watts' speech. "The Final Word" feels... less obvious in what it’s trying to say.

That's a minor nitpick though. Let's get into the meat of the episode.

We open on the grimm whale still disappearing, which is weird. I get that it's massively bigger than any other grimm we've seen, but they all turned to dust near instantaneously and it's been, what? At least an hour since Oscar blew it up? Likely longer when we factor in their walk back to the manor, the fight with Ironwood, fixing Penny, and this entire evacuation. It certainly makes for a nice visual, but like so many details in RWBY, it raises unnecessary questions along the way.

The important bit though is that amidst the whale carcass a blob of evil is swirling about. Salem, obviously.

She’s not reforming in time to actually do anything though, don't worry.

Instead, we cut to the Ironwood vs. Winter fight and there's at least some dialogue this time. Ironwood yells that he's sacrificed everything to keep Remnant safe. Winter yells back that he actually sacrificed everyone else. Obviously, Ironwood should be called out for things like, you know, his unprompted murders, but instead they have Winter listing stuff that she was never shown to have a problem with before. The embargo? "Squeezed Mantle until it broke?" She, as Ironwood's second hand, understood and supported both the decision to close the border and the need to collect resources for a plan designed to take out Salem. I hate that no only did she turn without an ounce of hesitation or grief, but now they're having her act as if Ironwood forced these decisions on everyone, rather than everyone supporting him through them. We all remember Volume 7 when Ruby pressured him to finish Amity, right? And in trust RWBY fashion, most of these words are meaningless. Mantle "broke"? What does that mean? The class disparity did not come about through Ironwood: that's been in the works for generations. The lack of resources made things harder, yes, but when they were reclaimed by Robyn nothing improved. Watts is the one who turned off the heat and Salem attacked Atlas, leaving Mantle alone. Now, all the citizens have escaped through magical portals. So how is Mantle "broken" exactly? More importantly, why is Winter upset over this vague, nonsensical dilemma when she could be yelling about Ironwood wanting to bomb Mantle?

Again: this woman watched Ironwood shoot the councilman, shrugged, and continued to believe in him up until she realized his bomb threat was real. That was one of the main reasons why I thought the councilman might be alive, with Ironwood only shooting a warning shot past him. Because this is how you react to a good person unexpectedly killing someone else

whereas this is what we got from Winter and Harriet.

Hell, Weiss has more of a reaction to Yang telling Ruby things aren't super great right now.

So either Ironwood didn't do something that bad, thereby justifying these tame reactions (unlikely, given where his character ended up), or we should believe based on the animation that everyone was super chill with him killing an unarmed civilian. Which is then directly contradicted when they're like, "You're going to shoot Marrow? Bomb a city?? How could you do such horrible things??? 😲" Friends, buddies, fictional pals... you already watched him murder a dude.

The point is, there's a lot for Winter to be upset about, but she's not upset about that. There's a lot that Winter herself believed in, but the writing has forgotten that. This entire arc went off the rails a volume ago.

Also, why is Ironwood fighting with that giant gun? This is his final battle, presumably ever, and he's wielding this awkward, sluggish weapon we saw him randomly pick up two episodes ago? Let him use his regular guns! Give us a fantastic battle like he had with Watts! Instead, RWBY's final showdown consists of him using this no-name weapon as a unwieldy club in some of the most boring choreography we've seen to date. It doesn't help that this fight needs to share time with three others. Instead of an epic showdown, we're given glimpses of the battle before continually cutting away from it.

During that first cut we return to the Team RWBY battle where Penny, doing her best to stay out of Cinder's reach, is whisked away on Weiss' wasp.

Too bad she didn't do that for Yang...

Jaune and Nora watch this horror unfold until Jaune says, "Priority one!" and they split. Except... what is priority one exactly? Helping the civilians? I guess, because they don't enter the fight until the very end of it, when everyone else seems to have made it to Vacuo. And you know what, I like that. For once it feels like the group — or at least the B Team — is acting like huntsmen, putting the needs of the people over their own, personal desires. I'm sure Nora wants to help the group after Yang's (presumed) demise and that Jaune would like nothing more than to get his hands on Cinder, but they put those grievances aside to do the work they signed up for. Good job!

My only real gripe is that we don't really see this struggling in the animation, I'm just assuming it's there. In particular, there's a moment when Jaune sends Nora through the portal for reinforcements — not knowing they can't return — and they seem a little too jovial when, by this point, three friends have died.

There's letting your cast be supportive, and then there's having them ignore that three teammates have perished in an abyss. It really doesn't help to sell the idea that Yang, Ruby, and Blake are in any danger here.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Penny tells Weiss that since Cinder is really just after the Maiden powers, she can buy the rest of the group time to escape. Weiss, obviously, isn't fond of this idea... and then the both of them are blasted off the wasp by Cinder's fire. Which they deserve, frankly. They're just having this casual conversation about sacrifice while in the middle of a battle. Did they somehow forget that Cinder can fly too?

Note that multiple attacks from Cinder, another blast, and a hard landing on the pathway gives their auras a knock, but doesn't break them. The primary defense for Yang's aura shattering in a single, simple hit was that everyone is exhausted and running on little to no power... yet here the rest of the cast is, tanking multiple hits as we've come to expect. There is no explanation for Yang's defeat except that the writers chose to ignore the rules of their world for a dramatic death scene... even though that drama was erased a week later as half our team falls into the void too.

We'll get to that though. For now, Cinder corrects Penny's belief with "I want it all" and proceeds to try to finish them off, only for Blake to arrive, having made her choice from last episode about who to help. It's a legitimately nice attack, but I happened to pause at the bEST MOMENT

Anyway.

We leave that fight to return to Qrow and Harriet who have, off screen, started an entirely different battle. What I mean is, last we saw Qrow had broken through the windshield of the airship, roughly pinned Harriet, and was taunting her about getting the fight she wanted. Now, suddenly, he's going “You’re making a mistake, Harriet, what happened to Clover—” as if he's been trying to talk her down this whole time. It's jarring, especially when we consider that Qrow had a volume long "kill Ironwood" arc that was dropped because... Robyn reminded him that murder is bad? RWBY feels like a storytelling pinball machine. Characters bounce from one personality to the next, one perspective and another, round and round until you don't know where they'll end up.

Harriet screams for Qrow to just shut up already and honestly? Same. I love Qrow, he's one of my favorites, but I can't deny that he's been done dirty like so many others since Volume 6. I love who Qrow was, not the mess RWBY has created the last few years.

Time to delve back into fic after recapping!

Sadly though, this strange dialogue wasn't the only "wtf" moment. Harriet is still trying to drop the bomb — which is its own mess of confusing motivations — when Vine and Elm show up on Harriet's ship. Elm begs Harriet not to do this "because you’re our friend!”

Am I glad that they finally acknowledged that the Ace Ops have always been friends? Sure, but why did we spend two volumes claiming otherwise? They were friends, a fantastic team, then Harriet announces that's a lie and we get a bunch of "Team RWBY is superior because they're actually friends" messages. Except this entire time we're still watching the Ace Ops be kind and playful with one another. But they're not friends, the story says. Not friends as they fight these battles. Not friends as they grieve for Clover. Definitely not friends as they react in horror at Ironwood nearly shooting Marrow. No, there's nothing there... until Elm claims there is! Then Harriet reacts in shock. I have friends?

Except Elm was labeled the one "just following orders" by Yang. Elm is the one who shook off Vine after the whale exploded. This isn't the story of one character, Harriet, thinking she was alone and then realizing that people do care for her, this is a story that, seemingly at random, had this group being BFFs or acting like they hated each other — and at each point the visuals are contradicted by the story's message. When they act like friends, we're told they're not friends. When they don't act like friends, we're told they really have been this whole time. I mean, do any of them even care that Marrow teamed up with Qrow and Robyn to take them out five minutes ago? All three were going along with Ironwood's scheme until they were physically stopped, but now Elm is convinced this is a bad decision she needs to talk Harriet down from with the power of friendship?

None of these characters are characters, they're just slapped together reactions based on whatever the plot needs. Who is Elm? I've got no clue. Her personality changes every episode.

Also, love that Qrow moves to stop the bomb from dropping and Harriet screams at him to "Get out of the way!" rather than just... attacking him? She even throws her hands out like she's having a temper tantrum. This feels like schoolyard bickering, not a life or death struggle.

Even though, you know, the audience is aware that the people of Mantle have already been evacuated and Qrow's group is aware that Atlas is falling on top of Mantle as they speak, so... why does the bomb matter? It's going to, what? Destroy the city thirty seconds before Atlas does? Oh no, the horror.

Things then, if you can believe it, get even worse. The bomb is still about to drop, so instead of doing anything to stop it — I mean seriously, we know it takes four people to shoulder the bomb's weight, but you're telling me Qrow and a reformed Harriet can't snag it in a pinch? — Qrow sits there, looks at Clover's pin... and the bomb careens towards the side of the airship instead, stopping.

Because I guess Qrow has good luck now? Or always did and somehow never noticed it? Or his semblance evolved?? Again, we don't know, but it's a bad moment any way you slice it, imo. Qrow has always been defined as the guy with a bad luck semblance and, much like Penny's android struggles, the allure was in watching him overcome those challenges, not having the show erase the challenge entirely. Especially when we don't even understand how it was erased. Qrow just... stops drinking, stops caring for Ironwood, stops wanting to kill Ironwood, stops causing bad luck, I guess. RWBY takes major character traits and flips them off like a light switch, leaving the audience with no emotional tether. We didn't watch Qrow overcome his drinking, or realize he can't bear to kill Ironwood, or discover a way to live life with the horrible hand he was dealt, he just blinks one day and those things are gone. Why? No one is sure. Not even the writers, I'd wager, because otherwise they would have written explanations into the text.

Many in the fandom insist that any basic information provided by the story amounts to "hand holding" when in fact there is a massive difference between the sort of unnecessary exposition that bogs down a tale, and having facts enough for the audience in its entirety to be on the same page about what is actually happening. For example, recently someone argued strongly that the "Penny is human" take is incorrect because Penny isn't human, she has an inhuman body made entirely of aura... yet where in the world does this exist in the story? Ambrosius may have been unsure about what Penny would be prior to removing her robotic parts, but that ambiguity is gone once her body forms, the equivalent of worrying about that gun only for a flag with 'BANG' to appear instead of a bullet. Worrying about something doesn't mean that something actually occurred. Penny appears human, expresses human sentiments, and then, this episode, dies as a human. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck and succumbs to the mortal peril that all ducks face... it's probably a duck. As I said in a recent ask, I implore the fandom to stop writing RWBY's scripts for them. Or rather, do so in some amazing fanfics. Don't do it on critical posts as a means of insisting that your revision is canon.

So Qrow has good luck now, maybe, but this character change doesn't amount to anything because Watts remotely starts the bomb's countdown.

At least he’s entertaining and competent. We had that for a time.

Back to the main battle, Neo is kicking Ruby's ass. Why? Because there's no consistency in power levels in this show. The ancient woman who hasn't fought in decades dances circles around Neo, highlighting how weak she supposedly is, yet now Neo dances circles around our main character. None of us should expect fights to follow the logic of the world, only what drama the plot wants to stir up. Ruby is eventually knocked down from a hard hit — yet her aura's intact! — and is saved at the last second by Weiss tossing Neo into one of the portals.

Far more of a problem than the power leveling is that Ruby gives no indication here that Neo just murdered her sister. Again, that's what the characters are meant to believe, yet Ruby is as stoic as she would be fighting a bunch of White Fang grunts. If you showed this scene to a RWBY fan on its own and asked, "What do you think happened prior to this?" the answer would be, "Uh... nothing? Ruby is just fighting Neo like she did on the airship in Volume 3." Nothing about this scene — from dialogue to animation — sells the idea that Ruby just lost the person most important to her in the world.

When we do finally mention Yang, it's Weiss who goes, “Come on, we have to do this for Yang” and the delivery is... meh. Honestly, I normally don't pay much attention to the voice acting, but I had a problem with most of Weiss' lines this episode. The "Leave her alone!" during this fight and later a "Get back!" as she attacks Cinder both fell really flat for me. Given the devastation and charged emotion that's supposed to be here, we can't give her anything better than generic cries that, again, she’d throw at any grunt? In that later scene the animation absolutely helps sell Weiss' distress, but the dialogue is common and the delivery has no emotional punch, leaving it feeling like Yang is just hanging out in Vacuo and they promised they'd beat the baddies before catching up with her. No one but Blake is acting like Yang died.

In fact, we see more emotion from Ruby when Weiss shoves her back, taking the brunt of Cinder's blast.

Weiss' aura breaks, not that that's a danger or anything. Everyone falls before they're injured, Winter gets the Maiden powers, Ren barely has to fight. Losing aura in this show used to be a moment of peril, where just last volume Winter was bruised, bleeding, and now needs an assistive device because she had to continue a battle with no aura. Now it's a joke. Aura breaks left and right across the volume with no repercussions attached to that.

We see a bit of the Blake and Penny vs. Cinder fight where Cinder blasts Blake off the edge. Penny rushes after her because at least one character remembered that they can fly.

Ruby, meanwhile, remembers that she can fly when it benefits her. After getting hit down onto a lower level and watching Crescent Rose plummet, she taunts Neo into an attack with a move that's actually quite good. I like the confidence with which Ruby riles her up and I like the strategy of darting behind Neo to knock her off the path instead. “Whatever you wanted, I hope it was worth it."

The only thing I don't like is that this speed and ingenuity had to disappear to justify Yang falling.

Cinder breaks Ruby's aura from behind though, sending her over too and grabbing onto Neo's leg. In an obvious moment born of the trope, it looks as if Cinder is reaching to help Neo, only for her to snag the Relic instead. “You should have never threatened me," she tells Neo and to Ruby: "you should have never been born.”

Love that they erased all that cool growth from last episode! And by "love" I mean "hate." As I said last recap, I'm not going to pretend that Cinder's character isn't riddled with problems, but realizing she was stronger by teaming up with Neo and Watts was one of the best things they've ever done for her. It made Cinder dangerous again and showed Watts' speech having a clear impact. It also made her more entertaining, creating a new dynamic among the three villains. Now though, Cinder is just... Cinder. The same boring, stupid Cinder we've had since Volume 4. She betrays Neo and then later betrays Watts.

So Cinder kicks Neo and Ruby both over the edge because why would we want to make her interesting? Neo falls, but Ruby has friends there to catch her! Unlike Yang. Jk. Weiss’ aura is gone and Blake actually tried both times, so major kudos for her. Using momentum supplied by Penny, she snags Ruby and hooks her weapon into one of the pathways... only for Cinder to cut the ribbon. Both plummet and once again Penny has a more believable reaction to all this, just like she did last week

Speaking of reactions, does anyone else find it weird that Cinder finally succeeded in killing Ruby and... doesn’t seem to care?

No? Just me?

At least we get that good animation with Weiss I was talking about before, even if the dialogue is lacking. I love that she snagged Blake's weapon and uses it to try and take out Cinder, shaking the whole time. Those are some great details.

Back to the bomb, Qrow is trying to escape, but Harriet says there isn't enough time to get out of the blast range. "I've killed us all." Vine has the solution though, using his semblance to wrap up the airship, thus containing the blast when it goes off. His final words are to reassure Elm that he can give his life, "if it means saving all of my friends." Just in case you missed the part about the Ace Ops being super close this whole time. Even though they also weren’t. Trying to eat your cake too, RWBY?

Frankly, I didn't feel much of anything during this scene, not when Vine made the sacrifice, nor when Elm and Harriet look on sadly while Robyn pilots them away (that's her contribution this episode).

All I can say is, good on RWBY for not killing one of the three dark skinned characters, or just murdering the Ace Ops as a whole. What the story is going to do with them though, who knows.

Jaune and Nora have that ‘You can do it!’ moment after three of their friends have presumably been killed. I swear, about 80% of Jaune's scenes do not work tonally and oh boy, things only get worse from here.

First though, I like his entrance. He slams into the fight against Cinder and lines up with Penny and Weiss, who is still dual-wielding her and Blake's weapons. That's an epic shot.

It looks as if they stand a decent chance against Cinder — Weiss' lost aura notwithstanding — except then Cinder's arm starts going crazy and she gleefully announces that Salem has returned.

Working on a time limit now, Cinder unleashes a volley of attacks that Penny steps in to protect the other two from. It's here that Cinder grabs hold with her grimm arm.

It's here that Penny dies. Again.

For the third time.

Friends, I am tired. This moment honestly deserves the most epic of rants, but that, in turn, requires energy. Energy? In this economy? Ha! That's hilarious. Taking this seriously though, the problem here can — as usual — be boiled down to a single question: What was the point?

Penny died in a horrible attack that shook the cast and audience both to their core.

That emotional impact was erased through her resurrection.

The resurrection did not create a new emotional impact for our heroes to grapple with.

Penny is given the Maiden powers, solidifying the fact that she's always been a "real girl."

That lesson was erased when the story decided to make her human for unexplained reasons (because no, she never needed to be human to survive the virus).

Penny then dies, passing the power to Winter... who was set to get the power in the first place.

We have, once again, come full circle. You can take Penny out of the story and nothing changes. Does Ruby lose any lessons or emotional growth? No. Does anyone survive who would have otherwise died? No. Does her getting the powers lead to someone unexpected snagging them upon her death? No. Penny's existence was filler. She was put in the story to take up time and, that done, was removed from the story once again. It's a choice that wouldn't be half as horrible if that filler hadn't done so much damage along the way.

First is the obvious: that Penny didn't deserve this. As a character, she didn't deserve to be brought back just to be killed off again, seemingly without narrative purpose, serving only to draw in viewers who RT knew loved the character. Second, keeping her in the story led to her entire arc unraveling. Initially, Penny died as an android in the world's eyes, but those who actually knew her — Ruby and Pietro — mourned the girl she really was. Now we have this horrible message that being a machine isn't real enough, so she has to die as a human being. It's a disservice to her character and, as an allegory for many minorities, downright insulting to the audience. Third, this offensive 'better to die as a human than live as a robot' message is wrapped up in the claim that Penny finally gets to choose something — “Let me choose this one thing. Trust me” — but she already did that when she chose to take the Maiden powers. We already had the better written version of this last volume!

And the fourth issue...well.

Fourth and fifth are the real kickers. Fourth is that Penny's death was an assisted suicide. She explicitly asks Jaune to kill her so she can ensure she's thinking of the right person when she passes (never mind that her thoughts would probably be on Jaune while this is happening) and that's... pretty horrible. Look, I'm no purist. I like a great deal of dark, gritty stories whose plot exists to make us uncomfortable. That's a valuable emotion that fiction can generate. The problem is not that RWBY is tackling a sensitive topic, but that they aren’t tackling it well. Yes, they put in a content warning and (from what I've heard) a suicide helpline as well, but providing the already necessary resources is not the same thing as writing that kind of scene with respect and care. All of the above tells us that, no matter what RT may have intended, that respect and care weren't communicated to the audience. Like Yang, they didn't even bother to keep Penny's death within the rules of their world. Jaune is right there ready to heal her and Penny says no, there's supposedly not time.

Um... since when?

Jaune's aura boost is instantaneous. The second he amplifies aura is the same second the healing starts and their talk could have been spent saving Penny. There was certainly time to save Weiss in Volume 5. To have a character go, 'Nah, it's too late' when the solution is right there is the ultimate cop-out. Suddenly announcing that the solution will no longer work For Reasons is not a legitimate limitation and it's made doubly insulting that RT didn't simply use the limitations already available to them. Jaune has been running low on aura since the whale. He then expended a great deal of aura boosting Penny to keep the virus in check. Every other ally has had their aura broken in this fight so, there. That's your solution. Have Jaune take a few hard hits from Cinder, his aura breaks, and then when Penny is mortally wounded he no longer has a semblance to heal her. It's that easy! Yet instead they had Penny reject help so that she could ask to die. That's what's offensive here.

Finally, reason number five... why is this moment given to Jaune? That's another easy solution: Jaune has gone through the portal and can't get back to heal Penny. There. Done. But logistics aside, this scene should have gone to any other character. Who is Jaune to Penny? Or Penny to Jaune? No one! They don't have a relationship. I get that the writers didn't want any of the girls at her side because then it would be hard to justify Penny not passing the power to them (which I get: making one team member a Maiden changes the show drastically), but you know who should be there instead of Jaune?

Pietro.

Pietro, who built Penny as a weapon and who was never given the chance to apologize for that. Pietro, who told Ruby he could only rebuild her once more, setting up an expectation that he'd sacrifice himself for his daughter (despite the complicated racial issues that would bring up). Pietro, who watched Penny plummet and has no idea what happened to her, let alone that she's been made into a human girl. Pietro should have been at her side, saying goodbye to his child and helping her complete her last wish.

And it would be so very easy to pull off. All it takes is a single line where Penny remembers that her father exists, asking Ruby to ensure a portal opens up in Amity. There's a quick reunion along the pathways before Cinder attacks. We hear a cry of despair as Penny falls and she looks, seeing her father racing towards her, though she thought he'd already made it out. There, you’re done. We open ourselves up to a lot of attacks whenever we say, "Why didn't RWBY just do ____?" because those who vehemently defend the writing like to go, "Oh, you think you could write RWBY better?" and no, I don't. I struggle with long-form storytelling and massive casts. I don't think I could do justice to the sort of show RWBY wants to be, but I do think I'm a decent enough writer to spot when there are major problems like this. The question of "Why doesn't Penny remember that her beloved dad exists?" and "Why, out of that massive cast, is Jaune the one to do this deed?" are both things that a newbie writer can spot, and a sometimes okay writer can figure out how to fix them both simultaneously. A good writer will start thinking about themes — what might it mean for Pietro to kill the creation he made? — and a great writer will find a way to pull that off without having that insulting, discomforting feeling pop up. At this point, our RWBY crew feels less like new writers making mistakes (because they're not new, not at all), but rather just writers who haven't bothered to learn from their mistakes after eight years. That's a lot harder to watch.

Because putting Jaune here doesn't just mess with RWBY's internal rules (not using his semblance) and it's not just useless in terms of Penny's development (she doesn't know him outside of "dude who boosted my aura for an hour"), but it also falls back into a pattern I thought RWBY had finally broken from: making Jaune the story's emotional center. This is not the JAUNE show. It's the RWBY show. Yet here, once again, we have Jaune in the spotlight. Why, after a whole volume of Ruby avoiding making decisions, does Jaune finally make the hard call? Why, after a scene where Penny asked Ruby to kill her, does Jaune do that deed? Why, after a divisive arc where all the grief for Pyrrha went to Jaune, is Jaune now set to shoulder the grief of Penny? At least Jaune had a relationship with Pyrrha, even if Nora and Ren did too. Yet with Penny he seems to be there solely because the writers can't bear to keep him out of that center spot for long. All of Team JNOR make it through to Vacuo... except Jaune. Jaune falls into the abyss too because, if the show goes this route, we apparently can’t have a volume just about Team RWBY, the main characters. The main characters are separated from the rest of the team and it's Jaune, not Oscar and Ozpin with a connection to the lore, not Nora or Ren whose development now hinges on them learning who they are without the other, it's Jaune who follows the title characters into a new dimension.

The issue is not whether Jaune deserves to grieve over the truly traumatic thing he just did now that he’s done it. He obviously does. The issue is the writers setting up a scenario where Jaune is situated to do that emotional work in the first place.

I like Jaune as a character. I don't like how the writing uses him as a character. RWBY is built on the idea that these four girls are the heroes of this tale, not the expected blond, blue-eyed, sword wielding guy we’ve seen in so many other stories. So why does that guy get the most important scene of the finale? Yes, Jaune had much less screen time this volume than he did in the past, that’s a good thing given the number of important characters RWBY has to balance, but that hasn't erased the problem of him being given significant moments that should be going to title characters. Does Ruby’s team rescue Oscar and take on Salem? No, Jaune's team does. Does Ruby's team save Penny? No, Jaune's semblance keeps her grounded and then holds the virus off. Not everything is a problem — we've also got good choices like having Ruby defeat the Hound and Ruby's team take on Cinder for the majority of the fight — but that doesn't erase that Penny’s death wasn’t something Jaune should have been a part of. Not unless he was going to heal her. Doing better than they have in the past doesn't mean that RT isn't still slipping when it comes to giving him undeserved focus.

They took one of the most controversial characters, controversial because of how much emotional focus he's gotten in the past, and had him help a fan favorite commit suicide while he cried about it, showing more emotion for a near stranger than our title character showed for her sister. This is a character who, up until two or three episodes ago, had no connection to the victim and still has no reason to thematically be the one committing this act. That is why the fandom goes, “The crew loves Jaune and does everything they can to put him in the center of the action.” Ruby, as main character and Penny’s first friend, is the obvious choice here. Pietro, as Penny's father, would be a good choice too. Hell, Nora is a better option given their moment in the Schnee manor this volume. Or Winter given their moments in Volume 7! Have her escape Ironwood, find Penny, receive the powers, and then finish him off. Literally anyone would be better than Jaune, not because Jaune is a bad character, but because Jaune has no emotional stakes here and putting him in a position where he could heal Penny but doesn’t is massively stupid. No one should be surprised that a lot of the fandom is upset about this. It was one hell of a reach to give him this moment and, since Jaune's problem has always been getting too much screen time and emotional nuance compared to our main cast, it's no wonder this act brought up a lot of bad memories. RT fell back into an old pattern after two volumes of improvement and they did so at the worst possible time.

The tl;dr is that Penny's third death is a writing travesty, just like her second. I shouldn't be surprised, given that this is the same volume that tortured a kid and the only thing they did with it was have him blindly trust his torturer... yet I find myself surprised nonetheless. Because Penny had such potential as an android Maiden and, as much as I personally hated it, potential as a former android learning to be human too. But why explore any of that when you can kill her off instead? Again.

As a final, far smaller note about this scene, we have the continuing problem of what purpose Cinder's arm is serving. If everyone recalls, its threat comes primarily from the fact that she can "siphon off" power from other Maidens.

She did it to Penny during the Amity battle and now she does it again, a great deal of green energy absorbed into Cinder. So what's left to give to Winter? Why doesn't Cinder become noticeably stronger with each successful theft? Like so much else in RWBY, we're told it exists without actually seeing the impact of that. Winter isn't a weaker Maiden for having lost power and Cinder isn't a stronger Maiden for having snagged it. It's just.. there, hanging out and looking vaguely menacing, I guess.

Outside of this unnatural not-transfer, we get to see how the power normally passes as Penny meets with Winter in some in-between place. It's a soft, heartfelt scene... with the exception that Winter says, “You were always the real Maiden at heart. I was just the machine. Just following orders."

I don't know how any viewer can doubt that RT now believes machinery = evil. Penny's machine body is magicked away so she can be a real-real girl. Yang announces that the arm she worked hard to make a part of herself is just "extra." The man with half a metal body is made this volume's villain and losing his second arm is, by the authors' own admission, a symbol of his lost humanity. Mercury with two metal legs remains a bad guy while Emerald and Hazel are hastily redeemed. Tyrian with his cybernetic tail is the most devoted crazy of the bunch. Maria, blind and in need of assistive lenses, is so forgotten by the story she was left in the tundra nine episode ago and won't be mentioned again until next volume (if then). Pietro, the guy in the wheelchair, is forgotten too, despite it being his daughter who dies on screen.

Now Winter, also bearing an assistive device, says that she's the real "machine" here and tells Penny, now human, that she was always the "real Maiden." I don't know what happened to make RT do a 180 lately, but the disability rep is no longer what it was.

Penny reassures Winter that she'll always be a part of her and then passes on, for good this time.

The rest of the episode feels lackluster, if I'm being honest. Images of Cinder beating Weiss are intercut with Ironwood beating Winter, getting her to a point where her aura breaks.

But then the powers appear and, as we'd expect, she easily turns the tide.

Gorgeous animation there.

But RT once again rewrites earlier scenes by having Ironwood claim that the "destiny" he chose for Winter has finally arrived — isn't that Cinder's MO? — and Winter shoots back that he chose nothing, this was a "gift." Except, it was never about destiny or orders? This was why Weiss' anger in Volume 7 was ridiculous. She acted like Ironwood forced Winter to accept the powers and Winter told her point blank she chose this. Ironwood didn't decide anything, he offered and Winter chose... kind of like how Penny is choosing now. I hate how nearly all of Ironwood's character has been ignored or, during times like this, outright lied about to make him seem super duper evil. He tried to bomb a city! You don't need to make him seem evil anymore, that job is done! Like their sudden change regarding disability, RT now seems to be allergic to nuance. Heaven forbid Ironwood be allowed to have valid points like he did in Volume 3. No, if you've got an antagonist every single thing they've ever said must be twisted into a display of their evilness.

Unless you're Hazel, who Oscar trusts for #reasons. Unless you're Emerald, who the group immediately embraces. Unless you're Cinder, who gets to cry on a rooftop and secures the trust of her allies long enough to betray them again.

But Ironwood? Nah, screw that guy.

Salt aside, the fight is pretty boring. Winter literally just throws up a wall of ice and Ironwood's blast rebounds, taking him out.

Winter flies through the portal and we return to Jaune. His sword is broken by Cinder, so weapons should be quite the problem in Volume 9.

There's a bit of sword vs. sword Maiden battling — this episode really pulled heavily from both Volume 3 and 5's finales — before Cinder gets smart again and attacks Weiss, currently trying to escape with Jaune. Weiss goes right off the edge and Winter isn't able to reach her in time. That's the entirety of Team RWBY, lost to the magical void.

Kudos to Winter's VA and the writing here though. This feels like an appropriate reaction to losing a sister. Screaming, sobbing, falling to her knees and beating the floor... Ruby, take notes.

A roar sounds through all the portals though, the sort of roar a pissed off witch might give. Jaune convinces Winter they need to leave Cinder behind, but before they can escape Cinder... makes a new wish?

Look, it works on all the major fronts. Cinder has the staff, check. We've basically established that Ambrosius can make an unlimited number of things per era, check. We know the previous thing disappears when a new wish is made, check. My only question is the timing. In all honesty, I'll have to re-watch the scene to be sure, but at the time it felt like the portals began disappearing almost the second Cinder left. Did she really have time to summon Ambrosius, deal with his explanatory nonsense, and get him to make a new wish without any fiddly concerns? Sure, fire is just fire, but it still felt like way too much happening too fast off screen.

Either way, the portals are gone and Winter makes it through in time, but Jaune does not. He falls through the void along with Team RWBY. And Neo.

Neo is the only addition I'm looking forward to here.

We get a few shots of our other characters as Winter arrives, saving the day by taking her grief out on the grimm. So glad something came of Ren breaking his aura again! Maybe they'll be more fighting at the beginning of Volume 9? If we see any of this group outside of 9's finale. My worst fear right now is that we'll spend an entire season away from the main action — remember how I said it would be stupid for Team RWBY to go on a side adventure while Salem is attacking the world? — and when they return there will have been some major time skip. Salem has destroyed most of Remnant, only pockets of survivors remain, it's all dark and dystopian... and oh look, every bit of character development happened off screen. How did Nora discover who she is without Ren? She did it while Team RWBY was gone. That merge we've been teasing for five years? That happened while you were gone too and, btw, Ozpin has ceased to exist. So sad, right? Not that anyone will actually mourn. Just take comfort in the fact that his last line was an "Oh no" about Ambrosius and his last major scene was apologizing for how the group treated him. Emerald's redemption? Off screen. Winter's grief? Off screen. Any and every one of these challenging beats to tackle can be waved away with, "We went through that arc while you were lost in the magical realm. Just get to know our new, improved selves now!"

Please, oh writing gods, don't let that happen.

Though I do worry because my last prediction came true.

But we all knew we’d end up here. My current theory? The portal should still be open at the vault. Winter will fight Ironwood, escape through it, and it will close right before he escapes too. He’ll fall with Atlas and everyone will act as if it’s some beautiful, poetic justice for him to perish with the city.

Ironwood didn't make a break for the portal — too busy being unconscious — but we got everything else. Winter left him, he falls with Atlas, and this is some poetic justice, I guess. Really, it's just an undignified death. I'd hoped for a sympathetic kill, something that showed the characters still cared about him even if they knew Ironwood had to be stopped. Baring that, I'd hoped for an epic battle that took him out with style. Instead, no one even bothers to kill him. Ironwood is now beneath the entire cast, not even worth finishing off. Winter casually tosses his blast back at him and leaves. Cinder throws out a "that's checkmate" and leaves. I don't think Salem even looks at him. Ironwood (presumably) dies with no one and nothing, just a casualty of the city Team RWBY made fall. And I say "presumably" because the audience isn't even given the satisfaction of being sure he's passed on. Like Hazel, Ironwood's death is this weird, ambiguous moment that, based on the other character reactions, isn’t meant to be ambiguous. Is he dead? Most likely. Is it possible, based on what we've seen, that he'll pop up two volumes later like

Yes and, memes aside, that sucks. I don't want to be wondering for the next couple years if Ironwood survived and if they'll bring him back just to drag his character through the mud again. Move on.

But no, we don't even get that.

I've spoken at great deal about Ironwood both in these recaps and on my blog more generally. Last week, I said I'd covered it all and there was no need to rehash it all again. I stand by that, so let me just conclude this travesty with a final note: if your bad guy's final moment is using the last of his strength to point a gun at the actual villain of this story, and you don't realize the problem of how this image contrasts everything else the story has insisted about his character? … I just don't know what to do with that.

Oh, actually, final-final note: Ironwood’s semblance is officially a Schrodinger's semblance. It is both canonical and noncanonical simultaneously. Wooo.

Cinder tells Salem she used her wish to "add more flames to the first of Atlas" and we cut to Watts, trapped in a roaring fire, unsuccessfully trying to break his way out. Wow, I hate that too! Next to Tyrian, Watts was our last remaining, entertaining villain. He carried a lot of the last two volumes and, I had hoped, was going to add some bright spots to the coming volumes as well. Apparently not.

Just another waste.

In addition to this casual, second murder of her ally, Cinder successfully convinces Salem that Neo killed Ruby and Ruby used the Lamp's last question, but she's back in her good graces since she snagged the Relics anyway. “You’ve done well, Cinder. Our work here is done" and they leave, blasting off like a less cool Team Rocket as Atlas plummets into Mantle.

Let's spend a second to tally things up then, shall we? What happens if Ruby, instead of throwing a moral fit, says, "You're right and we never should have lied to you, or betrayed you. But we want to help now. You get the Relics and the Maiden to safety in Atlas, if you can, we'll defend the people of Mantle"?

Well, they can still tell the world about Salem and call for help, much more easily now since Ironwood would likely just give them the code rather than them needing to spend an episode stealing it.

The Staff at least may not have ended up in Salem's hands and the group could have actually focused on getting the Lamp back (also solved if they'd been smart and just put it in the vault to begin with).

Mantle would still have been safe because Salem was never interested in Mantle to begin with.

Atlas wouldn't have fallen.

Ironwood wouldn't have died.

Penny wouldn't have died.

Even Vine wouldn't have died!

Our heroes unambiguously made the situation worse. Rather than banding together with their allies to fight the real enemy, Salem, they pushed until they made enemies of Ironwood and the Ace Ops both. Then they asked for help — which a pinch of logic said would never arrive — and twiddled their thumbs waiting for it. When it was clear none would come they...did nothing. They sat around, upset that the people were in danger, but not willing to do anything about it. It's only when one of their own, Penny, is threatened that they kick into high gear, hitting on a solution that they could have posed to Ironwood from the very start if no one liked the fly away plan. Yet instead of taking a few minutes to brainstorm other ideas — doing anything other than denouncing Ironwood to the rest of the group and attacking the Ace Ops — they spent two days sitting around, fixing minor messes they’d helped to create, then rushed through the portal plan, messing up the wish and stranding an entire kingdom in a sandstorm, with only Winter now to protect them from grimm.

Fantastically done, team.

The villains won, yes, but not because the villains were smart and compelling. Watts' hack on Penny and the heat petered out to nothing and Salem... well, she sat around for the whole volume, expending energy only to torture Oscar and try to (unsuccessfully) stop some escapees. Neo and, miraculously, Cinder did the most damage, but only in the final hour, with this "damage" being that our characters fall into a void that we now know looks remarkably like a paradise! Everything bad that happened was a result of our heroes being stupid and stubborn. That's a compelling story to tell... but RT isn't trying to tell it. Our heroes caused so much damage, yet that damage goes unacknowledged — or worse, ignored into silence like with Ren — and everything else is waved away with the magic wand the series claims isn't there. The cold doesn't kill anyone. Oscar has no problems walking off the torture. Nora hops back out of bed. Ruby one-shots the Hound. The civilians lost to the void must have survived too. The entire kingdom successfully makes it to Vacuo... unless you count the massive army we never saw making use of the portals, but who cares about them, right?

The villains won, there was indeed something resembling consequences, but none of it was emotionally satisfying. Not even when the series tries so hard to insist that emotion is there.

Qrow watches Atlas fall, mouthing Ruby and Yang's names, but it's too little, too late. Where was this care for his nieces when he was obsessed with killing Ironwood? When did they care about him? Was it when Ruby shrugged at his arrest, when neither cared that he was missing, or when they were designing an escape plan that didn't include putting a portal where Qrow could reach? RWBY markets itself around the found family-ness of its cast, but they're done a poor job in recent volumes (not others) of convincing me that most of these characters care for one another. We went from Ruby denouncing all adults, to Ruby pulling an Ozpin with Ironwood, to Ruby watching blandly as her sister falls to her presumed death. This is my hero? This is the simple soul we're supposed to rally behind? Ruby doesn't feel like a character who cares about other people anymore and, given that she leads the charge, neither do most of her friends. Or, when that emotion appears, it's jarring and undeserved. Jaune cries over Penny's death? That's tonally and characteristically backwards.

This volume was the culmination of so many mistakes over the past two years. No, Covid couldn't have made things any easier for the crew — the fact that they got a volume out at all is amazing — but the pandemic isn't to blame for the problems in the story. These seeds have existed since Volume 5, with some (like Jaune) going back even farther. I don't think we're ever going to get that flawed, but emotionally fulfilling RWBY back. The show has dug too deep and unless it somehow manages to create a clean slate — those time travel ideas get more and more alluring! — there's nothing they can do but keep on digging. At this point, I can only hope that the series does wrap up within the next two volumes, rather than dragging RWBY to a Supernatural-esque length.

Our final shot of the episode proper feels fitting for what this volume has been. Atlas and Mantle flood rather than exploding, something that makes a certain amount of sense, sure, but definitely wasn't what I was expecting. And after all these shocking images — Penny dying, the grimm attacking, our main characters disappearing in a puff of gold dust — we end it all with bits of random debris. It's strange and underwhelming. Out of everything you could have done with the options you had, you choose to do this?

Of course, RWBY always has an after-credits scene (RIP Raven's, still amounting to nothing). Here, the sounds of water return to show us a beach. Crescent Rose imbedded in the sand, mirroring its classic pose in the snow.

There's a tree. It's a very different kind of tree from what we saw in Volume 6, but the height and shape is nevertheless reminiscent of Light's domain.

A tree of life, anyone? After all, the group has fallen into a dimension created by a Relic, the gift of Light himself. It certainly seems as if RWBY is heading towards another encounter with the Gods, though what that will look like and how narratively satisfying it will be remains to be seen.

As for our bingo board, RWBY certainly pulled its weight! Only three squares got gold stars: Watts and Jacques didn't manage another team up because both are dead, Oscar didn't apologize for getting shot because he was too busy being tortured, and Qrow didn't drink likely because he didn't have access to any alcohol across the whole volume. Can't say that's a stellar result. The final image is something to behold though lol.

What a mess.

And on that less than exciting note... we’re done. This has been the volume of desertion, with a large number of fans telling me that they will no longer watch RWBY, but baring something entirely unexpected in my future, I'll be back next volume, for whatever that's worth. It never ceases to amaze me that even one person would give these nonsense recaps the time of day, so in all seriousness: thank you for reading. You rock.

Now go forth and fill the hiatus with great RWBY content!

✌️

#suicide tw #rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby volume 8 #mymetas #rwby recaps #rwby the final word

119 notes · View notes

mittensmorgul · 3 years

Note

Heeyy!

You’re like my “fandom veteran” :) and I wanted to ask you something:

I’m sure, there was a looot of speculation about Cas’ empty deal while it was hanging over there, but I couldn’t really find specific speculations…

So, do you feel like writing a bit about what the theories were, how you thought that the deal was going to be triggered, (if at all?) and general thoughts?

As I was watching, (binge-watching without much knowledge on the history, BUT knowing that “Destiel was gonna be canon”) I thought that they might trigger the deal by Dean confessing his love or something, but then I thought, they couldn’t be that evil, right??

Also, I thought that there would be a lot of fics with that idea, but I couldn’t find a single one! Are the fic writers just not that evil (to Dean :)) or is this not an idea that was widely spread?

I would love to hear your thoughts! :)

LOL! Hi, and thanks! I've spent the last few hours going through my tag for the episode, and honestly immediate post episode reaction (from my liveblogging notes) was that this could be leading to endgame human!Cas, because having made the deal with the Empty for JACK'S life

i.e., his CHILD, the same way so many people in SPN have sacrificed themselves for their child over the years, starting with John in 2.01 and Dean in 2.22 (because yeah that was the parallel, him carrying on John's Mission assigned to him to Save Sammy), as opposed to for DEAN

it was handing agency over his destiny back to Cas, which could eventually make the choice of relinquishing his grace to become human something tied to true personal choice, and not tied to "because he wanted a ~human~ relationship with Dean"

(under a cut because lol so long)

This was hinted at several times in surrounding episodes, as well, where Cas didn't hesitate to offer his own grace to save Jack's life-- literally in the previous episode 14.07:

Rowena: It's as I suspected. A Nephilim, for all its power, is an unnatural presence. Part human, part angel. It doesn't quite fit. It's delicate. Its grace is what holds it in balance, and when Jack's grace was taken from him, his being fell into chaos. The -- the cells are gobbling each other up. Castiel: Well, if it's grace he needs, he can have mine. Rowena: No, dear, it won't do. Jack is part archangel. He needs a much stronger force and probably some kind of magic, and he needs it quick.

No hesitation AT ALL to give up his grace here if it meant Jack would live. So we were already primed to see his deal in the very next episode being directly tied to that urge. Not to mention Amara's s15 arc as a parallel, of her urging Chuck to actually observe and learn to appreciate his own creation on its level, rather than his constant attempt to control it and force it to his will.

(which, in the end, her being resigned to let Chuck effectively absorb her into his own power, overriding her own love and appreciation for creation in favor of bending to his will three episodes before the series finale only ADDED to my personal feeling that yes, Cas's choice would come down to "his happiness is tied to his own humanity, rejecting his grace as a symbol of Chuck's will, since it had been used to control him since he was created with it for the singular purpose of being an instrument of Chuck's will in the world.")

At the time 14.08 aired, I know loads of us thought at least PART of that happiness would be tied to Dean, but I personally had hoped that it would be about CAS first and foremost. I didn't want his ultimate sacrifice and the choice of humanity to only be motivated by his love for Dean, you know? Dean didn't need that feeling of guilt for Cas choosing humanity *only because of him* and it's felt for YEARS to me that Cas had been slowly learning and understanding that he *would want humanity* for himself at the end of the series.

So that's how I *personally* saw it, and what I *personally* hoped would come of it in the end, but yes... loads of folks thought the true happiness could only be a love confession of some sort for Dean or from Dean. When Dean's confession in 15.09 happened, and Cas stopped him from saying anything else, it was like a hammer between the eyes that holy shit, Dean was about to confess love and that likely would've triggered the Empty deal, and *that was literally the only reason Cas could've had for stopping Dean from saying anything else at that moment.*

It was... mindblowing, honestly, and yet still fit in with everything else I said up there ^^, but if we were supposedly getting a "happy-ish" at least ending of the series, it meant at the very least Cas would need to survive the series IN SOME WAY. It was terrifying to hope for, and thinking back to it from post-finale, also HORRIFYING in retrospect, since we did not get that ending...

*grumbles for five minutes and then goes back to combing through my tag*

(here have some coda fic written in the day or so after 14.08 aired, since this concept was used A LOT after this episode aired, but not necessarily as specific coda fic to this episode... https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn%2014.08%20coda%20fic )

Because if the end of 14.08, with the four of them sitting around the kitchen table with burgers (and even Cas had one!) it felt like if this wasn't the setup for this being a happy family engaged in happy human family wasn't enough to trigger Cas's deal on the spot, then *there was still something missing from what Cas would consider "letting himself be truly happy."*

What could that missing element be? This was a HUGE win! He'd saved his child! He had secured his place in the family with Sam and Dean, too (which he would desperately struggle to maintain, leading to the troubles by the end of s14, and his falling out with Dean in early s15... but all of that was precipitated by Chuck's manipulations... blah blah blah... Cas rejecting "fate" and Chuck's will while Dean had a crisis of questioning whether he'd ever made any of his own choices at all... they were very clearly setting their relationship up as one of the core elements of their character arcs for s15-- and what they would CHOOSE for themselves. But as long as Cas's deal with the Empty hung over them, he couldn't make that choice. Tying all of Cas's character arc to that Moment of Choice when the deal was triggered.

I still never thought they would make it *about his love for Dean,* at least not in plain text on the surface level. I assumed they'd leave that part of it in the subtext after doing so much work in s15 to put it there, and ultimately make it about Cas's choice to choose a happiness that would automatically render his deal null, sacrificing his grace in fulfillment of the deal while remaining alive, human, and happy on earth... lol what the hell did I know.

The Empty had been a DEPRESSION METAPHOR for Cas, though. So making the deal about him choosing HIMSELF, and his own HAPPINESS over this "destiny" to be eternally depressed, seemed to be where the show was heading. All that remained would be for him to do the work of accepting "I am worthy as myself" and the choices tied to that.

but pretty much everyone was muttering and/or yelling about the possibility almost immediately... this is just me going through my tag in chronological order pulling out random pain to throw at you...

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/180880541470/umm-lets-not-miss-the-bigger-picture-here-that

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/180894193605

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/180898487575/random-thought-mittensmorgul-heck-what-if-cas-is

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/180899636270/simple-happiness-and-14x8

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/180900332265/michael-kills-cas-empty-i-said-when-you-are

https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/180890226793/14x08-watching-notes-this-episode-is-the-worst-i

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/180905751360/postmodernmulticoloredcloak-formidablepassion

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/180909975635/byzantium-14x08

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/180927140860/thoughts-about-spn-14x08

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/180938021165/i-havent-seen-anyone-else-mention-this-but-when

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/180957708550/deans-gonna-be-so-upset-when-he-finds-out-about

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/180963086550/flyingfish1-bluestar86-you-were-asking-for

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/180963360800/naruhearts-x-dean-if-he-needs-his-space-were

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/180963973050/tinkdw-margarittet-11x19-vs-14x08-director

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/181016502905/okay-sooooooo-wait-i-think-the-empty-played

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/181018647985/im-watching-609-and-this-exchange-sam-yeah

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/181021666570/hello-i-was-wondering-is-cas-for-now

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/181054387920/so-the-empty-wants-cas-to-suffer-right-and-then

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/181084354750/ive-seen-only-the-first-two-episodes-of-the

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/181234880040/14x08-cas-and-his-shadow

at this point I'm basically linking half my tag here lol... but yeah, at the time this episode aired, we largely were looking at this through the lens of what it would mean for Cas as a character first, and what it would mean for his relationship with Dean second. But we were also not expecting the show to just ~not bring it up at all~ for the most part until the very end of the series. We were also deeply traumatized by the previous decade of canon, and while we all recognized the destiel of it all, and while we avidly pointed it out at every opportunity and discussed what it would mean regardless of how explicitly it was portrayed in canon versus being heavily implied in the subtext, etc., we didn't realistically expect textual canon confirmation of romantic love between Dean and Cas, you know? So in meta, we were optimistic, hopeful, but also realistic knowing how canon was.

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/182034936705/the-empty-says-hell-come-for-cas-when-hes-happy

That said, YES, there is TONS of fic written about it... Writers in this fandom are *absolutely* that evil lol! Sadly I don't have a specific tag where I filed fic with this specific theme, but there is an awful lot of it...

I wrote one... https://archiveofourown.org/works/17481536

but you might want to search AO3 for fics tagged with The Shadow as a character and destiel as the ship... I found 630 fics and at least some of them will likely fit the bill for you! Yes a lot of these are post 15.18, too, but here have the sort order by date posted. The first page of these results are from pre-14.08. Coda fic and Cas's Deal begins at the top of page two of this search. :)

(eta: this fic link that for some reason tumblr ate when I posted, and i only just noticed it hours later. This is the “sorted by date” version, the top of page 2 is fic posted after 14.08 aired)

#spn 14.08 #spn 15.18 #destiel #the scheherazade of supernatural

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dxfiedfxte-a · 3 years

Text

@hxpelessnurse || Pre-plotted Starter

It had been a long time since Minato had seen a movie, but an even longer time since he had a movie date with someone, the very last time he’d done this, was in high school, half a decade ago. He still remembered the last Valentine’s day last year. Minato was still single, so instead of sitting alone at home, Minato spent last Valentine’s day doing a special episode of his show. It was him along with Zero and his girlfriend who was standing in for Takashi as a guest co-investigator. Takashi was a family man and had plans with his wife, which was understandable. Zero’s girlfriend Vanessa had done this a few other times on the show, and she handled being under paranormal pressure surprisingly well. In all honesty, Minato had thought this year would be the same, he was almost certain he’d be single and alone another Valentine’s day and while it wasn’t the saddest thing, it still sucked.

This time around was different, for the first time in a while, he had definitely. His date tonight, was none other than Mikan Tsumiki, the nurse whom had treated his wounds when he had been scratched by a malevolent entity --- something that happened very often, evil spirits had a special hatred for Minato, though, that was the idea, his goal, was to try an anger the spirit, provocation was a very dangerous method against spirits, and only a professional should ever do it, and despite the dangers and risks, Minato knew how to handle it.

This was the second time they would be going out, the bluenette paranormal investigator had taken her out once already, originally as thanks for her help with such a serious injury. The first date, was a lovely one, he had even gotten to know a bit more about Mikan, and he was eager to learn more about her, even if she was still adjusting to this kind of thing, they had a great time, only this time around, they both came into this knowing that it was an actual date.

Earlier, Minato and Mikan had been texted to decide what movie they wanted to see, and much to his surprise, when he mentioned a horror movie, Mikan, was excitedly on board with it, unexpected, but he was looking forward to it. The movie they were going to see, was The Conjuring 2, a movie following an apparent investigation done by world renown Paranormal Investigator couple Ed and Lorraine Warren -- two of his mentors, and many looked up to them, including Minato himself.

The movie was at six-fifteen, and luckily, Takemi had apparently agreed to let Mikan off early tonight just so she could go on her date, and for that, Minato was grateful, he was really looking forward to this. Minato got in his car, and made his way to Mikan’s place, she was off two hours ago and had plenty of time to prepare, as did Minato. Once outside of her place in his midnight-blue BMW, he sends her a text saying he’s outside. He sat there waiting for her to come out. Minato never liked to dress fancy unless he really needed to, for this occasion, he wore a long-sleeved shirt with white and black strips, black running shoes black slim-fit jeans, a white belt, his outfit complete with a teal-blue scarf over his neck. It wasn’t long before he saw her exit her house. The moment she gets in the passengers seat and closes the door, he greets her with a smile, grey hues notice her amazing she looks in her attire, the second time he saw her out of those scrubs, she looked amazing.

[{ 🦋 }] - “Hey Tsumiki-San. I love you’re outfit, you look so cute in it.”

Grabbing the stick-shift, he puts it into drive, and carefully pulls out, heading out onto the road towards the movie theater.

[{ 🦋 }] - “You know, it’s been such a long time since I got to see a movie with someone, I’m pretty excited. Especially since it has my mentors in it.” They were actors of course, but he was blessed to have the chance to meet them a year ago.

#hxpelessnurse #ᴠ; Oᴘᴇʀᴀᴛɪᴠᴇs & Tʜɪᴇᴠᴇs (Pᴇʀsᴏɴᴀ 5)#Fᴏʟʟᴏᴡɪɴɢ Mʏ OWN Fᴀᴛᴇ (IC)#//This is a few hours late -- but here it is!#//Thanks for waiting #//Was gonna do it last night #//But then I remembered how long DR 2s prologue was #//So I decided to get that out of the way lol #//But I'm definitely looking forward to this!

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sunlit-squid · 3 years

Note

I don't care about everyone else! i care about you, SQUIDWARD! (simping softness asks)

For those who don’t know, my ask box is open. Send me a simping softness prompt, and I’ll write a short sbsp ficlet for you. ✰

so, uh -- i might have gotten a bit carried away with this prompt. it’s definitely longer than a ficlet, but oh well. either way, it was a lot of fun to write! selfish spongebob is so rarely explored.

fic under the cut. also, just in case, cw: drinking, drunkenness, etc.

Spongebob rose bright and early, long before his foghorn alarm went off at 7:00 a.m. With a cheerful shout, the poriferan jumped out of bed, earning a disgruntled “mrow” from Gary, who was still asleep nearby. Stretching vigorously, the sponge leaned down, planting a soft kiss atop the snail’s shell.

“Gary,” he whispered, practically vibrating with excitement. “Today’s the day!”

Turning away, Gary simply replied “mrow”, in a disdainful way that most certainly meant “whatever.”

Undeterred, Spongebob ran to his calendar. Sure enough, the day’s date -- July 14th -- was circled in bright-red, permanent marker, with the words “My birthday!” written neatly across it. And just below those words, was a tiny drawing of Squidward’s face, with dozens of little red hearts surrounding it.

Making his way over to the window, Spongebob gazed out at Squidward’s moai in the distance. He sighed, dreamily. What was Squidward doing right now? Probably sleeping, in that adorable dress of his.

The sponge lingered there, staring dazedly out at the moai, for perhaps a moment too long. Then, remembering himself, he sprinted to the bathroom. Once inside, Spongebob pointed a finger at his own reflection in the mirror.

“Enough beating around the bush, Mr. Squarepants!” he yelled -- much to Gary’s annoyance. The sponge lowered his voice down to a soft whisper. “Today, you tell him how you feel.”

His reflection simply shrugged. “I mean, okay,” it said. “But this is like, the 57th time you’ve said this.”

“Oh, shush.”

-0-

The party was supposed to start at 6:30, but Spongebob, in a manic cleaning fit, had the entire house ready by noon. This year, the party was themed around As The Tide Turns, a very polarizing-but-popular soap opera, especially in Bikini Bottom. If you were a Bikini Bottomite, you either watched the show genuinely, or ironically -- there was absolutely no in-between.

Spongebob and Squidward both genuinely enjoyed the show. It was one of the first things they bonded over, back when Spongebob started working at the Krusty Krab. Through the window to the galley, the two coworkers would talk for hours about the show, and whatever drama was center-stage for that season.

It got to a point where Mr. Krabs -- who only watched ATTT ironically -- got on them both, for shirking their duties.

“If yer gonna flirt,” he’d said, “do it on yer own time.”

So, Spongebob started coming over to Squidward’s house on Friday nights, when the new episodes would air. In fact, even when the show was between seasons, Spongebob still came over, just to watch reruns. It was one of the few times Squidward would (begrudgingly) let Spongebob inside, with no complaints.

Spongebob hummed softly to himself, his eyes scanning the small clipboard in front of him. Food, decorations, party games … Check, check, and check. Everything was present and accounted for -- and he had to admit, the house looked spectacular.

Every room was themed around a different, iconic arc in the ATTT series. His living room, filled with chalk drawings, crime scene tape, and red-string boards, was inspired by the murder mystery arc. His kitchen, decorated with leftover Halloween gear, was inspired by the vampire arc … and so on and so forth. Each and every room had its own particular, careful design -- and in all, it was probably Spongebob’s most intricate and detailed party to date.

That was because it had to be. Spongebob had a plan, a carefully detailed plan -- one that was sure to sweep Squidward Tentacles right off his … er, tentacles. And it went like this:

Squidward and Spongebob’s favorite arc, in all 42 seasons of As The Tide Turns, was the murder mystery. In the arc, the dashing Detective Heartthrob, accompanied by his sidekick-slash-lover Joey, must bring a heinous mass murderer to justice. At the climax, it is revealed that Detective Heartthrob is the true killer -- having been hypnotized by a witch, who was also his evil twin sister, for some reason. In the end, Joey must kill Detective Heartthrob, in a tragic display of love and sacrifice.

The season was thrilling, silly, and emotionally traumatizing, to boot. For months after the finale, Squidward and Spongebob would not shut up about it -- much to the annoyance of Mr. Krabs.

Either way, Spongebob had set up an elaborate, original mystery game, inspired by the events of the show. Each attendee would get a “random” card, assigning them a different role in the story. Squidward would be Detective Heartthrob, and Spongebob would be Joey.

Together, they would embark on an original mystery, one that Spongebob had devised all by himself. After he and Squidward solved the mystery together, and the party was over … Spongebob would finally, finally confess his feelings.

Of course, Spongebob had, more or less, rigged the game to ensure this would happen. Which was cheating, sure, but this was for love! So it couldn't possibly go wrong.

-0-

It went wrong. Almost immediately, in fact.

For one, the party started at 6:30 -- and, nearly two hours later, Squidward had yet to show up. Spongebob spent those first two hours lingering by the door, staring out the window towards the moai, and forgetting to refill the punch bowl. Sandy, ever the observant one, noticed immediately.

Pulling Spongebob aside, she asked, in a hushed voice, “Hey, partner. You good?”

“Oh, I’m -- I’m great!” chirped Spongebob, putting on his worst, most unconvincing smile. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Uh-huh,” said Sandy, flatly. “This about Squidward?”

Spongebob blushed, immediately. The squirrel sighed.

“I thought so,” she mumbled, folding her arms across her chest. “Did he say he was gonna come?”

The sponge nodded. “He said, ‘I’ll see if I can make it work’, which in Squidward-speak, is practically a yes!” groaned Spongebob, staring up at Sandy with his huge baby blue eyes. “He’ll come, right, Sandy?”

Sandy hesitated. She didn’t really know Squidward that well … but he did seem to have a soft spot for Spongebob. Awkwardly, she replied, “I mean … I can’t say for sure, but he did say he would try. Let’s be patient, okay, Spongebob? Maybe he just got caught up with something.”

Spongebob sighed, then repositioned his face into its usual chipper smile. “Alrighty. You do usually know what’s best, Sandy.”

“I sure do,” she giggled. “Oh, and Spongebob?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t cut his cable this time,” she said, before walking off to get more punch.

-0-

By 9:30, the party started to go a bit haywire. At this point, practically all of Bikini Bottom was at Spongebob’s house, except for Squidward -- and Larry thought it would be a great idea to play Truth Or Dare: Extreme Edition. The rules were pretty much the same as Truth Or Dare: Standard Edition, but with one exception: each subsequent truth or dare had to be more extreme than the last.

It started off alright. A few people were dared to take off their pants, or do a somersault down Conch Street while blindfolded. However, as the game progressed, the stakes grew astronomically. At one point, Patrick was dared to eat half of Spongebob’s pineapple. Later, Sandy was dared to juggle three of Plankton’s bombs, while riding a unicycle. Even later, Larry and Mr. Krabs were dared to switch shells and wrestle -- which wasn’t really destructive. Just disturbing.

The dares were stupid, but if there was one thing Bikini Bottomites had, it was a complete lack of common sense. Or any sense, really.

It certainly didn’t help that as the night progressed, the partygoers grew more and more … inebriated. The punch itself was non-alcoholic, but apparently, Karen and Plankton had taken it upon themselves to bring their own alcohol. Lots and lots of alcohol.

By 10:30, Squidward still hadn’t shown up yet. Several people had either passed out or thrown up. And the pineapple was a complete disaster.

Spongebob sighed. He was seated on his living room sofa now, watching as the partygoers reveled inside (and outside) his home. Of course, the sponge was happy they were enjoying themselves -- but this day was supposed to be about him, and … well, nothing had gone as planned. His entire house was destroyed, it would take days to clean up the mess -- and Squidward hadn’t even bothered to show up! The nerve.

“Hey Patrick,” muttered Spongebob, waving a tired yellow hand at his drunken best friend.

Immediately, the starfish stumbled over to him, drink in hand. “Wha… haha … whasss’ up, Spunchblarb?” he slurred.

Spongebob pointed to the drink in Patrick’s hand. “Could I have that?”

Patrick grinned widely. “Yeeeeeahh! Now -- now, yer talkin’, buddy!” And with that, the starfish handed Spongebob his first drink of the night.

-0-

About three drinks in, Spongebob Squarepants was well and truly intoxicated. Which was nice, in a way. Now, the world was a weird, misty haze, and he didn’t have to worry about his pineapple being destroyed, or his party being ruined, or Squidward, or whatever. Now, he could just be peacefully drunk and stupid, just like everybody else in his house. Blissfully unaware of the world around them.

As the night went on, Spongebob began losing track of time. What time was it? Midnight? 3:00 a.m.? Did it even matter?

Over the course of one very stupid evening, Spongebob made more than a few bad decisions. For one, he bought like, ten mops online. Which was both counterproductive (he was a sponge) and financially irresponsible (he was also a frycook). Later, the sponge swam to the surface of the ocean to see how long he could breathe without water. He fainted within the first ten seconds, and had to be retrieved by Larry. After that, the night became a dizzying blur. Spongebob was certain he had been driving, at one point, and also dancing, and maybe singing?

Either way, several hours later, Spongebob was still dancing in his living room, a lampshade stuck on his head, when he felt something on his shoulder. Turning woozily, the sponge tried to get into “kara-tay” position, and ultimately failed.

“Who -- what -- stay back! I’m warning you!” shouted the sponge. “I know … er, kar .. karat … carrots?”

There was a familiar sigh, then a soft chuckle. “Oh, you moron,” came a voice, a voice that Spongebob loved so dearly, even in this drunken state. “You’re drunk, aren’t you?”

“Squ … squib … ?”

“Yeah,” said Squidward, wrenching the lampshade off of Spongebob’s head. “It’s me. Sorry I’m late.”

Spongebob looked up at Squidward -- and in his inebriated, hazy stupor, he couldn’t take it. He loved him so much, and for so long. It hurt. Tears pricked the corners of his eyes. “Squi -- Squidward, you -- you came,” the sponge stammered, his bottom lip quivering. “I -- I didn’t think …”

“Hush,” said Squidward, looking around the room. “This is, uh … wow, you really had a rager, huh? I didn’t think you had it in you, Spongebob.”

Stepping away, Squidward began picking up random items off the floor -- the punch bowl, some photographs, and a spilled carton of milk. The octopus had to step over and around several bodies, which were lying passed out on Spongebob’s floor.

“Listen, I’m gonna try and find a way to get everyone home,” said Squidward, sifting his way through the pile of garbage and bodies. “Everyone else is knocked out -- ”

Spongebob had had it. He’d had enough. He’d planned out this whole day perfectly, just for Squidward to not show up, for his whole house to be demolished in the chaos. Sure, he was glad everyone had a good time, but deep down, Spongebob was a little selfish, and deep down --

“I don’t care about everyone else!” shouted Spongebob, clenching his fists at his sides. “I care about you, Squidward!”

Squidward, startled, nearly dropped everything he was holding -- and before he could properly respond, Spongebob fell over, unconscious.

-0-

For once, Spongebob didn’t wake up to the sound of his foghorn. Instead, he woke up to the sound of the television nearby. Very soft dialogue wafted its way over to the sponge, bathing him in its pleasant familiarity.

“Why, Joey, I think you’re right -- the killer is closer than we seem to think!”

“Then we best get cracking, Detective Heartthrob!”

Groaning, Spongebob sat up -- a dull, throbbing pain coursing through his skull. Dear Neptune. What happened last night? There was the party, the drinking, and … Squidward, maybe? Spongebob felt his heart drop at the thought of his neighbor, and sighed. He hadn’t gotten to tell Squidward how he felt. Attempt 57 had failed. Miserably.

Blinking slowly, the sponge looked around, and with surprise noted that his bedroom was not a mess, like it had been during the party. In fact, it was squeaky clean. The only thing out of place was the living room television, which had been moved to the end of Spongebob’s bed. The TV was playing an old rerun of As The Tide Turns, from the murder mystery arc. A smile tugged at Spongebob’s lips. How ironic.

Wait a minute. Who moved the TV?

Just then, there were footsteps on the stairs -- the tell-tale pat-pat-pat-pat of someone with four legs. Squidward. He was still here! Steeling himself, Spongebob sat at attention, gripping the blankets tightly.

When Squidward entered, he was holding a tray of food and wearing a long pink apron. When he saw that Spongebob was now conscious, the octopus jumped, nearly dropped the food, then steadied himself just in time.

“Squidward!” said Spongebob, cheerily. “You’re here!”

“Of course I’m here, you nitwit,” muttered Squidward. “Who else was gonna clean up that messy party of yours?”

Squidward crossed the room to place the food tray on Spongebob’s nightstand. Once there, the octopus shoved a glass of water and two pills into the poriferan’s hands, with one simple command: “Drink.”

Spongebob did so, gratefully. Then, he asked, “The party … what all happened?”

“I don’t know, but it was a mess,” sighed Squidward. “I’m pretty sure half the town was completely passed out by the time I got here. I’m surprised the cops didn’t get involved.”

“Oh,” said Spongebob, feeling very guilty all of a sudden. “Did -- did everyone get home okay?”

“Yeah,” said Squidward. “Listen, don’t -- don’t worry about it, okay? I took care of everything. Your house is clean, Gary is fed, everyone got home. That’s all.” Squidward’s cheeks were stained red.

Spongebob smiled, his heart jumping happily in his chest. “Thank you, Squidward.”

After a moment of silence, Squidward brought the food tray up to Spongebob’s lap. “You should … you should eat that,” he muttered, then took a deep breath. “Look, I … I’m sorry I was so late, alright? The truth is, I … I got caught up.”

With a mouthful of food, Spongebob asked, “Wif whaf?”

Squidward grimaced. “You’re disgusting,” he snapped, then looked away, blushing brightly. “Anyway, I … was trying to get ahold of your birthday present. It was supposed to be delivered here, to Conch Street, yesterday -- but I guess there was a mix-up, and it was instead delivered to Conch Road, which is … in an entirely different town. Several hours away.”

Spongebob blinked. “You drove all the way to get it?”

Squidward scowled. “Whatever,” he snapped, pulling a small red present box from beneath Spongebob’s bed. “Either way, it’s here. So, I guess … open it, maybe.”

Shoveling down the rest of his food (much to Squidward’s disgust), the sponge quickly shredded the pristine red wrapping paper to reveal -- a boxed set of the entire As The Tide Turns series. The extended edition, with all the bonus scenes and commentary tracks. And to top it all off -- the box was signed by the stars of the show.

Spongebob looked up at Squidward, eyes shimmering with shock and awe. “Squidward, this is -- this is amazing, I thought they didn’t sell these anymore!”

“Oh, trust me,” said Squidward, shuddering. “You have no idea what I had to do to get my hands on that.”

“Let me guess,” said Spongebob, holding up two yellow hands to form finger-guns. In his best Joey impression, the sponge said, “You had to kill a lotta folks, didn’t ya, Detective Heartthrob?”

Squidward chuckled immediately. In one suave motion, he leaned against Spongebob’s bed, and pointed a finger-gun of his own. In his best Detective Heartthrob impression, the octopus replied, “I did, and I don’t regret it at all, Joey!”

The two laughed for a good long while. Then, suddenly embarrassed once more, Squidward looked away. Taking a deep breath, the octopus said, “Look, Sponge, I -- last night, you said something kinda weird, and I wanted to know if -- if maybe --”

“Huh?”

“You said -- you only cared about me, not anyone else, and I -- I wanted to ask,” stammered Squidward, “... what exactly … you meant by that.”

Spongebob’s eyes widened. Oh, barnacles. Did he really say that? Well … there was no hiding it now. Gripping his sheets tight, Spongebob steeled himself for what was to come. “It means I … I wanna keep hanging out with you, Squidward,” said the sponge, staring down at his yellow knuckles. “I wanna hang out with you more than anyone else.”

Squidward swallowed, hard. “Sponge, what are you saying?”

Spongebob looked up. Their eyes met. “I like you,” said the sponge, smiling nervously. “A … a lot.”

A long moment of silence passed. Spongebob’s heart hammered furiously at his chest. Then, Squidward sighed, and picked up the ATTT boxed set. Walking over to Spongebob’s TV, the octopus inserted the first disc, grabbed the remote, and returned to Spongebob’s side.

Lifting the blankets, the octopus said, “Scooch over.”

Spongebob blinked, then did as instructed. “Why?” he asked.

“You really are an idiot,” muttered Squidward, climbing into bed with him. “It’s a Sunday, the Krusty Krab is closed, and we have a whole boxed set to watch together. Might as well start now.”

Spongebob smiled, happily. “So -- so you -- ”

Squidward rolled his eyes. “If you must know, yes, I … I like you,” he snapped. “I’m not gonna drive halfway across the ocean floor for just anybody, you know.”

Spongebob grinned stupidly. “I guess not.”

With that, the show began, its melodramatic theme tune echoing pleasantly across Spongebob’s pineapple home. And just below the bed, Gary let out a soft, contended meow -- which almost certainly meant “finally.”

-0-

References:

The line about cutting Squidward’s cable is a reference to the episode “Party Pooper Pants”, in which Spongebob cuts Squidward’s cable to get him to come over for a party.

#sbsp #my fics #spongebob squarepants #squidbob #spongeward #spongebob #squidward #ask #asks #sunlit-squid

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cadaceus · 3 years

Text

C2E141

One last time, y’all. This campaign and these characters have meant so much to me, and this seven hour finale was definitely an emotional rollercoaster. (Yes, I shed actual tears at one point, which rarely happens to me with media. But this is a special occasion.) These liveblogs are nearly as long as the episode itself, so grab a snack! With that being said, here are my very last liveblogs for Campaign 2 of Critical Role. As always, major spoilers below, so beware.

- Veth taking a level in Wizard, god I am really gonna cry ten minutes into this thing... 😭

- We got our first “stay with us” to Essek, I am emo...

- I was fully not expecting to say goodbye to Frumpkin, but now I’m on the verge of tears... farewell dear fey friend (Marisha saying “that wasn’t supposed to be what broke me” me too me too)

- “You’re a good person.” “I could be.” “You are.”

- “I think you’re a good person” I never thought that I’d hear Beau say that about Essek and this genuinely might be what breaks me... she thinks he’s a good person.... redemption is possible.... maybe love is real....

- If I end up crying over wizards, look away

- Jester lifting up Fjord’s arm to snuggle beneath it made me say “awww” out loud 🥺

- VETH GOING FOR A DIP IN THE POND, I AM GENUINELY SO PROUD OF HER

- “Aahhh!! It’s me! Your wife!” I am going to miss Jester’s sending so much

- Okay that accent bit was so funny, I am going to miss all of them so much

- REAL MOLLY IS BACK REAL MOLLY IS BACK REAL MOLLY IS BACK

- Oh but he doesn’t remember them... and Yasha is trying so hard to help him remember, it’s so so sweet

- Something about the way he said “Tealeaf’s nice” made me tear up... I was neutral on Mollymauk early campaign because I went into things knowing that he passed away, but this whole conversation with the Mighty Nein is So Much. Also “Kingsley Tealeaf”

- “Everyone should have a brother” as someone with three of them, I vouch for this 🥺

- a) I love Marion Lavorre (and Jester ofc!) so very much and b) I can’t believe that Jester’s parent trap actually worked??

- “I do not think Exandria is ready for how you’re going to change it” got to me... and it’s also so true. jester has already changed the world just by being kind.

- Good bye Marion... I love and will miss you so much! (And many thanks to Laura and Matt for creating an agoraphic single mother who raised a wonderful child <3)

- Beau and Jester teasing Marion for having a complicated relationship with Babenon reminds me of Caleb saying he has a complicated relationship with Essek...

- LEAVE CALEB ALON E FUOIKJLKGKNL

- THIS IS ....... SO MUCH WORSE THAN I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE.

- Caleb’s biggest trauma(s) coming back to haunt him, I am genuinely going to cry I’m not ready for this I’m not okay

- Beau saying to Jester “Thanks, cutie” I love themmmmm

- INITIATIVE AAGJASKHDKJ AAAAAHHHH

- Essek’s Gravity Sinkhole did nothing? uhhhhh Mr Stark...

- EADWULF???? HELLO?????

- Essek using his entire turn to save Caleb last battle 🤝 Caleb using his entire turn to save Essek this battle

- ASTRID???? I TRUSTED YOU??? WE ALL TRUSTED YOU????

- Another Counterspell chain sdfdghjkdl wizards !!!

- “It’s just business” is literally the Neutral Evil line, it always gives me chills when any character says it

- This hurts more after Liam confirming on Twitter that Astrid/Caleb/Eadwulf were all three a romantic item... please stop hurting Caleb, you loved him 😭

- THE FJORD VS EADWULF SWORD FIGHT IS SO CINEMATIC I LOVE IT HERE ACTUALLY

- Essek taking every opportunity to pull Caleb to safety makes me so emotional... 😭

- “You’re not the first student I’ve had to put down” I am burning with my anger for you, old man

- THE DISPEL WORKED LET’S GO CALEB.....

- Remember when Matt said that Essek doesn’t openly show concern/emotion? And now he’s saying “I’m scared” in front of his closest friends and his worst enemies.... growth my love.....

- BEAU AND VETH LETS GO CHAOS CREW LETS MF GO BABEYYYY!!!

- FJORD COUNTERSPELLING THE DIMENSION DOOR..... and Matt having him describe it.... is this taking the place of a “HDYWTDT” *eyes emoji*

- CALEB GOING DOWN NO, THANK GOD FOR THAT DEATH WARD

- Veth’s illusion of Caleb’s parents flanking Caleb in the flames.... that got me too, Liam

- “Stay down.” yeah, okay, that was sexy

- ASTRID BEING THE ONE TO ACTIVATE THE COLLAR IS LITERALLY POETIC JUSTICE... Trent being beaten by the student who stuck with him longest I love this so much, she deserved that moment honestly

- Break Time, AKA Emma Makes Her Weekly Mug Brownie Interlude

- Sometimes I feel like “death is too good for you” is a copout, but in this case it fits so well, I want this mf’s reputation destroyed and the entire operation exposed and overthrown let’s goooo

- “I loved you both so much”.... Astrid and Eadwulf walking away.... oh, Blumendrei... I know this is not the end of your story. What’s past is prologue, loves

- The Empire Siblings are gonna burn down the whole system because it’s the system that enables individual corruption... I am so fulfilled by this, god i love them

- “I love you too” OH MY GOD I LOVE THEM SO MUCH, FJORESTER ARE THE CUTEST FOR REAL

- Jester and Essek’s friendship still means so much to me btw just in case anyone wanted a check-in

- Veth giving the flask to Kingsley!! Good for her, good for her!

- OH Blumenduo are back already! I truly thought that was going to be their last appearance of the Campaign, why is this taking me more by surprise than Trent’s appearance

- “[Caleb] notes how similar Eadwulf and Fjord are” this is Widofjord adjacent... this episode we have gotten Widomauk-adjacent, Widojest-adjacent, and Widofjord-adjacent (and Blumentrio ofc), now come through Shadowgast and we can get a full Bingo on the “Bisexual Maelstrom” card

- Speaking of relationships, I am lowkey into the Fjord/Jester/Kingsley dynamic LOL no one look at me I’m in hiding

- I’M NOT READY TO SAY GOODBYE TO VETH AND CAD 😭 It makes sense and the fact that they have their families back is beautiful but also consider this: I’m sad and I will miss them

- The goodbyes to Caduceus..... I am going to cry aren’t I?

- “If he’s anything like his mom, you won’t see him until it’s too late” Okay that made me giggle, I love Veth and I love Luc and I love their little family

- IS ESSEK LEAVING TOO? THAT’S GONNA BE WHAT BREAKS ME ISN’T IT

- If Essek leaves and we never see him again, getting a triple whammy of goodbyes I will be so incredibly sad, I cannot do this 😭

- If anyone is interested, no I am not doing well

- I was lowkey ready to get an Essek’s feelings for Caleb confirmation tonight, I guess it makes sense that we didn’t but I hope that this is not the last time we see Essek... I want to write another emo post about him and about how much he means to me but I will refrain

- CALEB BEING A TEACHER IS THE ENDGAME I WANT FOR HIM PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

- Wow, I really was not ready to see Caduceus and Essek go for some reason... I really wanted this Campaign to end on the image of the Mighty Nein together as all nine of them... I’m feeling so numb right now having to say goodbye 😭

- Oh, we’re in the epilogue now!

- When Fjord said “[the sea] is my favorite place to be” I genuinely felt that on a spiritual level... the ocean is home, it truly is and always will be for me as well

- “I CAST MODIFY MEMORY” FJORD LMAOOOOOOO

- Okay, that Widobrave ending is what made me shed tears for the first time this episode... not to be Personal but my biological brother graduates High School tomorrow, and for some reason this conversation just reminded me so much of me and him and now I’m emotional

- NOT THE SYPHILIS BANDITS DSYUHDFJKLSFJ;DS OKAY I NEEDED THAT LAUGH

- “I’d like to hear about your friend” Kingsley aww

- Beau giving Kingsley her first diary to help him realize who they all are is actually so perfectly fitting, I love that!

- “The other eight and I, yes” Caleb counting all nine of them again 😭

- CALEB BEING OFFERED AN ASSEMBLY SEAT WTF AAAHHH

- Oh shit, Astrid took the Assembly seat... I’m not sure how I feel about this, I feel so bad for her for having to stay in the system that abused her for so long and I would have loved to see her burn the whole thing down, but I hope that she at least has a sense of contentment with this title

- “I go where you go, baby” Beauyasha.... my darling loves....

- Beau’s dad??? But also Beau being the one with power over her father is so Good, I’m glad that she got justice on that front as well!

- This talk with Artagan... “I didn’t want you to be a god. I wanted you to be my friend.” and in the process my love you created divinity... maybe divinity is the friends we made along the way

- OH SHIT WE ARE GETTING ALL THE VANDRAN LORE TONIGHT I’M READY LET’S GO LET’S GO

- VANDRAN AND AVANTIKA WERE AN ITEM???

- Wait crack theory: Sabian was a half elf right? Could he be the son of Vandren and Avantika? Or is that too much of a stretch?

- Vandran going with them!!! Also I feel like that moment between Fjord and Vandran was lowkey a tease to a post-campain Uk’otoa one shot and I am ready for it already

- THIS BEAUYASHA MOMENT... “i’ve never known anyone as deeply as i know you” & “explore every bit of you in multiple ways ;)” & “your past doesn’t scare me, it only makes you beautiful” .... this is so much they are so much i love them so much

- “I will have you and then some” Beauyasha 😭

- I’m torn between “oh my god there’s still half an hour left?” and “how is there only half an hour left??”

- “You will let this Skyspear live at least?” oh my god so Yasha killed the last Skyspear then? Oof...

- YASHA GIVING ZUALA(’S GRAVE) THE BOOK OF FLOWERS, OH DEAR HEART

- And Beau’s talk to Zuala about being the luckiest woman alive and sacrifice.... 😭

- PLANTING FLOWERS AT ZUALA’S GRAVE... “NO BETTER GRAVE MARKER” THIS IS MAKING ME SO EMOTIONAL, I KNOW I’VE SAID THIS A LOT THIS EPISODE BUT THIS TRULY IS SO BEAUTIFUL

- So... I may or may not be crying again

- Shadowgast with a steel chair??

- Caleb’s plan for saving his parents... it’s clear he has thought of this so much, oh my darling love 😭

- Caleb burning down his chance to change his past is so symbolic and something he really needed to do, it does make me emotional though

- The other book was him writing to his parents?? Oh bby boy 😭

- While I would have loved for Caleb to open his own magic school (especially with Essek, or the Mighty Nein, or someone else as well), I am so pleased that he stays with Veth and that their friendship continues for the rest of their life because again: they mean so so much to me, and in a way they remind me of me and my biological brother (which I never realized before this episode) and yeah. They just make me Emo

- Also. Caleb being a professor was my Number One Endgame Hope for him and the fact that it came true is just so surreal in the best way possible. I’m so used to being robbed of happy endings. The fact that the Mighty Nein all got theirs makes me incredibly happy. A story does not have to be sad to be impactful. Happy stories and happy endings, especially during a time period of tumultuous real life circumstances, have just as much value and meaning and they always will. Caleb is teaching the next generation magic, and he is teaching them to be Good, and he is nurturing them, and that just means so much

- MATT CRYING IS GONNA GET TO ME

- “Let’s do it again” Please, let’s.

- Okay, everyone. I made it all seven hours in one piece with surprisingly minimal tears (though who knows, this might all sink in tomorrow.) I already wrote my thoughts earlier today about how much the Mighty Nein mean to me and how much this show and these characters have kept me holding on during quarantine and today... I’m still not ready to let them go, but I know that I can always revisit to say hello and to say thank you for changing me. Until then though... I love you all more than you could ever know. And for the last time of Campaign 2... is it Thursday yet?

Good night 💗

#cr spoilers #critical role spoilers #c2e141 #critical role #my liveblogs #cr2 #i genuinely can't believe this is the end y'all... what a journey. what a freaking journey 💗#to anyone who has ever interacted with even one of my liveblogs: i love you and i think about you every damn day dfghjkflf #it makes me Emo knowing that i'm not just speaking to the void and that there are ppl out there listening etc #also this liveblog was TWO THOUSAND WORDS LONG i checked it in a google doc sgdhjkdl #so if you made it through all that you may be entitled to financial compensation #but in all seriousness: i love you mighty nein. and thank you for everything.#is it thursday yet?#queue #(i always queue these for the mornings dgfhjk!)#and yes i WILL be liveblogging campaign 3 #also mayhaps this hiatus will be time for me to catch up with vox machina?

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agerefandom · 4 years

Text

Restrained

Fandom: Death Note

Words: 4,150

Characters: Regressor!Light Yagami, Caregiver!L/Ryuzaki. Brief appearances from Soichiro Yagami, Shuichi Aizawa, and Watari.

Summary: Set during Light and Misa’s imprisonment (episode 16-17). Classification/Regressors Are Known AU: Light was classified as a regressor when he was fifteen, but has fought the identity ever since. L is classified as a caregiver, but has never used those skills further than calming people in interrogation situations. Things come to a head in the second month of Light’s imprisonment.

Warnings: Imprisonment, irresponsible use of restraints, mentions of death and murder, nightmares, panic attacks, involuntary regression, hidden regression being revealed non-consensually. Ominous ending.

Author’s Notes: I usually take issue with Classification AUs, because regression is a coping mechanism and not a fixed part of someone’s identity. Regression can change, and regressors can also be caregivers, and the idea that it could be ‘classified’ as part of someone’s political identity is kind of distressing. All of that said, it’s also a very comforting trope: it’s nice to imagine that you were ‘meant to be’ a regressor, naturally given that role, and that there are natural caregivers who want/need to take care of you. So, there are pros and cons to this kind of universe, as long as you remember that it’s an AU for a reason! Anyways, that’s my soapboxing done. Please note the warnings before reading!

Light was not a regressor.

It didn’t matter what the letter he received at age fifteen said. Didn’t matter that his age range was listed as ‘2-3’ and a permanent caregiver was recommended. Light Yagami was a neutral, collected, and precocious teenager. He was mature for his age, and always had been.

Admittedly, Light occasionally sucked his thumb to help him sleep. And he convinced his mother to buy him more expensive sheets because he liked to run his hands across the texture. And maybe he cast side-glances at the adult playgrounds all around the city, at the regressors who were happily running and playing on the swings.

But Light Yagami was not a regressor. He got top marks. He wore stiff, professional clothes. He didn’t cry, not even when he stubbed his toe. He turned his nose up at sweet drinks and packaged candy. In short, at seventeen, Light was a model young man.

Which was when the notebook fell outside his classroom window, and everything got a lot more complicated.

Could a regressor do this? Collectively bring the world to its knees, the news outlets humming with one story? Could a regressor kill hundreds, save the general population from the evil in its midst?

Light Yagami was Kira, and Kira was not an age regressor.

Light Yagami was not Kira.

Light was trapped in a cell, his arms shackled behind his back, and he was absolutely certain that he wasn’t Kira. What kind of idea was that, marching in and saying he thought he was subconsciously Kira? Absurd. He wouldn’t do that kind of thing.

He yelled at the ceiling, pleaded with Ryuzaki, and received cold answers in return.

How had Light sat here for a week, believing that Ryuzaki had been right to lock him away? It was absurd: he couldn’t have committed the murders without knowing at all, it just didn’t make sense.

“You told me to keep you in there, no matter what you said,” Ryuzaki repeated calmly, his voice crackling through the cheap speakers outside of Light’s cell. “I’m only doing what you told me.”

“Well, stop!” Light shouted, tugging uselessly against the leather cuffs that held his arms behind him. His shoulders ached from the position. “Listen to me now, I’m not Kira!”

“We don’t know that,” Ryuzaki said. “Until we can be sure, you will stay in that cell. I’m sorry, Light.”

Light felt tears well up in his eyes, and he jerked his head down to hide it. With his bangs hiding his expression, he tried to wrestle himself under control.

He felt scared and helpless and he just didn’t understand what he was doing here. Let me out! a voice was screaming inside him, younger and just as frightened as he was. Please, I can’t take it anymore!

What was he thinking? He was Light Yagami, part of the taskforce dedicated to catching Kira. He could withstand this. He would have to.

He didn’t bother to hide the tears as he raised his eyes again to the camera.

“Fine. I’ll stay. But you’ll see that I’m not Kira! I don’t know what’s happening, but I believe that my innocence will be proven one way or another.”

“That’s exactly what Kira would say,” Ryuzaki drawled into the microphone, and then there was a short sound of feedback as the conversation cut off.

Light rocked back to lean against the side of the bed, feeling exhausted but satisfied. He’d made his statement, and he had fought off the despair. He was Light Yagami, and he would deal with this imprisonment with all the dignity he could.

This was awful.

Light had never been so bored and anxious in his life. The days stretched on, with only Ryuzaki’s occasional check-ins to keep his mind busy. Out of lack for other things to do, Light started sleeping more than usual. His days were hazy, short bathroom trips out of the cell and the clatter of the food tray his only reference points for time. The lights shut off for seven hours every night, the cameras equipped with night vision to watch him toss and turn in his restraints.

There was nothing to do but ruminate, worry, wonder. Light tried to run through lectures in his head, even tried his hand at mentally writing a story. He wondered if he could convince Ryuzaki to play chess with him over the speaker system, but found himself worrying about whether that would make it seem like he wasn’t taking his imprisonment seriously.

It had been a month, and Light was suffering.

The nights were hardest. In the dark, Light cried, trying to stay quiet. He couldn’t bite his thumb, he couldn’t feel his soft blankets, and sometimes he couldn’t sleep for the tug of the restrains at his wrists and shoulders. He wanted to kick his legs, flail around, scream at the top of his lungs until they let him out. But he was Light Yagami, and he had dignity. Even with cameras fixed on him twenty-four hours a day, even with his wrists and ankles contained, even under the constant scrutiny of Ryuzaki and the other members of the task force.

He almost made it to the end.

Things that Light didn’t know:

-it had been a month since Kira had begun killing again -his father was in a matching jail cell, several blocks away -the task force had been pressuring L for weeks to let Light and Misa go, convinced by the new wave of murders that the two were innocent -L had a plan, and was simply waiting to contact Light’s father to play his part

(Light would never know most of these things, because before they became relevant, everything fell apart.)

L sat in the same place he’d been sitting for weeks, watching the same scenes play out on the same flickering screens. Misa sagged against her restraints, Light laid curled up on the bed, and Soichiro sat in his chair, staring down at his hands.

Nothing had changed, but everything was different.

Light and Misa were Kira, or at least they had been. L had never been more certain. Now they both seemed utterly convinced of their innocence, and L wasn’t comfortable with the implications of that. Were they truly ignorant of their role? Had their ability to kill been passed onto someone else, or had the two of them been unwitting puppets to some new and yet-unseen player?

Misa took a struggling breath, and went limp again. Light shifted. Soichiro got up and began to pace. His cell would fit eight of his steps before he had to turn around and begin again in the other direction.

L missed nothing. But the pieces weren’t coming together.

He tapped his fingers against his knees, a syncopated rhythm as his eyes flashed from one prisoner to the next. Watari had brought him a plate of fruit, not yet touched, with icing sugar sprinkled over them. They would make L’s fingers sticky, and he didn’t want to get juice on the controls. He would have to eat with one hand, and operate the microphones with his other. He was just about due his check-in with Misa-Misa.

Just as L began to reach for the berries, a movement on-screen caught his eye. He didn’t currently have the audio on for the cells, but from the visual, he would guess that Light just woke up screaming. L has had a few of those nightmares. They weren’t pleasant.

L switched the audio on, and listened to Light trying to calm himself down. He was talking out loud, a mutter only loud enough for the microphones inside his cell to pick up on. (Light always yelled to the camera when he was talking to L, as if he weren’t aware that the cell was bugged well enough to hear every last breath he took. They could take no risks with Kira, when they still didn’t know how he was committing the crimes.)

“I’m okay,” Light was muttering. “Don’t… don’t do this. I don’t need anything. I’m okay.” His breathing caught, paused, and then resumed. “I’m okay. Please, please- don’t.” His voice was trembling, and L leaned closer. He’d seen Light crying, of course, trying to hide it by turning away from the cameras. But this seemed… different. Light was on the edge of something, and if L was lucky, it might be some kind of confession, fuelled by a terrible dream that brought all of his crimes rushing back with the sudden weight of guilt that Kira never felt.

Yes, L had enough self-reflection to know that he was kidding himself. But it had been a long month and a half.

He remained crouching, one hand poised above the plate of strawberries and the other hand hovering above the microphone that would let him speak to Light. And he listened.

“I don’t wan’ do this,” Light whispered to himself, his words slurring together in a way that L had never heard from the other man. The distressed voice hooked its claws into his chest in a way that was both foreign and familiar. Was this… “I don’ wan’ do this,” Light repeated, and then burst into tears.

It wasn’t anything like the quiet, hidden tears of the night-time. Light was sobbing, pulling at his restraints, tossing on the bed. Unable to wipe them away, tears and snot made a mess of his face. L watched as the teenager struggled to his knees and pressed himself against the wall, as if he were trying to get some kind of comfort from the pressure. The tears wouldn’t stop, even as words started making their way through the sobs.

“Lemme out, I wan’ out, I can’t, I can’t. It’s too dark, I can’t. Please, I’m too… I can’t feel my hands!” Light wailed, collapsing in on himself, his shoulders straining against the cuffs.

L was dimly aware that his hands had dropped to his sides. He knew he was staring. He knew that Aizawa had come running to stand behind him, alerted by the cries coming through the speakers. His ears were ringing, and he could feel Light’s sobs in his own chest.

The truth was unavoidable: Light Yagami was a regressor, and L had not known.

How was that possible?

Light was registered as age-natural on his official documents. L had watched him for weeks, and he had shown no signs of regression, not at home when he was unaware of being observed, and not here in the prison cell. Until now.

This was a harsh involuntary regression, from the looks of it, and the part of L that had made them stamp ‘caregiver’ on his own documents was aching.

“Oh my god. Is Light a regressor?” Aizawa said behind him. “That looks like regression, right?”

“It isn’t on his file,” L said, pleased that his voice sounded even. He hadn’t been around a regressor in distress for a few years, and he’d forgotten how much it made his chest hurt. Knowing that he’d been the one to put Light in that situation made it worse. Rationally, he knew that Light being a regressor meant nothing to the investigation. In fact, it made L even more certain that he was Kira. To conceal his headspace that thoroughly, even under investigation, made it clear that Light was no ordinary teenager. That must have taken an immense amount of willpower and planning.

“You have to let him out,” Aizawa said. “You can’t hold a regressor in a place like that, and his innocence has already been proven.” Light was still sobbing, his harsh breaths providing an undercurrent to their conversation. “Ryuzaki, you can’t possibly let that continue.”

“I… think he knew this might happen,” L realized. “This is what he meant when he asked me not to let him out, whatever happened. He knew that he would regress under the pressure.”

“All the more reason to release him! He still doesn’t know that Kira is killing again, it’s not fair. You’ve put him under way too much stress. Let me talk to him.” Aizawa reached for the microphone, and L struck his hand away.

“No. The last thing he needs is more sensory input from the speaker system.” Aizawa recoiled from the physical interception, eyes wide. “And you could jeopardize the investigation,” L added, slightly belated.

“You can’t do this. I’ll call the rest of the team,” Aizawa threatened, reaching into his pocket.

“There’s no need for that,” L sighed. He knew that the rest of the team would agree with Aizawa. The legal system was more lenient for regressors, and keeping them in solitary confinement was widely considered cruel. “I’ll go myself.”

Just because Light couldn’t be held in the cell anymore didn’t mean that L was prepared to let him go without twenty-four-hour supervision. Luckily, he had a set of unusually long handcuffs that he’d already been prepared to use after Light’s release. He could just speed that process along… and tell Watari to order some more regressor-friendly accessories for their room, of course. Maybe pad the cuff that Light would wear, so he didn’t accidentally hurt himself.

L shook his head, pushing his chair back from the table with a sigh. His caregiver mind was getting in the way again. Light was Kira, regressor or no. He wasn’t keeping Light close so that he could take care of him, but so that he was unable to hurt anyone else.

“We’ll discuss Misa’s release when I return,” L added over his shoulder as he headed for the door, reaching into his pocket to call Watari with the car. Light’s prison was a short drive from the base, and the sooner L got there, the better.

Sure enough, the drive was agony.

L stared out the window, the seatbelt Watari had forced him to wear digging into his chest and disrupting his thoughts. He was trying to make plans, trying to think back to all of his interactions with Light and wonder if he should have known. Was that why Light had always sharply refused any kind of sweet drink, even something as simple as fruit juice? Was he afraid that he might slip into regression? Was that why he had been crying at night, quietly regressing just enough for his childish fears to come to the surface? How confused was he, how disoriented in the cell? He seemed to know he was trapped, but did he remember what he was accused of?

L barely noticed when the car came to a stop, but when Watari opened his door for him, it took genuine effort not to go running into the building. Instead, L moved even slower than he usually would. Each gesture would be planned. Each word intentional. Just because Light was a regressor, it didn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous. L had to be on his guard, even more because of his natural caregiver instincts.

He made his way down the cold concrete stairwell, Watari a few paces behind him. Hands tucked in his pockets, breathing slow and natural. No worries about what he might have missed in the two minutes he’d been away from the screens. Had Light hurt himself? Was he safe? Was he still crying? L should have brought water, he’s sure to be dehydrated-

They stepped onto the cell block, and L had a brief conversation with one of the guards to obtain the keys. He’d already texted ahead, and they knew to expect him.

Watari stayed behind, just within earshot as L padded down the line of empty cells to the one that held Light.

It was strange to see the cell in person. For the first time, L could see the camera that Light had shouted at so often. He could see the details of the walls more clearly here, the chipped tile of the bathroom corner and the scratches in the concrete that didn’t come through on the long-distance video feed.

And there was Light, curled into a ball on the bed with his knees drawn up to his chest and his arms still tied behind him, much in the same position that he had been napping in before his nightmare.

L had approached soundlessly, and Light’s eyes were closed. He didn’t open them until L put the key into the lock and turned it.

“N—no, I don’t-” Light stuttered, and then looked up. “Ryuzaki? Ryuzaki!” He tried to get up, but the cuffs on his ankles made him stumble and fall. L heard his knees hit the concrete with a harsh crack, and Light teared up again. “No, no, don’t come in. M’sorry, don’t come in.”

“I’ll let you out of the cuffs,” L told him, his hand on the door but waiting to open it.

“No, I don’t want it,” Light managed. “Just… go.”

“Light, how old are you?” L pressed.

Light made a sound that resembled a squeak, and very slowly raised his eyes to L’s.

“How old are you right now?” L asked again. He watched Light’s expression twist from surprise to embarrassment to conflict, then Light started crying again.

“I don’t wanna be,” Light sobbed. “I don’ wan’ it.”

And there went L’s chest again, twisting and aching with the sound of a regressor in distress. He regulated his voice, unwilling to let it sound too caring. It came out flat instead.

“There’s no shame in regressing, Light. Two percent of the population isn’t an insignificant number. You’ll be more comfortable with your arms free.” Light shook his head, tears flying with the gesture.

“No! Don’t come in!”

“How old are you, Light? You’re young, I can tell that much. Probably in the toddler range, if I had to guess.” From Light’s glare through the tears, L had hit the nail on the head. “I thought so. Stop fighting me. I was going to let you out soon anyways.” Well, L hadn’t been meant to say that. But he could probably use that to his advantage.

“But… but you think I’m Kira,” Light mumbled. Interesting: he did have his full memories, then. Very little disorientation for such a young age range.

“I do,” L admitted. “But the taskforce doesn’t. They want you back on the team.”

“Me?” Light blinked up at him, and his eyes were even wider than usual, framed with perfect dark lashes, and L was in agony being separated by bars. This regressor was going to be the death of him. “But… I thought the bad things stopped ‘cause I was here.”

L was fascinated by the limits of Light’s mental reasoning while he was regressed. He would have to do some experimentation at a later time, but for now…

“I lied. Kira has been active for almost a month. I wasn’t convinced it meant you were innocent, but it makes a good case.” L watched that news hit home, but in a very different way than it would have hit an adult Light.

“You lied? Why? I thought… I thought I was bad, maybe, but you were lying!” Light tried to wipe his tears on his shoulder, only partially succeeding. “I don’ wanna know why. Probably a good reason, ‘cause you’re L and you do all the good things.”

Hmm. It seemed that Light’s certainty that he wasn’t Kira didn’t extend to his regressed self. Perhaps he was speaking more candidly in this headspace.

“I’m not fond of unnecessary cruelty,” L sighed, hooking one hand through the bars. “If I had known, Light-”

“You never woulda had me on the task force,” Light said, quite viciously. “Never ever.”

“That’s not true.” L traced one thumb against his lips. “I’ve known regressors who are exceedingly intelligent. Everything would have proceeded the same.”

“Even though I’m three?” Light asked, and L fought the urge to smile. Information, at last. Three. He stored that away.

“Even though you’re three,” L confirmed. “Your input is valuable to me. In fact, I would like to invite you back to the taskforce after you’ve recovered from this imprisonment.”

“Yes!” Light shuffled forwards on his knees, wincing at the movement. He probably bruised them earlier when he fell. “Yes, please! I wanna help catch Kira! And all the bad guys!” His eyes were shining with excitement and the tears from earlier. Looking down at him, L’s mind caught in a loop.

Light Yagami was Kira, but this… this was not Kira. What that meant about Light, or Kira, or the nature of Light’s regression, L couldn’t say, but he was certain of one thing.

“Can I come in now?” L asked.

Light visibly hesitated, then sank back onto his heels and nodded.

“Thank you.” L left the keys in the lock as he swung open the door and entered, making his way to Light briskly. It was easy enough to get the cuffs off his wrists, and Light whined when his hands were free, struggling to move his shoulders back into a natural position. “Give it time,” L advised, pressing at his spine with experienced fingers. Massages were one of his lesser-used skills, but easy to pick up with his wide knowledge of the human body. “They’ll hurt less in a few minutes.”

He wasn’t expecting Light to shift forward and wrap his arms around him, but that was exactly what happened.

L froze, his hands raised in the air as if in surrender. He’d comforted regressors before, at crime scenes and over interrogation tables. A few of the children at the orphanage were regressors, and he interacted with them when he visited. But none of them had dove into a hug like this. L was a detective, a mentor, a little too strange and intense to be approachable. Now there were arms wrapped around him, holding him tightly, and L didn’t know what to do.

Falteringly, L returned the embrace, the tips of his fingers resting lightly on his own forearms. Light had lost weight over the last month, and his body felt almost frail against L.

“Had a nightmare,” Light whispered.

L wondered if Aizawa was listening, back at the base. He wondered if Watari had wandered closer, after hearing the cell door open. He wondered what kind of things Kira dreamed about.

“Do you want to talk about it?” L asked, and didn’t lean back from the embrace.

“It was bad,” Light said. “I was running, and there were hands, and a fence, an’ there were… bodies. On the fence. And they were… they were…” L could feel Light shaking, and he held the regressor just a little bit closer.

“Just a dream,” L said. He wondered how much blood was on Light’s hands, how much of it he remembered. “You’re safe now. It was just a dream.” L held Light in his arms, the ache in his chest finally fading as he looked down at him. There, the regressor was safe, and L could finally relax. Light’s breathing slowly evening out, his grasp on L’s shirt finally loosening. “You’re safe.”

Light blinked up at L sleepily, and then his eyes slid closed. A natural reaction to stress, and having a caregiver close by. Even if L hadn’t disclosed his classification, his actions combined with Light’s instincts had likely made it clear. L cradled Light in his arms, like a puzzle piece fitting into place, and watched him fall asleep. He would have no more nightmares with a caregiver so close by, and even if he did, L would be there to calm him down.

L knew that this was trouble. Light was Kira, and Kira was death. L’s instincts as a caregiver could only blind him further as he continued in the investigation. If he were being rational, he would attach Light to someone else for the rest of his surveillance period. Prevent the caregiver/regressor bond that had been formed between them from strengthening into something difficult to break.

But L didn’t like being rational. He followed his instincts, and they were always right.

Right now, his instincts told him two things.

I will not let go of Light Yagami.

This will be the death of me.

#death note agere #fandom agere #agere writing #agere fanfiction #agere stories #my writing #death note

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therivergirl · 2 years

Text

Another chapter of my post Labirynt Runners fic

This one takes place after the episode and it's mostly just a nice talk between Willow and Gus.

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Full text:

They defeated the coven scouts and a head witch.

They found out why Hunter was hiding at the school.

And he told them Belos’ plan. Not everything, though. He told them about Belos being human, and about him being a witch hunter.

“Wait, wait,” Jerbo cut in when he got to that part, “What in the titan is a witch hunter? It sounds like some type of a beast!”

“Luz told us something about them,” Gus said, “You know I like human history and junk? Well, having a human for a best friend helps…and also doesn’t at the same time. Because my idealized view of humans crumbled to dust. Apparently, in the old times, many humans believed magic was evil so they hunted witches. But usually, it was actually just regular humans who don’t even have magic, since, you know, magic is not a thing in the human realm. They were usually just innocent, regular humans who did not fit in in some way. It’s long and complicated and dark.”

“Makes sense to me,” Viney said, and people gaped at her, “I mean, not what those old-timey humans did, but that Belos is one of them. His fight on wild magic, on people who don’t conform? Sure sounds like what you just described.”

“So all this time we believed a guy who hates us for existing while convincing us he is one of us and, moreover, the best out of all of us and at the same time we supported his system?” Skara sounded like she was about to cry, “If I ever see Belos up close I’ll punch him in the face so hard…”

“That would not be very wise,” Hunter chuckled bitterly, continuing to explain what he understood of Belos’ condition and the palismen, which only led to more gasps of outrage and curse words that could get one grounded. Students held their palismen close, some whispering reassuring words, others just clinging to them. Hunter held Flapjack close as well, as guilt settled deep within him. He was the reason many palismen were now part of Belos. He almost caused the death of some of the palismen from the students around him.

Flapjack chirped comfortingly. The palisman was right, it was not the time to dwell on that, he had information he had to carry over. So, he told everything he knew.

Well, everything except…the parts about himself. And the previous Golden Guards. He offhandedly mentioned how he knew he was not the first to defect, but that was it. He was still trying to figure out what he was for himself, he wouldn’t even be comfortable telling he was a Grimwalker to Gus and Willow, let alone the whole bunch of people who he only met that day.

When he was finished, the entire student body was in shock, but slowly, one by one, the students and teachers went home. Nobody was certain how their families would react. Would they believe their children? Would they rally against Belos, or would they proclaim the school itself to be traitorous and side with the emperor? Would some try to run or hide?

Bump made sure everyone was handling the new situation well, or as well as it could be expected and then went to his office. He was preparing for an onslaught of calls and texts and probably even visits from confused, scared, and angry parents and guardians of the children but he was certain of one thing-after everything he witnessed during the last year, let alone the last few hours, he knew which side he was going to pick.

As the students, the few that remained at the school, were getting in a heated discussion on what to do next, Hunter slipped away, overwhelmed by the number of people around him and the questions they were asking.

“Go on, I’ll cover for you,” Gus said as he noticed Hunter growing antsy, “Just stay on the school grounds, you’re safe here.”

So now Hunter was hiding resting on the bleachers outside the school. It was a strange feeling, being outside after days of hiding in that tiny room. Was he still afraid? Of course. But people have seen him, scouts have seen him, so his location was no longer a secret that could be hidden.

He had to disappear soon again. Everyone was in danger with him around. Flapjack was chirping away, trying to convince him otherwise but he wasn’t listening, much to the palisman’s frustration. And the cardinal was not shy about it.

The flyer derby team insisted we save you, Bump’s words echoed in his mind. People he once tricked, people who he wanted to force into the very thing he just witnessed them fighting against, stood up for him. The least he could do was not put them at extra risk.

He heard the footsteps approaching and then someone climbing up the bleachers. He quickly sat up, ready to explain why he was just lazing around when there was so much to plan, but it was just Willow. She waved at him, a gentle smile on her face.

He remembered seeing her when he first woke up, scratched, and bruised. Most of the injuries were now either partially or fully healed, but the tears in the fabric were still there as reminders of how badly she was battered. Did she get injured trying to rescue him?

He knew she could hold her own in a fight. He would be stupid to doubt it. He saw her in the derby and fighting coven scouts. Titan, he saw her facing off Darius, one of the strongest coven heads, but he still didn’t want her getting hurt because of him.

However, she was smiling and didn’t seem angry or upset. So, he gave a small wave back and Flapjack chirped a greeting.

“Hey, mind if I join you?” she asked.

“Um, no,” he said, “Of course not!”

“Hiding from everyone?” she sat down.

“What?” he sounded appalled, “No, no! I’m not hiding, I just-I can’t-“

“Hey, Hunter, calm down,” Willow said, “I didn’t mean it in a bad way. I thought you probably just needed some space, that is all,”

“Oh,” he calmed down, “Well…maybe…”

“If you need to be alone, I won’t bother you,” Willow offered.

“No, no, you’re not bothering me!” he said, afraid he might’ve offended his friend. He was still wondering if he was allowed to call her that. But, after Willow and the rest of Entrails accepted him, to a point of defying their principal, an authority figure, to rescue him, how would he ever say that she was bothering him in any capacity?

“I won’t be offended,” Willow said as if she read his mind, smiling, “we all sometimes need to be alone with our own thoughts, even messy ones. I know I do.”

“Oh, well, still, it’s ok if you stay,” Hunter said, truly meaning that. “I was just…the others had so many questions and I, I know I should be answering them but…I just can’t, not right now. It’s stupid.”

“I don’t think it’s stupid. You’ve been through a lot. If you need time to sort things out, that’s fine. And the Hexide students,” she chuckled, “we can be a bit much.”

“But, there is so little time and so much to solve and what if the coven comes back and-and-” he was hyperventilating, again. The coven he could deal with, but the person that might come with it…

Everything around him felt fuzzy like he was dipped underwater while having vertigo. It was like he was sinking, the surface barely visible to him, the pull of the water too much, the only thing barely managing to pierce through the fog, being Willow's voice.

“...hey, hey,” Hunter felt Willow gently put a hand on his shoulder, “Breathe, in and out,” she said, her voice soft and he followed her instructions. He focused his eyes on her face, as he felt Flapjack nesting in his lap. He scratched the bird’s neck as everything came into full focus.

“Huh, you know Gus’ breathing thing, too?” he said, trying to brush off his breakdown, “It’s surprisingly effective.”

“Well, I thought him that. And my dads taught me. We all get lost in our heads sometimes and breathing exercises can help ground us,” Willow gently squeezed his shoulder, her eyes filled with compassion and concern.

“It’s still stupid, I should’ve known I should’ve…I don’t know, do something, not just lie around, unable to even think properly!” Hunter retorted, frustrated. “Especially since I personally did so much damage after falling for unc-his lies!”

“You did something. You learned the truth and as painful as it was you stuck by it and helped up, at what I’m pretty certain is a great personal risk. As for, as you put it, falling for Belos’s lies, well we all did.”

“Captain, you and your friends led a rebellion against coven scouts not an hour ago. You resisted me taking you in less than a month ago! How is that falling for anyone’s lies?”

“Well, yeah, that’s us now. But a few months ago, well, we all believed it was all true,” Willow said. “That he is trying to do the right thing, that the covens are the only way to do magic, that the Emperor’s Coven is the best, everything!”

“How, how did you figure it wasn’t?” Hunter asked, curious. Then he realized that might be too deep of a question, “Sorry if that is too personal…”

“No, it’s fine. So, remember the day of,” she gazed into the distance as if reminding herself of a particularly unpleasant memory, “Eda’s petrification?”

He nodded, unable to speak. He believed it was right, at the time and he hated himself for it. If he was caught right now, he’d probably be petrified just like Eda almost was. Just like his…

“Hunter?”

“I’m fine, I just...it hit me how wrong it was, I guess. Go on.”

Willow looked at him for a moment. She knew that wasn’t the whole truth, but she was not about to pry. She continued, “Well, before that, you know, we all knew of petrifications. And we all knew it happened to wild witches. But I always thought it was for like, really bad people. Those who hurt others, those who do truly messed up stuff. We all knew of Eda, her posters were everywhere. She would sometimes appear around Bonesborough and, while I never saw her doing anything particularly bad, maybe scam someone from a few snails, but nothing diabolical, we kind of knew to stay away from her. Because, you know, we believed that wild witches were dangerous. But, since she didn’t really hurt someone, nobody really minded her either. She kind of became part of Boneborough, a local legend. I guess that, despite the posters, we saw her a minor town menace but otherwise, oh titan this will sound bad but, one of the good ones,” she chuckled self-deprecatingly.

“And then, Luz came here. And we became friends and I started hanging out with her and at the Owl House and Eda…well, she wasn’t necessarily nice. She is blunt and snarky, but she is kind. And well, she can be scary but, only when someone really messes up. She is definitely not cruel. She has that wanted poster in her house like a badge of honour, but I think it’s because she prides herself on being, well, herself. And she got me, Gus and Luz, and Amity when we started hanging out again, out of trouble so many times. But, despite that, despite seeing that Eda is a wild witch but still good, despite seeing Luz use wild magic and still being best friends with her, I still believed the coven system was completely right.”

“What made you change your mind?”

“Well, the day of Eda’s petrification, we had a field trip to the castle. And Luz, Gus and I…may have decided to steal the Healing Hat to help Eda with her curse…”

“Wait, that was you? I mean I knew about Luz, but…titan…” Hunter said, halfway between impressed and calling the plan dumb, because really? Stealing from the castle, on a field trip? He was not surprised Luz pulled a stunt like that, she was incredibly reckless, but Gus and Willow seemed a bit more restrained.

“Yeah, not one of our brightest plans,” Willow said sheepishly, “Before you ask, yes, the plan was Luz’s, but Gus and I were totally on board. And, well, Lilith caught us, took Luz, baited Eda and…well, you probably know the rest, you were at the castle at the time, weren’t you?”

Hunter nodded, more mixed feelings rearing their ugly heads.

“Oh, you should’ve seen Eda when we got to the Owl House. When she heard about Lilith having Luz in custody, she only took a few seconds to make sure Gus and I were fine and then went to face her own sister. I never saw Eda as angry as she then that day, not even when we literally animated her house,”

“You did wha- you know what, never mind, sounds like a long story, continue.”

“It is a long story," Willow chuckled at the memory of their previous shenanigans, "Well, the point is she was angry, terrifyingly angry because someone hurt Luz. And she gave herself in to save Luz. She, a wild witch, supposedly the worst one of them all, almost gave her life away, she gave her magic away, something she valued and prided herself on so much, to save someone else, one of my best friends.”

“Yeah, I…I remember bits of it. I wasn’t fully informed of the details of the plan. Lilith…she wasn’t keen on sharing plans about her sister.”

Willow nodded, then continued her story, “When Gus and I saw what was happening, something just...clicked. What was happening was wrong. Seeing Eda up there, it was like seeing my aunt up there. And realizing that King was with her as well, and he is just a kid,” Willow shook her head, her eyes angry and full of resolve. “We couldn’t do much, but we did something. We hijacked a news report and almost caused a riot!” she said, bursting with pride.

“Wait, I remember now,” Hunter said, surprised and in awe, “It was you! And Gus! Taking Perry Porter’s broadcast! Well, duh,” he facepalmed, “That must be Gus’s dad, right? Wow, how did I not recognize you sooner?”

“I looked a bit different, and it was before Gus had his growth spurt,” Willow shrugged, “And yes, Perry is his dad. But see, I also knew that Belos didn’t let them go. Luz got them out, with help from Lilith and King. So, if the emperor was wrong about Eda, if he lied about her escape, I wondered, what else was he lying about? I mean, I didn’t start thinking that immediately, it was a slow process, a scary process. But, by the time I realized I started thinking like that, I couldn’t really go back.”

“My un-Belos, he lied about…everything,” Hunter said. “So, you were correct when you realized things were wrong. You have good instincts. I’m just…sorry I didn’t see it sooner.”

“Well, you were much closer to Belos than any of us. It’s much harder to realize your friends are in the wrong than an emperor in a castle who wanted to hurt your friends,” she said compassionately. “Let alone someone you consider family.”

“He’s not in fact my…” Hunter trailed off, “It’s a mess.” He didn’t tell them the details about being a Grimwalker, a…clone, a replica, or a copy. Maybe he could tell Willow, or Gus…

He chased the thought away. He had to figure out who he was first. And what if…what if they thought differently of him? He couldn't lose his only friends. What if they saw him as a freak, a menace? What if…

Well, They had a mission at hand anyways. Personal baggage would have to be resolved later.

“Well, this was a good talk,” he said abruptly, “Thank you. But I think now would be the time for me to disappear again,” he extended his arm as if he was summoning his staff, but Flapjack stayed on his shoulder, giving him what could only be described as a seriously, dude? stare.

“Flapjack! I need you to fly, come on!” Flapjack still refused to take his staff form and just kept his glare instead, “Come on,” Hunter said again, and then, muttering, he added, “You’re embarrassing me in front of the captain!”

Willow giggled, “Sometimes Clover refuses to cooperate when she thinks I’m in the wrong or being silly too!” she said and her palisman buzzed in confirmation. The two palisman then looked at one another as is to say, Witches, am I right?

“I’m not being silly, he is!” Hunter said. Willow thinks I’m silly? Oh no, that is not good!

“Why do you think you need to go?” Willow asked.

“Well first of all, while I was in hiding it was one thing, but now that the scouts know I’m here, I’m putting everyone in danger just by being around you.”

“Hunter, the entire school just rebelled against the Emperor’s Coven, not to mention one of the head witches and, unlike our scuffle with Darius, a whole bunch of people witnessed this. Not to mention that we refused an order that came directly from the emperor about joining covens. We’ll be in plenty of trouble as is!”

“Yes! Which is why I shouldn’t stay and bring more trouble onto you!” Hunter extended his arm again, but Flapjack was apparently on a mission to humiliate him entirely because he still refused to cooperate, “Fine, I’ll walk then! I can walk away from the school!”

Flapjack refused to even acknowledge him.

“Hunter, I didn’t mean it like that,” Willow grabbed his arm as he was about to walk away, “I meant, you’re one of us now. We’re in this together. We broke rules already, we might as well break a few more to protect a friend.”

“Some friend I am… Ouch! Flapjack, what the titan?! What was that for?” he said as the cardinal nipped his ear and proceeded to glare at him.

“Listen to him, don’t be so self-deprecating, you are a good friend. Or are you forgetting how you just saved Gus? Or that time we chatted on Penstagram, and I felt down so you sent me Flapjack’s photos because you didn’t know what else to do and it made me feel better because it was cute? You should stay here, where you’re safe, well safer, we want you around.”

“Well, you might want me around, but I’m certain the principal won’t like me staying!” Hunter stared at his feet. He was not cute…

“You would be wrong there,” Willow said, “I can’t see Bump kicking out anyone in need, especially after today.”

“Yeah, the man is not exactly my biggest fan, did you see how he reacted to my presence?”

“He didn’t know who you were then,” Willow explained, “I mean, who you are as a person. And you’d be surprised how much Bump is willing to change his mind when proven wrong. He is a reasonable man.”

Hunter looked at the ground, not fully believing Willow’s words. Not that he didn’t trust her. But adults just…changing their minds. That sounded strange.

On the other hand, Darius and even Lilith did so…

Flapjack chirped into his ear, Yeah, yeah, you’re on the right track here. People are different from him. Listen to Willow, she is right, she is smart. The principal is one of those different adults. Even Bat Queen likes him, and she doesn’t like many witches.

“Still, he would be harbouring a known traitor,” Hunter said, to Willow and Flapjack both, the word still burning on his tongue, “And-and-“

“Hunter,” Willow said “Look, I won’t force you to stay or anything, though I really think you should. Remember, Bump has bent the rules so many times. He allowed Luz to study here, he allowed multi-tracking, and he is regularly, publically, associating with Eda. A known criminal. And, while they have a weird mentor-former troublemaker rivalry, I think they respect one another. Eda doesn’t respect just anyone. He even came up with the whole Palisman program with her.”

Hunter looked at Flapjack. That day was another he had mixed feeling about. On the one hand, that was the day he got Flapjack and, even as their bond was something relatively new, he wasn’t sure what he would do without the palisman now. He was his closest companion; he was with him through everything.

He met Luz that day and, while his and human’s relationship was complicated to say the least, and he didn’t even know where she was at the moment, he would lie if he said he wasn’t glad to meet her. He could even admit to himself he would be glad to see her again.

On the other…

His mind went back to his unc- Belos consuming…

His breath hitched and he felt his eyes sting. No, no, he was not going to cry like an idiot

“Hunter?”

“Luz probably told you about what I almost did that day, right? What my mission was!” he spat resentfully.

“Yeah, what you almost did. And she also told me what you actually did. You let her and the palismen go in the end. And you kept him safe,” she pointed to Flapjack, “Oh, also, Clover wants me to thank you.”

“Huh? Why?” Hunter asked, utterly confused. One palisman liking him, choosing him over countless better, real, witches was weird enough. He liked Flapjack, he loved Flapjack, as weird of the taste the cardinal must’ve had to choose him. But Willow’s palisman thanking him for something was one step too far.

“One of the palisman you let go was her friend, and Flapjack told her that the emperor wasn’t pleased when you came empty-handed, so you risked something to free them,” Willow said, and Clover buzzed in affirmation.

“I…they were not the first palismen I was supposed to bring him. Not the first one I did. And the ones before…” He closed his eyes regretfully, guilt setting into his stomach. Flapjack nuzzled against his neck comfortingly, but it only made hunter feel more guilty. Why was the stupid bird comforting someone responsible for the death of dozens of his own kind?

“Did you…how much did you know about palismen before?” Willow asked quietly.

“I don’t know, I guess…I’m not sure,” he said staring at Flapjack, “I’m not sure I realized how…alive, no, I knew they were alive. I guess how conscious they were. And I-I-“

“Yeah, you didn’t know. Look, you thought you were doing something good for someone who was…who you believed was your family, right?”

Hunter nodded, even as his stomach churned at the very idea of it. And part of him still cared for---no, he couldn’t think like that.

“If I didn’t know that Palismen were living and thinking, and if one of my dads were hurting and I thought that-"

“BUT HE WASN’T HURTING!” Hunter shouted, making Willow frown. “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean-I, Sorry.” he sighed, “I mean he was…I guess, in pain but it's not like he was sick or something-he was using them, for, I don’t know something! I guess, giving himself more power. And I helped!”

“You were tricked.”

“I was stupid!”

“You weren’t stupid. You just cared,” Willow insisted. “You were…deceived and used, by someone you cared for. That does not make you a bad person.”

Hunted sniffed, unable to stop the tears this time. Was he even a person?

“Need a hug?” she asked.

He hesitated for a moment before nodding. She wrapped her arms around him, and he slumped against her. Flapjack chirped comfortingly and even Willow’s palisman buzzing was calming. He awkwardly wrapped his arms around Willow’s waist, taking in the comfort of being so close to a friend.

“Look, I’m not going to say that all you did was great,” she said, “but you clearly see that. And you’re doing so much to help already. You saved Flapjack. You realized your mistakes back when we met the first time. And you faced Darius to save us,”

“I wasn’t actually in danger from Darius. I told you that.”

“But you didn’t know that. For all you knew he was going to reprimand you, or worse. And today, you helped everyone here,”

Flapjack nuzzled against his cheek, chirping And, I told you this already, but do you really think I’d choose just any witch?

“Not sure what he said, but I’m pretty sure I can agree with him,” Willow smiled.

“Hey, you two!” Gus’s voice came from the bottom of the bleachers and Hunter blushed as he and Willow broke the hug.

“Come on, if you’re anything like me, you’re starving, and we got a whole bunch of food from the cafeteria!” Gus gestured towards the school.

“We? Wait, how many of you stayed?” Hunter asked as he and Willow climbed down.

“The Emerald Entrails, the Blights, Matt and Bump. But Bump is still in his office, dealing with stuff. Why?”

“So…Amity Blight is here,” Hunter said, suddenly not very keen on leaving the bleachers. Really, that was a fine place to stay.

“Don’t worry, she’ll warm up to you,” Gus said. “Come on now, before Matt and the Blight twins eat all the good stuff!”

“Ngh,” Hunter groaned, but then his stomach rumbled at the idea of the food that is not Hex Mix. He’d even take the weak stew that the Emperor’s Coven scouts had for lunch every other day-

No, no he wouldn’t. Hex Mix was still better. At least it was tasty.

“You know what, I’m off to join others again before you two decide! I’ll save you something!” Gus decided and ran towards the school building.

“Hunter?” Willow asked, “Are you coming? Or we can stay here if you need some downtime, Clover and Flapjack can bring some food over for us, right guys?”

Hunter looked at his friends, one running off to save them some food from allegedly ravenous multi-track students and the other offering to just…hang out with him.

He thought to the others, how, as suspicious as they were of him at first, they…accepted him. They must’ve been aware of what he did before, at least parts of, it and nobody, not even Amity Blight, seemed to have much animosity once it was certain he was not working with Belos.

And once the fight was over, they approached him with curiosity, no longer with suspicion. Titan, one of the Blight twins asked him the silliest question he could receive!

Besides, Willow, Gus and Viney would be there.

“I’m fine,” he said, with a genuine grin, “joining the others, I mean.”

“Awesome, come on!” Willow grabbed his hand and pulled him along, down the bleachers and then towards the school.

There was a big fight ahead. But at least, they could have dinner first.

#the owl house #save the owl house #labirynth runners #willow park #the owl house hunter #gus the owl house #fanfiction

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