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carolyncaves · 4 years

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It’s been three days since I posted a ficlet, but that’s because my hand Really slipped this time and I wrote a canon divergence ‘post-Burial Mounds Wei Wuxian actually goes to Gusu’ fic. I’ll call this Day 19: Journey, but it also includes days 17 and 18 Rest and Breath for bonus points. 3680 words, WWX, LXC, LWJ, JC. Alcohol, vague mental illness (it’s post-burial-mounds wwx), strong undercurrent of wangxian (it’s lwj), angst, tenderness, golden core reveal.

also on ao3

“You do not necessarily need to take up the sword at once,” Lan Xichen called after Wei Wuxian, perhaps too desperately, but it mercifully stopped him in his tracks. “You can come to Cloud Recesses and simply consider it further there.”

“So instead of agreeing to take up the sword, Zewu Jun would like me to agree to agree to it in time. A grand distinction.” Wei Wuxian tipped his head back and drained the rest of the jar of baijiu. When he drew it down and looked at it, the rigid arrogance etched into his profile was mixed very briefly with a desperate despondence. Lan Xichen might not have noticed it, were it not for his conversation with Wangji.

Wei Wuxian had been somewhere terrible for three months, and he was not well. Wei Wuxian needed help. Wangji was forbidden to come, so Lan Xichen had to do this in his place, and please, Xiongzhang, you must get him to agree to come to Gusu, whatever it takes.

After what he’d seen so far of Wei Wuxian’s state, Lan Xichen was not sure it would be within his power. But Wangji had placed his trust in him.

“You will not be required to do anything, if only you will come.”

“I do not recall when Zewu Jun gained the authority to require things of me.”

That hostility could bring them to failure. Lan Xichen needed to shift to his reserve approach. He thought, given the circumstances, Wangji would consent. “To speak even more plainly, it would please Wangji very much to see you. You were correct when you said so yourself. He has been anxious since the close of Sunshot, and lonely at Cloud Recesses. I am asking you for this favor, as his closest confidant, for the sake of my brother’s happiness – so I will not be easily discouraged.” Those words were all true; it had become clear Wangji’s happiness depended very much on Wei Wuxian.

Wei Wuxian’s expression softened once again, this time toward affection. Lan Xichen gave his words time to sink in, and then followed them with a wager: “It will be an opportunity for you to rest.” Despite Wei Wuxian’s bright smile and earnest greeting when they’d met on the street, Lan Xichen had sensed underneath it that Wei Wuxian was haggard and worn.

Wei Wuxian finally turned and looked at him again, and his agitation had fully melted back away. Lan Xichen felt the gentle lift of hope.

“I’m a member of the Jiang sect, aren’t I?” Wei Wuxian asked. “My brother has been named Sect Leader, and needs me now more than ever in his life. How can I go to Gusu with you?”

“Please allow me to ask him,” Lan Xichen said immediately. “On my own behalf, please give me your leave to request of him that you come visit us.” He did not mention, and only barely allowed himself to think, that if Wei Wuxian was here in town drinking baijiu in the middle of the day, he was probably not giving his brother the support he needed regardless.

Wei Wuxian stared at the floor for a very long time. He gave a hollow laugh. “All right. If Jiang Cheng gives you his blessing, I’ll go to Gusu with you.”

Lan Xichen had swayed one immovable stone, only to find another in its shadow.

Jiang Cheng received him almost immediately in Lotus Pier’s Sword Hall. He sat on the carved lotus seat, looking every inch a Sect Leader despite his youthful face. Wei Wuxian stood slightly to one side, looking carefully at the opposite wall instead of either of them.

“Take Wei Wuxian to Cloud Recesses?” Jiang Cheng kept his voice even and respectful, for now, but his features clearly displayed his incredulous irritation. “And you want to go, I suppose,” he added, much more acidly, to Wei Wuxian. “You’d like to run off and see Hanguang Jun, nevermind Yunmeng Jiang.”

“Zewu Jun has asked it of me,” Wei Wuxian said lowly. “Should I just refuse him out of hand?”

Jiang Cheng’s eyes narrowed, and Lan Xichen could almost hear his rejoinder – So you make me do it instead? “Have you been drinking? I needed you today. Look at you.”

“Sect Leader Jiang, I am asking this of you as a personal favor,” Zewu Jun said, hoping to coerce Jiang Cheng into discussing it with him instead. “I’m hopeful spending a measure of time together at Cloud Recesses will be beneficial for both my brother and yours.”

“Hanguang Jun is more than welcome to come to Yunmeng,” Jiang Cheng countered.

“Currently Wangji has sect matters he is required to attend to,” Zewu Jun answered, before immediately wincing.

“And Wei Wuxian doesn’t?” Jiang Cheng snapped. He looked incensed with a fire more furious than this one conversation would ignite, implying Wei Wuxian’s truancy today was not an isolated incident; this request was precisely the fuel to grow a smolder into a blaze. “Not that he’s been doing them. Are you planning to stand by my side and help me at any point, Wei Wuxian? Have you no sense of responsibility?”

Lan Xichen saw those words hit Wei Wuxian like a blow, but he was surprised when Jiang Cheng flinched as well. Perhaps he had not intended the second meaning – the implication of blame, as well as duty.

Jiang Cheng took a breath to recover, and apparently that gave him the time he needed to reconsider.

“Forget the thing I just said. You should go with him.”

Wei Wuxian looked right at him, then, for the first time in that conversation, and his face was masked with slow confusion and hurt. “Jiang Cheng …”

“Don’t argue with me! Go cheer up Lan Wangji and yourself, and come back. You’ve been impossible and stubborn since you got back from wherever on earth you were, and I need you to get your head back on straight.” Wei Wuxian’s face had gone blank again during that tirade. Jiang Cheng snorted in exasperation and added, “Don’t forget to take your sword with you, and see if you can come back riding it.”

Wei Wuxian stiffened, and Lan Xichen was briefly terrified the situation would collapse mere inches from success. He stepped forward, clamped a hand down hard on Wei Wuxian’s shoulder, and said, “We will bring the sword with us.” He hoped Wei Wuxian would remember the assurances Lan Xichen had given him, so he wouldn’t have to repeat them in front of Jiang Cheng. “Where is it, Wei-gongzi?”

Lan Xichen escorted Wei Wuxian to collect the sword and some personal effects from his room – thankfully, Jiang Cheng remained behind. Suibian was tucked behind a chest of drawers, where Wei Wuxian would not see it as he went about his daily life. Wei Wuxian retrieved it and stared at it like it was alien in his own hand, in contrast to the dark flute he held as at his side as an extension of himself in the other.

He thrust his arm toward Lan Xichen.

This disturbed Lan Xichen, the way Wei Wuxian seemed actively averse to the sword’s presence, but he said nothing; he was on the verge of achieving his mission. All this could be discussed in the fullness of time once Wei Wuxian was safely at Cloud Recesses. He took Suibian in his own hand, for the time being. He would bear this person and his sword to Wangji.

Wei Wuxian was slow and lethargic in his movements, some combination of mood and intoxication. It took all of Lan Xichen’s discipline not to rush him. It felt as if every moment that elapsed could bring some unforeseen stimulus that would knock Wei Wuxian off this vital and fragile course. Eventually he was ready, and as soon as they had sky over their heads, Lan Xichen took him on Shuoyue and maneuvered them into the air.

Lan Xichen relaxed, since they were now underway, which seemed a significant milestone in making this more difficult to stop. Wei Wuxian clung to him in strange desperation with the arm that wasn’t holding Chenqing. He stared down and around and out, face wide and wild as they climbed into the dusky sky, and as the minutes passed he began to shake. Did he feel unsafe relying on someone else to maneuver the sword? Had something happened that had instilled in him a fear of heights?

“Hide your eyes, if you would be more at ease,” Lan Xichen told him. “I assure you, Wei-gongzi, I will deliver you safely.”

Wei Wuxian’s fingers tightened ever so slightly in Lan Xichen’s robes, like he was hesitating, fighting a silent battle. Finally, his head collapsed onto Lan Xichen’s shoulder, his face angled into the side of his neck. Otherwise he said nothing, and did nothing. It was so far distant from the buoyant young man who had come to Gusu for lectures and even the sharp, bright, terrible one he’d seen glimpses of during Sunshot. Wangji had been correct. Wei Wuxian was deeply not well. Lan Xichen had been moderately convinced by the end of their conversation at the inn; now he was beyond certain.

The flight was long, but at the end of it, the patch of garden in front of Wangji’s jingshi came up to meet them, and Lan Xichen set them safely down. Wei Wuxian had made the journey.

///

Lan Wangji heard a sound he quickly placed as Xichen maneuvering Shuoyue, and he was out the door of the jingshi as quickly as he could physically manage it. First, because Xichen would not maneuver the sword within Cloud Recesses if he were not on some urgent mission, and second, because Lan Wangji would not have been able to hear him if he were alone and unburdened.

Sure enough, he was met with the sight of Xichen ushering a rigid Wei Ying from the steel onto the grass. A relief so intense it threatened to send him to his knees expanded through Lan Wangji.

“Wei Ying,” he said reflexively, closing the space between them.

Wei Ying turned to him with glazed, hazy eyes.

“He may still be intoxicated,” Xichen said, “and he has been harrowed by the flight.”

Lan Wangji stopped just before he touched Wei Ying, remembering him step away from him at Yiling Supervisory Office, turn away at the cliffs at Nightless City. This time, Wei Ying let him slowly move in and take him by one wrist. It was hope, and forgiveness, and a plea.

“Let’s get him inside,” Xichen said, which meant Lan Wangji had to release him. He followed as Xichen escorted Wei Ying up the walk. By the time they reached the open doorway, Wei Ying had recovered some of his senses, and he pulled himself out of Xichen’s hold.

“You don’t have to … you didn’t have to,” Wei Ying said coldly. “I shouldn’t be here. I should go back.”

Lan Wangji’s stomach sank, but Xichen just said, “Wei-gongzi, surely you aren’t suggesting I fly you back to Lotus Pier by sword this very moment.”

Wei Ying flinched, even as he scowled at himself for it.

“You must at least take dinner with us, and stay the night,” Xichen continued. “We can discuss it further in the morning if you like. You’re no prisoner here, just a welcome guest.” Xichen extended his arm, gesturing for Wei Ying to continue into the jingshi.

At length, he did.

Wei Ying stopped in the center of the room, standing aimlessly as Xichen and Lan Wangji came in around him. “I’ll go have someone prepare us a meal,” Xichen said. He held out Suibian, which for the first time Lan Wangji noticed he was carrying.

Wei Ying stared at him. He made no move to take it.

Xichen smiled sadly and went to set the sword at one of the places at the table.

Lan Wangji said stepped forward and took Suibian from his hand. “Xiongzhang,” he said, bowing formally with Wei Ying’s sword clasped in his hands, “thank you for bringing Wei Ying here. Now I will speak with him.”

Xichen briefly looked taken aback. Then his gaze floated from Lan Wangji to Wei Ying before returning. “I told Wei-gongzi we would not force him to take up his sword if he came here. That we would not require anything of him if he was unwilling.”

Lan Wangji imagined how the conversation must have gone, for Xichen to make that assurance. “Thank you,” he said again, and he hoped Xichen understood him.

Xichen nodded. “I will have the meal sent over for you.” Xichen acknowledged Wei Ying and left, surrendering Wei Ying into Lan Wangji’s custody.

Wei Ying was here. He had come to Gusu, however tensely. Lan Wangji was not helpless any longer. He could do something. He looked at the sword in his hand. Wei Ying’s wild Suibian. “I will play Clarity for you until the dinner comes,” he said.

“Lan Zhan, you can’t help me.”

“You said you would allow me,” Lan Wangji pushed back, pacing around Wei Ying to face him. “You came here.”

“No, Lan Zhan. You can’t help me.” Wei Ying looked up at him, expression gaunt. He was still thin, from wherever he’d been when he was away. If he was intoxicated, it was the morose kind. “You can play Clarity for me until your fingers bleed. I still won’t take up the sword again.”

“Why not?” Lan Wangji bit out, clenching Suibian in his grip. “What happened, Wei Ying?”

Wei Ying’s gaze was heavy on the sword in Lan Wangji’s hand. He thought for a great, long silence. “You have to believe me this time,” he said, swaying a little on his feet. “If I tell you, you have to believe me.”

Lan Wangji had not believed him when he spun a tall tale about a book and a cave with a dark, haughty grin. He had been afraid to believe him when he mentioned the Burial Mounds with a smile. Now, with Wei Ying standing empty in the jingshi, a silent tear rolling down his face, having relented and left his home so Lan Wangji could help him, Lan Wangji was prepared to believe anything he had to say. Lan Wangji nodded.

“It’s a secret,” Wei Ying pressed instantly, and more tears followed the first. “You need to swear to me you’ll keep it a secret. From Zewu Jun, from your uncle, from everyone. I would die rather than have it be known. Do you understand, Lan Zhan? It’s a secret I was going to die to keep.”

That image, the one of Wei Ying dead, frightened Lan Wangji more than anything had previously in his life. A year ago, it would have seemed impossible – his overloud, overfamiliar other, taken by death. Now, it seemed possible. Now, Wei Ying was barely held together by resentful energy and thin wire.

Lan Wangji raised his head, decided. He crossed the room, to the sword stand where his own Bichen stood. He put Suibian to rest alongside it. Then he turned. Wei Ying had turned to watch him.

Lan Wangji held out his hand, palm up. “Then tell me. We will keep it together.”

Wei Ying looked at his hand like a man going to his death. He looked at it like a man who wanted to be saved. He barely took his eyes off it as he took the three steps sideways necessary to walk over and place Chenqing on the corner of the table. Then he took the three steps back – toward Lan Wangji – and Lan Wangji’s hand in his own.

He drew it toward him and pressed it against his lower abdomen.

It took Lan Wangji a second to process this strange action, and another to follow its implication. He controlled his spiritual energy, reached in to touch Wei Ying’s spiritual core.

Nothing.

Lan Wangji’s hand clenched, pulling in a handful of Wei Ying’s clothes. He could feel his own breath begin to accelerate. Wei Ying’s cultivation was a match for Lan Wangji’s own. How could Wei Ying lack a golden core?

Wei Ying had bit his lip so hard he bled. Lan Wangji raised his other hand instinctively, to wipe the blood and tears away.

“Hanguang Jun,” came a voice from outside, and the door slid open.

The junior disciple holding the tray with their dinner froze on the threshold. Fortunately, Wei Ying was facing away from the door, so the tears on his face would not be visible. Lan Wangji could not begin to imagine what his own showed.

The disciple opened her mouth, then closed it again.

“Place it quickly and go,” Lan Wangji said, his voice harsh even in his own ears. The disciple leapt forward to obey, practically diving across the room and setting the tray on the table. Her sleeve brushed against Chenqing as she withdrew, sending it clattering to the floor. She winced and reached for it.

“Leave it,” Lan Wangji commanded. The disciple gave the quickest bow he had ever seen and fled the jingshi, banging the door closed behind her.

Wei Ying gave a wet laugh. Lan Wangji’s hand was still on his face. “Lan Zhan, that disciple surely thought you were in the middle of ravishing me. By morning, every junior in the Lan sect will be talking about Hanguang Jun and his secret lover.”

Lan Wangji drew Wei Ying into the circle of his arms and crushed him to his chest.

“Wei Ying,” he said into the side of his head. He clutched at him, dug one hand into his hair. “Wei Ying.”

“It’s all right, Lan Zhan, really,” Wei Ying said, voice hollow. “It’s not so terribly bad. I’m practically used to it at this point. But you see why I can’t take up the sword anymore.” Wei Ying was still babbling. “Do you see, Lan Zhan?”

“Enough talking,” Lan Wangji said. His mind was beginning to seek causes and effects. “Wen Zhuliu?”

“I thought you said enough talking,” Wei Ying deflected.

The Wen soldiers had said things that hadn’t made sense to Lan Wangji. They’d said the heir to the Jiang sect had been burned down into a mediocre person. The pieces rearranged themselves, and Lan Wangji spat, “Jiang Cheng. Wen Zhuliu, and Jiang Cheng.”

“Enough talking,” Wei Ying whispered, but his hands finally came up and wrapped around him. He finally took hold of Lan Wangji. And he began to cry. It was quiet. Listless. Unlike everything Wei Ying was.

Lan Wangji held him until he stopped.

He didn’t realize tears were on his own face until they dampened Wei Ying’s shoulder and he felt the coolness.

When eventually they pulled back, Wei Ying was barely on his feet. Lan Wangji walked him over to the table. He food had gone cold, but he needed to eat. Wei Ying picked up Chenqing and placed it back on the corner of the table with a shaking hand. Lan Wangji sat beside him instead of across from him, an arm still wrapped around his waist. He did not know when he would be willing to let go of Wei Ying again.

When Wei Ying finished eating, he realized he would have to.

“I will play Clarity for you,” Lan Wangji said, though it came out more stifled than he intended.

Wei Ying shook his head ruefully. “I’ve taken you too off-guard, Lan Zhan. I’m sure you could if my life depended on it, but you don’t need to play it tonight.”

Perhaps that was best. Lan Wangji did not feel even remotely clear himself. He shifted so he could draw Wei Ying back against him, back pressed against Lan Wangji’s chest. As if it were possible to hold him close enough to make this all right.

“Ah, Lan Zhan, I didn’t know you were going to be quite so possessive of my spiritual power,” Wei Ying said – joking even now, joking already. He tipped his head back on Lan Zhan’s shoulder, showing his exhaustion. “Ah, well, now you know the truth. You can send me back to Lotus Pier tomorrow with a clear conscience.”

Lan Wangji shook his head. Slowly, several times. How could Wei Ying say such false things, even in jest? Lang Wangji cupped a hand under his chin, angling his face up slightly.

Wei Ying stared up at him. “Lan Zhan …”

Lan Wangji leaned down and kissed him.

It was brief and light. Lan Wangji could taste the whisper of baijiu on his breath. Then it was over.

Wei Ying stared up at him, eyebrows furrowed in confusion, lips hanging ever so slightly agape.

“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji said. “You said you would allow me to help you.”

“Oh,” he said, as if he were truly surprised. His chin drifted back down, and he stared across the jingshi unseeing in thought. Then he took one of Lan Wangji’s hands in both of his own and raised the back of it to his lips. “Thank you, Lan Zhan.”

It was barely seven thirty, long before even the Lan sect’s curfew, but soon Wei Ying was starting to drowse in his arms. Lan Wangji wanted to continue to hold him, but he had been exhausted even when he stepped off Shuoyue. He needed to rest.

Lan Wangji might have carried him to the bed, but he woke and was already pulling himself up before Lan Wangji could arrange it. Instead, he walked at his side, supporting him.

Wei Ying slept the sleep of the bone-weary. Lan Wangji sat beside him and watched. This was worse than anything he’d imagined. But now he understood, and he could stop wasting energy on the false problem and help Wei Ying with the true one.

Wei Ying had dark circles under his eyes and alcohol in his blood and no golden core, but he was safe in Lan Wangji’s bed at Cloud Recesses. As long as that was true, hope was not gone.

part two

#untamed spring fest #the untamed #cql #mdzs #fanfiction #i struggled to figure out what lxc and lwj would call everyone in their internal narration #i decided not to have lxc think 'wei-gongzi' every other sentence and only used it in dialogue #that was hurdle one #then i got to lwj's pov which i've apparently never written before #and i'm like does he think 'xiongzhang' every time he things of his brother? i'm not used to reading that and it seems awkward #so that one went dialogue-only too #then there was 'wei ying'#i've been having wwx think 'lan zhan' when i write his pov bc they're close and that's just how he thinks of him #so 'wei ying' got narration status #is that at all sensical? we just don't know #more whimsically i decided lxc was the kind of guy who would think in semicolons #so i sprinkled in a few #as a treat #anyway the overbearing concept behind this fic was that the main stumbling block in canon #is wwx (feels like he) can't tell anyone why he's put down his sword and picked up demonic cultivation #bc wwx is a mental illness/depression mood #so i wanted to take an 'accepting help when you're struggling' crack at it #long fic long tags that's enough rambling #my fic #wwx #lwj #wangxian #lxc #jc

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troop52 · 3 years

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do u !!! have any character theme songs for the troop boys? Like any songs you think really fits them (and why u think it fits)?

THATS A GREAT QUESTION!!

Before I get into it Im going to plug this collaborative Troop Playlist on Spotify, feel free to add onto it!! Continuing with my picks

I think a lot of the songs I associate with The Troop in general are just because I happened to listen to them around the same time I got into the book in the first place (So they could only be tangentially related BUT only if you squint hard) Example: Drunk by The Living Tombstone, cant really tie it into the story but in my mind its linked Some better, more fitting songs under the cut (Side note its LONGGG IM SORRY... Also its all YouTube links because some of these arent on Spotify :'^()

Disclaimer -Like 95% of my choices arent really a "These lyrics match up exactly 1 to 1" but more of an overall "the vibe/general idea its trying to capture lines up" type thing. If that makes sense.

Its Alright by Jack Stauber: Kind of self explanatory, I think its a perfect song for these guys. From "It's alright, I'm here, Everything's alright, Feels weird but calm, I wanna hear It's alright" to the whole sound of it- its all great. Equal parts distressing and sad with an almost eerie calmness to it. Despite it all theyre gonna be alright, right?

The Second Little Piggy by Worthikids: Another one that I think is sort of self explanatory- at least with the chorus. "If my brain turns to mush, If the shit hits the fan, Will you be my friend?" Kind of the falling apart of everything, specifically their relationships, in light of the incident.

Poor George by James Supercave: Another case of "listened to at the same time I read the book" BUT I was actually making a Troop PMV script with that song. I never finished it but maybe Ill revisit it... just for you

Cold Summer by Le Matos ft Computer Magic: I dont even think this takes place in the summer but the VIBES and also it came from Summer of 84, which is another good piece of murder boy media.

Treehouse by Alex G ft Emily Yacina: This is a Eef and Max type of song because they are bffs and thats final. Basic song because Im not creative, but I think its a nice heart to heart theyd have (with Eef doing the talking)

Fifteen Minuets by Nick Krol: On the flipside heres a song that goes with Eef and Maxs friendship fracturing, once again more from Eefs side than Maxs. THE GIRLS ARE FIGHTINGGG

As far as songs for the boys as individuals hmmm thats a good one that I havent thought about as much...

MAX + The Ghosts by The Real Tuesday Weld: That survivors guilt... lyrics arent like a perfect match but I think it gets that sort of hollow feeling across. Hes haunted man... + Final Girl by Electric Youth: Ok its a little funny because har har Final Girl Trope but I mean HE IS ONE. ANd dont look at me its a nice song- "Others were gone, and you kept going on, You know they never really noticed, you were always different, One by one, They're all done, And you're the last one standing" + Going Grazy by Lonesome Wyatt and the Holy Spooks: HONESTLY this could go for all the characters but Im tagging it onto Max because hes the one who has to deal with the aftermath of losing everyone (sorry survivors guilt Max again </3) "Everyone's saying my mind is unsound, 'Cause I always see you when you aren't around" "They're gonna wrap me in a jacket of white, And lock me away in a room without light" is what cements it as a Max song for me

EEF + The Existential Threat by Sparks: Once again starting sad, I link this one specifically to his paranoia about the worms- especially with lines like "Can't they see the existential threat is on its way". Kind of exasperated no one else can see the danger (he thinks) hes in. + Wrecking Ball by Mother Mother: I know I know its basic but I cant help it!!! Eef anger issues arc we are shaking hands me too + Haunted by Laura Les: Eef struggles with people seeing him as "just like his father" and I think we can get some good angst out of this track if we keep that in mind. Especially the back half of the song with lyrics like "Do you think I'm frightening?" and "Mirrors shatter when I'm passing, broken glass and crashing" since he is just a reflection of his dad (to others at least). Also song good.

KENT + Goodbye Mr A by The Hoosiers: Mfw the disillusionment with authority sets in. I think the vibe fits when he had that little epiphany about how adults are fucked- not perfect but it gets the idea across me thinks. + I'm Gonna Win by Rob Cantor: Ties into his need to "win" aka be the best at everything, be in charge, all that jazz! Hell do whatever it takes to be successful, even if it hurts. That was a little emo + Toba the Tura by Forgive Durden ft Chris Conley: Not to be emo again but "They say you're gifted, well I just see a scared kid. They must have flipped it, your skills are latent. O, you snuffed the glow. Replaced it with coals. Threw away the throne... This mess that you've made, it's a six-foot grave. It's a home for your lonesome bones that remain. We'll disappear, but you'll stay here to rot" AND SO ON AND SO FOURTH representing his fall after it was revealed he was sick. He was referred to as "the uncrowned king" and was on top of the world but then POOF that all crumbled and it was made out that he basically deserved what happened to him. It would be fun to make a pmv of him with this song (Simplifying my thoughts a bit because Ive already written a LOT)

NEWT + I Earn My Life by Lemon Demon: Ok a little Kentcore but Im actually having a hard time coming up with songs for Newton so here we are, they can share. Newt existential crisis moment time I guess + Know How by The Crane Wives: POV Newt struggles with going through with the plans he makes to keep everyone safe (stopping Max from touching Kent, going back into the cabin, etc) "I am not brave, I am not brave, I keep my focus on what is safe, You drew a line, made up your mind, And now I'm struggling to realize" And also maybe struggling with his place in the group and as a person in general- all that living through his cousin thing. "I gotta wrap my head around, What my heart is telling me, I've been trying to drown it out, Just because I know what I am, I am supposed to do now, Doesn't mean I know, Doesn't mean I know how" + On The Outside by Oingo Boingo: Idk man. Hes on the outside lookin in!! Loner nerd!! Its ok though, we still love him

SHEL + Bad Blood by Creature Feature: The lyrics speak for themselves: "I can guarantee I will do evil things, The only way that you can stop me now, Is if you put me in the ground, Somewhere I'll never be found" + Frontier Psychologist by The Avalanches: Hinges on the fact that the principal or whoever was like "Your sons a freak" and Shels mom was like "HES PERFECTLY FINE" while Shelley was like dismembering an animal or something + Johnny by American Murder Song: The songs good but theres this ONE LYRIC that sucks so the link provided is an edited version and also a lovely Warriors oc video I think you should all enjoy and support <3 Anyway Shel would be Johnny I could see this song being a scene in the book. Field trip to Shels house and they find his murder garden

If anyone wants more for Im not opposed to making another post :^)

#SORRY THIS TOOK A BIT #I had to use my brainpower and I am very easily distracted #max kirkwood #ephraim elliot #kent jenks #newton thornton #shelley longpre #the troop #the troop nick cutter

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surveys-at-your-service · 3 years

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Survey #336

"get back, you’re never gonna leave him / get back, you’re always gonna please him”

What were your favorite things to draw when you were a lil kid? When I was a very little kid, idk. But once I got into meerkats... I drew them like crazy. Do you think there is something with or around you, like a spirit, angel, ghost or something else? How does this make you feel? No. Imagine you’re a stranger looking at yourself. What things would immediately catch your eye? Ugh, let's not. When did you feel the most confident in your life? Probably my senior year of high school. I was happy with Jason with plans for the future together, I was doing excellently in school... I thought I was really going to go somewhere. Do you think love is needed to have good sex? For some people, no. For me, loving one another is an absolute must. Do you think, or want to, die in the city you currently live in? Fuuuuuuuck no, I hate it here. What is the strangest thing you have ever encountered? Probably when I was otw home from my doctor appointment and we passed a random guy in drag walking on the side of the street... That guy is an icon. Favourite soft drink? It's really strawberry Sunkist, but I love it to a degree I don't even allow myself to drink it, because I will fucking destroy that shit so quick. So I tend to just say Mountain Dew Voltage is my fave. What do you like to put gravy on? I hate gravy, period. Have you ever gone canoeing/kayaking? No, but it sounds fun. What is one thing you know about your family history you’re proud of? Uhhhh idk. Who depends on you the most? My snake. Are you related to anyone famous or historical, if so who? Yes; William Clark and Queen Victoria or Queen Elizabeth, idr which. Would you ever donate a kidney to anyone, and who? Mom. She only has one kidney, so, y'know. She kinda needs at least one. I wouldn't even hesitate. What is the main quality you think makes a great parent? Unconditional love. What three things do you think of most of each day? My weight is #1. Every second of every day, it, as well as Jason, are somewhere towards the front of my mind. The final is financial and job-oriented stuff. Does/did your high school have pop machines? It did. Do you know anyone who’s won the lottery? No. Have you ever slept in a water bed? Yeah. How often do you use Flickr? I pretty much abandoned my account; nowadays I only occasional check my friend's profile who works at the Kalahari Meerkat Project because she uploads wonderful pictures of the 'kats as well as gives interesting info about them! Who is the last child that you took a photo with? Mom took a picture of me holding my youngest niece Emerson because it surprised everyone; I NEVER hold babies. She crawled over to me and reached up though, so of course I was going to pick her up. How often do you wear hats? Never. Would you ever get a nature tattoo? Sure! Idk what, but I'm rather sure I'll get at leaast one. Is anyone in your family sick at the moment? No. Where do your siblings work, if anywhere? My older sister is a mammographer, and my younger sis is a social worker. Where is your favorite place to buy groceries? Wal-Mart, I guess. Who do you generally talk to the most? My mom. Is anyone saved in your phone under a nickname? Mom is "Mama Bear," and then my siblings are "Little Sister" and "Big Sister." Whose birthday is coming up? My lil sister has her birthday in April. Have you ever ordered from an informercial? No. When, where, and why did a needle last pierce your skin? I needed to get blood drawn for some testing. It was drawn from my inner elbow, obviously at the doctor. Have you been to an escape room? Was it a success? I never have, but it'd be fun. I enjoy puzzles. How many followers do you have on Instagram? I don't feel like checking. What’s the most recent music video you watched? Thoughts? "Mutter" by Rammstein. I picked a screenshot from it to draw, so I rewatched it to select one. It's a beautiful video, but also strange, which Rammstein is great at. Have you ever recorded a cover of a song? No. What makeup products are your go-tos? If I wear makeup, the bare minimum is black eyeliner. Are you going to school this year? No. I gave college as many shots as I could handle both sanity-wise and with finances in mind. I do NOT want to even ATTEMPT to imagine the debt I have after going to three different colleges and dropping out each time. What is your favorite water activity? I enjoy just kinda swimming around aimlessly, relaxing. What are your favorite video games? Okay, I talk about SH2 and SotC enough on questions like this, so I'll mention some others I really enjoy as well: the Silent Hill franchise in general, Spyro games, The Last Guardian, both The Evil Withins, The Last of Us, some Resident Evil games (the 4th in particular), etc. etc. I just love video games. Do you like jello? I enjoy the flavor, but the texture makes me squirm. When was the last time you gave someone "the finger?" Probably while riding in the car with Mom when a dumb motherfucker swerved into our lane. Or something like that, idr the exact occasion. Have you ever held a snake? Yesssss, I want to hold all the snakes. ;_; Most unique place you’ve ever been to? Uh. I guess maybe the Whirligig Park/"Acid Park" nearby us? It's just this large expanse of unique architecture that are mostly, as you guessed it, extravagant whirligigs. You've got to see it if you come to the town. I have some pictures on my deviantART if you wanna see a few pieces. If you were a superhero, what color would your cape be? NO CAPES! Have you ever slept out on your porch all night? Oh fuck no. I'd feel way, way too unsafe. Do you like horror movies? Yeah! What’s your favorite Coke product? Just normal Coke. Watergun or water-balloon war? Watergun. I don't like being hit with stuff. Do you know anyone that’s afraid of elevators? I kind of am. Is there anything in your room that belongs to a boyfriend, or a friend of the opposite sex? I have three plushies from Jason, Tyler, and Girt. My Marilyn Manson poster is also from Juan. Who’s your favorite Beatle? I don't know; I was never a big fan, so I don't know any of them as people well at all. Have you ever texted an ex whilst drunk? How’d that go? I've never been drunk, but no, I've never texted an ex because I was drinking. Do you have to stand on your tip-toes to kiss your boyfriend? I don't have one. The only instance where I had to do that was with Girt. Tall motherfucker. Have you ever been tackle-hugged? Yes. Those are the best. Have you ever rejected someone’s kiss before? Girt once tried to make out with me and I noped the fuck outta that situation. It was so fucking awkward. Is your mood or the overall tone of your day often affected by the dreams you had the night before? My nightmares definitely can. Do you think that there are any positive aspects or outcomes of suffering from a mental illness? If you have a mental illness, do you think it has changed you for the better in any way? I definitely believe my mental illnesses forced me to mature faster and also instilled a great sense of empathy in me. And don't forget emotional endurance. What is your opinion on celebrity culture and celebrity worship? Have you ever been guilty of putting a celebrity on a pedestal? Do you think it’s somehow more acceptable/understandable to obsess over certain types of celebrities (musicians over YouTubers, say) than others? At what point do you think an obsession like that crosses the line? It's dangerous and can be very blinding. An outsider could say I put Mark on a pedestal, but I've always been very aware that he's not perfect and really just another human, I just happen to love him a lot for the human he is, haha. As time's passed, my vision of him has become healthier though (not to say it ever reached the "unhealthy" threshold); it's gotten easier for me to judge him and stuff like that. I think an obsession crosses the line when you put on rose-tinted glasses to look upon someone and entirely ignore their flaws, or if you try to invade their personal lives, ex. being one of those creeps that loiter outside their houses and stuff. If you were to pursue a career in photography and had the opportunity and means to photograph whatever you wanted, what would most like to photograph? Ah, livin' the dream. If I had to choice and would be paid well regardless of focus, I would absolutely travel and photograph the local nature/wildlife. Is there a certain type of clothing (outerwear, activewear, loungewear, etc.) that you enjoy shopping for more than others? Shirts, 100%. Are you ever afraid to post your ideas, artwork, photography, etc. online for fear that they will get stolen or not credited? When it comes to OCs, yes, given that things have been stolen from me before. Photography doesn't worry me much because I don't think I'm good enough for someone to possibly want to steal it (and besides, I use a watermark), and I do the same for drawings. It's the unique characters I make I worry about being stolen if I share them. When is the last time you did something sexual? A few years back. Who is the last person you showered with, if anyone? I haven't showered with someone since I was a little kid and my younger sister and I would to conserve water. What do you think when you see roadkill on the side of the road? It really makes me genuinely sad, and I always wonder if it could have been avoided if the driver was more alert, slower, and thinking about more than the damage it could cause to their car... I enjoy photographing roadkill, brutal as it may be, out of respect for them and the desire to make their individual stories known and just kind of like, raise awareness of it. Too many people are just annoyed by hitting an animal versus more concerned. "Stupid deer," stuff like that. I sometimes worry that doing so can be interpreted as disrespect, to photograph and publish pictures of their corpses online, but I sure hope not. It's the least of my intentions. I just want people to see and care. Have you ever had an ex that just didn’t understand that it was over? Biiiitch I was that ex, 120%. But besides my situation with Jason, this was how Tyler was. I had to tell him about five thousand times to stop texting me. Are your fingernails currently short or long? They're always pretty short. Would you rather have big or small dogs? I like medium-sized dogs most. I'd have to pick large dogs between the two, though. What is your favorite sports drink? I'm not a fan of sports drinks. What was the last compliment you gave a guy? Yesterday, a guy in PHP shared two poems he wrote while hospitalized, and they were wonderful, so full of passion and emotion. I sure as hell told him they were amazing. He's going for his Master's for poetry, so he knows what he's doing for real. Does your jaw ever crack, pop, or lock? It's popped on very, very few occasions. Have you ever thought of how you would give your kids “the talk”? I don't want kids, so no, I've never thought of this. I certainly wouldn't wait for sex ed in school, though. I feel like it's a bit late. I feel children need to know what it's about at a younger age with how disgusting some people are... I want them to be informed on what consent and molestation are so they know to let Mama know so I can punch someone's face into a whole new galaxy if they're ever violated. Do you ever feel like you’re missing out on something? Oh, always. Do you ever write/draw on windows that are fogged up? I did as a kid, sure. Not so much now. If you were married, and your spouse’s parents became ill, would you let them move into your home? If they were truly sick enough to need assistance but not actual hospitalization, yes. I'd want my spouse to do the same for me. Have you screamed in a pillow before? Yyyyep. What do you like more, acoustic or electric? Electric. Did you actually have a cookie jar? We have a Santa one, though I don't even know if we ever used it versus just having it as a decoration. What’s worse, having someone mad or disappointed in you? Disappointed. What do you bite on more, your tongue, lip, or nails? Bottom lip. Do you think that knowing when and how you’re going to die would ruin your life? "Ruin" it seems a bit extreme, but I definitely wouldn't like it. Do you have a favorite bromance? From TV or a movie. Not really, if we're only talking those two options. Do you find flea markets and thrift stores enjoyable? Yeah, you really can find the coolest shit for great prices. What color is your wallet? Mostly red and white; it's a Harley Quinn design. Have you ever been somebody's photography subject? No. Nicki Minaj fan? I believe she's a very talented rapper, but I don't enjoy her actual music. I just don't like rap. Have you ever seen the Niagara Falls? No, I wish tho.

#survey #surveys #questions #lyrics: ''angel with the scabbed wings'' by marilyn manson

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the-odd-job · 4 years

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Harem AU Chapter 8 - And When You Reach Out for the Stars...

Rating: Explicit Warnings: Rape/Non-Con Category: Other Fandom: Transformers Characters: Megatron, Sideswipe, Sunstreaker, Starscream, Knock Out, Skywarp, Unnamed Characters Relationships: Sideswipe & Sunstreaker Additional Tags: Angst, Hurt & Comfort, Referenced Rape, Minor Violence Words: 9402

Welp, managed to squeeze in one more before school continues.

Damn you responsibilities, I just wanna keep torturing the twins.

( Previous )

So fucking helpless. That was him when Starscream, the bastard, wrapped his arms around him and shackled him against the larger mech’s chassis. The guards continued to Sideswipe, blocking off his brother’s single escape route.

Ready to catch him. “Sideswipe! No! Let the slag go of me you fragging pigeon– Sideswipe!”

There was nothing Sideswipe could do when he was caught. The guards were bigger and stronger than the twins, and likely used to wrangling uncooperative mecha into their ill fates.

They couldn’t be the only ones who fought this—who had fought this.

And fight Sunstreaker did, but Starscream was relentless. His arms wouldn’t budge from around him no matter how he twisted or pulled. All he attained were claw marks on his armor from the way the Seeker’s claws dug into him to trap him in place.

Starscream’s efforts worked to finish the cascade of events, and Sunstreaker could do nothing but stand by and watch, struggle and cuss for naught. The guards dragged an equally struggling Sideswipe through the doors, which closed again on their heels.

As soon as they did, Starscream released him. Sunstreaker stumbled from his sudden freedom– Found his balance and dashed to the doors–

But of course they wouldn’t open for him.

He banged on them anyway, screaming in frustration…

In knowing there was nothing he could do to help his twin.

Knowing he’d already failed in protecting him.

Neither of them needed any protecting often. They knew how to handle themselves, had gained all the street smarts necessary to live and survive the dangerous life of being one of the forgotten. Their life, short as it had been so far, had taught them much when it came to helping themselves. They had each other when things went to pits, but they were rarely fully reliant on their other frame.

Throw all of that in the trash now. None of their experience did slag for them in this hellhole where they were thrown down and ground into the dirt by mecha that utterly dominated them. They could fight as much as they liked, it didn’t help them any. It didn’t matter if they stood together, because even that wasn’t enough against these mecha—against Megatron.

And now they weren’t given even that much. They had been used to coerce their twin into cooperation, sure, but what did that matter? Even if they’d resisted that, it would have all happened anyway to one of them, just maybe a different one.

But at least when they were together, they were together.

That was torn from them, along with everything else they’d already lost. What would Megatron do to Sideswipe without Sunstreaker there? How would he force Sideswipe into doing what he wanted without Sunstreaker there to be used as a tool of extortion?

How much would Sideswipe need to go through? How much would he need to suffer?

And there was nothing Sunstreaker had been able to do about it—nothing he could do about it.

His ventilations came in fast bursts and he leaned against the tightly shut doors, staring at his pedes. He’d thought everything so far had been bad, and… It wasn’t like him and Sideswipe were incapable or unused to spending some amount of time apart. They’d worked in different parts of Iacon, for Primus’ sake, and only seen each other in the evenings. Only spent their nights together.

But that was different. That was them going their separate ways out of their own free will, and knowing they’d reunite at the end of the day. It was no cause for concern.

Now they were torn apart when they most needed each other and when being apart was the last thing they wanted. They could get through this together.

How were they supposed to do that alone?

They’d find out. Sunstreaker’s servos balled into fists, his sharpened claws digging into his palms. Resolve. They would survive this alone too, because survival meant the chance to get out of here.

...He just hoped Sideswipe would come to the same conclusion—that he’d find a way to withstand whatever Megatron threw at him.

Oh, Sideswipe. Things just kept getting worse and worse.

Sunstreaker wasn’t sure how long exactly he spent there, against the doors that wouldn’t budge for him, but it was long enough for them to budge. He couldn’t believe it at first, but that disbelief only lasted for the split of a second before foolish hope took over. Open doors meant a way out—a way to Sideswipe, now.

No it didn’t, there would only be more locked doors in the way.

He’d try anyway.

And he did, but what had the doors opened for? To admit the two guards that had dragged Sideswipe away. Of course, they would need to return to their posts on the threshold of the harem wing.

It did not work in his favor. He couldn’t even say whether or not they’d expected to see him just on the other side of the doors, because they remained as stone faced and still fielded as ever.

He tried to dodge past them, but at once there were four guards in attention to stop any attempt at slipping by—the two that were returning, and the other two already standing in their assigned places in the hall outside of the harem wing. Eight arms were ready to stop him, two landed on him, caught him, and shoved him back into the dim hallway.

The guards stepped in, the doors closed behind them, and he was still here.

Still in this goddamned wing when his brother was elsewhere, at the mercy of Cybertron’s one true tyrant—not here, not with Sunstreaker, where he could… He couldn’t keep him safe, not in this particular nightmare, but if they’d just been together…

Primus.

“You fragging slagpiles,” Sunstreaker snarled, stepping up to one of the guards that didn’t even acknowledge him.

Didn’t so much as look at him.

What was he in their optics? Just a nuisance? A captive to keep in its cell? Just another of their master’s toys, his worth tied to Megatron’s opinion of him?

They would look at him. Sunstreaker drew his fist back only to send it flying for the guard’s face, but like the trained security personnel they were, they merely brought an arm up to block his strike. No expression, not a flinch.

No nothing but one economical motion to keep themselves from the limited harm he could’ve inflicted on them.

With a furious growl Sunstreaker repeated the motion with his other arm, but the result was the same and then some. In a shift motion he had no time to see coming, the guard had caught him by the wrist and spun him around, bending his arm behind his back. Enough to hurt and function as a warning, but just shy of damaging him.

To the pits with that! “Let go of me,” he hissed, kicking back at the guard even as he strained against the hold on his arm, but all any of it earned him was ache and warning alerts about strained components. The guard wouldn’t budge, keeping their hold of him and ignoring the hits he did manage to land like they’d done this who knew how many times before.

And Sunstreaker wanted to believe they had, wanted to believe that there had been other mechs before them that had fought all of this and hadn’t just laid there and taken it. They couldn’t be the only ones that had raged against the situation they’d been thrust into. Really, even Megatron himself was proof that that was the case. Wasn’t he all too skilled in forcing cooperation, as if he’d done it hundreds of times before?

It didn’t work in their favor, though. They hadn’t been successful in fending off Megatron, and Sunstreaker had no more success in earning an actual reaction from the guard holding him hostage.

Just a tight grip that loosened none no matter what he did. He wriggled and cursed, tugged and insulted, and just… Nothing.

“You know he’ll just keep a hold of you until you calm down?”

Sunstreaker started, his gaze shooting up to see Starscream sneering down at him. Skywarp stood a step behind the other Seeker, looking at him too.

Sunstreaker sneered right back. “Frag off.”

Starscream sighed like he might’ve when losing patience with an unruly youngling, and Sunstreaker growled in full offense. “Can’t you be smart about this, Sunstreaker?”

Did Starscream seriously expect he’d just behave? Be like everyone else in his goddamned place, obedient and spiritless? All of their corners shaved smooth and pieces broken off to fit the mold expected of them? That Megatron expected of them? Spread their legs on demand, fuck and rape on demand?

Never.

“I don’t know what the pit is wrong with you,” Sunstreaker continued, uselessly wrenching against the guard’s hold once more just to show he wasn’t done only because some stupid odds were stacked against him, “but I will never be like you. Go to hell.”

He knew there was fire in his optics like there was in his spark—and he swore to himself he would sooner die than let it go out. This wouldn’t break him, none of this would.

He would not become like them.

Skywarp glanced at Starscream uncertainly, but Starscream didn’t look too impressed. “They all say that,” he just said, with the tone of someone who found this whole thing boring.

Like it meant nothing to him that he confirmed he had been there to witness this very thing happening to others before them. Had seen others struggle and fight, defy with all their power…

What had become of them? Were they still here, walking these very halls—living ghosts of what they’d once been?

Maybe it had happened to them, but it wouldn’t happen to him. Or to Sideswipe. They were stronger than that, and they would prove it for everyone to see.

Right before beating it the hell out of here. He would refuse to accept this life to the last pulse of his spark.

They would get out, or die trying.

But he was sure that if he told as much to Starscream, that would be reported directly to Megatron, and then what? Would they receive some wild punishment to fuck that idea right out of their helms?

Or did everyone expect that was what they were trying to do? If they weren’t the first… There had to have been others.

And some had to have gotten out, too.

He came to the unpleasant conclusion that in order to get out of here, they might just have to play the long game.

But if that’s what it took… So be it.

By any means necessary.

Maybe Starscream had intended to dispirit him, but all he achieved was a strengthening of his resolution. Sunstreaker was not like everyone else. He was not a weak-willed little thing without enough self-respect to not bend the knee to one despot’s and his lackeys’ idea of what he should be, what he should do.

He would choose what he was. If he hadn’t accepted the life of a lowly criminal, if he’d aimed for genuine recognition for his art… Then he wouldn’t accept this either. He would shoot higher and brighter and Megatron would burn right along with everyone that kissed the tyrant’s goddamned pedes.

His determination must have shown, because Starscream raised his optical ridges, unimpressed. Skywarp looked even more uncertain behind him, but Sunstreaker locked himself in a staring contest with the one mate that seemed to run the show when Megatron wasn’t around.

“Look at you,” Starscream said, never once taking his optics off of his—and Sunstreaker, in return, never once averting his gaze for even a second. “Held so easily by a mere guard. Who do you think you are? What do you think you are?”

“Worth more than this.”

“That remains to be seen, doesn’t it?”

No, it didn’t. Every living being was worth more than this. Sunstreaker especially, sure, but nothing and no one should go through the kind of slag they had been put through in the past few orns—he wasn’t an altruistic mech, but he didn’t need to be to see that much. Even just a crumb of morality was enough for it.

This.

Was.

Wrong.

They stared at each other, both too stubborn to look away and lose. Skywarp was glancing between them, his wings beginning to twitch more and more as time passed and neither Sunstreaker nor Starscream yielded.

Finally, the purple Seeker’s patience ran out. “Let it go, Star,” he said, laying a hand on Starscream’s arm. Starscream didn’t look away at first, but after a tense moment, he huffed, straightened, turned on his heel and began a march down the corridor. He flicked his digits at Skywarp as he went, and after one more glance at Sunstreaker and with a silently mouthed ‘Sorry’, Skywarp followed after his… What? What were they? Trine? Didn’t Seekers do that?

They were the only two Seekers he’d seen, so maybe. It didn’t look like they exactly had a lot of options to choose from around here.

Sunstreaker growled after them and tugged, once again, against the hold the guard had of him. And, once again, it earned him nothing but further strain on components already complaining about minor damage.

He could turn that into major damage. See what Megatron thought when one of his mates got injured, and not by him. Would it be on Sunstreaker’s head, or the guard’s?

He would find out.

But just as he was about to wrench away with enough force to definitely tear his shoulder, the guard moved and kicked his legs from under him. Sunstreaker went down with a surprised grunt, and instantly the black mech was on him, pinning him—harmlessly—to the floor.

Sunstreaker swore with enough volume that some of the other mates came out into the hallway to see what was happening. None of them stayed for long after they realized it was just Sunstreaker finding out that apparently the guards would neutralize him rather than letting him use them to damage himself. Because as it was, the expert hold he was in immobilized him just enough that there was no way he could throw or twist himself that would’ve more than scuffed him.

As angry as it made him, it did also make sense, in the completely twisted logic of this damn palace. Megatron came off as more than a smidge possessive type. Sunstreaker doubted he would have treated the guards well if they damaged his property, any more than he would have appreciated Knock Out molesting them while they were in his care.

And as thoroughly as he was held down, even now no servos or pedes were anywhere close to having a more… Suggestive touch about them.

Just business, the guard protecting everyone from damage by keeping the threat to the peace and order in check. Oh, wouldn’t want the new acquisition rocking the boat too much by misbehaving while master wasn’t there.

His engine was roaring, but he could curse the guard, the other mates, the harem wing, the palace, and Megatron all he wanted. It earned him nothing from the stoic mech that rode out all of his struggles without any visible strain.

His stubborn pride wouldn’t allow him to just stop, though. Even when it looked like there was no way he would get free by doing anything other than what Starscream said— calm down —he couldn’t admit defeat so easily. Not in this, not in anything else.

And that would be what would get him through all of this victorious. The fight would not be easy; it would be long and littered with setbacks and battles lost, but he was prepared for that.

By any means necessary

No matter the cost.

------------------------------------------------------

They stayed there quite a while, with the guard showing no signs of tiring, and Sunstreaker refusing to go quiescent like would’ve most likely earned him his freedom. They stayed there long enough, in fact, that the doors opened again. Sunstreaker turned his helm to see who had the rights to open them, only for his optics to travel up long legs until he could recognize… Megatron.

Of course.

“Well, isn’t this quite peculiar,” the tyrant drawled. Sunstreaker revved his engine and fought just that much harder, for all the good it did him.

“You fucking bastard! Where’s Sideswipe?” Why was Megatron here, without Sideswipe? He quickly scanned Megatron’s frame, but could see no signs of recent interface. Or even not so recent interface.

But that didn’t necessarily mean anything. He could’ve just cleaned up.

“Right where I want him,” came Megatron’s answer. Sunstreaker growled from both vocalizer and engine until he felt like both might give out on him, but Megatron–

Ignored him in favor of continuing down the hall. Starscream was standing at one of the doorways and Megatron gestured him along as he went by, and together the two walked to the very end of the hallway and the doors there that opened to a room that had never been a part of their little tour of the wing.

He would have given more thought to what might lie beyond if it wasn’t for the affront of getting dismissed so easily.

...Followed by the incredulous thought that did he really want Megatron’s attention on him for any length of time.

The answer would be a resounding no, but that didn’t mean Sunstreaker was ready to be discarded so easily.

Oh, the conflict.

-------------------------------------------------

As much as he would have never wanted it to, the fight did eventually leave him. Mostly out of boredom. It just wasn’t very entertaining to lay there on the ground, ruining his finish between the floor and the unrelenting guard. Beyond annoyed with himself, Sunstreaker nevertheless stilled, resting his forehelm against the cool floor and puffing out aggravated ventilations. His field lashed out too, but for the life of him he couldn’t teek either guard’s field.

Seriously, what the pit were these mecha?

He got to lay there for a while longer, but as the minutes stretched on and he did no more, the guard did eventually get off of him and release him. Somewhat cautiously, which was very satisfying, but in the name of getting to do something else for a change, take his fight elsewhere, Sunstreaker didn’t give him more reason to keep him down.

He picked himself up from the floor once the guard had returned to his post like nothing had happened—although with some paint transfers on him now, Sunstreaker noted gleefully —and with a final glare at the mech Sunstreaker stalked off.

His frame was shaking just so, and that had nothing to do with being held against the floor for so long. He hadn’t seen Megatron leave the wing, which he definitely would have if the main doors were the only way in and out like everything so far suggested they were.

Which meant Megatron was still in the mystery room with Starscream, and not with Sideswipe.

That was… Good, probably. Or was it?

Where had he left Sideswipe and why?

What was happening to his twin?

It was a mix of worry and anger that had him shaking as he marched to the other end of the hallway and planted himself against the wall next to the doors Megatron and Starscream had gone through. The damn dictator would need to get past him to leave the wing.

He would have some answers.

Sunstreaker got to wait a good while more before the doors opened again. Starscream came out first, shooting him a surprised look before that morphed into a scowl and the Seeker started down the corridor.

But Sunstreaker didn’t care about that. He only cared about the mech that came out next. Megatron glanced at him as Starscream had, but if he was surprised to see him, he didn’t show it.

“Where. The slag. Is. Sideswipe?” Sunstreaker ground out, stepping in front of the tyrant to block his way. “What did you do to him?!”

“My, aren’t you an eager one,” Megatron intoned, but made no move to sidestep him. “You’ll have your turn still, fear not.”

“I don’t want my turn!” —He did, if it meant he’d get to be with Sideswipe again— “Where did you leave him?” He was snarling so low his vocalizer was aching, but he paid it no mind. Sunstreaker took another step towards Megatron, tilting his helm back to stare the tyrant in the optic.

Was Megatron… Impressed? He almost looked like he was, subtle as all expression on his face was, and still as his field was.

If he was, he didn’t say as much. “Step aside, Sunstreaker.”

Frag that. “Make me,” Sunstreaker growled.

He wasn’t wholly prepared for Megatron to do just that, swiftly and violently. He could see the tyrant’s arm moving, but he didn’t have the reflexes to get out of the way before he was backhanded across the face with enough force to send him crashing against the wall. Hard.

It was half of a miracle he didn’t go down entirely, but Sunstreaker managed to keep his pedes under himself. He gasped from the pain that bloomed across the side of his face and helm.

And Megatron, without another look at him, walked past him.

Sunstreaker would’ve growled at his retreating back, but his head was spinning from the double impact of servo and wall and it took him too long to reorient himself. Megatron was gone by the time Sunstreaker managed to push himself off the wall—barely. He still needed to lean a servo against it.

That didn’t stop him from glaring daggers at the wing’s main doors, as if he could’ve opened them with sheer force of will and conjured either Megatron or Sideswipe through them.

Megatron so he could’ve given the fragging despot a piece of his mind —because that was working out so well—or Sideswipe so he’d just have Sideswipe here again.

He had to avert his gaze from the doors when a winged black and purple frame stepped in his way. “You should go to Knock Out to have that checked,” Skywarp said, gesturing vaguely at the side of his helm.

Sunstreaker scowled, then snarled. “Why don’t you mind your own fragging business?”

Skywarp opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it—rinse and repeat a few times before he actually landed on words he spoke out loud. Still, they were said quietly, though Sunstreaker wasn’t sure if Skywarp didn’t want to be overhard or…

Really, he just didn’t know the reason. “You won’t help anyone by being injured,” Skywarp said, and frag but Sunstreaker didn’t want him to be right. He snarled again. “Knock Out’s here for stuff like this,” the Seeker added, before he turned away and disappeared into the entertainment room. Sunstreaker frowned after him.

But it wasn’t like Skywarp didn’t have a point.

----------------------------------------------------

He did visit Knock Out, had the dents ironed out, and was told his processors had been rattled some, but would recover with a bit of time. Knock Out was as clinically professional and efficient as ever, and Sunstreaker was out of his medbay in no time at all.

What then? What were Megatron’s plans for his brother? What was he doing to Sideswipe?

Sunstreaker became a silent vigil in front of the harem wing’s main doors, his plating clamped tight as he just… Waited. Megatron couldn’t keep Sideswipe indefinitely. He couldn’t. If nothing else, he’d tire of his twin eventually, right?

But after what would he tire? How badly was he going to beat and rape Sideswipe? What was his end goal with separating the two of them, when he couldn’t use one as leverage over the other?

What would Sideswipe need to do to get the frag away from him?

Sunstreaker feared it would be nothing pleasant, and nothing… Nothing Sideswipe could just shrug off. Sideswipe was tough and they had both gone through a lot in their lives. If Sunstreaker had hardened, Sideswipe had barely changed. His ability to withstand without damage to his spirit was admirable.

But Megatron… The impression Sunstreaker was left with was that the tyrant reveled in crushing spirit of that very kind. Loved breaking the mecha that fell into his clutches.

What would he get back once Sideswipe was allowed to return? Would it be his twin, or just a shell of what he’d once been?

Could he build him back up?

-----------------------------------------------------

Sideswipe didn’t return that night, or the next morning. Megatron did, however. Sunstreaker tried to demand his attention, tried to get the answers Megatron fragging owed him—because it was his twin— but Megatron had none of it. Sunstreaker was sent crashing into a wall all over again while Megatron just ignored the things he did to him and walked by. He gestured for another harem member, one of his mates, to come along with him as he went, and they disappeared into the room at the end of the hallway again.

That was enough hints for Sunstreaker to guess the space beyond was probably something interfacing related. Figures. That seemed to be all there was on offer here.

But he wasn’t one to quit just because things got a little rough. Sunstreaker made his way to the other end of the hall, and waited.

Megatron came out first, this time. Sunstreaker went entirely unacknowledged again despite his best efforts, aside from the harsh servo that all but threw him out of the tyrant’s way—and into the nearest wall, of course.

And Megatron left the wing without even glancing at him.

His vents cycled ragged rounds of air, fury burning wholly ineffectually. He couldn’t get Megatron to do anything he wanted of him. He couldn’t get answers, he couldn’t get so much as a look unless the fragging despot wanted to deign him with that level of attention.

He’d only felt so powerless during their forced trip into Kaon. Even the rape that had followed didn’t quite match up—and at least then they’d been together.

Now they didn’t have even that much.

And Megatron was proving with everything he did and didn’t do that they were nothing here.

It was a pill Sunstreaker refused to swallow.

He stalked back to the medbay to have this round of dents and dings fixed out. Knock Out didn’t look too surprised to see him, just… Exasperated. “Really, Sunstreaker, this won’t earn you anything,” the medic chastised him. Sunstreaker hopped onto one of the medical berths as he was gestured to do and scowled at the smaller mech.

“But it’s not about earning things, is it?” Knock Out continued as he began to work on him, and Sunstreaker frowned harder. “Just about the principle of things, hmm?”

Well… Yeah. Kind of. Oh, he wanted answers, definitely, but even if he didn’t get them… Even if the fight was pointless, he would have still fought.

Because none of this was acceptable, and accordingly he would not just lay there and accept it.

He didn’t say anything, and Knock Out shrugged after a pause and said no more either. What did he expect Sunstreaker to do, anyway? Take heed of his words and consider the supposed futileness of what he was trying to achieve?

Or did Knock Out expect anything, instead of just marking himself down as a spectator betting on who was going to win this particular battle of wills, and deciding they thought Megatron would be the ultimate winner? Like everyone else seemed to do, too?

Could he blame them? He’d call this war, but so far all there had been for them were losses.

How long could you continue any war if you were granted not a single victory along the way?

Forever, if that’s what it took.

---------------------------------------

“You need to refuel,” Skywarp came to say to him on the third orn of Sideswipe’s absence. Sunstreaker was standing at the main doors, resolutely staring at them as if he still believed his force of will would be enough to bring Sideswipe back.

When he glanced at Skywarp, he saw the Seeker with a cube in his servos, glowing delicious pink.

And again, Skywarp had a point. He was running on fumes at this point, which was a detail he’d forgotten to pay any mind to despite his HUD ever so helpfully reminding him of that fact.

Sunstreaker sneered. “Frag off. You’re fucking sick if you think I’d take any help from you after the slag you did,” he hissed out before turning his attention back to the door. He could feel the surprise in Skywarp’s field, followed after a moment by realization.

From the corner of his optic, he could see the flier’s wings droop.

“Oh. Well… I’ll just leave this here.” Skywarp stepped off to the side and set the cube down by the wall where it wouldn’t get trampled. Then he walked away, taking his dejected field with him.

Was he seriously– This wasn’t even the first time. Was Skywarp seriously sad that they wouldn’t just be friends with him after he’d joined in on raping them? He hadn’t even apologized! How fragging messed up was his view of the world if he thought what he’d done along with everyone else wasn’t grounds for lifelong hatred?

Had he always thought like that?

Or had Skywarp once been different? Normal? A free mech with a healthy outlook that didn’t include a life of rape under the thumb of an almighty tyrant?

Did he want to know? Because if that was once Skywarp, if that was once any given member of the Primus damned harem… What did that mean for them?

It just meant they’d have to be stronger and smarter than they had been.

---------------------------------------------

He did relent that night, after everyone else had retired to the berthroom to recharge. The cube was casting its light along the dimly lit hallway, and its temptation grew too much for his underfueled frame to take after there was no one but the ever present guards to witness his lapse. Carefully, like he was worried about waking the other occupants of the wing, Sunstreaker stepped over to the cube and picked it up. It smelled faintly like additives—enough to give it taste, but not so much it’d offend anyone who wasn’t a fan of the flavor.

Skywarp had been so… Thoughtful.

It was just fragged up.

Despite his quietly growling engine, Sunstreaker brought the cube to his lips and downed it in a few gulps. The cube, now empty and a shameful evidence of the temporary break in his willpower, was quickly dispersed—although just its disappearance was all the evidence there needed to be.

He should have just gone to the dining hall and gotten a new cube if he was so desperate to fuel. Too late now, though.

But if the others noticed the cube’s absence the next morning, they didn’t say anything about it.

--------------------------------------------

Orns. Megatron would come in on almost regular intervals, inevitably ignore Sunstreaker no matter what he did—aside from carelessly damaging him if he got in his way, without a glance, without a word —and take one of the mates with him to the room at the back. Most often it was Starscream, and sometimes there were more than one–

But never once was it Sunstreaker.

And there were no signs of Sideswipe.

He didn’t want to feel offended that their number one assailant was paying him no mind whatsoever, but fraggit all, he was offended. How dare he just ignore Sunstreaker? Even as he gave attention to the other mates? After he’d taken his brother?

Megatron owed him, but there was nothing Sunstreaker could do to make him pay that debt, and it wasn’t like he didn’t try. Knock Out didn’t even bother with looking annoyed anymore, just fixed him up and sent him on his way for him to inevitably return before too long.

Knock Out didn’t tend to his finish, though, in the frequent but brief moments Sunstreaker was in his care. And while none of the damage he’d taken was truly serious in any shape or form, it piled up to scuffed paint that stood out even worse in his recently repainted frame, when everything else was in such a shine. They were ugly patches all over him, and Sunstreaker couldn’t even see most of them himself. Not without a mirror.

But he knew they were there, and if nothing else would drive him mad, that would. After a time he couldn’t take it anymore and had to abandon the doors in favor of stalking into the washracks to tend to himself.

Even knowing Sideswipe likely didn’t have the same chance.

But if he’d wished for some peace and quiet while he worked… He wasn’t going to get that. As soon as he entered he could hear moans among the run of solvent, and when his optics snapped to the direction of the sound, he could see one mate held against the wall by another.

And what else could they be doing but interfacing.

The roaring rev of Sunstreaker’s engine was enough to startle the both of them, and they looked his way. “What the frag is wrong with you?!” Sunstreaker growled, prowling closer to the two. To their credit, they saw the approaching danger and quickly disengaged from each other, as reluctant as they seemed to do so.

They were reluctant to stop interfacing, but hadn’t thought twice about taking part in raping them?

His anger rose to levels that blinded him, but his engine growled too hard and spooked the two—as well as everyone else in the washracks—into leaving the room.

He was left with no targets. Oh, he could’ve gone after them, but he expected any attempt to inflict harm on his confrères would end very badly for him, one way or another.

That thought was barely enough to dissuade him, but the concern of what would happen to Sideswipe if Sunstreaker got himself in that big trouble was enough to still him.

What had he come here for? He now had the whole room for himself. There was no one to bother him while he touched up his finish.

But also, no one to help him. It went without saying he would have only accepted help from Sideswipe, but even Sideswipe wasn’t here.

When was the last time either of them had washed alone?

Grinding his denta, Sunstreaker marched over to the shelves of waxes and polishes. He hadn’t repeated the process since Knock Out showed it to them, but he’d genuinely paid attention to the medic’s instruction. After a moment of staring at the full shelves, he—albeit still a bit hesitantly—picked up one of the containers and considered it for a moment.

Opening it brought back more memories, and Sunstreaker set to work, slightly more confident that he knew what to do.

He couldn’t reach all of himself. Parts of his back and shoulders were just outside the range of how far he could bend himself in any direction, but he did everything he could and resolutely ignored the portions he couldn’t touch up. They stood out just so, an ugly reminder of the fact Sideswipe wasn’t here.

Similarly he ignored the brand on his shoulder, an equally ugly reminder of where they were, and what for. It wasn’t like he could forget that to begin with. Even his frame, as beautiful as it was, was only so because of what had happened. His own body, even without the brand, was just another showcase of what they’d been turned into.

There was nothing that belonged to just him anymore, barely anything that tied him to the life he’d rather have.

Nothing but Sideswipe, and now, not even that.

Alone. There were mecha around him, to the point of privacy barely existing, but if they understood even a fraction of what him and Sideswipe were going through, they were very, very bad at showing it. All they did was join in on their abuse and willingly frag on their free time too, as if they weren’t at all put off by what was happening in their goddamn lives. How could they? Seeing what Megatron did around them, maybe even to them too, how could they?

He could hear the door opening. A glance, and… Skywarp. Again. Couldn’t the damn winglet take a hint?

“Hi. I uh… Do you need help with getting to your back?” the Seeker asked, though to his credit he didn’t actually enter the washracks, just peeked in through the doorway.

“No,” Sunstreaker snapped back, and would’ve turned to face the opposite direction if that wouldn’t have perfectly showcased his back and the fact he very much couldn’t reach it on his own.

Instead he glared at the flier until Skywarp began to fidget, then left with nothing more than a quiet, “Okay.”

Why the pit did the mech act like a kicked puppy every time he was turned down? What else did he expect, after everything?

---------------------------------------------------

Still Sideswipe didn’t come back. Megatron stopped visiting after a while too. Sunstreaker stood by the main doors, and waited.

He did come to notice that the times a harem member left the wing were very few and far between. A couple of times someone did, only to return some time later, stinking of interface, but where they’d been, Sunstreaker had no idea. With Megatron?

Had they seen Sideswipe? He demanded to know.

They hadn’t, and after all of the aggression he had aimed at everyone, they weren’t too eager to talk with him any more than absolutely necessary.

And it was only a couple of times. The rest of the time… No one came in, no one went out.

Were they all just trapped here? With the guards at the door making sure no one came or went without permission?

How could they seem so… Okay with it? Okay with having all of their freedom stripped from them? With all of the interfacing, the rape, Megatron’s casual violence?

What was he missing from this image that would’ve made it all click into place and caused it to start making sense?

-----------------------------------------------------

He was starving, again, the one cube he’d had since Sideswipe’s departure all but used up by his frame. But he couldn’t leave the doors—he couldn’t not be there when Sideswipe got back. Stubbornly he refused his frame’s requests and dismissed the alerts and warnings.

Common sense said he would feel Sideswipe’s return before his brother ever made it to the doors. He could run back from wherever he was at the time. The harem wing wasn’t that big.

Common sense had summarily gone out the window a long time ago.

------------------------------------------------------

He’d stopped counting the orns. There were so fragging many. How could Megatron keep Sideswipe this long? Was he even with Megatron anymore, or had something else happened to him? Been done to him?

There wasn’t even Megatron to harass for the small satisfaction of making himself even the smallest of nuisances, as easily as the tyrant swatted him aside every time.

Skywarp brought another cube to him after the warnings on his HUD had already turned red, and this time… He still snarled at the Seeker, told him to slag the right off, but after Skywarp had left the cube on the ground again, Sunstreaker only waited until he was gone from sight to go pick it up and fuel himself.

Because it was quickly becoming that or stasis, and he would be no use to Sideswipe if his frame was offline because of something he brought on himself.

The energon was consumed, the cube dispersed, and the wait continued, as uneventful as ever—but he could be patient, when he wanted to be.

For Sideswipe, he would be.

And that night, his wait came to an end. Skywarp slipped out at one point and the guards made sure Sunstreaker didn’t get the chance to follow, but… It wasn’t long after that that he could feel Sideswipe come closer. His spark sang, relief and anticipation filling it to the brim—and then that relief died away when his other half barely responded to it.

It was replaced by concern.

But what had he expected? That Sideswipe would be just as he was when he’d left? After all this time? After everything he’d been put through? Sunstreaker didn’t even know the details, but he didn’t rightly need to to know it could only be bad things.

Whatever Megatron had done… He didn’t want to say it had worked, but… Something had happened all the same.

Sideswipe wasn’t the same.

And it would be up to him to build him back up. Fix him.

He paced in front of the doors like the caged animal he was as he waited the too long time it took for Sideswipe to trek back. Then, finally, the doors opened to admit both his brother and Skywarp.

Sunstreaker barely allowed Sideswipe to step into the wing, only waited for as long as it took for them to advance far enough that the guards wouldn’t try to stop him–

Before he hurried on, ignoring everyone and everything else until there only existed Sideswipe and their spark. The pull was desperate and he didn’t even try to deny it, only listened to it and grabbed his twin into his arms, pressing their chests together.

Sunstreaker was venting heavily.

Sideswipe was frightfully still.

It took him too long to react, but he did, eventually, and Sunstreaker could feel Sideswipe’s arms wrap around him in return.

And hold tight. Hold so tight.

Sunstreaker buried his face into Sideswipe’s shoulder and Sideswipe pressed his face into Sunstreaker’s neck. “I missed you,” Sideswipe said, with so much emotion in just those three words—so much misery, so many unspoken things.

So much love.

“I missed you too,” Sunstreaker whispered back, just focusing on feeling.

Feeling his brother. Physically, Sideswipe was barely damaged. Whatever Megatron had done, he hadn’t beaten him. That was a relief.

But a very small one, because when he pulled back to cast his own optics down Sideswipe’s frame, the signs of interface were everywhere. He was clean, surprisingly, but scuffs and paint transfers littered his frame at all the suspect locations.

So Megatron had forced him. Repeatedly. But without using physical force?

Sideswipe was so still. Listless, staring at his own pedes. Still in frame, still in spark.

He looked and felt so small, and Sunstreaker was no larger than his twin.

Skywarp cleared his vocalizer, and Sunstreaker’s gaze snapped right to him with a growl. He’d already forgotten the Seeker was there, but there he stood, watching them.

Sideswipe didn’t even react.

“Knock Out will want to see him,” Skywarp said as an explanation for the interruption.

Sideswipe nodded, and Sunstreaker glanced back at him.

If Sideswipe wanted to see Knock Out… Then Sideswipe would get to see Knock Out.

Sunstreaker nodded too, and grabbed his brother by the arm to lead him to the nearest doors down the hallway. It grated on him that Skywarp followed a step behind them, but just when he would’ve turned around to snap at the Seeker, something else caught his attention as a much more urgent matter.

Something about his brother.

“Sideswipe, why do you walk like that?” he asked in alarm, staring at his twin’s step, but… No, he wasn’t imagining things.

“Like what?” Sideswipe asked back, lifting his optics enough to blink at him. Confusion.

He didn’t notice..?

“It’s called the lover’s gait,” Skywarp piped up just as the medbay doors opened to admit them, and Sunstreaker felt a considerable amount less annoyance at hearing him now that the flier was actually being informative and somewhat useful.

But the explanation still rang empty to him. “The what?”

Knock Out was present in the medbay proper and glanced their way as they entered. Evidently he heard Skywarp’s answer, because he drawled, “Do you want the medical reason for it?” Sideswipe was gestured to get up on one of the berths, which he did too lifelessly.

Before Sunstreaker could answer this way or that, Knock Out had already continued. “When someone is as well endowed as our Lord Megatron, and their partner this small,” the medic patted Sideswipe’s stomach, but where Sunstreaker had expected his brother to flinch at the contact, he did just… Nothing, “the hips naturally have to split apart to accommodate. Repeated often enough and they remain in that position, causing the sway that’s called the lover’s gait.

“Many find it attractive,” Knock Out concluded with a shrug before he went about inspecting Sideswipe from helm to pede.

“Is it permanent?” Sunstreaker asked sharply.

Skywarp responded, the Seeker shrugging too, “Eventually, yeah. Everyone here has it.” Apparently to demonstrate, Skywarp walked the length of the medical bay, then back.

And there it was. He hadn’t paid it any attention before because he’d had nothing to contrast it to like he did with Sideswipe, but the Seeker’s step had the same side to side motion that Sideswipe now sported. Hips hips and aft swayed in a way that was nothing short of suggestive—downright erotic, if you were so inclined.

Horror settled deep in his tanks. It wasn’t enough that they were branded and raped up and down their frames so far it broke their calipers into entirely new specifications. It had to have other visible ramifications too—ones that Megatron no doubt enjoyed, if he was counted among the ‘many’ that found it attractive. “Can you fix it?” Sunstreaker asked from Knock Out.

...Sideswipe was crying. Without a sound, not so much as a hitch in his engine, but tears were softly running from the corners of his optics. It had nothing to do with Knock Out’s inspection of him, and everything to do with the same thought tracks Sunstreaker had entered.

Their frames were being molded, ruined, all against their will, and there was nothing they could do about it.

“I could, but Lord Megatron doesn’t allow that,” came Knock Out’s answer, and Sunstreaker couldn’t even say he was surprised to hear that. “He rather enjoys it.”

“Of course he does,” Sunstreaker spat out. He was shaking again, anger building without an outlet. But if Megatron was here right now…

There was nothing excusable in what that mech did, in the orders he gave. Just a selfish, hedonistic power trip free of anything even resembling morals or care for another living being.

Sideswipe didn’t say a thing, but the stillness in his spark finally gave way—although to nothing more than pain that bled all over their spark like blood from a gruesome wound. Sunstreaker stepped up to him at once, laying a servo on his shoulder.

Sideswipe brought a servo of his own up to cover his with it, but his optics didn’t move from their stare towards the ceiling.

“If you’d spread your legs for me,” Knock Out said, but it sounded hazy, from far away. Sideswipe nevertheless obeyed, but the feel of his spark—it barely changed, even though Sunstreaker was damn sure having his valve prodded at after what Megatron had done to him should’ve set him off.

But it didn’t, and that had him even more worried than a frightful or violent reaction would’ve.

Knock Out fixed Sideswipe’s horn in short order after he’d triaged the pitiful extent of the damage on him, then stepped back with a wave of ‘you can get up now’. “You’re in good health aside from needing to recharge your batteries and defrag your memory banks. Go do that. Doctor’s orders.”

Sideswipe nodded mutely, closed his covers, and slid off the berth to stand next to Sunstreaker. Sunstreaker caught his servo and gave it a squeeze.

His spark ached at the small, tumultuous smile Sideswipe forced for his benefit.

Skywarp left the medbay ahead of them, and by the time they made it to the doors, the Seeker was already gone. Good riddance, Sunstreaker thought. Clearly Skywarp seemed to think he was somehow helping them, or trying to help them, but that wasn’t about to earn him forgiveness. Nothing would.

“Should we visit the washracks first?” Sunstreaker asked once the medbay doors had closed behind them, leaving them in the relative privacy of the hallway.

Sideswipe did need recharge, that was obvious for the world to see, but he would be more comfortable without all the faults in his paint job, right? It was surprising that was all there was. Maybe Megatron had allowed him to clean up, just not fully.

“Yeah, sure.” With that answer Sunstreaker carefully tugged him along and led the way to the washracks. They weren’t empty this time either, but a glare from him had the other occupants finishing and clearing out quickly.

He seemed to be getting a bit of a reputation.

Satisfying.

With just his spark present, Sunstreaker gently directed Sideswipe under one of the showers and handed him a scrub. He took one for himself too, and together they began to wash away the transfers of grey paint, Sideswipe where he could reach, and Sunstreaker where he couldn’t.

It didn’t take too long, between their two frames. They went over to the polishing products next, and Sunstreaker quietly repeated the instruction Knock Out had given them what felt like a forever ago, when Sideswipe didn’t seem to remember himself.

Sunstreaker couldn’t fault him for it with his brother’s current state of mind. Sideswipe struggled to be present and not just… Shut down. Close himself off to the world and escape it all, like he probably had needed to do just to… Just to survive what Megatron had done to him.

“Your back,” Sideswipe spoke up when they were already almost done with the red frame. Sunstreaker stilled before nodding wordlessly.

He could use help with it.

Sideswipe nodded back, but when Sunstreaker turned to give him access to his back and Sideswipe prepared to use the buffer…

He stalled.

Not only that, but Sunstreaker could feel turmoil. It came out of nowhere, a maelstrom that swallowed up everything else until only it was left, and oh, what it was.

Hurt, hurt, hurt. Plea and powerlessness that culminated in humiliation.

Sunstreaker spun on his heel, back to facing Sideswipe, and caught him by the upper arms. His servos quickly slid up to cradle Sideswipe’s helm in his servos, but Sideswipe wouldn’t look up.

He was shaking. No, crying. Crying and shaking, but again, with no sound whatsoever.

Just… Silent, which was so unlike him that Sunstreaker wasn’t sure what to even do.

“Sideswipe?” he asked, brushing his thumb along the wet tear tracks and smudging the brown of it on his brother’s pale cheek. It did nothing to dry the steady stream.

“I’m sorry,” Sideswipe whispered, but before Sunstreaker could say he had absolutely nothing to apologize for, Sideswipe had already continued, “He- He made me wash him.

“It’s stupid, I’m not even- I’m not washing you, but- I- I don’t understand why this would be-” he stammered, staring at the buffer he was gripping too tight. It didn’t matter if he didn’t get all of the words out, though. His spark made up for everything missing.

Everything he’d done just in the name of getting back to Sunstreaker, the desperation of when and of how much more, how all of the small things had piled and piled.

Obedience, subservience, indignity.

So much shame. How he’d just done it, not always even trying to resist.

And how he'd ultimately given in even when he had tried to refuse.

It was a torrent Sunstreaker struggled to withstand, and ended with him hugging Sideswipe all over again, Sideswipe’s face pressed tightly against his shoulder. “I-I didn’t have to do any of it,” Sideswipe whispered. “He didn’t force me.”

“Yes he did,” Sunstreaker growled fiercely, holding him tighter, if that was possible. Sideswipe’s doubt was ricocheting around their spark, his inability to believe the classification of his experiences.

Consent under duress wasn’t consent.

But Sideswipe struggled with that. “He coerced you,” Sunstreaker said, willing out loud and in spark for Sideswipe to listen and believe him, if he couldn’t trust himself anymore. “Maybe he didn’t force you physically, but that doesn’t change a thing, Sideswipe. It doesn’t change a thing.”

“I just wanted to get back to you. He wouldn’t let me if I didn’t- If I didn’t do like he said.” The end of the sentence broke into a sob, and that was the end of Sideswipe’s quiet. He still wasn’t loud. He didn’t wail, but his engine cut off only to restart unevenly; his ventilations stalled every few moments.

His vocalizer produced static that he struggled to overcome to say more. “Primus, Sunny, I’m so sorry. I didn’t- I didn’t want to give in, but I wanted back to you. He just kept demanding things-”

“Don’t you dare apologize to me,” Sunstreaker murmured quietly but firmly, bringing one of his arms higher to grasp the back of Sideswipe’s helm.

To hold him ever closer. “And you think he didn’t force you. Look at you. If he didn’t force you, would you feel like this?”

Sideswipe huffed through his tears, a wry kind of acceptance producing a single pulse in their spark. “Point taken.” He pulled back enough that he could bump his forehelm to Sunstreaker’s.

They stayed there for a good moment, basking in it, the presence of their brother.

The relief it was, the finally that they’d waited for—done so much for, on Sideswipe’s part.

Neither wanted to rush things, and it was only a generous while later that either of them spoke up again. “You need rest and a good defragging,” Sunstreaker quietly repeated what Knock Out had already said.

But maybe it’d mean more coming from him. “Sort your head out.”

“Yeah,” Sideswipe agreed in an equal whisper. They quickly put away everything they’d used and crept out of the washracks. It was well into the quiet hours and there was really no one around when they made their way down the hall and back into the library. It was empty, everyone most likely recharging in the berthroom.

But being around the lot of them… No way.

Even if their assigned cots may have been more comfortable than the couch they piled on, Sunstreaker laying across its length, Sideswipe atop him.

“Have you recharged at all?” Sideswipe asked from him as they hardlined to sync their memory files. He must have noticed the lacking charge in his batteries—just like Sunstreaker noticed how low Sideswipe’s batteries had gotten.

“No,” he replied honestly. “But neither have you.”

“...Yeah.”

They didn’t say anything more. Recharge, defrag—that was what they needed.

Proximity, a whole load of comfort.

Together.

-------------------------------------------------

The library was as much of a safe haven as there was going to be in a place like this, and there they rested surprisingly well, all things considered. They had never been ones to recharge too deeply, anyway. The streets weren’t a very safe place; keeping enough systems on to be ready for anything at a moment’s notice was all but mandatory, unless one of them was staying up as a watcher.

It was no different here. They weren’t safe. Who knew what could happen next, coming from either Megatron, the guards, or the other mates.

None of them could be trusted.

They were proven right again on that front, come morning. Their batteries hadn’t even gained full charge yet before their scanners warned them of the approaching proximity of an unidentified someone. Sunstreaker couldn’t tell which one of them was awake and aware first, or if they had accomplished the feat on the same second.

But they didn’t quite have the time to get up before one of the mates circled the shelves to approach them. “Morning. I hope you recharged well,” they said with a smile.

Neither of the twins did anything more than growl and glare, and the expression was swiftly wiped from the mate’s face.

They straightened, and went straight to business instead. Forget pleasantries. “Sunstreaker, Megatron’s summoned you. He wants you there.

“Right away.

“And alone. Sideswipe wasn’t included in the summons.”

The look they gave the red twin could almost be called apologetic. Sideswipe only returned it with one of abject horror.

Sunstreaker snarled. “My turn, huh?”

( Next )

#transformers #maccadams #megatron #sunstreaker #sideswipe #starscream #knock out #skywarp #harem au #twins #fic #2020

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jimmyandjess · 5 years

Text

100 Reasons Why Rocketshipping Is Superior To Any Other Pokémon Ship

(Part 1)

1. Jessie and James? Musashi and Kojiro? Really? It’s like they were made for each other 😉😉.

2. They’re grown adults, they have a better chance at staying together compared to 10 years olds (with Ash. ASH).

3. We have 20 years of Rocketshipping footage. 20 YEARS.

4. When it becomes canon in the anime, they won’t separate (hopefully) and will stay together forever. Then we get more shipping IN THE FUTURE instead of maybe 5 moments FROM THE PAST like most of the other pokémon ships.

5. It’s canon in the manga “The Electric Tale of Pikachu”.

6. Episode 31 of Pokémon XYZ, “A Gaggle of Gadget Greatness!” When James pulls ThIs sHiT

7. Episode 63 of Pokémon XY, “A Fork In The Road, A Parting Of The Ways!” Now don’t get me started cos imma start sobbing.

8. The way James calls Jessie “Jess” or “Jessica.”

9. WHEN JAMES STARTS FULL OUT CHEERING FOR JESSIE DURING HER PERFORMANCES AND COMPLETELY EMBARRASSES HIMSELF AND HIS FUTURE CHILDREN.

10. He fell for Jessibelle, who looks a lot like Jessie. Sooooooooo he has to think Jessie’s hot too, right?

11. They’ve been together since the beginning of time.

12. Fear hugs.

13. Crossdressing together.

14. Their motto.

14.5. Now, when I say their motto, I specifically mean, “To denounce the evils of truth and love”, rather than the original phrase, “To denounce the goodness of truth and love”. That says a lot.

15. Episode 45 of Pokémon Indigo League, “Holy Matrimony!”

“Oh, well, guess James chose to hang up his Team Rocket costume.”

“Eh, I guess all that money and luxury was just too tempting for James to give up.”

“Ah, I guess you’re right.”

“Prepared for trouble?”

“Hey, it’s him!”

“James? Hah, make it double!”

[giggling]

“I guess we’re not going to get rich this time either.”

“Guess not. They wouldn’t give me the inheritence.”

“Oh, there’s always next time. We may not make a lot of money, but we sure have got our freedom!”

“Yeah. Double trouble time, right?”

“Sounds great to me, James.”

“Hey, wait! You forgot Meowth, again!”

(I’m hardcore fangirling rn)

16. They do everything together.

17. They understand each other.

18. They’re so different but so similar.

19. Meowth and Wobbufett are the ultimate third wheels.

20. James gets pissssyyyy when Jess starts flirting with Doctor Proctor.

21. Episode 16 of Pokémon Indigo League, “Pokémon Shipwreck!” when James freaks out and calls Jessie “Jessica” and she’s reassuring him like, “It’s oke me bby boi I won’t let te fire hurt u.”

22. It’s honestly one of the only relationships I find realistic (compared to the 7-15 year old shippings like Bonnie and Max or May and Drew). I mean, they’re together all the time and sleep in the same room (or area, at least). They’re grown adults and have freedom to a large extent. And, well, it’s hard to imagine that they haven’t gotten spicy at least once 🤷🏽‍♀️.

23. People make the most amazing fan art and fanfiction for Rocketshipping, and even just Team Rocket alone. I feel like a large portion of the Pokémon franchise are just a bunch of talented-ass people. This isn’t a good reason but I just had to say it.

24. Episode 146 of Pokémon Diamond & Pearl, “Dressed for Jess Success!” James dresses up as Jessilina because Jessie is ill and can’t show up to her Lilypad contest. Jessie’s pissed at the end bc James wins and people like him as her more than her as her. At least they hug, though. Like, genuinely. It’s fking adorable.

25. They’re just cute together.

26. James knows Jessie well enough to understand her tough exterior.

27. Jessie could’ve totally wanted to stay with Dr. White (ep63 of XY) and try to get him to love her and not that 4’11” chick or something. BUT NO. Every time their trio has tried splitting up, they always find their way back to each other.

28. I can’t see them with anyone else that would end up being long term. Otherwise, I totally ship Faba (or Bitch- I mean, Butch) and James or Cassidy and Jessie.

29. Their hair colors are supppperrrr complimentary.

30. The episode “Training Daze” showed the true relationship of Jessie and James. James falls on top of Jessie and it’s the best thing ever. Well, the best thing NEXT to the thought that they would’ve kissed in that moment.

31. The fact that a ten year old can kiss another ten year old means that two twenty five year olds can MOST CERTAINLY GO FARTHER.

32. There’s so many fans of this ship it’s crazy.

33. Anti-Rocketshippers? Never heard of them.

34. Opposites attract.

35. This is more about Team Rocket in general but they just make an episode so much more interesting.

36. They literally can’t not be together, okay.

37. When they call each other “Dear”. Ah I just fuckin love that shit.

38. On that bulbagarden website there’s literally like one gigantic page of just straight up rocketshipping moments.

39. The writers know exactly what the fuck they’re doing when they make a Rocketshippy episode or moment.

40. Meowth would totally make fun of them, and Wobbufett would join in.

41. They both have shitty backgrounds and came together because of that. It was bound to happen.

42. James loves Jessie. 100%

43. Jessie loves James too.

44. Even if that love is mutual, it’s still there.

45. They can flaunt their gayness and still look absolutely amazing together.

46. There are so many songs that describe their relationship. For example,

• Partners in Crime - Set it Off

• Claudia - FINNEAS

• Make a New Dance Up - Hey Ocean!

• Team Rocket - Lil Uzi Vert

• Double Trouble - Pokémon

(lmao)

and etc.

47. The Pokémon Writers were originally going to have them end up together if season 1 ended the entire show. That alone says a lot.

48. They wouldn’t be the typical couple, and be like completely straight and have a big family or whatever. They would probably have the craziest wedding ever, a lot like @musashi said in a post. And they would be two bisexuals that crossdress together every now and then and it would be absolutely amazing.

49. Jessie’s emerald earings look a lot like James’ eyes and ahhabsjahahagab I love that.

50. Writing fanfiction or drawing some fan art is super fun because there’s so many scenarios that they could be in.

Happy Rocketshipping Day!

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entwinedmoon · 4 years

Text

John Torrington: Reflections

(Previous posts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)

Today, January 1, 2020, is the 174th anniversary of John Torrington’s death. Him dying on New Year’s Day must have dampened whatever celebrations the crew were most likely enjoying, a dark day in a quite literally dark month, as the sun would not return for some time. He would have been buried in that endless night, during a snowstorm (a layer of snow was still preserved on top of his coffin), the first death in what had so far been a successful expedition. A death so soon may have worried the crew, but since it was due to an illness he’d brought with him, it may have just been considered a fluke. They may not have been concerned, still thinking they would make it through and discover the last piece of the Northwest Passage. If they had succeeded, Torrington would have been a minor footnote in the history of a triumphant journey, his grave a small curiosity for anyone who may pass by. But no one made it home from the Franklin Expedition, and Torrington is now seen as an early warning sign of the tragedy awaiting the rest of the men.

Why is it that, after all these years, anyone still talks about Torrington? What is the fascination with him and the other men buried on Beechey? I know what draws me to his story, and while I can’t speak for everyone, I think there are at least some people who share the same reasons.

So what intrigues me about John Torrington? Why did I write this series, spanning eleven blog posts and over 25,000 words (that’s half a book!), about a 174-years-dead Victorian sailor, spending my spare time researching and dedicating long hours to studying his life and death?

In trying to pin down just what fascinates me about Torrington, I went through some of my old writing, and I found this little snippet from an essay I never finished. It was written almost ten years ago, on January 13, 2010:

It was all John Torrington’s fault. I couldn’t sleep because of that frozen grimace, mouth and eyes both slightly open—eyes, intact, seriously, staring back at me. He just stares, cold, frozen, dead. I’m not likely to go on a polar expedition any time soon and possibly die from lead-tainted food or whatever killed him, but it’s not that idea that frightens me. He stares at me in the night, in the corners, in the reflections in the moonlit mirror on my closet door, in the folds of the dirty laundry on the floor, he’s there, staring at me. Going to the bathroom at night is the worst, walking through the dark hallway, knowing he’s following me, just behind me, out of sight, but still manages to jump ahead to stare at me in the split second before the bathroom light comes on, inches from my face in the thick darkness, but then he runs and hides again in the shadows of the hall, lurking, waiting to follow me back to my room.

Sometimes it’s Otzi or Jaunita or Ida Girl or Cherchen Man. Never King Tut or Ramses II for some reason though. But John has always stood above the rest, just the memory of a picture haunting me.

As you can see, I had a slightly different attitude toward Torrington back then. To explain this, let me start from the beginning.

When I was about seven or eight, my older brother brought home a copy of Buried in Ice from school, where he was learning about the Franklin Expedition. He of course shared the pictures in the book with me and my older sister because he thought they were creepy and that’s what you do when you’re a kid, you share creepy stuff to try to scare your siblings. I’m in my early thirties now, so the memory has faded over the years, but there’s still a lot that stands out even now. I remember eating a particular type of corn chip that to this day I associate the flavor of with lead poisoning. My brother told me about how the brains of the three mummies had turned into a yellow liquid—something we thought was gross but also cool for some reason. I remember that there was no way to just flip the book over to cover up the picture of Torrington on the front cover because—oh goodie—there was a picture of him on the back too. My brother and I commented on the golden color of Torrington’s discolored skin (I don’t know why we thought “golden” instead of yellow—it sounds more poetic to call it “golden” but that was certainly not our intention). I also remember that later, after my brother had returned the book to school but we were still haunted by the images, we couldn’t recall the names of Hartnell and Braine, so we called them Big Head and Snarl Face instead. But we remembered the name Torrington, probably because he was featured more prominently in the book. And due to that prominence, Torrington was the one I would think of when lying in bed at night, watching shadows in the closet morph into monsters.

To try to combat my fear, I used a trick I’d learned where I turn the scary thing into something ridiculous (this was before Harry Potter was published, but it’s the same theory as how to fight a Boggart). I put the three mummies into a long-running story that I’d made up in my head—and I made them undead idiots. Like zombie versions of Beavis and Butthead. Yeah, I did that. I made them weird funny sidekicks in my story, but it didn’t really stop me being afraid when I saw pictures of them again.

Remarkably, despite being terrified of Torrington, I became obsessed with mummies as a kid, an obsession that continues to this day. I would marvel over pictures of Tollund Man, Ötzi, and the Qilakitsoq mummies of Greenland.

But not John Torrington.

Whenever I would flip through a book about mummies, if I encountered a picture of Torrington, I would slam my hand over the page to cover it. I would be creeped out by other mummies, but it was never to the same level as it was with Torrington. And yet, I would still be compelled to peek, even after covering the page. I would regret it immediately, but there was something that made me want to look, even though looking at him was the last thing I wanted to do.

Over the years, Torrington would find his way into a few more stories of mine, in some form or another. In college, I wrote a short story for a fiction writing class where the picture of Torrington on the cover of Frozen in Time started talking to a young woman, representing her repressed thoughts and fears (he cracked a lot of jokes in that one). At that point in time, however, I hadn’t been able to bring myself to read Frozen in Time. I had bought a copy a while ago—the 2004 revised edition—and when it arrived from Amazon I flipped through it, telling myself that I was an adult and I loved mummies and I could bravely face the pictures of these boogeymen from my childhood.

That last part turned out to be incorrect. Several weeks of being too afraid to turn off the light at night ensued. I wouldn’t read the book for another eight or nine years.

But eventually I did read it, multiple times in fact, and I’m no longer terrified of pictures of Torrington, or Hartnell and Braine. That all started a little less than two years ago.

It began with another story idea I had that incorporated Torrington, one I have yet to write. I thought I should do some research into him first if I was going to include him. Around the same time, The Terror was airing on AMC. The exact timeline is a little hazy for me, because the story idea actually first came to me at the end of 2017, but The Terror first aired in March 2018. I can’t remember if I had the idea to add Torrington to my story before I started watching The Terror or not, but I think it was before.

Once I started researching Torrington and the Franklin Expedition, I quickly became obsessed. I had poked around Franklin research before, but my fear of Torrington would always hold me back. I would peer through my fingers at pictures and facts, but I could never do more than that. But now I was hooked.

My childhood nightmares were there at first, just out of the corner of my eye, but my research started to shift those in strange ways. I had always seen Torrington as this ancient, towering monster, but then I discovered that he was only twenty when he died and stood at only five-foot-four. I’m older than him. I’m taller than him. His desiccated body weighed less than ninety pounds, which I definitely weigh more than. Basically, if he came charging out of the closet, I could take him.

But what really drew me in was realizing that we knew so little about him. I could look at a picture of his face, frozen in time, but I couldn’t reach back into the past to ask him about himself. I’ve known about him almost my whole life, with him skulking in a corner of my brain, stepping out of the shadows every now and then, but I didn’t really know who he was as a person. The Franklin Expedition can drive people mad with the mystery of what happened to the men after they entered the Arctic, but suddenly I became obsessed with knowing what had happened before the expedition. Who was John Torrington? Who was this guy that has occupied my dreams and nightmares, who has taken up a permanent residence in my mind ever since I first laid eyes on him? Who was this young man who has somehow been a part of my life for so long, but whom I know so little about?

I know I’m not the only one who has been asking these questions, or who has been living with the Franklin ice mummies in their heads. I’ve met some amazing people online who are just as obsessed, if not more so. Thanks to this series, I’ve had people contact me about their own interest in Torrington and the Beechey Boys and how they understand my love for them.

Many times before, I’ve attempted to put in words just what draws me to mummies. In 2011 I even started a long-since-abandoned blog about mummies called Digging the Dead, where I tried to explain my interest. But I’m going to try my best now to pin down what has compelled me to study Torrington, and why he keeps popping up in my life.

I think part of the appeal of Torrington—and Hartnell and Braine—is the shockingly alive appearance of their preserved bodies, with some morbid curiosity over their undead vibe thrown in. The preservation of a body, preventing the natural process of decay, is fascinating. It’s a type of immortality, although one the mummy doesn’t get to enjoy. Torrington looks like he could get up and walk around—possibly in a zombie-like way, but still. He looks more like a real person than some mummies, like bog bodies that became too twisted by the weight of the peat or desert mummies that have a freeze-dried appearance. But a large part of the fascination with Torrington, and mummies in general, is that it’s like touching a piece of the past. When we see their pictures, we’re looking at something that is from a time long gone, but they seem so very present, so tangible in the here and now. They are time travelers, in a way, and this is our way of reaching out to them across the years.

And with the mystery of the Franklin Expedition, Torrington, Hartnell, and Braine add an extra layer of intrigue as well as reminding us that there were more than just officers on board. We have pictures of Franklin, Crozier, Fitzjames, and many of the lieutenants and mates, but the ordinary sailors and marines didn’t have the luxury of having their pictures taken. What they looked like has been lost to time, but the preserved remains of Torrington and the Beechey Boys literally puts a human face on the ordinary men of the expedition, the ones who never wrote memoirs or had journals that were preserved for posterity. Men who have been largely forgotten by history, who don’t get the same reverence we give the captains, who don’t get memorials or landmarks in their names. When thinking of the men of the Franklin Expedition setting sail for their destiny, it’s easy to see Torrington on deck—alive, his striped shirt billowing in the wind as they sail toward Lancaster Sound—and to imagine that these were working ships, fully manned with ordinary people who led regular lives and had dreams of what they would do when they returned home to double pay and the fame of having helped discover the Northwest Passage.

But on January 1, 1846, those dreams winked out for one of those men. On this day, I think not about how well Torrington’s body has defied time and decomposition, but about who sat with him as he passed. Was he alone? Did he have friends on the crew? And what of his family back home? Did they toast him and his journey, not knowing that he was gone?

Who said a prayer for John Torrington 174 years ago?

If it’s not too late, I think I’ll say one for him today.

<<Back

Torrington Series Masterlist

#john torrington #franklin expedition

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chrysalispen · 5 years

Text

writing warmup #2

morning writing warm-up time! just an alternate POV from a certain in-game scene :3c

====

Nero tol Scaeva was bored out of his godsdamned mind.

Out in the middle of fuckall nowhere, chasing some curiously specific intelligence, malms even from the little shitehole desert town that reminded him of his own home in all the wrong ways, he was also thoroughly annoyed. The desert heat was slowly cooking him to death even with the self-regulated cooling mechanisms he'd installed in his armor, the wind had blown what felt like an entire sand dune into his mouth, and he badly needed to piss.

He'd pulled himself away from his most important project to take the data he needed personally and- nothing, so far. And yet here he was with one of his least favorite people in the world, watching a gaggle of lizardmen caper and shout around a bonfire, and waiting for something to happen. Anything.

How a supposed summoning ritual could be so dull was beyond his understanding.

Point of fact, he was about to pack the entire bloody thing in and look into just who had anonymously tipped off his sources, because he was half-certain that Frumentarium had been pranked. The beastmen had been trying to summon their god since the immediate aftermath of van Darnus' disastrous Project Meteor with no success; the notion that they might be able to manage it now-

"Nero."

The voice, female, canned and echoing through the metallic rattle of her helm's communications array, snapped impatiently through his ears.

"Yes, my sweet?" Smooth, devil-may-care, and just a little bit condescending: Nero knew full well how much that sort of response irritated her, which of course was why he did it.

"I just asked you a question. Have you fallen asleep at your post?"

"Patience, Livia. Their ritual's only just begun. If naught happens in the next--" the tribunus laticlavius checked his digital chronometer and, internally, the remaining capacity of his bladder, "--half-bell or so, we'll report in."

His fellow tribune made an irritated chuffing noise over the receiver, but said nothing further. Nero was well aware that Livia didn't like him. She saw him as her direct competition for Gaius van Baelsar's favor, resented what she saw as his inappropriately cavalier attitude towards their Very Serious Eorzean Campaign, and had made her rancor towards him abundantly obvious from day one.

The distaste was mutual. Nero was quite able to set aside his personal feelings for the nonce if a situation required him to use his gunblade- ferreting out spies under his authority as the commander of the XIVth's Frumentarium, for example. But it was a chore, little different to his way of thinking than performing maintenance on an engine. Livia on the other hand seemed to delight in bloodshed in a way that deeply bothered him. The only thing she seemed to love more than crushing savages beneath her cermet-plated boot was the Black Wolf.

And that, he decided with an inward grimace, was a line of thought he'd really rather not give terribly close consideration.

Black clouds were roiling overhead and the air had turned thick with fire-aspected aether; he could feel the warmth of it against his exposed face and his scalp prickled uncomfortably.

Nero considered retrieving his helm - it would provide some measure of protection against the concentrated aether - and then decided against it. The on-board diagnostics in his suit would have sounded their alarum did current aether levels pose any serious risk to him.

If worst came to worst, he’d have a headache for the rest of the day. Maybe not quite safe as houses, but safe enough.

Dispassionately the tribunus surveyed the scene below. A number of Eorzean soldiers wearing Immortal Flames colors and a small handful of adventurers had been brought to the edge of the circle, their hands lashed together.

Experience and secondhand observation from subordinates' reports told him that meant they were marked either for sacrifice or tempering; he wasn't certain which, and didn't particularly care to make the distinction. While he bore no particular ill will towards the denizens of these wild lands, he couldn't find himself bothered to feel strongly one way or another watching scenes like these, either. He was no hero, and he certainly wasn't going to stick his neck out for a motley collection of savages he knew full well would not extend him the same courtesy were their positions reversed.

Still, he observed, as he was wont to do. The adventurers were being dragged forward first, their apparent leader a tall, slender blonde woman with a staff strapped to her back. Some variety of caster, though he was hardly well-versed enough in such matters to know or care what sort. Now that was interesting; if the beastmen meant to sacrifice them to their god then why had they left them their weapons? Moreover, why had their victims not attempted escape...?

The ringleader--he supposed by this one's relatively gaudy sartorial choices that he was their priest--raised bracelet-clad arms and hands aloft to the sky in supplication. Nero didn't understand the tongue he spoke but it didn't take a scholar to understand that the Amal'jaa were calling out to their god.

At more or less the same moment there was a quiet beep from the old aetherometer on his wrist. Nero slid the casement open with a flick of his gauntleted index finger to view the results, and his soft hum of satisfaction rose, briefly, over the sounds of chanting and drums below.

"...and there's the waveform spike," he said aloud. "It appears they're finally getting on with it."

“I don’t need a play-by-play description, Scaeva.” Livia had perched herself on a nearby rock with a loudly disinterested sigh. "That said, do wake me when the savages are through with their little ritual. I should like to have news of actual consequence to report back to Lord Gaius for this trouble."

"What? Bored, are we?" He spared her a short and mocking laugh, never mind he was bored himself. "You don't care to watch them feed their pet god?"

"I take no joy in such things, as well you know. I would not even be here did I have the choice." He could practically hear the scowl she wore. "Perhaps if you paid more attention to your own mission, this would go faster."

With a mental shrug the tribunus turned his attention back to the canyon basin below, where the festivities had begun in earnest.

Heat blasted in a wave across his cheeks as the sphere of aether that had coalesced midair exploded outward to reveal the eikon that had formed within. It was a big, ugly brute, half again as large as a castrum watchtower, each of its claws fully seven fulms in length, and it turned its attention to the group of adventurers first. As Nero watched, the lizardmen cut the bonds of their prisoners and shoved them forward.

"... bathe these unbelievers in your holy light!" the priest bellowed. The words were very faint, but in the absence of any other sound they echoed perfectly against the walls of the canyon.

And suddenly everything else - the weapons, the lack of escape attempts - made sense. Not a sacrificial ritual, then. They intended to temper their captives.

He grimaced. Boredom or not, he really didn't want to watch them have their will subsumed beneath that of an aetheric construct. They'd have to be put down by their fellows - or by imperial steel, depending upon who encountered them first.

Nero felt a peculiar sense of regret as his eyes caught that flash of honeyed gold again. Such a shame.

Hoping to avoid actually witnessing the tempering process, he spat out a mouthful of sand, ran his fingers vigorously through his blond curls to shake out the dust that had accumulated there, glanced at his aetherometer, and back down to the scene unfolding below. By now the hapless adventurers and the soldiers at their back would have been bathed in Ifrit's flames, doused in his aether, and forcibly-

Something was happening.

The Hyur woman he'd glimpsed earlier stood alone, staring bemused at her open palms, then at her surrounds in clear-eyed but obvious confusion while the tempered soldiers around her bowed and scraped and wailed their empty praises to the construct that towered over them.

The eikon's tempering hadn't worked on her for some reason.

Nero's gaze sharpened with interest. Livia forgotten for the moment, he came out of cover, crouching down upon the lip of the overhanging cliff face for a better view. The priest and eikon were recoiling from her, their voices raised in agitation, and the woman-

The adventurer drew her staff from her back and shouted at the others to do the same. They did. Whatever protection it was that had shielded her from the eikon's will, she had somehow managed to extend it to the three others of her ilk that now stood at her side.

They were going to fight, Nero marveled. The mad bastards. They were actually going to try and fight an eikon.

"Well, well," he said softly, his gaze dropping to the chiming aetherometer on his wrist. "This is certainly a development."

Hopefully the data he’d glean from the adventurers’ unanticipated show of strength - as brief and bloody a fight as he expected it to be, four mortals pitted against even a weak ‘god’ such as this - would prove equally entertaining.

#writing exercise #a realm reborn #chrysalispen writes #writing nero is absurdly fun and i should do it more often #he's just like 'ahahaha good luck you crazy bastards'

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norcumii · 5 years

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Reblogged from the prior tumbl, originally posted 02/04/2016. Question submitted by @makiruz. Slightly reformatted to avoid a readmore cut and whatnot.

In Full of Sith, they always ask new guests how they got into Star Wars. And you know? That's a good question, how did you got into Star Wars?

HEH. Oooh, that’s a bit of a loaded question. So I’ll give you the short answer, which I suspect would fit the thing you mentioned what I haven’t heard of; and then because I’m a wordy bastard what overshares, the long answer which is more accurate and has content warnings for self harm and suicide.

SHORT ANSWER

It was the 80’s. I was young, in single digits, though I couldn’t tell you exactly what age. I was already dealing with an irregular sleep cycle, though all I knew was I had a flashlight, a pile of books near/on my bed, and a thick pound puppies duvet to read under.

I don’t know if I was in my room or on my way to/from the bathroom, but I could hear my parents watching something downstairs. Swooshy noises, a shrill screee, and some thwoom bzzts.

Of course I went downstairs.

I don’t know if it was episode 5 or 6. I’ve a fondness for 6, but carbonite left a HUGE fucking impression on me, and my parents have always approved of muppets, so Yoda.

I knew I loved it. I didn’t have any toys, though I think somewhere there was a print edition of A New Hope running around. I do recall multiple sleepovers at my grandmother’s place – a tiny house on acres and acres of woods – and she’d sometimes pull out Return of the Jedi and we’d watch it together on her tiny TV. Later on I’d be in bed, staring out at woods and trees that I knew, but seemed huge to a little kid, and I’d dream of Ewoks.

RotJ was Gram’s favorite, and for many years mine, too.

I like Ewoks.

VERY LONG ANSWER

TW: mental illness, depression, self harm, suicide, abuse

In late elementary, early middle school, my brother and I were basically reading ANYTHING we could get our hands on. He sometimes dove into books that didn’t interest me, so I’d read the first of something and then be bored and he’d keep going.

Star Wars EU was one of those. It was too grim for me. I think I didn’t run into any of the really good writers. It was all Han and Luke and Leia on the covers, so take that for what you will. There also was no Wookiepeia, so I was depending heavily on the writers’ abilities to convey things to someone very visual, yet pretty impatient with descriptions, so it never took.

I was in high school when The Phantom Menace came out. Mine honorable brother was off at college, so it was with great excitement on my part, and bemused tolerance on my parents’, that they and I went off to the theater.

On the one hand, I was dazzled.

On the other, there was Jar Jar. There was the fact that I hadn’t been impressed with the re-release of the OT – Han shot first. FITE ME. There was the fact that TPM didn’t feel like Star Wars, which was darker and grittier and…simpler to me.

So I wrote it off. Packed Star Wars away as “one of those things” that I’d been into, but felt like I was moving past. I was obsessed with Gargoyles, I was looking at going to college, and I would keep m’damn ewoks without needing to try to extend that vision with gungans.

College sucked. I went in, not sure if I wanted to go into English, for writing, or Psych, because I had always been what I’d now call The Mom Friend. I met a nice guy who tried, but things never really clicked between us, and there was an interesting bit that he was mad about Star Wars and insisted that I read the Rogue Squadron books.

That was a Good Decision. Dating him, not so much.

I had a huge assortment of Life Issues. Got into an abusive relationship that would end up lasting 14 years. Transferred schools. Got the fucking Psych degree, though literally only by the grace of a professor who didn’t want to see the kid not graduate just ‘cause she couldn’t numbers and I did go in and try. Talked to him and still couldn’t with the maths but the effort was there to bump me a few points above failing.

I was burnt out. I was depressed. I tried killing myself a few times – not very good at it, as you can see. Took up self-harm as a coping mechanism. Failed in the still never successful search for a decent therapist in Pittsburgh. Got a job slinging food, because needed some kind of income, and people without pressure was nice. The keeping on a schedule thing failed, leading to an average of 4 hours sleep a night. Losing contact with family and friends because I couldn’t stand the pressure of “how are you?” and “what’s going on in your life?” Clinging to Warcraft because repetitively farming was better than clawing open my back or neck again, and the people there were ok with some rando dropping out of sight on a dime, and only a persistent few had the grace and spirit to make it past some serious defensive issues of mine.

I stopped writing. Stopped caring about Gargoyles, stopped being able to see into that AU I’d made for myself of a crazy clan and the weird human who survived cancer with them.

Stopped going on IM, for the same reasons I stopped talking to people.

I still kept track of some folks via LiveJournal. A handful of the Gargoyles folks who were determined, gods know why and thank you, since I know several are here on the tumbles and I genuinely love you to bits.

I quit my job after five years, because enough was enough between the fact that it had all the hallmarks of an abusive relationship and I was fucking tired of being a manager without any actual authority, and the endless hamster wheel of hiring and people quitting because it was a nice, but highly dysfunctional place.

I missed the customers, though. Several of them are here too, and it’s kinda funny ‘cause I know in at least one case I talked to them about Star Wars. I still hope they’re not too shellshocked that I kinda went down the rabbit hole pretty deep.

Started getting more sleep. Not less anxiety, not less depressed. Tried out a few depression medications, with very mixed results.

Then one day @dogmatix came into the LJ area I still hung out in. Enthusiastically recommending to all and sundry that if there is even a shred of interest in Star Wars, THERE IS THIS THING YOU SHOULD READ.

She drew a Wookiee. That was a character?

I’d always liked Wookiees.

And I needed something to read.

Star Wars was one of those things, from back in the day before things went to shit. Low investment, since if I didn’t like it or didn’t care, then eh. Whatevs. Dogmatix was one of the Gargs holdouts still in my circle (or whatever it is that I was hovering at the edges of), and in the past I’d liked her recommendations more often than I disliked them.

I’m also endlessly weak to her art.

Wookiee.

So I did that thing. That so many of us here have done. It took me about 2 weeks to get through Re-Entry. It had trouble taking root in the depression, but Obi-Wan going crackers was something I could empathize with and appreciate.

There was the hope that had been missing from the EU novels I’d tried reading back in the day.

There was Wookieepedia, which meant I could stop and see what a Nautolan was. I had tabs open for DAYS so when someone named Adi or Gallia who were apparently the same person? I could see who that was. I got stupidly distressed that Abella didn’t have an entry, until I twigged and checked for a Chitanook, and holy shit I could never tell what character was going to crop up as canon, obscure EU character, or home brewed.

I honestly expected to set it aside, get updates as they happened, and gradually step away because that’s how things were going at the time.

But I still needed something to read, to stave off empty hours when my brain was too full of screaming.

On Ebon Wings. I’d loved The Crow when I’d seen it back in high school, and that story tapped into the powerful visuals and the lovely message I’d adored and in ways I still don’t quite understand it somehow validated that I could be mad and still be ok. Maybe. Maybe not now, but someday.

Maybe.

So I gave in and got a Tumbl. I’d been a stubborn holdout, regularly checking the same half dozen feeds daily because dammit, I don’t wanna go through the trouble and I was close to giving up on LJ and another journaly thing? That was stupid. But I wanted to follow Flamethrower and Dogmatix, and it made it infinitely easier to follow several blogs (and oh GODS one of those is a mutual and holy fuck I swear I screamed the day that happened and it’s still a high to realize).

Dogmatix wrote Möbius and Accidental Timeshare, wherein Venge goes universe hopping. That’s also a weakness of mine.

I’d been kvetching IRL about the treadmill and wanting something to watch, and someone mentioned in Dogmatix’s feed The Clone Wars – which conveniently was on Netflix. So I figured what the hell. I was disinclined to like clones – ‘cause yeesh, they’re the reason the Jedi all died, and yeah, ok, the Order was SERIOUSLY FUCKED UP, but.

I still had never seen Episodes 2 or 3.

I turned on the Clone Wars movie, and within ten minutes I nearly fell off the back of the treadmill due to crying.

THIS was the Star Wars of my youth. THIS was what I remembered. A little grim. Lots of quips.

That sound. Lightsabers igniting. A-wings rumbling overhead. Blasterfire, and that music.

I had to stop and calm down and for the first time in ages WRITE [, because I just had to ramble about how it all hit me in the feels]. I had no idea I’d missed this.

By the end of the movie I’d decided ok, I wanted more. Wasn’t sold on these clone fellas, and damned if I could tell one set of armor from another (this is ALSO due to the treadmill screen being calibrated to be a compromise of a very short person – me – and a very tall person, which means neither person gets a decent view but that’s not what the treadmill tv is for).

I’d been told there was an order to the episodes, but I didn’t care. Continuity is for those who think about the future, and I was still regularly suicidal.

So the first episode I watched was Yoda romping around a planet, playing with droids while three clone troopers tried to babysit his mad little ass.

They had me, all in one episode. I loved these guys. They had individuality, I could tell them apart by the voices (which is sometimes just as important to me as visuals) even if I couldn’t name them, and the personalities –

They were loyal. Their primary concern was old batty Yoda which I had adored as a child because MUPPETS. They were willing to die to keep him safe and there was this lovely reciprocity in taking care of each other and all of them, clones and Jedi alike were doomed to extinction and I don’t think I knew yet HOW the clones were except they weren’t in the OT so there was shit going down.

Tragic figures, loyal found family, incredible voice acting, Batty Old Yoda who OH YEAH FUCKING KICKED SO MUCH ASS I COULD NEVER GET ENOUGH.

I wanted to keep those three clones. I was willing to keep them all.

Final blow, that knocked me into the fandom so hard I’ll be surprised if I ever leave?

THIS.

The origins of Balance. This is the post that started a simple notion, to try to write something when I’d gone….anywhere from 7 to 10 years of not writing A SINGLE. DAMNED. THING of substance – and that was after thinking I might try to get a degree related to it.

Darth Wraith was a tentative idea. I was scared @deadcatwithaflamethrower would be irked I wanted to play in her sandbox (oh my gods I was inserting myself into a conversation with her this amazing person who wrote blindingly well and so damn much and how the FUCK was I daring to speak up about a silly half DREAM I’d had because once again I couldn’t sleep).

Then, because I was trying to break out of the depression, the cycles of mental ill health, and if I was on this tumbls thing, fuck it, I’d try the IM thing again.

I’d been gone long enough that pretty much no one on my contact list was still there. That…was ok. There wasn’t the pressure.

And Dogmatix popped on, asking if I wanted to share details about this Sith Qui-Gon thing.

I had A SCENE. ONE. SCENE. And she was spinning it off into this EPIC, which at first I was gleeful because she had neat ideas and I couldn’t wait to see what she would do with it and then wait, she’s not talking about writing it herself, this is more about something WE could work on.

Thank gods it was IM, because I had a little panic about commitment to a project when I regularly was sure I wasn’t going to see tomorrow and if I didn’t wake up one morning that’d be MORE than ok.

Still. There was that itch. The visuals in my brain. The characters I’d started to like in Flamethrower’s universe, which had formed my mental voices for them.

The only sound in my head for so long was just screaming.

Writing down that scene in Knock On Effect, where Venge meets Wraith – that felt good. It never changed much from the first draft to what was posted. The rest grew, and quickly. It was clear if we were doing this, then there were multiple stories, spanning in universe years.

And then there were spinoffs. Wonderful ideas and plots spiraling away from this one notion, and gods I wanted to write about those glorious clones.

How’d I get into Star Wars?

Chance. One strange little step at a time, and a bunch of miracles and horrors that kept me bleeding but not dying. Damn good fic. The kindness of friends. The generosity of strangers.

The tragedy of a once great order of space monks, and their allies-forced-to-be-betrayers clones.

One little picture, of Qui-Gon Jinn with Sith eyes.

#tumblageddon #reviving from the purge #star wars #tw #self harm #suicide #depression #mental illness #abuse #emotional #Norcumi has Opinions again #deadcatwithaflamethrower #dogmatix #i did not expect to cry when writing this #star wars saved my life #literally

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sl-walker · 5 years

Text

Preview

“Even if it’s only for two days, I’ll take it.”

Misty’s eyes were locked on the expanse of water in front of them; out beyond the reef, combers rolled in, and the sand in front of them was unmarked and quiet. The water coming in rolled up and back, darkening it before it paled again swiftly.

It had taken three weeks, in the end, to get them here; within that three weeks, there had been their retrieval of the Wolf Pack's informant, Tango gaining the last two parts needed to make his Delta-6 flightworthy and safe, a squad-wide case of the pan-galactic flu (which Shiv and party accidentally brought back from their mission to Nar Shaddaa), one mission to a separatist listening post that ended up with Maul falling through lake ice and frost-burning one of his hands, which upon completion led to some High Command intelligence regarding Felucia, and only now was Misty getting the chance to go swimming that he'd been promised.

Maul had not forgotten Misty's desire to do so, and besides that, what downtime the squad had gotten thus far had all been snatched en route to another assignment, or when they were recovering from illness or injury. The last real break they'd had was on Radnor, in terms of actual leave to rest, and when Maul realized that and put together how long ago that really was, relatively speaking, he'd hoped for a chance to do something about it. Especially since that had only been a couple of days. Before that, it had been a similarly short period on Corellia.

So, when it turned out they had managed to dodge yet another assignment right on the heels of the last -- presumably because of what was going to happen with Felucia -- he had searched for the nearest world that had vacation rentals that could be acquired with clandestine credits won in games of chance either on the HoloNet (by Brody) or from the unsuspecting members of the Wolf Pack (by Tally), or pulled from the account attached to an unmarked credit chip (from Bail), or left over from their mission to Llanic (dispensed by Croft). Between those four sources, they had enough for two days here and that left them enough time to meet the Negotiator, which would hopefully be finished with the current engagement by then, and transfer Rabbit so that he could get to his AIT assignment on one of the fast transports dedicated to troop movements.

Omereth was one that had suffered for the war, in terms of economic losses; out beyond Hutt Space, not quite to the Centrality, it was a shining ocean world with a warm sun and a number of archipelagos, and were it anywhere else, it might have become the vacation destination that it attempted to boast itself as on the HoloNet. But since it had no strategic value -- even the HoloNet connections were at best spotty out here, at worst nonexistent -- it was left alone by both sides of the conflict. A handful of companies owned chains of islands; beyond them, there were some small colonies of people who had found their way there, subsisting on tropical vegetation, seafood and the rare shipment.

Omereth was not lacking in marine life, certainly; within minutes of settling the Nest down on the landing platform almost too small for it, a pod of some fairly large, leaping animals out at sea had made Misty gasp and abandon the ramp to run out to the beach and get a closer look. He had watched them until they were too small to see, even after the rest of the squad disembarked to walk to their rentals.

The resort wasn’t high end, the cabins were small and had no technology to speak of, not even a comm system, but it was within their budget and it was deserted aside from them.

All in all, the smell and feel of it reminded Maul very much of Iloh. There was considerably less vegetation, and the island they were parked on was smaller than the one he and Obi-Wan had visited so long ago, but the smell of the sea and the hush of the water rolling in was just the same.

Now, Misty was already stripped down to his swim shorts from Corellia and bouncing up on the balls of his feet, eyes locked on the water. "This is going to feel so good."

“Count me out,” Brody joked, stretching with his arms over his head, a datapad in one hand. “I make it a point to be the biggest predator of any food chain I step into for recreation.”

“Am I the only one who bothered to change on the Nest?” Misty asked, frowning and looking around for the rest of the Blackbirds, who had all disappeared into their cabins.

Raze was the one who answered that; he barreled seemingly out of nowhere, stark naked, running into the water with a wild battle cry. He was followed in rapid succession by Rabbit and Rancor, both of whom echoed their ‘commander’ as they streaked – literally – into the lagoon.

In less rapid succession, the rest followed; Shiv, Tally, Husker, Castle, even Smarty. Though they, at least, had worn their trunks.

“Guess so,” Misty said, laughing. He was just about to head in when he noticed Tango hanging back in the doorway of the cabin in his shorts, chewing on his bottom lip, then went and over and talked to the pilot; Maul didn’t hear what they said, but after a moment, whatever Misty had told Tango was apparently enough to unstick his feet, though he was still blushing furiously. Something about research for a story.

Misty shrugged, when Maul looked at him in query, on the way towards the water. “He’s shy. Kind of.”

Maul shrugged back; he didn’t know what Tango could by shy about, since three of his brothers were naked and the others were similarly attired to him, but it was good of Misty to talk him through it.

He had no desire to go into the water himself; after Tango finally joined his brothers, he looked around and caught sight of a ragged but serviceable hammock hanging in a limited little stand of trees, right about the same time Brody did.

They eyed each other, both of them tensing, and then like an invisible shot was fired, they both bolted for the hammock, trying to race one another to it. The slipping sand made it a precarious race, but it ended up being a tie anyway, and then they were scuffling for it.

(It was a strange, new thing, to scuffle for the fun of it; to not take openings to score hits because pain wasn’t the point of it and would, in fact, destroy said point completely.)

In the end, Maul threw the not-fight, and when Brody crowed triumphantly and got into his hammock with a datapad, Maul just grinned tongue-in-cheek, got up, dusted himself off and found a tree to lean against himself, watching Misty free-diving and the rest of the Blackbirds swimming and playing in the water.

Regardless of everything else going on right now, either out in the galaxy or inside of his own head, the sight of them made Maul happy.

To the very end of his days, he would remember this as before; for all of the watershed moments of his life, for all of the things he survived, for all of the things which left marks on him for good or for ill, it would be this that would always be known only as before.

And to the very end of them, he would be able to trace the internal scars that drew the lines between before and after.

#maul #misty #brody #blackbirds: year one #witness me #built on the framework of an old snippet #updated and contextualized

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mikotyzini · 6 years

Text

What Defines Us - Ch. 31

One of my favorite chapters - and it’s a long-ish one. Here’s a link.

Also, I’ll be out of town next week, so I don’t know when I’ll be able to post the next chapter. Hopefully, I’ll have an internet connection and can do it from my phone. For those on Patreon, I can schedule the post in advance so no worries there! (I know I can do that on Tumblr too, but not ff.net and I like to post coincidingly on both)

One - it wasn’t very fair to spring monumental decisions on Weiss with very little notice. History already proved that she was ill-equipped for rational thinking under a great deal of pressure, especially when Ruby was involved.

Two - well, the first reason should be good enough.

Had Blake and Yang seriously expected Weiss to tell Ruby about their history within a matter of days? What a ludicrous expectation to place upon her...when they knew full well how her base personality required far more time to analyze and plan out an appropriate course of action.

It was an unreasonable expectation. As such, of course she hadn’t been successful. It was a failing endeavor from the start.

It was nice that they put so much faith in her, but what they failed to understand was how difficult it would be for her to set foot on Beacon’s campus - let alone spend an entire day surrounded by old friends and familiar faces. The prospect of coming clean to Ruby at the same time was another level of emotional dilemma.

Could she spill the beans, so to speak? Maybe.

Did she want to?

That was the most problematic part of this entire predicament. She didn’t know what she wanted to do, and she couldn’t figure out an answer no matter how much time she devoted to weighing her options.

To tell Ruby - or to keep it a secret...at least for a little while longer.

She’d yet to make a decision, and the day of the Beacon Invite arrived. She’d let time slip away as she fell into the all-too-familiar habit of avoidance - trying to escape overwhelming uncertainty. With so very little time remaining, she’d declined Blake’s invitation to meet her team at their house to travel to the airship station together. Instead, she opted to focus on a series of small victories she set up to trick herself out the door.

Because she would go to Beacon - no matter how badly she wished to stay away. That was a promise she’d made to Ruby, and she was going to do everything within her power to fulfill it.

Out of bed, get dressed - two small victories.

Small breakfast, out the door - more tiny victories.

Into the waiting car, to the airship station - small, yet growing victories.

Arrive at the station, get out of the car, allow the driver to leave her behind - victories she should congratulate herself for if she wasn’t paralyzed by fear.

Honestly, she was surprised she’d made it this far. Beacon was so far off limits that when the word came up, she buried it underneath mounds and mounds of work. To her, Beacon symbolized everything she’d built with Ruby - the foundation of both their friendship and their relationship. It was at Beacon where her life truly began...and she didn't want to go back yet. She wanted to leave the past in peace.

But she’d promised. So...this morning it wasn’t Beacon she was heading towards. It was Ruby. Whatever came next -

“Weiss!!”

Turning towards the sound of her name, excitement tingled down Weiss’ spine when she caught sight of the source. Ruby was geared up in her combat attire - the boots, the skirt, the red cloak - with Crescent Rose hung on her back and Thorn adorning her hand. She looked prepared for battle - however big the fight might be. She looked dangerous and extremely capable.

She looked like a huntress.

It was a sight Weiss never thought she’d see again, yet here it was - racing over before crashing into her for a hug.

“You made it!” Ruby called out, holding Weiss at arm’s length while silver eyes twinkled brightly. The eager expression was enough to make Weiss temporarily forget her reservations.

“Of course I did. I promised, didn’t I?”

While Ruby grinned, Yang walked past and clapped one hand down on her sister’s shoulder.

“Come on, kids. Let’s get this show on the road!”

Watching the full huntress versions of Blake and Yang walk over the ramp and into the waiting ship, Weiss remembered the trepidation laying upon her mood ever since she woke up this morning. If it wasn’t for Ruby grabbing her hand, she might not have followed her teammates aboard at all.

But Ruby did grab Weiss’ hand and, whether she realized it or not, provided enough strength for Weiss to board the ship with her teammates. As she did so, she reminded herself that there would be no real enemies today - only simulations. No one would be in any physical danger. The only thing in danger was her relationship with Ruby, which seemed to have recently reached a new level of closeness.

“You wore your combat stuff too!” Ruby pointed out while picking a pair of seats in the row behind Blake and Yang. Pausing in the aisle so that Ruby could have the window seat, Weiss sat down and clutched her hands in her lap.

“I wanted to blend in,” she answered calmly, utilizing the excuse she’d come up with yesterday after spending hours deciding how she might broach the subject of her past affiliations with Beacon. If she was to fight today, wearing her combat outfit was essential. And Myrtenaster was stored in a locker, waiting to be called if needed.

That was a pretty big ‘if.’

“You look great!” Ruby replied, hopefully failing to notice the blush the compliment dusted across Weiss’ cheeks.

“You do too,” she managed to whisper in reply before glancing away and watching the doors close. Her pulse beat faster as her mind tried to wish herself back out the doors. It was too late - there’d be no turning back now, as the ramps drew away and a soft melody announced their imminent departure.

The next second the ship gave a small jolt as it detached from the landing pad, causing her to flinch in surprise. In no time, they were rising rapidly into the sky before blasting away from the station - destination: Beacon.

Ruby’s face was practically glued to the window as the ship zoomed into the air, remaining there until they’d ascended above the cloud cover and the city below was no longer visible.

“How far are we? Yang! How far are we?” she asked, standing up in order to look down at her sister in the row ahead.

“Not far, Ruby. Won’t take long at all.”

Plopping back into her seat, Ruby examined Thorn for a half second before turning her gaze elsewhere.

“Are you nervous?”

The answer to Weiss’ question was abundantly obvious - Ruby’s knee bounced nonstop while her right hand subconsciously played with the ring around her neck.

“A little, yeah…”

With a soft ‘hmm,’ Weiss hesitantly dropped one hand onto Ruby’s hopping knee. The gesture temporarily stopped the bouncing...until the other one started up.

“I don’t know what to expect!” Ruby continued, her hand still spinning and spinning her ring in anxiety. “Or who to expect. And I’ve never fought in front of anyone but you guys before and there’s gonna be a whole crowd of people plus it’ll be on TV and I really, really don’t want to make a fool of myself!”

Taking a deep breath, Ruby finally focused on Weiss.

“There’s just...a lot,” she surmised with a quick smile. “I think my mind might really explode this time.”

“You’re going to do great,” Weiss replied, squeezing Ruby’s knee in encouragement at the same time. They shared a smile before Ruby looked down at the ring in her hands, and her mouth curled into a slight frown.

“Do you think she’ll show?”

When bright, silver eyes found Weiss, they gleamed with unconcealed hope. The expression reinforced what Yang had said and what Weiss already knew - how could anyone possibly want to disappoint Ruby?

“I think she’d be stupid not to.”

The answer seemed to reassure Ruby, but her knee kept bouncing and her ring kept spinning. Weiss could only imagine what must be going through Ruby’s mind right now - between seeing Beacon for the ‘first time,’ potentially meeting her long-lost partner, competing against a group of full-fledged huntsmen and huntresses...as Ruby had so aptly put it - it was a lot.

But for every ounce Ruby was nervous, she was also clearly excited. As usual, she ran towards a challenge with a smile on her face and a hop in her step. She embraced adversity. No matter how big this moment may be, she’d rise to it - and then above it.

“Have you been to Beacon before?” Ruby suddenly asked, breaking the silence while turning away from the window.

“I - yes, but a long time ago,” Weiss fibbed, unprepared for the question. However, Ruby accepted the answer readily - bobbing her head before staring out the window and falling back into silence.

Weiss’ stomach jumped into her throat when the ship began its rapid descent, amplifying her pulse as they fell into the clouds. Reaching over, she clasped one of Ruby’s hands in her own - much more for her own support than for Ruby’s. Glancing at their joined hands, Ruby grinned and moved closer to the window as they dropped below the clouds - and she gasped when the ship was finally sailing through clear skies again.

There it was. Beacon.

When Blake stood and looked over the back of the seats at them, Weiss dropped Ruby’s hand and then immediately cursed herself for being so modest. Once upon a time, she hadn’t cared so much about what others thought, but today...it was as if she and Ruby were starting new - and that meant nerves and modesty were back full force.

“Are you ready?” Blake asked - although Weiss wasn’t sure if the question was directed more towards her or Ruby.

Giggling, Ruby leaned into Weiss’ shoulder.

“I’m super pumped!”

Speechless, Weiss responded to Blake’s inquisitive eyes with nothing more than a small nod.

Ready? No, she wasn’t. But it didn’t matter if she was ready or not - they were already there. In a matter of hours, Ruby would be fighting in the tournament...with or without Weiss.

The slight bump of the airship docking made her wince while her heart climbed higher into her throat. When the other passengers began standing up, she remained glued to her seat, her nerves shooting like livewires through her veins. It wasn’t until Ruby stood and tapped Weiss’ shoulder that she persuaded her limbs to carry her off the ship and towards the entry to Beacon’s grounds.

The atmosphere was filled with excitement as large groups of attendees emptied from a series of airships that had arrived nearly in unison. Undeterred by the crowds, Ruby raced ahead - shooting down to the bottom of the ramp before letting out another gasp.

“Wowww!!”

From here, the view of Beacon was quite awe-inspiring. The sparkling buildings, many recently rebuilt. The sprawling walkways, the towering trees, the green forest in the distance...and the people. Crowds and crowds of people walked or gathered around the edges of the paths. Most of them appeared to be spectators, but more than a few students milled about. And, standing out amongst the crowds, were one or two other huntsmen - easily identifiable by the weapons they were hauling around.

“I mean, I’ve seen pictures and stuff, but wow!” Ruby continued with an excited hop as they followed the flow of people away from the airship. “Look at this place!”

Reaching the first break - where the new arrivals began to disperse in all directions towards their ultimate destinations - Ruby raced a few paces ahead and spun in a slow circle, her lively eyes taking in all of the sights before she turned back to them and waved.

“Come on, guys!”

While Ruby raced ahead, pausing every few feet to take another good look around, Weiss watched from afar and willed her feet to carry her further. Feeling a warm presence by her side, she turned and found Yang standing beside her - lilac eyes following Ruby with a small smile on her lips.

“You’re gonna tell her today, right?” she asked quietly.

The question made Weiss swallow thickly while her heart continued to beat wildly in her chest. The ride here had done nothing to help her make a decision. If anything, it only reinforced that she didn’t possess the courage to broach the topic today.

“Right? Weiss?” Yang asked again after too much time elapsed, turning that purple gaze in Weiss’ direction. Swallowing again, Weiss nodded once and attempted a smile.

“I’m just...waiting for the right moment...”

Yang let out a gentle laugh, as if that was the response she’d expected.

“It’s Beacon, Weiss. I’m sure there’ll be plenty of ‘em,” she commented before walking ahead to join Ruby, who was again waving at them to hurry up. Taking Yang’s place by Weiss’ side, Blake remained behind for a second longer.

“Are you going to tell her?”

“Of co-” Halting the lie before it fully appeared, Weiss sighed and shook her head. “I can’t decide.”

Blake’s ears twitched in concern, but her eyes showed nothing.

“Do you want us to tell her for you?”

“Thank you, but it should come from me, shouldn’t it?”

“It should...but if you don’t feel like you can -”

“I can do it,” Weiss cut in resolutely before feeling the courage quickly fade away. “I just...need to decide if that’s the right thing to do.”

“You don’t have much time left to make up your mind…” Blake whispered before moving to rejoin Yang up ahead.

Only after briefly closing her eyes and sighing did Weiss move to follow, clasping her hands together to prevent them from openly shaking. The crowds weren’t helping her nerves. If anything, they were only amplifying her anxiety by their presence. Thankfully, it looked like the paths up ahead thinned out as everyone moved to the arena at their own pace. That’s where Ruby was already waiting for them, hopping from one foot to the other in excitement.

Weiss could do it - she could tell Ruby. If she wanted to.

If she wanted to, she could do it.

While making her way back to her team, she did her best to ignore the people surrounding her. In some instances they were far too close, stepping into her personal space or jostling her. At other times they were far away, but she could feel the looks - the second glances at her outfit as if trying to place her. And the whispers…Ruby, Ruby, RWBY, RWBY…

Outside of this place, when Ruby was in nothing but street clothes and absent a spectacularly eye-catching weapon, most people would fail to connect her with the legend she’d created. But here...at Beacon...at a competition for huntsmen…

“Is that -”

“Do you think -’

“Was that really Ruby Rose?”

Fortunately, those who noticed were content to keep their distance - gawking but not attempting to approach. Ruby probably wouldn’t have minded if they did, but the potential for them to ask about the entire team - including Weiss - could be catastrophic. Not that it had ever happened to them before, but there was a first time for everything...

“This place is huge!” Ruby was saying when Weiss caught up to them.

With every sentence Ruby spoke, she added a joyful hop at the end for emphasis. It was adorable and would’ve been thoroughly enjoyable if Weiss wasn’t entirely preoccupied with the large open space they were approaching.

“This is where the new students make their way into Beacon for the first time,” Yang announced, using grand gestures to wave towards the pillars while they passed beneath them. “Pretty cool, right?”

Watching Ruby intently, Weiss tried to read the reaction - or, more realistically, to see if there was any flicker of recognition in those wide, silver eyes.

“Really cool! And big!” Ruby answered, turning around and giving Weiss a grin she couldn’t return.

This was where new students made their way into Beacon for the first time. This was where they’d first met. As inauspicious as that meeting had been, it was a milestone in Weiss’ life. It was one of those moments she could point to and say - ‘Right there. That moment changed my life for the better.’

But it was nothing to Ruby.

“What do you think, Weiss?” Yang asked while all three of her teammates looked at her with varying degrees of expectation.

How was she supposed to respond to that question though? ‘Yes, this looks exactly like the place I met Ruby years ago?’

“It’s lovely,” was all she managed to mutter before walking on - voluntarily leaving that part of her past behind.

Because it was gone. She’d already known that, but somewhere she must’ve held onto the hope that Beacon had survived...if only in a glimmer of recognition. But Beacon hadn’t survived - just like Weiss hadn’t survived, or Blake, or any of the years of memories they’d shared together.

The absence was only another heartache to add to the pile.

“Think we can sneak into our old dorm room?” Yang asked after a passing moment of silence, throwing a wave towards a group of students who immediately began to whisper excitedly amongst themselves.

“Of course we can,” Blake replied. “The question is, why would we?”

“To mess with the freshies!”

Taking Yang’s hand, Blake shook her head and led them away from the rows of dorm buildings whose mere sight tore at Weiss’ composure. Inside that building - that one right there - was the first room she’d ever shared...and it had been one of the most surprisingly enjoyable experiences of her life. Staying up late studying for exams (or helping those on her team who’d failed to adequately prepare), watching scary movies all weekend when it rained, trying and failing to make their own soap...all of those memories were bundled up in that unassuming building.

Where they would stay.

“Which one was ours?” Ruby asked as they walked by, her eyes lingering a moment longer.

“That one right there,” Yang answered while pointing it out to Ruby, who merely nodded and then turned away. That was it.

Meanwhile, Weiss’ eyes flitted back to the building until it was out of sight, but not out of mind.

This was something like taking a walking tour through her most painful memories - hurting more and more with every subsequent building that was passed without a hint of recognition. It was as if they were acknowledging that the past didn’t exist anymore. Even though Weiss remembered it vividly, it was gone.

Unfortunately, it would get worse before it would get better - if it would get better at all. Next up was the dining hall, where she refused to allow her eyes to remain for too long. Food and Ruby would always be intertwined in her mind...

“That’s the dining hall. They’ve got some good food. And some not so good food,” Yang explained with a chuckle. “Oh, and there’s a classroom building.”

Pausing, Weiss looked up at the slanted roof and felt her heart clench.

That wasn’t just any classroom building. That was the building Ruby had climbed on top of to shout her feelings for Weiss - and practically the rest of Beacon - to hear. It had been one of the most utterly embarrassing yet greatest moments of her life rolled into one.

‘Ruby, get down here right now!’ she’d yelled at her partner in vain.

‘Not until you say you’ll go out with me!’

‘Sure! Fine! Whatever you want, just get down here!’

When Ruby had gleefully jumped down, to much applause, Weiss had pretended to be angry, but she’d secretly been...ecstatic. All of the feelings she’d been unable to express to Ruby had been returned tenfold. It only took Ruby’s courage and lack of social etiquette to finally bring them together.

Who would’ve thought that what Weiss needed was someone to love her so loudly...so unabashedly...that they’d literally shout it from the rooftops?

Feeling someone step beside her, she hastily wiped a tear from her eye.

“Weiss…” Blake whispered.

“I’m fine.” The response was so automatic, Weiss could only shake her head after. “I’ll be alright,” she corrected, shooting a worried glance towards Yang and Ruby. The last thing she wanted was for Ruby to wonder why a classroom building was worth so much emotion.

“We should probably head to the arena now,” Blake called out to the other two, giving Weiss’ shoulder a gentle squeeze. “We don’t want to be late.”

Yang looked their way before nodding and throwing on a smile for Ruby.

“Come on, Ruby. Time to show you the best part of the campus!”

Glancing at the buildings one more time, Ruby smiled at Weiss before happily following her sister away. Passing between several taller buildings and making it through a small square, they turned a corner and suddenly the arena came into view - towering in the distance down a long avenue that was crawling with people.

This was where all of the action was happening.

As they joined the fray, Blake remained by Weiss’ side until Ruby glanced over her shoulder and paused for them to catch up. Only then did Blake seamlessly move ahead to walk with Yang, sliding her hand into her partner’s to announce her presence and earning a grin in return.

“You doing ok?” Ruby asked, giving Weiss a concerned expression.

“Yes, why?”

“You seem kinda quiet.”

“It’s...all the people,” she answered, diverting her eyes from a group of rambunctious students who’d just pointed their way before talking amongst themselves. “I’m not a huge fan of crowds.”

Ruby immediately slid closer to Weiss, as if to provide a physical barrier preventing anyone else from getting too close.

“Gotcha. But you’re still having fun, right?”

“Of course.”

Satisfied with that answer, Ruby grabbed Weiss’ hand and led her through the groups of people. The arena towered over them as they neared the entrance, while the sounds of many voices mingled in the air to create one loud drone filled with anticipation and excitement.

A wide pathway led directly to the main entrance of the arena - a several-stories-tall, hundreds of feet wide, gaping opening with gates thrown open to accept the throng of spectators inside. But this wasn’t the entrance they would use. There were multiple smaller entrances located around the side of the arena for huntsmen and other staff. It was when Yang and Blake led them off of the main walkway towards one of these entrances that Ruby suddenly gasped and dropped Weiss’ hand.

“Oh my godddd - look at those!!” Ruby squealed, pointing out Fox and Yatsuhashi’s rather intimidating swords. Although...for as intimidating as the weapons were, the two members of Team CFVY looked far less dangerous toting along what had to be Coco’s fashionably-pink luggage.

“Do you think I can even hold that thing?” Ruby asked, gesturing to Yatsuhashi’s sword.

Pausing to see what Ruby was gushing about, Yang chuckled at her sister’s zealousness.

“Why don’t you go ask?” she suggested.

“Really??”

“Yeah. Introduce yourself and ask,” she said, giving Ruby an encouraging nudge forward. “I’m sure he’ll let you!”

Ruby’s hesitation lasted for only a second before she smiled and skipped over to Team CFVY on her own. Upon noticing her approach, the entire team stopped and listened Ruby to intently before Coco started laughing at whatever was said. For his part, Yatsuhashi didn’t hesitate in setting down Coco’s bags and removing the sword from his back before handing it over to Ruby. As soon as he released it, the weight dragged Ruby’s hands straight down and the tip clanked into the ground. Weiss smiled, and Yang chuckled while they watched Ruby strain to lift the weapon and hold it in something resembling a proper fighting stance. Thankfully, Ruby didn’t try to swing it - and gladly handed it back to the boy, who lifted it like a feather over his head to hang on his back.

It was impossible to hear from this distance and with this many people around, but Velvet said something next and pointed to Thorn, most likely asking about his purpose. It was the perfect question to ask, immediately sending Ruby into excited chatters about her newest accessory. She then offered Crescent Rose to the team, and Coco nodded for Yatsuhashi to take it.

With a nod, he accepted the scythe and drew it back before launching it through the air. It had already traveled at least fifty yards before it jarred to a stop and flew back for Ruby to easily jump and catch.

Ruby’s latest parlor trick made Weiss smile. It was as handy as it was unusual - and Team CFVY seemed to agree from their respectful nods. Velvet, of course, immediately asked to take a photo of Thorn, which Ruby graciously obliged. As the interaction wrapped up and Team CFVY prepared to continue their way to the arena, Coco patted Ruby on the back and Velvet sent a small wave their way.

With a huge grin on her face, Ruby bounded back to them.

“They’re super nice! And that sword was heavy. Did you see me try to hold it?” As Ruby imitated her struggles, Weiss smiled again - happy that Ruby had enjoyed re-meeting Team CFVY so much.

“They won last year, ya know,” Yang added while they walked on, succeeding in making Ruby’s jaw nearly drop to the ground.

“What?! No way! Really?!”

“Yup. All five rounds - time to spare. Helps with four people though.”

“But you can finish with three!” Ruby answered, sending a grin Weiss’ way. “I’ve seen it happen before.”

“Totally doable,” Yang responded. “It’s just hard to win with three.”

“I don’t care about winning!” Ruby quipped. “But I want to finish the rounds!”

Catching Ruby’s optimistic grin, Weiss couldn’t help but feel her spirits lifted by the fact that Ruby was already having such a great time. If nothing else good happened, Ruby’s happiness made coming here worth the trouble.

Mid-stride, Blake’s posture suddenly stiffened.

“Here comes trouble,” she muttered at the same moment Weiss noticed Cardin Winchester standing with his team up ahead. Unfortunately, the boy had noticed them - more specifically, Ruby - and was already striding over with a smirk on his lips.

“I got it,” Yang replied confidently, smiling while Cardin walked up to Ruby.

“Well well well, if it isn’t little miss - oomph!”

The boy doubled over before he could finish the sentence, his hands clamped over his stomach where Yang’s elbow had just landed with a painful thump. While he was still hunched over, Yang leaned down and whispered something into his ear - something that made Blake’s eyes widen in surprise. Nodding enthusiastically, he straightened slightly before hobbling off at a fast pace, never looking back.

Noticing Ruby’s bewildered expression at what just happened, Yang merely shrugged.

“He owes me money,” she explained before continuing on as if nothing had happened.

Violence was never the answer...but well-placed intimidation worked wonders on a bully like Cardin. As long as it kept him away from Ruby, Weiss was willing to endorse Yang’s methodology. Otherwise, there was no telling what he might say or do just to cause trouble.

As one of the side entrances loomed up ahead, Weiss picked out a crowd of students and several huntsmen gathered around Professor Oobleck - who seemed to be holding court of some sort, which wasn’t surprising given his popularity as one of Beacon’s best professors. He was the one who let students try to take down an Ursa in their first class - or allowed them into sections of the forest that were off limits. There likely wasn’t a single student who didn’t try to get on his good side, if only to be allowed the opportunity to test their skills against a foe that was potentially way too powerful.

To be a student again...blessed with a sense of invincibility and a good dose of naivety...

“Oh, hey!” Yang suddenly remarked while pointing towards Professor Oobleck. “Blake and I will check us in. You two wanna hang out here?”

When Ruby nodded, Yang winked at Weiss before leading Blake over to the crowd of students. Clearly, this was a pre-designed moment to give Weiss the opportunity to speak with Ruby in private...as if the wink hadn’t made that entirely obvious...

Shuffling her feet and glancing over, Weiss found Ruby’s eyes darting from one spot to another - trying to soak in as much of the atmosphere as possible. In particular, her attention was drawn to every weapon she found. Knowing Ruby’s mind, Weiss had to assume that a catalog of wants and wishes was being created with every sword and saber that passed them by.

“How do you like Beacon so far?” she finally asked, failing to think of a better question to spark a conversation.

“It’s great! Really big. I just wish I could remember what these places were.”

“But I thought you didn’t want to know your past…” Weiss replied, her brow furrowing in confusion.

“I don’t! But I do. It’s a really weird situation going on in my head right now.”

Regardless of whatever mental turmoil Ruby was experiencing right now, she grinned That had always been one of her strengths. No matter what the world decided to throw at her, she always found a reason to smile.

“It’ll be better once I’m fighting,” Ruby added, her gaze flitting from one person to the next. “Then I can focus on the fight and not…everything else...”

“You’ll be out there soon,” Weiss replied, although she wasn’t sure if her reply was reassuring or distressing. The closer they drew to the arena - and the walls were only a matter of feet away from them now - the closer they grew to revelation or disappointment.

After scanning several other faces, Ruby finally turned to Weiss with an embarrassed smile.

“I keep thinking I’ll recognize someone,” she admitted while reaching up to touch her necklace - the action all but saying who she was trying to find. “Kinda dumb, right?”

“No, Ruby…” Weiss immediately replied before struggling to find the words she wanted to say next.

That was a wish she’d made so many times...that Ruby would just remember - as if it was as easy as that. Like flipping on a light switch, all of those memories would return.

It was something she wished for, but knowing that Ruby sometimes felt the way only filled her with regret.

“That’s not dumb at all,” she continued, giving Ruby an encouraging smile. “I think that’s a pretty natural response after what you’ve been through.”

“Yeah...let’s hope everyone else is as understanding as you!” Ruby quipped before finding another smile that somehow put Weiss at ease even though it was Ruby in need of comfort. “Oh wow - look at that!”

Distracted by a neon blue crossbow, Ruby practically drooled as the weapon was carried past.

Grateful that Ruby had such a short memory when it came to difficult situations, Weiss watched the crossbow until she spotted Blake and Yang out of the corner of her eye. From the look of it, they were having a serious conversation - Blake speaking quickly, her ears slightly flattened while Yang listened intently. Yang’s brow was furrowed, but she was beginning to nod in agreement with whatever Blake was saying.

What were those two up to now?

“You’ll stay with me until we go in?” Ruby asked - the question so openly earnest and hopeful that it tugged strongly at Weiss’ heart.

“I’ll stay until you want me to go,” Weiss replied with a gentle smile.

Even though Ruby smiled back, she couldn’t know that that moment might be closer than either of them realized - that she might have reason to ask Weiss to leave and never come back. Until then...Weiss would stay by Ruby’s side.

Seeing Yang and Blake walking back to them, Weiss dropped Ruby’s gaze and turned to face the rest of their team.

“Turns out they need you to go over yourself,” Yang said while joining them. “Wanna run over there and get checked in?”

“Sure!” Ruby replied, racing to Blake’s side to head over to Professor Oobleck. When Weiss moved to follow, Yang stuck out an arm to stop her - allowing Blake and Ruby to move on without them.

“Hey, hold on a second,” Yang said, gently turning Weiss towards her and lowering her voice. “How’re you doing?”

Sighing, Weiss glanced at Ruby and Blake before turning back to Yang.

“I’ve been better.”

Nodding, Yang’s eyes also flitted to Ruby before fixing on Weiss.

“Listen, it was too much to ask you to come here and tell Ruby,” she said, her voice soft and full of understanding. “So don’t worry about it, ok? We can tell her later if you want.”

“But...what about her partner?” Weiss asked in surprise.

“I’ll make something up. She’ll be disappointed, but she’s survived worse.” Giving Weiss a hopeful smile, Yang patted her once on the shoulder. “We’d rather you didn’t have another aneurysm.”

Stunned by the change of events, which Weiss now knew must’ve been the topic of conversation she’d just witnessed, she had no idea how to respond. This took a tremendous amount of pressure off of her and meant that she wouldn’t be letting Yang down if she (most likely) failed to tell Ruby the truth. She hated the idea that Ruby would be disappointed, but this might be the breath of relief she needed to survive the day.

Trying to smile in acceptance, she nodded.

“Thank you…”

“Yang!”

Hearing Ruby’s voice, both of them turned in that direction at the same time - finding Ruby throwing her arms up in exasperation.

“What’re you talking about? They’re not even doing check-ins!”

“They aren’t??” Yang asked with nearly-genuine surprise. “Then who did Blake and I talk to??”

Quickly understanding that it had been a joke, Ruby pouted while Yang laughed.

“Ruby!!”

There wasn’t time to find the source of the voice before an orange missile slammed into Ruby and lifted her feet right off the ground. Weiss’ initial shock quickly dissipated into familiarity - which morphed into concern in a heartbeat.

Nora.

“Rubyyyy! I’m so happy to see youuuu!” Nora sang cheerfully, keeping Ruby’s arms pinned to her side while swinging her in the air like some prized doll. For her part, Ruby didn’t seem too concerned, but was dumbfounded by what was happening.

“Uh...hi?”

Dropping Ruby to the ground, Nora took a half step back. “Hi!” she said with a grand wave and giant smile. “Long time no see, silly goose! Look at you all up n’ attem - oh cool glove!!”

Nora - the epitome of unpredictable. Taking a slow step back, Weiss tried her best to disappear and not draw Nora’s attention lest the girl completely blow her cover. Thankfully, Nora’s focus was centered squarely upon Ruby while grabbing her hand to peer over Thorn.

“Ruby, this is Nora,” Blake explained, nodding to Nora before gesturing to the stoic boy only now catching up to them. “And this is her partner, Ren. They’re members of Team JNPR.”

When understanding showed in Ruby’s expression, it dawned on Weiss as well.

A stranger running up out of the blue - Ruby could’ve thought that Nora was her long lost partner. Thankfully, Blake cleared up that potential misunderstanding seamlessly.

“Are you competing today?” Ruby asked with a friendly grin. If she was disappointed, it was impossible to tell. Was she disappointed? If she was disappointed that Nora wasn’t her partner, what would she possibly think of Weiss?

“I wish,” Nora replied with a pout. “Pyrrha dragged Jaune off on some hunt somewhere, so we can’t fight. But we asked to be the hosts!”

“‘Asked,’ Nora?” Ren drawled dubiously.

“Fine! Begged! Whatever, they still agreed!” Nora shouted, adding a giggle at the end before suddenly frowning. “If only Pyrrha hadn’t agreed to that hunt!” she wailed. “We were gonna crush it this year!”

The disappointment was gone as soon as it appeared.

“You really don’t remember anything?” Nora asked instead, dropping Thorn in favor of looking through Ruby’s eyes and ears as if she might be able to see straight through Ruby’s brain.

“Some things,” Ruby answered, ducking her head out of the way when Nora tried to pull at one of her ears. “From a long time ago.”

“Then you don’t remember that time I threw a pie in your face?”

“Nora,” Ren gently scolded his partner.

“Why did you throw a pie in my face?” Ruby asked in confusion, but Nora just scratched her chin.

“Who said I threw a pie in your face? Hey, do you wanna eat a lot of olives??”

“Uh...sure?”

The response made Nora burst into uncontrollable, elated giggles.

“Alright, Nora, we’d better get going,” Ren said, taking her by both shoulders and steering her away. “We don’t want to be late.”

“Goodbye Ruby! And team!” Nora yelled back to them before disappearing inside the arena doors. Jaw still unhinged, Ruby stared at the door before giving Yang a look of incredulity.

“So...that’s Nora…” Yang said with a little chuckle. “But we should get going too - it’s gonna start soon!”

“And people say I have a lot of energy!” Ruby replied before bouncing over to Weiss’ side - taking Nora’s unique personality in stride.

Taking a deep breath, Weiss tried to smile at Ruby when she hooked one arm around Weiss’. But it couldn’t have been close to a true smile - not when this was it. This was the moment she’d been dreading ever since Yang told her about the fateful invitation Ruby intercepted in the mail.

Blake and Yang led the way towards the entrance being used by the other huntsmen, traveling a more narrow path that took them to a normal-sized door. Ruby’s head was on a swivel as they walked - looking at every huntsman she could find.

Soon they’d be in the arena waiting area. And after that...

When they walked through the open doorway, moving from the bright sunlight outside to a dim-by-comparison corridor, they almost immediately bumped into Professor Ozpin and Professor Goodwitch. The two leaders of the school were welcoming the huntsmen with nods of recognition and respect, but as soon as he saw Ruby, Professor Ozpin walked over with a warm smile.

“Miss Rose,” he said with a whimsical smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “It’s wonderful to see you again.”

“You too...Sir,” Ruby replied, dipping her head in respect. It was clear from her expression that she had no idea who he was, but knew enough to respond politely.

When Professor Ozpin turned towards her, Weiss’ breath caught in her throat. If he greeted her by name, Ruby would wonder how he knew Weiss when she hadn’t gone to school here. But he only smiled at her and made to move by them.

“I look forward to seeing what you’re capable of this time,” he added as he walked away. Professor Goodwitch gave the four of them a hint of a smile and a soft “Good luck,” before following the man towards the interior of the stadium - likely heading towards the stands where they’d watch the battles unfold.

Ruby watched after them carefully, as if willing her brain to give her back memories of the two. When nothing happened, she shook her head and smiled.

“He seems nice!” she surmised. “Has that whole ‘mysterious uncle’ vibe going on.”

“He’s pretty cool,” Yang replied, her relief at the interaction only briefly showing. “Professor Ozpin - he’s in charge here. And Professor Goodwitch - she’s not quite as ‘good’ as the name implies.”

Yang’s assessment made Weiss roll her eyes as they continued towards the bottom of the arena - where everyone would wait until they were called upon.

Professor Goodwitch was a great teacher and an avid disciplinarian. It was the last trait which led to more than a few encounters with Yang while they’d been in school. And who had Yang always dragged along for her nefarious plans?

The sisters had the best intentions when it came to pulling pranks, but Grimm help them they couldn’t master the art of plausible deniability. That’s where Weiss stepped in and...cleaned up the operation a bit. Less trouble meant less detention for her teammates, which meant they could train more and rise in the ranks amongst their class. It was a good enough cause for Weiss to get behind.

Voices drifted out of the room up ahead, where Weiss already knew the rest of the huntsmen were waiting. It was impossible to keep her hands from shaking while they walked towards the open doorway and turned to enter the room.

This was it - the Invite had officially arrived.

“Ok, kiddo...welcome back,” Yang said, holding Ruby’s shoulders and leading her into the room.

The waiting area was located in the bowels of the stadium - several long hallways away from the fighting platform that lifted combatants into the arena. The tournament had yet to begin, so the room was currently filled with huntsmen. Most were clustered with their teams discussing last-minute strategies or goals, but some of the more social were flitting from group-to-group saying hello and exchanging stories of hunts that had happened since the last time they’d all been together.

Weiss looked to her side when she heard a muffled squeal come from Ruby - whose eyes were huge and flitting in every direction. The anticipation and excitement in the air were nearly palpable, which Ruby was obviously feeding off of to the nth degree.

“Weiss -” Ruby whispered while her eyes refused to stop moving from one person to the next - or, more likely, from one weapon to the next. “This is amazing.”

“Yang!” someone suddenly called out before waving Yang over.

“Come on, Ruby,” Yang said, leading Ruby by one shoulder to the center of the room - where the rest of the team captains were gathering.

“I can’t believe they still draw straws,” Blake commented while she and Weiss watched each of the captains shake hands before pulling a single stick from Yang’s hand. Yang made sure to let Ruby pull first, although she was so star-struck at the moment it looked like she was confused by what Yang was asking her to do. A couple of the captains laughed good-naturedly at Ruby’s wonderment before choosing their own stick. Some groaned, some cheered, but the results and order were set by the time Yang and Ruby walked back to them.

Or, more accurately, Yang walked while Ruby nearly levitated off the ground.

“Third!” she announced, brandishing the small stick in her hand.

“That means we’ll get to watch teams after us!” Yang said before giving her sister a high five.

What they didn’t mention, but what Weiss immediately thought to herself, was that going third meant there wasn’t much time until they’d be called in.

“Come on, let’s sit down,” Yang added before leading them to a relatively quiet corner of the room. As they walked, Weiss kept her eyes trained on the ground and avoided eye contact with anyone she knew. She didn’t want anyone to approach her with Ruby around. Although it shouldn’t be too difficult for her to be seen as ‘unapproachable’ - she’d spent her entire pre-Beacon life as such.

“I’ve never seen so many huntsmen!!”

Ruby’s adoration was refreshing - even if it was a little misplaced. Sure, there were many amazing huntsmen here at the moment, but Ruby was better than most of them now - and she’d been better than all of them in her prime. From the healthy amount of interest she was garnering, no one had forgotten how good she was, but they were keeping a respectful distance. Everyone knew what had happened, of course. When one of Remnant’s most treasured huntresses falls, word spreads quickly in the aftermath…

When Weiss looked at Ruby - whose eyes still moved from one huntsman to the next - she felt a pang of guilt run through her chest when she noticed that Ruby was once again holding onto her ring. And she was still searching...because if her partner was going to show up, it would have to be any minute now.

A loudspeaker suddenly buzzed to life - calling for the first team and causing everyone else to let out loud whoops and claps while giving out high-fives to the first combatants. The team walked confidently out of the room towards the series of hallways that led into the belly of the arena. It wasn’t long after they’d left that a far-off crowd roared to life - the spectators giving a warm welcome to the first of many huntsmen who would be competing today.

With the Invite officially underway, the video screens placed around the room flickered to life and the remaining teams congregated around them to watch the feed of the events from up above.

The Invite wasn’t set up to be impossible - it was meant to be a spectacle of their capabilities. What set teams apart was time rather than the ability to move forward, something they’d always had a significant advantage at with Ruby around.

A total of eight minutes was given to complete five rounds, with each subsequent round more difficult than the last. Round five was always some colossal machine or Grimm that teams were usually left with only a handful of seconds to take down. There were short pauses between the rounds while the stages were set and replays were played for the crowd, but, beyond that, the clock ticked fast.

“Let’s go!” someone called out, earning a “Whoop!” from another huntsman in response before many of the voices faded away in favor of watching the screens.

Weiss couldn’t watch though. There were far more pressing matters that her mind was latched onto - like the fact that Ruby still hadn’t let go of her necklace.

The expectation had been removed - Weiss no longer had to tell Ruby - but it still felt like she had to. What had she been telling Ruby all day? Of course her partner would show up. She’d be an idiot not to.

Well...who was the idiot now?

“Making it through the rounds is important, but you also want to be impressive!” Yang said while Weiss avoided looking at any of the screens. “There’s a lot of people here and they want to see the coolest things we can do, so pull out all the stops - k, Blake?”

Blake rolled her eyes. “I’m not one for showboating.”

“Come on! You have to be a bit of an entertainer! People are watching!”

“That’s what I have you for.”

“But I’ve seen you do some insanely cool stuff! I only want everyone else to see a teeny, tiny bit of how amazing you are.”

When Yang smiled - that disarmingly genuine smile - Blake pursed her lips and half-heartedly tried to conceal how pleased the comments made her.

“No promises,” was all she said, but Yang grinned as if it was a big ‘yes.’

A resounding chorus of “oooooh”s swept through the room before a smattering of laughter and shakes of heads. From the reactions, someone must’ve just been eliminated by knockout. Essentially, if any team member’s aura was fully depleted or if they exited the arena boundaries, the team automatically lost. It was an embarrassing way to exit the tournament - it was far better to run out of time than to be defeated.

When the loudspeaker buzzed to life and called for the second team, the members were already ready and waiting by the door - heading out to test their skills as cheers sent them on their way. As they disappeared into the hall, Weiss felt the mood in the room relax now that the Invite was underway. They all knew the drill from here, minus the newly-graduated teams and Ruby.

When Weiss glanced over, she found that Ruby was still searching around the room while biting at her bottom lip. Reading the expression of uncertainty at the same moment Weiss did, Yang stood up.

“Hey Ruby, come here a second.”

When Ruby obediently stood too, Yang gave Weiss a small smile before wrapping one arm around Ruby’s shoulders and leading her off to the side for a private conversation. Unable to hear what they were saying, Weiss nonetheless watched and attempted to figure out how it was going from their postures.

Yang was being supportive and one hand never dropped from Ruby’s shoulder, while Ruby nodded every few seconds in understanding. When Yang stopped talking, Ruby said some brief words, smiled, and gave Yang a long hug before they came back. Unsure of how Ruby had received the news, Weiss shot a glance at Blake, trying to read her expression, but she wasn’t giving anything away.

“Since we don’t have any moves planned,” Yang began while Ruby quietly returned to Weiss’ side. “Let’s do this a la CRDL - kill as many things as possible on your own and ask for help if you need it.”

The game plan made Blake scoff.

“And they wonder why they never win…”

Weiss was too busy shooting glances at Ruby to join the conversation. Was Ruby upset? If she was, it was difficult to tell. How badly had she wanted her partner to show up? Would this ruin her time at the Invite?

Reaching up, Ruby briefly touched her necklace before catching Weiss’ eyes.

“Are you alright?” Weiss immediately asked, unable to bear not knowing any longer.

“Uh, yeah, I guess, but...could I talk to you for a second?” Ruby asked in return, offering a hand that Weiss gladly took before being gently led away from Yang and Blake’s prying eyes. The other huntsmen didn’t seem to notice them either - their eyes were glued to the video screens while watching the battles play out. Every once in a while laughs or gasps of admiration were added to the distant sound of cheering that seemed to echo throughout the building.

Weiss’ palms began sweating when she realized that this could be the moment. If she was going to tell Ruby, now would be the time. Forget whatever Yang had just told her - Weiss could tell Ruby the truth right now. She could look Ruby in the eye and say ‘I’m the one you’ve been looking for’ - potentially destroying everything they’d created in the process.

Before making any decision, she needed to listen to whatever Ruby wanted to say. Because there was clearly something Ruby wanted to say - made all the more apparent by the thoughtful expression she wore.

“Thank you for coming to watch,” she said with a smile that didn’t linger long.

“Of course, Ruby. I’m glad I could be here with you,” Weiss replied, feeling like a boot was pressing down on her lungs when she watched Ruby’s gaze sweep the room one more time before falling to the ground with a downcast air.

“Yang said she couldn’t make it...”

“Ruby -” Weiss began to say, but her voice cut off before more words could make their way into existence.

She was afraid. She didn’t know if she could tell Ruby the truth. What if it made Ruby hate her? What would be worse - for Ruby to not remember Weiss...or to hate her?

“It’s ok,” Ruby replied with a quick shrug. “I kinda figured it was short notice, but it’ll still be fun to fight in front of all these people!”

No matter what the world threw her way, Ruby always found a reason to smile…

Glancing over her shoulder at the other huntsmen, Ruby suddenly seemed far more fidgety than usual - and that was saying something. But when she turned back to Weiss, it was with a big smile that didn’t fit with the jitters.

“She didn’t show up, but you did. That means a lot to me, Weiss.”

Smiling weakly, Weiss tried to ignore the feeling of her heart painfully throbbing in her chest.

“Of course, Ruby,” she whispered. “Anything for you…”

The gratitude wasn’t deserved. What had she done to earn it? She’d come to Beacon, only to become a ghost when she was needed. She’d returned to Vale, only to hide behind anonymity.

How could she possibly go through with this? How could she let Ruby enter that arena without her?

“Team RWBY - please report to the arena lift. Team RWBY - up next.”

Staring at the nearest speaker, Weiss opened her mouth but found she had no words to say.

Time had run out for them, just like it had the first time. She wanted so badly to be that person for Ruby again - the one who’d always be there - only to fail and fail and fail to find the courage. Every choice she’d made since that fateful day in the forest had proven it over and over again - she was a coward when Ruby needed a hero.

“That’s us!” Ruby announced before rubbing her palms together nervously. “This is it. I can do this. I can be a huntress, right?”

Hopefully, Weiss’ smile was encouraging and didn’t betray the multiplying distress threatening to overwhelm her.

“Of course you can. You can do anything, Ruby.”

Pausing for a second, Ruby bit her lip before suddenly leaning forward and planting a soft kiss on Weiss’ cheek. The action had hardly registered in Weiss’ mind before Ruby rushed back to Blake and Yang - sending a wave over her shoulder as she went.

“Wish me luck! I’ll see you right after!”

Weiss stood rooted to the floor for several seconds, her cheeks burning while her heart struggled to find a steady rhythm.

Had Ruby just...that had been real, hadn’t it? Ruby had just...

The other huntsmen were particularly rowdy for Ruby, whooping and hollering while walking over to offer her high-fives by the exit - which she gladly whizzed around the room in a swirl of petals to collect. Walking past Weiss, Yang managed a meager thumbs up while Blake simply wore that concerned expression she had.

It hadn’t seemed real until this very moment, but as her teammates’ left her behind, reality began to sink in.

They were going to fight without her.

Knees weak, Weiss sat down on one of the benches and struggled to breathe as the raucous sendoff died down. No sooner had her teammates disappeared through the doorway could she feel eyes on her - their thoughts practically audible.

They all wanted to know the same answers - Why wasn’t she following? Why was she staying behind? Was it true then? Had she left her team? How could she quit on her team? A huntsman never quit on their team.

Abruptly standing, she raced towards the exit without another thought. Someone called her name, but she ignored whoever it was and kept running. And running, and running. Not even seeing the halls and corridors she sprinted through - just knowing that she needed to be anywhere but there.

It was only when she shoved through a door and found herself back in fresh air that she finally stopped - doubling over to put her hands on her knees while huffing out jagged breaths that felt like the beginnings of sobs. It hadn’t been a long run, but her chest was constricting in fear and panic - hampering her ability to breathe. It felt like something was trying to crush her, while drowning her in the realization that she’d failed yet again.

But Ruby had kissed her. On the cheek, but Ruby had kissed her. They were close to recapturing a piece of what they’d once had. It would only take time.

For what cause though? Any relationship they had now would be built on lies - lies that would be impossible to keep forever. One day, Ruby would find out the truth. One day, Ruby would learn that Weiss had stood idly by and let them walk forward without her.

Focus. She needed to focus on taking deep breaths. Steady breaths. One long inhale, hold it until her lungs burned - let it out in one long, shaky exhale.

One…

Another deep inhale. Exhale slowly.

Two...

Straightening up, she continued to take slow breaths while trying to figure out what to do next. Briefly closing her eyes, her hand immediately went to the ring Ruby had made for her - the smooth metal sending a tendril of love through her veins. It was a ‘just because’ gift. Just because Ruby was sweet and considerate and selfless unlike anyone else Weiss had ever met.

A breeze kicked up outside - cold enough to raise goosebumps along her arms while she struggled with her internal demons.

She didn’t want to lose Ruby.

She didn’t want to lose what they’d managed to rebuild - like a phoenix rising from the ashes of their past life.

She didn’t want to hurt Ruby be revealing the past, and the mistakes that had been made.

She.

She she she.

All of her reservations were based on what she wanted and what she didn’t want. What about what Ruby wanted? What about what Ruby needed?

Ruby had such an easy-going nature that her needs and desires were often pushed aside in favor of the more vocal. When they’d been together, it had incensed Weiss whenever that happened. She’d gone out of her way to make sure Ruby got whatever she wanted, but this time Weiss was the one actively avoiding Ruby’s wishes. Even Yang had given her a pass. Ruby would be disappointed, but as long as Weiss was alright…

Ruby would think her partner didn’t care about her. Ruby would think that someone she’d spent four years training with couldn’t be bothered to show up for a couple of hours on one day.

But Weiss would be fine.

The realization made her stomach turn.

When had she lost sight of what it meant to be selfless? When had Ruby’s wants become secondary to her own?

Ruby needed her now. Not the person she was today, but the person she’d once been. Ruby needed her partner to be here. For once, Weiss needed to put aside her doubts and do something for Ruby - something that scared the living daylights out of her. She appreciated Yang and Blake’s concern, but…

She wasn’t that broken.

Seconds later, her weapon locker crashed into the ground by her feet. Grabbing Myrtenaster, she turned and sprinted back the way she’d just come, bursting into the waiting room and racing through to the other side without acknowledging anyone there. Flying into the hallway beyond, she followed the arrows leading towards the platform underneath the arena floor.

Mistakes don’t define you. Your reactions to them do.

She’d made mistakes - more than she cared to count - and she’d run from them. But that wasn’t who she was. That wasn’t who she had to be. She could choose her own reaction - she could choose how she would be defined from here on out.

She wouldn’t live a lie. If Ruby wanted this piece of her past to come back, then it would come back. Weiss would come back.

Sliding around a corner, she found her team up ahead - already standing on the platform that would raise them into the arena. They were looking away from her, with Yang wrapping one arm around Ruby’s shoulders and holding Blake’s hand with her other.

You’re running to Ruby, Weiss reminded herself as a line of glyphs shot her down the hallway at breakneck speed.

Ruby needs you right now. Don’t think about anything else - Ruby needs you. All those times she needed you, and you weren’t there - that will never happen again. Because that’s not who you are. That’s not who you’re going to be.

Nora’s voice blared over the speakers, chattering away while Ren’s low drawl paced in between. The audience laughed at something they said - the rolling sound coming from right above their heads.

Ruby needed Weiss before, and she hadn’t been there. She wouldn’t let her partner down again. She would do anything for Ruby. Which meant she would do this.

A loud clunk echoed off the walls as the platform unlocked and began to rise. Springing off the last glyph, Weiss catapulted herself onto the edge behind her teammates - her chest rising and falling with deep breaths of apprehension as they were lifted towards the arena floor.

The crowd cheered louder - their team had just been announced - but the noise was a distant din compared to her heartbeat in her ears when her teammates noticed her presence and turned towards her. Spotlights suddenly hit them from above, but her eyes were flooded by silver.

“Weiss?”

#rwby #white rose #weiss schnee #ruby rose #what defines us

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applegelstore · 6 years

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Hey! Just wanted to drop by and say I really love your art and seeing your content! Along with the ideas you speak of sometimes. It's so nice to see because it looks like you enjoy what you do. It's an inspiration, really. I also wanted to ask, what's your inspiration? And what keeps you motivated? And this next one might be a bit personal, but do you have moments of self doubt? How do you deal with it?

Hi! First of all, thanks a lot for the ask, I don’t get personal questions about my art very often, so it’s very cool to see that some people are actual people and not porn bots, and are actually interested in the things I post!

Now for the actual ask, which I’ll totally have to divide into parts. I’ll also set a cut because it got hella long. Now, let’s go!

I have a very bad habit of word vomiting whenever I post art. It’s not only ever since I’ve started binge drawing Zesty fanart, I’ve pretty much always been like this ever since I started posting art on the internet about… 12 years ago at the very least?It used to be a lot of musing about the art itself (like, “what do you think, should I have tried this or that?” or “I had trouble with this thing” or “I actually like how whatever turned out”), which is probably due to the fact that teenage me had still a lot to learn and wasn’t afraid to admit that and ask for advice. I mostly posted my art online to get some peer advice.Nowadays, I am still aware of my shortcomings, but I don’t talk about the technical aspects of my art that often anymore. Nowadays, I have two reasons for posting art online: 1) I’m trying to make a living out of this shit, so naturally I’m trying to make as many people as possible aware of the fact that I exist. 2) I just wanna talk about the thing ™. Honestly. Never underestimate either of these points. That’s why there’s very often so much text and ranting in the tags. Because. I. want. to. talk. about. the. thing. I have an unholy amount of sticky notes on my desktop with ideas of things I’d either like to do because I think it would be subjectively cool, or because it might be a good addition to my portfolio. (spoilers: the former usually gets done like a decade earlier)I’m very glad that the sparks fly over and it shows that I love the things I love! ♥The result is novel-length descriptions for single sketches and tag vomit, though, lol.

“I also wanted to ask, what’s your inspiration?”

There’s no easy answer to that. First of all, it sounds a bit as if I was actively looking for inspiration. Which I am not. As I said, I rather have too many ideas and end up scrapping an unholy amount because even if I only do doodle shitpost sketches there’s no way I can do it all in a lifetime. I don’t know whether you had been implying that I actively look for inspiration or not, but if you did, let me tell you that I don’t. If you didn’t mean to imply that, no harm done.However, that doesn’t mean I don’t GET any. Because of course I get my inspiration from all kinds of places. I don’t watch a lot of movies, but I love going to the cinema and hearing the sounds and get eye candy (I love epic shots with the camera panning over landscapes and cool action scenes. Also, go watch The Secret of Kells, everyone). I always come out of blockbuster movies feeling like I wanna do something epic, too. I always listen to a whole lot of music, too, and there’s way too many songs that make me want to tell stories, and that plant pictures in the cinema in my head.(there was a time before Tales of Zestiria when I did original art and most of my paintings had some kind of musical inspiration lol. My stories, too).

Then there’s style and subject matter.Style first. I stopped aiming for a specific style pretty early on (like, late teens), and just accepted what came to me and works for me. The result is the weird anime not quite anime semi realism mixture that I have going, and the ratio usually varies depending on what I currently want to do. If I gave you a list of my favorite artists, you’d probably be surprised how little my own art has in common with theirs.Subject matter? WELLLLLL my original stuff comes from what I told you above, additionally, I studied medieval literature for a reason, and I loved mythological tales from my teenage years onwards. I’m much less enthusiastic about them now, but it used to influence my original art for quite a few years.…Also, I obviously like to do fanart. Like, a lot.

Also spoilers: I obviously love Zesty a tiny bit too much, because for no other fandom the streak of fanart has ever been holding up for two years and still counting without an end in sight, and I’ve never come up with any AUs, either. Usually my ideas went straight into original material, and this original material usually got top priority, but here it’s different, and I’m not sure whether it’s a good or a bad thing, haha. So basically don’t wait for my original stories* until I’m either a) done with the Zesty fandom or they’ve united and kicked me out or b) I’ve actually drawn at least four more full scale elaborate illustrations, have created the four or five AUs that I keep doodling for and ranting about, and I have finally run out of steam. Bets are up what happens first.

If you want specifics, it’s always easier to determine inspiration for a particular piece than in general. It can be so many different things.

* Although I still very, very much like some of my ideas and would actually love to do them. I just love to do low-effort Zesty fanart more XD. Shocking! But honestly, I am as surprised as anyone else that my muses shifted as much as they have, and mid-twenties me would never have guessed she’d fall into this rabbit hole in no time…

“And what keeps you motivated?”

I never… really needed to push myself to be motivated. It’s always been intrinsic. I had pictures in my head, I wanted them out. So I had to learn how, and do it. I have ideas in my head. I want to share them. I very much like this thing others have made. I want to tell the entire world how much I love it, so I do by drawing fanart. Simple as that.Positive responses (and asks like this!!) are a great motivator to POST art, but not to DO the art. The latter is intrinsic.Actually, probably TOO intrinsic. Because I keep drawing the things I WANT to draw and not those which would teach me new skills and thus help with “make money with art” thing. So I guess it’s a bit of a mixed bag, haha.I started drawing daily instead of just regularly at some point during my master’s studies, so roughly 8-5 years ago? Whenever I’m on the road or beaten by illness or bad feelings, I sometimes only manage very simple, super bad sketches, but it’s better than nothing. Luckily, it’s not like that every day (still more often that I’d like to, though).

If you’re wondering:Yes, I’ve had artblocks. Usually not in the sense of “I don’t have ideas”, but VERY MUCH in the sense of “I don’t feel like any of the ideas I have right now” and also “nothing I touch turns out the way I want it to turn out”. To all artists out there: it goes away. Believe me. Your stupid period will be over next week (to the guys out there: that’s not a joke. It DOES affect my general condition). It will be better the moment YOU feel better from whatever you’re currently suffering from.Yes, I’ve also scrapped ideas not because I didn’t like them after all, but because I tried and just failed repeatedly at executing them. Yes, I’ve had such bad times in life that I didn’t want to do ANYTHING. That included art. I just. didn’t. want. to. do. anything. Sometimes I still have these phases, but at least it no longer lasts for months straight without break.

“And this next one might be a bit personal, but do you have moments of self doubt?”

Pfft. Of course. Show me an artist who hasn’t. I’ve learned by now that you can acquire every skill you want. The question is whether you have the time and the will for it. If I had started drawing daily much earlier in life, and if I’d practiced more of the things I’m not good at instead of doodle shitposting, I’d be at an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT level than I am now. Even if I had STILL studied what I studied as I did (as I said, medieval literature, nothing art related). I’ve been drawing ever since I could hold a pencil and my parents have always been supportive, so that wasn’t a problem, I just wasn’t aware all these years that it could be something future me might want. Past me couldn’t have KNOWN. It’s okay, in a way. I can do the things I WANT to do by now. Not always as majestically as the ideas deserve, but it does the job. I don’t need to be able to do hyper realistic portraits, or hyper detailed interiors of space ships, for example. (it would be cool to be able to draw musical instruments tho. I’d love to learn 2D animation, too, but WHEN??) In short, am I aware that I’m not god and that my skills are limited in comparison to many other artists? Yes. Is that a problem? No.Do I doubt whether I can do my job, though? Very much yes. Because successful freelance artists don’t only need skill, they need to sell themselves, and I suck at that most epically. Do I miss the times when I didn’t even think about becoming better but simply drew for fun? Pretty much, yeah. Do I miss the times when I still had the ability to concentrate on elaborate, large paintings? Yes, I do. But I can’t turn my brain back to 10 year old. So I’ll have to deal with what I have now.

If you’re wondering whether I had moments of self doubt about my ideas, then, yes, very super much yes. I am convinced that the things you produce should be what YOU want to see. I want to draw what I want and tell the stories I WANT TO SEE AND READ. As I said, I’m doing it because I want these things to exist. Does it still hurt if nobody else likes these ideas? Yes, yes it does very much. It’s not even that I start thinking my ideas were bad, but that I start thinking “Nobody understands me and nobody will ever be able to like me because they don’t like my ideas, and my ideas are part of me”. Which is true, but it is ALSO true that you do not have to like every single idea some other person has to like them or be friends with them, I am aware of that, but if I may be honest here, it’s still a thought that I can’t quite get rid of, and still gets me angsty whenever I share some of my story ideas with anyone.

“How do you deal with it?”

I don’t. Ahem. Truth be told, I never really developed a proper coping mechanism for failures, and I don’t exactly like that about myself, but I still haven’t found a proper solution. As much as I stress that I do the things I do because I actually want to, I also told you that it scares me to see people disagreeing. It’s not only art related, whenever I feel I messed something up (school ie. marks, socialisation, whatever), it eats at me for days or even weeks until something positive happens (like, better marks, a compliment, anything). I don’t really like it, mostly because it starts a vicious cycle, but that’s how it is. I had surprisingly little problems with that during my university years because I had good marks, but I still mess up at least 50% of all the social interaction I do. It’s not always that easy with art, either.Story time.I remember one conversation with an artist who’s teaching art classes at my (ex) university, like, portrait drawings and flower paintings. So at some point when I started trying to live on art, I asked her whether she’d be interested in offering classes for other art styles as well, like comic drawing classes. She said she’d be interested, so I wanted to talk to her in person, but she never replied to that email reply. I decided to be bold for once, grabbed my portfolio, and went to her after one of her classes to show her what I’m doing. Put on the spot, she admitted that she didn’t reply any further because she didn’t like what I was doing. It was good from a technical aspect, but it seemed dull and uninspired to her, like something she had seen too many times already.I was devastated.I’ve always had to deal with underwhelming responses from peers and friends, too, but I also got some really sweet reactions and genuine support, so it was kind of a mixed bag, overall. I wasn’t used to that kind of harsh rejection of who I am.

Am I also very, VERY petty and jealous? Hell, yes. I get VERY jealous whenever I see people whose art is on my level or below but they still manage to make money with it, and have 10-100 times the amount of followers I have and/or get more enthusiastic responses online. It just makes me angry. The only way of coping I’ve ever found is stay the fuck away. I KNOW that it’s not these people’s fault if I’m jealous, and goddamn, freelance artist life is hard enough as it is. We don’t need to tear other apart. Surely they worked their asses off to be where they are. Heck, I’m friends with some. I keep away from those people so I can calm down and stop being angry, before I start lashing out at artists just because they get the attention they need and deserve. It’s not THEIR fault that I need money and also reassurance.

The only thing that ever worked for me to overcome any of these issues is just continue nevertheless. Keep doing what you’re doing. Remember what you love and why and JUST KEEP DOING IT. Even if you don’t see the point right now. Chances are you will see that point again. Maybe you never will. But IF you ever do, you want to make damn sure that you didn’t drop the ball in the meantime. There’s that saying that you can lose if you fight, but you can’t win if you never fight. It’s true. Be stubborn and show the world your middle finger.Spoilers: I’m teaching comic style drawing classes for the “rivaling” institute now. Always only in super small groups and it’s badly paid, so I don’t know for how long I’ll be able to keep it up, but it’s a start, right?

I hope that answered your questions!

Last remark: always remember, kids: you HAVE to produce the content you want to see yourself. Nobody is gonna do it for you unless you pay them. So. I’m doing it. Against better judgment, lol.…and watch The Secret of Kells.

#random rambling tag

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guardiansofthemadness · 6 years

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Varian Parallels in ‘What the Hair?!’ and ‘Secret of the Sun Drop’

Okay, can we take a moment and talk about some of the parallels involving Varian’s character that we were given when compared to how he was introduced to us in ‘What the Hair?!’ and what became of him in ‘Secret of the Sun Drop’ ? Because after re-watching both the first (that is, if you don’t count ‘Before Ever After’ as the first episode) and last episode of the season, I couldn’t help but take note on some of them!

In fact, there is a good amount of parallels that can be noticed and pointed out when it comes to how different Varian became by the time the final episode had aired to how he use to be when we first met him. But in order to keep this post from coming extremely long and possibly confusing, especially since I have a habit of trying to explain things in as much details as I possibly can, I think I will only point out about five corresponding parallels that I have noticed and wanted to address.

That being said, here are some of the interesting parallel’s I couldn’t help but noticed between the first and final episodes of the season!

1. Varian is very dangerous

To start this all off, I am going to go with the obvious and refer to the first thing we were ever told about Varian, which came from Cassandra herself - Varian was known to be dangerous.

When Cassandra told Rapunzel this, she did so as a warning of what was to come when both women decided to visit the alchemist. Neither of them knew who Varian actually was outside of any rumors that Cassandra had heard about him and so of course, when they both finally arrived to his house, how did both Rapunzel and Cassandra reacted? They were both on guard, basically bracing themselves for any sudden attacks Varian might throw at them in case he decided to attack first and ask questions later. Which to be honest, wasn’t wrong of them to do because once again, they didn’t know who Varian was outside of him not only being dangerous, but also possibly being a wizard of some sorts. They didn’t know how old he was, how powerful he was, if he was even nice or willing to help or well, just nothing! They had to prepare themselves for whatever happens when meeting him, and so that is what they did when they had arrived to Varian’s home.

But of course instead, they found themselves meeting a fourteen year old alchemist who wasn’t actually a wizard, and frankly who didn’t look like he could even hurt a fly. Okay, well maybe not being able to hurt a fly may seem a bit of a stretch, especially when considering he already had a trap laid out within the entrance of his lab, but then again Varian had only created that trap to stop Rudiger or any other animals from sneaking into his lab. He didn’t have the tap out to hurt the raccoon, just to keep the critter problem out of the way.

So yeah, when we and the girls officially get to meet Varian, he seemed to be anything but dangerous. In fact, he turned out to be a very eager kid who was more than happy to be graced by the presences of the princess of Corona and even more elated to help her with her hair situation. I mean sure, there were a lot of things within his lab that influences the reason behind the rumors of Varian being dangerous and in the end, he had accidentally cause a disaster within Old Corona, but as we had seen in the first episode, all Varian wanted to do was help. Everything he invented or created, was for the good of corona and not for the bad.

And yet at the same time, this parallel so well with Varian in the final episode of the season because what do we get to see by this point of the show?

Exactly how dangerous Varian actually could and can be.

I’ve mentioned this before in where every other past dangerous situations that Varian had been responsible for, were merely accidents. It was those accidents that influences peoples perspective on Varian that he was nothing more than a boy who was going to cause some kind of problem and would even get someone hurt. That being said, the Varian in ‘What the Hair?!’ wouldn’t want to intentionally hurt anyone if he can help it. But at the same time, the Varian in ‘Secret of the Sun Drop’ on the other hand, happened to have done the exact opposite.

Where as in the past, any pain and destruction the alchemist had caused were accidents, in the shows current present, they were very much intentional. By tricking the princess to cause a treason against her kingdom, stealing the sun flower, creating multiple automatons, pretending to attack the princess just so he can actually kidnap the queen, then purposely attacking Rapunzel’s friends with said automatons, ambushing the the king and the princess with a calculated trap, threatening to incase the queen within the same amber rock that is currently incasing his own father, purposely trying to crush his former crush and the queen and basically tried to do whatever it takes to keep Rapunzel from being happy, even if it meant causing more mayhem than he already has done?

Yeah, Varian has proven to use that he actually he as dangerous as he rumored to be.

And I honestly can’t help but find this parallel so interesting because after his first appearance, I don’t think any one of use expected Varian to become an antagonist to Rapunzel and her kingdom. In fact, we had expected him to become part of the team and frankly, after watching Varian’s second appearance within the show, we were given only an even greater reason to why he would become part of the team, rather than against it. Yet, it didn’t turn out that way because as I had theorized in a past post of mines, Varian has always been meant to become an antagonist for our heroes. It just so happens that instead of showing us this right away, the creators and writers of the show instead told us this by having Cassandra mention that she heard that Varian was dangerous.

Because he is. He is extremely dangerous and I love that in the first episode we are only told that he was dangerous and were given a small glimpse of it when his invention to give hot water to his village backfired on him and caused a severe earthquake that destroyed a good amount of homes within the village. Yet as a parallel, in the final episode we can see that when Varian has the actual intent to be dangerous, his actions comes off as terrifying rather than accidental.

2. His coat and glowing green eyed mask

The next thing I want to talk about is Varian’s coat and glowing eyed mask outfit.

This is more of a minor detail, but I absolutely loved that Varian ended up wearing his black and grey trench coat and mask from the first episode in the final. I knew that when we saw him wearing it for the first time, it was a hint of him becoming an antagonist because that overall outfit did scream ‘look at me, I’m a villain!’ in some kind of way. I mean, for crying out loud, the drawing that Rapunzel had done of Varian had him wearing that exact same coat! Like she didn’t need to draw him in it to make Varian look antagonizing, since the way she drew his expression did a well enough job at portraying it. Yet at the same time, having Rapunzel draw Varian in that coat, shows that she had been a bit afraid of Varian when she had first met him. That she did view him as a dangerous man, even if for a moment because we all know that Rapunzel only likes to look at the good in people and not judge them by the way they look or are dressed.

And yet, Varian ended up wearing that exact same outfit when he kidnapped Queen Arianna.

I get that he most likely wore it to disguise himself from the people, all in order to keep anyone from recognizing his face and attacking him. But like, we all know how smart Varian is and the sheer fact that he was able to create a fog within Corona and even had a plan set up for when Rapunzel and company had decided to ambush him, the alchemist could have very well gone on looking like he always does, with his face all exposed and most likely still would have been successful in kidnapping the queen.

But honestly, I am glad that he wore the outfit because in a way, I feel like those are his villainy outfit. I mean, he doesn’t really need to wear it to show that he is an antagonist and obviously he only had it on when he had kidnapped the queen, but I felt like the coat and mask was a nod to Varian’s official introduction and to how we don’t know what to expect of him since no one, not even Rapunzel or Cassandra, knew what they were expecting when they met him.

And to say the least, Varian in a sense, was terrifying when he first appeared out of the fog with those glowing green eyes his mask had in the first episode. If he had attacked the girls from the start, than honestly at that time it wouldn’t have been a shock because what he was wearing made he look like he was an actual bad guy. So for Varian to once again wear that same outfit when he had creeped behind the queen, it honestly was yet another terrifying moment. Even more so when he had placed the queen unconscious.

The only difference between those two terrifying moments however, was that the first time around Varian had no ill intentions despite what was said of him, whereas the second time around he did have ill intentions hence the corresponding parallel between the two scenes.

I also have to admit that the glow of the eyes on his mask is what truly gives the eery vibe from his character, because once you take that mask away and you look at his face, all we see is an innocent kid. But Varian is not as innocent as he seemed to be, and so that outfit is suppose to be like what I feel is a way to both throw the characters and the audience away from automatically realizing his future outcome but to also show us that yeah, he was going to go bad from the start despite his pure dorky and naive personality.

3. His referring to Rapunzel and her title

Another thing I want to mention is of course his attitude towards Rapunzel.

Now this is something I actually want to go into more and full detail in a separate post that I have in mind, which hopefully will be the next one that I will write, but in terms of what I am going to say here is this; We all know that Varian’s overall attitude towards Rapunzel had completely flipped from the first episode to the final episode.

But has anyone else noticed the way he refers to Rapunzel had completely changed as well? Because it did, and this honestly is possibly my favorite parallel in regards to Varian.

When Varian first met Rapunzel, he was ecstatic at the fact that the princess was personally looking for him. Varian was more than willing to help Rapunzel with anything she asked for, was delighted (though possibly a little surprised) to be given the honor to call her by her actual name rather than as her title as princess and I mean, heck the alchemist was literally holding on to every single word she had made because she was someone of importance.

To simply put it, Varian respected Rapunzel.

Which makes sense, seeing how she was the princess after all. He had to respect her, and even if he didn’t Varian still respected her because she was the princess. It just so happens that the princess was at his own presences and had deemed him as someone who was both important and capable enough to relay on him for help. Which of course in the first episode, Varian was more than willing to do, because how could he not help the princesses when she came all the way to Old Corona specifically for him? She had put herself in possible danger just by going to meet him because once again, she nor Cassandra knew what would happen when they met him but they were lucky enough to see that Varian was a very smart yet very eager kid who essentially likes helping.

It also just so happens that outside of wanting to see if Varian could find out what was the issue revolving her hair, Rapunzel also ended up finding a friendship within Varian. She cared for him enough that she viewed him as a friend and so when Rapunzel had entrusted Varian with what she and the others were trying to do about the black rocks, Varian was happy to help. His respect for Rapunzel grew, even more so than just the way a common folk would do towards someone of royalty.

But of course, by the final episode Varian’s respect towards Rapunzel was anything but there. In fact, while I don’t want to automatically say that he truly hates Rapunzel, I have to admit that at the same time it is quite clear that he does. Or at least, he believes that he does since the majority of his resentment is targeted towards Rapunzel. Varian doesn’t respect Rapunzel at all and while by the final episode we already knew that even without seeing what Varian ends up doing, one way we can see just how much respect Varian ends up lacking for Rapunzel had to be the way he said her name or referred to her by her title.

When Varian spoke Rapunzel’s name that moment she and her father realized that Varian had been prepared for their ambush, it was said in a way that showed that Varian wasn’t the same kid who hung at her every word. Whereas before, he found it a little difficult to refer to Rapunzel as anything but “princess” or “your highness” and even became quite giddy at the fact that the princess allowed him to call her by her name, Varian by the end essentially mocks Rapunzel and her title. Sure, he still referred to her as “princess", but he constantly says it in a way that held so much resentment and hatred rather than any of the admiration and respect it use to have before she broke her promise.

Really, there was a snarky and condescending tone when Varian spoke her name, especially considering the situation that both Rapunzel and the king were in at the time. He had them at his disposal and in a way, when he had welcomed her it was also as if he took advantage of the fact that she had given him the ability to refer to her by her actual name. That by this point, it could almost be seen as Rapunzel should have regretted ever given him that honor because it wasn’t such an honor for Varian anymore. It was more of a shame and regret or even a realization that she should have never trusted him from the start and probably should have stayed away. But she did and now Rapunzel and everyone else are facing the consequences and Varian is taking advantage of it.

Plus, Varian referring King Frederic as “dad” was another mocking tactic of his, since of course just like with Rapunzel, Varian also lacks any form of respect towards the King or the rest of Corona.

That being said, this detail is one of my favorites when re-watching the first and final episode of the season, because besides the way Varian had sassily called King Frederic “dad,” it was also done in a way to show once again the corresponding difference between Varian’s attitude towards Rapunzel. Literally, this is the same boy who had told Eugene that when the princess of Corona speaks to you, everything she says is important. But now, it doesn’t even matter to him that Rapunzel is the princess or even that Frederic is the king, whatever either one of them has to say, especially Rapunzel, is nothing more than a lie or ploy to trick him again. Rapunzel could beg and plead to him all she wants, she could try and make new promises that this time she would try and keep, but it really doesn’t matter at all to Varian.

She lost any form of respect and admiration that Varian had for her when she didn’t come back with him to Old Corona. And one of the ways this was displayed to us was by the way Varian referred to her. The way her name or title is said, it’s suppose to give us a bit of a chill because and show us exactly what Varian feels for Rapunzel since sometimes our actions doesn’t always show us how someone else feels. But our words can, in fact our words are known to be more powerful than our actions and things such as referring to someone by a name or title each have a different meaning to them and within each meaning, they can be altered by the way they are being said.

4. The literal crushing on Cassandra

I have known from the very first time of watching ‘What the Hair?!’ that the look Varian had given Cassandra after she had saved his life was suppose to represent that he was going to have a crush on her. It honestly wasn’t all that hard to see it, especially thanks to the way he referred to her as “my lady.”

But of course, that scene could have been viewed differently and honestly if it wasn’t for Varian’s followup appearance point blank showing us that Varian did have a crush on Cassandra, than his reaction could have shown that he was grateful for Cassandra in helping him. But he did find himself having a crush on Cassandra and by having a crush on her, all the alchemist wanted to do was sweep her off her feet. At least, that is what Varian had said just before he began to crush her and the queen.

Now, the parallel to this moment from both the first and final episode is the sheer fact that in the first episode, it was Cassandra who had saved Varian from getting hurt. It was her act of bravery and courageousness kicking in that had caused her to push Varian out of the way before he had gotten crushed. It was also this action that made him suddenly infatuated with her, so much to the point in where he wanted to impress her and as stated, he wanted to sweep her off her feet one day. Sadly for Varian though, that never happened because with Rapunzel betraying him and with Cassandra being Rapunzel’s lady in waiting and her best friend, chances are that Cassandra would end up taking Rapunzel’s side of the situation regardless on whether she was actually in the wrong or not.

This essentially is why even though majority of Varian’s resentment is towards Rapunzel, he did not hesitate to attack or hurt the others, including Cassandra. Because really, while their age gap is more than enough a reason to why they both can’t be and won’t be together, think that Cassandra is ever going to want to be with someone who would attack her best friend? Think Varian would want to try and attempt to keep a friendship with her when he knows that she is still close friends with the one person who he blames for all of his misfortunes? Of course not!

But anyways, I have to admit that one of the most appalling moments during the final was when Varian had both Cassandra and Queen Arianna in his robotic grasps and when he began to crush both of them. While the reason behind that moment was because he wanted to make Rapunzel feel the pain that he was currently feeling, the fact that he had specifically chosen Cassandra was an interesting move. Yes, Cassandra was the one who had tried to attack him, but even so Varian could have just as well as thrown her back and away from him and could have only taken the queen or heck, he could have even tried to reach for Eugene even since Eugene is Rapunzel’s boyfriend or even the king. But instead, he did this to Cassandra and I felt like this was somewhat of a parallel moment when compared to the first episode because instead of Varian being the one to save and protect Cassandra this time around like she had done with him, he is once again the cause of the situation and the one who is doing the exact opposite of what she had done to him.

By Varian’s comment of wanting to sweep Cassandra off her feet, it was clear that he meant it in a way in where he wanted to return the favor for her not only saving him once, but twice for that matter. He wanted to make her swoon for him like he had for her, but instead he ended up translating his bitterness towards her and used her as a leverage to try and make Rapunzel understand all of the pain she had given him. Plus not only that, but it is kind of ironic when you think of how he had literally tried to crush Cassandra. He has a crush on her, yet he had physically tried to crush her. To death even! (Although I want to hope that he was only trying to do it in a way in where both Cassandra and the queen fell unconscious, but considering that even Varian doesn’t know if his dad is alive, chances are he most likely did have the intent to cause a double murder at that point).

It’s even more ironic when you consider that his crush was formed by her preventing him from being crushed. Like, it’s crazy that her payment for saving Varian’s life was pretty much her own life, and then some when counting Queen Arianna. It’s also so sad, because we also know that if Varian ever does come to his senses and gets the help he needs, if he had succeeded in crushing Cassandra and the queen, Varian would never be able to forgive himself for it. Not just because he had literally attempted to crush his own crush, but because he had honestly believed he had ever reason for doing so.

Shocking moment really, but I can’t help but marvel at the irony of this moment and how it correspond so well from what had occurred between the two in the first episode.

5. Disappointing his dad

The final parallel I want to talk about is another obvious as we all know about Varian’s need to make his dad proud. In fact, from the very first episode it was kind of evident that the one thing Varian has always wanted to do was to make Quirin proud of him.

I mean, when he was showing Eugene his latest invention to give hot water to his village, what does Varian end up saying about his dad? That if Quirin finds out what he was doing, he would kill him. But if he also did find out, he might be impressed by it too.

The fact that Varian makes a small comment about his dad possibly being impressed by what Varian’s latest invention, it was a clear sign of him wanting to make his dad proud of him. Heck, Varian most likely had figured that by giving hot water to his village and possibly anywhere else around Old Corona and Corona as a whole, and actually being successful in doing so, would be a great reason to make his dad proud of him. In fact, at the time Varian had hoped that he would for once not make Quirin disappointed at him. I mean, sure his latest invention was causing a few earthquakes here and there, but you know Varian? He has to try and try again until he finally succeeds!

So maybe the last few other attempts weren’t good enough, but his current attempt in the first episode could have been the one in where he will finally win!

But it wasn’t and so in the end, Varian ended up destroying their village and to add, Quirin clearly shows disappointment in his own son. Really, he didn’t need to say that he was disappointed in him, the look on his dad’s face showed us that he was and with the way Quirin just shook his head and turned away from him. And to add even more? The look Varian makes when he lets his own head fall down, in both despair and in disappointment in himself. In disappointing his dad yet once again.

And yet, despite what seems to be a constant failure for him, Varian is still trying.

As for some forsaken reason or another, Varian truly believes that by causing all of this mayhem that he is doing to Corona and their royal family, that Quirin would be proud of him. That if he tells his dad he did all of this because he wanted to save Quirin from the amber rocks that he was incased in and that no one wanted to help him (which we all know that isn’t true,) there isn’t any reason for Quirin to be disappointed in him. Varian is so clouded by his need for vengeances and for wanting to get back at Corona, that he isn’t considering how his dad would feel once he is finally saved. And that is if it ever happens.

Which we do know that it will eventually happen and honestly, while I doubt that Quirin would actually be proud of everything that Varian was currently doing, we also do know that Quirin at some point would say that he is proud of his son. In fact, this is something I want to explain a little more in detail in either my next post or in another one, but frankly if it isn’t Quirin outright saying it to his son’s face? Than at the very least Quirin being proud of Varian is written within the letter that he had wrote to his son. But we have to wait until that moment officially happens within the show to know for sure. And until then, Varian is still going to want to try and make his dad proud of him and not disappointed in himself at all.

It just sucks though, that by watching Varian kidnap someone, attack multiple and attempt murder, that we know if Quirin wasn’t actually incased within amber rocks, that he would frankly be the most disappointed in his son than ever. Because honestly, while every single action Varian has made was all in the name of saving his father, Quirin wouldn’t want Varian to hurt others like this.

It’s one thing accidentally hurt people because of the inventions he makes that had good intentions when used, but it is another thing to try and purposely hurt others and think that by claiming that it was all done in order to make someone else proud would justify it. How can anyone be proud of that? Even more so seeing how Varian still has the intentions of getting back at Corona even after he does save his dad! Which I am really interested to see how Varian will go about it, because unless Quirin has something against the kingdom as well (which he could seeing how he is close to the king), I highly doubt that Quirin would allow Varian to continue on with his revenge. Frankly, by continuing on, Varian is just going to keep on disappointing his dad and then where will he be if that happens?

It’s crazy seeing how a good kid like Varian doesn’t see that there are other ways for him to make his dad proud or that Quirin is most likely already proud at Varian, he just never actually showed how proud of his son he really is. All Varian sees is the disappointment his dad gives him, which in return makes Varian disappointed in himself. And the fact that Varian was unsuccessful in breaking his dad free, I can imagine how deep that disappointment in himself became.

Even without Quirin being able to give him that exact same look from the first episode, Varian must have imagined his dad’s constant disappointed expressions when he wasn’t able to cut the rocks with Rapunzel’s hair like he had assumed. To him, it was yet another failed experiment of his that he now needs to recalculate and make better.

Really really sad. Wanting to make his dad proud is simply another way of him not wanting to make his dad disappointed. But Varian’s actions in the first episode was only a small hiccup in a parallel comparison to what he did in the final episode.

And with that, I am done.

I kind of went a little off course when writing this, but I tried to connect certain situations and moments within the final that I had noticed were also done in the first episode. But if none of this makes sense, well I tried!

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An Alternative to Police That Police Can Get Behind

In Eugene, Oregon, a successful crisis-response program has reduced the footprint of law enforcement—and maybe even the likelihood of police violence.

By Rowan Moore Gerety

The Atlantic - December 28, 2020

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/12/cahoots-program-may-reduce-likelihood-of-police-violence/617477/

Photographs by Ricardo Nagaoka

Should American cities defund their police departments? The question has been asked continually—with varying degrees of hope, fear, anger, confusion, and cynicism—since the killing of George Floyd on Memorial Day. It hung over the November election: on the right, as a caricature in attack ads (call 911, get a recording) and on the left as a litmus test separating the incrementalists from the abolitionists. “Defund the police” has sparked polarized debate, in part, because it conveys just one half of an equation, describing what is to be taken away, not what might replace it. Earlier this month, former President Barack Obama called it a “snappy slogan” that risks alienating more people than it will win over to the cause of criminal-justice reform.

Yet the defund idea cannot simply be dismissed. Its backers argue that armed agents of the state are called upon to address too many of society’s problems—problems that can’t be solved at the end of a service weapon. And continued cases of police violence in response to calls for help have provided regular reminders of what can go wrong as a result.

In September, for example, new details came to light about the death of a man in Rochester, New York, which police officials had initially described as a drug overdose. Two months before Floyd’s death, Joe Prude had called 911 because his brother Daniel was acting erratically. Body-cam footage obtained by the family’s attorney revealed that the officers who responded to the call placed a mesh hood over Daniel’s head and held him to the ground until he stopped moving. He died a week later from “complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint,” according to the medical examiner. Joe Prude had called 911 to help his brother in the midst of a mental-health crisis. “I didn’t call them to come help my brother die,” he has said.

A few weeks after a video showing Daniel Prude’s asphyxiation was made public, police in Salt Lake City posted body-cam footage that captured the moments before the shooting of a 13-year-old autistic boy. The boy’s mother had called 911 seeking help getting him to the hospital. While she waited outside, a trio of officers prepared to approach the home. One of them hesitated. “If it’s a psych problem and [the mother] is out of the house, I don’t see why we should even approach, in my opinion,” she said. “I’m not about to get in a shooting because [the boy] is upset.” Despite these misgivings, the officers pursued the distressed 13-year-old into an alley and shot him multiple times, leaving him, his family has said, with injuries to his intestines, bladder, shoulder, and both ankles.

Neither these catastrophic outcomes nor the misgivings of police themselves have produced an answer to the obvious question: How should society handle these kinds of incidents? If not law enforcement, who should intervene?

One possible answer comes from Eugene, Oregon, a leafy college town of 172,000 that feels half that size. For more than 30 years, Eugene has been home to Crisis Assistance Helping Out on the Streets, or CAHOOTS, an initiative designed to help the city’s most vulnerable citizens in ways the police cannot. In Eugene, if you dial 911 because your brother or son is having a mental-health or drug-related episode, the call is likely to get a response from CAHOOTS, whose staff of unarmed outreach workers and medics is trained in crisis intervention and de-escalation. Operated by a community health clinic and funded through the police department, CAHOOTS accounts for just 2 percent of the department’s $66 million annual budget.

When I visited Eugene one week this summer, city-council members in Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Houston, and Durham, North Carolina, had recently held CAHOOTS up as a model for how to shift the work of emergency response from police to a different kind of public servant. CAHOOTS had 310 outstanding requests for information from communities around the country.

A pilot program modeled in part on CAHOOTS recently began in San Francisco, and others will start soon in Oakland, California, and Portland, Oregon. Even the federal government has expressed interest. In August, Oregon’s senior senator, Ron Wyden, introduced the CAHOOTS Act, which would offer Medicaid funds for programs that send unarmed first responders to intervene in addiction and behavioral-health crises. “It’s long past time to reimagine policing in ways that reduce violence and structural racism,” he said, calling CAHOOTS a “proven model” to do just that. A police-funded program that costs $1 out of every $50 Eugene spends on cops hardly qualifies as defunding the police. But it may be the closest thing the United States has to an example of whom you might call instead.

In 1968, Dennis Ekanger was a University of Oregon graduate student finishing up an internship as a counselor for families with children facing charges in the state’s juvenile-justice system when he started to get calls in the middle of the night. Through his work in court, word had spread that “I knew something about substance-abuse problems,” Ekanger told me recently. Anxious mothers were arriving at his doorstep desperate for help but afraid to go to the authorities. It was a turbulent time in Eugene, with anti-war protests on the University of Oregon campus and a counterculture that spilled over into the surrounding neighborhoods in the form of tie-dye, pot smoke, and psychedelic drugs.

The following year, Ekanger and another student in the university’s counseling-psychology program, Frank Lemons, met with a prominent Eugene doctor who agreed to help them mount a more organized response by recruiting local health-care providers to volunteer their time. Ekanger went to San Francisco to visit a new community health clinic in Haight-Ashbury that had pioneered such a model, offering free medical treatment to anyone who walked in. Back in Oregon, Ekanger and Lemons each put up $250 and signed a lease on a dilapidated two-story Victorian near downtown.

The White Bird Clinic opened its doors a few days later, with a mission to provide free treatment when possible and to connect patients to existing services when it wasn’t. But the city’s established institutions didn’t yet have a clue how to deal with people on psychedelic drugs. Teenagers who showed up in the emergency room on LSD were prescribed antipsychotic medications. Unruly patients got passed to the police and ended up having their bad trips in jail.

The forerunner to CAHOOTS was an ad hoc mobile crisis-response team called the “bummer squad” (for “bum trip”), formed in White Bird’s first year for callers to the clinic’s crisis line who were unable or unwilling to come in. The bummer squad responded in pairs in whatever vehicle was available. For a while, that was a 1950 Ford Sunbeam bread truck that did double duty as the home of its owner, Tod Schneider, who’d dropped out of college on the East Coast to drive out to Eugene.

It didn’t take long for the bummer squad to start showing up at some of the same incidents that drew a response from Eugene police. One day in the late 1970s, Schneider answered a call from a mother concerned about her son. “Mom, I think I made a mistake,” he’d told her. “I took some PCP, and I’m feeling weird.” Schneider showed up to the family’s home to find the teenager in “full psychotic PCP condition.” As Schneider got out of the truck, the boy came running out of a neighboring house naked and bloody, and tackled him. Another neighbor called the police, thinking they were witnessing an assault. “So police came out and figured out what was going on—they talked to me a little bit, and they just left,” Schneider told me. “The police realized … they didn’t know what to do with these people that was productive.”

White Bird continued its volunteer-run mobile crisis service—and its informal collaboration with the police—into the early 1980s. Bummer-squad volunteers periodically gave role-playing training to the police department, and some beat officers grew to appreciate Eugene’s peculiar grassroots crisis-response network.

In the late ’80s, Eugene was struggling to respond to a trio of convergent issues that still plague the city more than 30 years later: mental illness, homelessness, and substance abuse. Police in Eugene were caught in a cycle of arresting the same people over and over for violations such as drinking in public parks and sleeping where they weren’t allowed to.

“The police hated it; we were doing absolutely nothing for public safety, we were tangling up the courts, and we were spending a horrendous amount of money,” Mike Gleason, who was the city manager at the time, recalled. Gleason convened a roundtable with Eugene’s social-service providers, offering city funding for programs that could break the logjam. A local detox facility made plans to launch a sobering center where people could dry out or sleep it off. White Bird and the police department began a dialogue about a mobile crisis service that could be dispatched through the 911 system.

White Bird and the police were not a natural pairing. To the city’s establishment types, White Bird staffers were “extreme counterculture people.” Standing by as the bummer squad defused a bad trip was one thing; giving the team police radios was quite another. White Bird’s clinic coordinator at the time, Bob Dritz, wore a uniform of jeans and a T-shirt; for meetings with city officials, he’d occasionally add a rumpled corduroy jacket. With his defiantly disheveled appearance, Dritz seemed to be declaring, in the words of one colleague, “Look, I’m different from you people, and you have to listen to me.” White Bird staff members worried that working with the police would erode their credibility, and maybe even lead to arrests of the very people they were trying to help. But in the space of a couple of months, Dritz and a counterpart at the police department drafted the outlines of a partnership. The acronym Dritz landed on was an ironic nod to the discomfort of working openly with the cops.

Things were slow at first. Jim Hill, the police lieutenant who oversaw CAHOOTS at the police department, recalls sitting at his desk listening to dispatch traffic on the radio. “I would literally have to call dispatch and say, ‘How come you didn’t send CAHOOTS to that?’ And they go, ‘Oh, yeah, okay.’” Before long, though, CAHOOTS was in high demand.

CAHOOTS teams work in 12-hour shifts, mostly responding without the police. Each van is staffed by a medic (usually an EMT or a nurse) and a crisis worker, typically someone with a background in mental-health support or street outreach, who takes the lead in conversation and de-escalation. Most people at White Bird make $18 an hour (it’s a “nonhierarchical” organization; internal decisions are made by consensus), and some have day jobs elsewhere.

One Tuesday night this summer, the medic driving the van was Chelsea Swift. Swift grew up in Connecticut and, like White Bird’s co-founder a generation before her, was introduced to harm-reduction work in Haight-Ashbury, where she sold Doc Martens to the punks who staffed the neighborhood needle-exchange program. Swift’s childhood had been marked by her mother’s struggle with opiate addiction and mental illness. She never thought she’d be a first responder, or could be. She was too queer, too radical. “I don’t fit into that culture,” she told me. And yet, she said, “I am so good at this job I never would have wanted.”

Around 6 p.m., Swift and her partner, a crisis worker named Simone Tessler, drove to assist an officer responding to a disorderly-subject call in the Whiteaker, a central-Eugene neighborhood with a lively street life, even in pandemic times. When we arrived, a military veteran in his 20s was standing with the officer on the corner, wearing a backpack, a toothbrush tucked behind his ear. The man said he’d worked in restaurants in Seattle until the coronavirus hit, then moved to Eugene to stay with his girlfriend.

That day, he’d worked his first shift at a fast-food restaurant. Soon after he got home, a sheriff’s deputy working for the county court knocked on the door to serve him a restraining order stemming from an earlier dispute with his girlfriend. He did not take the news well. The deputy called for police backup, and when it arrived, the man agreed to walk a block away to wait for CAHOOTS and figure out his next move. He had to stay 200 feet away from the place where he’d been living, and he couldn’t drive. “I been drinking a bit, and—I’m not gonna lie—I want to keep drinking,” he said. He needed somewhere to stay, and a way to move his car to a place where he could safely leave it overnight with his stuff in the back.

Swift and the officer talked logistics while Tessler leaned against the wall beside the man and chatted with him. She told him that she’d worked in restaurants before joining CAHOOTS.

The Eugene Mission, the city’s largest homeless shelter, had an available spot, the officer explained, thumbs tucked inside the shoulder straps of his duty vest. You can show up drunk if you commit to staying for 14 days and agree not to use alcohol or drugs while you’re there.

The man hesitated, thinking through other options. He had enough cash for a motel room, as long as it didn’t require a big deposit. The officer prepared to leave so CAHOOTS could take over. Swift, Tessler, and the veteran took out their phones and began looking up budget motels along a nearby strip, settling on one with a military discount and a low cash deposit.

“Do you know how to drive stick?” the man asked. Tessler and Swift exchanged blank looks, then continued to spitball. Did the man have AAA? Was another CAHOOTS unit free to help? I felt a lump rising in my throat. I’d wanted to keep my reporterly distance, but I was also a person watching a trivial problem stand in the way as calls stacked up at the dispatch center. I drove the car three blocks to the motel with Swift in the front seat.

“So much of what people call CAHOOTS for is just ordinary favors,” she said. “We’re professional people who do this every day, but what was that? We were helping him make phone calls and move his car.”

A couple of hours later, CAHOOTS received a call from a sprawling apartment complex on the north side of town. Tessler and Swift showed up just as the last hint of blue drained from the sky. The call had come from a concerned mother who lived in Portland, 100 miles away from her 23-year-old daughter; she believed that her daughter was suicidal. The young woman’s grandmother, who lived nearby, stood in the parking lot and gave Tessler and Swift a synopsis: Her granddaughter was bipolar, with borderline personality disorder. She’d run away at 17 after her diagnosis, and never seemed to fully accept it, traveling across the West with a series of boyfriends, sleeping in encampments. She’d been back in Eugene for a few months now, the longest the family had ever gotten her to stay.

Tessler walked around the corner and knocked. “It’s CAHOOTS.” No answer.

“Can you come and talk to us for a minute?”

The door was unlocked from the inside and left slightly ajar.

The apartment was dark. A tiny Chihuahua mix barked frantically. A tearful voice called out from the bedroom, “I just want a hug. Are you going to take me away?”

Tessler crouched down in the bedroom doorway. “I’m not gonna take you anywhere you don’t want to go.”

“I’m really sorry I’ve caused all this,” the young woman said, sitting up.

Swift grabbed a handful of kibble from a bowl on the floor to quiet the dog. “My family tries to put me away a lot,” the young woman explained. Breathing fast between sobs, she seemed both overwhelmed by grief and adrenaline and primed to answer questions she’d come to expect in the midst of a crisis.

Unprompted, she told the CAHOOTS team her full name, letter by letter. “I know my Social Security number, and I know I’m a harm to myself and others.” She took a deep breath. “I’m just feeling really sad and alone, and I don’t know how I got here.”

Tessler turned on a light, and Swift went out to the parking lot to summon the young woman’s grandmother.

“Nana! Nana!” The young woman dissolved into her embrace.

Swift surveyed the bathroom scene that had prompted the call. An open pack of cigarettes lay on the wet floor along with a belt and an electrical cord. There was a straw in a bottle of gin on the edge of the tub, a six-pack on the toilet, and half a dozen pill bottles strewn across the bathroom sink and countertop. Swift unfolded a soggy piece of paper marked “Patient Safety Plan Contract” that identified seeing San Francisco as the one thing the young woman wanted to do before she died.

As Swift took her vitals, the young woman’s tearful reunion with her grandmother continued. “I love your blue eyes, Nana,” she said.

“I love your brown ones.”

CAHOOTS brought her to the emergency room, and she was discharged less than 24 hours later.

On my first morning in Eugene, I spent a couple of hours in Scobert Gardens, a pocket-size park on a residential block not far from the Mission. Many of the park’s visitors are part of Eugene’s unhoused population, which accounts for about 60 percent of CAHOOTS calls. Everyone I met in Scobert Gardens had a CAHOOTS story. One man had woken up shivering on the grass before dawn, after the park’s sprinklers had soaked him through; CAHOOTS gave him dry clothes and a ride to the hospital to make sure he didn’t have hypothermia. A woman had received first aid after getting a spider bite on her face while sleeping on the ground. Another man hadn’t had a place to stay since he got out of prison more than a year ago. When he had a stroke in the park earlier this summer, a friend called CAHOOTS. “If you go with the ambulance, it will cost you big money, so a lot of people go the CAHOOTS route,” the man explained.

Earlier this year, Barry Friedman, a law professor at NYU, posted a working paper on policing that highlighted the mismatch between police training and the jobs officers are called on to do—not just law enforcer, but first responder, mediator, and social worker. Reducing the number of instances in which police are called to assist Eugene’s unhoused population reduces the number of calls for which their skill set is a poor match. But if the goal is eliminating unnecessary use of force, helping people without housing is hardly sufficient.

In a 2015 analysis of citizen-police interactions, the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that traffic stops accounted for the majority of police-initiated contact: 25 million people reported traffic stops, versus 5.5 million people who reported other kinds of contact. And police are regularly involved in incidents that escalate partly because of a failure to consider mental-health issues. In October, Walter Wallace Jr.’s family members and a neighbor called 911 because he was arguing with his parents; according to the family’s attorney, Wallace had bipolar disorder. Two Philadelphia police officers arrived, found Wallace with a knife, and fatally shot him, despite his mother’s attempts to intercede. (Police and district-attorney investigations are ongoing, and no arrests have been made.) Near Eugene, police in the neighboring city of Springfield in March 2019 killed Stacy Kenny, who had schizophrenia, in an incident that began with a possible parking violation. None of the officers involved was criminally charged, though a lawsuit brought by the Kenny family resulted in the largest police settlement in Oregon history. Springfield also committed to overhauling police-department policy and oversight practices around use of force.

In July 2015, police responded to the home of Ayisha Elliott, a race and equity trainer and the host of a podcast called Black Girl From Eugene. Elliott’s 19-year-old son had been experiencing a mental-health crisis, she told me, which was the result of a traumatic brain injury. At 2:43 a.m., Elliott called Eugene’s nonemergency number and asked for CAHOOTS, not realizing that the service ran only until 3 a.m. In a subsequent call, to 911, Elliott’s ex-husband indicated that Elliott was in danger; authorities say it was this second call that led dispatchers to send police to the scene. Elliott greeted the officers on the front porch, and explained that she needed help getting her son to the hospital. Instead, in an incident that escalated over the course of 15 minutes, her son became agitated and began to yell. Elliott attempted to shield him from officers as they ordered her to stand back. Police say her son charged as they tried to separate him from his mother. Her son was punched in the face and tased. Elliott herself was pulled to the ground, resulting in a concussion, she said. She was arrested for interfering with a police officer. (She was released the following morning.) She and her son sued the city of Eugene as well as individual police officers in federal court, for excessive use of force and racial discrimination, among other claims; the court found against the plaintiffs on all counts. Elliott told me the experience didn’t change her view of the police so much as confirm it. “I realized that it didn’t matter who I was; I’m still Black.”

Together with the fatal police shooting that year of a veteran who had PTSD, the incident helped focus public attention on Eugene’s response to mental-health crises. In its next annual budget, the city included $225,000 to make CAHOOTS a 24/7 service for the first time. (Both the mayor’s office and the police department say the increase in funding was not related to a specific incident.)

Yet CAHOOTS is still limited by the rules that govern its role in crisis response. Its teams are not permitted to respond when there’s “any indication of violence or weapons,” or to handle calls involving “a crime, a potentially hostile person, a potentially dangerous situation … or an emergency medical problem.”

Many 911 calls unfold in the gray area at the limits of CAHOOTS’s scope of work; in Eugene, the same dispatch system handles both emergency and nonemergency calls, in part because so many callers fail to grasp the distinction. One call I went on with Swift and Tessler was to check on the welfare of a young man with face tattoos who was reportedly acting strangely on the University of Oregon campus. The fire department and the police had been out to see him, without incident, but also without resolution: The man was still there, unsettling passersby, who kept calling him in as a potential threat to himself and others.

By the time CAHOOTS arrived, the man was lying on the grass with a small burning pile of latex gloves next to his head. When Swift jumped out of the van, alarmed, he sat halfway up and poked at the fire with a kitchen knife, then lay back down. Had the cops been called again, I thought, the incident might have played out differently, and landed in the next day’s paper: “A young man setting objects on fire was shot after brandishing a knife.” But that’s not how it went. Swift grabbed the knife, threw it well out of reach, and began talking to him.

At 11 a.m. on a Friday, I met Jennifer Peckels, one of the few cops in Eugene who walk their beat, to tag along as she patrolled a quadrant of restaurants and curbside gardens downtown. Born and raised in Eugene, Peckels is now in her fifth year on the force. Many of her interactions downtown are with a core group of people experiencing homelessness, mental-health crises, and addiction, or some combination thereof.

Across the street from the library, Peckels recognized a woman who was sitting on a bench, crying inconsolably. When Peckels approached her, the woman explained in breathless bursts that her daughter’s surrogate parents were telling lies about her. She feared she might never see her daughter again. Over the radio, Peckels called in the woman’s location to dispatch. “CAHOOTS will come help you—they gotta help the fire department, then they gotta help a suicidal subject, and then they’ll come. You’re on the list.”

“I’m suicidal,” the woman said.

“Do you have any means to hurt yourself?” Peckels asked.

The woman explained that she was afraid she would start drinking again. She began to slap herself in the face. “I’m tired of Eugene,” she said, gesturing across the street at a statue of Rosa Parks seated on a pair of bronze bus seats. “I got threatened to be arrested for sitting next to Rosa Parks, and I said ‘Fuck the police.’ I haven’t done anything wrong here except be loud and drink in public!”

“You know, when I get upset, I do this breathing exercise,” Peckels suggested.

Together, they inhaled for four seconds, then held their breath. The woman closed her eyes and, by the exhale, appeared calmer for the first time. “You’re on the list,” Peckels repeated. The woman wanted to know when CAHOOTS was coming, but Peckels had no way of knowing. We continued walking.

The most common complaint about CAHOOTS you’ll hear in Eugene is that its response times are too slow. Last year, across roughly 15,000 calls in the city, the average time between receipt of a call and the arrival of a CAHOOTS team was an hour and 56 minutes, compared with an hour and 11 minutes across 46,000 calls for the police department. Having more CAHOOTS units on the street could serve to reduce Eugene Police Department response times as well, by freeing up officers to do what Peckels called “police work.” She said it’s not uncommon for reports of even very serious crimes that are no longer in progress—such as rapes or burglaries—to sit in the dispatch queue for hours while officers race to work through a backlog of calls.

White Bird and the EPD are trying to come to an agreement about the best way to quantify CAHOOTS’s contributions. CAHOOTS has circulated its own estimate, saying it responds to 17 percent of all calls handled by dispatchers. Yet the police department contends that most of those calls wouldn’t have gotten a police response to begin with, because many of the requests that CAHOOTS receives—to check on a person who seems heavily intoxicated, or for transport to a medical appointment—aren’t really “police calls.” According to the police department’s analysis, the true diversion rate is between 5 and 8 percent. Which number is the “right” one to evaluate CAHOOTS’s contributions to the city?

I asked Eugene’s chief of police, Chris Skinner, about the prospect of increasing CAHOOTS’s capacity to respond to calls. He told me he thinks of the benefit to the police as a question of probability: “The less time I put police officers in conflicts with people, the less of the time those conflicts go bad.” That, in a sense, is the same argument made by activists who have mentioned alternatives such as CAHOOTS in their demands to shrink the footprint of policing nationwide.

Before the coronavirus pandemic hit, Eugene voters approved a payroll tax projected to bring in $23 million a year for 126 community-safety positions. Originally, two-thirds of that money was slated to pay for positions in the police department; as several police officials I spoke with pointed out, Oregon has among the lowest number of police officers per capita of any state in the country. Now, in response to Black Lives Matter protests, Mayor Lucy Vinis told me, the city council is consulting with community organizations to revise that plan. “Until this challenge around ‘Defund the police,’” Vinis said, “I don’t think that the police department ever really looked at CAHOOTS as depriving them of funds: It was really excellent service for a very low price.”

Anecdotally, at least, Eugene’s citizens have come to appreciate the CAHOOTS approach to crisis response, perhaps too keenly. CAHOOTS exists in a society where many feel that the risk of police violence outweighs the potential benefit of calling 911, and where an encounter with EMS can wreck a household’s finances. Last December, a CAHOOTS team showed up to a fatal drug overdose hours after the victim’s friend had called in for help. The caller had avoided language that would have brought a faster police or EMS response.

Brenton Gicker, who has worked for CAHOOTS for 12 years and as an emergency-room nurse for the past five, told me that callers have sometimes omitted key details to bypass police. “They’ll say, ‘My friend is bipolar; he’s in a manic episode. I’d like CAHOOTS to talk to them.’ And we show up, and they’ve set the kitchen on fire, or they’re running around naked, stabbing holes in the wall.”

CAHOOTS has undoubtedly saved lives in Eugene. The question for cities hoping to emulate its success is how its approach might be adapted and scaled up. Eugene is a small, homogenous city (its population is 83 percent white). The proud hippie culture that helped give birth to the White Bird Clinic, the bummer squad, and eventually CAHOOTS continues to thrive there. The city supports a robust network of homeless shelters, crisis centers, and mental-health and drug-treatment providers that have a long history of working with CAHOOTS, which makes it easier to connect people in need with services that can help. Los Angeles has 23 times as many people as Eugene, living in dozens of far-flung neighborhoods, each with its own landscape of language, history, and social services. In October, L.A.’s city council voted unanimously to develop a CAHOOTS-like program of unarmed crisis responders. It will face different challenges.

When the pandemic struck, it revealed just how reliant CAHOOTS is on the city’s safety net—and just how fragile that net is, even in progressive Eugene. CAHOOTS was the rare social-service provider in the city that was able to carry on its regular operations. The Buckley Center closed its sobering program; the Eugene Mission continued to serve residents but closed the door to new arrivals for months; social-service agencies asked their caseworkers to work from home, which made it harder to help clients who don’t have stable addresses, schedules, or cellphones.

For a stretch, measures taken to stop the spread of the virus among Eugene’s poorest residents made up for the absence of some of the usual services. Federal CARES Act funding enabled Lane County to open a new 250-bed homeless shelter in buildings on its fairgrounds. To Gicker, the new shelter was a revelation. “This is the first time ever in my CAHOOTS experience where I can take somebody somewhere to sleep with no questions asked: They don’t have to be a battered woman; they don’t have to be experiencing a mental-health crisis; they don’t have to be ill or injured. I don’t have to sell it in some way.”

The CARES Act money ran out in June, however, and the fairground shelter closed. CAHOOTS was back to having very few places to take people in need of a bed. Similar bottlenecks exist for inpatient drug treatment and mental-health facilities. Eugene might have more social services than some American cities, but it’s still an American city. If it can’t manage the cries for help, how will larger, more diverse cities that lack Eugene’s long-standing interagency collaborations or progressive attitudes fare? In rural areas, gaps in service are even more pronounced. Earlier this year, officials from another jurisdiction called White Bird’s director of consulting, Tim Black, to announce with excitement that they’d received funding to “bring CAHOOTS here” in a matter of months. Black replied, “Where are you going to bring someone if not to the hospital or the jail?”

Around 5 p.m. on a Wednesday, I was halfway through the day shift with another CAHOOTS team, Tatanka Maker and Brian Troutz, when it was called to a parking lot just south of Washington Jefferson Park. A woman in her 50s stood at the lot’s edge, surrounded by a swirl of trash. She was barefoot and had a sheath of plastic wrapped around her midriff. This was someone the CAHOOTS team had known for years.

An employee of a nearby aquarium shop had made the call to CAHOOTS, and Maker approached him to get a sense of the situation. “She’s been trespassing since nine,” the employee said.

“I’m packing up,” the woman replied. She picked up armfuls of newspaper and takeout containers, then dropped them just as quickly, as though she’d spotted something else in the pile that she’d been looking for.

“That’s not an option any longer,” Maker said, addressing the woman by her first name. “You can pack one bag of important stuff, and then we’ll take off.”

“Where are we going?” the woman asked.

“Somewhere else,” Maker said.

Troutz brought a clean garbage bag from the van. Maker began guessing what she might want to put inside: “Do you want this sleeping bag?”

Imploring her to cooperate, Maker said she could bring a second garbage bag along too.

“If you don’t come to the van right now, they’re gonna take you to jail and throw it out,” Maker said. But the woman was stuck in another world.

“Can I focus on getting this done?” she asked, annoyed.

At last, Maker and Troutz succeeded in leading the woman to the van. They’d avoided an arrest, but it was a temporary victory. The woman had only just gotten out of jail. Before that, she’d been in and out of the state mental hospital for years. Space constraints, insurance issues, and time limits on residential programs all contributed to the difficulty of finding a place where she could receive long-term mental-health services and drug treatment.

Lacking a better option, Maker and Troutz opted to take her to White Bird. The clinic was closed, but a large shaded parking lot sits behind it.

“This is one of those cases where there is no perfect place to take her, but it’s better to take her out of the part of town where she’s been causing some trouble,” Maker said. The van stopped, and the woman got out and took a seat on a discarded couch in the parking lot.

“You know those orange cones they put on the highway?” Maker said when we got back in the van to head to the next call. “Last summer, there was a day that she spent 10 hours meticulously climbing up the embankment, grabbing them, and throwing them over the edge.” The police, the fire department, and CAHOOTS had all responded multiple times, she said. “We ended up bringing her to White Bird that day too.”

This article is part of our project “The Cycle,” which is supported by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge.

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