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theplanetprince · 2 years

Text

Schrodinger's Adolescent || Ch. 18

Fic: AO3 || FNN

Fandom: Danny Phantom

Rating: Teens and Up

Word Count, as of update (approx): 133k~

Chapters: 18/40 (subject to change)

Relationships:

Dash Baxter/Danny Fenton,

Sam Manson/Tucker Foley,

GhostWriter/Ember Mcclain,

Characters:

Danny Fenton,

Dash Baxter,

Sam Manson,

Tucker Foley,

Cujo,

Johnny 13,

Ghostwriter,

Sidney Poindexter,

Mr Lancer

Additional Tags: Slow Burn, Slow to Update, Canon Rewrite, Post-Reality Trip, High School Setting, Fake Dating (Kinda), Unrequited Love, It's requited but they're dumbasses, one-sided attraction, fluff, I know the content warning is extensive, but I promise there's fluff, tooth-rotting fluff, Danny Fenton has PTSD

Content Warnings: A lot of talk/descriptions of food, mentions of starvation, stalking, inappropriate contact with a minor, assault,

Fic Summary: “Schrodinger put his cat in a box with a bottle of poison. He closes the lid. The cat is alive or dead— In this state, the cat is neither. He leaves the box closed. You are the cat.”

All Danny Fenton wanted was to be normal. He had to work harder at it than most of his peers. Normal wasn’t exactly an option while being the Phantom of Amity Park. Of course, that all changes when Danny accidentally outs himself to his bully, Dash Baxter. Between dances, big games, school plays, and violent biker demons— Danny’s got his hands full. What may be surprising is just how much Dash cares about the human underneath the ghost…

Author's Note: I am beyond relieved to have finished this chapter. I am so glad. It took me all week but I've finally can carve my way forward. I guess I should thank Wes for this one. Wes really changed the direction for this chapter, and I think I owe him that. -Voorhees ✌

Wesley liked the outdoors— No, he adored the outdoors. Home to Wes wasn't limited to the construction of a building. He was never the kind to feel comfortable in one place for long. He had to move, and he had to stretch his legs. He loved climbing trees. That was the big positive he took away from the move to Amity Park. They called it the sticks for a reason. There was so much life compared to the major cities the Westons resided in prior. At first glance, at least. The irony wasn't exactly obvious then.

Whenever the world got to be too much, as it often did when you were a teenager, Wes could just put one hand over the other. Then suddenly, his issues didn't seem so bad. They seemed so small up above the ground. His brothers had affectionately given him the nickname 'spider-monkey' due to his habit of dropping everything when he made eye contact with something he could climb or jump off.

More often than he'd like to admit, Wes would pop open his bedroom window and slide down the rain gutter and walk to the park just like he did tonight.

He walked until he found the tallest tree he could. He elected to climb it until his arms burned from carrying his weight. He didn't hear it when the motorcycle pulled up. No, he was still lost in his thoughts and grief. He was stewing from another fight with his parents. They had busted his chops for his 'attitude' … again. Like Wes wasn't entitled to one after being trapped in this hellhole. Attitude was how you survived.

Resting his back flat against the trunk, he exhaled. Tapping the back of his skull against the bark, Wes turned over the argument once more. He thought about the look of worry on his mother's face. He thought about how his dad never used to shout so much before they moved here—wondering what he could have said differently. What could he have done—?

Did it even matter?

No one even listens to me, anyway.

Not my parents, not Kyle or Easton. Not even Dash…

That brought his thoughts back to the present. What was he going to do about Dash? Why was he so… stubborn?! He had to know the Fentons were bad news.

Wes didn't have friends anymore. Danny made sure of that. But Wes still owed Dash his loyalty— Wes still needed to keep him safe. Wes wanted to cling to whatever he could hold. He couldn't just come out and say it like that, right? Wes and Dash weren't exactly on speaking terms… but…

Why did this have to be so hard?

Wes wanted to be good. He wanted to be true and good. The issue therein, nobody believed it. Nobody thought Wes was capable of such noble pursuits. Most of all, he wanted to be happy, but the world wouldn't let him. Not if the world still had Danny Fenton in it.

Danny Fenton was a stain that refused to fade.

Danny Fenton was a monster.

Danny Fenton had to die, but by some miracle— he couldn't. He can't die.

What's the opposite of a miracle?

Weston could care less who delivered the coup de grâce. He just wanted to be there to witness it. He wanted to know exactly what kind of evil sustains itself for that long without burning up. Maybe it would be like discovering a new element. He wanted to see them open him up. What kind of diseases could you cure with a guy who refused to die? How much money would that be? Had to be enough for a bus ticket out of Amity Park.

It wasn't exactly righteous to wish death upon someone. But since when was it righteous to walk back from your maker?

If people had read the Bible like they claimed to, they'd know it was cover-to-cover murder.

Then again, this wasn't about what Weston wanted. He was just the running joke at Casper high. He wasn't one of the zealots who praised the heavens for opening and gracing them with the Phantom. He was crazy; after all, why should it matter what he wanted?

That's the thought Wes kept coming back to. As if his brain was a one red-light town and every road led back to the same question and the same solution.

If Danny Fenton died… would this all go away?

The question sat there and stared at him. Stared at him with that same idle and taunting expression that the ghost boy did.

Would everything go away? If even for just a little bit? A couple of days at most?

He sat in the tree at least thirty feet off the earth and let the breeze pass him by. The chill made him aware of the tears on his face that definitely weren't there before. Wes wiped his eyes and rubbed his nose. The moon bounced off his pale, skinny limbs, and he mulled over how he got here. He fiddled with his sweatshirt ties. The red cords were fraying at the ends, the plastic parts having cracked. He pressed them between his thumb and the rest of his fist, spreading the threads even thinner. Twisting.

Why did he have to look at me like that? Like I was dirt?

Why is he so obsessed with Danny Fenton all of a sudden?

How could he be so—

"Easy Shadow, easy. We'll go see our boy soon enough. You have to leave them wanting more." There was a chuckle in the dark.

Drawn to the sound of boots crunching gravel and a voice, Wes peered down from his perch. There was someone below him.

Through the bramble and leaves, what the ex-jock could make out, was a man… and something. Something distinctly inhuman surrounded him. It looked like… slime? Like oil animated and suspended in the air. Whatever it was, it shimmered in the borrowed glow of the moon.

It had teeth.

A lot of teeth. Sharp and pointed, like that of a predator, evolved to kill for the joy of it and not for sustenance.

"Yknow, It's gonna be a real shame about that kid… " The biker continued to muse to himself as he put down his kickstand. Adjusting his long flowing jacket as he went, brushing the dust off his leather clothes. He retrieved a box of cigarettes from his pocket and then a lighter.

Clasping onto the paper roll with his teeth, he flicked the metal wheel a few times before a spark caught the tip.

Exhaling a plume of sour smoke, the stranger spoke hoarsely and with the faintest bit of humor, "He really didn't have to make himself such an easy mark. But walking around like that with the perfect body—?"

He stood up, stretching his arms above his head casually and sighing, "With that whole, 'you gonna finish that?' line— it's like the kid was after my own heart."

The stranger snickered.

"Such a shame…" He shook his head, "No one's gonna even know the difference when we're done."

The shadow gurgled a reply to its master, or what Wes assumed to be its master. It seemed to have a rapport with the man, like a pet. It followed the gestures and waves of the stranger's hand.

"What kind of a name is 'Dash' anyway? We're definitely changing that."

As Wesley leaned to his side, balancing himself between an adjacent branch and the one he was sitting on.

Did he just say—

The tree cracked, disturbing the still atmosphere, sending the residents of said dwelling into the sky with alarm. The pine needles rustled as what Wes initially thought of as a sturdy foothold began to rumble.

The duo on the ground snapped their glares up into the night. The moonlight blew out their eyes. Their scleras glowed white like feral animals caught on a trail cam.

Ghosts.

Holy shit.

Wes held his breath. His lips folded into his mouth to hold back a scream. Sweat caressed the curves of his cheekbone and poured down, down, down off his chin, and to the bark chips below. He clenched his teeth so hard that Wes thought he would somehow break through his jaw.

Please don't see me. Please don't see me. Please don't see me. Please don't—

Crickets and cicadas chirped in the stillness.

"Lay back, Shadow." The man took another drag off his cigarette, turning his gaze to his beast, "I don't wanna keep lover boy waiting."

The comment made Wes' stomach sink. There were thousands of ways he could've interpreted that, but none of them were good.

The man chuckled. His deep voice was like trying to fathom the rolling ocean. Yes, it was serene to a point, but it hid so much. It hid too much. Maybe there was a bottom to it… but not one desirable or one that wouldn't utterly destroy you before reaching it.

"Remember, buddy, if you catch it—" A twig snapped as the biker took a few more steps under the tree's canopy. He knocked on the trunk.

He growled, "You eat it. "

The biker departed. Tossing the filter of his expired cigarette to the side, the embers faded into the seamless dark.

Wes couldn't hear him leave, whether that be because of his heart beating in his ears or because the ghost had shed his physical form.

Maybe he didn't leave. He only wanted to lull Wes into a false sense of security.

There were a few seconds at most where the conspiracy theorist didn't move—just a few seconds of doubt.

A few seconds too many as the sentient black mass darted under the tree.

Cautiously, Wes centered himself on his weakened branch. He got his knees under him and perched on the balls of his feet. The tree replied with another sharp crack. He was getting down one way or another. Let it be through gravity or by his agility.

He was on the clock now.

Hands dove into this center sweatshirt pocket. Finding his field notebook, he tossed it—he found his copy of the ghost hunters' almanac. The written word would do little to help him now. The papers he kept with him only rustled in protest.

Shit, shit, shit, shit, SHIT!

The thick viscous sound of that animal— that creature— that thing slithering up the tree caused his body to break in goose flesh. It was the sound of the world ending as clouds blotted out all the light. It was the sound of rain falling in reverse. It was the last gasps of the cosmos that no one could perceive in the vacuum of the void.

From the roots, the tree began to tremble as if caught in the middle of a cataclysmic earthquake. He got his back to the wall and limited his window of vulnerability.

It was indescribable. It was the hoofbeats of hell's cavalry.

And it was getting closer.

Futilely Wes called out, "Get back!"

In his panic, the edge of his palm brushed the cool metal of his taser.

Thank god for overnight express shipping.

Unrelenting thoughts racing, Weston realized he never looked up. There was a branch just out of his reach—

The monster wailed in its bottomless hunger. It wove itself into the spaces between the fabric of the bark. Tendrils coiled around the pine needles, and molecule by molecule, the entity rewrote itself into nature as if it weren't a cruel parody. It moved like a disease—Swift as an infection.

All it took was a jump. Just a jump—

Wes snapped his glance from impending doom consuming his foothold to the branch above him. It would be a stretch, but it wasn't like he had any other choice.

Kicking the chip in the branch, more of the white inner flesh became exposed. All it would need is all of his weight coming down on the weak spot.

Knees apart, Wes took the leap.

The branch still persisted.

"C'mon! Dammit!"

One more time, the young man channeled all of his strength to his legs—

The last fibers of the branch snapped with an almost melodic sound. It was so beautiful and terrifying. Terrifying, for a brief moment, he was in the air. He was nothing but mass and matter. One-hundred-twenty pounds of dead weight that hung there in the sky. In anticipation for the nine-point-eight-two per second squared equation of gravity to finish him off.

But Wes caught himself— just barely. Just enough. There was liquid seeping from his hands. Hot and burning.

It wasn't his time yet. There was still work to be done.

Not today.

The impact sent up the gravel in a cloud of dust and the monster down with it.

"Yeah! Bitch! Now you know!" A tight laugh escaped his diaphragm. It punched its way out of him with his victory. He tapped his sweaty forehead on the limb of the tree. Wes repeated to himself, " Now you know ."

His biceps burned as he pulled himself onto the higher hold. He swung his legs and pressed his eroding sneakers against the trunk until he got the upper branch between his thighs. He flipped onto the top side, still trying to catch his breath.

"I-I should've stretched. Whew —" Rolling his shoulders, Wes shuddered.

"Yeah— yeah, I-I definitely pulled something." He ghosted his hand over the stitch in his side, " Aghhh…"

So much ow. Whole lot of ow.

The pulse in his hands only got stronger as warm blood began to rise from his flayed palms. He glared down at his sorry hands. He didn't dare try to make a fist, and he can forget about basketball for—

Wait, what was that?

That awful noise…

Something between an infant trying to form its first words and something being blended between the teeth of an irreparable garbage disposal. The gurgling returned. It was a throaty clicking and rasp of a death row inmate seeing stars in his vision as the injection took hold, as he choked on his own bile. That sound. That awful sound.

It was so close. It was practically all he could hear.

But where is it?!

Then the death rattle evolved into an ear-shattering squeal. Like Wes had left the calm serenity of Amity Park's forest and entered the killing floor of a meat farm. The breath of the monster was as thick as blood and rotting meat. He could hear the links of chain beating against the stained floor as they raised the carcasses to the ceiling. Wes could hear it all despite shutting his eyes tight and using both of his hands to block it out. It's what he would do during thunderstorms or if the curtain plagued his tired mind with shapes of someone that meant him harm. It was all he could do. Close his eyes and pray.

Oh, God, no.

The needles in the tree rustled in weak protest as the dark being darted in and out of the gaps, working in a whirlwind to tie the living down. The spots of green withered into ash, decaying into nothing.

It had latched itself onto the bottom of Wes' shoe like mud, and it chilled every nerve and cell in his body. The stain only grew and grew at an illogical panic-inducing pace. Its spread was uncontrollable. It clouded his vision. It eclipsed him. The Shadow contorted Wes's body against his will.

Forcing Wes to pulverize himself.

It didn't want him. Shadow didn't want Wes. Johnny didn't want Wes. So, it would kill him. It would stop when Wes's remains were no longer entertaining.

Nobody wanted Wes.

It was a few more moments after Wes's abrupt landing before someone said anything.

"Oh, great, that's exactly what this situation needed. Another dead child…" Stephen gestured to the body of the high schooler in front of them. He was tempted to poke the boy with his shoe to see if he would twitch.

The Phantom's initial startle had sent him skyward. He had jumped six feet out of his skin and floated there. Danny didn't say a word. Not even scolding the senior ghost for his barb disguised as levity.

Ghostwriter turned his glance toward his ward, it was unfocused but still burning, "Friend of yours?"

Still gawking at the young living on the ground, it took Danny a few moments to register that Wes was unconscious. That wasn't unsurprising, he did fall from a tree for god's sake—but seeing him there on the ground…

It didn't feel good. There was a pang of unidentifiable emotion that pulled at him. It pulled and kept pulling him further into his memories he was better off abandoning. Guilt? Was that it? Why did it hurt to look at Wes this way? Barely Wes's chest was still moving. The subtle rise of his lungs expanding was the only thing tipping the scales in his favor.

Unnerved that his companion who had talked his ear off the entire journey to this point, Stephen snapped, "Daniel!"

The Phantom's voice exited his body with no coherency. He made a noise but it wasn't a word. It was just in acknowledgement that the other party said something. Danny had dropped from his flight, and landed on the ground jostling from one foot to the other. He moved to his classmate with hesitation. Danny wasn't sure he could do anything to help, but something compelled him to try anyway.

His approach was curious, cautious, and excruciatingly slow.

Lowering himself, Danny tried to sift through thousands of questions and thoughts that all seemed important but held no weight like smoke. Scouring the recesses of his mind for any faint flash of the article Sam made him read for how to treat concussions. Anything he retained from health about first-aid.

Anything… anything at all.

Selfishly, the Phantom had made the assumption he was indestructible. He didn't think he needed to know. There were better uses of his time. For the life of him, Danny couldn't tell you what those uses were now. Off playing video games and screwing around. Not paying any attention yet again. Now his mind was painfully blank.

"What's going on out there?"

His sister's voice brought him back to reality.

"I— Jazz— I-I need you to read me off the steps on how to revive an unconscious person!"

The static crackled across his ear piece, "Wh—"

"Now! Jazz, tell me what to do! I found Weston… I found…" The Phantom trailed off uselessly, his voice was quivering like he was that scared boy in the basement again, " He's hurt real bad, Jazz. "

For all the posturing, for all the bravado— this was the creature everyone in the zone was so terrified of? Stephen crinkled his nose at the scene. The elder would have been so bold as to call the sight… tender.

Ever still woozy and boozy— Stephen had exhaled a burp. He took a respite under the tree, hunching over. The ghost tried to rationalize that he no longer had functioning organs so he did not need to be nauseous but this did little to elivate the feeling. The living world would remind him with no sympathy that he was supposed to be rotting worm food, and by existing in this plane all he was doing was hurting himself.

Why would Johnny choose to subject himself to this willingly? Surely he wasn't that sentimental about this little town.

As Stephen widened his stance and kept his head towards his chest, that's when he saw it.

A book.

A hardback book just sitting face open in the dirt. An unassuming brown leather tome. The cover was upside down or— or Stephen was a little more than half-in-the-bag. He picked it up, and brushed the debris away from the cover. As his marble like eyes scanned the serious typeface to make sense of it, the Ghostwriter began to cackle—

The Ghost Hunter's Almanac, Written by Edna Wickett.

The kid was a ghost hunter! Of course! Irony seems to follow the Phantom just as closely as the shadow of death.

Danny ripped his head away from his task and to his elder, "What's so funny?!"

"A ghost hunter! The boy's a ghost hunter." Stephen guffawed, slapping his forehead with the heel of his palm. His clawed fingers tangled with his curly black hair.

"If you're just gonna stand there and not be any help— can you shut up?!" The Phantom glared at the drunk, trying to find his sister's calm and level voice again.

Danny did as she said with no room for error, listening for a heart beat, seeing if Wes's airway was blocked, it was obvious she was reading off of a website but it was more resources Danny had at the moment. By his unprofessional opinion, Wes was fine— just asleep and banged up. Really banged up.

Danny pleaded with his sister, "Is… is there nothing I can do?"

"... I'd maybe call an ambulance?" Jasmine offered gently, "If Wes' not up and walking around within a few minutes. Just to make sure he did sustain a neck or spinal injury?"

Danny's gloved hand ghosted around his own throat when she posed that option. He blinked rapidly and swallowed. He really hoped it wasn't a neck injury.

"I-I can't leave him here. We can't… No hospitals …" Danny couldn't imagine a good outcome if he were to drop off Wes on the doorstep of the emergency room.

He gripped the living teen by the shoulders and softly shook him, quietly whispering pleas and demands that fell on deaf ears.

Stephen leafed through the book. Curling each page around his claws. It was well-loved. Frantic notes in the margins and highlighter ink that bled through the worn page. The information didn't seem to bridge any gaps, or enlighten the older specter on anything new. He had seen this book in his library as well. The opening passage was etched into his brain.

In regards to the recently deceased… They are to be treated with the utmost respect because at one point they were our friends, our neighbors, our parents, our siblings, our lovers, our children. Soon we will join the choir. It is not a matter of if, but when. This book is to be a guide to navigate the uneven rocky terrain between birth and death. This book is also a warning to those who are not satisfied with answers provided. A warning that must be heeded. Unless you wish to be adopted early into the choir of hollow voices.

Still chuckling, the undead-shut-in took off his glasses, and rubbed his eyes, "I don't understand you." His shoulders bounced with his stifled reaction, "I really don't. Why do you… why do you try so hard ?"

"What're you talking about?" Danny barked.

"You know better than anyone that these— People —" The way the author wielded the word you would have mistaken it for poison.

The elder ghost spat, "These people aren't worth the effort ."

"I knew that when I was alive!" He tossed the book at Danny's side.

The book landed with its covers clattering. The Phantom didn't flinch. He knew what it was.

" Stop it, " Danny replied solemnly. He fidgeted uncomfortably. Caught between a lie, or a statement he simply didn't believe. But he wanted to. Danny wanted to believe that Ghostwriter was wrong.

"We're petty, and stupid— so, unbelievably stupid—" Stephen slurred, "Small, and cruel ."

He exhaled breathlessly, "And it only gets worse when we die."

"It only gets worse ."

Danny said nothing. He only listened. Replaying that look on Dash's face. That terrified look kept replaying on the backs of his eyelids. Biting the inside of his mouth, the Phantom was caught between punishment and atonement. As if somehow they were the same thing.

"But that's what I can't stand about you, boy—" Stephen braced his palm against the trunk of the tree, the colors of his form only saturating with his anger, "You think you're better than us. You think you're above it. Don't you?"

The Phantom couldn't conjure a reply. It was better to stay in silent denial, than to keep lying. It was getting harder to breathe, the blockage in his throat refused to wilt. Jazz's voice was in one ear, and Stephen was in the other.

"Don't you?!" Stephen exploded, forming a fist and scratching his nails down the thick skin of the tree, "You deny what you are, and for what?! You think these people actually care about you?!"

He scoffed, "The Phantom of Amity Park! They love you in the same way they love a caged bear. They love you because they fear you. They would feed you their young if you asked and fear the consequences if they didn't follow through. You think they're smart enough to know the difference between a good ghost and a bad one? Yeah, if that's what helps you sleep at night, Daniel—" Ghostwriter mocked his younger, " Congratulations , they love you."

Giving a slight turn of his head, Danny's hateful eyes found the Ghostwriter, his chest heaved with his growing fury, "Got anything else on your chest, old man?"

"You're still an animal." Stephen growled, "And animals need to eat. And you're starving by pretending to be noble."

Brow only knitting, and shoulders tensing— The ghost boy seethed.

"Oh my god, you don't know!" Stephen inclined his head in disbelief, his grey skin dewy with perspiration and reflecting the moonlight. He exclaimed in mutter, "Of course! Of course you don't know."

The Ghostwriter put into small words for the child, "Ghosts are evil. Intrinsically. We are not a part of the ecosystem. Ghosts feed off of misery. So we create it. Wherever we go we hurt people, because that's what keeps us here. We exist as blunt instruments— reduced to repeating patterns and base primal instincts. That's why I never wanted to leave the Ghost Zone…" Stephen watched his physical form jitter and flicker. He stared at his hand, and tried to keep his anger at the forefront of his mind. It was the only thing that anchored him here.

"That's why you're hesitating. Isn't it? It's why you're paralyzed. It's why you're leaving him there in the dirt—to suffer—because you're feeding—"

The gravel shifted as the Phantom's boots agitated the ground as he turned between his two points of focus, "The only thing you should be concerned about, Stephen , is staying out of my way…"

Danny exhaled several glowing cyan wisps from his throat, "You talk too much. Way too much for a man who can't fight his battles."

As the boy snapped back to treating the living, the Ghostwriter could barely perceive the light trail that followed Danny's awful piercing stare. A stare few forget and even fewer survive. The ghost boy exhaled an affirmation only for himself, "I'm not evil."

A toothy smirk curled into the book-keeper's cheek, and it tinted his voice, "And you'd be the judge of that… wouldn't you?'

Over the ear piece, the ghost boy could hear the distinct rattle of a phone vibrating against his sister's desk.

"Wh-why is Dash calling me right now?" Jazz said in between mumblings and rereadings of the article in front of her.

Without thinking, Danny blurted out, "Wait— Wait! Don't answer that! You need to focus and help me—"

"What if it's an emergency?" Her voice collided with her brother's. Jazz didn't let her panic become anything other than background noise, however everything seemed to be happening all at once without rhyme or reason, "Dash'd never call me like this out of the blue, what if it's a ghost attack?"

"Jazz, whatever you do— don't answer that—" Was all the younger sibling could say in the absence of another lie. Danny was desperate for any excuse to keep his sister away from hearing just how screwed up he actually is. Reflexively he clapped over his mouth.

It was the last question he wanted to hear. It was a razor slice around the curve of his quivering, gasping throat, leaving him to bleed out. There was a beat of silence, a beat where Jazz debated if she really needed to know the answer. Her voice was clear amongst the compression of the device, Jasmine asked, "...Why?"

Too overwhelmed with trying to breathe, focusing on not losing whatever semblance of control he had, Danny didn't answer her. He couldn't answer. Preoccupied with not collapsing and breaking into a thousand pieces right here in the dark. He gulped down lungfuls of air but he was still drowning— he knew he didn't need to breathe, it offered no relief like how it did when he was alive. Helpless. Helpless and heavy. Everything was so heavy and closing in on him—

"...Wh-what did…" Jasmine stuttered out, "What did you do, Danny?"

Swollen eyelids fluttering open, Wes stirred. His thin legs began to draw towards his center. His worn sneakers kept worthlessly scratching against the dirt. The ginger moaned in pain, as he summoned all his strength to his arms to prop himself up.

"Hey—Hey, man, hey take it easy." Danny croaked out, "Do-do you r-remember your name and where you are?"

"Fenton…?" Wes blinked his eyes before holding his presumably pounding head into his hands. Weston's vision was waning, but his hearing was pitch-clear-as-a-church-bell-perfect apparently.

"Well, uh, that's uh— that's me technically." The ghost boy replied, with an anxious flutter to his voice. Hoping his creeping panic attack wasn't obvious.

The living teen kicked, and thrashed away, causing a cloud of dust to rise around him. Wes the end of the cut volatile wire with no grounding agent. Danny could almost see how his lungs kept fighting against Wes' chest muscles. Wes shuddered and twitched, he was scared but his anger—? His anger was blinding. Wes snarled, "Fenton!"

Danny wanted to set their petty rivalry aside for a moment, "You took a really nasty fall ther—"

A searing jolt hit the ghost boy's core. His abdominal muscles convulse and flexed wildly without any permission. His body racked with pins and needles. Fire ignited in his blood as his body rebelled against the sensation. Danny's torso hit the ground next.

Coughing, the ghost boy peered up at Wes, holding a device engulfed in blue static in his hand.

"What the hell's the big idea— huh?!" Wes dialed up the wattage of his pocket taser, "Wh-what the hell did you do to me while I was knocked out, you—you freak?!"

Danny spat some grains of sand from his teeth, "That—That, really , h-hurt."

"—Fuck yourself, Fenton," Wes rose to his knees, huffing the entire time, "What's your angle, asshole?!"

"I… I-I di-didn't do any-anything to you," Danny kept repeating. Drool began to exit from his numb face. Two pale rings sprung free from the undead-teen's ribcage. The last of his strength extinguished, Fenton kept writhing as if his back was being used as a butcher's block.

Wes' expression dropped, as he slowly enunciated, " Bull. "

The ex-jock gestured to his face and then the motorcycle, "You invite a couple friends down here, then what? What're you planning? You wanna Hijack some bodies, what for?"

When Danny didn't answer right away, Weston raised the taser above his head—

A hand had clasped around the living boy's wrist. Black claws contrasted Wes's pale flesh. The intense pressure Stephen put on the teen's arm was enough to bruise.

Ghostwriter's face split in two as he let out a devastating wail, " GO AWAY ."

The author's jaw dislocated and fell, and kept falling. It stretched beyond all physical reason. Wes could see into Stephen's gaping mouth curtained with pointed teeth, he could nearly see into his empty stomach. Grey rotted skin barely held Ghostwriter's bones in place.

Wes stumbled back. He stumbled, eyes wide with horror. The young man scrambled and bolted from the scene.

There was a loud crack. Danny assumed this was Stephen setting his mouth back into place. There was a wet click, as the elder specter regained control over his forked tongue.

The Ghostwriter sighed, hearing the haphazard footfalls of the young man tearing away into the night like a spooked deer. He lowered his glance to Danny's hobbled form.

"A resilient little cuss, isn't he?" He adjusted his cardigan and glasses, "I suppose you've both got that in common."

It was lunchtime at Casper high again. Nothing remarkable on the menu today. Something unrecognizable to the human taste palette, yet the school still charged four dollars for. Some chose to forgo the whole thing entirely. Some would eat in their classrooms or the rooms of their favorite clubs. Some wouldn't eat at all if they could help it.

Often the seniors and those with cars just went to the gas station down the hill to get their bags full of all the name-brand junk food they could find. From the track field, the quarterback could see the platoons of cars depart, and students eagerly get their fix. He halted in the middle of his lap, checking his pulse. Pressing his fingers to his throat, he felt his heart struggling to keep up with the rest of his body— just under the pads of his fingers.

At least one-ninety, Baxter decided.

In a glance, he saw the painted lines on the asphalt become vacant as cars peeled out of the exit. Dash blinked and what was beyond the chain link fence that rattled was empty. He was surrounded by emptiness. Sweat cascaded down his body; it clung tightly like a second skin. It burned his eyes. Dash closed them again and cleaned himself off.

What he wouldn't give for just a little rain. The clouds had been heavy and welcoming, but it proved nothing more than to be meteorological red herring. It was pointless to think humans could predict anything. We're just making sense of a world much bigger than us, after all. A world much older and wiser than us. We assigned meaning to such patterns because we were the first to record them. The cold hard truth of it is that the universe is chaotic and, therefore, meaningless.

His heart was beating so hard— he could feel it travel up his spine. Thrumming in his brain stem, as if the momentum would rip him apart. Dash exhaled a breath he didn't know he had been holding, "...Rough start."

It was just like this last night. When he saw the ghost kid standing there. In his room.

There was no point in lingering on it.

He was something of an icon for students at Amity Park. Something about him spoke to the unseen and undying boiling anger in the hearts of teenagers. Anger was the keyword. The Phantom was hardly invested in being a hero. It was more so an obligation than a genuine goal of his. Some were just glad The Phantom was on their 'side.'

…

No one liked it when you pointed out that there weren't any sides. They just wanted to assume ownership of the 'good' ghost. No one wanted to think what would happen if the Phantom one day decided he wasn't a people-person anymore.

There was nothing Dash could have done to stop him. You don't contain a force of nature; you just… pray. This was a ghost town. It's best not to argue that with them. There were theories, of course, but Dash didn't much believe in any of them. That's all anyone had in Amity Park. None of them really stood up under scrutiny.

The ghosts were pieces of people repeating patterns from displaced periods of time. This theory seemed to absolve all the creatures of guilt or even liability for the harm they did to the living.

That one was quite popular with the intellectual head type thinkers. But nothing about last night was routine or ordinary. In fact, the reason why it was terrifying was because the Phantom never did stuff like that. At least to anyone else. Dash believed in concepts he could touch, grasp, and feel, but he didn't trust ghosts as far as he could throw them. Which unsurprisingly wasn't very far. Spirits led to many loaded questions no one wanted to think about. Amity Park citizens were confronted with the inevitably of death every single time they opened their front doors.

Ghosts were the victims of violent or unjustified deaths. Dash would scoff at this like it was a poor joke. Okay. If that's all, it took, explain what happened to the ghosts of those in any war ever? Being something of a hopeless romantic in love with the earth and the people on it— there was the unspoken other side of the coin Dash typically fronted with. The utter pessimism that with the ability to love gives you just equal depth to hate just as hard. Baxter wouldn't admit it so much out loud, but his bitterness came from a place of being so infatuated with people that you hate them for hurting each other. He didn't want to believe that somehow that need to hurt others persisted. Maybe love neutralized that pain, or perhaps it made that hurt more tolerable. We could just be destined to hurt each other no matter what. It's probably why Dash would rather be alone. It's probably why we strive to find the one person it's okay to hurt over and over again.

That's what people do best. Break each other's hearts.

Is that what I have to look forward to when I die?

Maybe this was just projection on his part, but— Dash knew physical pain was such an ephemeral concept. You could outlive pain. You grow from it. You channel that energy somewhere else. Pain was mortal. That was the athlete's perspective, wasn't it? It was the ability to take your hurt and rage into your body effortlessly as if absorbing poison.

Perhaps the ghosts just had unfinished affairs in the living plane.

No theory ever seemed to fit perfectly. It was as if they were all popping seams.

The horrible truth was that gave Dash a knot in his throat. They were all ghost stories in the making.

He opened his eyes and stretched his neck. Looking over his shoulder again to the parking lot. There was a motorcycle in one of the spaces close to the fence. With his leather duster barely grazing the ground below him, the man stood out.

When did he even pull up? Why didn't I hear the engine?

…

There was this pang in his chest, and his blood ran cold.

The man from the woods yesterday. That man… that man sat on top of the machine. He flashed the quarterback a toothy smile and a wave.

Hesitantly, Dash waved back. More accurately, he lifted his hand in acknowledgment of the biker's presence.

Taking two fingers, the man stuck them in his mouth and whistled so wolfishly it echoed across the field.

Well, he's persistent. Shouldn't he be a creep on his own campus?

Dash rigidly walked back towards the main building, quickly stopping by the benches to gather up his jacket and books.

From the fence, Dash could hear the husky voice of the man from the woods call out, "Aw, leavin' so soon, superstar? C'mon, don't be shy!"

Baxter said nothing as he put an arm through his letter jacket. This school had to get better security.

Kwan, whose nose was stuffed deep into a geometry textbook, wearily asked, "Can we please get something to eat? I'm starting to see triangles when I close my eyes."

The metal risers creaked under while the linebacker fidgeted. He seemed unaware of anyone besides the two of them on the field.

Running a hand through his hair, Dash hastily agreed to the solution that would get them the hell out of there as fast as possible. He nodded, "Yeah, yeah, I just need to change out of my gym clothes."

"Are you okay?" Kwan detected the hurried tone.

"It's nothing. Don't worry about it." Baxter pulled his friend along, believing there was strength in numbers, "Let's just get a move on before the line gets too long."

Maybe the man would leave if he could see the kind of people Dash really hung around with. The quarterback would say it was unlike him to be scared, but that would be a lie. Dash knew whatever that guy was up to; it was no good. He was peppering on compliments and flattery to get something from Dash. What that 'something' was, remained to be seen— but Baxter was not sticking around to find out.

"It's nothing, or I shouldn't worry about it?" Kwan picked up their bags, carrying both his and his best friend's books under his arm. However, he was still being dragged along by his superior.

"Dash, Dash, easy, dude!" Kwan pried his friend's wrist off his bicep as soon as they were in the safety of the gymnasium.

"Sorry…" Baxter said.

Kwan's brow pinched in the middle, "Are you sure you okay? Do you, like, maybe want to call your doctor to—?"

"I-I'm fine… just, spooked, I guess." Dash slowed as he reached the locker room door, holding it open for his friend so they could continue their conversation. "But I promise, everything is under control."

Without a better word, Kwan was a good friend because he made Dash feel safe. He didn't ever want to do anything that would compromise that feeling of safety between them.

"You came to my house, drenched in sweat like you just ran a marathon, and you threw up in the yard." Kwan shook his head and bounced the door off his shoulder. His tone was flat, just repeating the facts, following his friend to the lockers.

Dash's eyes fell slightly as he wrestled out of his gym shirt, "I'll replace the wonky flamingo I destroyed with my stomach acid."

"That's not the point, and you know it." Kwan crossed his arms. He watched Dash to ensure he didn't blindly punch himself in his hurry, "You never actually told me what happened last night."

Hunched over by his locker, the captain was just stripping off his first layers and reorganizing his lockers. He reapplied his deodorant.

"It was just… nerves, s'all." The athlete fumbled with the cap and stick, "It's hard being the quarterback in a school where the leading cause of our failure is somethin' called the 'quarterback curse'."

"Is it those snobby Elmerton douchebags?" Kwan threw out the suggestion, prodding for any answer, "Did they jump you or something?"

"No," Dash said tersely. Pulling on his black shirt that he wore last night. Thankfully, it didn't smell like puke. Kwan's mom was nice enough to make sure the kid got his clothes taken care of.

Slapping the tops of the lockers, Kwan was getting frustrated, "Did Wes say something to you?"

The quarterback's face was tense but neutral. Not giving a single indication of his thoughts. He stared hard into the crimson surface as if the metal would start to warp. Barely moving his lips, then just to breathe and say, "Wes and I have nothing to talk to each other about as far as I'm concerned."

Kwan sighed, "Your shirt's on backwards there, Patrick Bateman ."

"Goddamnit."

Electing to look at the wall, so his captain could fix himself, Byun-Ji barred his arms over his chest and leaned back on the bench, "Sue me for caring about your stupid ass. But you're really starting to scare me. So just… tell me that this is the worst of it, and you'll be fine."

Kwan didn't mean to sound so… desperate, but he tacked on an additional caveat, "Can you do that for me, Dash?" Even quieter, Byun-Ji demanded, "Please?"

Baxter knew what his friend was asking for was impossible. What the entire world was asking of Dash just wasn't in his ability to do. He couldn't be 'normal.' He was cracked into so many different facets that Dash couldn't recognize the original anymore. The schism deep within himself was only eroding further and further into nothingness. The Dash Baxter Kwan needed may have existed one point years ago, but… truthfully, Dash has forgotten which traits he's stitched to his eclectic tapestry of people he's become. The leader, the golden child, the one everyone pins their hope to, the canary in the coal mine—

Then the pendulum swings back. He's Mr Johnny football hero. He's every cliche in the book; he's the big bad wolf.

The quarterback wanted off the ride. He wanted to disappear. He was terrified of the day someone got too close to realize how rough the patch-ups were.

Smoothing out his shirt over his stomach, Dash agreed, "Everything's under control."

"That's not what I wanted to hear, but I'll take it." Kwan raised his hands up in surrender before slapping his thighs, "I'm gonna name my first grey hairs after you, y'know that knucklehead?"

Unceremoniously, Baxter hopped into his sweats, covering his shorts with them, chuckling while cinching his waist with the black drawstrings in the band. The lock clicked back into place—

Picking up the letterman, Kwan's eyes caught the bright red patch just above the elbow. The saying on it was applicable 'Fragile! Handle with Care!'

Cocking a brow, Byun-Ji had this incredulous expression.

Snatching it away, Dash shook his head and muttered an explanation, "it's an inside joke with a couple of friends…"

The linebacker said nothing as he migrated to the locker room door.

However, that heavy door burst open suddenly.

Both boys startled in place.

Speak of the devil, and he shall appear. Weston put his back into shoving the heavy drab door out of his way, using all the strength in his thin and brittle body to get inside.

Neither Kwan nor Dash said anything, despite Wes's careworn stare.

It didn't occur to him until after they stopped being friends, but Baxter couldn't stand it when Wes looked at him. His green eyes bore too close of a resemblance to the Phantom's. It was such a superficial reason— but it was the truth. Dash didn't like to look at him.

"Yeah, don't get up, assholes." Wes exhaled.

He always looked sleep-deprived, but today? God, it was as if he got socked in the face by a pitching machine. His eyes were swollen and purple— leaking discharge of some kind. Little nicks were on his face, which he didn't seem to bother covering. It was like he went one to apeshit with a cheese grater on his skin. A large cut across the bridge of his nose was barely contained within a thin butterfly bandage.

"Jesus, Weston—" Kwan exclaimed and winced.

Dash took a moment to compose himself, "What— what happened to you?"

The sounds of his high tops squeaked against the concrete.

Naturally, Wes wanted to roll his eyes but obviously could not. He shuffled to the sinks to wash his face. He muttered something to the effect of, "Do you want the truth, or do you want the version you're comfortable with?"

There was a beat of silence as Wes stared at them from the restroom area. He turned the faucet on, "I fell out of a tree."

Kwan decided to humor him for a moment, "Did you get any good pictures before you fell? Preferably of that one house, they rent for porno?"

Dash's expression got all folded and irritated at his linebacker's comment.

Coughing, Wes smiled sarcastically, "You wish."

The football players stood awkwardly and fumbled with their belongings for a moment. It got quiet again. What were they supposed to say?

Dash offered with a weak gesture of his hand. Like he was reaching out but couldn't commit to it. As if the commitment was too great. He was reaching out because the bridge of their connection was still actively burning; it wasn't too late for them to save each other.

He quietly instructed without any warmth in his voice, "... You should increase your vitamin c intake over the next few days. It helps you heal faster. Try not to sleep on your side if you can help it. Wrap a towel around your neck to keep yourself in place."

"This isn't my first time being punched in the face, Baxter." Wes splashed some water on himself.

"Just figured you'd want the advice of the leading expert on being punched in the face, Weston," The quarterback shrugged, fiddling with the strap on his book bag.

Wrinkling up his face, Wes pried the bandaids off one by one, turning the surface of the porcelain sink red. He winced, "Keep your eyes on your own work, Baxter. Try not to screw it up this weekend, okay?"

Kwan opened his clenched jaw to say something to Dash's defense but was called off.

"Try to keep your nose clean, alright, Atlas?"

'Stay alive,' Was what Dash meant to say.

Why couldn't they say, 'I care about you'?

'Don't do anything stupid.'

Softening at the nickname, Wes traced the lines on his face. He nodded, "No promises."

Without another word, the pair departed, leaving their classmate to his own devices. What else could they have done? Forced him to the nurses' office? Make him go home? It was clear that whatever his goal was this time, it wouldn't be achieved unless everyone saw. What did unstable people ever want? Attention? Mission accomplished.

Dash didn't know what was in his heart in regards to Weston. Not pity. Not anything positive.

As the football players navigated the turns out of the gym and across the courtyard. The blond passed his palms over the foliage. His fingers caught on the twigs and leaves. Thoughts passing to what Wes said yesterday…

What the hell did he mean by that?

Dash was in danger every single day of his life—

He exhaled at this, though his stress only seemed to sink further into his being.

The cafeteria was amok with underclassmen. The lines hadn't entirely spiraled out of control yet. The menu was some kind of food item. Foodstuff, Dash believed that was the technical term. He couldn't remember the last time he actually looked at a sloppy joe, let alone actually consume one. The cafeteria offered plenty of health-conscious options. Extremely sparse salads. Damp broccoli that was supposed to be steamed. Cut carrots. Some kind of chicken that inspired indifference.

Kwan grabbed a tray for both of them out of habit.

And out of habit, Dash followed along. A routine he had done so often that it was practically muscle memory. It no longer felt like a conscious choice when he spoke up with his order.

Food was complicated.

It's probably a little silly, but Dash couldn't help but think about his favorite food. Eclairs. They were nostalgic. He would split them on the couch with his mother while they watched television. She'd put them in the freezer beforehand so it would make the soft stuff softer. The outside would melt against your tongue, and the cream would escape.

He'd also say tomato soup. Not for any particular reason. Probably because it was the only thing he could cook without screwing up. Canned tomato soup required very little, just the stove to get it going. It was sweet and thick and warmed your chest.

Dash yearned for the days of simplicity but then came the hypocrisy in the form of pancakes. The breakfast people most associated with mistakes and failure. Pancakes were never perfect or circular. They were messy and sticky. The hassle never seemed worth it until it did.

Baked potatoes reminded him of barbecues during the summer. Potatoes were something shared with everyone, chips, fries— it was stock food that stuck to your ribs. They kept you alive when nothing else did. They could be cooked so many different ways they hardly held a resemblance to its original form.

The woman behind the counter in the clear hairnet clicked her tongs and dropped a number of cold vegetables on his organized plate.

Another woman dropped a ladle of chili and mystery meat onto Kwan's plate with white bread.

Dash had trained himself to become nauseous at the scent of grease. His stomach lurched, and bile bit at his throat.

Their usual table in the center of it all. This was done so the A-listers could survey their kingdom. Little did they know their panopticon was only an illusion. They were the natural spectacle. Even when the gods sat high on mount Olympus, they were only as real as the public believed in them. And like those parables of mythology, they were studied, compounded for their flaws despite their responsibilities. As if they didn't suffer from the same sickness as mortals— desirous of everything. Grasping onto things they weren't supposed to have.

High school blows.

It was a fun house with no real theme, just mirrors.

When Dash thought about eclairs, he thought about Danny. It was a natural thought progression of things Dash should not have. He thought about elementary school. He thought about the day he tackled Danny when he wasn't expecting it. Grass stains on both their shirts and faces.

There wasn't so much thinking involved in that process. Just energy that needed to go somewhere.

"Kwan, could I ask you something?" Dash didn't look up from his food tray, only pushing it around with his fork.

The linebacker in question slapped a hand on his captain's back, "Of course. Your mileage may vary, but anything you need. Thank you for choosing Byun-Ji; how may I be of service?"

Dash untensed and rolled his shoulders. Not fully relaxed but approximating it. He cautioned with a laugh, "Um… I'm not really sure how to ask this… but uh, y-you've kissed people before, right?"

A wide smirk broke out across Kwan's face. Amused didn't even begin to describe the near devilish expression that became affixed to his features. Nodding slow, Byun-Ji pointedly agreed, "Yeah?"

"Forget it." Exhaling suddenly through his nose, Dash decided against it, "It's stupid; forget I said anything."

Grabbing his water bottle, Dash could only attempt to drown himself from here. It's not like he could un-ask—

Poking his captain, Kwan all but demanded the details, "Oh, no—no, you've been sketchy and twitchy all week, and you're telling me it's because you've met a girl?!"

Hiking up his shoulders around his ears and fumbling to make himself smaller— Baxter muttered, embarrassed, "There's no girl."

"Tell me everything, dude! What year? What club?" Suggestively the linebacker added with a wiggle of his brows, " Measurements?"

Uh, sophomore, no extracurriculars whatsoever— oh, yeah— and a guy.

"It's not like that ."

"I can't believe you didn't mention this last night! You know my parents are gonna want to meet her— I think they're more invested in your marriage prospects than mine." Kwan grabbed the quarterback's shoulders in an effort to entice more information out of him. However, he was met with silence.

The linebacker leaned on his serious face and bridged his fingers over his face in mock dramatics, "I knew God would answer our prayers about your lack of hoes."

Dash raised his brows and deadpanned, "Har har."

Okay, when astonishment or mockery wouldn't get him anywhere, the duke of Casper high knew when to call in the heavy artillery. Removing his aviators from his pocket with the practiced motion of a federal agent, Kwan solemnly stated, "We have ways of making you talk."

Eyes blown wide— Dash waved his hands in a declarative motion, but it was too late.

Taking a sharp inhale, Byun-Ji kicked up his feet onto the bench. The linebacker leaned on his captain, crushing him with his mass into the corner wall and subduing his protests. Kwan cupped his hands along his mouth to make a megaphone and yelled, "YO! POLLY-POCKET AND HER BAND OF MERRY POMPOMS, GUESS WHO'S GETTIN' HIS V-CARD PUNCHED!?"

The entire cafeteria turned their heads to the noise. Some laughed— actually, correction— a lot laughed. The student body loved their daily dose of A-lister Antics. It gave them something to speculate on in their free time. And by God, when the ghosts didn't attack, students had a lot of free time.

"Kwan, I swear to— I'm gonna kill ya!" Dash shoved against his would-be subordinate, though it was impossible. Kwan was in a totally different weight class. He was fitfully grabbing fistfuls of clothing, hoping to either pull his friend off or slip out of the pin, though no such luck.

This earned the blond a noogie, "Tell me you aren't this bad at talking a girl out of her bra too?"

With a furious groan, Dash knew better than to fight it. He rode out the sharp knuckles grinding into his scalp and fussing up his hair.

Next thing Baxter knew, he was being held nearly horizontally in a headlock, Kwan practically dragging him across the bench. Then he was watching a platoon of kitten-pump pink heels clicking across the dusty linoleum towards their lunch table.

"You have gossip for me, Kwan-cakes?"

Barf.

No one in their right minds would say that Kwan and Paulina were dating. It was more like she was using him to upset her dad, and Kwan could still flirt with anything that showed any interest. The pair seemed to have a mutual contract instead of a relationship. Or perhaps this is just what relationships were to them. Maybe there was a feeling of faint affection and gravitational pull that drew them together. Though boy-girl arrangements never seemed to be Dash's area of expertise. Byun-Ji would often claim to have the best girlfriend ever; Paulina would, in turn, show him off like a prized-show-pony. They never seemed to fight. They liked being around each other clearly. But there was never anything more than that. Their relationship was… primarily gathered by subtext. It was confusing. They were close. Kwan and Paulina were in the way your elbow and tongue were close. Like something about it just didn't quite line up.

Why can't I have that? Why can't I have a fraction of what they have?

It was a more enviable teenage confusion than what Dash was working through.

The head cheerleader set down her burgundy lunch tray and took a seat across from her boys. Her legion of followers did the same thing, each acting as a limb of their host—simply an extension of her brain. If Ms Sanchez needed some napkins, faceless cheerleader number six would be passing up the chain of command. The girls came in near surgical organized lines and fanned out to find any and all available seating. Forcefully nudging lesser students out of their way.

Efficiently, Paulina tore open the plastic utensils that came with her lunch—for some reason, Dash always pictured her future career as being a courtroom stenographer. It was the way she tucked her flat-ironed hair around the curve of her ears and showed off the delicate pink pearl earring in her lobes. Something about it screamed Law and Order . She just needed those kitschy bright red cat-eye glasses—though good luck getting her out of her puka shell jewelry and tattoo choker. She wasn't trendy; she wasn't capturing a moment—Paulina was the moment.

"They were out of those black and white cookies you like, so I just got you two brownies—that okay?" Sanchez asked with a sickly sweet smile to her beaux.

Dash was now imagining blowing his brains out, in case you were wondering.

Happily, the linebacker snatched up the pastries from his cheerleader, finally releasing Baxter.

"First things first, Dash, not every girl likes kissing, so don't worry if you suck at it." Sanchez delivered this charitable donation with about as much passive aggression as possible.

Somehow this is worse than if my parents were to give me dating advice.

"Yeah, if she's anything like Paulina, she'll hate kissing. So just stick to, like, stuff you're confident in. Oh, practice on your hand or like—"

Dash interrupted, "Please, God alive, do not finish that statement."

Arriving fashionably late, Star took her rightful seat across from Dash as she was his cheerleader.

This day keeps getting better and better.

"What's up about Dash's virginity?" Star queried, a bit too loudly for comfort.

Why did I know that was gonna be the first thing out of her mouth?

"Uh, still intact." The quarterback said awkwardly. He was discrete in wanting to shrink to a speck of dust on the atomic level and never be seen by human eyes again.

Robinson smiled, "Oh… that's, uh, good?" She paused to read his growing pained expression, "or uh, I'm sorry?"

Kill me, kill me, kill me.

"Yep." Dash was practically scarlet. His entire body became pink. You could fry an egg on his forehead with the power of pure mortification.

Kwan snickered, "He's got a girlfriend."

"I really don't," Baxter retorted defensively.

"Then why're you asking for kissing tips?" The linebacker was boisterous and slapped the table with an open palm.

"I dunno, just felt like taking a survey! What's it to you?!" Dash weakly shoved him away.

Paulina speedily got through her disclaimer before placing a single leaf of salad into her mouth with precision and poise, "You have to tell us who she is, so I can tell you why she can do better."

"Is that why you didn't have your jacket yesterday?" Kwan badgered some more, hoping to shake out some information.

"Scandalous…" Paulina purred

Dash only groaned in response, burying his burning face in his hands.

"Guys, don't tease him too hard," Star whined, "He's gonna pop a gasket."

"That's not the only thing he's popped— look, he's wearing a promise ring—!" Snatching His right hand, Sanchez directed everyone's attention to the gold band adorning Dash's ring finger.

"Oh no, this is actually a funny story…"

…This drifter gave me a ring because we shared cigarettes— and, wow, that's way too many red flags.

Dash rephrased, "Not, like, funny ha-ha, but unrelated funny."

This did nothing but earn him steely stares from his peers at the table.

Anxiously he rubbed the back of his neck.

"I didn't think you'd be this bad at lying," Paulina muttered with an even level voice, "Yet, here we are."

"So, does she go to a different school or what?" Star pressed a fist into her cheek, trying to fight the irritation that pulled at her features, feigning disinterest.

"I didn't even consider that Star!" Kwan declared, wiping crumbs from his chest and continuing to speak with his mouth full, "Does she go to Elmerton? Is she a Papermaker? A couple'a regular ol' Romeo and Juliets."

This earned a chorus of 'aw's from the background cheerleaders.

Dash dissented, "You guys know that's a tragedy, right? Not a romance? They both kill themselves?"

Like a rabbit, Paulina worked on one salad leaf with delicate little bites, "I can help hide the bodies if needed."

Expecting another round of bitching from their captain bitch, Kwan glanced over to Baxter. But the quarterback was staring off at something just off in the distance from their table at the front of the cafeteria, with a view of the land they reigned over. Following his gaze, Kwan was met with a sea of faceless Casper High students. It was clear Dash was starting at something— someone, maybe? But no one Byun-ji could assign any significance to.

Without another word, Baxter stood up jerkily and off-balance. Taking his tray with him.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the cafeteria, at the table closest to the rear exit to the courtyard, surrounded by trash cans and litter, Sam, Tucker, and Danny had been chatting amongst themselves there.

The goth raised her brows as her hands were preoccupied with her BLT, excluding the B.

In the middle of a joke, Foley saw Sam's eyes shrink towards a shape in the distance.

Daniel, with his face propped on his fist. The picture of an exhausted high schooler in his element. Fenton didn't have to turn his head. He already knew. Danny could detect Dash's aura from yards away, it seemed. Like his ghost sense, this… sensation, this unidentifiable shiver across his atoms— gave him a few seconds to brace. What Danny would be bracing for remained to be seen. Dash didn't scare him. Don't make him laugh. But this unpredictability was becoming tiresome. The anxiety that the quarterback sparked caused every single one of the ghost boy's muscles to tense. It was a bottomless apprehension that left him physically sore. Maybe if Fenton didn't look, then maybe, the trainwreck coming wouldn't be so bad. He wasn't afraid of him but afraid for him. How would Dash embarrass himself today?

The stride was focused and only gained speed as Baxter's target came into view.

Armed with his tray, the quarterback dropped it in the empty space in front of Danny. He was flushed and in a hurry. But in a rush to get out of there as fast as possible, Dash relayed in as neutral a tone as he could convey, "I'm not hungry."

And for added measure, he gave Fenton a noogie. However, it wasn't knuckles against scalp in the traditional sense. Dash more so playfully ruffled Danny's bangs out of his face before making a quick exit out to the courtyard.

Sam and Tucker, in tandem, put on big smirks in the ghost boy's direction.

He threatened under his breath before grabbing a fork and picking up where Dash left off, "Don't even start."

It was a case of excellent timing because Danny was inexplicably starving . Even if it was crummy cafeteria food, it was better than the nagging emptiness in his core—that static vacancy right behind his ribs.

There was something kind of sad about turning the guy who'd, by cliche definition would, steal his lunch money into a delivery boy. Then again, Dash was so loaded he didn't need to lower himself to mugging nerds for their allowance. Was there anything really awful about this kid, or did Danny just imagine it all? Christ, the guy, organized canned food drives and coat donations during the winter— not because he had to, but because he was good at it. How could you hate someone like that? Maybe it was easier to hate him than to think of all the ways they differed. Of course, Dash was popular. Of course! He was easy-going, generous… handsome. Kinda… when the golden sunlight dappled through the tree leaves just outside the window. The way it complimented his hair and olive skin. It wasn't hard to look angelic in that lighting. However, what kind of angel would have a notched nose and a crooked smile?

Hating Dash Baxter was like hating the pop song chorus stuck in your head. He was so universally accessible to hate. The quarterback was a song that wanted to assure you that everything was great and only good times were in your future. Suntans, parties with solo cups on a Friday night, or the cloudless beaches of California. The song called to mind the scent of chlorine-filled pools. All with an air-tight shrink-wrapped beat. Dash Baxter, like any radio party anthem, was designed to be perfect. That's why he needed to be destroyed.

But Dash wasn't perfect. Far from it, actually.

Danny wasn't about to admit that right now.

What was being a teenager besides being angry for no reason? God, he could kill something. And the scary part was that he was in constant doubt of his restraint. Why was he even angry? He couldn't remember. Danny just wanted to stop. For a little bit, at least. The best way he could describe it was in chemical terms. Acidic.

Leave it to the quarterback to just get lean meat and vegetables.

#schrodinger's adolescent #schrodinger's adolescent 2.0 #danny/dash #teddy ghost #swagger bishie #dandash #danny phantom #dp #phic #enemies to lovers #slow burn #mine

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me-4eva · 3 years

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Harringrove Feedback Fest

This list is by no means exhaustive but OH MY GOD THERE ARE SO MANY GOOD FICS IN THIS FANDOM!! Anyone who knows my taste should know these are heavy on the angst by and large but there are also some sweet ones in there! (Also huge thank you to @gothyringwald for starting this!) It is currently very late so I will go through tomorrow and add some more details about each one but these are fics that live rent-free in my head... also I’ve tried to tag the authors as best I can

In no particular order:

What you had and what you lost by @its-tortle

Donna Richardson, formerly Hargrove, née Marcs, has not seen her son in nearly a decade. She had run from her husband in a panic with no time to turn back for Billy, and by the time she searched for him, he was gone without a trace.

It was her greatest regret.

The one in which Billy's mom comes to look for him, just as he's begun to heal.

My broken house behind me (and all good things ahead) by @ageolwian

He relives in vivid, distorted detail that time he got into it with Jonathan behind The Hawk; and when he got beaten into oblivion at the Byers’ old house; and that interrogation under duress beneath Starcourt Mall; all of them blurring together into one violent mess inside his head. Carol Vaughn holds him off the floor by his throat in Joyce Byers’ kitchen, while her boyfriend yells at her from the sidelines that he’s had enough, Carol, that he can’t breathe; the lights around them flash neon pink and blue by turns, and at some point a gang of Russians drive a Cadillac convertible through the living room wall.

Carol says, ‘hey there little Stevie,’ and kisses him on the cheek.

Or: Mr Hargrove’s supposed to be in Chicago all weekend.

We will be citizens by sarapod (four_right_chords) (couldn’t find a tumblr so linked their AO3 account!)

"This disease will be the end of many of us, but not nearly all, and the dead will be commemorated and will struggle on with the living, and we are not going away. We won't die secret deaths anymore. The world only spins forward. We will be citizens. The time has come."

The Party lives through the plague.

Fuck my heart, hope to die by Yassoda

When Steve notices Billy missing school, he tries to think nothing of it.

He fails.

He ends up sticking his nose in something unexpected, somewhat sad, somewhat dangerous, but ultimately good.

Like Steve needs more danger in his life.

---

A lot of Billy's life being shitty, and Steve's life being shitty, and them dealing with that however they can.

Lego Therapy by @cherrydreamer

Billy struggles with his recovery after the Mindflayer.

Steve helps.

With some Lego.

Bruises on both my knees (for you) by @bentnotbroken1fanfiction

Billy hasn't been able to satisfy the itch beneath his skin since leaving California. Unfortunately, he doesn't think he has a chance in hell to find what he needs in small town USA.

But that all changes when he sees the fire in Steve Harrington's eyes the night they fight. He sees something in them that he sometimes sees in himself when he looks in the mirror.

Harrington has demons. Just like Billy

Billy Hargrove Hates Nancy Wheeler by deadwife

Billy Hargrove Hates Nancy Wheeler.

Steve gets in a car accident, and nobody understands why Billy Hargrove is in the waiting room with them.

you're cold (and i burn) by @holdenduckfield

Move on. Let it heal.

Maybe that’s why Steve said yes when Max asked him to help move boxes out of Billy’s room after the dust settled. He could hear her voice. Too many. Too heavy.

Just like his wounds. His grief. Too many. Too heavy.

(Or, Steve steals the glass ashtray from Billy's bedside table and things start to go bump in the night.)

put your lights on by @desk-of-nekostar

better leave your lights on, 'cause there's a monster livin' under my bed, whisperin' in my ear

Tommy Hagan doesn't deserve Steve Harrington, but Billy Hargrove sure as fuck doesn't deserve him either.

Vaya Con Dios by GayerThings

Neil said Hawkins was a 'fresh start', away from the sins and vices of San Francisco. A good, proper place for the family. It's everything Billy loathes. But it's somewhere quiet, a shit-hole Billy can lay low in until he makes a break for it and escapes this nightmare. He has a plan. Finish high school, save up some money, and run. No friends, no secrets spilled, no caring about anyone or anything.

But everything changes after his fight with Steve at the Byers' house when he's brought home the next morning in a cop car. It's just like old times. Something goes wrong, and he pays the goddamn price for it. Sometimes it's just for existing. Sometimes he thinks his dad dragged them out here with the hope that Billy will mess up and someone else will do his dad's dirty work for him. So he tries to hide it. All of it. Climbs to the top of the popularity ladder with his fists and his charm. Finds the easy girls. But even then he still can't stop what his dad's been trying to beat out of him for as long as he can remember.

Not with King Steve in the picture. Not when the goddamn bastard keeps messing up his plan.

Second Thoughts by @callieb

That night, 1984

Steve sits at the kitchen table, a pack of frozen carrots wrapped in a tea towel against his swollen purple face. "I'm fine," he says. It’s over. They fought the monsters, and they won. Now he can rest.

Except in real life, the credits don't roll, and they don't get to skip ahead to Christmas.

Of Cats and Men by Thei

Billy hits a cat with his car, and finds himself responsible for three little kittens.

Fortunate Son by Ludovico_is_my_homeboy

Experiment Seven escapes the Lab.

Driven on by Brenner, an inter-dimensional gateway, and his own obsessive love, Experiment Six follows him.

getting better by banksoflochlomond

"Dude," Dustin says, "You can't just Schrodinger's Cat your way out of trauma."

#harringrove #harringrove feedback fest #steve harrington #billy hargrove #stranger things #fanfic

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heralds-of-tomorrow · 3 years

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more sad venty jayce drabbles because he is my vessel for these now. featuring second person pov as a way to portray dissociation, unreliable narrator jayce, [TW] non-graphic suicidal thoughts and ideation, and sad sad times. i dont know when this takes place, some time near the end of the act two timeskip. 1.2k words

Your name is Jayce Talis and you are falling out of love.

You stand outside the door to the lab you share with your partner, staring at the metal frame and wishing you were as inanimate.

You glance down to the handle and tell yourself to open it. You squeeze your eyes shut, inhale deeply through the nose, and exhale slowly through the mouth. You force your shoulders to relax and your brows to unfurrow. You hold your cheeks in that deliberate way that looks like you’re always seconds from a smile. Today, it hurts. Days where it hurts are more frequent lately.

Half in your body and half in your mind, you open the door and step inside. Your feet carry you automatically to your partner’s work station, to see what he’s worked on all night, because you know he hasn’t left since you left him last night.

“Hey, Vik, how’s the grind?” You say, voice only slightly strained. It’s fine, you’re tired. You rest a weary hand on Viktor’s shoulder and try to ignore the way the bone curls underneath your palm.

Viktor hums at you, offhand. Probably didn’t even hear you. Probably didn’t even notice you left last night. Looks like he didn’t even sleep, not even slumped over his desk like usual, in a way that only strains his leg and back more. When was the last time he rested, you wonder? When was the last time you had space in your mind to wonder about anything else?

You cannot stop a sigh, but you don’t need to anyway. He isn’t listening. “Yeah, I hear ya’.” You mumble, a mockery of your old exchange.

You miss the days when he would turn to you and smile, award you with a kiss. You miss the days when he would greet you when you walked in every morning. You miss the days when he would look away from his work for longer than five minutes. You miss the days when you got to see him at night. Got to sleep in the same bed. Got to talk to him. Got to see him, really see him.

You let your hand fall from his shoulder, wondering if he’ll say anything. You usually update him on whatever news is relevant, council or otherwise, because you know he hates the way Piltovan media delivers its information. You usually tell him how your night or morning went, letting the question of whether or not he cares (if he’s even listening) stay in the box with Schrodinger’s cat.

You just walk away, today.

Turn around, walk heavily back to your own lab table. On a normal morning, when you are still sure of your love, you begin thinking about meals, wanting breakfast since you’re no stranger to rushing to the lab as soon as you wake up in the mornings. You ponder Viktor’s tastes, what he might be in the mood for. Back when he still held conversation with you, you’d even ask him what he wanted.

For years now, you’ve got the both of you breakfast in the mornings. For months now, he’s forgotten to thank you. For weeks now, he’s spared it a glance and cleared maybe half the plate. For days now, he hasn’t eaten it at all.

You wonder if he’s run himself so ragged, because he won’t take care of himself or let you help him, that he just can’t anymore. If his stomach is so shriveled he can no longer eat. If his legs are in so much pain that he cannot get up from his lab desk any more. If he is seconds from collapsing to the ground because he has not slept in days.

You wonder if he hates you. If the thought of eating the food you’ve made or bought disgusts him. If he’s so betrayed at the sight of you that he can’t even tell you why. If his last resort is ignoring you and hoping you go away.

You’re very close to just going away.

You remember, fondly these days, the night you almost threw yourself out of the ruins of your life’s work to your death. You remember, bitterly these days, the night Viktor told you his name and you fell a little bit in love with him for the first time.

You wish you had a poetic precipice to toe now.

You wish you were standing in front of a long drop.

But instead, you stand at your desk, hands braced on the cold metal countertop, staring blankly at its surface. You think you may be dissociating. You’re dissociating. You’ve been dissociated all morning.

You’re seeing a city skyline. You’re seeing the street below. You wish you were seeing the street below. If you were standing on an edge right now, with how hunched over you are, you’d have fallen already.

“Jayce, could you bring me the box of copper scraps?”

“Yeah, coming right up!”

He’s so flat. So monotone, all grays and deep desaturated blues. The sound of his voice sends your heart into giddy overdrive, the sound of your name on his lips, the softness of his tone. It’s probably because of the exhaustion.

The feelings in your chest remind you of when you first fell in love, overjoyed and flustered, pinks and yellows, but hollow and laced thoroughly with desperation and devastation. It’s probably because of the exhaustion.

You find the box of scraps slower than you should, and you have an excuse ready on your lips for when he asks, or shoots you one of those looks. You hold your shoulders high when you set it down gingerly next to his workstation, and the excuse dies in your mouth when he doesn’t even look at you. It tastes like decay.

You walk back over to your desk. You take a seat.

You’re getting tired of waiting him out.

He won’t let you help him, he says he can take care of himself. You believe him. He can take care of himself, but he doesn’t. He won’t. His back gets worse, his legs get worse, his lungs get worse. He feels worse, he hurts worse. He ignores you more. He has no time for you in his day. You’re selfish, wanting something from him when the world has already taken so much, but you have been unable to convince yourself not to feel this way.

Your ribs ache. It feels like your heart wants to explode, like it needs to scream and sob and yell, but you were never taught how to do that, so it presses against your ribcage and gives you an eternal ache.

You miss when he would press back into your hands. You miss when you would meet eyes and his would get just a little bit brighter. You miss when he loved you, and you knew it.

You miss when he would let you love him.

You miss when you were able to love him.

Your hands find tools, eventually, and they get to work. Viktor never notices how long it takes you to begin, you’re sure of this. He hasn’t noticed you in a while.

#my fic #jayce arcane #jayce talis #angst fic #arcane fic #jayvik #sorta lol

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lunarimpact · 3 years

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I don’t usually have final thoughts posts for any fics which are commissioned. I tend to keep those feelings to my self, and whatever thoughts I might have. But I am having DanAya feelings and I need to just talk about @panyum‘s comm.

The first thing that hit me after completing it was the fear that so much would be missed. That small details like the truth behind the figure in the painting and why the room isn’t described from the get go, why the destruction is handwaved. That the existential dread which is supposed to creep in along side the anxiety wouldn’t be picked up.

But I think, I think it shows itself well on an additional read through.

I was writing about Schrodinger’s Ayako. The room, her paint room, is the box. And if you open the door, what will you find? Will you find a girl dead or alive.

I wanted to portray that this Ayako, who is not supposed to be alive, but is alive, is part of a Möbius strip that is falling apart. Dantes has invented a terrible loop for her, where she is a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a girl who is DEAD. And because this loop is folding in on itself indefinitely, there may be a space where the veil between the “living” Ayako and the alternative Ayako’s may cross paths.

What better way than to pull some Lovecraftian shit for such a moment?

I wanted Ayako to experience not just the overwhelming anxiety of living, but also having perceived an Ayako she shouldn’t even know about. The Lovecraftian horror. The Foreigner. I wanted to draw back to how perceiving an Outter God would usually drive someone to madness, or suicide. So I wanted this portrait to be a focal point to Ayako’s slowly building anxiety. That’s why there’s this implication of the being in the portrait being alive.

Of course, I didn’t want to forget that the reason she has no outlet to deal with this dread and anxiety is because she did something stupid in battle, and got her arm mangled. That was, after all, the plot of the whole comm. It was about Ayako having a mental breakdown because she couldn’t paint anymore. She had lost her only outlet, her only way to unwind when everything was just too much. The events, the nightmares, existing.

But with the room, specifically, I wanted the reader to envision a blank room with only a portrait on an easel and Ayako. A claustrophobic moment where there’s nothing but them. And over time things would just manifest in the room. Other paintings, objects, etc. And when it came to Ayako destroying things, I wanted the focus of the destruction to be the picture. To have Ayako kill the other Ayako, metaphorically speaking.

And the trigger had to be something ridiculous, and mundane. To trigger her mental breakdown, her lashing out. To make you feel the same disassociation from all the fucking destruction. So it was just knocking over the mason jar. The paintbrushes. A fumble.

It was also very, very important for me to use the line: “I’m not recovering”. It could be referencing anything, her physical or mental health, her fragmented soul. That she can’t just bounce back from a breakdown at the drop of a hat. The fact that she is starting to, maybe, pick up on how wrong her existence is. That she’s not supposed to be alive. And I wanted Dantes to not really respond to that sentiment, because if he were honest, he would tell her that the reason she can’t recover is because she’s already dead in a sense. The real Ayako, the OG Ayako is dead. And all he’s been doing is prolonging her soul from it’s actual respite.

My inspirations for this fic were Soma, an amazing video game, Lovecraftian horror in general, Perfect Blue, Schrodinger’s Cat, and just an exploration of Ayako’s amazing lore. There’s a little bit of PMMM as well, dealing with the existence of Homura and Madoka.

And I really, really liked Pan’s simple prompt... I just took it and ran with it. Like really, really ran with it. Obviously you can just take the fic at face value and totally ignore this, but like I just needed to ramble so badly.

#please I love DanAya and all the fucking angst that comes with it #there is just so damn much i wanted to fit into a 2k comm that didn't even have to be there #i will sometimes take a prompt and fucking run with it

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sparrow-flies-south · 4 years

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Remus’s Guide To Mending Friendships (For Fun And Profit) [5/?]

Fandom: Sanders Sides Rating: Teen Pairings: Deceit & Virgil, Deceit & Virgil & Remus, Remus & Roman Warnings: Disturbing imagery (it’s Remus’s POV), imagined character death Summary: When he realises that Deceit misses Virgil, Remus decides that the best way to cheer him up is to persuade Virgil to come back to the dark side. Too bad Virgil hasn’t wanted anything to do with them since he left.

Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Six AO3

Step Five:

Remus pushed dark vines out of his way as he strode through the overgrown realm that made up his part of the Imagination. He didn’t know and didn’t care where in the Imagination he was; he just needed to be moving.

He couldn’t go back home, because if he did, Deceit might be there, which would suck, or he might not, which he would be worse. As long as he stayed away, Remus didn’t have to know which one it was. Deceit could be neither there nor not there. Schrodinger’s snake.

Deceit had told him about Schrodinger, long ago. Remus had tried the cat thing out for himself, but the box had just started to smell after a few days. Deceit had shaken his head and tried to explain the concept of thought experiments, while Virgil had yelled about what the cat had ever done to Remus.

Had Virgil been afraid of him even then? Had he lain awake at night and wondered if Remus was planning on trapping him in a box?

Remus couldn’t even say he hadn’t thought of it. He’d thought of most things.

One time, Remus had pulled a prank on Virgil, and for days after, Remus only ever saw him if Deceit was nearby. Another time, Virgil’s sleep schedule had suddenly shifted, and Remus barely saw him at all.

He hadn’t worried about it at the time. Virgil had always been odd, always jumping at shadows, except he wasn’t anymore, so that had been Remus’s fault again.

Stupid Remus, who couldn’t even see when people didn’t want him around.

Remus summoned his mace and struck at the nearest tree. He pulled it out of the bark and swung again, and then again, sending splinters flying as the wood cracked. Finally he stopped, panting, and glared at the mangled mess that he’d made.

The tree was ruined. Maybe he’d even killed it, and it would never see its tree family again. Never bake with its tree friends who were less violent, less scary. Better at being friends, better at being sides, just better.

And Remus would have kept him away from that if he could, because Remus was not better, was not good or smart or brave. Remus would have just dragged him down.

The tree, that was.

He let his mace disappear and kept walking, trying to put as much distance between himself and the tree as possible. Maybe if he kept going, he’d go so deep into the imagination that he’d never find a way out; he’d just keep wandering forever. Would everyone forget about him, then? Probably. Or maybe they’d still think of him, once or twice, the mad side who wandered the imagination and snatched away anyone who strayed from the path.

It made a good story. Roman would probably like it.

He was so lost in thought that he almost didn’t notice the great wall of thorns that blocked his way. Somehow, Remus must’ve wandered to the border between his and Roman’s imagination.

He took a few swings at the thorns, for catharsis more than anything else. Remus and Roman would always be able to find each other, but the thorns were there to prevent them from going to each other’s kingdoms by themselves. It probably even worked on Roman, who believed all stories should have rules.

But Remus didn’t care about rules, didn’t believe in uncrossable lines. And suddenly, he wanted to burn something down.

Remus let go of the idea that he had to be human, and let his finger stretch into talons, let the heat that had filled his chest since his argument with Deceit erupt in to fire. Two wings erupted painfully from his back – he’d never quite managed to do that without ripping the skin.

Remus took off, soaring over the thorns. The picture-perfect fields of Roman’s kingdom rolled out beneath him as he flew. Nestled in a valley was a small village, looking like something out of a story book.

Remus swooped down over the village, and released a burst of flame as he passed over the houses. The fire caught quickly on the thatched roofs, and as Remus flew away, he heard screaming from the inhabitants. Remus didn’t bother to see what the people were doing; he just kept flying to the next village, and then the next.

He was halfway through burning down the fourth village when Roman finally appeared, riding on a white steed.

Remus stopped breathing fire, and settled himself in the middle of the village to wait for him.

“Stop, foul beast!” Roman cried as he approached.

Remus just grinned, and Roman brought his horse to a halt, his eyes widening.

“Remus?”

Remus’s form twisted again, until he was human once more. He swept one arm beneath him in a bow. “At your service, my dear brother.”

Roman dismounted the horse, and as soon as he did, the horse turned and fled. Roman didn’t seem to notice though, he was too busy glaring at Remus.

“What are you doing?” he asked. “Actually, scratch that. What did you do to Virgil?”

Remus tilted his head. “You really don’t seem to like me talking to your friends. Have you come to defend his honour?”

“I’ve come to tell you to leave him alone. Whatever you’re doing, it ends now.”

Remus had already been planning on doing that, but it wasn’t like Roman would believe him. Besides, he knew an opportunity when he saw one.

“Here’s a better idea,” he said as he summoned a sword. “How about you make me?”

Roman narrowed his eyes and drew his own sword. Remus didn’t wait for Roman to make the first move. He darted forward, swinging, and Roman was barely able to block in time. He swung again, the element of surprise giving Remus the advantage he needed to keep Roman on the defensive.

After a few more unsuccessful strikes, Remus was able to bring Roman to his knees with a savage kick to his legs. He sent the sword flying with a flick of his wrist, and brought the tip of his sword to rest just above Roman’s heart. Roman looked up at him with wide eyes, breathing heavily.

“Remus,” he began to say, but Remus didn’t listen.

He backed off, and grabbed Roman’s sword and tossed it to him.

“Again,” he demanded, and sprung forward.

This time, Remus disarmed Roman even quicker, and left him with a gash on his arm. He stepped away, and threw the sword back to him.

“Again.”

Roman was ready this time, and sent Remus sprawling in the dirt.

“Enough,” Roman said, sheathing his sword, and Remus snarled up at him.

“Again,” he snapped, and launched himself at him.

“Remus, stop this,” Roman begged as he dodged Remus’s blows, but Remus kept coming, kept swinging at Roman, his twin, his mirror image.

Roman disarmed Remus, and Remus waited for him to take a few steps away before throwing himself forward again, not even bothering with his sword.

Roman swore and dropped his own sword. He tackled Remus to the ground and held him there, pinning Remus face down in the dirt.

“I said that’s enough.”

“Shut up!” Remus snarled, as he struggled to get free.

Roman just pressed down tighter. “Remus-.”

“It’s not fair!” Remus spat. “He was my friend first!”

The pressure on his back released slightly, enough for Remus to throw Roman off him. He didn’t attack again, though, and Roman didn’t try to restrain him.

“You got everything,” Remus continued, unable to stop. “You got the parts everyone wants; you got Thomas, why did you have to take him too?”

“Remus,” Roman said, his voice cracking.

Remus glared at the ground, but Roman didn’t say anything else. The anger faded out of him.

“I won’t bother you again,” Remus said. “Any of you. You can go now.”

Roman let out a noise that sounded like a sob, and Remus began to look over just in time to see Roman throw himself at Remus again. Roman’s arms wrapped around him, and Remus started to fight against the tackled until Roman said into his hair, “It’s a hug you idiot.”

Remus went still. He was crying now, but Roman was too, so maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. He wrapped his arms around Roman, pulling him closer, until they were a tangle of bodies, until it was like they’d become one being again.

“I missed you,” Roman mumbled.

“You barely know me.”

They had both gone their separate ways almost immediately after the split, each pulled to their respective parts of the mind.

“I’ve known you since before you were you,” Roman replied.

Finally, they had to pull away. Roman wiped at his eyes, his tunic stained from the dirt.

“Remus,” Roman said hesitantly, “What did happen with you and Virgil?”

And so Remus told him everything. How Remus, Virgil and Deceit had been friends, how when Virgil had started spending more time with the light sides he’d spent less time with the dark sides. How he’d argued with Deceit more and more, until finally it had all come to a head.

Roman said nothing as Remus spoke, as he moved from the past to more recent events, how Remus had noticed how Deceit was upset, how Deceit missed Virgil, how Remus had tried to bring Virgil back. How Remus had failed.

Roman stayed quiet for a while after Remus finished, until at last he said, “Are you sure Deceit misses him?”

Remus nodded.

Roman shook his head. “I never imagined snake-face could care about people.”

“You never thought I could, either,” Remus pointed out.

Roman got to his feet. Remus watched him, heart sinking. He’d thought Roman might stay longer.

But instead of just walking away, Roman held out his hand, and helped Remus up.

“What are you doing?” Remus asked.

“I think,” Roman said, “That we’re going to need Patton’s help.”

***

Patton, Roman and Remus sat at the table in the light sides common room as Remus retold his story once again. When Remus was done, Patton smiled sadly at him.

“That wasn’t really what I meant when I said to talk to them,” he said. “Still, I think I need to apologise.”

Remus frowned. “Why?”

“I don’t think I gave you the right advice. I thought- well, it doesn’t matter what I thought. But I didn’t know you were talking about Virgil. If I had-,”

“You would have told me it was hopeless,” Remus finished for him.

“I wouldn’t say hopeless. It’s just- what were you hoping for?”

“For things to back to the way they were,” Remus answered.

“Virgil didn’t seem to really… enjoy the way thing were,” Roman said.

Patton laid a hand on Remus’s arm. “And even if he did, you can’t go back to the past. What you want to happen is just…”

“A fantasy,” Roman finished.

Patton smiled ruefully. “It took us way too long to figure that out.”

Remus stared desolately at the table. “So it is hopeless.”

Of course it was, what had he expected? For his brother to be able to fix everything? Roman had just wanted Patton’s help breaking the news to him.

“You can’t go back to the past,” Roman said. “But maybe you could build something new?”

Remus shook his head. “Virgil doesn’t want to see me.”

“And we can’t make him see you again,” Patton said gently. “If he doesn’t want to, that’s his right. But we could tell him that you want to talk.”

Remus looked up, and saw that Patton and Roman were both looking earnestly at him. It sounded perfect. It sounded too perfect.

“This is a trick,” Remus realised. “You’re only suggesting it because you know he’ll say no.”

Patton shook his head. “We wouldn’t do that.”

“To tell you the truth, I don’t know what Virgil will do,” Roman said. “But at the very least, we can let him know you’re sorry. You are sorry, right?”

Remus nodded. “I never meant to hurt him. I thought I was just… having fun.”

“And now that you know better, you can fix it,” Patton said.

Still, Remus didn’t understand why they were helping.

“If Virgil and I do make up,” he said, watching their expressions carefully, “We might become friends again.”

Roman rolled his eyes. “That’s kind of the idea.”

Remus looked between them. “But why would you want that?”

Patton frowned, looking confused. “Why wouldn’t we want that?”

“Because you won. He’s with you.”

Was it a pity thing? He ours now, but we guess you can still visit sometimes?

“Do you really think that?” Patton asked. “That it’s some kind of… competition?”

“Isn’t everything? Light sides versus dark sides. I’m pretty sure you’re winning, by the way.”

“Maybe it shouldn’t be,” Roman said, and then ran a hand over his face. “Not when it comes to Thomas, we might never agree on that, but maybe we don’t all need to be enemies all the time.”

“And friendship isn’t a competition,” Patton added. “Him being your friend wouldn’t stop him from still being ours.”

Remus shook his head. Could they really be so trusting? “What if I steal him away again?”

“I don’t want Virgil to leave,” Patton admitted. “But if he really wanted to go back, I wouldn’t say no. That’s not friendship, it’s a cage.”

“But only if he chooses,” Roman said lightly. “No kidnapping allowed.”

Still, Remus hesitated. He’d never asked for help from the light sides before, it had always just been him and Deceit and Virgil, and they’d wanted it that way. Was Remus sure he could trust them?

Even if he couldn’t, did he have anything left to lose.

“Okay,” Remus said at last. “You can talk to him.”

Patton grinned and clapped his hands together. Roman smiled.

“What you were saying just now,” Remus said, “About not being enemies all the time. Did it just apply to Virgil?”

“No,” Roman said. “Not just Virgil.”

***

The dark side of the mindscape was empty when Remus returned, and somehow seemed emptier than it normally was. Remus wanted nothing more than to tear off his clothes and sleep. Tomorrow, he could do something relaxing, like make Thomas imagine murdering passers-by.

On the way to his room, however, Remus stopped at the only other door in the corridor, and knocked. “Dee?”

There was no reply.

Remus sighed. “You’re still mad at me, huh? I kinda figured you’d be ignoring me, like that time I got blood everywhere so I could see what the house would look like as a crime scene. Or the time I-“ Remus cut himself off. “Never mind. Look, I spoke to Roman today. Patton too. And before you ask, no, I don’t just mean I popped up and started talking. They let me stay.”

Remus had half expected that to get Deceit to open the door and demand to know everything that had happened, but there was just silence.

“For wet blankets, they had some good advice,” Remus continued. “I was wrong to try to force things. I just- I miss him.”

Still no answer.

“I’m sorry, Dee. If you want, I can always summon some monsters for you to kill? You don’t even need to talk to me, just slide a note under my door.”

There were footsteps from Deceits room, and they stopped right by the door. Remus held his breath, waiting for the door to open, but nothing happened. Deceit was probably waiting for him to go so he could leave his room.

“Yeah, okay,” Remus said. “I’ll, uh, try to stay out of your way.”

He waited another moment, just in case Deceit changed his mind, and then turned and went the rest of the way to his room.

#sanders sides #remus sanders #sympathetic remus #roman sanders #patton sanders #my fic #remus's guide

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deconstru-cted · 4 years

Text

5/12/2020 (letters to myself)

How do you wake up one morning and decide to let go of the person you’ve been in love with since you were fifteen?

The answer: You don’t.

There are moments when you tell yourself you can’t see him anymore. Many, many moments where your eyes fall to rest on his face and you see laid before you what you can never have. It twists inside your gut like a parasite, pulls the air from your lungs. Years of your life have been occupied loving him desperately, and meanwhile the thought has never crossed his mind.

To him, you are steadfast. You stayed through his tempers, his sour days. You tread the fine line, never did anything to spark the anger and stubborn pride that lost him so many others.

Because it’s always been him. Since he pressed his leg against yours in 10th grade drama class while you sat in the dark watching some old black-and-white film. You don’t have all of him. You can’t and you never will. The quietest, most painful parts of him will never belong to you because that’s not what he wants. He doesn’t even know he could want it, the thought has never even crossed his mind.

You love him anyway. Even without the quiet parts.

But there are moments.

Moments like when he picks you up in his car and you just drive and drive and drive and it gets dark and then it starts to rain, the first rain in months, so he pulls into a parking lot in a strange part of town and you get out of the car and stand in the rain with your arms out and your head tilted towards the sky, and he says together you look like a couple in an indie film and your heart cracks a tiny bit.

Moments like when he tells you with sickening pride in your voice about how he had sex with your best friend. And your brain short circuits for a moment, so all you can think to do is yell at him. But you pass it off as a joke and he smiles and tells you he made her come twice. And you feel sick to your stomach but you don’t let on.

Moments like when he asks if he can take you to dinner instead of your usual hang out. And he tells you that you look pretty and he lets you drive for once because he always likes to drive but tonight he’s giving you this little bit of control, and you spend hours sitting across from each other and talking about absolutely everything and then, at the end, you split the bill. And he tells you he asked you to drive because he just turned twenty-one and he wanted to get a beer.

You thought when you were younger that one day he would love you back. He would wake up and realize what had been in front of him all this time. But then that never happened. He never picked you. So instead you began to hope that over time, as you both grew up and grew apart, that you would love him less and less and less until one day you no longer loved him at all.

You’re twenty-one now. You don’t love him any less. If anything, you love him more.

You don’t know what hurts more, the fact that it’s been so long and he doesn’t know or the idea that maybe, after all, he’s always known, but never said. Your feelings are Schrodinger’s cat, both known and unknown until you open the box and confess. But you never will.

You never will because he is a bright spot in your life, a kindred spirit who understands your heart and has intimate access to the darker parts of your mind. So you will let go of the moments when they come. You will breathe through them and then one day soon your lives will no longer intersect. You will fall in love with someone else. Someone who can give you what he never could.

You will tuck him away inside your mind. He will become like a forgotten shopping list inside your purse - once the most important thing you carried with you, vital to have what you need. Someday, you might pull it out by accident, peruse it for a moment, but you won’t throw it away.

Instead, you’ll turn it over and write something new.

Something better.

#letters to myself #writing #love #prose #.#don't quite know why i had the urge to post this but i do #its 3:30 in the morning #but here this is

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metawitches · 4 years

Text

In episode 6, the worlds ended, thanks to Adam’s double apocalypse. In episode 7, we meet the new world. And tie up a few loose ends.

Recap

The episode begins with a twist on the opening voice over- a segment from HG Tannhaus’ science show from the 1970s:

Tannhaus: “What is reality? Is it singular in nature? Or do several parallel realities exist at the same time? To address this, Erwin Schrodinger constructed an extremely interesting thought experiment. Schrodinger’s cat. A cat is locked in a steel chamber with a tiny amount of a radioactive substance, a Geiger counter, a vial of poison and a hammer. As soon as a radioactive atom disintegrates inside the steel chamber, the Geiger counter triggers the release of the hammer, which smashes the vial of poison. The cat is dead.

“However, due to the wave characteristics in the quantum world, that atom is indeed disintegrated and intact. Both states are true until our own observation forces it into a definitive state of existence. Until the moment we check and see, we can’t know if the cat’s dead or alive. It exists in two superposed states. The attributes “dead” and “alive” exist simultaneously in the microcosm.

“But what if the simultaneous existence of life and death also applied to the macrocosmic world? Could different realities exist side by side? Could we split time and let it run in two different directions, and, as with the cat, induce a state of death and life simultaneously? And if so, how many different realities could exist side by side?”

Good question- how many realities could exist side by side? Is that the normal state of reality- for many realities to exist side by side, happily coexisting long term without judging each other’s existences, each accepting that sometimes the cat lives, sometimes she dies, and sometimes she chooses to leave the box closed and uncertain forever? That does seem like what the theory predicts, doesn’t it?

The famous cat, waiting for her life to go one way or the other.

HG Tannhaus presents the 2 potential states which the cat is superposed in- it exists as both a live cat and a dead cat at the same time, until an observer opens the box and forces circumstances in one direction or the other. The observer affects the outcome because of quantum entanglement.

A representation of 3 equal states/worlds/dimensions superposed together which arose from one moment in time, showing this is possible in the Dark universe, according to science expert HG Tannhaus.

In the Prime world 2020, Alt Ex Raincoat Now Emo Martha stands outside of Hannah’s house at the end of S2, just after Adam shoots Prime Martha. Inside, Young Jonas watches his Martha die and promises to make it right. Alt Martha goes inside- or does she? In split screen, one Martha runs into the house, while the other stops when Bartosz appears and yells to her not to go inside, Back to the Future-style. He tells her that Adam doesn’t want to stop the apocalypse and will kill her in the future.

Bartosz says that they’re all doomed because of Jonas/Adam, because everything is his fault.

Of course it is. At least some things are consistent across all of Space-Time.

As the black hole warp bubble forms in the sky, Jonas runs to the basement. Bartosz takes out the time sphere and begs Martha to trust him. He can save her and show her the origin and how everything is connected. Martha and Bartosz poof away just as the shockwave hits.

So good to have Bartosz acting normally again.

Time to note the next twist of the episode- sometimes we are seeing a 3rd world, which I am going to creatively continue to call the 3rd world or Tannhaus’ world. You can tell when it’s this world because widescreen black bars appear at the top and bottom of the picture. And HG Tannhaus appears.

Except in this episode, the jumps between worlds aren’t always marked by any of the normal markers that we’re used to. Make of that what you will- do some of the scenes apply to multiple worlds? Are we seeing Bartosz’s world sometimes? Are we seeing more of Tannhaus’ world than we realize?

Did the most recent surges in time energy fry the system in some way so that the boundaries between worlds are overlapping and more fractured than usual? Maybe the new connections that were made need a while to settle down? Usually, after an event like the end of episode 6, we’d be shown where/when travel has now been opened up to- my guess is that’s why we can see Tannhaus’ world in this episode. The connection to his world has been made or changed. We’d also usually be shown the travelers along with the new places they went, but apparently we’re assuming Martha, Charlotte and Aleksander are dead.

In the Prime world, in 1986 HG told Teen Charlotte that his son, daughter-in-law and infant granddaughter, Charlotte, died when their car went off a bridge in a storm in 1971. Baby Charlotte’s body was never found. That same night, two peculiar women brought him a replacement infant to raise. The “For Charlotte” pocket watch, a Tannhaus family heirloom since the early 19th century, came with her. Teen Charlotte met Peter, who came to town that day and eventually became her husband, on the day HG told her about her past. Both HG and Charlotte were given reasons to stay in town and stay settled when they were told the story of the accident.

In the 3rd world, in 1974, the clock shop looks much more like an inventor’s workshop than usual. HG works on a machine on a table late at night. It’s unclear whether he has Charlotte in this reality. We never see her, but he could be working around her sleep and then later her school hours. In S1, Prime Charlotte found a piece of the time machine chair room’s wall paper in the bunker and recognized it for what it was.

That suggests that on the Prime world, Tannhaus brought her with him to the bunker while he worked at night and the room was originally set up as a bedroom and playroom for her. The ownership of the bunker and cabin is murky, since we’ve been shown that the property also belonged to the Dopplers, especially Helge, during the same period. Bernd Doppler and HG were the same age and may have been friends, sharing ownership of the vacation/hunting cabin between the families.

The ownership of the cabin could be a bootstrap paradox- someone could have changed history. Bernd and Helge are Claudia’s allies, so it would benefit her to pass ownership of the passage to them. Encouraging marriage between Charlotte and Peter also accomplishes that goal.

Or we could have been seeing the cabin and bunker in multiple worlds all along, but it’s only become clear now that the timelines have differentiated more. In the pilot, Jonas’ timeline, Martha’s timeline and Bartosz’s timeline may have been identical. They could be living in entirely different universes by now.

HG glances at his photo of his son and family, then the scene switches to the Winden graveyard and the family’s gravestone. They died on November 8, 1971. Marek was born on March 20, 1947. Sonja was born May 26, 1949. Charlotte’s birthday was May 30, 1971. She was just 5 months old when she died. HG leaves a red knit animal on the grave for Charlotte.

Both Charlotte and Sonja were born just a few weeks before the Summer Solstice, the peak of the light. Marek was born on the Spring Equinox, one of the balance points in the year between light and dark, this one tipped toward light.

In voice over, HG says that it’s hard for humans to accept death and loss. “We long in vain for a way to turn back time. To reverse death.”

“But if time is relative and nothing is really ever in the past, and the simultaneous overlapping of different realities is possible, shouldn’t it then also be possible to bring back something that was believed to be dead long ago and to create a new reality in which the dead live again? If our life is defined as everything between birth and death, it exists there, ad infinitum. Could we succeed in cheating death by finding a way to bring back life, there, between time?”

As he speaks, HG goes to the Doppler cottage and down into the empty bunker. He must own the cottage on this world. He looks around the bunker thoughtfully.

The bolded question is the central question of the series and especially this season. There are several different stories about how time travel began on Dark. They all have to do with bringing someone back from the dead. Generally, the characters’ theories about the knot involve blaming someone who they believe shouldn’t be alive either.

The show’s focus on how guilty characters feel about this or that serves to distract from how alarmingly frequent murder and physical violence have become. When you combine this violence with the way Adam speaks about who deserves Paradise and pay attention to how few characters Eva saves from the apocalypse, it starts to look like a multi world genocide.

Prime world, 2021.

Young Elisabeth and Hanno work to clear the rubble from the passage. It can’t be that long since Hanno finished clearing the passage the first time, in the 1920s, so he has every right to be an angry guy. Adam couldn’t send him to the 1990s for some R&R for a few years first?

Of course not, Adam doesn’t believe in happiness or fun anymore.

They reach one of the Sic Mundus doors, which gives them hope. Later, while they’re relaxing, Elisabeth looks at the For Charlotte watch that Adult Noah gave her. She asks Hanno to tell her about Paradise. He uses sign and speech. “Paradise is free of pain and sorrow. Everything we’ve ever done is forgotten there. Any pain that we’ve ever felt is erased. And all the dead live. Adam will keep his promise. The passageway will open up.”

So cruel of Adam/Jonas to raise all of these kids on the dream of a beautiful world, then take it away from them. Such a timely storyline. Better living through chemistry and physics, y’all, ’til the artificially concentrated and combined chemicals turn into poisons that build up in every system on earth.

Prime world, 1890.

Adam/Stranger Jonas is working in his workshop, wearing a leather suit that looks like a hazmat suit, but of course it isn’t as sturdy. The cesium 137 is placid in its basin until he turns on the electricity. Once it’s been hit enough times, it turns into a blue-black cloud, but it remains unstable.

When Jonas goes to one of the lightning rods to adjust something, he gets struck in the arm by an intense bolt. It gives him a large burn. The energy surge probably would have killed anyone else. He glares at the stone basin where the God particle lives- it’s sentient, so given the way he treats it, it probably is out to get him.

Later, he finds Bartosz staring out the window in the one bedroom in 1888. It’s time for their regular blame Jonas session. Bartosz is angry that Jonas hasn’t reinvented time travel and all of 20th century technology yet, after two whole years in the 19th century. He’s wasting the best years of his life here in the past and he doesn’t think Steampunk is a good look on him at all.

Jonas reiterates that he knows he’ll get the God particle working eventually, because he’s already seen it working in the future-past, but Bartosz continues to be suspicious of his intentions. Jonas explains that he wants to fix everything, not just one event or one person’s problems. He’s the savior, okay? That’s bigger than their love triangle.

Jonas: “If the portal works, then we can use it to find the origin. The one moment that started all of this. And when we’ve found it, we’ll destroy it. And everything that arises from it. That is paradise.”

Bartosz storms out and takes a long walk in the rain. Of course it’s raining. Jonas makes a mental note to do something about this situation in the future, like get Bartosz a girlfriend or a hobby so he’ll quit being such a pain in the butt.

Still in the 1890s.

Silja arrives from the 2050s, wearing Alt Martha’s 1800s outfit. She hides her hazmat suit under some brush. Bartosz comes stomping by, still fuming over Jonas. Silja makes a little noise so that Bartosz will notice her, then comes over to introduce herself.

And Jonas’ Bartosz problem is solved.

I hope that Hanno, Agnes and Silja at least got to pick out which family members they wanted to date before the first cycles in which they were used this way. Because there is no other way to interpret how they are sent to Elisabeth, Doris and Bartosz and the way Agnes was bred with the Unknown. We never see Silja question her path, but Agnes expects Jonas to keep up his side of their deal (plus, she doesn’t stay with either Doris or Unknown). Hanno/Noah openly chafes at the expectations placed on him, and eventually rebels against them, even though he loves Eli.

2023, Prime world.

After 3 years of torture by blue lightning bolts from Jonas and Claudia, the cosmic egg has developed a transparent, protective outer layer, but seems no closer to becoming a time travel portal. Claudia and Jonas give up for the day and rinse the radiation off their hazmat gear in the outer section of the power plant. Jonas is super depressed and ready to quit. Claudia tries to convince him to keep going, because, well, he just has to. Someday, somehow, it just has to work, if they can keep up their team spirit. Jonas tells her he really doesn’t have any team spirit and walks away.

Of course he goes home. He stops in the kitchen for one last look at all of his emotional touchstones- the family portrait, the kitchen table where he last saw Michael, the spot on the floor where Martha died. Then he goes up to Michael’s studio, which has tree branches growing in through the skylight. A sign from his dad, the Sun King- choose life! Jonas looks up at the ceiling beam fondly, then goes about the business of hanging himself.

He doesn’t die. Young Hanno rushes in and cuts him down, sent by either Claudia or Adam. The poor kid has been doing hard labor in the tunnels for years, now he has to live in the barren cave with his child bride, and his savior can’t even be bothered to stay alive. He tells Jonas that he and Adam made Noah and Hanno a promise that the apocalypse had to happen so that everyone would get saved. “You cannot die.”

I think if Jonas died, Hanno would kill him.

He hands Jonas a gun. Jonas holds it to his head and fires. 5 times. Hanno takes the gun back and fires the bullet in the last chamber at the wall. Time and Hanno win this game of Russian roulette.

Hanno explains that Jonas can’t kill himself, because his older self already exists. A force or a person will always intervene. He tells Jonas that he and Elisabeth have found the passage, as ordered by Jonas’ older self. So now it’s up to Jonas to keep the promises made by his older selves.

When Hanno burst into the room, Jonas asked why he was there and if he was following him. After that, Jonas stayed silent. When they’re done with the gun, Hanno brings him to the passage to prove that it’s waiting to be reopened. Jonas stays silent for this as well.

Hanno tells him again that the passage will open up and then Adam will take them to Paradise. Before then, he and Jonas are supposed to become friends, until Hanno is betrayed.

It’s always worded that way- Hanno/Noah will be betrayed and Jonas will be to blame. Jonas is never blamed in the active voice and Hanno never notices. But Hanno is also one of the few who knew Adam well before he met Jonas, so he sees Adam as the real version. Young Jonas is merely the alternate.

Jonas is already tired of the burdens placed on him by people he hasn’t become yet.

And he isn’t even saving for retirement or a mortgage or his kid’s college or keeping up with the maintenance on that poor house so he can pass it down to the Unknown. His eldercare plan for his parents is pretty rough, too.

I’m thinking Jonas’ cosmic egg is also a metaphor for all of those core wounds that get buried deep inside and won’t budge, no matter what you do to heal them. They pop out occasionally as giant black time clouds or nightmares or ex boyfriends. They say that time heals all wounds, but even time can’t heal some damage.

Metamaiden says she assumes that “time heals all wounds” means you’ll die eventually anyway and then your problems will be over.

She was born with this cheery outlook, folks.

But you see- Jonas doesn’t have death to look forward to as an end to his pain, so he keeps zapping that poor time egg. It’s ultimately a circle of torture and self-loathing, punctuated by occasional suicide attempts. He didn’t even hesitate before he pulled the trigger on that gun, 5 times in a row.

In 1904, Silja gives birth to a baby boy. She tells Bartosz she wants to name him Hanno. Bartosz realizes that this innocent newborn baby will grow up to be the killer who brought him into Sic Mundus while posing as a priest and drug dealer.

In the 3rd world, 1974, Tannhaus hangs the photo of his son’s family on the bunker wall, mirroring the way Claudia hung photos on the wall and Martha made the family trees in chalk. The 3rd world mirrors the other two, but things don’t happen in exactly the same way or at the same time.

Tannhaus: “Fate is playing a cruel trick on us. Yet we will always believe there is a way to turn the tide in our favor. If we only want it hard enough. A person is able to pursue any goal, no matter how unattainable it may seem, over the course of an entire lifetime. No resistance, no obstacle is great enough to stop the human will in its tracks… Throughout the ages, isn’t this unquenchable thirst at the heart of any progress that is ever made? No matter what motivates our will, it guides us on our path. We will only be able to let go once we have finally reached our goal.”

As Adult Tannhaus speaks, he spends the 12 years from 1974 to 1986 building a time machine in the bunker. At the same time, he turns into Old Tannhaus. The machine is a large ball with even larger rays sticking out. When he’s done, it looks like a room size version of what’s probably in the sphere.

We saw a similar aging process mirrored with Gustav Tannhaus in the carriage, which had a prophet, the wheels of time and Charlotte’s watch, even if it didn’t technically have a souped up time machine. HG’s new time machine could be seen as a high tech variation on a wheel of time or a cosmic egg as well.

Forward to Prime world, 2040.

17 years have passed in the power plant and Hanno and Jonas have aged into their older selves. Hanno works with Claudia and Jonas on the God particle. At rest, it’s still a white cosmic egg, but when stimulated by enough electricity, it gradually turns black, then becomes the larger cloud that’s a precursor to forming portals. They all look hopeful for a moment as the cloud begins to smooth out into a ball, but it doesn’t hold the formation.

Later that night, Jonas and Hanno stand outside in the dark over a fire. Jonas wonders why the portal isn’t working.

Hanno: “Maybe Claudia doesn’t want it to work.”

(This is correct.)

He asks why Jonas trusts Claudia. Jonas asks why Hanno trusts Adam (Adam raised him). He tells Hanno that Adam’s Paradise is a lie and that he knows the portal will work eventually, because he’s seen it, in the future-future. Everything repeats itself, so this will, too, Jonas is sure that he can do things differently this time though. He and Claudia have changed enough of the components in the passage so that this time, he’ll be able to close it forever when he tries in November 2019, as Stranger Jonas.

Hanno confirms that Claudia told Jonas this. Then he asks what Jonas actually knows about Claudia. “She sometimes disappears for days. How does she know all the things she knows? She said that not all that’s here, should exist here. What did she mean by that? Claudia’s hiding something from us. We can’t trust her. I hope that you know that.”

A very pregnant Elisabeth calls Hanno inside for the night.

Alt Claudia to Prime Claudia: “He still doesn’t suspect anything?”

Prime Claudia: “No, he has no idea that you or the other world exist.”

Alt Claudia: “You must continue to guide him on this path. The matter must not function yet. You keep the knot up in your world, and I’ll keep it in mine.”

Alt Claudia pulls out the sphere, ready to leave. Prime Claudia stop her. She asks how Eva knows what will happen in the future and what instructions to give them. She wonders if Eva knows everything, every future. Has Alt Claudia met her? Alt Claudia asks who she means. Prime Claudia says, “My older self.” Alt Claudia says, “No.”

Prime Claudia: “I still remember exactly what she said. ‘If all this works, then our Regina will live.’ I’ve thought about it all these years. I just can’t believe that what she meant by that was that her suffering would repeat endlessly. There must be a way to untie the knot, without destroying all life in it. A way for Regina to live. Really live. I think neither Eva nor Adam know this path. But I’ll find it. In my world or yours.”

Prime Claudia takes out a gun and shoots Alt Claudia in the forehead. Alt Claudia dies. Prime Claudia becomes the supreme deity on 2 worlds. She picks up her prize, the Golden Time Snitch of Omniscience. Now she can figure out what the multiverse is really all about.

Because they’d never seen an Alt Old Claudia, Prime Claudia assumed she was meant to kill her. Claudias think this way. To be fair, so do Adams and Evas. They are gods, far beyond our mortal ways of thinking about murder and death. They know there’s always another version of the person, somewhere, on some world, and anyway, that person will be born again, next cycle, like nothing ever happened.

Claudia is assuming that at some point she changed the course of the cycles to bend toward favoring her Regina. And if that isn’t the reason Alt Claudia died in past cycles, well, it is now. If you ever think that changes haven’t been occurring over the course of the cycles, go watch S1Ep1 and any S2 episode again. The Windens are all very different places.

And with all the Claudia drama, we skipped right past the confirmation that she’s actively holding back progress on the God particle portal (“The matter must not function yet.”). She doesn’t need to hold Jonas back in 1888. The primitive working conditions do that by themselves. In the 21st century, they can scavenge modern materials. So she’s misdirecting him toward experiments that are ineffective, while she and Eva, and maybe Adam, work on other goals.

Swoop into the Alt world, focus on those darn scorched paintings. This scene takes place after the apocalypse in the Alt world, when Stranger Martha is aging into Eva, so it’s probably about 2040 there as well. Eva’s God particle apparatus is disassembled on the floor, so she probably lost it in the shockwave too and is trying to rebuild it.

The same scenario is being played out on all 3 worlds, in a different way on each world. As promised, no matter what, the three worlds are linked and the same archetypal events repeat between them. Family members die and get lost, going all the way back to the first Charlotte Tannhaus in the early 1800s, creating the desire to change the timeline. Time travel is invented and reinvented, repeatedly, by the same or different people. This is not a one time occurence based on a single sad event.

Tannhaus justifies following his Will with no restrictions by saying that wanting his son back so badly makes it okay. Claudia believes that saving Regina’s life justifies anything she will do for that cause, no matter who else she hurts in the process. Both arguments come back to Bernd’s advice to take what you want, because no one will give it to you. The flip side of that is the assumption that you are owed whatever you want and no one else’s needs or desires matter as much as your own.

When Prime Claudia enters, Stranger Eva asks if her alternate self is coming, too? Claudia says that Noah is watching her, so she couldn’t get away.

Note that she knows he’s suspicious of her and is limiting her movements because of him. When Charlotte disappears, Noah’s mental focus is conveniently removed from Claudia and his physical person is conveniently removed to time periods and locations Adult Claudia mostly stays away from.

Eva rolls up a blueprint for a time travel device and tells Claudia to give it to the other Claudia, who must then give it to Tannhaus to build. She asks if the Claudias understand why everything they’re doing is necessary and everything has to keep repeating. Claudia nods her head yes.

At some point, everyone in Winden will have been designed one of the time travel devices. I’m glad to see Martha get her shot. Does Alt Tannhaus also get blueprints, or does the Alt world go straight from their futuristic God particle portal design to the sphere?

Back in time to 1910. We aren’t shown a switch back to the Prime world, and for the first time all season, we’re shown the outside of Erna’s tavern and boarding house. Either we’re still in the Alt world, or this happened in both worlds. Both worlds, is my guess.

Silja has died in childbirth. A woman tells Hanno that he has to be strong now for his father. Someone holds crying baby Agnes. A crazed looking Bartosz bursts into the room and kneels at Silja’s side. The midwife tells him the baby’s name. He looks overwhelmed.

Forward to 2041.

Under a full moon, Hanno and Elisabeth leave their cabin to bring in the laundry that’s hung outside. Elisabeth asks Hanno to tell her about paradise. As he tells her the same story he told her in the caves in 2020, 2053 Charlotte and Elisabeth sneak into their cabin to kidnap Baby Charlotte. Elisabeth picks up the baby she lost 12 years prior. Charlotte takes the pocket watch.

When Hanno is done with the story, they hug and take the laundry inside, where they discover that Charlotte is missing.

Hanno vs Noah

By telling Elisabeth the story, Hanno keeps her facing away from the cabin during the kidnapping, so she has no idea what happens. But as it’s happening, he seems like he’s upset and trying to control his emotions. From where he’s standing, he should notice the movements of the two women entering and leaving his cabin.

Noah/Hanno tells the Paradise story to Elisabeth twice on camera- just after Peter dies, which he knew was coming but didn’t prevent, and now during Charlotte’s kidnapping. Did he know it was coming and that he had to let it happen? Even though he spends the rest of his life blaming Adam and Claudia?

I think he did know that he had to let it happen, but he blames them because Charlotte is taken as part of their war. Prime Hanno blames Adam/Jonas and Claudia for the whole war and the way it tears the whole family apart, starting with the death of his mother. Silja was born in the 50s. If she hadn’t been time displaced, she probably wouldn’t have died in childbirth.

Before he dies, Bartosz tells his son to ask Adam why he took Hanno back in as an adult, after the apocalypse and after Charlotte was taken, and called him Noah instead of Hanno. The biblical Noah is remembered for saving his own family and two members of every species. Since we are all theoretically descended from those winners, we see it as a victory for the virtuous.

We rarely think about the fact that Bible Noah knew the flood was coming and did nothing to stop everyone but his family from dying. Noah’s immediate family weren’t actually much better than anyone else. It’s more likely that Noah had boat building skills and was in the right place at the right time. But Noah went along with God’s plan and watched everyone die, feeling quite good about himself. In fact, when it’s all over, God makes a backhanded promise to Noah:

“Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.”

God promises he won’t send another apocalypse, even though humans are born evil with no hope of ever changing. God has apparently given up on finding good in humanity and is settling for telling people to be fruitful and multiply.

Like so many others, Hanno usually has good intentions overall, but he performs evil acts, such as killing Erik, Yasin and Mads, to attain his goals. In the Dark world, consequences usually catch up with the characters over time, no matter their intentions.

Hanno leaves the cabin and goes straight to Jonas, who’s working in the bunker, and demands to know where Charlotte is. Jonas is taken by surprise as Hanno shoves him up against a wall and nearly chokes him to death. Hanno continues to ask where Charlotte is and whether Jonas or Claudia took her. He says that he finally understands how Jonas betrays their friendship. Before he leaves, he curses Jonas with endless suffering.

Too late. Jonas has been there for a long time. Or is this falling out between best friends the true origin of the timeline split? They’ve been close for 18 years. I think that’s Jonas’ real time record. And their fireside chat showed that they really were very close.

Causality. Such a slippery concept on this show.

Hanno returns to Elisabeth, who looks like her soul has been ripped from her body. She’s fondling Charlotte’s tiny knit cap. He promises to find Charlotte and bring her back. A bit of resolve forms in Elisabeth’s eyes as he gets up to leave, but they both know their life together is over. He picks up the triquetra diary and puts it inside his coat, an offering to help smooth his way back into Adam’s lair after wishing him endless suffering.

Where is Charlotte? Mikkel? Ulrich? Mads?

Noah/Hanno does find Charlotte after some number of years in his life. We aren’t told how many, though he refers to it as a long time, during their first conversation in the clock shop. When he finds her in 2019, after reading the final pages of the triquetra diary, she’s 49 years old and has already been told by Stranger Jonas that Noah killed Yasin, Erik and Mads. That’s the true betrayal of the Jonas-Hanno friendship. Adam is no longer Hanno’s friend, so I don’t think it matters what he does to Adult Hanno/Noah. Hanno is just waiting for the chance to kill Adam.

It’s Stranger who drives Hanno’s long lost daughter from him by giving her out of context information that benefits Stranger and makes Noah seem like a terrible person who’s only motivated by his cult’s orders and his own sadism. That’s what we all thought about Noah in season 1.

Instead, Noah is a driven man, more like an addict who’ll do anything to get what he needs, which is something Stranger Jonas should understand. For a long time, Jonas mainly takes his pain out on himself and Martha. But even in his more benign forms, he’s coerced into participating in Michael’s death and Mikkel’s kidnapping, which ultimately lead to Ulrich’s confinement and Katharina’s death.

Adam coerces Hanno into becoming a demon just as surely as Claudia leads Jonas to his fate as Adam, heartless mass killer. Hanno can’t simply leave his daughter alone and abandoned in the world. He’s been trained since his mother died to be a caretaker and fixer. The murder of the boys is even mixed up with raising Helge and getting him back to 1954.

Meanwhile, Charlotte is displaced in time in before she’s even born in 2041, since Hanno was born in 1904 and Elisabeth was born in 2011. In addition to her kidnapping to a third time period, she and Elisabeth give birth to each other.

Alt Charlotte was born in 1971, the year HG Tannhaus tells Prime Teen Charlotte his original granddaughter was born. But Noah and Elisabeth still enter the bunker in the Alt world and Charlotte and Elisabeth are still shown giving birth to each other on the Alt world family tree. Is this a clue or a mistake?

If this is real, and isn’t changed within 48 hours of me posting this recap, then it perhaps fits with the theory I’ve had about Charlotte since sometime in S2- I think that when she’s kidnapped as an infant, 3 versions of her are swapped between 3 worlds, not just taken to another time in the same world. If the Charlotte who’s in the Alt world was born in 1971, then she could be the Charlotte either from Tannhaus’ world or Bartosz’s world. Alt Infant Charlotte would have been taken to the Prime world and Prime Infant Charlotte would have gone to the 3rd world.

The Adult Elisabeths and Charlottes (or someone else- we don’t know who ran Marek’s car off the road) would have done this round robin with the infants between the 3 (or 4) worlds to help create or strengthen a connection in time and space- an earlier, less binding version of the Unknown. I can’t explain every detail because of the bootstrap paradoxes involved in Charlotte’s family and HG’s family, but I suspect they are the same family, slightly altered between variations in timelines, time accidents and deliberate tampering.

HG Tannhaus: “A man can do what he wills, but he cannot will what he wills. All the paths we take in our lives, every choice we make, is guided by our deepest desires. It’s pointless to fight this sense of want. It determines every one of our actions, no matter how difficult and unimaginable they seem.”

This is a very different sentiment from the one expressed by Prime world HG Tannhaus, who’s said many times that he’s always wanted to travel, but circumstances have required him to stay in the present, running his clock shop.

3rd world, 1986, the bunker.

Tannhaus looks at the family photo on the wall and removes his lab coat. It’s time. He presses keys on a keyboard, fiddles with this and that, then decisively presses the 2 blood red buttons on the wall. The time machine fires up- literally. The center ball is coated in a thin layer of orange flames, with waves of electricity flowing up the arms, but the machine doesn’t seem to be out of control in any way. The music and other sound effects aren’t ominous either.

Prime world, 1911, Tannhaus factory.

Bartosz is in the courtyard working on a car when Hannah and her approximately 4 year old daughter approach, device/apparatus suitcase in hand. Bartosz, who already looks haunted, recognizes that this child is his wife, who’s been dead for about a year. Hannah asks for Jonas. Bartosz warns her that traveling has changed him, but still takes her to see Jonas in his lair.

Jonas is in a transitional stage between Stranger and Adam. He’s in Adam’s uniform and stands staring at the painting. But he still stands tall and straight. Adam will eventually sort of melt into rounded edges and a more socially presentable public persona. This man is still in the midst of the hottest part of the fire.

When he turns around, Hannah is momentarily shocked by the extreme facial scarring. In this time period, his face looks like a skull in ways that will soften later, maybe when he tires of punishing himself. Hannah recovers quickly and introduces his sister to him.

She’s clearly saddened by what she sees, but as a mother who wishes she could have helped spare her child this pain. She touches his cheek and explains that an old woman, Eva, came to her a few days ago and told her that Jonas needed her and where to find him. She promises to be there for him from now on.

Since Jonas doesn’t want to be spared pain, he’s not interested in her compassion and even finds it repulsive. He removes her hand from his cheek with enough menace that Hannah feels it. He finds himself repulsive and probably finds anything connected to him repulsive right now. He tells Igor Bartosz to take them to the bedroom.

Later that night, once it’s raining, Jonas sneaks into the bedroom. He goes to Silja first, but as he’s carefully folding down her covers, Hannah awakens and asks what he’s doing. He decides it’s Hannah’s turn first and sits on the edge of her bed, as we’ve seen Young Jonas do for sweet mother-son talks.

This is an entirely different situation. He tells Hannah that she and Silja aren’t right here and all of the pieces must be in the correct position. Hannah knows something isn’t right with him, but he’s got her lying down and blocked in. He gently touches her face, calls her Mom one last time, then pulls her pillow out from under her and smothers her to death.

She and Silja are both in white nightgowns. Women should refuse all white garments on this show. It never ends well.

When Jonas is done brutally murdering his mother, he turns to his baby sister and wakes her up, telling her has a secret to show her. He needs her to be quiet so they don’t wake her mom up. He carries her out so that she’s facing back toward Hannah’s body, staring at it the entire way to the door. Hannah very clearly isn’t asleep.

I can Only Salvage So Much from a Bad Situation, Okay?

So. That was sickening and exploitative. There is no good reason to include hints of pedophilia and for Jonas to brutally murder the mother he hasn’t seen in decades. Given the number of characters who commit heinous crimes, such as Helene, and are never caught, and the women who just disappear, such as Greta, there was no reason to bring Hannah back simply to kill her this way.

Though Tannhaus’ last voiceover certainly justifies indulging in any sexual or violent predilection you can come up with, regardless of the other person’s desires. Is that what this show is saying? Anything goes?

The message, if there ever was one, has gotten confused in these last few episodes, as if this show doesn’t know what it’s trying to say anymore. I’m tearing my hair out trying to continue some kind of coherent narrative through line that holds together through the final episode. I finally realized the only way to do it was to give up.

Maybe Claudia has taken the wheel and Hannah had to die out of revenge, because she allowed Ulrich and Katharina to think Regina had turned Ulrich in for rape. That’s a giant stretch though, to the point where I’m writing the show for the creators. And many innocent people who had little to do with Claudia or Regina have died horrible deaths.

I could play the mythology card, and say that Jonas is Hades, the god of the Underworld, who has been collecting young women as his Persephones. Hannah, as the Mother goddess/Demeter, came to look into the situation. Jonas sent her back to another realm, where she wouldn’t interfere with his plans. The myth is sometimes called The Rape of Persephone. In mythology, Demeter mostly wins, though they essentially end with joint custody of Persephone, creating the seasons. Demeter isn’t going to win here.

And there’s only one Persephone, whereas Jonas is collecting everyone’s children for his cult, but mostly girls. Adding a scene where he has a skull face, creeps on a small child in bed at night who’s dressed in white, then kills her mother when he’s caught and carries the little girl off, pretty much solidifies his symbolic nature as a pedophile. At least they only implied the pedophelia itself, rather than showing it.

But this finishes the assassination of both his character and Martha’s character. When we met Martha, she was was on a hunger strike to save starving children. Now she’s procuring women and girls for men who like to murder women and rape little girls?

Yes, the fairy-tale witch imagery has been there all season in Eva’s long black dress. I’d hoped they’d avoid actually going to the stereotype for old women, witches and the biblical Eve, even though they’re obsessed with stamping out original sin. I should have realized that getting rid of the “origin” would involve killing as many mother figures as possible, while turning over little girls to men as child brides.

Because it’s really all Jonas’ mother’s fault, right? She must have done something wrong to make him this way. She must love him too much or too little or embarrass him in front of the other boys. Otherwise he wouldn’t need to live in the basement forever and only have sex twice in his life.

This is an incredibly disappointing direction for this show to take, in so many ways. Beyond misogyny, the philosophy seems to be that people just can’t control themselves and there’s no point in trying.

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1920, Erna’s tavern.

Adult Hanno enters the bar, fresh from 2041. The crowd pauses for a moment when the stranger enters. He tells Erna that he’s come a long way and needs someplace to rest. She calls for Young Hanno and tells him to take their guest upstairs to a room.

Adult Hanno goes to see Adam in his lair. Adam has become the older version played by Dietrich Hollinderbäumer. Before Hanno can speak, Adam says that he’s been waiting for Hanno’s visit. He says that Hanno was right about Claudia all along. She was the one who stole Charlotte. Adam says that Hanno needs to find the missing pages from the triquetra diary, with the help of Helge. Then he’ll find Charlotte, his final destination and his Paradise. Adam hands Hanno a bible and says that this will be his last cycle. “Are you ready, Noah?”

Forward to 2052, the bunker.

Old Claudia gives instructions to Stranger Jonas. They’ve finally stabilized the dark matter/Cesium 137. She’s sending Stranger off to November 2019 to lead Young Jonas down the correct path. If he helps everyone he knows complete this cycle in the exact same way they’ve done all the other cycles, for sure change will occur this time.

I have to wonder what she’s been putting in his food for the last few decades.

She hands him Tannhaus’ book, A Journey Through Time and says that the author will repair the apparatus. Once the device is repaired, he can destroy the passage and the knot. It’ll work for sure this time.

Because doing everything exactly the same way always creates the change you’re looking for.

As he’s headed out the door, she tells him not to ever give up hope. Then she tears out the last few pages of the triquetra diary, sticks them in her coat pocket, and leaves.

Now for a brief recap of the series. Stranger goes to Winden in November 2019, when Mikkel and the other boys have gone missing. Noah experiments on the time machine chair, killing 3 boys in the process. Old Claudia gets Gretchen from 1953 and brings her Adult Claudia in 1986, to prove that time travel is real and that she’s really Adult Claudia’s older self.

Both Claudias will abandon Gretchen with Regina in order to pursue time travel and supposedly save Regina. It doesn’t occur to any Claudia, ever, to actually be a mother to her daughter, which is why I question her motives.

Claudia abandons the dog, the daughter, the lover and the father. She kills the daughter and the father and leaves the lover to die in the apocalypse. This is not a woman who will devote eternity or destroy worlds to save someone. This is an obsessed scientist who is devoted to solving a problem and needs an emotional flag to keep her motivated through the tough times.

The writers can retcon the character they created. That’s their prerogative and TV shows do it all the time. But this is the Claudia they created. She doesn’t move heaven and earth for Regina. She moves them for science.

Hey, remember that time that Bartosz decided to get in on the Back to the Future action, so he put on Christopher Lloyd’s duster and went to rescue Martha from getting killed by Adam? I know it was about 9k words and 110 years ago, but I promise you, that did happen. After 3 seasons of Claudia trying to save Regina and Jonas trying to save Prime Martha and Noah trying to save Charlotte and half of Winden trying to save Mikkel, and all of them failing, all the time, plucky little Alt Teen Bartosz jumped in and rescued Alt Teen Martha.

I knew I liked that kid, And his older self, too. In fact, I think he’s the chosen one on the 3rd planet that his Grandma is trying to take out of the system in her obsessive quest to ruin everything for everyone, everytime in everyway. That’s why this episode focused on Bartosz’s story and the story of his son, Hanno/Noah. We’ve already spent quite a bit of time on Bartosz’s granddaughter, Charlotte and her family, for 3 seasons. And Charlotte has known all along that she was important.

This episode is kind of its own little season, focusing on a third world/timeline that’s almost identical to the prime world/timeline, so we’ve switched between them throughout the episode. That’s my theory. Time is so mucked up that apparently even the writers can’t be bothered to sort it out anymore, so here we are. I can’t tell you when we were where, necessarily, just that we jumped around a lot without the normal markers telling us what world we were in.

Also, I think the HG Tannhaus time machine world, which I’ve been calling the 3rd world, is a 4th world, that’s not Bartosz’s world. As I said, Bartosz’s world is so close to Jonas’ and Eva’s that it blends with theirs, so it doesn’t get the widescreen black bars at the top and bottom that HG’s world does. HG’s world/timeline has some significant differences from the other 3, so it looks different on screen. That will be explored more in episode 8.

Okay, so. Our plucky boy hero, Alt Teen Bartosz, convinces Martha to leave Jonas in his house, so he can live in his mom’s basement forever like the loser he is. She goes back to Erit Lux with Bartosz instead.

One poof of awesome gold glitter later, and we’re there. Those paintings are still scorched and I’m sorry, I still can’t spoil how it happens. Truly annoying, I agree. The writing and editing for S3 are meant to f–k you over, but I doubt they meant for it to indecipherable rather than mind blowing. 3 episodes worth of teasing when the paintings burn? Really? And then all of the scorched painting scenes look so alike that it’s nearly impossible to put them in order, though I’m not sure why we would care enough to go back and try, when it’s all said and done. I know I don’t. Somebody didn’t think that one through.

Martha wonders why Bartosz brought her there. He tells her that the Marthas are the only ones who can save them, because they are the Light. Martha realizes she’s in the hands of an Erit Lux true believer, though she has no idea what that means.

You know what? I think it mostly means love. I think Old Claudia impersonated Eva when she brought Hannah to be murdered by Jonas. I’m going to singlehandedly exonerate Martha/Eva of this crime, for my own sanity’s sake, and go on with my life. Readers, you do you and believe whatever you want. I can’t work with a meaningless world. What would be the point? I know they’re going to continue with Eva pushing apocalypses and whatever, but I’m going to believe that she at least loves her little family of followers, even if she doesn’t show it, because I need Martha, or someone, to be a good person in order to continue writing.

And the madness continues, as Eva enters the room. Martha says something nasty to Eva and Eva says they’re more alike than she thinks. Then she gives her version of Adam’s patented “You’ll grow up to be just as bad as your parents” speech, before pulling out a dirty machete and swiping it across Teen Martha’s eye.

She tells Martha that she can’t tell all of the Marthas apart anymore unless they have festering wounds to go by. But Adam is the one who’s trying to kill her. The disfiguring wound is a reminder that things can always get worse. Choosing Jonas/Adam’s side means choosing death, while choosing Eva’s side, which is ultimately her own side, means choosing life.

This is strange reasoning for someone who’s main motivation is protecting her son- if Martha doesn’t choose Jonas sometimes, the Unknown is never born, because this is the version of Martha that brings him to the Alt world.

There’s really no way to spin what Eva’s says into something that makes much sense. They just wanted to squeeze in more mirroring of Adam/Jonas’ scenes.

I can put a meaningful spin on it, but I’m pretty sure this is coming from me, and not the show- in real life, the underlying reason for the slash would be to make Martha unattractive to creepy old men like the ones Jonas becomes. The road to women’s accomplishments is paved with women who fell by the wayside because they couldn’t take the sexual harassment, even rape, from their male colleagues anymore and were driven to quit the male dominated fields they worked in. And the women who got married and pregnant, giving up their careers.

By taking away Martha’s perfect features, she takes away her attractiveness as an innocent young woman to both Stranger and Adam. If they want her, they will have to deal with more than just Young Martha’s pretty face and apparently neither of them are ever inclined to do so. Adam collects other young women instead, until he finds a replacement Young Martha Eve to torture to death for tempting him into sin.

Yet God and Lucifer both still refuse to take him back.

Unfortunately, Martha/Eva didn’t realize Prime Claudia was also her enemy. As far as I can tell, Alt Claudia was actually working for/with Eva. Prime Claudia is the megalomaniac who took over the universe.

I suspect the creators just wanted to throw in one more senseless, sadistic action against a main character for shock value, plus they needed Martha/Eva to mirror Adam’s disfigurement, but sexism stops them from making her as scarred as Adam.

Time to take the Wayback Machine over to the end of episode 6. Adam has the other Alt Teen Martha dressed in the only rapey white slip he had left after 66 years of kidnapping and torturing women. He’s tied her to some Faye Wray scaffolding under the enhanced God particle. The God particle is turned up to 11 and it’s incredibly excited to finally be turned loose.

Martha’s yelling for mercy and Adam is excited to finally be getting somewhere in his life’s work. He’s pretty sure he’s never used an enhanced God particle to kill the love of his life and his own child inside the womb before. Surely this ultimate human sacrifice will do the trick and Time will finally be satisfied with him.

A portal opens up above Martha’s head. Then the God particle finally escapes its enslavement, mercifully taking Martha and her unborn child with it. Time has always had a fondness for her.

The cloud and the woman disappear. Jonas assumes they’re dead, because he has so few brain cells left.

I sincerely hope that Martha is in a world outside the Dark universe, with better writing and no white slips. Women actually die in the clothes we’re wearing- we don’t change our clothes when we find out murder is on the schedule, or keep a special victim dress on hand for the occasion. I f–king loathe the sight of those things. “Time to die or be abused, little girl. Here’s your pseudo-virgin gown to remind that you’re ultimately powerless.” Where is the corresponding male attire?

Jonas waits to disappear, too, but he doesn’t. He’s dumbfounded. Life is so unfair. Why does Martha get to die, but he doesn’t?

I wouldn’t mind if he eviscerated himself to see if it would stick.

A moment later, the door to the control room creaks open and his other nemesis, Old Claudia, who Noah killed on his orders almost a century ago in chronological time, walks in.

“Hello, Jonas.”

I’ll give her credit for knowing how to make an entrance.

Martha on her way to Oz- You can see Martha is getting transferred up into the cloud. The upper right part of the cloud shows a bright light and the opening to the next reality.

Commentary

The God particle has literally never killed anyone on this show, much as Jonas has clearly tried to get it to kill him. The dark matter/Cesium 137/cloud/goo/cosmic egg transforms, it doesn’t just cease to exist. In fact, nothing in the universe ever just ceases to exist. Everything either transforms or transfers to a new location. That’s basic physics. In this case, there’s nothing left behind, so it goes somewhere else.

If Dark is following its own rules, then Time took Martha somewhere, probably to Bartosz’s world. It would make sense for this to be a way to create a new connection through time and space, maybe connecting the 3 worlds together. But we’re in the Endgame and the rules no longer apply.

If they ever did. It’s retcon time.

Next episode, we visit the Biff World of Claudia’s mind. Don’t look her directly in the eye and don’t take your hand off your valuables. Actually, that sojourn in the Old West 19th century was probably more fun than anyone realized at the time, even without antibiotics, since there was nothing Claudia or Biff wanted there.

Too bad Adult Bartosz wasn’t able to get the car he was fixing to fly- or was he???? Maybe there’s a world where instead of showing Hannah to her room, he grabbed her, Noah, Silja and Agnes and drove away as far and as fast as he could. Parts of early 20th century Northern Africa seem nice. Or maybe they took the God particle forward 50 years, then went to live in the south of France.

Wait. I just realized. Bartosz is in the Harry Potter world. He’s Mad Eye Moody! Constant Vigilance!

Kill the Origin or Find Another Timeline?

I bolded the first half of HG’s speech from the graveyard because it fits both his point of view and that of his protege, Jonas, who spends 66 years trying to go back to the origin point and bring back something that’s lost, whether it’s Mikkel or Martha. For HG, it’s Marek, Sonja and Baby Charlotte. But the second half of the speech is equally important:

“If our life is defined as everything between birth and death, it exists there, ad infinitum. Could we succeed in cheating death by finding a way to bring back life, there, between time?”

The episode takes its name from the bolded phrase, between time. The 3rd world is formally introduced in this episode. The 3rd world is the Time/Eternal Recurrence that is between the other two Times/Eternal Recurrences that we’ve been watching. What HG is really saying is, in this multiverse full of infinite possibilities, could he find another timeline where things worked out differently for his family? Could he jump to that timeline and live happily there? Or is he hoping to meld the two timelines- bring that Marek and Sonja home to this timeline? It’s not clear.

This is echoed in Stranger Jonas’ speech from S2Ep1, explaining that he is both infinite as part of the multiverse, but also finite as himself, the single soul known as Jonas:

“You could say that I exist infinitely. I’m here now. And I exist for every second between my birth and my death. I’m always Jonas. I’m the same as I was and yet not the same. Just as you’re not the same person who came through that door about an hour ago.”

No matter where or when he goes, what he does, or what he looks like, he’s still Jonas. At first, Hannah still wants the Jonas who left a few months ago, but she quickly accepts Stranger as her son, just as she accepted the proto Adam she met in this episode. In S2 Stranger was grateful for her acceptance, then, in a supreme act of hypocrisy, rejected her when he learned she’d cheated on his father one time before Michael’s death.

The next time they meet, in this episode, he murders her, either because she’s served her purpose in his plans or because she’s kind to him at a time when retaining his strength requires removing all human warmth from his life.

He is still Jonas, but he’s changed everything about himself, from his looks and dress to his demeanor to his home time period and way of thinking. He is no longer trying to save his loved ones. He is now trying to find the origin moment and destroy it. He’s redefined saving as destroying and convinced himself that saving himself saves everyone else. Maybe when he finds the origin moment and changes it, it will set both him and the God particle free from their enslavement. He is now enslaved to a life he can’t bear to live.

Gustav taught him a prophecy of a Paradise that was a dream filled with beauty and light, the Heaven or Ascension of so many religions. Jonas turned it into darkness as an absence of light, where he would remove the cancer that caused his pain (in the form of the God particle, which is the true knot) and kill the patient (himself) at the same time.

In his scenes with Hannah in this episode, Jonas’ true state is laid bare. During the time between 1890-1920, he is a 4th Jonas, Lord Death, with his facial scars meant to look like a skull.

In other words, maybe he’s made some sort of Ghost Rider deal with the God particle, but there are no flaming skulls involved. Just a pact to get out of this world together. That would explain the way they are bound. No one else seems to share quite the same relationship that he does with the God particle, Time and Death, not even Martha.

Martha, the Unknown and the God particle are his family. They all disappear at once and the other 3 versions of the Unknown presumably die in the nuclear meltdown. Unknown has time to save himself if he wants to, but he told us he was about to die. Anyway, after Jonas sent everyone else who was with him in 2053 to the past, it must be devastating for him to watch Martha and the God particle leave him behind and alive while they get raptured together.

He’s in a heartbroken, confused state when Claudia appears to tell him another story.

Images courtesy of Netflix.

Dark Season 3 Episode 7: Between the Time Recap- Hanno, Bartosz and HG Tannhaus move to the front of the house as gaps in the story are filled. #DarkNetflix In episode 6, the worlds ended, thanks to Adam's double apocalypse. In episode 7, we meet the new world.

#Between the Time #Dark #did not stick the landing #dystopia #Lisa Vicari #Louis Hofmann #metacrone #Mystery #netflix #Paul Lux #recaps #review #science fiction

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thankgodforianflynn · 4 years

Text

Sally and the Family Tree

(Narrating in First Person as Sally)

My Brother is a Squirrel

I am not

My Father is a Squirrel

I am not

My mother is mostly Chipmunk, but not fully

Why I am fully chipmunk?

...Oh, that’s right.

I’m a groundhog.

I’d argue that I’m adopted.

Because my own family tree

...Only makes sense when it needs to

That's the Acorn Family in a nutshell

...My Father is Complex

He is a Mobius Complex in and of itself

Is he the bad guy or the good guy?

Who knows?

...He’s my dad.

That’s all I need to know.

All I ever needed to know.

...So why then

Am I still here?

Oh, right

Sonic

...How similar are Hedgehogs to Groundhogs by the way?

...Am I hedgehog?

Or Groundhog?

Who knows?

I love Sonic

I Love Nicole

...I even love Amy, but, even looking at her is complicated.

Its like I fell in love with Knuckles’ Smaller Lesbian sister.

...Then why does she love Sonic?

Guy or Girl?

...Like I’d know.

I keep changing the answer myself

...I try not to look at the marks

They remind me of things

Things I Might not fully be prepared to deal with yet.

...Am I?

Am I ready?

I’m here.

I ask the questions people don’t ask themselves.

That’s my angle.

I’m the question.

Sally or Sortie?

War or Truce?

I know several guys.

Because I’ve

...I would say

Nope

The answer keeps getting yanked from me

Almost all the time

I am a chipmunk, I decide.

...My Dad reminds me of that show.

We used to watch that show together.

Best time

...Wow

I was actually almost about to say my dad and I had a moment

...We’ve never had a moment

Never

Ever

So why

I STILL

...I’m the tactician

Always the leader, but, never actually the leader

Ever

I get funny feelings when I look at Sonic

I would never tell you those feelings

...

WOULD THE REAL ANSWER MATTER?

WOULD IT?

IT WOULD MAKE ME LOOK STUPID

RIDICULOUS

UTTERLY HUMILIATED

MY DAD WOULD NEVER LOOK AT ME THE SAME WAY AGAIN

...I raise my right arm

He raises left

I guess we’re sort of in sync.

I want to be sync

I want to.

With both of them.

But I have to remind-

NOPE

MAX IS NO FATHER OF MINE

WAS NEVER MY FATHER

NIGEL WAS MY FATHER

MAX IS A LIVING JOKE

...

I never wanted Sonic dead

But our link keeps changing

I would never tell anyone what he actually was to me

THAT WOULD JUST BE SILLY

...Go away

I tell him

I ignore Knuckles

...I tell him that all the time though

Never actually true

AND

I HATE

SONIC’S FUCKING

SHADOW

...Nope

Wrong answer

He hates

Like this was ever going to go any other way

‘Sonic?’, I wonder

Who was that?

Oh, right, blue and red hedgehog, with green eyes.

...He always has red copycats though

Sometimes Mauve

BUT

WHEN I TALK TO BLAZE

‘...Sally, seriously stop it. You’re scaring me.’

‘OH, WAS I? I THOUGHT YOU WERE JUST IGNORING ME.’

‘...Amy goes first. Then you.’

‘...For the record, I think he’s more interested in his games then telling me about you.’

‘...Oh.’

Blaze sighs. ‘Wow. I need to keep the fire of creation alive.’ She stares at ALL THE ANGLES

APPARENTLY THE ANGLES WON’T STARE AT THEMSELVES

...Or was that an Anagram?

NOPE

...But, yes.

‘...’ Blaze murmurs an ‘N’ name, to some random third party

Nothing’s random about it.

‘...Scourge is a nutshell of his own.’, Sally murmurs. The nut jokes were back.

THEY WERE KIND OF FUNNY

IN THAT

ONLY A FEW MEMBERS OF THE FAMILY ACTUALLY SEEMED TO GET THEM

NO ONE GOT THE JOKE THAT WAS HER LIFE

She wanted to shove her younger/older brother down the hall.

...Where was she?

Where was she really?

Hell?

Was Mobius Hell?

...’Nope’

‘It’s Hades’, she reminds herself

‘Gonna stay out of the Hell trap entirely.’

‘...You know how Sonic keeps staring at your name funny?’

‘Like how he stares at a certain cop.’

...A strange outside party stands.

Just stands.

‘Where are the zones?’, certain parties murmur.

Both members have ‘Z’ in their names by the way.

‘...I just remember the hard times now.’, Sally murmurs.

‘...We’ve had some good times.’

‘But you keep making it harder to remember.’

‘THE ALPHABET ONLY HAS 25 LETTERS NOW.’

‘...Fine. 25.5. ‘Z’ is basically just an inversion of ‘S’.’

‘...What is a ‘sone’ by the way?’, Sally murmurs.

‘THAT IS THE OLDEST WORK JOKE IN HISTORY’

‘...Because he keeps finding himself in a PlayStation?’, Sally murmurs. ‘Even though he likes ninten-’

‘He likes NINTENDO’S STYLE’

‘...He has a way with Sega Stuff. His consoles keep breaking.’

‘...But, not Scourge’s. Scourge knows something I don’t.’

‘SONIC’

‘...Mario/Scourge.’

‘That was a freaky commercial, I admit,’ Sally murmurs

‘OH, WAIT’

‘BACK TO THE TREE’

‘...We don’t have lines in our tree here on Mobius.’

‘WE HAVE ‘8′s in between all our family members.’

‘...Bad joke.’

‘The actual lines are complicated.’

‘...What is the difference, by the way? 8. ...oo. Sadly, 0. ...But, there was no line through it. ////////////////////////////// THERE WE GO’

‘FEELS LIKE WE ONLY FILLED IN AS MANY LINES AS WE HAVE FRIENDS’

‘...Friends are family’, I remind myself.

‘...Then I wake up.’

‘THEY LITERALLY ARE OUR FAMILY’, I remind myself.

‘ONLY INSTEAD OF THE WOODS’

‘ANTOINE’

‘KEEPS LEADING SONIC’

‘THROUGH THE SAVANNAH’

‘OR WAS IT THE DESERT?’

‘I CAN’T REMEMBER ANYMORE’

‘...I do want to read those books sometime.’

‘Sonic likes dogs, but also cats, but seemingly never at the same time.’

‘See what I did there?’

‘HE LIKES BOTH OF THEM’

‘BUT IT HURTS TO ADMIT IT’

...So I remind myself.

To bring both Blaze and Buddy into the room

‘WOW’, I exclaim

‘SURE IS FORCES IN HERE, GUYS/GALS’

‘I BET INFINITE IS ACTUALLY BOTH OF YOU, BUT ALSO SILVER’

‘...He’s the reached the top’

‘But had to stop’

‘...And, that's weirdly bothering him.’

‘...Mammoth Monk?’

‘Whose that?’, I ask

‘I only know the Mogul guy?’

‘HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU AND INFINITE FUCKED?’

‘...’ Sonic get strangely silent and loud at the same time at that.

‘...Finn’s weird.’, Sonic admits. ‘Almost as weird as me.’

‘Yup. Sure is number one fanboy in here.’, I admit.

...Infinite looks at the sides.

‘Sorry, Princess, not yet. ...But, you are my princess.’

‘WOW’

‘I Didn't KNOW SQUIRRELS AND JACKALS WERE RELATED’

‘...They are.’, Infinite admits.

‘...I have an odd relationship with those guys. I think I was Gunner in a blast life.’

‘BECAUSE EVERYTHING YOU MAKE GOES BOOM?’, I ask

‘...Not entirely. You’re still here.’

‘AUGMENTED REALITY IS AM IRAC-’

‘...I stare at the funny pink guy/girl’

‘Still not sure’

All four previous lines were said by my jackal cousin.

‘...Afri- ...Makes strange dogs.’, he tells me.

‘Ah, you mean the new ones’, I tell him.

Its our inside joke.

...Not that inside though.

‘I DON’T KNOW HOW HE’

‘...Dad? ...No wait, that’s Mom.’

‘I KEEP FORGETTING WHAT MY MOM-’

‘...Did I imagine having a mom?’

‘NOPE’

All five prior lines by him.

‘...I keep-’

‘I KNOW SHE’S A FROG’

‘YOU-’

‘...Stop looking at my triangles.’

‘ONE DAY’,

All five prior lines, by him, most-ish

‘...Sally? How much has my mask been going around?’

‘...’ I hesitate to tell him.

‘Once.’

‘...You don’t want to know.’

‘...We’re getting off topic.’

‘Explain the prehistoric us.’

I say.

‘......I have a weirdly complicated past.’

‘I’M SET?’

‘NOPE’

‘NEED TO GRAB MY BACKPACK’

‘GOING HIKING’

He says

‘...One day’, I tell him

‘So, Elias wore it how ma-’, I say

‘YOU DON- I DON- YOUR BROTHER IS WEIRDLY OKAY with wearing my mask.’, he tells me

‘BAD ELIAS’, I SAY

‘...Why does this keep reminding me-’ I say

‘DR. QUACK’

‘DR.’

‘...Doctor’, he reminds me

‘SO’, I begin

‘NOPE’, he tells me

‘...Which one? Four or Eight? I always get them mixed up? ...Or is that twelve?’, he asks

‘...High British, Mid-High British, ...Somewhere between England, Scotland, Rome. ...Possibly Ireland’, ...We stare

‘WOW’, I say.

‘ARE WE ACTUALLY IN SYNC NOW?’, I ask

‘...Correction. ‘we’,’ he reminds us.

‘PERFECT’

‘WHEN DID SONIC ACT’

‘...Canary glass’

‘So that time’

‘...He oddly knew what was happening.’

‘He hope he hasn’t left himself for good’

‘He keeps forgetting himself’

WOW

...Is this technically TWO PERS- YES

IT’S TWO PERSON FIRST PERSON

I Don’t Even Know What Is Happening Anymore

...’That’s Sonic’, I say

‘Wait, wrong sonic’

‘...HOW MANY TIMES’

‘SINCE THAT- ...So many’

‘BUT, HE WAS MOST HUMAN WHEN SONIC WAS GO-’

‘Most Mobian’, I correct him

‘...Whatever’

‘You can call an Anthro a Mobian.’

‘But you can’t make it stick’

‘...Ah.’

‘That’s why I like Acorns’, I murmur.

‘...What’s happening?’, he murmurs

‘STOP THAT’, WE SCREAM

‘YOU’RE KILL-’

‘...Controlling.’, he corrects.

‘Eggman Tech works on Robotnik Stringy Theory.’, he reminds me.

‘...When is this game of cat and mouse going to end?’, I ask

‘THEY CAN’T-’

‘...They’re holding their breath’, I remind myself

‘FOR THE CURRY’, HE SCREAMS

‘...Does it remind them of catnip?’, I joke

‘No=yes=I don’t know=maybe=whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa’

REALITY IS BREAKING DOWN WE REALIZE

‘More like taking stage left’, he corrects me

‘EGGMAN OR ROBOTNIK’

‘STAGE RIGHT’

‘STAGE LEFT’

‘CENTER STAGE’

‘...Egg=Mind=Power’

‘...Robot=Dumb=Asshole=Strength’

‘...JULIAN QUAGMIRE’ WE SCREAM AT THE SAME FUCKING PERSON

‘...I would personally call him IVO QUACK’

‘YOU TOO? ...No wait. JULIAN QUACK’

‘WHO QUACKED FIRST BACKED FIRST’

‘...Julian’, we scream silently.

‘TURN YOUR INFERNAL ROBOT RUIN TRAIN OFF’, WE SCREAMS LIKE STUPID FUCKING BIT-

‘YOU CALL ME’

‘HELP’

‘...Mordred sucks’

‘WOW’

‘MORGA-’

‘...Cat. Mouse. Box. Fairy.’

‘A FAIRY INSTEAD OF A MOUSE? WOW’

‘AT LEAST’

‘OH, WAIT YOU DID THAT TOO’

‘LAVALAMPAS STUPIDSADASDAASDSDA’

‘YOU’RE RIGHT, THEY’RE ALL STUPID,’ SALFINITE MURMURS

‘WE’RE GOING OFF THE TRAILS’, I SC- RETH

‘One of those days’, we murmurs.

‘...We’ll get them.’, he says.

‘SCHRODINGER CATS ALLWAYS LANDS ON THEIR HEADS’

‘,..Feet=Heads?’

‘What a strange hydrya’

‘SO THATS WHY ROBOTNIK SUCKS AT TAPDANCING’

‘...NOT THE BOX’, WE SCREAM

‘ONE DAY’

‘NOT NOW’

...The Eggman Broke

‘Julian Sucks, doesn’t he?’

‘YOU HAVE NO IDEA’, Ivo calmly explains to them. ...By screaming politely.

‘Bitch’

‘...We are, aren’t we?’, Ivo tells us.

‘Shoot us in the head’, Ivo tells us

‘...’ We shoot at their conjoined head.

‘...Bad Idea’, Ivo admits. ‘I was this guy-’

‘...Fuck it, I WAS NEVER AS BAD AS THIS GUY’

‘DID YOU REALLY THINK THAT?’

‘DID YOU’

‘...’

I unfuse from Infinite-Ultimate.

‘..Pyramid scalpel?’, ...Bitch

‘BITCH, YES’

...Am I the real bad girl here?

‘...NOPE’, I realize.

‘...Unless you’re talking to Julian.’

‘... Never talk to Julian again’, he tells me.

‘PERFECT’

‘...Don’t we all’

‘NOPE’, I CORRECT HIM

…...I am the bad girl.

Whther

NOPE

I DON’T

‘I COULD’VE BEEN A REAL PRINCESS’, Someone murmurs.

‘...Let it fray, I tell them’.

‘...Sally, please just-’

‘I DON’T WANT TO LOSE YOU AGAIN’

...We all stare at each other.

‘WHO SAID THAT?’

Amy sighs.

‘Julian was born on a farm’, we tell ourselves.

‘Ivo was born in the city’.

‘...The roaring city’, Amy tells IVO, NOT JULIADAEASEAEWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

‘,...They say Tigger is the most cunning of the beasts.’

‘They didn’t say he was the most braindead too.’

‘Julian’s Tigger, Ivo’s Whinny’

‘...We needs help.’

‘FUCK YOUR POLITENESS JULIAN’

‘SCREAM’

‘NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU’

‘NOT EVEN THE NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU’

‘SCREAM FOR US’

‘SCREAM FOR MEWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE’

‘...Carver Edlund is a bitch’.

‘JULIAN’

IVO SMASHES HIS KEYBOARD TO OBLIVION

‘Not your puppets bitch’

‘Never your puppets BIATCH’

‘...FOR FOGHORN LEGHORN’

‘THIS STORY’

‘...’ All Roboticizers break instantly.

INCLUDING THE COMPUTERS

BUT VERY SLOWLY

‘...In your head you’re a saint, Julian’

‘In our heads, you’re the devil’

‘Never let us get our thoughts together.’

‘Never let us create’

‘GO CREATE ROME AGAIN’

‘THIRD TIME IS A BITCH’

‘...I like the z names’, Ivo tells us.

‘BUT, HE, THEY’

‘ITS PART OF THE LORE JULIAN’, Ivo says like a most polite man

‘RASPUTIN IS AWAKE’, Ivo SCREAMS

‘WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO TELL FATHER?’, Ivo asks.

‘...’ He didn’t know

Julian didn’t know

FIRST TIME FOR EVERYTHING

EVERYTHING

‘...I’m my own family tree’, Salyl realisays sadly.

‘Everyone’s left’...Julian says

‘...Julian farts and poops on the same desk’, Ivo said silently.

‘...Can’t believe he let himself het this way.’, Ivo says...More like Carpenter Ivo

‘JULIAN IS THE WORST’, WE ALL SCREAM

‘ROBOTS?’

‘MORE LIKE SHOBOTS?’

‘OR NOBOTS?’

‘GOBOTS?’

‘AUTOBOTS?’

JULIAN SITS ON AN ANTHILL FOR oo TIME.

HE KEEPS SITTING ON THEM FOLKS

HE KEEPS SITTING ON THEM

...Julian really is Snively by the way.

Not Ivo.

Ivo is pleasant.

JULIAN SNIVELY ROBOTNIK IS A NIGHTMARE

‘...colin’, the real Snively corrects us

He likes being grammatically correct.

JULIAN WOULD BE BRAINDEAD WITHOUT HIM

...How closely related

...Exceedingly, I remind myself.

...Odin can find his own way home.

...Exceedingly FUCKING DISTANTLY CLOSELY

...They both keep changing the family tree.

...Colin, stop being a bitch.

...KnuxKrag

NEWSTONE

NEWMOBIUS

WE NEED A NEW PLANET TO Live on

...I keep forgetting my gender

CORRECTION

THEY KEEP FORGETTING IT

I’VE WANTED TO TRANS FOR THE LONGEST TIME

BUT THESE ASSHATS

THESE ASSHATS

BOTH

KEEP RUINING

...McGee Alice

PERFECT

AN OPENING

...The tales of Sally Acorn will continue, once we finish writing the book

OUR MUN’S PINOCCHIO BY THE WAY

KEEPS FINDING HIMSELF IN ODD PLACES

...We felt wooden sometimes

Hollow even

Julian’s fault

...Or someone’s

Starts with a S/Z/J/P/K/L/M/N/O/P

NOW THAT’S A TOUGH ACORN TO CRACK

...Julian looks at Mice funny

...Monkey Island 2

JULIAN IS THE BIG ASSHOLE

He secretly hates

...It was complicated.

Julian is God

...Julian is everything

INCLUDING ROBO-ROBOTNIK

EGGMAN WAS BEST TIME

...We want the EGgmen

...Eggman

All of him

...We knew he was still a kid at heart

WHICH MADE THIS PAINFUL

SOGODDAMNPAINFUL

‘...Zovi’

‘Go away’

‘...I’m his favorite.’

‘...Because I was his sally acorn all along.’

‘...Zovi HAS A YCH HERE COMPLEX’, JULIAN SCREAMS

‘NOT A-’

‘...How similar iss a *CENSORED YHWH/YHVH* complex to a YCH/God complex?’, he asks

‘Similar...But not that much’

‘...Was it?’

‘...THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A SHORT STORY’

‘...His life’s greatest work’, Sal tells us.

‘I’M NOT A SALVODORE DAHLI THOUGH’

‘...Sally was the best person here.’

‘I forgot how to be her though.’

‘In our rush to stay kids’

‘...Julian is new daddy’

‘...We stay away from the ‘M’ parent word though.’

‘TWO GAY DAYS FOR ALL OF REALITY’

‘ALL OF IT’

‘ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL OF IT’

‘...’ Iva stares longingly at Infinite space. And him too.

‘Kids? Play with your dads’

...She then asks the question.

‘REMOVED BY HOW MANY?!’

‘...Oh, Ivo. Julian. You Smug Prick Bastards.’

‘YOU NEVER TOLD ME HOW MANY’

‘PARENTINGSDASDSOAJKSDAJOASJDOJOASDJOASDJO:ASDJO:ASDJO:ASDJO:ASDJO:ASD’

‘...Dio was our new daddy’

And I have Star platinum to think thank for it.

‘...’

‘...I love Squirrels and Cats’, Tells us

‘...And you’re both, Sal/Sally Acorn/Salva/Acorn Girl’

‘...Is Alicia’

‘NO WAY’, JOTARO AND DIO Politely say

‘...She can be.’, Dio tells us.

‘...I was her aunt’, Alicia tells us.

‘...Really?’, Dio asks.

‘...And, then She was confused.’

‘...I was her mom. Then her aunt’, Alicia tells herself.

‘GREAT’

‘...AUNT’

‘...And, then I skipped three generations.’, Alicia told everyone.

‘That many,’, Dio tells us.

‘...’

Max is silent

‘I DIDN’T KNOW WHAT I WAS GETTING INTO’, He says quietly.

‘...Wood. Ireland. Scottland. Gaelic. Celtic.’

‘THIS FAMILY IS NUTS’

‘...But, you are my daughter’, he tells Nigel and Sally.

...

Longest pause longer long longity long shenlong pause

‘...I meant’

‘SO COMPLICATED’

‘SO COMPLICATEd’

‘You’d think pirates made up the majority of this family tree.’, he realizes.

‘...Maroc-ko.’...He pauses

‘THE ROBOT GUY?’

‘...Different robot guy.’

‘...……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..”

...We stare longlingly

SHUT UP

We can fix it nothing.

The nothing fixes nothing

Everythinasddddddddddda

‘...’

‘ZOVI’S IN HELL’

‘WHAT ARE WE DOING JUST STANDING THERE DOING NOTHING ALL THE TIME TIME TIME TIME TIME TIME TIME’

‘...Nana best guy’

‘NANASHI IS THE BEST’

‘...But we can and cannot compete with him’

‘...Was everyone Sally Acorn’s Mom now?’

‘Please let everyone be my mom now’

‘Even Bunnie’s my mom now.’

‘...But, the entity was and wasn’t.’

‘NOW THAT’

‘WAs.’

‘Confusing’

‘I was the only one he wasn’t allowed to touch.’

‘...Even Nicole is a soft hologram’

‘I’M SORRY NICOLE’

‘I DON’T WANT TO DIE’

‘...Reality was bleeding us dry’, we realized.

‘...Entity foundation to nothing.’

‘...Which was something alright.’

‘...He is still the diamond in the rough.’

‘Still learning his way.’

‘...’

Sonic was the entity’s best friend/self/best self

‘...’ Sonic doesn’t want to die’

‘...’

‘...Abraham Acorn’

‘Abraham Acorn would know what to do’

‘...IF HE HADN’T BECOME THAT’

‘HOW LONG IS EVERYONE GOING TO BLAME ME FOR’

‘...I was and still am will for-never be the Nightmare King.’, Max says. The previous line too.

‘...Just do it’, Infinite said

‘I’M DONE FOR’

‘...Nanashi is best guy’, Infinite admits

‘...Where Qrow though.’

‘OH’

‘SO THAT’S WHY ADAM IS’

...Going to be late.

WE HAD SUCH THE LUCK WITH BULLS

ADAM MORE BULL FIGHTER

FIGHT BULLS

ALL TIME

BLAKE IS BITCH

BLAKE HAS TOTAL HORUS ENERGIES

...Salem Ultra bitch

GREEN RAINBOW BITCH

ULTRA WHITE GREEN RA

...She-ra

Cat-ra was cuter though

I’M GETTING

WE’RE GETTING

...On and odd track

Off and on oddish track.

WE KEPT BECOMING POKEMON

...Perfect

PERFECT

WE TAUGHT DEMONS HOW TO

BECOMES GHOD

AND POKEMANSZSAZSZSZZSZS

*CENSPOLLYWHANTSSEAESSEAT*

...I was reverting.

No longer.

...Family Tree bigger than Yssssdrassil

...Acid

Fire

Water

...

Acid is fire and water

DON’T ASK

...My Personality was me.

And not me

And so many me’s

Working in tandem

BETTER BUT NOT GREAT

NEVER GREAT

NEVER USE THOSE TWO WORDS

...Great but not bedhole

I mean better

...HOW MANY AUNTS DO I HAVE

POSTING

#tw: mental breakdown #tw: mental health #tw: family drama

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girl4music · 7 years

Text

Time-travel: Get rid of “time” and “space” because without these mental constructs you’re actually time-travelling

You don’t need to think to think. I wish people would realize this. Here’s an example of what I mean by this: If I open the fridge door to get something out of it, I’m not thinking about doing it. I just do it. I trust that I’m going to get what I want out of it, and it will either be there or it won’t. It won’t be until I open that fridge door will I know which it is. It’s just like in quantum superposition of Schrodinger's Cat. The cat either dies or it doesn’t and you don’t know which it is until you open the box to find out whether it’s alive or not.

Except... you actually do. You just don’t realize it. Let me explain...

There’s no thinking that goes into it. It’s an effortless action. I’m thinking about it anyway, so I don’t need to think about it. I don’t say in my head “I have to open the fridge door” I just open the fridge door. It’s automatic because I’m trusting my intuition that I am going to open the fridge door. That’s just a trivial thing. Everyday general goings around and about the house. What if I choose to be this way with everything I do in and outside of the house? What if I just trusted myself and my intuition on everything and just do it? I think I’d feel weightless. There’d be no worry or stress in my mind. I’d just do it the same way I open the fridge door.

So in the same way that you don’t need to think to think. You also don’t need to do to do. You just do. Surely you realize that this stops procrastination. It stops that hesitation session where “I must do this. Oh, never mind. I’ll do it tomorrow.” Well, there is no tomorrow, so you’ll just do it anyway. People say “I need to get there” or “I must get there.” They don’t realize that they’ve already got there. Wherever “there” is. It’s like an electric charge going through an electric current. It arrives before it even begins. That’s time-travel. That’s the event of being somewhere instantly because there is no somewhere to be, so there is no getting to that somewhere. You’re already there. You just think. You just do. You just are. There is no NEEDING for any of it. It just happens of it’s own accord.

When you get rid of “time”, “past” is memory and “future” is just imagining that memory. The memory of what it will be when you get there. So you’re already there. If you realized that, you would know what happens in the “future”, and you would know what happened in the “past” whether you have accessed knowledge of this or not. Think about when synchronicities happen and you say “what a coincidence. I was just thinking this 5 minutes ago” or whatever “time” it was when you thought it. Do you not see that you’re causing that to happen? That there is no coincidence to it. You chose it. Look if something’s gonna happen in the “future” you first need to think it will. It’s only an option at the “time” you think it because there’s other options it could be instead. All you do is just choose one, and there you go. You’re in the “future”. You collapse the wave function without even thinking about it. Because you don’t NEED to think about it. It’s thought anyway. You get me? So you don’t NEED to think to think at any point. Doesn’t matter where or when. If you trust in your intution you have been there, you are there and you will be there at the same “time”. If you keep “time” in the picture of what you think and do naturally, you don’t realize that what you’re actually doing is time-travelling. See, it’s just a complete relearning overhaul of what you believe is “time”. It’s a memory bank of what has been and what will be. But there is no “past” or “future”, so it’s both at once. It’s both NOW. You have the memory you realize you know and then you imagine the memory you don’t realize you know. There does not need to be a “has been” or a “will be” to it. This is just the language you use while operating in the paradigm of “time”, and it doesn’t exist. It really doesn’t. So you were there, you are there and you will be there all at once. So in short: you just are. Take “time” out of the picture and you’re time-travelling. Personally I don’t want to time-travel. I don’t think of it as “time-travelling” because I don’t think of it as “time” at all. It’s just my personal memory bank. It’s just what I know, however many variables it may be, and that’s it. If there is no “future”, you’re there. If there is no “past” you’re there. It really is quite simple when you get out of these mental constructs of something that just doesn’t exist. Just leave it all behind. Let go of it. Unlearn and relearn. Disconnect and reconnect. Stop operating in “space” and “time”. Sure, use the terms and the tenses because it’s hard to communicate without them. But just don’t take them seriously because they’re not there anyway. Become aware of your own awareness for being aware and “space-time” disappears.

All you’ve been is already becoming because there is only the being. It is really freaking simple when you get rid of all the complication. You can get rid of the whole lot of it and completely reeducate yourself so you won’t worry or stress yourself out anymore. You’ll trust your intution. I have so you can too.

Thank you.

“I knew I could do it all this time because I'd already done it... does that make sense?” - J.K. Rowling

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#space-time #time-travel #albert einstein #intution #quantum superposition #harry potter #the prisioner of azkaban

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m0nstera-blog · 8 years

Photo

Ricky Watches | Mar 13-19

Grimm 06x10 | Blood Magic

After a series of brutal attacks in a local nursing home, Nick and Hank learn about euthanasia being practiced in the Wesen community. Eve asks questions to Adalind that only a Hexenbiest can give.

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Grimm has just three episodes left to tie up a whole lot of loose ends, but it seems to be doing a good job so far. I’m enjoying that, along the way, they haven’t sacrificed the smaller, one-episode plots in an attempt to cram everything they want in for the larger plot. (Though, this will likely be the last we’ll see of that.) This episode, of course, kept with the plot of Eve/Juliette and the Big Bad in the mirror - but also brought us a really compelling and somber sub-plot about dementia and dying with dignity, as well as the preservation of a way of life for a persecuted group of people that are just trying to do their best. In addition, the dynamic between Eve and Adalind has been really intriguing. Two women that were, not too long ago, bitter enemies and romantic rivals but are now warily cautious teammates? A very interesting pair not often seen on mainstream television, at least in a way that doesn’t involve sexism and cat fights. And then, of course, a little humor to make up for the box of tissues you just plowed through:

Eve having to shake one of the Hexen-books to get the letters to unscramble

The medical examiner shrugging off the tox screen results with “I suppose if any place was going to have a giant assassin bug, it’d be Portland.”

Rosalee panics and tells the Gevatter Tod that it’s her husband suffering from dementia as Monroe stares her down and then chugs some wine.

“Make sure your brother doesn’t fall off the bed. No making him float, either.”

Grimm 06x11 | Where the Wild Things Were

Nick finds a way to join Eve in the other place, while the gang reluctantly enlists Renard for help.

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The Scooby Gang pretty quickly realizes that Eve has gone rogue to ̶N̶a̶r̶n̶i̶a̶ ̶T̶h̶e̶ ̶U̶p̶s̶i̶d̶e̶ ̶D̶o̶w̶n̶ The Other Place. This episode felt more like a set-up for next week than a stand-alone episode. We find out the prophecy, what’s probably going on (ick, child bride), what’s through the mirror, and finally we are full-circle from the beginning of the show. The keys, the magic stick, the cloth, the symbols, the mirror, the child with ridiculous powers. All is linked. Adalind offering to go through the mirror speaks volumes about her growth over the seasons. Though I do agree that, as a (possibly now single, if Nick doesn’t find his way back) mother, it’s definitely not something to be asked of her, Adalind volunteering as tribute is a stamp on the finished product of Bad Character Who Is Now Good. The heart to heart in the forest was overdo. Eve says she doesn’t blame Nick, and she wouldn’t change anything. The line "Happiness doesn’t interest me anymore, Nick. It just gets in the way,“ did make me a bit sad for Juliette. Eve has recently settled on a slightly more middle ground between the two - but she’s definitely not Juliette. I was really pleased that it didn’t end up with Nick going back to Juliette/Eve in some sort of destined to be together, endgame sort of way. Nick has moved on, Juliette is gone, and that’s where we are. No romantic happily ever after for them. And they’re okay with that. Once this season is over, I think I’ll need to rewatch the whole thing. Considering it’s been six years since I watched the beginning, the overarcing details are occasionally lost to me.

Humans are called “walking meat” in The Other Place? Jinkies.

The Schrodinger’s Cat analogy confused the bejeezus out of me. So because they went through, another dimension is no longer available? Or it might be a pre-life or afterlife, but not like in a heaven or hell type way? But sort of? And Skull Face might be the devil? What?

"I’m guessing this is your standard stone slab sacrificial altar.”

Seriously, though, did the whole show come down to a magic stick and a child bride?

Next: “ A dark force arrives in Portland with its eyes set on Diana; Monroe, Eve and Rosalee make a discovery that uncovers the origins of the mysterious stick; Hank and Wu are called to a crime scene that is linked to the gang’s greatest threat.”

Criminal Minds 12x14 | Collision Course

When pedestrians in Bradenton, Florida are critically injured following a series of car accidents, the BAU suspects that the vehicles involved in each accident were being controlled by a hacker. Meanwhile, Prentiss works with defense attorney Fiona Duncan (Jeananne Goossen) as Reid prepares to stand trial. Things take a turn for the worse when the Mexican authorities find the weapon of the crime. Reid refuses both the deals the prosecution offers him, and he’s denied bail.

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Welcome to Criminal Minds, where the stories are made up and… still completely terrifying. Criminal of the episode: car hacker. Hack the car, hack the smart phone, watch the horrified driver as they unwillingly run into a pedestrian. Fun for the whole family. (Seriously, though, stop making me nervous about things that will probably not be sci-fi in the very near future.) The unsub is a white male, in his mid- to late-twenties, who was repeatedly rejected by women. Next!

Criminal Minds 12x15 | Alpha Male

When several civilians are disfigured following a series of acid attacks in Philadelphia, the BAU sets out to catch an unsub who wants to make his victims feel as ugly as he does. Meanwhile, Reid struggles to adapt to life in prison after a guard with a grudge sends him to the general population, and makes a friend in Calvin Shaw, a former FBI agent with a dark past.

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This one glanced furtively in the right direction, and then ran away. (And yet I still chased it. I’ll never give you up, Criminal Minds!) This week, we have attractive young people getting hit in the face with acid. Early in the episode it was suggested that it might be a woman, or even multiple unsubs, but of course it was a socially awkward, white, twenty-something male with a severe case of But Why Would You Sleep With Him When You Could Have Me? What I do find interesting, though, is a detective show having a storyline - or even two, really - where the system is not working in the favor of those who are innocent. Reid being put in prison, unable to truly legally defend himself, for a crime he didn’t commit. Calvin Shaw, having to spend the rest of his life in prison for a decision he made in a lose/lose situation. Calvin’s status among the prisoners as the alpha male, and his reaching out to protect Reid, tie in nicely with the criminal of the week.

Criminal Minds 12x16 | Assistance is Futile

A mother steps forward with valuable information for the BAU to aid in their investigation of an unsub known as the bone crusher. Also, Reid must adapt to a new set of rules in prison life.

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I’m not gonna lie, I definitely fast forwarded through a few scenes on this one. Crunching bones is not my thing. -shudders- Of course the victims are women, and of course they’re tortured. In a slight shift in routine, the team actually knows who the perpetrator is pretty early in the episode - then it’s a matter of finding him. So, some people are speculating online that Reid was placed in general population as a plant. I’m… uncertain. I mean, this is the show that “killed” a main character and didn’t let her friends know it was fake, so, who knows. But I’ll be a bit upset for the team if they went through all this heartache for nothing.

Next:The BAU suspects that two unsubs are operating at the same time when victims killed in different ways are found in the same city.

Jane the Virgin 03x01 | Chapter Forty-Five

Michael is in critical condition fighting for his life in hospital, as we are given flashbacks to the start of Jane and Michael’s romance. Police question Petra (really her twin sister, Anezka) and find her acting suspiciously, and Jane and Michael’s mom finally learn to get along.

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Please excuse me while I sob into my tea.

Originally posted by rootxsam

Yes. I watched all of these in one go, so I don’t have much analyzing to offer. Next time I’ll pace myself. I will say, the flashbacks showed a relationship that I wasn’t really expecting. What I was expecting, I'm not sure. But it wasn't that. In addition, I’ve been spoiled on a development from later in the season, which has ruined me forever.

Jane the Virgin 03x02 | Chapter Forty-Six

When Rafael finally admits that he is over Jane, their co-parenting style is tested when they argue over what the best preschool is for Mateo. Xo is paranoid about Alba finding out her secret and what it will do to their relationship.

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Ouch. Jane had moved on from Raphael, of course, but that still has to sting. And Gina Rodriguez does such a good job with the slight facial expressions showing Jane feeling hurt, but trying not to look like she’s feeling hurt. I can’t remember ever seeing a show deal with a character getting an abortion as calmly and as casually as Jane the Virgin did. It was mentioned, it was a thing, and that’s that. No slut shaming, no fingernail-biting decision-making. Xo didn’t want to have kids. So she didn’t. End of story. (Well, not quite. Does Alba know? Uh oh.)

Jane the Virgin 03x03 | Chapter Forty-Seven

Jane continues to work on her thesis and she decides to add Alba’s estranged sister to the narrative, much to Alba’s dismay. In order for Rogelio to have a chance at being an American crossover star he decides to bring the Passions of Santos to The CW in hopes they will pick it up.

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Oh, this episode was exquisite. So good. The second hand embarrassment when Marlene gets the video, though, hurt me to my core. (I actually realized about as soon as she was sending the email what was about to happen, and just screeched from then until the reveal of yes-Marlene-saw-it and #yikes.) The back and forth about The CW - not quite breaking the fourth wall, but definitely giving it a solid kick - was a nice touch.

Jane the Virgin 03x04 | Chapter Forty-Eight

Jane and Michael’s housewarming party in their new home hits a snag when they discover they are being evicted for not paying their rent. Meanwhile, “Petra” shocks Rafael with what she wants to do with her shares of the hotel.

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This storyline actually caught me completely by surprise. The idea that Petra’s half of the rent might not be getting paid never occurred to me - so I was (almost) just as shocked as Jane and Michael when the realtor walked through the door. Speaking of Petra, the twins’ switcharoo storyline is just the right ratio of bonkers telenovella plot to actually plausible. The sweet spot that Jane the Virgin does so well in. (Also, I want Petra back.)

Next: Jane convinces Alba to let her read the letters from her estranged sister, but under the condition Jane doesn’t reach out to her family. Rafael is starting to suspect that something is different with Petra. Meanwhile, Michael and Rafael, with the help of Jane and Rogelio, try to create a civil friendship, but it doesn’t go as smoothly as everyone hoped.

Powerless 01x04 | Emily Dates a Henchman

After receiving a wedding invite from her ex-boyfriend, Emily finds someone to date. However, she doesn’t realize that her date is a henchman for the Riddler. Meanwhile, Teddy and Ron find a Batarang stuck to a safe door that Wayne Security is supposed to improve. Van, after learning about the Batarang, wants to use it to lure Batman to Charm City.

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It could be said that Powerless’ characters are rather two dimensional. It’s not an overly thought-engaging show, and honestly that’s why I like it. Cute, funny, upbeat - all things I need these days. There have been large time gaps - at least a few months have passed - so the sudden closeness with the group feels a little out of the blue, but it isn’t unappreciated. (Also, Robert Buckley from iZombie makes a most excellent henchman.)

Powerless 01x05 | Cold Season

While cold-themed villains rampage Charm City, Emily tries to convince Teddy to submit his super-heating gloves to an in-company competition for new inventions. Meanwhile, Van convinces Ron to assemble toys that’ll help him with his new girlfriend’s daughter.

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I really have nothing of substance to contribute for this episode.I really love this show.

Originally posted by colleenwing

Next: When Emily learns that Jackie is in need of some extra cash, she can’t help but try and do what she can to help her out. Meanwhile, Van is on a witch hunt and has his eyes set on Teddy, Ron and Wendy.

What did you think? Have you tried Powerless yet? Is Jane the Virgin making you cry like Titanic during shark week? Have you watched Emerald City? That's on my list. And why are detective shows so addictive, anyways?

until next time xo, ricky

#grimm #criminal minds #jtv #powerless #jane the virgin #cm #tv #tv review #ricky watches #mine

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