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angelguk · 3 years

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so much happens in this it’s such a huge mess omg. the return of the angst plot line of jock!jk (aka pretty boy universe please check ml for the other parts). this time featuring: Angst (with a capital A), miscommunication that makes you want to scream, chayoung’s true nature, namjoon catching stray bullets (figuratively), and lucas being a gem. also jungkook is somewhat semi-violent in this one (in terms of thoughts and some actions but no one gets hurt) so please don’t read this if that makes you uncomfortable. in general just an angry heartbroken boy. also oc is finally doing something good. listen to mess it up by gracie abrams + if we were made of water by banks + i will by mitksi + save room for us by tinashe. roughly 4.2k

titled — old friends, new foes

The spring scavenger hunt is an enormous success, all thanks to your careful planning and Bina’s much needed support. While you excelled at organising, you heavily lacked in the social aspect, something Bina fulfilled with smart marketing and a bright personality that drew in a larger crowd than you thought would appear. It's partially expected–she was head of the Events Committee for a reason–but it felt a little strange to lean onto her instead of Jeongguk. He was the one who usually spearheaded that side of your event plans, more than anyone else, and while planning this one you felt his absence tenfold. Like a gigantic gaping hole excavating through your chest and leaving behind a lonely hollow.

That hollowness surges when you spot him meandering towards the third location at the university courtyard, his fingers tangled with Hyeri’s. You slowly turn away from them, heart aching with each thud against your ribs, hoping they haven’t seen you. Maybe Bina sees the fall on your features because she’s gently tapping your arm, leaning in with a graceful brush of her amber locks over her shoulder.

“Are you okay?” Her voice is soft, feathering through the late afternoon breeze to reach your ear.

You’re about to say it, the pained ‘I’m fine' that had become a part of your routine. But then you hear him, loud effervescent laugh hitting the air, the sound striking your false demeanour down. Your vision blurs before you could choke the word out and suddenly Bina’s arm is firmly around you, guiding your heavy feet far away from the presence evoking your pain.

“I’m fine,” you finally manage to choke up, folding into yourself in the middle of a bench. She stares at you for a moment, before taking a deep breath and sharply clicking her tongue.

“You’re not.” Her eyes are gentle despite the harshness of her words. “I know this isn’t my place, but I do know why you stopped coming to committee meetings.”

The scoff you let out is instinctive. The jarring sound is a stark contrast to the action of your hand hurriedly wiping away the stray tears staining your cheeks. Of course, you’d avoided committee meetings – why the hell would you go when the president was your ex?

“And,” Bina continues, pointedly ignoring your reaction. Her hand reaches out moving to intertwine your fingers. You focus on the image of her sharp stiletto shaped nails that glitter under the glow of the sun settling on your lap instead of the thumping of your heart as she speaks. “Judging from what I’ve seen, it hasn’t been easy for him either. I know you’re probably thinking that you were the only one who cared about him–about your relationship, but I’m pretty sure he did too. So it’s perfectly okay for you to feel like this, no matter how long it’s been.”

Two months and three weeks, you mentally add. A lifetime and a single blink simultaneously.

“I didn’t need to know that,” you say, hoping to kill the hope fluttering in your heart. Bina squeezes your hand instead and gives it wings.

“You did. Also, Jeongguk’s kind of an asshole. Sorry if it’s too soon.”

It’s not, and you can’t help the tiny laugh that escapes from your throat. You glance up at her then, suddenly glad for the dazzling glossed coated smile that greets you.

“But,” she continues. “You’re doing the wrong thing too. I know you’re dating Lucas and it’s not fair to him when you’re still hung up on Jeongguk.”

“I know,” you admit. “And I’m going to fix that.”

She beams. “I hope you do. Don’t let him make you pick the wrong choices. You deserve better than that.”

Perhaps it was her words of reassurance that aided in getting you out of the house tonight. (Or it was Bina gingerly whacking your arm and insisting you needed to reward yourself for working hard). But a minuscule part of you is glad you heeded her advice. The music is louder than the words bouncing around your head, sound shoving your sorrow down as Chayoung hands you another drink. Everything is fast, bodies shifting wildly around you and the faint sound of a beer pong game capturing everyone’s attention. For a moment, you begin to forget. But then Lucas’s looming head materializes before you and guilt swarms your heart.

“Hey,” he offers, deep timbre sinking into your bones. You might just throw up.

You haven’t told him about Namjoon. You can’t bear to. But there’s something else more urgent that you need to say to him first.

Chayoung watches through narrow eyes when he leans forward to brush a light kiss on your cheek. He’s so sweet it makes your mouth turn sour.

“Haven’t seen you around,” Lucas continues, slipping beside you. A steady hand settles at the base of your back. You almost jolt away.

Chayoung’s face is hard, expression carved out of marble as she stares you down. You know she’s mad at you, rightfully so. Even Sieun hadn’t said anything for a few days after you’d told them about Namjoon. You were mad at yourself too. For what you did–for what you need to do to fix it.

“Been busy. Planning the scavenger hunt and all,” you say, gaze glued to a random lamp at the opposite side of the room. It’s easier than staring at Lucas, who’s still so warm and bright. Practically glowing like he’s got the Sun living in his chest.

You hope you don’t leave him cloudy.

He weaves his hand into yours, a pleasant noise escaping past his lips. “I know. Great job, by the way. You should be proud.”

Chayoung slinks away at that, the glower on her features burning your blood. You haven’t told anybody yet because you don’t want their advice on this. But you do need to end things with Lucas. It wasn’t fair to him. Yet, it feels nearly impossible when you tear your eyes off the fading figure of your friend and glance up to find him staring at you with the softest smile.

All you do is hurt good people.

It’s a terrible realisation but it forces you to croak out the words, a rip forming inside of you when that soft smile slips off his face at the sound of them.

“We need to talk.”

But the second they are out you feel something in the world click into place like you’re finally making the right steps toward the correct path even though you need to step on the hearts of others to get there.

Lucas lets you lead him in silence, the weight of it sinking onto your shoulders when he closes the door behind him, the music giving way to the noise in your head. When he turns to face you, watching apprehensively as you perch yourself at the edge of the bed in the room, it all begins to feel like deja vu. Except you’re on the other side.

“So,” you start, eyes on the wall. The feeling of the mattress dipping as Lucas descends beside you pulls your gaze back to him, heartstrings thrumming when the moonlight leaking through the opened curtains pools into his eyes.

How could Jeongguk have done this?

“We need to end this,” you say, realising as the air leaves your lungs that he did it like this. Like he needed to breath. It feels like cutting an anchor off your ankle, head breaking through furious waters to finally find air.

Lucas pauses, blinking slow. You don’t fill the emptiness with more words, afraid you’ll pour salt into an open wound. He lets what you said ruminate, eyes shifting to the scene around you. A random room, bathed by the glow of the room, and two hearts opposing each other–one already poised to leave. One that was never really there.

“Why?” It’s said lowly. You know why. You owe him this admission, after dragging him around on a sinking ship. But the words refuse to part from your throat.

“I’m not right for you,” you say instead, hoping he understands. By the flicker across his eyes, he doesn’t. “Like,” you try, your eyes dropping to where his heart lies. “You’ve got a lot of good in you and I don’t. We don’t match.”

Lucas cocks his head, staring at the ceiling. And this his gaze careens to you.

“You don’t think you’re a good person?”

“Well–” you splutter. But Lucas isn’t having it.

“You’re a lovely person, Y/N. With a lot of good in you too. You are kind of shitty for this though but every good person does shitty things.” It’s said factually like he needs you to understand this.

“I know that–”

“You don’t. You put yourself down too much. Why do you think Jeongguk loved you?”

Oh. That seizes that air from your chest, Lucas’s gaze slamming into your own with a surety that stings.

“Why do you think I like you?” He adds. You don’t know what to do, nervous system spazzing at this information assault. “And I know why you want to end this. You could have said it. I understand, though. The two of you did fight together so well.” He gets up then, towering like a God dictating judgment. “I didn’t expect you to stop loving him immediately, you know.” He’s near the door now, not fleeing but parting a new path. There’s a weird smile on his lips, like the forging of his steps hurts as much yours does. It’s like it’s been hung there, not pulled from his heart like you’d grown used to seeing.

“What did you expect?” You can’t help but ask.

He pauses, the door half-open. You could tell him to shut it, you could tell him to stay.

You don’t want to.

“That maybe one day you would love me more than you loved him,” Lucas whispers. He sees the fall on your features, knows the answer on your lips instantly. “But it’s okay that you never could.”

And then he’s gone, honey blonde hair swallowed by the crowd even with his impossible height. He leaves the door ajar, the music seeping into the room. But this time your head is louder, surer. Because Lucas just let you know something you weren’t even aware of yourself. There was no room for anybody else except Jeongguk. And it truly wasn’t fair to offer him your heart when it was half a world away.

—

Half a world away is apparently glaring at the shrubs flanking the back garden. Jeongguk doesn’t know who’s house this is. He doesn’t care either because at the moment he’s considering burning it down. He’d just seen you amble into a room, Lucas trailing behind like a stupid dog and his heart clenching hard in his chest. It took two seconds after the door shut for him to shove Hyeri off his lap and mumble something about needing air.

(What he needed was you).

The coolness of the night ebbed at his boiling blood, but nothing could ease the ache.

“You look like you need a drink,” Chayoung’s voice feels alien, creeping up his back. He turns to look at her, a polite comment on how he’d like to be left alone hanging on his lips. She interrupts it by handing him a cup, a tender smile gracing her lips. Jeongguk accepts it with a shrug, hoping the burn in his throat will be a distraction. It isn’t. But he forces another sip down as Chayoung slithers outside too, the room behind her glowing as if the building was on fire.

What store sells matches and lighter fluid in the middle of the night? And won’t ask incriminating questions?

“Why the long face?” She asks, peering at him from the corner of her eye.

Jeongguk shrugs, the words in his head refusing to form into understandable sounds.

“Hyeri not cutting it?” Chayoung murmurs. His eyes snap to her, but she’s not staring at him, her gaze fixed on the dark sky.

“What do you mean?” Jeongguk is baffled say the least. He thought his act with Hyeri was a little bit more solid proof. He liked her–somewhat.

Chayoung turns slow, almost sinisterly, a glint in her brown eyes that unsettles him. “I just don’t think she’s in your league.”

The scoff that leaves Jeongguk’s throat burns. He hated that stupid idea of leagues. You should like a person for who they are, not where they stand in foolish social hierarchies. But Chayoung reads his response wrong, suddenly impossibly close, a stray finger trailing along his shoulder. Her nails are talons. He shudders, trying to hide it by leaning away. Chayoung just leans closer, alcohol tainted breath grazing his own. For a moment, Jeongguk considers fleeing back inside to come ask you to collect your drunk friend (a perfect excuse to finally say something to you after months of radio silence) but then he remembers that might potentially end with him walking into the room and finding you with Lucas’s tongue down your throat.

And that would suck. A lot.

But before he can think of another solution Chayoung’s fingernails are scrapping his neck, leaving his skin prickled.

“But then again, do you seem to always pick the wrong ones.” That bristles him and his eyes are suddenly hard and narrow.

“What do you mean by that?” He spits it out, a spark igniting in his chest when Chayoung shrugs. The smile on her face disgusts him.

“You know what I mean.” Her finger is sliding down his shirt and Jeongguk feels branded even through the material. “When you look like this, running around girls like that is honestly a little sad.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” He’s hoping he’s hearing this all wrong. That she’s just drunk and acting stupid. But when her eyes lift to him he knows she means it. Every word of it.

“You could do better, Jeongguk. So much better.”

“Chayoung you need to shut the fuc–”

Her lips taste like vodka and cherry lip balm, which is sickening because that’s what you taste like–sans the vodka. Cherry lip balm was your brand. It always was, you’ve got like five of them scattered around your room and a couple more hidden in Jeongguk’s. He recoils instantly, acid climbing up his throat as his hands find something–anything to push away. What he finds are Chayoung’s shoulders and when he pushes he pushes hard. They break apart and the floor beneath Jeongguk cracks wide open, his head spinning violently.

“What the fuck is your problem?” He doesn’t know what else to say, the circuits in his brain frying. Chayoung’s tongue skips over her lips, now wet and a little plush from the force she used to slam her mouth into his.

“Showing you that you can do better.”

He blinks, taken a large step back when Chayoung moves forward, a little sway in her feet.

“You’re drunk and acting crazy. I think I should call Y/N to com–”

“Oh fuck Y/N. Such a whiny bitch. Do you really think she deserves you? After all the shit she’s put you through?” Chayoung’s eyes feel like knives, sharp and striking deep with every word.

“Aren't you her friend? What the hell is wrong with you?” Jeongguk needs this to de-escalate. Chayoung wants to throw gasoline on an open flame instead.

“No–what’s wrong with you, Jeongguk? Moping around for a girl who never realised what she had when it was right in front of her? C’mon now.”

“You seriously need to shut the fuck up. You’re not gonna talk about her like that in front of me.”

“Why not? Cause you still love her? Even when she’s fucking Lucas?”

That stings, his heart bursting in his chest because Jeongguk didn’t know you were sleeping with him. He thought it would just be kisses or something. Not that–not Lucas touching you like he used to. But then Hyeri’s face flashes in before his eyes and he wilts. He can’t blame you for anything, not when he’s been doing the same horrible shit to you. And that makes him pause, the sudden realisation that he’s been hurting you smashing into his head. He didn’t want to hurt you–never. Not even if you were hurting him. He just needed a distraction, something to ease you off his mind. And maybe you did too, but all left you both with was gaping wounds that would never heal. And with other people hurt too.

God, this was a mess. And it dawns on Jeongguk that’s he’s made the worst mistake he’s ever made in his life.

“You should hate her,” Chayoung continues, venomous.

“I don’t,” Jeongguk returns, voice levelled. All he hates right now is himself. And Lucas (which is fair). Chayoung blanches, shaken by his firmness. “I really don’t, in fact, I need to talk to her. Right now.”

He moves fast, foot already past the threshold when Chayoung speaks again, her words aimed with intent to kill.

“She kissed Namjoon.”

He feels the nerves in his legs still instantly, before they nearly give way entirely, his grip on the door frame the only thing holding him up as his heart tears out of his chest.

“I thought you should know,” Chayoung adds. And he hears it then, that vile smugness in her voice. She’s lying. She has to be. You wouldn’t do that to him. And he says that, storming back to Chayoung with his chest ripped open, his body thrumming with barely concealed rage. And fear. Jeongguk feels so scared right now because if you did that means everything he felt–everything he feared–could be true.

“She did.” Chayoung is immovable, standing tall and staring him down. “I’m not lying to you. Go ask Namjoon if you don’t believe me.”

Which, Jeongguk realises as his eyes fall shut that is going to absolutely do. And possibly break a nose in the process. He turns, trying to blink away the blurriness in his eyes, before Chayoung stops him with a single sentence again, this one said a little softer.

“Jeongguk,” she starts, eyeing him down, her brown eyes aflame under the moonlight. “I mean it when I say she doesn’t deserve you.”

—

Someone is attempting to break down Namjoon’s door. Which is bizarre considering it’s almost three in the morning. He has to drag himself out of the comfort of his warm sheets to figure out which maniac is attempting to smash through solid wood with only their fists because it seems like they’re almost succeeding.

The maniac in question is Jeon Jeongguk, standing rigid when Namjoon swings the door open, moonlight bleeding over his features. He’s mad, staring at Namjoon like he wished his head was rolling on the ground instead of stationed square on his shoulders. But there’s something else there, doe eyes glossy.

“Jeongguk? What the hell are–”

“You kissed her.”

Everything stills, the two men fixated on each other. Jeongguk is so still he could have been mistaken for a statue. Almost as if he was waiting for the words that would break this moment, ease the tension seizing his muscles, tell him what he wants to hear. Namjoon can’t do any of that. Instead, he sighs, a muted, “Oh”, floating from his lips.

Jeongguk snaps the second he realises it’s true.

“Oh? You kissed her and all you have to say is oh?” Hands are digging into the soft cotton of his nightshirt and Namjoon’s feet are no longer on the ground. He’s apparently levitating, lifted solely by this hurt angry boy invading his apartment. His back hits the nearest wall with a thud that vibrates through his bones. When the hell did Jeongguk get this strong?”

“Whoa–relax,” Namjoon wheezes, his strong fingers guiding Jeongguk off him. But heartbreak tends to be enough fuel because Jeongguk pushes back with an ease that unnerves him. “Jeongguk, you seriously need to relax. Let go of me and we can talk about this.”

“Why did you do it?” That is what he gets in return. Jeongguk’s voice wavers, coloured a violent red in the velvet of the night.

“I didn’t do anything,” Namjoon returns, the words delivered gingerly.

“No–no you did. You kissed her. You–”

“She kissed me, Jeongguk. And I can seriously explain all of it if you just relaxed and we talked about it–”

“No, she didn’t. She wouldn’t do that to me–she wouldn’t.” And Oh God No, Namjoon thinks he just heard the sound of a heart breaking. It sounds like a weird mangled bird collapsing from the sky and its wing hitting the ground with a funny wet smash, fragile bones snapping like twigs.

Jeongguk’s fingers peel from his shirt and bury themselves in his hair, yanking at the cropped strands as his face twists.

This is far too much emotion for a single person to deal with in the middle of the bloody night.

“Hey–hey, calm down. It was a mistake, I promise you. She was just feeling a little all over the place and made a bad choice–”

“No–that’s the fucking point! She made a choice. She chose you.” Jeongguk’s staring at him in a way that hurts, like he’s attempting to transfer all the pain that’s writhing through his body into Namjoon’s from sight alone.

“What? What are you talking about?”

Jeongguk is frantic, almost like he’s trying to stop himself from pouring out onto the floor. A flood barely contained. “She chose you first. I was there–I was always there. But then you waltzed in and she saw something in you that she didn’t find in me and she chose you.”

Namjoon cocks his head, staring hard at Jeongguk’s round wide eyes, slowly coming to realisations that he was surrounded by idiotic people.

“I still have no idea what you are talking about, but I have to ask, don’t you remember a single thing I told you the last time we spoke about Y/N? You’re the reason we broke up.” That halts him and Namjoon takes that as a moment to press onward, somewhat tired of being dragged into this awkward mess. “And I’ll say this in the nicest way possible but you’re an idiot if you think Y/N wouldn’t pick you over me any day–over anyone really. I could be drowning and you could have a scrapped knee and she’d check on you first. We broke up because I realised I was just a placeholder until she felt brave enough to tell you she liked you. You were rather intimidating for her to approach. Or have you forgotten your track record of girls? It wasn’t easy for her–especially when she was risking losing her best friend.”

The silence that follows aches, Jeongguk’s eyes flashing like he never considered that in the first place.

“But why the other guys then? Why not just tell me after you?”

Namjoon’s going to bang his head into the wall. “You’re her best friend–what about that are you not getting? What if you didn’t like her back and it ruined the most important relationship in her life?”

“But I did–I always liked her.”

“No,” Namjoon nearly groans out loud. “You didn’t. If you liked her you wouldn’t have fucked Chaerin in the back of your car and then gone to report it to Y/N with a grin on your face.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” Namjoon returns. “Oh. That’s the exact day we broke up too. Such a stupid fight because she was crying and that’s when I put two and two together and realised I was never going to take precedence over you.”

“I didn’t know I was hurting her,” Jeongguk murmurs, almost distraught.

A strangled noise erupts from Namjoon’s throat. “You’ve hurt her a lot more than you’ll realise.” But the second he says that and Jeongguk’s face twists into something unrecognisable he wants to take them back.

“She’s too good for me. Maybe we are better off apart.”

“No, no. You’re so wrong actually. This break-up thing has been miserable to watch and I’m not even in the centre of it. I’ve just caught a bunch of stray bullets.”

“You’re not getting me,” Jeongguk’s eyes swing to him. “She came to you at the end of it all. Maybe we are better with other people. Maybe you’re better for her.”

“She came to me because she missed you. She just needed someone to lean on during your absence. I wouldn’t have to do that if you were there. You know, you should just talk about this with Y/N.”

“I can’t, she’s happy with Lucas. I think.”

Namjoon wants to bang both your heads together so bad. Maybe finally the fact that you love each other would get through your thick skulls then.

“She doesn’t,” he says, instead. “And I know that for a fact. You should really go talk to her. Figure this whole mess out. And also finally get out of my apartment.” Jeongguk’s gaze withers. Namjoon shrugs in return. “It’s the middle of the night and I have a meeting in the morning. I really need to sleep.”

“Oh, fuck, I’m sorry.” He’s so meek like this, nursing a shattered heart and a confused head. It’s slightly jarring to the image he usually presents, so self-assured and unfazed by whatever gets thrown at him. Never exposed like this, every emotion he holds inside displayed across his face.

“It’s alright. Just think about what I said and talk to her. Honestly. Not skirting over shit like the two of you tend to do. Okay?”

“Yeah,” he says, trailing towards the open door. Namjoon had registered a breeze billowing in, but he’d completely missed the fact that the door of his apartment was swung wide open. Jeongguk abruptly stops just as Namjoon’s sense of bearing returns, turning to face him with his face pulled down by shame. “I’m really sorry. For this whole thing. I shouldn’t have grabbed you like that I was just–”

“I get it. You love her and it feels like she’s slipping from your fingers. Just don’t do that shit again and stop trying to push her away. I’ll say it again–you were always her first choice.” He sees it then, a slight flutter through Jeongguk’s chest. A broken bird mending.

“Yeah,” Jeongguk breathes. “Thanks.”

Namjoon sighs, offering a tight smile and shutting the door firmly when Jeongguk finally drifts out. He needs a drink before he hits the sheets again. A strong one.

#jungkook x reader #jungkook angst #bts x reader #jungkook drabble #jungkook fanfic #jungkook scenario #jungkook scenarios #i hope this redeems jj!jk in your eyes #i might rewrite this who knows

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stardustedknuckles · 3 years

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that's why you're a fave. thank you so much for that detailed answer. <3. the -maybe i don't connect- thing is the one messing with me because I DO! i love that kind of character but, part of me still rejects it. maybe... the whole "conventionally attractive thin white male protagonist whose feelings take priority" from... well literally every other piece of media... and my relation with *that*. again, thank you so much, and you've given me a lot to think bout <3

Listen I've spent a year in the fandom of a lesbian ship lol. Even the ones who were nicely ambivalent about Caleb as opposed to violently displeased with his existence were very clear that they saw him as some kind of whiny k*lo ren type character. "oh no I did a bad thing and I can never be forgiven, that's my whole personality, please make excuses for me because I'm sad about it."

But that was never Caleb and it drove me fucking bonkers because at the end of the day he was a character fixated on using the time and the skills he had to make life better for the people who gave a shit about him whether he thought he deserved those powers and friends or not. He pushed discussion of his backstory AWAY more often than not and it would've been one thing if people were mad he was refusing to talk but that wasn't it, they were mad when he did. If you try to understand Caleb in a vacuum, you still don't end up with that trope because even independent of the knowledge we had of Liam's belief in Caleb, he was a kind person scraped together from the ashes of a brainwashed and arrogant child. He was used and manipulated to great and terrible effect and the kicker here is that unlike the sad attractive sadboy trope, he ACTUALLY had very little to do with what happened. He was actually one of the few cases where you watch and you see from the outside how his confidence and his youth and his poverty and his love for his country was twisted into a false sense of a greater good and you realize that in so many ways, he was just as controlled as yasha under obann. It's just that his leash was such that you could never prove it wasn't his own idea. Even he believed it. He never got a perspective outside the academy - that was part of how Trent did things. There was no chance for them to learn to do better. And Caleb managed it anyway.

That is a near complete inversion of the sadboy trope to me, and he deserved better treatment than "ew shut up we get it you're male."

And that's before we get into my rant about the two he left behind and how earnest he was about saving them. He didn't even see himself as redeemed or worth saving but the two people dear to him that had kept on being abused and manipulated after - he didn't even fully understand he wasn't at fault and he still knew that THEY deserved better. He mourned them being left behind in that situation and believed in them as fiercely as the Nein believed in him without even fully accepting that belief in him! He didn't need to find himself blameless to take the love others had for him and turn it on Astrid and Eadwulf. He believed in the Nein if not himself.

Completely different. Drove me nuts. Nobody had to like him but at least hate him for the right reasons, you know?

#caleb widogast #Phew sorry not sorry I might not have written a hundred fics about him #But I understood him #And I love Liam for what he was doing #And you can see some of it in Vax too #So I have high hopes for Orym even if I don't Jaeger him like I did Beau #CR spoilers #Just in case

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a-secret-bolton-vampire · 3 years

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Daenerys Stormborn, Part 2: Wake the Dragon

Oh hey, I have part 2 already! Guess my brain is really focused on Dany now. In part 1, I talked about Dany's arcs from AGOT to ASOS, exploring the narrative and thematic purpose of her journey. However, the most important part of her journey occurs in ADWD, and sets the stage for some incredibly exciting developments to come in TWOW. For part 2, I'll be talking about the gradual transformation of Daenerys into a slightly different, darker character for the future.

Breaker of Chains & Mhysa

Slavery has been an important background element throughout Dany's time in Essos, even in AGOT, but it becomes front and centre in ASOS. She accepted the Dothraki, a society that uses slaves for many things, and wasn't too perturbed at the use of slaves in Qarth. However, it is in Astapor where she finally realizes just how bad the institution is, as she tells Xaro:

"Whence came this madness? Should I count myself fortunate that you did not free my own slaves when you were my guest in Qarth?" I was a beggar queen and you were Xaro of the Thirteen, Dany thought, and all you wanted were my dragons. "Your slaves seemed well treated and content. It was not till Astapor that my eyes were opened."

As mentioned last time, ASOS is when she begins to take control of her destiny, and she does so by beginning a revolution to free the slaves of Slaver's Bay. She believe she has a greater destiny lying ahead of her, that there is a reason for her dragons, the red comet. She also has great empathy for people and sees this disturbing injustice being played out with nobody to stop it. But she has the power to do so, and thus she begins by going fire and blood at Astapor, killing the Good Masters and freeing all the slaves. Afterwards, she leaves the city with a ruling council of a priest, a scholar, and a healer and moves to Yunkai.

She does a different approach with Yunkai, negotiating with the Wise Masters to surrender their slaves and to leave them in peace. And then when she arrives at Meereen, she decides to stay and rule as its queen. This is where things begin to get difficult for Daenerys. The ruling council of Astapor is overthrown by a butcher named Cleon, who said the council was conspiring to bring back slavery, who declares himself King of Astapor, enslaves the children of the former Good Masters to make new Unsullied, and tries to ally with Daenerys against Yunkai, who has resumed slavery.

Daenerys is not interested in any war with Yunkai. The reason she stays in Meereen is exactly because she learned what happened when she left Astapor. The fire and blood approach didn't work. You can't just dismantle such a deeply engrained system so easily. So instead she opts to rule, and protect the people she can. While a lot of readers view Dany's actions in Meereen as pointless, the whims of a naive girl, and poor leadership, I actually think it's the opposite.

For starters, Dany realized that she can't simply burn the slavers to end slavery, but she needs to stay and instill changes. While King Cleon repeatedly begs for Daenerys to join the war against Yunkai, she refuses, and warns Cleon to not do such a thing. She turns out to be horribly right, as Cleon is killed, Astapor is sieged, before being slaughtered, burned, and sacked, to be reinstated as a slave city once more. Likewise, the Yunkish siege Meereen, first by creating a blockade in the bay with ships, and then by having armies amassed outside the city walls.

In addition, refugees from Astapor begin to pile up outside the city, and a deadly plague called the pale mare (for the horse from Astapor that arrives at Meereen) begins to sweep the starving Astapori freedmen, who begin to resort to cannibalism to survive. Dany blames herself for leaving Astapor a mess, but does not wish to have the same thing happen in Meereen. She wants to protect the people she's freed, not just from the Yunkish, but herself as well.

When a sheepherder brings the burned bones of his daughter, Hazzea, who was killed by her dragons, Dany has Rhaegal and Viserion chained in the dungeons below the Great Pyramid to prevent them from causing any more harm. However, Drogon is still loose, unable to be found. In addition, when the sons of the harpy, a terrorist group opposed to the emancipation of Meereen, begin massacring freedmen, Dany decides to raise a tax on the Great Masters and have all families of suspect loyalty send a child to serve as a hostage and cupbearers. Yet, as the killings continue, she has grown close to the children and decides not to have them killed.

Now, some of you may notice that I am taking a lot from the Meereenese Blot essays written by Adam Feldman. That's not only because they are really well written essays, but ones that GRRM himself has approved of.

"I read those when someone pointed them out to me, and I was really pleased with them, because at least one guy got it. He got it completely, he knew exactly what I was trying to do there, and evidently I did it well enough for people who were paying attention."

So I am retreading some of the ground Feldman has laid, but it's important to do so if I am to build up to what I think is going to happen in the future of Dany's story.

As Feldman notes, Dany's own actions (or in the case of the cupbearers, inaction) actually made a peace possible, because the Yunkish saw that she was someone who is capable of mercy and not a (in their eye) violent mass murderer. Knowing what happened with Astapor, and seeing what happens when her dragons are unleashed with Hazzea, Dany decides to make peace with the Yunkish and marry Hizdahr.

Under the peace, Meereen itself would remain a free city, but the Yunkish would continue to sell slaves. They even sell them in markets outside the walls of Meereen, which displeases Daenerys extremely. In addition, slaveowners could bring their slaves into Meereen without fear of them being freed, and the Yunkish promised to respect the rights of the freedmen in Meereen. Yet, despite the peace and the progress made, she feels as though this is a defeat.

This is peace, she told herself. This is what I wanted, what I worked for, this is why I married Hizdahr. So why does it taste so much like defeat?

The thing is, Daenerys has had to sacrifice so much of herself and her morals to get to this point. Yes there is peace, even if it is tentative, Meereen would not be sacked by the Yunkish, but slavery is still going on, and she thinks that she has let herself and other people down by agreeing to peace and allowing the Yunkish to continue slavery. She has agreed to peace to people she loathes and thinks are despicable, she has married a man she does not love and does not love her, she has chained her dragons in the pit below, she has allowed the fighting pits to reopen. This comes to ahead at Daznak's Pit when she is at the height of her discomfort.

The boar buried his snout in Barsena's belly and began rooting out her entrails. The smell was more than the queen could stand. The heat, the flies, the shouts from the crowd … I cannot breathe. She lifted her veil and let it flutter away. She took her tokar off as well. The pearls rattled softly against one another as she unwound the silk.

And then Drogon arrives, and in the chaos of him attacking the boar and being attacked by the soldiers in the pit, Dany tries to calm him, but he spits fire at her, and she tries to tame him by whipping him into submission. Here, Dany is quite literally fighting herself. She herself in this moment represents the Queen of Meereen, someone who desires for peace. Meanwhile, Drogon represents the dragon inside her, who wants to unleash blood and fire on her enemies. In the end, Dany climbs onto Drogon and they fly away together, which foreshadows and symbolizes Dany's later decision to choose being the dragon.

Despite her frustrations in Meereen, the peace was a good first step. Not to say that it solved every issue, it didn't, but that doesn't need to be the end of it. Daenerys could forge new peaces, new agreements, and if she stayed in Meereen, she could implement great changes throughout Slaver's Bay. But what is done is done, and cannot be undone. The peace that was forged is now gone. Next comes war.

The House with the Red Door

Before we move on to Dany's final chapter and what that means for the future, we must take a look at a very important part of her backstory which is one of the main elements of her own story. Sure, destiny, greatness, prophecy, power, and identity are themes with Daenerys, but at the center of it all is the desire for home. Dany was born on Dragonstone, but was whisked away to Braavos, and there she lived in the house with the red door, with Viserys, Ser Willem Darry, and their servants.

To Dany, the house with the red door was the only place in her life she called home, and she has very fond memories of it, of Willem, or the lemon tree. But after Willem died, they were kicked out and forced to become beggars on the streets, selling off their possessions and travelling the Free Cities. The red door was closed and gone forever after, but the dream of having a home hasn't.

Daenerys has a desire for home, for love, for family. Throughout her childhood, Viserys would tell Dany all about Westeros, how they need to take back the Iron Throne, that the Seven Kingdoms were the most beautiful lands in the world. And sure enough, soon, Westeros represents the idea for home and belonging to Dany.

"I pray for home too," she told him, believing it. Ser Jorah laughed. "Look around you then, Khaleesi." But it was not the plains Dany saw then. It was King's Landing and the great Red Keep that Aegon the Conqueror had built. It was Dragonstone where she had been born. In her mind's eye they burned with a thousand lights, a fire blazing in every window. In her mind's eye, all the doors were red.

Although she takes on the mantle as the new head of House Targaryen and carries on Viserys's dream of taking back the Iron Throne out of a sense of duty, she also does so for desire to belong in a place she can call home. It's a nostalgic feeling she gets of the old days, that she wants to relive again.

But then other ambitions get in her way. She frees the slaves of Slaver's Bay, and decides to stay in Meereen to try to ensure that her revolution succeeds. Thus, her quest for home is put on hold. Throughout ADWD, she gives up parts of herself, to try to become one with the Meereenese; marrying Hizdahr, reopening the fighting pits, chaining her dragons, dressing in the Ghiscari fashion, and making peace. But in the Dothraki sea, hundreds of miles outside Meereen, she finds that she wasn't being her true self, that she can never be the Queen of Meereen, or become a true Meereenese.

I must keep walking. Water flows downhill. The stream will take me to the river, and the river will take me home. Except it wouldn't, not truly. Meereen was not her home, and never would be. It was a city of strange men with strange gods and stranger hair, of slavers wrapped in fringed tokars, where grace was earned through whoring, butchery was art, and dog was a delicacy. Meereen would always be the Harpy's city, and Daenerys could not be a harpy.

The series is all about the human heart in conflict with itself, and Daenerys in ADWD is one of the best examples of that. She was struggling with her two competing titles of Breaker of Chains and Mother of Dragons, but in the end she was not comfortable with being the Breaker of Chains. This final transformation she undergoes in the Dothraki sea really sets the tone for what she will do in the future, and how she will change as a person and character.

Mother of Dragons

Daenerys X is one of the more bizarre chapters in the series, since it follows only one character alone with her thoughts, but it works extremely well as a character study, and the development over the course of the chapter is one of my favourites in the whole series. Through all the hallucinations and visions and dreams Daenerys has during this chapter, it's important to remember that they all (apart from possibly Quaithe) are her, so the discussions she has are with her own internal thoughts directly.

The topic of Targaryen madness reoccurs throughout the series, but it's ADWD where it is brought up the most. Now, the topic of Targaryen madness will be another post i will do in the far future and won't discuss in depth today, but the matter is that Dany is aware of some of it, even if she hasn't fully accepted the truth of her father. She fears that she is succumbing to the madness at points.

"Your Grace?" Missandei stood in the door of the queen's bedchamber, a lantern in her hand. "Who are you talking to?" Dany glanced back toward the persimmon tree. There was no woman there. No hooded robe, no lacquer mask, no Quaithe. A shadow. A memory. No one. She was the blood of the dragon, but Ser Barristan had warned her that in that blood there was a taint. Could I be going mad? They had called her father mad, once.

Later, she implies this fear again to Barristan.

I lived in fear for fourteen years, my lord. I woke afraid each morning and went to sleep afraid each night … but my fears were burned away the day I came forth from the fire. Only one thing frightens me now." "And what is it that you fear, sweet queen?" "I am only a foolish young girl." Dany rose on her toes and kissed his cheek. "But not so foolish as to tell you that. My men shall look at these ships. Then you shall have my answer."

But in an early version of Daenerys III, the answer Daenerys gave was "myself". She fears what would happen if she "woke the dragon", as Viserys put it. She's afraid of succumbing to the madness that consumed her father and probably was consuming Viserys. She's afraid of what would happen if she unleashed her dragons, how many innocents they would kill. But in the Dothraki sea, she begins to question her decisions, starting when she woke up after finding blood between her thighs:

"I am the blood of the dragon," she told the grass, aloud. Once, the grass whispered back, until you chained your dragons in the dark. "Drogon killed a little girl. Her name was … her name …" Dany could not recall the child's name. That made her so sad that she would have cried if all her tears had not been burned away. "I will never have a little girl. I was the Mother of Dragons." Aye, the grass said, but you turned against your children.

The importance of this quote cannot go unnoticed. She thinks about Hazzea all the time throughout the book, feeling deeply guilty about what Drogon did to her. But here, at the end, she cannot remember her name. The in world explanation is that, of course, she is delirious from being in the wilderness eating berries and being sick, but thematically this is her slowly turning away from the people she freed. Next comes a dream with Viserys (long quote incoming):

She dreamt of her dead brother. Viserys looked just as he had the last time she'd seen him. His mouth was twisted in anguish, his hair was burnt, and his face was black and smoking where the molten gold had run down across his brow and cheeks and into his eyes. "You are dead," Dany said. Murdered. Though his lips never moved, somehow she could hear his voice, whispering in her ear. You never mourned me, sister. It is hard to die unmourned. "I loved you once." Once, he said, so bitterly it made her shudder. You were supposed to be my wife, to bear me children with silver hair and purple eyes, to keep the blood of the dragon pure. I took care of you. I taught you who you were. I fed you. I sold our mother's crown to keep you fed. "You hurt me. You frightened me." Only when you woke the dragon. I loved you. "You sold me. You betrayed me." No. You were the betrayer. You turned against me, against your own blood. They cheated me. Your horsey husband and his stinking savages. They were cheats and liars. They promised me a golden crown and gave me this. He touched the molten gold that was creeping down his face, and smoke rose from his finger. "You could have had your crown," Dany told him. "My sun-and-stars would have won it for you if only you had waited." I waited long enough. I waited my whole life. I was their king, their rightful king. They laughed at me. "You should have stayed in Pentos with Magister Illyrio. Khal Drogo had to present me to the dosh khaleen, but you did not have to ride with us. That was your choice. Your mistake." Do you want to wake the dragon, you stupid little whore? Drogo's khalasar was mine. I bought them from him, a hundred thousand screamers. I paid for them with your maidenhead. "You never understood. Dothraki do not buy and sell. They give gifts and receive them. If you had waited …" I did wait. For my crown, for my throne, for you. All those years, and all I ever got was a pot of molten gold. Why did they give the dragon's eggs to you? They should have been mine. If I'd had a dragon, I would have taught the world the meaning of our words. Viserys began to laugh, until his jaw fell away from his face, smoking, and blood and molten gold ran from his mouth.

The dream terrifies Daenerys, but once again, Viserys (really herself here) is telling her she is stalling in a place she doesn't belong, that she needs to go home, that she should embrace being a dragon. The climax of this comes right after she realizes Meereen would never be her home, where she argues with Jorah (again, herself):

Meereen would always be the Harpy's city, and Daenerys could not be a harpy. Never, said the grass, in the gruff tones of Jorah Mormont. You were warned, Your Grace. Let this city be, I said. Your war is in Westeros, I told you. The voice was no more than a whisper, yet somehow Dany felt that he was walking just behind her. My bear, she thought, my old sweet bear, who loved me and betrayed me. She had missed him so. She wanted to see his ugly face, to wrap her arms around him and press herself against his chest, but she knew that if she turned around Ser Jorah would be gone. "I am dreaming," she said. "A waking dream, a walking dream. I am alone and lost." Lost, because you lingered, in a place that you were never meant to be, murmured Ser Jorah, as softly as the wind. Alone, because you sent me from your side. "You betrayed me. You informed on me, for gold." For home. Home was all I ever wanted. "And me. You wanted me." Dany had seen it in his eyes. I did, the grass whispered, sadly. "You kissed me. I never said you could, but you did. You sold me to my enemies, but you meant it when you kissed me." I gave you good counsel. Save your spears and swords for the Seven Kingdoms, I told you. Leave Meereen to the Meereenese and go west, I said. You would not listen. "I had to take Meereen or see my children starve along the march." Dany could still see the trail of corpses she had left behind her crossing the Red Waste. It was not a sight she wished to see again. "I had to take Meereen to feed my people." You took Meereen, he told her, yet still you lingered. "To be a queen." You are a queen, her bear said. In Westeros. "It is such a long way," she complained. "I was tired, Jorah. I was weary of war. I wanted to rest, to laugh, to plant trees and see them grow. I am only a young girl." No. You are the blood of the dragon. The whispering was growing fainter, as if Ser Jorah were falling farther behind. Dragons plant no trees. Remember that. Remember who you are, what you were made to be. Remember your words. "Fire and Blood," Daenerys told the swaying grass.

And here is where everything changes. She has spent time trying to protect innocent lives, to make peace, not war, to be loved and accepted by Meereen. But here, she decides that it is time to do away with that. Meereen is not her home, Westeros is, and it's time to wake the dragon and burn Yunkai. No longer will she be burdened by the idea of a cost of innocent lives, no longer will she fear herself, and no longer will she linger. When the time comes, she will burn her enemies and leave for Westeros.

I need to make a few things clear here, however. For one, I don't think she's mad now, this is just her resolving her internal conflict. For another, I don't care what she does to the slavers. They deserve what's coming for them. She will still care about the innocent, but she's now going to go full-blooded Targaryen and burn cities to the ground, and this will mean massive collateral damage she will try to rationalize away.

Daenerys has now transformed into a different, much darker character, which I feel will continue to define her for the rest of the series. She is now the Mother of Dragons, in her entirety, and Essos is about to bleed and burn. I really appreciate how GRRM put this together, and that she didn't stay fire and blood after Astapor. His character development is realistic, and sometimes the development is not linear. In part 3, I will be discussing predictions about Daenerys's arc and story in TWOW, more specifically what she will do in Essos.

#asoiaf #asoiaf meta #asoiaf character arcs #daenerys targaryen #daenerys stormborn #mother of dragons #adwd #meereen

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rostovs-lover · 4 years

Text

dual purpose

din djarin x reader | cursing, some derogatory things said to reader, xi’an is Not Nice - mando is Not Nice back, very dialouge heavy | she/her pronouns | fluffy? a little angsty?? | wc.1144

so i kind of wrote xi’an as more verbally rude to reader as opposed to physically, i am also not good at arguing so that scene is iffy, very sorry. i hope you enjoy!

anon : Hey I love your writing 💕im in love with the Mandolorn (sorry if I spelt it wrong). I thought of a great idea, where Mado has a girl on the ship she’s traveling with him and they have grown to become good firends, and he becomes quite protective of her because she is weaker than him. In chapter 6 the prisoner, Xi’an is Mandos ex, she sees the girl he is traveling with and gets jealous and starts to become threatening towards her and violent, ans Mado becomes protective of her 💕

Xi’an, whos still not over Din, takes her passive aggressive aggression out on you, Mando is not having it.

Din Djarin was terrifying, all heavy metal and loud boots. He was the sun, blazing hot and blinding, all tucked behind thick beskar. Something about you, your cool demeanour and the way you seemed to float on your feet, a stark contrast to how heavily he clunked around. He was terrifying but you had seen through it. He was terrifying but his friends were worse. Not friends, per se, he’d made that evident. Ran and Mayfield and Xi’an were not his friends, hardly even acquaintances, ex-colleagues.

When he’d landed the Razor Crest in the doc, clearly put off, Din took a moment to collect himself, “You don’t have to talk to them.” He turned his head to look at you, “They’re not… your crowd really,”

You snorted, “That's beautiful coming from you, my dear. You know, you’re not particularly ‘my crowd’ either?”

“I’m serious-” The cool leather of his glove pressed to your cheek, “Look at me [Name]. They’re intense, they’re bounty hunters, mercenaries. They kill, ruthlessly, for money, and I don’t want you getting in their way.”

You stared, eyebrows furrowing, “Get in their way?”

“Not-” He sighed, “Not like that. You’re not in the way. I just don’t want them to do anything… to say anything. They’re not nice people, not at all. And you should know about Xi’an.” He had an edge to his voice, something bitter biting into her name. Xi’an. You could taste the bad memories through his tone.

“Whos Xi’an?”

“Xi’an is someone who I used to know. We had a relationship? If you could even call it that. It wasn’t really anything important, we were both young and stupid and always running on adrenalin. Things happened, things that probably shouldn’t have, and when I left things were very… open. There wasn’t closure for her, for either of us, and from what I know of Xi’an she probably isn’t really over it.” He moved his hand to brush a tendril of hair behind your ear, “I don’t know how she’d feel about someone else, I really don’t even know how she’ll feel about the kid. I just don’t want her to ruin anything, or to hurt you.”

You reached back, to clutch at his hand, “Din.”

He seemed vulnerable, more so than any other time you’d seen him in broad daylight. The dam was leaking and sweet weakness was dribbling from the cracks, pouring into your hands like ambrosia from the Heavens. He dipped forwards, pressing the crown of his helmet to your brow bone, “I know, I worry.”

“Yes you do, too much. I’m alright Din, we’ll be alright.”

“I know, I know you will but I still just can’t imagine losing you. I don’t know what I’d do. I think-” He let out a soft noise, somewhere between a scoff and a chuckle, “I think I’ve actually had nightmares about that. About something happening to you and the Thing. I know you can hold your own and take care of yourself but I just feel this compulsion to keep you and the kid safe.”

“It's a paternal instinct Din, to protect your family.”

“Paternal.” Din jeered, “What have you turned me into?”

You tapped a finger to the side of his helmet, “I’ve made you soft,”

Xi’an shared the same sentiment, that Din had gone soft. And she blamed you entirely, she had voiced that. When she’d first met you she circled like a vulture, walking around you as she fiddled with her utility belt.

“You’re cute, so is that-” She reached out to pinch at his little green cheek, “Is he yours?” Her tone was condescending, filled with mock pity.

The Child leaned away from her, ears twitching downwards as he pressed closer to your chest, “No, he's not. I just help Mando take care of him,”

“He's Mando’s?”

“No, no- not really. Kind of, but it's a long story.”

Xi’an cocked an eyebrow, “Kind of? What even is it, I’ve never seen anything like it. Mando didn’t… you know, with its mom I hope. I mean, now I guess it couldn’t really be put past him.”

You shook your head, clutching tighter to the Child, “No, the baby was found, Mando took him in after-”

“Are you two..?” a grin crawled up Xi’an’s, “I bet you are. Oh I don’t blame him, you are pretty and all that time in the middle of nowhere would make anyone desperate, even prudey Mando and his creed. You know, I never took him for the companion type but I mean, you are something to look at, and good with kids. How nice it would be to have you on the ship, dual purpose.”

“Xi’an-” Din’s tone was curt, “I see you two have met.”

“We have! She’s a cutie, I think I’m starting to see a pattern with your picker. Plus with that kid, she seems to be good for a lot,”

The Mandalorian’s shoulders tense and his fingers clenched, “You know, you never were good at reading people. Good for a lot, what is that even supposed to mean?”

She snorted and crossed her arms, “Just you must be desperate is all, but you could have come back instead of picking up a space hooker. But you’ve domesticated her well!”

“Really Xi’an?” Din leaned closer to her, “Are you jealous that I wanted more or have you always been this much of a bitch?”

“Can you still fight or have you gone soft Mando? Did a girl make you soft, or was it your kid?”

“I’m sorry you weren’t the one who got to have this life Xi’an, but I really don’t think you’re adept for it,”

That was what caught her, making her flustered. Din had nipped the weak spot she had, desperation for family. Xi’an regained herself and straightened, “At least I still have the balls to do my job.” She turned on her heels and stormed towards Burg.

Din sighed and reached out to pull the Child from your arms, “I’m so sorry about her,”

You shook your head, “Its fine, you warned me, I didn’t take any of it to heart,”

Despite the dark visor covering his eyes, you could feel the sympathy, “It still wasn’t okay, any of what she said. You’re not dual purpose. You're wonderful and perfect and the fact that you’re so good with the kid is just an up.”

Your face flushed, “Thank you Mando, that means a lot.

“I’m not just saying it [Name]. When you asked to come aboard full time it was such a relief, with how much the Thing likes you.”

You smiled, reaching out to fix the collar of the baby’s robe, “Well I like him too, he happens to be my favourite little monster in the whole galaxy.” You looked up to your companion, “Don’t worry, you’re my second favourite.”

#the mandalorian #the mandalorian imagine #the mandalorian x reader #din djarin #din djarin imagine #din djarin x reader #baby yoda #grogu #mando #lennie writes

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artisqueer · 4 years

Photo

RetroBangBoy AU - My Time, Finale (ao3)

Word Count: 6.8k

Pairings: Jungkook x reader, OT7 x reader, ft namkook, namjin, taekook.

Warnings: Language, brief mentions of violence, death and alcohol.

“…oh yes, so pretty, Dear. Whoever receives this must be very special,” the old woman says as she wraps a small item for one of your classmates.

You peer over their shoulder to get a look. It’s a marbly bracelet. Each glass bead resembles a colorful beach stone, with one long pendant carved in the shape of a crescent moon. It's very pretty and must hold great significance. The classmate bows to the woman and turns around to leave.

Your eyes meet.

“Jungkook??”

His widened eyes match yours twice over.

Jungkook is on this trip too? But he’s a greaser…How did I not see this one coming!

Field Observation #6: You are not doing a good job avoiding boy drama, Bighead.

“Hi, big—I mean, Y/N…” Jungkook stammers. A camellia-hue blushes at his round cheeks as he moves aside for you to set your items on the counter. He drops his gaze down to his shoes and his long hair falls over his face.

The tone of surprise in your voice echoes in your ears. You cringe at yourself, hoping Jungkook didn’t notice and take offense. It just never occurred to you that Jungkook is the academic type. You round off the reasons in your head. He’s a greaser and rides in Joon’s motorcycle gang, you’ve never shared a class or seen him study, he’s always dressed like a punk and has skipped every school event ever, and, and… when you went on that date to the drive-in movie he never mentioned school. You get a flashback of him making out with the french fries and drinking two chocolate milkshakes. He had no interest in you at all.

Did he really keep this persona from you? That he’s so… cool?

The lady looks from you to Jungkook and back to you, very clearly enticed by the tension. You scramble out of the awkwardness, trying to make light talk. Jin made it so easy.

“How have you been? I didn’t see you on the bus earlier or else I would have—" you ramble on, quickly paying for your items.

“It’s OK. I tend to lay low. I was in the back…on the bus, I mean. Rode here with Tae, actually.” He rubs the back of his neck nervously.

The old woman slides a small card across the counter. “For the ring, Dear,” she gestures to the small ring in your hand and smiles at you both tenderly. “It’s from the future, so use it well.” She gives you a wink. (mood rings first appeared in 1970)

You tuck the small card into your jacket pocket along with your tangerines and slide the ring onto your middle finger. You both bow to the old woman and walk out of Yeongjusan House with your souvenirs in tow. Once outside, the ring changes color from amber to yellow.

“Oh, you rode with Tae? Is that…OK?” you pose curiously.

“What, because we’re into different subcultures?” he chuckles from behind his messy long hair. His voice is always so quiet speaking to you like if he used his full volume he could break something, or someone. “Pfft, Bighead really,” he continues, “I wonder how you even got nominated for this retreat.” He laughs as he runs away. You make to playfully hit his arm but miss as he pulls away with excellent reflexes, giggling behind his tiny travel bag while you gawk at the size of his arms. There’s no way. What do greasers, eat??? It’s like their muscles just pop out at the most inconvenient times, like right now.

“I thought greasers and jocks hate each other. It’s kind of the point. Having different class backgrounds and all…” You kick some tall grass.

“That’s a stereotype, Bighead. Just because an ideology is popular in a group doesn’t mean we all believe it. Tae isn’t like most jocks, he’s…different.” Jungkook’s smile seems to be the only thing visible behind his shaggy rockabilly.

“So you guys are…friends?” You ask hesitantly.

“I guess,” he plays with his tattooed fingers. “He’s been helping me with a project, so we’ve been hanging out a lot lately. But,” he pouts, “my gang doesn’t really know.”

“About the project or Taehyung?”

“Well, both,” he laughs nervously, “it’s a bit complicated.” He rubs the back of his neck again, and you notice the pulsing veinery dancing from his knuckles up to his forearms. Damn.

He doesn’t seem ready to talk about it. You clear your throat and change the subject. “Well, we have half an hour before the next group activity. Want a tangerine? It’s grown locally! ” You chuck one to him and he catches it with both hands.

You settle on the hillside, a shady patch of grass overlooking the northern face of the island.

“So,” you say between peels of the tiny fruit, “what subject were you nominated for?”

“Physics. I don’t usually participate in school stuff,” he stares down his tangerine, “but I really want to see the caves.” He reaches in his pocket and pulls out a ribbon. You stop peeling to watch him gather his hair and tie it up. When did it get so long? Now you can finally see his big eyes.

“Huh? Caves?” you weren’t listening because you were distracted by his beautiful side profile. What is it with these nerds and their caves?

Jungkook returns your gaze. “Have you heard of the Bermuda Triangle?” he says with big round eyes sparkling. He gets up and approaches the flat rock next to you. With one swift motion, he jumps and lands on top of it, no hands. Core strength. He stretches his arms above his head and his shirt rides up a bit. From your position on the ground, a glimpse of the unobtrusive trail below his navel invites your mind to fantasies of a very different kind of field trip. He looks down at you sweetly, waiting for your reply.

You shake your head, “I’m more of a biologist. Educate me?”

He gestures for you to join him up on the rock. Though Jungkook made it look easy, the climb for you is much more grueling. He lifts you up with the strength of one arm until you’re shoulder to shoulder. You try to get breath into your lungs without seeming too obvious. Struggling, your nostrils flare and the wind picks up. It carries hints of his musk and sweat. You can’t help but inhale deeply until his fragrance fills you with assurance. Glancing down at your hand, you notice the ring is bluish-green but you can’t recall what the card said.

The bluish-green ocean on the horizon looks like the perfect backdrop for Jungkook’s physics lesson. He starts, “Eight years ago, ships started disappearing out in the western sea. First a small fishing boat, then a big cargo ship, it didn’t matter how big or how many people. They just, vanished. No bodies, no debris, no trace. No one could explain the missing wreckage, so the papers wrote about violent storms to give the families of the lost some closure, something to blame. Only, it would happen again, within the exact same coordinates…The Bermuda Triangle. I think I have a theory. It can be explained with physics, the magnetic field, more specifically. Some physicists believe there’s something special about the Bermuda Triangle’s location in the magnetic field. There are believed to be other places like Bermuda,” Jungkook looks from you to the coast, “and one of them is here.”

“You mean, the legend of the caves? Where the pirates disappeared? I thought it’s just a local myth…"

“There’s more to it than the legend.” He leans in and whispers, “The government’s studying it closely too.”

“What,” you chortle loudly, “the government is funding myth-busters?”

Jungkook’s face is serious af. “It’s not a myth, Bighead. The Republic of Korea started building a naval base here in 1933.” He points to the east. The tall glass building of the research facility can be seen from here, shimmering in unnatural contrast to everything else on the island. You squint.

Field Observation #7: You definitely need specs..and to read more news.

Jungkook continues, “They started planning a naval base on the island some years ago. Construction started in Gangjeong village right over there,” he points west to the ferry docks where you first arrived. “The base was designed to be a mixed military-commercial port so that it could handle ferries, cruise ships, and…warships and submarines.”

“Why would they want a naval base here? It’s just a quiet little sanctuary…” you say as you both sit down on the rock.

He rests his arms over his knees. “That’s exactly what the local villagers said. They were strongly opposed to it. Many worried that the private lab was doing experiments hazardous to the environment. They organized many protests, but in the end, they could only slow down the process. The military moved in with force and built the complex anyway.”

“But that’s like, totally against everything this retreat is about. What about all these scientists working at the conservatory, aren’t they here to study wildlife and protect it?”

“Where do you think their funds come from, Y/N? The lab is backed by the military, which means everything they do is government research.”

“How do you know all this?”

“It’s the subject of my research.” He looks around again, the bun atop his head bobbing side to side. “That’s what Tae has been helping me with.”

“Jungkook, I don’t understand. What’s Tae helping you expose the lab for? What do you think they are hiding?” You stare down his side profile. He bites his bottom lip with his bunny teeth.

“It’d become very dangerous for you if you knew,” he reaches to fix your wind-tousled hair. “Trust me.”

Field Observation #8: Don’t trust men, unless they are Jungkook.

He gives you a warm, reassuring smile. “Let’s get going now, we don’t wanna miss the next activity.”

***

The chaperones lead everyone down the hill for the next activity on schedule. The Butterfly House.

Jin has not returned yet, you’re starting to miss his chaotic antics. At the front of the crowd, Professor Choi is desperately trying to get the class’s attention. Several stern scientists are hovering on the side, waiting for silence so they can deliver the welcome introduction. Once it quiets down, two of the scientists give a run-through on the Butterfly House rules. Among them, it is expected that all students keep their touching to a minimum and especially, keep out of the restricted areas marked by red fence. Hunger strikes your tummy, and you wish Jin were here to cure it with his magic snack bag. A nudge to your rib sends you out of your daydream. You turn to your side. Jungkook has a giant butterfly resting on the tip of his nose. Its shimmery blue wings gently tilting up and down. Jungkook is still, afraid it will fly away. You giggle at the sight of him holding the breath in his cheeks.

The class breaks off into groups to tour the facility.

“Good Afternoon, students. Welcome to our 30-by-15-meter glass atrium.” Your group leader reads off a script as student’s heads tilt back to observe the magnificent architecture above. “We are proud to receive you as guests of the first walk-through butterfly habitat in the eastern hemisphere. It first opened in 1957, so you are the first scholars to visit. Inside these walls, you will find some 500 free-flying butterflies of up to 25 different species. There are about 15,000 to 20,000 known species of butterflies found worldwide and many yet to be discovered. You may find swallowtails and birdwings, brightly colored, or camouflaged among the plants. Some might be difficult to spot, as butterflies can be as small as 3 mm, but can also be as large as 304 mm….”

A small butterfly floats past the guide’s shoulder and rests on it. “Ah, a Sasakia charonda, the great purple emperor. Native to the Korean Peninsula, Japan, China, and northern Taiwan, and Vietnam. As we see, butterflies can be orange, white, black, and even purple. However, they cannot see how beautiful they look because butterflies can only see red, green, and yellow. The journey to becoming a butterfly is always an inspiring tale.” The guide struggles to find their place on the script.

You tilt your head back and stare in awe, the scale of technology here is incredible. Your biologist brain buzzes with millions of questions. How did they replicate a tropical rainforest like this in 1958? Are there places like this in Japan too, or perhaps the United States? The facility is lush with amazon trees and exotic plants. It’s so dense. Thousands of vines cover the floors and wrap around the trees. Layers of moss and countless species of flora and fauna lie in the shaded canopies. Vines dominating the taller trees cross overhead, reaching over through air to dominate the other side. Some climb so high they span the atrium’s glass ceiling, where the sunlight pours in strongest. An astonishing vision of Darwin’s theory of natural selection.

The guide has found their place in the script and begins reading. “There are, um, four cycles of the butterfly’s life. A butterfly starts out as an egg. Then it hatches into a caterpillar, called the larva. The larva goes into a cocoon called the pupa stage, and finally, emerges as an adult butterfly free to spread their wings and fly. We have a display with pupa ready to hatch, please follow me…” The students clamor excitedly after the guide, who disappears down the pathway in the thick greenery.

Yelps can be heard in the distance as students and chaperones alike encounter all sorts of buzzing insects. You duck below the low-hanging vines. One thing they forgot to mention is the climate control in here. Somehow, the air in the atrium is kept very humid to mimic that of the Amazon rainforest. After a while, the moisture in the air becomes nearly suffocating. Jungkook, however, seems to be doing just fine. Suddenly, he reaches for your hand and clasps it in his, clammy.

“Look, there’s Jin!” you almost yell. Your hands are torn apart as you run over to the fence. Jin is working on the other side in a glass office. His face is buried in an apparatus that looks something like an advanced microscope. Dozens of flasks, books, and petri dishes are strewn across the bench before him. He looks like he’s busy.

“This area’s off-limits. I don’t think we can interrupt him.” Jungkook tugs at your sleeve. You expel air and look back at Jungkook to find that the blue butterfly has returned. Right atop his head, it sits, flitting its wings as Jungkook scrunches his nose. The butterfly doesn’t budge.

“Looks like Morpho adonis.” The angelic voice comes from behind you.

Jungkook rolls his eyes with the butterfly still on his head.

“Jin! You looked really preoccupied. What are you working on over there?” you indicate the room guarded by the fence.

“Oh, just some plant cell assays. They think they discovered a new species of moss in a cavern, so I’m helping look at samples. It’s promising. I’m running the RNA against the ones from my own research. If it matches, the cave is likely the one they’ve been looking for, a habitable location for—well, uh it’s confidential. Sorry, you understand.” His smile is still so genuine even when he’s withholding secret government information.

Jungkook tenses at the mention of “caves”.

“Have you seen it?” he asks.

“Seen what?” Jin returns.

“The cave. Have you been there?” Jungkook’s hands are shaking a little, so you move closer by his side and take his hand.

Jin’s eyes follow the movements of your hands. Just like they did back at the library the first time you met.

“I haven’t, no.” He lies.

“Sorry Choco, I’ll have to join you again tomorrow. Professor Moon asked for my help and it seems like it's going to take the rest of the evening. I’m sure Jungkook will keep you company for dinner in my place?” He gives you another sweet smile, but it has a bitter undertone. Much like Namjoon, when he had seen you with Yoongi’s jacket on that weird day.

Field Observation #9: Stop reading between the lines, they don’t like you like that.

“Before you both go—Jungkook, I have something for you,” Jin rolls up the sleeves of his lab coat and steps back into the room before returning.

He holds his hands out and you both peer down at the delicate thing sitting in his palms.

“What is it?” Jungkook nudges.

“Juniperus shimpaku,” Jin beams, “a bonsai.”

You watch Jin place the small tree in Jungkook’s outstretched hands.

“Give it to Namjoon, as my peace offering. Tell him it grows near the sea, so it will prefer regular misting. The foliage is needle-like now because it’s young, but as it grows older it will get scalier. One of the best things about Shimpaku is its hard resinous wood…ideal for advanced sculptural techniques such as jin, shari and sabamiki.” Jin bursts into his signature windshield laugh.

This time you roll your eyes, but Jungkook giggles along.

“Uh, thanks I guess,” Jungkook accepts the gift. “But I don’t know why you don't give it to him yourself. Knowing Joon, he’s pretty old-fashioned. If you've pissed him off, he can be really petty and hold a grudge. He holds things in until it gets really heavy—”

At that moment, a loud engine bang is heard from outside the atrium. The glass walls shake and the birds in the trees fly away in droves of panic.

“What the hell was that?” you say, but nothing else happens. The disturbance was momentary.

"Nothing to fear folks," one of the chaperones calls from a distance. "A small aircraft had to make an emergency landing nearby. Idiots over-estimated their weight capacity and ran out of gas. Carry on."

“Anyway,” Jin continues, “take good care of it until you can give it to him. Oh, and if you’re prone to Drosophila melanogaster with your regular houseplants, you might want to lay off drowning the soil...”

“Droso-whatagaster?” you both say.

“Fruit. Flies.” Jin sighs. “Now please, go before someone sees you here. I am restricted material!” He grins at you and waves you off.

On your way out, your hand finds Jungkook’s again. Less clammy than before.

“Thank you for visiting the Butterfly Habitat, we hope you’ll gain a greater appreciation for butterflies and their place in the world’s ecosystems. Before you leave though, remember to check your clothing for any hitchhikers and pose by the Heaven Lotus for a memorable photo!” the chaperones guide you out toward the Heaven Lotus, where Taehyung is snapping photos.

“Jungkook, are we still on for tomorrow?” Tae heavily eyes your locked hands before Jungkook lets it go. Jungkook nods. You both smile, ready for the flash. Click.

***

Jungkook eats dinner with you at a Haenyeo House. Four bowls of jeonbokjuk (abalone porridge) to be exact. Afterward, you browse the framed black and white photos on the wall. They tell the story of the haenyeo (sea women), the island’s legendary sea divers. Since the 18th century, deep-sea diving for fish became the work of women until their workforce outnumbered the men. So much so, the island has become a semi-matriarchal society, where the head of the heterosexual household is the woman, not the man. You and Jungkook remark if that is possible here in 1958, then why not on the mainland? The villages here seems to be ahead of their time. Patriarchy and heteronormative standards are still dominant in most places and probably will be for many years to come. After digesting your abalone with more discourse about dismantling the patriarchy and capitalism, you and Jungkook go out on the beach.

The sun has already gone down, marking the first day of the retreat over. The only light source radiating from the campfires along the beach and the star-lit sky. The campfire nearest your sleeping tent is vacant. The question of sharing a tent crosses your mind.

“Arent you going to tent up with your assigned travel buddy?” you ask Jungkook.

“My what?” he sips from his flask then stares expectantly at you.

“Your travel…buddy??” It’s not a weird question, right?

“Where did you hear that? I can guarantee there's no travel buddy list,” he giggles into his flask.

“But, Jin said…” You reflect on the words as you stare into the fire.

Water shoots from Jungkook’s nose as he tumbles forward. “He said he was your assigned travel buddy?! Ahahaha—”

Apparently, there was no such thing. Jin made it up just to have a reason to be with you during the trip. What are you supposed to think now?

You’ve had a long first day, to say the least. Jungkook helps you relax. The night passes too quickly as you exchange stories under the stars. At some point, you pass out asleep and feel Jungkook place his jacket over your chest. He carries you into the tent. You roll over onto your stomach and splay like a starfish. Jungkook struggles to remove your shoes and get you into the sleeping bag. Then the darkness swallows you and you drift into a deep sleep. Whatever comes tomorrow can’t possibly top the day you’ve had.

***

You wake the next morning to an empty tent and two layers of sleeping bag. The extra is not yours. Your back is stiff and you feel like your whole body has sunk two feet in the sand. After a little morning spruce, you find Jungkook having breakfast by the campfire. The bonsai tree sits on a rock in front of him and the souvenir bracelet rolls between his fingers.

“That’s a really nice souvenir!” you sit beside him.

“Thanks. It’s for, um, Namjoon actually. Ha ha. You think he’ll like it? Joon loves the sea but, he works so much. He’s studying part-time and can’t take advanced classes.” He scratches the back of his round head again.

“That’s lovely, Jungkook. I think he will definitely love it.” Jungkook is so sweet, you can’t help feel a little jealous after how aloof he was with you on your first date. “Oh, this is totally random but speaking of Namjoon, you haven’t heard anything from him, have you? Last time we spoke was kinda weird…I thought maybe he said someth—"

“Y/N. I have to tell you something,” he hesitates, lingering for permission.

“What is it?” you say. The morning wind on the beach is a little chilly. You fold your arms across your chest for some warmth.

“Do you remember that day? The day I was supposed to pick you up after work?” he fiddles with the bracelet.

Now it’s your turn to choke on your flask. Your stomach feels like it’s going to sink with all the emotions of that day returning. Jin completely avoided this conversation, but here goes Jungkook getting right into it.

“Yes, I remember it all too clearly,” you sigh. “I was on my way to the parking lot where I thought you were picking me up. I was walking by the court while the jocks were playing a game. Then the ball went out of bounds and hit me. I passed out and woke up after Yoongi, uh, resuscitated me. His hand was injured and he looked really mad. He still took me to Namjoon’s. Namjoon was acting all weird about it, but I still don't know why.”

“Well, that’s one version of it. But that’s not our version.” Jungkook explains.

“You see, I have um, I have a secret. The project I mentioned that Tae is helping me with, it’s a dangerous project. A few months ago, I discovered something while experimenting. I may have sort of opened a dimensional rift.” He waits anxiously for your response.

“What does that mean, Jungkook. You farted?”

“No! Haha. In quantum physics, there’s a theorem called the Casimir effect, it essentially says that if you conduct the right amount of energy through the right materials at the right time, you can open a door through space-time.”

“Time travel?” you question.

“Yes!!! Time travel.” He whispers. “I messed with it and got it right. That day you got hit with a basketball, it wasn’t the players' fault, it was me! Haha—.” He says it too happily for your taste.

“Hey!… I thought the jocks might have done it on purpose,” you pout.

“It was an accident, I swear to Namjoon! I haven't completely mastered control over this thing yet. That day I was running a bit late, so I thought, "why not?" . It worked obviously, but there was some, uh, glitching. It was not a clean jump. I injured some people when I jumped back, especially you. I'm really sorry. Only Yoongi and Namjoon knew about my jumping experiments then. Yoongi rushed there to stop me. It could have been a disaster, Y/N. But I figured out that I can do a cleaner jump if I have a stronger source of energy. The vacuum isn't it. ” his eyes are sparkly again.

You are quiet, thinking.

“So, let me see. You can travel through time using science, but you don’t have a good grip on the specifics yet. Yoongi, Jin, and basically everyone else knows about it now. You all got together while I was passed out and schemed a lie so I wouldn’t find out I got knocked by an experimental poltergeist. Am I understanding it correctly?”

He blinks. “That was easier than I thought.”

“Jungkook. You are so cool…”

He blushes, “I’d rather be dead than cool…”

“Since I’ve already been a victim of your jumping experiments. Can I know about the cave?”

Jungkook sighs. “I told you yesterday that the cave is like the Bermuda Triangle. Under ideal conditions, the cave can be a portal for time travel. The lab doesn’t know what conditions exactly, but I do. They aren’t up to anything good with it. If the lab got its hands on time portal capability, it would have the power to manipulate the past and future. Taehyung did some journalistic investigating on the lab. It's called Heaven, Inc. Before it got the military permission to colonize the island, they were just another underfunded private lab, doing shady work for shady leaders. Corrupt stuff. Tae discovered that the lab has already found the cave and they've closed it off. It’s not much time before they get the conditions right. Do you see why we have to intervene? Only we know about it. The cave would be weaponized. A weapon of dimensional shifting.”

“Jin can't know what he’s part of, right? I mean, he would never volunteer for something like that. He’s good…”

“I dunno, he definitely knows where the cave is. Tae and I have a plan. We’ll follow him to the cave and film it all. The video will be released to the papers and the government will have to shut down the complex.”

“That’s doesn’t sound like a good plan, Jungkook. It’s dangerous. They have the strictest enforcement here. What if they stop you?”

“Trust me, Y/N. They need a really big source of energy to open the portal. After my experiments, I think I figured out how it works, but I’ll need your help..." He looks at you with the same expression he’s had the whole time, “Can I kiss you?” Endearing and determined.

You are completely startled at the turn of confessions.“It's for science, right?”

“For science,” he grins.

“Ok, I trust you.”

He lunges forward and kisses you passionately on the lips. Your eyes shut tight and butterflies erupt in your atrium. Not counting Yoongi’s resuscitation technique, this is your first real kiss. Jungkook’s hand comes up to hold your face. He brushes your cheek and lingers, savoring you as long as he can.

At last, you break. “Wow,” he pants, “thank you.”

“Hey?” you pant back, “this better earn us the Nobel Prize.”

***

Taehyung joins you and Jungkook at 7 o’clock sharp, carrying several duffle bags. He sets them down and slicks back his hair. “The name’s Bond, James Bond,” he says with a deep voice. Jungkook ignores him, too deep in thought focusing on the surroundings. Tae turns to you for approval and flashes his adorable boxy smile. You are really about to embark on a covert operation with Taekook.

You squat behind the dense thicket, waiting. Jin passes by with a group of serious scientists. As usual, Jin looks too chippy first thing in the morning. He stands out like a sore thumb. The youngest in the group and the most enthusiastic. Still, he remains well-mannered and eagerly follows orders as they prep for their second day excavating the hidden site.

The three of you follow the group down to the north-facing coastline, staying out of view. The group you’re tailing disappears into a tunnel behind a glistening waterfall. You wait behind some big rocks. A branch cracks behind you and you spin around. Funny. You could swear you saw a glimpse of the big-breasted mathematician's ass hanging out of a tree. No way. You're probably still dazed from locking lips with Jungkook. There's no way Namjoon would ever be here. Then, Jin’s laughter emerges from the cave as he leads the group back out. He saunters past, delightedly chatting up the eldest scientist. You sigh. Poor Jin, he really believes this about some moss.

“Well, we found it.” Taehyung whispers. “That was easy.”

Too easy. An uneasy feeling settles in your stomach. Like right before you are about to lose something. You glance over to Jungkook who is contemplating the next move. Your lips are still tingling from his kiss. Was it real? During your first date, he seemed so aloof. Sure, he was always sweet and protective, but it didn’t mean anything. That’s just how Jungkook is.

Yoongi’s old words ring in your ears,

“Listen, Dove, it’s just a random coincidence. It could have been anybody…”

Yoongi really meant it. He knew. They all knew.

Taehyung holds the fence open for you and Jungkook to climb through. He leaves the duffle bags by the waterfall and only grabs the camera. He takes photos of the chain-link fence protecting the cave entrance. A sign reads “RESTRICTED ACCESS”. Inside, the cave is more like a tunnel. It's cold, dark, rocky, and slippery. Jungkook lights a match and asks you to stay while he explores the interior.

You stick with Taehyung as he takes more photos. “You knew about Jungkook’s experiments?” you probe.

“Sweetcheeks, I’ve always told you, haven’t I? I appreciate art.”

Jungkook runs back from the tunnel, excited. “Hey guys, come check this out!”

You both chase after him.

“Careful, it’s slippery in here!” he yells back through the darkness.

You reach a clearing lit by torches. There's a lot of industrial equipment. Looks like the scientists have come this far. Jungkook examines the mysterious gadgets laying around, one by one. Everything has the same logo, Heaven, Inc.

“Extensional tectonics,” Jungkook mumbles. He walks to the center of the clearing and looks at the wet floor. A man-made “X” marks the spot. “It’s here, inside the Manjjanggul Lava tube. This is the dimensional rift..."

In geology, a rift is a linear zone where the lithosphere is being pulled apart. They form over thousands of years, often at the central axis of most mid-ocean ridges. The new oceanic crust and lithosphere form at a divergent boundary between two tectonic plates. The Manjjanggul Lava tube tunnel is said to be one of the longest, measuring around 7.5 kilometers deep.

Extensional tectonics, as Jungkook said. The Manjjanggul Lava tube is the second Bermuda Triangle. Conditions just right for space-time travel, if supported with a powerful catalyst.

The kiss. The kiss was the energy. Jungkook is trying to manifest the kiss into the big energy he needs to open the portal. You must be…his catalyst.

A purple light begins forming in front of Jungkook as he stands still.

“Wait don't start yet, I need to get the video camera!”

"Well Taehyung, I don't know how it starts only when it starts...and it's starting now!"

Tae runs to retrieve the equipment from outside.

You flinch as water drips on your head from lava rock on the ceiling. The walls of the cavern start vibrating on rhythms, like the pace of a butterfly’s wings or a human heartbeat. The ring on your finger blackens as a void opens within you, a creeping bad feeling. You push it down.

“What’s happening?” you move to the edge of the wall.

“It’s stopped. I felt stronger energy a few minutes ago. It’s gotten weaker for some reason…” he concentrates hard. “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”

“Jungkook—” you start to say. But Taehyung runs back.

“Has it worked yet? Did I miss anything?” he tosses the bags down and starts to assemble the video camera as quickly as he can.

“Wait, I feel something…” Jungkook plants his feet on the marking and holds his arms out in front of him like there’s an invisible wall there. An obscure purple cloud glows before him and the tunnel vibrates with more strength.

Tae starts filming. You flatten your bodies against the wall as more water drips from the shaking ceiling.

“I feel it.” Jungkook closes his eyes, eyebrows furrowed. He extends his arms farther out, pushing against the translucid wall. “It’s….happening…” he grunts as he puts all his might into the force. Blue and white hues emerge from the vortex developing at his hands. The walls of the cavern pulse even harder. You cling to the wall as you brace for the unknown.

Then, an echo of running footsteps down the tunnel gets louder. Indiscernible yelling and swearing as the heavy steps approach.

One deep voice penetrates the cave and spikes the walls harder than the supernatural force at Jungkook’s fingertips can.

“Stop!” Namjoon shouts.

“Choco! Get away from him!” Jin appears behind Joon. Your eyes nearly pop out of your head. Jungkook is not listening anymore. The force in his hands surges and cave walls begin to give way. Tae fumbles with the camera, desperately trying to capture the phenomenon as the tunnel shakes more violently.

Jimin approaches calmly, “I think we would all like to live, so let’s all hold hands and walk out of here in one piece…”

“I can’t leave,” Jungkook replies through the translucent shimmer. "We have to destroy this place."

Namjoon steps closer, cautious of the rocks beginning to crumble overhead.

“Jungkook, please. You are putting yourself in danger…” he pleads. The leader’s fear growing with each passing second until Namjoon breaks down and tears flow from his eyes. With that, the portal opens, rendering Jungkook helpless to its mystical aura.

Everyone is puzzled. Yoongi’s level voice is heard over the rumbling, “What just happened, why is it getting worse?” Jungkook doesn’t know, but his mesmerization with the portal overtakes him and he can’t hear the others anymore. A deep part of his conscious is already elsewhere, they’re losing him.

Jungkook’s peaceful face shimmers with waves of violet and pink. His eyes wide open, soul entering into a new dimension while his body still hangs back. Grounded in something. Or someone.

Seokjin pulls you away, trying to get you out of the tunnel. Before he can get you very far, Namjoon grabs hold of your free arm. A massive pulse sends a long fissure across the floor, dividing the space in two. You’re being pulled in two directions, Jin on one side and Joon on the other. The tunnel begins to collapse. Hoseok yells for everyone to get out. You must pick a side or you'll die.

A segment of lava rock falls, nearly crushing Taehyung who has dropped the camera. He runs to Jungkook but more rock falls, blocking him. You’re held on both sides. You look up from Namjoon’s chest. His cheeks are soaked in tears.

“You put everyone at risk,” he glares at Jin.

“Me?” Jin argues back, tugging you to himself. “Your greasers are to blame! You let Jungkook and Taehyung do something dangerous. They even brought Y/N to the cave. I made you all swear, did I not, to keep Y/N out of this! What Jungkook was doing was never safe! We had a choice to stop the lab from finding the portal key. I mocked up the plant samples to destroy the evidence and convince them this is not the place. No one was going to get hurt! But Jungkook, he made his choice. He chose to destroy the site altogether. He chose violence!”

You’re suddenly thrust away from the pair as Namjoon lunges toward Jin. He throws the first punch. Jin collides with the wall behind them. Joon makes for another hit but Jin headbutts him first, tackling the six-foot-tall man to the ground, which is now being pelted with falling lava rocks. You lose balance on the shaky floor and start to fall backward. Yoongi catches you in time and shields you from the debris, looking for a way out.

Was that true? Was Taekook’s plan all along to destroy the cave? Who is right? Who is trusted? You remember Jungkook's words. Trust me.

NamJin curse at one another as they wrestle to the ground. The leader of the greasers and the leader of the jocks. Peace was never an option, was it.

Suddenly, the pulsing hum stops and there is silence. From Yoongi’s embrace, you can still see Jungkook. One moment he is there, standing on the X mark. Namjoon reaches for him but in a moment that feels frozen, lasting longer than a moment should, a whirring noise slices through the cold air, then…Jungkook vanishes. ZAP.

All that’s left in Namjoon’s large hand, the moon bracelet. Only the sounds of heavy breathing and dripping water fill the void. Jin rises from the ground and catches his breath. He looks up at Namjoon in confusion. Still silence.

Namjoon is about to say something. Then ZAP… he vanishes through thin air. The bracelet drops to the wet ground and rolls toward you. What the fuck! Everyone looks at each other. What is happening?! A moment later, Yoongi follows. ZAP. Jimin. Taehyung. Hoseok. ZAP ZAP ZAP.

Only you and Jin are left.

***

The following morning, your school formally announces the reported disappearance of six of its students, four of whom were not attending the retreat. Their names are printed in the paper, along with their photos.

Kim Namjoon. Min Yoongi. Jung Hoseok. Park Jimin. Kim Taehyung. Jeon Jungkook.

All Heaven, Inc. facilities are shut down for further investigation. The remaining students are sent home early in the morning. Police recover the Heaven, Inc. lab equipment from the Manjjanggul Lava tube, but can't find a single trace of the missing students. Seokjin's father gets a lawyer for the other families and files a civil suit.

The long bus ride home is melancholic. You were up all night being questioned by the police, nothing you said was written down. The reporters will dismiss the truth and release their own narrative in a few months.

The students had a secret party on a sailboat, they got drunk, had a dispute, forgot to tie it to the dock and drifted out in the middle of the night. No bodies were found. It was an accident. A simple mistake of rambunctious youth.

You and Seokjin remain quiet. Neither of you feel like talking. Six of your friends have just vanished. You fear the worst. You have endless questions. Where are they? Why did everyone but Jin jump? Did they make it through safe? Will they ever come back? What will their families do? The void inside only grows. Your racing mind exhausts and you lean your head on Jin’s shoulder. It’s big and sturdy and safe. Whatever happens from now on, at least you will have Jin by your side. You fall asleep.

***

The sound of Professor Choi quietly nudging you awake causes you to jump, “Wake up, Dear. You are home.”

“Huh, what year is it?” You rub the sleep from your eyes and feel a cramp in your neck. There’s no other student left on the bus but you. The spot next to you empty, with all but a snack left on the seat. You pick up the wrapped choco pie and stare at it. No way. Did Jin get time warped? He couldn’t have he was with me…

“It’s 1958, Dear,” Choi laughs. “Don’t forget your belongings. I’ll leave you to it.” The professor walks off the bus.

Jin got time-warped with the rest. This is not a dream. You are not dreaming.

All seven of them...left you.

Field Observation #10: It was a f*ckboy au after all. What did you expect, Bighead?

See you in 1985 :)

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funjoushi · 3 years

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Miki/Souma is a perfect ship don’t @ me

This ship has taken me on one of those journeys that feels like it has just lashed me against the rocks and left me stranded. So bet prepared for a little bit of some slightly messy but extremely passionate meta.

I started out with “haha, Hakuouki keeps making rival pairs with blistering sexual tension” to “maybe this could be a tasty fucked up ship” to “oh no they are husbands” which is always a wild ride to go on let me tell you.

In general I tend to only get attached to an mlm ship once every ten thousand years. From my observations these ships tend to have a lot of intertwined personal history and themes of loyalty/sacrifice/self-loathing and idealism

However souma/Miki has some particular aspects that really stick out to me

As mentioned before, Hakuouki has a habit of setting up rival and antagonist relationships with a lot of sexual tension wether intended or not. The most notable being Shiranui/Harada and Kazama/Hijikata.

Kazama/Hijikata is only nominally similar as it is much more of genuine enmity but I do believe that the ultimate source of that rivalry is in personal weakness and seeing that weakness reflected in the other. Hijikata whole struggles with the loss of his humanity, and Kazama who rejects humanity altogether.

Shiranui/Harada is one much closer to Miki/Souma in that they are two very similarly motivated men who just happen to be on opposing sides. Shiranui and Harada are both motivated by loyalty to their friends and by love(you cannot convince me that Shiranui wasn’t in love with Takasugi).

Miki being Souma’s rival specifically never made sense to begin with and still doesn’t really, but as a result it leads to a much more fascinating dynamic. They aren’t sworn to kill one another nor obsessed with the other, but instead just two guys caught up in their own stories and cause them to clash.

The fact that they are not directly antagonistic to one another is something that is key to their potential dynamic. Yes, they started out at odds due to the factional divides, and Miki did accost Chizuru which earned Souma’s dislike, but on a personal level, it’s never more than a surface level dislike. Miki thinks Souma to be foolish and wasting his potential while Souma thinks Miki to be nothing but a brute.

However, in reality, they are far more similar than either of them first realise.

During most of their interactions, they appear to be pretty starkly contrasted. Souma is earnest, hardworking and incredibly humble. Meanwhile Miki is prideful, blunt, and distrustful.

However, if you recall...Souma was very different when he first met the Shinsengumi. When Souma was still employed by his domain, he was ashamed of his clan’s neutrality and disgusted of the general state of the country and of the bushi class. He at first views the Shinsengumi as nothing but violent wolves, but eventually comes to learn and understand them and want to be counted among them.

Which is to say that Souma in himself has some similar idealistic, judgemental and spiteful tendencies that Miki ends up displaying during his time in the Shinsengumi. Miki overall appears to view the Shinsengumi as similarly foolish and misguided

This viewpoint of Souma’s I view to be not all too different than how Miki views things, he simply has a different set of base values and puts a lot more value on birth station while Souma values action and conduct. At their core, both are unshakeably loyal which eventually leads to their actual clash.

Another major factor in my like for this ship came in one of the ginsei no shou episodes.

In a scene directly after Souma, Chizuru and Nomura escape Edo after Kondou’s execution, Souma reflects on how he now feels that he can understand how Miki feels. Looking back on how Miki became unhinged and obsessed with revenge after his brother was killed. Itou was like Miki’s sun, he states. Something that illuminated the path that he followed and made everything make sense. And Souma viewed Kondou in a similar way and in that moment feels blinding rage and a desire for vengeance towards those who killed Kondou. But then essentially Souma insinuates that the only thing keeping him from a path of bloodshed is his remaining friends. And so in that way he does not at all blame Miki for his revenge quest.

This section directly highlights how Miki and Souma mirror one another and hold within them very deep similarities.

Souma’s main character flaw is that he is deeply self-critical and has basically no self-esteem. He constantly pushes himself too far out of a desire to improve himself but without support that will only lead to ruin.

We can extrapolate some similar points from Miki, based on how over the course of Souma’s route he becomes increasingly more suicidal as his quest for revenge sends him to deeper and deeper depths, which culminates in him trying to die upon Souma’s sword in the final chapter.

However, Souma notices this. Souma could have easily chosen to just end it all there, but again. Souma has no particular grudge against Miki. And in truth, he pities and identifies with Miki.

It really just gets me, man. Like, I know that it’s because Miki survives historically, but despite that, they managed to make it so completely and utterly in character. It absolutely makes sense that Souma would show mercy. But what is truly beautiful to me is that said mercy is not out of any sort of pride or high morals, but out of pure and simple empathy.

Just about all of Miki’s former fellow Goryoueiji members are dead, his beloved older brother is dead. And on top of that he is estranged from both his birth family and adoptive family(historical detail not brought up in the game but it SHOULD BE). And while Souma has lost a lot, he still at the very least has Chizuru, and Souma’s humility also compels him not to take that for granted and reach out a hand to someone who wasn’t so lucky.

And considering that they do both survive, and as Souma says they “do not know what the future has in store” :) who knows! Maybe their paths may cross again.

Yes, I fully understand that the fact that Miki did try to kill Souma and Chizuru at one point might be a turn off to some people, which is fine. But also Chizuru was about to be killed by the Shinsengumi upon first meeting them. That’s just kinda how it goes in the world of samurai! And because the grudges aren’t specifc, that’s why I can still find them so compelling. Also I do find it so fascinating that Souma’s kyoto winds bad ending only occurs if Chizuru lets him kill Miki. Hmm! Funny that!

Anyway, in conclusion. This ship is good and no, I will not shut up about them. Thank you for reading and pls ready my fic--

#hakuouki #hakuouki meta #souma kazue #miki saburo #miki saburou #miki x souma #my stuff #my meta #the first image is an edit and not an actual game cap

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dwellordream · 3 years

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“…I should hardly need to say by now that the idea that there is an intellectual downturn in early medieval Europe (or indeed medieval Europe more broadly) is a part of a specific imperial colonialist historiography which seeks to argue that any point when Europe wasn’t violently subjugating the world around it was necessarily a bad time. To this way of thinking, when the Roman Empire goes around turning everyone into slaves and violently opposing anyone it can get its hands-on things are good, because also some amphorae are traded across the Mediterranean; but when there isn’t one giant state oppressing everyone things are bad because fewer amphorae.

This is obviously a stupid and racist position which presumes that the nice things which rich Romans enjoyed (slaves and hegemony) were available to everyone, and also requires us to just ignore the fact that slaves are people. Rome wasn’t a very nice time for the great majority of individuals, and the medieval period had plenty of nice things for the average person – you just got fooled by a later medieval advertising campaign for art and a bunch of people who wanted to do slavery in the modern period. Accepting the idea that Europe did suck in the medieval period is automatically ascribing to this racist and imperialist version of history. In order for a society to be good and have worthwhile things it doesn’t need to be constantly attacking other cultures and enslaving people. Look inside yourself if you think that is true.

Another reason why this falls down as an argument is also that the whole “Europe as an isolated not trading enemy in opposition to the Arab world which had nice things and was gloriously well-connected” thing is not how things happened. If, for example, we look at trade routes in the earlier medieval period as a starting point we see that is in no way the case. We do see a drop off in international shipping when the Roman Empire collapses.

This is because the Empire itself used to ship goods along with moving troops in its fleets of tax-funded vessels. This existed alongside independent trading, which also moved stuff like olive oil from the Iberian peninsula or amphorae out of what is now Tunisia. Once there is no longer a state propped up by taxation doing shipping itself, shipping across the Mediterranean also slumps. That does not mean that it stops.

While we see a decline in movement, the key here is that we see a decline, not a total cessation. Movement very much continued throughout the early medieval period, and we have ample pot-shard based evidence to back that up. Yes certainly many people shifted to making their own pottery, but rich people could still get their hands on the good stuff if they wanted to.

You know when European shipping in the Mediterranean really slowed down? After the Muslim conquests. Where there had been a lively shipping economy suddenly there were a bunch of real bad ass guys who had carte blanche to intercept the ship of any infidel they could find. Oh and if you could take some of their land while you were at it, that would be great. All of this was made possible famously, the Umayyad conquest of Hispania went really well, felling the Visigothic kingdom on the Iberian Peninsula and turning all those olive orchards over to Muslim rule.

In quick succession, you then see the establishment of the Emirate of Ifriqiya on the North-African coast, as well as the Emirate of Sicily on, well, Sicily. In other words, a lot of the Western Mediterranean just wasn’t Christian any longer, so it’s kinda weird to blame Europeans for not maintaining trade routes there. You can’t simultaneously demand that Europeans trade more with the Muslim world while ignoring the fact that the Muslim world was also a part of Europe, and very much interested in dominating any extant trade routes.

This narrative also completely ignores the fact that there was thriving trade which existed all through this period. We have plenty of records on port tolls and taxes which tell the story of luxury goods crisscrossing the continent and across the Mediterranean, regardless of who was doing what. Walrus ivory and amber from the Baltic coast ends up at the Eastern Roman court in Constantinople.

Furs, honey, and elephant ivory popped up basically anywhere anyone had the gold to trade for it. Oh and gold, which largely came from Africa, was around the shop too. Indonesian spices like pepper and nutmeg featured happily in European cuisines, and lapis lazuli from Afghanistan was being ground into ultramarine. You want luxury goods? They were there, because trade was still happening. It just wasn’t happening on an imperial scale – an undertaking which I will again remind you takes a whole lot of slaves to maintain. The idea that Europeans were an unwashed and unrefined mass in opposition to the glories of life in the Arabic world just doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.

The backward post-Roman Europe versus glories of the East narrative also very helpfully ignores the fact that one of the glories of the East was the still extant Eastern Rome – with its afore-mentioned capital in Constantinople. (You may also know it as Byzantium, but we are trying to be precise here.) Of course, Eastern Rome was one of the big losers in the whole Muslim conquests thing, losing its extremely valuable territory in Egypt, which accounted for a huge amount of its tax revenue. It also very famously lost the near east more generally.

Having said all that, it was still a major maritime power, owning territory on the Italian Peninsula in what is now Calabria and Apulia. Constantinople was still very much about that Roman life in the medieval period, with a keen popular interest in Chariot racing, a lively trade with the near East and Western Christendom, and even what could be seen as a sort of pre-modern welfare state, ensuring that its citizens in cities always had enough grain to eat. If we want to pretend that everything was bad and gloomy in medieval Europe compared to the Arab world because Rome collapsed, how then do we account for the fact that it was actually still going at that time, and trading just fine?

Obviously then, narratives of trade stopping totally in medieval Europe are incorrect and overwrought, but why would I say that buying into them supports a colonialist narrative? The answer to that is saying that Europe didn’t have anything nice, as opposed to a flourishing Arab world is a way of justifying the violent incursions on the part of Europeans into the Middle East.

These arguments usually hinge on the idea that before the Crusades, Europe was a disgusting place full of people who didn’t bathe and nothing but unsalted porridge to eat. All of that changes, in theory, with increased contact to the Middle East with the establishment of the Crusader States in the middle east. The theory goes that it wasn’t until Europeans were able to carve their own ports out along the coast of the Levant that anything nice got into Europe at all. Without Europeans at Jaffa, there would be no spices, oranges, or rice in Europe. Hell, without all that religious violence maybe Europeans never would have anything nice ever!

That is not only factually incorrect, but it is a way of justifying what amounted to centuries of attempts to violently subjugate the Holy Land. Sure, all that violence was unseemly – but access to the Silk Road! It also amounts to a convenient justification for modern imperial and colonial violence. Well Europe was a terrible hell hole! What choice did they have other than to sail around the globe, enslave huge swathes of people, do a spot of genocide and begin to extract all possible value from any native people! After all, everything they had before they started in on the colonising in earnest was bad.

None of this is either historically correct, or acceptable. We can, and should, point out the major advancements that Mulsim society presented to the world. There is absolutely no doubt that there was a tonne of interesting stuff going on in the near East, and I in no way dispute that assertion. What is incorrect is the idea that medieval Europe was cut off from that brilliance, a backward hole where there was no trade, no spices, no intellectual culture.

Europe and South Western Asia have always been connected, and indeed the term “Arabic World” very much includes huge swathes of Europe at various points during the medieval period. If you want to say medieval Europe is a sad foil to the Muslim kingdoms, how do you account for the several European Caliphates? If you want to say that without the Roman Empire Europe lost everything bright and worthwhile, how do you explain the still up and running Eastern Roman Empire? If you want to say that without post-Crusades trade there never would have been meaningful trade in Europe how do you explain all the fucking trading?

The desire that many have to defend the medieval Arab world and its culture in the medieval period is laudable. I in no way am here to argue that it had a lot of good stuff going on. However, pretending that all of this had nothing to do with the European world and trade, or that the only place where intellectual advancement was happening was the Arab world is simply incorrect.

The medieval world was complex, interconnected, and very much a part of an on-going scholastic tradition. To argue that without violent force Europe would have languished as a dull afterthought it to argue for imperial colonialism. Medieval Europe was a vibrant and well-connected place, and it could have continued to be so without all of the slavery and genocide. Europeans didn’t need to rape and pillage their way through the world to learn and grow. They just did it because they could.

Pro-imperialist historiography is the air that we breath here in the decaying carcasses of the modern Imperium. I am extremely sympathetic to the urge to celebrate non-white cultures, and I spend quite a lot of time doing so myself. However, to argue that this was happening without any contact with Europe, and that Europeans cannot think or enjoy luxuries without also being involved in a violent imperial enterprise is extremely dangerous.

I know that the people who make this argument think they are being enlightened, but they are still making a pro-imperial argument when they trot out tired myths about the medieval period. We don’t undo the colonial historiography by agreeing with it. We need to write our own history which admits that every world culture has something useful and beautiful to offer us all, and that a better world can be achieved without the subjugation of others.”

- Eleanor Janega, “On colonial mindsets and the myth of medieval Europe in isolation from the Muslim world”

#colonialism #imperialism #history #medieval #eleanor janega

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chacusha · 4 years

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Quodo dynamics

So basically, when I get really into a pairing, my mind tends to obsessively attempt to catalog exactly what I like so much about the pairing. Usually the result of this obsessive cataloguing is a ship manifesto (so yeah, that is probably what is going to fall out of this eventually). But for now, just some scattered thoughts.

Basically, I think the reason Quodo draws me so much is that Quark and Odo have a very complicated relationship, and those different layers to their relationship, all stacked on top of each other gives one so much to think about and so much to play around with and poke at. It’s like candy to my mind.

One layer: Cat and mouse / adversaries / detective + criminal. Odo is the chief of security aboard Deep Space Nine. Quark is a dodgy businessman who’s trying to make profit however he can, even if it means doing legally dodgy things. So one layer of their relationship is that they’re engaged in this antagonistic game where each one getting what they want means thwarting the other. There is almost a cartoonish feel to this aspect of their relationship, like Tom and Jerry, or Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny, or Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner. Odo is always trying to get Quark, and Quark is always trying to do crimes for profit without alienating Odo/Sisko/the DS9 administration TOO much that it lands him in hot water. While this often makes them “enemies” there is also clearly a playful element to it where each action one character takes stimulates and challenges the other.

Another layer: Hatred / clashing personalities / opposing moral codes. A bit more seriously, though, Odo and Quark have not just roles that regularly put them into conflict, but they actually seriously just hate each other. On a more personal level, they have very different ideas of who/what is worthy of respect and the other person isn’t it. Odo is a lawful neutral “law and order” type who basically looks down on Quark’s criminality and trashy notions of entertainment. Quark is materialistic hedonist and finds Odo’s heartless “stick in the mud” personality offputting, and his rigid adherence to the law, while it can be admirable, it can also cause him to be callous toward and inhumane in his treatment of people. Here, too, though, there is a playful element to their dynamic where each of them delights in pissing the other off. For example, Odo is generally a pretty dour and grumpy guy, but when he does show mirth, it’s often at Quark’s expense -- when Quark is having a rough time or is in a jam, for example. And Quark is a troll who loves saying things that he knows will irritate Odo.

Layer 2.5: Mutual obsession. Both of them have their own reasons why they fixate on the other. Odo is a workaholic who only enjoys his work. Watching and surveilling Quark is his work, and he does it with a delight he rarely takes in anything else. And it’s true that Quark likes to irritate Odo, and you know what is the best way of irritating an emotionally repressed guy who hates having fun? Flirting with him. Constantly. All the time.

Yet another layer: Old friends. BUT ALSO, these two go way back. They’re the two main holdovers from the regime change on Terok Nor/Deep Space Nine and they’ve known each other for a long time. And not all their interactions are antagonistic. They’ve been known to cooperate with each other. Even hang out with each other. And also, you don’t spend that much time evading/trying to nab the other without understanding and being able to predict them on a deep level, so Quark and Odo aren’t just adversaries but they’re also genuinely close with their own form of rapport. Later episodes have an undertone of romantic feelings (see next layer) but even if you read them platonically, then it’s undeniable that Quark and Odo sometimes acknowledge that, yes, they are friends. They support each other, they give each other advice, and they sometimes express gratitude for that support (albeit in weird ways!).

More layer: Latent romantic feelings??? On Quark’s side, it’s easy to read his feelings for Odo as romantic. Pining, even. Quark flirts with him a lot -- maybe that’s just a form of entertainment for Quark; there’s always plausible deniability. When Odo gets with Kira, Quark’s interactions with him start to read like pining -- “I gave him so much of me and did he ever notice?” kind of thing, but it never quite reaches the level of text. In any case, if Quark did have feelings for Odo, it’d be hard for him to admit it because it doesn’t really go with his playboy/hedonistic sort of demeanor. On Odo’s side... Odo has zero emotional maturity. If he did have feelings for Quark, he isn’t capable of noticing them. You can easily read him as also carrying romantic feelings for Quark that he doesn’t yet know how to process.

Yet more layer: Protectiveness. Odo is a gruff security officer who is also a superhuman being that is pretty much invulnerable to most things. His job is to keep people safe and he’s a pretty intimidating guy (and he knows it). Quark is a fairly gender-conforming Ferengi which means his sense of masculinity is tied up in how much money he makes and how much sex with pretty women he has, and not at all in how bravely he faces danger. So when he’s in trouble, he’s not at all ashamed to react to it by screaming in a high-pitched voice and hiding, and in fact, he hates violent confrontation and often explicitly denounces it as barbaric and unnecessary. Oh, but also, his shady under-the-table dealings means he often has to deal with sketchy characters who might be tempted to use violence to get their way. It’s a great setup for having Odo have to save Quark and rescue him from danger as, like, just a normal part of doing his job. This means that, even if they DIDN’T have all those interesting dynamics I listed above, they’d still have a promisingly shippy dynamic just by virtue of this aspect.

Maybe I’m missing a couple of other aspects of Quark and Odo’s relationship, but for now, that’s all I can think of. In summary, Quodo basically functions on one level as enemy to lovers (complete with many of the fun tropes that are possible with that), and on another level as friends to lovers (with its own set of tropes), and on another level as just openly romantic flirtation, and on another as clueless pining -- it manages to be all of that at the same time, somehow. And that’s amazing.

#quodo #star trek #star trek: deep space nine #ds9 quark #ds9 odo #meta #the first of many things I would like to write up #quodo meta

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joezworld · 3 years

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Conspiracy theory for this world - since powered vehicles always come to life, whereas sentient rolling stock is rare in most of the world, Walt Disney invented the peoplemover so he could have public transit without having to account for the needs and rights of sapient vehicles in his proposed EPCOT city?

Oh that's not even a conspiracy. (Except for Disney)

How to make vehicles non-sentient has long been the wet dream of a lot of governments and big organizations. The ability to not have to pay wages for a massive battleship/oil tanker/locomotive are very appealing, and many, many attempts have been made to build craft in a way that are "non-sentient".

It very rarely works, but still, they try.

It's actually why a lot of naval vessels are named after geographic places as opposed to human names - for a very long time, it was believed that giving them non-human names would make them less likely to be built alive.

This is of course utter horseshit, and actually has contributed to a lot of the human-machine divide in a lot of country's navies, as the official stance of US Navy until the 80's was that they never built a vessel intending for it to be alive, which meant that a lot of ships either had serious underlying issues about being "wanted", or were generally not treated that well.

(Of course, at the end of the day, the most navies did deal with the issue and commission the vessels anyways, albeit not always without faults - USS Iowa was notably a raging bitch for most of her life, in no small part because she was immediately given the rank of Rear Admiral straight out of the shipyard.)

This attitude even pervaded some non-naval institutions, as while the USAF treated most of their jets like normal people, NASA had a notable divide between its air- and space-craft fleet and the human employee population after the start of the Space Shuttle program. (The Apollo program didn't involve many sentient craft for obvious reasons) This divide worsened after the events of STS-51L and STS-27R, and the Shuttle fleet basically kept to themselves out in Florida, ignoring most of NASA unless they needed to publish a paper or something. Some catastrophically bad KSC administrators in the early 90s cemented this opinion, and a lot of the more 'interesting' things that happened in the shuttle program in the 90s and 2000s occurred without NASA's higher-ups knowing.

Of course, that's a very America-centric viewpoint, and a lot of other countries don't do that - Japan being one notable country, instead treating their new Naval Self Defense Force ships like any other human. The Norwegians are also very good at this, as the largest ship of their postwar navy - The (former) German Battleship Tirpitz - is a major believer in the "nurture" side of the "nature vs nurture" argument, and considering that she's been in the Norwegian Navy since the 40's, she kinda gets to make those decisions. (Without going into a lot of detail/another long tangent, her older brother Bismarck was violent and fanatical and Tirpitz... wasn't. She personally puts a lot of stock into how the different Kreigsmarine fleet yards treated the two when they were being built.)

Oh yeah, this was supposed to be about Disney, wasn't it?

Walt Disney actually had no qualms about including sentient vehicles in his Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. He was a noted railfan for most of his life, and employed many vehicles in all capacities across the Disney Company - in fact, EPCOT, and all other Disney parks are specially designed with wide paths specifically to allow vehicles to enter the park.

That being said, the Peoplemover ride itself was designed for its vehicles to be non-sentient, however it wasn't for any nefarious or conspiratorial reasons. While Disney's Monorail fleet at least has over 100 miles of tracks to run on, the Peoplemover is basically a captive loop, with one station and no track to the outside world. Putting a sentient vehicle in the system would be cruel at best. Thus, the WEDway system was used.

The WEDway system is basically a floor-mounted motor drive system for public transit applications, and as such, doesn't have sentient (unpowered) rolling stock. This solves a lot of the moral issues that come with building captive systems like peoplemovers and subways, as it allows for the loop to be built as a cheap self-contained system instead of one requiring more expensive outside connections.

#ask response #disney #wedway #sentient vehicles #sentient vehicle headcanon #background info #sentient boats #boat headcanon

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fandom-necromancer · 4 years

Text

You and me against the world

This was prompted by an amazing anon! The universe didn’t want this story written, but I summoned my inner Gavin and said phck the universe. I hope you enjoy! The lost version is better stylistically, but I still like it!

Fandom: Detroit become human | Ship: Reed900 (Warning: Graphic depiction of violence, Hank is OOC for the sake of having an antagonist) [Part2]

It should have been easy: Sit in a room, drink some water, look important, answer some questions and get back to work. Had Gavin known how it ended, he would have never agreed to do this stupid live interview about human-android relations after the revolution.

‘Hello! This is Joss Douglas from Channel 16, reporting live from the DPD’s fifth precinct where the very first android joined the police force. We have the unique possibility to interview not one but two human-android work partners. Let’s greet Lieutenant Anderson and Connor, who had worked here even before deviation, as well as Nines and Detective Reed!’ Gavin tried to keep up a neutral but nor intimidating face and hoped Hank to lead the talk. Their dislike was mutual, but at least they had managed to stay professional so far. He nodded his greeting after Connor and Hank answered with a polite hello. ‘Okay, then let’s jump in right away!’ The reporter announced flashing a well-trained smile that should calm as well as impress. ‘I guess the question most people out there would love to ask is how it is to work as a deviant with the police. During the revolution it isn’t too wrong to assume you had been opposing forces.’ The reporter looked towards Nines with it, but the android redirected it: ‘I believe Connor can say more to that. I’ve been activated after the revolution as a deviant from the start. I can only say that my human co-workers have been generally accepting and nice. We do face problems sometimes when we have cases involving deviants that suffer from trauma caused by previous actions. Though we hope to become better and change that.’ The reporter nodded and turned towards Connor. ‘Then let’s ask you then! How did your life pre-deviation influence you? Were you treated differently afterwards?’

Gavin listened to Connor being polite and diplomatic only with half an ear, instead focussing on how they all avoided calling names. No one said something about being a machine or robot. Well, he guessed it was better that way, although he still didn’t believe in seeing them as all human. He knew Nines very intimately by now and he had noticed himself how forgetting they were steel and plastic had caused unnecessary harm. But he came to the wise conclusion it was probably best not to say that on public television. Next the reporter asked Hank and him how it was working during the revolution and both answered mostly by telling the truth: That they had investigated the cases like any other, but were very glad not to be involved in trying to suppress the revolution. It would have felt wrong. That likely was the only topic he and Hank would ever agree on.

‘Without doubt there are a lot of challenges deviants as well as humans out there face figuring out this still new situation. Have you faced any yourselves?’ Connor was eager to answer, clearly the more enthusiastic to help androids make use of their rights, being part of the revolution himself: ‘There have been some challenges in the beginning, but after a few months, things started to change really quickly.’ The reporter seemed just as eager to jump on it. This clearly had been what he had wanted to talk about all along. ‘Oh, would you mind elaborate on that a bit? I believe quite a few androids face some kind of problems these days. I think it is time to face them together!’ Gavin had relaxed quite a bit from the initial nervousness. It seemed Connor and Hank were comfortable leading this whole thing, while him and Nines stayed in the backseat and answer with additions and different perspectives. At least until Hank spoke up, joking: ‘I believe, Gavin here could tell you a lot about that.’

Oh no, please, did the old phck really have to deal that blow? The reporter seemed just as confused, having read the natural feeling of their personalities. Connor was quick for an attempt at damage control: ‘Hank, I don’t think-‘ But the reporter had caught himself and apparently taken it for a genuine cue. ‘Oh, that would be lovely, Detective Reed.’ Gavin sighed, remembering they were on TV. He thought how to put this best without looking like the man Hank wanted him to frame as. ‘Well… you see… Me and Connor didn’t get along at first. When he was still a ma- Before he deviated, I saw him as one of these “robot-overlords” that were sent to replace us.’ He did think to quickly add air quotes to that. ‘I did things that… weren’t exactly nice, but I have since-‘ ‘You tried to kill him. Multiple times’, Hank interrupted.

Gavin gaped at him. So that’s what they were playing? He knew Hank didn’t like him and that he wanted to drive a wedge between him and Nines, who he saw as almost a son. Damn overprotective bastard, it wasn’t as if he had changed since then and- ‘You did?’, the reporter asked too shocked to remember doing his job. Gavin’s brain worked overtime trying to find a way out of this one, but when he had opened his mouth, Hank had already began. ‘Before the revolution he viewed them as simple machines that weren’t alive. As if deviancy was nothing but a bug. Roughing up an android suspect wasn’t out of the question.’ Nines sat up straighter, before Gavin could do something dumb on life TV. ‘May I add that Detective Reed never did and never would do such a thing and that the statement was meant as a joke at that time?’ Apparently the reporter realised his interview had been derailed and wanted to regain power over it, but Hank had other ideas: ‘Yeah, but he threatened him with a gun – I think twice - hit him and called him names.’ ‘Is this true?’

Gavin had managed to stay calm until now. But this was enough. What did the idiot think he was doing? So he did what he could do best: explode. ‘Yes. Yes, it is true. I was an asshole, am still, but me and Connor came to terms. We talked about it. I regret it. I have even fallen in love with one of these plastic pricks! And I talked about my ways with Nines and we are still together. Maybe you don’t understand it Hank, but it is like it is! So phck you and your stupid schemes! This interview is over!’

With that he marched out of the room and called himself a taxi home.

Of course, the live broadcast had been a disaster that had become famous for all the wrong reasons. At least the protesters outside had subsided a week later and Fowler had had his back by letting him off the hook with a disciplinary and Hank on patrol duty for his shitty behaviour. Didn’t mean life was back to normal. His favourite bar had thrown him out, as the android bartender had politely explained they didn’t serve robophobic fuckers like him there. Not that anyone in Detroit thought of him highly. Cases had become difficult as witnesses refused to speak with him or even became violent upon seeing him. It was surprising Nines still had his back. The tall android had stepped in front of him every single time, catching fists directed his way and explaining in his most intimidating voice that personal opinions would not advance the investigation. By now Gavin was happy to get the gruesome cases. The cases that involved dead bodies en masse without any ties to the living world.

But hell, this was not what he had wanted. Not at all. He was a detective, goddamnit! And he had changed, he had put real effort in too! And now all of that had been torn down by Hank phcking Anderson. Phcking hell… He stared at the screen without any ambition, tracing the specks of blood, overlying Nines’ analysis and the forensics’ data. It was likely a suicide after an overdose that had destroyed the woman’s ability to think clearly, but Gavin would be damned if he wouldn’t be thorough. Only that by now he was craving a cigarette. He had to relax, get his mind off of this whole shit-show. Maybe he needed a vacation. Maybe he should ask for a transfer. But for now, a cigarette would do.

So, he decided to call it quits for today. He would take some of his overtime for this. He grabbed his jacket and waved his hand half-heartedly at Nines. ‘See ya tomorrow, tin-can.’ Then he headed outside, a stick already on his lips fumbling to get the lighter on in the strong autumn wind. It had gotten cold far too early in the year. He finally ignited the cigarette and put his hands in his pockets, walking down the street. He had sat in a chair far too long already and decided to get home by foot for once. At least until he decided otherwise. He took a few shortcuts through back alleys, trying to escape the sharp winds of the main streets, puffing out clouds of smoke and breath. He wasn’t really thinking about anything, letting his feet carry him on. Maybe that was how he couldn’t see the fist coming for his face and then his stomach.

He doubled over and saw the cigarette falling to the ground weirdly clear. All air seemed to have left his lungs as he knelt on the cold floor holding his middle. ‘This is the man, right?’ ‘Yeah. What a piece of shit!’ ‘Oh, this will be fun.’ Gavin groaned. How could he ever have thought androids and humans were different? Everyone was just full of the same bullshit. ‘Get up!’ Someone grabbed him by the back of his jacket and hoisted him up to his feet. Gavin stood face to face with an android, two more behind him. A woman and one that apparently chosen not to present their skin. Not that Gavin cared, the three were here to beat him up, that was all he needed to know. Phck, Fowler would hate the hospital costs. This still counted as an accident on the journey from work, right? God, he hoped it was. He didn’t have a beautiful face to begin with, but he really didn’t want another go at how phcked up do you want to look versus how much are you willing to pay.

At least these ridiculous thoughts left him as the android that had picked him up pushed him against a wall and pinned him while the skinless one threw the next punch to his jawline. Gavin felt tears prickling at the corner of his eyes and blinked them free, just to get the next strike to his sternum again and when he gasped for air, someone kicked his legs from underneath him. Unable to react fast enough, Gavin flopped to the ground, remembering his lessons to roll in his head to his chest and keep it there. The least thing he wanted was to get hit in the head and fall unconscious while the androids had their fun. There were better ways to die.

He rolled to his side as a boot connected with his shoulder and burrowed his head in his arms for protection. Maybe if he could get a good kick at one of them, he could roll over and escape. Maybe he could make it to the main street where people could help him. Not that he expected them to, but he couldn’t fight three androids on his own. But unfortunately, his foot didn’t hit a leg but a hand, as the woman grabbed and lifted his leg, turned him around and kicked where it hurt most. Gavin couldn’t suppress a whine as the pain paralyzed him. He once again rolled up into a ball and tried to protect his vulnerable areas. Maybe he should have fallen unconscious, he thought as boots and punches made his whole body light up in pain. Somewhere along the way one of his teeth got knocked loose and he tasted blood in his mouth. As he opened his eyes the next time the world was a blurry mess. Maybe they would stop soon. Maybe someone had called the police. But no, the only thing he saw was a fourth silhouette joining the three. Well, that was just his luck, wasn’t it? Who cared how much you changed? All that mattered was how the world saw you and in his case the world had made up its mind a long time ago. He pressed his eyes closed and braced for more.

But nothing came. Until there were hands on him. ‘No’, he begged. ‘Please, don’t.’ But the hands continued mapping his body and Gavin noticed they were gentle. They didn’t hurt, didn’t press down on them but simply examined him. He dared to relax a little and uncurl, but the tiny movement made everything ache. Apparently, Gavin had groaned, because the stranger spoke up: ‘Shh, it’s fine, Gavin. I’m here. You are safe.’ ‘Tin-can?’, Gavin slurred and made the effort to look up. It really was Nines and he threw him a soft smile. ‘Yes. You left early and you forgot your keys. Wanted to bring them to you, but you already left by foot, so I followed. I’m sorry I wasn’t here faster.’ ‘You are here now’, Gavin sighed and God, was he tired. ‘Hey, stay with me now. You don’t get to seep just yet, wait until you’re home and showered.’ Nines turned him around gently and finally nodded. ‘Aright. You are beaten up pretty badly, but it’s nothing serious. Minor wounds, but a lot of them. I’ll get you home, don’t worry. I’ll take care of you. You will feel better in no time.’

Gavin smiled and lifted his hand to lay on his cheek and Nines took it to hold there. ‘Why do you still stick around?’, the human asked. ‘After what happened I’m basically target practise. You’d have it easier without me.’ ‘I don’t want that’, Nines said, wrapping Gavin in his jacket. ‘Come on, if the whole world says I’m an asshole there has to be some truth to it.’ ‘I don’t care what the world has to say about you’, Nines said and snaked an arm under his back. ‘I love you’, he said with vehemence. ‘I know you. The real you. And that’s everything that matters to me.’

With that, Nines picked him up and pulled him to his chest, carrying the beaten human towards the street, where a cab was already waiting. ‘I’d say it’s you and me against the world’, he whispered as he sat him down on the backseat. But Gavin had already fallen asleep.

[>next part]

#detroit become human #dbh #Reed900 #RK900 #Gavin Reed #okay Hank was a real asshole in this I admit I feel bad #but it was kinda fitting #what was the tag?#author bends the canon brutally to get his will?#something along the lines #Hope you like this #has been fun to write!

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victoriousscarf · 3 years

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unique writing asks - 1) What themes would you like to write about that you feel don’t get explored very often? 5) Would you rather write a happy ending that soothes the soul or a tragic ending that hurts the heart? >:] 30) What is some of the best writing advice you’ve read or received? Why does it work for you?

1. Hmmm...

I mean... I don't know if they're not written about very often or if I'm just obsessed and I want more but I am a sucker, an absolute sucker for the Duty vs Desire conflict, where you want something/someone and yet you cannot have it because your duty, what you have to do is diametrically opposed to what you want.

Alternatively, and in direct opposition to what I said above, unrepentant violent assholes in love. Love me those bastards who would burn the world down to save their hearts and damn any and every consequence between them and their lover.

Oh, or class differences in romance! I don't know if I'm just in the wrong places for that, or if it's because I've mostly been hanging out in Dragon Age which managed to make most of those sorts of ships deeply deeply disturbing, but I haven't seen much of that around lately.

5. Bitersweet all the way!

Actually, to be honest, I think people forget in the push back against "grimdark" that probably 90% of fiction has a happy ending, even when it makes no goddamn sense for it to have a happy ending. This may not be true everywhere, but Americans in general are obsessed with the idea of being happy, with pretending dark emotions don't exist (just look at the way Americans in general handle grief and belittle depression). And that means people want things to have happy endings and you know what?

There is a time and a place for happy endings, of course, especially in certain genres of fiction. If you're just writing slice of life or romance or coming of age then yes, by all means. But increasingly I find happy endings dishonest if you're writing a story about, say, war or changing the world. War changes people. War kills people. Battles where no one is hurt aren't real battles. Plot armor enrages me.

Like I see the appeal, I see why people want to write these stories, I do, but I'm not about it. Even if you come back alive, you come back changed. You might have lost your heart, your mind, an eye, a life, along the way. I tend toward the bittersweet ending, where perhaps most things work out but the scars and loses remain (for example, I never wrote an "everybody lives!" for the Battle of Five Armies. Maybe the Sons of Durin survive but if that's the case Kili is losing a leg and Bofur is dying instead). (I absolutely wrote that by the way).

And then sometimes yeah I lean into the very awful "everything is a tragedy all the time" and no one makes it out alive or intact by the end. But even I cannot always wallow in the full on tragedy so most people will be reassured to know bittersweet is always more likely.

But even in some of my more bittersweet endings I will still punch you in the face and then kick you while you're down if the fact people still sometimes yell at me about the end of some stories is any indication...

30. Now that you've asked the question every single piece of advice I ever heard went right out my head except for the most basic one: just write. Just write. Turn off your inner editor as much as possible at the beginning and just freaking write. Your inner editor is the one who makes you rewrite the first chapter 6 times and never move on, it's the one who keeps you researching to the point where you've lost 6 hours and wrote 2 lines. Just write, and worry about that other stuff later. Writing is like any craft: it's not about innate talent, it's about practice. You're gonna write a lot of shitty, shitty things that is gonna make you facepalm really hard and some questionable things, and you're gonna handle something really bad the first time you try and write it but that's okay. Just write. You don't have to post it or try and publish it, though I certainly slammed some things up online I deeply regret these days, but write it. And in a while you'll start to see the contours of the writer you actually wanna be, and a while after that you'll realize you're almost there, and a while after that you realize yeah you're not a bad writer and you'd never have gotten there if you didn't just freaking write.

#vs does a meme

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notthatiwilleverwriteit · 5 years

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What are some of your favorite 19 days’ chapters and why?

Good evening, dear anon-san!

I’m sorry it took me a while to get to your question. I had some uni work to catch up on. Also, thank god you didn’t ask me to narrow it down to just one chapter (^_^ ‘‘) I’m going to give you my TOP 5 chapters in ascending order, so let’s start with...

#5 Zhanyi hug in the rain (ch. 143)

The aftermath of JY kissing ZZX was spread to cover multiple chapters, but I think the last of them was my favorite. The thing I always love the most about this chapter is ZZX’s reaction to it all. The kiss had shocked and upset him but seeing his best friend break down and being so scared that ZZX was going to cut ties with him... Despite ZZX’s initial reaction and not yet understanding how JY was feeling exactly, there was no way in hell he would ever leave his best friend like that. Or allow him to believe that ZZX would reject him as a person based on something like sexual orientation. In addition to how much I fell in love with ZZX in this chapter, the art of rain and lights reflecting on the wet pavement was so beautiful.

#4 MGS reunites with his father (ch. 240)

Admittedly, the beginning of this chapter was about something else but the ending half made such an impact on me that I had to include this. One of my favorite things about MGS is his relationship with his mother, and to see how much he loves and looks up to his father just doubled all the feels.

What broke my heart the most was MGS basically not wanting to show how much he is struggling by lying that he has friends and he’s doing good in school. To MGS, his father is someone respectful and courageous, and he wants to be like that so bad. MGS is handling a lot of responsibilities and is responsible in nature but he also feels like he’s failing. Based on many things, the world has vilified him and at some point, he bent the way everyone was expecting of him. And I’m sure MGS thinks his father would be sad if he knew all that.

I also loved how time was utilized to enhance the intensity of their relationship. It seems it had been years since MGS and his father had seen each other, and over that time all the expectations had grown in MGS’s head. And feelings of shame and failing had silently eaten Mr. Mo. He didn’t want his son to see him like that, but I think he also thought he didn’t deserve to see how much his son still loved and look up to him. Basically, all the time they had been apart had made the fears and assumptions grow out of proportions in their heads.

#3 MGS asking for the black studs (ch. 283)

The earrings are one of the most interesting aspects and symbols of Tianshan. And MGS asking for them from HT was a huge development in their relationship. I’ve seen people wondering if that was when MGS accepted HT’s feelings but I think it’s way too early to jump to that kind of conclusions. To me, the earrings have always been a representation of control, both in good and bad.

SL had once violently taken control of MGS’s body and marked him for life. The holes would forever remind MGS of SL and what SL thought MGS’s place was in general. SL had made it clear which one of them was in control both physically and mentally. And MGS had learned not to trust people who were more powerful than him and stay away from them.

And in the beginning, HT was in the same category as SL as far as MGS was concerned. He was an entitled rich kid who thought he could own MGS. MGS was both wary of him but also wanted to spit in his face. However, how he saw HT changed over time as MGS learned to know HT better, albeit against his will.

When MGS asked for the earrings, I don’t think it was on a whim or because HT pressured him. He asked for them because he himself wanted to. He thought it through - what it would mean to him - and decided that yes, he wanted them. He was going to let HT do something for him without insisting that he paid HT back somehow. He was willing to owe HT and wear something that connected them. So, he was both trusting HT and giving him some control over himself.

In addition to all that, confidence is such a great look on MGS.

#2 HC’s flashback and the dog (ch. 252)

This chapter was brilliance from start to finish, and it instantly became one of my absolute favorites. Where do I even begin with how amazing this was!

First of all, it’s interesting because this chapter revealed HC’s point of view on what HT had dreamed about earlier (ch. 228). (More about the comparison here.) I’ve always been a big fan of HC’s character, and it broke my heart to see how much love and pain there is between him and HT from HC’s perspective. It seemed like despite loving his little brother more than anything else in the world, he was going to become a villain and monster in HT’s life. At some point, HT would no longer believe how much HC cared about him.

Another thing I loved was to see how gentle HC was with little HT. He knelt down and wiped the fat tears that only a child could shed. He picked HT up and pressed him close and tight against himself. HC carrying little HT in his arms is still probably my most favorite panel of the whole comic. He had raised HT and it was up to him to give his little brother the comfort and security that a parent would normally give. But it also showed that HC had a big soft spot for his brother that would always pull him in two opposite directions when it came to being between their family and HT.

As if all of that hadn’t broken my heart enough, it was revealed that HC had, in fact, kept the dog. He had lied to HT and let HT take his kid’s sadness and anger out on himself. He had knowingly broken HT’s heart and made himself the bad guy. HC knew what kind of life awaited his brother and he needed to become stronger and tougher. The difficult part was that it was HC who was put in the position of making HT ready for the world. The fact that HC still hasn’t told HT about the dog suggests to me that the dog has become a special “place” for HC. Maybe he needs a break from it all every now and then, and visiting something he had saved instead of destroyed helps HC feel better about himself and allows him to be softer and gentler.

In addition to all of that, I also liked how this chapter implied that brother Qiu was someone HC trusted and they had known each for a long time. Gave my Qiucheng heart a nice squeeze.

#1 SL’s flashback/backstory (ch. 294)

As weird and perhaps concerning as it might sound to some people, I have always been intrigued by SL. MGS has been my most favorite character for a long time, but to me SL is the most complex and interesting character. It’s like MGS is my favorite but...I kind of have this mysterious “another list” beside that in my head, and SL is the only character on that list. And on that list, he’s even more of my favorite than MGS.

In short, this chapter blew my mind. I had been dying to know more about SL, and boy oh boy, was I given so many things to think about. First of all, I loved how OX used the black panels. They’re often used in 19 Days to tie flashbacks and present time together, but I think in this chapter they were also utilized to express SL’s mind.

In the beginning, he’s by himself, scratching the bathroom walls with a knife and it seems like he’s deep in thought. “So noisy...” works as a bridge to the flashback of his parents shouting at each other but it could also mean that SL’s mind is noisy as in “not clear”. Maybe thoughts and memories had sneaked in to fill his head while he’s scratching the wall or perhaps doing something seemingly mindless is a way for him to clear his head.

What makes me think that “noisy” could also be a mental thing is how we get another black panel after SL is done thinking about the past. Only this time the panel is blank. It’s not noisy anymore. Now, the interesting thing is, “blank” is clear but it’s also... blank. Is it easier for SL to act and function if he’s not thinking about the past or feeling things in general? Did he need to “clear” his head before seeking out HT and taunting him about MGS?

What was the absolute peak for me, though, was this panel:

I said earlier that HC carrying little HT is my favorite panel of 19 Days, but this one is a damn close second. I had some mixed feelings about the whole “he can’t feel physical pain” syndrome but for the most part, it served as something that ultimately made SL and MGS’s relationship even more layered in my head. I was personally blown away by the image of little SL who couldn’t feel his injuries standing there by himself and watching little MGS crying, being a scared child in pain and comforted by his mother. Was young SL curious? Fascinated? Jealous? Envious? Angry? Again, I’m dying to know more about him.

SL talking about MGS was really interesting, too. I’ve said it before that I don’t see SL being so hung up on MGS for romantic reasons. I don’t think SL is in love with MGS and/or jealous of HT in a romantic way. (This is not to say you can’t or shouldn’t ship them. As far as I’m concerned, people can ship whatever they want.)

I think SL’s behavior is about his need to possess and control rather than being in love with MGS and feeling threatened by HT in that sense. He speaks of “hope”, and he’s used hope to manipulate MGS and effectively keep him in the same black hole SL himself is in, too. Their relationship comes across as “misery loves company” to me. I suppose you could see all of that as dark, twisted romantic love but I’m just having a hard time putting SL as a character in that mental frame.

This chapter also put SL and HT next to each other to enhance their comparison and different roles. SL and HT are from the same world but represent very different things in MGS’s life. As a side note, I have always found the opposing colors of SL and HT interesting in the ending panels:

Despite being the twisted and manipulative antagonist, SL is wearing white and his hair color also very light. “White” always makes me think about how he sees himself as someone who saved MGS. Is holding that over MGS’s head merely a way to control for SL or does he believe he is a savior? Either way, SL’s white is a striking contrast to HT’s black clothes and hair. At first, HT was a bad guy too in MGS’s mind but HT’s role is to actually save MGS and give him hope. Black isn’t usually a color associated with all that. Goes to show that things and people aren’t always what you think they might be.

I think these are my TOP 5 chapters at the moment. I would say #2 and #1 are pretty solid winners in my head, but eagerly waiting if OX tops them for me one day. Thank you for your question, dear anon-san!

#19 days #zhanyi #Zhan zheng xi #Jian Yi #tianshan #He Tian #mo guan shan #he cheng #brother qiu #qiucheng #she li #answered ask

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carewyncromwell · 4 years

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Cue the Pirates of the Caribbean theme, people! ☠️

This is the next installment of the POTC AU -- if you’d like to read the previous part, you can find that here, or you can consult my “POTC AU” tag for the full thing as well as some other wonderful contributions my HPHM friends have made to this AU! Juliette “Jules” Farrier, who’s mentioned here as our sort-of-Elizabeth Swann, belongs to my sweet @cursebreakerfarrier. 💚

x~x~x~x

Now, normally, finding out that Orion had appeared out of nowhere to rescue her friend from drowning would’ve been more than enough reason for Carewyn to run over to both of them, check them for injuries, thank the stars that they were both okay and that Orion had been there, and finally ask Orion what the hell he was even doing there at all. Of course, Carewyn was not the only person who recognized Orion -- every single soldier who’d followed her out of the fort, as well as both Percy and Governor Farrier, were with her and had also recognized the pirate captain from his wanted posters. And so Carewyn had no choice but to immediately draw her sword and point it at Orion’s chest.

“Captain Orion Amari,” she said lowly, her blue eyes boring into his face.

Orion looked from Carewyn’s blade to the other swords held by her subordinates. Jules had already been snatched up the ground and pulled away by her father, but the dark-haired lady looked back at Orion, her eyes very wide. Orion’s eyes then returned to Carewyn.

“Captain Weasley,” the pirate greeted airily in return, as he slowly rose to his feet. “Oh -- yes, pardon me...you would be Commodore Weasley now...isn’t that right?”

"You know full well he’s a Commodore!” one of the regulars who’d been at the dock piped up angrily. He whirled on Carewyn with an almost huffy expression. “He said he’d come to ‘pay the Commodore a little visit’ -- ”

“Told you he was telling the truth,” the other regular muttered resentfully at him, before very quickly and dutifully adding to Carewyn, “These are his, sir!”

The young man turned over Orion’s belt and belongings. Reluctantly Carewyn parsed through them, turning his pistol over in her hand. She opened up another pocket and found a round gold framed object small enough to fit in her hand.

It was a portrait miniature of her, like the kind currently being sold on the docks of Port Royal.

Carewyn’s wide eyes darted from the portrait to down at Orion. His face was very placid, but there was a flicker with something almost sheepish in the creases of his eyes and lips.

“I suppose that’s how he found out you’re now Commodore,” said Percy, his brown eyes narrowing coldly upon Orion.

He picked up the little black box-like object that had fallen out of his belt pocket onto the deck and opened it. His nose wrinkled in disgust.

“Why -- his compass doesn’t even point north!” he said incredulously.

The other soldiers sniggered. Tucking the portrait miniature swiftly back into Orion’s belt, Carewyn turned and gave her troops a faintly reproachful look, and they all quieted.

“Dignity, men,” she said primly. “We’re soldiers of the crown. Let us act accordingly.”

Percy placed the compass in her waiting hand, shooting another dirty look at Orion as he did so.

Although Carewyn’s face was calm, her mind was working at a mile a minute. With the Governor, Percy, and so many of her men there, she knew there was no way she could simply get away with letting Orion off the hook, even if he had just saved Jules’s life. There was nothing she could do -- she would have to take Orion into custody.

“As flattered as I am for the...visit, Captain Amari,” she said as sardonically as she could, “you clearly had not the time to make living arrangements, for your stay. Fortunately there’s more than enough room in the local jail, where you can make yourself quite at home.”

“Ca -- Commodore,” Jules said quickly, “you don’t really intend to throw my rescuer in prison?”

Carewyn turned to her. She could see the concern in her eyes as she glanced from Carewyn to Orion and back, even as she tried to feign gentility.

‘She knows I don’t want to do it,’ thought Carewyn. ‘But I can’t pardon him, even if it’s supposedly for her sake -- her father would never be willing to look the other way...’

“I intend to throw a pirate in prison, Miss Farrier,” she murmured as calmly as she could.

Jules opened her mouth as if to protest, but her father spoke first.

“And then send him to the gallows, as is proper,” said Governor Farrier icily. His eyes turned to Carewyn. “Commodore, if Amari is here, the Artemis cannot be far behind -- we should make ready the Interceptor and take them down.”

Carewyn immediately looked at Orion’s face. Despite the level of cool he tried to put off, his shoulders had tensed noticeably.

“...I wonder about that,” said Carewyn very softly.

The Governor looked at her with narrowed, confused eyes. “What?”

Thinking quickly, she folded her arms behind her back and took three slow, plodding steps toward Orion, her eyes boring into his shoulder rather than his face. Her black boots clapped against the deck as she strolled leisurely but purposefully around him.

“You came to pay me a ‘visit,’ Captain Amari,” she said slowly, “and yet you came alone. Even though you must have known there’d be a fort full of soldiers attending the ceremony...”

When she was facing away from the Governor and her men, Carewyn shot Orion the quickest of gentle warning looks to tell him not to say anything.

“...It’s odd, isn’t it?”

“Orion Amari is known for being odd, Commodore,” Governor Farrier pointed out.

“Yes, but it’s odd to the point of being irrational, which he’s not known for. Pirates are sea rats first and foremost, Governor -- they’re not creatures of the land, by nature. A pirate choosing to fight a battle on dry land as opposed to the open sea can only signal one of two things: one, they think they can get away with it -- highly unlikely, in this circumstance...or two, they’re desperate.”

Carewyn’s blue eyes bore hard into Orion’s dark eyes.

‘Please -- please, play along,’ she thought desperately.

“You don’t have a ship anymore...do you, Captain?” she whispered.

Orion’s eyes widened. Then, understanding light flooding through his narrowing eyes, he made a sharp, almost violent movement toward her -- Carewyn grabbed his arm and in an instant had looped it around his back to restrain him.

“I would still, were it not for you,” Orion breathed as coldly as he could manage.

Carewyn put on the best smirk she could. “Mutiny and betrayal is par the course for pirates. I suppose your First Mate or Quartermaster is in charge now?”

Orion made a show of struggling against her grip, and Carewyn tightened her grip.

“Fetch some irons,” she ordered one of her subordinates.

Her and Orion’s eyes met again as the soldier ran off for the irons. Carewyn tried very hard not to show the anxiety she felt, but her face was very white. Orion’s dark eyes remained unreadable, but Carewyn could feel his arm in her grip twisting just enough that he could trail the pointer and middle fingers of his left hand along the inside of her forearm, almost as if to comfort her.

‘Oh, Orion, why did you have to come?’ Carewyn moaned internally to herself. ‘Why did you have to be so noble that you got yourself caught?!’

Fortunately once the irons arrived, Orion managed to seize his chance of escape. When Jules once again tried to protest him being imprisoned and hung, Orion was able to loop the iron chain connecting his manacles together around her neck and threaten Carewyn to give him his “effects” and let him loose, so that Jules wouldn’t come to harm. Although Carewyn knew that he would’ve never really hurt Jules, she could sense everyone else thought he was just off-balance enough to do it -- and fortunately Jules, in a incredible display of brilliance, was perfectly willing to play the part of the frightened damsel so as to help with the ruse. And so Orion Amari escaped captivity and went running off into the streets of Port Royal.

Carewyn’s men were sent after him, of course. She made sure that the soldiers fired off a lot of guns and made a good amount of noise in their pursuit, so as to hopefully alert any of Orion’s crewmates who might’ve stuck around to the trouble and make them retreat. Orion managed to evade capture for a good couple of hours -- he even managed to break the iron chain attaching his manacles. Eventually he ended up in a church not far away from the northern dock. When he went to hide out in there, however, the pirate captain collided with a priest about his age, with hair as ginger red as Carewyn’s.

The priest gave Orion a very penetrating look, his hands folded together inside the long white sleeves of his robes.

“You’d be who they’re looking for,” he said lowly. “Orion Amari.”

Orion’s dark eyes ran over the priest’s face for a moment. Then a trace of something almost like a smile touched his eyes.

“...You must be Bill Weasley.”

“That I am,” said Bill. His voice had hardened even further. “I suppose you’ve come to claim sanctuary?”

Orion’s smile left his eyes and he suddenly looked much more serious.

“...That would be rather helpful, Father,” he said.

His dark eyes flickered from the priest to the closed church doors over his shoulder.

Bill’s brown eyes narrowed upon the pirate’s face.

“Normally I’d be willing to give it -- but I’m afraid there’s a problem. You don’t fulfill the rules of sanctuary, for you’ve entered our church carrying weapons.”

Orion glanced down at his pistol and cutlass.

“...I see,” he granted. “Very well...I shall find refuge elsewhere, then.”

Orion made as if to turn on his heel and leave. Before he could take more than a step, though, he felt the tip of a blade poking him in the back.

“I’m afraid that’s not the only problem,” the eldest Weasley said, his voice very quiet and low in the back of his throat. “You see...you’ve threatened the lives of two of the most important people in my life.”

Orion glanced over his shoulder, very startled despite himself at the sight of a priest pointing a sword at him. Once he’d recovered, his face grew much more solemn.

“It was unavoidable, I’m afraid,” he said lowly.

Bill’s brown eyes flashed. “All the more reason for me to insure you don’t do it to anyone else.”

The sentiment was very much like Carewyn’s, when she’d first arrived on the Artemis -- it was little wonder this man and she had bonded so closely that he’d given her his name...

‘Carewyn said he’s in love with the Governor’s daughter,’ Orion quickly reminded himself when his heart clenched at the thought. ‘He gave Carewyn his name to protect her -- no other reason.’

Therefore Bill Weasley was someone Orion could only look upon with patience and gratitude, however misguided he now was...

“I don’t wish to fight you,” the pirate captain murmured.

“Then surrender to the Navy,” said Bill sharply. “Give yourself up quietly.”

Orion’s dark eyes narrowed. “That I’m afraid I cannot do.”

Bill made as if to lunge forward, his sword raised -- Orion immediately unsheathed his cutlass to block him.

“I do not wish to fight you,” Orion repeated. “Do you truly mean to fight in your own church?”

“Romans 13:4,” retorted Bill. “‘For he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer!’”

CLANG! SHING! SWISH! Orion had to block twice more and duck, to avoid Bill’s blows.

Before long, Orion and Bill were hotly engaged in battle. At one point, they were even climbing over and balancing on the edges of the benches in the pews, Bill holding the advantage not just due to his superior swordmanship, but also his long legs giving him a wider reach. Throughout the fight, Orion consistently tried to talk Bill down, but the eldest Weasley was too righteously angry to heed Orion’s repeated attempts at pacifism.

At long last, Orion was forced to play things a bit underhandedly. With a hard kick, he knocked a pew bench on top of Bill’s chest, slamming him down into the floor, and propped a leg firmly on top of the bench so Bill couldn’t get up.

“You...you cheating -- !” swore Bill.

He struggled in vain to try to push the bench off, but the angle made it impossible to properly position his arms in a way that he could move it.

Keeping his foot firmly on the bench, Orion contorted awkwardly to snatch up Bill’s sword from the floor in his other hand.

“Forgive me,” he said, his voice both shakier than normal as he tried to catch his breath and harder as he fought to contain his temper, which had been thoroughly tested over the span of the last five minutes. “But you’re more bull-headed than a Minotaur, Bill Weasley. Perhaps from that angle you may be able to listen a bit better...”

“I don’t need to hear any fairy stories from the man who kidnapped Carey and used Miss Farrier’s life as a bargaining chip to save his own neck,” Bill spat.

“Neither of which I deny,” said Orion, and his voice betrayed an odd edge, “but I would never have harmed either lady -- neither yours nor mine.”

Bill stiffened sharply. His narrowed brown eyes bore into the pirate, before they widened little by little, filling with shock and horror.

“Yes, I know she’s a girl,” said Orion very softly. “Her name is Carewyn. Carewyn Cromwell -- granddaughter of the pirate Captain Charles Cromwell. Her brother is Jacob Cromwell -- lost at sea years ago, disappearing under the name ‘Roberts.’ She’s worn a red ribbon in her hair since she was a child. She fought in the Navy, where you gave her the name ‘Weasley’ and adopted her into your family. She has a voice like a nightingale’s and a heart as large and deep as the ocean itself -- ”

“ENOUGH!” shouted Bill. His freckled face was flushed a deep scarlet and he tried to sound fierce, but his hands clutching the edges of the bench were shaking.

THUNK.

Orion abruptly stiffened. Then, his eyes rolling up into his head, he collapsed to the floor.

Charlie was standing overhead, holding the large, thick hilt of his own sword over where Orion’s head had been seconds previously. His face was just as flushed and upset as Bill’s as he rushed over to yank the bench off of his brother’s chest and help him to his feet.

“Bill -- are you okay?”

Bill gasped for air, clutching the front of his robes. “Ugh...yes...”

Charlie looked anxiously from Bill to the unconscious Orion. Before he could say anything else, the church doors were flung open. Red-uniformed soldiers poured into the room. At the front of the charge was Percy.

“Bill!” the youngest of the three Weasleys cried. “Charlie, thank goodness!” He shot over his shoulder at the other soldiers, “Swords -- out!”

He and the other red-uniformed soldiers surrounded the unconscious Orion, all pointing their swords at him. Carewyn entered the church at last as a rumble of thunder echoed in the distance. Her face was very pale as she surveyed the felled pirate. Her blue eyes darted to Bill and Charlie -- seeing that Charlie was supporting Bill, she immediately ran over to him.

“Bill -- ”

“I’m fine,” said Bill. His brown eyes rippled anxiously over her face, before they flickered down to Orion. “...I’m fine...”

His voice sounded oddly uncertain and shaky. Charlie glanced from him to Carewyn, his eyes narrowing with concern.

“Carey...before you arrived, Amari said -- ”

But Carewyn shot Charlie a subtle, but sharp shake of the head.

“Never mind what he said. He’s a pirate -- pirates lie.”

“But -- ” started Charlie, but Carewyn gave him a quelling look. She glanced over at the soldiers surrounding Orion over her shoulder, her blue eyes rippling with something almost like shame and remorse. Then she looked from Charlie to Bill with a pleading, almost desperate kind of look.

‘I’ll explain later.’

Then she turned on her heel and walked over to stand over Orion.

“It seems this is the day we’ll always remember as the day Captain Orion Amari almost escaped,” she said very coolly. “Take him to the brig. We’ll set his execution date once the weather improves.”

As the soldiers locked Orion up in chains and Carewyn followed along after them, however, both Bill and Charlie couldn’t shake the feeling that she wasn’t happy about how things had gone down...

As night fell, there was a terrible chill in the air over the island of Port Royal, with clouds passing over the skull-white moon. No one could’ve known what that bizarrely cold wind from the East really meant...and who it was carrying closer to port.

#hphm #hogwarts mystery #orion amari #carewyn cromwell #bill weasley #charlie weasley #jules farrier #percy weasley #my art #my writing #my fanfiction #potc au #au #pirates of the caribbean #GDAMNIT BILL #I love you and how noble you are but why oh why did you have to NOT know orion and carey are ttly cool?#guess we can blame percy for being in the room and so vocally anti-pirate that carewyn couldn't tell all three of you the truth #and yeah with your limited knowledge base you'd have every reason not to trust orion #I mean he did kidnap your BFF come to Port Royal presumably to hurt her again and then threatened your OTL's life to escape custody #oh orion how are you going to get out of this...?#and also why *were* you going to visit carey huh? >>#you can bet mcnully wasn't involved in this plan to head out into port royal completely alone #I'm sure he's probably screaming about the high percentage of failure orion was facing down as we speak #'ORION! THE CHANCES OF NAVIGATING PORT ROYAL AND GETTING TO THE NEW COMMODORE WITHOUT BEING SPOTTED'#'ARE BELOW TWO PERCENT!'#'AND THAT'S GENEROUS'#oh yes also! bill was hiding his sword scabbard under his robes #he slipped his hand out of his sleeve to pull it out under the robes and then bring it back up through his sleeve #but yeah force of habit from his navy days -- bill is ALWAYS armed #thanks for the cool sword charlie!! :DD

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thanksjro · 4 years

Text

Zero Point, a Last Stand of the Wreckers prose story- I Sure Hope You Like Eye Imagery

Ooh, an artsy start to our prose this go around.

This story takes place after the events of Last Stand of the Wreckers, with our dear friend Springer well into his Overlord-induced coma.

Roadbuster is a gentle soul, when he’s not busy ripping people’s spines out.

Roadbuster’s been put in charge of the Debris station since Springer’s out of commission. It’s boring. He’s bored. He has a routine he follows, but there’s only so much grave-visiting/security-checking/weapon-building/eyeball-cleaning a guy can do within a 120 hour day before it becomes less of a routine and more of a compulsive habit.

Springer’s eyes are a specific shade of blue known as Matrix Blue- supposedly a marker for being Matrix Compatible. Considering that Senator Shockwave had to go and get multiple guys some nonconsensual plastic surgery to make sure they could actually fit the Matrix, I’m going to go ahead and say that that’s some bunk someone made up to hype up the mysticism of Primehood.

Springer’s obviously in a bad way, and it’s not looking like things are going to get any better. You can tell, because this is the point where his internal monologue kicks in, reflecting on just what it’s like to die, and his past. Sure hope they don’t have any vats filled with corrodia gravis on this space station.

Back before the war was The War, Springer was young and naive, but his boobs were just as awesome as they are now.

Springer became slightly disenchanted as his time on the front lines went on, thinking that he needed to do more to help the Autobot Cause. He decided he wanted to join the Wreckers, though he knew next to nothing about them at the time, and everything that he’d heard probably should have sent him running in the opposite direction. Decepticons caught by Impactor and friends would kill themselves in the middle of the street if they managed to escape.

But we’re dealing with a mind that’s been shaped by a civil war, now aren’t we? Impressions are warped for Autobots, because Decepticons are evil, and therefore they deserve that sort of thing, now don’t they? Nobody is immune to propaganda.

Springer first met Impactor at Sherma Bridge, where he saw him punch through a ship’s windshield, spear the driver’s head with his drill-hand, and then land the thing in front of a memorial statue. Gee, what a guy.

Springer, even though he’d seen all this and was feeling a little wary about this whole situation- which is a very valid reaction to witnessing a murder, no matter who’s been killed- decides to get put on the list of reservists for the Wreckers.

It’s amazing they even bother with Rung at all, isn’t it?

Springer’s interview is a violent one, because this is the Wreckers, and we don’t ever go half-mast on anything- Impactor falls out of the fucking sky in the middle of a huge battle and tells Springer that he’ll be coming with him. And that was that.

Oh hey, it’s the IDW2 eating chairs. And hello, Kaput, it’s nice to see you again.

Kaput’s diagnosis is as bleak as it is cryptic- Springer’s probably for sure going to die. Kaput seems to only exist to tell people they’re dying or dead, unless they’re the once and future Optimus Prime.

Kup’s pretty bummed out about this whole thing, pacing like a 1950’s father in the birth and delivery waiting room. Kaput doesn’t seem to notice, or is too lost the the medical sauce to realize that him going on about how they fixed that weird humming noise Springer’s legs used to make is making folks anxious.

Roadbuster asks just what exactly’s wrong, if they fixed everything from his ripped-off face to his weird humming legs. Kaput doesn’t like confrontation, so he blathers on for a bit before admitting that they haven’t found the zero point.

Roberts, how many times are you going to do this to Kup? First Rodimus, now Springer- did Kup bully you in primary school? I’m starting to get concerned.

That was six months ago, and while Roadbuster had been polite about it at the time, all the nothing that’s happened since has made him feel a little less kindly toward Kaput.

Okay, who’s ready to find out why doctors and mechanics aren’t the same thing on Cybertron? Because I sure am!

So they have to account for the soul, is what you’re saying. Is this about having some sort of bedside manner, because the mental aspect of healing has to be taken into account? Or is it more to do with the bizarre implications of the soul being physical as opposed to metaphysical, and therefore capable of being destroyed? The ethical conundrum that the spark presents is fascinating.

If a break happens between these two nerves, it can cause the energy of the spark to be redirected away from the points it’s meant to go, like a heart with a hole in it. Yes, the blood is still inside the body, but it’s not inside the veins and is therefore useless, and in fact is directly harming the body.

Roadbuster, after reflecting on the grim reality Springer is currently living, breaks out Wreckers: Declassified. This isn’t reading for personal enjoyment or ego-stroking however- Roadbuster actually greatly dislikes reading about himself in Fisitron’s datalogs. No, this is more of a last-ditch effort to save Springer’s life.

Roadbuster learned to read to act on a theory brought up by Rung- he and Kup are friends, on account of both of them being very old- that the spark is psychosomatic in nature. It can be influenced by intense emotional responses to potentially heal the physical self. They’re willing to try this, because nobody really knows how exactly a spark works, so Rung’s guess is as good as any.

Story time for the evening picks up on a chapter in a story called “The Wreckers’ Air Attack”, getting right into where Megatron’s about to shoot Impactor in the back of the head. But not without pontificating first.

This is so over the top, so romantic- and I’m talking Romantic as in the literary style. I don’t even know what to say here. Luckily Impactor does.

Fisitron may not know what this whole scene is about, but we as the reader do. The hardcover trade edition of Last Stand was published roughly a six months after “Chaos Theory”, where we got THIS exchange:

If this is what Megatron’s poetry is like, it’s no wonder Impactor isn’t a fan. Purple prose out the wazoo, incredibly flowery imagery- I’m sure there’s an audience for all that, but I doubt Impactor’s a part of that crowd.

Megatron is distracted just long enough for Springer to descend upon him on the sky sled, like a murderous Santa Claus, jumping off so the sled can slam into Megatron and send him careening down the side of the mountain.

That’s taken care of. What next?

It’s at this point that Roadbuster checks what chapter they’re on, because he’s really not the biggest fan of Fisitron’s writing style. Guess he isn’t one for fanfiction, or adverbs. Turns out, each of these datalogs are less blog posts and more fully-fledged books. Every single one of them.

Roadbuster’s feeling kind of hopeless at this point, and it’s not hard to understand why; there hasn’t been any sort of response from Springer at all in all the months he’s been reading to him.

He considers the contents of the only datalog he hasn’t cracked open yet, outright skipping over it every time- #113, the one about Pova. He doesn’t ever read it because it’s full of false information, as was made very clear in Last Stand #5.

Springer joined the 17th iteration of the Wreckers, after a hazing ritual so brutal, it required the addition of an amendment to the Misuse of Weapons Act. Horrifying. None of the original members of the Wreckers had survived the war by the point Springer had been brought on- except for Valve, who does not count because he left the Autobots to go be a Decepticon, a fact which will never be expanded upon, much like Eugenesis Skywarp having been an Autobot for some friggin’ reason.

Springer, once on the inside, realizes that maybe the Wreckers are a little too dark a shade of gray for him to be able to sit comfortably with- the battering of POWs just a little too enthusiastically, the bending of the rules a little too sharply, the blatant disregard for the Tyrest Accord being smoothed over with an “oopsie doodle!” It’s looking like the Wreckers aren’t completely on the straight and narrow; shocking, I know.

Still, he doesn’t really see the point in arguing with it, instead just trying to make sure that he’s not the one doing the maiming and such. Complicity is not the answer to this sort of behavior, Springer.

When Squadron X came onto the scene, Impactor was so upset at the perceived slight- because obviously if Squadron X was the Decepticons answer to the Wreckers, and they were a bunch of murderous assholes, what did that make the Wreckers?- that he made it everyone else’s problem. The Wreckers WOULD destroy Squadron X. It was his new goal in life.

This went exactly where you’d expect such a singleminded hate-boner to go.

After the execution of eight POWs who should have been let go due to being on sovereign territory, Springer decided that enough was enough and called the cops on Impactor. High Command had been itching to get this guy back under control, so things moved pretty quickly after that.

Springer resigned from the group afterwords, but then everyone started coming out of the woodwork, pestering him to come back and LEAD them, because they were worried about being shut down. The likes of Roadbuster and Whirl don’t exactly make for good executives. After thinking about it, and after the trial, of course, he agrees to come back on as the leader of the Wreckers. So began a new era.

Back in the real world, Roadbuster’s trying to read the falsified account of Pova, but just can’t go through with it. He decides to tell Springer the truth, if only so he won’t die with a bunch of bullshit bouncing around in his brain.

Springer did so many drugs in Eugenesis, he BECAME drugs in Last Stand.

So Springer is apparently the greatest hype man to ever live, as he pumped everyone up so much about getting Squadron X, they just went completely feral the moment they saw their ship. Squadron X wasn’t even doing anything, and the Wreckers were frothing at the mouth.

When this lead to the inevitable, and Springer was trying to break down the door to prevent Impactor from racking up eight war crimes in under two minutes, Roadbuster and Whirl had a little moment. They knew what had happened, they knew that they couldn’t stop it, they knew that Springer couldn’t stop it, and they were pleased as punch about it.

Once Impactor had been arrested, the other Wreckers were worried that they’d be the next to get ratted out. To try and prevent this, they created a false narrative to lure Springer back into the group, placing him in a position of leadership to soothe his worries about the others having been complacent in the murder of Squadron X.

Roadbuster finishes off this horrifying admission with a non-apology, complimenting Springer on being a good leader. Then he notices that Springer’s got a tear in his eye.

That’s a [ tair ] , not a [ teer ]. It took me a second, too. English is a nightmare of a language.

He tries to buff the tear out, manually peeling back Springer’s eyelid to do it, only to find that maybe Rung wasn’t completely full of shit after all.

#transformers #jro #last stand of the wreckers #zero point #maccadam #Hannzreads #text post #long post #prose writing #wreckers trilogy

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